The Forkes Report

Tim's Favorite Blogs

The Weather
Ruffle Your Shuffle
Eschew Obfuscation
IM Earthling
Silk Road
The Huffington Post
Talking Points Memo
American Progress
Citizens For Ethics
Crooks And Liars
Common Cause

Media Matters

Blog Directories

Wednesday, March 28. 2007

To Prosecute or Go On Spring Break

First of all, let me start by wishing a speedy recovery for Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow. Both have just recently been diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer: she breast cancer, he with cancer in his liver.

If, somehow, you missed the news, Elizabeth is the wife of presidential contender and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina. At this point, he’s actually my first choice for the Democratic ticket. Snow is the former Fox News host and current press secretary for the White House. He is one heck of an obfuscator and I’ve learned much about the fine art of not saying anything with a lot of words! We need Tony Snow in the White House briefings. Seriously. He’s probably the best White House Press Secretary since … jeez, all the way back to Dee Dee Myers and Marlin Fitzwater before her.

Get well soon Tony and Elizabeth.

Here’s some interesting “news”:
On CNN Tuesday there was a story about a Catholic school that banned its students from being on MySpace. Oh Dear! St. Hugo of the Hills (I’m not making up that name!) in Bloomfield Hills, MI has the support of their PTA and CNN made sure they only offered the opinions of parents and students who supported the ban. That’s covering the whole story!

St. Hugo’s, by the way, is only for grades one through eight so most of their students aren’t old enough to have a profile on MySpace. Still, controlling what kids do away from school is extreme. What are they teaching their kids? Total mind control? Oh yeah, it’s a religious school. Mind control is the ultimate goal.

The big news of course has to do with the attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. He is, according to the e-mails and other messages from the Justice Department, lying about his involvement in the firing of eight federal prosecutors and the reason for their dismissals. They were canned for purely political reasons. His White House liaison has even invoked the 5th Amendment for her testimony before the congressional hearings. Gee, if nothing illegal occurred, why would she need to protect herself from self-incrimination?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

Now, in what can only be called a second of its kind, the attorney general said that his involvement depends on your definition of the word “discussion.” You see, in a televised address he claimed he had no hand in the decision to fire the prosecutors, but, according to documents released by the Justice Department, Gonzales actually attended a meeting in his office just ten days before seven were fired, just to discuss the firings.

So, either the attorney general is lying … or he’s the most incompetent person to hold that office … ever!

Not to mention the scandals involving the inappropriate use of the Patriot Act by the F.B.I. to spy on us. Apparently F.B.I. agents were giving false and inaccurate information to get surveillance authorization under the F.I.S.A. law, according to testimony from the Justice Department Inspector General, Glenn A. Fine. Jeez Alberto, what did you know and when did you know it?

Glenn A. Fine

 According to the New York Times, Fine passed on a lucrative career in the N.B.A. to be a Rhodes Scholar, and then he took up boxing as a … hobby? … and actually got his nose bloodied a bit. Dude, you got some cojones!

Here’s where the news organizations have dropped the ball: they concentrate on when Gonzales will be forced to resign. The real question is: What investigations and prosecutions were interrupted or abruptly ended when the prosecutors were fired? Who is getting a free pass because there no longer is a prosecutor interested in prosecuting their case?

Just to be sure, I checked the online search engines of the three news organizations perceived to be the most “liberal” in the nation: CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times. nada … nuthin … not a word in any of those three about interrupted federal investigations or prosecutions due to the firings.

Actually, no one in the major news organizations have given any coverage to that part of the story, or so little it’s been slighted by the rabid desire to find out when Gonzales will be fired.

Carol Lam

We know Carol Lam, the San Diego prosecutor who put Randy “Duke” Cunningham behind bars was dismissed. Was she also looking at presidential hopeful (and the man representing my congressional district) Duncan Hunter? Hunter, as you may know, gave a lucrative documents contract to his big supporter, ADCS, for converting documents, a contract the Pentagon neither needed or wanted. Hunter has been involved with every arms-related scandal for decades.

Carol Lam is probably the most famous federal prosecutor to be fired, due to her conviction of Cunningham. The Justice Department claims she was fired because she wasn’t doing enough immigration cases, although immigration was half of her office’s workload. Can’t wait to watch the congressional hearings!

Finally, the president is going to veto the emergency appropriations bill for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Because the Democrat-controlled Congress attached amendments to the bill that call for benchmarks and troop withdrawals. Wasn’t the president, just scant months ago, talking about benchmarks for with drawing American troops from Iraq? As Jon Stewart so humorously put it on The Daily Show Tuesday Evening, the president’s benchmarks were for victory, whereas the Democrats’ benchmarks were designed for defeat and surrender.

Jon Stewart … he makes the news fun.

•••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• •••• ••••

Shooting photos for Mexico’s
Spring Break Mexico tourism campaign

And one last item for today: It’s Spring Break time here in Sunny San Diego. That means time to take my trusty Canon digital camera to the beach and the beach bars for some … wholesome … entertainment!

This is funny! A couple weekends ago I was at the beach and found the Tourism Department of Mexico shooting still photographs on Mission Beach in San Diego for Mexico’s Spring Break travel campaign! Shut up! Only in the Good Ole’ U.S. of A!

Posted by Tim Forkes in NEWS and POLITICS at 10:52 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

(Page 1 of 1, totaling 1 entries)