Red Alert! Bush Was Going to Lose!
Tom Ridge will apparently confirm everything we suspected: he was ordered (by whom?!) to raise the terror alert going into the 2004 election so Bush could fear-monger his way to a second term. But it’s the (yet more) evidence of Bush’s sheer incompetence sounds more interesting.
Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.
In particular, I look forward to knowing precisely what kind of warning Ridge gave against hiring Heckova Job Brownie. And I’m sure those in New Orleans are sort of curious, too.
How much shit can hit the fan?
I think the idea was that if you keep hurling shit at the thing, sooner or later it’ll become too clogged to whip it around.
how much shit can hit the fan before MSM takes notice?
All of it, and then MSM will act like it’s something recent.
I beg to differ with the last part of your comment. I think that the MSM will declare it all old news and tell us not to play the blame game.
But that didn’t stop Mrs. Bush hosting a pool party for Tom’s daughter back in 2006!
http://wonkette.com/180474/bit…..hite-house
More crap in the cesspool that is BushCo. But before I enjoy it too much, I have to bring up that Ridge’s book might be just a bit selfserving. After all, he didn’t resign over it and he did it with a straight face.
How could BushCo look worse to New Orleans than it already does?
Boxturtle (Things can be said in a book that could never be said under oath)
The bureaucrat who never came in from the cold. Ridge’s planned ignorance and hence his operational “incompetence” certainly would have made manipulating “terror alerts”, etc., all the easier.
Wow, what the hell is going on that they are all racing to the microphone??
This bit of confirmation is long overdue, though. Wish I knew who Julius was so I could thank him for the work he did back in 2004 which put a stop to this propaganda-as-terror-alert.
Apart from the fun of the spectacle, that’s an interesting question. Do we assume that most people who suddenly want to speak are doing pre-emptive actions — ie, they don’t want to be the ones who are left twisting in the wind? So with each pre-empt, you have to wonder who is being pre-empted?
I think a lot of the Bushies are trying to salvage what’s left of their reputation. Outside of Redstate, Bush is an idiot. The only question is how big of an idiot. Outside of Redstate, Cheney is evil. The only question is how evil.
Gonzo can’t get a job as a lawyer and he’s the example most of the Bushies outside of the inner circle see. Nobody want’s to end up like that and there are only so many wingnut welfare jobs out there.
Ridge sees himself as presidential someday. He sees himself as senator much sooner. He needs to ditch the Bush taint before 2010.
Boxturtle (He certainly thinks he can beat Scrapple)
I do not know why they are doing this. It’s not as if Holder’s DOJ are going to do anything about it. Can’t have a political witch hunt, don’t ya know.
Jobs in an eventual Palin presidency? It would be irresponsible not to speculate…
Re: Hurricane Katrina
Katrina hit New Orleans in August,2005.
Here is an interesting item involving Tom Ridge from that same year.
(Excerpt)
On April 21, 2005, Savi Technology, Inc., then a private company, created Savi Networks LLC, a new joint venture company, with Hutchinson Ports Holdings to install active RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) equipment and software in participating ports around the world and to provide users with the information, identity location and status of their ocean cargo containers as they pass through such ports.
Tom Ridge, the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, joined the Savi Technology board April 5, 2005, just prior to the deal.
Savi Networks was capitalized at $50 million from the joint venture partners. Savi Technology holds a 51 percent interest in Savi Networks while HPH holds the remaining 49 percent.
On the same day, April 21, 2005, HPH made a concurrent $50 million investment in Infolink Systems, Inc., the parent company of Savi Technology, which provided HPH with 10 percent of Infolink on a fully diluted basis.
On May 4, 2005, GlobeSecNine, made a $2 million strategic investment in Infolink Systems, Inc., the parent company of Savi Technology.
On June 8 of this year, Lockheed Martin acquired Infolink Systems, Inc., thereby acquiring Savi Technology, Inc.
A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin confirmed that the HPH interest in the joint venture subsidiary, Savi Networks, survived the acquisition of Infolink by Lockheed.
As WND previously reported, Savi Networks is currently negotiating a contract with North America’s SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc., NASCO, the Dallas-based trade organization that advocates developing continental trade corridors along Interstates 35, 29 and 94. The contract will allow Savi Networks to establish sensors along the super-corridor that would read RFID tags placed on containers transported by truck and train, including containers from China and the Far East which enter the North American continent at Mexican ports, including Lazaro Cardenas on the Pacific.
