Bush's Auschwitz Apology Just More Hypocrisy

George W. Bush stood in front of Israel's Holocaust Memorial yesterday, staring at the aerial photographs of the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz. His eyes teared up, it has been reported and he supposedly told Secretary of State Rice that the United States should have bombed the camps, or it's railroad tracks during the days of World War Two. It would seem to the world at large to be a somber moment of remembering the murdered victims of Hitler's monstrous regime, except for the fact that the Bush family helped to finance the rise of Hitler and his Third Reich, and directly benefited from the slave labor that occurred at the Auschwitz compound itself.

Let's tear open that old wound shall we?

Without going into all of the details of how Prescott Bush, the current President's grandfather, and former President Daddy Bush's father, financed through Brown Brothers Harriman and the Union Banking Corporation, the rise of Hitler to power, and even funded the Nazi war machine until the assets of the corporations were finally seized under the Trading With The Enemy Act, let's just concentrate on the Auschwitz angle, since this President, our glorious leader, brought up the subject in the first place.

Prescott Bush became Hitler's banker when he became the banker for Fritz Thyssen, a powerful Nazi industrialist, who had a great many holdings in Germany in the fields of producing steel, coal, railroads, and oh yeah, Zyklon B gas. The conglomerate put together by Thyssen was named I.G. Farben after he consolidated all of the corporations he owned in Germany into a huge organization. It's also the reason that the Auschwitz camp was located where it was in the first place. To be near the factories that produced the Zyklon B gas that made use of the slave labor at the camp itself, which in turn then distributed to the Nazis, that very same gas that was murdering the Jewish people, along with Bulgarians, Bavarians, or any other number of nation's peoples.

An argument has been made to the fact that the Bush family was perfectly within their rights to do business with the Nazis due to the fact that the United States had not yet entered the war. But that argument goes right out the window when one learns that even after the U.S. entry into the conflagration, the Bush family continued to be the financiers of I.G. Farben through various sources, including Union Banking, and other Wall Street concerns.

It has been noted that without the support of the Bush family, the Third Reich would have collapsed due to lack of financial backing, and there would never have been an Auschwitz or other death camps in the first place. There would have been no railroads that we did not bomb, no factories producing with slave labor the gas that was killing their own people, nor millions upon millions of dead bodies lost to the fields of Europe, Asia, Russia, or Africa.

There would not have been a Holocaust Memorial for the present day President to bemoan the facts over. A memorial to the dead that his very own family caused. Why didn't we bomb the railroads, Mr. Bush? Simple. Your family would have lost money. Why didn't we bomb the factories producing the materials needed to keep the Nazi war machine running? Because they were financed by your family.

I know that misguided and ill informed people will dismiss this entire argument, but before you do, look at some of the evidence for yourself, evidence that you will not hear from the U.S. mainstream media. Such as the testimony of Senator Homer T. Bone Senate Committee on Military Affairs, June 4, 1943. Or the in depth article in the U.K.'s Guardian Unlimited of September 25th, 2004.

Or better yet, go to all of just these few web sites, and then decide whether or not the President of the United States, the one who, along with his neo-con criminal cadre, are transforming our country into a mirror image of the Nazi state, has family ties to the Hitler regime:

