High Water Mark of Crimes and Misdemeanors?

Boy it's been an awful long time since I posted anything here. I've shifted gears and moved from the Northeast to an educational commun(ity) in an undisclosed mountain valley of California. Internet here is slow and sporadic. Life is placid and serene, with plenty of little, hands-on things to keep me busy, and a wonderful community meal three times a day like clockwork. In short, it has been all too easy to leave the hapless world outside to its own devices. But I have been watching, and have meant every so often to get something on here, but each time the internet connection goes south, or the dinner bell rings, or the cat gets out or whatever, and the post is waylaid and delayed.

Which brings me to why I've decided to post this morning. Google News has some very interesting tidbits today. It does indeed seem like the Bushocracy is falling apart at the seams. The corporate boardroom of empire is quickly getting mired in its own corruption. Nevertheless, they keep plugging along with their cronyism--naturally, it's the only game they know, the only tool in their box--devil may care, let the world rot.

To wit, item one, which had me most elated: "
DeLay Indicted in Texas Campaign Finance Probe"

This time it's for real, and this badass Texas bully boy has had to step down from his position as House Majority Leader. Let's hope (beyond hope) they slam his butt in jail.

Bill Frist is also facing an investigation by the SEC for possible insider trading.

And Plamegate is still waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Meanwhile, Bush tries to bring out the only old, tired distraction he has left, his good old war: "Bush Warns of Upsurge of Violence in Iraq" . At least he can be counted on to stay on message--it's just that the timing is always the curious thing. When well over 100,000 people, including Iraqi vets, (and possibly more like 300,000) come to Washington to protest vehemently this war of petro-aggression (countered by a pathetic little phalanx of prowar agitators), Bush beats a retreat to Colorado military bunkers, in order to get in some necessary monitoring of Hurricane Rita from 1,000 miles away. On what was happening in DC, where the messy realities of democracy and dissent were unfolding--no comment. He's too busy watching a storm (too bad he hadn't been so concerned about Katrina several days before). Now, as DeLay is indicted, he comes out of the Oval Office to restate the obvious: Iraq is a violent, bloody quagmire.
But Bush's "march of freedom" trudges on!

Meanwhile again, the current FDA chief, just two months into his position as commissioner, has resigned. Reason, he's just tired. But many people are wondering about his financial dealings, and asking a lot of annoying questions that are receiving quite a few bald denials in response. Also, the GAO was going to start "routine investigations" into his financial conflicts, and he "didn't want to go through that again."

So goodbye Mr. Lester Crawford; hello Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach. Bush's new appointee, a good buddy from Houston (surprise, surprise!), is insisting that he can manage both his new FDA job and his current job as the chief of the National Cancer Institute, AND that no, despite all the hubbub, there is NO conflict of interest going on. Oh yeah, as the head of FDA he will be involved in approving anti-cancer drugs developed by the NCI.

This blatant ethical blindness is of the same sort that led to the corporate accounting culture where bookkeeping firms did double duty as auditors for their clients--and thought this was a fine and dandy way of doing things.

Long story short, the BushCo CorpoRATocracy is operating as planned when every good old boy (or girl) has his or her foot in troughs public and private. The siphoning off from one into the other will not work any other way. You cannot bleed a people dry through managerial neofeudalism if the mechanisms of public graft are not oiled to a polished sheen with the palm-grease of nepotistic cronyism.

But the news these days is that this game may be reaching a head, that another bubble may be about to burst. Let's hope for little DeLay in the final doom. And meanwhile, when Bush comes out to speak, always look around to see what real news is being snowjobbed, or what crony is being hid behind the curtains.

Impeachment update: Google the word "IMPEACH" and seven of the first ten results are about the impeachment of George Bush (one of them about the impeachment of his hapless cohort across the pond, Tony Blair).

I can't say this post means "I'm back" in action. But it is a sign that I'm still out here, watching, waiting, thinking, dreaming....