by Steve White
Moderator, Rantburg Defender-Scimitar & Times-Picayune
March 11, 2010, 1430 CT
Mark this date on your calendars. This is the day that Nancy Pelosi's term as Speaker of the House began to end.
Sometimes the end of a politician's career is indistinct. Scandal sometimes unfolds over weeks and months, and it isn't clear exactly when a politician's peers and the public reach the conclusion that said politician just isn't worth it.
But this one is clear.
As reported in the Corner this afternoon, the House voted 402-1 today to open an investigation of the House Democratic leaders and their handling of ethical allegations concerning former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY). The question is a simple one: what did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it?
The issue isn't just Mr. Massa's behavior and whether he violated House rules. That's bad enough for Speaker Pelosi and it conjures up images of the Mark Foley affair in 2006, which blew away whatever pretense the Republicans had then that they were fit to continue to govern.
The Corner notes the comparison to the Foley affair in 2006, but this is worse: apparently Rep. Massa had hired young gay men, underpaid them, and required them to live in his home. As the article says:
In hindsight, Democratic insiders wondered about activities that before had just seemed odd. They said Massa hired a surprisingly large percentage of young gay men, and paid them so little that staffers were forced to live in the house with him.
"Its not the gay part thats a problem, its the abuse, if its true," said one Hill source.
Nor has the last shoe dropped. While the national media has soft-pedaled Mr. Massa's problems, newspapers are starting to jump on the story. Today's big article is in the New York Daily News, and editors around the country are texting their political reporters demanding that they 'match' the story. A feeding frenzy will start; it is one of the things the media is good at, and once started it will continue until the story, and the people behind the story, have been devoured.
It is becoming clear that Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer and other key members of the Democratic leadership in the House were aware, at least to some extent, of Mr. Massa's problems and did nothing about it. Did they know about Mr. Massa's 'massages'? Did they know of his living arrangements? Did they know about his payroll and who was on it, and why? Did any of the staffers complain and if so, did that news reach the leadership? If so, what did they do about it?
We don't know what they knew and didn't know, and so far other than the usual denials, no one is talking.
That's the problem, and that's why today marks the first day of the end for Speaker Pelosi. The last day will come whenever the Speaker, and perhaps others in the Democratic Leadership, decide to put the House above their party and principle above politics, and resign their leadership positions. This will be painful for them and it will cost their party heavily in the midterm election, just as the Foley affair cost Republicans in 2006.
More than just a sex scandal, the current affair puts into focus what is wrong with the House today, as surely as the Foley affair did in 2006. Greed. Corruption. Abuse of power. Abuse of process. These are age-old problems and too many times such stories are buried as just politics as usual, as 'inside baseball' for Washington. Sometimes it takes a sex scandal to make clear just how corrupt the current leaders are.
This is such a time.
Speaker Pelosi should resign now. She should make clear what she knew, how she failed her responsibilities, and step aside so that new leadership in her party can step forward and begin to fix the many problems in the House.
The alternative is the water torture of the 24 hour news cycle, as drip, drip, drip the details will come out. That will be the end for her party.
It will also be a warning to the other party should it win power. Politicians being who they are, the Republicans likely won't learn from the experience. Pity.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/12/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Political opportunity is a repeated theater in history. The excuse found to be used rather then the most direct approach for action. Way too many pols know they're literally one step ahead of the real pitchforks and tar. Many proverbial rats have been literally jumping the ship. This provides the 'excuse' for the survivalist Donks on the Good Ship Congress to for an inparty coup. Will they take it? BTW - the 'Ides of March' are just a few days way.
#2
I hope you're right, Doc, but I doubt you are. Pelosi has proven many times that she has no problemw with lying and cover-ups. She screwed the CIA - did that really bite her? Not so much that I know. I am hoping that demise of the healthcare bills will be the political end of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. But I'm not holding my breath.
#6
Couldn't find who the 1 was. The resolution isn't even on Thomas yet! Imagine that! But this didn't take long:
The Washington Post reported Thursday that staff in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., were told in October of concerns that Massa "was living with several young, unmarried male staffers and using sexually explicit language with them.''
The warning to Pelosi's staff came from Joe Racalto, Massa's chief of staff, who the Post reported was also concerned about a lunch date Massa made with a young man in his 20s working for Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts.
