Art Pottery, Politics and Food
Saturday, March 11, 2006
 
Another White House Arrest?!?!!!


I guess it is par for the Bush course that the President’s former Assistant for Domestic Policy, responsible for the early Katrina response and some of the First Lady's faith based efforts such as October 2005's Helping America's Youth Conference, has been arrested for quite a bit of shoplifting.
This morning’s Washington Post succinctly summed up l’affair Claude:

Claude A. Allen, who resigned last month as President Bush's top domestic policy adviser, was arrested this week in Montgomery County for allegedly swindling Target and Hecht's stores out of more than $5,000 in a refund scheme.

According to Montgomery County Maryland’s government website:

Claude Alexander Allen, age 45, of the 7200 block of Cliff Pine Drive in Gaithersburg, was charged with theft scheme over $500 and theft over $500…The Target Loss Prevention Manger contacted Montgomery County Police [when] it was learned that Allen had been receiving refunds in an amount exceeding $5,000 during last year. Some of the fraudulent returns were made at Target stores and some at Hecht’s stores. He would buy items, take them out to his car, and return to the store with the receipt. He would select the same items he had just purchased, and then return them for a refund. Allen is known to have conducted approximately 25 of these types of refunds…He obtained refunds for items ranging from clothing, a Bose theater system, stereo equipment, and photo printer to items valued only at $2.50.

Allen faces a total of 30 years in prison if convicted of the two charges.
A search of his name on the WhiteHouse.gov site, as of this posting, still returns 385 hits with headings such as “President Thanks Domestic Policy Advisor Allen” and “Allen Hosts ‘Ask The White House’”…Not found were headings such as “Allen Hotwires President’s Limo” and “President Thanks Allen for Fabulous Stereo”.

Allen’s resignation from the White House follows a pattern established by the President’s former head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, David H. Safavian.

Modified Image: MontgomeryCountyMD.gov
- posted by Sean @ 8:55 AM 0 comments
Friday, March 10, 2006
 


Great minds...

Modified Image: AP
- posted by Sean @ 9:30 PM 0 comments
 
Freebird


From this morning's Washington Post:

Some Republican candidates...worry privately that...he will be more albatross than advantage for GOP candidates in the fall campaign.

Lord knows he can't change.

Modified Image: Reuters, TheBirdGuide.com
- posted by Sean @ 12:53 PM 0 comments
Thursday, March 09, 2006
 
"The Dubaides of March are come."


According to the Associated Press:

The issue has veered out of the Bush administration's control.

Modified Image: Google, COX-internet.com/lonewulfe/images.html, Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 5:10 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
 
Bar & Poppy's Boy


Not often enumerated, as another gigantic Bush failure, is Afghanistan’s current and ongoing multi billion-dollar narco-economy.
I've previously posted on Afghan heroin and its impact within the United States here and here.
According to our own government, “Afghanistan still remains the largest cultivator of illicit opium poppy in the world, accounting for approximately 87 percent of illicit opium worldwide.”
Today’s corporate press is abuzz with reports of the now annual eradication photo op by enfeebled elements of the Karzai and US forces:

It looks to be a bumper year. Some 320,000 acres are currently blanketed in rows of dandelion-like sprouts that eventually produce almost 90 percent of the world's heroin…an army of 500 tractor-driving Afghans hopes to plow the plants under.

The news accounts are full of facts provided by the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report just released by the United States Department of State.
That document provided a few facts about last year’s tractor plow-off:

Government forces [in 2005] conducted limited eradication. The CPEF was able to eradicate only a little over 200 hectares because of local resistance…200 hectares represents less than two-tenths (.002 percent) of one percent of the area planted to opium.

Are tractors to Afghan opium what schoolbuses were to stranded Big Easy citizens?

Modified Image: Poppies.org, WhiteHouse.gov
- posted by Sean @ 11:19 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
 
Whole Lot Of Bitches Talkin Shit:
It's Hard Out Here For A Veep


This morning Vice President Cheney kept it strictly pimpin before a select gathering of Larry Franklin's favorite snow bunnies as he threatened Iran with a little hatin:

"The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences."

Dick, keepin his ho's on the tray, is "like Kobe on game night"!

Modified Image: Reuters, ScarePros.com
- posted by Sean @ 1:30 PM 0 comments

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