On A Scale Of 1 To 10, Would You Agree That The Pure Evil Embodied By Erik Prince Is A Million? A Billion?

Forget for a moment that Erik was inculcated at any early age into treason and evil by his older sister, Betsy DeVos. Instead, just recall that over 2 decades ago Prince set up Blackwater-- an international mercenary operation-- that has been lobbying for war ever since... and getting billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts, much of his businesses' work hidden from public scrutiny, for fighting and spying all over the world. Prince finally started facing some semblance of accountability-- though not much-- in 2007 when his mercenaries in Baghdad indiscriminately started shooting into crowds of Iraqi civilians murdering 17 and wounding dozens of others, some critically. It took until 2014 for 3 of Prince's men to be convicted for manslaughter and until last year for another one to be convicted for murder. But Prince, who worked for Bush, Obama and Trump has been personally immune from prosecution. He sold Blackwater to foreign investors in 2010, at which time he moved to Abu Dhabi to organize an elite force of mercenaries to protect the monarchy from people desiring to move out of the 14th century. And, of course, he has been deeply involved with the Trumpist regime, even before Trump was elected. He has kicked back around a half a million dollars-- that we know of-- to politicians who have helped him, including $150,000 to a Ted Cruz SuperPAC, almost $200,000 to the RNC, about $50,000 to state Republican parties in 21 states and maxed out donations to Trump, Dan Rohrabacher, Kris Kobach, Mike Pence and other neo-fascist Republicans.

Would it surprise you to know he was also using the immense sums of money funneled to him by conservative politicians to infiltrate Democratic campaigns and progressive groups? It shouldn't-- and New York Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Adam Goldman exposed the whole thing on Saturday. Trump, who has sent him considerable money, had him assemble a pack of spies to illegally infiltrate groups Trump considered his enemies, like Democrats and labor unions (such as the teachers' union).

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.

Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her.

Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the teachers’ union operation-- detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union-- has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group’s activities.

Both Project Veritas and Mr. Prince have ties to President Trump’s aides and family. Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operations, even tacitly, is unclear. But the effort is a glimpse of a vigorous private campaign to try to undermine political groups or individuals perceived to be in opposition to Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Mr. Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has at times served as an informal adviser to Trump administration officials. He worked with the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during the presidential transition. In 2017, he met with White House and Pentagon officials to pitch a plan to privatize the Afghan war using contractors in lieu of American troops. Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, rejected the idea.

Mr. Prince appears to have become interested in using former spies to train Project Veritas operatives in espionage tactics sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign. Reaching out to several intelligence veterans-- and occasionally using Mr. Seddon to make the pitch-- Mr. Prince said he wanted the Project Veritas employees to learn skills like how to recruit sources and how to conduct clandestine recordings, among other surveillance techniques.

...Prince is under investigation by the Justice Department [LOL-- think William Barr] over whether he lied to a congressional committee examining Russian interference in the 2016 election, and for possible violations of American export laws. Last year, the House Intelligence Committee made a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Mr. Prince, saying he lied about the circumstances of his meeting with a Russian banker in the Seychelles in January 2017.

Once a small operation running on a shoestring budget, Project Veritas in recent years has had a surge in donations from both private donors and conservative foundations. According to its latest publicly available tax filing, Project Veritas received $8.6 million in contributions and grants in 2018. Mr. O’Keefe earned about $387,000.

Last year, the group received a $1 million contribution made through the law firm Alston & Bird, a financial document obtained by the New York Times showed. A spokesman for the firm said that Alston & Bird “has never contributed to Project Veritas on its own behalf, nor is it a client of ours.” The spokesman declined to say on whose behalf the contribution was made.

The financial document also listed the names of others who gave much smaller amounts to Project Veritas last year. Several of them confirmed their donations.

The group has also become intertwined with the political activities of Mr. Trump and his family. The Trump Foundation gave $20,000 to Project Veritas in 2015, the year that Mr. Trump began his bid for the presidency. The next year, during a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump claimed without substantiation that videos released by Mr. O’Keefe showed that Mrs. Clinton and President Barack Obama had paid people to incite violence at rallies for Mr. Trump.

In a book published in 2018, Mr. O’Keefe wrote that Mr. Trump years earlier had encouraged him to infiltrate Columbia University and obtain Mr. Obama’s records.

Last month, Project Veritas made public secretly recorded video of a longtime ABC News correspondent who was critical of the network’s political coverage and its emphasis on business considerations over journalism. Many conservatives have gleefully pounded on Project Veritas’s disclosures, including one particularly influential voice: Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.

The website for Mr. O’Keefe’s coming wedding listed Donald Trump Jr. as an invited guest.

Mr. Prince invited Project Veritas operatives-- including Mr. O’Keefe-- to his family’s Wyoming ranch for training in 2017, The Intercept reported last year. Mr. O’Keefe and others shared social media photos of taking target practice with guns at the ranch, including one post from Mr. O’Keefe saying that with the training, Project Veritas will be “the next great intelligence agency.” Mr. Prince had hired a former MI6 officer to help train the Project Veritas operatives, The Intercept wrote, but it did not identify the officer.

Mr. Seddon regularly updated Mr. O’Keefe about the operation against the Michigan teachers’ union, according to internal Project Veritas emails, where the language of the group’s leaders is marbled with spy jargon.

They used a code name-- LibertyU-- for their operative inside the organization, Marisa Jorge, who graduated from Liberty University in Virginia, one of the nation’s largest Christian colleges. Mr. Seddon wrote that Ms. Jorge “copied a great many documents from the file room,” and Mr. O’Keefe bragged that the group would be able to get “a ton more access agents inside the educational establishment.”

The emails refer to other operations, including weekly case updates, along with training activities that involved “operational targeting.” Project Veritas redacted specifics about those operations from the messages.

In August 2017, Ms. Jorge wrote to Mr. Seddon that she had managed to record a local union leader talking about Ms. DeVos and other topics.

“Good stuff,” Mr. Seddon wrote back. “Did you receive the spare camera yet?”

As education secretary, Ms. DeVos has been a vocal critic of teachers’ unions, saying in 2018 that they have a “stranglehold” over politicians at the federal and state levels. She and Mr. Prince grew up in Michigan, where their father made a fortune in the auto parts business.

