During yesterday's Senate hearing on government oversight of security contractors, an interesting tidbit emerged. In his prepared testimony, Fred Roitz, executive vice president of contracts and chief sales officer for Xe (a.k.a. Blackwater), disclosed that his company, through its subsidiary Presidential Airways, evacuated a congressman from Niger during a recent military coup.
That caught the eye of Mother Jones reporter Daniel Schulman, who decided to figure out who, exactly, the congressman in distress was.
Turns out it was none other than Rep. Alan Grayson, the Florida Democrat who has made his reputation by going after military contractors. Irony alert! Grayson spokesman Todd Jurkowski confirmed that Grayson was spirited out of the country on a Xe helicopter, and offered this statement to Schulman: The flight was arranged through the State Department The congressman did not know, and frankly did not care, who owned the plane.'
If anything, this little episode further underscores some wisdom from our pal Peter Singer. Contractors: Can't win with em, can't go to war without em. Or more precisely, can't have diplomatic security without em.
As I've noted here before, the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security which would have the lead in protecting members of Congress traveling outside the country has relied heavily on outsourcing. Blackwater/Xe has (rightfully, in many cases) come in for a lot of criticism, but very few questions seem to be raised about the customer,' i.e., the federal government.
#2
"For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;"
-- R. Kipling
Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man.
In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice to press her case, complaining that the State Police had been harassing her to drop it. The State Police, which had no jurisdiction in the matter, confirmed that the woman was visited by a member of the governor's personal security detail.
Then, just before she was due to return to court to seek a final protective order, the woman got a phone call from the governor, according to her lawyer. She failed to appear for her next hearing on Feb. 8, and as a result her case was dismissed.
Continued on Page 49
"An organization is accused of selling a defective product that unintentionally harms the people who buy the product; a product marketed and sold to keep millions of people safe. Are we talking about Toyotas or are we talking about Obama's health care plan?"
"Does anybody doubt that Toyota has done their best to kowtow to the environmentalist wackos? So why the Spanish Inquisition? There's only one thing that Toyota does wrong, and that is they don't hire UAW workers and pay 'em an average salary of 73 grand, including benefits." Rush was polite: he didn't point out that the base pay for a Toyota line worker is about the same as at a GM plant; it's the benefits and the lack of feather-bedding that makes the difference.
Posted by: ed ||
02/25/2010 0:56 Comments ||
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#2
2 deaths per year attributed to the Toyota defects. Out of 40,000 annually in the US, 2 per year caused by Toyota. There is more to this than meets the eye. The government has a vested interest in driving sales away from Toyota now that it is a direct competitor of Toyota.
This is basically an inquisition of Toyota by the owners of GM and Chrysler.
#8
Seems like Rantburgers are on to this one. Toyota closed its last union plant in Fremont, CA. As pointed out there the remainder of Toyota plants are in right-to-work states. All those union trips to the Whitehouse were not just social visits. There is more here than being reported by the press. See "witch hunt": http://biggovernment.com/brjohnson/2010/02/17/toyota-and-the-union-backed-government-led-witch-hunt/
#12
When I worked in a GM truck assembly we built 1400 trucks per day. We knew from simple statistics that 3 of those trucks would be involved in a fatal accident.
If we could of figured out which 3, GM might be in better shape today.
Republican National Chairman Michael Steele is spending twice as much as his recent predecessors on private planes and paying more for limousines, catering and flowers -- expenses that are infuriating the party's major donors who say Republicans need every penny they can get for the fight to win back Congress.
Most recently, donors grumbled when Steele hired renowned chef Wolfgang Puck's local crew to cater the RNC's Christmas party inside the trendy Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, and then moved its annual winter meeting from Washington to Hawaii. Time to drain the WHOLE swamp... I gently disagree on this one. People criticized Howlin' Howie Dean for spending money like mad in his first couple years as Dem Chair, but he was rebuilding the party. That worked for the Dems in 06 and 08.
The party and the meeting are peanuts; it's what you do to get the insiders to play your game. What matters if if Steele's spending on candidates and infrastructure allows the Pubs to win in November. If they do all is forgiven, if they don't Steele will be kicked to the curb.
If you're still sending the RNC money you're nuts. So they can pass it on to Olympia Snowe and McCain? I don't think so. Targeted donations to specific candidates is the way to go.
