Isn't it ironic?

More from Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Dickinson, naval officer who testified in Palfrey's trial. Here is how Ms. Dickinson found Pamela Martin and Associates:


According to a court transcript, Dickinson testified that she found an advertisement for Palfrey’s company, Pamela Martin and Associates, during an Internet search. She then placed a phone call that set in motion a series of events that would eventually derail a promising Navy career, one that saw Dickinson rise from seaman to instructor at the Naval Supply Corps School in Athens, Ga.

Dickinson has since been removed from that post, has received a punitive letter of reprimand and may face more administrative actions, according to a Navy spokesman.

The call she made based on the Internet ad was answered by a woman who identified herself as Julia; several witnesses testified that “Julia” was an alias of Palfrey’s.

After Dickinson asked for work, she said the woman asked her to send a copy of her driver’s license and a picture, and then alluded to what would be expected of her.

“She just described how an evening would take place, and she had asked me a question, something like, ‘You know you’re not going there just to chat. Right?’”

“Yes,” Dickinson said she responded, indicating that she knew more than conversation would be expected. Palfrey then made arrangements for Dickinson to meet a man at a home in a Maryland suburb of Washington.

Dickinson described the encounter.

And this part is interesting. She can't remember how many appointments she went on, yet she remembered having sex with clients at least 4 or five times:

She worked for Palfrey for about six months starting in October 2005 and visited an unknown number of men, having sex with customers all but “maybe four, five times.”

Dickinson testified that she did not remember how many “appointments” she went on, but phone records released by Palfrey show more than 200 calls between her office and a cell phone registered to a Rebecca Dickinson of Atlanta. Dickinson did two tours in nearby Athens before serving at the academy.

And this part raised a red flag for me:

The last time Palfrey said she heard from Dickinson was when Dickinson sent her an e-mail in October 2006, asking to be put back to work after she had resolved some personal issues that caused her to take time off.

“If you need some extra help, I would be glad to work for you again, as a backup or regularly. If you are interested, please just let me know, and if not, I understand,” the e-mail read.

By that time, Palfrey had learned that she was under investigation and her company had folded. Palfrey said she never responded to the e-mail.

“I needed the money. Yes, I did,” Dickinson said, when Palfrey’s defense lawyer, Preston Burton, asked her if she sent the e-mail.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/04/navy_dickinson_update_041208w/

October 2006... That was the same month in which Ms. Palfrey' home was raid. Here was the timeline in that month:

Oct 4. 2006: Palfrey's home raided

Oct 9, 2006 Smoking gun posted Palfrey’s seizure warrant court documents by the IRS and US Postal Inspection Service . According to website, the headline was “Feds target escort service for money laundering, prostitution probe.” There were talks about possible connection to Jeane’s charges to Cunningham scandal.

October 10, 2006: Jeane’s assets were frozen.

Also, I wrote 15 articles on Ms. Palfrey's case. In my first article on Newsinkling.org in July 2007, I asked Ms. Palfrey in an email her encounter of the events that lead up to her assets being frozen and home being raid by the FBI. Here was part of the article:

From Newsinkling.org:

According to Ms. Palfrey, on October 3, 2006, U.S. Postal Inspector’s Joe Clark and Maria E. Couvillon attempted to gain access to her home under false pretenses posing as “couple being transferred from the D.C. area to San Francisco.” They tried to get her real estate agent to show them the property. Despite several pleas, they couldn’t gain access to the property since Ms. Palfrey’s agent didn’t have the key. Ms. Palfrey was in Germany closing escrow on her home.

On October 4, 2006, according to newspaper accounts, twelve agents stormed Ms. Palfrey’s home and stayed for some four hours using the ‘stale’ search warrant as justification. On that same day in Germany, Ms. Palfrey’s attempt to open an online Charles Schwab brokerage account was unsuccessful. That was the day in which the U.S. treasury froze her assets. On October 10, 2006, Ms. Palfrey returned back to the US to her assets being seized.

Women dominate Spanish cabinet.

Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has unveiled his new cabinet, which for the first time includes more women than men.

The former housing minister, Carme Chacon, one of the rising stars of Spain's Socialist party, becomes its first ever female defence minister.

While there are five new faces overall, several key members of his last cabinet remain in place.
Mr Zapatero's Socialist party won re-election last month.

"I feel very proud that there are more women ministers than men," Mr Zapatero said, after being sworn in by King Juan Carlos.

Slumping economy

Nine of the ministers are women, and eight are men; when the prime minister is included, the cabinet is equally divided by gender.

Although Mr Zapatero opted for continuity in several key portfolios - including foreign affairs, the economy and the interior - he also created an equality ministry, headed by a woman, Bibiana Aido, 31.

At his inaugural news conference, Mr Zapatero said she was the youngest minister Spain had had.

Mr Zapatero also reappointed Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, a mainstay of his previous government, as deputy prime minister.

Lawmakers had approved his reappointment as government leader on Friday, formally handing him the challenges of a slumping economy and resurgent Basque militants.

He also will have to continue to govern without an absolute majority in parliament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7344383.stm

US: Iran #1 threat in Iraq.

Memo to Bush: So? American people are tuned out the idiot President.

Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.
The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

In congressional hearings this week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said the U.S. military has driven al-Qaeda from Baghdad, Anbar province and central Iraq, and he depicted the group as now largely concentrated in a reduced territory around the northern city of Mosul.

During their Washington visit, Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker barely mentioned al-Qaeda in Iraq but spoke extensively of Iran.

With "al-Qaeda in retreat and disarray" in Iraq, said one official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, "we see other obstacles that were under the waterline more clearly. . . . The Iranian-armed militias are now the biggest threat to internal order."

