Where in the world is Karl Rove these days?

Judiciary Committee Roll Call on Karl Rove and Contempt

House Judiciary Committee Roll Call Republican member votes:

House Judiciary Committee Roll Call Democratic member votes:

New Presidential Candidate for 08?

7/25/08: HJC Democratic Members Opening Statements

John Conyers Opening Statements
Congressional Office: (202) 225-5126

7/25/08 #6 Scott Opening Statements
Congressional Office: (202) (202) 225-8351


7/25/08 #8 Lofgren opening statements
Congressional Office: (202) 225-3072


7/25/08 #10 Nadler opening statements
Congressional Office: (202) 225-5635


7/25/08 #12 Lee opening statements "WE THE PEOPLE"
Congressional Office: (202) 225-3816


7/25/08 #14 Cohen opening statements
Congressional Office: (202) 225-3265


7/25/08 #15 Johnson opening statements
Congressional Office: (202) 225-1605


7/25/08 #16 Baldwin opening statements
Congressional Office: (202) 225-2906


7/25/08 #17 Ellison opening statements
Congressional Office:(202) 225-4755

Beam me up Scotty - there are only liars here on Planet Earth

Scott McClellan takes on BushCo

Scotty - once the White House mouth piece of lies has written a book. Surprise surprise!

It's called "What Happened" and its publisher, Public Affairs, at its Web site carries this brief excerpt:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."

JMCO: Okay Nancy is this enough evidence of possible CRIMES and TREASON?

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003675070

How I got hooked on a soap and how it relates to FCC media consolidation plans

Confessions of a serial Soap Opera Addict

I lived in South Africa (RSA) at the end of the Apartheid era (88 to 91). In fact, when I first moved to RSA, only 11 hours of TV was available for the entire week. And, all of the TV network programming was handled by the government controlled media company called SABC.

I was rather skeptical of any news I read in RSA as it was all controlled by an Apartheid-led government. I was as an American leaving in a society that had no "freedom of the press". Later around 1990 - 1991, SABC did allow the live broadcasting of CNN one hour a day. I used to tape this hour of news to watch. It was during one of the Soweto uprisings and CNN was a doing a live report with photos of military abuses. SABC immediately cut that feed and put in a still photo of an SABC journalist saying "and now live from Soweto SABC is reporting yada yada".

With this FCC Media Consolidation act - this will become our reality in America. P.W. Botha - the last "apartheid dictator" of RSA would come on TV drunk. I thought those "Presidential" speeches were a joke - because the man was so obviously a "wet brain". Fast forward 15 years in USA and the food for fodder Bush offers Jon Stewart for the Daily Show. RSA also had something called "Information Freedom act". I was preparing a presentation as a keynote speaker at a SAPICS conference, I needed to get back copies of the Economist. I had to put in a formal request to Pretoria to get a six month old copy of the Economist to be mailed to me in RSA! When I received the copy of the Economist - pages had been removed at the discretion of the South African government censorship.

Final connection of the B&B and being in a "media blackout" country. With a government controlled media and still living in a relative healthy democracy called America in the late 80's, I was hungry for any type of non biased programming that was available. SABC chose the Bold and the Beautiful soap opera to take up 1.5 hours of the 11 available TV hours programming weekly. Talk about the dumbing down of your citizens!

It was not until I returned to the states that I realized that the B&B shown in RSA was 5 years behind. Imagine my surprise when I realized I had missed five years of libido teasing story lines! How did I fill myself in on those years? I moved to Italia for a year contract & viola - in Italia the B&B programming was only year year behind. So I got to fill myself in on 4 years of missed story lines and practice Italian at the same time. If you are passing judgment on me right now - may I remind you in the last couple of years our media has been obsessed with OJ Simpson, Chandra Levy, Monica Lewinsky, Anna Nicole Smith, etc.

One additional point I might add to Mr. Moyers' great program at the end, is that the LOCAL newspaper market (along with the Hispanic market) is the largest ad growth market in the industry.

PBS two relevant blogs by Rick Karr on Media Consolidation:

Media Consolidation: A primer on making your opinion heard blog: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/11/media_consolidation_a_primer_o_1.html#more

The Net @ Risk update Blog http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/11/the_net_risk_update_1.html

Media Ownership Act of 2007 U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MS) have introduced legislation to halt the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) "fast march" toward easing media ownership rules.

S.2332 : A bill to promote transparency in the adoption of new media ownership rules by the Federal Communications Commission, and to establish an independent panel to make recommendations on how to increase the representation of women and minorities in broadcast media ownership.

Committees: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Cosponsors (11) Sen Biden, Joseph R., Jr. [DE] - 11/8/2007 Sen Cantwell, Maria [WA] - 11/8/2007 Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [NY] - 11/8/2007 Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] - 11/13/2007 Sen Feinstein, Dianne [CA] - 11/8/2007 Sen Kerry, John F. [MA] - 11/8/2007 Sen Lott, Trent [MS] - 11/8/2007 Sen Nelson, Bill [FL] - 11/8/2007 Sen Obama, Barack [IL] - 11/8/2007 Sen Snowe, Olympia J. [ME] - 11/8/2007 Sen Tester, Jon [MT] - 11/14/2007
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d110:41:./temp/~bdLIrN:@@@P|/bss/d110query.html|

Bill Moyers: Media Consolidation Program Nov 16th

State Dept IG recuses himself from Blackwater Investigation

House Oversight Committee chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman held on Nov 14th. State Dept Inspector General Howard Krongard was before the committee. The IG's official responsible is to ensure the agency operates ethically. The IG recused himself from any investigations related to Blackwater Worldwide after admitting to the Oversight Committee that his brother is a member of Blackwater's advisory board.

The brother is Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard. Former Exec. Director of CIA - appointed by Tenet in March, 2001. Prior he was CEO/Chair of Alex Brown - Deutsche Bank (oldest Investment Firm) and Banker's Trust.

AB “Buzzy” Krongard resigned from the CIA shortly after the arrival of Porter Johnston Goss in September 2004. While at the CIA, he was the link connecting the CIA, Erik Prince and Blackwater. Through his influence, Blackwater was able to receive its first no-bid contract.

In March, 2005 , Krongard was appointed as an outside US director to the Global Board of Directors organized to oversee and coordinate the worldwide operations of DLA Piper, one of the world’s leading law firms.

His name is brought up in conjunction with investigations into suspected 9/11-related insider trading because of timely Wall Street trades allegedly made through the investment bank he used to head.

These clips are from the end of the Oversight Hearing. btw, yes I got creative and I am proud of it.

He_Ain't_Heavy_He's_My_Brother video

Still want more information on the Krongard brothers? Great article just posted on Mother Jones, authored by Bruce Falconer.

http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2007/11/Krongard-Blackwater-State-Department-Brother.html


November 17th Update

The lawyer for State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard asked on Saturday that he not be called to testify before Congress on discrepancies between his statements and those of his brother over the brother's ties to the Blackwater security firm.

"There is no legitimate purpose to be gained by publicly pitting two brothers against each other," Barbara Van Gelder wrote in a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the government oversight panel. "