The Political Junkies
UPDATED: AUG 1, 2007
PUTTING OUT FIRE WITH GASOLINE
As noted in the TPJ article below, OIL & GUNS, Bush has negotiated a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Because that sale would be of utmost concern to Israel, Bush counters their potential objections by promising military aid to Israel.
Russia, with whom Bush has strained relations by moving forward with a missile defense schield in Europe, counters Bush’s Saudi military build-up by agreeing to sell state of the art fighter jets to Iran. The story:
In what looks to be its next move in the high stakes chess match against the United States, Iran is to purchase 250 Sukhoi-30 long-range fighter jets from Russia as part of a massive multi-billion dollar arms deal. Additionally, Iran will acquire several aerial fuel tankers that will effectively extend the range of the Sukhoi-30 fighters by thousands of kilometers — giving Iran the capability to launch long-range offensive strikes.
The Sukhoi-30 is a dual seat, multi-role fighter jet that has the ability to operate in poor weather conditions at great distances from home base. It has extensive combat capabilities including air patrol, air defense, ground attacks, enemy air defense suppression and air-to-air combat.
Philip Ewing, The Navy Times, makes all of the connections:
Russia has already supplied Iran with modern surface-to-air missile defense systems, intended to protect nuclear facilities from potential Israeli or American airstrikes. Russian officials have defended those sales, saying they are within their rights to sell any nation weapons for its self-defense.
The Jerusalem Post report appeared two days after the American press reported that President Bush wants to ramp up American arms sales to several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in a deal that could be worth as much as $20 billion, in the hopes of limiting the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East.
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman decried the Americans weapons deal Monday on a state-sponsored Web site.
“What the Persian Gulf region needs is stability and security,” said Mohammad-Ali Hosseini. “Americans have been trying to disturb it by selling weapons to the region.”
Bush is literally pouring gasoline on the fires that are already burning in the Middle East.
Message for Americans, Had enough?
HERE AGAIN
Former Vice President Walter Mondale pens a wonderful piece in the Washington Post detailing both the practical political and constitutional considerations that have emanated from Bush/Cheney’s stewardship:
The Founders created the vice presidency as a constitutional afterthought, solely to provide a president-in-reserve should the need arise. The only duty they specified was that the vice president should preside over the Senate. The office languished in obscurity and irrelevance for more than 150 years until Richard Nixon saw it as a platform from which to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 1960. That worked, and the office has been an effective launching pad for aspiring candidates since.
But it wasn't until Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency that the vice presidency took on a substantive role. Carter saw the office as an underused asset and set out to make the most of it. He gave me an office in the West Wing, unimpeded access to him and to the flow of information, and specific assignments at home and abroad. He asked me, as the only other nationally elected official, to be his adviser and partner on a range of issues.
Our relationship depended on trust, mutual respect and an acknowledgement that there was only one agenda to be served -- the president's. Every Monday the two of us met privately for lunch; we could, and did, talk candidly about virtually anything. By the end of four years we had completed the "executivization" of the vice presidency, ending two centuries of confusion, derision and irrelevance surrounding the office.
Subsequent administrations followed this pattern. George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle and Al Gore built their vice presidencies after this model, allowing for their different interests, experiences and capabilities as well as the needs of the presidents they served.
This all changed in 2001, and especially after Sept. 11, when Cheney set out to create a largely independent power center in the office of the vice president. His was an unprecedented attempt not only to shape administration policy but, alarmingly, to limit the policy options sent to the president. It is essential that a president know all the relevant facts and viable options before making decisions, yet Cheney has discarded the "honest broker" role he played as President Gerald Ford's chief of staff.
Through his vast government experience, through the friends he had been able to place in key positions and through his considerable political skills, he has been increasingly able to determine the answers to questions put to the president -- because he has been able to determine the questions. It was Cheney who persuaded President Bush to sign an order that denied access to any court by foreign terrorism suspects and Cheney who determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rather than subject his views to an established (and rational) vetting process, his practice has been to trust only his immediate staff before taking ideas directly to the president. Many of the ideas that Bush has subsequently bought into have proved offensive to the values of the Constitution and have been embarrassingly overturned by the courts.
