A Guest Post From Dr. Steve Porter: Is Nancy Pelosi Surprised By Anything In Scotty's Book?

In 2006 Dr. Porter was the progressive Democratic candidate in northwest Pennsylvania. Although he didn't win, he came close enough to deserve another shot at pathetic rubber stamp incumbent Phil English. But, like many Americans, he was frustrated and sickened by the lack of follow-through from the Democrats who did win. In fact, he was so frustrated and sickened that he quit the Democratic Party and is running for the seat as an independent. English is a contemptible rubber stamp for Bush and for the avaricious corporate interests who feed him. The "Democrat" in the race is an anti-choice reactionary with as little to offer towards tackling our country's problems as English. A victory in Erie for Dr. Porter with send an unmistakable message to both out of touch and imperious political parties. If he wins in November it will be the most significant message the grassroots could possibly send to Washington short of open revolt. I was curious about Dr. Porter's take on the brouhaha over Scott McClellan's new book. His point of view isn't what you're hearing from the corporate media. He shares it with us below:

Today’s outrage over Scott McClellan’s new book is misplaced. The Republicans are furious over McClellan’s revelations that Bush and his administration manipulated intelligence to lead us into war. Predictable but rather irrelevant. The press is all agog about asking McClellan to explain his revelations further. Again, predictable and irrelevant.

The real question ought to go to Nancy Pelosi, and it ought to be this: "In the light of McClellan’s book-- and several others like it-- why did you take impeachment investigations off the table two years ago when you became the Speaker of the House?"

That the Bush Administration has mangled our Constitution and led us into military and economic disaster is no longer the point. The tragedy equally appalling is that the Democrats, who came to power promising to hold Bush accountable, have done nothing in the last two years except to contribute to the deaths in Iraq and sit idly by while gas prices have risen and our jobs have continued to be exported.

Before the 2006 elections, the Democrats in Congress fairly salivated at the chance to hold impeachment hearings. In fact, senior Democratic Congressman John Conyers did hold them-- at least mock inquiries in the basement of the Capitol Building. On March 2, 2006, Conyers said this: “People think of Watergate or Iran-Contra as constituting crises… Today the crisis is substantively and systematically far worse. The alleged acts of wrong-doing-- lying about the decision to go to war; manipulation of intelligence; facilitating and countenancing torture; using confidential information to out a CIA agent; open and flagrant violation of wiretap laws-- are more egregious than any I have witnessed in my 41 years in Congress… We could simply ignore the myriad transgressions…or we could do everything in our power to call attention to and document these grave abuses…I opted for the latter."

But the day after the Democrats got control of both houses, Pelosi took impeachment "off the table," as she said. In other words, all the pre-election hullabaloo was just a ploy to gain political power. Pelosi and the Democrats had no intention of stopping the war and devoting their attention to the American economy. And they are counting on the voters in 2008 to turn to them for the “change” they have failed to deliver. Laughable.

I hope that the American people understand how corrupt both parties have been, and how poorly we have been led. Neither party deserves our support. They are both cut from the same cloth. Both are willing to play with our lives for power. Disgusting.

-by Dr. Steven Porter


UPDATE: THIS COULD GET STICKY

Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and someone serious about impeaching Bush, would like to have McClellan testify under oath about some of the assertions in his book. The House Judiciary Committee is investigating the manipulation of prewar intelligence in the run up to Bush'a ttack on Iraq. So far all they have gotten from the Regime is a total lack of cooperation and a refusal by any of the potential war criminals to testify. The Regime's bogus claim of "executive privilege" would be moot in McClellan's case because he has already written about the issues the committee is looking into.

McClellan's new memoir, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," is scheduled for publication Monday. In it he says the administration became mired in "propaganda" and political spin and played loose with the truth at times.

In his book, McClellan wrote that President Bush decided to go war with Iraq shortly after the September 11 attacks and then ordered his aides to make the arguments for it.

"I think very early on, a few months after September 11, he made a decision that we're going to confront Saddam Hussein, and if Hussein doesn't come fully clean, then we're going to go to war. There was really no flexibility in his approach," McClellan said on NBC's "Today" show Thursday, referring to the former Iraqi dictator. "Then it was put on the advisers: How do we go about implementing this; how do we go about doing this?"

Although it is expected that the Regime will somehow try to prevent him from testifying, McClellan said he would "be glad" to.

ETHIOPIANS TAKE A STEP TOWARDS THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE RULE OF LAW BY PUNISHING THEIR EX-CRIMINAL RULER-- WHEN WILL WE?

I suppose, to countless families in Iraq, George Bush is no batter than former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. Each is someone who seized control of a powerful government apparatus and used its destructive might killing and maiming and ruining the very functioning capacity of civil society. Today Ethiopia's supreme court sentenced Mengistu to death. He's living in comfortable exile in Zimbabwe so it isn't likely that the death sentence will be carried out. And the people of Iraq don't have possession of George W. Bush.

Until he absconds to Paraguay, we do. Will Bush ever be tried? Will his cronies and accomplices who made up his criminal regime? Don't count on it-- especially not with Blue Dog "Democrats" like Melissa Bean (IL), John Barrow (GA), Leonard Boswell (IA) working with Republicans to grant more and more Bush crooks retroactive immunity so that they can never be tried for their crimes. There isn't much people can do about this... or is there?

People in Maryland rose up on primary day and defeated Bush-collaborationist Al Wynn and replaced him with a real Democrat, Donna Edwards, who has vowed to oppose retroactive immunity with all her might. There are still primaries pitting supporters of retroactive immunity against people who want to law to take its course. Above, I mentioned Leonard Boswell and John Barrow. I singled them out because they are both major Bush rubber stamps, because they both signed the letter to Nancy Pelosi demanding retroactive immunity-- and, most important, because they are both facing strong progressive opponents in their respective primaries. Iowa votes June 3 and Ed Fallon is running neck and neck with Boswell. Regina Thomas in Georgia will face off with Barrow on July 15. Regina and Ed oppose retroactive immunity.

Almost all the non-Blue Dog Democrats running for Congress oppose retroactive immunity and want to see criminals go to court and face judges and juries just like the Constitution says they should. Republicans and Blue Dogs want to see special exceptions for the rich and powerful, for the Mengistus of our country. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma is most reviled by people around the country because he is a corporately well-paid climate changed denier. But there are many things about Inhofe that make him anathema to Americans who want a better and fairer society. If it's better and if it's fairer, he opposes it... always. Predictably, Inhofe is fanatically fighting for retroactive immunity. The populist Democrat running against him is state Senator Andrew Rice. The other day I asked Andre about retroactive immunity and this is what he told me:

"Having lost my brother in the World Trade Center on 9/11, I am very sensitive to the importance of the U.S. intelligence community's ability to effectively monitor foreign terrorist targets. However, our country must preserve our constitutional principles and such monitoring must be accomplished without compromising the civil liberties of American citizens. I am hopeful that Congress is on the verge of finally properly scrutinizing the Bush Administration's warrantless surveillance programs, and can create reasonable legislation that provides our government the tools it needs to monitor legitimate international threats, while at the same time not compromising the personal liberties of law-abiding Americans. Members of congress must ensure that any surveillance of U. S. Citizens be granted with the proper warrant. If they fail to accomplish this, then we will have lost something very sacred about America and what our system of values is supposed to provide for all Americans.
 
The provision for corporate immunity for the telecom companies who may have violated federal law is unacceptable and unfortunately another example of the Bush administration wanting the legislative branch to craft legislation that protects the executive branch from its own incompetance."