GlobeSecNine’s chairman of the board is Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser to Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He also was chairman of President George W. Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2001 to 2005. From 1982 to 1989, Scowcroft also served as vice chairman of Kissinger Associates. ~~WND
. . . considered resigning, but didn’t. I don’t care about what he will “confess” to thinking five years later, I care what he did at the time. . . which would be nothing.
Ridge was an accomplice, an accessory, a co-conspirator. . . what he will fess up to now that he thinks he can run for president means little. . . except to confirm his and his boss’s guilt.
Profiles in poor-Ridge?
Let the revisionism begin.
Woulda, coulda, and shoulda (”I have come to realize that they used me …” sniff! “I didn’t know … they kept me in the dark … What’s an honest fella, like me, ta do?”)
“Naturally, if I knew then what I know now … however, whatever I did, I did for love of my country, my conscience is clear, so you really can’t hold it against me. Don’t you think I’d make a swell President?”
@6
Dubai Sells U.S. Port Facilities To AIG – Forbes.comDec 11, 2006 … AIG Global Investment Group, a U.S.-based arm of the American insurer … The biggest port operator in the world is Hutchison Port Holdings, …
http://www.forbes.com/…/dubai-p…..dubai.html – Cached – Similar
(NOTE: AIG controls the Port of New Orleans port facilites)
Article: Hutchison Hired to Scan Us-Bound Boxes in Bahamas …Dubai port company sells US holdings to AIG. Turkish Daily News December 13,2006 … Hutchison Port Holdings Limited – Group Managing Director Interview. …
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/……..437704_ITM – Cached – Similar
Well my, oh, my….Gitcheegumee, you’re turning up some seriously intriguing stuff here today.
———–
As for Tom Ridge, I can’t figure out whether he really was a tool, or whether once he figured out what Bu$hCheney were doing, he got pissed off but knew how to keep his head down and collect evidence for a future moment when he could use it against whoever ‘ordered’ him to create bogus terror alerts.
I tend to think that it’s the Jim Comey’s and the fired USAGs and some other ex-insiders (including Tenet) that Bush and Cheney should genuinely fear. It’s quite possible that Ridge is in that group.
According to Gellman (in Angler, p 6), Ridge was in that group of male GOPers who were contacted by Cheney and asked to submit all their bona fides as if GWBush was seriously considering them for VP. (Bill Frist, John Kasich, Chuck Hagel, John Danforth, John Engler, and Frank Keating were also in that group.) Meanwhile, Cheney was using the VP carrot as a means to compromise them by getting all their info, then using it as potential blackmail.
So I’m not as quick to dismiss Ridge as simply trying to cover his arse; he’s probably got plenty of reasons to be pissed at Bu$hCheney.
But I would like to know how all that surveillance mojo at DHS missed all the credit derivative transactions and theft on Wall Street and at AIG.
Michael Chertoff
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2nd Secretary of Homeland Security
In office
February 15, 2005 – January 21, 2009
President George W. Bush
Barack Obama
Preceded by Tom Ridge
Succeeded by Janet Napolitano
——————————————————————————–
Michael Chertoff (born November 28, 1953) was the 2nd United States Secretary of Homeland Security, under George W. Bush, and co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act.
He previously served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals, as a federal prosecutor, and as assistant U.S. Attorney General. He succeeded Tom Ridge as United States Secretary of Homeland Security on February 15, 2005.
Public service
In September 1986 as Assistant U.S. Attorney, Chertoff together with U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Rudolph Giuliani were instrumental in its crackdown on organized crime.
In 1990, Chertoff was appointed by President George H. W. Bush as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.[4] Among his most important cases, in 1992 Chertoff put second-term Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann in federal prison for over two years on charges of defrauding money from a savings and loan scam.
Chertoff is the co-author, along with Viet Dinh, of the USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law October 26, 2001[citation needed].
From 2001 to 2003, he headed the criminal division of the Department of Justice, leading the prosecution’s case against terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui and against accounting firm Arthur Andersen for destroying documents relating to the Enron collapse.
The prosecution of Arthur Andersen was controversial, as the firm was effectively dissolved, resulting in the loss of 26,000 jobs. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction and the case has not been retried.
At the DOJ, he also came under fire as one of the chief architects of the Bush administration’s legal strategies in the War on Terror[citation needed], particularly regarding the detainment of thousands of Middle Eastern immigrants[citation needed].
9.
