Barry Bonds*, former outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, was finally indicted yesterday for lying to a federal grand jury. Bonds is accused of lying to the grand jury about his steroid use during his baseball career and his ties to the Balco lab that produced the steroids he used. Finally, we will be done with Bonds the baseball player, instead we can get to see who Bonds really is, a lying, selfish, egotistical cheat.

The only problem with the Bonds indictment is that it came a few months too late. If only the charges had been brought before Bonds had a chance to break Hank Aaron’s home run record. Now, technically, Bonds is the all time home run champ. While that may be the case for now, these charges against Bonds coupled with any other information about his continuous cheating while chasing Aaron’s record, should knock this lying good for nothing self right out of baseball and its record books.  

It is truly a shame for baseball and its fans to have one of its biggest records held by someone that clearly cheated their way to success. Bonds is certainly not alone in using performance enhancements but he did continuously lie about using them even in the face of overwhelming evidence that he did. With this indictment it is clear that Major League Baseball needs to continue to ratchet up its testing of players so a problem like this never against tarnishes America’s pastime. Good riddance to Bonds. May he lose his records and may he be banned from baseball forever.

(*embarrassment to baseball)

Greg Palast, GregPalast.com, November 14, 2007

Lago Agrio, Ecuador – Before The Lord spoke unto Pat Robertson and told him to endorse Rudy Giuliani, family man, for President, the Reverend got a message that higher powers wanted him to arrange a hit on another President:

“Hugo Chavez thinks we’re trying to assassinate him. I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”

Robertson has a tough time separating Church and Hate. But when the vicious vicar declared it was time to take out the President of Venezuela, he was simply channeling the wishes of the Supreme Authority, Dick Cheney.

I’m asking you to see the story they don’t want you to see in the USA: from the original investigations filmed for BBC Television, “The Assassination of Hugo” – a special DVD documentary by myself and Rick Rowley. NOT for general release – ONLY available as a gift to donors to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund.

Why must they kill Chavez?

With the help of guerrila cameraman Rick Rowley (“Fourth World War”), I flew to Caracas to get the answer – from Chavez himself. I also talked to the guy who took Chavez hostage in 2002. (I had to wear a wire for that one.)

Read More Here

BartCop.com Volume 2071 – Bemused Bloodlettings

In Today’s Tequila Treehouse…

	Why We Write
	The Cheney Threat
	Musharraf – Bush clone
	Cheney likes to kill
	Syphlitic chimps
	Obama’s moment
	Why I hate Hillary…
	Vet Suicides Way Up
	Kelly Ripa-licious

LAS VEGAS — On the eve of the Nevada Presidential Debate, Hillary has racked up the public endorsement of some of the state’s most influential gambling industry executives and advocates.

The Clinton campaign has unveiled the formation of the Nevada Business Leadership Council led by Jan Jones, a former Las Vegas Mayor and a current top executive of and lobbyist for national gambling mega-corporation Harrah’s Entertainment.

Harrah’s operates more than two dozen casinos nationwide, including the landmark Rio in Las Vegas.

Also prominent among the new pro-Hillary business group is Phil Satre, former chairman and CEO of Harrah’s and a veteran leader in the Vegas gambling industry. Vegas.com CEO Howard Lefkowitz, Henry Terry, Executive Director of Human Resources of Playlv Gaming Operations, and Punam Mather, a Senior Vice President at the casino-owning MGM Mirage Corp. MGM Mirage operates and own a series of mega-resort casinos including the Bellagio, Mirage and the MGM Grand.

There was a time when gambling money could taint a political campaign, Las Vegas-based historian Michael Green told the HuffPost. But those days are long gone. ‘It was former Senator Paul Laxalt who once quipped that in Nevada turning down money from the gambling industry would be like refusing support from GM in Detroit.”

“The larger gaming corporations are enormous industries that provide not only huge infusions of campaign cash but also votes,” Green said. “Their money buys you TV ads, campaign staff, and direct mail and while I don’t want to suggest a direct connection, let’s just say that thousands of casino employees suddenly become very aware of who their bosses would like you to support in the ballot box.”