Similarly, Debbie Cook in Orange County is running against the loopy Republican-Taliban member of Congress, Dana Rohrabacher. Recently Rohrabacher used typical Rovian scare tactics when talking about why he wants to make sure Bush and his cronies never face justice: "Just think about shutting down the interceptions because of some misplaced notion about protecting American rights and we end up with families being murdered at Disneyland because some messages weren't intercepted."

Debbie responded immediately-- and the same way I think the Founding Fathers would have: "Since 1776, Americans have fought and died to defend the rights guaranteed by our Constitution. The 4th amendment is not "some misplaced notion," and it's unconscionable that any member of Congress who has sworn to uphold the Constitution would vote for retroactive immunity."

If you're in Orange County you can vote for Debbie in November, just like you can vote for Ed Fallon in Des Moines, for Regina Thomas in Augusta and Savannah and for Andrew Rice in Oklahoma. These 4 candidates are also part of the Blue America contest that started today. No matter where you live, you can vote for them today at our Blue America page.

If the Bush Regime's crimes aren't dealt with-- and dealt with seriously-- they will be repeated. Ethiopia has its Red Terror, let's hope we never have one here.

"Considering the prosecution's appeal that a life sentence was not commensurate to the crimes committed by the Mengistu regime, the court decided to sentence him to death," the court said in its ruling.

The prosecution in July appealed a life term handed to Mengistu in January 2007, after he was found guilty of genocide for thousands of killings during a 17-year rule that included famine, war and the "Red Terror" purges of suspected opponents.

He and more than a dozen other senior officers were found guilty after a 12-year trial that ruled Mengistu's government was directly responsible for the deaths of 2,000 people and the torture of at least 2,400.

Witnesses had told the court that family members who went to collect the bodies of their loved ones were asked to pay for the bullets that killed them, and evidence included torture videos.

Mengistu seized power in 1974 after the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie, and clawed his way to the top in the military junta called the Derg.

His regime's brutality was exemplified by the Red Terror purges of 1977-78, in which at least 1,200 suspected political opponents were murdered and their bodies dumped in the streets as a warning to others.

"Crimes committed by Mengistu and his co-defendants by killing an emperor and burying him under a toilet is unheard of in the annals of human history," the court ruling said.
Mengistu's 19 co-defendants were also sentenced to death, but one, Lieutenant Akililou Belae, was sentenced to life.

The sentence will be carried out after the head of state approves it.

Zimbabwe has refused to extradite Mengistu since he fled there in 1991, when rebels led by current Prime Minister Meles Zenawi toppled his regime and took the capital Addis Ababa.

But were Mugabe to cede power if he loses next month's run-off to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Mengistu could be extradited.

WE REALLY DON'T NEED TO BE EATEN ALIVE BY PREDATORS

On Thursday the Senate voted to continue funding Bush's occupation of Iraq by an overwhelming majority. There are parts of it Bush doesn't like but the majority is veto-proof. Is that good? Usually when we hear veto-proof, we wag our tails. "Veto-proof" means a thumb in the eye for Bush. Is a quick trial, a final cigarette and a blindfold next? But in this case we're talking about $200 billion mostly to keep his failed Iraq policies moving forward in place. The Senate tried making it more palatable-- and this is the part Bush doesn't like-- by larding it up with lots of domestic pork and by a passing popular amendment to provide benefits for veterans. (They also defeated legislation calling for an end to the occupation.) The Army Times had a clear-eyed look at it on Friday:

[T]he price tag of war and domestic funding portions of the bill top $200 billion, setting up a showdown with President Bush, who has said he will veto any supplemental that features enough domestic spending to drive the overall cost of the measure above his $180 billion request.

“There is a time and place where domestic funding should be debated and considered on its merits, but that is not in a bill focused on the emergency needs of our troops,” the administration said in a May 15 policy statement on the war-funding bill.

Republicans began breaking with the president on inserting domestic spending into the measure May 15 during a Senate Appropriations Committee markup of the panel’s version of the bill, which proposes money for energy assistance for low-income households, a 13-week extension of unemployment insurance, prisons, more money for the Food and Drug Administration and other domestic items. That trend continued as many Republicans helped Democrats approve the domestic funding portion of the bill, 75-22.

But some Republicans objected, charging a war spending bill was the wrong legislative vehicle for pushing through spending for important domestic projects and a major overhaul of the GI Bill.

...Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned Congress that money in some key accounts, including Army personnel and operations funds, will run out by mid-June.

Gates said the Pentagon could move money between accounts in what he called a “shell game” to prevent severe disruption, but only until some time in July.

Gates on Tuesday said the Army’s military personnel account will run dry June 15 and the Army’s operations and maintenance fund will do the same around July 5.

The Army’s payroll problems can be solved temporarily by shifting money from the personnel accounts of the Navy and Air Force, but there is no easy resolution because all of the services are short in the same budget account.

It seems to be that the neither the Pentagon nor any other arm of the Regime-- can be trusted (not even a little) to "move money between accounts" or play any "shell games." In fact, according to a report in CongressDaily the same day the budget was passed, we are seeing more and more hard evidence that billions of dollars have "gone missing." They're not missing between the cushions of sofas; the billions of dollars have been stolen. (Keep in mind my earlier allusion to last cigarettes and blindfolds because this war has been a giant subterfuge for the transfer of billions of dollars from the taxpayers (present and especially future) to the creation of generational wealth for a new and dangerously powerful American aristocracy. The robber barons never came close to pulling of a heist like these guys.

All those batches of missing ten million here and 5 million there add up to a lot of money. And in a time when no one is quibbling about whether or not there is a Bush Recession-- only how long and how deep and if it will turn into a Depression-- the last thing the economy needs is a massive transfer of wealth from the public sector to the hands of the rich and powerful, long the most consistent hallmark of the Bush Regime.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee used a hearing to publicize a Defense Department inspector general's report, released today, which estimates that of $8.2 billion used to buy commercial goods and services in the war, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service processed $7.8 billion in payments without adequate documentation. For $1.4 billion of payments, the Army lacked the minimum justification required for payment, the report estimates. "We don't know what we paid for," testified Mary Ugone, the Defense Department's deputy inspector general for auditing. The IG made estimates by extrapolating from a sample of 702 commercial payments; a methodology the Army questioned in a written response to the report. Lawmakers highlighted some of the largest single payouts made without adequate paperwork, such as voucher showing an $11.1 million payment in 2005 to contractor IAP Worldwide Services that "was missing both the receiving report and invoice," the report said, and a $5.6 million payment made in 2004 to an Iraqi company without any description of how the money was used.

The report also highlights $135 million in payments made without documentation through the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which was created to give local U.S. military commandeers in Iraq the ability to back small local projects. While the program is generally used to pay Iraqis for supporting U.S. forces, the report notes large lump sum payments of up $8 million made to foreign governments with troops in Iraq. The United Kingdom got $68 million, Poland $45 million and South Korea $21 million. But the IG report says of 22 related vouchers reviewed "none contained sufficient supporting documentation to provide reasonable assurance that these funds were used for their intended purpose." The report says auditors could not identify any reconstruction project resulting from the funds. Ugone denied that war conditions excuse sloppy record keeping. She said auditors used standards significantly less rigorous than those for domestic spending to decide if payments were adequately documented. "There are challenges, but there should be some semblance of accountability," she said. "No documentation, from our perspective, is not acceptable." Ugone noted that from 2003 to 2006, the audit found accounting did not improve.

But it isn't just naked theft from the Iraq morass. The Bush Regime and the Republican Party and Blue Dog enablers have systematically dismantled the entire regulatory structure set up to defend ordinary Americans from powerful and insatiable predators (i.e.- the lobbyists and corporate campaign donors for both political parties). Warren Buffett is pretty rich, maybe the richest man in the world. When endorsing Obama the other day, he sited the dismantling of the regulatory system and the return to an unstable law of the jungle capitalism that is great for the greed-obsessed super-rich and powerful and ruinous for everyone else and for society and the economy as a whole. Yesterday Buffett was in Berlin warning about the impending economic implosion built into the Republican economic policies of the past decade.

