76 Days And Counting

John Kerry promised to sign off on his form SF-180 on Meet the Press 11 weeks ago, and he has yet to do so. CQ reader Drew Johnson whipped up his own political cartoon for his friends explaining Kerry's reticence, and he shared it with me tonight. He gave me permission to share it with my friends:

I'd say the position of the nozzle indicates what it holds back ...

Northern Alliance Radio Today

The Northern Alliance will be on the air again today at AM 1280 The Patriot, debating the issues of the day -- and if you're not in the Twin Cities, you can catch us on our Internet stream. We'll be discussing the GOP and judicial nominations, as well as other news of the week. Be sure to join the conversation by calling us at 651-289-4488 -- and use your free weekend minutes on the cell phone if you live outside of our area.

EU Wants To Embrace Faith-Based Organizations, Except For Christians And Jews

The European Union has started discussion about reaching out to "moderate" Islamists as a strategy of dealing with terrorism, declaring that their beloved secularism won't hold them back from legitimizing proponents of shari'a:

European Union foreign ministers were urged on Saturday to consider the previously taboo idea of dialogue with Islamic opposition groups in the Middle East to encourage a transition to democracy.

They also discussed ways to strengthen emerging democracy movements in several Arab states and persuade authoritarian governments to relinquish some power and accept the principle of alternation, diplomats said.

On the second day of an informal brainstorming session at a chateau in Luxembourg, the ministers were presented with a paper that suggested, at least in the form of questions, that the EU should reach out beyond its traditional secular interlocutors.

"In the past the EU has preferred to deal with the secular intelligentsia of Arab civil society at the expense of the more representative Islam-inspired organizations," the report said.

"Has the time come for the EU to become more engaged with Islamic "faith-based" civil society in these countries?" asked the paper co-authored by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and the bloc's Luxembourg presidency.

One has to wonder whether the EU pays any attention at all to pro-democracy developments already occurring in the Middle East. In fact, if they expect authoritarian governments to agree to "alternation" with Islamists, not only are they completely clueless as to the nature of authoritarianism, they still remain clueless about the nature of Islamists.

In the first place, exactly which Islamist groups qualify as "moderate"? (My friend Brian "Saint Paul" Ward wondered if it refers to Islamists who toss rocks underhand at shari'a stonings.) Hezbollah apparently makes the list, which we considera terrorist organization, and for good reason. Hezbollah also represents the pro-Syrian authoritarianism that Lebanon wants to remove from power. Why would the EU suddenly legitimize Hezbollah just as pro-democracy activists have the Syrians on the run?

This smells like a return to the appeasement and surrender that has been the hallmark of their reaction to Islamist aggression. They refuse to stand up for their own principles, including the secularism that causes them to sneer at those world leaders who practice Christianity openly. Instead of encouraging the people to continue their groundswell towards true democracy and freedom, the EU wants to sell them out for the mirage of stability that all of us bought for decades while the terrorists armed themselves to the teeth.

Tories Building Towards Majority In Canada

A new Ipsos poll shows that Canadians have begun to seriously lose faith with the Liberal Party and increasingly will turn to the Conservatives, the Globe & Mail reports this morning. The flood of testimony and evidence coming from the Gomery Inquiry have taken its toll on the Liberals, and the anti-government sentiment only shows sign of deepening:

The Conservatives are edging toward a majority as anger with the Liberals become more firmly entrenched and Stephen Harper begins to earn the trust of Canadians, even in wary Ontario, a new poll suggests.

An Ipsos-Reid survey conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV between Tuesday and Thursday of this week — as damning testimony from the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal made headlines and election speculation heated to a boil — put the Conservatives at levels of support they have not seen since the election of 1988, when they swept the country.

The Tories' popularity rose six percentage points from April 8 to April 12, climbing to 36 per cent support among decided voters from 30 per cent. The Liberals, meanwhile, stagnated at 27 per cent and the New Democrats' popularity fell from 19 per cent to 15 per cent.

Initially, the numbers barely moved as Jean Brault's testimony went public, first here at CQ and later through the Canadian media. The shock of the extent to which money-laundering occurred probably translated into initial disbelief. However, as more witnesses have provided corroboration to the corruption scandal, the Conservatives have drawn more support. Even worse for Paul Martin and his teetering government, the groundswell of support for Stephen Harper's Tories looks to be accelerating, not plateauing. A six-point increase in four days is an astounding result, one which points to a new election sooner than perhaps anyone thought.

Oddly enough, more voters supported Martin's leadership over Harper (42-34), but trusted Harper more (40-35), and overwhelmingly acknowledged that Harper would clean up government better than Martin (41-26). Harper will wait to ensure that enough comes out of the Gomery Inquiry to be certain that the overriding issue of the election will be corruption, and not policy. However, the poll also shows one catch for that strategy: over half (53%) want to wait until the inquiry report gets released in the fall before holding an election. Only 11% want immediate elections, a surprisingly small number, considering the new popularity of the Tories.

What does this mean? It shows that Canadians take a complex view of the overall situation. Obviously, they have become disenchanted with their current government, and the longer Martin's crew remains in power, the worse it will probably get for the Liberals. So far, though, they're cautious about simply chucking the Grits and embracing the Tories. How long will they be patient before demanding a return to the hustings? I suspect that the electorate wants to wait for a tipping point or an absolute smoking gun that undeniably implicates Martin instead of Chrétien. Absent that, a new election will always hold some political risk for Harper.

My guess is still that we will see some stirrings of an election call around April 30, when Canadian taxes are due. If all the elements aren't in place by then, the Conservatives may still have to act soon to capture the most benefit from their new standing in the electorate. They've gained only at the expense of the Liberals' loss, and that kind of electoral gain usually proves fairly transient. Harper will have to make hay while the sun shines if he wants to wrest control of the government from Martin.

Money Won't Reform GOP Leadership

Since I wrote the post "Not. One. Dime." two days ago in response to the news that the Senate GOP leadership doesn't plan on addressing filibusters on judicial nominations for weeks (Frist) or even months (Santorum), a predictable debate has arisen among the right about the effect of a money shortage on the NRSC and Republican efforts to hold the majority in 2006. Bloggers with whom I normally agree have scolded me. My VRWC -- an excellent blogger -- takes me to task for not remembering 1992 and Ross Perot in my comments section. My friend Matt Margolis of GOP Bloggers does much the same on his site.

I'm not moved.

Can anyone remember why George H. W. Bush lost in 1992, why his base lost their enthusiasm for his candidacy? Bush had campaigned in 1988 as a disciple of Ronald Reagan, promising to hold the line on taxes and identified that as his primary domestic priority. He told us, "Read my lips -- no new taxes!" And as soon as the Democrats challenged him on that ... he caved. He raised taxes, turning a mild correction into a nagging recession that enabled a lunatic like Ross Perot to ride in on Bush's flank and give the election to Bill Clinton. I remember it all too well -- as I volunteered for Bush's campaign.

By the way, did the Democrats give Bush any credit for his flexibility or his willingness to seek compromise? No. They replayed the "Read my lips" video clip all through 1992 to show Bush as a liar who couldn't be trusted. The Democrats played to win, and they did.

Bush (I) didn't fight for his priorities. That's what cost the GOP the White House, not the understandable disappointment of the Republicans who voted for him in 1988 to represent their economic priorities. Instead, they flocked to Perot, whose spectacular success in business and blunt manner of speaking attracted those who had lost trust in Bush's political backbone, and whose pie charts hid the borderline nutcase behind the financial and managerial genius of the upstart Texan.

The current slate of GOP leaders in the Senate have become the equivalent of Bush I. They promised action to stop the two-year obstructionism of the Democrats if only the electorate would give the GOP a solid Senate majority with which to do it. While people can debate whether the current President Bush had a mandate from this past election, no one can doubt the mandate that the GOP got in its Senate results. The Democratic leader who ran the filibusters got tossed out of the Senate and the GOP wound up with a 10-seat majority.

Now with a solid majority, and new Minority Leader Harry Reid allowing all sorts of antics to disrupt Senate business, the GOP had no more excuses. After the rude and disruptive confirmation of Condoleezza Rice, Frist should have understood that the gloves were off this session no matter what. He should have called for the rule change right then, while the Republicans in the Senate still had a sense of their mandate. And real legislative leaders would have reminded the fence-sitters exactly what that mandate meant.

Instead, three months later, we're still weeks or months away from the GOP addressing what it told us was its principal domestic priority -- confirming constructionists for the appellate courts. Not only have Frist & Co. allowed the momentum to slip away, they've hardly mentioned the problem at all. Only this week have we found out that the Democrats have stopped showing up for Judiciary Committee meetings in an effort to deny a quorum for committee business. Where are the press releases for this embarassment? Why hasn't Arlen Specter and Bill Frist held press conferences detailing how Democrats spend their day while blowing off their legislative responsiblities?

This leadership doesn't know how to fight. They don't know how to win. They're so busy trying to reason with Reid and the Democrats that they don't realize what Bush I found out far too late: they're not interested in compromise or reason. They're playing to win.

I am not interested in providing funding for a replay of 1990 in this session of Congress. If the current Senate leadership doesn't have the will to fight for its beliefs, then sending them money makes as much sense as taking an alcoholic to the nearest Liquor Barn. After two years and three months, we have been patient enough with the incompetence shown by Bill Frist. We can't wait until the next election is upon us to see if they'll act. The Democrats will have held up every significant appellate nomination by that time. That certainly won't be fair to the nominees, who have been unfairly tarnished and demonized by the radical Leftists and left twisting in the wind by their supposed allies in the GOP.

We have time to fix the problem, however -- if we act now instead of in 2006. Cut the money off now to get the message through to the rest of the Senate that we will not wait any longer for them to learn power politics at the feet of Harry Reid, of all people. We've poured money, volunteer hours, and millions of new votes into the effort, and none of that has made a dent. It's time for a new strategy to get our message across, and fast. If we wait for next year, we will have missed a window of opportunity that we may not see again for years.

UPDATE: Corrected My VRWC's blog name and a coding error in the last paragraph, which obscured my argument that the time to get this message across is in 2005, because it isn't an election year.

Calgary Stampeding Free Speech?

CQ regular Ed_in_CDA points out a story which goes beyond the Gomery publication ban and into a truly frightening display of speech suppression in Calgary. The police chief of Calgary shut down a website that had been critical of him and his management team by seizing a computer from a private home -- and no one involved can speak of it, nor tell anyone what charges have been proferred:

A website critical of Calgary's police chief and his senior managers has been shut down, after the chief used a rare legal tactic to seize a computer from a private home.

Chief Jack Beaton obtained a civil court order this month to enter the home of a civilian police employee and seize the computer.

A sweeping gag order issued at the same time prevents anyone from talking about the case or reading documents related to it, which have been sealed.

This might be appropriate if the website contained threats to the lives of the public employees or a national-security threat, although the government should at least demonstrate that if it has probable cause. However, that appears not to be the case. The website, which my research shows was known as Standfirm, appears to discuss discontent within the Calgary PD's rank and file. Jann Vahey, a transcriber at the CPD, aired her own complaints and those of others on Standfirm until Beaton got wind of it from a reporter:

He obtained a civilian search warrant, called an Anton Piller order, to secure computers and other evidence from the private home of a South Calgary couple. The order contains some bizarre gag orders that prevent Jann Vahey, a transcription clerk for a service contracted to the police department, from telling her story, about why she went to bat for the rank and file officers and that she was not attacking the service as Beaton claimed. ...

Judging from the comments in the Calgary Herald story (Saturday, April 9th, 2005) Beaton has financed his revenge-driven investigation with taxpayers' money. Alderman Craig Burrows said as much in his comments to the Herald. Beaton can trumpet about his actions protecting the reputation of the Service all he wants, but make no mistake about it, this is all about Jack. And, it would appear he doesn't care who he destroys in the process of soothing his out-of-joint proboscis.

The Standfirm website, as I read it, was all about Jack and how the "Core Values" trumpeted by the management of the police service was more demonstrative of the "Do as I say, not as I do" style of management. Beaton was sputtering with anger when he was first contacted by Herald reporter Suzanne Wilton and told her he would get whoever was behind it. Well, it would seem in that at least, Beaton is a man of his word.

The Calgary Herald reported this story last Saturday, but their archive is subscriber-only; Prime Time Crime archived it here. The reporting appears to match PTC's account above, although it explains the Anton Piller order better, and includes this from a Canadian civil-rights expert:

Civil liberties lawyer Stephen Jenuth said Anton Piller orders are relatively rare, but most often used in lawsuits involving libel and intellectual properties, such as copyrights.

"They are used usually when other parties to the lawsuit might destroy items or they might disappear if (the party) went through the normal process," said Jenuth.

Jenuth said the police action in a civil case "would seem a little over the top."

He also agreed there should be a time limit on such orders, suggesting they should be lifted once the evidence has been gathered and there is no longer a fear of it being destroyed.

"Once these things have been acted upon, they should be open to public scrutiny," he said. "Maybe there are confidential sources that may not be disclosed, but I'm not sure the rest of the action should be secret."

