EDITORIAL COMMENT: The EB is demanding mercy for Ms. Palfrey. A presidential pardon and a long secluded rest is advised for Ms. Palfrey sans blackberry.
'DC Madam' threatens to bring down Washington
April 29, 2007
The demise of a call-girl ring and pending trial of an alleged madam claiming thousands of clients has the US capital riveted by the chance powerful men may now be caught with their trousers down, with a senior state department official apparently first to fall.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 50, dubbed the DC Madam in local media, has been arraigned in federal court on charges of operating a Washington DC prostitution service for 13 years until her retirement last year.
Palfrey has denied she ran a prostitution ring. Her company, Pamela Martin and Associates, was simply a "high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behaviour and did so without incident during its 13-year tenure," she said.
Palfrey contends her escort service provided university educated women to engage in legal game-playing of a sexual nature at $US275 ($333) an hour for a 90-minute session, the Washington Post reported.
But Palfrey has also hinted that she has a record of the phone numbers of thousands of more than 10,000 customers that could embarrass more the a few of the US capital's high-fliers.
The US State Department announced yesterday Randall Tobias, the embattled head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), was resigning for unspecified personal reasons.
However ABC News, which said Palfrey has provided it with a record of the numbers of calls to her private mobile phone, reported Tobias stepped down after they spoke to him about his allegedly contacting her number.
Since 2003 Tobias also was President George W Bush's first global AIDS coordinator, a job which drew criticism for his emphasis on faithfulness to partners and abstinence over condom use in trying to prevent the spread of the AIDS virus.
Before entering government he was chairman, president and chief executive of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, and also, from 1997-2000, chairman of the board of trustees at Duke University.
His now-reported links to a firm accused of prostitution have raised more than a few eyebrows.
Palfrey's California home and other assets were seized by US tax authorities in October, and Palfrey has been trying to raise funds for her defence through an appeal on her website.
Her lawyer, Montgomery Blair Sibley, told Fox television last month: "The statistical certainty (is) that there are a fair number of high-profile people who used this service across the government and private sector in the metropolitan DC area."
And the Post reported on Saturday local jitters appear to be multiplying. It said Sibley claimed "he has been contacted in the past few days by five lawyers asking whether their clients' phone numbers are on Palfrey's list of 10,000 to 15,000 customers from 2002 to 2006."
That may have something to do with the fact that Palfrey already has named her first name, as it were, on her website, where she has posted a court document from April 12 in which she alleges formal US naval commander Harlan Ullman was a "regular customer" whom she needs to subpoena.
Ullman, with James Wade, developed the military doctrine of "shock and awe" used by US government in its invasion of Iraq. According to one definition, it is shorthand for rapid dominance based on the use of "overwhelming decisive force", "dominant manoeuvres", and "spectacular displays of power" to subdue the other side.
Earlier this month Ullman told CNN: "The allegations do not dignify a response," and referred any other questions to his lawyer.
AFP
Not Washington, just the GOP. Can you even stand the anticipation! this must be what the Right Wing felt like right before they showed images of Monica's dress!
ReplyDeletetums all around...welcome Diane, I want to hear more about that profile of yours!
ReplyDeleteRandall (Randy) Tobias was appointed by GWB, known for his faithfullness to the Constitution of the United States, and for vigorous prosecution to the full extent of the law of all federal agents caught trying to secure our borders.
ReplyDeleteAmen.
Since 2003 Tobias also was President George W Bush's first global AIDS coordinator, a job which drew criticism for his emphasis on faithfulness to partners and abstinence over condom use in trying to prevent the spread of the AIDS virus.
I lie awake all night, anticipating the knock on the door from Falwell's Brown-Shirted Storm Troopers.
ReplyDeleteLuckily for me, I no longer have to listen to my wife whining about it, being that Barrack Hussein Osama's Justice brigade had her stoned and beheaded.
