Conservative blog launches attack on House GOP leaders over Rep. Calvert's Appointment to Approps. seat
Yesterday, Rep. Ken Calvert was named to fill Rep. John Doolittle's vacant seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Doolittle gave up his seat after his home was raided by the FBI. Coincidentally, Calvert is also under investigation by the Department of Justice.
CREW blasted Calvert's appointment. So, did RedState.org, a leading right wing blog, according to The HIll:
Erick Erickson, the editor of the blog, which is popular with conservatives, declared “war” on the House GOP leadership following its decision to appoint Calvert to the panel.
“The House Republican Leadership just does not get it and they will not take us seriously until we flex our muscle against them,” Erickson wrote. “We must fight the House GOP and we must fight today.
“Today, I declare war on the Republican Leadership of the United States House of Representatives. … We must scalp one member. That member’s name is Ken Calvert.”
Erickson said in an e-mail to The Hill, “There were plenty of other Republicans who would have been eligible and good. Instead, they made a lateral move from Doolittle to Calvert, who has not only had several questionable land deals, but also an arrest.”
A crook being replaced by a crook
This is amazing. Doolittle who is under investigation is being replaced by Calvert who is under investigation. And I see that the media is not discussing Calvert's encounter with a prostitute several years back. Talk about family values. And now President Bush is replacing the DC Madam client Tobias' position with a racist. The reputation of the Republican party has gone down the tubes. I swear the entire Republican party were snatched by the invasion of the body snatchers! The party is gone beyond recognition.
SP Biloxi
Justice League
May 12, 2007 Billions in Oil
May 12, 2007
Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Says
By JAMES GLANZ
NYT
Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.
Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.
The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control significant parts of the country’s oil industry...
The draft report, expected to be released within the next week, was prepared by the United States Government Accountability Office with the help of government energy analysts, and was provided to The New York Times by a separate government office that received a review copy. The accountability office declined to provide a copy or to discuss the draft...
Several analysts outside the government agreed that such a large discrepancy indicated that there was either a major smuggling operation in place or that Iraq was incapable to generate accurate production figures...
Mr. Verleger added that if the oil was being smuggled out of Iraq, there would be a ready market for it, particularly in smaller refineries not controlled by large Western companies in places like China, the Caribbean and even small European countries.
The report also contains the most comprehensive assessment yet of the billions of dollars the United States and Iraq spent on rebuilding the oil and electricity infrastructure, which is falling further and further behind its performance goals.
Despite those enormous expenditures, the performance is far short of official goals, and in some cases seems to be declining further. The average output of Iraq’s national electricity grid in 2006, for example, was 4,300 megawatts, about equal to its value before the 2003 invasion. By February of this year, the figure had fallen still further, to 3,800 megawatts, the report says...
The discrepancies in the Iraqi oil figures are broadly reminiscent of the ones that turned up when some of the same energy department experts examined Iraq’s oil infrastructure in the wake of the oil-for-food scandals of the Saddam Hussein era. In a United Nations-sponsored program that was supposed to trade Iraq’s oil for food, Mr. Hussein and other smugglers were handsomely profiting from the program, investigations determined.
Surprised?
What strikes one is the inevitability of such a thing as this. Odds are that this investigation will be quashed before it goes much further.
Halliburton, originally an oilfield services company, now more diversified, in 1974 acquired Brown & Root, a civil engineering and construction firm of Houston. This Brown & Root was LBJ's (do you remember?) main prop and money bags from the start of LBJ's career. It is a classic example of an alliance between a politico and a construction firm by which each prospered. Brown & Root did all construction work in Viet Nam and piled up the loot. Now, as Halliburton, they do the same in Iraq for George Bush. Dick Cheney was the elder Bush's Secretary of Defence, remember, and so was installed as president of Halliburton until Junior got his turn.
The parallels between LBJ and Viet Nam and George Bush in Iraq are strong, both Texans and absolute political bosses of their state, both involving their country by fraudulent means in wars which hurt this nation. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave LBJ Congressional authorization for his Viet Nam fiasco, was sold to the public on a contrived incident, and now we find ourselves conned into Iraq by George Bush on a similar fraud.
There is one difference: LBJ never lost complete control of Congress, for his party maintained its majority all those years. Of the two, it will be seen that George Bush is the worst.
" Woe to the Statesman...
"Woe to the statesman whose reasons for war do not sound so plausible at the war's end as they did at the start..."
.....Bismarck
Woe to the statesman
who manufactures justifications for war and thrives on the havoc, prolonging it for the opportunity of filling the pockets of his friends and supporters with public funds and stuffing his campaign coffers with their grateful rebates.
Line of succession
After the Vice President, who is next in sucession to the office of President? Is it not the Speaker of the House?
Just spinning out the possibilities, and it seems that we might see both Bush and Cheny removed from office.
An unhappy thing for Ma & Pa Clinton, because gone for good are the hopes for another go-round.
Tangle within a tangle.
Syndicate this content
more than conservative
In fact, this is the blog of conservative Republicans.
And they all hate corruption, like people everywhere.
Most of them feel betrayed, as well they should.