Cheney’s Stay Behind

By now, you’ve heard Sy Hersh’s explanation for why he hasn’t yet gotten the flood of revelations about the Bush Administration he had expected.

HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence. [my emphasis]

This is not remotely surprising. We discussed the likelihood this was happening just days after Obama took over, as dead-enders tried to spike Obama’s promise to withdraw from Iraq. And there has been a ton of reporting on the burrowing of loyal appointees that Cheney accomplished before leaving.

But Hersh’s report that such stay behind includes NSA is of particular concern.

Not only does this raise concerns about the warrantless wiretap program and its use (particularly given reports that the NSA was segregating contacts with journalists, like Hersh, who has lots of contacts in the Middle East). But it raises concerns about whether or not Cheney sustains the practice–publicized during the John Bolton confirmation hearings–of getting the US person end of NSA intercepts (I have no idea whether Cheney would do this through dead-enders, whether he’s getting that much more directly, or whether he’s getting help from Israelis involved in our wiretap programs). A number of people suspected that Bolton had used NSA intercepts to undermine North Korean diplomacy (among other things). Such a practice obviously fits Cheney’s MO.

Yet more reason we need to reassess our use of electronic wiretapping  within the US.

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76 replies
  1. phred says:

    It may not even matter what information Cheney may or may not be getting. He could still use it as a threat against opponents, along the lines of “you know, I still have people in the NSA”. Given that NSA is hoovering up all our information, that could inspire real reluctance on the part of such opponents to speak out against Cheney directly or even policies favored by Cheney. Frequently imagined threats are worse than the real thing and they can be very very effective.

    • Larue says:

      The Senate Intelligence Committee and other powers that be were briefed in ‘01 when Bushco assumed the position.

      The SIC and other powers that be (House, ect.) were also all briefed post 9/11, and pre Iraq.

      Leverage was held, laws were revised, prez signings were issued.

      And PEOPLE OF POWER allowed themselves to be held hostage to BushCo either from fear or abject pure complicity.

      And they included Democrats. Almost all of them.

      So, in reality, our Dems elected are guilty, guilty, guilty.

      And that’s the hold Cheney continues to use.

      I don’t doubt for a MINUTE any of our Reps or Senators are not in fear for their lives from either black ops or trials. Hence, the government has huddled up as a mass, to protect each and everyone in the trench.

      And we the sheeple, pretty much know they is all guilty of one thing or another.

      And they now know, we know.

      And they’re scared to shit, and Obama is trying to calm THAT down, on top of 3 failed wars, a dying nation, a national economy and a global economy gone to shat in the crapper of history which COULD be one of the biggest moments in history over a 3 year period.

      The Missing Jesus Years don’t count. *G*

      How the HELL can Obama, if he WANTS to, make this better?

      And how the hell does he sleep at night, knowing full well, it’s all on him.

      And his family, and his life, are on the line from insane people of all sorts, every minute of the day.

      You want pressure?

      Sports offers no metaphor equal to this.

      Phred, yer all over it. The Cheney Factor and all the others . . .

      How can a human make it thru it all. Much less change it.

      Ya can’t petition the lord with prayer, but I wonder if fear and instinct is enough for the rest of us.

      Dawg hope so . . . . we’re all in Obama’s hands, like it or not. May he succeed for us.

      If not . . . .

  2. earlofhuntingdon says:

    A review of Mr. Cheney’s security clearance would seem appropriate. It would suspend his access to classified material pending its completion. It seems warranted as well as poetic justice: abusing that “review” is something Mr. Cheney reportedly did to many, especially at State, who hesitated to get with the program.

    • MsAnnaNOLA says:

      This is along the lines I was thinking.

      Suspend his clearance and then tap his phones to see who continues to call and give him info. If people do they are fired and removed from their jobs. Maybe they are prosecuted for giving out classified info to those not needing to know.

      Cheney needs to be prosecuted for his crimes along with Bush. They can make a lot less mischief for all of us if they are in court defending themselves every day.

      • BillE says:

        I thought they were tapping his phones along with everyone else. The question is does he have access to the “product.” I think as EW said they have been using the “product” for a long time to corner and control people. We have heard proof they used on journalists. We think Bolton used it to effect policy, who were the people that were spied on there? Govt employess? private citizens? business leaders?