---
"My question for the Right Wing is when the brownshirts come for you in the future because you missed church one week because your kid had the flu or a woman turns you in for seeing a sex toy in a cabinet in your bathroom who will be left to beg forgiveness from? All the liberals who would have stood up for you, The ACLU, CREW and others will all have been long gone to the camps to be "rehabilitated." Anyone who lived in the 20th Century knows that this has nothing to do with pleasant walks along the river path and calisthenics twice a day. but the political right feels like they are are the "chosen people' who can do no wrong and that they will never be eaten by their kind and benevolent elitist masters."
Thank Gaia for the ACLU!
"Thank Gaia for the ACLU" was supposed to immediately follow the beheading of my wife.
ReplyDeleteSorry.
The message stands, none the less.
Five Englishman practicing their peaceful religion, Allah, most merciful, willing and killing
ReplyDeleteFrom the Corner:
ReplyDeleteGood News In Anbar, Something Missing in the Times [Jonah Goldberg]
From the New York Times yesterday:
RAMADI, Iraq — Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat.
“Many people are challenging the insurgents,” said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, “We know we haven’t eliminated the threat 100 percent.”
Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.
At the same time, American and Iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of insurgent strongholds, particularly in and around Ramadi, leaving behind a network of police stations and military garrisons, a strategy that is also being used in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, as part of its new security plan.
Yet for all the indications of a heartening turnaround in Anbar, the situation, as it appeared during more than a week spent with American troops in Ramadi and Falluja in early April, is at best uneasy and fragile.
Me: Fair enough. Considering how awful the recent violence has been, the phrase "at best uneasy and fragile" seems like a minimally necessary caveat.
Still, given the political and military context, would it kill the Times to even mention how this all relates to the "surge." You won't find the word in there, as others noticed as well. Instead the whole article seems to talk around the word.
04/30 08:44 AM
Was this going on before the surge? Yes, it was. Will it make any difference in the end? No, it won't.
And does it ever occur to you, dear host, that muslims are beside the point of what aggravates and worries you most about the present day west?
Just a little deception play, on the part of the premier poker player, in DC.
ReplyDeleteAll this talk of sex, where is the violence?
What with the current state the wienie wave, in DC, you'll forget about the main event, mud wrestling in a quagmire.
That's the show worth the price of admission. General P tells US that the quagmire will be an:
"... endeavor that clearly is going to require enormous commitment and commitment over time, but beyond that time I don't want to get into try to postulate how many brigades or when we would start to do something ..."
One would think that the President would propose a legislative agenda that would support this "... enormous committment over time..."
Rather than leave it in legal limbo, to be decided upon only after Mr Bush has no residual legal authority.
Local police with loyalties to the local population and command structure, not to the PM in Baghdad. Not a step towards reconciliaton, per se.
ReplyDeleteLooks like another piece of evidence in the arguement concerning the case for Partition and Local control, in Iraq.
Bottom up, not top down.
Who'd have ever thought?
..."And does it ever occur to you, dear host, that muslims are beside the point of what aggravates and worries you most about the present day west?"..
ReplyDeleteare you reccomending an intervention?
If only there were.
ReplyDelete"Looks like another piece of evidence in the arguement concerning the case for Partition and Local control, in Iraq."
ReplyDeleteOh, please God, do not make us the caretakers of that.
No, not caretakers.
ReplyDeletePeacemakers, like old man Colt.
What we'll see is the worse of both spectrums. Bush will hold on, tooth and nail, to staying the course. The Dems will romp in '08, against a fractured GOP.
There will then be a "precipitous" pullout. The next Congress will cut the funding, by a date certain, if this one cannot.
A prediction based on the current trends, which are not waivering, from their five year course.
You'd think the mussulmen are as decieved as they're going to ever be. Wonder when we quit acting inept and get serious about what ever it is we're doing.
Tenet caught in lie even before book hits shelves
ReplyDeleteAt the Center of the Storm: A Demonstrable Lie
Clarice Feldman
In a review of George Tenet's book "At the Center of the Storm", Michiko Kakutani reveals Tenet's claim that the Administration --or at least the neocons in it--were determined to get Saddam even before the facts were in. In support of this he recounts Tenet's tale:
On the day after 9/11, he adds, he ran into Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and the head of the Defense Policy Board, coming out of the White House. He says Mr. Perle turned to him and said: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility." This, despite the fact, Mr. Tenet writes, that "the intelligence then and now" showed "no evidence of Iraqi complicity" in the 9/11 attacks.
