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Mr. Murder & Cee’s Mukasey Open Thread

By SusanUnPC on January 2, 2008 at 7:00 PM in Bush/Cheney, Obama

Mr. Murder and Cee are having a discussion on Mukasey, beginning with Mr. Murder’s post of “Statement by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey Regarding the Opening of an Investigation Into the Destruction of Videotapes by CIA Personnel.” Add your own thoughts here. Or bring up another topic. That oil hit $100 for the first time. Or Kenya, which is tragic — Google News is linking to over 4,000 stories on Kenya’s crisis. …

From the air, Kenya is a country on fire. Plumes of blue smoke rise from villages across the Rift Valley. More fires burn in the sprawling townships on the edge of the capital, Nairobi. On the ground, the city is gripped by fear. Police officers man roadblocks across its main arteries and sirens wail on its outer edges. Violence is sporadic, and sudden. In the slum of Karobongi, witnesses said the feared Mungiki sect — a group that weaves Kikuyu tribal mythology with gang rule in the slums — hacked to death several people from rival tribes in reprisal killings, leaving the roads strewn with limbs. Clashes between tribes also erupted in the tin-shack slum of Mathare, preventing aid workers from delivering daily drops of food and medicine. … Read all.

My two cents. Forgive me, but I just found this out, and it bugs the hell out of me that Obama dissed Paul Wellstone — via HuffPo‘s Glenn Hurowitz:

Chris Petersen, the president of the Iowa Farmers Union, just sent me the below message blasting Barack Obama for his attempts to paint himself as the most Paul Wellstone-like candidate in a conference call with ag supporters that has become very controversial in rural Iowa.

Hurowitz notes:

I would like to add to Chris’s eloquent statement that in an interview with David Sirota in The Nation, Obama “dismissively labeled Wellstone as merely a ‘gadfly’ in a tone laced with contempt.”

Hurowitz then follows with Chris Peterson’s powerful statement on rural issues.

Over and out! It’s your thread now.

  • http://www.food4humanity.org HoosierHoops

    I like mr. murders postings and cee rocks..
    So before they post let me give a shout out..
    1.) Leslie: You have a great spirit.. and soul, There are somethings the hoopster can feel..And leslie hasn’t posted much lately…But i feel we could be best friends and i respect her so much..
    _______________________________________
    Crap leslie.. The Hoopster has drank some kind of crushed frozen grape juice vodka tonight.. like 100 dollars a bottle stuff..sorry all my feelings come out and i have a buzz.. But you are a great person..
    ( I have this feeling i’m going to say something stupid in a few minutes ) But leslie.. I really respect you.
    _____________________________________________
    Taters: A great man and a majical guitarist..
    Thanks for the email today..I can’t wait to see you play..
    Let’s tie 2 things together..
    ____________________________________________
    Larry: I read your previous posting about not going to work back for the gov’t…the money is better in the private sector.. I spent 20 years as a DOD Top Secret employee in Nuclear Engineering.. I was hired by the 7th biggest company in the world and I’ll never go back..So i understand what you are saying..
    move on..take what you know and do something with it.
    Bitch all you want about money..but I’m blessed that every time i check my back account..there is more than i know what to do with..thus my charity dreams..
    http://www.food4humanity.org Th Gov’t doesn’t give you that much money every month.. I am the luckiest guy in the world..Here comes the critics..I can’t spell tonight..sorry..I wrote the code to direct fire control of nuclear missles from nuclear submarines..
    yup that’s thats me..yet i was let go from gov’t work after Clinton was Elected because i was no longer needed and yet i was so in demand that i was hired by the Coolest Japanese company in the world for really big Bucks..
    _____________________________________________
    Thinker: Love your thoughts and writtings but i have to engaged you about your version of god..
    _______________________________________________
    Shirin: What can i say? I always give you the tenderness of the hoopster. Even when i think you are wrong I don’t engage you on those points..
    I’ll tell you why..in 1990 my best friend, And I mean MY BEST FRIEND,,,Was from Iraq.. Because of my Top Secret status i had to report him as my best friend..It’s the law..Because of that and the FBI probe things got a little dicey..We are best friends to this day.. I know you have issues with The ME.. But my friend and I will always be that.
    ____________________________________________
    Well I was going to address you all..but that Vodka really messed me up..Do you guys forgive me?
    Love you all and good night…

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      That’s the most wonderful post. We all love you, Hoopster.