        Does anybody think they would be too ballsy to spy on the FISC and the other judges? Politicians? Clearly, the spied on everyone, it was just a matter of doing searches through the data with appropriate search terms.

      • nextstopchicago says:

        I’m curious. Does Cheney even have a clearance any more? He holds no position with the US Government. Wouldn’t it be a felony to share information with him at this point?

      • Larue says:

        So, tell me why that hasn’t happened yet.
        I really want to know. It’s simple.
        It’s needed.
        And yet.
        Tell me?
        (I’m clueless)

    • ShotoJamf says:

      “A review of Mr. Cheney’s security clearance would seem appropriate.”

      Jerk those privileges today. That should get his attention.

    • Blub says:

      he.. so you’re actually suggesting that reasonable suspicion of treason and crimes against humanity should be grounds for revoking a security clearance? Goodness forbid ;P

    • dakine01 says:

      Unless things have changed drastically (which they well may have), Cheney has absolutely no security clearances at this time and anyone providing him access to classified information is probably breaking the law.

  3. alabama says:

    All that talent, all that savvy, and all those connections couldn’t save Scooter Libby. Cheney couldn’t protect his loyal pal from the investigation, from the trial, from the sentence, from the refusal of a pardon. Not that he didn’t try. He just didn’t make the necessary sacrifice. He didn’t step up and take responsibility. He didn’t have the balls to it.

    The man is diminished, even handicapped, by his self-serving and delusional ambitions (we should never forget that he tried to run for president in 1996!) Yes, of course he’s a control-freak and a bully. Hersh’s comments about the ground rules at dinner parties tells me that he will tear someone to shreds in front of his hosts and his fellow guests. It tells me that he dines out where people are afraid of him.

    Does he dine out with Jim Webb, the one who faced down the president at the Christmas party? I rather doubt it.

    I’d also be surprised if Obama didn’t know everything he needs to know about those “stay behinds”. He surely has them under warrantless wiretaps, and probably doesn’t hesitate to feed them lots of disinformation.

    Cheney’s a sore loser.

    • Larue says:

      “I’d also be surprised if Obama didn’t know everything he needs to know about those “stay behinds”. He surely has them under warrantless wiretaps, and probably doesn’t hesitate to feed them lots of disinformation.”

      Really? Ya think? That’s pretty deep, sophisticated, evil and all that.

      Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for sliding into second with my spikes up high.

      I don’t mind taking out at the catcher at the plate to score.
      I don’t mind taking out the runner who tries to take me out, seein’s how I LIKE the backstop spot. *G*

      But still . . . ya think? That would give hope . . . dare we?

  4. Rayne says:

    Cheney is a threat to national security, a threat to the administration and Congress, and he should be dealt with as such.

        • acquarius74 says:

          If that old geezer ever breathes his last, we should demand an autopsy to determine just what is inside there. “for national security reasons” should answer all the requirements. [is JFK’s brain still missing?]

  5. scribe says:

    One has to remember this, when it comes to NSA and anything else in the DoD:

    every General and Admiral currently on active duty had to be vetted and approved by the Bush/Cheney Administration, either to get their first star or to get a subsequent promotion.

    Every job they hold, they hold because they were found to be not just “Acceptable” to the Bush/Cheney Administration, but “ideal” for the rank and for the job.

    Where do you think their loyalties lie?

    One has to remember that in the military service, the step from Colonel (or Naval Captain) to Brigadier General (or Commodore/Rear Admiral) is the biggest, most treacherous and hardest to achieve of them all. The winnow rate (how many qualified vs. how many promoted) is something like 15-17:1. OK? Only the “top” 5 or 6 percent of people who have had a twenty (plus) year history of perfect evaluation after perfect evaluation in progressively more difficult jobs – the hardest, highest-stakes jobs – are the ones who make the cut.

    And don’t expect to be believed if you tell anyone that politics are not involved. The politics are subtle, but present. The files of the people being considered for promotions are reviewed by promotion boards. The composition of those boards – who sits on them – is a prime place where “personnel determines policy and policy determines personnel”. The personnel are selected by the political appointees in the Department.

    We saw in abundance how Bushco gamed the JAG Corps – to “make them more responsive to civilian control of the military” they were going to insert a political appointee to review the promotion lists for more junior officers, in contravention to the long-standing practice that kept the political appointees away. We saw how the lawyers who were most effective at defending the Gitmo captives – Lt. Cdr. Swift and Major Mori come to mind immediately – got bad reviews and got bounced out of the service by promotion boards.