AFT Michigan sued Project Veritas in federal court, alleging trespassing, eavesdropping and other offenses. The teachers’ union is asking for more than $3 million in damages, accusing the group of being a “vigilante organization which claims to be dedicated to exposing corruption. It is, instead, an entity dedicated to a specific political agenda.”

Project Veritas has said its activities are legal and protected by the First Amendment, and the case is scheduled to go to trial in the fall.

Other Project Veritas employees on the emails include Joe Halderman, an award-winning former television producer who in 2010 pleaded guilty to trying to extort $2 million from the comedian David Letterman. Mr. Halderman was copied on several messages providing updates about the Michigan operation, and in one message, he gave instructions to Ms. Jorge. Project Veritas tax filings list Mr. Halderman as a “project manager.”

Two other employees, Gaz Thomas and Samuel Chamberlain, were also identified in emails and appeared to play important roles in the Michigan operation. Efforts to locate Mr. Thomas were unsuccessful. A man named Samuel Chamberlain who matched the description of the one employed by Mr. O’Keefe denied he worked for Project Veritas. He did not respond to follow-up phone messages or an email.

...Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement: “Let’s be clear who the wrongdoer is here: Project Veritas used a fake intern to lie her way into our Michigan office, to steal documents and to spy-- and they got caught. We’re just trying to hold them accountable for this industrial espionage.”

In 2018, Ms. Jorge infiltrated the congressional campaign of Ms. Spanberger, posing as a campaign volunteer. At the time, Ms. Spanberger was running to unseat a sitting Republican congressman in a race both parties considered important for control of the House. Ms. Jorge was eventually exposed and kicked out of the campaign office.

It was unclear whether Mr. Seddon was involved in planning that operation.

Mr. Seddon was a longtime British intelligence officer who served around the world, including in Washington in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He is married to an American diplomat, Alice Seddon, who is serving in the American consulate in Lagos, Nigeria.

Mr. O’Keefe and his group have taken aim at targets over the years including Planned Parenthood, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Democracy Partners, a group that consults with liberal and progressive electoral causes. In 2016, a Project Veritas operative infiltrated Democracy Partners using a fake name and fabricated résumé and made secret recordings of the staff. The year after the sting, Democracy Partners sued Project Veritas, and its lawyers have since deposed Mr. O’Keefe.

In that deposition, Mr. O’Keefe defended the group’s undercover tactics, saying they were part of a long tradition of investigative journalism going back to muckraking reporters like Upton Sinclair. “I’m not ashamed of the methods that we use or the recordings that we use,” he said.

He was asked whether he had provided any of the group’s secret recordings of Democracy Partners to the Republican National Committee or any member of the Trump family. He said that he did not think so.

In 2010, Mr. O’ Keefe and three others pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor after admitting they entered a government building in New Orleans under false pretenses as part of a sting.

As you may have noticed, Blue America endorsed Tom Guild for the Oklahoma City congressional seat on Friday. Tom also noticed the explosive NY Times piece and told us that Prince "needs to make better use of his time rather than trying to find dirt on congressional campaigns, labor organizations, and other groups hostile to Donald Trump. Hell, tens of millions of Americans and billions of folks worldwide are hostile to the Donald. As they say, paranoid people have enemies, too. For someone who said he was going to drain the swamp, there is an awful lot of new dirty water in the Tidal Basin these days. If Mr. Trump would spend more time governing, go legit, and up his game, he could at long last give Americans an ounce of confidence in his administration. But as the old song says, he loves that dirty water in the River Charles (channel Potomac). E pluribus Unum gives way to a new national motto... You get your dirt and I’ll get mine... We’ll get together and have a bad time! This is definitely no way to run a railroad!!"

Who's Done America More Damage, Betsy DeVos Or Her Brother, Erik Prince?

The video above is a brand new historical document that you really, really ought to take the time to look at. It's an interview-- a masterclass interview that every would-be journalist should study-- that Mehdi Hasan did with Erik Prince at the Oxford Union for his English TV show, Head To Head. Based on the interview, Ted Lieu has already tweeted that it "looks like Erik Prince committed perjury," when he lied to Congress about a Trump Tower meeting. In fact, it looks like he implicated Trump Junior in the same lie.

Aside from being DeVos's younger brother-- and the guy who founded (in 1997) and ran the world's most notorious mercenary operation, Blackwater-- Prince bought his way into Trump's inner circle with a quarter million dollar "contribution" to Trump's election campaign (and another $100,000 to the shady Make America Number 1 SuperPAC headed by neo-fascist billionairess Rebekah Mercer). Prince spent election night with the Trump family watching the returns. Yeah... that close. Why he did that interview with Mehdi is beyond reasonable comprehension. What could he-- or his people-- have possibly been thinking? Could it have been just pure, unadulterated chutzpah? Stupidity?

First a little background. Almost a year ago, the NY Times reported that in August 2016 Prince had arranged a Trump Tower meeting with Trump, Jr., notorious Lebanese pedophile George Nader (both a Prince consultant and a senior advisor to Emerati crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan), neo-Nazi Trump advisor Stephen Miller, and Joel Zamel of the Israel Psy-Group and himself, during which Nader told Junior than the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and the UAE were willing to held defeat Hillary and install his internationally naive father as president. When Prince testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee, then run by Trump agent Devin Nunes, he claimed he didn't know anything about anything. The reason Mehdi's interview is such a big deal is because Prince virtually admitted he was lying-- for which he will be going to prison-- and claimed the House transcription of his testimony was wrong. Mehdi wrote this all up for The Intercept, starting with the big question: "Did Erik Prince perjure himself in front of Congress?"

For much of the hourlong interview, in front of a 300-strong audience in Oxford, I pressed Prince on Blackwater’s murderous record in Iraq, his own racist remarks about Iraqi “barbarians,” and his latest “garbage” proposal to privatize the NATO-led war in Afghanistan. (The Pentagon isn’t keen on the latter, though national security adviser John Bolton might be interested.)