Granted, Canadians have different libel and slander laws than the US, and the Anton Piller order could be beneficial under highly narrow and highly temporary circumstances. However, what this certainly appears to demonstrate is that police chiefs who come under criticism have the power and the legal cover to invade the homes of their critics, seize their property, and shut them up under penalty of imprisonment -- just for publishing an opinion about their character. Beaton used departmental funds to track down the proprietors of Standfirm as if they were terrorists instead of treating it as the civil action it is.

Frankly, this makes the publication ban look like a problem with the mute button on a television. How frightening to live in a country where expressing dissatisfaction with the police, even in hyperbolic terms, could result in being publicly gagged and prosecuted in secrecy. Even more frightening is the fact that this action has the support of Calgary politicians:

"I think any time you go after the morale of a service or the morale of a city that takes pride in its service, the chief has a right to act," Burrows said.

"I'm afraid we live in a culture today where you can say anything you want about people, as negative as it is, and you don't think you can be held accountable. I think our chief is just basically ensuring that, moving forward, if you're going to say something that's going to affect the reputation of the service and officers, you have to have evidence to support that claim."

I understand that people must be held accountable for what they publish, if it turns out that the person knowingly and maliciously published lies. That's why lawsuits exist. In this case, the government has essentially deprived a citizen of their right to speak out without any due process and allowed the police to terrorize them into silence. I see no other explanation, nor do I understand how that can be rationalized away.

The heart of free speech is the ability to criticize the government. In Canada, or at least in Calgary, that gets you arrested, gagged, and threatened with jail. That sounds more like the Soviet Union or mainland China than the enlightened Western nation to our north.

UPDATE: Angry in the GWN has a cache of the site. Not factual? Can't tell. Subversive? Hardly. Dangerous? Please.

CQ Media Watch: San Francisco

I am scheduled to appear on KPIX, San Francisco's CBS affiliate, for an interview on their 11 PM news broadcast tonight. We will be discussing the Sponsorship Program scandal in Canada and my involvement in the story. I'll be taping the segment earlier in the evening, but I'm not sure who will conduct the interview for KPIX. If you get KPIX, be sure to check it out and let me know how I did!

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin continues her recurring guest-hosting role on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes tonight, too. When will Fox wise up and give us the Malkin Hour on a regular basis?

UPDATE II: I had a very nice interview with Peter at KPIX, but the interview won't air until Tuesday, I hear. They want to run it with another feature on blogs that they have scheduled that night.

It's The Respect, Stupid

Meet Yulia Tymoshenko -- sex symbol, fashion leader, outspoken ... and Ukraine's Prime Minister, who refuses to allow her country to suffer disrespect from anyone:

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says she cancelled her first official visit to Moscow because she wants Russia to respect her country. ... Officially, the trip was delayed as the prime minister was "too busy".

She is supposed to be tied up with urgent agricultural matters as it is spring sowing season in Ukraine.

But speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Ms Tymoshenko made it clear she was protesting against "an act of stupidity" by a bureaucrat, and one that she insists must be corrected. ...

The incident has reignited tensions between Moscow and Kiev - already strained since the controversial elections that sparked the Orange Revolution here. Russia campaigned openly then for the candidate of power, Viktor Yanukovych.

Now Ms Tymoshenko says it is time Russia stopped treating Ukraine as its inferior, and learned some respect.

Much has been made of this rare, energized Eastern European political dynamo. Before her elevation to PM, some warned that Yulia would cause too much dissension from her blunt talk and tough style. In the end, after having been one of the ignition sources for the revolution that swept him into the presidency, Viktor Yushchenko could not avoid making her PM even had he wanted. Tymoshenko would not be denied the respect she believes she deserved for rallying people to the Orange standard.

Now she works hard to ensure that respect comes to Ukraine as much as to her. She doesn't shy away from the more superficial aspects of her allure, but she doesn't rely on them to keep her popularity afloat, either. Yulia claims to be "proud" that her personal style has had such an effect on Western hairdos, but that she keeps focused on producing results in order to prove to Ukrainians that they did not make a mistake in selecting her. While Tymoshenko may lack diplomatic politesse, she displays courage and leadership commensurate with people who have fought their way to freedom.

Russia may want to rethink that indictment in the near future. It doesn't appear that Tymoshenko will disappear from Ukrainian politics any time soon.

UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive ... here's a picture of Tymoshenko.

Do Canadians Need A Tax-Form Contribution To Political Campaigns?

Since Canadians and Americans have tax deadlines within a couple of weeks of each other, form-filing is almost equally relevant on either side of the 49th Parallel in April. Today, as my good friend David Strom puts it, is a day Americans despise. "Abraham Lincoln died on April 15th. The Titanic sunk on April 15th. And we pay our taxes on April 15th!" One of the more amusing features on our federal and state forms is an option to direct one, two, or three dollars of our taxes into election-campaign funds, allocated by the FEC for federal dollars.

This got me wondering if Canadians had such an option for themselves on their tax forms. Perhaps not, although according to the Canadian Press, taxpayers certainly feel as though that's exactly what the Sponsorhip Program turned out to be:

The watchdog Canadian Taxpayers Federation says seething callers have lit up its phones. They're furious about mounting sponsorship allegations of government fraud and corruption.

And the timing couldn't be any worse for the governing Liberals.

Across the country, revelations about how millions of public dollars were spent are sinking in just as the April 30 tax deadline looms.

"Folks are writing cheques to the federal government, then they're hearing all about the waste and mismanagement coming out of the Gomery inquiry,'' says John Williamson, national director of the federation.

It sounds like anger may peak soon in the Adscam inquiry, and with Tax Day rapidly approaching, Conservative leader Stephen Harper may want to consider the effect of scandal fatigue after April 30th. Once the taxes have been mailed, will Canadians resign themselves to outlasting the scandal, or will the demand for change continue to grow as more facts come to light? Thus far, Canadian voters have been remarkably engaged and patient with the Gomery Inquiry, but that cannot last forever. Anger either gives way to action or impotence. Harper will need to gauge his moves with precision to get maximum effect from the Liberal corruption scandal.

Tax Day sounds like a perfect day to launch a new election campaign based on reform. It gives Harper two more weeks to gather more ammunition from the public testimony at the Gomery Inquiry. What better way to underscore the understandable anger and frustration at the theft of Canadian tax dollars than to call for new elections at the moment Canadians have to write their next check to Ottawa?

Two UN Officials Fingered In Indictment

The Associated Press reports that a new American indictment issued in the massive Oil-For-Food corruption scandal includes two high-ranking UN officials, a development that will rock Turtle Bay yet again:

Two high-ranking UN officials have been cited in a U.S. criminal complaint against a South Korean businessman who was at the centre of a 1970s congressional corruption scandal and is now accused of accepting millions of dollars from Iraq related to the UN oil-for-food program.

The reported involvement of the two unidentified UN officials was likely to cast a new shadow on the world body, which has spent more than a year trying to get to the bottom of allegations of massive corruption in the $64-billion humanitarian program that was aimed at helping Iraqis cope with UN sanctions.

The complaint calling for an arrest warrant against Tonsun Park was made public at the same time as an indictment charging a Texas oil company owner and two oil traders from Britain and Bulgaria with paying millions of dollars in secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime to secure oil deals.

Once again, we see the wheels of justice turning ever closer to the core of the corruption in UNSCAM by the use of subpoena power. While the Volcker inquiry has to rely on the goodwill of all involved to turn over the relevant information, the US does have a bit more leverage to get to the truth. And while Kofi Annan blathers about accountability and scolds the West for not putting more dollars into his hands, the truth is that Annan and his gang of thieves at the UN have managed to fleece starving and victimized people of their food and their dignity for over ten years and counting.

The AP does not make clear whether the UN officials involved in the indictment have been charged or are just unindicted co-conspirators. If it's the latter, it may mean that the two hold diplomatic immunity -- putting them very near Annan's inner circle, if not squarely within it. Perhaps Annan would then care to revisit that accountability about which he wrote in the New York Times this week? Probably not, if his track record gives any indication.

The Net Effect Of Dithering

The Hill reports today that the GOP has not only lost its momentum on judicial nominations, but that it acknowledges being out-generalled by the lightly-regarded Harry Reid on filibusters. In a stinging indictment of Republican leadership on Capitol Hill, GOP staffers and politicians now want to create a "war room" to recapture the message they frittered away in the session's opening weeks:

Senate Republican leaders were due to meet last night amid rising concern that they are being beaten on the “nuclear option” by Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) public-relations war room.

The GOP’s talks follow a meeting last week in which aides warned Bob Stevenson, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) communications director, that something needs to be done to win back lost ground, a participant said.

“I think there’s a realization that this particular [Democratic] effort has to be countered and they’re in full-scale attack mode,” a GOP aide said, adding, “I think that people know that we’ve got a serious problem here.

“There’s been a lot of talk. Advice has been solicited from me and others. I’ve been told that a plan will be submitted tonight. It will be tweaked.”

Gee, could that result from a complete lack of action for the first three months of the new session on the issue? Just possibly! The Republicans thundered to unprecedented gains in Bush's re-election, gathering an 11-vote advantage over the Democrats after specifically campaigning on judicial nominations. In the case of Tom Daschle, the entire campaign focused on nothing else but Daschle's obstructionism, and the GOP took down the sitting Minority Leader. The issue of judicial activism is one of the few that unites the base and the libertarians, the right and the center of the party.

And what did Bill Frist do? He dithered while Harry Reid demonstrated that he had no intention of treating the Senate like a "club", the preferred environment for which so many GOP Senators appear to pine. Reid went to war, first with the Electoral College vote -- issuing the first challenge since Samuel Tilden -- and then allowed his caucus to rip Condoleezza Rice in the most personal of terms, a precedent-breaking performance for the "clubbiness" of Senate tradition.

If Frist wants to join a club, let him apply to the BPOE. He gave away the momentum on this issue to play Mr. Nice Guy with people who have never played nice in their lives. Leadership? I call that idiocy. Here's another example of GOP political insight under the Frist regime:

Another GOP aide said: “There’s a general sense in the rank and file that we are a little in the hole and that Democrats have been more aggressive on messaging, that we’ve kind of gone dark. Democrats have gotten a head start and defined the issue ahead of us.”

At a closed-door luncheon Tuesday, members of the Democratic caucus were presented a stack of more than 260 press editorials from 41 states and the District of Columbia arguing against changing Senate rules to prohibit judicial filibusters. That’s quite a change from a year and a half ago, when many editorial boards criticized Democrats for blocking confirmation votes on President Bush’s judicial nominees.

That's the Frist Era for you: The Age of Lost Opportunities. This Hill report shows that Frist doesn't have the capacity to lead the majority in the Senate. Frist must step down immediately and the Republicans need to replace him with someone who doesn't get clammy at the sight of Harry Reid wiping his glasses. If Frist isn't man enough to resign, the GOP should remove him anyway.

UPDATE: Hey, it turns out I'm more powerful than I knew! Maybe I can perform marriages, too. I'll call Gopher, Isaac, Doc, and Julie together for a wacky-yet-heartfelt ceremony ...

Not. One. Dime.

Contrary to its own headline, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans on dawdling for weeks longer before finally addressing the issue of Democratic obstructionism on nominations for the federal bench, the Washington Post reports in its Friday edition:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is all but certain to press for a rule change that would ban filibusters of judicial nominations in the next few weeks, despite misgivings by some of his fellow Republicans and a possible Democratic backlash that could paralyze the chamber, close associates said yesterday.

The strategy carries significant risks for the Tennessee Republican, who is weighing a 2008 presidential bid. It could embroil the Senate in a bitter stalemate that would complicate passage of President Bush's agenda and raise questions about Frist's leadership capabilities. Should he fail to make the move or to get the necessary votes, however, Frist risks the ire of key conservative groups that will play big roles in the 2008 GOP primaries.

Frist feels he has no acceptable options to seeking the rule change unless there is a last-minute compromise, which neither party considers plausible, according to senators and aides close to the situation. "I think it's going to happen," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said this week, although he would prefer that Frist wait to allow more legislation to pass before the Senate explodes in partisan recriminations. Aides privy to senior Republicans' thinking concur with Thune.

To hell with Frist, to hell with Thune, and to hell with the GOP if they wait until the session is half-over before finding their spine or other significant parts of their anatomy. The GOP campaigned on judicial nominations as the second-highest priority for the Senate, and the electorate rewarded them with a healthy gain of four seats, remarkable for an election in which the incumbent president won by a tight margin. After spending a record amount of money on supporting Republican candidates, the electorate has sat back and watched as the Democrats, led by Harry Reid, have uncorked one lunatic manuever after another: challenging Ohio's slate of electors, holding up Condoleezza Rice's nomination while people like Mark Dayton outright call her a liar, and attempting to extort the White House into giving up its Constitutional assignment of nominating the judges the President sees fit for Senate approval.

What has this bunch of Republican milquetoasts done? Nothing.

Why? Apparently, they've changed their priorities since the election. No longer are judicial nominations the leading priority. In fact, they've done everything they can to backpedal from the frightening spectre of Harry Reid, for Pete's sake. Now they claim that they want to pass as much legislation as they can before the vote on nominations comes up ... meaning that the judges are actually the lowest priority for Frist and his band of merry cowards.

News flash: if we can't reverse the generations-long trend of increasing judicial activism, the act of passing legislation will eventually be rendered meaningless. The judges, as we have seen, will simply continue to legislate from the bench, ignoring Congress and the Executive and transforming us from a representative democracy to a secular mullahcracy, where lifetime appointments in black robes make all the decisions for us.