    Those are the examples we know about. You can be sure there are many, many more which we don’t know about – the process is well-nigh invisible. But it goes on every day.

    • Minnesotachuck says:

      One has to remember that in the military service, the step from Colonel (or Naval Captain) to Brigadier General (or Commodore/Rear Admiral) is the biggest, most treacherous and hardest to achieve of them all. The winnow rate (how many qualified vs. how many promoted) is something like 15-17:1. OK? Only the “top” 5 or 6 percent of people who have had a twenty (plus) year history of perfect evaluation after perfect evaluation in progressively more difficult jobs – the hardest, highest-stakes jobs – are the ones who make the cut.

      Among those who usually don’t make the cut are the risk-takers and the out-of-the-box thinkers, leading to a generally mediocre leadership class in the uniformed services. Check out the third chapter of America’s Defense Meltdown for more on this. The authors of the book, which is a coordinated collection of essays, are all activists in the military reform movement within the military that’s been bubbling away in the shadows for over thirty years now. There’s some really thought provoking stuff in that book.

      Here’s a link where you can watch a BookTV appearance by three of the authors, including the editor. While the editorial team was trying to find somebody besides a print-to-order for the book the entire text was available for free download in PDF format. Unfortunately, when Stanford took it on the Center for Defense Information took down download link. Don Vandergriff and G.I. Wilson, the authors of that third chapter on personnel and leadership issues, are both retired career officers.

      • scribe says:

        You note:

        Among those who usually don’t make the cut are the risk-takers and the out-of-the-box thinkers, leading to a generally mediocre leadership class in the uniformed services

        That is coordinate to (or consistent with) the elevation to flag rank being more related to the ease with which the person elevated pleases the political powers that be. At that rank, it is politics that gets to put a heavy thumb on the scale. Pleasing TPTB is Priority One. Risk-takers, innovators, and out-of-the-box thinkers, OTOH, are inherently disruptive to the established order. That capacity for and tendency to disrupt can only act to the detriment of keeping a steady stream of contracts and the profits from them flowing from the government’s coffers to the defense industry’s balance sheets. If you look at the boards and office suites of the defense industry and consultancies, you will see a similar dearth of risk-takers, innovators and out-of-the-box thinkers. That dearth is amplified by the utter exclusion of honest people who will come out and say “this [machine/program] is a piece of crap and won’t work”.

        In the meantime, for an additional perspective on the issue and how we got here, go read this article, about how “the best and the brightest” managed to drive us over a cliff.

        • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

          The existence of multiple forms of intelligence has become a commonplace, but however much elite universities like to sprinkle their incoming classes with a few actors or violinists, they select for and develop one form of intelligence: the analytic,”

          Fantastic article; agree with every single word of it except one — I don’t think those institutions are looking for ‘analytical’ intelligence; rather, they value ‘linguist’ intelligence. And as Aristophanes humorously pointed out in ‘The Clouds’, 2,500 years ago, just because someone can use words cleverly doesn’t make them correct, ’smart’, or ethical. It just makes them wordy word users.

          It’s unfortunate that too many of the people described in this article (which is a gem of social psychology) were putty in Dick Cheney’s innovative, ingenius hands.

        • MarkH says:

          Risk-takers, innovators, and out-of-the-box thinkers, OTOH, are inherently disruptive to the established order.

          Still, there are times when those are the kinds of people we need.

          I remember reading about planning for the first Gulf war and how the B team ripped the A team to shreds using unconventional techniques. Given our situation wrt Pakistan and Al Qaeda it would seem we need some creative thinking. We need to disrupt that militant group and turn them against one another (if possible) and make them paranoid and cut off some key supplies (information and money being key). And then, most important in a military sense, we need to find the right place(s) to win fights and ways to set up those fights on our terms. Sometimes the right “place” is anywhere they’re exposed to Predators. Sometimes it’s more specific in a geographic sense.

          I know traditional military planners are used to shifting around the big forces, but in this current situation that might not be enough.

          • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

            I think you might find this ‘Nukes & Spooks’ post at McClatchy on point.
            http://washingtonbureau.typepa…..rfare.html

            Title = “Could the economic collapse lead to a new kind of warfare?”