Partly in response to advice from Petraeus and Crocker, the administration has initiated an interagency assessment of what is known about Iranian activities and intentions, how to combat them and how to capitalize on them. The review stems from an internal conclusion, following last week's fighting, that the administration lacked a comprehensive understanding and a sophisticated approach.

President Bush reiterated yesterday that if Iran continues to help militias in Iraq, "then we'll deal with them," saying in an interview with ABC News that "we're learning more about their habits and learning more about their routes" for infiltrating or sending equipment.

But he also reaffirmed that he has no desire to go to war with Tehran. Saying that his job is to "solve these issues diplomatically," Bush suggested heightened interest in reaching a solution with other countries. "You can't solve these problems unilaterally. You're going to need a multilateral forum."

Iran has long been seen as a spoiler in Iraq, with such strong ties to all of the major Shiite political and militia groups, including that of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that other Arab countries have begun to regard Iraq as almost a client state of Iran.

The recent fighting in Basra, which began when Maliki launched a military offensive against the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, revealed a threat and an opportunity, officials said.

U.S. military officials said that much of the plentiful, high quality weaponry the militia used in Basra and in rocket attacks against the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government are located, was recently manufactured in Iran. At the same time, the militia's improved targeting and tactics indicated stepped-up Iranian training.

Interrogations of four leaders of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force captured in Iraq in December 2006 and January 2007 have also bolstered U.S. conclusions that portions of Sadr's militia are directed from Tehran.

Despite earlier indications that Iranian backing for Iraqi armed groups and the flow of Iranian arms have waned, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that "this action in Basra was very convincing that indeed they haven't." Basra "gave us much more insight into their involvement in many activities."

Gates, who appeared with Mullen at a Pentagon news conference, said of Iran: "We are going to be as aggressive as we possibly can be inside Iraq in trying to counter their efforts." Iraqi security operations in Basra, he said, have been "a real eye-opener" for Maliki's government.

Petraeus told Congress that Maliki had launched the offensive hastily and with inadequate preparation, leading to a standoff and the need to call in U.S. air support. During the first days of the Basra operation, U.S. officials were sharply critical of Maliki's timing and performance; some worried that the attack against Sadr forces was less an offensive against what he called "criminals" in Basra than it was an attempt to win political advantage over a rival Shiite group before upcoming elections.

Iran's brokering of a tentative cease-fire among Shiite political groups and the militia in Tehran added to U.S. consternation.

"The importance of Iranian influence in facilitating the discussion between different political factions was of significant importance," Petraeus told Pentagon reporters yesterday. Administration officials worried that Iran appeared in control of events in Iraq, while the United States seemed weak and uninformed.

But more recently, U.S. officials have seen a possible advantage in the situation. Maliki's willingness to go after fellow Shiites attracted support from other political groups in Iraq, including Sunnis and Kurds, that have long been suspicious of his sectarian leanings. It also gave Washington a talking point to use with Sunni Arab governments in the region that have shunned him. "It's an opportunity to make him look better inside Iraq and to make a better argument to the Arabs," an official said.

The administration has long tried in vain to build Arab diplomatic and economic support for the Iraqi government. But the Arabs, led by Saudi Arabia, consider Shiite Iran a competitor for regional dominance and have rejected Maliki as "a stooge for Tehran," as one U.S. official called him.
"The Saudis appear to feel that the current Iraqi government is pretty much in thrall to Iran," said a State Department official involved in Middle East policy. The administration's hope, "in the wake of Maliki's decisions on Basra," the official said, "is that the Saudis will take a step back and take another look."

In a news conference Thursday, Crocker dismissed Arab concerns about a recent visit to Baghdad by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It's not the fact of the Ahmadinejad visit, but the absence of visits by other neighbors that it's important to focus on. There hasn't been a single visit, even by an Arab cabinet minister, to Baghdad. As Iraq grapples with the challenges Iran is posing, it could certainly do with some Arab support."

After consultations with Crocker and Petraeus this week, Bush cut short their Washington visit and dispatched them to Riyadh. During a luncheon at The Washington Post, Crocker said that at a White House meeting Thursday morning, they "reviewed where we are in Iraq."

The message to the Saudis, he said, "is going to be . . . it is time, more than time, for the Arab states to step forward and engage constructively with Iraq. Get their embassies open, get ambassadors on the ground, consider visits, implement debt relief, treat Iraq like the country it is, which is a central part of the Arab world."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041101606_pf.html

Cheney’s bogus oil argument.

Crooks and Liars:

Consider Dick Cheney’s remarks on Sean Hannity’s radio show.

HANNITY: If we pull out too early, what do you believe the consequences would be? […]

CHENEY: For us to walk away from Iraq I think would have at least that bad an effect, probably worse, because if al Qaeda were to take over big parts of Iraq, among other things, they would acquire control of a significant oil resource. Iraq has almost 100 billion barrel reserves, producing 2.5-3 million barrels of oil a day. If you take a terrorist organization like al Qaeda and give it that kind of revenue, there’s no telling the amount of trouble they could get into.

A Vet’s Fight For Benefits.

Truly a shame..

Crooks and Liars:

The Capital-Journal:

Walking up and down the sidewalk near the Colmery-O’Neil VA Medical Center, Tim Sanders looks like a model for the “Army Strong” ad campaign.