#4
I usually agree with you, Doc, but in this case Steele is making a big mistake: Perception is reality, and luxury spending creates the perception that GOP leadership is out of touch with the people suffering in the general economy and does not 'care' for them. No amount of fat-cat-schmoozed contributions can make up for that PR damage.
#5
That'd be my approach, Hellfish. The Republicans are out of power for a reason and I think the reason is that they are out of touch with reality. Until they fix that they can go suck a rock.
#7
--Scott Brown's-"Money Bomb" seems to be the wave of future contributions, at least for small contributions.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
02/25/2010 13:48 Comments ||
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#8
I am starting a new business, manufacturing portable and collapsible guillotines. They will be small and light enough to trailer behind a Ford F150 pickup. Cheap too. Drink up!
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
02/25/2010 14:41 Comments ||
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(CNSNews.com) -- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) would not say whether he supported a proposal from President Barack Obama to use certain tax increases to pay for health care reform, but described the idea as "a suggestion" at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday.
Hoyer said the plan, the first offered by Obama, was "an alternative" that amounted to a "positive step." But because it had been released on Monday, Feb. 22, and lacked details, Hoyer added that he had not yet endorsed any part of the proposal.
When asked by CNSNews.com on Tuesday whether he supported the tax increases in Obama's plan, Hoyer said, "President Obama has put on the table an alternative. I think that is, as I said, a very positive step forward. I'm not going to make comments on specific proposals until we have the opportunity Thursday -- I just saw this on Monday -- an opportunity to digest it."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2010 00:00 ||
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Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job.
That's up ten points from the previous high of 61% reached a month ago.
Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.
Nearly half of Democratic voters (48%) now give Congress a poor rating, up 17 points since January. The vast majority of Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party also give Congress poor ratings.
Seventy percent (70%) of voters say Congress has not passed any legislation that would significantly improve life for Americans, up 10 points over the past month and the highest level of dissatisfaction measured in regular tracking in over three years. Only 15% say Congress has passed such legislation.
Forty percent (40%) of voters nationwide now say it is at least somewhat likely Congress will seriously address the most important issues facing the nation. That's down from 59% last March. Only 9% say it is Very Likely Congress will address these issues.
These numbers are consistent with the analysis provided in Scott Rasmussen's new book, In Search of Self-Governance. Scott notes that "Today, Americans are united. United in the belief that our political system is broken, that politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers." He adds, "Some of us are ready to give up; some of us are ready to scream a little louder. But all of us believe we can do better."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2010 00:00 ||
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There are 15-20 House Democrats who are withholding their support for President Barack Obama's healthcare proposal, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Wednesday.
Stupak led a broad coalition of anti-abortion rights Democrats in November, demanding that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) include tough abortion restrictions in the lower chamber's legislation lest she lose a chance of passing the bill.
The Michigan Democrat has voiced unhappiness with the president's plan because it upholds the Senate's abortion language, which he says is too loose and could allow federal dollars to pay for abortion procedures. But Stupak said that the group of 15-20 Democrats oppose it not just because of the abortion provisions.
Asked on Fox News if he thinks the president's fixes will pass the House, Stupak said "Despite the abortion language, no, there are other problems with this bill...[I have spoken to] probably about 15 or 20 of them in the last 24 hours they've said there are other problems with this bill."
Stupak's remarks come after House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) Wednesday morning predicted that Democrats would fall 14 votes short of passing the bill.
The House passed its bill in November by a count of 220-215 and even a 15 vote defection would prevent Pelosi from passing the president's plan.
Until Stupak spoke, no Democrat had handicapped the exact vote count on the president's plan. The White House currently wants the House to pass the Senate's original healthcare bill then for both chambers to pass its fixes, with the Senate using the budget reconciliation process.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2010 00:00 ||
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Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) introduced a constitutional amendment today to overrule a recent Supreme Court decision on campaign spending.
The court ruled 5-4 last month in Citizens United v. FEC that Congress cannot regulate independent expenditures by corporations and possibly labor unions. The ruling could dramatically increase third party spending on elections.
Dodd's amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) would explicitly grant Congress the authority to regulate campaign fundraising and expenditures for federal elections.
The amendment would also let states regular such activity in their own elections.
"I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court's conclusion that money is speech, and that corporations should be treated the same as individual Americans when it comes to protected, fundamental speech rights," Dodd said in a statement.
Dodd and Udall said they will also support "interim legislative efforts" to damper the impact of the ruling, including requirements that corporations disclose their campaign spending.
To pass, Dodd's amendment must pass both Houses with a two-thirds majority and be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Dodd = tool.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/25/2010 4:21 Comments ||
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#2
We don't need no stinking Free Speech*!
*Free Speech copyright of the UAW, SEIU, et al of the Democratic Party.
#3
Last time I checked the US Constitution is awfully difficult to amend, not to mention that it is slow and that by November the Democrats will not have the majorities required (2/3 of Congressmen and ratification by 38 states)...
In other words its is just posturing very similar to male chimps trying to impress females.
#4
Oddly enough, and only through very convoluted logic, Dodd has a point. But the issue is not corporate campaign spending, but the entire premise of corporations being treated in the law as citizens with civil rights.
The issue began when an official Supreme Court reporter interpreted a decision to mean that corporations had civil rights, which he confirmed with just the oral opinion of the Chief Justice at the time, that this is what the rest of the court believed as well. That is, there is *no* SCOTUS precedent that establishes corporate civil rights.
Many of the other issues of corporate civil rights were then flushed out by a Lincoln appointed Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Johnson Field, who was on the bench for about 35 years. Often they were piggybacked on to the 14th Amendment.
However, corporate civil rights have now emerged as perhaps the most common primary element of all corporate law today. And therein lies the problem--that they are *not* persons. That they are inherently different from persons.
Elsewhere, the issue is being brought to a head right now by a corporation on the east coast, which is literally attempting to run for public office. In other words, it is no longer a stable concept, but is growing beyond common sense.
Legally speaking, as things stand now, this corporation could argue that it has the "right" to an election seat. To a great extent because much of civil rights law is now based on the 14th Amendment, which was very liberally written.
But back to the new amendment. This is the real amendment that is needed, not just campaign spending limitation, or other such surface gesture, but to address the entire issue of "corporations and other organizations as having civil rights."
Corporations must *not* have civil rights as persons, but they obviously need *some* rights. Corporate rights, as unique and different from civil rights. They need to be split away from any recognition as persons and have their own constitutional amendment.
Yet another reason to have a constitutional convention.
Posted by: chris ||
02/25/2010 12:53 Comments ||
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#7
Elsewhere, the issue is being brought to a head right now by a corporation on the east coast, which is literally attempting to run for public office
What?
Posted by: john frum ||
02/25/2010 15:28 Comments ||
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#8
Murray Hill Incorporated, a liberal public relations firm, recently announced that it planned to run in the Republican primary in Marylands 8th Congressional District.
A duo of key centrist senators urged their colleagues today to set down comprehensive healthcare reform temporarily and instead start with reforms for small businesses.
Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) said the Senate could "breathe bipartisan life" into the healthcare debate if they passed the Small Business Health Options (SHOP) Act.
The bill, which was included in the comprehensive Senate Finance Committee legislation, would give tax credits to small businesses to buy coverage, establish an exchange for small businesses to compare plans, and allow national plans to be sold across state lines.
"Our SHOP legislation is an essential building block that we believe can serve as the foundation of health care reform moving forward," Snowe and Lincoln said in a joint statement.
The statement comes as both parties are preparing for a healthcare summit at the White House tomorrow. If the summit doesn't provide any meaningful bipartisan breakthroughs, Democrats will likely use a tactic called "reconciliation" to pass reform with 51 votes in the Senate.
Should Democrats take that rout, they wouldn't need the votes of Snowe or Lincoln.
Nevertheless, the duo said Congress shouldn't give up on bipartisanship.
"We remain convinced that convening a bipartisan group of Members who are committed to reform is essential if we are to breathe new life into the broken health care reform process and rebuild confidence that our government is able to set aside partisan bickering and achieve meaningful results for working families facing enormous health care insecurity," they said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Oh, that's just great.
Force the sector of the private sector that is most stressed and least able to deal with this sort of thing to be the guinea pig.
YJCMTSU.
This administration and the last two congresses have been the most anti-small business in the history of this country.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/25/2010 6:25 Comments ||
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#2
..cause small businesses are messy and complicated from the centralized management concept of socialism and fascism. Better to have tens of millions unemployed than give up all that POWER to micromanage. All in the name of the Poor, the Children, the [insert special interest group here] et al, of course.
Van Jones is back on the public stage this week, receiving an award from the NAACP and landing a job at a liberal think tank.
A much better fit -- he can develop as many bright ideas as he can think of, without any chance they'll actually be implemented... and George Soros can pay his salary without having to go to the voters or Congress (or the right wing of the blogosphere) for approval.
Jones resigned his post as Green Jobs Czar in September after conservatives attacked him for calling Republicans "a**holes" and reportedly signing a petition questioning whether the U.S. government was behind 9/11.
But Jones is now re-emerging. On Friday, he'll receive an NAACP Image Award for his role in promoting environmental justice. And the Center for American Progress announced today that Jones will join their staff as a senior fellow.
Benjamin Jealous, President of the NAACP, explained the decision to give Jones the award in an op-ed on CNN.com.
Calling Jones an "American treasure," Jealous said that Jones alleged mistakes don't overshadow his work on policy.
"[W]e can never afford to forget that a defining trait of our country is our collective capacity to practice forgiveness and celebrate redemption," wrote Jealous. "This is a nation built on second chances."
The Center for American Progress, where Jones worked before joining the White House, has hired him back as a senior fellow. Jones will study and promote green jobs, a concept he helped pioneer with his book "The Green-Collar Economy."
"Van is a pioneer in the effort to promote a clean, sustainable economy that works for all Americans," said John Podesta, President of CAP and a powerful Democratic figure in Washington. "I'm proud that he's coming back to CAP to focus on creating economic opportunity in distressed communities through the Green Opportunity Initiative and that he will be giving voice to those issues once again."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
I think our educational system is failing us in Tennessee. We have these wingnuts such as Al Gore (Harvard BA in government, dabbled in divinity and law at Vanderbilt) and Van Jones (UT BA in communications/poly sci and Yale law degree) who have few qualifications in environmental sciences. Neither have any scientific background in environmental sciences or engineering. They are basically environmental cheerleaders for their pet causes or rabble rousers.
Facing wide criticism over their recent finding that greenhouse gases endanger the public welfare, top Environmental Protection Agency officials said Monday that any regulation of such gases would be phased in gradually and would not impose expensive new rules on most American businesses. Get in the water, frog. We'll turn up the heat gradually.
The E.P.A.'s administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, wrote in a letter to eight coal-state Democrats who have sought a moratorium on regulation that only the biggest sources of greenhouse gases would be subjected to limits before 2013. Smaller ones would not be regulated before 2016, she said.
The eight Democratic senators, led by John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, said hugely significant decisions about energy, the economy and the environment should be made by elected representatives, not by federal bureaucrats.
The senators, who earlier questioned broad cap-and-trade legislation pushed by the Obama administration, join a number of Republican lawmakers, industry groups and officials from Texas, Alabama and Virginia in challenging the proposed E.P.A. regulations of industrial sources. Senate Republicans are going a step further, seeking to prevent the agency from taking any action to limit greenhouse gases, which are allegedly tied to global warming.
Ms. Jackson warned that if the Republicans thwarted the agency's efforts to address climate change, it would kill the deal negotiated last year to limit carbon pollution from cars and light trucks and would have a chilling effect on the government's scientific studies of global warming. Oh, the horror. Oh, wait; I get it. But wouldn't a chilling effect on the warming be a good thing?
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/25/2010 07:08 ||
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#1
Most of you know the S key is right next to the A key on the keyboard.
Unless I leaked the name of the new carbon regs agency - the Environmental Protection Stormtroopers.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/25/2010 7:24 Comments ||
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#2
Germany moved 'gradually' into the rest of Europe during the 30's.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
02/25/2010 8:40 Comments ||
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...any regulation of such gases would be phased in gradually and would not impose expensive new rules on most American businesses
Apparently this has no urgency. The action is more along the lines of a governmental mugging in slow motion.
Can our government think of any more ways to kill our industries, jobs and make us a non-competitive third world country?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man. 
(CNSNews.com) -- House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) would not say whether he supported a proposal from President Barack Obama to use certain tax increases to pay for health care reform, but described the idea as "a suggestion" at his weekly press briefing on Tuesday. 
Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job.
There are 15-20 House Democrats who are withholding their support for President Barack Obama's healthcare proposal, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Wednesday.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) introduced a constitutional amendment today to overrule a recent Supreme Court decision on campaign spending.
Van Jones is back on the public stage this week, receiving an award from the NAACP and landing a job at a liberal think tank.
Facing wide criticism over their recent finding that greenhouse gases endanger the public welfare, top Environmental Protection Agency officials said Monday that any regulation of such gases would be phased in gradually and would not impose expensive new rules on most American businesses.