Unfortunately for Tenet and whoever( if anyone) was fact checking this whine-arama Perle was out of the country on 9/11 and confirmed to me today that he was unable to return home until 9/15/2003.
Some head of intelligence.
Update: I see that Bill Kristol spoke with Perle , too, and beat me to print.
From my recollection of the review of events predeeding 9-11 I seem to recall ONE FBI agent in Phoenix who had connected the dots on AQ, reported same and was promptly ignored.
ReplyDeleteI think our "intelligence commmunity" wasn't focused on any of what eventually mattered on 9-11 but I'll be honest I can't remember what they were reportedly focused on at the time?
Mr Cheney was right back in the Summer of '93.
ReplyDeleteThey were right at Army leadership schools, PNCOC and BNCOC. A Warning Order is followed by an Operations Order.
The Warning Order outlines mission objectives and assets available.
The Operations Order sends you on your way towards utilizing the assets, to obtain the objectives.
What is required of a squad, a platoon, for a raid or a patrol, to obtain its' objectives, is needed by a Country, as well.
Goals that cannot be defined cannot be achieved. Recall Mr Newt's telling of 10% military / 90% "other". Now those percentages may be a bit skewed, but that has been the US course in Iraq.
Military and "other". General P agrees, that there is no military solution or victory to be achieved, in Iraq.
Baghdad and its' adjoining metroplex remain unsecure, D-Day plus 4 years.
7 out of 8 non-military "success" stories are failures, six months on, after completion and handover to the Iraqi.
Nothing about the events of 9-11-01 changed the Standard of acceptable performance.
The original Cheney Standard.
The one he adhered to, before his "growth" occurred.
Mission definition &
Clear obtainable goals are needed for military operations.
Political means and ends are tasked to other Agencies, that after four years of US presence in Iraq are still not prepared for the tasking.
As if an entire flock of Mike Browns had descended upon the Federal offices in DC.
Mike Brown, setting and exceeding Mr Bush's Federal Standard of Employee Competence. Mike Brown and Gonzo.
"They didn't do anything ... Illegal"
Let's not forget to raise a toast today to the 62nd anniversary of the death of Adolf Hitler..may he continue to burn in hell.
ReplyDeleteCertainly second that toast!
ReplyDeleteAnother round for the Bar!
I've gone ahead and hired some girls from Pamela Martin and Associates, they sell "high-end adult fantasy", and believe you me, boys & Ms T, we're gonna love it. Guarennnteeeed!
diane, hope you have a good time, too.
Or my money back, if not deeelighted!
Hagel on Iraq
ReplyDeleteBy Robert Novak
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Chuck Hagel returned from his fifth visit to Iraq to join Senate Democrats last Thursday as one of two Republicans voting to begin withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It was not an easy vote for a conservative party regular and faithful supporter of President George W. Bush's non-Iraq policies. A few days earlier, Hagel sat down with me to paint a bleak picture of the war and U.S. policy.
Over a dozen years, I have had many such conversations with Hagel not for quotation. This time, I asked him to go on the record about his assessment of what the "surge" has accomplished. In language more blunt than his prepared speeches and articles, he described Iraq as "coming undone," with its regime "weaker by the day." He deplored the Bush administration's failure to craft a coherent Middle East policy, blaming the influence of Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams. ....
Read more! at RCP
China, who's afraid of China?
ReplyDeleteThe Empire of Lies
Guy Sorman
The twenty-first century will not belong to China.
The Western press is full of stories these days on China’s arrival as a superpower, some even heralding, or warning, that the future may belong to her. Western political and business delegations stream into Beijing, confident of China’s economy, which continues to grow rapidly. Investment pours in. Crowning China’s new status, Beijing will host the 2008 Summer Olympics.