Except, that is, for the placard he is holding high proclaiming, “Vets are losing their benefits.” […]
After tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is considered 50 percent disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs. He suffers physical, emotional and now bureaucratic problems. […]

Now 32, he is entitled to care at the VA medical center and normally receives a VA check for $730 each month. This month his check was reduced to $196. He can’t pay his rent or other bills. […]

“I believe our government is being a tyrant. I’m proud of my country. I’m not proud of my government,” he said. …(read on)

My thoughts of week one of the DC Madam trial; Open thread.

Here is the court document of Palfrey from Preston Burton in June 2007

Preston Burton filed a court document requesting a motion of dismissal of Ms. Palfrey's case for unconstitutional application of local prostitution statutes. He stated in his filing that there is no federal crime of prostitution. And Burton is correct. Her case wasn't a federal crime of prostitution. Let's look at the state prostitution laws in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia:

Prostitution laws in Maryland:

§ 11-306: House of prostitution (a) Prohibited.- A person may not knowingly:
(1) engage in prostitution or assignation by any means;
(2) keep, set up, occupy, maintain, or operate a building, structure, or conveyance for prostitution or assignation;
(3) allow a building, structure, or conveyance owned or under the person's control to be used for prostitution or assignation;
(4) allow or agree to allow a person into a building, structure, or conveyance for prostitution or assignation; or
(5) procure or solicit or offer to procure or solicit for prostitution or assignation.
(b) Penalty.- A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction is subject to imprisonment not exceeding 1 year or a fine not exceeding $500 or both.
http://www.prostitutionprocon.org/maryland.htm

Prostitution law in Virginia:

§ 18.2-356: Receiving money for procuring person Any person who shall receive any money or other valuable thing for or on account of procuring for or placing in a house of prostitution or elsewhere any person for the purpose of causing such person to engage in unlawful sexual intercourse or any act in violation of § 18.2-361 shall be guilty of a Class 4 felony.
§ 18.2-357: Receiving money from earnings of male or female prostitute Any person who shall knowingly receive any money or other valuable thing from the earnings of any male or female engaged in prostitution, except for a consideration deemed good and valuable in law, shall be guilty of pandering, punishable as a Class 4 felony.
http://www.prostitutionprocon.org/virginia.htm

Prostitution law in D.C.

§ 22-2712: Operating house of prostitution Any person who, within the District of Columbia, knowingly, shall accept, receive, levy, or appropriate any money or other valuable thing, without consideration other than the furnishing of a place for prostitution or the servicing of a place for prostitution, from the proceeds or earnings of any individual engaged in prostitution shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 5 years and by a fine of not more than $1,000.
http://www.prostitutionprocon.org/dc.htm#9

And of course, RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization) was the only way to nail Ms. Palfrey on federal racketeering because this statute carries a much stiffer sentence. RICO provides for extended penalties for criminal acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. RICO is used to prosecute organized crime figures. And the government labeled Pamela Martin and Associates as a criminal business.

This has only been week one of the DC Madam trial. All of the hype of this trial brought by the government is just that: hype. From the opening arguments to the mentioning of STDs and to the witnesses that were employees performed sex as call girls and clients who had sex with the female employees presented by the Assistant U.S. attorney Catherine Connelly, the prosecution team has failed so far to create and present a clear and concrete timeline to the jurors on how Ms. Palfrey willingly and knowingly laundered money through her business for 13 years and used her company as a front for prostitution. I heard no timeline from Ms. Connelly. Only that this case will be the biggest case in DC and that Ms. Palfrey is the mastermind and madam.

In Preston Burton's opening arguments (Burton will be presenting his witnesses next week), his argument was plain and simple: the female employees signed a employee contract with Ms. Palfrey. And one of things in the contract that each employee had to sign from the contract is not to engage in any illegal activities. If the employee violated the guidelines of the contract, the employee is fired. And basically, Ms. Palfrey had no control over what the employees did at their appointments.

From week one of government witnesses, it was a trainwreck. The government were attacking their own female witnesses and asking very personal and embarrassing questions that shouldn't have been allowed for the jurors to hear and were irrelevant. I kept asking what does the female witnesses' menstruation have to do with money laundering? Where is the timeline in this case? Burton cross-examined the witnesses about the employment contract. And all of them said that there was no sex talk between Ms. Palfrey and them. And basically, Burton pointed out to the witnesses who performed sex and their interpretation of the employment contract meant: Don't get caught.

Prosecution wraps up their witnesses on Monday. And it will be Burton's turn with his witnesses for the defense. U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor and his three amigo assistants, Catherine K. Connelly, Daniel Butler and William Cowden brought this case to trial. And certainly Taylor's office will have eggs on their faces on this embarressment case. All of the witnesses's lives are ruined thanks to the government. Palfrey's case is the first prostitution case charged under the federal racketeering statute.

I noticed that Brent Wilkes who was convicted for 12 years in prison this year on bribery and money laundering was never charged under the RICO. Palfrey was accused and charged for running a prostitution business in exchange for money. And Wilkes was charged and convicted for bribery in exchange for government contracts.Wilkes should had been charged under RICO Title 18, 201:

Section 201 (relating to bribery),
§ 201. Bribery of public officials and witnesses

Remember, Wilkes bribed public official Randy Duke Cunningham. But, that never happened because the U.S. Attorney that was involved in the case was fired for political purposes. So, we may not know if Carol Lam was going to charge Wilkes under RICO.

