The required transfer in four weeks of all of the Bush White House's electronic mail messages and documents to the National Archives has been imperiled by a combination of technical glitches, lawsuits and lagging computer forensic work, according to government officials, historians and lawyers.
Federal law requires outgoing White House officials to provide the Archives copies of their records, a cache estimated at more than 300 million messages and 25,000 boxes of documents depicting some of the most sensitive policymaking of the past eight years.
Bush E-Mails May Be Secret a Bit Longer
General George S. Patton was assassinated to silence his criticism of allied war leaders claims new book
The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives.
The death of General Patton in December 1945, is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash in Manheim, he was thought to be recovering and was on the verge of flying home.
But after a decade-long investigation, military historian Robert Wilcox claims that OSS head General "Wild Bill" Donovan ordered a highly decorated marksman called Douglas Bazata to silence Patton, who gloried in the nickname "Old Blood and Guts".
One of my sources died in a plane crash last night...
I don't usually reveal sources, but I think this is incredibly important. Michael Connell died in a plane crash last night. He was a key witness in the Ohio election fraud case that I have been reporting on. More importantly, however, he had information that he was ready to share.
You see, Mike Connell set-up the alternate email and communications system for the White House. He was responsible for creating the system that hosted the infamous GWB43.com accounts that Karl Rove and others used. When asked by Congress to provide these emails, the White House said that they were destroyed. But in reality, what Connell is alleged to have done is move these files to other servers after having allegedly scrubbed the files from all "known" Karl Rove accounts.
Demands for war crimes prosecutions are now growing in the mainstream
For obvious reasons, the most blindly loyal Bush followers of the last eight years are desperate to claim that nobody cares any longer about what happened during the Bush administration, that everyone other than the most fringe, vindictive Bush-haters is eager to put it all behind us, forget about it all and, instead, look to the harmonious, sunny future. That's natural. Those who cheer on shameful and despicable acts always want to encourage everyone to forget what they did, and those who commit crimes naturally seek to dismiss demands for investigations and punishment as nothing more than distractions and vendettas pushed by those who want to wallow in the past.
Former GSA Chief of Staff David Safavian Convicted of Obstruction, Making False Statements
A federal jury in Washington convicted David H. Safavian, the former chief of staff for the General Services Administration (GSA), of obstructing a GSA internal investigation and making false statements, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division announced today.
The jury convicted Safavian of four charges in an October 2008 superseding indictment, following a six-day trial and three days of jury deliberation. The jury found that from 2002 until 2005, Safavian made false statements and obstructed an investigation into his relationship with former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The investigation focused on whether Safavian, the chief of staff at the GSA from May 2002 until January 2004, aided Abramoff in his attempts to acquire GSA-controlled property in and around Washington.
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The jury convicted Safavian of four charges in an October 2008 superseding indictment, following a six-day trial and three days of jury deliberation. The jury found that from 2002 until 2005, Safavian made false statements and obstructed an investigation into his relationship with former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The investigation focused on whether Safavian, the chief of staff at the GSA from May 2002 until January 2004, aided Abramoff in his attempts to acquire GSA-controlled property in and around Washington.
Alaska State Senator Pleads Guilty to Public Corruption Charges
Alaska State Senator John Cowdery, 78, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to bribe another Alaska state legislator, Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich of the Criminal Division announced.
Cowdery admitted to conspiring to offer more than $10,000 in campaign contributions to another Alaska state senator (State Senator A) in exchange for State Senator A's support of oil tax legislation during the 2006 Alaska state legislative session.
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Cowdery admitted to conspiring to offer more than $10,000 in campaign contributions to another Alaska state senator (State Senator A) in exchange for State Senator A's support of oil tax legislation during the 2006 Alaska state legislative session.
Bush says he shares blame for negative tone
"The tone hasn't been good in Washington, and I've been disappointed in that, and I bear some of the blame for that," Bush said in a television interview.
As a candidate running for the White House in 2000, Bush promised to be a "uniter, not a divider." He also said he believed he could "change the tone in Washington" and "move beyond the bitterness and the partisanship."
But what many saw as his my-way-or-the-highway approach to diplomacy and policy won him criticism for contributing to a more divisive public debate over issues.
Pilot killed as plane crashes in Lake Twp.
Michael Connell, 45, of Bath Township, was alone in the plane, according to State Highway Patrol Lt. Eric Sheppard.
Connell was a prominent Republican political consultant. He founded New Media Communications in Richfield, which developed campaign Web sites for Republican presidential candidate John McCain and President George W. Bush.
Secret nuclear sell-off storm
Britain no longer has any stake in the production of its nuclear warheads after the Government secretly sold off its shares in the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston.
Ministers agreed to sell the remaining one-third ownership to a Californian engineering company. The announcement, which means that Americans will now produce and maintain Britain's independent nuclear deterrent, was slipped out on the eve of the parliamentary Christmas holiday. Officials refused to say how much the deal raised.
TVNL Comment: So where is all this democracy we hear of? It seems like governments that claim to be democratic don't give a damn what the people want. They don't even feel that they have to report back to the people informing them of their actions.
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