A tin ear

And a thick skull:

American International Group Inc. spent $440,000 on a conference at a California resort less than a week after an $85 billion government takeover, lawmakers said.

The bill from the St. Regis resort in Monarch Beach included $23,380 for spa services, according to Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Waxman led questioning Tuesday of former AIG Chief Executive Officers Martin Sullivan and Robert Willumstad as Congress probes events that led to federal intervention.

"Average Americans are suffering economically," Waxman, a California Democrat, said in his opening statement. "Yet less than one week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation."

That's the TAXPAYERS' MONEY that you AIG guys are wasting with your unearned sense of entitlement. Americans own your company now, and we can dock your pay for this behavior.

Maybe we should fire your asses and sell your yachts so you can join the foreclosure crowd you helped create.

Update 10/9: Very interesting discussion about this 'perk' over at the Consumerist. (The comments are illuminating, be sure to note there are comments to the comments...)

Doing it the old fashioned way....

He stole it?

The head of failed US investment bank Lehman Brothers has told Congress that he took home about $300m in pay and bonuses over the past eight years.

Richard Fuld, whose firm went bankrupt last month, made the statement during testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Just what DID he do to earn 300 million ... MILLION .. dollars? Besides running the company into the ground, I mean.

OMG!!! Update shared by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors in comments:

“From two very senior sources – one incredibly senior source – that he went to the gym after … Lehman was announced as going under. He was on a treadmill with a heart monitor on. Someone was in the corner, pumping iron and he walked over and he knocked him out cold. And frankly after having watched this, I’d have done the same too.”
Ward determined Fuld deserved the beating based on his testimony before the committee.
“I thought he was shameless,” Ward said. “I thought it was appalling. He blamed everyone. He blamed, as you say, ‘naked short sellers’ over and over in case we didn’t get the point, when in fact hedge funds like Harbinger had money locked up in Lehman and was shorting it to try and make the most of the money that they already had. He blamed everybody but himself.”
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008 and its assets were later snatched up by the British bank Barclays for $1.35 billion, which included Lehman’s Midtown Manhattan office tower with a $960 million price tag.

Update 10/9: You can vote whether or not the punch was warranted.

Sibel Edmonds is finally getting attention

And look who has run this article! The American Conservative:

Charismatic and articulate, the 37-year-old Edmonds has deftly worked the system to get as much of her story out as possible, on one occasion turning to French television to produce a documentary entitled “Kill the Messenger.” Passionate in her convictions, she has sometimes alienated her own supporters and ridden roughshod over critics who questioned her assumptions. But despite her shortcomings in making her case and the legitimate criticism that she may be overreaching in some of her conclusions, Edmonds comes across as credible. Her claims are specific, fact-based, and can be documented in detail. There is presumably an existing FBI file that could demonstrate the accuracy of many of her charges.

[snip]

Edmonds’s revelations have attracted corroboration in the form of anonymous letters apparently written by FBI employees. There have been frequent reports of FBI field agents being frustrated by the premature closure of cases dealing with foreign spying, particularly when those cases involve Israel, and the State Department has frequently intervened to shut down investigations based on “sensitive foreign diplomatic relations.” One such anonymous letter, the veracity of which cannot be determined, cites transcripts of wiretaps involving Marc Grossman and a Turkish Embassy official between August and December 2001, described above, in which Grossman warned the Turk that Brewster Jennings was a CIA cover company. If the allegation can be documented from FBI files, the exposure of the Agency cover mechanism took place long before journalist Robert Novak outed the company in his column on Valerie Plame in 2003.

[snip]

Curiously, the states-secrets gag order binding Edmonds, while put in place by DOJ in 2002, was not requested by the FBI but by the State Department and Pentagon—which employed individuals she identified as being involved in criminal activities. If her allegations are frivolous, that order would scarcely seem necessary. It would have been much simpler for the government to marginalize her by demonstrating that she was poorly informed or speculating about matters outside her competency. Under the Bush administration, the security gag order has been invoked to cover up incompetence or illegality, not to protect national security. It has recently been used to conceal the illegal wiretaps of the warrantless surveillance program, the allegations of torture and the CIA’s rendition program, and to shield the telecom industry for its collaboration in illegal eavesdropping.

Both Senators Grassley and Leahy, a Republican and a Democrat, who interviewed her at length in 2002, attest to Edmonds’s believability. The Department of Justice inspector general investigation into her claims about the translations unit and an internal FBI review confirmed most of her allegations. Former FBI senior counterintelligence officer John Cole has independently confirmed her report of the presence of Pakistani intelligence service penetrations within the FBI translators’ pool.

Edmonds wasn’t angling to become a media darling. She would have preferred to testify under oath before a congressional committee that could offer legal protection and subpoena documents and witnesses to support her case. She claims that a number of FBI agents would be willing to testify, though she has not named them.

But this information is not good:

Prior to 2006, Congressman Henry Waxman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee promised Edmonds that if the Democrats gained control of Congress, he would order hearings into her charges. But following the Democratic sweep, he has been less forthcoming, failing to schedule hearings, refusing to take Edmonds’s calls, and recently stonewalling all inquiries into the matter. It is generally believed that Waxman, a strong supporter of Israel, is nervous about exposing an Israeli lobby role in the corruption that Edmonds describes. It is also suspected that Waxman fears that the revelations might open a Pandora’s box, damaging Republicans and Democrats alike.

[snip]

Sibel Edmonds makes a number of accusations about specific criminal behavior that appear to be extraordinary but are credible enough to warrant official investigation. Her allegations are documentable: an existing FBI file should determine whether they are accurate. It’s true that she probably knows only part of the story, but if that part is correct, Congress and the Justice Department should have no higher priority. Nothing deserves more attention than the possibility of ongoing national-security failures and the proliferation of nuclear weapons with the connivance of corrupt senior government officials.

C'mon, Waxman! You've been a hero in pursuing corruption and injustice so far. Take on Sibel Edmonds' case and let the truth be told. Corruption on this level must be addressed even though it looks like it's both sides of the aisle.

The cowboy mentality unleashed in Iraq

The Wild West meets HALO 3:

It was Nov. 27, 2004. Blackwater 61 -- its official flight code -- was a transport flight operated by Presidential Airways, a subsidiary of the US security contractor Blackwater. It handled airlifts for the Pentagon in the area, as part of a $35 million contract. On board with Miller and several crates of illumination mortar rounds were the Blackwater crew -- pilot Noel English, 37, co-pilot Loren Hammer, 35, and flight mechanic Melvin Rowe, 43 -- and two other army passengers: Lieutenant Michael McMahon, 41, and Chief Warrant Officer Travis Grogan, 31.

Shortly after 7 a.m., the propeller plane took off. The weather was good, the visibility was clear. Roughly 45 minutes later, the plane smashed into a rocky canyon wall high in the mountains.

The crash of Blackwater 61, with its blood-curdling details only now fully revealed, has long been a forgotten chapter in the drama of that security company. Even more so: It exposes the cynicism of a war, which has become almost a videogame for its warriors. The doom of that flight, chillingly documented in official investigative reports and a dramatic cockpit voice recording, paints a picture of a campaign between audacity and folly.

The tragedy only came to full light this week during Blackwater CEO Erik Prince's testimony before the US House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee. When chairman Henry Waxman, a Democrat, broached the subject briefly, Prince denied all responsibility: "The Air Force investigated the incident, and they found it was pilot error."

[snip]

Blackwater itself initially denied having anything to do with Presidential Airways and Flight 61. Later, it called the reports by the NTSB and the Army CIB "erroneous" and "politically motivated." They were only intended to cover for the military's failures, Joseph E. Schmitz, chief operating officer and general counsel for the Prince Group, the parent company of Blackwater and Presidential told the News & Observer newspaper.

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, too, showed himself unmoved when the case came up in the hearing on Tuesday. Instead, he defended his fun-loving crash pilots: "I disagree with the assertion that they acted like cowboys." Besides, he added drily: "Accidents happen."

And this:

BAGHDAD, Oct. 7 — The Iraqi prime minister’s office said Sunday that the government’s investigation had determined that Blackwater USA private security guards who shot Iraqi civilians three weeks ago in a Baghdad square sprayed gunfire in nearly every direction, committed “deliberate murder” and should be punished accordingly.

[snip]

Mr. Jassim said that little information had come from the Americans and that Iraqi investigators had not been granted access to the guards. But he said the Americans had promised to cooperate.

In previously undisclosed details in the government’s final report, the Iraqi police documented that Blackwater guards shot in almost every direction, killing or wounding people in a near 360-degree circle around Nisour Square.

The thick file amassed for the investigation asserts that bullets reached bystanders who were as far as 200 feet away and nearly on the opposite side of the square.

Even the military is having a hard time:

PATROL BASE HAWKS, Iraq (AP) -- When U.S. sentries fatally shot three guards near an Iraqi-manned checkpoint south of Baghdad, they thought they were targeting enemy fighters planting roadside bombs, according to the American commander of the region.

The shootings, which are still under investigation, underscore a new dilemma facing U.S. troops as former fighters join forces against extremists and Iraqis are increasingly forced to take up arms to protect themselves - how does one distinguish them from the enemy?

The U.S. military said the American troops shot the three civilians Thursday near a checkpoint manned by local members of a U.S.-allied group helping provide security in the village of Abu Lukah, near Musayyib, a Shiite-dominated town 40 miles south of Baghdad.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division that controls territory south of Baghdad, stressed the investigation was continuing but said initial results showed that U.S. troops fired on the checkpoint after spotting what appeared to be enemy forces planting roadside bombs.

"We are not looking to see who made a mistake but rather see what we can learn from that particular event," Lynch told The Associated Press Saturday during a whirlwind tour of patrol bases in the area.

Lynch said it's critical to "better coordinate between coalition forces, Iraqi security forces and concerned citizens," as he calls the vigilante-style groups that have sprouted up across the country to fight extremists.

The comments reflect rising concerns about possible friendly fire killings that could threaten to undermine the U.S. strategy of seeking alliances with local Sunni and Shiite leaders to fill the vacuum left by a national police force that has been plagued by corruption allegations and infiltration by militants.

Incidents of shooting of civilians at checkpoints has drawn allegations by many, in Iraq and beyond, that U.S. troops and contractors are quick to fire and ask question later.

Hold still! No sudden moves, dammit! We are bringing democracy to your country! So smile!

Fixing facts to fit their own reality

Works until reality hits them square in the face.

Think Progress:

Philip Cooney is the former chief of staff to President Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality who made hundreds of edits to government climate reports in ways that played down links between human activity and global warming. He worked for the American Petroleum Institute before coming to the Bush administration, and left the White House for Exxon shortly after his edits were revealed.

Cooney appeared yesterday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) told Cooney he wanted to determine whether what is “driving the policy of this administration on global warming and climate change is the science or whether it’s something called the politically correct science.”

Cooney admitted it was the latter: “My objective was to align these communications with the administration’s stated policy” of climate skepticism.

And as Think Progress notes, fitting facts to a pretend reality should sound familiar.