Ms. Palfrey's case has always been a selected prosecution and politically motivated. It is too bad the female witnesses and former clients are being used as pawns to win a weak case. One former employee said no to the bullyness of the government and that is Brandy Britton. Brandy Britton, a former sociology and anthropology professor at the University of Maryland, worked for Palfrey, but she had her own business on the side and website. Britton's side business was, according to her website, "a very passionate full-service, GFE (girl friend experience) escort and erotic masseuse." In January 2006, her home was raided and was accused of prostitution. Britton denied the charges and hired attorney to fight her case. We will never known the outcome of Britton's case because she killed herself because of the emotional stress over her case brought by the government. Keep in mind that Ms. Palfrey's home was raid in October 2006. A quote from Charles Dickens' book, Oliver Twist:

"If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”

And that will certainly be the outcome of Ms. Palfrey's trial.

Memo to Milbank: Report both sides in the DC Madam trial.

Here is a person who wrote to the editor of Washington Post concerning Dana Milbank's article on the DC Madam trial. And I agree with the person who wrote the article:

Saturday, April 12, 2008; Page A14

Dana Milbank's description of the court proceedings in the case of accused D.C. madam Deborah Palfrey ["The D.C. Madam Case, All Sordid Out," Washington Sketch, April 11] raised the question of whether the D.C. Bar association has sanctions for attorneys who use the law to needlessly humiliate others.

Shame on the prosecutors for this witch hunt, the pillorying of the largely defenseless women who sold these services. Why not bring to the witness stand more of the powerful men who were the buyers?

Surely Ms. Palfrey's operation is one of the least vicious forms of prostitution in Washington today. That great social observer, Charles Dickens, called the law "a ass, a idiot." In this case, it is something rather worse.

BELL CLEMENT
Washington

SPB News for Saturday.

Exxon CEO has $16.7 million year

OPEC: Gas prices to stay high. Gas tops $4 at some Chicago pumps.

Bush Job Approval at 28%, Lowest of His Administration — Only Nixon and Truman have had lower job approval ratings — PRINCETON, NJ — President George W. Bush's job approval rating has dropped to 28%, the lowest of his administration. Bush's approval is lower than that of any president

Detainee evokes bin Laden at Guantanamo tribunal A suspect at a US military hearing at the Guantanamo Bay prison Thursday lauded Osama bin Laden saying the terror mastermind had exposed American "hypocrisy." "I think he has succeeded again enormously in exposing your hypocrisy ... that you are the land of justice and law," said Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud Al-Qosi, who is said to have been bin Laden's personal chauffeur. "The whole world had a headache from your hypocrisy that you are the land of justice," Qosi said. "Real justice and equality are great principles. Even children understand that."

Iran cleric rejects Bush's Iraq comments An influential Iranian cleric has rejected US President [sic] George W Bush's accusations that Iran was arming and funding Shi'ite militias in Iraq to kill American soldiers, state radio reported. In a speech at the White House, Bush repeated long-standing US accusations against Iran and warned the Islamic republic to stop interfering in Iraq. He characterised Iran and 'al Qaeda' as "two of the greatest threats to America."

Stolen and sensitive US military equipment for sale online Stolen and sensitive US military equipment, including fighter jet parts wanted by Iran and nuclear biological protective gear, has been available to the highest bidder on popular internet sales sites, according to congressional investigators. Using undercover identities, investigators purchased a dozen defence-related items on the auction site eBay and the online network Craigslist from January 2007 through to last month and received the items "no questions asked." The Defence Department regards much of the stolen equipment to be on the US Munitions List, meaning there are restrictions on their overseas sales, the Government Accountability Office said today.

OAS chief to US Congress: No Venezuela-terrorist link There is no evidence linking Venezuela to terrorist groups, the head of the Organization of American States on Thursday told US lawmakers looking into last month's Colombia-Ecuador border crisis. "You mean does Venezuela support terrorist groups? I don't think so," OAS chief Jose Miguel Insulza said during a heated exchange with Florida Representative Connie Mack, who asked if Caracas backed Colombia's FARC rebels that the US and Europe have labeled a terrorist group. "There is no evidence, and no member country, including this one (US) has offered the OAS such proof," Insulza added.


Terrorist's brother jailed --Doctor jailed for 'withholding information' on terror plot 11 Apr 2008 The brother of a terrorist who died in an airport suicide attack was today jailed for 18 months for withholding information about the plot. Sabeel Ahmed, an NHS doctor, was sent a chilling email about the mission two days before his older brother Kafeel rammed a jeep into the air terminal in Glasgow.

Obama pushes bill to rein in lavish CEO pay Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama denounced huge pay packages for U.S. corporate chiefs on Friday. "Some CEOs make more in one day than their workers make in one year," Obama said, jockeying for position against rival Democrat Hillary Clinton in Indiana, which votes on May 6.

GE slump hits Wall St US stocks went into a tailspin overnight as General Electric's disappointing earnings report heightened fears of troubles for corporate America from economic and credit market turmoil. The market took a further hit from a survey showing US consumer sentiment slumping to a 26-year low, another ominous sign for a struggling economy.

Siegelman heads to DC.

Click on the video.

Teflon John put health info release on hold.

John McCain's presidential campaign has delayed disclosing the 71-year-old cancer survivor's health information. But it has asked his doctors to comprehensively address lingering questions and concerns about his medical history, including the prominent scar on the left side of his face.

"One of the problems has been getting the doctors together and getting everybody ready to meet at the same time," McCain said Thursday during an interview on the daytime television talk show The View. "But there's plenty of time."

The public already has a sense of McCain's general health but doesn't know all the details, particularly from more recent years.

Over the past 15 years, McCain has had four episodes of melanoma, a sometimes deadly form of skin cancer, and other instances of non-melanoma skin cancer. But he hasn't faced melanoma since 2002. His campaign has provided glimpses of a few other issues, such as high cholesterol, though none is particularly unusual for a man his age.