That's what the Republicans warned about when they campaigned in 2002 and 2004. Now it's time to step up and do something about it -- but despite their greater numbers and a clear signal from the electorate that rejects obstructionists (see Tom Daschle's enforced retirement), the GOP suddenly quails at the thought of taking action.

I have been a loyal member of the GOP since I cast my first vote. I have worked campaigns and championed candidates well before I ever posted anything on my blog at CQ. However, with the defection of John McCain and the lack of any real response from party leadership on the issue, I have to take a stand and demand either action or accountability -- and this is the time to do it.

Not. One. Dime. The next time Ken Mehlman sends you a request for money, that's the message he needs to get back. We ponied up in 2004, and in 2002, and in 2000. The GOP not only has not delivered, its current leadership won't even try. Frist and Rick Santorum claim they don't have the votes. Balderdash -- they don't have the leadership to get the votes. I'm not going to fund or support people who won't try to win, especially when the issue is so important.

Not. One. Dime. We're not in an election year, so this makes it easy for the Republicans to get this message to party leaders. No balls, no Blue Chips, boys. I don't mean just for the Senate, either. I mean for the entire Republican party. Feeding a fever may be good medicine, but feeding a failure only makes it last longer. Perhaps hunger will work where courage has so obviously failed.

Not. One. Dime. And when a vote does come, those Republicans who wind up supporting the minority's extortion over the majority in defiance of the Constitution will never see another dime from me -- but their opponents will, at every level of contest. Honestly, with Republicans like these in the Senate, we may as well have Democrats.

Not. One. Dime. If Bill Frist can't lead the GOP, then let's get rid of him now and find someone with the stomach for it. As long as he dithers, he'll never see a dime out of me for any election. Kay Bailey Hutchinson would have more guts and could pull the troops in line better; maybe we should give her a try as Majority Leader for a while.

It's time to send a real message to the Republicans about their priorities and their lack of leadership. This fight has been brewing for months, and it should have already been resolved by now. If they can't hack it, then we will find -- and fund -- the leaders who can.

It's The Loyalty To The Ex-Employees I Find Touching

Jacques Corriveau took the stand today at the Gomery Inquiry, and despite a haughty manner with the press, painted himself as a rather humble, if cultured, person of good fortune. Apparently Corriveau finds that easier to explain than admitting to any personal relationship with Jean Chrétien, especially as an explanation for the six million dollars in sponsorship subcontracts for which his firm did essentially no work:

Jacques Corriveau had been portrayed in previous testimony as a central power broker who earned $5.9-million in sponsorship subcontracts for which his design firm did no actual work.

The inquiry had heard that his companies paid him $9-million in dividends, thanks to large subcontracting deals with firms involved in the sponsorship programs. ...

"When fortune smiles on you, you don't turn it down," he beamed.

However, Mr. Corriveau denied that he had been a close friend of Mr. Chrétien, leader of both the Liberal Party and the country during that period.

He may have smiled when he said that, but he appeared anything but pleased to be there. He told the inquiry that his main motivation for living was "culture", and spoke of his love for Bauhaus architecture and fine arts. He also talked of travel and business, but curiously demurred when asked about how he combined the two by staying several times as a house guest of Chrétien's. Corriveau said he had only stayed at the then-Prime Minister's house once.

However, the man of culture stumbled rather badly when asked to explain numerous telephone log entries at the PM's house between himself and Chrétien. Corriveau told Justice Gomery that the calls related to the welfare of Chrétien's son Michel as one of Corriveau's employees. "I paid a lot of attention to his son," Corriveau explained, in a bit of an understatement. How big of an understatement was it? It turns out that Michel worked for Corriveau from 1989 to 1991 -- years before Chrétien became PM.

When does a business owner pay close personal attention to someone who no longer works for him? When the former employee's daddy can deliver $6 million in do-nothing government contracts, that's when.

McCain Sells Out Again, This Time On Judiciary

Senator John McCain appeared on Hardball within the last hour to inform Chris Matthews and the MS-NBC audience that he would refuse to vote for the so-called "nuclear option", the rule change that would disallow filibusters on executive nominations for the federal bench. He stated that he would vote with the Democrats to uphold the notion that a legislative minority has the right to dictate to the executive branch who their nominees should be:

MATTHEWS: But bottom line, would you vote for what’s called the “nuclear option,” to get rid of the filibuster rule on judgeships?

MCCAIN: No I will not.

MATTHEWS: You will stick with the party?

MCCAIN: No, I will vote against the nuclear option.

MATTHEWS: You will vote—

MCCAIN: Against the nuclear option.

MATTHEWS: Oh, you will?

MCCAIN: Yes.

I initially heard this exchange on the Hugh Hewitt show, and I almost choked when Hugh referred to McCain as a "great American," in Hugh's classy way of framing the debate. I cannot support that notion. McCain served his country admirably in Viet Nam, but his career as a politician contains nothing but a series of sell-outs and the worst kind of self-promotion.

This self-described "maverick" started his Senate career by peddling his influence to Charles Keating, who fleeced the FSLIC for billions of dollars. McCain claimed to be the least tarnished of the Keating 5 and the least culpable, but in the meantime his family had invested heavily in Keating's businesses and traveling on Keating junkets to the Bahamas and other fancy vacations.

After having sold Arizonans out to a crook, McCain took on the appearance of a reformer by climbing aboard the campaign-finance reform bandwagon. He made headlines and became a media darling by claiming that money unduly influenced politics, after claiming that the investments and gifts of Keating had nothing to do with his actions in defending Keating's businesses. This work culminated in the BCRA, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act, perhaps the single most successful attack on free political speech in a century. It cemented his persona as a reformer.

However, a closer look earlier this year shows that to be a clumsy facade. His Reform Institute channels big money from leftists like George Soros to keep his campaign staff employed while decrying the checkbook politics that funds his vanity program. McCain, in essence, has created the same kind of mechanism he supposedly decries by building a shelter for unaccountable donations that exists to glorify John McCain and keep him in the public eye. He sold out the Constitution to make himself look good on the news shows and to cover the stink from his first term.

Now he's sold out the Republicans and the majority of the country that elected a GOP president and extended the GOP majority in the Senate. McCain offers as an excuse the threats of the Democrats who insist on governing from the minority:

Second of all, we ought to be able to work it out. Third of all I don’t want to shut down the Senate. We’re in a war. We’re in a war. Shouldn’t we be doing the people’s business?

Filling empty bench seats is the people's business. Where did McCain get the idea that the people don't care who gets nominated for federal appellate seats? And if McCain doesn't want to shut down the Senate, then he should tell Harry Reid to stop his extortion racket and tell his Democrats to start showing up for committee assignments, starting with the Judiciary Committee. Giving in to extortion isn't courageous or great; it's political cowardice, and unfortunately, it's all too typical of the so-called "maverick".

McCain was a brave man in Viet Nam. He became a craven politician a long time ago, however, and almost everything he's done since shows that he hasn't changed a bit. If I still lived in Arizona, I'd be looking for ways to recall him from office immediately. It's time for the GOP to quit kissing McCain's ass and apply another extremity to it with noticeable force -- and to strip him of his committee assignments as soon as possible. Let him switch parties if he likes. He's useless and a disgrace as a Republican.

Addendum: Let's return to this notion of McCain's that the filibuster should be preserved in case liberals grab a majority in the Senate and win the White House some time in the future. He warns that a bunch of liberal judges would get confirmed if that happens. Well, pardon my sense of equity, but in those circumstances they should. Clearly that would reflect the will and disposition of the electorate, and judicial nominations being one of the reasons for electing both branches of the government, such an outcome would be entirely appropriate. Filibusters that foist the will of the minority onto the majority, especially for processes that clearly have a Constitutional threshold for majority rule, make little sense regardless of who holds power.

Besides, by caving in, what difference does it make? McCain has just enabled the Democrats to stall until Bush nominates the liberal judges the minority desires and the electorate rejected. It now makes absolutely no difference what the American voter wants, thanks to the sellout from Arizona.

Sgrena Story Still Falling Apart

A joint Italian-American investigation into the death of Italian commando Nicola Calipari and wounding of freed hostage and journalist Giuliana Sgrena has exonerated the American servicemen working the checkpoint at which they were killed. The New York Post reports that the actions taken by the soldiers at the car's approach were normal, justified, and within the rules of engagement:

U.S. soldiers reportedly have been cleared of wrongdoing in the shooting of an Italian journalist and an intelligence agent last month in Baghdad.

U.S. military officials told NBC News that a joint American-Italian investigation found the soldiers acted properly in firing on a car bearing a just-freed hostage, journalist Giuliana Sgrena, and an intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari.

The car was about 130 yards from a checkpoint when the soldiers flashed their lights to get it to stop. They fired warning shots when the car was within 90 yards of the checkpoint, but at 65 yards, they used deadly force. Calipari was killed and Sgrena wounded.

Let's lay that out as Sgrena has told the story, as late as this week to CBS:

Sgrena says that as the car rounded a turn, driving no faster than 30 miles an hour, it was hit by gunfire and at the same time, a bright light. She and Calipari were in the back seat. "He [Calipari] pushed me down and with this, the body, covered me," says Sgrena. "He pushed me down in the car. And I was asking, 'Why?' Nicola doesn’t say, he doesn’t speak it, doesn’t say nothing."

She claimed that the car slowed down for the checkpoint to somewhere around 30 MPH or so, which would equal around 44 feet per second. If the Americans flashed their warning lights at 390 feet, the driver had almost three seconds to recognize and heed the signal before the soldiers fired their warning shots. After the warning shots, the driver had another two seconds to stop the car before the soldiers applied lethal force. Overall, the driver had almost six full seconds to stop the car from the time of the first warning signal to when they fired directly into the vehicle. That sounds like plenty of time, especially for a driver who knew that he was using a highway that American troops regularly patrolled and one which led directly to the strategic Baghdad International Airport.

Of course, these numbers get smaller if the vehicle was going faster -- but that would imply that the driver stupidly tried to ram his way through a military checkpoint.

Sgrena and her Communist newspaper, Il Manifesto, will have been thoroughly discredited by this report. CBS doesn't fare much better. It couldn't wait until the report came out this week to run with the Sgrena interview? (via Shot In The Dark)

Connecticut Gets It Right

In the long-running debate about gay marriage, the primary issue for conservatives across the board has been the ability of the courts to impose edicts ordering legislatures to provide it regardless of the sense of the people in each state. Massachusetts provided the first example of this; California may soon follow. Efforts to define marriage and civil-union issues in the legislatures in response are the constitutional and common-sense alternative, and Connecticut should be congratulated for allowing its representative government to resolve the issues equitably:

Connecticut's House of Representatives passed legislation Wednesday that would make the state the second to establish civil unions for same-sex couples, and the first to do so without being directed by a court.

The state Senate overwhelmingly approved a civil-unions bill last week, and lawmakers said they expect to endorse the House version as early as next week. Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) said Wednesday that she will sign it.

The House also passed an amendment -- favored by Rell and designed to make the bill more palatable to more conservative members -- that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

"It's an unbelievable victory," said Rep. Michael P. Lawlor (D), one of the bill's main supporters. "The idea that both houses endorsed this concept of civil unions is an incredible step."

Both sides got some piece of victory, while the centrists won the day. Connecticut will not recognize gay marriage, which fits with the will of the electorate. On the other hand, the legislature made a perfectly rational decision about reinforcing contract law by allowing two adults to form a legal partnership that regulates the public portion of their lives. For libertarians, this makes perfect sense; it allows couples who either are unable or unwilling to marry assign each other next-of-kin relationships, form financial partnerships, and establish legally defensible rights to certain civil benefits formerly excluded from them. This also appears to meet the will of the electorate.

Extremists on the Left will claim the legislation violates civil rights, but that is a specious argument. Gays have the same rights to marry as anyone else -- to marry an adult of the opposite gender not closely related by blood. No other restrictions apply. They are not prohibited into entering into relationships with adults of the same gender (except, as with heteros, close sanguinary relations), because that is private behavior. Marriage is a public act, and the people have the standing to regulate it. Do I think excluding gays from marriage to be a rational decision? Yes, although I don't really agree with it. And as long as the restriction is rational, then it's legal.

Extremists on the Right will claim that civil unions will erode marriage. However, no one will "turn gay" because Connecticut suddenly endorsed civil unions, and in fact because it allows a legal and healthy channel for nontraditional couples -- heteros included -- it will probably wind up strengthening the sacramental vision of marriage many of these people endorse. Those who are disinclined to take marriage seriously may skip it and use a civil union instead. Gays who form these unions will become less radical and more integrated into the mainstream of political and economic thought, creating a stronger center, and a weaker Left.

Besides, partnership contracts for public benefits are a staple of American law. If taken separately, there probably isn't a single component of the civil union that could not be accomplished by executing a contract; civil unions just provide a comprehensive umbrella for such action. The notion that two people should be prohibited from entering into contracts because of their sexual orientation creates a government intrusion into private behavior that reasonable people should find very troubling indeed.

Connecticut managed to get this one right. Congratulations.

Kyrgyzstan: Yankees, Stay Here!

