What this election should be about

but the media continues to tiptoe around ...

One Party Rule by Kleptocracy

'Remember when the idea of having a CEO vice president was a campaign selling point? Now we see that the only thing being sold is the public good. Exhibit A is the way Cheney's corporate cronies at Halliburton have benefited from having a friend in the very highest of places.

...

The latest outrage came with this week's revelation that Halliburton has consistently over billed the Pentagon for meals at Camp Arifjan, a U.S. military base in Kuwait. According to auditors, the Pentagon paid the company $16 million for nearly four million meals that were never served. And Camp Arifjan is just one of over 50 dining facilities in Kuwait and Iraq the company serves....

This phantom-food fiasco comes fast on the heels of news that two Halliburton employees had pocketed over $6 million dollars in kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor пїЅ which had followed fast on the heels of accusations the company had overcharged the government more than $100 million for gasoline.


Pardon me for bringing this up, but shouldn't that be three strikes and you're out? Instead, we get yet another example of how there are two sets of rules in our country пїЅ one for the elites (and the former companies of the elites) and one for everybody else. When caught with its hand in the taxpayer-funded cookie jar, Halliburton doesn't get tossed in the brig for life; it merely apologizes, pays back the money it has pilfered, and goes on to win another hefty cost-plus contract.


Despite this avalanche of sleazy profiteering and corporate misconduct, Cheney stubbornly insists on defending his erstwhile "