Prince, I discovered, seems to have a Trumpian relationship with the truth. He tried to suggest that a car bomb exploded at Baghdad’s Nisour Square “five minutes” before Blackwater guards shot and killed 14 innocent Iraqis on September 16, 2007. I reminded him that there was no such explosion at Nisour Square. He denied that his current company, Frontier Services Group, is planning to build a “training facility” in Xinjiang, China, where more than a million Uighur Muslims are being held in Chinese detention camps, dismissing a press release confirming the news as a mistranslation from Mandarin. I had to inform him that the press release was issued by his own company, FSG, in English.

Toward the end of the interview, I raised the issue of “Russiagate” and the special counsel’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Putin government. Prince was grilled by the House Intelligence Committee over a secret meeting he had in the Seychelles with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian oligarch described as a “messenger” to Putin by Prince’s friends in the UAE; the meeting was on January 11, 2017, nine days before Trump’s inauguration. “It lasted one beer,” he told me flippantly, in reference to the Dmitriev meeting, which has been described by U.S., European, and Arab officials as “an apparent effort to establish a backchannel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump.”

But why didn’t Prince tell members of Congress about his other secret meeting, in Trump Tower in August 2016? Especially if it was about a sensitive foreign policy issue like Iran?

“I don’t believe I was asked that question,” he replied.

Not true. I reminded him that he had been asked by a member of the House Intelligence Committee whether he had any “formal communications or contact with the campaign.”

The Blackwater founder then switched tack. He “did” inform the committee about the meeting, Prince told me. Why wasn’t it in the transcript of the hearing then, I countered? “I don’t know if they got the transcript wrong,” he said. Later in the interview, in response to a question from the audience, he doubled down: “Not all the discussion that day was transcribed, and that’s a fact.”

Got that? First, he said he wasn’t asked; then he said he told them about it; then he claimed that they made a mistake with the transcript; then he claimed that it was said off the record.

My understanding-- based on a conversation between one of my Al Jazeera English colleagues and a staffer connected to the Intelligence Committee, and also based on public comments made by Rep. Eric Swalwell about Prince being “not truthful” with Congress-- is that the off-the-record sections of the transcript contain zero references to the Trump Tower meeting, which was later revealed by the New York Times and (reluctantly) confirmed to me by Prince on Head to Head.

This is a major problem for this major ally of the president. It is, of course, a crime to lie under oath; it is also a crime to lie to a congressional committee, whether you are under oath or not. “Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell,” Vox notes, “was convicted of lying to a Senate committee during the Watergate scandal.”

So I couldn’t help but ask the defensive Prince: Did he not worry that Mueller might send him to prison for not telling the truth, as he did with Gen. Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and others?

“Nope,” he replied, giving me that dead-eyed stare once again, “not at all.”

This is far from over, however. Earlier this week, the House Judiciary Committee under its new Democratic chair, Rep. Jerry Nadler, sent out requests for documents to “81 agencies, individuals, and other entities tied to the president”-- including Prince-- as part of its sweeping investigation into alleged corruption and abuse of power by the president and his associates. In December 2018, Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee told the Daily Beast that the former Blackwater boss had been “discredited” and that they planned to recall him before their panel “even if we have to subpoena him.”

Will Prince have better answers for them than he had for me?

The former Navy Seal, lest we forget, has made plenty of enemies over the course of his career in private security and his role in the U.S. conservative movement. Hawkish Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham mocked his proposal to privatize the war in Afghanistan as “something that would come from a bad soldier of fortune novel.” Fellow mercenary Sean McFate dismissed Prince as an “amateur” with a “dangerous” plan. The former Blackwater CEO has also been denounced as a “war criminal” (Code Pink), a “Christian supremacist” (The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill), and a “super mercenary” (Rep. Jan Schakowsky).

Remember: The authorities famously got mob boss Al Capone on charges of tax evasion. Will they end up getting “super mercenary” Erik Prince not for alleged war crimes, money-laundering, or sanctions-busting but for … perjury?

Everyone Wants To Know How Much Longer It Will Take For Mueller To Present The Smoking Gun

Putin certainly hates the U.S.-- and, I can tell you from first-hand experience in Moscow and St. Petersburg, brainwashes students in his country to hate America-- but he sure loves his U.S. puppet, Comrade Trumpanzee. In an interview on heavily censored Russian TV Putin gushed about the clown he saddled America with: "I have no disappointment at all. Moreover, on a personal level he made a very good impression on me... It’s possible to negotiate with him, to search for compromises.” He was happy to announced about the U.S. that "it has demonstrated its inefficiency and has been eating itself up." Mission Accomplished!

So that brings us to how Putin forced Comrade Puppet to ditch Romney for Putinista Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. The report in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, cribbed primarily from Jane Mayer's piece on Christopher Steele in the New Yorker, was almost funny:

Weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, Russia-backed online "trolls" flooded social media to try to block Mitt Romney from securing a top job in the incoming administration, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.

The operatives called the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, then a contender for secretary of state, a "two headed snake" and a "globalist puppet," promoted a rally outside Trump Tower and spread a petition to block Mr. Romney’s appointment to the top diplomatic job, according to a review of now-deleted social-media posts.

Pressed for a response that Putin had told Trump not to appoint Romney, Romney told the Deseret News that he dorsn't "know what the president's process was in determining his secretary of state, or why he chose to ask me to come in, or decided not to have me as his secretary of state. So, I really can't comment on the Steele dossier in that regard... I do believe it's pretty clear that I'm not a fan of Vladimir Putin's and I wouldn't be surprised if he's not a fan of mine either.

"So now let's turn to Betsy DeVos' blood-thirsty brother, Erik Prince, who owns Blackwater, the mercenary firm, Trump wants to outsource U.S. Army operations to. CNN reported yesterday that Mueller is closing in a Prince, who acted as a back-channel between Trump and Putin and that Prince is hosting, along with Oliver North, a fundraiser in Virginia for Putin's favorite congressman, Orange County crackpot-- and probably spy-- Dana Rohrabacher.

Blackwater founder Erik Prince will host a fundraiser this month for Russia-friendly Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, as Prince faces new questions over a 2017 meeting currently being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Prince and Rohrabacher have been friends and mutual supporters for years: Prince interned for the California congressman on Capitol Hill in 1990, and Rohrabacher vigorously defended Prince when Blackwater faced congressional scrutiny during President George W. Bush's administration.