But China’s success is, at least in part, a mirage. True, 200 million of her subjects, fortunate to be working for an expanding global market, increasingly enjoy a middle-class standard of living. The remaining 1 billion, however, remain among the poorest and most exploited people in the world, lacking even minimal rights and public services. Popular discontent simmers, especially in the countryside, where it often flares into violent confrontation with Communist Party authorities. China’s economic “miracle” is rotting from within.
Read More! at City
More good news out of the UK today. It seems as though Prince Harry will be allowed to serve in in Iraq after all.
ReplyDeleteLONDON — The head of the British army said Monday that he has personally decided Prince Harry will go to Iraq.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt stressed the decision would be kept under review, but said he hoped his statement would end the media speculation surrounding the prince's deployment.
This should help alter the perception of a rapidly disappearing British backbone which arose when it appeared young Harry wouldn't be allowed to go immediately after the humiliation of the Naval boarding party by the Iranians. It is also more in keeping with Harry's behavior in Aussie John Birmingham's Axis of Time Trilogy, a sci-fi, alternate history thriller that has as its premise a Coalition Battle Fleet from the future being tossed back in time and landing at the Battle of Midway. Recommended reading for Elephant Barristers, who obviously have lots of free time on their hands.
As for the DC Madame. Presidential Pardon, NO! Special Prosecutor YES. Thinking with ones penis does not follow pary or ideological lines. Let's give the Democrats an opportunity to be on the receiving end of some of the cheer that they have dishing out with such eagerness as of late.
I know this Dates Me but this kind of stuff is as old as our hills out here.
ReplyDeleteWe need a constitutional amendment that mandates some kind of zipper lock for our males politicians, during their term of office. As to the gals, well, let's think...
ReplyDeleteHabu,
ReplyDeleteRichard Clarke, Michael Schuere, and John O'neill knew plenty about where and what bin Laden and Al Queda were up to.
Despite Clarke running around screaming just that, neither the Clinton nor Bush Admins were interested in distracting themselves from whatever they thought more important.
---
Not too hard to confirm that scenario with a quick read of Clark's memo to security despiser, Dr Condi Rice written 2 months prior to 9-11:
What good is a Phd, when it's holder is a LIAR?
---
Washington, D.C., February 10, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted the widely-debated, but previously unavailable, Washington, D.C., February 10, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted the widely-debated, but previously unavailable, January 25, 2001, memo from counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice
- the first terrorism strategy paper of the Bush administration.
The document was central to debates in the 9/11 hearings over the Bush administration's policies and actions on terrorism before September 11, 2001. Clarke's memo requests an immediate meeting of the National Security Council's Principals Committee to discuss broad strategies for combating al-Qaeda by giving counterterrorism aid to the Northern Alliance and Uzbekistan, expanding the counterterrorism budget and responding to the U.S.S. Cole attack. Despite Clarke's request, there was no Principals Committee meeting on al-Qaeda until September 4, 2001.
The January 25, 2001, memo, recently released to the National Security Archive by the National Security Council, bears a declassification stamp of April 7, 2004, one day prior to Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission on April 8, 2004. Responding to claims that she ignored the al-Qaeda threat before September 11,
Rice stated in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed,
"No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration."
Don't know where I got the July date in my febrile brain:
ReplyDeleteIt was JANUARY 25, 2001, making Rice an even bigger liar.
What we'll see is the worse of both spectrums. Bush will hold on, tooth and nail, to staying the course. The Dems will romp in '08, against a fractured GOP.
ReplyDeleteThere will then be a "precipitous" pullout. The next Congress will cut the funding, by a date certain, if this one cannot.
A prediction based on the current trends, which are not waivering, from their five year course.
You'd think the mussulmen are as decieved as they're going to ever be. Wonder when we quit acting inept and get serious about what ever it is we're doing.
- DR
I agree with Pat Lang that a withdrawal is a mostly all-or-nothing proposition. I'm guessing the command authority has long since come to the same conclusion. So, yes, it'll be the next admin that does it; nothing in it for the current WH. They'll hang on come hell or high water.
