Harry Targ : Benghazi is the Perfect 'Scandal'

Political cartoon by Daryl Cagle / Cagle Cartoons.

Benghazi:
The perfect 'scandal'

The real 'scandal' is the cover-up of what the U.S. was doing in Libya.

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2013

On the night of September 11, 2012, an armed group attacked a diplomatic post in the city of Benghazi in eastern Libya. The next morning a CIA annex was attacked. Out of these two attacks four United States citizens were killed including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

According to a November 2012 Wall Street Journal article (quoted by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic, May 13, 2013):

The U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation, according to officials briefed on the intelligence. Of the more than 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the deadly assault, only seven worked for the State Department. Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principal purpose of the consulate, these officials said.

On March 17, 2011, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973 authorizing humanitarian intervention in Libya. It endorsed “Member States, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in the country, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory...” Five Security Council members abstained from support of this resolution: Brazil, China, Germany, India, and Russia.

Passage of the resolution was followed by a NATO-led air war on targets in that country. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established in 1949 as a military alliance to defend Europe from any possible aggression initiated by the Soviet Union. If words mattered, NATO should have dissolved when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The United States, so concerned for the human rights of people in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, including in Libya, was virtually silent as nonviolent revolutions overthrew dictatorial regimes in Tunisia and Egypt earlier in 2011.

The United States continued to support regimes in Bahrain and Yemen in the face of popular protest and violent response and remained the primary rock-solid supporter of the state of Israel as it continued to expand settlements in the West Bank and blockaded the transfer of goods to Palestinians in Gaza.

And, of course, in the face of growing ferment in the Middle East and Persian Gulf for democratization not a word was said by way of criticism of the monarchical system in Saudi Arabia.

So as the Gaddafi regime in Libya fought its last battles, leading ultimately to the capture and assassination of the Libyan dictator, the NATO alliance and the United States praised themselves for their support of movements for democratization in Libya.

What seemed obvious to observers except most journalists was the fact that the overthrow of the Libyan regime, for better or worse, could not have occurred without the massive bombing campaign against military and civilian targets throughout Libya carried out by NATO forces.

From the vantage point of the Benghazi crisis of September 11, 2012, humanitarian intervention, which in Benghazi included 23 (of some 30) U.S. representatives who were CIA operatives, suggests that the attacks on U.S. targets might have had something to do with the history of U.S interventionism in the country. Great powers, such as the United States, continue to interfere in the political life of small and poor countries. And, the mainstream media continues to provide a humanitarian narrative of imperialism at work.

The post-9/11 Benghazi story is one of Republicans irresponsibly focusing on inter-agency squabbles and so-called contradictory Obama “talking points” after the killings of the four U.S. representatives in Benghazi. They chose not to address the real issue of the United States pattern of interference in the internal affairs of Libya.

And the Obama Administration defends itself by denying its incompetence in the matter, desperately trying to avoid disclosing the real facts in the Benghazi story which might show that the CIA and the Ambassador’s staff were embedded in Benghazi to interfere in the political struggles going on between factions among the Libyan people.

As Alexander Cockburn put it well in reference to the war on Libya in The Nation in June 2011:

America’s clients in Bahrain and Riyadh can watch the undignified pantomime with a tranquil heart, welcoming this splendid demonstration that they have nothing to fear from Obama’s fine speeches or Clinton’s references to democratic aspirations, well aware that NATO’s warplanes and helicopters are operating under the usual double standard -- with the Western press furnishing all appropriate services.

If Cockburn were alive today he would have added that the Libyan operation was about U.S. covert interventionism, anger on the part of sectors of the Benghazi citizenship, and not about the United States encouraging “democratic aspirations” of the Libyan people.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats want to have a conversation about U.S. interventionism but prefer to debate about a “scandal.” The real “scandal” is the cover-up of what the U.S. was doing in Libya.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University and is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. He lives in West Lafayette, Indiana, and blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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Harry Targ : The REAL Scandal at the IRS

"Can't make 'em see the light? Make 'em feel the heat" -- Hugh Fike, coordinator of the Heritage Society for America's "Sentinel" program.

The IRS 'scandal' is not
what opportunists claim it is

If the Internal Revenue Service is to be criticized, the attacks should be leveled at the government’s inadequate scrutiny of political lobbying groups who are granted tax exempt status

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / May 20, 2013

"Heritage Action for America is a unique combination of top-notch conservative policy analysis, a widely respected governmental relations team and dedicated grassroots activists that advance conservative policy.

"...As a 501(c)(4) organization, Heritage Action for America allows unprecedented coordination and communication with concerned citizens who want to be part of their national dialogue. We speak directly to the American people and help them break through the establishment in Washington." -- from Heritage Action for America website.

According to the Internal Revenue Code organizations may apply and be eligible for tax exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) if they engage primarily in “social welfare activities.” Contributors to 501(c)(4) organizations need not disclose their names.

In a recent website update on legislative issues being debated in the House of Representatives, Heritage Action for America, a 501(c)(4) advocated the repeal of the Affordable Care Act; endorsed the Full Faith and Credit Act, which would prioritize debt payment before financing federal spending; and supported legislation, the Preventing Greater Uncertainty in Labor-Management Relations Act, suspending the National Labor Relations Board from acting until such time as the Senate approves appointments to the Board.

Indiana Congressman Todd Rokita (4th Congressional District) wrote his constituents on May 17, 2013 that “...the IRS had specifically targeted legally-established non-profit conservative groups by singling them out for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.”

Heritage Action for America assigned Rokita a grade of 79 (out of 100) for his legislative record in the last session of Congress, not far behind long-time right-winger Dan Burton and new Indiana governor Mike Pence. Conservative former Democratic Congressman, now Senator, Joe Donnelly received a score of 23.

The principle of granting tax exemptions for groups that engage in social welfare was introduced in the Revenue Act of 1913 and revised in the tax code of the 1950s. Once groups are declared eligible, such as the Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Action for America, donors can contribute anonymously. Meanwhile the organizations so approved can advertise on television, radio, and the print media against programs advocated by those with different political orientations.

Ironically groups like Heritage Action for America define their political advocacy for tax purposes as social welfare. And, most important, organizations supporting the candidacy of right-wing Republicans such as Todd Rokita are receiving tax exemptions.

In short, Rokita has a high Heritage Action for America favorability score for opposing affordable health care for most Americans; federal programs for childhood nutrition, education, and emergency health services for the elderly; and government protection for worker rights.

If the Internal Revenue Service is to be criticized, the attacks should be leveled at the government’s inadequate scrutiny of political lobbying groups who are granted tax exempt status contrary to the intention of the law.

Those of us who are concerned about the undue intrusion of big money in politics should be working to insist that the tax code be applied as it was intended so that politicians like Rokita cannot get away with railing against “big government” while they benefit from how it has been applied to them.

[Harry Targ is a professor of political science at Purdue University and is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. He lives in West Lafayette, Indiana, and blogs at Diary of a Heartland Radical. Read more of Harry Targ's articles on The Rag Blog.]

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Steve Russell : Citizens United and 'Scandalgate'

Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook!"
Scandalgate

The Citizens United case has put us in a situation where Watergate is such small potatoes that it's almost quaint.

By Steve Russell / The Rag Blog / November 2, 2012

Luke Russert, son of the late and much admired journalist Tim Russert, recently referred to Watergate as "the mother of all political scandals." He’s right, given our predilection to add “-gate” when we describe any serious scandal. That rhetorical flourish is of a piece with “mother of...” -- a superlative lifted from our late and unlamented adversary, Saddam Hussein.