Secretary of Homeland Security
After a lengthy search to find a suitable replacement, Bush nominated Chertoff to the post in January 2005 citing his experience with post-9/11 terror legislation. He was unanimously approved for the position by the United States Senate on February 15, 2005.[7]
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina most of the criticism was directed toward the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but DHS was criticized as well for its lack of preparation.[8]
A report issued by the Congressional Research Service, the non-partisan research division of the Library of Congress, said that the unchecked delegation of powers to Chertoff was unprecedented:
“After a review of federal law, primarily through electronic database searches and consultations with various CRS experts, we were unable to locate a waiver provision identical to that of §102 of H.R. 418—i.e., a provision that contains ‘notwithstanding language,’ provides a secretary of an executive agency the authority to waive all laws such secretary determines necessary, and directs the secretary to waive such laws.”[13]Wiki
NOTE: You may WELL ask how DHS Chertoff’s mojo failed in NOT uncovering the theft and dark liquidity derivatives on Wall Street,considering his track record.
Well,as H.L. Mencken stated:
“It’s hard to get a man to understand something,when his paycheck depends upon him NOT understanding it.”
Typical rethug SOP – be afraid, very very afraid.
peas pooRidge hot ..peas pooRidge cold …
The significance of the Hutchison Port holdings issue,is that HPH is a Chinese company owned by Li Ka Shing.
During the Clinton administration, Ka Shing attempted to buy Global Crossing,and was extensively involved in what came to be known as China gate.
Clinton signed the formal handover of the Panama Canal,whom Hutchison Port Holdings controls.
According to Wiki, Hutchison Whamopoa division of HPH, is on the UK “dirty list” for subsidizing and providing ammuntion to the brutal Myanmar regime in Burma.
It has been said that Li Ka Shing is to Chinese Intelligence ,what Howard Hughes was to the CIA.
There is MUCH background that gives pause,imho, about Director of Homeland Security going into partnership with Hutchison.
In Ridge’s case, I’d say this (as to “why now?”): when people like Nate Silver start saying that things already don’t look good for the Democrats in 2010, out-of-work Republicans need to start cutting ties to Bush.
FWIW, I think it’s outdated to assume that people who are pissed off with the Dems will simply vote GOP.
Those days are gone.
But extremists always gain power when the center does not hold.
There needs to be a center, and it needs to hold.
reader –
I did not mean to imply that not being a Democrat was key to winning in 2010 or to suggest that Nate Silver has said so, either.
What I was saying is that, if you are a Republican, especially one with existing links to Bush, you’d better go out of your way to cut ties to Bush as soon as possible. And, further, that many Republicans might not have bothered to do this until recently, since they didn’t think 2010 was far enough away. But now they do think the door may be open again in 2010, so they are scrambling to cut ties.
According to the above timeline, Ridge had departed as head of DHS a mere two months BEFORE he became involved in the Savi /Hutchison deal.
As such, I will amend my previous statement,i.e,:
There is MUCH background that gives pause,imho, about a FORMER Director of Homeland Security going into partnership with Hutchison.
It’s time to loudly renew our calls for Holder to investigate and prosecute Bush-Cheney administration crimes. Thank you, Tom Ridge, for the information, but by failing to resign, you became complicit in the crimes. Your confession is much too late.
COMPANY NEWS; HOME DEPOT NAMES TOM RIDGE A DIRECTOR
February 25, 2005
Home Depot Inc., the home-improvement retailer, named the former secretary of the Homeland Security Department, Tom Ridge, to its board.________________
I think this would constitute an Orange Alert–that is the Home Depot logo color of choice,correct?
(This appointment to Home Depot is only 10 days AFTER Chertoff is approved by the Senate as Ridge’s replacement,on February 15,2005.)
A day late and a dollar short. Not exactly a profile in courage, Tom Ridge. If you suspected something as serious as altering the threat levels to manipulate public fears and influence elections, you should’ve resigned right then and there. And gone public.
Is Paul O’Neill the only guy in the Bush administration who actually resigned because he was disturbed by the shit going on?
Hey folks, here’s a description of Ridge’s book from his publisher’s website.
Some of the bullet points, as listed by his publisher:
How the DHS was pressured to connect homeland security to the international “war on terror”
• How Ridge effectively thwarted a plan to raise the national security alert just before the 2004 Election
• How Ridge had pushed for a plan (defeated because of turf wars) to integrate DHS and FEMA disaster management in New Orleans and other areas before Hurricane Katrina
Olbermann youtubes
The Nexus of Politics and Terror
I wrote a short blog about, I think(?), a few weeks before Keith ran his first report, on how they used fear to control people
Does anyone here recall Clarke Kent Ervin?
He was Inspector General for the DHS for 18 months under Ridge.
