Developer Paul Nieto (partner of Mike Madigan) resigns from Airport Authority

Paul Nieto
Since Paul Nieto and his partner Mike Madigan were exposed for trickery regarding land being acquired for San Diego City College, Paul Nieto has been forced out of office. But Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox is still reflexively loyal to developers. She put a construction consultant in Nieto's place.

Mike Madigan
From Voice of San Diego, by Rob Davis: "Nieto Resigns Airport Post"

"Chula Vista developer Paul Nieto resigned this morning from his seat on the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

"Nieto, a partner with TMG and the former president of the company that developed Chula Vista's EastLake, has been under scrutiny for profiting off a land deal that he'd claimed he was involved in on behalf of the San Diego Community College District.

"Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox appointed Jack Miller to the authority's board in Nieto's stead. Miller is employed at Gafcon, a San Diego construction consulting firm. The former Navy pilot spent three years managing operations for San Diego County's airport."

Alberto Gonzales and the truth about torture

Attorney General Anthony Gonzales won't tell Congress the truth about the firing of US attorneys for political reasons and pressuring a critically ill John Ashcroft to approve domestic spying. Monica Goodling admitted the truth, and so did FBI director Robert Mueller. But Gonzales insists on appearing again and again before Congress, even though nobody believes what he's saying.

Which makes me think of another issue involving Gonzales: torture.

Gonzales has said that if you want to get information out of an unwilling subject, you need to inflict severe pain.

Putting two and two together, it seems that Anthony Gonzales believes that he himself would cave under physical pressure.

But does he understand the Islamic prisoners that the administration is holding captive? I suspect Gonzales, Rumsfeld, Cheny and Bush are all unaware that a deep conviction of the rightness of one's cause can enable a human being to withstand enormous pain. Many people have died while being tortured, refusing to the end to give up their secrets. And many others have said what their interrogators wanted to hear, even though it wasn't true. As John McCain says, torture doesn't work. It only gives the illusion of power to the torturer.

Is there a difference between lying and duplicity?

Note: If you are looking for Dennis Doyle, former Assistant Superintendent at Chula Vista Elementary School District, this article is not about him. Doyle moved to National School District.

Lies vs. duplicity
Letter to the Editor
National Catholic Reporter, August 15, 2003 by Joseph C. Kunkel

Dennis Doyle distinguishes lying from duplicity (NCR, July 18). While lying is wrong, duplicity is presented as a cut above.

Doyle's wonderful example of Fr. William Joseph Chaminade is appreciated. But Chaminade's statement is a far cry from the 16 words President Bush used in the State of the Union address to claim from discredited sources that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger.

Doyle questions whether the completely unfounded connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam as propounded by the Bush administration was really deception or only duplicity. If spurious statements by public officials in support of some "higher cause" are approvingly duplicitous, what has happened to the Christian notion of truth?

George Bush's heart goes out to those who outed Valerie Plame

In 2003, someone at the White House decided it was necessary to out a covert CIA agent because her diplomat husband was going around saying that there was no support for Bush's claim that Saddam Hussein was trying to build a nuclear bomb.

In 2007, the Washington Post quotes Bush as saying, "'It's been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House."

According to papers released by special prosecutor Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame was indeed a covert agent at the time she was outed. (See www.thebluestate.com/ 2007/05/its_final_valer.html)

Dan Froomkin writes in washingtonpost.com about secrecy and misinformation at the White House.

"President Bush made several unsupported assertions about the war in Iraq during his press conference yesterday, but when it comes to sheer audacity, nothing came close to his response when asked how he felt about two of his top advisers leaking Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent to reporters.

"Jennifer Loven gets it right in her Associated Press story: "President Bush always said he would wait to talk about the CIA leak case until after the investigation into his administration's role. On Thursday, he skipped over that step and pronounced the matter old news hardly worth discussing.

"'It's run its course,' he said. 'Now we're going to move on.'

"Despite a long history of denouncing leaks, Bush declined to express any disappointment in the people who worked for him and who were involved in disclosing the name of a CIA operative. Asked about that . . . the president gave a dodgy answer.

"'It's been a tough issue for a lot of people in the White House,' he said.

"He didn't even acknowledge the undisputed fact that someone working for him was the source, saying only that 'perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person.'"

"In fact, Bush clearly seemed to be pointing his finger not at the two senior White House aides who leaked Plame's identity to reporters -- senior political adviser Karl Rove and former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- but at former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage..."