Russert’s Watergate remark reminded me of the night at The Daily Texan, my undergraduate student newspaper, when I led an editorial "We take no pleasure in the resignation of President Nixon..."

My conservative critics attacked that as rank hypocrisy, given my role in longstanding and public criticism of Nixon on grounds related and unrelated to Watergate.

What they did not understand is that no serious person could find joy in a situation where the President of the United States could announce "I am not a crook!" and a majority of the country would be thinking "Oh yes, he is!"

The Citizens United case, where limitations on corporate spending in elections were held to violate the free speech rights of corporate persons, has now put us in a situation where Watergate is such small potatoes that it's almost quaint.

In Watergate, Nixon had to beat the bushes to come up with a million bucks in his slush fund for the burglars, since it contained a mere $700,000. We say "slush fund" because it came from wealthy donors who were buying the kind of access donations always buy in politics without identifying themselves.

In the post-Citizens United world, a million dollars won't get it. We have billions pouring into our politics with no fingerprints on the billions.

George Soros, the boogeyman of big political money from the right's point of view, is so down on President Obama that he actually threatened to fund a primary challenge from the left. This nicely demonstrates the great irony of this election: much of the left is holding its collective nose very hard to vote for Obama and that's "vote for" as distinguished from "support."

I personally had decided to merely "vote for" rather than "support" based on my disgust with Obama's negotiation style, where he seems to throw the best ideas under the bus at the front end. Then I read Obama's book and discovered he really did believe that most Republicans want the best for the country. I presume that illusion has been shattered by these years of autopilot veto.

I sat down and made a list of Obama's first term accomplishments against overwhelming odds. I watched the GOP scream "socialism!" over mainstream Keynesian economics, the normal method of handling fiscal policy since FDR gave us a clinic in the role of aggregate demand in a capitalist economy.

I listened to the GOP critique of the very idea of government responsibility for everyone's access to health care. I remembered that this party that never met a war it didn’t like tried mightily to prevent Sen. Jim Webb’s update of the greatest engine of social mobility in American history, the GI Bill.

That finally brought me to the fact of the matter. As much as I find this flabbergasting, as much as it turns my knees to jelly and my brain to mush... we are refighting the election between FDR and Herbert Hoover! We are in a time warp.

Keynes is no longer conventional wisdom.

The National Labor Relations Act, Social Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut (access to birth control)... everything we worked for but, more importantly, everything our parents worked for, is now once again controversial.

Dwight Eisenhower, the hero of WWII, chose to run as a Republican and led the nation to essentially ratify the New Deal. The worst pullback of the Eisenhower years, Landrum-Griffin, was a tinkering at the margins that did not challenge the fundamental right to independent unions.

Keynesian economics was taken for granted because it had worked, and you could follow the aggregate demand curve when FDR briefly succumbed to attacks on temporary deficits and the recovery started to falter, only to be revived by the unbridled demand of WWII.

I remember when the John Birch Society got written out of the Republican establishment for calling Eisenhower a Communist.

Now Obama does things Eisenhower would have approved and gets attacked as un-American.

An incumbent President is about to be substantially outspent by a challenger with invisible money. Contrary to the criticism mouthed by Justice Samuel Alito during the State of the Union, the money could damn well come from foreign corporations because Citizens United has given us a world where we don't know where the money comes from.

I'm not so concerned about money from overseas. In our times, national borders have become technicalities unrecognized by corporate power.

I'm concerned about the kind of money that turned public opinion for to against Hillarycare with the Harry and Louise ads. I'm concerned with the kind of money that has rendered the obvious fact of global warming controversial. The kind of money telling us that Obama has increased taxes and government regulation in the face of hard facts to the contrary.

Watergate may have been the mother of all political scandals, but what is happening in our time puts Watergate in the shade. And the most scandalous thing is that it's all perfectly legal.

[Steve Russell lives in Sun City, Texas, near Austin. He is a Texas trial court judge by assignment and associate professor emeritus of criminal justice at Indiana University-Bloomington. Steve was an activist in Austin in the sixties and seventies, and wrote for Austin’s underground paper, The Rag. Steve, who belongs to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is also a columnist for Indian Country Today, where this article first appeared. He can be reached at swrussel@indiana.edu. Read more articles by Steve Russell on The Rag Blog.]

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Danny Schechter : South Africa's Political Wars

South African President Jacob Zuma was caught up in a personal corruption scandal that he "narrowly slithered out of." Photo by Reuters.
South Africa’s political wars
begin to resemble our own

The African National Congress is riven by factions, ambitious politicians, and an environment of jostling for power and position. Corruption is embarrassingly all too blatant while basic needs go unmet.

By Danny Schechter / The Rag Blog / June 27, 2012

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- When I came to South Africa, I thought I was escaping the way our news programs are totally dominated by political coverage even though the election is months away and everyone knows none of this polling and hyped-up speculation matters until October.

The fight between the Democrats and Republicans is an obscenely costly affair which none of our political pundits care to investigate in terms of why so much is being invested and what the likely payoffs will be, and to whom.

Business Day, The Wall Street Journal of South Africa, featured an essay recently with a headline that offers insight into the motivation of politicians in both countries: “PUBLIC OFFICE JUST A WAY TO PILLAGE THE STATE.”

In the U.S., of course, we have two principal parties, almost like two wings on a plane. The Republicans, now the captive of the hard right, and the Democrats, firmly ensconced in the center, partial to corporations but with some issues and positions that appeal to liberals and even parts of the left.

Obama is posturing at being a progressive on domestic social issues while refusing to crack down on Wall Street fraud, and promoting Bush-style war on terror military interventions. Romney is running on a one-point program: blame Obama for everything wrong in the world.

Both parties are beholden to money and the people who supply it. We are talking billions! Of course, this immense money power corrupts the whole system. The Supreme Court has just ratified the decision that allows it.

In South Africa, corruption doesn’t grow out of the competition between two parties with more in common that you’d think. Here, there’s only one party that really matters -- the African National Congress (ANC) that is riven by factions, ambitious politicians, and an environment of jostling for power and position. Corruption is embarrassingly all too blatant while basic needs go unmet.

No one quite expected this when the world cheered as Nelson Mandela was swept into office in 1994. He had an ambitious program for ending poverty and transforming the country. People spoke of the changes in South Africa as a “miracle,” branding the country a “rainbow nation.”

Reality quickly set in. Racial division was only one of many economic and social problems, all impervious to quick fixes. The government soon found that it had to overcome many forms of resistance to change including the vested interests of the business sector, the status quo orientation of international agencies like the IMF and World Bank, as well as the go-slow counsel of Britain and the U.S.

A long suppressed black middle class wanted what it thought was its due and wanted it now! Inexperienced politicians luxuriated with new perks and fancy cars, quickly putting their needs ahead of demands from their constituencies. Corruption soon surfaced and was largely ignored. The unity of the liberation struggle gave way to power games of every kind.

The Mail &Guardian reports political scientist Achille Mbembe saying in a debate in Johannesburg, “after 18 years of relative complacency and self-congratulatory gestures” the ANC was realizing South Africa was an ordinary country and not a miracle.

South Africa’s miracle of the 90s “can now be better categorized as a stalemate," he said. “One of the main tensions in South African politics is that its constitutional democracy did not erase the apartheid landscape.”

But then AIDs emerged as a fatal health problem, catching the country off guard. Its health infrastructure had been crippled by years of apartheid underfunding. Early projections suggested that virtually the entire State treasury would have to be diverted to stop millions from dying. There was denial and stigma.

