This Week In the News
This week, Chevron Oil Co. announced that it will pay fines of up to $30 million and admit that it should have known that it was paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein in exchange for oil shipments. The kickbacks were paid as surcharges and fees associated with the U.N. Oil for Food Program by oil traders working for Chevron. According to the CIA, Saddam was able to amass a fortune of over $228 million from similar kickbacks involving major oil companies. A chagrined Chevron spokesman soberly stated. "This is really a double loss for us. First, we liked to portray the failures of the Oil for Food program as a UN failure and not just simple corporate malfeasance. Second, we do try to distract people from the connections between multinational corporations and repressive political regimes throughout the world. When it gets out that we are supporting this dictator or that warlord in order to get at some oil, some copper or some cheap labor its bad mojo all around."
Also this week, Purdue Pharma and three of its executives agreed to pay $600 million to settle claims that they intentionally misled doctors and the FDA about the addictive qualities of Oxycontin, a narcotic pain reliever that made the company nearly $2 billion since its inception. According to evidence in a federal lawsuit, Purdue Pharma was well aware of the powerfully addictive qualities of its drug and understood that the drug's time release formula offered little shield against addiction. Asked for comment, department of Justice Spokesman Mike 'Mikey" Weire stated: "Dude. Serious rain clouds on this one, man. Its like. Here is someone we like, a big fat corporation that gives a lot of money to Republicans so they can go unregulated. And we are cool with that because we are all like against burdensome regulation and how it like ... kills the magic of the marketplace. But then they go and do stuff that helps people get high, which is like, something we are really against on the count of the War on Drugs and all.... Its like when you send your girlfriend out for some Doritos and she goes out and gets them but eats them all on the way back. You love her because she is your girl and all, but man.... you really wanted those Doritos. Actually.... its really not like that ... but you get it ... "
Last week, British intelligence officials announced that they were investigating an Al Queda plan to carry out large scale act of mass destruction somewhere in the West. True to form, the Bush Administration announced that the US would respond to any such attack by immediately invading Iceland.
This week, V.President Cheney visited Baghdad. While there he urged the Iraqi Parliament (all ten of them) to cancel their planned two month summer vacation in light of the dire situation in their country. Vice would not commit on whether he is delivering the same advice to the vacation prone President Bush.
This week, Pope Benedict the XVI landed in Sao Paolo, Brazil to begin a week long visit to the home of over half the world's Catholics. Even before his plane touched down in one of the world's poorest cities, the Pope was talking up an issue of vital importance to his papacy: abortion. Even though abortion was all but illegal in Brazil (about 2 million abortions are performed illegally each year), Benedict gave a press conference inwhich he suggested that any Catholic supporting abortion rights had effectively excommunicated themselves. The Pope's position may cause friction with Brazil's President Lula De Silva who personally opposes abortion but favors decriminalizing the procedure. According to sources within the Vatican, in order to avoid a rift, the Pope has promised to avoid excommunicating Da Silva during his visit. In return Da Silva promised to refrain from referring to the Catholic clergy as "boy lovers" or "pedarests" and Catholic doctrine as "the best the Middle Ages has to offer."
This week, we spotlight a rags to riches story. Our subject is Monica Goodlow, a 1999 graduate of Oral Robert's Regent University Law School. Goodlow, who has been out of law school only eight years and has little legal experience was, until recently, an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. In that position, she worked with Presidential Advisor Karl Rove in determining what US Attorneys would be fired and which should be retained. Asked how a graduate of a marginal law school* with little legal experience could be asked to judge the performance of career federal prosecutors, a Department of Justice spokesman noted, "It used to be that the top level of the DOJ were reserved for proven legal professionals with top credentials and impressive experience. That was before we discovered the magic of little known and barely accredited evangelical law schools. Yeah. These folks may lack a big picture intellect, but they are ideologically committed and they do what they are told without question. Plus they get to the essence of a legal question --what does God want?" without a lot of falderall and legal wrangling. Heck, we have taken 150 folks from Regent alone. Good little soldiers all."