(More at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/07/13/BL2007071301045.html?referrer=email&referrer=email)
Article published Friday, July 13, 2007.

Good news for falsely-accused medics in Libya

Libya Lifts H.I.V. Case Death Sentence

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 17, 2007


TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- The death sentences for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV have been commuted to life in prison, Libya's foreign minister said Tuesday.

The ruling came after the families of the children each received $1 million and agreed to drop their demand for the execution of the six, who deny having infected more than 400 children and say their confessions were extracted under torture.

Libya remains under intense international pressure to free the medical workers, and Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam said Tripoli was willing to consider the medics' deportation to Bulgaria. He said the negotiations would take place within ''the legal framework and political context'' between the two countries.

Bulgaria's chief prosecutor, Kamen Mihov, said requests would be made Wednesday to have the medics leave Libya shortly. They have been jailed since 1999.

But the medics' main Libyan defense lawyer, Osman al-Bizant, told the Al-Jazeera television network that their deportation would depend on ''whether there is the possibility of carrying out the punishment there (in Bulgaria).''

Today's Corruption Quiz

From "California Teachers" blog:

"His apparent lack of guilt about his actions speaks, I think, to his extraordinary capacity for self-delusion."
(Statement was made by SETH HETTENA, July 16, 2007 in Voice of San Diego)

Who is being discussed in the above statement?

A. Donald Rumsfeld
B. Richard Cheney
C. Randall Cunningham
D. George Bush

Answer: Hettena wrote a book about Randy "Duke" Cunningham, but he wanted readers to understand how the Cunningham case was a result of politics today, where defense contractors and others can buy access to, and a large amount of control over, those who make decisions about America's defense capabilities and way of life. How did these "deciders" gain power? By constantly repeating a set of messages about "values" and "terror," without ever bothering to pay attention to more immediate dangers to our country.

Ronald Reagan's Lawyer Wants Cheney Impeached

From "That's Life in the City" blog:

"According to recent polling by the American Research Group, 54 percent of Americans want Cheney impeached. Among Democrats, that number rises to 76 percent. A majority of self-described independents back action to hold the vice president to account, as do a striking 17 percent of Republicans.

"With conservatives such as former Reagan administration lawyer Bruce Fein coming out strongly for Cheney's impeachment, the numbers of Republicans who are pulling for accountability is likely to grow.

"Four more members of the U.S. House signed on this week as cosponsors of H. Res. 333, the measure that outlines articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney for actively and systematically seeking to deceive citizens and Congress about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and for openly threatening aggression against Iran.

"Congressman Bob Filner, the chair of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, added his name, along with another veteran Democratic representative from California, Sam Farr.

"The additional cosponsorships from Washington Democrat Jim McDermott, a Vietnam-era veteran who has been one of the House's sharpest critics of the war in Iraq, and Virginia Democrat James Moran bring the number of supporters for the articles to 14, including sponsor Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.

"House Members are backing impeachment for a number of reasons, including anger with Cheney's involvement with manipulations of intelligence regarding Iraq, illegal spying on Americans and the promotion of torture, as well his recent attempt to avoid scrutiny by claiming that the Office of the Vice President was not part of the executive branch. And then there was President Bush's decision to commute the 30-month prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff and co-conspirator in moves to punish former Ambassador Joe Wilson for exposing the deceptions that led to war.

"The founders were very clear about the fact that abuses of the presidential authority to pardon or otherwise lift the burden of the law from subordinates was an impeachable offense."

from:
http://thatslifeinthecity.blogspot.com/2007/07/cheneys-actions-put-impeachment-on.html

Americans are also harmed by bureaucrats

I think that the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, 62 (see previous post), was excessive. It was done to help China save face after so many American pets died from melamine in wheat gluten from China. It was unfair because corruption is a way of life in China, and one man was singled out.

In the US we have the same problem China has: our food and safety regulators disregard science and punish whistleblowers in order to benefit their patrons. An example of this was when the Food and Drug Administration delayed release of information about a mad cow case in the US. Another came when the FDA forbade any company in the US from doing more mad cow testing than that prescribed by the FDA.

When Bureaucrats do favors for money, do they deserve to be executed?

For 2 Children, Ban of a Drug Came Too Late
New York Times
Photographs by Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Du Haipeng, 6, with his mother, Fu Liguang, in Harbin, China. Today, the boy rarely speaks.


