Yah, these days you would hope that the cable news would latch onto hookergate immediately, but the Kennedy thing just fit too perfectly. By all accounts everyone in DC is checking out hookergate, and indictments will probably still get dropped on their heads pretty soon. Just before that, the media execs will likely get around to setting up the circus that we want to see.

Just think, though. The last time there were Watergate shenanigans how long did *that* take to finally break through? Give it another week and I'm sure there will be the kind of salacious details out there for Nancy Grace/Paula Zahn type people to blather about endlessly.

Also it is interesting how the Capitol police have had so many weird run-ins lately that seem perfectly shaped to discredit Democrats and create a kind of media tempo of crazy-democratness. McKinney, Kennedy... I don't know if folks here trust what Wayne Madsen has to say but he makes an interesting argument on his site today that the Capitol police are more and more a wing of the GOP bullshit machine - http://www.waynemadsenreport.com . It would not surprise me that they filled up the Capitol cops with good ol boys.

Don't panic yet. How could this one possibly fall off the radar with a whimper?!

I whipped this up the other day for a post on my site on Hookergate... it's gonna go big!
--
Hongpong.com - getting that special babylon feeling

Goss: Claims I Partied With Wilkes Are "Flatly Untrue," "Horribly Irresponsible"

By Justin Rood - April 28, 2006, 4:22 PM

I called the CIA this morning to get their reaction to Ken Silverstein's piece in Harper's that seems to put Goss in the poker-and-more parties thrown by Brent Wilkes. The parties were held in the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels -- and a third hotel, I'm hearing, which hasn't been reported yet -- as well as at the house of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, a longtime friend of Wilkes' who is now #3 at the CIA.

After a long series of off-the-record phone calls with CIA spokespeople, I was finally given an on-the-record comment -- about Goss. Speaking on behalf of the director, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck said, "This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn't even been to the Watergate in decades."...

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000505.php

Harper's
Posted on Thursday, April 27, 2006. By Ken Silverstein.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham may not have limited his good times to partying on a rented yacht. It turns out the FBI is currently investigating two defense contractors who allegedly provided Cunningham with free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes.

The two defense contractors who allegedly bribed Cunningham, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I've learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post. I've also been able to learn the name of the limousine service that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties: Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia. Wilkes, I've learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine service.

It gets even more interesting: the man who has been identified as the CEO of Shirlington has a 62-page rap sheet (I recently obtained a copy) that runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petit larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more. Curiously—or perhaps not so curiously given the company's connections—Shirlington Limousine is also a Department of Homeland Security contractor; according to the Washington Post, last fall it won a $21.2 million contract for shuttle services and transportation support...

It might get harder to run from this story.

"It's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

the Adminisration hoped would be buried by Monday. Agonist tradition. Let's see on Goss.

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

reporters rake the muck....I feel the biggest nuggets from this one haven't been dug up yet.

Let's get those photos on the news pages, shall we? I'd LOVE to see how those get explained away by those involved in them, and more rotten fruit will fall from the tree at that point.

History shows that if you back these rats into corners, they start to squeal. I am VERY interested in seeing what stories they can tell.

-5.75,-4.05 "The invisible hand of Adam Smith seems to offer an extended middle finger to an awful lot of people"---George Carlin

""This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn't even been to the Watergate in decades."

That's not a denial.

Think about how a Police Chief retains power in power crazed cesspool like D.C.
As a police chief you gather data (juicy dirt) on all the power players you can, from both sides, one never knows when those pictures are needed to keep your job, or pay tuition. Gather all the dirt you can on as many people you can, even new to the scene aids and such. Police always know what is going on in their town, they run the streets at all hours, have intimate encounters with all types of people who deliver the good goods to those who can pay the freight. A competent police force runs a network of Informants AKA snitches and downloads data daily. The Police know what is going on, just because a bust does not happen on each piece of snitch data, does not mean that the object of attention is forgotten, just put off for another day, or used as a bargaining chip for bigger and better things.

Police and Criminals have an intimate relationship; each other knows what the other is doing. And yes, they do keep secrets from each other for a while, just a little while at that.

From the Wayne Madson Report
.