"Just like in 2000, we will be releasing his medical records to prove what the doctors have been saying for a while: that John McCain is in very good health," said Jeff Sadosky, a McCain campaign spokesman.

McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, previously was aiming for the middle of this month, but the tentative date is now May 23.

Three local doctors from the Mayo Clinic's medical practice are expected to participate:

• Dr. John Eckstein, a Mayo internist and McCain's regular physician.

• Dr. Suzanne Connolly, a dermatologist who diagnosed and treated McCain's past skin cancer and can address precautions and likelihood of another tumor.

• Dr. Michael Hinni, an ear, nose and throat specialist and surgeon who can address the cosmetic issues related to McCain's face.

McCain's significant scar and related swelling, which is plainly visible in person, comes from his high-profile August 2000 melanoma surgery in Arizona. Surgeons removed a dime-size localized lesion from his left temple and dissected his lymph nodes to make sure the cancer hadn't spread.

At the same time, they cut out another melanoma on his left upper arm.
One national melanoma expert who is not one of McCain's doctors said such a scar is not unusual given the procedure McCain underwent.

"He had surgery on his lymph nodes that is sort of more extensive than might often be done," said Lynn Schuchter, an oncologist and professor of medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and chairwoman of the Melanoma Research Foundation's scientific-advisory board. "None of them showed melanoma. ... I think he decided to take a very aggressive approach, and that's what they did."

According to a one-page medical summary provided by the McCain campaign, the more complicated operation was "utilized out of a high degree of caution."
The campaign also reports two other cases of lower-risk melanomas, each of which has already been publicized. The first came off his left shoulder in 1993. Another was scraped off his nose in 2002. McCain also has undergone treatment for, according to his campaign, "several" non-melanoma skin cancers and still gets three to four dermatological checkups a year.

The 2000 melanoma on his temple was considered Stage IIA, the second of four stages measuring how much the cancer has spread. The higher the stage number, the more dangerous the cancer is and the harder it is to treat.

"Stage II melanoma patients can certainly be cured of their melanoma," Schuchter said.
Politically, cancer no longer carries the stigma it once did. This year, two of McCain's GOP foes, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, also had bouts with forms of the disease.

"Thirty years ago, that word was a problem," said John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. "It's not such a problem now. We'll see how it's handled."

In late 1999, as McCain geared up for his first presidential run, he allowed journalists to review about 1,500 pages of his medical history dating to 1973, when he was released from a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp after more than five years in custody.

The campaign likely will make the more recent health information available to the media in a similar setting at a hotel near the Mayo Clinic's Scottsdale campus.

At McCain's insistence, reporters will be allowed to study his medical documents for 90 minutes. As many as 750 journalists could take part in a related teleconference.

According to the campaign, McCain takes the cholesterol medicine Vytorin, a multivitamin and, as a heart-attack preventative, low-dose aspirin. His cholesterol level is 155. When allergy symptoms flare, he'll pop a Claritin or spray some Flonase.

McCain enjoys exercising and in August 2006 hiked the Grand Canyon "from rim to rim" and experienced no cardiopulmonary problems, his campaign's medical summary says.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/04/12/20080412medical0412.html

Lott: ‘I haven’t paid for lunch in 30 years.’

Maybe he spent that money on the rug on his head. ;-)


Thinkprogress:


In an interview with the Washington Post’s Mary Anne Akers, former Republican Sen. Trent Lott (MS) discusses his new career as a lobbyist, saying the private sector “isn’t as cushy” as his gig in the Senate, where he had “free lunches” and a “taxpayer-funded car and driver.” “I took the Metro for the first time,” said Lott. Apparently joking, Lott told Akers, “I haven’t paid for lunch in 30 years,” to which his lobbying partner former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) added, “he’s learning how to pay for lunch.”

As a senator, Lott was such a fan of lobbyist-funded lunches that when the Senate was considering ethics reform, he complained: “Now we’re going to say you can’t have a meal for more than 20 bucks. Where are you going, to McDonald’s?”

McCain’s war cabinet wants a war museum.

Thinkprogress:

Writing in the New York Post today, Ralph Peters, a member of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) war cabinet, blasts the “massive egos” he sees behind the “Newseum” opening in Washington, DC today, a museum chronicling the history of the American news industry. Peters argues that an an American military museum would be better:

There’s no museum in the vicinity of the National Mall dedicated to our military. Tells you a lot about the vanity and priorities of today’s governing and informational “elite,” doesn’t it? Ignore the blood, enshrine the ink. A Pulitzer Prize outranks a Congressional Medal of Honor.
Max Boot, another McCain advisor, agrees that we need an American military museum “— or better still (because less politically correct) an American War Museum — in our nation’s capital.”

FBI Agents Contacted Wecht Jurors; Conyers is troubled.

TPM:

House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) on today's story:
I am deeply troubled by reports of FBI agents contacting former jurors who failed to convict Dr. Wecht. Whether reckless or intended, it is simply common sense that such contacts can have a chilling effect on future juries in this and other cases. When added to the troubling conduct of this prosecution, there is the appearance of a win at all costs mentality. The committee continues to investigate this matter.

Tweety: The Village Idiot

Crooks and Liars:

This Sunday’s NY Times Magazine feature on Chris Matthews.

Cable political coverage has changed, however, and so has the sensibility that viewers — particularly young ones — expect from it. Matthews’s bombast is radically at odds with the wry, antipolitical style fashioned by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert or the cutting and finely tuned cynicism of Matthews’s MSNBC co-worker Keith Olbermann. These hosts betray none of the reverence for politics or the rituals of Washington that Matthews does. On the contrary, they appeal to the eye-rolling tendencies of a cooler, highly educated urban cohort of the electorate that mostly dismisses an exuberant political animal like Matthews as annoyingly antiquated, like the ranting uncle at the Thanksgiving table whom the kids have learned to tune out.