Donald Rumsfeld traveled to meet the new political leaders of Kyrgyzstan as part of his security tour of Southwest and Central Asia this week. Despite the speculation that the new Kyrgyz leaders would align themselves more closely with Moscow at the expense of the West, interim Prime Minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev told Rumsfeld that his government wants the American base outside the capitol of Bishkek to remain:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, visiting amid political turmoil in this former Soviet republic, won assurances Thursday that the U.S. military will not lose access to a base it established here in support of the war in Afghanistan.

Ganci air base, which is situated at Manas airport outside the capital, is part of a network of facilities in Central Asia that still provides support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.

Doubts were raised about the future of the U.S. military presence when Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev fled the country last month after an uprising that has yet to play out.

The acting prime minister, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, discussed the base and other issues with Rumsfeld during a brief stop before Rumsfeld returned to Washington.

During a joint news conference, Bakiyev reinforced the government view that all international agreements signed by the deposed Askar Akayev would remain in force. Bakiyev refused to endorse an expansion of any foreign forces in Kyrgyzstan, but with Afghanistan itself asking for a closer security relationship with the US earlier this week, such an expansion is hardly needed. Neighboring Uzbekistan also hosts a small contingent of American forces, as Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration have built a network of small but effective outposts in the moutainous regions of Asia to directly target and kill Islamist terrorists. Uzbeks and the Kyrgyz hardly want these bloodthirsty lunatics roaming freely in their own territory and have little to gain from expelling us.

One notable conclusion about Rumsfeld's trip is how effective he is at diplomacy. Hamid Karzai owes us his freedom and his stability, but even so, asking the US to expand its forces in a primarily Muslim country and to extend its stay indefinitely hardly makes for the best political position in that part of the world. The Kyrgyz obviously want to maintain and improve its relationship with Moscow and Putin, especially since they share a border with China and could use the immediate assistance of Russia in a tight spot. However, Rumsfeld deftly navigated through the diplomatic dangers in both places as well as in Pakistan, strengthening the American position and our prestige in the region tremendously.

Those who consider Rumsfeld a dangerously loose cannon should take time to reconsider. He can be blunt, at times, and some overly sensitive diplomatic dilettantes might disapprove of that manner. However, for people who have fought for their freedom and their lives, honesty apparently sounds very attractive.

Martin Runs From A New Adscam Connection

Canadian PM Paul Martin refused to answer questions regarding his earlier assertions that he barely knew of Claude Boulay when new testimony shows that he met with Boulay over lunch at least once. Instead, Martin used his Question Period rebuttal time to change the subject to Canadian health care, a tactic that the PM will likely employ during any election challenge in the near future:

The most controversial comment came inside the House of Commons. Jason Kenney, a Conservative MP from Calgary, said Mr. Martin may have perjured himself when he testified before the sponsorship inquiry that he did not know Claude Boulay, former president of the advertising firm Groupe Everest, very well.

"There is now testimony that the Prime Minister may, frankly, have perjured himself, that he may have had lunch with Mr. Boulay, one of the principal scamsters in the ad scam," Mr. Kenney told MPs during another raucous session of Question Period.

Groupe Everest was one of the largest recipients of sponsorship contracts.

Mr. Kenney's allegation flowed from the testimony of a former lobbyist for Groupaction, Alain Renaud, who said he witnessed a conversation between Mr. Martin and Mr. Boulay over lunch at a Liberal convention.

Earlier, Mr. Harper asked the Prime Minister repeatedly to acknowledge the incident.

Mr. Martin did not answer directly, pointing instead to his testimony at the commission, in which he said Mr. Boulay was an acquaintance.

He also took the opportunity to accuse Mr. Harper of wanting to privatize medicare after former Reform Leader Preston Manning and former Conservative premier of Ontario Mike Harris held a news conference yesterday to unveil a proposal to scrap or seriously amend the Canada Health Act.

Whether or not Martin committed perjury depends on many variables, including the exact language of the question posed and the exact language of the answer provided. Perjury, at least in American courts, is a notoriously difficult charge to prove, as the state must demonstrate that the defendant knowingly provided false testimony in a substantial matter for the purposes of evasion; it's not as easy as it sounds, as those who watched Bill Clinton twist in the wind will recall.

Martin has more to worry about than a perjury charge with Renaud's testimony about Boulay, however. One of the constant themes of the Liberals in the past few weeks was the argument that the corruption involved only the "old guard" Chrétien clique of Liberals. Martin has gone to great lengths to distance himself from his predecessor, even though as Finance Minister he should have had responsibility for the proper spending of the monies in question. However, Renaud now provides a direct link between Martin himself and the upper echelons of the corruption if the meeting can be verified. Groupe Everest and Claude Boulay have been deeply implicated in the scam; Boulay allegedly arranged for double-billing to help launder more money out of the Sponsorship Program, as an example.

If Martin had lunchtime tete-a-tetes with Claude Boulay and later tried to deny ever knowing him, it provides a solid link between the current government, and the current Liberal ruling class, and Adscam. Martin may have been able to answer probing questions in the Commons from Conservatives while the focus remained on Chrétien, but this could prove fatal to his career and his party and Martin knows it. Don't expect to hear anything more about Groupe Everest and Claude Boulay from the PM in the future, unless it's to talk about how Boulay remains so healthy through the use of Canada's comprehensive medical-care system.

Doyle Promises Veto On ID Requirement

After the ongoing debacle in Milwaukee's past election in November, when for the second straight presidential cycle more than 30% of the voters registered at the polls and instigated a federal investigation into fraud, one would assume that adding a requirement for photo identification would be seen as a reasonable response. The only one who appears to reject that notion in Wisconsin is the Democratic governor, Jim Doyle, who threatened to veto the bill passed by the legislature today:

Wisconsin lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday that would require voters to provide a driver's license or other government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle said he would veto the measure. ...

Wisconsin Republicans who pushed the measure through both houses of the Legislature say the photo ID requirement would lessen voter fraud and protect legitimate voters.

Democrats said the bill threatened the constitutional right to vote for thousands of poor and elderly who lack photo IDs and broke with the tradition of Wisconsin, long known for its high turnout and Election-Day voter registration.

It's known for its Election Day registrations, all right, but only on presidential elections. Milwaukee especially has a track record of anomalous registration activity. They exceeded thirty percent of all votes coming from same-day registrations in two successive presidential elections, but failed to come close to that in the off-year elections in between. In order to accept that as a normal result, one has to presume that one-third of Milwaukee's adult population moves every four years, and that this mass migration coincides with presidential elections.

At least, that's what Jim Doyle expects Wisconsin voters to believe - not that their open voting system invites fraud and mismanagement, effectively degrading the legitimate vote of honest Wisconsin citizens. Despite including provisions for free ID cards for low-income voters, Doyle wants to pretend that the entire legislature wants to oppress the 2.4% of Wisconsin residents who don't have state photo IDs. Perhaps the other 97.6% of Wisconsinites can tell Governor Doyle where to put that veto pen before he uses it.

Karami Resigns Again

Pro-Syrian Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami has resigned again, this time unable to form a cabinet for a caretaker government to run the expected spring elections:

Omar al-Karami said he had hit a wall in trying to form a cabinet, whose main task would be to supervise the elections which the United States and United Nations say must go ahead on time.

"We have once again reached a dead end," Mr Karami said. "That is why I have invited you today to present my resignation."

Political sources have said the elections, due to be held by the end of May, could be pushed back by weeks or months by the delay. But Mr Karami said there was still time for the poll to be held on time.

Karami first resigned his position with President Emile Lahoud, widely considered a puppet for Bashar Assad in Damascus, after the unprecedented demonstrations of outrage after the assassination of Rafik Hariri. Lahoud reappointed Karami shortly after a brief counterdemonstration by Hezbollah, but that was weeks ago. The long delay in forming a cabinet has allowed Syria to continue its influence and meddling in Lebanese affairs, and now that Karami has once again resigned, Lahoud has an excuse to put off elections for as long as he needs.

The nationalists still have a major ace to play, however. One Christian politician noted that they called off the demonstrations, and they can simply call them back again if Lahoud and Karami have forgotten about them. A million of them chased off the Syrian Army. I don't think Lahoud stands much of a chance if they come back for Round Two.

Letter Of The Week

One of the the pleasures of running a blog with so many readers is all of the e-mail I receive. Sometimes people help me with information on stories I'm following, sometimes they ask questions, and sometimes they offer encouragement. I can't respond to everyone, but I do read it all, and once in a while I like to feature a message that stands out from the rest.

Tonight, I received this message from an apparent long-time CQ reader Jamie Seelig, which caught my attention:

Subj: DIE!!!

go curl up in a corner and die u retarded redneck. just because ur politically undereducated and homophobic and lemme guess RICH doesnt mean that you can't spare the rest of america. its dumbshits like u that marry their sister. how many f***ing guns do u own? you selfish bitch


THE DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA
EQUALITY NOW!

Well, Jamie, since you took the time to write and asked such polite questions, I'd be happy to answer them for you!

go curl up in a corner and die u retarded redneck

Oh, sorry, I'm from California and live in Minnesota. If my neck is red, it's likely from frostbite. I may not be the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but I don't believe I'm "retarded". On the other hand, I don't spell the second person pronoun with a single letter like you do, so perhaps I'm mistaken.

just because ur politically undereducated and homophobic and lemme guess RICH doesnt mean that you can't spare the rest of america.

Homophobic? Moi?
Fortunately, I'm as homophobic as I am RICH. Rich, I tell you! I'm practically rolling in it! That must be why I work in middle management. Aren't all middle managers rich?

its dumbshits like u that marry their sister.

Wouldn't that be "their sisters", or do all dumbshits have the same sister? The FM is only related to me by insanity (hers, of course; who in their right mind would marry a blogger?). Maybe you have more experience than I do in sibling nuptials, Jamie. I suspect that your family tree doesn't fork too much at all.

how many f***ing guns do u own?

None at the moment. I found that the deck cannon works much better.

you selfish bitch

Besides getting the gender wrong, I think you've seriously underestimated me, Jamie. I'm not selfish at all. In fact, I'll be happy to share your e-mail address (jamieseelig@sbcglobal.net) with all of my readers so that they can congratulate you on sending the Letter of the Week.

An Invitation From The Afghanis?

The BBC reports that Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai publicly stated that he wants a broader security relationship with the United States, possibly opening up an opportunity to build a network of outposts from which to fight Islamist terror. His remarks came during a brief visit from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who refused to elaborate on its specifics:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said his country wants a long-term security relationship with the United States. ...

Reports say the possibility of setting up permanent US military bases in Afghanistan figured in the discussions.

But Mr Rumsfeld skirted the issue.

"What we generally do when we work with another country [is] we find ways we can be helpful, maybe training, equipment or other types of assistance," he told a news conference.

Opening bases in primarily Muslim countries remains a sensitive topic during the war on terror, for obvious reasons, but an invitation from Karzai cannot be ignored. It also would allow the US to interdict a re-energized opium trade that has caused some friction between the two nations, and Karzai's remarks show that he wishes to be seen as part of the solution on both issues. It shows that the American efforts to secure and liberate Afghanistan continue to provide benefits to both countries and to enhance our ability to attack terrorism in the field before it reaches our shores.

Russians Play Hardball With Ukraine

In a sign that the Kremlin has not forgotten nor forgiven its diplomatic humiliation from the outcome of the Orange Revolution, it informed the new Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko that she still has an outstanding warrant for her arrest in Russia, forcing her to cancel a trip to Ukraine's former close partner:

Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's prime minister, has indefinitely delayed her visit to Moscow after threats of arrest.

Miss Tymoshenko, who was part of Viktor Yushchenko's team which took power in the orange revolution [sic] last November, has been told that criminal charges against her are still in force. She had been planning to go to Russia for a two-day state visit, planned for April 15, but the government has been forced to cancel.

Russia's top prosecutor said she is wanted in Russia on charges of bribing military officials while she was head of a gas trading company in the mid-1990s. She denies the charges.

Russia indicted her on these charges last summer, when the political race for the presidency started to heat up -- and roughly the same time that then-opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko got a near-fatal dose of dioxin in his soup. Tymoshenko was outspoken in her opposition to the Kuchma regime and his hand-picked candidate for succession, Viktor Yanukovych. In fact, her opposition was so strident that some wondered if Yuschchenko could pick her for the PM slot without alienating more centrist voters, and without causing problems for Vladimir Putin.

The second question appears to be answered now. Even in normal circumstances when a legitimate indictment exists, government officials traveling on official state business usually have diplomatic immunity from arrest and prosecution. Waiving that for these mundane charges sends a clear signal that the Kremlin has no appetite for rapprochement on Yushchenko's terms. Not surprisingly, the autocratic Putin has decided to make Ukraine pay for embarrassing him and aligning itself closer to Europe and the US.

In the end, however, it's a futile gesture. All it does is underscore Russian impotence and lack of influence in what used to be its unchallenged sphere of political control -- just a further humiliation for an embattled Vladimir Putin.

Annan Preaching Accountability?

Kofi Annan takes to the opinion pages of the New York Times today to preach accountability to Americans, a stunning and laughable assertion from the man who has led the United Nations to its nadir of credibility at least partially based on his own lack of accountability:

In Oslo this week, donor countries pledged $4.5 billion in aid to Sudan, but while I applaud the donors' generosity, promises alone are not enough.