That was one of the realities confronting Mandela’s deputy and successor, Thabo Mbeki. That may help explain his attempts to downplay the AIDS threat and find others to blame for it. Mbeki had ambitious notions of an “African renaissance,” and turned South Africa into a force on the Continent while also alienating members of the ANC at home who resented what they saw as arrogance and elitism.

Although reelected, he became a divisive force in the party and was toppled before he could finish his second term. This was all evidence of democracy within the ANC, but also the emergence of other splits and splinters, as well as chaotic factions with the ANC’s own youth League demanding nationalization of the mines. (This demand was treated as an example of “radical populism” by some, and as a tactic to shake down industrialists for bribes by others, even though it did point to a certain laxness in the government’s unwillingness to crack down on business. Sound familiar?)

Former ANC exile and military chief Jacob Zuma toppled Mbeki with populist rhetoric -- he sang a Zulu song, “Bring Me My Machine Gun” during his campaign even though he was caught up in a personal corruption scandal that he narrowly slithered out of.

Now, some of the same pressures facing Mbeki are facing Zuma, as supporters rally to his Deputy President Kglalema Mothlane or Zuma’s Minister of Settlements, the charismatic former guerrilla turned billionaire, Tokyo Sexwale. Both seem poised to want to replace him.

Meanwhile, the ANC is running a key policy conference to debate a document calling for a “Second Transition.” Mothlane recently sneered at the idea in a speech saying, “Second Transition! Second Transition! From where to where? What constituted the first transition?”

In response, President Zuma has, according to the Mail & Guardian, “launched a veiled attack” on Kgalema for questioning the “Second Transition.” The crusading newspaper also reports:

Supporters of ANC president Jacob Zuma will stop any attempts to discuss leadership issues at the ruling party’s policy conference this week.

This is the unyielding view of sources within the ruling party, who told the Mail & Guardian they will “suppress” any attempts to discuss succession within the ruling party.

So much for the state of internal debate, yet clearly Zuma knows he’s a facing a serious internal fight.

Even as the politicians scramble for positions, there is mounting criticism of how South Africa is being governed. Law Professor Koos Malan challenges the way public office here is misused, writing, “public office somehow entitles public office-bearers to exploit the power and authority of public office to achieve maximum private gain... and to receive public accolades for these successes.”

As the country prepares to mark Nelson Mandela’s 94th birthday in July, South Africa is also facing a dangerous downturn in its economy thanks to the world financial crisis and soaring crime and unemployment.

The spirit of many here remains infectious but there’s trouble on the horizon.

[News Dissector Danny Schechter blogs at Newsdissector.net. He is in South Africa making a film about the making and meaning of a major movie underway on Mandela’s life. His recent books are Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street and Blogothon (Cosimo Books). He hosts News Dissector Radio on PRN.fm Fridays at 1 p.m.  Email Danny at dissector@mediachannel.org. Read more articles by Danny Schechter on The Rag Blog.]

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FILM / Robert Ovetz : Looking for an 'Honest Man'

Looking for an 'Honest Man':
The self-destruction of R. Budd Dwyer

By Robert Ovetz / The Rag Blog / March 2, 2010

[Honest Man: The Life of R. Budd Dwyer. Directed by James Dirschberger; Co-Produced by Matt Levie & James Dirschberger. Running time 75 minutes. 2010 theatrical and DVD release.]

When Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, former Republican Majority Leader in the U.S. House, was sentenced to federal prison in January 2011, it recalled the story of Budd Dwyer. How indelibly written are the brutal images of the fateful day in 1987 when TV news stations across the country blared unedited footage of then scandal-plagued Pennsylvania Secretary of State Dwyer shooting himself in the head at a press conference.

It’s not too often that politicians play judge let alone jury and executioner -- for themselves. Tom DeLay, take note.

Honest Man stirs up the dust on the Dwyer story at just the opportune moment. Although Dwyer’s self-destruction is an obscure tragic episode in the larger scheme of American political corruption, Honest Man succeeds in making him the everyman with whom you can empathize even if you cannot fully grant him the benefit of the doubt of his guilt.

A ring of scandals and faux scandals have wracked the highest reaches of the U.S. House of Representatives for the past few decades -- taking down two speakers, two majority leaders, and countless rank and file just in the past decade. DeLay may be serving with some of them in prison.

Scandals abound at the state level as well, felling governors, legislators, and even judges, and most recently resulting in jail time in Dwyer’s own Pennsylvania for Democratic Party ballot tampering in an attempt to keep venerable public interest advocate Ralph Nader off the 2008 presidential ballot.

The film is a compelling and at times heart-wrenching story that artfully weaves together the narrative of Dwyer’s rise from public school teacher to Republican Party leader with national aspirations. With the film drawing from home movies, photographs, and clippings as well as interviews with his wife, children, sister -- and friends and foes alike -- Dwyer comes across as a likable if tragic figure.

Honest Man’s portrayal of Dwyer as having befriended a shadowy and untrustworthy businessman simplifies a convoluted state contracting kickback deal gone haywire in the context of his falling out with then Republican Governor Dick Thornburgh -- without passing judgment.

I appreciated the open-ended recounting of the scandal since it provided context for what was at best misguided personal judgment and at worst a minor pig in a poke as far as scandals akin to the S&L bailout, Keating 5, Iran Contra, Blackwater, Halliburton, Vice President Cheney, torture memos, and the recent $13 trillion bank bailout go.

Throughout the film, the viewer is asked to sit in judgment of Dwyer's tragic if not entirely unquestionable record. But by the end of Honest Man one has to wonder if the director, through skillful editing and artful storytelling, is really asking the audience to sit in judgment of our political system.

From Dwyer to DeLay, justice is not always on the menu when it’s most required to save our political system from caving in upon the weight of its own voracious greed and conflicts of interest.

[Robert Ovetz, Ph.D. is an adjunct professor of political science at several San Francisco Bay Area community colleges. Full disclosure: he is a cousin of co-producer Matt Levie.]

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Jordan Flaherty : Racist Coup in Waterproof, Louisiana?

Waterproof, LA. Photo from Fox 44 / Baton Rouge.
Did racist coup in northern Louisiana town
Overthrow Black mayor and police chief?

By Jordan Flaherty / The Rag Blog / March 27, 2010

NEW ORLEANS -- In Waterproof, a small northern Louisiana town near Natchez, Mississippi, the African-American mayor and police chief assert that they have been forced from office and arrested as part of an illegal coup carried out by an alliance of white politicians and their followers.

In a lawsuit filed last week, Police Chief Miles Jenkins asserts a wide-ranging conspiracy involving the area’s district attorney and parish sheriff, along with several other members of the region’s entrenched political power structure. These events come at a time when the validity of federal power is being questioned because of the race of the U.S. president, and in a state where white political corruption and violence have been and continue to be used as tools to fight Black political power.

About 800 people live in Waterproof, a rural community in the south of Tensas Parish. Tensas has just over 6,000 residents, making it both the smallest parish in the state, and the parish with the state’s fastest declining population. The parish’s schools remain mostly segregated, with nearly all the Black students attending public schools, and nearly all the white students attending private schools.

Waterproof Police Chief Miles Jenkins.
With a median household income of $10,250, Waterproof is also one of the poorest communities in the U.S. The only jobs for Black people in town are in work for white farmers, according to Chief Jenkins. “Unless you go out of town to work,” he says, “You’re going to ride the white man’s tractor. That's it.”

Bobby Higginbotham was elected mayor of Waterproof in September of 2006. The next year, he appointed Miles Jenkins as chief of police. Jenkins, who served in the U.S. military for 30 years and earned a master’s degree in public administration from Troy University in Alabama, immediately began the work of professionalizing a small town police department that had previously been mostly inactive.

