Gridlock News

Former Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, served nine months in prison on corruption and bribery charges for what many people including the courts are starting to believe was nothing more than politics.  On appeal he was released from prison on bond, and he's now speaking out identifying Karl Rove and the Republican presidential administration of George Bush as the sources for his political imprisonment.

There has been a large number of situations and issues pointing to the very strong likelihood that the George Bush administration acted inappropriately when it investigated indicted and works convict a large number of Democratic leaders in state and federal government positions from Governor to Senator to Congressman to mayors and more.  There was also a major scandal when the Bush administration attempted to fire a number of US attorneys that wouldn't play ball and go after political figures.  That ultimately led to Alberto Gonzalez having to step down as the Attorney General of the United States.

So far the Bush of ministration has stalled and obstructed justice by not delivering e-mail and other evidence related to all of these situations.  There is definitely a cover-up going on in the Bush administration.  Indeed that cover-up in stopping the abuse of power that is taking place is definitely going to be a difficult Curvelle problem and one that might take the next administration several years to weed through.  The number of pardons that will be provided this fall as Bush prepares to leave office will likely be eye-opening and staggering.

Speaking by telephone in his first post-prison interview, shortly after he had left the federal penitentiary at Oakdale, La., Mr. Siegelman said there had been “abuse of power” in his case, and repeatedly cited Karl Rove, the former White House political director.

“His fingerprints are smeared all over the case,” Mr. Siegelman said, a day after a federal appeals court ordered him released on bond and said there were legitimate questions about his case. He was sentenced to serve seven years last June after a guilty verdict on bribery and corruption charges a year earlier.

In measured tones after spending nine months at the prison, the former governor, a Democrat, said he would press to have Mr. Rove answer questions to Congress about his possible involvement in the case.

“When Attorney General Gonzales and Karl Rove left office in a blur, they left the truth buried in their documents,” Mr. Siegelman said, referring to Alberto R. Gonzales. “It’s going to be my quest to encourage Congress to ensure that Karl Rove either testifies, or takes the Fifth.” 

Freed Ex-Governor of Alabama Talks of Abuse of Power - New York Times

There must be a little justice left in the system somewhere as this appeals court finally released Siegelman from prison in a way that was reminiscent of the French Bastille or Russian Gulag.  Who will be next is difficult to determine.

If El Paso is any sign of things to come in Texas, Barack Obama may lose the war there.  You may not realize it but the delicate fight in Texas is not over.  There are 67 delegates in Texas that are still up for grabs.  There were a number of caucus regularities in several counties throughout Texas and they were forced into a redo.  Barak Obama was attempting to get certain delegates that were elected to support Hillary Clinton  replaced with delegates supporting himself.

He didn't succeed at this and essentially things seem to have worked out and Hillary's favor in this situation now there are more and more Hillary people going to the final state convention to determine who will get the last 67 delegates from Texas.  This type of fight is not unusual for Texas and many of the states have a similar process.  The primaries and caucuses of many states are just a way for people to determine which way the wind blows in the actual process that leads into a state convention.  After the state convention the actual delegates are sent to the national convention for the Democrats that will be in Denver.  And it's at that point that the delegates at the convention actually make a decision and determine who will be the Democratic presidential candidate.

I guess the lesson here is that the fight is not over until its over.  Politics is not liking selling a used cisco router on Ebay.  The political machine keeps going and going without any closure until someone wins an election and serves an entire term without being removed from office.

Obama wins just 7 of 127 at caucus - El Paso Times

People are already starting to call for the Resignation of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice following reports that her State Department withheld information from her about Security lapses relating to private information about a Democratic leading Presidential Nominee, Barack Obama.

Contractors working for Rice's State Department improperly accessed information about Senator Barack Obama's passport and consular files three times in three months.  The Security lapses eluded Secretary Rice until 2 days ago.  Her inability to manage her own department call her leadership abilities into question.  Rice has been heavily criticized for her efforts relating to the War on Terror, the War in Iraq and even here expertise in managing the United States relationship with Russia.

It would appear that in this situation contractors were able to simply call up information about Senator Obama on their regular computers plugged in with a CAT6 cable or Ethernet cable without having to go through any further security controls.  This access did trigger automatic notifications, but did not prevent the breech.

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Breaking News - Obama Security Breeched at State Department

Gridlock on Rye: State Department Confirms Cover Up of Obama Security Breech for 2 Months

I just finished watching Barack Obama's speech to respond to the hate filled comments of his own pastor the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  The speech appears to have been written by several speech writers with handy access to  megabytes of polling information on a usb flash drive probably sitting around a big conference room in a hotel somewhere.  The speech had some very good high points that had the potential to do some good, but it also hit every polling segment with a good deal of talk that was clearly aimed at appeasing and pandering to those polling groups.

