They have done it again:

The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department.

Need more facts to get sick?  How about, this guy, Gaith Pharaon, was an investor in Bush's first company.

Need more?  He is wanted in several countries, and has ties to terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda.  

More below the fold:

Just a few musings on recent developments in the sports world:

Goodbye Justine. Farewell Annika: The sports world will dearly miss Justine Henin and Annika Sorenstam, two of the greatest women athletes in history. Both, still at the top of their games, announced their premature retirements this week. Henin is currently the No. 1 ranked women’s tennis player, while Sorenstam is simply the greatest woman golfer in history.

Henin was as tenacious a competitor as I ever had the privilege to watch. A mere 5-5, the 25-year-old Henin made up for her lack of size with a relentless spirit and as pure and devastating a backhand as the women’s game has ever known. Henin won an astounding 10 tournaments in 2007, but has been hampered by injuries in 2008.

Sorenstam may be 37, but she remains one of the top golfers in the world. To date, including a runaway victory last week, Sorenstam has collected 72 tour victories and once shot an incomprehensible 59. An intense competitor, she was also as classy an athlete ever to dominate a sport.

Greenberg Traurig (GT), a major GOP partisan law and lobbying shop, has been indicted on federal charges in the Marianas Islands sweatshop case.  The firm employed notorious political fixer Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff’s firm has a long history as a conduit for illegal foreign campaign contributions.  GT were Bush's Campaign Lawyers during the 2000 Florida Recount, and is now a major donor to HRC's presidential campaign, according to the lastest FEC data.

Greenberg Traurig and the Tan Family, who are the center of the Saipan sweatshop and prostitution scandal, have both made large HRC campaign contributions.

In a odd coincidence, GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain chaired the Senate Committee which investigated Abramoff.  As dengre has informed us, McCain's committee continues to withhold all but 8000 pages of the three-quarter of a million documents turned over to it.

This has the makings of a major presidential campaign blowup, if HRC gets the nomination.

MORE below . . .

According to the banner at CNN.com, Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted on "multiple" federal charges.

Renzi was heavily involved in Tom Delay's PAC, and announced his retirement in August, 2007.  Hmmm, I wonder why...

Anyway, consider this diary a place-sitter until more details come out.

UPDATE: Everybody, head over to Rock Strongo's diary.  I'm going to delete mine in a few minutes.  Rock beat me to it.  Fair's fair and all.

We have Tens of Thousands Dead and Maimed!

A small country, loaded with historic value of the origins on Man, Destroyed and in Destructive Turmoil, threatening the whole region, while we threaten others in the region ourselves!

We have awakened long surpressed hostilities, started long ago by others, who tried to control the peoples of the region, dictating to them how they should exist, forcing through destructive violence the ideologies of those others who tried to control!

And all those who were at the helm of this destruction, preaching fear and lies, can think of is Their Legacy?????

please view . . .“If the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.” TPMTV.

copyright © 2007 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

The video speaks volumes.  The presentation is fun; yet, not funny.  Indeed, as you say Mister Bush, this is a serious matter.  Today we have a White House that cannot be trusted too keep their word, or in fact, they can be.  After an extensive investigation, years of probing, the courts convicted I. [Scooter] Lewis Libby of a crime against the State.  It was determined that this Former White House Aide is guilty of one count of obstruction justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements to Federal investigators.   Libby lied to a Grand Jury and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation examiners.

During the six years of George Bush as President, he has made many statements about individuals who later on turned out to be perhaps not the best suited for their jobs.  Here's a quick compilation of President Bush's own quoted statements and some background information about some of the individuals he has praised.

[First, a shameless plug for my blog, Senate 2008 Guru: Following the Races]

The Onion once joked that "Topeka mayor William Bunten, 74, is the nation's highest-ranking Republican official not facing indictment or public reprimand."

They weren't far off.  The number of Republicans arrested, indicted, or admitting misdeeds is astounding.  Below is, at best, a partial list.  But it really is jaw-dropping when you see it listed one after the other after the other.

Use the comments to post additional listings of Republicans misdeeds.  Maybe somebody enterprising can start a searchable online record!

And Republicans suggest that they are the Party of family values and law & order?  At least they have a sense of irony.

[Check below for the list, in reverse-chronological order.]