“You called the Waterproof police for help before,” says Chief Jenkins, “He would say, wait ‘til tomorrow, it’s too hot to come out today.” He also sought to reform the town’s financial practices, which Chief Jenkins says were in disorder and consumed by debt.

Chief Jenkins asserts that a white political infrastructure, led by the Parish Sheriff Ricky Jones and District Attorney James Paxton, were threatened by their actions. This group immediately sought to orchestrate a coup against the two Black men, including clandestine meetings, false arrests, harassment, and even physical violence.

Court documents describe how Paxton, Jones, and their allies formed an alliance “designed to harass intimidate, arrest, imprison, prosecute, illegally remove plaintiff from his position of police chief, prevent plaintiff from performing his law duties as police chief and/or force plaintiff to leave the town of Waterproof.”

Ms. Annie Watson, a Black school board member in her 60s who was born and raised in Waterproof, worked as a volunteer for the mayor. She says that the mayor and chief, who had both lived in New Orleans, brought a new attitude that Parish officials didn’t like.

“The Mayor and the Chief said you can’t treat people this way, and the Sheriff and DA said you got to know your place. If you're educated and intelligent and know your rights and in this parish, you are in trouble,” she says. “They are determined to let you know you have a place and if you don't jump when they say jump you are in trouble.”

Ms. Watson explains that Paxton and Jones were threatened by Chief Jenkins’ efforts to professionalize the town’s police force. Aside from representing a challenge to Sheriff Jones’ political power, this also took away a source of his funding. “Before Mayor Higginbotham, all traffic tickets went to St. Joseph,” she says, referring to the Parish seat, where Sheriff Jones is based. “So he cut their income by having a police department.”

Jack McMillan, an African American deputy sheriff in Tensas Parish, says he tried to warn Chief Jenkins to back down. “You’ve got to adapt to your environment,” he says. “You can't come to a small town and do things the same way you might in a big city. Like the song says, you got to know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.”

Waterproof District Attorney James Paxton.
Tensas Parish

Tensas and the nearby parishes of Madison and East Carroll all share the sixth judicial district -- currently represented by District Attorney James Paxton. Buddy Caldwell, DA for the sixth judicial district from 1979 to 2008, is now Attorney General for the state of Louisiana.

The sixth district parishes all have majority Black populations and mostly white elected officials, which Chief Jenkins and Watson attribute to political corruption and disenfranchisement of Black voters. Prior to the registration of 15 voters in 1964, there was not a single Black voter registered in Tensas, despite having more than 7,000 African American residents (and about 4,000 white residents), making it the last Parish in Louisiana to allow African Americans to register.

Waterproof is “Reminiscent of the bygone days of southern politics,” with a white power structure maintaining political power over a Black majority, according to veteran civil rights attorney Ron Wilson, who is representing Jenkins in his civil rights lawsuit. “At any and all costs, even jeopardizing the life and freedom of my client, they will ruin him to maintain power. This case is ultimately about whether an African-American can be guaranteed the rights that are assured to him in the constitution.”

According to court papers, this Jim Crow alliance dominates elected power in the area, and "even on the local level, where the office holders tend to be African American, they are powerless to control their own destiny.” According to Chief Jenkins, the District Attorney once boasted that he controlled the votes of Waterproof’s Black Aldermen.

Chief Jenkins says he faced an immediate campaign of harassment from Sheriff Jones. “They just wanted this town to be white-controlled,” explained Chief Jenkins. The police chief described being arrested multiple times under the order of District Attorney Paxton and Sheriff Jones.

The charges, says Jenkins, range from charges of theft for a pay raise he received from the town’s board of Aldermen to criminal trespass for going to the home of a citizen who had been stopped for speeding without a valid driver’s license, to disturbing the peace for an incident where individuals threatened the police chief with violence for issuing traffic citations.

Ms. Watson says the charges were invented out of thin air. “It was a sad case of lies,” she says, adding that, “The majority of the town of Waterproof supports the chief and supports the mayor.”

Chief Jenkins says he was arrested and declared a flight risk by District Attorney Paxton, despite living and owning property in the Parish. “In all my years,” says attorney Ron Wilson, “I've never seen a police officer, and certainly not a police chief, charged for something like this.”

Chief Jenkins alleges he was attacked and choked by a deputy sheriff, who he says shouted, "Shut up... We are in charge…We are the sheriff and the sheriff controls Tensas Parish. The sooner you all learn this the better off you will be," an action that Ms. Watson says she also witnessed.

Chief Jenkins says his police car was shoved in a ditch, and when he arrested the people who had committed the act, the DA refused to press charges. In fact, he says the DA refused almost all charges he presented and released anyone he arrested. The chief was even charged with kidnapping for one incident in which he arrested the former town clerk for illegal entry.

“That’s the most ludicrous notion I've ever come across,” says Wilson. “That a police chief can be arrested for kidnapping, because he placed someone under arrest who was breaking the law.”

A grand jury has returned indictments of Chief Jenkins and Mayor Higginbotham, and Higginbotham’s trial is scheduled to begin this Monday. The mayor faces 44 charges, including multiple counts of malfeasance in office and felony theft. The charges appear to be based on the results of a state audit of Waterproof that found irregularities in the town’s record keeping going back to before the election of Higginbotham -- irregularities that the mayor and police chief say they had repaired.

Waterproof Sheriff Ricky Jones.

Patterns of violence

Mayor Higginbotham was elected at the same time as two other Black mayors of small Louisiana towns, both of whom also received threats based on race. In December of 2006, shortly after Higginbotham was elected mayor of Waterproof, Gerald Washington was shot and killed three days before he was to become the first Black mayor of the small southwest Louisiana town of Westlake.

An official investigation called his death a suicide, but family members call it an assassination. Less than two weeks after that, shots were fired into the house of Earnest Lampkins, the first Black mayor of the northwest Louisiana town of Greenwood. Lampkins reported that he continued to receive threats throughout his term, including a “for sale” sign that someone planted outside his house.

Waterproof was Klan country from the reconstruction era until well into the 20th century, and violence frequently broke out in the area. Seven Black men in Madison Parish were lynched over a period of three days in 1894 for the charge of “insurrection,” apparently because one man refused to follow an order from a sheriff.

“The Klan was very active here,” says Ms. Watson, recalling her childhood in the 50s and 60s. “We had crosses burned on people’s lawns. The school principal had a cross burned on his lawn. A man named Sun Turner was shot and killed on the streets by the Klan.”

Waterproof is an hour south of Tallulah, the site of a notoriously abusive youth prison, and a little more than hour east of Jena, where accusations of systemic racism brought 40,000 people from around the country, including many civil rights leaders, to a 2007 march. Like Jena, Waterproof is also home to a prison that contracts to hold federal immigration prisoners.

When asked for comment on Chief Jenkins’ lawsuit, Tensas Parish Sheriff Ricky Jones denied that race was a factor, claiming that Jenkins had abused his office and that many of the local citizens who filed complaints against him were Black. “I'm not going to support any type of corruption,” said Jones. “Certainly not from him.”

District Attorney Paxton, also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, disputed all accusations from Jenkins, suggesting that he had tried to help Jenkins when he was first elected. “A lot of this will become clear when the case against Mayor Higginbotham goes to trial on Monday,” he added.

Flood Caldwell, one of the town’s aldermen, is currently serving as the town’s mayor. Jenkins points to Caldwell’s appointment as further evidence of a coup, saying that the town aldermen, under the direction of DA Paxton, illegally voted to remove Mayor Higginbotham. “No one recognizes Caldwell as mayor except the DA and his friends,” says Chief Jenkins. The office of the Louisiana Secretary of State confirms that they still have Higginbotham listed as mayor, adding that they cannot comment further because of pending litigation.