      Say, I have been so busy that I just now realized that my Seahawks are playing Larry’s Redskins on Saturday at 1:30pm PST. Hope it’s a fun game. … dunno about the Hawks. I’ll just say that I hope the best team wins.

    • Cee

      Love you back! Hang on to your seat tonight.

    • Taters

      Thanks for the very kind words, HH.

      I respectfully have to disagree with “great” though.

  • Mr.Murder

    Thanks for your words, Hoosier.

    Persons who have been close to the inner workings of gov’t are developing their own ways of outreach.

    Some as part of the profiteer GOPers, working in the turnstile of gov’t/contracting.

    Others from disillusionment are finding new models of interaction online and via NGO. They are making more money now and putting that to work.

    Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can do for other?

    It’s basically similar to the Kennedy vision of a different era, only its aim is on a wide spectrum of empowerment for others. Bobby Kennedy was going down that path when his time was ended early… his focus was for average Americans to get involved.

    Taking the next step is to get others involved, we’ve apparently peaked what level of involvement everyday Americans will do. There’s tabloids, NASCAR, etc. to keep the others occupied.

    The world remains ready to move into more interactive models. People with the means can now find ways to enable people abroad to new levels.

    I’d suggest continuing microcredit trends.

    People can purchase in line with cooperatives and find effective ways of commodity distribution online now as well.

    Imagine a vast new food and medicine bank developing as the result of online work. Working with Amnesty International hand in hand to help coordinate programs that see dissidents secure in their travel, etc.

    The means have arrived. This is the new era.

  • Mr.Murder

    Wellstone remains an icon in his era.

    His awards for people who better the interests of American steel manufacture resonate on a local level here, though the award tended to be a regional or north/central item.

    He paid quite a price for other items he pursued. The penultimate price…

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      He surely did pay a price. Sometimes I wonder….

      I’ll never forget watching his funeral on C-Span. It was a shame that it partly got politicized and, sadly, that’s what people remember most — or at least the pundits on TV do. But it was also powerful to hear the testimony of people who knew Paul Wellstone very well, and to hear their stories about his great works.

    • Cee

      He most certainly did. When I think of the saddest mmoments of my life his death is one of them.

      “There are people in the White House who wake up in the morning thinking about how they will defeat Paul Wellstone,” a senior Republican aide confides.

      I remember when he went to Columbia. His escaped dying from a bomb and he was later sprayed.

      Sen Wellstone Sprayed With Herbicide…

      Hard-eyed men with Uzis stood guard as Sen. Paul Wellstone stepped out of a helicopter and into a bulletproof car and drove to a meeting with human rights activists. Hours earlier, police said they discovered a bomb along the airport road.

      http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/120200-01.htm

      Senator Wellstone announced that he had contracted Multiple Sclerosis, which is thought to be linked to toxic exposure such as the biocides sprayed by the US government on Senator Wellstone during his fact finding mission to Columbia.

      Last but not least

      Co-pilot played minor (so they say) role in story of Moussaoui

      Associated Press, 26 October 2002

      MINNEAPOLIS – The co-pilot who died in the crash of Sen. Paul Wellstone’s plane played a minor role in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged Sept. 11 conspirator who briefly attended an Eagan flight school.

      Co-pilot Michael Guess had performed administrative work at the Pan Am International Flight Academy last year as he continued accumulating flying hours. There he met Moussaoui, the school’s most infamous student.

      Two former Pan Am program managers who tipped the FBI to Moussaoui’s suspicious behavior at the school in August 2001 told the Star Tribune that Guess inadvertently gave Moussaoui unattended access to a computer program on flying a 747 jumbo jet.

      http://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/linkscopy/PWcopilot.html

  • Mr.Murder

    Barack is channeling the Chicago School of foreign polity to an extent Scoop Jackson, Paul Wolforat and Condi Rice would blush.

    • Cee

      Give me an example.

  • Centrocitta

    …..I spent 20 years as a DOD Top Secret employee in Nuclear Engineering.. I was hired by the 7th biggest company in the world and I’ll never go back…..

    I was working in DC when the subway station at DuPont Circle was completed. Until they got the bugs out of the system, when commuters would stand crowded together right in the middle of a car close to the exit doors, the train would not move. It used to really bug me that the government employees never complained about the train not pulling out of the station and seemed content to just sit there all day, if necessary. I, however, was on my way to my job at IBM. I had places to go, people to see and things to do and I couldn’t afford to nor did I care to just sit on that platform. This is when I first noticed a big difference between us and them.