"It's not right that hundreds of thousands of jobs are being eliminated, that entire industrial sectors in the real economy are being wiped out by financial bets even though the sectors are actually in good health."

Buffett complained about the lack of effective controls.

"That's the problem," he said. "You can't steer it, you can't regulate it anymore. You can't get the genie back in the bottle."

Nearly 33 million people have watched this video I want you to take a look at-- think about that number for a moment; it's more than the combined population of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, San Francisco and Columbus, the 15 biggest cities in America. In this clip, the predators are the Republican Party serving the interests of their corporate masters. The equally vicious but ineffective crocodile would be the Blue Dogs and DLC wannabe Republicans. The water buffalo are... us-- ordinary Americans-- and our sometimes political protectors, the Democrats. Now watch:

BUSH TAKES A CRAP ON THE FLOOR OF THE KNESSET

Republican traitors Prescott Bush, William Borah and the brand they loved

Without mentioning he name in the Israeli Knesset today, Bush likened Obama's willingness to talk with our adversaries as appeasement. Because of the Bush family's very dodgy history with the Nazi government, George II has always been eager to accuse others of what his grandfather was widely reviled for-- except, of course, his grandfather didn't just do it because he was a proto-Nazi, but because he was well-paid by the Nazis to represent their interests. Bush Regime operatives have acknowledged that Bush was aiming his smear at Obama, although no one seems to know which senator he was referring to who wanted to negotiate with the Nazis. Was it is grandfather, Prescott Bush or one of his close pro-Nazi allies like William Borah (R-ID)?

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is-- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

And, at a time when his own party can't run away from him and his hateful policies fast enough or far enough, is Bush simply trying to drag Obama down into his own filthy gutter or is he just confused? A few days ago I read something in Arianna Huffington's new book, Right Is Wrong that shot back into my mind as soon as I read about Bush's ill-advised comments to the Knesset. Arianna was discussing how the Republican propaganda machine works by distorting, Goebbels-like, real news into spin barely connected to reality. Although the putz she is using in this instance is Hannity, it could just as well be Limbaugh, O'Reilly, McCain, Coulter, Rove, Bush, Cheney... any of them.

Here was Murtha on the troops: "They must have the equipment and the training and they must be certified by the Chiefs of the various services before they can go back."

And here is how Hannity described Murtha's position is a question to one of his panelists: "Do you support the idea of taking away the equipment of troops in harm's way the way John Murtha just described?"

According to CNN, "The remarks seemed to be a not-so-subtle attempt to continue to raise doubts about Obama with Jewish Americans. Those doubts were earlier stoked by Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2008 presidential election, when he recently charged that Obama is the favored candidate of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, which the U.S. government has listed as a terrorist group."

Obama last week called the Hamas allegation a "smear" and lashed out Thursday at Bush's speech in Israel.

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in a statement released to CNN by his campaign. "It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel…."

"George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel," Obama's statement said.

Obama favors "tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions," according to his Web site, "and is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe." He does not favor talks with Hamas, which he has called a terrorist organization.

Earlier today, the brains behind the downfall of the Republican Party, the unscrupulous cancer on Bush's White House residency, Karl Rove, told panic-stricken Republicans that they "must stand for something." Thanks for him and his White House protege, they do. They stand for, over and above all other things, lies and divisiveness. Americans are repulsed by George Bush, by Karl Rove, by Dick Cheney and by the congressional Republicans and operatives who enabled them. This would probably be a bad time for Blue Dogs like Leonard Boswell, John Barrow, Melissa Bean and the rest to continue to push retroactive immunity for the crimes committed by members of the Bush Regime and their cronies. Howard Dean had an appropriate response to Bush's gutter politics in Israel today:

"On the same day John McCain is talking about putting partisanship aside, the President launched a cheap political attack while on a state visit honoring the 60th anniversary of Israel, one of America's greatest allies. Bush's outrageous comments are an embarrassment to our country, not based in fact and bring us no closer to our goal of ending terrorist attacks against Israel and bringing peace to the region. If John McCain is really serious about being a different kind of Republican, he'll denounce these remarks in the strongest terms possible."

UPDATE: HARRY REID FIRES BACK AT BUSH FOR HIS GUTTER ATTACK

"Not surprisingly, the engineer of the worst foreign policy in our nation's history has fired yet another reckless and reprehensible round. More than seven years into his Presidency and in the sixth year of the directionless Iraq war, President Bush has yet to learn that his brand of divisive partisan rhetoric is precisely what has made America and our allies less secure. And for the President to make this statement before the government of our closest ally as it celebrates a remarkable milestone demeans this historic moment with partisan politics.

"President Bush's own actions demonstrate that he believes negotiations-– at the right moment, under the right conditions and with the right leaders-– can both show strength and produce results. He has relied on negotiations with North Korea and Libya, two state sponsors of terror. And by conducting discussions with Russia, China, Libya, North Korea and Iran in recent years, President Bush has demonstrated his belief that negotiations can be a tool to advance America and Israel's national security interests. I call on the President to explain the inconsistency between his Administration's actions and his words today."

WHY DID CONGRESSMAN PETER WELCH (D-VT) SAY HE DOESN'T TRUST THE BUSH REGIME?

I hope you didn't get the idea that the only reason I went to DC last week was to harass Rahm Emanuel; that was a bonus. The night before the Rahm encounter, Pachacutec and I went to see Bob Weir play at a benefit for HeadCount, the outfit that registers voters at concerts. While Weir was signing hundreds of autographs we ran into Congressman Peter Welch (D-VT) who I was eager to congratulate for exposing the sneaky Bush Regime loophole for their contractor buddies.

It was awesome meeting Rep Welch; great guy... really friendly and straight forward. We had to explain to him that in order to be considered an incumbent in danger, one needed to have a viable opponent-- and that because the GOP can't drum up anyone to run against him, it probably means he isn't "in danger." But once we passed that hurdle it was all great and all about the Loophole. Today he followed through by sending me an update on the story.

Caught red-handed, the Regime is backing away. Today the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee had a hearing to go over Rep. Welch's “Close the Contractor Fraud Loophole Act,” H.R. 5712, to require all contractors, regardless of where the work is performed, to be subject to fraud reporting requirements. Regime operatives were sent over to the Hill to swear that the loophole was a “bureaucratic mistake,” although Regime allies from the Professional Services Council (dirty lobbyists representing contractors like KBR, Halliburton, and Blackwater) testified against Welch’s legislation to close the loophole. 

Congressman Welch noted that "the Bush administration is denying conspiracy by pleading incompetence... When was the last time we saw the Bush administration reverse itself under pressure?  This shows just how important aggressive congressional oversight is to assure accountability and the protection of taxpayer dollars.”

Speaking for the vast majority of Americans, Welch stated clearly "I don’t trust this administration. I want taxpayer dollars to have the protection of the law." See, I told you he was cool. He also sent us this video to look at:

IS THERE HOPE THAT BUSH, CHENEY AND THEIR CRIMINAL CRONIES WILL ONE DAY COME BEFORE THE BAR OF JUSTICE? MAYBE

A week or so ago we noted Andrew Sullivan's prediction that Bush would one day face a war crimes tribunal. If anyone I know were in charge, he certainly would. But, as we stated then, political realities in the U.S. make it just plain wishful thinking. Still... last night ABC News ran with a story that certainly points precisely towards a trip to the Hague. Short version: the Regime's top operatives-- Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell-- sat around the White House discussing and approving clearly illegal torture specifics.

In interview with ABC's Charles Gibson last year, Tenet said: "It was authorized. It was legal, according to the Attorney General of the United States."

But this is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. According to multiple sources, it was members of the Principals Committee that not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them.

...According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."

I doubt they care about speculation that "history" may judge them badly. Like the pope, history has no regiments. Some, on the other hand, think a Justice Department, cleared of the political hacks who have dragged it into overall complicity, will be duty-bound to look into the patterns of criminality and follow the leads wherever they go. Others, on the far right, point out that the Bush Regime have erected legalistic barriers to protect itself. I'm an optimist by nature... but only to a point. And I'm afraid History's judgment is the most satisfaction anyone will ever get out of this, the most disgraceful departure from constitutional rule and honor in the life of our nation.

IS BUSH AS BAD AS BOKASSA?

Bush used a napkin

It took a bipartisan majority to make the threat of impeachment vivid enough for Nixon to force him to resign. It will be far, far more difficult-- given the narrow partisan bent of today's GOP-- to find a bipartisan majority to ever allow Bush and Cheney to be brought before a war crimes tribunal. But this morning one Republican predicts that it is bound to happen. "Abu Ghraib was never, ever an exception. It was permitted, enabled, authorized and pre-meditated by Bush, Cheney, Yoo, Rumsfeld, Miller, and Addington, among many others. The techniques testified to correspond with chilling accuracy to techniques authorized by the president, for which we now have overwhelming evidence."

Writing at the Atlantic's blog, Andrew Sullivan lays out the case for Bush and Cheney turning a torture regime into national policy. Sullivan doesn't discuss the politics of criminalizing Bush's behavior. Sure, only 18-24% of Americans think he's doing a good job, but how many would agree to handing him or Cheney over to a war crimes tribunal? Everyone I know, of course... but not many others. And fewer politicians from either party. I think it would take Bush and Cheney inviting the Central African Republic's deposed Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa for a nice meal of American school children-- providing it was captured on film-- for Americans to ever agree to hand Bush over to face justice. (By the way, Emperor Bokassa, despite eating some of his subjects, first had his death sentence commuted and was eventually pardoned.)

HOW THE BUSH REGIME FLUNKED "WORKS AND PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS"

Often when critics of the Bush Regime talk about the ill-effects of its cloddish and disastrous foreign policy, souring of relations with our allies is a common theme. This morning's Washington Post has a preview of a book, A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons by Chile's Ambassador to the UN, Heraldo Munoz. It will confirm all your worst fears about the resentments and ill-will Bush and his team stirred up in their mania to attack Iraq.

In the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat.

The rough-and-tumble diplomatic strategy has generated lasting "bitterness" and "deep mistrust" in Washington's relations with allies in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, Heraldo Munoz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, writes in his book "A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons," set for publication next month.

"In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished" for their refusal to back a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein's government, Munoz writes.

But the tough talk dissipated as the war situation worsened, and President Bush came to reach out to many of the same allies that he had spurned. Munoz's account suggests that the U.S. strategy backfired in Latin America, damaging the administration's standing in a region that has long been dubious of U.S. military intervention.

When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama talk about the need for repairing the damages to our international standing and our relationships with other countries, it's not a bunch of hot air. Bush behaved like a spoiled brat a bully and a cowboy when dealing with other heads of state, heads of state with strong friendly relations with the United States. According to Munoz, the Bush Regime "sought to thwart a last-minute attempt by Chile to broker a compromise that would delay military action for weeks, providing Iraq with a final chance to demonstrate that it had fully complied with disarmament requirements."

And the Bush Regime wasn't just spying on American citizens. It was spying on diplomats as well, not just Iranians and North Koreans and Iraqis, but on the diplomats of friends and allies. And everyone knew it. Munoz writes about how diplomats would gather "in a secure room at the German mission that was impervious to suspected U.S. eavesdropping. "It reminded me of a submarine or a giant safe," he told the Post. Predictably, that got Bush angry at the Germans. How dare they prevent him from spying on diplomats!

John Cole was someone who pretty much bought into the Bus approach in the run-up to the attack on Iraq. Cole defended the Bush foreign policy agenda aggressively and wholeheartedly. Today he says he was wrong, not just wrong, but "wrong about everything. War should always be an absolute last resort, not just another option. I will never make the same mistakes again."

I was wrong about the Doctrine of Pre-emptive warfare.
I was wrong about Iraq possessing WMD.
I was wrong about Scott Ritter and the inspections.
I was wrong about the UN involvement in weapons inspections.
I was wrong about the containment sanctions.
I was wrong about the broader impact of the war on the Middle East.
I was wrong about this making us more safe.
I was wrong about the number of troops needed to stabilize Iraq.
I was wrong when I stated this administration had a clear plan for the aftermath.
I was wrong about securing the ammunition dumps.
I was wrong about the ease of bringing democracy to the Middle East.
I was wrong about dissolving the Iraqi army.
I was wrong about the looting being unimportant.
I was wrong that Bush/Cheney were competent.
I was wrong that we would be greeted as liberators.
I was wrong to make fun of the anti-war protestors.
I was wrong not to trust the dirty smelly hippies.

Welcome back, John Cole. But please don't think this entitles you to run for Congress as a Florida Democrat in November.


UPDATE: IS McCAIN UP TO REPAIRING WHAT BUSH HAS BROKEN?

This morning's NY Times examines how McCain dealt with our European allies' hopes that-- should worse comes to worst and he manages to win the presidency-- "he could repair America’s tattered reputation." The Times suggests he has shifted "course on some of the policies that have alienated [our] allies, in areas like global warming and torture. But he is making his foray even as he embraces what much of the world sees as the most hated remnant of the Bush presidency: the war in Iraq." Somehow it seems to have slipped Times reporter Michael Cooper's mind that McCain has embraced Bush's medieval policies regarding torture and isn't exactly up to speed on climate change either. Embracing Bush's agenda in South Carolina and parts of suburban Texas might help solidify the Know Nothing sector of the GOP around McCain but Europe isn't exactly the place to emphasize one's agreement with anything remotely Bushian. "Bush is so unpopular, even with America’s allies, that people in Britain and France told pollsters last spring that they had even less confidence in him to do the right thing in world affairs than they had in President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia."

[S]ome analysts question whether a new tone, however welcome, and the adoption of a few policies that are more in line with the rest of the world would be enough by themselves to improve America’s image, given the searing unpopularity of the Iraq war-- which Mr. McCain strongly supports-- in much of the world.

“In terms of public opinion, I think the war in Iraq is paramount,” said Nicole Bacharan, an expert on the United States at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.

...In London, a skeptical editorial in The Independent, headlined “A hawk lands in London,” called Mr. McCain’s misstatement about Iran and Al Qaeda “a troubling error” but went on to say that “a McCain brand of hawkishness is likely to be less inflexibly, and ignorantly, ideological than George Bush’s.”

Which isn't really saying much at all.

THE "SO?" HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

Tomorrow morning's Washington Post carries a guest column by prominent Republican leader and ex-Congressman Mickey Edwards (R-OK), basically severing his recently strained ties with the Bush Regime. Last week, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, Edwards roundly chastised GOP rubber stamps who have sold out to the siren song of the Regime. In tomorrow's Post he says his frustration has been building for quite some time.

For at least six years, as I've become increasingly frustrated by the Bush administration's repeated betrayal of constitutional -- and conservative -- principles, I have defended Vice President Cheney, a man I've known for decades and with whom I served and made common cause in Congress. No longer.

I do not blame Dick Cheney for George W. Bush's transgressions; the president needs no prompting to wrap himself in the cloak of a modern-day king. Nor do I believe that the vice president so enthusiastically supports the Iraq war out of a loyalty to the oil industry that his former employer serves. By all accounts, Cheney's belief in "the military option" and the principle of president-as-decider predates his affiliation with Halliburton.

What, then, is the straw that causes me to finally consign a man I served with in the House Republican leadership to the category of "those about whom we should be greatly concerned"?

It is Cheney's all-too-revealing conversation this week with ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz. On Wednesday, reminded of the public's disapproval of the war in Iraq, now five years old, the vice president shrugged off that fact (and thus, the people themselves) with a one-word answer: "So?"

That was the last straw for the old Republican warhorse. "So?" was the wrong answer. "Cheney," continues Edwards, "told Raddatz that American war policy should not be affected by the views of the people. But that is precisely whose views should matter: It is the people who should decide whether the nation shall go to war. That is not a radical, or liberal, or unpatriotic idea. It is the very heart of America's constitutional system... When the vice president dismisses public opposition to war with a simple "So?" he violates the single most important element in the American system of government: Here, the people rule."

I suppose we'll have to wait until Monday to hear the attack the Regime cooks up against Mr. Edwards. In his home state he is very well-regarded across party lines. State Senator Andrew Rice, the Democrat running for the use Senate seat currently controlled by fringe rubber stamp loon James Inhofe-- exactly the kind of cavalier and heedless senator that Edwards was decrying last week-- called Edwards a reasonable and principled Republican, which mirrors what most Oklahomans think of him.

GIANT BUSH REGIME TAXPAYER RIP-OFF UNCOVERED?

A couple weeks ago Peter Welch (D-VT) went ballistic when he caught the Bush Regime in its latest blatant attempt to transfer billions of dollars in taxpayer money to its corrupt campaign contributors and financiers. Since then, Welch and Henry Waxman have been on the move via the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The short version is that the Regime surreptitiously inserted a loophole into plans to protect taxpayers from avaricious contractors like Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater, who are raking in billions as war profiteers.

The Committee wants to get to the bottom of the skullduggery and has informed the Regime that if they don't have the relevant documents by April 4 they will issue a subpoena. They want to know exactly why the loophole was slipped into the plans. "The controversial loophole has irked Democrats and Republicans alike. But it has the support of a trade association that lobbies on behalf of giant global government contractors, including Blackwater USA, KBR Inc., Boeing Co., CACI International Inc. and Lockheed Martin."

Even a proven Bush shill like Attorney General Mukasey says he can't understand why this was done and he has objected. In a letter to Secretary of Defense Gates and a gaggle of Regime operatives and hacks, Waxman and his colleagues say they are "concerned about a proposed change to federal contracting rules that would exempt overseas contracts from a requirement that the contractor detect and prevent fraud and report it to the government."

At a time when the United States is engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, conducting extensive redevelopment programs in both countries, and employing the services of an unprecedented number of private contractors, preventing fraud by contractors overseas should be a high priority. Instead, the exemption for contracts to be performed overseas appears to have been inserted in the rule late in the process and against the wishes of the Department of Justice, which raises serious questions as to why and how such a policy was developed.

On May 23, 2007, the Department of Justice (DOJ) requested that the Federal Acquisition Regulation be amended to “require contractors to establish and maintain internal controls to detect and prevent fraud in their contracts, and that they notify contracting officers without delay whenever they become aware of a contract overpayment or fraud, rather than wait for its discovery by the government.” DOJ believed such a rule was necessary because few government contractors voluntarily disclose suspected instances of fraud. DOJ proposed specific changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

Welch represents Vermont, a frugal state where concern for government waste and fraud is palpable. He didn't mince any words. "Who snuck this in at the eleventh hour and why? No contractor should be given a free ride to defraud taxpayers, at home or abroad." Anyone remember Lurita Doan over at the GSA? She wasn't fired for her breach of government ethics last summer and DWT sources inside an investigatory agency are telling us to expect another set of damaging revelations that could drive Bush's job approval ratings into the single digits, courtesy of Ms. Doan.

The potential proportions of this scandal are causing mainstream conservatives to serve notice on the Bush Regime inner circle that they're on their own on this one.

The Justice Department and the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction have asked the exemption be eliminated before the rule becomes law. Additionally, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has threatened to block the loophole in the federal budget if the administration does not do away with it.

OMB's Office of Federal Procurement Policy has repeatedly declined to comment on the loophole or how it was added to the overall fraud crackdown.

The House inquiry is looking at whether the exemption was added at the request of private firms, or their lobbyists, to escape having to report abuse in U.S. contracts performed abroad.

Meanwhile, as Crooks & Liars points out, the vaunted and much hyped "success" of the Bush-McCain "surge" is a fraud-- and a collapsing fraud at that. Whether venal like Fox or lazy like CNN, the media doesn't want to do the kind of investigative reporting that makes journalism worthwhile, at least not when it comes to the Iraq War.

WHO WOULD FAVOR TORTURE? ALMOST EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN IN CONGRESS... + JIM MARSHALL

In a largely party-lined vote, the House failed to override Bush's veto of the legislation that would have re-iterated long-standing American policy to not engage in the barbaric use of torture of prisoners. Bush "vetoed the bill over the provision that extends to U.S. intelligence agencies and personnel the current prohibitions in the Army Field Manual against waterboarding and other torture." Senator Double Talk Express (R-AZ), Bush's political heir, supports Bush on the veto while telling the public that he opposes torture. He is a very confused or a very deceptive man-- or both.

Failing to prohibit in statute the use of waterboarding and other torture undermines our nation's moral authority, puts American military and diplomatic personnel at risk, and weakens the quality of intelligence. Indeed, in 2007, General David Petraeus wrote, "Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. That would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "In the words of retired Rear Admiral Donald Guter, a former Navy Judge Advocate General: 'There is no disconnect between human rights and national security… they're synergistic. One doesn't work without the other for very long.' Failing to legally prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh torture techniques also risks the safety of our soldiers and other Americans serving overseas. In a letter to the Congressional intelligence committee chairmen, 30 retired generals and admirals-- including General Joseph Hoar, the former head of U.S. Central Command-- stated: 'We believe it is vital to the safety of our men and women in uniform that the United States not sanction the use of interrogation methods it would find unacceptable if inflicted by the enemy against captured Americans…'"

There were 5 brave Republicans who joined the Democrats in trying to override Bush's veto: Roscoe Bartlett (MD), Wayne Gilchrest (MD, who lost his primary to a wingnut), Tim Johnson (IL), Ron Paul (TX) and Chris Smith (NJ). There were also 2 Democrats who voted with the Republicans because the bill wasn't good enough (Dennis Kucinich and Maxine Waters) and one disgrace to the Democratic Party who joined the GOP today, as he often does: Jim Marshall (GA).

Among the Republicans desperately seeking re-election by telling their constituents they are moderates and independent of Bush who voted for torture-- again-- were Joe Knollenberg (R-MI), Dave Reichert (R-WA), David Dreier (R-CA), Randy Kuhl (R-NY), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Jim Gerlach (R-PA), Ric Keller (R-FL), Tom Reynolds (R-NY), and Mr. Moderate himself, crazyman Chris Shays (R-CT).

The DSCC is supporting a right-of-center "business Democrat," Kay Hagan for Elizabeth Dole's senate seat in North Carolina. Grassroots support goes to Jim Neal. Jim has been campaigning hard against retroactive immunity and Hagan admits that she favors it. In a brand new poll the under-financed campaign of the guy who knows it pays to emphasize the contrast in positions with right-wing Republicans pulled ahead of the Insider shill.

Many people have pointed to the deteriorating state of Chris Shays' mental capacity lately. Even with Attorney General Mukasey and GOP presidential nominee-designate McCain admitting that waterboarding is torture, Chris Shays is still splitting hairs and playing word games. The slippery Liebermanlike Republican, who has voted for virtually every single item on Bush's war agenda from Day One, had this to say about his contemptible pro-torture vote:

"I don't know where to draw the line on some of these issues," Shays said, adding that torture used to involve pulling out fingernails and maiming people with knives.

"I wouldn't be able to go through each item and tell you," Shays said, "because I don't know the sensation. I haven't had anyone do it to me."

The progressive Democrat running against Shays in November is Blue America-endorsed Jim Himes. We asked him how he felt about Connecticut's one GOP congressman voting for torture.

"I am appalled that the President vetoed a bill that would have simply forced interrogators to abide by the methods approved by our own military. I am equally appalled that Chris Shays and the Republicans in Congress voted to sustain Bush's veto.

"Chris Shays continues to provide cover for Bush's torture policy-- a policy which has eroded our standing in the world, endangers our own troops in the field, and makes us less safe. That the President and Chris Shays can't say clearly and loudly that Americans do not torture is inexplicable and outrageous."

"Our country was founded on and draws its strength from noble ideals. We are Americans, and we don't torture. It's that simple."

Several other Blue America stalwarts are facing pro-torture Republicans in November. Dennis Shulman, who is running against the Northeast's last remaining right-wing extremist, New Jersey nutcase Scott Garrett has this to say:

"We need members of Congress who take issues of morality seriously. Instead of a reliable vote for torture like Scott Garrett, we need representatives who recognize that torture inherently generates unreliable information while reducing our standing in the world. Our great strength as a nation is that, to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while the arc of our history is long, it bends toward justice."

And the Scott Garrett of the West Coast is California's most extreme right wing member of Congress, Gary Miller. Ron Shepston, his Democratic opponent doesn't favor torture any more than Dennis or Jim or any rational American. "I find it incredible that anyone would agree to put our soldiers now and in the future in danger by letting us engage in something as unproductive and in fact as counter-productive as torture. In short, it doesn’t work and makes things worse for our troops. Anyone who says that it does is wrong. Those who voted to sustain should be ashamed of themselves."

VA-11's incumbent, Tom Davis, is retiring, as his constituents turn more and more against the war and against the entire shameful and disastrous Bush agenda Davis has rubber stamped. Today Davis was still voting for torture. The woman Blue America has endorsed to win in that northern Virginia district is Leslie Byrne and she came straight to the point: "Torture is against our fundamental democratic ideals and our Constitution. We ask our military to defend these rights and principles with their lives. If we disregard these fundamental rights, we dishonor their commitments."

If you'd rather see people in Congress like Jim Himes, Leslie Byrne, Ron Shepston and Dennis Shulman, please show them a little love at Blue America.


UPDATE: THE MILITARY OPPOSES TORTURE

Eric Massa, the Democrat running against Randy Kuhl in upstate New York, is a highly decorated ex-military officer with more understanding about military matters than Bush and his 5 closest advisers combined. Like most military officers and retired military officers, he understands why going back to Spanish Inquisition forms of torture are damaging, first and foremost, to our own fighting men and women. Having never been one, Bush, Cheney and their gaggle of Neocons is completely clueles. Here's what Eric told DWT this evening after Kuhl voted, again, to rubber stamp Bush's torture policies: "I am terribly disappointed that the roadblocking rubber stamps in Congress have decided to stand with George Bush and against the Geneva Conventions. The topic of 'should we or shouldn't we condone torture' should not even be part of the public discussion. Torture is wrong on every level and I very much look forward to casting a vote against it when I am a part of the 111th Congress."

Alan Grayson is running for Congress in Orlando against reflexive rubber stamp Ric Keller, who, naturally voted in favor of torture again today. I asked Alan what the hell is going on with a vote like that. He was as outraged as I was: "We somehow managed to get through two World Wars without torture, but in those wars we were led by the 'Greatest Generation,' not their clueless, AWOL offspring. I'm wondering what else the current Republican leaders hope to revive? Witch-burning? Serfdom? Absolute monarchy?"

BUSH REGIME FORCES ADMIRAL FALLON OUT... OPENING THE GATES OF HELL?

Admiral William Fallon, military hero and patriot, + a smirking chimp

A few days ago we discussed how a real American leader was being pressured out of the military by the incompetent and venal nincompoop, the Commander-in-Chimp, still in the White House. It just happened. Gates, who stopped taking Fallon's calls, said resigning was the right thing for him to do. CNN:

"Although I don't believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America's interests there," Fallon said.

Worries about an imminent sneak attack on Iran were poo-poo-ed by the Regime. Gates: "As I say, the notion that this decision portends anything in terms of change in Iran policy is, to quote myself, 'ridiculous.'" There are a number of ways to interpret that, one of which could be that Cheney's and McCain's heartfelt desire to bomb Iran was always policy and that with Fallon out of the way they can move forward. We'll let you know.

Adam at the National Security Network gathered a compendium of recent statements by Admiral Fallon that American patriots may have appreciated but that Bush, Cheney, McCain and the treacherous and incompetent Neocons surrounding them certainly didn't. Remember, Petraeus-- the political general with uncontainable aspirations to run for the GOP nomination in 2012-- was reporting to Fallon and Fallon was less than enthusiastic about the Bush Regime strategy Petraeus has been carrying out. "His dissenting voice
on the Iraq surge strategy has been disregarded by the White House, and his strong support for balancing our focus on Iraq with other regional priorities has yet to be fully realized." Here are a few:

Fallon's Differences with Petraeus Described as "Armageddon": Fallon "has been saying from Day One, 'This [the surge] isn't working,'" and "The profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq only exacerbated the schism between the two men. 'Bad relations?" said a senior civilian official with a laugh. "That's the understatement of the century. If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it.'" [Washington Post, 9/9/2007]

"Fallon is also said to believe that giving the Iraqi government a clearer sense that the U.S. troop
commitment is limited would help spur the Iraqis to pass legislation and take other steps aimed at achieving reconciliation among the warring sectarian factions in Iraq." [IHT, 9/7/07]

Fallon Remains More Aggressive on Substantial Troop Reductions than the Administration. Adm. Fallon stated that he would like to see the U.S. "transfer more and more responsibility for security in Iraq to Iraqi security forces and, at the same time, withdrawing a substantial amount of our combat forces." While he favors a pause in troop reductions, he believes it should be "temporary and brief". According to the NY Times, "Admiral Fallon's comments struck a somewhat different tone from the one voiced privately by Bush administration officials who have said they advocate holding to troop levels before the 'surge' for some months, perhaps even until the end of the administration." [NY Times, 2/28/2008; AP, 2/25/2008]

Fallon Favors Focusing on Regional Threats in Afghanistan Instead of Solely Iraq: After very brief troop reduction pause in Iraq, Fallon wants a "resumption of withdrawals to ease stress on the overall
military and allow him to balance deployments across the volatile region." He also stated that he hoped to add "a couple of thousand" military trainers to support Afghan Army and police forces. However, he did acknowledge that more troops in Afghanistan are not enough and that the strategy and execution need to improve. "Could we do better with a few more folks? Of course. But the real challenge is: Where is the economic viability for this place?" [NY Times, 2/28/2008]

RUSS FEINGOLD CONCERNED ABOUT FALLON'S DEPARTURE

Speaker Pelosi put out an official statement about the loss of this distinguished, straight-talking military leader, and Senator Russ Feingold, who visited Sumatra and Banda Aceh, Indonesia with Admiral William Fallon, to review post-tsunami reconstruction efforts, was also disturbed by this development.

"I am very concerned about the news of Admiral Fallon's resignation and what it may mean for our ability to face many difficult challenges in the Middle East as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I offer my sincere thanks to Admiral Fallon for his distinguished service to our country. During a trip to Indonesia in 2006, I was fortunate enough to spend time with Admiral Fallon, then the Commander of Pacific Command, and was profoundly impressed with his knowledge of the region as well as with his dedication to his work. He impressed me with his insights and gave me great confidence in the manner in which the United States military was operating in the region. It is no secret that I do not see eye to eye with the administration on most foreign policy issues, and the credibility which Admiral Fallon brought to the issues he was involved in will be sorely missed."

Plenty of rumors that Bush, Cheney and McCain are plotting an attack on Iran in time to impact the November elections.

EVER WONDER HOW THE BUSH REGIME HAS ENABLED ITS SUPPORTERS TO STEAL BILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS? I MEAN EVER WONDER ABOUT THE MECHANISM?

That's cash, our tax dollars being transfered to GOP campaign donors via Iraq

Looks at this little teensy-weensy story that went out yesterday over AP's wires. Did you hear about it at CNN or Fox or CBS? It ends with this: "The United States has spent more than $100 billion on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last five years. In that time, the Justice Department has uncovered at least $14 million in bribes from rebuilding projects in those two nations alone." I guess that doesn't merit any coverage. How about systematic looting of the U.S. Treasury by the Bush Regime and its cronies?

Yesterday Peter Welch (D-VT) demanded an investigation into how a multibillion-dollar loophole exempting overseas projects was slipped into plans to crack down on fraud by government contractors. That sounds ominous, doesn't it? Slipping in a loophole? For the benefit of your campaign contributors? The loophole would allow Bush Regime cronies working on government projects abroad to avoid having to report contract abuse. Now that it has been discovered, the Regime refuses to say whether the loophole will remain in the final plans.

Congressman Welch to Henry Waxman, who is co-hosting an event for Andrew Rice with me in a few hours and who I plan to discuss this with: "Granting this safe harbor for overseas contractors flies in the face of reason. By taking this action, the Department of Justice is sending an unambiguous message: If you are a U.S. government contractor in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere overseas, you have a green light to defraud our government and waste taxpayer dollars."

WILL BUSH FIRE WILLIAM FALLON AS A PRELUDE TO ATTACKING IRAN?

Meet Curveball, a Cheney kinda guy

I'm finishing up an advance copy of Russ Hoyle's new book, Going to War-- How Misinformation, Disinformation and Arrogance Led America Into Iraq. Every time I pick it up I'm just awestruck about the activities of the criminal clique commonly called the Bush Administration. Today I was reading about one of the Neocons most prized sources of intelligence on Saddam's so-called weapons of mass destruction program, a source that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and the rest of the gang treated as though his every word originated with the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Before we get to admiral Fallon, I want to introduce you to Bush Regime secret agent "Curveball" (that's what they called him).

Think back, if you will to Bush's blustering statements about some mobile trucks he claimed were biological weapons labs and proof positive that Saddam was manufacturing WMDs. His source: Curveball.

DIA [the Pentagon's version of the CIA] had provided photos of the trailer trucks to Curveball in Germany, who confirmed that the equipment pictured looked like components he had once worked on at the Djerf al Nadal factory near Baghdad. The CIA and DIA white paper dismissed as a "cover story" the theory that the truck probably produced hydrogen for weather balloons. Yet in the classified DIA review of the evidence that followed , 14 out of 15 bioweapons experts determined that the trucks could not possibly have been used for manufacturing biological agents for weapons. In July, a former British army officer and bioweapons expert named Hamish Killip flew into Baghdad to inspect the trailers as part of [David] Kay's [head of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group] team, and quickly agreed with the DIA assessment. Killip and his investigators found the idea laughable that anyone thought the trailer-trucks could be used to make biological weapons. "The equipment was singularly inappropriate," said Killip. "We were in hysterics over this. You'd have better luck putting a couple of dust bins on the back of the truck and brewing it in there." He concluded that the trucks were intended to generate hydrogen.

The lone holdout in the DIA review [that 15th guy referred to above] was a WINPAC intelligence analyst, who was only identified as Jerry, and who continued to insist that the trucks were transportable weapons production facilities. Jerry had helped draft the original white paper on the mobile labs for the White House in 2001, and had become one of the CIA's chief advocates for the mobile weapons labs theory...

Like the German intelligence officials and some CIA officers on the clandestine operations side, Jerry eventually began to have his doubts about Curveball. He traveled to Baghdad to lead a painstaking ISG investigation into the Iraqi defector's background. Kay's ISG investigators fanned out to the Djerf al Nadal plant and other sites identified by Curveball... While search a personnel file in an Iraqi government storeroom, they came across powerful evidence that Curveball was not who he said he was. He had claimed he had graduated first in his engineering class in Baghdad University. Jerry's team now discovered that in fact he had graduated last. Nor was he an engineering project or site manager, as he had claimed, but an entree-level trainee. In 1995, at a time he told interrogators that he had been working on the bioweapons trailers, he had already been fired form his job. Worse, he had been thrown in jail for a sex crime and wound up driving a taxi.

The investigators interviewed some 60 friends, family and coworkers of Curveball. The reports came back with a remarkable consistency. His former bosses knew nothing about mobile germ-producing weapons trucks and dismissed the idea as a product of "water cooler gossip" and corridor conversations." His childhood friends called him "a great liar," a "con artist," and "a real operator." People "kept saying what a rat Curveball was," the team reported. They found it hard to believe the CIA had fallen for Curveball's story...

Jerry appeared crestfallen.

But he was soon more than crestfallen. Cheney and his cabal don't like anyone rewriting their playbook. Curveball was part of the plan and Jerry was told, in no uncertain terms to STFU, as had been everyone who veered about from Neocon orthodoxy and the Iraq agenda. Now what does this have with the Regime's plans for CentCom Chief, Admiral William Fallon?

The March issue of Esquire has a piece by Thomas Barnett, The Man Between War and Peace, that is causing some consternation inside the very brittle and very vindictive Bush Regime.

If, in the dying light of the Bush admin-istration, we go to war with Iran, it'll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it'll come down to the same man. He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. His name is William Fallon, although all of his friends call him "Fox," which was his fighter-pilot call sign decades ago. Forty years into a military career that has seen this admiral rule over America's two most important combatant commands, Pacific Command and now United States Central Command, it's impossible to make this guy--as he likes to say--"nervous in the service."

...[And] while Admiral Fallon's boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as this century's Hitler (a crown it has awarded once before, to deadly effect), it's left to Fallon--and apparently Fallon alone--to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: "This constant drumbeat of conflict . . . is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions."

What America needs, Fallon says, is a "combination of strength and willingness to engage."

Those are fighting words to your average neocon--not to mention your average supporter of Israel, a good many of whom in Washington seem never to have served a minute in uniform. But utter those words for print and you can easily find yourself defending your indifference to "nuclear holocaust."

How does Fallon get away with so brazenly challenging his commander in chief?

The answer is that he might not get away with it for much longer. President Bush is not accustomed to a subordinate who speaks his mind as freely as Fallon does, and the president may have had enough.

Just as Fallon took over Centcom last spring, the White House was putting itself on a war footing with Iran. Almost instantly, Fallon began to calmly push back against what he saw as an ill-advised action. Over the course of 2007, Fallon's statements in the press grew increasingly dismissive of the possibility of war, creating serious friction with the White House.

Last December, when the National Intelligence Estimate downgraded the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, it seemed as if Fallon's caution was justified. But still, well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don't want a commander standing in their way.

And so Fallon, the good cop, may soon be unemployed because he's doing what a generation of young officers in the U. S. military are now openly complaining that their leaders didn't do on their behalf in the run-up to the war in Iraq: He's standing up to the commander in chief, whom he thinks is contemplating a strategically unsound war.

Like Jerry, they expect Admiral William Fallon to STFU. Digby thinks starting a war with Iraq may be part of the Republican game plan to win the November elections. Like Bush said when he endorsed McCain at the White House today, "the good news about our candidate there will be a new president, a man of character and courage, but he’s not going to change when it comes to taking on the enemy." It looks like a lot of Americans have already figured that out. New polls showing him trailing Obama by 12 points and Hillary by 6 points.

And despite the powerful narrative crafted by the Bush Regime and McCain PR Machine-- that "the surge is working and things are getting better in Iraq"-- which corporate media repeats ad nauseum, not many people are buying it. "About two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job and think the war was not worth fighting, and most hold those positions 'strongly.' A slim majority also doubts the United States is making progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq, even as McCain and others extol recent successes there."

IS BUSH STARTING TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT WAR PROFITEERING?

Well, perhaps... but not the way one would expect the nation's chief law enforcement official to. Sure, the Bush Regime is trying to convince concerned voters they are cracking down on rampant war profiteering by their biggest supporters-- without damaging said supporters (of course). So they found some chumps to charge and now they're ballyhooing what awesome war profiteer fighters they are. It's a farce and I called Blue America's expert in this area, Alan Grayson, and asked him to explain what's going on. Keep in mind that Alan is running for Congress in Orlando against one of Bush's most pathetic and consistent rubber stamps, Ric Keller. If you'd like to see a real war profiteer fighter in Washington next year, please consider contributing to Alan's campaign here. His report:

The Bush Administration, having learned nothing, continues to operate as if the appearance of doing its job were just as good as-- maybe better than-- actually doing its job. Case in point: recently touting to the Chicago Tribune that a handful of unfortunate souls, around eight or so in five years, have been indicted for work that they did while employed by KBR and Halliburton in Iraq. And this is supposed to give the appearance that the Bush Administration actually has taken a stab at upholding the laws against war profiteering in Iraq. "Heck of a job, DOJ."

But something is wrong with this picture. These folks have been indicted for their roles in submitting bloated bills to the Army and the taxpayer, but KBR and Halliburton never had to give any of that money back. And KBR and Halliburton themselves have escaped all punishment, not only for the overbilling, but also for establishing and perpetuating a crooked system in which such criminals flourished.

The Chicago Tribune's report was front-page news. You know what really would be front-page news? If Dick Cheney's old company ever was held accountable for even a penny of the waste and fraud that they've perpetrated on the troops, and the taxpayers.

HAWKISH DEMOCRAT, SILVESTRE REYES TELLS BUSH TO "PUT PARTISANSHIP ASIDE" AND PROTECT AMERICA

Looks like Pelosi made the right call on Reyes afterall

I wasn't a huge fan Pelosi's decision to make Texas' conservativish Democratic congressman Silvestre Reyes head of the House Intelligence Committee, The stunning letter he sent Bush today, however, has me flabbergasted-- and filled with admiration. The entire letter is well worth reading and we've reproduced it below. Key points, aside from Reyes' telling his fellow Texan to put his divisive partisan approach aside, for once, for the sake of America, are at the very end:

I, for one, do not intend to back down-- not to the terrorists and not to anyone, including a President, who wants Americans to cower in fear.

We are a strong nation. We cannot allow ourselves to be scared into suspending the Constitution. If we do that, we might as well call the terrorists and tell them that they have won.

Good for Reyes! Here's his letter to a terrorist, an errorist and the worst excuse for a president this nation has ever been saddled with:

Dear Mr. President:

The Preamble to our Constitution states that one of our highest duties as public officials is to "provide for the common defence." As an elected Member of Congress, a senior Member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I work everyday to ensure that our defense and intelligence capabilities remain strong in the face of serious threats to our national security.

Because I care so deeply about protecting our country, I take strong offense to your suggestion in recent days that the country will be vulnerable to terrorist attack unless Congress immediately enacts legislation giving you broader powers to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans' communications and provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the Administration's warrantless surveillance program.

Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) has authority to conduct surveillance in at least three different ways, all of which provide strong capability to monitor the communications of possible terrorists.

First, NSA can use its authority under Executive Order 12333 to conduct surveillance abroad of any known or suspected terrorist. There is no requirement for a warrant. There is no requirement for probable cause. Most of NSA's collection occurs under this authority.

Second, NSA can use its authority under the Protect America Act, enacted last August, to conduct surveillance here in the U.S of any foreign target. This authority does not "expire" on Saturday, as you have stated. Under the PAA, orders authorizing surveillance may last for one year-- until at least August 2008. These orders may cover every terrorist group without limitation. If a new member of the group is identified, or if a new phone number or email address is identified, the NSA may add it to the existing orders, and surveillance can begin immediately. We will not "go dark."

Third, in the remote possibility that a new terrorist organization emerges that we have never previously identified, the NSA could use existing authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to monitor those communications. Since its establishment nearly 30 years ago, the FISA Court has approved nearly every application for a warrant from the Department of Justice. In an emergency, NSA or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may begin surveillance immediately, and a FISA Court order does not have to be obtained for three days. The former head of FISA operations for the Department of Justice has testified publicly that emergency authorization may be granted in a matter of minutes.

As you know, the 1978 FISA law, which has been modernized and updated numerous times since 9/11, was instrumental in disrupting the terrorist plot in Germany last summer. Those who say that FISA is outdated do not understand the strength of this important tool.

If our nation is left vulnerable in the coming months, it will not be because we don't have enough domestic spying powers. It will be because your Administration has not done enough to defeat terrorist organizations-- including al Qaeda-- that have gained strength since 9/11. We do not have nearly enough linguists to translate the reams of information we currently collect. We do not have enough intelligence officers who can penetrate the hardest targets, such as al Qaeda. We have surged so many intelligence resources into Iraq that we have taken our eye off the ball in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a result, you have allowed al Qaeda to reconstitute itself on your watch.

You have also suggested that Congress must grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies. As someone who has been briefed on our most sensitive intelligence programs, I can see no argument why the future security of our country depends on whether past actions of telecommunications companies are immunized.

The issue of telecom liability should be carefully considered based on a full review of the documents that your Administration withheld from Congress for eight months. However, it is an insult to the intelligence of the American people to say that we will be vulnerable unless we grant immunity for actions that happened years ago.

Congress has not been sitting on its hands. Last November, the House passed responsible legislation to authorize the NSA to conduct surveillance of foreign terrorists and to provide clarity and legal protection to our private sector partners who assist in that surveillance.

The proper course is now to conference the House bill with the Senate bill that was passed on Tuesday. There are significant differences between these two bills and a conference, in regular order, is the appropriate mechanism to resolve the differences between these two bills. I urge you, Mr. President, to put partisanship aside and allow Republicans in Congress to arrive at a compromise that will protect America and protect our Constitution.

I, for one, do not intend to back down - not to the terrorists and not to anyone, including a President, who wants Americans to cower in fear.

We are a strong nation. We cannot allow ourselves to be scared into suspending the Constitution. If we do that, we might as well call the terrorists and tell them that they have won.


Sincerely,

Silvestre Reyes
Member of Congress
Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

More context: the House will stand up where the Senate assumed the position and greased itself up. Maybe Nancy and Reyes ought to talk with Heath Shuler-- or have puppetmaster Emanuel do it. Nah, forget Emanuel; get Rush Holt to talk some sense into this sad, pathetic tool, who should never have been recruited by... oh, yeah... Rahm, in the first place.