            During times of social stress, extremists tend to become prominent — as we all realize.
            The history of the modern world — whether Napoleon, or Hitler — suggest that social uncertainty and chaos provide opportunities for nationalist, extremist leaders.

            Can you say ‘Pakistan’?
            Or any number of other places on the globe right now…?

            Here’s hoping that Gen Jim Jones and DNI Blair have a pretty good lead on where the Stay Behinds are dug in, since Blair has articulated the linkages between financial chaos and political instability far better than anyone did the entire 8 years of BushCheney. (Yeah, that would be the Cheney who claims that Bu$hCo couldn’t possibly have seen the financial meltdown coming. Yeowsa…)

    • Larue says:

      That was beautiful in it’s truth.

      And that premise to banking, economics, politics, and any job out there.

      And it’s how the table tilts.

      Well, well crafted.

  6. acquarius74 says:

    Here is my comment at the DIGG:

    pup34: This article questions whether Cheney maintains control over much of the “dark side” of our government, and references the statements by Seymour Hirsh in recent interviews.

    IMO, the answer is “yes”. He managed in the last days of the Bush administration to transfer appointees into regular Civil Service positions in relevant departments in DC. Also, why else did he build his new mansion practically in the yard of CIA headquarters at Langley?

    Cheney’s ties to the ‘dark side’ of the CIA go back at least to 1975 in the Ford administration when he and Rumsfeld rigged the cover-up of a CIA murder of one of their own (Frank Olsen, Code Artichoke) and the pay-off of Olsen’s widow on condition that she not pursue her couirt case and remain silent. [just Google: Code Artichoke]

    Add to that the thicker than blood ties between Cheney and George H.W. Bush, former Director of CIA, and son Dubwya….

    National Security Agency (NSA) is over the CIA, the darkest arm of which is now called the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), formerly known as The Secret Team (google that for a shocker).

    Ir was Cheney, remember, who went on Meet The Press and announced that we must go to the ‘dark side, if you will’ …’these are not nice people’….

    And in Cheney’s recent press interviews, he stated that those running the interrogation of detainees “came to me about The Program, and I was able to help them with that”. Why did CIA come to the VP on that, why not the President??
    Was it because Cheney was himself the highest ranking member ot the CIA’s dark side?

    /s/ pup34

    • moistenedbink says:

      Whoa? Is there Frank Olsen related to Repub operative Ted Olsen? (wife Barbara was supposedly on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11) Must check this out further.

      • acquarius74 says:

        I think the CIA agent, Frank Olsen, murdered by the CIA only had the one son, Eric Holsen, who is featured in the YouTube video about Code Artichoke. Eric Olsen spent his entire adult life hunting, tracking, digging for the facts about what happened to his father.

        I’ll get the link to the YouTube clip and post it later.

        I understand what you mean by using the term “allegedly” about Ted’s wife, Barbara Olsen…

  7. Palli says:

    How large is the satellite dish at the strip mall where Cheney’s office is located? … awfully near the Pentagon….

    • acquarius74 says:

      I’d bet on an underground tunnel with deep room for all his electronic equipment, for spying and taking over controls of small planes, doncha know.

  8. plunger says:

    Those stay behinds aren’t just agents of Cheney, they are agents of Israel, as was Cheney…as is Congress.

    • LabDancer says:

      Until this year, Dick seemed to get out & around the globe quite a bit — as did some of the lesser dicks, for example Abrams. And there are lots of intel info-sharing communities that flow from UKUSA.

      So: is there some reason the Vice-President’s Surveillance Program — critically, involving embedding mini-Dicks in perpetuity — to have been limited to the U.S.?

      • BillE says:

        I thought Poindexter was pimping TIA to the international community like an Arms sale. I have this fuzzy memory of him pitching Singapore. If I remember right, the article describing the pitch had a disclaimer mode to it, like TIA doesn’t work, the buyer beware. I think the author either steno-ed a talking point. Maybe TIA can’t spot a terrorist but it sure can be used to control a population.

  9. Stephen says:

    Apparently his house is two thousand yards from CIA headquarters. Thats hard wire real estate. I can not believe Obama is that naive. Does anyone believe that our new President is not monitoring this oblivious enemy to the security of the Nation?