The fundraising event, slated for March 18 at Prince's Middleburg, Virginia residence, is expected to be attended by GOP Reps. Tom Garrett Jr. and Dave Brat, and Lt. Colonel Oliver North, according to an invitation obtained by CNN. Tickets start at $1,000 for the general reception, although donors paying $2,700 will also be invited to attend a VIP event beforehand.

But the fundraiser comes at an uneasy moment for the longtime allies.

Prince, an associate of President Donald Trump, is confronting renewed questions regarding a January 2017 trip to the Seychelles islands, where he met with a Russian banker, Kirill Dmitriev and Emirati officials. Also in attendance was George Nader, a Middle East specialist with ties to Emirati leaders. Nader is now cooperating with Mueller's investigation, CNN has learned.

During an interview in November with congressional investigators, Prince denied that the Seychelles trip was part of an effort to establish a backchannel between the Trump transition and Russia. But Prince did not mention Nader's presence there, either, an omission that has raised concerns among some Democrats.

Rohrabacher, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has been the target of attacks by Democrats and some Republicans for his unusually robust support for Russia. In the past, he has dismissed claims of Russia's human right violations as "baloney," publicly defended WikiLeaks and argued that the DNC was not hacked by Russia.

Rohrabacher met with the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, for a private interview in December 2017.

He is now preparing for a challenging reelection fight, with nine Democrats currently jockeying to replace him in his southern California district.

So... a couple of tangents here. First off, it now appears that Prince lied-- under oath-- the the House Intelligence Committee about his meeting with Russian agents in the Seychelles. In fact, a non-partisan watchdog group in Washington, Campaign for Accountability, is demanding that the House Intelligence Committee-- the madhouse chaired by pro-Russia lunatic Devin Nunes, refer Erik Prince to the Department of Justice for an investigation into whether he lied to the committee regarding his meeting with Russian fund manager Kirill Dmitriev. CfA Executive Director Daniel Stevens said, "Prince’s testimony, never credible on its face, is directly contradicted by numerous press reports."

On March 6, the New York Times reported that United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan convened a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles to bring together Dmitriev, a banker close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Prince, representing the Trump transition. Businessman George Nader, who once consulted for Prince’s former company, Blackwater, apparently introduced Prince to Dmitriev.

Prince’s attendance at the Seychelles meeting was first reported by the Washington Post. As a result, Prince was asked to testify before the HPSCI, which he did on November 30, 2017.

In November, Prince testified under oath and was warned before he began that lying could be a criminal violation. Nevertheless, Prince appears to have made numerous false statements. He claimed that his meeting with Dmitriev was incidental to the true purpose of his visit: developing business with the U.A.E. He claimed someone in the crown prince’s entourage, likely one of his brothers, simply suggested Prince meet with Dmitriev while he was there, but that no one introduced the two. Rather, he claims, he merely wandered to the bar and found Dmitriev on his own, identifying him after Googling his photograph.

Prince also claims he had no official or unofficial role in the Trump campaign or transition, yet admits to meetings in Trump Tower, writing policy papers, numerous conversations with Steve Bannon, and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaign.

18 U.S.C. § 1001 makes it a federal crime, punishable by up to five years imprisonment, to make a materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation in response to government investigations, including those of congressional committees.

Campaign for Accountability director Stevens pointed out that if, as Comrade Trumpanzee never ceases to remind the suckers who believe a word he says, "there was no collusion, then there is no reason for so many people who worked to install Trump in the White House to lie to those investigating the election. Americans deserve to know the whole truth about Russian efforts to subvert our democracy. Let the chips fall where they may."

Ever Hear Of The Amyntor Group? It's Part Of Whitefish, Montana's Quest For World Dominance

That 4 and a half minute video about VEEP was kind of meta and theoretical. This 25 second one from the show gets right down to it; you kind of have to if you only have 25 seconds, right? But, by all means, watch them both; it's Friday night after all.



So... you thought the corrupt Debbie Wasserman Schultz version of private prisons was bad? How about an Erik Prince version? They both President Selina Meyer look vaguely appealing-- or relatively appealing anyway. BuzzFeed reporter Adam Roston wrote yesterday about how the Trump Regime is working towards privatizing-- giving to Erik Prince-- part of the U.S. intelligence services. If you're wondering if this is supposed to sound scary... yeah, very scary, very, very scary. "The White House and CIA," he wrote, "have been considering a package of secret proposals to allow former US intelligence officers to run privatized covert actions, intelligence gathering, and propaganda missions, according to three sources who’ve been briefed on or have direct knowledge of the proposals."

One of the proposals would involve hiring a private company, Amyntor Group, for millions of dollars to set up a large intelligence network and run counter terrorist propaganda efforts, according to the sources. Amyntor’s officials and employees include veterans of a variety of US covert operations, ranging from the Reagan-era Iran–Contra affair to more recent actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Amyntor declined to discuss the proposals, but a lawyer for the company said in a statement to BuzzFeed News that the type of contract being contemplated would be legal “with direction and control by the proper government authority.”

Another proposal presented to US officials would allow individuals affiliated with the company to help capture wanted terrorists on behalf of the United States. In keeping with that proposal, people close to the company are tracking two specific suspects in a Middle Eastern country, the sources said, for possible “rendition” to the United States.

A source speaking on behalf of the company stressed that while Amyntor officials are aware of and involved in the rendition plan, the company itself would not be involved.

People involved in the highly unusual project have asked BuzzFeed News not to name the country or the targets because of concerns about the safety of operatives who, they say, are on the ground. They say that the people involved have the information and capabilities to snatch the two suspects and transport them to the US or a third country.

The proposals sound like a convoluted movie plot, but two of the sources familiar with the project say discussions have been held recently with top national security officials.

The CIA declined to comment, but a US government official downplayed the proposals' significance. “The idea they are pitching is absurd on its face,” he said, “and it is not going anywhere.”

A spokesperson for the National Security Council said that Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, and other officials were not aware of the proposals.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo has publicly promised that the agency would become “much more vicious” and aggressive. He said in one speech that the administration “is prepared to engage in activities that are different from what America has been doing these past few years.”