Time is running out for the people of Sudan. We need pledges immediately converted into cash and more protection forces in Darfur to prevent yet more death and suffering. If we fail in Sudan, the consequences of our actions will haunt us for years to come.

After more than two million dead, four million uprooted, and 21 years of warfare, southern Sudan is at last on the threshold of peace. It is, of course, a volatile, fragile peace. Violence, disease and displacement are still daily realities in this desperately impoverished region, where one in four children die before the age of 5, nearly half of all children are malnourished, and only 5 out of 100 girls attend primary school.

Annan makes it sound as if the civil war came as a result of a famine, and that the deaths could not have been prevented. He has it backwards. The famine came as a result of the war, and the failure of Annan himself in designating the Darfur atrocities as a genocide -- which would have obligated him to act to stop it -- contributed to hundreds of thousands of those deaths. For Annan to use those figures as a scold against the Western nations that had all but demanded Annan to acknowledge the Darfur genocide is akin to Marshal Petain standing on the grounds of Bergen-Belsen in 1945 and demanding food aid to Jewish victims of a "famine".

Annan then talks about how the West should manage its money:

The billions pledged this week can help. But hungry people cannot eat pledges. Through long and bitter experience we've learned that donor pledges often remain unfulfilled. In Cambodia, Rwanda, Liberia and elsewhere, a large percentage of promised funds failed to materialize, and many lives were lost as a result.

For example, in 1992, donors pledged $880 million for Cambodian war rehabilitation; three years later, only $460 million had been delivered. Nearly a year after donors promised $1 billion to deal with the devastation caused by the 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran, less than 20 percent of the money had been delivered.

Hey, I'll go Annan one better. Annan set up a famine-relief program for Iraqis called Oil-For-Food, into which went at least $64 billion dollars. Somewhere between $10B and $21B of that money disappeared into the pockets of the genocidal dictator it was meant to bypass, meaning that up to a third of the money never made it to the starving people it intended to feed and heal. Millions more of the money went into the pockets of UN personnel, such as his own right-hand man, Benon Sevan, and his own son, Kojo Annan. Kofi never bothered to ensure that the program, the largest aid program he ran, was properly audited.

So where's Kofi's accountability for that?

But more than food aid is needed - we also need to hold the perpetrators of violence in Sudan accountable. The International Commission of Inquiry, which I appointed at the request of the United Nations Security Council, has amply documented the murder, mass rapes, abductions and other atrocities committed in Darfur, as have many others. We know what is happening in Darfur. The question is, why are we not doing more to put an end to it?

Coming from Kofi Annan, this amounts to an obscenity. Annan has stood by and watched as his staff has raped and pillaged in almost every peacekeeping venue they have served during his term and done absolutely nothing to stop it or punish those responsible. Just yesterday, the Washington Post ran an article from Peter Dennis, who spent time in UN camps, outlining the complete lack of response from Annan and Turtle Bay on its own atrocities:

I arrived in Sierra Leone as a legal aid worker in the summer of 2003, one year after the release of a damaging report on sexual abuse in U.N. refugee camps in West Africa. Although the report's description of widespread sexual abuse had prompted Secretary General Kofi Annan to issue a strongly worded "zero tolerance" policy, I found abuse of a sexual nature almost every day -- zero compliance with zero tolerance, as one investigator was to write. U.N. leaders had simply not expended any effort beyond lip service to carry out this zero tolerance policy.

In fact, abuse at these camps went beyond sexual violations: Injustices of one sort or another were perpetrated by U.N. missions or their affiliated nongovernmental organizations every day in the camps I visited. Corruption was the norm, in particular the embezzlement of food and funds by NGO officials, which often left camp resources dangerously inadequate. Utterly arbitrary judicial systems in the camps subjected refugees to violent physical punishment or months in prison for trivial offenses -- all at the whim of officials and in the absence of any sort of hearing. ...

After the 2002 report documented sexual abuse, Annan's steely resolve led to exactly zero criminal prosecutions of U.N. officials for sexual abuse. I expect little difference now that refugee camp conditions have returned to the headlines. As before, Annan has delivered vague statements but prosecuted no one. It appears that the status quo reigns and that those perpetrating all sorts of abuses in refugee camps may continue undisturbed. The United Nations is a vital institution that needs a housecleaning.

The last person to lecture the US, the West, and the world on accountability should be Kofi Annan. Had he any shred of honor, he long ago would have resigned his post in the face of the collapse of his credibility on this point alone. The editorial board of the New York Times should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this abomination on its pages, and its tacit endorsement of Annan as global scold should cement its reputation as a clueless, inept, and outrageously biased media outlet which has no further credibility to speak on international affairs. There may be more disgusting examples of hypocrisy and shameless propaganda in media -- the Times' Pulitzer for Walter Duranty's Stalin apologias come to mind -- but few reach this standard.

Jack Kelly: Adscam Could Ease Energy Woes

Jack Kelly pens a speculative but interesting take on Adscam this morning in Jewish World Review, noting that the probable fall of the Liberal government could have wide-ranging effects on Canadian stability and its energy policies, among other things. With oil prices soaring and the Middle East/OPEC nations approaching full capacity output, Kelly looks at Alberta as a possible "Texas with snow":

A Canadian political mega-scandal could — one way or the other — help solve our energy woes.

Gasoline prices have moderated in recent days, but soon will resume climbing toward $3 a gallon, because world oil production is stabilizing while demand — especially from China — is soaring.

The world's largest oil reserves are in Saudi Arabia. The next largest are in the Canadian province of Alberta.

Kelly notes that Liberals don't just have Adscam on their plate at the moment, either. The Kyoto Treaty, which the Liberals enthusiastically endorsed, has turned out to be a bigger albatross than first thought. The implementation costs doubled to $10 billion, a hefty sum for our northern neighbors, and much of that will disproportionately affect Albertans. The Tories have a political base in Alberta and would undoubtedly like to address some of their constituents' concerns if returned to power.

Kelly draws up a speculative scenario as to what the effect of a Tory government would be, including a re-energized separatist movement in Quebec which could tear Canada apart. Certainly that possibility exists, especially if the Conservatives have to join with BQ to form a government after the next elections, which may be why Stephen Harper wants to wait until after enough testimony has been heard to score the maximum benefit for the Tories. (It also explains why the Bloc wants to start introducing no-confidence motions immediately.) However, I think it rather remote, especially the notion that all provinces would fall away from the center in the face of renewed Quebecois calls for independence.

On the other hand, a Tory government would be more likely than the current one to review the energy policy and possibly open up Alberta to more exploration and oil production. If we successfully drill in ANWR and show how to tap into our Arctic reserves without causing extensive environmental disruption, the Conservatives could use that example to convince Canadians that responsible and environmentally sound drilling could vastly benefit both the economy and the security of the North American continent. Americans would love to send their energy money to our northern neighbors instead of the Middle Eastern potentates who get it now, especially since China has begun eating up more of their production (another Kyoto nation, of course).

Kelly's column takes the tunnel vision off of Adscam and reminds us of Canada's strategic importance in the world and how the Liberal fall from grace may affect a variety of global concerns. It behooves Americans to pay attention to our Canadian cousins.

UPDATE: Edmonton MP David Kilgour finally pulled the trigger and left the Liberal caucus last night:

Citing unhappiness with the Liberal government on issues ranging from same-sex marriage and foreign policy to the sponsorship scandal, veteran Liberal MP David Kilgour quit the party yesterday and will sit as an independent beginning today.

Mr. Kilgour said allegations of political payoffs heard at the Gomery inquiry last week finally convinced him to end a relationship with the Liberals that he agreed had become like a "bad marriage."

Divorce Canadian Style may well prove contagious. The Ottawa Citizen reports that another MP, Pat O'Brien (Ontario) may quit the caucus as well. The Liberals now only have one MP from Alberta still left in their caucus, deputy PM Anne McLellan, underscoring their Western weakness.

Chrétien Crony Got $6.7M In Adscam Contracts

Jacques Corriveau, close confidante to former Liberal PM Jean Chrétien and a major player in party politics, won over $6.7 million in Sponsorship Program contracts through a lesser-known and lower-profile subprogram referred to as the Polygone deals. Luc Lemay, Polygone's former president, corroborated yet another part of Jean Brault's testimony that laid bare the corruption at the heart of Adscam:

Jacques Corriveau's firm, Pluri-Design Inc., sent the invoices as part of a series of trade fairs and consumer shows for nature lovers, commercials for rural radios and other publications that are commonly known as the Polygone deals.

Already, ad executive Jean Brault, whose company handled some of those events, has alleged at the inquiry that he kicked back half a million dollars from his commissions earned on the Polygone events, a sum that ostensibly was supposed to go the coffers of the Liberal Party.

The Polygone sponsorships had always been an intriguing lesser-known aspect of the controversy because large amounts of money were funnelled into seemingly innocuous small town events.

This shows a certain intelligent strategy at work in the embezzlement effort. The use of Polygone as a middleman would not raise red flags in any cursory look at the use of government funds, since Polygone did not benefit Chrétien's friends directly. Corriveau's firm acted as a subcontractor to Polygone, which awarded a healthy bite of its federal contracts to Pluri-Design after receiving the Sponsorship money. It also held a lower profile by using the money ostensibly on a series of smaller events, the kinds of events that would receive less scrutiny and less attention from both the media and the politicians.

In short, the kind of contracts worked through Polygone to Pluri-Designs were tailor-made for money laundering: low profile, low risk, and many opportunities to channel smaller amounts into the pockets of whomever the embezzlers desired.

The account from the G&M does not tell how Lemay justified the number of contracts he sent to Corriveau as a subcontractor on such small events, but $6.7 million must have represented at least the lion's share of Polygone's deals with the federal government. It shows that Polygone knew where the power was and what it wanted, just as Pluri-Design's work with Groupaction shows that it got what it wanted from Jean Brault -- a plausible business construct that allowed for kickbacks and phantom workers, all intended to benefit either the Liberal Party or its leadership.

The Inhumanity Of Bureaucrats

This story has already started flying around the blogosphere, probably because people will have a hard time believing it to be true. However, the Associated Press reports that officials at a Columbus high school tried to keep a father from calling the police after students sexually assaulted his sixteen-year-old developmentally disabled daughter:

A 16-year-old disabled girl was punched and forced to engage in videotaped sexual acts with several boys in a high school auditorium as dozens of students watched, according to witnesses. ...

School officials found the girl bleeding from the mouth. An assistant principal cautioned the girl's father against calling 911 to avoid media attention, the statements said. The girl's father called police.

Her father said the girl is developmentally disabled. A special education teacher said the teen has a severe speech impediment.

So let's just get this straight. An at-risk young girl gets physically assaulted and then forced to perform oral sex on at least two boys, while dozens of students watched and some even filmed the acts. Instead of locking the school down and getting the police out right away to arrest the perverts who committed this vile act, the first instinct of the school administration was concern for their own convenience? The father obviously has more sense and more humanity than the ghouls who run Mifflin High School.

Or rather, the ghouls who ran the school. The principal has been fired, but the assistant principals -- apparently including the one who first tried to convince the father to cover up his daughter's rape -- will get reassigned to supervise other students. That should give Columbus-area parents a warm and comfortable feeling about the kind of care their children will receive from these bloodless bureaucrats.

'The Man On The Ship'

Rondi Adamson writes in tomorrow's Christian Science Monitor about Adscam and the publication ban in the Internet age, and notes the futility of the practice in today's context:

A Canadian publication ban and an American blogger clashed last week. The court-ordered ban did not survive the impact. The blogger was overwhelmed with visitors.

And what had been Canada's own private scandal - so private Canadians had been prevented from hearing about it in full - fast traveled the borderless blogosphere.

Publication bans prevent anyone from publishing or broadcasting evidence given or motions made during the course of a trial. Publication bans are not common in Canada, but when imposed they are meant to ensure that a jury pool, or a sitting jury, is not tainted. (One can be forgiven for wondering what the point of jury selection is, if a judge can't feel confident those selected are unable to look solely at evidence presented.) In this instance, however, the ban was imposed on a public inquiry into possible government fraud and conspiracy, involving taxpayer dollars. The word "counterintuitive" comes to mind.

The Canadian blogger Angry in the Great White North tipped me off to this article, and he gets a prominent (and well-deserved) mention by Adamson. After noting that many Canadian bloggers avoided linking to CQ -- for completely understandable reasons, I should add -- she points to Angry as one of the few who baldly promoted the posts I wrote on the Brault testimony:

Canadian networks and newspapers found themselves tiptoeing through this new minefield, trying to report about the blog without mentioning blog names or web addresses. One television network removed a story that contained the blog's name from their website. The Globe and Mail mentioned Morrissey, but not his blog, by name. While some Canadian bloggers defied the ban, mainstream media appeared to lack similar moxie. Coming days after details of the rape, torture, and murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi were revealed (she was arrested and murdered in Iran in 2003, for taking photographs of a demonstration), such gyrations seemed feeble.

One Canadian blogger who linked to Captain's Quarters, Angry in the Great White North, says he did so because he does not want his children growing up in a country "where public testimony can be known by government officials and by the media, but by no one else."