1. -- http://www.john-loftus.com/bush_nazi_link.asp2. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon-Mobil3. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil4. -- http://www.nubond.net/railroad/rb_chap11.html5. -- http://www.beardbooks.com/eh_harriman.html6. -- http://www.forbes.com/2002/09/27/0927richest_15.html7. -- http://phatnav.com/wiki/index.php?title=William_Rockefeller8. -- http://articles.roshd.ir/articles_folder/humanscience/social/40%20Richest%20Americans%20of%20All%20Time.htm9. -- http://hnn.us/comments/15155.html10. -- http://www.tribalmessenger.org/t-bush/bush-family-history-pt1.htm11. -- http://www.h-net.org/~business/bhcweb/publications/BEHprint/v008/p0009-p0015.pdf12. -- http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/12/144823713. -- http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/54/54_12-13.pdf14. -- http://phatnav.com/wiki/index.php?title=Percy_Avery_Rockefeller15. -- http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?_ROCKEFELLER_PERCY_A16. -- http://www.scripophily.net/bucsteelcasc4.html17. -- http://www.remingtonsociety.com/gallery/album05/18. -- http://www.remington.com/aboutus/corphistory.htm19. -- http://www.geocities.com/7897401/merchant/merchant_13.html20. -- http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/merchants_of_death.htm21. -- http://www.dldewey.com/columns/jul02f.htm22. -- http://www.secretsofthetomb.com/excerpt.asp23. -- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/02/60minutes/main576332.shtml24. -- http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=252325. -- http://www.john-loftus.com/Thyssen.asp26. -- http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-ch7.html27. -- http://www.frankkryder.com/thyssen.htm28. -- http://www.intl-news.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=5429. -- http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_Link30. -- http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_231. -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html32. -- http://www.ce-review.org/99/21/kosc21.html33. -- http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/new/index.php?language=EN&tryb=stale&id=22834. -- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/auschbirk.html35. -- http://www.spectacle.org/695/perp.html36. -- http://www.fscwv.edu/users/pedwards/evidence_of_evil_by_timothy_w.htm37. -- http://www3.usenetarchive.org/File.asp?service=424138. -- http://veritas3.holocaust-history.org/questions/zyklon.shtml

Yes, George teared up all right. But was it out of a sense of guilt, remorse for the evil perpetrated by his family? Or were they tears of nostalgia for the good old days, and for the fact that his attempts to resurrect the type of fascism the world has sought to destroy, are failing due to an ever vigilant American people, who saw through this mainstream media photo op, and are telling it like it really is? Batmanchester

Give A Homeless Voter A Break

Right now, at this very moment, the far right leaning Supreme Court of the United States is deciding the case of Indiana's new voter I.D. law, and whether or not it amounts to a poll tax, which of course would be unconstitutional. According to recent media accounts, the sense that reporters are getting is that the court will be split once again along ideological and party lines, meaning another 5-4 split in favor of more government run amok.
In theory, I'm not so sure that I objected to the voter I.D. law at face value, and actually intended to write today about why I supported the idea. But then I did some checking with homeless advocates, and other agencies that work with the poor, and realized that what this law will do, is basically disenfranchise an entire voting bloc that usually votes for Democrats.
The argument can be made I suppose, that forcing voters to provide an identification card in order to vote will cut down on fraudulent votes being cast, but in the larger political picture, one can also see where the abuse of that law can and will take effect. Should the Court come down on the side of the Bush Administration and the State of Indiana, it will open the flood gates to all states trying to push through even stricter voter laws, especially in traditional Republican strongholds, and can force open the door to the argument over the National I.D. card being foisted on us by the government.
Another entire voting bloc of poor persons that would be completely disenfranchised would be the 5 million homeless Americans. Say what you will, but they are still American citizens, and as such, have as much right to the voting booth as you and I.
This law would cut them out of the process and here's why. The average I.D. card in many states costs as much as $28.00. Many homeless people have no I.D. at all, and in order to obtain that I.D., they would have to have an address for their home state to send their birth certificate to, which by itself can cost up to $70.00 in some states. Other states require even more than just a birth certificate in order to get a state issued I.D., such as a passport, military I.D., school records, or in places like New Hampshire, a certificate of residency notarized by a Justice Of the Peace.
How in the world are the poor of our nation expected to obtain all of these documents, when their day to day existence is a scrounging for food or shelter? Many millions of Americans fall way below the poverty line, even though they work 40 or more hours per week, and indeed, there are many more homeless people today that have jobs, but can not afford a place to live, let alone run around trying to obtain these documents with money they do not have.
The Supreme Court should and must decide against this law. This is an issue of fair play, something that is starting to go missing in our national mind set. Are we going to tell our homeless veterans, who make up 40% of the total homeless population they can not vote due to a law designed to keep the poor from voting?
Listening to the pundits and talking heads on the right wing television and radio shows, it would seem to an intelligent person that the right does not think that the poor should be allowed to vote at all. That since they are poor in the first place, they don't know how to make decisions, and therefore it shouldn't matter if they are disenfranchised. What gall! What utter contempt for the American way of life and the American sense of justice and fairness for all. What's next? Let's move all the poor in the country to some island where they can fend for themselves? Or maybe we should just go all the way fascist and reopen the death camps.
Are we saying to the mother of three, who works two jobs in order to feed her kids, that she isn't part of America and may not participate in the selection of her own political leaders because she's too poor to afford to pay for an I.D.? According to the latest statistics from The Coalition for the Homeless, that line of reasoning would pretty much disenfranchise almost 15 per cent of the voting population of the United States. Remembering also, that in theory, this would amount to an illegal poll tax, is the Supreme Court going to reverse an Amendment to the Constitution, i.e.; the 24th Amendment of Jan. 23rd, 1964 that ended poll taxes in any way, shape or form?
And so, the dilemma. An argument can be made for either side of this important issue, but at the end of the day, should we not err on the side of caution, and disallow for this statute to be upheld? On the chance that Americans would be shut out of the political process due to their financial means, the Supreme Court, no matter how far right, must make a stand in favor of the citizens' right to vote. Batmanchester