Oh, and if you were wondering Mr. Racalto worked for The Honorable Mr. Frank from 1996 when he began his congressional servicinge and by 2001 he was earning $36,000 per year, rising to $50,000 per year in 2008, whereupon he moved under The Honorable Mr. Massa at $135,000. Clearly The Honorable Mr. Frank trained him well.
#7
Dr White, you forgot to mention the most nefarious aspect of this whole affair.
This guy's behavior was not enough to make the leadership move him along UNTIL it became apparent that he wasn't going to vote for socialized healthcare.
That fact could take us in several different directions, but NONE of them are good.
Nancy Pelosi will already go down as the worst Speaker in the history of the republic, but she can salvage whatever shred of goodness (if she even cares about such things) possible by leaving ASAP.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/11/2010 18:22 Comments ||
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#8
Disagree, Doc. This like Foley is small potatoes. The big scandal that brought down the GOP was DeLay-Abramoff. The Dems aren't there yet.
#9
Never underestimate the Democrats' capacity for circling the wagons around their ideological friends.
The only reason that Massa fellow was forced out was he threatened a NO on their precious Healthcare takeover of Government bill. (And yes: I meant it that way.)
#11
Lex: I would agree that DeLay/Abramhoff was the bigger issue for a lot of people. What the Foley affair did was crystalize matters for a fair number of voters in 2006 who hadn't really been following along. They were disgusted but didn't know why, and one financial/insider scandal sounds like another. Then a sex scandal came along. That grabbed the attention of those who hadn't been following, and gave them a perfectly acceptable reason to vote against the Pubs.
Will the Massa affair do the same to the Democrats? Don't know. People are far angrier than they were in 2006, as witness the Tea Parties. But it's still early in the election process, so Massa may be nothing more than old news and a sick joke by November.
no mo uro: Yep, it does look that way, doesn't it. Massa was tolerated until he went off the reservation. Now that his vote isn't reliable he's being tossed.
The problem with that theory is that it does seem that this was coming to a head (as it were); Massa's problems were going from rumor to insider news to more open circulation. He may have been tossed under the bus because well, they couldn't wait any longer.
Think about it: if I were Pelosi and I had that kind of dirt on a Congresscritter, he'd damned sure be voting 'yes'. He'd be my bitch until I decided I was done with him. That's the smarter play.
Nimble: I was wondering why there wasn't a peep from Drudge.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/11/2010 20:38 Comments ||
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#12
Drudge bats from the opposite side of the plate IYKWIMAITYD
Teh Ghey stories hit too close to home for fun for him
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2010 20:51 Comments ||
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#13
Oh, and if you were wondering Mr. Racalto worked for The Honorable Mr. Frank from 1996 when he began his congressional servicinge and by 2001 he was earning $36,000 per year, rising to $50,000 per year in 2008, whereupon he moved under The Honorable Mr. Massa at $135,000.
*sublimely happy sigh* Gorgeous use of the sarcastic honourable, devastating use of the curve of the salary over time, and the double entendre is simply to die for. I give it a nine point nine nine repeating out of ten, Mr. Spemble.
Pelosi appeared on Bloomberg to discuss Massa. Said Pelosi: "This is a sad case...This is a very sick person. He has been diagnosed with cancer. Perhaps his judgment is impaired because of the ethical issues that have arisen and he is no longer in the Congress. Poor baby. Poor baby. Sometimes we really exagerrate our own importance in a lot of these things."
#15
Dr. Steve, this is the single best commentary on this affair I have seen--and I'm an op-ed junkie, so I've seen a lot. Well done.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/12/2010 6:48 Comments ||
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#16
"Think about it: if I were Pelosi and I had that kind of dirt on a Congresscritter, he'd damned sure be voting 'yes'. He'd be my bitch until I decided I was done with him."
Exactly. Consider this, Massa was a freshman congressman, ultra progressive, gay, and a flake. A safe assumption is he’s one of Nancy’s “retards” Rham was talking about. Damn…if she can’t whip that cat…suppums zup.
#1
Not now, of course. First finish reading this article, and then by all means peruse the many other fine offerings at American Thinker. But sometime, on some occasion, try this: Turn off the screen. Turn away from the ever-present but enervating luminescence. Sit down alone in an empty room. And let the silence fill your ears.