The corollary to Cheney's zealous embrace of secrecy is his near total aversion to the notion of accountability. I've never seen a former member of the House of Representatives demonstrate such contempt for Congress -- even when it was controlled by his own party. His insistence on invoking executive privilege to block virtually every congressional request for information has been stupefying -- it's almost as if he denies the legitimacy of an equal branch of government. Nor does he exhibit much respect for public opinion, which amounts to indifference toward being held accountable by the people who elected him.
Whatever authority a vice president has is derived from the president under whom he serves. There are no powers inherent in the office; they must be delegated by the president. Somehow, not only has Cheney been given vast authority by President Bush -- including, apparently, the entire intelligence portfolio -- but he also pursues his own agenda. The real question is why the president allows this to happen.
Three decades ago we lived through another painful example of a White House exceeding its authority, lying to the American people, breaking the law and shrouding everything it did in secrecy. Watergate wrenched the country, and our constitutional system, like nothing before. We spent years trying to identify and absorb the lessons of this great excess. But here we are again.
Message for Americans: elect Democrats in 2008.
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UPDATED: JUL 29, 2007GONZALES’ PREVARACATIONS
Attorney General Gonzales’ appearances before the Senate Judiciary Committee (“SJC”) have been disasters for the Administration. For those who thought it could not get any worse – it did in Gonzales’ appearance this week.
Instead of extricating himself from the cloud of controversy surrounding his leadership at DOJ and that of Bush, Gonzales’ testimony raised profound new questions as to his now tarnished credibility. The SJC hearing closed with a growing number of SJC members calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate even more evidence that Gonzales committed perjury during his testimony.
The most recent revelation, in its simplest formulation, is that Gonzales had previously testified that there were no “serious” disagreements within the Bush Administration about its secret domestic surveillance program. The program at question is known as the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” or “TSP.”
Subsequent testimony by DOJ officials established that Gonzales, with others, tried to have a seriously ill Attorney General Ashcroft, who was under sedation at the time, to approve the secret program despite strenuous objections by DOJ staff as to certain features of the secret program. Gonzales contends that Ashcroft was approached because Congressional leaders wanted the TSP carried forward despite DOJ staff objections. Congressional leaders of both parties presumably gave their approval at a White House briefing on March 10, 2004.
Gonzales testimony immediately came into question. Senators attending the White House briefing for Congressional leaders deny that they approved of the program.
Challenged this week, Gonzales attempted to skirt the apparent inconstancy testifying that his “no serious disagreement” testimony was not in reference to TSP and that the only serious disagreements related to another secret domestic surveillance program; not TSP.
But Gonzales acknowledged this week that there in fact had been a sharp dispute between the White House and the Justice Department about “other intelligence activities” that he refused to describe. That dispute was so intense, Gonzales said, that the White House had convened an “emergency” briefing for eight congressional leaders at the White House Situation Room in March 2004 to inform them that these activities were about to expire unless the Justice Department changed its position.
If Gonzales’ testimony is to be believed, the March 10, 2004 White House briefing was not related to the TPP, but was related to another surveillance program that has not been disclosed to the American public. Gonzales is sticking to his testimony:
[A] Justice Department spokesman . . . pointed to a number of past statements in which Gonzales was careful to say that his claim that there had been no disagreements was restricted only to the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” that was “publicly confirmed by the President in December 2005.” . . . "The attorney general stands by his testimony.
Enter into the story two other Bush Administration officials who attended the March 10, 2004 White House briefing.
[A letter from] John Negroponte, as well as public testimony by CIA Director Michael Hayden, seems to contradict sworn testimony by Gonzales this week about a crucial intelligence briefing for congressional leaders on activities in the White House Situation Room on March 10, 2004. [Negroponte] specifically lists the March 10 meeting as one of a number of “briefings” about the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” . . .
[T]he little-noticed letter from Negroponte last year to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert appears to undermine Gonzales’s account. Dated May 17, 2006, the letter declassifies “the dates, locations and names of members of Congress who attended briefings on the Terrorist Surveillance Program.” It then lists a series of briefings for House and Senate leaders—including the chairs and ranking members of the intelligence committees—starting in the fall of 2001 and continuing through the spring of 2006.
Included in the list is the very same March 10, 2004, meeting that Gonzales testified this week involved disagreements about other intelligence activities.
The day after Negroponte sent the letter, Michael Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation to be CIA director. He, too, described the March 10, 2004, briefing for congressional leaders and another one the next day for House Majority Leader Tom Delay.
“This is all on the warrantless surveillance program. Is that right?”
Sen. Orrin Hatch asked Hayden, during the May 18, 2006 hearing.
“Yes, sir,” Hayden replied.
Several critical points emerge. First, is there a second secret surveillance program? If so, was it lawfully authorized by Congress? Second, is Gonzales simply “obfuscating” his previous testimony that appears to have been false? If so, has he committed perjury?
The Palm Beach Post correctly assesses situation in this editorial passage:
Why would Mr. Gonzales lie? To try to wriggle out from under a previous lie. Mr. Gonzales has claimed that there was no serious internal objection to the wiretapping, which the administration refers to as the Terror Surveillance Program, or TSP. In fact, there was great resistance within the Justice Department, and the briefing was part of the administration's attempt to overcome that resistance.
Mr. Gonzales also was trying to undermine testimony from former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, source of the anecdote depicting Mr. Gonzales on a late-night visit to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room in a failed attempt to get the incapacitated Mr. Ashcroft to overrule Mr. Comey's objections to the wiretaps. Mr. Gonzales maintains that there was no need to try to hijack Mr. Ashcroft because there was no disagreement on the wiretaps. That is as believable as his claim that he was not involved in the political firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
Mr. Gonzales insists that he won't quit, and President Bush says he won't fire him. On that narrow point, the country would be better off if they weren't telling the truth.
In TPJ’s view, the Palm Beach Post is correct; Bush will not fire Gonzales and Gonzales will not resign. He cannot. Gonzales is Bush’s cork in the bottle keeping the growing pressure of Bush’s constitutional deprivations contained, at least at the moment. If Gonzales falls, Americans may well see an explosion of Administration scandals unprecedented in American history.
VETO
The facts are simple.
More Americans than ever do not have health insurance. “Fewer employees receive health insurance through their employers now than in the past, as coverage has declined from 61.5% in 1989 to 58.9% in 2000 and down to 55.9% in 2004 (the latest data available). Less well known is the fact that those who still receive employer-provided coverage are now paying a larger share of those insurance costs.” For children needing health insurance, the situation is dire as these facts attest:
1. 9 million children are still uninsured.
2. The White House estimates that 1.1 million currently uninsured children are eligible for SCHIP or Medicaid...
3. ... But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 5 million to 6 million currently uninsured children are eligible for SCHIP or Medicaid.
Democrats in US Senate reached a bipartisan consensus with Republicans to expand SCHIP to more children (emphasis added):
The Senate
Finance Committee on Thursday voted 17-4 to approve legislation that would
reauthorize SCHIP and increase funding for the program by $35 billion over
five years, the
Los Angeles Times reports (Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times,
7/20). SCHIP expires on Sept. 30. Committee members on July 13 finalized an
agreement on SCHIP reauthorization that would increase five-year funding for
the program from $25 billion to $60 billion by raising the federal cigarette
tax from 39 cents to $1 per pack.
Under the plan -- negotiated by committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.),
ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and members Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and
Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) -- the 6.6 million children currently enrolled in
SCHIP would continue to receive benefits, and an additional 3.3
million children could be enrolled in the program.
The US House is considering legislation that would expand the number of children in the program even further. The expansion would be paid for through a sizable increase in the Federal tax on cigarettes.
Bush has announced that he will veto the legislation.
The Indy Star editorially takes Bush to task:
Opposing SCHIP is pretty much unsupportable, because SCHIP works. It gets kids to doctors and vaccination sites before they get seriously ill, keeps them out of emergency rooms for problems that should not have become emergencies and keeps them in school where they stand their best chance of not staying poor. Opposing the expansion of SCHIP limits the number of these children who do not get left behind.
Given the magnitude of some appropriations the Bush administration has approved and advocated, the hard line on children's health funding reflects an odd alignment of priorities. If special interests are at play here, then it is up to the legislative branch to heed the most special interest group of all and put together an adequate and veto-proof investment in the future.
In a Marie Antoinette moment, Bush tells Americans expansion of government health care is not needed because:
“people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
Dr. Todd Huffman, responds:
Sure, and the rich and poor alike are free to sleep under bridges, too.
. . . Was Bush’s line ad libbed, or did somebody actually write that line for him? My guess is the latter. The idea that “there is plenty of free health care in emergency rooms” has been tested, pushed, and refined by right-wing think tanks for several years. Last week, it finally percolated its way to the top, and blew out through Bush’s ignorant mouth.
Could Bush really believe that emergency rooms are a great way of providing medical care for poor people? If he does, then this statement is the latest in a long line of Republican presidential gaffes that reveal how utterly out of touch these bluebloods are with the reality of everyday life (as if we didn’t already know that, but couldn’t they at least just pretend?).
Message to Americans; there are good reasons to be a Democrat.
Crude oil prices have crossed $77.00 a barrel.
Oil prices closed over $77 a barrel, near an all-time high on Friday on technical buying and news of faster-than-expected economic growth.
The future may hold crude prices that reach $100.00 a barrel (emphasis added):
The $100-a-barrel oil that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said would prevail by 2009 may be only a few months away.
Jeffrey Currie, a London-based commodity analyst at the world's biggest securities firm, says $95 crude is likely this year unless OPEC unexpectedly increases production, and declining inventories are raising the chances for $100 oil. Jeff Rubin at CIBC World Markets predicts $100 a barrel as soon as next year.
``We're only a headline of significance away from $100 oil,'' said John Kilduff, an analyst in the New York office of futures broker Man Financial Inc. ``The unrelenting pressure of increased demand has left the market a coiled spring.'' New disruptions of Nigerian or Iraqi supplies, or any military strike against Iran, might trigger the rise, Kilduff said in a July 20 interview. . . .
A record number of options have been sold that give the buyer the right to buy crude oil at $100. The contracts, covering 50 million barrels, only pay off should oil go above the target price. . . .
``Ultimately, the key to the outlook going forward is when will Saudi Arabia ramp up production,'' he said in an interview. ``If you have a situation in which inventories globally get drawn to critically low levels, the volatility in this market is likely to explode, which significantly increases the probability of $100 oil.'' Oil might slip to $73.50 if OPEC were to start producing more now, he said.
While Goldman Sachs and oil consuming governments believe there is a need for increased production of oil, the House of Saud disagrees:
Major consumer governments represented by the International Energy Agency have urged the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost production to cool prices.
But OPEC ministers have refused.
Naimi said the kingdom stood ready to raise production, but the demand was not there to justify such a move.
"Saudi Arabia definitely has the spare capacity to do so, but you can't put oil on the market without a buyer," he said.
"Nobody today is looking for additional crude because all you have to do is look at the level of inventories which are in a very, very comfortable position."
U.S. crude stocks are at a 9-year high. . . .
OPEC, which pumps more than a third of the world's oil, next meets in September to chart output policy. Some officials have suggested the exporters may have no reason to change tack then.
As tensions develop between production and prices; Bush announces an arms sales package to Saudi Arabia and its neighbors:
The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.
The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.
But administration officials remained concerned that the size of the package and the advanced weaponry it contains, as well as broader concerns about Saudi Arabia’s role in Iraq, could prompt Saudi critics in Congress to oppose the package when Congress is formally notified about the deal this fall.
In talks about the package, the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package, the officials said.
The officials said the plan to bolster the militaries of Persian Gulf countries is part of an American strategy to contain the growing power of Iran in the region and to demonstrate that, no matter what happens in Iraq, Washington remains committed to its longtime Arab allies.
Opposition to Bush’s armament proposal immediately surfaces:
The Bush administration's plan to sell $20 billion in advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia and five other Persian Gulf countries is running into congressional opposition and criticism from human rights and arms control groups.
Members of Congress vowed yesterday to oppose any deal to Saudi Arabia on grounds that the kingdom has been unhelpful in Iraq and unreliable at fighting terrorism. King Abdullah has called the U.S. military presence in Iraq an "illegitimate occupation," and the Saudis have been either unable or unwilling to stop suicide bombers who have ended up in Iraq, congressional sources say.
U.S. officials acknowledged that congressional reaction has been mixed but cautioned that details of a broader arms package -- including $30 billion in military aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over the next 10 years -- have yet to be released. "As we move forward, we will work very closely with Congress, as well as our friends and allies in the region," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
But Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was briefed on the deal Tuesday, said he had several reservations. "This is not a sale at Macy's that you go in and buy a bunch of stuff. There are a complex set of relationships behind it, and while it's very desirable to have the Saudis and others recognize that Iran is an existential threat, there is also a degree of responsibility that they have to show on broader U.S. foreign policy interests," he said in an interview.
In the context of the arms deals, Lantos said the oil-rich countries should use windfall profits from high oil prices to cover the expenses of Iraqi refugees who have flooded Jordan. Saudi Arabia should not try to re-broker reconciliation between Palestinian moderates and militants, he added, and Qatar should look at the television network al-Jazeera's role in the region.
Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said yesterday that they will introduce a joint resolution of disapproval to block the deals when Congress is formally notified. They have seven Democratic co-sponsors.
In an interview, Weiner said any arms proposal would find broad bipartisan opposition on the Hill. "The reputation of the Saudis has taken quite a beating since 9/11, and despite the fact that the administration has done everything to portray them as part of the moderate Arab world, members of Congress of both parties are increasingly skeptical."
As this political scenario develops, can Congress realistically reject the Saudi’s bid to buy arms? The hard reality is that Saudi oil production gives their government extensive control over America’s energy security; if Congress says no the Saudis can simply express their disapproval by simply failing to increase oil production. Oil heads to $100.00 a barrel sooner rather than later and the American economy is brought to its knees.
The political power of oil cannot be underestimated. In England, an official investigation of illegal bribes by a UK arms dealer paid to the Saudis was recently stopped. The outline of the story:
The Serious Fraud Office's reputation for tackling corruption has been damaged by the BAE Systems arms deal controversy, its director admitted today.
Robert Wardle told MPs it was "very disappointing" to have to drop his investigation into claims that Britain's biggest arms manufacturer made improper payments to Saudi Arabian officials.
But he insisted he would take the same decision again if faced with evidence that proceeding with such a case would damage Britain's national security.
"Has it damaged our reputation for dealing with corruption? I think it probably has," Mr Wardle told the all-party constitutional affairs select committee. "Of course it has, but it was an exceptional case in exceptional circumstances."
UK officials believed there was a danger that Saudi authorities would withdraw cooperation over counter-terrorism and other intelligence issues if the SFO continued to probe Swiss bank accounts in connection with the allegations, Mr Wardle said.
Americans can expect that Bush’s arms sales package will be approved in some form; with a corresponding arms sales package to Israel.
Last Update: 08/05/2007