Those familiar with the proposals say one of the driving impulses for privatizing some missions is a fear by some supporters of President Donald Trump, outside government, that the CIA bureaucracy has an anti-Trump bias that would thwart efforts to fulfill the president’s objectives. “The system does not work,” one source who is sympathetic to the Amyntor efforts told BuzzFeed News. “The people leaking this to you just want to destroy the president.”

...Amyntor Group is a reclusive company headquartered in Whitefish, Montana, a town of 6,500 residents that recently gained notoriety after a company based there won, then lost, a $300 million contract to rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. There is no known relationship between the two companies.

Amyntor’s website describes its mission as “providing extraordinary security solutions.” It claims to “maintain an experienced cadre of cleared professionals that possess Subject Matter Expertise (SME) in the areas of intelligence training, collections and analysis, risk assessment, and counterintelligence to support U.S. and friendly foreign government activities around the globe.”

Among the management of Amyntor is John Maguire, a former CIA case officer who reportedly led a US effort to provoke Saddam Hussein into war before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [Yes, you read that right.]

Sources say Maguire and others who run Amyntor previously worked with the late Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, a CIA officer known for his colorful personality. Indicted and then pardoned for his role in the so-called Iran–Contra affair during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, Clarridge also tried in 2008, while in his seventies, to set up his own private intelligence agency to collect information about terrorists in Afghanistan. Clarridge ran the business under the name “The Eclipse Group.” Reportedly, his operation was, for a time, funded by the Department of Defense. Clarridge died in 2016.

Among Amyntor’s unusual cast of characters is a cosmetic surgeon, Keith Rose, who lists himself on his Linkedin page as the “medical director” of Amyntor. He was involved in Clarridge’s Eclipse Group, according to two people who are familiar with both Clarridge and Rose.

Rose did not return a phone message to his medical clinic in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The pitch to the Trump administration began in the summer, according to the former intelligence official familiar with it. It involved at least three components: collecting intelligence on terrorists using “a network of assets in a denied area” (meaning spies in hostile countries), an online propaganda operation to counter Islamic extremism, and the rendition plan.

One source saw the plan presented in a PowerPoint. He says it appeared that the pitches coincided with a widely publicized effort by Erik Prince-- the private security official, founder of Blackwater, and brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos-- to privatize the war in Afghanistan.

But the source speaking on behalf of the company says that while Prince is close to some Amyntor officials, he has nothing to do with the rendition plan or the other proposals.

As BuzzFeed News reported earlier in November, a CIA official assigned to the NSC once worked on an assassination plan at a time when the agency had contracted it to Prince.

Privatizing intelligence operations and covert actions is highly controversial. Asked about Amyntor’s proposal and the rendition plan, one former senior intelligence official said, “All the institutional structures exist to prevent things from going off the rails. Is this an attempt to circumvent oversight?”

Sleep tight! Yeah, I know we ran this earlier, but if you missed it... Or watch it again; believe me, it's even better-- if that's the word-- the second time through.

Is The U.S. Responsible For Erik Prince's Savage Mercenaries Murdering Civilians In Yemen?

Not many Americans are especially aware of Yemen, an ancient country at the foot of the Arabian peninsula. it isn't on many tourist itineraries and there hasn't been a lot of U.S. business involvement. The country is not oil rich. But there is a horrifying war going on that has brutally devastated the country being carried out by U.S. allies, primarily Saudi Arabia, but also Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain, all authoritarian anti-democratic, feudal countries. Oh and I forgot another participant: Trump's neo-Nazi amigo Erik Prince-- who Bannon is trying to persuade to run for a Wyoming U.S. Senate seat-- has his savage mercenaries committing mayhem in the country as well. The war is being fought with U.S.-supplied weapons and U.S. technological and strategic assistance. A million Yemenis have fled the country and another two and a half million are internal refugees. The situation can only be described as a humanitarian catastrophe. War crimes are being committed with alacrity-- and without accountability. Over 10,000 civilians have been killed and more than 40,000 injured, primarily by indiscriminate bombing.

Three very serious minded Members of Congress, Walter Jones (R-NC), Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) penned a joint editorial for the New York Times that ran yesterday, Stop The Unconstitutional War In Yemen. They start by asking us to "imagine that the entire population of Washington State-- 7.3 million people-- were on the brink of starvation, with the port city of Seattle under a naval and aerial blockade, leaving it unable to receive and distribute countless tons of food and aid that sit waiting offshore. This nightmare scenario is akin to the obscene reality occurring in the Middle East’s poorest country, Yemen, at the hands of the region’s richest, Saudi Arabia, with unyielding United States military support that Congress has not authorized and that therefore violates the Constitution."

Speaking of Seattle, the Member of Congress who represents Seattle in Pramila Jayapal, a stalwart progressive. She told us this morning that "My colleagues hit the nail on the head-- what’s happening in Yemen is horrifying. When a nation with a population the size of Washington state is suffering and the United States is involved, it is on us to ensure we’re doing all we can to promote peace and support human life. If these rates of famine, malnutrition and violence were occurring in our own country, there’s no way we could ignore it."

For nearly three years, the United States has been participating alongside a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in a brutal military campaign in Yemen. The United States is selling the Saudi monarchy missiles and warplanes, assisting in the coalition’s targeting selection for aerial bombings and actively providing midair refueling for Saudi and United Arab Emirates jets that conduct indiscriminate airstrikes-- the leading cause of civilian casualties. Meanwhile, the Saudi coalition is starving millions of Yemenis as a grotesque tactic of war.

This is horrifying. We have therefore introduced a bipartisan congressional resolution to withdraw American armed forces from these unauthorized hostilities in order to help put an end to the suffering of a country approaching “a famine of biblical proportions,” in the words of Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council. After all, as Foreign Policy has reported, the Saudi coalition’s “daily bombing campaign would not be possible without the constant presence of U.S. Air Force tanker planes refueling coalition jets.”

How did we get to this point?

