Random Thoughts on Other Notable Headlines of the Day — Issue XL

August 30, 2009

No Surprise – Just Another Bush/Cheney Con Game

So — during the 2004 presidential election, George Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, and Donald Rumsfeld wanted the national threat level raised in order to enhance Bush and Cheney’s chances of being reelected. So is anyone surprised? Beginning with the 2000 election, Bush proved to the world he was willing to do anything to get elected, and continued to thumb his nose at the country for the next eight years. As bad as that was, Cheney was worse.

Tom Ridge, secretary of homeland security at the time, has now decided to let the cat out of the bag. Knowing he couldn’t play their game and that fighting it would be a lost cause, Ridge resigned. America was left with two of the biggest criminals the country has ever had running it. Ashcroft simply continued being a lap dog.

Punishing The (Almost) Good Guy

Bradley C. Birkenfeld, a banker, helped wealthy Americans hide money in Swiss bank accounts so the latter could get out of paying taxes. Some where along the line he developed a conscious, something very rare in bankers. So he decided to blow the whistle on those Americans. Now he’s going to jail.

Federal prosecutors wanted the judge to sentence Birkenfeld to only 30 months because of him blowing the whistle and his corporation in the investigation, but the Florida  judge gave him 40 months instead. The sentencing was due to Birkenfeld’s involvement in the scam.

Birkenfeld is entitled to a monetary award for blowing the whistle, but may not get it due to the circumstances. However, if he does serve jail time and doesn’t receive any reward, we might as well tell all potential whistle blowers in the future to keep their mouths shut. That’s the way things work here in America — anyone exposing any wrong doing by any corporation is usually punished, and in some cases, severely punished. So much for moral convictions.

Surely This Is No Surprise To Anyone!

Dick Cheney is criticizing the Justice Department for expanding the investigation into the CIA’s wrong doing in the counterterrorism program. He gives all sorts of “justifications” for his opinion, but his objectives are real clear — he wants to stay out of jail.

Of course Cheney knows he’ll never go to jail. No matter how big a criminal they are, we simply don’t punish our top level politicians for any wrongdoing. What Cheney really wants is the continuation of such wrongdoings, but most of all he doesn’t want his “good image” tainted, or the history books to paint him as the monster he is. But no need to worry; we are not in the habit of including in our history books the evil we do. We always ignore the real truth and facts when that time comes and substitute them with remanufactured ones.