Wilson says this case is ultimately about the repression of Black political and civil rights. “I think this has been going on in Tensas for a while,” he says. “I think they’ve gone too far in this case, and someone finally has come along and says they won’t go along.” Wilson hopes this lawsuit will bring federal attention. “We hope the justice department will look into this and bring some much-needed reform to this part of the world,” he says.

Chief Jenkins says he took the Sheriff’s job to serve the community, “You’ve given this country the best years of your life and you get treated like an unwanted stepchild,” he says. “I didn't realize there was so much politics to just doing your job.”

Ms. Watson believes that this is a struggle for self-determination and basic civil rights. “I was born in 1948,” she says. “Ever since I was born, Blacks never had a say in this parish, until Chief Jenkins and Mayor Higginbotham. They spoke up, and tried to change things. That’s why the parish is going after them.”

Jacques Morial of the Louisiana Justice Institute contributed to this story.

[Jordan Flaherty is a journalist, an editor of Left Turn Magazine, and a staffer with the Louisiana Justice Institute. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and audiences around the world have seen the television reports he’s produced for Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, Press-TV, GritTV, and Democracy Now, as well as his appearances on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN Headline News, and several other programs. His post-Katrina reporting for ColorLines shared an award from New America Media for best Katrina-related reporting in ethnic press. Haymarket Press will release his new book, FLOODLINES: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, in 2010. He can be reached at neworleans@leftturn.org.]

Links to Resources Mentioned in Story:

• Lawsuit filed by Chief Jenkins
• Louisiana Audit of Waterproof finances, and Mayor's response

Other Resources:

• Louisiana Justice Institute
• Justice Roars
• Project Transparency
• Left Turn Magazine

Also by Jordan Flaherty on The Rag Blog:

• Landrieu and the Saints : A New Day for New Orleans? / February 9, 2010
• Jordan Flaherty : New Orleans' Heart is in Haiti / January 19, 2010
• A Real Crime : How the Law Treats Sex Workers in New Orleans / January 15, 2010

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Bart Stupak and the Family : The Power of C Street

Above, the Fellowship's house on C Street in Washington, D.C. Photo by Olivier Douliery / Abaca Press / MCT. Below, U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak. Photo by Susan Walsh / AP.
The Fellowship on C Street:
Bart Stupak and the impact of the Family

Expect it to grow in power if economic conditions do not improve dramatically

By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / November 21, 2009

See 'C Street House no longer tax exempt,' by Zachary Roth, Below.

Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan led about 40 other Democrats and the Republicans in amending the House Health Care Plan with a proviso that made it impossible to use federal credits in the proposed insurance exchanges to purchase insurance that covered abortion. Stupak says that women could use their own funds to buy abortion riders through the exchanges.

In 17 states, women have the right to buy such riders to accompany their coverage under Medicaid, but few have done so. There is no language in the amendment that prohibits purchasing riders, but the wording is complex and can be read many ways. The Library of Congress says that the riders cannot be purchased.

The houses on C Street

Representative Stupak is a member of the Family or the Fellowship and resides at its house on C Street in Arlington. The Family has another complex in Arlington at “The Cedars,” a former CIA safe house they purchased in 1976. The townhouse at 133 C Street, S.E. is a former convent registered under the ownership of Youth With A Mission to Washington D.C. Five or six other Representatives and Senators live there and pay about $600 a month rent.

Until recently, the building was classified as a church, and was not on the tax rolls. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), perhaps the most conservative man in Washington, is a resident, as are Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Representatives Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA). There are many powerful Washington politicians who are members of the Family and/or come there for religious studies. Among they are Pete Domenici (formerly R-NM), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Lindsay Graham (R-SC)) , Mike Enzi (R-WY), John Thune (R-SD), Mark Pryor (D-AK) and James Inhofe.

They all champion what they call “family values.” Washington, D.C. authorities recently removed the house’s tax exemption. Zach and other C Streeters have been busy building megachapels on military bases. Most of these “Christian” politicians are Republicans, but some members are conservative Democrats. Prominent people from outside politics are sometimes found there, and it is said that Michael Jackson once spent the night there.

What sexual scandals reveal

Senator John Ensign resided in the C Street house until he found it necessary recently to move because of spotlight his sex scandal brought to the secretive cult. Ensign had been involved with a former member of his staff, and her husband had also worked for the Nevada Senator. The senator’s parents gave her family $96,000, but the husband of his mistress said that Ensign and his C Street friends had discussed far larger payments. Senator Tom Coburn, another member of the cult, said he would not discuss in court any advice he gave because it was a confidential communication. The Oklahoman claimed this privilege because he is a practicing OB-GYN and also an ordained deacon.

Former Rep. Charles “Chuck” Pickering of Mississippi is a former resident of the C Street house, and his former wife claimed that the Congressman carried on there with another female. He is a former Baptist missionary. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford , now famous for his affair with a beautiful Argentine newscaster, is an alumnus of C Street from his Washington days, but he did not live there. He returned to C Street to seek advice about dealing with his love problems.

No one seems to know if Senator David Vitter, now well known for his interest in prostitutes, had any ties to the Family. He has had a great deal to say about Christian family values. Tennessee Republican state Sen. Paul Stanley also had a lot to say about morality and family values. He was caught in an affair with a 22 year old intern. His first wife claimed physical abuse and got a restraining order against him. His second wife was a former intern. When in Washington, he stays at the C Street upscale dorm for right-wing Christian politicians.

Ordinarily the sexual transgressions of politicians are best not discussed, but there is a different situation when politicians who advertize themselves as “Christian” and proponents of “family values” are involved. At the least monumental moral hypocrisy is involved. Former Family leader Doug Coe once said, ”when you’re chosen, the normal rules don’t apply.” He was not referring to sexual conduct, but people who think they are chosen by God to do something important often have a hard time where the rules might apply to them. Some of them have said that morality and ethics are secular concepts.

Sen. John Ensign moved out of C Street after his sex scandal became public.
Harold Bloom, a great scholar at Yale, wrote that the American religion is antinomianism. Two of its elements are claims to special mission and exemption from some norms. Some of the people who came here in the Seventeenth Century thought God expected them to build “A City on a Hill.” But they stressed its nonmaterial dimensions. American exceptionalism reinforced the idea of mission as did Manifest Destiny and its various extensions.

The Family has a strong admixture of antinomianism, but it is clear that it is the American religion. We might recall that some of the antinomians in early Massachusetts Bay claimed to be specially chosen by God and exempted some societal rules, and they were accused of sexual sinfulness.

The Family is about power

As noted in my previous article on this subject, the Family has a record of catering to unsavory dictators abroad who inflicted great harm and burdens upon their peoples. There were also signs of a softness towards fascism in its history. Many of these people chose not to work through churches because they are too democratic and because women have considerable influence in some churches.

With the exception of Senator Pyor, they oppose organized labor, and have a long record of backing big business, Big Pharma, the health insurance companies, and military contractors. They are all hawkish and bent on extending the American empire. They think unfettered capitalism is God’s will.

It is a peculiar form of Christianity they advance. Christ comes across not so much as the friend of the poor and outcasts, but instead seems to be a hard charging executive type and role model for dictators, captains of industry, and people with Type A and authoritarian personalities. The Family’s Christ is no longer the “Prince of Peace.” Rather they repeatedly say he came to bring the sword and division. Somehow, it is hard to imagine their Christ espousing the principles of the Sermon of the Mount or calling other people “brother” unless those people were initiates in a secret cultish organization.

