Democrats Detail Security Policy By Chris Cillizza and Dan Balz, Washington Post Staff Writers

Democrats unveiled a national security platform [3/30] for the midterm elections that stresses renewed focus on capturing Osama bin Laden, reducing the U.S. presence in Iraq and stepped up protection at home. …

Declaring that the administration’s “dangerous incompetence has made America less safe,” Reid said, “We are uniting behind a national security agenda that is tough and smart, an agenda that will provide the real security President Bush has promised, but failed to deliver.” …

Albright decried the Bush administration’s “rank incompetence” on such issues as the Iraq war and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Albright called for a security plan based on “facts not fantasy.”

I ran across these two linked articles by chance and did a double-take when I saw the dates were nearly a year ago. I remember Curveball, but don’t remember the American press calling him a crazy drunkerd, as the Brits did. I don’t recall the Blackwater controversy at all. mjh

The Observer | International | US relied on ‘drunken liar’ to justify war Edward Helmore in New York
Sunday April 3, 2005
The Observer

An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged as the key source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq.

According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq’s alleged biological weapons programmes and fleet of mobile labs was a spy described as ‘crazy’ by his intelligence handlers and a ‘congenital liar’ by his friends.

The defector, given the code-name Curveball by the CIA, has emerged as the central figure in the corruption of US intelligence estimates on Iraq. Despite considerable doubts over Curveball’s credibility, his claims were included in the administration’s case for war without caveat.

Fury at US Security Firm’s ‘Shoot for Fun’ Memo by Mark Townsend

One of the biggest private security firms in Iraq has created outrage after a memo to staff claimed it is ‘fun’ to shoot people.

Emails seen by The Observer reveal that employees of Blackwater Security were recently sent a message stating that ‘actually it is “fun” to shoot some people.’

Dated 7 March [2005] and bearing the name of Blackwater’s president, Gary Jackson, the electronic newsletter adds that terrorists ‘need to get creamed, and it’s fun, meaning satisfying, to do the shooting of such folk.’

This latest story is really just “business as usual.” It shouldn’t be very hard to run against these greedy influence peddlers and money launderers. mjh

Former DeLay Aide Enriched By Nonprofit
Bulk of Group’s Funds Tied to Abramoff
By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer

A top adviser to former House Whip Tom DeLay received more than a third of all the money collected by the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit organization the adviser created to promote a pro-family political agenda in Congress, according to the group’s accounting records.

DeLay’s former chief of staff, Edwin A. Buckham, who helped create the group while still in DeLay’s employ, and his wife, Wendy, were the principal beneficiaries of the group’s $3.02 million in revenue, collecting payments totaling $1,022,729 during a five-year period ending in 2001, public and private records show.

The group’s revenue was drawn mostly from clients of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to its records. …

The group’s payments to the Buckhams — in the form of a monthly retainer as well as commissions on donations by Abramoff’s clients — overlapped briefly with Edwin Buckham’s service as chief of staff to DeLay and continued during his subsequent role as DeLay’s chief political adviser.

During this latter period, Buckham and his wife, Wendy, acting through their consulting firm, made monthly payments averaging $3,200-$3,400 apiece to DeLay’s wife, Christine, for three of the years in which he collected money from the USFN and some other clients. [mjh: this is money-laundering] …

Wendy Buckham was not the only spouse of a DeLay staffer to benefit from the USFN revenue stream sustained by Abramoff’s clients. A consulting firm owned by the wife of Tony C. Rudy, DeLay’s deputy chief of staff, was paid $15,600 by the group in 1999 and another $10,400 in 2000. Rudy resigned to work with Abramoff in 2001. It could not be determined what the payments were for. …

Before the U.S. Family Network folded in 2001 under pressure from an FEC probe, it became involved in other controversial political matters.

In 1998, the group lobbied Congress against new regulations on cigarettes and collected a $100,000 donation from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. It also spent $75,863 that year on radio ads that called for President Clinton’s resignation and attacked Democrats, according to the group’s ledger and transcripts of the ads.