The truth is that while Angry and some other Canadians did link me, they and a number of other Canadian bloggers wrote me constantly, giving me background and links to further explain Adscam to American audiences as well as the Canadians. Rondi Adamson's article tells the most public part of the story, and does it well, but not the whole story. Still, Adamson gives the correct analysis: blogs have formed a front line of defense for free speech and citizen activism, holding public servants accountable where earlier silence or apathy may have won instead. The ability of the blogosphere to swarm to a story or an event not only promotes the information, but hones it, gives it greater resources, and allows for quick dissemination of extensive data.

Bagging Another Ba'athist

The new Iraqi government added another feather in its cap today with the capture of Fadhil Mashadani, one of the higher-ranking former Saddamists to be captured in recent months. Mashadani had served Saddam as the head of the Ba'athist military bureau in Baghdad before the war and was suspcted of conducting a major part of the post-war insurgency:

The Iraqi government said its forces captured an insider from Saddam Hussein's ousted regime Tuesday.

Fadhil Ibrahim Mahmud al-Mashadani, a former high-ranking member of Saddam's Baath Party, is among "the main facilitators of many terrorist attacks in Iraq," the government said in a statement.

Authorities arrested him at a farm northeast of the capital, the statement said. Al-Mashadani led Iraq's military bureau in Baghdad during Saddam's rule.

"Al-Mashadani is believed to be personally responsible for coordinating and funding attacks against the Iraqi people, the Iraqi government and the Iraqi security force," the statement said. "He is also suspected of being a critical link between the senior Baathist leaders hiding in Syria and the terrorists within Iraq."

CENTCOM wanted Mashadani, also known as Abu Huda, offering $200,000 for his capture. Taking out Mashadani will further fragment the ex-Ba'athist remnants, perhaps convincing them that the only positive outcome of their efforts will be a limited amnesty with Saddam's successors. The new government has taken longer than expected to assemble, but its security services have not paused in their development while the National Assembly dickered over the division of spoils. President Bush announced today that the number of trained Iraqi troops now outnumber the Americans, although they certainly remain green and in need of extensive guidance for the near future.

No one can doubt their increasing effectiveness now, however, not Joe Biden, nor the New York Times editorial staff, and certainly not Abu Huda. The rest of the Abus in Iraq will soon take notice, if they remain so foolish as to doubt it still.

Check Register Corroborates Brault, Harper Won't Wait For Gomery

Testifying before the Gomery Inquiry today, former Groupaction controller Bernard Michaud produced a check register and testified to helping to covertly direct illegal cash contributions to the Liberal Party. Michaud's testimony provides the first independent corroboration of the illegal cash transfers and bolsters Brault's credibility:

A cheque register and testimony by ex-controller Bernard Michaud at the federal sponsorship inquiry backed Brault's claim that he covertly funnelled secret cash payments to the party. Michaud told the inquiry he handed over $15,000 in cash to his boss in April 1997 - around the same period Brault has said he gave $15,000 in cash to a party official.

The cheque register tabled at the inquiry showed a $15,000 cheque issued in Michaud's name on April 28, 1997.

Brault told the inquiry last month he asked Michaud to withdraw the sum for the first instalment of a $100,000 cash request by top Liberal brass in March or April 1997.

"Jean Brault (said he) needed $15,000 quickly and he didn't have the time to go to the bank," recalled Michaud.

Michaud said he told his boss, 'Jean, $15,000 can't be found quickly.' "So I told him, 'We'll make out a cheque in my name in advance and we'll arrange it later.'

"I made out a cheque in my name, and I cashed it . . . and gave it to Jean Brault."

Prior to Michaud, the only evidence supporting Brault's earlier testimony came from Brault's own handwritten records. One of the actions contemplated by Liberal strategists was to paint Brault as a liar out to save his own skin and to point to reviews of Liberal ledgers entered into evidence earlier as proof that none of the money actually reached the Liberal Party. However, as the Gomery Inquiry continues its work, Brault's explosive testimony appears to be gaining support from subsequent witnesses, making it more and more difficult for the Liberals to distance themselves from the accusations.

In that regard, Stephen Harper's statement today should surprise few. Despite requests from Paul Martin that political action should wait for Justice Gomery to conclude his public investigation, the Tory leader told Canadians that new elections designed to replace the government need not wait for Gomery to file his final report on the corruption scandal that has already upended Canadian politics:

Canadians do not need to wait until the final report from the sponsorship inquiry before deciding the fate of the Liberals, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Paul Martin has urged the Conservatives to hold off forcing an election until Justice John Gomery issues his final report on the sponsorship scandal, expected in late fall.

Voters do not need to wait that long, Harper suggested.

“Canadians don't need to form the kind of judgments Mr. Justice Gomery is going to form,” he said. “Justice Gomery has to make decisions about potential prosecutions, about criminality. Frankly, the standards of the electorate are a lot higher than that.”

Harper refused to support an immediate no-confidence motion suggested by Bloc Quebecois, preferring to wait a while longer to see if more specifics arise about Adscam, and perhaps the Earnscliffe investigation as well. Harper appears to hold most of the cards now. He can set new elections in motion at a whim, and even Paul Martin understands that the Liberals will likely lose their position; the only question will be how many seats they will lose. Harper wants to wait until the law of diminishing returns starts to set in. After more than a few weeks of this kind of testimony, he runs the risk that the Canadian electorate will start to suffer from scandal fatigue and simply stop paying attention. On the other hand, calling an election while guilty politicians have not yet been exposed risks having them return to power.

For political aficionados, even those of us across the border, it makes for fascinating study. Martin and Harper appear caught in a grueling chess match, where the incumbent champion has been reduced to playing desperately for a stalemate while the challenger ponders the precise timing for checkmate.

Looming Tax Deadline Still Can't Convince Americans To Simplify

According to an AP-Ipsos poll, a majority of Americans agree that taxes contain too many complications -- but they also won't agree to eliminate the deduction maze that creates them:

Most Americans think federal income taxes are too complicated, but they're not eager to simplify tax preparation by getting rid of some deductions and tax credits, according to an AP-Ipsos poll. Forty-five percent of those polled support eliminating them, while 51 percent oppose that approach. ...

Seven in 10 said their federal taxes are too complicated, according to a poll conducted for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs. The survey found 49 percent would prefer a trip to the dentist while 48 percent would rather prepare their taxes.

This points out an unfortunate dichotomy among Americans who want reform without incurring a cost. Tax simplification makes enormous sense on many levels, even if it doesn't mean going to a complete flat tax, which I'd prefer. Treating all income equally and reducing deductions to a bare minimum would not only make tax preparation easier, it would also make enforcement a breeze. The IRS could be reduced to a manageable size and a much less intrusive presence in American lives, and the amount of capital that goes to tax preparation services and attorneys could instead be retained by consumers -- either allowing for better savings rates or redirecting the capital into investments or the commercial economy.

However, politicians like using the tax code to reward constituencies as much as possible. They write in specific exemptions and deductions in order to claim that they are fighting to reduce the tax burden of the middle class, when in fact they're only making the situation more complicated for the same group of people. Every year so many changes come through the tax code that even its enforcement agency has trouble giving the correct advice, driving more and more people into the arms of accountants and preparation services, even when they only have one or two sources of income and minimal deductions.

I long ago gave up hope that the American people would see the wisdom in seriously reforming the tax code, and started having H&R Block do my taxes a few years back. Like many in the article, I waited until the last minute to get my taxes done, although I thought I had a significant tax burden due to some changes in our income. Usually, I would try to prepare my own return first and see what difference professional tax preparation made, but this year I didn't even want to guess at it. Fortunately, last night I finally pulled together my paperwork and got the whole thing over with -- and came out at break even, surprisingly enough.

With the looming deadline coming on Friday, perhaps people will reconsider a process that holds such import for their property and their freedom having become such a foreign nightmare that few of us will brave it alone any more. Should we not be ashamed that we allowed Congress to turn our annual tax filings into the financial equivalent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? If so, make sure you tell your Congressman and Senators you support tax simplification, even if it strips off special-interest deductions. If not, and you live in the South Metro area of the Twin Cities, call Mark Krause at H&R Block in Apple Valley, and tell him the Captain says hello.

Isolation Of Turkmenistan Grows

Turkmenistan dictator Saparmyrat Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi to his subjects, further isolated his already-insular Central Asian nation by apparently cancelling the licenses of international couriers such as DHL and Federal Express. Always paranoid about outside influences undermining his absolute rule, Niyazov may also be looking to promote a native courier service, for his own purposes:

Turkmenistan has closed down all its international courier companies, the main postal link between the country and the outside world. The Ministry of Communications said couriers' licences would not be extended, without explaining why.

Turkmenistan is already an extremely isolated country and the move will hit hard, especially businesses and the foreign community. Big couriers like Federal Express and DHL are lifelines to the outside world.

Many embassies and most businesses send all their documents and other post through them.

This last sentence contains the probable key to Niyazov's latest irrationality. FedEx and DHL make a living off of their reputations for secure deliveries of material, whether that material is product oriented or intellectual property, such as diplomatic transmissions, business formulas, and the like. Niyazov would want to ensure that such delivery systems were not being deployed to undermine his iron-fisted rule, but he also wouldn't mind knowing whatever else he can find out about the diplomatic and commercial interests operating in Turkmenistan. If the only licensee for courier services winds up being an outfit named Niyazov Delivers, or Turkmenbashi Express, its customers can readily assume that whatever actually manages to arrive at its destination will have been thoroughly reviewed by Niyazov's security apparatus.

While milder forms of autocracies have started to wobble or fall to democratization, such as Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan has remained almsot defiantly in the grip of the Stalinist dictator with the almost-satirical personality cult. Some believe that the lesson for Central Asian strongmen is to avoid liberalization and instead follow Niyazov's example to retain their grip on power. It might work, for a while, although Niyazov started when Russia needed its former Soviet republics as buffer states more than it needed them to reform, which allowed Niyazov a healthy and safe head start on his paranoid and megalomaniac rule. However, eventually the increasing isolation and the economic collapse it will bring Turkmenistan will completely destabilize the nation -- and as it is dwarfed by its southern neighbor, Iran, the mullahs there will take special interest in its new direction once that collapse occurs.

In the aftermath of World War I and its liberation from the Ottoman Empire, Turkmenistan turned towards the backwards rule of a Caliphate pretender that took the ancestral home of the Turks from the 19th century to the 12th century through absolute rule of a separate but similar kind. The hapless Turk adventurer and incompetent general Enver Pasha tried playing the Soviets against the Caliphate to install himself in a role almost identical to Niyazov's now, and the result was Russian domination for seven decades. If Niyazov doesn't start opening Turkmenistan to reform, the Iranians may well wind up playing the role of the Soviets in the 1920s in Ashgabat, which will have deeper implications for the rest of the Central Asian republics in the neighborhood. The West would do well to start putting more effort into pressing for democratization to wobble Niyazov into retirement.

UPDATE: I'm told in comments that Turkmenistan wasn't controlled by the Ottoman Empire, which I will check later when I can get to my resources at home.

UPDATE II: Registan has it covered already.

Gorbachev Endorses Putin

The last premier of the former Soviet Union and celebrated architect of the glasnost and perestroika that allowed the empire to collapse through democratization, Mikhail Gorbachev, gave current Russian president Vladimir Putin a moderate endorsement yesterday, even as Putin moves to erase Gorbachev's legacy of openness:

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev offered cautious support for Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, while also acknowledging that mistakes have been made in the country's uneasy transition from communism to democracy following the end of the Cold War.

"I support Putin, while I, of course, see both his achievements and mistakes," Mr. Gorbachev said at a news conference through a translator before delivering a speech at the Red Cross Power of Humanity Dinner.

"I very much would like to see him succeed, but in order to succeed, he needs to renew his policies."

"We have had some backtracking as regards democracy. There have been some blunders, some mistakes in social policies. Now is the decisive moment when really it is being decided where we are moving, in which direction we will be moving during President Putin's second term."

Of late, the Left has settled on Gorbachev as the true hero that ended the Cold War, allowing them to minimize the efforts of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II. In their telling of history, the economic and political pressures coming from the West had nothing to do with the Soviet collapse. Gorbachev allowed the people a breath of freedom through his enlightened socialism, and the people got carried away -- and Reagan, Thatcher, and the Pope all happened to coincidentally be there when it happened.

They attach no significance to the Politburo promoting a reformer after several elderly hardliners had successfully been outmanuevered by the West, whose reinvigorated defense spending had pushed the Soviet economy to the breaking point. These critics from the Left believe that glasnost and perestroika sprang whole and new from the forehead of Gorbachev, instead of because of internal pressures for change such as Poland's successful Solidarity movement and the massive efforts of Reagan and Thatcher to fan the flames of democratization behind the Iron Curtain, instead of the shallow "peaceful co-existence" toadying of the Carter administration.

One has to wonder now about Gorbachev's fans in the West and how they feel about his endorsement of the increasingly autocratic Vladimir Putin. During George Bush's re-election, he received criticism for maintaining a close relationship with the Russian president, but has now openly disagreed with Putin during his last European trip and outmanuevered Putin in Ukraine and elsewhere along the former Soviet border. Will the Left suddenly discover a soft spot for Vladimir too? Or will they finally see Gorbachev for what he really was -- a typical Communist functionary who had enough Western pretensions that the ruling class vainly hoped would mollify the array of powers aligned against them long enough to keep their empire from melting away?