  • Centrocitta

    I just read that the decision was made by the CIA to destroy the interrogation tapes shortly after it became known in 2005 that they were maintaining secret prisons. This begs a question. Exactly when in 2005 was it made known? Which month? 2005 was really a strange year.

  • Mr.Murder

    Persons in Europe were tracking rendition flights.

    Have we forgot about Poland?

    • Taters

      And Syria, MM.

  • Cee

    No. I saw some of a gruesome movie titled Hostel. I thought of our torture of detainees.

    http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Sovietera_compound_in_Poland_was_site_0307.html

    On to Mukasey

    Although the tapes in question were not provided to any court or to the members of the government-appointed 9/11 Commission, they were evidently seen by CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, who disclosed in a statement yesterday that he plans to recuse himself from the criminal inquiry to avoid a conflict of interest.

    A Justice Department official, who spoke about internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S. attorney’s office in Alexandria had recused itself to “err on the side of caution.” Several cases handled by that office, including the prosecution and conviction of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui, involved CIA interrogations, possibly including those that had been videotaped.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/02/AR2008010202060.html?hpid=topnews

  • Cee

    Let me add this

    Judge Mukasey helped bury the significance of Ali A, Mohamed, a shadowy figure who was working at the time for both Osama bin Laden and the FBI.

    If Mohamed had been called to the stand and cross-examined in open court, defense lawyers could have ripped open the scandal of how the FBI failed to stop the first Trade Center attack. More important, they could have exposed the depth and breadth of al Qaeda’s shocking plan to attack America, six years before 9/11.
    http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Author_Bush_nominee_helped_mask_FBIs_0925.html

    • Taters

      Cee,
      So Peter Lance via his publisher, is re releasing Triple Cross, again? Were you here when Larry posted this? It tanked the first time around, didn’t it?
      from Dec. 2, 2006

      Peter Lance’s Flawed Triple Cross
      by
      Larry C Johnson

      I believe that Peter Lance’s new book, TRIPLE CROSS, is a flawed and inaccurate piece of investigative reporting. Not the kind of work one would expect from a five time Emmy award winning reporter. I write this not out of animus towards Peter Lance. I reached this conclusion based on evidence I have that flatly contradicts several of Lance’s claims. Let’s start with a minor issue. Peter Lance presents inaccurate and misleading information about me on page 384 of his book. Lance writes:

      He [Johnson] then compounded that mistaken assessment five weeks later with a Times Op-Ed piece entitled “The Declining Terrorist Threat,” describing al Qaeda as a “a loose amalgam of people with a shared ideology, but a very limited direction.”[vi]

      Peter is flat out wrong. At no point in that July 2001 op-ed did I write what he says I wrote (here is the link to the op-ed, read it for yourself). At no point did I refer to Al Qaeda in that piece because I was focused on the broader trends in terrorism.

      Lance leaves the clear impression that I minimized the importance of Osama Bin Laden. That also is not true. Ironically, Milt Bearden, a retired CIA officer, and I wrote an op-ed in November of 2000 when we learned that Ali Mohamad (the subject of Lance’s latest work) had entered a plea agreement. We warned the next President that:

      Mughniyeh and Bin Ladin are the two most prolific mass murderers currently at large. A new administration will have to take on the fundamental task of bringing to American justice the two men who have killed so many Americans. The full range of options, including military force, covert action, clandestine operations and diplomatic pressure must be brought to bear. The experience of the last two decades has shown that putting terrorists in American prisons is a very effective policy, but we must be prepared to take other steps if that option is not feasible.

      cont’d – with appropriate links.
      http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/12/peter_lances_fl.html

      My money is on Larry.

    • TeakWoodKite

      I was miffed reading that Fitzgerald seems to be acustomed to having sand in his eyes…Someone knew his (Ali A, Mohamed) double agent status and what he did at Fort Bragg and at CIA.

      Makes you wonder who was minding the store. Which leads me to the current question. Why would the senator from NY “recommended” Judge Mukasey to Bush as was reported in the MSM? Bush’s MO is well known and documented in using appointments as a ‘pic’ to frustrate investigations. Schumer prior to the judges appointment had enough information to be aware of the damaging testamony…of Ali A, Mohamed.
      I remember seeing a survallience clip of the Ali A, Mohamed “cell” shooting weapons on Long Island.

      Something stinks like Lindberger cheese and the narrotive about this guy as reported in the MSM needs a redo investigation.