Clinton’s high-visibility foray into the gaming-dominated Nevada business community pairs up with the significant stack of endorsements she has already collected from the state’s Democratic political establishment. Her statewide campaign is led by Rory Reid, son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and current chair of the powerful Clark County Commission which encompasses the greater Las Vegas metropolitan area.

The announcement of the new surge of gaming support for Clinton while significant doesn’t represent a necessarily unified view of the industry. The larger casino corporations have a tradition of spreading around their political contributions, effectively hedging their bets. Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire proprietor of The Venetian hotel and casino is a major supporter and funder of GOP causes and candidates. Elaine Wynn, wife of gambling mogul Steve Wynn and Director of the sparkling Wynn casino, joined the Barack Obama campaign last summer. In 1996, the gambling industry gave so much cash to Republican candidate Bob Dole that he became known as “Vegas Bob.”

No question, however, that Senator Clinton is escalating her efforts to line up key support groups here in the Silver State whose January 19 caucuses will be among the first three in the nation.

“Business has been a cornerstone of the Clinton campaign, and Senator Clinton has been remarkable in terms of finding the balance between supporting organized labor and still recongnizing the importance of building a strong business community,” Harrah’s exec Jones told reporters in a conference call announcing the formation of the business council.

Endorsement of organized labor, representing nearly 15% of Nevada workers, has also been zealously sought by the rival Democratic candidates. But to date, the two most powerful unions — the Culinary Workers and the Service Employees– have yet to give the nod to any single candidate,

Left his post because the army could not treat his PTSD. 

November 15, 2007

Army Arrests Sergeant Who Went AWOL

By FERNANDA SANTOS

A soldier who left his post at Fort Drum in Watertown, N.Y., without leave more than a year ago to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder was arrested yesterday at a cafe eight miles from the base as he was preparing to surrender, his lawyer said.

The soldier, Brad Gaskins, an Army sergeant who had served two tours in Iraq, was speaking with a television reporter at the cafe when two officers from the fort entered with two local police officers, who took him away, his lawyer, Tod Ensign, said.

The officers returned Sergeant Gaskins to his unit, the Second Brigade Combat Team. Whether he will face military prosecution will be up to the unit’s commanders, said Benjamin Abel, a spokesman at Fort Drum.

Sergeant Gaskins, 25, was transferred to Fort Drum after he returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq in February 2006. Six months later, he went home to East Orange, N.J., on leave and did not return. Mr. Ensign, who is the director of Citizen Soldier, a veterans’ advocacy group in Manhattan, said the sergeant felt the Army was not giving him adequate treatment.

“They just don’t have the resources to handle it, but that’s not my fault,” Sergeant Gaskins said at a news conference in Syracuse, just hours before his arrest, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Abel said that soldiers who are absent without leave — or AWOL — for 30 days are classified as deserters and a federal warrant is issued for their arrest.

Mr. Ensign said he had been negotiating Sergeant Gaskins’s surrender with a military prosecutor over the phone when the police officers arrived. Mr. Abel said, however, that the Army does not negotiate the surrender of a soldier who is AWOL. “It’s the soldier’s responsibility to report to his place of duty,” Mr. Abel said.

Sergeant Gaskins faces several options, Mr. Abel said. He could be referred for medical treatment, discharged from the Army or court-martialed. Sergeant Gaskins enlisted in the Army in 1999 and took part in a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo before being deployed to Iraq in 2003. He returned for a second tour in 2005, and part of his job was to find roadside improvised explosive devices.

Mr. Ensign said that the sergeant’s unit was ambushed many times and that he witnessed the aftermath of several suicide bombings, which compounded the emotional difficulties that had already started to flare up.

He has suffered from night terrors, flashbacks and insomnia, and he has had suicidal thoughts, Mr. Ensign said. Once, after his wife came home late and startled him awake, Sergeant Gaskins grabbed a knife and chased her around the house, unaware of his actions, he said at the news conference.

After the incident, the couple separated and his wife obtained a temporary order of protection against him, Mr. Ensign said. During his time at home, Sergeant Gaskins was allowed only supervised visits with his 3-year-old son and his 9-year-old stepdaughter.