The following year, the National Republican Congressional Committee gave the USFN a $500,000 check to finance additional radio ads in the districts of vulnerable Democrats.

On Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal published the views of veteran Shawn Bryan as a counterpoint to those expressed by veteran Anthony Thomas Garcia last week. I suggest you read both (links below) and draw your own conclusions about the mental health of our veterans.

My general reaction to Shawn Bryan’s views is shock and sadness. This man is full of anger. Having survived a hellish experience I would not want to be able to imagine, he’s still in combat mode — and half the country is his new enemy. I feel sorry for those nearest him until the adrenaline and testosterone drop below toxic levels.

While Bryan says he has no interest whatsoever in what people like me think, I am quite interested in his deeply disturbing thoughts. At first, I thought his views belong on a blog or talk radio, not in a real newspaper, but I might never see them if not shoved in my face. We all need to know these dark thoughts.

Bryan can’t stand “the ungrateful war protesters who continually plague the free streets of America.” They are “people who will never fight for freedom but are the first to use their right to protest and stir up trouble.” Further, whether you stand in the streets or not, “if you are not wearing a uniform and serving there, your opinion does not matter. Sorry, but it just doesnt matter.” That’s right — your opinion does not matter. Doesn’t this actually mean that the opinions of the entire Bush administration and the leaders of the Radical Right don’t matter — few of them have ever been in uniform and fewer are in Iraq.

“New Mexico Democrats: Wake up. You guys should realize not only does New Mexico not care what you have to say, but I think that the president has a lot more to do than worry if the New Mexico Democrats are happy with him— he is a Republican.”

In a state where the Governor is a Democrat and more than half the state legislature is Democrat, where 2 out of 5 federal representatives are Democrats, Bryan believes “New Mexico [does] not care what [Democrats] have to say.”

I wonder if one should conclude that the toxically divisive tactics of the Radical Right, the dividers-not-uniters, has turned America’s armed forces into the Republican Guard. All Hail Augustus Bush! It is not hard to imagine someone saying, “We can’t allow those trecherous Democrats to seize power — we must stop them to save America.” And thus begins the military coup. I’ve always heard the military is devoted to America, but Bryan’s America is divided between decent people and Democrats. Would he stand against or for a Republican tyrant?

This is the fruit of Karl Rove’s evil genius. Bush doesn’t have to care what Democrats think — he’s a Republican, stupid! I thought the President of the United States had some duty to all Americans (oh, but Democrats are only nominally Americans); I thought he had a duty, as this soldier does, to the Constitution, which Bush has called “just a god-damned piece of paper.” All Hail Augustus Bush! mjh

As an aside, notice the interesting alternative headlines from the Journal. In print, this column is entitled: “Marine Just Wants Respect for the Nation” (a respect he does not have for half the nation). On the Web, it is: “The Few, The Proud, The Republicans.” Clearly not the same hand at work.

—

ABQjournal: The Few, The Proud, The Republicans By Shawn Bryan, United States Marine [Sunday, March 26, 2006]

I am a United States Marine who in recent months has returned from Iraq….

ABQjournal: Iraq Vet: This War Is Wrong By Anthony Thomas Garcia, Iraq War Veteran [Sunday, March 19, 2006]

I have served my country in three wars.

Anyone who has read this blog before knows I despise BushCo, the political monster pieced together by the greedy and the fundamentalists. I can hardly wait for their passing.

However, I think talking about impeachment over the next 6 months is a big mistake. We need for the Democrats to gain as much ground as they can in both House and Senate, if only to restrain the currently unrestrained Radical Right. While talk of Impeachment may galvanize the Left, it will also do so to the Right. Candidates who can’t really defend some of the things Bush has done will nevertheless defend him from impeachment.

