Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has seen his promising presidential bid implode after it was revealed he pardoned a four-time cop-killer.Well, as noted in the comments, apparently money laundering and drug-and-gun running are “minor offenses” to Governor Pawlenty Of Nothing; this tells us the following about Frank Vennes Jr., who apparently engaged in these activities, and who is, at the very least, a "T-Paw" acquaintance…
The man most likely to benefit: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who comfortably fits into Huckabee's role as "dull white guy" and plausible alternative to Crazy Sarah Palin.
So we shouldn't be surprised T-Paw was eager to talk about Huckabee's misfortunes.
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As noted by Polinaut, Pawlenty appeared on Laura Ingraham's show Monday. When he was asked about Huckabee, T-Paw drew a sharp line of distinction to let everybody know he never pardoned any cop-killers--or anybody else for that matter--when she pressed if he would have pulled a Huckabee.
"No, on those facts, no I would not," T-Paw batted the softball. "And in Minnesota I don't think I've ever voted for clemency. We've given out pardons for things after everybody has served their term, but again usually for more minor offenses, but clemency certainly not or commutation of sentence certainly not."
This relationship is especially relevant in light of Pawlenty’s recent donation of nearly $86,000 from his defunct gubernatorial campaign fund to Minnesota Teen Challenge (MnTC), a controversial Christian chemical dependency program that was once closely affiliated with Vennes and allegedly lost millions on account of that affiliation.So technically, Pawlenty is right in that he didn’t actually pardon Vennes, but despite this “meaning of the word ‘is,’” nuance here, I would say that this connection with Pawlenty and fellow Repugs Coleman and Moon Unit Bachmann have made T-Paw’s “moral high ground” disappear rather quickly.
Like his Republican cohorts Norm Coleman and Michele Bachmann, Pawlenty’s connections to Vennes are intertwined in several ways: campaign contributions, a request for a presidential pardon for Vennes’ federal crimes, and now, MnTC, where Vennes and Pawlenty’s wife, Mary, served on the board of directors together.
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Vennes and his family have contributed thousands of dollars to Pawlenty’s gubernatorial campaigns. Kimberly Vennes (Frank’s wife), Gregory Vennes, Stephanie Vennes (Gregory’s wife), and Colby and Denley Vennes, who have shared an address with Frank and Kimberly, each donated $2,000 to the Pawlenty for Governor Committee in 2002. Frank, Kimberly, Gregory, Stephanie, Colby and Denley Vennes each contributed $250 to Pawlenty in 2004 and $2,000 apiece in 2006.
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Coincidentally, the same year the Vennes money started to flow into Pawlenty’s campaign coffers, Pawlenty’s name appeared in a request for a presidential pardon for Vennes sent by Senator-elect Norm Coleman.
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The roles of Pawlenty and Eibensteiner in seeking a (presidential) pardon for Vennes are unclear. A Freedom of Information Act request did not turn up pardon letters from either one, and Pawlenty’s office did not immediately respond to requests for an explanation.
The pardon Coleman, Pawlenty and Eibensteiner sought was for Vennes’ conviction in 1987 on federal charges of money laundering, cocaine distribution and illegal firearms=2 0sale, to which he pleaded guilty and no contest.
Despite the public jousting, significant action was occurring behind the scenes Monday evening as Reid, D-Nev., and Baucus huddled to plot strategy with top White House and Cabinet officials including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, along with former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, Obama's first pick for HHS secretary before his nomination was derailed.Through one of the easiest Google searches of my life, I found the following story from The Denver Post…
Even the most strident backers of health care reform are wondering what the secretary of the Interior is doing at these behind-the-scenes negotiations.
WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar returned to his old Senate haunt Wednesday in a unique role as White House fixer, tasked by President Barack Obama with helping to pass health care reform.And here is the second item, including the following (concerning renewing the SALT Treaty – a link to the Wikipedia article tells us that Dubya and our ol’ buddy Vlad Putin negotiated a comparatively weaker “SORT” Treaty in 2002 as opposed to renewing the SALT Treaty)…
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The move pulls Salazar from his already heavy schedule as head of the Department of Interior, a sign of both the urgency of the health care reform debate for the administration and the calculation that the Colorado Democrat's strong ties with centrists could help move votes.
"You don't send heavy hitters like this until the final stage, and only if you're feeling you can't get it any other way," said Julian Zelizer, an expert on Congress at Princeton University.
Senate Democrats say that while the effort became more public on Wednesday, Salazar has been working for some time behind the scenes, through a series of consultations and discreet meetings with his former colleagues.
He returns to his old chamber with the imprimatur of a Cabinet secretary and the advantage of a direct link to the president.
We need to be extraordinarily cautious negotiating this new treaty. We could inadvertently put ourselves in a dangerous position -- similar to the end of the Carter years -- where the Russians have a significant strategic advantage over the U.S. and NATO. President Reagan was smart about treaty negotiations. He bargained from a position of strength, he didn't sacrifice his most important bargaining chips (like European missile defense) before negotiations took place, and he would never consider weakening America's strategic security in exchange for photo ops and soaring speeches in Olso (sic).Oh, please (and check your geographic references next time, OK?).
In response, the Wikipedia SALT article tells us the following…
(SALT II) was a continuation of the progress made during the SALT I talks. SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both sides. SALT II helped the U.S. to discourage the Soviets from arming their third generation ICBMs of SS-17, SS-19 and SS-18 types with many more (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) warheads).So, as opposed to the Russians supposedly having “a significant strategic advantage,” it sounds like everybody observed SALT II even though the USSR invaded Afghanistan (why does that sound familiar, I wonder?), until The Sainted Ronnie R voided the deal years later (though he would sign the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987).