*Regent is ranked in the fourth tier (no 136) by US News & World Report. In 1999, only 40% of its graduates passed the bar exam. Interestingly, in 2002, then AG John Ashcroft removed the requirement that all DOJ staff attorneys be interviewed and approved by permanent DOJ civil servants. Approval was left to political appointees. Ashcroft now teaches at Regent.
Also this week, Purdue Pharma and three of its executives agreed to pay $600 million to settle claims that they intentionally misled doctors and the FDA about the addictive qualities of Oxycontin, a narcotic pain reliever that made the company nearly $2 billion since its inception. According to evidence in a federal lawsuit, Purdue Pharma was well aware of the powerfully addictive qualities of its drug and understood that the drug's time release formula offered little shield against addiction. Asked for comment, department of Justice Spokesman Mike 'Mikey" Weire stated: "Dude. Serious rain clouds on this one, man. Its like. Here is someone we like, a big fat corporation that gives a lot of money to Republicans so they can go unregulated. And we are cool with that because we are all like against burdensome regulation and how it like ... kills the magic of the marketplace. But then they go and do stuff that helps people get high, which is like, something we are really against on the count of the War on Drugs and all.... Its like when you send your girlfriend out for some Doritos and she goes out and gets them but eats them all on the way back. You love her because she is your girl and all, but man.... you really wanted those Doritos. Actually.... its really not like that ... but you get it ... "
Last week, British intelligence officials announced that they were investigating an Al Queda plan to carry out large scale act of mass destruction somewhere in the West. True to form, the Bush Administration announced that the US would respond to any such attack by immediately invading Iceland.
This week, V.President Cheney visited Baghdad. While there he urged the Iraqi Parliament (all ten of them) to cancel their planned two month summer vacation in light of the dire situation in their country. Vice would not commit on whether he is delivering the same advice to the vacation prone President Bush.
This week, Pope Benedict the XVI landed in Sao Paolo, Brazil to begin a week long visit to the home of over half the world's Catholics. Even before his plane touched down in one of the world's poorest cities, the Pope was talking up an issue of vital importance to his papacy: abortion. Even though abortion was all but illegal in Brazil (about 2 million abortions are performed illegally each year), Benedict gave a press conference inwhich he suggested that any Catholic supporting abortion rights had effectively excommunicated themselves. The Pope's position may cause friction with Brazil's President Lula De Silva who personally opposes abortion but favors decriminalizing the procedure. According to sources within the Vatican, in order to avoid a rift, the Pope has promised to avoid excommunicating Da Silva during his visit. In return Da Silva promised to refrain from referring to the Catholic clergy as "boy lovers" or "pedarests" and Catholic doctrine as "the best the Middle Ages has to offer."
This week, we spotlight a rags to riches story. Our subject is Monica Goodlow, a 1999 graduate of Oral Robert's Regent University Law School. Goodlow, who has been out of law school only eight years and has little legal experience was, until recently, an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. In that position, she worked with Presidential Advisor Karl Rove in determining what US Attorneys would be fired and which should be retained. Asked how a graduate of a marginal law school* with little legal experience could be asked to judge the performance of career federal prosecutors, a Department of Justice spokesman noted, "It used to be that the top level of the DOJ were reserved for proven legal professionals with top credentials and impressive experience. That was before we discovered the magic of little known and barely accredited evangelical law schools. Yeah. These folks may lack a big picture intellect, but they are ideologically committed and they do what they are told without question. Plus they get to the essence of a legal question --what does God want?" without a lot of falderall and legal wrangling. Heck, we have taken 150 folks from Regent alone. Good little soldiers all."
*Regent is ranked in the fourth tier (no 136) by US News & World Report. In 1999, only 40% of its graduates passed the bar exam. Interestingly, in 2002, then AG John Ashcroft removed the requirement that all DOJ staff attorneys be interviewed and approved by permanent DOJ civil servants. Approval was left to political appointees. Ashcroft now teaches at Regent.
posted by Jack Reed at 10:02 AM
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