In March 2015, the United States introduced its armed forces into the Saudi regime’s war against an uprising of Yemen’s Houthis, a rebel group that rapidly took control of Yemen’s capital, Sana, and eventually most of the country’s cities, by allying with forces loyal to an ousted former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. But the Shiite Houthi rebels are in no way connected to the Sunni extremists of Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, which the United States has been going after across the globe under the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001. American participation in the war in Yemen is not covered by that authorization.

Al Qaeda has been referred to by The Associated Press as a “de facto ally” of Saudi Arabia and its coalition in their shared battle against the Houthis. This raises the question: Whom are we actually supporting in Yemen?

American involvement in this unauthorized conflict against the Houthis was pursued by the Obama administration for political purposes-- “a way of repairing strained ties with the Saudis, who strongly opposed the July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran,” as Foreign Policy put it.

There’s a good reason that the Constitution reserves for Congress the right to declare war-- a clause taken in modern times as forbidding the president from pursuing an unauthorized war in the absence of an actual or imminent threat to the nation. Clearly, the founders’ intent was to prevent precisely the kind of dangerous course we’re charting.

The State Department found that the Saudi war against the Houthis has allowed Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State’s Yemen branch “to deepen their inroads across much of the country.” In other words, the power vacuum left by the war has made Al Qaeda’s deadliest branch stronger than ever-- yet there’s never been a public debate over the American role in deepening that threat to our own national security.

Four decades ago, as a bloody United States military campaign across Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos drew to a close, Congress overrode President Richard Nixon’s veto to enact the War Powers Resolution of 1973, reflecting the legislature’s determination to confront executive overreach as a coequal branch of government. Now we congressmen are invoking a provision of that 1973 law, which defines the introduction of armed forces to include coordinating, participating in the movement of, or accompanying foreign military forces.

That law affords our bill “privileged” status, guaranteeing a full floor vote to remove unauthorized United States forces from Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemeni Houthis. In doing so, we aim to reassert Congress’s sole constitutional authority to debate and declare war.

This resolution may create discomfort for some of our colleagues who have been content to cede Congress’s oversight responsibilities to the White House and Pentagon in recent decades. But now more than ever, the House of Representatives must serve as a counterweight to an executive branch that has long run roughshod over the Constitution-- especially at a time when our president has threatened, in front of the United Nations, to “totally destroy” an entire country, North Korea.

Exercising our constitutional duty is the key to alleviating the catastrophe that’s engulfing Yemen.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs declared last April that “Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world,” and in August the charity Save the Children warned that one million malnourished Yemeni children were at risk of contracting cholera. Nowhere else on earth today is there a catastrophe that is so profound and affects so many lives, yet could be so easy to resolve: halt the bombing, end the blockade, and let food and medicine into Yemen so that millions may live.

We believe that the American people, if presented with the facts of this conflict, will oppose the use of their tax dollars to bomb and starve civilians in order to further the Saudi monarchy’s regional goals. Our House resolution is a first step in expanding democracy into an arena long insulated from public accountability. Too many lives hang in the balance to allow this American war to continue without congressional consent. When our bill comes to the floor for a vote, our colleagues should consider first the solution proposed by the director of Unicef, Anthony Lake, for stopping the unimaginable suffering of millions of Yemenis: “Stop the war.”

When we reached Ro after publication of his OpEd, he told us that "You are seeing both progressives on the left and conservatives in the Freedom Caucus express concern about the neocon/neoliberal vision of foreign policy. There is an appetite for greater restraint and a recognition of the harms of interventionism. The hope is that the Congressional leadership will allow for a vote and recognize the bipartisan coalition that is growing for reasserting Congress' role in matters of war and peace." Congressional leadership... that means Paul Ryan, so, alas, probably very futile hopes.

The resolution already has 30 co-sponsors, including Ted Lieu (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Keith Ellison (D-MN), John Conyers (D-MI) and Tom Massie (R-KY)-- and that's just on day 1.

Good Source: "Most Of [The Senate Republicans] Have Come To Viscerally Hate The President Far More Than They Ever Hated Obama."

Two dangerous crackpots: Trumpanzee and Prince

Trumpanzee was still smarting from a remark-- "Trump hasn't demonstrated the stability or competence to be successful"-- Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) told concerned constituents back in Tennessee. And, though Corker has announced he won't be running for reelection, Trump woke up Sunday with nothing better to do than go on a deranged Twitter rampage against a senator whose votes he'll need to pass legislation and have appointments approved between now and January 2019. A senator who is both both well-liked a respected by his colleagues in the Senate. A few hours after Trump's outburst, a staffer for a top Senate Republican told me, on condition of anonymity, that more than half the Republicans in the Senate see Trump as an existential threat to the GOP and are hoping for a smoking gun so they can vote for impeachment in 2019. "Trump begged Corker to reconsider and pledged to campaign for him... Most of [the Senate Republicans] have come to viscerally hate the president far more than they ever hated Obama... There's virtually no support in our caucus for the president in his moves against Bob Mueller now, I can tell you that."

I think Wyoming was the Trumpiest state in the country last year. Trump won every one of the state's 23 counties but liberal Teton County. He beat Hillary 174,419 (68.2%) to 55,973 (21.9%). It wasn't just Trump's biggest margin anywhere in the country, it was Wyoming's biggest margin for a presidential candidate ever-- even bigger than they gave Reagan in 1984. Back in March, on caucus day, though, Trump was crushed. Ted Cruz took 71% of the votes. And Rubio, who came in second, had more than double the number of votes than Trumpanzee had. Yes, Wyoming is a blood red bastion of reactionary politics. The state Senate has 26 Republicans and 4 Democrats. The state House has 51 Republicans and 9 Democrats. Wyoming is a political nightmare. Needless to say, both senators and the state's sole House member (Cheney's daughter) are far right Republicans. But not far right enough for the Mercer-Bannon wing.

Sunday morning, the NY Times reported that the founder of the Blackwater mercenary group, Era Prince, the brother of Trump's most hated cabinet member, Betsy DeVos, is being recruited by Bannon to run for the Wyoming senate seat held by very right-wing incumbent John Barrasso. Barrasso is a member of McConnell's leadership team and that's enough to make him persona non-grata in the alternative neo-Nazi universe Mercer and Bannon are creating in the U.S.