And there is more from Dumb and Dumber:

On Hardball , Matthews and Shuster critiqued Obama's “weird” beverage selection at Indiana diner — On the April 10 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, after reporting that Sen. Barack Obama “campaigned today in northern Indiana, shaking hands and chatting with people at a diner near South Bend,”

Governator says no to California marriage amendment

Schwarzenegger Shifts Stance on Gay Marriage, Says He Would Fight Efforts for a Ban

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that if an initiative to ban gay marriage qualifies for the November ballot, he's prepared to fight it.


California's governor spoke Friday in San Diego at the convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation's largest gay Republican group.


He has previously vetoed bills that would have legalized gay marriage. A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman did not say what prompted the governor to shift his position.
Schwarzenegger said he was confident a ban would never pass in California and called the effort "a waste of time."


Source: AP News

2007 tax returns of Bush and Money bag Cheney.

Here are the 2007 tax returns of Bush and Cheney:

Vice President Dick Cheney

Bush Press Release

Here was Dick's 2006 tax return:

From the White House website:

Vice President and Mrs. Cheney filed their federal income tax return for 2006 . The income tax return shows that the Cheneys owe federal taxes for 2006 of $413,326 on taxable income of $1,614,862. During the course of 2006 the Cheneys paid $464,789 in taxes through withholding and estimated tax payments. The Cheneys elected to apply the resulting $51,463 tax overpayment to their 2007 estimated tax payments. The wage and salary income reported on the tax return includes the Vice President's $208,575 government salary. In addition, the tax return reports a pension benefit of $27,500, which the Vice President received as a former director of Union Pacific Corporation. The Vice President became eligible for this benefit in 2006 when he turned 65. The tax return also reports Mrs. Cheney's book royalty income, which includes a partial royalty advance on a book she is writing about growing up in Wyoming. It also reports wage and salary income from her continuing work at the American Enterprise Institute and a pension benefit of $32,000, which she received as a former director of Reader's Digest. The amounts of the pension benefits received by the Vice President and by Mrs. Cheney are fixed and will not increase or decrease based on changes in the earnings or revenues of either company.

The Cheneys donated $104,425 to charity in 2006. This brings the Cheneys' total charitable contributions during his Vice Presidency to $7,800,019.

Interesting that in 2005 Cheney reaped the rewards of Katrina on his tax return:

Kirsch: Cheney Tax Return Shows Katrina Tax Benefits for Non-Katrina Charitable Contributions

Vice-President's 2005 tax return:

The press release seems to confirm, at least implicitly, the VP's efforts to take advantage of the Katrina legislation -- it mentions that the Cheneys wrote a personal check of $2.3 million to the administrator in December in order to "maximize the charitable gifts in 2005." Admittedly, I don't know anything about the transactions beyond the info in the press release, but my gut reaction is that the personal check was given in order to make sure the independent administrator had sufficient liquid assets to pay all of the promised charitable contributions before the 50% limit returned on 1/1/06.

I am not buying that Cheney's taxable income is over 3 million only. I bet most of his money is overseas and his most of his assets are in stock in Halliburton.

Results of last week's poll.

Last week's poll asked:

John McCain regrets now opposing MLK holiday. How much will this affect his chances for minority voters turnout come November?

It was a tie between a lot and no affect. New poll is now up.

The Torture Memo.

Click to enlarge: February 7, 2002 memo

From Emptywheel at FDL:

February 7, 2002 memo in which Bush declares that Al Qaeda will not be entitled to Geneva Convention protections. The memo seems to indicate that it is addressed to all the people who have participated--at least thus far--in discussions on torture; it refers to "our recent extensive discussions regarding the status of Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees." Now check out the list of addressees:

Dick Cheney
Colin Powell
Rummy
John Ashcroft
Andy Card
George Tenet
Condi Rice
Richard Myers

Boston newsman protests BillO’s Emmy Award.

Thinkprogress:

Barry Nolan, a local Boston news reporter, is mounting a campaign to protest the fact that Bill O’Reilly will be awarded an Emmy Award by the Boston/New England Chapter next month. Nolan insists that O’Reilly is “a mental case” who shouldn’t be held up as an example of journalistic integrity:

“I am appalled, just appalled,” Nolan told the Track. “He inflates and constantly mangles the truth…and his frequent target is the ‘left-leaning’ media - the ones who do report the news fairly. And those are the same people who will be sitting in the room honoring him.” […]

“I hope people will express their displeasure to the board of governors and they’ll rescind their decision,” he said. “It’s morally unacceptable.”

Nolan plans to attend the May 10 ceremony, and he’s invited Keith Olbermann as his date.

We heard this phrase 100 times.

Crooks and Liars:

Yesterday, speaking from the White House, the president boasted, “American and Iraqi forces have made significant progress” in Iraq. It got me thinking, haven’t we heard that phrase before in relation to Iraq?

* White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on October 27, 2003: “In the north and south [of Iraq], we have made significant progress.”
* President Bush on November 13, 2004: “Fighting together, our forces have made significant progress in the last several days.”
* President Bush on June 28, 2005: “In the past year, we have made significant progress.”
* Vice President Cheney on October 19, 2006: “[W]e’ve made significant progress.”
* President Bush on February 23, 2007: ” I think we have made significant progress in Iraq.”
Indeed, it’s a phrase the White House has used to describe events in Iraq several hundred times over the last five years. I can’t imagine why anyone would be skeptical about the claim now.