During a segment of Glenn Beck's Fox News Channel show, the controversial host declared that while the Chinese government and businesses pose a threat to U.S. economic stability, the Obama White House and government agencies are powerless to stop the enormous amount of espionage perpetrated by Chinese spies. Beck claimed that his government sources revealed to him that the U.S. intelligence community was ordered to stand down because of the huge amount of debt owed to China by the United States.
The almost legendary MI5 British counterintelligence service is said to be deeply concerned over an increase in spying by Chinese operatives in the United Kingdom. Although intelligence experts aren't certain how widespread the problem is, they believe the espionage is rampant and a serious consequence of the global economy.
MI5 suspects upwards of 15 foreign intelligence services are working within the UK and are a threat to the United Kingdom's interests, and the primary focus of their counterespionage efforts are the Chinese and Russians.
In the United States, the FBI is suspicious of Russia, Iran, and North Korea but there needs to be more focus on the Chinese. The feds estimate that there are over 2,600 Chinese front companies in the U.S.
The foreign intelligence threat within the United States is far more complex than it has ever been historically. The threat is increasingly asymmetrical insofar as it comes not only from traditional foreign intelligence services but also from nontraditional, non-state actors who operate from decentralized organizations.
Intelligence collection is no longer limited to classified national defense information but now includes targeting of the elements of national power, including our national economic interests. Moreover, foreign intelligence trade craft is increasingly sophisticated and takes full advantage of advances in communications security and the general openness of U.S. society.
In short, the foreign intelligence threat is more challenging than ever. In the fall of 2003, the Foreign Counterintelligence Program had investigations involving dozens of countries that focused on hundreds of known or suspected intelligence officers who were assigned to enter or travel within the United States. These investigations spanned all 56 field offices.
#2
Beck is a conservative talk radio host besides his Fox TV show--he would be charged with inciting hatred and shut down by this admin if he dissed all Muslims and the Koran on air. He'd make the Fox empire a target for jihadis. Nearly everything he does is backed with video in their own words and eyewitnesses, with the red phone always at hand if the WH wants to dispute the facts with him. The WH watches daily, with Mrs. Dunn tasked to the job. I love the show--daring to go where no TV host, let alone the MSM, has gone before.
#3
How exactly is this different from the good-old Clinton days, when campaign cash came into the US carried in brown bags and black briefcases personally hauled by numerous low-life "businessman" bottom-dwellers, and even the daughter of a top Chi-com General, who was herself an officer in the PLA (and I'm sure Clinton appreciated the gams, too).
And for those paltry payoffs "donations", the Chinese got advanced machine tools used to make much quieter diesel-electric subs, supercomputer technology and software (supposedly needed for weather forecasting, but actually used for nuclear weapons development), and God know what else - all coming cheap at a million times the price.
I suppose it's just bowing to reality - the Chi-coms are the only ones with any money left. What other deep pockets can the bigwig politicos tap.
Movies and television teach us that evil comes draped in drama, set to a sinister sound track, often with lots of visible gore. But all too often, especially in matters of tyranny, evil appears in banal ways that blend into the accepted landscape.
For years I have remembered a scene of this kind. It involves a thin Asian man in a shabby coat, standing by a gate in the snow of eastern Russia, wearing sneakers with no laces or socks.
But I am getting ahead of my tale.
What brought this scene again to mind were news reports this week that in Russia's eastern port city of Vladivostok, two North Korean defectors climbed over a wall to enter the South Korean consulate, asking for asylum. South Korean authorities have been refusing to comment. But both South Korea's Yonhap News Agency and China's People's Daily describe these defectors as lumberjacks.
I visited Hamhung many times before defecting to South Korea, and whenever I went I felt distinctly uncomfortable. Hooligans clustering at the railroad station glared at the goods carried by pedestrians and provoked quarrels if they thought you were looking at them. At construction sites in Pyongyang, the word was that Hamhung people were wild. Often there were gang fights at project sites where tens of thousands of youths from different regions had been mobilized, and Hamhung youngsters were always the most violent. The city was home to the greatest number of organized gangs, and even police officers couldn't handle them. Hamhung also has more access to outside world as it is an intermediary place through which all things coming in through the northern border with China pass.
