matryoshka

(Trump associates' links with Russia: what we know so far)

What'd I miss?

So according to the Trump press conference:

Trump: "I did not pee on those women, unnamed Russian teen sex workers."

He has no business dealings with Russia (despite what his son has publicly said in the past).

His bromance with Putin continues unabated.

He has almost no debt. (lolololol forever)

Some business attorney he hired who spoke today is somehow the best, most classy, bigly Constitutional expert on emoluments ever!

He's doing nothing that real ethics experts consider to be enough to wall himself off from his business (Uday & Qusay will manage them and never breath a word about it to Daddy).

CNN is "fake news."

He doubled down on crying that he's living in Nazi Germany because people are mean to him.

He's replacing Obamacare one hour after it is repealed...

And, because "Hillary, Hillary Hillary, DNC, DNC, DNC"

What'd I miss?

Ravenstahl: Knee-deep, waist-deep...

 ...Or up to his eyeballs in it?

Massey Energy: Hundreds of Safety Violations; Thousands of Environmental Violations

Even their logo looks hellish.
Most of you have already heard that a devastating blast at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia has killed 25 workers with 4 workers still missing.

It's the worst U.S. mining disaster since 1984.

The mine is owned by Massey Energy and is run by its subsidiary Performance Coal Company which according to an AP article in the Post-Gazette has "a history of violations for not properly ventilating highly combustible methane gas."

That article further states:

In the past year, federal inspectors fined the company more than $382,000 for repeated serious violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at Upper Big Branch. The violations also cover failing to follow the plan, allowing combustible coal dust to pile up, and having improper firefighting equipment.

The New York Times has more:

Federal records indicate that the Upper Big Branch mine has recorded an injury rate worse than the national average for similar operations for at least six of the past 10 years. The records also show that the mine had 458 violations in 2009, with a total of $897,325 in safety penalties assessed against it last year. It has paid $168,393 in safety penalties.

“Massey’s commitment to safety has long been questioned in the coalfields,” said Tony Oppegard, a lawyer and mine safety advocate from Kentucky.

Those concerns, he said, were heightened in 2006 when an internal memo written by Mr. Blankenship became public. In the memo, Mr. Blankenship instructed the company’s underground mine superintendents to place coal production first.

“This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills,” he wrote.

With that kind of attitude on worker safety, it shouldn't be at all surprising that Massey and company CEO Don Blankenship are equally cavalier with the public's safety.

According to Wikipedia:

In early 2008, the company agreed to a $20 million settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA) to resolve thousands of violations of the Clean Water Act for routinely polluting waterways in Kentucky and West Virginia with coal slurry and wastewater. Although this was the largest Clean Water Act settlement, the violations were estimated to have fines on the order of $2.4 billion. Over 700 miles of rivers and streams in the coalfields have been buried by the waste rock left over from mountaintop removal, a method of strip mining coal which requires the blowing up of mountain tops, removing from 500 to 800 feet (240 m) of mountaintop in the process. This method of coal mining has created some of the worst environmental disasters in the Mississippi area in regards to the poisoning of waterways, the flooding of local communities, and the destruction of the biodiversity of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

In October 2000, a Massey Energy subsidiary in Martin County, Kentucky accidentally released 306 million gallons of coal slurry waste from an impoundment into two mountain streams, Coldwater Creek and Wolf Creek (see photo right). The Martin County sludge spill was called the worst ever environmental disaster in the southeastern United States by the EPA. The spill smothered all aquatic life in the streams and left residents with contaminated drinking water. Cleanup costs for the spill were approximately $50 million.