When will we get our act together? After all this time, it seems a wee bit much to hope for.
The Madame thing in DC... a little historical view back to Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington.
ReplyDeleteHamilton's enemies, Jefferson,John Adams, Aaron Burr,James Madison,James Monroe, all felt Hamilton's resignation from that office was due manipulations at Treasury on bonds.
In truth Hamilton was impoverished and the $3500 a year he was making per annum at Treasury.
Hamilton geared up his law firm and continued to write poilitcally, particularly on the Jay Treaty, THE issue of the day...
long story short any accusations were thrown back and forth. Several duelling challenges were issues but did not reach fruition.
All of the conspiracy talk of Hamilton's manipulation at Treasury turned out to be an affair Hamilton had engaged in with the wife of James Reynolds and payed hush money to Reynolds for his adulterous affair.
Hamilton produced The Reynolds Pamplet Here is a short version:
The Reynolds Pamphlet: Admitting Adultery, But Denying Corruption
Finally, I had never read the complete text of the controversial "Reynolds Pamphlet" of August 25, 1797. Scandalmongering journalist James Callender had published pamphlets accusing Hamilton of using James Reynolds, Maria Reynolds's husband, to speculate in public funds as Secretary of the Treasury. To quell the corruption charges, Hamilton responded with a pamphlet of his own.
Hamilton's pamphlet ran nearly 10,000 words and confessed his adulterous affair with Maria Reynolds. In what must have been breathtaking reading in 1797, Hamilton wrote:
The charge against me is a connection with one James Reynolds for purposes of improper pecuniary speculation. My real crime is an amorous connection with his wife, for a considerable time with his privity and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the husband and wife with the design to extort money from me.
While the document is very persuasive, and absolved Hamilton at the time, the confession cost him dearly. Many say had this incident not occurred, he would have become President. Hamilton's wife, while obviously hurt by this scandal, remained steadfast with her husband
(aside) to get a feel of the vitriol in the air at this time John Adams at on point made a public statement that "Madison had so many bodily fluids that all the whores in Philidelphia could not drain" and also spread a rumor that made print that Madison was a drug users and "had never spoken a word at the bar without opium in his gums"......
Yeah politics has always been vicious ....
Adams had the audacity to write in his autobiography to state that he had never made any harmful statements about Hamilton!!!
Seems the penis is a mighty mover of men. Dah.
But is it mightier than the Sword?
ReplyDeleteToo bad Madison wasn't around to take part in Dr Strangelove.
ReplyDeleteMrs Hamilton's affair with Mr Reynolds remains classified.
ReplyDeleteSomebody should figure out how to lure/force GWB into a torrid sexually charged surreptitious liason.
ReplyDeleteStands as good a chance as anything to liberate him from his habitual course.
Slay the Course.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI do what ever you tell me
ReplyDeletethere was a special connection last time, I thought about it for days.
ReplyDeleteI felt it.
ReplyDeleteyour intensity and passion builds in me as well.
ReplyDeleteI like a man of persuasion
ReplyDeleteYou're making my cock hard.
ReplyDeleteIt would be even harder if my mouth was around it.
ReplyDeleteIf my naked body was pressed against yours.
ReplyDeleteand my hands in your hair as you take it deep into your throat.
ReplyDeleteIf your fingers followed mine to pleasing myself.
ReplyDeleteso very very sexy
ReplyDeleteAll of these things make it hard for me to breathe. All of these things make you want me even more. Each time it's like a new.
ReplyDeleteI need to have you learn from me. I need to give you that pleasure.
ReplyDeleteYou don't even know what kind of pleasure you give me.
ReplyDeletetell me.
ReplyDeleteI want you to have all your fantasies come true. I don't want you to just talk about it, I want you to do it.
ReplyDeleteI hope to see you soon. when is a good time?
ReplyDeletecall me baby.
ReplyDeleteok
ReplyDeleteok
ReplyDeleteYou take my breath away.
ReplyDeleteSee if you remember
ReplyDelete