When one first learns what the Family is all about, one is tempted to wonder how such a group became so powerful. While the Fellowship has more power today than before, we should remember that, in the Vietnam era, Family members ran World Vision and the Family was a front for some business and intelligence activities in Southeast Asia.

The Family has long been active in organizing military officers and can take some of the credit for creating right-wing Christian dominance in the military, as observed at the Air Force Academy and in the Marine Corps. It also has some influence in Campus Crusade for Christ. It is impossible to measure the extent of its power, but what we see is indeed impressive.

C Street resident Jim DeMint may be the most conservative man in Washingon.
Dominionism

The Family’s members are clearly dominionists, people who believe that there should be no separation of church and state, and that God’s saints should rule. There are different varieties of dominionism, and it is unclear how the Fellowship is tied to other strands. Dominionism in the United States is growing more rapidly than almost any other movement. The press missed the fact that three of the churches Sarah Palin attended are part of a dominionist movement called the New Apostolic Reformation.

One of our two or three best religious reporters was taken in by Sarah’s talk about ‘a post-denominational Christianity.” He thought she was for broad tolerance and respect. The term refers to a time when the apostles leading the NAR have forced the competition out of business. As a rule, dominionists have ties to white power groups, survivalists, militias, and even secessionist groups like the Alaska Independence Party. These are the sorts of folks who turn up at Tea Bagger rallies. These elements are growing and are ripe to be manipulated by the Family’s politicians.

Good scholars speculate that as the dominionists gain power, they will be less concerned about the second coming of Christ. If they have a shot at gaining power, they will talk less about rapture and end times and more about why they need to rule a good long time to prepare for the Lord’s coming, sometime in the distant future.

Is the Family a cult?

Some might object to calling the family a “cult.” The fact is that it is secretive and relies upon charismatic leadership. In the past, some cults had different levels of membership, and this seems true of the Family. Some cults in history, such as the Manicheans and Albigensians, claimed to have special knowledge. In the case of the Family, they just insist on a unique interpretation of Christianity. Unlike those two cults, the Family seems very materialistic in its concerns -- the focus on cultivating powerful people and gaining power, serving big economic interests, fostering globalism and American imperialism.

The Family is as American as spoiled apple pie

Since the 1970s, the nation has embraced the corpus of economic doctrines associated with what is called market fundamentalism. Even the Social Darwinism of the late 19th Century -- root, hog or die and leave the poor to their fate -- has had an astonishing rebirth. As the middle class has become more anxious about its future and threatened standard of living, people have been more inclined to turn their backs on forms of religion that embrace peace and social justice.

The Social Gospel among protestant denominations seems in headlong retreat, and among Roman Catholics there is a growing core of bishops obsessed with abortion but unwilling to give more than lip service to the church’s teachings on peace, economic justice, the death penalty, and preservation of the environment. Many of them act as though the church has become an arm of the Republican Party.

Of course, all the mainstream churches are hemorrhaging members as people move to right wing Christian denominations that blend promises of prosperity with nationalism, and cultural and economic conservatism. Many of them are openly Republican political clubhouses. These forms of Christianity illustrate how easily religion can be absorbed and transformed by the host culture. Given all of this, The Family should come as no surprise. It may not represent genuine Christianity, but it is a genuine and almost typical outgrowth of American culture, reflecting forces that have long been here.

We lack effective language to discuss the common good

Obama and the Democrats are having a devil of a time selling health care reform in part because there is no compelling way to help people think in terms of the common good.

Decades ago, Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Institute discussed health care reform with several senators, including Jacob Javits and Ted Kennedy. They told him that a major obstacle was that American culture provided no common concepts and language that enabled Americans to discuss the common good. That situation has grown worse. Now we have crowds of old people, some bearing arms, demanding that there be no effort to help the 45,000,000 without health insurance because they fear their benefits might suffer a little.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, whose extramarital affair with an Argentine newscaster hit the news, is a C Street alumnus. Photo by Brett Flashbnick / AP.
Our founders left us with some concepts that could have facilitated an honest discussion of the common good, but over time materialism and selfish individualism made them appear to be suspect. The nation’s founders left an ideology that combined Lockean individualism with the goals of equality and brotherhood.

A minority, inspired by radical British writers like Thomas Paine, Joseph Priestly, and Richard Price was responsible for drawing equality and brotherhood from the thought of the republican tradition. The people who introduced these elements were an important minority, and their support for these ideas was infectious, even influencing some Protestant elements that people today would mistakenly equate with today’s fundamentalists and evangelicals.

Over more than two centuries, the potency of equality and brotherhood in American thought waxed and waned. Of late, they have been in sharp decline. When these ideas were powerful, Americans had periods of reform. Often, these periods of reform came at times when progressive elements in American religion were strong. The last period of significant reform was the when the civil rights movement made headway pursing Martin Luther King’s dream of a beloved community.

The late John Patrick Diggins thought that over the course of American history the idea of individualism gained ground at the expense of equality.. This may have been because Americans were essentially a people of plenty, as David Potter said. Until 1980, real wages and the standard of living increased steadily. We were blessed with an abundance of land and resources that fuelled prosperity, but Americans were inclined to attribute success to their own virtues, most of were thought to have stemmed from rugged individualism.

Another reason why it is so hard to talk about the common good is that the subcultures of our population groups are largely rooted in what Leo Strauss called modern rather than ancient thought. The ancients valued virtue and were accustomed to thinking in terms of the community. According to Strauss, a sharp philosophical decline in virtue began with Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Eventually, man would see himself as freed from the natural order, free to define what a human being should be. Strauss, unlike many of his unwitting followers, thought the state and society better equipped to determine what was acceptable conduct, and he welcomed the decline of Christianity. The dominant cultural stream in the United States is rooted in religions that were founded after ancient community-oriented thought was in decline. We just are not accustomed to thinking in terms of community.

The sad truth might be that the ravings of a Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck resonate strongly with so many Americans because they appeal to elements that have become dominant strains in our culture. They also have the great advantage of appealing to people who want simple answers to complex questions.

At first glance one might think see the secretive and elitist Family as an odd phenomenon. But, like the movements led by Gerald L.K. Smith, Father Caughlin, and Charles Lindbergh in an earlier time, the Family is a typical American movement. Like those other movements, it will grow in strength during tough economic times. The power the Family holds is a natural outgrowth of our history. In the case of the Family or Fellowship, the marriage of religion, “market economics,” Social Darwinism, and aggressive nationalism results in a grotesque form of Christianity that is essentially a shell or Trojan horse for more dominant forces that have done little to advance the good.

C Street House no longer tax exempt

By Zachary Roth / November 17, 2009

Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes.

Previously, the house -- despite being home to numerous lawmakers -- had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building's owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.

Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation.

According to online records, the total taxable assessment is $1,834,500. The building's owner last month paid taxes of $1714.70 on the property.

A commenter using the name Vince Treacy, posting on a blog run by George Washington Law professor Jonathan Turley, noted in June that the property enjoyed tax exempt status. In a comment yesterday, he wrote:

Well, at least one complaint just happened to be filed a few months ago, by some anonymous citizen who will remain nameless ""wink, wink," with the taxpayer hotline at the DC tax office.

The C Street house has lately been the subject of unwanted attention thanks to its role in three GOP sex scandals. Ensign, who reportedly recently moved out of the house, was confronted there last year by his fellow C Streeters, including Coburn, about his affair with a top aide's wife. South Carolina governor Mark Sanford revealed this summer that he had received counseling from the house's denizens over his own randy hijinx with his Argentinean mistress. And the wife of former GOP congressman Chip Pickering has alleged in divorce proceedings that the house was the site of "wrongful conduct" between her husband and his girlfriend.