Spinning the terror alert color wheel was not the only spinning going on,according to Ervin,who left DHS under less than friendly terms:
Inspector: Ridge fought report
WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department’s former independent watchdog says he was twice summoned to Tom Ridge’s office last year and asked why his reports criticizing the agency were being sent to Congress and whether they could be presented more favorably to the department.
The former Homeland Security secretary “was trying to get me not to give things to Congress and also to try to spin reports in a way most favorable to the department, and I resisted both of those,” former Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin said.
In a statement, Mr. Ridge said: “I did not always agree with the tactics, interpretations, conclusions or recommendations of the inspector general. At no time, however, did I ever ask him to suppress or withhold a specific report.
Mr. Ervin’s statements are “untrue and deserve no further comment,” said Mr. Ridge, who left as secretary last month. (2005)
more….
http://www.dallasnews.com/shar…..hin…
Wonder if ”Heck of a job”,Tommy Ridge ,included THIS in his memoir?
(Tom) Ridge to FEMA critics: ’Stop whining’
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTer…..D=2…
Ridge to FEMA critics: ’Stop whining’
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7,2005 (UPI) — Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says critics of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hurricane Katrina response should ”quit whining.” Ridge’s outspoken comments are the first time he has responded in public to criticisms of the way FEMA was incorporated into his new department in 2003.
”They ought to quit whining about what happened in the past — that had absolutely nothing to do with what happened in Katrina,” he told United Press International.
Tom Ridge will apparently confirm everything we suspected: he was ordered (by whom?!)EWNews__________________________________________
Ridge: I Was Pressured to Raise Terror Alert Level Before ‘04 Election
Thursday 20 August 2009
by: Olivier Knox | Visit article original @ Agence France-Presse
Former Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge says he was pressured often to use the terror alert levals for political purposes.
Washington – Former US homeland security chief Tom Ridge charges in a new book that top aides to then-president George W. Bush pressured him to raise the “terror alert” level to sway the November 2004 US election.
Then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and attorney general John Ashcroft pushed him to elevate the color-coded threat level, but Ridge refused, according to a summary from his publisher, Thomas Dunne Books.
“After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector,” Ridge is quoting as writing in “The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege … And How We Can Be Safe Again.”
Agence France-presse
It’s infuriating that Ridge’s penance is a profitable book tour
@32
I was thinking it was more along the lines of a plenary indulgence…
We kind of knew most of this when Ridge appeared on the Daily Show sometime last year (iirc) and said the alert levels were bullshit.
@20
CHERTOFF OKs TORTURE
Bizarre Choice for Homeland Czar Deep in Scandal
By James P. Tucker
Controversy continues to swirl around Michael Chertoff, President George W. Bush�s pick to replace Tom Ridge as chief of the Homeland Security Department. As the Senate began considering Chertoff�s nomination on Feb. 2, news broke that Chertoff had been implicated in advising the CIA on the legality of various means of torturing detainees held in U.S. prison camps in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
But as per its usual stand in the face of criticism, the White House officially denied that Chertoff did anything wrong or that he even had any part in issuing legal advice on torture techniques.
However, according to The New York Times, one current federal official and two former senior officials say Chertoff told the CIA that certain forms of torture were entirely permissible under the currently existing U.S. anti-torture statute.
Chertoff allegedly issued his advice in his capacity as head of the Justice Department�s criminal division following inquiries from CIA employees who wanted legal counsel as to how far they could go in physically manhandling terror suspects who were being interrogated.
Evidently the conflict in the stories between Chertoff and his accusers arises because the Justice Department does not want to be seen as having issued any standards that could be construed as unconditional approval for the use of torture.
It is alleged that Chertoff left open the possibility of other forms of mistreatment, depending on the condition of the suspect.
OK WITH ME IF OK WITH BYBEE
Chertoff told the CIA that it could use forms of mistreatment if they were in accordance with an August 2002 memorandum from Jay S. Bybee of the Office of Legal Counsel to Presidential Counsel Alberto Gonzales.
Bybee�s memo said that harsh interrogation techniques qualified as torture only if they were enough to cause organ failure or imminent death. This is the same memo that has plagued Gonzales, Bush�s pick to replace Attorney General John Ashcroft.
It has been argued that this memo set the legal justification for the CIA and the Department of Defense to use brutal, inhuman methods on terror suspects as documented in reports by the FBI, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department.
Legal experts say that the memo, along with Chertoff�s recommendations, violates specific international conventions and the anti-torture statute passed by Congress in 1994, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 113(c), Sec. 2340(a) and 2340(b) which provides for 20 years in prison or even death for torture.
Chertoff has denied that he made any specific recommendations on torture to the CIA or the Pentagon.__________________2/02/2005 AFP
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