  10. Citizen92 says:

    One oft-overlooked feature of being an ex-President is the continuing ability of the ex- to receive intelligence briefings from the US Intel community. George HW Bush has made extensive use of this feature… Which I found frankly highly irresponsible given 41’s extensive business interests through Carlyle and others… Business interests that stand to benefit having an insider with US intel at the helm.

    As far as I can tell, there is no accountability for this special perk of ex-Presidents.

    I wonder if Dick has a similar arrangement?

    • LabDancer says:

      “I wonder if Dick has a similar arrangement?”

      “a” — only one?
      “similar” — why aim so low?

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      If it’s not legislation, it can be stopped. It can be stopped even if it is. For the same reason that Carly Fiorina doesn’t continue to receive detailed reports on H-P’s operations.

  11. JohnLopresti says:

    It may be dry reading, yet, there is a public comment phase underway for the current administration’s remake of OIRA. There are some interesting discussions going on concerning the way forward, given Bush’s beefening of OIRA by means of EO 13422, accreting minders onto Clinton’s EO12866, which was an early first term initiative to leenify OIRA while adding to its reach, Clinton kind of moderating Reagan’s tinkering with the bureaucracy. There is a story of efficiency paradigms in the subtext, evidently.

    The Bush EO cited reads like shredded tickertape. The Clinton statement is more like a chapter of text from a policy manual specifying minutely its intent over several pages.

    I suppose little about the OIRA upgrade process would be applicable to issues raised in the thread, of private datagathering initiatives; yet, there is some hint of applicability, to my mind, in that OIRA might have a vested interest in assuring integrity to the agencies it regulates.

    The public comments page linked consists of 100+ documents, many sourced with lobbyists or trade entities, but some emanating from academia, variously of interest possibly. It seems a gathering of the professions; additionally, perhaps OIRA itself is too removed from the issues of lobbying to address the circumstances of retired officials. Though, Cheney might have to register as a lobbyist if the dataflows turn out to be multidirectional, if, indeed, there is substance to the notion that part of his sinecure might be developing algorithms useful in matters like, for example, foreign policy. Maybe all he would like to do is shore up sagging energy sector stock mouldering in his retirement portfolio. I hope he has ample grounds around the dreamhome for getting outside and engaging in exercise.

  12. Mary says:

    The NYT is reporting that Obama is being urged not to release some of the torture memos because it might “offend” CIA torturers. I don’t know how many of them constitute Cheney left behinds as opposed to Left Behinds as opposed to .. oh, what the hell – torturing criminals.

    And “needlessly” too. Bc Obama isn’t going to do anything but embrace his presidential torturers

    But some former and current Central Intelligence Agency officials say a rush to release classified material could expose intelligence methods and needlessly offend dedicated counterterrorism officers.

    some say
    some say
    some who commited torture say …

    Hayden is out there trying to stamp on the release requests like they were the tiny fingers of a detainee’s infant child. But let’s not “offend” anyone, ‘kay?

    • MarkH says:

      But let’s not “offend” anyone, ‘kay?

      Sometimes it’s nice to have people who “turn state’s evidence”!

  13. GregB says:

    Cheney has seeded the government with his own little conficker viruses that are just waiting for their orders.

    -G

  14. dcblogger says:

    If Obama had been serious about doing something about the problems in the military, he would not have kept Gates on.

  15. earlofhuntingdon says:

    You don’t lose a security clearance merely by being voted out of office. I understood that it had to expire or be revoked or put under review. Of course, having a security clearance and being an authorized recipient of secure data are vastly different things.

    Given Mr. Cheney’s abuse of such things, it would beggar belief if Team Obama hadn’t tried to cut off Mr. Cheney’s access to official data. That leaves out an important data set: the OVP papers Mr. Cheney claims to have control of as if he were president. What exactly was in his man-sized safe, anyway? Scooter?

    • acquarius74 says:

      If I’m right and Cheney is CIA (and has been since at least 1975 or earlier), then it doesn’t matter if he has official clearance – he has real access to whatever he wants. Once a person is CIA, there is only one way out – death.

      • RevBev says:

        Well, isn’t there a traitor exit? Surely there must be some ways for being “separated” if there is a necessity? Illegality?

        • acquarius74 says:

          I’m a rank beginner, but have read a lot and dare look terrifying truths in the face. As I understand it, all CIA agents and others connected to one of the many ‘intelligence’ branches have to take an oath that they will not reveal any classified information. I think that is what is meant by ‘once CIA, always CIA’.