Source / TPM

Please see:

• BOOKS / The Secret Fundamentalism of 'The Family' by Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / Oct. 18, 2009
• Exposé: The 'Christian' Mafia by Wayne Madsen / Insider Magazine

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DC Madam : Sexual Extortion During Republican Rule

DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who later died in what was called a suicide, is shown with her lawyer at federal court in Washingon in 2007.
The Sexual Extortion Scandal:
Sex and Politics Under Republican Rule

By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / August 3, 2009

Sex and politics were inextricably linked in the D.C. Madame Case, but the mainstream media never got beyond surface events. Deborah Jeane Palfrey died May 1, 2008, in a shed behind her mother’s house. This is about all most people know for certain about her.

A little digging by the mainstream press or the Justice Department could well turn up information suggesting that Ms. Palfey served the interests of the intelligence community.

The official cause of death was that she had hanged herself, but there were claims that the FBI suppressed evidence that she had been murdered. It was said she killed herself rather than go to prison.

Palfrey, the notorious “DC Madam,” used her Pamela Martin Associates escort service as a cover for a call girl ring. A great deal of FBI effort went into bringing her to court and sentencing her to prison. She was indicted March 1, 2007, for employing more than 100 women for the purpose of prostitution. The feds neglected to seize her 46 pounds of business telephone records which were in California and then got restraining orders forbidding the release of the records.

Judge Gladys Kessler and marveled at why the government was determined to come down hard on this woman while moving heaven and earth to protect her customers. The judge then asked to be reassigned, and she was replaced by a judge who had been on the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court. The judge rejected her effort to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) .

Trying to defend herself, she probably sealed her own fate when she gave here telephone records to the ABC television network, whose Brian Ross began an investigation. The investigation ended quickly and abruptly and it was said that parent Disney bowed to pressure from Karl Rove and the White House. Ross said none of the clients were “newsworthy.” Palfrey also said her case had national security implications. Some said one of its prominent personalities had used the service. Senator David Vitter of Louisiana confessed to using the service. There was quite a bit of information that Richard Cheney was a client, sometimes using the name Bruce Chiles, when he ran Halliburton, but it could have been that he was simply hiring girls for customers.

Somehow, Palfrey got a lawyer from a firm tied to intelligence cases. A senior partner became a federal judge who was known for a “rocket docket” when it came to intelligence cases. There were e-mails in which her lawyer assured the prosecution he would call no defense witnesses.


Palfrey’s death was convenient because it seriously hindered a number of inquires. The most important was a long-standing probe into a D.C. sex ring that was probably employing her people. The ring was used to entertain politicians and channel money from defense and intelligence contracts to Republicans through Jack Abramoff and some of his friends. The sex ring could well have been the key to understanding the full dimensions of the K Street Strategy, a plan to force lobbyists to hire Republicans and milk as much money from them as possible. There were a few convictions, including that of Abramoff, for bribery and influence peddling, but much remains to be known.

The only serious inquiry into the sex ring was a long probe of the limousine service that brought the ladies of the night to the hotels. Telephone records showed that Palfrey talked to one of the men accused of bribery who held some of the sex parties, and there were calls to the service that transported the women. That service received $12 million in government contracts. San Diego U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who was investigating the DC sex ring funded by the two contractors, was fired by the Bush Administration.

A subset of this inquiry should have involved exploring reports that children were also being employed for sex. Investigator Tom Flocco, who is sometimes very much on target, claims that good sources claimed the political sex rings had ties to deviant sex rings, and that they in turn were tied to a prominent right-wing policy council. After all, we know that two sex rings in the 1980s did this, and that a few child prostitutes were even given a late night tour of the White House.

The Palfrey inquiry to some extent also that served the staff of Maryland Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich. Ms. Palfrey said that some of her girls were used there. This ring seemed to be fueled with money generated by gambling interests. Tom DiBiagio, the U.S. Attorney in Baltimore, was fired by the Bush administration 2004 after he had uncovered a great deal of corruption. on Palfrey and the use of sex to corrupt people but was not interested in Palfrey. He was after the governor, Abramoff, three congressmen, and top staffers for several Republican Representatives and Senators. Brandy Britton, a former University of Maryland professor, a Palfrey employee, was charged with prostitution, and hanged herself.

At some point, Palfrey must have thought she would get off, as she took steps to purchase a home in Frankfurt, Germany, where Foggo had once worked. Some have speculated that she was getting ready to set up a similar operation for the agency in Germany. She was forced to return to the U.S. when Governor Ehrlich was facing re-election. Perhaps there was a fear that she kept a “black book.”


In 1990, Deborah was arrested for “pimping, pandering, and extortion” in connection with an escort service she ran in San Diego. With the help of CIA logistics officer Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, she was released in 1993. It has been reported that he ran sex extortion rings in other countries to ensnare politicians. He had also worked for Ambassador John Negroponte in Honduras during Reagan’s not-so-secret war in Central America. Jim Olson, a former station chief, noted that Foggo “failed to report a number of his contacts with foreign national women."

Deborah established a new escort service in the District of Columbia in 1993, which employed a Naval Academy instructor, several other military personnel, a psychiatrist, and a number of highly educated professional women. Some add up the factual information and infer she was working for the CIA.

It is claimed by some that Foggo came to run the CIA’s sexual blackmail operations in the U.S. We know that he played cards at events where prostitutes were employed. He was indicted in 2007 for fraud involved in matters related to the bribery of California Republican Congressman Rusty Cunningham. Before the indictment, Director Porter Goss had promoted Foggo to the number three job in the agency. Foggo threatened to expose “sensitive programs” and the government dropped 27 of 28 counts against him. He could have received a 20 year sentence but got 37 months.

Wayne Madsen reports that some of those who played poker at these hotel parties watched videos of sex between prostitutes and targeted diplomats, politicians, and Bush administration officials. Sometimes present were Cunningham, Porter, Foggo, and Brant 'Nine Fingers' Bassett, a House Intelligence Committee staffer.


There is a long history of sexual blackmail in Washington going back at least to the ring jointly operated by Roy Cohn and the CIA. In the eighties, there were two well known rings that even received some coverage in the D.C. papers. Both of these had ties to the intelligence community. Later, we discovered there were at least two other smaller operations, one of which was revealed in Ed Rollins’ autobiography. These two latter operations seemed to have been focused on getting Republicans to vote for the legislation of certain lobbyists and did not appear to be tied to the intelligence community.

The three former rings benefitted special interests and the intelligence community. The Cohn operation seemed to be thoroughly bipartisan, while the two in the eighties and Hookergate were tied to one party. However, they appear to have been some Democratic targets.

With this much information at our disposal, one wonders why there was not one thorough MSM probe of the George W. Bush era sex ring financed by the two San Diego contractors and possibly Jack Abramoff. We also know that until 1976 hundreds of MSM journalists were on the CIA tab as part of Operation Mockingbird. Maybe there are more effective ways of muzzling journalists these days than cash payments.

This would be a good time to open a full investigation, but the present Justice Department does not seem friendly to snitches and whistleblowers.

Articles on previous DC sex rings have been posted here.

