Impeach Tom DeLay!

Inquiry Focuses on Group DeLay Created By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr., NYTimes

A political action committee created by Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, enjoyed tremendous success here in 2002: all but 3 of 21 Republican candidates the committee backed for state representative won their races, helping the party take control of the Texas House.

Last year, the Republicans used that clout to carve Texas into new Congressional districts under a plan that political analysts say will bring them at least five new seats in Congressional elections this year.

But local prosecutors and a grand jury here have been investigating the committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, including its use of corporate donations in the election, lawyers close to the case said.

Investigators are also examining whether there were violations of a law intended to curb the ability of outside groups to influence the race for House speaker, the lawyers said. The investigation follows a complaint filed with prosecutors last year by Texans for Public Justice, a campaign watchdog group.

mjh’s Weblog Entry – 05/27/2003: Tom Delay: “I am the federal government.”

Share this…

Outraged Burglars

Washington Talk: Partisan Denunciations Fly Over Secret Strategy Memos By NEIL A. LEWIS, NYTimes

The Senate sergeant-at-arms, who is nearing the end of an investigation into the tampering, told senators last week that the Republican staff members’ activities went on much longer and were far more extensive than previously believed. …

Faced with a difficult-to-defend situation, many Republicans simply withdrew from the field of battle, quietly slipping out of the room. Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joined Mr. Hatch in agreeing that what had happened was terribly wrong. …

The most unrepentant of Republicans was Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of the Republican leadership. According to the newspaper Roll Call, Mr. Santorum told reporters that he still believed that “the real potential criminal behavior” was with the Democrats because the content showed their unwholesome ways of colluding with outside interest groups to oppose Mr. Bush’s judicial nominees.

mjh’s Dump Bush weBlog: The GOP is Spying on Everyone

Republicans spy on Democrats (and protestors, and the UN, and everyone) and then get indignant that people are outraged over the content of what they have stolen. These fools have learned nothing from Watergate. mjh

Share this…

Spying for Bush

It should be no surprise that the Bush administration, which despises the UN and flaunts most international law, would spy on UN members in clear violation of international law. It should be no surprise, while Republican staffers are spying on Democrats in Congress, that the US would spy in the UN. One might say the spies are out of control, but, in fact, they are too much in control of the White House. mjh

The Observer | Special reports | US plan to bug Security Council: the text

[From the full text of the NSA (National Security Agency) memo:]

As you’ve likely heard by now, the Agency is mounting a surge particularly directed at the UN Security Council (UNSC) members (minus US and GBR of course) for insights as to how to membership is reacting to the on-going debate RE: Iraq …. [a] surge effort to revive/ create efforts against UNSC members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria and Guinea, as well as extra focus on Pakistan UN matters. …

[P]ay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/ debates/ votes….

The Observer | Special reports | British spy op wrecked peace move Martin Bright, Peter Beaumont and Jo Tuckman, The Observer

Senior UN diplomats from Mexico and Chile provided new evidence last week that their missions were spied on, in direct contravention of international law.

The former Mexican ambassador to the UN, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, told The Observer that US officials intervened last March, just days before the war against Saddam was launched, to halt secret negotiations for a compromise resolution to give weapons inspectors more time to complete their work.

Aguilar Zinser claimed that the intervention could only have come as a result of surveillance of a closed diplomatic meeting where the compromise was being hammered out. He said it was clear the Americans knew about the confidential discussions in advance. ‘When they [the US] found out, they said, “You should know that we don’t like the idea and we don’t like you to promote it.”

The revelations follow claims by Chile’s former ambassador to the UN, Juan Valdes, that he found hard evidence of bugging at his mission in New York last March.

The Observer | Politics | Spying games on the road to war Peter Beaumont and Martin Bright in London and Jo Tuckman, The Observer

The extraordinary story of the diplomacy of those two weeks – which saw the abandonment of any attempt to secure that elusive second resolution, as The Observer can now reveal – was also the story of an intelligence operation that, at every step, attempted to undermine the independent deliberations of the Security Council as it stood on the brink of war.

It would be the spies, not the diplomats, who would carry the day.