Is Their Blood On Our Hands?

The blood soaked sands sizzled underneath the burning African sun. A stench comparable to a slaughterhouse in the Mid-West rose high and surrounded the refugee camp, which along with the screams and the wails shrieking into the night, would be cause for even the most jaded witness to burst into an angry and tearful outrage. There was laughter amongst the carnage though, the type of evil laughter done by men with no souls, the ones who were doing the killing, the maiming.

As the village's straw and mud huts burned all around her, a young mother darted in and out of the shadows, carrying her infant son tightly to her bosom, gingerly trying to avoid the patches of gore spread across the landscape, for she knew that should she slip and falter, there would be no chance at survival. Creeping along the edges of the dancing and flickering flames, she had almost made it to the edge of the camp when the militia men stepped out in front of her. Pleading with them was completely useless as the men grabbed her, ripping her infant from her arms. Brutally throwing the child to the ground the horrified mother could only flail helplessly as Satan's minions hacked her child into pieces with long bladed and sharpened machetes. They could not chance that after twenty years or so in the future, that this infant boy might grow up to join the resistance.

But they were not done yet. Slapping the widowed, now childless mother to the blood soaked terrain, they ripped off her clothes and raped her in packs, like animals, using her like a rag doll or a toy for their amusement, as her mind set off into the direction of madness at the hell on earth she was enduring. Husband murdered going out to look for firewood, she had been left defenseless against these wolves, and now suffered unbearably at their hands. Finally, after hours of vicious assault, the men tired of their fun, deciding to entertain themselves another way. Standing the battered woman up, they doused her with petrol, teasing her her flickering lighters as she begged them not to kill her. The obvious leader stepped in after a time and threw a lit match upon the woman, the blaze almost instantaneous, engulfing her young life in a searing, unimaginable agony, a torture beyond compare, until lungs blackened and burned from the flames, she crumbled to the ground one last time, joining the bodies of the others of her village in the eternal rest of the tortured and murdered, just another in a long line of victims of the cruelest man to grace the African continent since Idi Amin.

Did the above shock you, or make you feel queasy? Good. I intended it to. Because this type of activity is an every day occurrence in the land that the world has paid lip service to, but then forgotten. While Al-Bashir laughs in the faces of the outraged, he sends his troops to fire on U.N. Peacekeepers in the hope that they will do what they always do when threatened with violence, they leave. After his own ministers called the firefight a mistake, Al-Bashir has the gall to start denying it ever happened, or if it did, it must have been those who oppose his monstrous regime, namely the rebels in Sudan's south.

We here in the U.S. live in uncertain times ourselves. The same can be said for most of Europe. But as civilized people, or as a people who speak about morality being the major influence in our decision making when we choose a President, do we not then have a moral obligation to do more to stop this evil?

Al-Bashir is not going to stop what he is doing, and the above is only one small portion of the suffering of the people trapped in Darfur. But their suffering doesn't end there. Even the ones who escape to countries like Egypt are abused by the repressive security forces in that country, as evidenced by an incident wherein Egyptian security forces killed almost 300 refugees from Sudan protesting their treatment at the hands of the Egyptian government. (Jan. 13th, 2006 edition of Salon)

So the problem of the Dafur massacre is no where near a resolution, because we all have seen the U.N. cut and run from the region before when the Janjaweed or the Sudanese military attacks. (Nov.4th 2004 edition of the Washington Post) Yes, Al-Bashir knows how to defy U.N. resolutions, stall for time, agree to allow in peacekeepers, back out of the agreement at the last second, all the while having the people, the unarmed civilians slaughtered, then go back and start the negotiating process all over again.

This diplomatic solution is not working. Saddam Hussein was brought to the gallows for his crimes against humanity. We bombed Iraq back into the Stone Age on little more than a President's dreams of imperial glory. We have an Air Force capable of stopping this slaughter without ever laying one boot on the ground. We can and should enforce a no-fly zone in Sudan, Darfur and near the Chadian border, and bomb the camps of the Janjaweed militias or the Sudanese military should they move on the camps again.

During the 1990's, we sat and watched the massacre occur in Rwanda. Now, once more, on our watch, we sit and watch another people being wiped off the face of the earth with a shrug and a sigh, wishing it would just go away, because it's so distasteful to sensitive proclivities. Yes, we have problems here at home. Yes, we're stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan. But we still have a military capable of enforcing the U.N. resolutions, as do the Europeans. And the time has come to back up our rhetoric with action, and stop the murder, the carnage, the rape, the inhuman crimes against children, and the Saddam Hussein of Africa from laughing in the face of the entire world.

This will not go away until either there are no more left to be killed, or the world community puts an end to it. Because Al-Bashir isn't going to stop his game playing, nor the genocide unless he is given no other choice.

Call your Congressman, your Senator, your state Governor's office, the White House, the State Department, call the local dog catcher, but call someone, right now, today, and demand that something more be done. Not a half measure, but a full cup of righteous outrage from a people who will not countenance this evil being perpetrated while we sit and drink Starbucks, and the people of Darfur have run out of food completely as of today according to Save Darfur. President Bush, Stop the genocide. Now. Batmanchester

Who Would Jesus Vote For?

Today's primary voting in New Hampshire made me so home sick that I had to call people that I know back in Manchester to find out what the atmosphere was like and what the conventional wisdom was in the voting taking place that could cause the demise of a candidacy or two in this, the most important election in our life times.
One friend that I spoke with said something that compelled me to write and ask the same question, due to the insertion of religion into the Presidential race by some of the candidates. Knowing full well how cheesy it sounds, none the less, the question my friend was asking herself today as she walks into Parker Varney school in Manchester to cast her ballot was a simple as some of the candidates would try and have us believe: Who would Jesus vote for?
Would Jesus go behind the curtain in a polling place, and make his mark beside the name of a person who openly advocates for war? A never ending war? Or would Jesus instead vote for the one that speaks openly about the need to stop the wars of madness, or the one who would stop the terrorizing of our nation's poor and middle class?
Would he vote for someone who was clearly in the pocket of corporate interests? Or would he show his contempt for the money changers by choosing one who has no such debts to be paid back once elected?
If there was a place on the ballot where one could choose between the false prophets who hide behind a thinly disguised attempt at the distortion of all that Jesus said or did, and those who try to walk in his shoes as best as the political arena allows, what choice do you suppose that Jesus would make?
Just because a candidate stands at a podium and speaks platitudes to the teachings of Christ, does not mean that he or she actually believes the words that come out of their mouths. Speaking platitudes and playing the part of the pious does not make one a Christian, it makes the speaker a hypocrite, who plays on the public's religious leanings in order to score political points.
Would Jesus jokingly call for the United States to "Bomb bomb bomb, Bomb bomb Iran"? Would Jesus demand the paying of what amounts to an unfair taxation of those who can not afford it in the form of a mandated health care system, that treats people as though they were automobiles? Would Jesus stand shoulder to shoulder with the working men and women, and those who have the least of all of us, or would he stand on the side of the room where the rich power brokers break their bread?
If we truly try to understand what Jesus meant when he spoke of rendering unto Ceaser what is Ceaser's and to God what is God's, we need look no further than our own Constitution, that decries the integration of church and state. Which would mean to me and to a lot of other people that are voting not only today, but in the weeks and months to come, that those who try to use the Jesus card, the politics of fear, and the warped interpretations of the Bible, are finished, and should just pack it up and go home now.
Because Jesus probably weeps when he looks down and sees the killing in His name, the trodden down being forced to beg for food in the richest nation in the history of man, and the sodomites co-opting a movement of peace, love ,beauty, and harmony, all in the name of further lining their own and their corporate buddies' pockets.
So go ahead. Ask yourself that question. Would Jesus vote for the person who only lip syncs the words that He spoke, or the person who actually tries to live by those same words? Would Jesus even bother voting at all? And if He did, who would Jesus vote for? Batmanchester

Al-Qaida Here, Al- Qaida There, Al-Qaida Everywhere!