References

• ABCNews.gocom (May 4, 2008)
• Eric Lichtblau, “Former Prosecutor Says Departure was Pressured,” The New York Times (March 6, 2007)
• “Karl Rove and CIA Foggo, DC Madam Palfrey ,” Democratic Underground (July 8, 2009)
• “New World Order Advisor Resigns In Alleged D.C. Madam Prostitution Scandal,” LiveLeak.com (April 29, 2008)
• Tom Flocco.Com ( October 5, 2006)
• Wayne Madsen Report (May 3, 2008, April 21, 2009 July 21-22, 2009)

[A Plug for Sherm’s Book. Sherman DeBrosse spent seven years writing an analytical chronicle of what the Republicans have been up to since the 1970s. It discusses elements in the Republican coalition, their ideologies, strategies, informational and financial resources, and election shenanigans. Abuses of power by the Reagan and G. W. Bush administration and the Republican Congresses are detailed. The New Republican Coalition : Its Rise and Impact, The Seventies to Present (Publish America) can be acquired by calling 301-695-1707. On line, go to here.]

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Mark Sanford : GOP in Trouble, Pants-Down

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford takes the oath of office for a second term in 2007 with his wife, Jenny, and sons (from left) Marshall III, Landon, Bolton and Blake. Lessee, that's two oaths down and counting. Photo by Mary Ann Chastain / AP.

Sanford's admission of the affair this week... was the stuff of nightmares for Republican Party leaders.

By Carla Marinucci / June 26, 2009

See Rush Limbaugh Video Below.

The GOP has gone through some rough political patches, but thanks to the tabloid-style love tango between high-profile South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his mysterious Argentine mistress, the party and its prospects for 2010 and beyond are looking colder than a Patagonian winter.

Sanford's admission of the affair this week -- he told staffers he was taking an extended hike on the Appalachian Trail but later was caught stepping off a plane from Buenos Aires -- was the stuff of nightmares for Republican Party leaders.

Once considered on the short list for a 2012 presidential bid, Sanford instead became the target of late-night comedians for going missing from his state job and being unfaithful to his wife.

His amorous adventure leaves the GOP's top leadership bench for next year's congressional elections and the 2012 presidential contest looking decidedly empty. It comes on the heels of problems involving some of its aspiring stars, with questions of hypocrisy swirling over a party that holds up moral values and the sanctity of marriage.

Parade of Sex Stories

Last week, Nevada Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, admitted to an affair with a former staffer. That followed a parade of headlines about other conservative GOP legislators in recent years: Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, caught soliciting sex from a man in a public restroom; and junior Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, considered one of the GOP's hopes for 2010, who turned up on the client list of the notorious "D.C. Madam."

In addition, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, last year's GOP vice presidential candidate and still a favorite of conservatives, has been hurt by news about her daughter, an unwed mother, as well as by alleged ethics violations and questions about her public relations judgment after laying into late-night TV host David Letterman for his jokes about her.

Sanford's spectacular meltdown over infidelity -- the second such scandal in two weeks with a major party figure - underscores the pressing need for new faces and leaders to take the Republican Party into the future, some political activists say.

"The party is at a real crossroads and needs to figure out who the voices of the future are," said Mindy Tucker Fletcher, spokeswoman for the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush, "and let them run, let them speak and promote them. There are growing pains. The key word is 'pain.' "

Give women a chance

Andrea Dew Steele, founder and president of Emerge America, a national organization based in San Francisco that trains Democratic women to run for office, agreed that the Sanford scandal poses a challenge that applies to both political parties. "Let's see if we can elect more women to office," she said, "and give them a chance to see if they can do better in power."

Republicans said their party hardly has a lock on sex-related stories like Sanford's: Former presidential candidate and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and former President Bill Clinton also were the stuff of tabloid legend for infidelities and, in Spitzer's case, illegal transactions with a young prostitute.

Still, GOP members were furious with the South Carolina governor, not only for his particularly wacky behavior that included deserting four children on Father's Day weekend to meet up with his paramour but also going MIA from his job.

Equally galling was his timing -- the Sanford scandal exploding just as Republicans were gaining ground in the polls on President Obama and the Democrats on issues like the size of the federal deficit and concerns over Obama's health care policy.

"I am mad enough to swallow a horned toad backward," GOP strategist Patrick Dorinson of Sacramento wrote on Politico.com. "In my mind he is... a pitiful excuse for a real man. He not only has feet of clay, he has a spine of one as well."

While Sanford's aides suggested that he would hang tough and not resign, many party activists took to the airwaves to urge him to give up - and go away.

'Hang it up'

"I suggest he get out of office right now and let us be done with this whole sordid affair," GOP strategist Trent Duffy told MSNBC. "Some of these people who have lost the public trust need to hang it up...This is a bad day for Republicans. Our party does need fresh faces. Maybe we can get a community organizer who can come out of nowhere and become the president of the United States."

Tucker Fletcher, a leading endorser of California GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, said female candidates could be the answer. She argued that the former eBay CEO's effort to get elected in California shows how the GOP can put those concerns into action -- and take the call for change seriously.

"I'm optimistic that it will get better," Tucker Fletcher said, "but we keep going back to the scenario of women and blacks and people we want to join our party. We have to give them a reason to. We have to resonate with a bigger cross-section of people."

Source / SFGate

Thanks to BuzzFlash / The Rag Blog

Rush blames Obama for Sanford affair!

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Bush Scandals : The List. (Not a Pretty Picture)

British Artist Jonathan Yeo created this portrait of President Bush using a collage of images cut out from 100 porn magazines. This piece was unveiled in August 2007 at the Lazarides Gallery in London. Interestingly enough, Yeo was commissioned by the George W. Bush Presidential Library to paint an official portrait of the 43rd President, but before he could begin working on the portrait he was fired. Instead of scrapping the project all together he decided to change directions and finish the piece anyway…with porno mags. Image by Jonathan Yeo / WebUrbanist.

Hugh's List of Bush scandals: 'Most are breaches of the public trust, many violations of Bush's Oath of Office. The rest are crimes and War Crimes.'

By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / February 4, 2009

Any American who has a simmering anger after eight years of George W. Bush as president will want to bookmark the links below to a web site simply titled:

“Hugh Makes a List … because there are just too many scandals to remember”

A progressive named Hugh started making a list of Bush scandals in late 2006. A blog, firedoglake, provided its initial exposure. Firedoglake loves challenges, so Hugh didn't even have to ask for help. The first entries were very brief. One site remembers,

Hugh edited each entry by adding enough information so that even a mainstream media reporter would understand what event or action the entry implied or recognized. All of these entries - there are finally 400 - are worse than a president getting a hummer from another adult under the Oval Office desk. Most are breaches of the public trust, many violations of Bush's Oath of Office. The rest are crimes and War Crimes.

Hugh’s List is a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 site. We are offering our readership free access to this scholarly and unique undertaking.

The Table of Contents itself is breathtaking:

The detailed list is here.

Here is a brief excerpt from the first paragraph of the last entry.

# 400: An Absent President

Of the 2922 days Bush was President he spent all or part of 1,020 of them on vacation (35% of his time in office). This includes 487 days at Camp David, 490 at his ranch in Crawford, and 43 days at his family’s compound in Kennebunkport. If there is one word which typifies this and Bush, it is AWOL. The man has been AWOL his whole life. You have only to look at his academic career or his lack of it. […]

Unfortunately for us, the Presidency is a real full-time job. In it, Bush stayed true to form. He was not just physically absent from it much of the time. He was intellectually and morally absent from it all the time.

But the blame does not belong to him. It never does with an AWOL man. No, it belongs with us who, as a nation, for 8 years took a vacation from ourselves and our responsibilities. We had not just an AWOL President with Bush but an AWOL age. Now Bush is gone, as AWOL as ever, and we are left to deal with his legacies.

The Rag Blog

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