May 5, 2006 -- The U.S. Capitol Police, the Gestapo for the thuggish GOP Congressional majority. The GOP nepotistic Capitol Hill Police Chief Terrance Gainer spent long enough in his job to ensure that new hires, including his son-in-law, represented the same political views as the right-wing GOPers who run the House and the Senate. Gainer resigned as chief amid nepotism charges. The GOP leadership have peppered the Sergeant-at-Arms and other patronage positions with GOP loyalists. It is no wonder that the Capitol Police's Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) chapter, supported by the Washington, DC FOP, have become virtual "Swiftboating" branches of the Republican National Committee in attacks on Democratic members of Congress. Its leadership has been at the forefront of calling for legal action against Georgia Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney after a white Capitol Hill cop, Paul McKenna, physically grabbed her after he failed to recognize her as a member of Congress. The cops have changed their story from McKinney hitting McKenna with a her phone, to stabbing with her cell phone, to hitting with a closed fist, to shoving. The change in the cop's story is a clear sign of deception. The

The GOP "Gestapo on the Hill": Capitol Hill Police

The FOP is now calling for an investigation of Rhode Island Democratic Representative Patrick Kennedy, the son of Senator Ted Kennedy, after a traffic accident early Thursday morning at the Capitol building. The FOP, fronting for the GOP, is claiming Kennedy was intoxicated and witnessed "staggering." Kennedy insists he was drowsy after taking Phenergan, an anti-nausea drug used to treat gastroenteritis, an Ambien, a sleeping agent. While it is not known what may have caused Kennedy's stomach condition and nausea, a number of Washington residents, including this editor, have been plagued by a very nasty respiratory infection which causes nausea as a result of post-nasal drip entering the digestive tract.

In Bush's America, the burden of proof is now on the citizens and their elected representatives against cops who gladly perjure themselves for political purposes. The GOP leadership of the Congress is petrified about the unfolding scandal involving as many as fifteen Republican members in prostitution (male and female), bribe-paying CIA contractors, limousines, poker parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels, and drinking sprees. The politivcally-motivated attacks on Democrats by the Capitol Hill police, which must clearly be purged after the expected Democratic win in November, are nothing more than attempts to divert attention from the GOP scandals involving hookers, bribes, and Jack Abramoff.

Ed. note: And always true to form, that so-called "liberal" blog that uses the initials "DU" is piling on Kennedy, claiming to "know" he was drunk. If you want fantasy and Fox-style spin, go there. WMR continues its policy of not linking to neo-con blogs.

"Takes a bucket of blood for a barrel of oil"

Steven Bruton

For those not familiar with the terminology of the espionage world, a honey trap is an encounter with a prostitute designed to compromise an official.

"Takes a bucket of blood for a barrel of oil"

Steven Bruton

By Justin Rood - May 3, 2006, 10:15 PM

TPM Muckraker

GOP super-strategist Ed Rollins (late of the Katherine Harris campaign) made a couple interesting comments on Charlie Rose last night. First, he indicated strongly that he believes a number of the other lawmakers in trouble with Hookergate are Defense appropriators. He also says as many as 15 lawmakers could get indicted over the mess in the next few months.

Maybe Ed's playing the expectations game: if voters buy the 15 number, and only seven actually get busted, well then the kids aren't so bad after all. Still, it's interesting speculation from an insider. I just found the show transcript on Nexis -- emphasis is mine:

ED ROLLINS. . . If this House scandal is as big as I think it is from talking to people that are around it -- of course it started with Cunningham and it`s moving beyond that.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Duke Cunningham.

ED ROLLINS: Duke Cunningham, a congressman from San Diego who took bribes. There was a real little cabal on the Defense Appropriations Committee in which a couple of people who basically made an awful lot of money off of defense contractors and basically rewarded a bunch of members, Republicans.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Including a story that broke over the weekend, perhaps the use of prostitutes.

ED ROLLINS: The use of prostitutes and what`s occurred in Washington that I think everyone`s disgusted at, is we promised we were going to be different than the Democrats; we weren`t going to basically be beholden to K Street, we were going to be term limits and we weren`t going to be the big PACs and all the rest of it. That`s all gone by the boards, and if anything we may even be worse.

a bit more at link