One look at the 'news' making headlines on most of the MSM web sites this morning, and one has to wonder whether or not an mass scale land invasion of the United States by an army called Al-Qaida is imminent. With some sites boasting no less than FOUR headlines on their web site front pages dealing with stories about Al-Qaida, we again have to question the timing of such stories, as we once had to question the veracity of the stories in 2001 about the bombers with baby carriages.

Is there a threat called Al-Qaida? Most certainly. Would they like to do us harm? Of course they would. But is there a boogeyman in your closet, or is that man behind the 'bushes' on the corner really Michael Myers, or the medias' exaggeration of him? Think about what period we are entering into once again, and what tired old same stories are re-appearing. Just as in 2004, we are starting to be bombarded with 'new' videos, minus the person of course, just the voice, or so we are told, from the great boogeyman himself, Osama Bin Laden. Uh, I thought he was dead? Whatever. Even if he isn't, and even if he did make some sort of tape, why should we care? Why does the media give these cretins the type space or the air time? And why are they trying to foment yet another atmosphere of fear just before another Presidential election that means more than almost any other in this country's history?

Could it be because the media is not quite so left leaning as the corporations behind them would have us believe? I mean, besides the defense industry, which can not survive without the deaths of others, owns the vast majority of all media in this country, they wouldn't be trying to frighten you like little children, into voting for the most hawkish candidate would they? Do you think it possible that Al-Qaida threatened the U.S. media into reporting on their every move, every word, made up or otherwise, and the U.S. media acquiesced to their demands? Could all of this hyped up, color coded threat be nothing more than smoke and mirrors to distract and deflect from the real issues going on today?

You know, like traitors in the Oval Office, who should have been impeached right after 9/11 by their own party, but that wasn't bloody likely was it?

How about if the media stops trying to turn everyone's attention away from the elephants that are already in the room, such as illegal wire tapping, water boarding tapes, lie after lie coming out of the mouth of the President, and his annoyingly smug, prissy little mouth piece, Perino? I know stories get old and stale to the go go go types that sit in the board rooms, and are always seeking to generate excitement and fear in order to boost sales and ad revenue, as well as help their corporate bosses by possibly fooling Americans into backing yet another call to war, but don't you think that maybe we should be concentrating our efforts instead on helping to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure of our country, considering that it's falling down around us?

Yesterday's breaking of the levees in Nevada, (yes, in NEVADA), drowning out an entire town, should be another alarm bell going off for all of us, not this Al-Qaida nonsense being drilled into our heads. Maybe the media should be all over the idiot in chief demanding to know where the money is to rebuild the bridges, roads, levees, dams, airport runways, subways, water ways, or the countless other things that are cracking and getting ready to break, and some already have. Oh. Wait. I forgot. It's all in Iraq and the Pentagon to fight the war on a word that defies logic. And I'm still waiting for someone in the media to step up and get to the bottom of that missing 12 Billion dollars that disappeared out of Baghdad International Airport. Still no answer from that front.

Al-Qaida says, Al-Qaida did, thought to be linked to Al-Qaida, Al-Qaida backed, Al-Qaida diddly do wah wah, and so on and so on. Give it a rest already, because when the roof actually does fall and we all know it may again, no one will believe it, because of irresponsible journalists who try to sell ad space by hyping a fear mentality, when we could just watch the Playoffs. Batmanchester

China Drowning In Blood And Oil

Why in the world anyone thinks that China will ever force the Sudanese government of Al-Bashir to enact the United Nations' resolution concerning the genocide and atrocities being committed on a daily basis in Darfur, is beyond comprehension to even a passing observer at this point. Slipping from the headlines as the U.N. announced that they were sending in 20,000 peacekeeping forces to replace the fatigued, out manned and outgunned African Union force, the world remains largely ignorant of the latest stunt pulled by Al-Bashir, in that he insisted, after the deal was already in place, to allow for no more than the same size U.N. force as the relieved African Union force.