By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: July 13, 2007
BEIJING — While visiting relatives a year ago, Du Haipeng, 5, came down with a sore throat. Doctors prescribed a Chinese antibiotic, Xinfu. The boy’s reaction to the drug was so violent, he had to be taken to a nearby hospital.

“I remember clearly that I was shearing sheep when I got a call from my sister and her husband,” said Du Xinglong, 36, Haipeng’s father. “When I rushed to the hospital my son had already fallen into a coma.”

A week later, regulators banned Xinfu. Authorities eventually determined that the State Food and Drug Administration had granted the drug’s maker a seal of approval, even though Xinfu was not properly produced or sterilized.

The scandal was just one symptom of an ailing regulatory regime. Last year, the government uncovered 167,000 examples of illegal production and trade in medicine and medical equipment. In some cases, illegal factories are fined or closed; but their owners rarely face prosecution, and the problem persists.

Because of the public furor Xinfu set off, its producer, the Anhui Huayuan Worldbest Biology Company, was an exception. Several senior executives at the company were dismissed; its production license was revoked; and last November, according to state-run media, the company’s general manager committed suicide.

That was too late for a 6-year-old named Liu Sichen. She had been given Xinfu for a tonsil infection. Soon she fell into a coma, and after several days she died.

“She was about to go to elementary school,” said Sichen’s mother, Guo Ping. “Her father bought her a new pink backpack.”

In the end, at least 14 people died after taking Xinfu, and perhaps hundreds more were severely sickened. Du Haipeng woke from his coma after 22 days of emergency treatment. But he wasn’t himself. “He didn’t recognize us,” said his mother, Fu Liguang, 38. “Over the next two and a half months, he didn’t say a single word.”

Today, the boy rarely speaks. He wets his pants, and his doctors say he may have permanent brain damage.

His father has no sympathy for Zheng Xiaoyu, the State Food and Drug Administration’s former chief, executed on Tuesday.

“If he hadn’t approved that company our family wouldn’t be shattered,” Mr. Du said. “He should have been killed a long time ago.”

Rujun Shen contributed reporting.

This is also what happens when the truth stops mattering

Ex-surgeon general faults White House
Richard Carmona says the administration 'simply buried' his scientific data
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 11, 2007


WASHINGTON — President Bush's first surgeon general testified Tuesday that his speeches were censored to match administration political positions and that he was prevented from giving the public accurate scientific information on issues such as stem cell research and teen pregnancy prevention.

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard H. Carmona, who was surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, told a congressional committee. "The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation — not the doctor of a political party."

Early in the administration, when the issue of federal funding for stem cell research arose, Carmona said, he felt he could play an educational role by discussing the latest scientific research. Instead, he said, he was told to "stand down" because the White House already had made a decision to limit stem cell studies. He said administration appointees who reviewed his speech texts deleted references to stem cells.

Carmona's remarks were the latest in a series of complaints from government scientists about what they say are administration efforts to control — and sometimes distort — scientific evidence in order to support policy decisions.

NASA scientists have complained, for example, of political pressure to tone down warnings about global warming. Environmental Protection Agency officials have complained that technical information on such subjects as power plant emissions and oil drilling have been ignored.

Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, recently dissented from the administration's position by saying its restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research were holding back progress and should be lifted.

Scientists outside the government also have complained about what some call the administration's "war on science."

In the case of the surgeon general, Carmona told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, "the reality is that the nation's doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget, and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas."

What kind of teachers did Bush and Libby have in grade school?

We need teachers who understand the value of the truth. It's hard to solve the serious problems of the world when you're dealing with false facts.

Sadly, many teachers think it's okay if they lie, but they'll attack the character of children who lie.

I'm guessing this is the type of person George Bush has kept around him all his life. George Bush and his friends seem to have less respect for the truth than most Democratic or Republican politicians. Bush's friends impeached Bill Clinton for lying about an affair, but then they insisted that the White House should get away with lying about exposing a CIA agent in order to punish her husband for disagreeing about weapons of mass destruction.

Here's part of a July 2, 2007 Associated Press article:

Bush spares Libby from 2 1/2-year prison term

WASHINGTON - President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby from a 2½-year prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, delivering a political thunderbolt in a highly charged criminal case. Bush said the sentence was just too harsh.

Bush’s move came just five hours after a federal appeals panel ruled that Libby could not delay his prison term. That meant Libby was likely to have to report soon, and it put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby’s allies to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”

Cheryl Cox plays softball with her friends, and hardball with everyone else

Cheryl Cox has moved from school board to mayor in Chula Vista. She used to suborn perjury to protect her political career. The actual signed documents of one of the perjuries that she caused are at the bottom of this page. Then Cheryl moved up in the world, becoming even more powerful.