If he runs, Mr. Prince would face formidable obstacles in seeking to unseat Mr. Barrasso, a popular and genial but low-profile senator who will have the full backing of Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and the well-funded political committees loyal to him. Mr. Prince, who has never run for public office, has been a controversial figure for years, as Blackwater faced a welter of ethical and legal problems over its work for the military in places like Iraq, including an episode in 2007 in which its employees killed 17 civilians in Baghdad.

While his ties to Wyoming are thin, the state is attractive to Mr. Prince because it has none of the personal political entanglements he would face in his home state of Michigan. Public records show that Mr. Prince, a former member of the Navy SEALs who has lived all over the world, had an address in Wapiti, Wyo., in the state’s northwest corner, for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Though Mr. Prince carries some baggage, Republicans have privately said that a primary challenge against a lawmaker like Mr. Barrasso is the kind they fear most: an out-of-the-blue run by a renegade from the right against a senator whose sin is not a lack of conservative credentials, but an association with Mr. McConnell and other party leaders.

...In 1997, Mr. Prince founded Blackwater as a private, for-profit force to aid the military, and he is wealthy enough to self-finance his race. For months this year, Mr. Prince-- with Mr. Bannon’s support-- pushed a plan to replace soldiers with contractors in Afghanistan. The proposal, which would have radically changed the way the fight in that country is conducted, was vehemently opposed by the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, and the defense secretary, Jim Mattis.

...Bannon is also hoping to persuade Ann LePage, the wife of Maine’s outspoken governor, Paul LePage, to run for the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Angus King, an independent who is up for re-election in 2018.

This is about chaos and opportunism-- which Bannon, Mercer and Trump all thrive on and are absolutely dedicated to-- not about ideology or loyalty to Trumpanzee and his agenda of personal aggrandizement. Barrasso's Trump adhesion score is 95.9%, the highest in the Senate. This could well be a turning point for many congressional Republicans who will now feel personally threatened by the out-of-its-mind Trump-Bannon wing of the Republican Party. There is no defense from their insanity-- and not all of them are going to be willing to follow Corker and Dent into retirement without a fight, very possibly a no holds barred fight of historic proportions.  

Of course it's not funny that the guy who created Blackwater may be a murderer. It's just that, well, is anybody surprised?

Oh, this is just our Erik being sworn in to testify before some congressional committee or other back in 2007 about some alleged Blackwater depredation or other. Who can keep track? Oh Lord, a crusading Christian freedom fighter's work is never done -- at least as long as there are Muslims left to exterminate.

by Ken

We really need to figure out some sort of strategy for dealing with the flotsam and jetsam that continues to surface from the eight years of unbridled lunacy and criminality that were the Bush regime.

Now it's one of the regime's most prized sociopaths, the founder of Blackwater, the American "security" firm (this is what we call out terrorist organizations) into which the regimistas poured still-uncounted jillions of dollars to befoul the good name of our country all over the world with its high-caliber acts of marauding and mayhem. From what we knew about this Erik Prince bozo, a thug with delusions of Christian grandeur, it always seemed pretty clear that he belonged under lock and key. As with so many of the regime's stooges and cronies, the only real question was whether he should have been in a prison or a mental institution.

With Blackwater under investigation (surprise!), it's now being alleged by two people who worked for Prince Nutso that he "may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities." And this is supposed to be a surprise? When you've got a government run by sociopaths, hiring a mix of sociopaths and psychopaths -- and you know how badly they get on together -- and telling them there are no rules for people like us, what do you expect?

Okay, let's look at just a little of this.

The Nation

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

by JEREMY SCAHILL

August 4, 2009

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety. . . .

Now of course the report goes on and on and on, you bet, and we should care about the sordid details, like the allegations that Blackwater was smuggling guns into Iraq in dog-food bags. But really, is there anything useful to be learned for those of us who spent those eight years screaming that everyone who participated in the activities of the Bush regime should be subject to the death penalty -- preferably on an execute-now, ask-questions-later basis? And the fact is, the rest of the country didn't give a damn about the all-consuming campaign of degradataion, depredation, and extermination unleashed by the Bush regime against all its "enemies" while it was going on, and by the time the shock and shame became too overwhelming, they simply tuned out. Bush? George W. Bush? Sorry, name doesn't ring a bell. Oh wait, didn't there used to be a lesbian by that name?

It appears that the sins of the Bush Regime -- including all those committed by, in, around, and for the regime -- have a "sell by" pull date just like dairy products in the supermarket. Yuck, it's old news. It's expired. It smells bad. Just pour it down the drain. We-the-People officially Don't Give a Darn. We want tea parties!

Besides, if the regimistas were to be held to account for every last murder, why, there'd be no end of it! I say, just add this to Attorney General Eric Holder's Super-Fantastic List of Old Stuff to Maybe Someday Investigate, or Not. (The list could someday actually have value to the adminstration, as it becomes increasingly desperate to buttress its one incontestably admirable quality: that it's not the Bush regime.)

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Apple Stands For America And The Mormon Cult Stands For Hatred

A box arrived on Friday and it weighed so little I thought it was a couple of CDs but the mailman announced it was from Apple. Apple! I was a consultant on the development of the iPod after I left Warner Bros and this box must have been some new iteration of the shuffle. But I'm perfectly happy with the shuffles I have and I can't remember how to put new songs on them anyway. So I put the box aside, unopened. Later a friend came over and, seeing the box, asked what I got from Apple. I said he could open it. OMG! It was the new MacBook! I get thicker magazines in the mail! I'm an Apple fanatic and I was over the moon to have gotten this wonderful gift-- just in time for my trip to Mali too.

Anyway, I figured I'd go read up on this thing and figure out what it is exactly so I went to the Apple homepage. The second and third story is about the new MacBook. The first story says No on Prop 8. I was shocked. I recall having read that the Mormons and other homophobic fanatics and hate-mongers are threatening to boycott any companies that dare to support gay families' choices. With that in mind I read the Apple blurb on top of their website:

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights-- including the right to marry-- should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

That's more than many Democratic politicians have the balls to do! And $100,000! Good for Steve Jobs!