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(As part of the negotiations), the USSR could exclusively retain 308 of its so-called "heavy ICBM" launchers of the SS-18 type.
An agreement to limit strategic launchers (such as 308 of the “heavy ICBM” type) was reached in Vienna on June 18, 1979, and was signed by Leonid Brezhnev and President of the United States Jimmy Carter. In response to the refusal of the U.S. Congress to ratify the treaty, a young member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, met with the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko, "educated him about American concerns and interests" and secured several changes that neither the U.S. Secretary of State nor President Jimmy Carter could obtain.
Six months after the signing, the Soviet Union deployed troops to Afghanistan, and in September of the same year senators including Henry M. Jackson and Frank Church discovered the so-called "Soviet brigade" on Cuba[citation needed]. In light of these developments, the treaty was never formally ratified by the United States Senate. Its terms were, nonetheless, honored by both sides until 1986 when the Reagan Administration withdrew from SALT II after accusing the Soviets of violating the pact.
I just wanted that on the record in response to yet another wingnut cheap shot against Jimmy Carter, who played a major role in developing the “Agreed Framework” in the ‘90s under which North Korea would have ultimately dismantled its current nuclear program (or that was the intent...they didn't manufacture plutonium anyway), though the agreement was scuttled in 2002 by Reagan’s “son” (with apologies to Ron Jr.).
Update 12/3/09: I forgot that I'd posted about this subject earlier here - oops.
President Obama unveils his new Afghanistan strategy today, and in the nick of time Senator John Kerry has arrived with a report claiming that none of this would be necessary if former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had only deployed more troops eight years ago. Yes, he really said more troops.So “the Washington establishment that included Mr. Kerry was fretting,” huh? What thorough sourcing!
In a 43-page report issued yesterday by his Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Kerry says bin Laden and deputy Ayman Zawahiri were poised for capture at the Tora Bora cave complex in late 2001. But because of the "unwillingness" of Mr. Rumsfeld and his generals "to deploy the troops required to take advantage of solid intelligence and unique circumstances to kill or capture bin Laden," the al Qaeda leaders escaped.
This in turn "paved the way for exactly what we had hoped to avoid—a protracted insurgency that has cost more lives than anyone estimates would have been lost in a full-blown assault on Tora Bora."
The timing of the report's release suggests that Mr. Kerry intends this as political cover for Mr. Obama and Democrats, and some in the press corps have even taken it seriously. But coming from Mr. Kerry, of all people, this criticism is nothing short of astonishing.
In 2001, readers may recall, the Washington establishment that included Mr. Kerry was fretting about the danger in Afghanistan from committing too many troops. The New York Times made the "quagmire" point explicitly in a famous page-one analysis, and Seymour Hersh fed the cliche at The New Yorker.
In response, this tells us the following…
In the 2004 presidential campaign, Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry accuses the Bush administration of allowing bin Laden to escape Afghanistan in late 2001 by not sending enough US troops to contain him when he was trapped in the Tora Bora region. The New York Times publishes an op-ed by Gen. Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command. Franks writes, “On more than one occasion, Senator Kerry has referred to the fight at Tora Bora in Afghanistan during late 2001 as a missed opportunity for America. He claims that our forces had Osama bin Laden cornered and allowed him to escape. How did it happen? According to Mr. Kerry, we ‘outsourced’ the job to Afghan warlords. As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator’s understanding of events doesn’t square with reality.… We don’t know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.” Franks is a vocal supporter of Bush’s reelection. [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/19/2004] Shortly after Franks’ comments, four Knight Ridder reporters who had been at Tora Bora during the battle revisit the issue. They discover that “Franks and other top officials ignored warnings from their own and allied military and intelligence officers that the combination of precision bombing, special operations forces, and Afghan forces that had driven the Taliban from northern Afghanistan might not work in the heartland of the country’s dominant Pashtun tribe.” [KNIGHT RIDDER, 10/30/2004] Author Peter Bergen asserts, “There is plenty of evidence that bin Laden was at Tora Bora, and no evidence indicating that he was anywhere else at the time.” Bergen cites after-action US intelligence reports and interviews with US counterterrorism officials that express confidence bin Laden was at Tora Bora. He notes that bin Laden discussed his presence at the Tora Bora battle in a audio message released in 2003. [PETERBERGEN (.COM), 10/28/2004] In 2005, Gary Berntsen, who was in charge of an on-the-ground CIA team trying to find bin Laden (see September 26, 2001), will claim that he gave Franks definitive evidence that bin Laden was trapped in Tora Bora (see Late October-Early December 2001).Oh, and you can be sure that Dubya remembered the favor Franks did for him here…
Also, this tells us that Kerry called for more troops in Afghanistan in 2007, as well as a change in mission to help reduce civilian casualties and a new policy to address the growing opium crisis. He also called for an Afghanistan Study Group. What was Bushco’s response?Cue the sound of crickets…
And as a result, Dubya’s successor now will likely increase our troop presence in that country nearly four-fold from what the Bush-Cheney gang allocated for the war that actually mattered (or at least that will happen based on the news leaks of Obama’s speech tonight that are virtually everywhere; I’m all out of outrage at the moment, particularly since the whole awful matter has been decided – besides, Bob Herbert stated my sentiments more eloquently here today in the New York Times).
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