Now she can cause even more trouble. A young man who took a couple hours off work to photograph her with her disgraced friend David Malcolm could end up in jail for years. Bonnie Dumanis claims that the young man lied about whether he filled out his leave slip before or after his two-hour leave to go to the twilight yacht party where Cheryl was raising money. Dumanis claims that she wants to restore trust in government, and for that reason she has charged Jason Moore with multiple perjury felonies.

But Bonnie refused to prosecute obstruction of justice committed on behalf of Cheryl Cox's and Chula Vista Elementary School District. Bonnie, this looks like you are trying to curry favor with politicians, not restore trust in government. As long as you look the other way when Cheryl Cox and CVESD spend hundreds of thousands of public dollars covering-up crimes, you won't restore trust in government. You just make it appear that your services are available in exchange for political favors.

Bonnie Dumanis was also friendly with former SDCOE Superintendent Rudy Castruita, who provided the unethical lawyers to Cheryl Cox and CVESD. Rudy put a big photo of Bonnie on the San Diego Office of Education web site--which is funded by tax dollars. Cheryl's law firm, Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz was also involved in the recent gift of public money to Laurie Madigan, the wife of developer Mike Madigan.

Apparently, Cheryl and Bonnie both like to intimidate people. Cheryl once called me up, and started by saying, "Maura....This is Dr. Cox."

I knew I was supposed to feel intimidated because she gave herself a title and called me by my first name, but actually I had to struggle to stifle a laugh. Cheryl's doctorate is in education, and I know what it takes to get a doctorate in education. It isn't much. Have you ever heard of anybody flunking out of a graduate school education program? Only if he or she didn't show up. They seldom have to compete against geniuses. In fact, candidates for advanced degrees in education have the lowest GRE scores of all advanced degree candidates. Could that fact be related to the fact that we have a failing school system?

Cheryl approved multiple felonies, the perjury of a law officer among them, in order to hide a few misdemeanors committed by Chula Vista Elementary School District. When I called Cheryl up to talk about them, she refused to discuss it. I did fax documents to her, so she was well informed of what was going on, even if she tried to pretend she was "out of the loop." She just didn't think her crimes mattered. She thinks she is above the law. So does Bonnie Dumanis.

David Bejarano has taken Cheryl's place at CVESD. His wife is the secretary for Assistant Superintendent Susan Fahle, who ignored my public records requests for over a year. Finally, Dennis Doyle responded to my requests. I strongly suspect that Esperanza (Espie) Bejarano knows a lot about what happened at Castle Park Elementary and CVESD. But of course, her husband was handpicked to help the board keep their secrets, wasn't he?

Would voters be SHOCKED to find out that Cheryl Cox spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to cover up crimes and protect her political career? Perhaps, since she campaigned on a platform of CHARACTER and FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY. She apparently fooled a lot of people into thinking she was better that Steve Padilla. Actually, Cheryl Cox is a lot worse. She finds it easy to talk the talk of clean government. She just finds it impossible to walk the walk. After all, what's a girl to do when she wants to be mayor? Tell the truth?

Perjury Lawsuit hearing in East County on Feb. 16, 2007

Can lawyers suborn perjury with impunity?

That is the current public policy. But Maura Larkins has filed a lawsuit to change this policy.

I've put my complaint online. I'll try to scan the exhibits as soon as possible and put them online, too.


Click here to see the lawsuit.

Quote from pleadings:

The crime committed by defendants is particularly harmful to the public good because it involved two law enforcement officers.

In his dissent in Briscoe v. LaHUE, Justice Marshall stated:

"A police officer comes to the witness stand clothed with the authority of the State. His official status gives him credibility and
creates a far greater potential for harm than exists when the average citizen testifies.

The situation is aggravated when the official draws on special expertise. A policeman testifying about a fingerprint identification or a medical examiner testifying as to the cause of a death can have a critical impact on a defendant's trial.

At the same time, the threat of a criminal perjury prosecution, which serves as an important constraint on the average witness' testimony, is virtually nonexistent in the police-witness context.

Despite the apparent prevalence of police perjury, prosecutors exhibit extreme [460 U.S. 325, 366] reluctance in charging
police officials with criminal conduct because of their need to maintain close working relationships with law enforcement
agencies. The majority thus forecloses a civil sanction in precisely those situations where the need is most pressing."