I have no doubt that Cheney and Bush hated Ney for his attempts at peaceful solutions with Iran, and that they would have had him killed before his convictions if they had realized he was going to tell the press that Iran tried like hell to get on board and Bushco said, "No, we prefer endless war. And peace would sidetrack the rapture and Armageddon that we have worked so hard for."

But Ney was prosecuted because he was a slimy, corrupt piece of Republican bile, who never met a bribe he didn't take. Like this WaPo article said:

The former chairman of the House Administration Committee admitted that he performed official acts for Abramoff's lobbying clients between 2001 and 2004, receiving in exchange luxury vacation trips, skybox seats at sporting events, campaign contributions and expensive meals. Ney also admitted receiving tens of thousands of dollars in gambling chips from a businessman who sought his help with the State Department. ...

Ney said yesterday that he regretted his actions and was sorry for disappointing his family and voters.

"I will continue to take full responsibility for my actions and battle the demons of addiction," he said, referring to the alcohol problem for which he has sought treatment. ...

But the judge rejected his plea for leniency.

"Whether or not you've served your constituents well, on some level you have seriously betrayed the public's trust and abused your power as a congressman," Huvelle told Ney. "You have a long way to go to make amends for what's happened."

Ney pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy and making false statements. ...

"Today's sentence makes it clear that our government is not for sale," Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said in a statement. "Former Congressman Ney now faces 30 months in prison for abusing his position of trust as a representative of the American people. The Justice Department will continue to pursue and prosecute public officials who compromise the integrity of elected office for private benefit."

The gifts Ney accepted from Abramoff included a golfing trip to Scotland and other travel that prosecutors valued at more than $170,000. In return, Ney sought to insert four amendments to benefit Abramoff's clients into a 2002 election reform bill. Ney also admitted helping another Abramoff client win a multimillion-dollar contract to provide wireless communication services to the U.S. Capitol.

The congressman twice inserted comments in the Congressional Record aimed at bolstering a bid by Abramoff to take ownership of a Florida casino company. ...

Also pending is a measure that would take away congressional pensions from members convicted of corruption, but it would not be retroactive. Ney could collect up to $33,000 a year by age 62.

 So while I sympathize with Mr. Ney that he may have been thrown under the bus more easily by the Bush admin than he might have if he had not veered from the Cheney script, I would still like to shake the hand of that bus driver.

by JC Garrett (40 articles, 65 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 604 comments [10 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 5:56:33 AM

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In the neo-con battle against Democracy, Ney is a war criminal, plain and simple.

Oh, by a quirk of fate he turned out to have a value to Iran in communicating in the back channels?  TOO FRIGGIN BAD!

If Iran had wanted to push the initiative further, they could have.

I believe that Ney was also a key player in the destruction of the US electoral system with HAVA and also instrumental in stealing Ohio.

To hell with Ney!!!  To put Ney in the same boat as Seligman is like comparing Anne Frank to an SS soldier shot for taking bribes.

by Charlie L (2 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 747 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 4:50:17 PM

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It may have some shock value today, or a lead-in to Thom Hartmann's show, and audience appeal, but whatever Bob Ney has to say, it's filtered through a morass of high crimes, and, as you say, war crimes.

 I've written elsewhere, including our SoS Debra Bowen here in CA, that any implementation of electronic voting equipment is, and has been, an Act of War against the American people.  I believe that is the phrase wannabe pResidents of the US use, when our buildings are flattened by their own devices: "Acts of War."  That's the classical lingo: we need to see it in those terms considering Bob Ney's neighbor, Wally O'Dell of Diebold, and his promise to "deliver Ohio to the Republicans," in 2004.  If that's not an Act of War against the citizens of this country, I'd sure like to know what is.

 We wrote Bob Ney in the summer of 2004 that he would go down, would lose his position, and career, because of his complicity with these crimes and his fox guarding the hen house role with HAVA.  Almost all of that has come to pass.

Isn't it a boost to consumer confidence to see this soiled product trying to re-package itself, for a little air time, a little mercy, at Air America.

Even the Nazis at Nuremberg would have made a better showing.  Where is there any REAL remorse in any of Ney's "true confessions."  Is this anything but a way to hide behind the only cover he has left, a liberal talk show, to save his sorry skin.  I'd like to see some real restitution to the American people for the mammoth crimes he's done to us, before I trust a word he says.  Let me queue up to shake that bus driver's hand.  Ney is one of the biggest scum bags in American history, and that's saying a lot.  Along with Kenneth Blackwell, he showed the most shocking contempt imaginable for democratic voting process, and he should be incarcerated for life without a possibility of parole.  What these people do, in terms of damages, laid end to end, is more destructive than all the serial killers in the country's history, from one death row on one coast, all the way to the other.

There should be no effort to minimize their crimes.  If anything, what's been left by Bush "Justice" should be handed over to Judge Roy Bean for proper punishment on the other side of The Pecos, and full. 

Bob Ney, get back to us after you've done something substantive to redress our grievance against you.  Till then, just be quiet.  Or tell it to the judge, the next one, the one at the American "Nuremberg" proceedings.  Till then, crawl back into that big Hole in Ohio you came out of.