Blankenship has also personally made it known that business interests should come before any environmental considerations (via SourceWatch):

At a November 2008 meeting of the Tug Valley Mining Institute in West Virginia, Don Blankenship described environmental groups, along with Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, as "Totally wrong. Nonsense. Absolutely crazy." He referred to reporters at the Charleston Gazette, a paper that has published numerous articles about the environmental effects of coal, as "communists" and "atheists." He also argued that the international scope of greenhouse gas emissions makes it futile to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S., saying, "Its nonsensical, its idiotic... If Pelosi thinks that decreasing CO2 in this country is going to save the polar bears, she’s crazy. If CO2 emissions are going to kill the polar bears, it’s going to happen. What we do here [in the US] is not going to [do] it." Blankenship also declared that business interests should come before environmental issues, and he questioned the ability of the general public to understand anything beyond simple environmental concepts.

And, if all that wasn't bad enough, Blankenship also waged "a multi-million dollar advertising campaign...to elect a West Virginia Supreme Court judge to preside over cases his company had before the court may push the U.S. Supreme Court to act."

Via ABC News:

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens Tuesday called the case one of the most "extreme" of its kind that the high court has ever considered. The situation fit Justice Potter Stuart's infamous definition of obscenity, Stevens said, "I know it when I see it."

Here's Coal Boss Don Blankenship roughing up an ABC reporter in 2008:



Our condolences to the families of the workers killed in the blast, as well as all those harmed by Massey.
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"The List"

Like yinz already didn't know there was one . . .

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A picture is worth a thousand words...so why use the worst one?

I know that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette endorsed Pittsburgh City Councilor Patrick Dowd for mayor, but I have to wonder again why they print such terribly unflattering photos of him?

I'm sure that this photograph...


accurately represents how Dowd looked for a split second or so (it's not like I think they rock the Photoshop like me -- or the NYT), but I'm certain that the photo was one out of many which were taken that they had to choose from.

So why pick the one that makes him look like he was screaming at the top of his lungs (or made me feel like I was a doctor holding a tongue depressor)?

If I was a voter who wasn't paying much attention to the mayoral race up until this point and I saw this picture it might sway me against Dowd or at the very least not make me want to find out more about him.

And, it's a shame because the issue is real:

The back-and-forth started with Mr. Dowd standing across the street from the Grant Street Transportation Center, with its unfinished Lamar Advertising electronic billboard. His campaign staff brought a cardboard check for $101,000 -- the approximate amount of post-resignation payments and benefits that former Urban Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Pat Ford is getting as part of an agreement that bars him and city officials from disparaging each other.

"That's hush money!" Mr. Dowd shouted, as his neck reddened and passers-by stopped to listen. "That's a sign of corruption. That's unacceptable in this city."

That arrangement stemmed from winter 2008 revelations that the city -- with guidance from Mr. Ford -- let Lamar have a permit and a no-bid contract to put a 19-by-58-foot sign on the center. When Mr. Ford confirmed that he'd received Christmas gifts from a Lamar executive, a State Ethics Commission review ensued, Mr. Ford accused the administration of a "culture of deception and corruption," and the two sides reached the settlement that Mr. Dowd brandished yesterday

This isn't the first time that the P-G has used what had to have been the least flattering picture taken to illustrate an article. Remember this one which made the very tall Dowd look like a dwarf?


Granted that Dowd was animated -- even passionate -- when speaking about the billboard issue, but judge for yourself if the first photograph above really represents the press conference he held:




(h/t to The Pittsburgh Comet for the video.)
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Blagojaggoffevich

Maybe that 1970s hair on his head is growing into his brain or one of his many schemes for life after the governorship included getting a gig on the TV series Life on Mars.


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NO! (yes)

Bob Mayo's transcript of Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's Q&A with reporters about the payment to former URA Executive Director Pat Ford where he denies that hush money was paid here and the questions that Bram would like to have asked here.
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Conyers: Readying Capitol Jail Cell for Karl Rove

Those attending today's press conference on Single Payer Healthcare with Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, held at the Democratic Party Platform Committee meeting at the David Lawrence Pittsburgh Convention Center in Pittsburgh, PA were rewarded with some tough talk on an entirely different subject:

What to do about Karl Rove's inherent contempt of Congress.

Talking Points Memo reported yesterday that, "Things are moving right along in the wake of the HJC v. Miers decision last week" and that "White House Counsel Fred Fielding has already responded to Rep. John Conyer's (D-MI) letter requesting 'quick compliance' with the ruling." (More at Crooks & Liars here.)

But it would seem that things aren't moving quickly enough for Conyers (I guess Rove just can't be talked down from the ledge of contempt proceedings).

A source who attended the press conference reported the following:

In a sometimes rambling press conference, Conyers noted that they were quite busy and that the jail cell in the Capitol was being brought up to federal minimum standards as it hadn't been used since the 1930s. (See Linda Shuster's comments on that cell here.) He added that while a cot would be brought in that a TV wouldn't. And, that we'd see how long Rove would like to be a guest there before he finally decides to comply with the HJC subpoena.

Apparently KDKA was there. I hope they have some video or even some audio up soon.

Finally, can it be much longer before we see something like this?


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Pittsburgh Housing Authority Waste Exposed by Local Blogger

Local blogger Matt H's long awaited story on ridiculously wasteful spending at Pittsburgh's Housing Authority has finally made the news. Marty Griffin interviews Matt on KDKA News here.

Matt has hundreds of documented instances of abusive spending.

Urban Redevelopment Authority executive director -slash- Parking Authority chairman -slash- Housing Authority chairman* Patrick Ford is also interviewed by Griffith. Ford has been on the Housing Authority Board for a year -- much of that time overlapping with Matt's documentation of waste.

Great job, Matt!


* h/t to the Comet
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Bush & Cheney lied to public; implicated in Plame scandal

From former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new book:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff, and the president himself."

The CNN story on this helpfully reminds us that, "Rove, who left the White House staff at the end of August, was not charged in the case. But his lawyer has acknowledged he was one of two sources cited by syndicated columnist Bob Novak, who first reported in the summer of 2003 that Plame worked for the CIA."

Now here's where the Wingnuts will cry that Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admitted to revealing the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame COMPLETELY IGNORING THE FACT THAT THERE WERE MULTIPLE LEAKERS TO MULTIPLE REPORTERS/COLUMNISTS.

Is there anything about this was that Bush and Cheney haven't lied about?

IMPEACH
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First on Google

Saw this over at Shakesville:

"[T]he premise is that you will attempt to find 5 statements, which if you were to type into google (preferably google.com, but we'll take the other country specific ones if need be), you'll find that you are returned with your blog as the number one hit."

So here's ours:

1. Absolut Corruption / Absolute Corruption
2. 2 Political Junkies / two political junkies
3. Lil Mayor Luke
4. Lil Ricky Santorum
5. Jack Kelly gets spanked

Also coming up #1:

"Ruth Ann Dailey spins" / "Ruth Ann Dailey boots" ("Boots" one comes up #1 for 2pj and #2 for Honsberger is a Liar. HA!)

Sadly, we only come in fourth for the phrase "Ron Paul Sucks."
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ABSOLUT CORRUPTION.

Whether they're pulling a Martha Stewart, or conspiring to subvert election laws, or ripping off their kids' school board, or outing a CIA agent, or practicing cronyism turned deadly, or hiring a bagman who in turn hires Mafia hit men, or lying to get us into an unjust war that kills tens of thousands, these guys are:

(Click on graphic for larger image)

NOTE: ABSOLUT vodka did not create or contribute to this material, and has not authorized or approved it.

Crossposted (and a Recommended Diary) at Daily KOS.

UPDATE: I promise that I'll eventually get around to putting up posters, T-shirts, etc., of this image at my store: New Retro T's! -- maybe this weekend (10/22 - 10/23). And, I'll change the seal for all those who requested that.

UPDATE 2: Absolut Corruption political cartoon appears in the News Section of LA Weekly:

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/50/image-absolut.php



technorati tag: absolut corruption