CTV: Liberals Melting Down In Polling

CTV announced the results of a new Ipsos poll this evening, taken after the release of Jean Brault's previously-embargoed testimony, which shows the Liberals trailing the Tories nationally for the first time in years. Martin's Liberals have dropped to 27%, falling another 10 points since the last Ipsos poll:

The flames of political discontent from the sponsorship scandal are scorching the Liberals, and now a new poll shows the party's national support falling to 27 per cent.

That represents a 10 percentage-point drop in the past two months, according to an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail.

The Conservatives are up to 30 per cent, a four-point rise. The NDP are at 19 per cent. ...

Ominously, 45 per cent of Canadians say the Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin has lost its "moral right" to govern.

The poll is just the latest development in five days of hell for the Liberals, who have been seen their numbers sag in other polls, are under constant Gomery-fueled attack by the opposition -- and are now hearing stories that some of their caucus members are considering defecting.

The Liberals "are not just panicked, they're freaking out," said Bob Fife, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief.

The Conservatives have steadfastly held off on calling for a no-confidence vote, preferring to allow events to run their course before triggering a new election. With more explosive testimony expected at the Gomery Inquiry and the resurfacing of the Earnscliffe allegations, the Tories may believe that a perfect political storm has yet to completely coalesce. Like any other gamble, don't expect the players to change strategy until their run ends.

Former Russian Spy Chief Assassinated

Gunmen shot down a former Russian spy chief and his young wife in Moscow earlier today, killing both and setting off speculation about the motive and the mastermind behind the hit. Colonel-General Anatoly Trifamov served as the head of the FSB, successor agency to the KGB, under Borist Yeltsin and purportedly opposed Vladimir Putin's succession to the top of the agency:

Col-Gen Trofimov was one of the most senior officials of the FSB, the main successor body to the old KGB, to be shot dead in recent years.

Police were yesterday investigating multiple theories about a possible motive for the assassination.

His car was fired on by assailants armed with automatic weapons, from a small car, according to news reports. ...

Col Litvinenko said Col-Gen Trofimov had been "against the war in Chechnya, although he never, of course, spoke openly on this question". He said he had also been against the appointment of Vladimir Putin as head of the FSB - the post that he held before becoming the Russian president.

Moscow police yesterday referred all calls about the shooting to prosecutors. Sergei Marchenko, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor general’s office, said only that the investigation was continuing. The FSB refused to comment.

The details seem pretty sketchy at the moment, and this could still be a bad business deal gone south in a hurry. That has been known to result in this kind of outcome, and the sloppiness of killing Trofimov's wife would tend to point away from an FSB hit. However, with the general power aggregation of late by Putin, one has to wonder whether he saw Trofimov as a threat, or at least as a score to settle. None of these bode well for the direction of Russian democracy in the short term.

Corruption Moves Past Gomery, Involves Martin Confidants

In a sign that the reformist mood has gained momentum in Ottawa, two close confidants of Prime Minister Paul Martin have been subpoenaed to testify to a Commons committee to review contracts awarded to research firms with close ties to Martin. Two other reluctant witnesses have also been subpoenaed, along with Allan Cutler, one of the Adscam whistleblowers who will testify voluntarily:

Four reluctant witnesses — including two close confidants of Prime Minister Paul Martin — will be subpoenaed by a Commons committee investigating research contracts awarded to a consulting firm closely allied with Mr. Martin. ...

Among the targets are Terrie O'Leary, who was chief of staff to Mr. Martin when he was finance minister, and David Herle, co-chairman of the Liberal campaign in the last election.

Also subpoenaed will be Warren Kinsella, a former Jean Chrétien loyalist who has been critical of Mr. Martin in the past, and former Finance Department official Peter Daniel.

At issue are public opinion research contracts that went to Earnscliffe Research, a firm that employs many long-time Martin associates. The contracts were awarded when Mr. Martin held the finance portfolio in the Chrétien cabinet.

The deals have been mentioned in testimony at the federal sponsorship inquiry. But Justice John Gomery ruled they we not within the mandate of his commission, prompting the public accounts committee to take up the issue.

The four will appear on April 18 after stalling and making excuses, of which the Commons finally tired. The timing could not be worse for Paul Martin, as he just got done insisting that he still retained the "moral authority" to continue as PM. Thus far, the Gomery inquiry has focused much more on ties to former Liberal PM Jean Chrétien, which will do enough damage to Martin's standing as it is, considering that Martin was Finance Minister and should have been responsible for ensuring that government funds were spent correctly.

However, if this new line of inquiry produces any new evidence of corruption or influence peddling, Martin will not be able to deflect the connection to his former leader. Earnscliffe Research apparently employs a number of people connected directly to Martin, and if they received government funding either for work not accomplished or outside of normal bid processes, then Martin will have been directly implicated in malfeasance. That's certainly been the allegation; last year, upcoming Gomery Inquiry witness Chuck Guité told a Commons hearing that a certain minister made sure that bids fit only one company to ensure their award to cronies:

In Friday's testimony, Guite maintained some cabinet ministers interfered with the awarding of government contracts.

"If the minister's office suggests, sends memos, prepares a scope of work designed to fit one company ... it's interfering in the process."

The retired bureaucrat said Paul Martin's former chief of staff, Terrie O'Leary, pushed Earnscliffe Research and Communications to be included on a list of companies eligible for government contracts.

Earnscliffe Research received $1.8 million in contracts from the Finance Ministry while Martin ran it under Chrétien's government, from 1993 to 2002. Some describe the firm as the sole supplier of Finance's communications needs during that period of time, a particular run of good luck in the bidding process if true. According to a 2002 article in Vigile, this issue has percolated for some time, only surfacing now with Adscam exploding onto the Canadian consciousness. The two cases have a passing resemblance, as this remark by then-ethics watchdog Howard Wilson shows:

While he wouldn't say the company should be banned from doing work for the department, Mr. Solberg said that's "definitely one of the options" Mr. Wilson should consider. He said there's little difference between the situation with Earnscliffe and that involving Mr. Palmer.

Unlike Mr. Palmer, Mr. Martin's supporters at Earnscliffe are not known to have been raising money for the minister's leadership campaign. But Mr. Solberg said it could be argued that the contracts given to Earnscliffe help to pay people who then offer their campaign services to Mr. Martin for free.

"It is almost the same thing, whether you actually go and raise money or you simply work for free in order not to have to expend money for positions that they would otherwise have to pay for. In a way, it is the same sort of thing."

That's the exact same scam that Jean Brault enabled for the Liberals at Groupaction, according to his own testimony. Any corroboration of similar connections between Martin and Earnscliffe in the Commons hearing, and the excuse that the Liberal corruption came from the Old Guard will collapse completely -- probably right along with the current government.

Did Spain Sell WMD To Hugo Chavez?

Franco Aléman at Barcepundit believes he has found a disturbing report that has yet to receive any attention in either the global media or the blogosphere. According to this report last week from the Europa Press, Spain sold a small amount of chemical and radioactive materials to Venezuela in 2004:

During the first semester of 2004 Spain sold chemical warfare agents and radioactive materials to Venezuela worth €539.603 according to a report entitled "Spanish exports of defence materials and related products and technologies". The report, produced by Spain's Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, was revealed to Europe Press. Venezuela appeared as the twelfth buyer of such defence material to Spain for the period that saw José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero winning the vote over Partido Popular.

Report's statistics show that Venezuela was the only country under the category "countries to which chemical warfare agents and radioactive materials were sold". Worth noting that the said category includes "biological and nerve agents destined to chemical warfare" of which Venezuela bought €30.374.

The financial worth of the materials implies that the amounts were small enough to probably be used only for testing and development, but that's bad enough in the hands of Hugo Chavez. Why would anyone sell this kind of material to Chavez, who has become increasingly unstable, accusing all sorts of people of conspiring to kill him and aligning himself ever closer to Fidel Castro? Barcepundit deduces in his post that while the date of the sale is not made clear in the Spanish-language documents, the reference to "first semester" of 2004 makes it more likely that the current Zapatero government sold the material and not the previous Aznar administration.

If Spain has decided to start exporting chemical and radioactive materials to unstable dictators like Chavez, then the US needs to reconsider its relationship with the Spaniards pronto. This report needs further investigation to determine its accuracy and the current status of the materials in question. Given Chavez' hostility of late to the US and his coziness to Cuba, we might find that material deployed against us in the near future.

UPDATE: These figures are hundreds of thousands of Euros, not hundreds (European notation uses decimals in place of commas) -- but for chemical and radiological material, it's still not a large number.

Saddam To Avoid Execution?

The Iraqi government will reportedly consider limiting Saddam Hussein's potential sentence to life imprisonment instead of execution in exchange for an end to the ex-Ba'athist insurgency, the London Telegraph reports this morning. The former Saddamite leaders of the native insurgency, which has lost steam and wants to fold its tents, needs a major concession to save face amongst its troops and ensure their compliance, and the new Iraqi leadership apparently considers this a reasonable request:

A reprieve is understood to be among the central demands of Sunni nationalists and former members of Saddam's Ba'ath party who have reportedly begun negotiations with the government amid the backdrop of a bloody insurgency which claimed 30 lives during the weekend.

Officials say they are looking for a way of joining the political process after January's election, which was boycotted by most of the once-powerful Sunni minority.

"We are trying to reach out to the insurgents," the source said. "We don't expect them to stop fighting unconditionally. Sending Saddam to prison for the rest of his life is not a huge price for us to pay, but it will save them a lot of face."

Such a limitation on the Special Court would certainly gain international favor. When the court first convened, the United Nations and a host of countries around the world expressed dismay when it reinstated the death penalty, which Saddam Hussein had supposedly eliminated from the Iraqi legal code, although it hardly stopped him or his henchmen from imposing it. Some countries refused to cooperate with the tribunal if execution remained one of the possible outcomes.

The new Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, is no fan of the death penalty either. Although he previously has said he would support it for Saddam's case, he has a long history of opposing executions and has now started talking about opposing it outright. His new position as President allows him (in conjunction with the two vice-presidents) to commute sentences in Iraqi courts, presumably including the Special Court. However, his fellow Kurds will no doubt be outraged if Saddam avoids the gallows, as will a large swath of Shi'ite victims of Saddam's genocides.

Is this a good trade? As an opponent of the death penalty under normal circumstances, I would say yes. If the ex-Ba'athists can meet the terms of the agreement, then sentencing Saddam to a couple of thousand years in maximum security makes sense. It saves lives and allows the Iraqis to start healing the divisions between the past and future. It would also allow them to focus on the Zarqawi network exclusively; in fact, the Iraqis could make that a condition of their own for the ex-Ba'athists to meet: bring Zarqawi with you for Saddam. As long as Saddam never sees the light of day again, he can die like Rudolf Hess -- crazy, broken, and of old age.

Martin To Claim Liberal Purity (Of Late)

The Globe & Mail reports this morning that Canadian PM Paul Martin will employ a new strategy in combatting the public perception of widespread corruption in the Liberal Party by using two new tactics. First, Martin will press the notion with Canadian voters that while corruption may have occurred with Liberals in charge, the Liberals are the ones cleaning it up as well. Second, Martin plans on asking Justice Gomery to "follow the money" by referring him to two previous audits, which Liberals say prove that the monies about which Brault testified never made it into the books:

The Liberal Party will call on Mr. Justice John Gomery today to investigate whether large sums of money allegedly paid to well-connected members for government sponsorship contracts ever made it to the party coffers.

As part of a communications strategy to cope with the scandal and distance the party from any Liberals who allegedly took payoffs, officials will offer to help Judge Gomery delve through any party records he needs. ...

Today, Liberal Party president Michael Eizenga is expected to issue a statement drawing attention to two audits of Liberal Party books already made public, offering to help Judge Gomery search for the payoffs Mr. Brault said he made to well-connected Liberals. Those audits were previously submitted to the inquiry.

"In particular, to try to reconcile claims that money came into the party when two independent audits indicate it did not," a Liberal insider said.

This tactic has a built-in flaw which becomes apparent once one re-reads the Brault testimony. The "donations" Brault made came in two different types: cash and in-kind contributions. Brault paid back hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks for the contracts he received, all in cash, and declared none of them. Why cash? His handlers insisted on it; in fact, one of them told him that anything else other than cash would cost him twice as much. Cash allowed the money to flow back to the Liberal Party without hitting the books. Keeping the money off the books was the entire point; the Liberals did not have to report the revenue.

The other method Brault used was to hire Liberal Party activists into Groupaction, where they would be paid from his payroll rather than campaign funds while they worked -- using Sponsorship Program funds -- on Liberal electoral campaigns. Once again, Gomery will not find this on Liberal Party books because the action transferred these people to Groupaction's books instead. This type of accounting dodge allows a group to effectively launder money, i.e., take it off one set of books under scrutiny and put it on another separate ledger. Once again, Brault never declared the in-kind contributions, making it impossible to find the income in the audits the Liberals will push as public rebuttals.

In short, this defense strategy amounts to nothing more than a red herring. The only defense that clears the Liberal Party is to prove Brault and everyone else who has testified in corroboration liars -- because if they are aren't, then the books and the audits are rendered meaningless. If Martin bases the Liberal defense on them, he runs the risk of losing all credibility.