On the other hand, censure is called for. It will be dismissed by many as a slap on the wrist, but someone needs to stand up to these domestic bullies and say, “basta!” Then, let’s move on and see what happens as the Right continues in their excesses. mjh

PS: I recommend you follow the link below. This piece appeared in the Albuquerque Journal under the curious title “Censure Smells Like Sour Grapes”. Originally, it was “No one benefits from censuring Bush”. Not quite the same sentiment, is it?

No one benefits from censuring Bush by Carl P. Leubsdorf

A new Newsweek poll shows 42 percent support censure of Mr. Bush, but only 27 percent say Congress should impeach him.

So any impeachment move aimed at Mr. Bush, like the 1998 one against Bill Clinton, might play poorly with the public. …

Indeed, a censure or impeachment effort would look like delayed revenge for the way Republicans took advantage of President Clinton’s false testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky to spend months in a futile attempt to force him from office.

Even many Republicans didn’t think in retrospect that was wise. [mjh: I have never heard any Republican express regret or apologize for their stupidity regarding Clinton.] …

Even today, some Republicans believe his impeachment was a Democratic vendetta, though the public disagrees. But the 1868 impeachment of President Andrew Johnson was mainly political, as was Mr. Clinton’s.

Yet another impeachment effort aimed at yet another president would make this beacon of democracy seem no better than the Philippines, which has seen repeated efforts – some successful – to oust elected presidents in recent years.

However much they disapprove of Mr. Bush, Democrats should resist the siren call of the Feingolds, the Conyerses and the netroots and concentrate on devising alternatives to his policies.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington Bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News.

Near Paul Revere Country, Anti-Bush Cries Get Louder By Michael Powell, Washington Post Staff Writer

“Impeachment is an outlet for anger and frustration, which I share, but politics ain’t therapy,” said Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts liberal who declined to sign the Conyers resolution. “Bush would much rather debate impeachment than the disastrous war in Iraq.” …

“The Clinton impeachment was plainly unconstitutional, and a Bush impeachment would be nearly as bad,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. “There is a very good argument that the president had it wrong on WMD in Iraq but that he was acting in complete good faith.”

In Charge, Except They’re Not By E. J. Dionne Jr.

This episode is important because it is representative of a corrosive style of politics. Bush and many of his fellow Republicans have done a good business over the years running against the ills of Big Government. They are so much in the habit of trashing government that even when they are in charge of things — remember, Republicans have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for all but 18 months since 2001 — they pretend they are not.

And when their own government fails, they turn around and use their incompetence to argue that government can never work anyway, so you might as well keep electing conservatives to have less government. It’s an ideological Catch-22. Even their failures prove they are right.

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ”a piece of legislation that’s vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people.” But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ”signing statement,” an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law. [mjh: so now Duhbya’s a judge, too?]

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law’s requirements, he could withhold the information….

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law. …

Past presidents occasionally used such signing statements to describe their interpretations of laws, but Bush has expanded the practice. He has also been more assertive in claiming the authority to override provisions he thinks intrude on his power, legal scholars said.

Bush’s expansive claims of the power to bypass laws have provoked increased grumbling in Congress. Members of both parties have pointed out that the Constitution gives the legislative branch the power to write the laws and the executive branch the duty to ”faithfully execute” them. …

Bush’s signing statement on the USA Patriot Act nearly went unnoticed. [mjh: Thank you, MSM!]

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, inserted a statement into the record of the Senate Judiciary Committee objecting to Bush’s interpretation of the Patriot Act, but neither the signing statement nor Leahy’s objection received coverage from in the mainstream news media, Leahy’s office said.

Yesterday, Leahy said Bush’s assertion that he could ignore the new provisions of the Patriot Act — provisions that were the subject of intense negotiations in Congress — represented ”nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law.”

”The president’s signing statements are not the law, and Congress should not allow them to be the last word,” Leahy said in a prepared statement. ”The president’s constitutional duty is to faithfully execute the laws as written by the Congress, not cherry-pick the laws he decides he wants to follow. It is our duty to ensure, by means of congressional oversight, that he does so.”