As Randy “Duke” Cunningham faces sentencing today, federal investigators take a closer look at his connections to the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), “the Pentagon’s newest and fastest-growing intelligence agency.” “In pre-sentencing documents filed this week, prosecutors said that in fiscal 2003 legislation, Cunningham set aside, or earmarked, $6.3 million for work to be done ‘to benefit’ CIFA shortly after the agency was created. The contract went to MZM Inc., a company run by Mitchell J. Wade, who recently pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Cunningham.” Update: 8 years, 4 months.
Category: GOP
Not exactly the comfy chair.
“‘These allegations…describe disgusting treatment, that if proven, is treatment that is cruel, profoundly disturbing and violative of’ U.S. and foreign treaties banning torture, [U.S. District Judge Gladys] Kessler told the government’s lawyers.” So what happened to “we don’t torture?” Lawyers for the administration fight allegations of abuse at Gitmo (involving force-feeding and a restraint chair) — not by saying it didn’t happen — but by arguing instead that the recent McCain bill doesn’t apply there. “‘Unfortunately, I think the government’s right; it’s a correct reading of the law,’ said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. ‘The law says you can’t torture detainees at Guantanamo, but it also says you can’t enforce that law in the courts.'”
Briefing Encounter.
“‘This makes it perfectly clear once again that this disaster was not out of the blue or unforeseeable,’ said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.)…’It was not only predictable, it was actually predicted. That’s what makes the failures in response — at the local, state and federal level — all the more outrageous.'” A newly released video shows a typically incurious Dubya being warned — before Katrina hit — that the New Orleans levees might break. Of course, we already knew Dubya lied about the levees, but, still, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Office Spaced / Abramoff the Table?
The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which has recently been looking into lobbying reform, votes 11-5 on an amendment by George Voinovich (R-OH) to prevent the creation of an independent ethics office. (Three Dems joined the Republicans, minus Chair Susan Collins, to kill the plan.) While Voinovich claims an independent office would be redundant given the Senate Ethics Committee (which he chairs), watchdog groups such as Public Citizen are livid, and John McCain has already suggested he’ll likely renew the idea on the Senate floor.
Still, reformers face a serious challenge in the growing audacity of the GOP, who are banking on the Casino Jack story not catching fire outside the Beltway: “[A]s the legislation has evolved and Abramoff has faded from the headlines, calls for bans have grown scarce, and expanded disclosure has become the centerpiece of the efforts underway.” Nevertheless, the Republicans are playing with fire: The ballad of Casino Jack plays on, as attested by prosecutors recently subpoenaing travel agency records of a 2000 DeLay-Abramoff boondoggle to Britain.
Fox’s Poll Position.
For those who doubt the impartiality of the recent CBS poll, the fair-and-balanced gurus of FOX News have similarly bad news for the GOP, with Bush at a 39% approval rating (54% disapprove), and America preferring a Democratic Congress in November by 14 points (45-31%). Update: LA Times/Bloomberg clocks Dubya at 38%.
Tel Aviv Tea and Moscow Moolah.
File this one next to Red Scorpion: The Boston Globe uncovers that, among Casino Jack’s various other projects, Abramoff wanted to dig for oil in Israel, and had established a company, First Gate Resources, with some Russian investors to do so. It seems these investors, “energy company executives of a Moscow firm called Naftasib,” may also have paid for a 1997 DeLay-Abramoff boondoggle to Moscow. Also, the Feds “have sought information about Naftasib’s interest in congressional support for Russian projects financed through the International Monetary Fund.” The plot thickens…
But wait, it gets worse.
“I did not and could not address…any other classified intelligence activities.” In a letter clarifying his recent Senate testimony on the NSA wiretaps, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales hints at a broader warrantless spying program than has yet been acknowledged. “‘It seems to me he is conceding that there are other NSA surveillance programs ongoing that the president hasn’t told anyone about,’ said Bruce Fein, a government lawyer in the Nixon, Carter and Reagan administrations.” Update: Gonzales tells Jane Harman that’s all there is.
Used to be my homies.
“While he remains sympathetic to the democracy-spreading mission, Fukuyama castigates the unilateral and militaristic turns that gave us such concepts as ‘preventive war,’ ‘benevolent hegemony,’ and ‘regime change.’ Neoconservatives, he contends, have abandoned their fundamental political insight, namely that ambitious schemes to remake societies are doomed to disappointment, failure, and unintended consequences. ‘Opposition to utopian social engineering,’ Fukuyama writes ‘…is the most enduring thread running through the movement.’ Yet neoconservatives today are bogged down in an attempt to remake a poorly understood, catastrophically damaged, and deeply alien semi-country in the Middle East. How did these smart people stray — and lead the country — so far off course?“
Um, well, maybe ’cause a lot of ’em read Fukuyama’s The End of History back in the day? Jacob Weisberg reviews Francis Fukuyama’s new book, America at the Crossroads, and, while it’s good to see principled conservatives take this administration’s egregiously inept Iraq policy to task, it’s also hard to believe that the neocons didn’t share Fukuyama’s earlier contention going in that “the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government” was both an historical inevitability and in full flourish. Fukuyama can play the aggrieved realist now, but that’s definitely not how he made a name for himself.
Surrender, Democrats.
“‘The die has now been cast,’ acknowledged the law’s chief opponent, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis….’Obviously at this point, final passage of the reauthorization bill is now assured.‘” As expected, most Senate Dems — no doubt aiming to protect their national security flank in the upcoming elections — join in voting 84-15 to end another Feingold filibuster, thus sending the barely-revised Patriot Act along for likely passage. “‘No one has the right to turn this body into a rubber stamp,’ said Feingold, the leading opponent of the law in Congress. ‘The White House played hardball and the decision was made by some to capitulate.‘” Good God, our party is pathetic at times. Update: The Senate passes the Patriot Act, 89-10.
Earmarks to the Ground.
In round one of the Senate legislative response to Casino Jack, Trent Lott circulates a reform bill that would stifle earmarks and mandate the disclosure of meals paid for by lobbyists. Well, it’s a start…but for now, Dems seem wary of the bill, “which seemed to be less stringent on several points than legislation they have proposed.”