In other words, only 9,000 Peacekeepers would be allowed in, and then be restricted to the same exact areas that the African Union soldiers were. This is nothing new for the murderer from Sudan. He has played the entire world for suckers time and time again with his bait and switch deal signings, all the while allowing his Janjaweed militias to run rampant through the unprotected camps of the unarmed refugees, raping, maiming children, and murdering at will.

The question that is usually asked by most whenever the subject of Darfur is brought up is "Why doesn't anyone do anything about this?" Well, the answer can be summed up in one word: China.

The Chinese government, being the major player in Sudan, where just a few years ago, our talking heads and our government tried to give the impression that there wasn't any oil or anything else of value in that country, supplies the Sudanese government with arms and equipment in return for the oil they also help to extract from the ground. Turning a blind eye to the slaughter of an entire people should come as no shock to any in the world who will remember that the Chinese government has killed many of their own citizens, and so this slaughter of innocent men, women and children must certainly seem as little more than an internal affair within the Sudanese government.

But that does not speak to the fact that China is about to host the Olympic Games, the gathering of athletes designed to promote peace and harmony in all nations. Will the Chinese team be wearing uniforms bearing the colors black and red, to represent the oil and the blood that is on the hands of their leaders? Because all China would have to do to force an end to this rampage of death and mutilation would be to warn Al-Bashir that the gravy train will end unless he adheres to the U.N. resolution to the letter. But we know they won't do that, as the Chinese fought every step of the way against the resolution, so as not to anger their hosts in Sudan, or at least not until they sucked up every ounce of oil they can.

So as the government of China swims in an ocean that is filled with blood and oil, Al-Bashir, the demon in Khartoum, laughingly orders his men to go about their daily routine of chopping the hands off of little children, gang raping women, then dousing them with gasoline, and setting them ablaze. He orders the men in villages to be lined up and hacked to death to save ammunition, then burns down refugee camps and villages in a bid to force others to flee west to Chad, where they are not welcome either. No one wants to help these people. No one wants to take them in. And when the few who try to help get killed, no outcry is forthcoming.

With all due respect and condolences to the family of John Granville, the murdered U.S. diplomat who was stationed in Khartoum, it took an act of violence against a U.S. diplomat for the U.S. to insist on investigative teams to be allowed in to find out what happened to Mr. Granville. Maybe while they're on the ground in Sudan, they can follow the devils on horseback around and witness for themselves the horror show that goes on daily.

As for the Chinese, unless they step up to the plate immediately, and force Al-Bashir to accept the rest of the U.N. force, all 20,000 of them, then the nations of the world that like to pretend that they still have consciences should boycott the Chinese Olympics and let the Chinese government know that this unacceptable acceptance of genocide will not go unpunished nor be forgotten. Despite the downplay in MSM of the numbers of dead civilians, gang raped women, and mutilated children, organizations that are on the ground there trying desperately to get the attention of the world, put the death toll at 500,000 or more dead, millions upon millions of people displaced, and tell tales of raging militias setting the entire countryside afire.

Let the Chinese compete against themselves in the pool of blood and oil they are complicit in building while the rest of the world steers clear of association with an Olympics that is hosted by a government that allows the slaughter to continue. And let the U.S. government start backing up their words with at the very least calling for the boycotting of these gore drenched games, China be damned. Batmanchester

Mukasey Is Giuliani's Best Friend-Hello? Senate?

When the Senate Judiciary Committee met to consider the "I don't know if water boarding is torture" nominee to replace Roberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, they kept coming back to the same theme over and over, and maybe rightly so, but in doing this, they overlooked a glaring conflict of interest, or did they?

Michael Mukasey is now and always has been, a close friend of Giuliani, starting when they both worked as young prosecutors and moved on to the law firm of Patterson Belknap together, and in fact, Mukasey returned to the firm after he stepped down from the federal bench. Mukasey was also chosen to swear Giuliani in at his mayoral inaugurals in 1994 and 1998.