McCain's YOYO policy: “You’re on your own.”

Crooks and Liars:

As the New York Times noted shortly after the speech, “The real core of his speech was his argument against government action to help dig distressed homeowners — or the country — out of the mortgage mess…. His suggestion that federal aid might wrongly reward ‘undeserving’ homeowners sounded both mean-spirited and economically naive. And then there is the double standard. He seemed less concerned about the government helping reckless bankers, endorsing its role in preventing the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns.”

Yesterday, in one of the quicker flip-flops in recent memory, McCain reversed course. The Washington Post, apparently anxious to give McCain a hand, said the senator was “refining” and “revising” his plan. That’s enormously generous of the newspaper, but in reality, McCain’s proposal was an embarrassing dud, so he gave up on it.

Senator John McCain, who drew criticism last month after he warned against broad government intervention to solve the deepening mortgage crisis, pivoted Thursday and called for the federal government to aid some homeowners in danger of losing their homes, by helping them to refinance and get federally guaranteed 30-year mortgages.

“There is nothing more important than keeping alive the American dream to own your home, and priority No. 1 is to keep well-meaning, deserving homeowners who are facing foreclosure in their homes,” Mr. McCain said in a speech on economic themes that he gave at a window company in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.

Conservatives boo new congresswoman’s Iraq remarks.

Go Jackie!

SF Chronicle:

It didn’t take long for Jackie Speier, the newest member of the U.S. House of Representatives, to put her straight-ahead style on display. Just as quickly, some of her new Republican colleagues greeted her with a sample of Washington-style partisanship.

Speier, who won Tuesday’s special election to complete the term of the late Rep. Tom Lantos, went right to work with a speech calling for action on a process to bring the troops home from Iraq. She mentioned Sen. John McCain’s observation that the United States could be in Iraq for 100 years. “History will not judge us kindly if we sacrifice four generations of Americans because of the folly of one,” she said.

Some Republicans booed. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, walked out of the chamber. Speier, an 18-year state legislator known for taking on tough issues and interests, was nonplussed at the mini-controversy.

“The truth is, I think it was a minority of Republicans that were booing - and they represent a minority of Americans who still support the war,” Speier said by phone Thursday.

Money bags Cheney: If U.S. Withdraws From Iraq, Al Qaeda Would ‘Acquire Control’ Of Country’s Oil Resources.

Thinkprogress:

Yesterday, Vice President Cheney appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show and fear-mongered about the consequences of withdrawing from Iraq. He told Hannity that al Qaeda may take over Iraq’s oil reserves:

HANNITY: If we pull out too early, what do you believe the consequences would be? […]

CHENEY: For us to walk away from Iraq I think would have at least that bad an effect, probably worse, because if al Qaeda were to take over big parts of Iraq, among other things, they would acquire control of a significant oil resource. Iraq has almost 100 billion barrel reserves, producing 2.5-3 million barrels of oil a day. If you take a terrorist organization like al Qaeda and give it that kind of revenue, there’s no telling the amount of trouble they could get into.

Art imitates life; Open Thread.

Late Breaking news: Two more airlines filed bankruptcy!

With cancelled flights everyday and two more airlines gone, we are heading to a deeper recession, folks.

Frontier Airlines:

Frontier Airlines files for bankruptcy

Frontier Airlines Holdings Inc., a full-service commercial airline company, filed for bankruptcy, becoming the fourth airline to seek protection in less than two weeks.

The Denver, Colorado-based company listed both debt and assets of $500 to $1 billion in Chapter 11 documents filed before midnight in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The company did not give a reason for the filing.

The case is in re Frontier Airlines Inc., 08-11297, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_8885700

Another airline filing:

Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, a long-haul budget carrier that tried to offer premium service and spacious seats at low prices, suddenly went into liquidation on Wednesday and canceled all flights.

It was the fourth budget carrier worldwide to halt operations in the last week and a half. The bankruptcy filing by Oasis stranded thousands of passengers in Hong Kong, London and Vancouver.

High jet fuel prices have taken a heavy toll on the airline industry and particularly on low-margin budget carriers trying to compete on price. The three others to shut down since March 31, all in the United States, were Aloha Airgroup, ATA Airlines and Skybus Airlines.

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/569121.html

Cartoon for Friday: Justice Dept. Pass

Iraq War Costs Skyrocketing; Congress Unable to Scrutinize Spending

By Jason Leopold

Nearly all of the $516 billion allocated by Congress to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has come in the form of emergency spending requests, a method the White House has abused, depriving Congress the ability to scrutinize how the Pentagon spends money in the so-called global war on terror. The use of emergency supplemental bills to fund the wars has likely resulted in the waste of billions of taxpayer dollars, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office.

Dozens of emergency funding requests that Congress has approved since 2001 is unprecedented compared with past military conflicts when war funding went through the normal appropriations process. As of March, the GAO said average monthly costs to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has reached roughly $12.3 billion, $10 billion for Iraq alone, more than double what it cost to fund the war in 2004.

“Over 90% of [the Department of Defense] funds were provided as emergency funds in supplemental or additional appropriations; the remainder were provided in regular defense bills or in transfers from regular appropriations,” the report said. “Emergency funding is exempt from ceilings applying to discretionary spending in Congress’s annual budget resolutions. Some Members have argued that continuing to fund ongoing operations in supplementals reduces congressional oversight.”