-- The following blog excerpt is provided as a service to the DailyKos community. --

The spinmeisters in this reckless administration have cooked up another brew-ha-ha. The primary ingredients in this round are partisanship and playing politics when the nation's business needs attending to. In his latest speech, Bush warns of a "fishing expedition" and "show trials" in an effort for Democrats to score political points.

This is both good news and bad news for Democrats.

This is an interesting bit of information on Michael Mixson.
He is a National Republican Congressional Committee donor!
But, Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari is his real name!
"Gull dern Dubya, he's 1 of them terra-ists!"

I know a lot of us are not too pleased with waiting to find out what is Congress up to. The pace at which  the House is proceeding to pass non contraversial, non binding resolutions is like what we used to go through waiting for the ketchup to come forth out of the bottle.

Back in the day it would be like waiting for your better half to get ready ...

We tried shaking it, banging it, sticking a knife in it...big mouths, ...

Updating with breaking news" The Senate is going to begin discussing withdrawing both authorizations of military force. I think this is both Dodd and Clinton.

more below the fold...

This is a follow up on my diary about the abrupt firing of 6 US attorneys.

Everyone who works for a living... I've got a question.

Let's say you were responsible for managing the hostile takeover of a former supplier.  Instead of going with the tried and true methods, you propose a radical new plan for achieving this.  After reviewing your proposal, seasoned professionals warn you that is a bad choice, because:

you will run over budget,
you will alienate strategic partners,
you will lose market share,
you will ruin the balance sheet,
you will cripple employee morale,
you will create new competitors, and
you will damage the brand name.

Suppose you decide unilaterally to defy widespread criticism of your proposed course of action.  Suppose everything they predicted actually happens.  When you got called on the carpet for this, you think you can simply say, "I'll get back to you after the holidays, I'm working on it," and not get fired?

Impeachment, as we have seen, is as much a political tool as it is a means of removing someone unfit for office. In the case of William Jefferson Clinton, impeachment was purely for political purposes, since by no means can perjury in a civil lawsuit be compared to the potential charges in a Bush impeachment: willful fraud, conspiracy to mislead Congress and the destruction of U.S. property (to wit: munitions expended in an unjustified war).

Impeachment - despite its many merits - has the disadvantage of any political tool: it can be characterized as such by an opposition party and seen by voters as less significant for that reason. But indictment; actual criminal indictment at the hands of a grand jury. Well, that's something else altogether. And entirely possible with the new Congress of 2008 ...

The subject title came from This Writing

Before the House Judiciary Committee can put together the Articles of Impeachment, someone must initiate the impeachment procedure. Most often, this occurs when members of the House pass a resolution. Another method outlined in the manual, however, is for individual citizens to submit a memorial for impeachment.

According to Rudolph, "Impeachment would lead to the ouster of Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and many others, as they are all equally guilty of war crimes. In an open impeachment trial, the evidence would come out. It isn't the only way we’ll succeed in impeaching Bush and restoring democracy, but it is an important avenue. Let's get it done."

There have been many postings about Impeachment, pro and con, lately, and many past postings as the overwelming evidence has been brought to light despite attempts to keep it as quite as possible with little mention from those who are supposed to keep a society in the know, as to what is being done by those we hire to represent, in our names and to us as a Democratic Nation .
Impeachment should not be taken lightly, as it was as a political tool to the previous administration. But when there is overwelming evidence, coming forward, of Impeachable Offenses it cannot be ignored, as it has been by our representatives, and must be Investigated and if leading towards Impeachable Offenses Must Be Tried as such, just as any crime covered in the Laws of this Country, the Constitution Demands It!

Yesterday, Blogswarm at TPM Cafe posted Justice Delayed, reporting on rumours out of the Justice Department that 3 indictments had been prepared, but were being put on hold until after election day.  

Remember that Phoenix New Times article about the land deal that Rick Renzi was involved in?

Well we have learned that Renzi was wiretapped presumably by the FBI soliciting a bribe in exchange for introducing a bill for a landswap in Cochise County.

An AP reporter discovered that Renzi may be indicted for income tax fraud and a related charge to the bribery.

Renzi has been interviewed by the FBI.

The U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton has decided not to indict Renzi until after the election. The prosecutor assigned to the case is Howard Sukenic. He along with the spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys office is refusing to comment.

The investigation has been concluded, they succeeded in getting a federal grand jury to indict him but are sitting on the indictment until after the election in order to keep the seat in Republican control.

There really is a Culture of Corruption, and it is making its way to the Judicial branch.