Is there ANYONE in this administration who doesn't stink?

[Equipoise]

Ridge Reports Investments in Homeland Security Contractors

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge had investments last year in a number of companies with contracts with his department and others who want to profit from homeland security, a new list of his assets shows.

Ridge, a former Pennsylvania Republican congressman and governor appointed by President Bush in 2001 to run the nation’s homeland security effort, held assets valued from $100,000 to $815,000 last year, according to information he supplied in a filing with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel eventually must approve the filing.

…

Ridge reported investments in:

• Microsoft, which in July 2003 won a $90 million contract with the department to provide desktop computers and server software.

• Unisys, which in 2003 was selected to manage four “Operation Safe Commerce” pilot programs funded by DHS. In August 2002, the company won a $1 billion contract with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for information technology managed services.

• General Electric, which this year undertook airport pilot programs with TSA for its EntryScan3 walk-through explosives detector.

• Sprint, which completed work this year on a new network for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

• Raytheon, a subcontractor to Accenture on a $10 billion contract for DHS’ entry-exit program, U.S. VISIT, as well as a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman on its Homeland Secure Data Network contract.

• The pharmaceutical companies Baxter International, Merck and Pfizer, all of which have had a stake in a smallpox vaccine.

• Oracle, which has its own “Homeland Security Team” generating homeland security business.
…

In response to a late afternoon telephone inquiry, DHS spokesman Brian Roehrkasse first said the department did not have enough time to answer questions about the disclosure form. Pressed further, he shouted an expletive to a reporter and hung up.

Later, in a second telephone conversation, Roehrkasse said, “I don’t know where we are in the process. I don’t know . . . I can’t validate any information you’ve got,” and repeated a string of expletives.

Every. Single. Fucking. DAY! Every day brings something new to amaze over, ranging from eye-rolling scorn, to jaw-dropping disbelief, to shaking-in-outrage. Every single DAY! If it were Democrats who did even a couple of these things, there’d be full-fledged Congressional investigations! When it’s Republicans, the media and everyone else just yawn and say “so what, what’s the big deal?”

Fucking hypocrites!

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Counsel for Intelligence Policy (responsible for advising the Attorney General on all matters relating to the national security activities of the United States), someone who stinks from way back, James Baker, who also happens to be Senior Counselor to The Carlyle Group, and who also boasted about fixing the 2000 election in Florida for GW, is helping to prep Georgieboy for the debates.

Oh, he’s also senior partner in Baker Botts, the law firm hired by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to defend a lawsuit brought by a group of 9/11 families, charging that the Saudi government helped finance organizations that financed some of the terrorists.
Aside from that MSNBC story about the 9/11 lawsuit: Though not named, I give a big cheer to this person:

One former Clinton administration official at a big law firm said he was personally approached to represent a high-ranking Saudi prince in the case but turned it down. “I kept asking myself, ‘do I want to be representing the Saudis against the 9-11 families—especially after all the trouble we had getting cooperation from the Saudis on terrorism’,” the official said. “I finally just said no.”

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Much of the U.S. aid for rebuilding isn’t entering the economy, drained by the insurgency, profits for contractors and salaries for foreigners.

September 26, 2004

WASHINGTON — Less than half of the aid in the Bush administration’s reconstruction package for Iraq is being spent in ways that will benefit Iraqis, U.S. government officials and independent experts said.

Nearly a year after Congress set aside $18.4 billion for the rebuilding, costs related to the insurgency in Iraq — such as security services, insurance and property losses — are consuming an increasing share of the money, analysts said. Another large chunk of the aid — contractors’ profits and American and other foreign workers’ salaries — winds up outside Iraq and doesn’t help the Iraqi economy, they said.

U.S. officials, pointing to “unusually difficult” conditions in Iraq, acknowledged last week that security and other overhead in Iraq were a large expense. Some government analysts said those costs might eat up half or more of the rebuilding aid. However, private analysts estimated that the “Iraq premium” meant that up to 75% of U.S. spending in the country provided no direct benefit for Iraqis.

I await the usual suspects charging in with their eye-roll smileys, assuring everyone that these things are no big deal and flinging around the word leftist and/or liberal, as if they were insults (which they’re not). I trust they’d feel the same if Clinton or Kerry were in office.

[iampunha]

@Equipoise

I trust they’d feel the same if Clinton or Kerry were in office.

I’m someone who would quickly be labeled a leftist and a liberal, and I’m wondering about the history of people profiting as some in this current administration seem to be doing.

[Kimstu]

DHS spokesman Brian Roehrkasse first said the department did not have enough time to answer questions about the disclosure form. Pressed further, he shouted an expletive to a reporter and hung up.

Later, in a second telephone conversation, Roehrkasse said, “I don’t know where we are in the process. I don’t know . . . I can’t validate any information you’ve got,” and repeated a string of expletives.

Me, I think it would be nice if the (taxpayer-supported) spokesman for a department of the federal government could handle inquiries from the press without shouting expletives at them. I’d say that one of the basic qualifications for a spokesperson job is being able to field annoying questions without swearing at the questioner.

But maybe Roehrkasse was just trying to emulate the Vice-President.

[Brutus]

Equipoise, I thought we went over this before. You are a retard. (That means you aren’t too bright. Kinda stupid. Less than smart. Imagine a genius; You are the opposite of that.) When you post stuff like this (OMG!! Someone has stock in the BIGGEST FUCKING COMPANIES IN THE WORLD!), you just look more retarded.