Vernonique de Rugy, a senior research fellow and budget scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars through emergency legislation is troubling because the money“doesn't get counted in deficit projections, making it hard to track the real cost of the war and effectively removing any upper limits on spending for the war.”

“Even seven years after the start of the war in Afghanistan, and five years after the start of the war in Iraq, Congress and the president are still using "emergency" funding bills to cover costs, rather than going through the regular appropriations process,” said de Rugy, who just published an article on the issue, “The Trillion-Dollar War,” in the May issue of Reason magazine. “While other wars have initially been funded using emergency supplementals, they have quickly been incorporated into the regular budget. Never before has emergency supplemental spending been used to fund an entire war and over the course of so many years.”

Most troubling about this trend, the GAO said in a report issued in February, is that while the Pentagon’s budget requests has steadily increased annually the reasons the Defense Department has cited to explain its skyrocketing costs “do not appear to be enough to explain the size of and continuation of increases.”

“Although some of the factors behind the rapid increase in DOD funding are known — the growing intensity of operations, additional force protection gear and equipment, substantial upgrades of equipment, converting units to modular configurations, and new funding to train and equip Iraqi security forces — these elements” fail to justify the increase, the GAO report stated, adding that “little of the $93 billion DOD increase between [fiscal year] 2004 and [fiscal year] 2007 appears to reflect changes in the number of deployed personnel.”

Furthermore, a $70 billion “placeholder” request included in the fiscal year 2009 budget that the Pentagon says will be used to finance operations in Iraq does not include any details on how the money will be spent “making it impossible to estimate its allocation,” according to the report.

The GAO added the Pentagon has used emergency supplemental requests to get Congress to fund equipment and vehicle upgrades that would otherwise come out of the Pentagon’s annual budget. The Pentagon has succeeded largely due to a new way it now defines the war on terror.

“Although some of this increase may reflect additional force protection and replacement of “stressed” equipment, much may be in response to [Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon] England’s new guidance to fund requirements for the “longer war” rather than DOD’s traditional
definition of war costs as strictly related to immediate war needs,” the GAO report says, adding that Congress must immediately begin to demand a more transparent accounting of Pentagon emergency spending in order to put an end to the agency’s accounting chicanery.

“For example, the Navy initially requested $450 million for six EA-18G aircraft, a new electronic warfare version of the F-18, and the Air Force $389 million for two Joint Strike Fighters, an aircraft just entering production; such new aircraft would not be delivered for about three years and so could not be used meet immediate war needs,” the GAO report said.

On Wednesday, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army’s vice chief of staff, said the military will soon run out of cash if lawmakers don’t act to approve a $102 billion emergency supplemental spending bill to continue funding military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We start running out of military pay for our force in June, we start running out of operational dollars that we can flow to the force in early July,” Cody said. “It’s all about time now. Those will be the consequences of not getting the supplemental.”

The GAO generally agrees with Cody, but said the Pentagon could dip into its budget and transfer funds to finance operations in Iraq until late September or early October, which would give Congress more time to scrutinize the emergency funding request.

Still, these dire warnings from Bush administration officials and military personnel about imminent funding shortfalls have become routine since Democrats won control of Congress in November 2006. Last year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates threatened to fire more than 200,000 Defense Department employees and terminate contracts with defense contractors because Congressional Democrats did not immediately approve a spending package to continue funding the Iraq war. The GAO and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) advised Congress that Gates could tap into the Pentagon’s $471 billion budget to fund the war while Congress continued to debate the merits of giving the White House another “blank check” for Iraq.

Government auditors have said that these predictions are untrue and have been cited publicly by the White House to prod Congress into quickly passing legislation to appropriate funds. Republican lawmakers and administration officials have also said failure by Democrats to fund the war is tantamount to not supporting the troops. But the rhetoric has been enough to spook Democrats into passing the emergency funding requests, often without being aware of how the money is being spent.

Other federal agencies, including the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), have testified to Congress about the limited transparency in DOD’s emergency budget requests.

“While DOD has provided considerably more justification material for its war cost requests beginning with the [fiscal year] 2007 supplemental, many questions remain difficult to answer — such as the effect of changes in troop levels on costs — and there continue to be unexplained
discrepancies in DOD’s war cost reports, the GAO report stated.

That led the GAO to draft a letter to Congress March 17, saying the $108 billion the Pentagon has recently requested is based on “unreliable” financial data and should be considered an “approximation,” which, technically, could be interpreted to mean the Pentagon’s accounting methods underestimated the cost of the war.

“Over the years, we have conducted a series of reviews examining funding and reported obligations for military operations in support of [the global war on terror], the letter, addressed to Congressional committees, says. “Our prior work has found the data in DOD’s monthly Supplemental and Cost of War Execution Report to be of questionable reliability. Consequently, we are unable to ensure that DOD’s reported obligations for [the global war on terror] are complete, reliable, and accurate, and they therefore should be considered approximations...GAO has assessed the reliability of DOD’s obligation data and found significant problems, such that these data may not accurately reflect the true dollar value of obligations [for the global war on terror.]”

A Pentagon spokesman did not return calls for comment. But a GAO spokeswoman said the DOD has been struggling with “deficiencies in the Pentagon’s financial management system” that contributed to the unreliable data. She would not elaborate.

Although studies have surfaced stating that the cost of the Iraq war could soar past $2 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office said trying to estimate future costs for the war is difficult “because DOD has provided little detailed information on costs incurred to date.”

“The Administration has not provided any long-term estimates of costs despite a statutory reporting requirement that the President submit a cost estimate for [fiscal year] 2006-2011 that was enacted in 2004,” the GAO said.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0804/S00166.htm