          If you watch the YouTube video linked at my # 49, you’ll get the idea about that and also just how dark the dark side is.

  16. Buffy says:

    What surprises me is that no one notices that any acts by Cheney or even just the passing of information to him could constitute ESPIONAGE or SEDITION and could be punishable by death…Cheney must be quite powerful if he and his contacts can thumb their noses at that….

  17. MadDog says:

    Totally OT, but I gotta say that Rachel Maddow is totally cookin’ in her interview with Colin Powell!

    Now this is what our TradMed journos need to replicate!

    Kudos Rachel, kudos!

    • acquarius74 says:

      Just coffee, black and unsweetened, thank you.

      Glad you watched the whole thing. Olsen’s son phrased his conclusions in the form of a question about Ivins’ death, but it’s clear (to me) that for him it’s not really a question.

  18. Valtin says:

    Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on.

    Why be so coy, Seymour? James Bamford has said that Cheney is very close to NSA Director Keith Alexander. Now that’s a powerful ally.

    Alexander was a key figure in trying to get the Al Haramain case dropped due to “state secrets privilege”.

    Of course, Cheney and Alexander are co-defendants in the EFF lawsuit, Jewel v NSA, along with the Department of Justice, President George W. Bush, Cheney’s Chief of Staff David Addington, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former Attorneys General Alberto Gonzales and John D. Ashcroft, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell and former DNI John Negroponte.

    It makes you wonder. The liberal blogosphere (including FDL and myself) make a big deal about getting Dawn Johnsen in at OLC, or have hopes for Jeh Johnson at DoD, but when the Director of the NSA is all cozy with the closet cabinet run by Cheney, it appears we’re scrambling over the low-lying fruit while the “masters of the universe” control the forest.

    The fact Obama saw fit to keep Alexander at the helm at NSA demonstrates that when it comes to the National Security State, Obama is president of bupkis.

    • bmaz says:

      al-Haramain isn’t dropped yet. It is still live and in front of Vaughn Walker right there in San Francisco. If Walker was inclined to dismiss the case, it would be dismissed by now. I don’t think that is what he is up to; I think quite the opposite. We should see any day now.

      • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

        If Walker was inclined to dismiss the case, it would be dismissed by now.

        SUCH a tease…

      • Valtin says:

        I never intended to say that Alexander or Cheney’s power extended to getting Walker to rule unfavorably on the al-Haramain case, only that the two are peas in a pod when it comes to the program of invoking state secrets and wiretapping all Americans (and peoples of the world).

        Would never have made any comment, if Sy Hersh hadn’t been so circumspect about which friends Cheney had in NSA.

        #70 – I also made no mention of any foreign powers, or even the Israelis, so don’t know exactly what point you wish to make.

    • readerOfTeaLeaves says:

      I don’t know what Obama is, or isn’t.
      In fact, I figure that a great deal of what I read online is misinformation.
      But despite that fact…

      I have yet to see anyone’s analysis of what must surely be linkages between:
      – deregulation of finance/banking in the late 90s and early 2000
      – deregulation of energy, starting in Bush I when Cheney was SecDef (and as near as I can figure, every tank, plane, boat, and cookstove rely on oil and gas), much of it via the innocent looking ‘Commodities Futures’ so-called updates led by Phil Gramm, (R) Sen. EnronAndLaterUBS
      – deregulation of telecomm, which ramped up mid-90s
      – beginning of NSA/surveillance state from 2000 forward
      – our current economic meltdown, which could not have occurred if the telecomm and finance (i.e., online banking, offshore transactions) had not been able to utilize the telecomm infrastructure of the Internet, to say nothing of the electrical energy power grid necessary to power all the machines and computers that make those zillions of financial transactions.

      I figure that Cheney’s stranglehold on NSA taps was one more ‘business advantage’ for those in his good graces to benefit by ensuring that they had advantageous info. An added bennie being to poison his perceived ‘enemies’.

      And this was all taking place during the time when Cheney’s Secret Energy Task Force was so secret that they even kept former Sec of Treasury Paul O’Neill in the dark.

