When your own spies insist on giving you the reality-based facts and telling you where to go if you don't heed them, while you're more interested in spinning your own reality, Dear Leader knows you just hire your own intelligence.
But if you're going to set up a super duper secret private spy company, it helps if you simply circumvent the patriots, work with the proper Company connections, listen to Poppy for strategery, and don't work closely with a Boss Hawg on the cheap.
SAN DIEGO - Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham tearfully resigned Monday after pleading guilty to bribery and admitting he took $2.4 million to steer defense contracts to conspirators using his leadership position on a congressional subcommittee...
Authorities said Cunningham secured defense contracts worth tens of millions of dollars for the people who bribed him. The case grew from an investigation into the sale of his home in wealthy Del Mar to a wide-ranging conspiracy involving payments in cash, vacations and antiques from unidentified conspirators...
The case began when authorities started investigating whether Cunningham and his wife, Nancy, used proceeds from the $1,675,000 sale of their home in Del Mar to defense contractor Mitchell Wade to buy a $2.55 million mansion in ritzy Rancho Santa Fe. Wade put the Del Mar house back on the market and sold it after nearly a year for $975,000 - a loss of $700,000...
In addition to buying Cunningham's home at an inflated price, Wade let him live rent-free on his yacht, the Duke Stir, at the Capital Yacht Club. His firm, MZM Inc., donated generously to Cunningham's campaigns. Prosecutors did not specify if those allegations were part of Cunningham's guilty pleas.
Around the same time, MZM was winning valuable defense contracts, and Cunningham sat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that controls defense dollars. In 2004 the little-known company based in Washington, D.C., tripled its revenue and nearly quadrupled its staff, according to information posted on the company Web site before Wade stepped down as president and the company was sold to a private equity firm.
An associate of Wade, Brent Wilkes, president of a Poway company called ADCS Inc., also gave Cunningham campaign cash and favors. Wilkes reportedly flew Cunningham in a corporate jet to go hunting in Idaho and golfing in Hawaii, and a charitable foundation Wilkes started spent $36,000 hosting a black tie "Tribute to Heroes" gala in 2002 that feted Cunningham with a trophy naming him a hero.
ADCS, which specializes into turning paper records into digital files, has received tens of millions in Defense Department contracts since the late 1990s.
Laura Rozen's been following this story closely from the beginning.
This is a rough game. Every player, from the Pentagon on down has a hand in it. They're all competing with each other as much as anyone else for hegemony.
When you don't play the game by the unwritten rules, getting voted off the island often lands you in jail.
If you're still breathing, that is.
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