Today's L.A. Times reported that about $60 million have been raised around Prop 8. I thought the whole hateful effort was just being financed by the Mormon Mafia and their Utah-based theocracy. Turns out that although they're the biggest merchants of hate and bigotry-- around $10 million so far-- they're not alone. And now that they've been exposed and are feeling vulnerable, the Mormon cult leaders are at least giving lip service to tamping down the orgy of hatred and bigotry a little. They claim that they've now stopped the Utah-based homophobic phone banking operation.

And not all are Mormons sticking with the hate-filled religionist cult on this, though their poisonous fake priests have been asking all parishioners to donate. Bruce Bastian is an ex-Mormon who still lives in Utah and is one of the 5 people who donated a million dollars to stop Prop 8. So as evil and Satanic as the Mormon Church is, remember that there are individual Mormons who are still human and not fully sucked into the garbage pseudo-religion. Bastian:

"They're a church and in their name they have the name Jesus Christ. Can you imagine Jesus Christ doing something like this? There is nothing in Jesus' teachings that justifies what the church is doing.

"To me this is the civil rights movement of the 21st century," Bastian said. "How embarrassing is it now to look back at what we did to African Americans in the 19th century."

But it isn't just the Cult of the Latter Day Satanites who are funding the hatred. The murderous war criminal, neo-Nazi Prince family (Blackwater mercenaries) are also major contributors-- giving to both McCain and to Yes on 8-- but having put around $8 million dollars into right-wing anti-gay efforts this year.

IRAQ SAYS EXPULSION OF BLACKWATER MERCENARIES IS NOT NEGOTIABLE

Have you been watching the Erik Prince p.r. offensive on TV. Does he look like he's not the Antichrist? No, no... I mean doesn't he look like he is the Antichrist? The History Channel ran that Antichrist expose again this past weekend. I think they show it as soft-core gay porn now that Larry Haggard, the world's #1 Antichrist hunter and exploiter, has been exposed as a tushy-licker. Watch:



Whether Price is or is not the Antichrist, we probably will never know-- unless we find out too late-- but he has been very reclusive and secretive until Henry Waxman dragged him out of his little cocoon and made him testify publicly. Since then you can't get him off the TV. Last night 60 Minutes did a bit of a puff piece. You tell me: is this the Anitchrist?



Or just another greedy, grasping right-wing loon?

My good friend of mine is based in Baghdad as head of a major rebuilding operation. Last year he explained to me how Prince's mercenary company, Blackwater, is the heart of darkness, evil incarnate. But Prince disagrees. "I've not seen... any evidence to support any kind of egregious, malicious, intentional wrong behavior."

End of subject? Uh... probably not. The A.P. reports today that the puppet government in the Greed Zone is demanding that Blackwater leave Iraq within six months. Why are they giving them six months?

The Iraqi investigators issued five recommendations to the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which has since sent them to the U.S. Embassy as demands for action.

Point No. 2 in the report says:

"The Iraqi government should demand that the United States stops using the services of Blackwater in Iraq within six months and replace it with a new, more disciplined organization that would be answerable to Iraqi laws."

Sami al-Askari, a top aide to al-Maliki, said that point in the Iraqi list of demands was nonnegotiable.

"I believe the government has been clear. There have been attacks on the lives of Iraqi citizens on the part of that company (Blackwater). It must be expelled. The government has given six months for its expulsion and it's left to the U.S. Embassy to determine with Blackwater when to terminate the contract. The American administration must find another company," he told AP.

...The Iraqi government investigative report said Blackwater guards had killed 21 other Iraqi citizens and wounded 27 in a total of seven previous incidents, including a shooting by a drunk Blackwater employee after a 2006 Christmas party. Congress is investigating whether the government relies too heavily on private contractors who fall outside the military courts martial system.

DynCorp, a less reckless and less inherently vicious mercenary company, will probably take over Blackwater's contracts. Bush will make sure American taxpayers are screwed and Blackwater is well-compensated. And will Pelosi's promises prove to be more empty rhetoric that don't end the war even one micro-second sooner than Bush's departure from the White House?

THREE BLIND REPUBLICAN MICE-- SUPPORTIN' WAR PROFITEERS TO THE BITTER END

In Tom Davis' world a little war profits never hurt nobody

I'm sure Bush will veto it-- if his Senate Chief Obstructionist, Miss McConnell (R-KY) can't deep six it with some of that parliamentary trickery he's always using it to thwart the will of the people-- but you have to laugh at this one. The House just passed the War Profiteering Prevention Act by a vote of 375-3. It crimianlizes war profiteering. Did someone decriminalize it? Not allowed is "overcharging in order to defraud or profit excessively from war, military action, or reconstruction efforts" and if Bush signs it-- lol-- it will be "a felony subject to up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million or twice the illegal profits of the crime."

If your mind works anything like mine, you're probably wondering what kind of sick slobs voted against this, right? I'm sure you know which party they all come from. The misanthropes who don't want to see war profiteering made illegal are:
-Richard Baker (R-LA), who has voted with Bush on every single Iraq roll call. H'es 100% so why sully that now?
-Tom Davis (R-VA), who is now trying to appeal to a much more right-wing and lunatic fringe GOP base as he tries to run for the Republican nomination to replace Senator John Warner and is trying to show that, at heart, he's just as insane as Eric Cantor-- or even more so. In the past, when he just had to deal with a moderate suburban district outside DC, he even once-- out of 55 roll calls-- opposed some Bush-Cheney scheme of destruction in Iraq. But that was then. Now's he's desperate to butch up his image. That and a big fat bribe from Erik Prince, the North Carolina Republican war lord who runs Blackwater and has given Davis over $700,000 in "campaign contributions." A real American that Davis. This was his argument against the bill-- which even kooks like Patrick McHenry, Mean Jean Schmidt and Doug Lamborn couldn't buy: "Hundreds of contractor lives have been lost over in Iraq, and I think the widows and the mothers, of these sons and daughters who've been killed in Iraq would be, I think chagrinned to hear their sons referred to as profiteers."
-Mike Rogers (R-AL), as crazy as they come, so nothing more or less could ever be expected of him. You want to know exactly how crazy? Just look at his voting record regarding the well-being of America's military personnel. He's a lot more interested in the well being of America's war profiteers than of the young men and women who are on the front lines.