      Which suggests that Paul O’Neill wasn’t corrupt enough to be in that BushCheney posse.
      And it also suggests** that at some point, Treasury was institutionally not keeping up with the technical and financial ‘investments’ in the ’shadow banking’ architecture that has occurred the past 10 years.

      Or on a more sinister note, it could also suggest that the Stay Behinds are the ones who Cheney left within Treasury to keep an eye on all of this.

      I have no clue where the truth lies.
      But I do believe that all these dots connect.

      FWIW: Sy Hersh on Olbermann tonight.

      ————-
      ** But I have no evidence; this is simply a hunch.

    • 4jkb4ia says:

      I could trust Valtin to bring out the Bamford mentions of Cheney and the NSA.

      Which makes it important to say, for the record, that their personal loyalty to Cheney is the issue in this post, not their loyalty to or sympathy with any foreign power, especially if it is so broad-based that Congress is an “agent”. No one can prove that the Israelis connected to NSA contracts are connected to these people because this is the NSA after all.

  19. acquarius74 says:

    I remembered something Addington had said at the 06/26/2008 hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Torture, so watched it again. Yep, Addington may have slipped up. In trying to distance himself from Yoo’s memos, Addington at one point said (paraphrased because quarrelling going on; couldn’t catch it all) ‘we’re talking about 2 diffeerent things here, the CIA and DOD; you’ll find my participation was mainly with the CIA…’

    Per wiki, Addington was admitted to the Bar in 1981 and also in 1981 became assistant counsel to CIA (ended 1984). Now who can get admitted to the bar and become a legal counselor to CIA in the same year??

    Addington’s Papa was Brig Gen’l Jerry Addington, and son David was born 01/22/1957 in Washington D.C.. I must learn more about Papa.

    • acquarius74 says:

      Here is the link to an article 2006 in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer age 3 of 11) on Addington. Excerpt:

      Addington has been a hawk on national defense since he was a teen-ager. Leonard Napolitano, an engineer who was one of Addington’s close childhood friends, and whose political leanings are more like those of his sister, Janet Napolitano, the Democratic governor of Arizona, joked, “I don’t think that in high school David was a believer in the divine right of kings.” But, he said, Addington was “always conservative.”

      The Addingtons were a traditional Catholic military family. They moved frequently; David’s father, Jerry, an electrical engineer in the Army, was assigned to a variety of posts, including Saudi Arabia and Washington, D.C., where he worked with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As a teen-ager, Addington told a friend that he hoped to live in Washington himself when he grew up. Jerry Addington, a 1940 graduate of West Point who won a Bronze Star during the Second World War, also served in Korea and at the North American Air Defense Command, in Colorado; he reached the rank of brigadier general before he retired, in 1970, when David was thirteen. David attended public high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his father began a second career, teaching middle-school math. His mother, Eleanore, was a housewife; the family lived in a ranch house in a middle-class subdivision. She still lives there; Jerry died in 1994. “We are an extremely close family,” one of Addington’s three older sisters, Linda, recalled recently. “Discipline was very important for us, and faith was very important. It was about being ethical—the right thing to do whether anyone else does it or not. I see that in Dave.” She was reluctant to say more. “Dave is most deliberate about his privacy,” she added.

    • acquarius74 says:

      Holder is gonna punish the criminals by not prosecuting???

      That don’t make no sense atall!! Jonathan Turley wouldn’t pull an April Fool’s joke like this.

      bmaz, does this make any sense to you?

        • acquarius74 says:

          This may be Turley’s back-door tactic to goad/shame Holder into upholding the law as he took the oath to do.

          If it’s just a joke, then IMHO it goes too far.

          Thanks, bmaz

          • Leen says:

            Holder/Obama/Whitehouse/ Pelosi/Leahy “no one is above the law”

            Well except Cheney, Bush, Ledeen, Bolton, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Feith, Rice, Libby, Gonzales, Wurmser, Hannah, Rove, etc etc etc etc

  20. JohnLopresti says:

    Eilperin and Leonnig November 18 2008 even cite pigmissle Perino’s statements about reporters’ observation of a shift to career from political appointments. pigmissle’s retort, Clinton embedded more than Bush was burrowing. Sounds like standard practice, redistribution of plums. This is an interesting but difficult to define topic, though reminiscent of the transitory existence of Thor Hearne’s ACVR the halflife of which was sufficiently enduring to provide expert testimony before warehousing the letterhead.

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