That sounds innocent enough, but when one starts to look a little deeper into the many conflicts of interest surrounding both of these men, a pattern of deceit and lies emerges that should cause everyone to call into question not only Giuliani's integrity, but Mukasey's also.

Take for example, that as head of the DOJ, Mukasey will have to deal with a case in Texas involving Ken Caruso, a long time friend of both men, who is accused of bilking millions of dollars out of Republican donors. Caruso, who has consistently refused to co-operate with investigators, is a partner with Mukasey's son, Marc Mukasey at the law firm set up by Giuliani in 2005, called Bracewell and Giuliani. Caruso is represented by Patterson Belknap, Mukasey's current and Giuliani's former law firm.

New York State Senate Majority leader Joe Bruno, who has strongly endorsed Giuliani, and received strong support himself in return, is under investigation for his role in a cocaine distribution case involving Thomas Ravenal, Giulinani's former South Carolina Campaign Chairman, who himself is awaiting sentencing in the same case. Mukasey's Justice Department will have to make a recommendation on whether or not to prosecute Bruno for his role in that criminal enterprise.

In the Oct. 30th edition of the Village Voice we learn these little ditties: "Even the recent ruckus about Verizon and its cooperation with the National Security Agency's domestic-surveillance program may put Mukasey in a Giuliani-connected bind. The company has admitted that it turned over 94,000 customer records to the NSA, many without a court order, since January 2005, and a Justice Department inspector general's report in 2006 found that similar potentially improper record transfers occurred for years before that. Verizon is a prime client of Bracewell & Giuliani."

And this: "In addition, Paul Crotty, the respected federal judge who joined Mukasey on the Manhattan bench in late 2005, was the regional president of Verizon, which is based in New York. Crotty was Giuliani's corporation counsel and contributed $5,500 to his federal campaign committees before he became a judge—$1,000 more than the legal limit (the excess was returned). When Crotty left, a Verizon press release stated that he was "responsible for government relations and regulatory affairs for Verizon's largest telephone operations company," but a company spokeswoman declined to answer questions about his possible involvement in the surveillance decisions, and Crotty did not return telephone calls from the Voice. Justice has already filed lawsuits in an attempt to protect Verizon from the subpoenas served on it by several states, and Mukasey will clearly be faced with a multiplicity of issues arising from the surveillance program."

Also this: "Even Mukasey's current clients at Patterson have connections to both Giuliani and the Justice Department that raise disturbing questions. He represents the Renco Group, the private holding company that owns 40 percent of the joint venture that manufactures Humvees and has seen its profits soar in Iraq. Renco chairman Ira Rennert and his wife have maxed out their donations to the Giuliani campaign at $4,600 apiece. The Justice Department is suing a Renco affiliate for a magnesium plant that has polluted the Great Salt Lake in Utah, and federal prosecutors have been described in news accounts as "determined" to make Rennert "personally pay for the way his companies conduct business."

Top all of this off with the fact that Mukasey has represented Linda Lay in her lawsuit defenses against the victims of the entire Enron scandal perpetrated by her deceased husband Ken, and the pattern sharpens closely. And let's not forget that Mukasey's son Marc has also been tapped to throw Bernie Kerik to the wolves by running interference for the Giuliani campaign and blocking Kerik's defense lawyers from finding out exactly what Giuliani knew and when he knew it in regards to Kerik's own criminality.

Throw in a bunch of at best dubious involvements of a federal judge, and his family members in the campaign for Giuliani, and what emerges is a criminal attempt to deceive the Congress at Mukasey's confirmation hearings.

So while the Judiciary Committee was trying to decipher the meaning of Mukasey's mumbled responses to water boarding, and his allegiances to the current President, they never thought to take a look at his other political allegiances, or cases that he might have to decide whether or not to prosecute. We didn't get anything more than another huckster as the 'new' Attorney General, and both he and Giuliani's ties to criminal elements should automatically disqualify them from being any more than street sweepers, not the Attorney General of the United States, and quite possibly, President of the United States. Or, again, was any of this truly missed? Or is the game afoot once more? Could the thinking behind Mukasey's nomination been to have a crony already in place in the case of Giuliani's election? Batmanchester