A former top official in the White House's faith-based office was awarded a lucrative Department of Justice grant under pressure from two senior Bush administration appointees, according to current and former DOJ staff members and a review of internal DOJ documents and emails.
The $1.2 million grant was jointly awarded to a consulting firm run by Lisa Trevino Cummins who previously headed Hispanic outreach efforts for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and a California evangelical group, Victory Outreach.
The grant was awarded over the strong objections of career DOJ staff who did not believe that Victory Outreach was qualified for the grant and that too great an amount of the funds was going to Cummins' consulting company instead of being spent on services for children.
Cummins' company, Urban Strategies LLC, was slated to get one third of the money for helping the self-described "evangelizing" Victory Outreach use the rest of the funds.
On its website, Victory Outreach describes itself as a "church-oriented Christian ministry called to the task of evangelizing and disciplining the hurting people of the world, with the message of hope and plan of Jesus Christ."
Most people know, at this point, that we went to Iraq based on public information that was profoundly wrong -- some almost certainly intentionally so. What isn't as well known is that the problems of intelligence, analysis, governance, and management that got us in continue to plague current US efforts. In a post that absolutely reflects my experience as an intelligence officer with DoD, working on (and in) Iraq, former CIA officer and counter-terrorism expert Larry Johnson reports this anecdote:
A old friend of my just deployed to Iraq. His unit will be carrying out a mission that involves psychological operations. Guess how many Arabic speakers are in the unit? None. Guess how many weeks of training they received on Iraq, Islam, and Arabic cultural sensitivities? NONE!! But we want these soldiers to go into a foreign combat theater and help shape the hearts and minds of a foreign people. This, in a nutshell, highlights why we are making so little progress in Iraq.
For all the talk by some about how Iraq is so central to our national security, they sure seem weirdly uninterested in allocating the proper resources, training, and strategy to help make things better. This, incidentally, is one of the main points of my book, Still Broken, which comes out in just over a month; more on that in the coming weeks.
This is an interesting exploration of the lessons (and motivations) of the "surge" in Iraq by way of a classic econ experiment. The Econ 101 game is simple, the lessons readily apparent:
Economics professors have a standard game they use to demonstrate how apparently rational decisions can create a disastrous result. They call it a "dollar auction." The rules are simple. The professor offers a dollar for sale to the highest bidder, with only one wrinkle: the second-highest bidder has to pay up on their losing bid as well. Several students almost always get sucked in. The first bids a penny, looking to make 99 cents. The second bids 2 cents, the third 3 cents, and so on, each feeling they have a chance at something good on the cheap. The early stages are fun, and the bidders wonder what possessed the professor to be willing to lose some money.
The problem surfaces when the bidders get up close to a dollar. After 99 cents the last vestige of profitability disappears, but the bidding continues between the two highest players. They now realize that they stand to lose no matter what, but that they can still buffer their losses by winning the dollar. They just have to outlast the other player. Following this strategy, the two hapless students usually run the bid up several dollars, turning the apparent shot at easy money into a ghastly battle of spiraling disaster.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Although it's not quite the limited, objective, painless experiment of academia when lives -- thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- are the stakes. Spiraling disaster indeed. The author makes the comparison explicit with a further examination of how the war continues to develop:
America is long past the possibility of some kind of profitable outcome in Iraq. Neo-con dreams of a quick, cheap victory, delivering democracy and peace and self-financed from Iraq's own oil revenue, got us started on this misadventure. Like the students, the early bidding seemed like a fun adventure to the boys in the Bush administration. "Bring 'em on," the chief boy said about the other bidders. And like the economics class, suddenly we were in the thing up to our necks, with only bad choices available at an ever-escalating cost.
The administration's goal is keeping the electorate pacified and the game in motion. Emphasize the cost already paid and the further cost of throwing in the towel. Promise that the other side is showing signs of exhaustion — remember Dick Cheney and the few "dead-enders?" Like the man riding the tiger, Bush and company believe they are OK so long as they don't fall off. If the regular dollar auction is irrationality in action, U.S. politics make our Iraq policy irrationality on steroids.
A combination of willful ignorance, escalating costs, and no accountability to voters (or anyone else, it seems) have converged in the Bush administration's Iraq policy. It' really quite horrifying.
If Gonzales is replaced by Homeland Insecurity head Michael Chertoff, CNN reports sources say that DHS will be headed up by Clay Johnson III, the Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget.
It would be yet another hack appointment, a friend of Bush, completely unqualified to defend the homeland, as it were. Think Progress:
Johnson, who has no homeland security experience, is a professional Bush loyalist. While Johnson may have familiarity with some aspects of DHS's budget, he appears to have no experience in the many responsibilities of the department, including immigration, air travel security, disaster response, and other aspects of our nation’s homeland defense.
Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.
The Bush administration assault on freedom of speech continues, but the government ended up on the short end of the stick this time. Nicole and Jeffery Rank of Corpus Christi, Texas, were handcuffed and tossed out of an Independence Day rally at the West Virginia state Capitol, where Bush delivered a speech. Their "crime"?
The front of the Ranks' homemade T-shirts bore the international symbol for "no" superimposed over the word "Bush." The back of Nicole Rank's T-shirt said "Love America, Hate Bush." On the back of Jeffery Rank's T-shirt was the message "Regime Change Starts at Home."
A White House spokesman said the $80K settlement was "not an admission of wrongdoing."
The other news about the settlement, however, is that some of the contents of a purported "sensitive" Presidential Advance Manual have been revealed, which, as ABC's Blotter reports, "laid out the White House's meticulous efforts to protect the president and his public image from dissent." Some nuggets:
"As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event," the manual instructs. The government turned over a heavily redacted version of the manual to the ACLU in the course of the lawsuit.
The first step to keeping demonstrators out of events, the manual tells the president's event staff, is to encourage the Secret Service to "ask the local police department to designate a protest area...preferably not in view of the event site or the motorcade route."
Inside the event space, the manual advises, White House advance personnel should preposition "rally squads" that can swarm any protesters at the event and "use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform." The rally squads can be formed using "college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities," the manual notes.
He says that he can't go the distance with Dear Leader -- it's all about the Benjamins. (via Think Progress):
I've already made it clear I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons. I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go.
Snow also noted that he expects "probably a couple" of other resignations are in the wind.
I'm sure Faux News will [officially] welcome him back into the fold.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could see his influence over death penalty decisions increase under new regulations expected to be approved soon by the Justice Department, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Implementing a "little-noticed provision in last year's reauthorization of the Patriot Act," the Justice Department rules give Gonzales authority that had previously been held by federal judges to decide whether states are providing adequate council for defendants in death penalty cases, according to the Times.
"The move to shorten the appeals process and effectively speed up executions comes at a time of growing national concern about the fairness of the death penalty, underscored by the use of DNA testing to establish the innocence of more than a dozen death row inmates in recent years," reports Richard B. Schmitt in the Times Tuesday.
Imagine that people in this criminal administration are finally going to be held accountable for their actions. Name the top five 10 Bush administration officials you want to see do hard time (and not in Club Fed). Again, I know this is a tough one, since there are so many of them -- at least I gave you five slots, rather than three this time. :)
How about a question of the day for you all, in between links and blogwhoring:
What are your top three outrages perpetrated by the Bush Administration? I know, I know, it's almost impossible to keep it to three, but take a crack at it -- Iraq, Katrina, the Plame/CIA leak, torture is A-OK, Abu Ghraib, Habeus Corpus, Libby's pardon, Supreme Court picks, warrentless wiretapping, faith-based programs, ignoring/working to deny climate change, EPA lies about toxicity at Ground Zero, conditions at Walter Reed; endless "signing statements," ludicrous claims of executive privilege, Gonzogate, lack of body armor, training and supplies for the troops; the elections and voter disenfranchisement; Dick Cheney shooting a friend in the face and the attempted coverup...good grief, where to begin?
[NOTE FROM JOHN: Bush has been taking 9 weeks a year vacation. That's more than the French, who get around 6 weeks a year. Nine weeks a year, folks. On your dime. No wonder the Iraqi parliament is taking the month off - they've learned from the best.]
That's why George W. Bush is on track to break the Ronald Reagan's record for taking the most paid time off on your dime. I guess you could look at it this way -- the more he's on vacation, the less damage he can do to the country. (Houston Chronicle):
On Thursday, Bush left for a weekend in Kennebunkport, Maine, and his family's summer compound, Walker's Point. On Monday, he heads to his Crawford retreat, where he has spent all or part of 418 days of his presidency, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS News White House correspondent and meticulous record-keeper.
...The presidential vacation-time record holder is the late Ronald Reagan, who tallied 436 days in his two terms. At 418 days, and with 17 months to go in his presidency, Bush is going to beat that easily.
...A recent survey by Yahoo Hot Jobs found nearly half of American workers did not take all of their vacation days last year.
Nice to know he's getting tanned, rested and ready while men and women are working in 110-degree heat in Iraq and getting blasted by IEDs.
Remember, the president also told Nebraska resident Mary Mornin, in her late 50s, and raising three kids -- one mentally challenged this in 2005:
MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.
THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?
MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)
In the U.S., the debate about Iraq is, understandably, focused on troop presence: whether/when we should redeploy troops, and how to do it. As most people know, not a single Republican presidential candidate (other than Ron Paul) wants to reduce force levels; not a single Democratic candidate wants to keep the troop number as high as it is now. Pretty straightforward.
But there is still over a year before somebody else takes over, and in the meantime, our policies in Iraq and the greater Middle East are horrendous. It's not just the escalation, it's political efforts, both through the military and purely diplomatically. Earlier this week, for example, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki visited Iran, and the U.S. exploited his absence by bombarding Sadr City, a Shia section of Baghdad, with helicopter gunships and armored vehicles.
Sadr City is, unsurprisingly, the main source of support for the Sadrist political party (as well as the Sadrist Mahdi Militia), and while their support for Maliki is tenuous at best, if they truly turned against the national government, rather than just focusing their ire on the U.S., the results would be an even more explosive civil war (Shia vs. Shia) than already exists. The raid was apparently unsanctioned by the Baghdad government, and the renewed American effort against Shia groups is a real problem for Maliki. There is not a single relevant Shia militia that could be considered "anti-government" (as opposed to anti-U.S.), so American efforts against Shia militants is almost purely a U.S. issue. Shia groups do go after Sunnis, but we're not fighting all those Shia groups -- we don't seem to have a problem with the Badr Brigades, for example -- just the anti-American ones.
Regionally, McClatchy Newspapers, which has been a rare beacon of accurate reporting throughout the past several years, reports that Vice President Cheney is advocating a military strike on Iran. I simply cannot describe how horrific an idea this is. That's not a knee-jerk reaction, it's not a partisan response, and I'm no pacifist: on purely policy grounds, it is almost impossible to overstate the damage to U.S. interests that would result from bombing Iran. It would not accomplish a single benefit.
It would not stem Iranian influence in Iraq, and it certainly wouldn't reduce attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- indeed, it would almost certainly spark a massive Shia reaction, motivating groups that have thus far avoided open conflict with the U.S. The response from Badr and Mahdi in particular could be devastating -- and for what? To what end? It would not end the Iranian nuclear program; after Osirak (when Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear facility), nations started putting their nuclear operations largely out of reach of those types of attacks.
The escalation was supposed to provide time for beneficial political developments in Iraq, not dangerous and harmful political developments in the Bush administration. It's quite a debacle.
WaPo reports today that the Pentagon has "lost track of" nearly 200,000 guns in Iraq. Fully 30% of the weapons distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 to earlier this year are unaccounted for.
The incompetence of administration leadership continues to infuriate, if not surprise. Some of these arms have certainly fallen into the hands of insurgents, with the rest probably going to sectarian militias such as the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Militia. Our soldiers, then, are fighting an enemy equipped by U.S. taxpayers.
Recently a person I trust told me that Iraq is currently a net exporter of weapons. That is, despite the war(s) raging within, and the necessity of staying supplied for those conflicts, there are so many weapons that more guns are being sold and exported than are coming in. I don't have any way of independently verifying that, but if true (or even close to true), it is yet another reason why the Iraq war is hurting the security of the U.S., its citizens, and the world.
I'm sure there are dozens of people responsible for this debacle, but one stands out:
[T]he GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.
But . . . but . . . General Petraeus was supposed to fix everything -- all the serious people in Washington told me so! It makes me glad I'm no longer at DoD; considering what we threaten to do to Iran and Syria without any hard evidence of wrongdoing, Bush will probably bomb the Pentagon when he hears about this.
Incidentally, lest you think this is a general problem with weapons disbursement, or even just a general military problem, you should know that we distributed $100 million worth of defense equipment in Bosnia, and the GAO found no problems in accounting for those weapons.
No warrants necessary. And the Dems let him have it. (NYT):
President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.
Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.
They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.
...Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States....
By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.
For example, if a person in Indianapolis calls someone in London, the National Security Agency can eavesdrop on that conversation without a warrant, as long as the N.S.A.’s target is the person in London.
"All [the government have] to do is claim that the real target is the foreigner and that a 'significant purpose' of the eavesdropping is related to intelligence gathering. Not terrorism, mind you, just intelligence generically. What's more, they don't even have to go to the minimal trouble of making that claim to a court. They can just make it and approve it themselves. So that's that. The government is now legally allowed to monitor all your calls overseas with only the most minimal oversight. But don't worry. I'm sure they'll never misuse this power. They never have before, have they?"
Did anyone think he'd actually show, given the continual corruption, lies and obfuscation coming out of this White House? (Raw Story):
White House senior adviser Karl Rove has rebuked a Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena and will not appear Thursday to testify about his role in the firing of nine US Attorneys, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said late Wednesday.
...The House Judiciary Committee initiated criminal contempt of Congress charges against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton last month after they refused to comply with subpoenas demanding their testimony.
It remains unclear whether Rove will face similar charges. A Judiciary Committee spokeswoman told RAW STORY Wednesday night that if Rove followed through in refusing to testify, the committee could decide to issue criminal charges later. The aide said no decisions had been made yet.
And what would be the reason NOT to bring the hammer down on Turdblossom?
With potential perjury accusations hanging over him, embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday acknowledging he "may have created confusion" in his previous testimony.
..."I recognize that the use of the term 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' and my shorthand reference to the 'program' publicly 'described by the President' may have created confusion, particularly for those who are knowledgeable about the NSA activities authorized in the presidential order described by the DNI [director of national intelligence], and who may be accustomed to thinking of them or referring to them together as a single NSA 'program,' " Gonzales wrote.
...Attorney General Alberto Gonzales writes of his concern with "suggestions that my testimony was misleading." But he said he did not mean to mislead senators and was "determined to address any such impression."
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wasn't buying it.
"The attorney general's legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is not what one should expect from the top law enforcement officer of the United States," Leahy said.