As long as 20 years ago, markets in Hamhung were so active that almost everything was available there. It was here, among other cities, that market traders rioted in the wake of a recent disastrous currency reform since they suffered greater damage due to the bigger size of the markets.
I also got the impression that many young people in Hamhung listened to South Korean broadcasts, and those who didn't know South Korean pop songs were treated as country bumpkins. The people there struck me as more resilient than in any other city, and that may be a reason that the city often sees public executions.
Now, Kim Jong-il showed up in the city to attend a mass rally celebrating the re-dedication of the February 8 Vinalon Complex. Kim has never attended a mass rally in a provincial city. He must have had a very good reason to do so.
Considering what the North needs most urgently at the moment is fertilizer, it would have been natural for Kim to visit the nearby Hungnam fertilizer plant. But instead he went to the vinalon plant, a symbol of the failed socialist planned economy. Vinalon, a synthetic fiber North Korea has developed using carbide extracted from anthracite, is a poor-quality and no longer economically viable. At the same cost, more, better-quality fabric can be imported from China, so no other country in the world produces vinalon for clothing. North Korean founder Kim Il-sung spent no less than US$10 billion on a vinalon plant in Pyongyan Province, which turned in the end into scrap metal. That was a decisive incident that led to the economy's collapse. The February 8 Vinalon Complex was shut down a long time ago.
With the mass rally for its reopening, Kim evidently intended to demonstrate his pathetic determination that nothing will change in North Korea, ever. There will be no reform nor market opening, even if its economy collapses or it is driven into chaos, and although the prime minister apologized for the failed currency reform. It is a clear signal that Kim will go his own way against the current of history and regardless of what outsiders think. Under these circumstances, how likely is it that Kim will make a forward-looking choice in the nuclear issue?
It has been unimaginable for the paranoid leader to go to any mass event in the provinces. That he has chosen to throw caution to the wind and go to one of the most volatile cities in the country suggests he has declared open war against his people and their grievances. I feel this is a bad omen.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/12/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
"nothing will change in North Korea . . . even if its economy collapses or it is driven into chaos"
"Economy." In the case of NorK, I do not think that word means what you think it means....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/12/2010 22:09 Comments ||
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In our current armed conflicts, there are two U.S. drone offensives. One is conducted by our armed forces, the other by the CIA. Every day, CIA agents and CIA contractors arm and pilot armed unmanned drones over combat zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Pakistani tribal areas, to search out and kill Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters. In terms of international armed conflict, those CIA agents are, unlike their military counterparts but like the fighters they target, unlawful combatants. No less than their insurgent targets, they are fighters without uniforms or insignia, directly participating in hostilities, employing armed force contrary to the laws and customs of war. Even if they are sitting in Langley, the CIA pilots are civilians violating the requirement of distinction, a core concept of armed conflict, as they directly participate in hostilities.
No one doubts that CIA pilots are instruments of war, but if it makes you feel better we could design some cool T-shirts for them.
Before the 1863 Lieber Code condemned civilian participation in combat, it was contrary to customary law. Today, civilian participation in combat is still prohibited by two 1977 protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Although the United States has not ratified the protocols, ...
... which means, oh doctor law professor, that we aren't bound by them ...
... we consider the prohibition to be customary law, binding on all nations. Whether in international or non-international armed conflict, we kill terrorists who take a direct part in hostilities because their doing so negates their protection as civilians and renders them lawful targets. If captured, the unlawful acts committed during their direct participation makes them subject to prosecution in civilian courts or military tribunals. They are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status.
Do you know why? Because they explicitly target civilians. That's the whole point of 'terrorism'. Whereas, our CIA personnel are explicitly targeting combatants (be they legal or illegal). That's the difference.
If the CIA civilian personnel recently killed by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afghanistan, were directly involved in supplying targeting data, arming or flying drones in the combat zone, they were lawful targets of the enemy, although the enemy himself was not a lawful combatant. It makes no difference that CIA civilians are employed by, or in the service of, the U.S. government or its armed forces.
Yes, yes it does. Go look at the how the CIA came to be. It grew out of the OSS which was explicitly a paramilitary organization. The CIA has the same legacy; indeed, CIA field operatives have a rank that correspond to the uniform military ranks (O-3, O-5, etc). They not not civilians even as they are not uniformed military.