[Kimstu]

Brutus: OMG!! Someone has stock in the BIGGEST FUCKING COMPANIES IN THE WORLD!

Actually Brutus, I think it’s a little more complicated than that. I agree with you that Ridge simply owning stock in Microsoft reads pretty low on the outrage meter. However, I think it’s legitimate to object (as the managing editor of the Center for Public Integrity did in the linked article) that these investments ought to be in a blind trust or QDT while Ridge is running a government agency that does business with the companies he’s got money in.

[Equipoise]

@Brutus

Equipoise, I thought we went over this before. You are a retard. (That means you aren’t too bright. Kinda stupid. Less than smart. Imagine a genius; You are the opposite of that.) When you post stuff like this (OMG!! Someone has stock in the BIGGEST FUCKING COMPANIES IN THE WORLD!), you just look more retarded.

We did go over this before. I could be the most retarded and stupid person in the world, but at least I’m not a Republican. My last President got an adulterous blowjob. Tsk tsk, shame on him, and all, but at least he won’t go down in history as the Worst pResident Ever, one who wasn’t even elected. Your children and their children will have to explain why their ancestor let these things happen without speaking out, and even defended them. If they’re decent human beings, they’ll be rightly embarrassed by you.

Btw, not all retarded people are stupid, and not all stupid people are retarded. Just so you know.

[Equipoise]

Ooops…

@Equipoise

We did go over this before. I could be the most retarded and stupid person in the world, but at least I’m not a Republican.

I meant to say “Republican for Bush.” There are plenty of Republicans for Kerry, bless their sensible hearts.

[Mac_Guffin]

Wow. I mean, really. Wow. Brutus comes in with the most concise, blow-by-blow debunking of all of the charges Equipose made. I am impressed.
Oh wait. No he didn’t. He didn’t really say anything about them. He just called Equipse a retard.
If Equipose is a retard, Brutus must be just barely functional.

[jayjay]

@Mac Guffin

If Equipose is a retard, Brutus must be just barely functional.

Even if Equipoise isn’t a retard, Brutus is just barely functional.

But we knew that already.

[El_Kabong]

Brutus, do you ever intend to respond to a post that happens to gore your particular ox with anything other than name-calling? If not, from now on in any such thread I propose that everyone just assume you poked your pointy little head in and called someone a ‘retard’. That’ll save both you and us a lot of of wasted time.

[Reeder]

An adult calling someone a retard???

Just how old are you Brutus?

[SteveG1]

There is another wrinkle to some of this. The government is actively looking at outsourcing the homeland security agency to a private company. I wonder what the impact will be, and who will be taking a hefty profit. I also wonder what incentive a company will have to put security ahead of the botom line, in terms of priority.

[ParentalAdvisory]

@El_Kabong

Brutus, do you ever intend to respond to a post that happens to gore your particular ox with anything other than name-calling? If not, from now on in any such thread I propose that everyone just assume you poked your pointy little head in and called someone a ‘retard’. That’ll save both you and us a lot of of wasted time.

This is the pit. If the OP was looking for an intelligent response and debate, maybe, just maybe, he should’ve posted this in GD.

[MsRobyn]

@ParentalAdvisory

This is the pit. If the OP was looking for an intelligent response and debate, maybe, just maybe, he should’ve posted this in GD.

Not that Brutus is any better there, either.

Robin

[danceswithcats]

@Equipoise

We did go over this before. I could be the most retarded and stupid person in the world, but at least I’m not a Republican. My last President got an adulterous blowjob. Tsk tsk, shame on him, and all, but at least he won’t go down in history as the Worst pResident Ever, one who wasn’t even elected. Your children and their children will have to explain why their ancestor let these things happen without speaking out, and even defended them. If they’re decent human beings, they’ll be rightly embarrassed by you.

Btw, not all retarded people are stupid, and not all stupid people are retarded. Just so you know.

(bolding mine)

WTF are you picking on Gerry Ford about?

Is it possible for you and your ilk to let a day or so pass without banging your little tin pots together regarding the mean, nasty, evil, awful, and bad Republicans? Nah, I didn’t think so. :rolleyes:

[El_Kabong]

This is the pit. If the OP was looking for an intelligent response and debate, maybe, just maybe, he should’ve posted this in GD.

By jingo, you’re right; please forgive me for having the unmitigated gall to utter a mild objection to the witlessness of this particular poster. I must have forgotten to take my meds again.

I’m not against insults in the Pit per se, understand. I might well have granted ol’ Bluto style points, if he ever actually turned out to have any. Style, that is.

[jayjay]

@El_Kabong

I might well have granted ol’ Bluto style points, if he ever actually turned out to have any. Style, that is.

Or a point, for that matter.

[Larry_Mudd]

@Kimstu

Actually Brutus, I think it’s a little more complicated than that. […] these investments ought to be in a blind trust…

I don’t think any of us can presume to tell Brutus anything about blind trust.

[Brutus]

@Larry Mudd

I don’t think any of us can presume to tell Brutus anything about blind trust.

Heh.

[lissener]

@danceswithcats

(bolding mine)

WTF are you picking on Gerry Ford about?

Climb down off your, um, scarecrow, we need the, uh, the straw.

Bush’s status as a non-elected president is never held up as, in itself, something to be objected to. THus your Ford bit is retarded.

If Bush had acknowledged the wishes of the electorate, that they were pretty evenly divided, and built a moderate administration that addressed the actual majority of voters, none of this would be an issue. Instead, he acted like he was handed a landslide, a mandate, and pissed all over the majority of voters to bring home his reactionary nutjob agenda.