~John Ervin

by muservin (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 6:32:32 PM

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Regardless of his criminality the big story here is not that he was prosecuted but that others are not and even bigger that the Iran situation could have been solved peacefully but Bush and his Neocons would rather waste American lives. Now that is definite impeachment material and treasonous to boot.

by Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1757 comments [112 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 6:39:01 PM

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Yeah, that's the big story.  But Ney's blockage of any voting reform, for years, until his downfall from the House Admin chairmanship, is bigger, or big enough to suit me, for these particular arguments. 

The whole reason that sorry show, Bush and The Pimps, resides at the White House, and not a Fed Penitentiary, is because of runaway voting fraud, and Bob Ney was the Voting Mafia kingpin for a long and very crucial time. 

Why can't he come clean on some of THOSE crimes?  If he did, he would be of invaluable and imperishable service in restoring some form of democracy in this occupied country.  It was occupied through vote fraud, in the large, and all the other Bush crimes and corporate crimes were "in the small" in comparison to what's been going on inside of these black boxes of vote consumption, or nullification of the will of the people.   

If they hadn't hijacked our voting process, with Bob Ney in the key position, they would all be behind bars, and our history, and wars, would have been exponentially steered in another and better direction, starting over forty years, from Nixon and Reagan's heists, to the Bush family crime scenes, which culminated in Bob Ney's key positioning in Congress as the payoff for his soul's sell out.  You can make book on that. 

Why doesn't Ney spill his guts in some way that would benefit us, and not just his wallet, his habit.  If he spilled his guts where it counted, it could blow the lid off that stolen ballot box and show us what's crawling, really, inside.  Not to mention, save his soul.

Ah, but that's not as important to him as his bottle of booze and Skybox seats, etc., etc. 

I know some great people, world class, who've crawled out of a bottle, and come back to serve with distinction, and there are few challenges more daunting. 

Why do I get the idea Bob Ney isn't even trying, really, to do that, but still hiding behind one?  That's a shame, and what a shame.  Until he changes, fundamentally, I hope he stays on course for The Max, through some tribunal of war/voting crimes.

~~John E

by muservin (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 7:31:40 PM

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Why don't they do the "walk" then? Even if some of them have served some time, group up and save the constitution and help us impeach Cheney and his side kick Bush. They are still republican partisan and I will never give them a pass.

Where are the courageous leaders that will come forth and end Bush&co's nightmare on the citizens of America?

Republicans would make the greatest impression and carry the most weight in "the walk". How about it Ney?  and other repubs that have bus scratches! 

by shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 592 comments [98 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 7:24:35 PM

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The current crop of Republicans in office throughout the land, are, as Garrison Keillor so eloquently put it in "Home Grown Democrat" from his essay "This is What Happened to the Republican Party" are sutured together from the body parts of what would pass as a Republican in simpler times.  These people have zero dignity, from what I can gather, and no remorse, reminiscent of the sort of moral decline that was entered into the public record at Nuremberg trials. 

We just happened to glimpse Bill Moyers report from a few weeks ago at his "Journal" of "Capitol Crimes" and his site online, and just the facts that are "airable" on PBS, of what Grover Norquist, Abramoff, and Reed did in their triumvirate of crime partnership at K Street, and the House with the Red Door, and they sickened me for the rest of the evening, with anger and nausea.  And I already had looked into many a page of those rap sheets! 

They are all linked to all these crimes, especially Ney's.

Birds of a feather.  And pretty damn dirty birds, at that.  And Ney is far from the cleanest of that crowd. 

If these future jailbirds were ever to start to get clean, we'd know about it.  It would create a sonic boom, in the moral sphere, at least. 

The leopard does not change its spots, and these people have given no real reason to make any of even the most credulous amongst us believe that they are really any different.  No reason at all.

Not the way these people buy, or steal, everything on the cheap, especially our most sacred things ~~ like The Vote and "The Faith"~~ and then try to sell them back to us, dear.  Their apologies or extenuating arguments are just part of that parcel of stolen goods.

 When it comes to TRUE confessions, accept no substitutes.  Not from proven swindlers.  They're the reason they put bars in prisons...

... where they start the "ground floor" of their next fortunes "preaching" repentance.

~~John E

by muservin (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 78 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 7:50:23 PM

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But every time they do, Condosleaza Rice responds with "Not good enough!"  She's no diplomat, just some overeducated idiot with a PhD who had an oil tanker named after her until Dumbo George brought her into the white house.  I work around PhDs at a research lab and when they're out of their fields, they can be just as lost as anybody else and I daresay she is lost in space.

by Dave Kisor (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 312 comments [40 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 9:59:47 PM

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Comment from Ratings:   I am not a great writer and journalist like Rob,so I have to apologize for my style.But what I have to say,comes from my heart.Bravo,Mr.Ney!This man shows,that he is not spineless like so many other people.He admitted his shortcomings and told the truth.Anyway,I am wondering,when the prosecution of the "Bush/Cheney-Gang" finally starts to happen.To point the finger at Mr.Ney for wrongdoings is weak,while the Congress is fully aware of the crimes of the Bush-Administration and handles this unforgivable situation in slowmotion.

by carola perritte (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments) on Friday, Aug 22, 2008 at 11:27:32 PM

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Poor Bob, a leading creator of HAVA.

Poor Jack - such a cooperative soul.

http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_10318072

by Jane Schiff (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 74 diaries, 80 comments) on Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008 at 10:00:17 PM

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