For even as Middle Six diplomats sat down in private to draw up a resolution that bridged the gap between France, Germany and Russia on the anti-war side, and the US and UK – a compromise that would set a final deadline to Saddam and delay the outbreak of war – someone was listening in and anticipating their every step. …

On Friday [Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, Mexico’s representative to the UN,] gave his fullest version of what he believed was happening in the UN in that fortnight, and in a crucial meeting that history may decide made war against Iraq inevitable. …

What he is absolutely certain of is that the US was bugging the meeting.

‘It was very obvious to the countries involved in the discussion on Iraq that we were being observed and that our communications were probably being tapped. The information was being gathered to benefit the United States.’ …

On Tuesday, … Chile charged publicly for the first time that its UN mission telephones were tapped as the Security Council considered a resolution authorising war against Saddam Hussein. …

What the new revelations suggest is that despite the US agreeing to more time to find a resolution, it secretly used intelligence from spying on those negotiations to kill the last hope of a UN resolution.

Share this…

Drunk with Power

Memphis Flyer :: Issue 781 :: BUSH A NO-SHOW AT ALABAMA BASE, SAYS MEMPHIAN

Two members of the Air National Guard unit that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as a young Guard flyer in 1972 had been told to expect him and were on the lookout for him. He never showed, however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are certain.

The question of Bush’s presence in 1972 at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery, Alabama — or the lack of it — has become an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Recalls Memphian Mintz, now 62: ”I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with.”

But, says Mintz, that ”somebody” — better known to the world now as the president of the United States — never showed up at Dannelly in 1972. Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot now and an Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a reserve first lieutenant at Dannelly, can remember.

”And I was looking for him,” repeated Mintz ….

Now we have airmen from Alabama who don’t remember Bush and campaign workers who do. mjh

Associates have differing memories of Bush’s Alabama stay By JAY REEVES, Associated Press Writer

Contrasting images emerged Thursday of President Bush during his time in Alabama 32 years ago: One of a hardworking campaigner who did his National Guard duty, the other a hard-drinking partier who didn’t care about the military. …

But a relative of Blount recalled Bush as a heavy drinker who was more interested in talking about his alcohol consumption than discussing his service with the Guard.

“He wouldn’t come in until midday usually,” said C. Murphy Archibald, Blount’s nephew and an attorney in Charlotte, N.C. “He didn’t seem to have any particular political interest in the campaign.”

Blount lost badly to Democratic incumbent John Sparkman, and Blount’s son, Thomas Blount, said Bush “got pretty drunk” the night of the vote. Thomas Blount described the president-to-be as “personable,” but with a swagger. …

Sullivan, a former Republican national committeewoman, said Bush sometimes wore his military uniform and talked about serving with the Air National Guard.

Some within the Alabama Guard were resentful because Bush was from Texas and was spending only the minimum amount of required time on duty, said Sullivan. “It was just some idiots,” said Sullivan.

Mad about rumors surrounding Bush, whose father was U.N. ambassador at the time, Sullivan said she called a Guard commander to explain that Bush was doing all he could while working on the campaign. …

Archibald, who served as an Army lieutenant in Vietnam, said he tried to talk with Bush about the military when he learned he was in the Air National Guard. But Bush didn’t seem interested, he said. …

Recalling the 1972 campaign, he said Bush seemed to enjoy talking about was the amount of beer he had drunk the night before. Archibald said he found that unseemly in a 26-year-old working on a statewide campaign.

Share this…

Who You Know

flyboyWashingtonpost.com: Bush Friend Pushed for Guard Slot, Ex-Speaker Testifies

Former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Ben Barnes said under oath today that he recommended George W. Bush for a pilot’s slot in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War at the behest of a Houston businessman close to the Bush family. …

He said he was contacted by Sid Adger, a wealthy Houston businessman and a good friend of the senior Bush. Barnes said Adger asked him to “recommend George W. Bush for a pilot position with the Air National Guard” and Barnes did so in a call to Brig. Gen. James M. Rose, the top official in the Air Guard. Both Rose and Adger are dead.

George W. joined the Air Guard in May 1968, less than two weeks before his graduation from Yale. He has said he did not need help in getting into the Guard and did not ask for any. The issue has cropped up repeatedly in his political campaigns ….

Note this Washington Post article is from 1999. The claim here is that Daddy Bush didn’t pull any strings, it was a close friend of his who did it. Oh, that’s different! mjh

Share this…

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams