Film "Official Secrets" Points to a Mammoth Iceberg

by Sam Husseini

Two-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley is known for being in "period pieces" such as Pride and Prejudice, so her playing the lead in the new film Official Secrets, scheduled to be release in the U.S. this Friday, may seem odd at first. That is until one considers that the time span being depicted-- the early 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq-- is one of the most dramatic and consequential periods of modern human history.

It is also one of the most poorly understood, in part because the story of Katharine Gun, played by Knightley, is so little known. I should say from the outset that having followed this story from the start, I find this film to be, by Hollywood standards, a remarkably accurate account of what has happened to date. "To date" because the wider story still isn't really over.

Katharine Gun worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters, the British equivalent of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims about Iraq. She was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act-- a juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which has in recent years been used repeatedly by the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange.

Gun was charged for exposing-- around the time of Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs-- a top secret U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying “surge” against other U.N. Security Council delegations in an effort to force approval for an Iraq invasion resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully forced through a trumped up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or blackmail their way to actual United Nations authorization for the invasion. See recent interview with Gun.

The leaked memo, published by the British Observer, was big news in parts of the world, especially the targeted countries on the Security Council, and effectively prevented Bush and Blair from getting a second UN Security Council resolution they said they wanted.

U.S. government started the invasion anyway of course-- without Security Council authorization-- by telling the UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq and issuing a unilateral demand that Saddam Hussein leave Iraq in 48 hours-- and then saying the invasion would commence regardless.

It was the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, where I work (accuracy.org), Norman Solomon, as well as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who in the U.S. most immediately saw the importance of what Gun did. Dan would later comment: “No one else-- including myself -- has ever done what Katharine Gun did: Tell secret truths at personal risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it. Hers was the most important-- and courageous-- leak I’ve ever seen, more timely and potentially more effective than the Pentagon Papers.”

Of course, we didn't know her name at the time. After the Observer broke the story on March 1, 2003, we at accuracy.org put out a series of news releases on it and organized a sadly sparsely attended news conference with Dan on March 11, 2003 at the National Press Club, focusing on Gun's revelations and Dan calling for more such truth telling to stop the impending invasion.

Even though I followed this case for years, I didn't realize until recently that our work helped compel Gun to expose the document. I didn't know till a recent D.C. showing of Official Secrets that Gun had read a book co-authored by Norman, published in January 2003 which included material from accuracy.org as well as the media watch group FAIR that debunked many of the falsehoods for war and was published in January of 2003.

Said Gun about the period just before she disclosed the document: "I went to the local bookshop, and I went into the political section. I found two books, which had apparently been rushed into publication, one was by Norman Solomon and Reese Erlich, and it was called Target Iraq. And the other one was by Milan Rai. It was called War Plan Iraq. And I bought both of them. And I read them cover to cover that weekend, and it basically convinced me that there was no real evidence for this war. So I think from that point onward, I was very critical and scrutinizing everything that was being said in the media."

Thus, we see Gun shouting at the TV to Tony Blair that he's not entitled to make up facts, so the film may be jarring to some consumers of major media who might think that Trump invented lying in 2017.

But Gun's immediate action after reading critiques of U.S. policy and media coverage is a remarkable case for trying to reach government workers, handing out fliers, books, having billboards outside government offices, to encourage them to be more critically minded.

I honestly didn't fully appreciate the value of the exposure as much as Dan and Norman did at the time. To my mind, the lies were obvious, We debunked Bush administration propaganda in real time-- see an overview of our work that I wrote to Rob Reiner when I learned of his then-upcoming film, Shock and Awe. But Gun's revelation showed that the U.S. and British governments were not only lying to get to invade Iraq, they were engaging in outright violations of international law to blackmail whole countries to get in line.

It's funny to read mainstream reviews of Official Secrets now-- they seem to still not fully grasp the importance of what they just saw. The trendy AV Club review leads: "Virtually everyone now agrees that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a colossal mistake based on faulty (at best) or fabricated (at worst) intelligence." Well, "mistake" is a serious understatement even with "colossal" attached to it for something so fervently pursued and you just saw a movie about the diabolical, illegal lengths to which the U.S. and British governments went to get everyone in line for it. So, no "fabricated" is not the "worst" it is.

Gun's revelations showed before the invasion that people on the inside, whose livelihood depends on following the party line, were willing to risk jail time to out the lies and threats.

Other than Gun herself, the film focuses on a dramatization of what happened at her work; as well as her relationship with her husband, who happens to be a Kurdish gentleman from Turkey-- with the British government attempting to get at Gun by moving to deport him. The other key focuses in the film are her able legal team at Liberty and the drama at The Observer, which published the NSA document after much debate.

Observer reporter Martin Bright, whose stellar work on the original Gun story was strangely followed by things like predictably ill fated stints at organizations like the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, has recently noted that very little additional work has been done on this key case. We know virtually nothing about the apparent author of the NSA document-- one "Frank Koza." How prevalent is this sort of blackmail? How exactly is it leveraged? If the U.S. government does this sort of thing, why would they wait till the last minute? Does it fit in with allegations made by former NSA analyst Russ Tice about the NSA having massive files on political people?

Observer reporter Ed Vulliamy is energetically depicted getting tips from former CIA man Mel Goodman. There do seem to be subtle but potentially serious deviations from reality in the film. In the movie, Vulliamy is depicted as actually speaking with "Frank Koza," but that's not what he originally reported: "The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an erroneous extension, and hung up."

There must doubtlessly be many aspects of the film that have been simplified or altered regarding Gun's personal experience; notably absent from the film are the roles played by her parents, which I believe are considerable. A memoir from her would be a valuable historical document. A compelling part of the film-- apparently fictitious or exaggerated-- is the apparatchik of GCHQ security questioning Gun to see if she was the source, recounting her ethical and educational background, particularly that she was raised largely outside of Britain.

One similarity between this and Knightley's other work is its distinct Anglocentrism. Gun's revelation had the biggest impact on several non-permanent members of the Security Council members, in all likelihood, especially Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, Pakistan, Mexico and Chile. I've seen very little about what exactly happened in those countries and in those delegations. The most is probably know about Mexico, which was represented by Adolfo Aguilar Zinser. After the invasion, he spoke in blunt terms about U.S. bullying-- saying it viewed Mexico as its patio trasero, or back yard-- and was compelled to resign by Vicente Fox. He then, in 2004, gave details about some aspects of U.S. surveillance sabotaging the efforts of the other members of the Security Council to hammer out a compromise to avert the invasion of Iraq, saying the U.S. was "violating the U.N. headquarters covenant.” In 2005, he tragically died in a car crash.

Official Secrets director Gavin Hood is perhaps more right than he realizes when he says that his depiction of the Gun case is like the "tip of an iceberg," pointing to other deceits surrounding the Iraq war. His record with political films has been uneven till now. Peace activist David Swanson derided his film on drones, Eye in the Sky. In a showing of Official Secrets in D.C., Hood depicted those who backed the Iraq war as now having been discredited. But that's simply untrue. Now leading presidential candidate Joe Biden-- who not only voted for the Iraq invasion, but presided over rigged hearings on it 2002-- has recently repeatedly falsified his record on Iraq at presidential debates with hardly a murmur. Nor is he alone, those refusing to be held accountable for their Iraq war lies include not just Bush and Cheney, but John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi. Biden has actually faulted Bush for not doing enough to get United Nations approval for the Iraq invasion. In fact, as the Gun case helps show, the legitimate case for invasion was non-existent and the Bush administration had done virtually everything both legal and illegal to get United Nations authorization.

Most everyone attempts to distance themselves from the Iraq invasion, but it has effectively enveloped our culture. The wars it spawned, as in Syria, and Iraq itself, and arguably elsewhere, continue with minimal attention or protest. The U.S. regularly threatens Iran, Venezuela and other countries. The journalists who pushed and propagandized in favor of the Iraq invasion are prosperous and atop major news organizations-- the editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The Observer, Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News. After the U.S. and Britain failed to get a second resolution before the invasion, they got a resolution after the invasion effectively accepting the U.S. as the Occupying Power in Iraq (UNSCR 1472) on March 28, 2003; see accuracy.org news release on the same day-- "U.N.-- Accessory After the Fact?"

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept in 2016 boasted of how the NSA “during the wind-up to the Iraq War ‘played a critical role’ in the adoption of U.N. Security Council resolutions. The work with that customer was a resounding success.” The relevant document specifically cites resolutions 1441 and 1472 and quotes John Negroponte, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: “I can’t imagine better intelligence support for a diplomatic mission.” (Notably, The Intercept has never published a word on "Katharine Gun.")

Nor were the UN Security Council members the only ones on the U.S. hit list to pave the way for the Iraq invasion. Brazilian Jose Bustani, the director-general of the international Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. was ousted in an effective coup by John Bolton in April of 2002. Bolton of course is now National Security Adviser.

The British government-- unlike the U.S. government-- did ultimately produce a study ostensibly around the decision-making leading to the invasion of Iraq, the Chilcot Report in 2016. But that report-- called "devastating" by the New York Times-- incredibly made no mention of the Gun case. See accuracy.org release from 2016: "Chilcot Report Avoids Smoking Gun."

Thus, Official Secrets refers not only to the Official Secrets Act, but also to the actions of so many who revere officialdom and abide by the decorum of not acknowledging clear truths that would show the brutal face of the authorities.

Spoiler: After Katharine Gun's identity became known, we at the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen, the founder of FAIR, to work with Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent individuals to support Gun. The film-- quite plausibly-- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the simple reason that the British government feared that a high profile proceeding would effectively put the war on trial, which to them would be nightmare.

Some have said that what Gun did was ineffectual, that it didn't stop the invasion. Some have said the same about the quasi-global Feb. 15, 2003 protests against the invasion. It's an absurd, rotten notion. The solution to some truth telling not being enough to stop the war, as Dan Ellsberg would put it, is more truth telling. The solution to some powerful protests not being enough to stop the war is more effective protests. Had there been coordinated global protests beginning in September 2002 for example, rather than February 2003, that could well have made all the difference. If other numerous government officials had done what Gun did, and spoken the truth when it mattered most, that could have made the difference.

And, as these wars and lies continue, it still may.

If Britain Has A Re-Vote On Brexit, Shouldn't We Have A Re-Vote On Trumpanzee?

It looks certain that NC-09 is going to have a do-over election, although, it would seem absurd to allow Mark Harris to participate in it, since the whole reason for having it is because he was caught trying to steal it and should be in prison, not trying again. FL-15 should probably have a re-do as well... and it isn't out of the question. Republicans should take civics courses and learn about what democracy is before they run for election. The U.S. would be a whole lot better off. There are a lot of reasons to have do-overs in the Florida race and the North Carolina race. Less likely-- but just as justified-- would be a Russia-free 2016 U.S. presidential election do over. Yeah, yeah... I know. Just sayin'. BUT, another election the Russians meddled in back then looks like it is going to have a do-over... and Russian manipulation doesn't get mentioned all that much: Brexit.



Few people doubt that a Brexit revote would result is a very different outcome: STAY (or, as they call it in Britain, "remain"). It was close to begin with. Scotland, Northern Ireland and London all voted to remain in the E.U. to begin with. This is what happened in the first go-round back in 2016, with Kremlin agents working furiously with UKIP to divide the country and sow discord and dissension:

Since last summer, every poll has shown that a plurality of Brits think it was a mistake to have voted to leave the E.U. And every poll has shown that in a do-over, "remain" would win. The most recent was done by YouGov the last week of November and it shows 54% of Brits would vote to stay in the E.U, and 45% would vote to leave. The Conservative government has not been able to negotiate an agreement for leaving and British politics are a mess. Over the weekend, Michael Savage reported for The Guardian that a re-vote may well be in the offing. He wrote over the weekend that some of her senior cabinet ministers are urging Theresa May "to give her MPs free rein to vote for a second referendum, with a new group of ministers poised to back another public ballot on Brexit."

Cabinet ministers are making fresh pleas for a new approach after the prime minister’s bleakest week in office, which has left her authority seriously damaged and led some Tory MPs to fear it will become impossible for her to govern.

Senior figures in the government are convinced that with no sign of the parliamentary stalemate being resolved, Tory MPs must be allowed a free vote in a series of ballots over different options-- allowing ministers and backbenchers to support a second referendum as a way out.

Some ministers are planning to take matters into their own hands and back another public vote should the prime minister’s beleaguered Brexit deal be rejected. “Once the deal has been voted down, there will be no clear government position and we will be freer,” said one.

May will meet her cabinet on Tuesday, with ministers preparing to set out wildly different paths ahead. It will include demands for a major step-up in planning for a no-deal Brexit.

The idea of handing parliament a non-binding vote over the different Brexit options-- including a no-deal exit, a soft Brexit and a second vote-- was rejected by the prime minister in a conference call with her cabinet last week. However, several ministers still see this as the only way to break the gridlock, but believe it will only work if Tory MPs are allowed to vote with their consciences.

A free vote may also defuse tensions within the Tory party that have reached fever pitch and left some wanting hardline Brexit MPs to split off and form a new party.

Some Tories, who had privately backed changing course to a softer, Norway-style Brexit, said they no longer believed such a compromise could work and that throwing the issue back to the public may be the only way through. Tory MPs Phillip Lee, Jo Johnson, Guto Bebb and Sam Gyimah have already quit as ministers in order to endorse what campaigners call a “people’s vote” on Brexit.



With talk of a second referendum growing, May again reiterated her opposition to another vote last night and said parliament had “a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for”. She even described Tony Blair’s recent appearance in Brussels to support a second vote as “an insult to the office he once held and the people he once served.”

“I have never lost sight of my duty and that is to deliver on the referendum result and to do so in a way that protects British jobs, keeps us safe and protects our precious union,” she said. “However, there are too many people who want to subvert the process for their own political interests-- rather than acting in the national interest.

“For Tony Blair to go to Brussels and seek to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum is an insult to the office he once held and the people he once served. We cannot, as he would, abdicate responsibility for this decision.”

Downing Street is already expecting both Labour and hardline Tory Brexiters to engineer ways to inflict further damage on the prime minister before parliament breaks up for Christmas. Labour is said to be considering a motion of no confidence in the government, although several less explosive measures are being examined to heap further humiliation on the government.

Chris Patten, the former Tory chairman, warned that there was no outcome that would prevent Brexit from causing division for years to come. “It would be nice to think that some kind of solution-- a Norway option, another referendum, or May’s deal, or plunging out without a deal-- would actually close the debate and the lion would lie down with the lamb, but I don’t see it happening,” he said. “It will go on and on and on.”

Now, please do watch this trailer from HBO's Brexit: The Movie (starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rory Kinnear) which details Russian interference in the British referendum. And then be sure to read the DWT post coming up at 9 (PT) this evening.

The Third Way Has Always Been A Fancy Excuse For Politicians Taking Massive Special Interest Bribes

Remember the other day when we looked at how centrism sucks? We were looking at American politics. But we're not the only ones with the problem. Remember the British avatar of neoliberal assholism, New Labour's Tony Blair? New Labour is very much like New Dems, the same disease. Monday morning Blair showed up at the Global Politico podcast with Susan Glasser. One of the earth's worst human beings wanted to remind everyone how lucky we are he's no longer spreading his toxins from inside government. Glasser warns her audience that "the former British prime minister, a perennial lightning rod for controversy across on both sides of the Atlantic, has in recent months chosen to return to the political fray" and is running around like a chicken without a head squawking "that the left-wing populism peddled by Sanders and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Britain are not the answer" to neo-fascist movements like Trumpism.

Blair, the onetime wunderkind of British politics who led the Labour Party and the country for 10 years from 1997 to 2007 preaching a Clintonian centrism he called the “Third Way” only to see his tenure end amid recriminations over his support for Republican George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, still punches hardest when he’s hitting to his left. In our conversation, he bashed today’s liberal leaders in both countries for “solutions that look back to the ‘60s or ‘70s” and for preaching a form of feel-good “identity politics” that will flop as an answer to Trumpism.

“You can go for what are very good-sounding things like, we’re going to abolish tuition fees, or we’re going to give you this for free, or that for free,” he says, calling out both America’s Democrats and Britain’s Labourites. “In today’s world, and in particular, in the absence of a vigorous change-making center, that’s very attractive. But I don’t think it’s answer, and I’m not sure it would win an election. Maybe it would, but even if it did, it would worry me. Because in the end, I think a lot of these solutions aren’t really progressive. And they don’t correspond to what the problem of the modern world is.”

But it’s Blair’s comments about Trump as much as his disdain for Sanders and Corbyn that are likely to infuriate many U.S liberals.

Just a few months ago, Blair stirred outrage when he told his former communications chief Alastair Campbell in a British GQ interview that Democrats “just go mental with you” at even the suggestion of working with Trump and that the divisive U.S. president who has spoken of the mainstream press as “enemies of the people” may have a point about his “polarized and partisan” media coverage.

Blair did not back away from that in our interview, saying it’s a mistake “just to go in flat-out opposition” to Trump, that the American president may well end up as a traditional Republican at least on foreign policy and arguing Trump has “actually been helpful” in the Middle East, where Blair has served as a mediator for the quartet of Western powers trying to achieve a long-elusive peace settlement.

Trump, he says, has correctly identified “an extraordinary and one-off opportunity” to move toward a deal between Israel and Arab states that may finally be willing to “move on” from the Palestinian issue. “I do think there’s a big opportunity there, and I think that the White House understands that,” Blair tells me, voicing an optimism that few other peace-process veterans share.

“I can’t afford to be in a position of just treating President Trump as if he’s part of a sort of interesting comedy show,” Blair says.

...[I]t’s almost impossible to overstate the extent to which Blair is excoriated across the British political spectrum these days-- “his reputational currency has fallen as his bank account has swelled” over the last decade, says his old colleague Campbell, acknowledging not just Blair’s political unpopularity but the opprobrium he’s gotten for what’s perceived as buck-raking from advising autocrats from the Persian Gulf to Kazakhstan.

Even those who don’t outright condemn Blair see him as a man without a party, tilting at Brexit without being able to propose a realistic scenario by which it could be overturned, given that neither Labour nor the ruling Conservative Party is willing to officially campaign on undoing it. “Brits hate him. They really hate him,” says one American who spent the better part of two decades living in London. “His international stature, even now, masks how low is the esteem in which he is held back home.”

In contrast, Blair has remained well regarded here, and tends to get positive notices from centrist-minded American commentators who see him as a rare liberal willing to take a moment away from Trump-bashing and Brexit-bemoaning to trash the rising populism and “riding the politics of fear,” as he put it to me, that is now increasingly seen as the only acceptable response to angry voting publics in both countries. Just as Hillary Clinton is touring the country now peddling a version of What Happened in her campaign memoir, Blair acknowledges that he and others in the Clintonian middle opened the way for this challenge-- they became “complacent” in power, he says, entitled “managers of the status quo”-- though as with Clinton there are many critics who feel he is hardly introspective enough about his own role in the current mess.

And that brings us to the only thing behind political centrism: corrupting cash. That, after all, is all the Third Way has ever been about. That's the basis of the New Dems more than any political entity in the history of America. They have no real set of beliefs and what holds them together is an opportunity to soak up corporate cash in return for their services. This morning, Lee Fang and Said Jilani penned an Intercept piece about how the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists are behind the move to undermine Bernie's Medicare-for-All efforts.

Yesterday we looked at which politicians take the most bribery from Big Pharma. Since 1990, the Insurance industry has spent $387,502,675 in bribing candidates for congressional office-- $236,652,744 to corrupt Republicans and $147,762,884 to corrupt (mostly conservative) Democrats. These are the dozen worst whores to the insurance industry (currently in Congress):

• John McCain (R-AZ)- $3,702,426
• Paul Ryan (R-WI)- $2,327,530
• Richard Neal (D_MA)- $2,207,506
• Mitch McConnell (R-KY)- $2,121,451
• Chuck Schumer (D-NY)- $2,098,920
• Pat Tiberi (R-OH)- $2,057,243
• Rob Portman (R-OH)- $2,049,640
• John Larson (D-CT)- $1,656,115
• Ed Royce (R-CA)- $1,621,899
• Chuck Grassley (R-IA)- $1,603,475
• Joe Crowley (D-NY)- $1,549,465
• Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)- $1,480,784

And, yes, if these 12 men woke top in prison tomorrow on bribery charges, America would be on the road to Medicare-For-All. As Jilani and Fang pointed out, "The for-profit health care industry and its political surrogates were quick to criticize the sweeping universal Medicare legislation unveiled this week by Sen. Bernie Sanders and more than a dozen Senate Democrats." David Merritt, vice president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobbying group for health insurance companies, said in a statement to reporters "Whether it’s called single-payer or Medicare for All, government-controlled health care cannot work." The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, another insurance lobby group, released a statement declaring that it "adamantly opposes the creation of a single-payer regime, and our guard is up on these efforts... These are worrisome developments, and the increased volume on single-payer is setting off alarms on what Democratic priorities could represent following seven years of failed ACA repeal efforts."

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC funded by a number of health care interests-- including health insurance giant Anthem, pharmaceutical firm Amgen, and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a lobby group for biotech companies-- also sprung to attack the proposal.

The group called the bill the “latest radical and expensive plan for government-run health care” in an announcement on the CLF website.

Former Rep. Bruce Morrison, the Connecticut Democrat who left Congress and is now a lobbyist for the American Hospital Association, dismissed the plan as doing too much to disrupt employer-based coverage.

“Half of America gets their health insurance coverage on the job,” Morrison said. Single payer would replace coverage for some 150 million people, he noted. “If you just leaped to Medicare for All, you would totally disrupt the expectations of all those people. And that would not be a good idea.”

A similar argument was made by former Democratic Rep. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota, who lost his seat and is also now lobbying for a number of health care interests, including health insurance firm Aetna and drugmaker Novo Nordisk.

Until he was defeated in 2010, Pomeroy, a ultra-corrupt Blue Dog, accepted a mind-boggling $2,232,597 from the insurance industry, slightly less than Paul Ryan has taken in bribes from them! Pomeroy was never charged with taking bribes and now hands them out to his former colleagues.

“Pretty consistently, people value the coverage they have. Any proposal that says you have to give up the coverage that you know for coverage that we’ll create under a new government program will be a difficult sell,” Pomeroy told The Intercept.

“I think this is an organizing tool to continue to build support for a dramatic further overhaul of the health reform system. And I think that’s its fundamental purpose, and no one thinks it’s going to pass anytime soon,” he concluded.

The universal Medicare proposal released this week extends health insurance coverage to every single American free of copays, premiums, and deductibles-- and has long been viewed as a direct threat to highly profitable health-related industries and providers.

The bill calls for gradually expanding Medicare coverage, starting with the young and phasing in other segments of the population. The plan would cover all essential services, including routine doctor visits, emergency room care, mental health, dental, outpatient care, and forms of treatment.

Sanders’s office also released a statement this week laying out various financing methods for the bill, including an employer tax, closing tax loopholes, and a variety of progressive income-based taxes.

Private health insurers hate the plan because it would largely replace them. Drugmakers fear single payer because the Sanders bill calls for price negotiation on pharmaceutical products, a policy now barred by a provision created by drug lobbyists and their allies in Congress. Other providers are worried that an empowered single health provider will be able to use its collective bargaining power to cut waste and investigate price gouging.

The unrivaled political power of health care industries--  health interests are routinely near the top of rankings for lobby spending and campaign donations-- have made controlling costs incredibly difficult. Americans spend far more on health care per person than any country in the world while consistently ranking fairly low on a range of health outcomes, including life expectancy.

The aforementioned lobby group America’s Health Insurance Plans secretly spent $86 million on dark money efforts in 2009 to derail the Affordable Care Act, with a special focus on eliminating the public option provision. As The Intercept first reported, the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, the other insurance group blasting the Sanders effort, similarly mobilized part of the effort to defeat a ballot measure in Colorado last year to establish a state-based single-payer plan.

Will Trump Screw Up Politics In Britain, France And Germany Too?

The top 3 U.S. allies in Europe-- Britain, France and Germany-- all had significant political news over the weekend. With François Hollande's Socialist government flailing hopelessly and in terminal tatters, he hasn't even announced if he will seek a second term and many think that he's so unpopular that he'd be hard-pressed to even win renomination from his own party. The most recent polls show Marine Le Pen of the surging neo-fascist Front national making it through the April 23 first round-- along with the nominee of Les républicains (the new name for the Center-right party formerly knows as the Union for a Popular Movement). There are at least 11 parties that will compete in the first round as well as the potential for as many as half a dozen unaffiliated independents-- like Oscar Temaru, who already was a president, president of French Polynesia.

The second round, if, as is likely, no one wins 50% first time around, is scheduled for May 7 and nearly every poll shows any mainstream politician beating Le Pen, except Hollande, with the 2 most recent polls showing him down 53-47% in a head to head matchup, although no one thinks there's much chance of him making it into the second round. Any of Les républicains would also beat Hollande-- Alain Juppé 70-30%, Nicolas Sarkozy 54-46% and François Fillon 62-38%. All Les républicains are also way ahead of Le Pen, Sarkozy besting her 58-42%, Juppé 64-36% and Fillon 65-35%. Even independent Emmanuel Macron leads Le Pen in a head to head 61-39%.

So going into yesterday's first-even presidential primary for Les républicains it was widely thought that one of the two who made it to the Nov. 27 final primary would be the next president of France. And the two finalists in that contest are 2 former prime ministers, François Fillon (a Thatcherite extremist and homophobe long considered a washed up has-been) and Alain Juppé. Sarkozy was knocked out of the running. Fillon was way ahead with 44.2%, followed by Juppé (28.4%) and Sarkozy trailing with 20.7%, a humiliation-- albeit not totally unexpected-- for the former president. He says he'll vote for Fillon next week, as will Bruno Le Maire, who came in 4th. The 5th biggest vote-getter, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, said she's supporting Juppé.

There was no voting in Germany or the U.K., but there was plenty of election-related news. Angela Merkel announced she would run for a 4th term next September. She and her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are the symbol of the status quo and they have taken a string of electoral beatings over her open-door immigration policies. There's been a lot of speculation that she might opt out of running again but she seemed worried that that would make it easier for the wave of populism that's been sweeping Europe-- not to mention Trump, here in the U.S.-- to overtake Germany as well.

"I told the CDU that I was ready to stand again," she said. "This election will be even more difficult than those we have had before as we are facing a strong polarisation" in the community.

She drew a line between Germany and the US in describing as "grotesque" the recent election campaign. Merkel said that for her, political discussion was about engagement not "fighting" and "inciting hatred."

She said that for Germany the values of "democracy, freedom, and respect for human and individual rights," were central pillars of the democratic process.

...Her now famous “Wir schaffen das” ("We can do this") motto, has led to prolonged and at times heated confrontations with her Bavarian sister party, the CSU. Her refugee policies have also boosted the populist, right-wing Alternative for Germany Party (AfD), which draws support through harnessing community fears about migration and Muslims. In state elections this year, the AfD garnered up to a fifth of the popular vote.

But, as the world gears up for a turbulent year ahead, a growing number of German voters want Merkel to stay in office, according to a poll conducted on Sunday: 55 percent of those responded positively, compared to 42 percent in August.

She also received a glowing endorsement from outgoing President Barack Obama in Berlin this week. Germans, he said, should "appreciate" Merkel. If he were German, he added, he would support her. When asked what she made of talk about her being the last defender of the liberal world, Merkel gave one of her typical matter-of-fact responses: No one country could solve everything.

Merkel, on getting the election news

After The Donald won the election last week, she recognized his win-- if not congratulated him-- via Instagram. "Germany and America," read her message, too long for Twitter or Trump's attention span, "are bound by values-- democracy, freedom, as well as respect for the rule of law and the dignity of the individual, regardless of their origin, skin colour, creed, gender, sexual orientation or political views. On the basis of these values, I offer close cooperation to the future president of the United States of America, Donald Trump." It kind of sounded what infuriated Trumpanzee over the weekend when the cast of Hamilton voiced similar thoughts as Mike Pence scurried out of the theater. Trump attacked Merkel and her policies all during the campaign. She's also not a fan of Putin's top European supporter, Vladimir Putin, nor of Trump's protectionist trade agenda.

And the U.K., where the news was distinctly sour. Richard Kerbaj and Tim Shipman broke the story Sunday evening for London's Sunday Times that Tony Blair wants to get back and fuck up British politics some more. The 63 year old former New Labour Prime Minister (yes, the Conservative wing of the Labour Party) is bets remembered as Bush's poodle.

Blair hails from a lower middle class background and studied law after failing as a rock music promoter. He's never been in business as such but somehow his long political career has led him to possess a fortune of at least $90 million. So... it looks like that happens in other countries too.

Blair snuck into office in 1983 by deceiving the voters into believing he was a leftist. He wasn't. He immediately tried redefining socialism in a way that wouldn't conflict with capitalism. From his maiden speech in Parliament: "I am a socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for cooperation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality." His whole career was characterized by misleading anyone and everyone resulting in him eventually being forced out of office over his Iraq War lies. He even sucked up to Rupert Murdoch, stood as godfather to Murdoch and Wendi Deng's child and was later caught having an affair with Deng while she and Murdoch were still married. He's a real lowlife. He "worked" for JPMorgan Chase and other banksters-- as a glorified lobbyist-- after he left government. Many in the U.K. would like to see him tried as a war criminal. Instead, according to The Times report, he's "positioning himself to play a pivotal role in shaping Britain’s Brexit deal" and "scouting out a power base for an institute he's starting in Westminster.

Blair’s move has raised eyebrows among several members of the cabinet, who claim he has used meetings about the Middle East and aid to seek to extract information and influence the government’s Brexit plans.

A source who has discussed Brexit with Blair said: “He’s not impressed with Theresa May. He thinks she’s a total lightweight.

“He thinks Jeremy Corbyn is a nutter and the Tories are screwing up Brexit. He thinks there’s a massive hole in British politics that he can fill.”

Blair’s office denied that he had described either leader in this way.

Blair is due to meet May for coffee soon. But the prime minister’s aides believe he is part of an “unholy alliance” of former ministers who are determined to disrupt Brexit.

Last month Blair wrote in the New European newspaper that “remain” supporters should “mobilise and organise” an insurgency to make the public change its mind about leaving the EU. “Blair wants to show that he’s making a big comeback-- and what better way to do that than to weigh in on Brexit?” one insider said.

The former prime minister has recruited Jim Murphy, the former leader of Scottish Labour, to advise him on merging his charitable and business interests under one roof and “bolster the political clout” of his new organisation.

Blair’s interest in staying on the front line of politics was illustrated last week by his meeting with Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US president-elect Donald Trump.

It can also be revealed Blair has held talks with the former chancellor George Osborne. “Tony and George have been speaking and meeting and have had lots of conversations about the post-Brexit political climate,” a Whitehall source said.

...The two names currently being touted for the organisation are understood to be the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and the Tony Blair Centre for Global Change. After announcing in September the closure of his consultancy businesses-- Windrush Ventures, Firerush Ventures and Tony Blair Associates-- Blair is expected to launch his new organisation in January.

Murphy, who lost his East Renfrewshire seat to the Scottish National Party last year, is said to be receiving more than £200,000 for his role as a senior adviser. He is playing a key role with Catherine Rimmer, Blair’s chief of staff, and Angela Salt, the chief executive of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, in merging Blair’s charitable and commercial operations under one not-for-profit brand.

Blair’s office in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, along with his charity offices in Canary Wharf, east London, and Millbank, in central London, will be relocated to the new site.

A senior official said: “He’s been in and out to see a lot of senior people. He is clearly pushing trying to get an insight into government thinking on Brexit and to influence that.

“He’s trying to suck information out of the system. He wants to come in to talk about development or the Middle East and then he’ll pivot.”

One cabinet minister who received an invitation to visit Blair at his headquarters said: “It felt like a summons.”

An ex-cabinet minister familiar with the former Labour leader’s thinking, said: “Blair does think, as all former prime ministers do, that ministers are bogging up Brexit and if only I were in charge.”

One insider said: “He’s relinquished most of his financial interests because he was done with the negative headlines about his obsession with wealth and he’s remodelling himself. I think it’s fair to say that he sees himself as a global statesman in the Henry Kissinger mould.”

Kissinger, like Blair, is widely reviled as a war criminal, monster and enemy of humanity.

Is Jeremy Corbyn the only British pol who "gets" the significance of the apparent war crimes of Tony Blair & Co.?

One of these war criminals-in-chief is the Brits' problem; the other's ours.

"[A]s I’m sure you’ve noticed, the people who fear actual left-wingers or people of principle the most aren’t Tories, they are Blairites."

-- Ian Welsh, in "Blair et al. Committed War Crimes"

by Ken

Of course we shouldn't be talking just about British pols. A more urgent question for those of us on this side of the pond is how many American pols "get it"? The Chilcot Report, I gather, deals only with possible British war crimes in the grand Iraq adventure. (See Nick Hopkins's Guardian report, "Chilcot exposes how Blair kept ministers and generals in the dark.") However, is there any question that the ringleaders, the master-"minds," the orchestrators of both the war crimes and the lies formulated to both promote and conceal them, are our fellow Americans?

In some quick online chatter that Howie and Noah I did, Noah underscored the point:

If I had the big badge, I would hold a big package deal Nuremberg-style trial of ALL of the political and media scum who voted and propagandized to go to Iraq. I would do it on a reality TV channel and I would have a sliding scale of various punishments for the perps that would match their degree of blame (which the trial process would determine). My TV show would start with the minor punishments such as removal of finger and toe nails to removal of limbs and blinding such as our soldiers and the civilians had to suffer. Then, for the last week of my reality mini-series, I would have Blair, Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Kindasleaza, and Blair's seconds face real life Gladiators at Wimbledon. Dump their miserable remains at sea in the same place bin Laden was dumped; mass murderers all. That just seems fair and just to me.

I regret that criminals such as Blair, and Bush et al, who created the all too predictble fiasco in Iraq, and thus enabled and gave the world the cancer that is ISIS, which now has the dream of killing whole cites at a time, if not, yet, the means, have but one life to present for punishment up to and including exection for their crimes against all humanity. If we are to be a civilized world, trials are demanded and justice for the dead, justice for the terror and havoc being visited on the living, and justice for the future victims is a moral imperative. Oh, and let's not forget the oil companies.

Before venting, Noah had seconded my deferral to Ian Welsh's post yesterday, "Blair et al. Committed War Crimes." "So, the Chilcot report is out," he began, "and it’s not pretty." Then he cued Anushka Asthana, Rowena Mason, and Jessica Elgot's Guardian report ("Corbyn apologises after Labour's role in Iraq war 'laid bare' by Chilcot report"):

Jeremy Corbyn has apologised on behalf of the Labour party for its role in the 2003 Iraq war, and warned that the people who took the decisions “laid bare in the Chilcot report” must now face up to the consequences.
…

The Labour leader’s apology went further than he had earlier in parliament, when he responded to the Chilcot report after David Cameron. At that point, Corbyn called the war an “act of military aggression”, arguing that it was thought of as illegal “by the overwhelming weight of international legal opinion”. (emphasis added)

Corbyn said in his House of Commons speech that he had apologized to families of military servicemen and women who lost loved ones, Iraqi citizens and war veterans "for the decisions taken by our then government that led this country into a disastrous war," explaining --

It’s a disaster that occurred when my party was in government; 140 of my then colleagues in the parliamentary Labour party opposed it at the time, as did many many party members and trade unionists.

The Guardian team writes:

Corbyn said that many more Britons had said they regretted their votes, which they had cast in loyalty to the Labour government because of the intelligence that today’s report has “confirmed to be false”.

The Labour leader did not name Tony Blair, but said parliament had been misled by a “small number of leading figures in the government" who he said were “none too scrupulous” about how they made their case for war.

“Politicians and political parties can only grow stronger by acknowledging when they get it wrong and by facing up to their mistakes,” he said. “So I now apologise sincerely on behalf of my party for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq in March 2003.

“That apology is owed first of all to the people of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost, and the country is still living with the devastating consequences of the war and the forces it unleashed.” He said it was those people who had paid the greatest price.

Ian plucks out this bit from the Guardian report on Corbyn's apology:

As Corbyn issued his excoriating statement to the House of Commons, he was heckled by his own backbencher Ian Austin, who shouted: “Sit down and shut up, you’re a disgrace.”

Which he introduces thusly: "I very much hope this next man, who has far less worth than the toilet paper I clean myself with, is not a Labour candidate in the next election," explaining: "When you’re screaming at someone for apologizing for a war crime that is identical to that which many Nazi leaders were hung for, you’re officially a waste of human skin." He goes on:

Corbyn hasn’t actually called for “war crimes trial for Blair,” but he’s made the case. The European Criminal Court, being also basically worthless, had already said that they would not try Tony Blair, but might charge ordinary soldiers.

I have never had any respect for the ECC, whose mandate appears to involve prosecuting the politically powerless, especially Africans, and avoiding anyone with any influence. Justice as unevenly applied as the ECC applies it is not a step in the right direction, it is actually injustice. Saying that they would not charge Blair even before the Chilcot report was out simply confirmed the primacy of political over legal considerations for them.

Yet again, Corbyn has proved he is one of very few honorable people in a den of scum. May he become Prime Minister and, once Prime Minister, may he ensure Tony Blair and those who aided and abetted him in selling the Iraq war with lies, have the fair trial they so richly deserve.

Oh, and as usual, doing so is not just the right thing to do ethically, it would be the right thing to do politically, keeping Corbyn’s primary enemies completely occupied. Because, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the people who fear actual left-wingers or people of principle the most aren’t Tories, they are Blairites.

Now, as to our team of war criminals, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and the whole miserable crew . . . well, we don't even have a report to chew over, do we?


GLENN GREENWALD MUSES ON THE CHILCOT
REPORT AND THE CAUSES OF TERRORISM

Howie notes: "New Labour, like the New Dems, is confused about which side it's on -- other than whatever works to advance individual careers (their own)-- and has been relentlessly attacking Jeremy Corbyn since his loud and unswerving opposition to Blar's war. He also commends our attention to Glenn Greenwald's Intercept post today, "Chilcot Report and 7/7 London Bombing Anniversary Converge to Highlight Terrorism’s Causes," which begins (lots o' links onsite):

ELEVEN YEARS AGO today, three suicide bombers attacked the London subway and a bus and killed 51 people. Almost immediately, it was obvious that retaliation for Britain’s invasion and destruction of Iraq was a major motive for the attackers.

Two of them said exactly that in videotapes they left behind: The attacks “will continue and pick up strengths till you pull your soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq. … Until we feel security, you will be targets.” Then, less than a year later, a secret report from British military and intelligence chiefs concluded that “the war in Iraq contributed to the radicalization of the July 7 London bombers and is likely to continue to provoke extremism among British Muslims.” The secret report, leaked to The Observer, added: “Iraq is likely to be an important motivating factor for some time to come in the radicalization of British Muslims and for those extremists who view attacks against the U.K. as legitimate.”

The release on Tuesday of the massive Chilcot report — which the New York Times called a “devastating critique of Tony Blair” — not only offers more proof of this causal link, but also reveals that Blair was expressly warned before the invasion that his actions would provoke al Qaeda attacks on the U.K. As my colleague Jon Schwarz reported yesterday, the report’s executive summary quotes Blair confirming he was “aware” of a warning by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-U.S./anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the West.”

None of this is the slightest bit surprising. . . .

#

Evidently Tony Blair doesn't subscribe to the old proposition "Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies"

by Ken

If you believe that Tony Blair is "one of the most respected and admired world leaders of the last 50 years," you're going to seethe with envy that I got this e-mail from NYC's 92nd Street Y and you didn't. I got it, as the e-mail explained, "because you are a loyal patron of 92Y" -- by which they mean, I presume, that back in June 2011 I indeed bought a ticket for Keith Olbermann's lollapalooza of a tribute to James Thurber, one of my idols, with participants including Calvin Trillin, another of my idols. (And it was a grand night. I wrote about it here in a post called "Thurber Tonight -- special edition: At the 92nd Street Y Thurber 'do,' Keith O gives a virtuoso performance.")

Because of my loyal patronage, I was being extended an opportunity to purchase, "in advance of the general public," "up to two tickets" to the above-trumpeted event, at which your pal Tony will offer his "unparalleled analysis of the world’s most difficult and complex issues."

The prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2007, he now works to secure peace and prosperity in the Middle East, improve governance in Africa, find solutions to climate change and encourage understanding of world faiths. He talks with Rabbi Peter Rubinstein about his take on the current world situation, especially regarding the Middle East in crisis, extremism, governments and education.

Now I bet you're really eating your heart out!

In the event that you're motivated to wangle tickets for this great event -- priced, you'll note, "from $100.00" (can we not guess that from there the prices go up, not down?) -- it's only fair to advise, as the e-mail does:

Please note that for security purposes, all ticketholders’ names must be submitted at the time of purchase, and all ticketholders must bring a photo ID to the event. Tickets are non-transferable.

In addition, on the Y's event page we learn:

No backpacks, shopping bags, large handbags/purses/briefcases or cameras/recording devices will be permitted inside the building, and 92Y cannot provide storage of any such items.

Apparently there's concern that not all attendees may share your unflinching admiration for this "one of the most respected and admired world leaders of the last 50 years."


AS SO OFTEN HAPPENS IN MY LIFE . . .

News of this impending great event ricochets weirdly in my disorderly mental space. Seeing as how I am, as it happens, let's say "momentarily between jobs" (that's another whole story), I am finding this a good time to catch up on some of the John Le Carré books I somehow missed among the prodigious output of yet another favorite writer, and just now I'm reading the splendid 2003 offering Absolute Friends, whose immediate action -- though the novel also ranges back in time a couple of decades -- is the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which one character characterizes thusly (page 321 of the 2004 Back Bay paperback edition):

That war on Iraq was illegitimate, Mr. Mundy. It was a criminal and immoral conspiracy. No provocation, no link with Al Qaeda, no weapons of Armageddon. Tales of complicity between Saddam and Osama were self-serving bullshit. It was an old colonial oil war dressed up as a crusade for Western life and liberty, and it was launched by a clique of war-hungry Judeo-Christian geopolitical fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America's post-9/11 psychopathy.

Our speaker goes on:

All it takes for a war like that to start, Sasha tells me, is for a few good men to do nothing. Well, they did nothing Whether they're good men, that's another thing. The Democratic opposition did fuck-all. Stay home, sing patriotic songs till it's safe to come out, was their policy. Jesus Christ, what kind of opposition is that? What kind of moral courage?

Still later, in recognition of the nationality of the Mr. Mundy to whom he is speaking, our speaker adds -- and this is the reason I bring it up:

Forgive me, I am failing as a host. I was forgetting the vital role played by your British prime minister, without whom there might have been no war.

(In fact, I recall earlier on an even more caustic verbal assault on PM Blair, hurled at the same Mr. Mundy by the above-referenced Sasha. I don't feel up to trying to dig it out, though. It should be noted too that these are the views of the character(s) in question, not of the author. Still, I haven't found much indication that the author is in serious disagreement on these matters.)

Stuff that in your backpack, shopping bag, or large handbag/purse/briefcase.

#

They Walk Among You... And By "They," We Mean War Criminals

Ever hear of Kim Howells? His dad was a Communist lorry driver and young Kim was a good Welsh union man and a Communist himself, before joining the Labour Party in 1982. Seven years later he was elected to the House of Commons and gradually distanced himself from his communist roots, finally suggesting in 1996 that the word "socialism" ought to be "humanely phased out" of anything to do with the Labour Party. Pleased as punch, Tony Blair gave him a series of junior ministerial positions starting the following year, until, in 2005, Blair made him Minister of State for the Middle East in the Foreign Office. In a post at CounterPunch yesterday, From Pol Pot to ISIS: the Blood Never Dried, John Pilger happened to mention Howells.

It is 23 years since a holocaust enveloped Iraq, immediately after the first Gulf War, when the US and Britain hijacked the United Nations Security Council and imposed punitive "sanctions" on the Iraqi population-- ironically, reinforcing the domestic authority of Saddam Hussein. It was like a medieval siege. Almost everything that sustained a modern state was, in the jargon, "blocked"-- from chlorine for making the water supply safe to school pencils, parts for X-ray machines, common painkillers and drugs to combat previously unknown cancers carried in the dust from the southern battlefields contaminated with Depleted Uranium. Just before Christmas 1999, the Department of Trade and Industry in London restricted the export of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever. Kim Howells, parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Blair government, explained why. "The children’s vaccines," he said, "were capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction."

Pinger had nothing more to say about Howells in his essay. In fact, there were far worse villains than Howells sprinkled throughout-- Tony Blair himself, of course, and another Foreign Office minister responsible for Iraq under Blair, Peter Hain (lately Baron Hain), currently working as a propagandist embedded at The Guardian, striving hard on behalf of the establishment at character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn. But, in 2009, the former Communist Howells was knighted and is now known as the Right Honourable Kim Howells. Two years after that he was to receive an Honorary Doctorate but made some derogatory statements, publicly, about Libyan students studying in the U.K. being security risks. He eventually succumbed to widespread student pressure to withdraw from the ceremony. As far as I can find, that's the only "punishment" that particular little war criminal ever received.

Of course, we don't have to hunt up obscure British politicians to find criminals and crooks-- Hains was caught stealing £103,156 before he was made a Baron-- who escaped punishment. We have Cheney. We have Bush. Even the worst war criminal of all, Henry Kissinger, still walks among us. In fact, Pinger ends his essay with this paragraph:

More than 40 years ago, the Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Cambodia unleashed a torrent of suffering from which that country has never recovered. The same is true of the Blair-Bush crime in Iraq, and the Nato and "coalition" crimes in Libya and Syria. With impeccable timing, Henry Kissinger’s latest self-serving tome has been released with its satirical title, World Order. In one fawning review, Kissinger is described as a "key shaper of a world order that remained stable for a quarter of a century." Tell that to the people of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Chile, East Timor and all the other victims of his "statecraft."  Only when "we" recognise the war criminals in our midst and stop denying ourselves the truth will the blood begin to dry.

That these politicians go unpunished for their monstrous crimes against humanity, is outright encouragement for deranged sociopaths like, for example, Ted Cruz. Bad for America. Bad for humanity. But for the world.

GOP's Hyper-Partisan Benghazi Witch Hunt Is Blowing Up In Their Faces-- Spectacularly So

Once Grayson lodged a formal ethics complaint against Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Benghazi Committee chair Trey Gowdy-- much to the chagrin of House leadership (including decorous-Democrat Steny Hoyer)-- several things happened. Within 24 hours McCarthy withdrew his bid to follow Boehner as House Speaker and then Gowdy started trying to clean up the mess tying him to the hyper-partisanship inherent in his witch hunt against Hillary Clinton. He cancelled several fundraising events that were based on exploiting his work on the committee and last week-- six months after taking the loot-- Gowdy finally returned large "campaign contributions" he had taken from cronies of his who are connected to the Stop Hillary PAC, the one that has been running the horrific GOP ads exploiting the deaths of 4 Americans in Benghazi and trying--like Gowdy's committee-- to blame Clinton. The PAC raised nearly $800,000 using Gowdy's name and photo and a Gowdy associate pocketed a good deal of it-- hey, we're talking about Republicans here-- and about $100,000 went into the ad and thousands more were funneled into GOP campaigns-- like $10,000 worth of automated calls to voters in Gowdy's South Carolina congressional district on his behalf.

On Friday, Gowdy’s campaign returned three donations after the Washington Post inquired about links to a political action committee that aired a controversial ad about the Benghazi attacks during last week’s Democratic presidential debate.

The ad produced by the Alexandria, Va.-based Stop Hillary PAC showed images of the four Americans killed in Benghazi, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, as a narrator spoke in their voice: “Dear Hillary Clinton, I’d like to ask you why you ignored calls for help in Benghazi and then four Americans were murdered. . . . But Mrs. Clinton, I can’t.”

The PAC’s treasurer, Dan Backer, previously served as treasurer of a now-defunct fundraising committee affiliated with Gowdy. He is the treasurer of three other PACs-- the Conservative Action Fund, the Special Operations Speaks PAC and the Tea Party Leadership Fund-- that each donated $2,000 to Gowdy’s campaign on the same day in May.

...Backer’s role in Gowdy’s former “leadership PAC,” a fundraising vehicle commonly used to generate goodwill and influence by doling out money to favored colleagues and causes, represents another tie between the men.

...[T]he links had the Benghazi panel’s ranking Democrat, Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), fuming after they were disclosed Monday in the Washington Post: “These are shocking new revelations that directly contradict the promise we made to the families of the four brave Americans,” he said in a statement.

...“I think we should take the chairman at his invitation, which is judging the committee by its work, and its work has been obsessively focused on Secretary Clinton,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a panel member. “I think that ultimately Benghazi is going to become synonymous with the abuse of congressional process.”

Yesterday Senate Democrats started demanding that the RNC pay for the Benghazi Committee-- which has already wasted close to $5 million of their partisan bullshit and which several of them besides Gowdy are using as a tool for political fundraising. In a letter to the RNC, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer and Patty Murray wrote that "Over the past several weeks, several House Republicans have made clear what many observers have suspected all along: that the Select Committee has conducted a political inquisition aimed at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton... We firmly believe the Committee should be disbanded, and that every penny of taxpayer money that has financed this purely political committee ought to be repaid."

But what's really driving Gowdy and his co-conspirators insane is that their whole scheme is backfiring, and not just backfiring in general but backfiring in ways that are damaging the reputations of Gowdy and the other Republicans behind the attempt to derail Clinton. And, according to a brand new Associated Press-GfK pol, not only do nearly 8 in 10 Democrats say they have a positive opinion of Hillary, but that "Three quarters of Americans think Clinton could win in a general election, including two-thirds of Republicans" and that "less than half of Americans said they think any of the Republican candidates for president could win in a general election." It's almost like the more Gowdy pushed his hyper-partisan line, the more Americans rallied around Clinton. The committee's goals to derail her are not working-- and not working spectacularly.

Worse yet, on one level, by forcing out the e-mails on Clinton's private server, the British press has been reporting that Bush and Tony Blair were plotting to drag the U.S. and U.K. into an unprovoked war with Iraq long before they ever told the public that was what they were planning. Largely ignored by the U.S. media, the Brits are looking at bombshell memos and revelations that expose-- thanks to Gowdy-- the lies both leaders told in the sunup to the Iraq War.

The damning memo, from Secretary of State Colin Powell to President George Bush, was written on March 28, 2002, a week before Bush’s famous summit with Blair at his Crawford ranch in Texas.

In it, Powell tells Bush that Blair ‘will be with us’ on military action. Powell assures the President: ‘The UK will follow our lead.'

...A second explosive memo from the same cache also reveals how Bush used ‘spies’ in the Labour Party to help him to manipulate British public opinion in favour of the war.

The documents, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, are part of a batch of secret emails held on the private server of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton which U.S. courts have forced her to reveal.

Former Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: ‘The memos prove in explicit terms what many of us have believed all along: Tony Blair effectively agreed to act as a frontman for American foreign policy in advance of any decision by the House of Commons or the British Cabinet.

‘He was happy to launder George Bush’s policy on Iraq and sub-contract British foreign policy to another country without having the remotest ability to have any real influence over it. And in return for what?'

...The Powell document, headed ‘Secret... Memorandum for the President,' lifts the lid on how Blair and Bush secretly plotted the war behind closed doors at Crawford.

Powell says to Bush: ‘He will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause,’ adding that Blair has the presentational skills to ‘make a credible public case on current Iraqi threats to international peace.'

Five months after the summit, Downing Street produced the notorious ‘45 minutes from doom’ dossier on Saddam Hussein’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction. After Saddam was toppled, the dossier’s claims were exposed as bogus.

Nowhere in the memo is a diplomatic route suggested as the preferred option.

Instead, Powell says that Blair will also advise on how to ‘handle calls’ for the ‘blessing’ of the United Nations Security Council, and to ‘demonstrate that we have thought through “the day after” ’-- in other words, made adequate provision for a post-Saddam Iraq.

Critics of the war say that the lack of post-conflict planning has contributed to the loss of more than 100,000 lives since the invasion-- and a power vacuum which has contributed to the rise of Islamic State terrorism.

...The memo was included in a batch of 30,000 emails which were received by Mrs Clinton on her private server when she was US Secretary of State between 2009 and 2013.

Another document included in the email batch is a confidential briefing for Powell prepared by the U.S. Embassy in London, shortly before the Crawford summit.

The memo, dated ‘April 02’, includes a detailed assessment of the effect on Blair’s domestic position if he backs US military action.

The document says: ‘A sizeable number of his [Blair’s] MPs remain at present opposed to military action against Iraq... some would favor shifting from a policy of containment of Iraq if they had recent (and publicly usable) proof that Iraq is developing WMD/missiles... most seem to want some sort of UN endorsement for military action.

‘Blair’s challenge now is to judge the timing and evolution of America’s Iraq policy and to bring his party and the British people on board.

'There have been a few speculative pieces in the more feverish press about Labor [sic] unease re Iraq policy… which have gone on to identify the beginnings of a challenge to Blair’s leadership of the party.

'Former Cabinet member Peter Mandelson, still an insider, called it all "froth." Nonetheless, this is the first time since the 1997 election that such a story is even being printed.'

The paper draws on information given to it by Labour ‘spies,' whose identities have been hidden.

More bad news for Jeb Bush's faltering campaign-- courtesy of Trey Gowdy and the Republicans' latest obsessive Keystone Cops escapade against the Clintons.

UPDATE: GOP Will Pay A Price

Two new polls came out this morning. One in Iowa for the Des Moines Register shows that feelings for the efficacy of the Benghazi Committee run along party lines:

A national CNN/ORC poll found that most Americans agree-- by a lot-- that Gowdy's committee is overly partisan and using the investigation for political gain: