Over at TPMMuckraker we’re following this new case of Blackwater contractors charged with murder — this time it’s in Afghanistan, not Iraq. And the papers coming out of the trial points to recruiting standards that leave quite a lot to be desired. Both defendants left the US military (one Marines, the other Army) without an honorable discharge. One had a long history of criminal behavior and violence, going AWOL, DWIs, resisting arrest and more; and the other got booted after going AWOL and testing positive for coke. In other words, both turn out to be what I would think of as caricatures of the private military contractor — out-of-control, violent and marginally socialized men who wash out of the US military but turn up again in US war zones as “contractors” hired by Blackwater.
In his State of the Union address Wednesday night, President Obama will unveil a three-year freeze on non-military discretionary spending, according to a senior administration official.
As we note in our current feature story, the recent Supreme Court decision gives foreigners basically an unfettered right to spend money on US elections — China, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, take your pick. The majority tried to paper over this. But now foreign corporations, foreign individuals and even foreign governments can use corporations as pass-throughs to spend millions or tens of millions of dollars supporting their candidate of choice in a US election.
There are some efforts underway to create some regulations on the margins. But that’s a mistake. If the Democrats are smart they’ll see that smart policy and smart politics come together in this case. There is certainly a strong public interest in preventing non-US citizens from meddling in US elections. So the Dems should get behind a bill that would essentially overturn the decision simply by plugging the hole that would allow unfettered foreign money into US elections. There’s just no way to have one without the other since corporations have nothing in their DNA that ties capital, ownership or management to US nationals. Any restrictions with teeth would make it essentially impossible for any large public company to use the decision and probably others as well.
Get behind the bill. Dare Republicans to oppose it.
Indonesia is considering tearing down that statue of Boy Obama erected just last month.
Dems in New Hampshire are calling for State Rep. Alfred Baldasaro to resign after claiming that the state of New Hampshire is selling children to gay couples for $10,000 a piece. Baldasaro also says he doesn’t want gay marriage “pushed down my throat” and he doesn’t want to “roll over” for it either.
In all the vexed rancidness of the last week or so we’ve gotten countless emails asking: Why doesn’t Reid just make them actually filibuster, as opposed to getting their way by just threatening to filibuster. Here’s why.
Those of you who followed the intelligence controversies leading up to the Iraq War will know the name Laurie Mylroie, the crankish “terrorism expert” best known for claiming that Saddam Hussein was the mastermind of 9/11. Our Justin Elliott has discovered that as late as 2004 the Pentagon paid her $75,000 to write a grand 300 page “History of al Qaida.”
Your money at work.
In all the discussion of last week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling allowing more or less unfettered spending in US election campaigns, one issue has received strikingly little notice: the ruling puts a big ‘open for business’ sign on the US election system inviting virtually any foreign national, foreign corporation or even foreign government spend to their hearts content on their candidate of choice.
Reporters asked Robert Gibbs today if there is a new deadline for health care reform (since last year’s deadline was blown): “Not that I know of.”
If Republicans held up signs and jeered the president the last time he addressed a joint session of Congress and one of them called him a liar to his face as he spoke and then became a right-wing folk hero, what should we expect when he addresses Congress Wednesday night?