They are civilians; they wear no distinguishing uniform or sign, and if they input target data or pilot armed drones in the combat zone, they directly participate in hostilities -- which means they may be lawfully targeted.
We're not going to get into fine legal arguments as to whether our CIA agents in Afghanistan were 'lawfully' targeted by that Jordanian mook, we're just going to find the guys who directed him. And kill them.
Moreover, CIA civilian personnel who repeatedly and directly participate in hostilities may have what recent guidance from the International Committee of the Red Cross terms "a continuous combat function." That status, the ICRC guidance says, makes them legitimate targets whenever and wherever they may be found, including Langley. While the guidance speaks in terms of non-state actors, there is no reason why the same is not true of civilian agents of state actors such as the United States.
Again, the CIA is not strictly civilian. But every CIA employee understands that he/she is putting his/her life on the line for our country. Have you considered thanking them?
It is, of course, hardly likely that a Taliban or al-Qaeda bomber or sniper could operate in Northern Virginia. (In 1993, a Pakistani citizen illegally in the United States shot and killed two CIA employees en route to the agency's headquarters. He was not, however, affiliated with any political or religious group.)
And while the prosecution of CIA personnel is certainly not suggested, ...
... at least not today, not by you, but tomorrow is another day ...
... one wonders whether CIA civilians who are associated with armed drones appreciate their position in the law of armed conflict. Their superiors surely do.
Gary Solis, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, is the author of "The Law of Armed Conflict."
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/12/2010 10:48 ||
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#1
Who's "we", slick? You got a mouse in your pocket?
#2
Gary Solis, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center
Athanku athanku Gary for dat wonnerful old Georgetown tune. An nou our own Irish Tenor, Joe Feeney will sing us another old favorite. Take it away Joe!
#4
While the guidance speaks in terms of non-state actors, there is no reason why the same is not true of civilian agents of state actors such as the United States.
I'm guessing they don't teach reading comprehension or logic in law school anymore. And let's not even get into citing the ICRC as a legal source.
#5
For goodness sake, the CIA is a spy agency. Spies have traditionally assassinated key enemy personnel, collected information through shady contacts and nefarious means, including blackmail and reading the mail of gentlemen(!!). Spies do this at the direct orders of their government, realizing that if caught they may be questioned and killed at the whim of their captors. It's covered by the Geneva Conventions, wherein death without trial is permitted.
Why is the little adjunct professor surprised by this?
In a number of places around the world, it is open season on Christians. We read of Christians burned out of their homes and slaughtered in Pakistan. Most recently, at least 500 Christians were murdered in Nigeria. The attackers in all cases are Muslims.
"We have over 500 killed in three villages and the survivors are busy burying their dead," said state information commissioner Gregory Yenlong. "People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses -- many of them children, the aged and pregnant women."
I don't know what denomination those Nigerian Christians were, but Lutherans are the most numerous Christian denomination in Africa. I'm a Lutheran, but I have never heard a single word from any church source, local or national, about the mass murder of African Christians. No one he means, I think, no one in the Lutheran Church hierarchy
seems to care.
No doubt readers can refer us to some Christian sources--evangelical, most likely--who have tried to draw attention to the plight of Christians in Africa, the Middle East and Asia who are being exterminated. But any such effort has wholly failed to gain traction in the "mainstream" Christian community similarly the historic arab slave trade never seems to be noticed by blacks, the anti homosexual pronouncements of various Imans never seems to be noticed by gays, the misogynist actions in the Umma never seem to be protested by women.
Why? I can't explain it. Maybe "mainstream" Christianity is dead, except as an appendage of secular liberal opinion. Maybe, as the world's largest religion, Christianity has become so diffused that New World Christians don't much relate to their co-religionists in Africa and Asia. I don't know. What I do know is that it is much more dangerous to publish a cartoon of Mohammed than to slice apart a Christian with a machete.
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/12/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Cause it so much more fun---safer too, to condemn Israel.
#2
One must first define "Christian". IMHO, mainstream Western denominations are no longer Christian, except in ritual, but are indeed arms of secular humanism.
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.
By Gary Solis
