So the Inspector General for the State Department Howard Krongard has recused himself from decisions related to the investigation of Blackwater, Erik Prince’s military contracting firm, because his brother is a member of Blackwater’s board of directors.
And we know he only did this AFTER he was whacked by Rep. Elijah Cummings – with evidence that proved conclusively that his brother is a member of Blackwater’s board of directors – for lying claiming plausible deniability of that fact to the House Oversight Committee.
Why should we care? I mean, really. Why should we care?
After all, the Bush administration has made a religion (Ha! I made a funny…Bush, religion…) out of nepotism and cronyism. Let me refresh your memories with just a few of the most egregious examples:
1. Dick Cheney conducted secret energy policy planning sessions even before this administration took office that included (as far as we can tell – after all, they operated in secrecy) only great and good friends from his oil and energy industry years. Because of this policy, which include stockpiling oil for the strategic reserves in order to drive up oil prices and waging war in Iraq to gain control of their oil resources for American oil companies, Cheney’s cronies (including Cheney himself who has never divested his stock in Halliburton) have made billions, and gas now costs roughly 200% of what it did when the Bush administration took office.
2. Cheney’s wife Lynne has become de facto head of the National Endowment of the Humanities and is using her influence to get rid of pesky issues like historical fact as well as push her main personal agenda, which is to make NEH reflect the thinking of the neocons like her husband and her great and good friend Bill Bennett (Remember him? He was the Education Secretary – and compulsive gambler who thinks himself a moralist – who thought the best thing we could do was get rid of the Department of Education). Though she is not officially head of the agency, close friends are installed at the most important positions.
3. George W. Bush has made No Child Left Untested Behind the centerpiece of his administration’s train the proles not to think education policy. The initiative, which ruins school system budgets and enriches the testing industry, has made his disgraced brother Neil (he of the S&L scandals) millions of taxpayer dollars selling test prep software to the states forced to help students pass the mind numbing tests required to meet the unfunded federal mandate.
So the Inspector General of the State Department has a brother on the board of directors of Blackwater, USA, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Because of this he has used his position to provide cover for those who would turn the United States into their own personal ATM’s. Until absolutely shamed and humiliated by The House Oversight Committee, he had no intention of allowing conflict of interest to stop him from making sure the company his brother serves raked in as much money as the American taxpayers would allow them to.
He just doing what his superiors have indicated is the Bush administration way. He’s helping his brother make money – and to hell with what’s right or good for the country.
We’ve done nothing to Bush and Cheney for their actions. We’ve elected a Democratic Congress and they’ve rolled over to have their bellies rubbed at Bush’s command. Why get exercised over Howard Krongard?
Why should we care?
Categories: Crime/Corruption, World
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
The US was a great country in its day. But that was a long time ago.
The great investigative story yet to come is how Bush & Dick will cash out from their public service careers as billionaires as a result of skimming part of the money awarded to private contractors ending up in offshore accounts. How else can Bush afford a 4000-acre ranch in Paraguay with round-the-clock protection.
All the stories are there in the news, like the $12 billion in cash transported from the NYC branch of the Treasury, by airplane to Iraq, where it was handed out without being accounted for. $9 billion just disappeared without a trace and $3 billion spent on projects without oversight. Which has been the story all along; no oversight and no accounting of the money that’s been spent. All looted from the Treasury since 2001.
And don’t forget Reagan’s $1 trillion War on Drugs which helped lead to the prison industry.
And this is why the US Republic will fall to make way for another one.
A Conspiracy of Two Parties: The Grand Delusion
Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative….none of it really matters as the only two parties in the US are the “Haves”, and the “Have Nots.”
Jeff
whos to say a new world order wouldn’t be bad? (what are the chances of a Hitler in my lifetime?) stop talking about petty things like $ and refer to the bigger picture – power and the direction of it.
Then this:
At this point, I think he’s embarrassing his family.
I find it amazing anyone believes the current administration. I’ve never heard or seen as much misdirection, lying, hiding and stealing as this group has done and the Republican legislatures follow along like frightened rabbits. Every once in a while a republican legislator sounds independent, but then votes with his party. Everybody is screaming at the Democrats for not doing anything. But it’s the republican politicians who don’t have the backbone to do what’s right for this country. A majority by only a handfull is not enough to force the President into acting responsibly and everyone should understand that. I really believe that “conservative compassion” should be called by what is really is: “hate legislation”.