Kerry Still Whining About Stupid Democrats

John Kerry may want to keep his options open for a second run at the White House in 2008, but he seems to have a lot of trouble letting go of his failure in 2004. Today he complained about trickery and intimidation that he claims kept Democrats from voting in the last presidential election, but his descriptions of these sound more like a Keystone Kops view of the rank-and-file of his own party:

Many voters in last year’s presidential election were denied access to the polls through trickery and intimidation, former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry told a voters’ group Sunday.

“Last year too many people were denied their right to vote, too many who tried to vote were intimidated,” the Massachusetts senator said at an event sponsored by the state League of Women Voters. ...

Kerry supporters have charged that voting irregularities in largely Democratic areas made it difficult for voters to cast ballots in the November election. A lawsuit in Ohio cited long lines and a shortage of voting machines in predominantly minority neighborhoods, but the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed the suit.

Kerry also cited examples Sunday of how people were duped into not voting.

“Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. People are told in telephone calls that if you’ve ever had a parking ticket, you’re not allowed to vote,” he said.

Kerry apparently wants to keep rehashing the same old gripes that have been thoroughly disproved over and over again, demonstrating that Kerry's movement relies on little else other than bitterness and urban legends. The "minority neighborhoods" that Kerry claims understaffed its precincts were run by Democrats, not Republicans, an inconvenient fact that Kerry neglects to mention during his whining. One wonders why Kerry simply doesn't call for a housecleaning among Democrats in Cleveland. However, he wouldn't have an excuse for his loss, as opposed to the real reasons of being a lousy candidate who ran a foolish campaign based on his Vietnam War experiences that left him vulnerable for counterattack.

The other complaints are even more laughable. With every newspaper reporting Election Day as Tuesday, with every Democratic precinct calling voters to get the vote out on that day -- with the Constitution making clear that the vote must occur on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November -- Kerry expects us to sympathize with people stupid enough to fall for a joke e-mail telling Democrats that they vote on Wednesday? Perhaps Kerry wants us to ensure that the irretrievably gullible get special treatment when Election Days roll around, but in my opinion, anyone that stupid shouldn't be voting anyway. Phone calls telling people not to vote if they have a parking ticket fall into the same category, if they occurred at all, and no one has ever proved that they did.

At some point, Kerry needs to take some responsibility for losing the election, as does his party. Neither appear ready to embrace reality, preferring instead to wallow in self-pity and a false sense of victimhood based on the silliest of pretenses. In a sane world, Kerry would be little more than a satire of egotistical politicians.

UPDATE: John at Power Line notes the same story, and recalls what intimidation really looked like during the last election.

The Race For The Money?

The Sponsorship Program scandal promises to take a sporting turn on Monday, when Justice John Gomery will likely begin questioning GP backer Normand Legault and Liberal functionary Jacques Corriveau. One of the first issues addressed will be the disposition of 600 Grand Prix tickets that the Canadian government bought but never received -- as they didn't really exist in the first place:

JUSTICE JOHN Gomery will take his first bite out of a Liberal rainmaker this week when former PM Jean Chretien's golfing buddy makes an appearance before the AdScam inquiry. Jacques Corriveau is expected at the Gomery commission as early as Tuesday, where he will be grilled by lawyers on his dealings with Liberal-friendly ad firms and about his involvement in the scandal-plagued $250-million sponsorship program.

Tomorrow Gomery is expected to uncover where the 600 VIP Montreal Grand Prix tickets purchased through the sponsorship program went when he questions the event's owner, Normand Legault.

Legault will be accompanied by two Grand Prix staffers to explain what the federal government got for its money during the 1998 sponsorship of the popular car race, and how much federal funds the event received.

A Gomery official suggested that the feds never got the 600 tickets they paid for -- that, in fact, those seats had already been sold to race-car fans.

The official said the 600 tickets billed to taxpayers could have been included in a dummy invoice sent to public works to bilk taxpayers through the sponsorships.

Corriveau provides a rather direct link to former PM Jean Chretien, and Brault's testimony has placed him directly in the middle of several illegal payoffs. One could expect Corriveau to deny everything, but the upcoming testimony of Paul Coffin and Chuck Guité makes that risky. If Coffin and Guité corroborate Brault, then Corriveau will run afoul of perjury charges as well as corruption, and the former could put him in prison quite a bit longer.

Legault's testimony promises to provide more entertainment, but also a microcosm of the graft that permeated the Sponsorship Program. If the 600 tickets never existed, it will mirror the general pattern of Adscam. The government will have paid for services and product that never got delivered, and in most cases never even existed, while the money went into Liberal Party electoral efforts.

The scam will remind movie and theatre fans of the central plot twist of "The Producers", where shares of a Broadway show got resold four or five times over. The farce may provide Canadians with a lighthearted yet clear view of the embezzlement at the heart of Adscam.

Canadian Corruption Moving Beyond Adscam?

Greg Weston writes in today's Ottawa Sun that the Gomery testimony not only paints a bleak picture of corruption and sleaze regarding the Sponsorship Program, but that it also contains clues showing that the graft extends far beyond that -- and possibly involving billions of dollars:

While the auditor general found bureaucrats broke "every rule in the book" in the sponsorship scandal, evidence is emerging at the Gomery inquiry that Adscam may be only the tip of corruption in government contracting.

In one case that emerged at Gomery this week, Groupaction president Brault described how a $100,000 bribe got the firm over $5 million in contracts with the federal Justice Department.

According to the AG, in 1998, Justice officials were not happy with work being done by Groupaction and wanted to re-tender the contract. The retendering process began, but suddenly "was halted without explanation, and Groupaction was retained until mid-2002" after getting another $5.4 million in contracts.

What really happened, according to Brault, was he had asked Liberal Party bagman Joe Morselli to see if anything could be done to help Groupaction keep the contract in 1999. The two men met one day in Montreal, Brault testified, and Morselli told him: "$100,000 and your problem is solved."

Brault said he slipped the first $50,000 to Morselli at a spaghetti dinner, and never got around to paying the second instalment before the sponsorship scandal erupted in 2002.

Canadians can certainly be excused for missing some of the subtleties that Weston notices for today's column. After all, the release of the Brault testimony showed many of them for the first time the extent and brazenness of graft and corruption that ran rampant through the Sponsorship Program. The breadth of the embezzlement made such a splash that missing some of the less-overt links to other programs was easy to do. However, Weston points out several such connections in his column today. None of them are damning -- yet, anyway. However, prosecutors surely will pick up their threads and may yet unravel a much broader pattern of corruption.

Weston says that Martin may be able to lay Adscam off on the Chretien regime, even though Martin himself was finance minister for Chretien and had responsibility for overseeing the use of the monies in the Sponsorship Program. Martin won't be able to escape blame if the scandal widens appreciably, though. That may soon be coming, and may explain why the Conservatives have been content thus far to wait for more testimony before initiating any action that will cause the fall of the government.

UPDATE: More at Debbye's excellent blog, Being American in T.O.

How Dare You Call Me Civilized!

In one of the more ludicrous diplomatic stories to emerge from the funeral of Pope John Paul II, Iranian president Mohammed Khatami now denies touching Israeli president Moshe Katsav at the services:

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami strongly denied shaking hands and chatting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav at Pope John Paul II's funeral, state-run media reported Saturday. ...

“These allegations are false like other allegations made by Israeli media and I have not had any meeting with any one from Zionist (Israeli) regime,” the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khatami as saying.

Katsav, who was born in the same Iranian region as Khatami, claims that he shook Khatami's hand and spoke about their home town in Farsi, both men's birth tongue. Katsav says the two men shook hands and wished each other peace. Now, for obvious reasons, Khatami wants to assure Iranians that he remains as anti-Semitic as always and wouldn't dream of treating Katsav in a civilized manner. Far better for Khatami to claim that he acted in the purest interests of hatred.

I guess the lessons of John Paul II have been completely lost on Khatami and the Iranians. It makes one wonder why they bothered to attend the funeral.

French Still On Track To Derail EU

French popular opinion has continued to grow against the proposed EU constitution, creating a crisis for EU backers that threatens to undo years of work in creating a Continental government -- one that has ironically been dominated by France:

Yesterday the president of the European parliament, Josep Borrell, warned the French that they would plunge Europe into crisis if they rejected the constitution. Alarmed by opinion polls which show the 'Non' campaign in the lead, Borrell warned that rejecting the treaty on 29 May would have far more serious implications for the future of Europe than they imagine. ...

Successive opinion polls have bolstered the 'no' campaign - the latest, released last week, showed 55 per cent of the French public were opposed to the constitution, against 40 per cent a month ago - and the government and mainstream Socialists have redoubled their efforts to win over the electorate. They have resorted to gimmicks such as a tour of Casino supermarkets by astronaut-turned-minister Claudie Haigneré, visits by foreign politicians and explanatory meetings for homeless people.

Make no mistake: if the French reject the new EU constitution, it will cause a chain reaction of rejection across the entire continent, and the entire EU project will lose credibility. The EU has already made allowances for French instransigence on debt ceilings and other economic requirements. They have stood patiently while France refused to reform its anticompetitive policies while defending its work-hour limitations and extravagant vacations, rather than addressing its productivity crises. French unemployment stands at 10.1% for several good reasons, none of which the French government has dared to address, preferring to sell the electorate on the notion that the rest of Europe will solve the problem for them.

If the French bail out on the EU, Chirac will simply keep scheduling votes until they approve it, as some people have pointed out. However, the rest of Europe will probably not wait for France. The British in particular will certainly lose interest in pursuing full integration with the EU, and some of the Eastern European members may have second thoughts about providing economic support for French intransigence. This may be a one-time deal, and if France rejects it, it will likely lose whatever credibility it has left in European politics and whatever hope it had in exploiting Europe economically for the next generation.

Stupid Parents Ruin Youth Sports, Part XXXVII

I haven't commented much on the shooting of football coach Gary Kinne by Jeffrey Doyle Robertson, simply because the story speaks for itself. A lunatic father who couldn't deal with the fact that his son had to work within a team environment, where life isn't always fair, decides to resolve the situation by murdering the coach. It's yet another example, if an extreme one, of how parents ruin youth sports by living their glory dreams vicariously through their children and losing all perspective.

However, one quote from Robertson's family points out that the stupidity and lunacy might have a genetic component, one his lawyers might want to pursue. Despite a history of violence in the community, his relatives blame the victim for Robertson's attack:

Police have said they don’t believe any one incident triggered the shooting. Robertson had a long reputation of being a hothead and starting fights, but he’d been quiet in recent months, police chief Mike Echols said.

But Rhonda Miller, a cousin of Robertson’s wife, said Friday that Robertson is a good family man driven to violence by an athletic department and school administration that wouldn’t act on his concerns.

Miller would not give specifics on his beef with coaches except to say that he believed his son was being treated unfairly.

OK -- so the family position is that picking up a gun and shooting a teacher is an acceptable resolution for a dispute over playing time? "Good family men" do not gun down unarmed coaches in cold blood.

If Robertson's family wants to help him out, they should really learn to keep their mouths shut when reporters come into town. In the meantime, perhaps the schools in the area should rethink the entire family's participation in athletics if Miller's statement represents their thinking.

Hillary's Move To The Middle Pays Off

A new poll by Rassmussen shows that Hillary Clinton's efforts to recast herself as a centrist has paid dividends. As Dana Milbank reports in today's Washington Post, Americans viewing Hillary as 'liberal' have dropped by eight points:

A poll by Rasmussen Reports finds that the number of Americans viewing the former first lady as a liberal dropped from 51 to 43 percent in January. The number regarding her as moderate rose from 27 to 34 percent.

After watching John Kerry get shredded over his liberal voting record in the Senate, especially on late-term abortions, Clinton and other Democrats (including Kerry) told their party that they had to find a way to moderate their views on abortion and religion if they wanted to connect to mainstream America again. Clinton immediately put this strategy into effect, talking about her faith in fairly generic terms and bemoaning abortions without ever taking a position against even the most extreme examples. At the same time, she flanked the Bush administration on the right on Iraq, arguing for more troops and supporting the call for elections and rejecting "exit strategy" demands from her own party.

Apparently the new strategy is working, although as Milbank notes, the numbers still come in too high for a general election. Kerry started out having a liberal rating of 37% during the primary campaigb, but it wound up at 53% during the crucible of the general election. Kerry had a long voting record but little in the way of legislative accomplishment, and to some extent that helped him early on to keep the leftist taint away. Hillary, however, quarterbacked an effort to nationalize one-seventh of the American economy in the first Bill Clinton term, a debacle that Republicans will not allow voters to forget in a national election.

In the end, although Hillary remains the highest-profile candidate for the Democrats, I doubt she will wind up as the nominee. For all her notoriety, she's still just a sophomore Senator with no other electoral experience -- assuming she wins re-election -- coming from a very safe seat. She still presents one of the most polarizing figures in American politics, plus carries the baggage of her husband's final term. (Remember the pardons in Bill's final hours? If Hillary runs, you will.) No one has won a Presidency from the Senate since Kennedy, for good reason; Americans like executive experience for their presidents. The Democrats should focus on their gubernatorial stars instead.