On the hole, I believe that anyone that watches then entire speech will likely take an improved view of Barack Obama the man, who obviously chose a brave road less traveled.  However, the end result will likely be over shadowed by Obama's own speech segments that clearly pandered and struck hollow from point to point.  These parts will over time take on more history as they will be exploited in sound bites where the context cannot be conveyed with an entire repeat of the speech.

Barack Obama essentially chose the brave road of trying to do some good, but chose this at the expense of doing what was politically necessary to win the election.  All his words will not achieve anything if he doesn't win the office.  This was a hard lesson that Al Gore and Democrats learned back in 2000.  When you take the high road and concede, you are choosing to lose regardless.

Barack had to deal with new claims that he was aware of his Pastor's comments and other similar comments.  In many ways he made the claim that his Pastor's comments came from a man that suffered at the hands of racism and was unable to see the changes in America.  Overall, Obama made one of the most telling remarks when he said that the most segregated hour in America each week is conducted in churches around the country.  That seems to emphasize the common flaw with Barack Obama as well as predecessors before him that included George Bush and Richard Nixon.  Their religious roots serve to separate them from the country as a whole and advance the religions they serve as opposed to the country and Constitution that they swear to uphold and defend and serve.

Barack Obama is having a bad bad week this week.  He's having to fire his pastor for preaching to God to 'Damn America' and making comments that Hillary Clinton is not fit for office since she is not an African American man like Barack Obama (except Barack's Pastor used a word that is not fit to publish). 

Barack definitely walked away with egg on his face over the bigoted words of his own campaign pastor, but when we follow the money Barack Obama may have even bigger problems as the Chicago Tribune breaks news about the real size of Tony Rezko's contributions to Barack Obama over the years.

Rezko raised over $250,000 for Obama.

Obama was quick to admit that his own judgement failed to detect a potential conflict of interest with Rezko.

In politics, career politicians often times will work to apologize for their lapses in judgement and within 24 hours several of Barack's have come to light now, but the problem for Barack is that his track record for 'judgement' is all that he has on his resume.

Barack Obama has no record of results, he has no record of achievements.  All he had to hang his hat on was the judgement to be against the Iraq resolution before he was in a position to even vote on it. 

So when we now learn that Barack Obama's actual decisions, and results and judgements resulted in choosing a bigoted pastor and partnering with a man that raise over $250,000 before being indicted in Chicago, we start to see just another career politician that not only has no judgement but has no record of success and in fact seems to surround himself with flawed individuals when it comes to fund raising and flawed individuals when it comes to spiritual advisors.

That leaves us with the question, just what exactly has Barack Obama done well? 

At this point, I'd doubt that he even had the ability to save a lot of money on his car insurance.

George Bush has had his bluff called.  The House of Representatives passed the FISA bill today which if penned into law would give the intelligence community the powers requested by George Bush to continue surveillance for terrorist activity.  You would think President Bush would be eager to sign the bill into law, but on the contrary he is not interested in protecting Americans if it means that telecommunications companies can not receive amnesty for their illegal actions at the request of the Bush Administration.

Mr Bush wants any telecommunications company that participated in his warrantless surveillance programme to receive retroactive immunity.

Mr Bush has promised to veto the Democrat-sponsored bill

The Senate has already approved a bill that grants such immunity.

US House passes surveillance law

Many lawsuits are starting to enter into the system against telecommunications companies like at&t that enabled the Government to tap the phone calls, read the emails and review the web surfing habits of regular Americans and even political opponents of the Bush Administration.  America has a long history of the little guy seeking justice in court against corporations that have done them wrong from love canal to tobacco lawsuits to mesothelioma cases.

The President would protect one of the most recent groups committing these travesties even after he helped to instigate the behavior.

In an effort to improve their standing and perception in the world, Muslim leaders gathered this week to consider taking away freedom of speech from people around the world.  They would like to do this the old fashioned way by litigating people that say anything about their religion that might be construed by their own leaders as blasphemy.

"I don't think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy," said Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. "There can be no freedom without limits."

Muslims Nations: Defame Islam, Get Sued?

Muslim nations from the middle east and east are trying to improve their relationships with the west, but in taking away sovereign authority from other countries and their citizens they couldn't be closer to increasing the divide.

There is no way in the world that a newspaper editor in Denmark or even a Billy Bob Smith in Texas is going to take to kindly to a lawsuit if they utter something that is unacceptable to a madrassa in Senegal or Iran or anywhere.

I have to think they are more intelligent than  that.  After all, these are humans that we are talking about.  They can't actually think that non-muslims or even non-religious people would go for this hogwash.  When I give them that level of respect and consideration for their intelligence, I can only then consider that they are purposefully trying to denigrate people in the west, and attack our freedom of speech.

To put it less diplomatically, I think they are nuts.  I'd no sooner pay attention to a religious fundamentalist in the east any more than I'd pay attention to a religious fundamentalist in my own backyard (and there are lots of those).  I need that like a painting contractor needs more ladder racks mounted on their van.