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PLAYING POLITICS WITH YOUR SAFETY

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is in line to make history as the first female Speaker—and second in line of succession for the presidency—when the new Congress convenes in January. As with any election, a wide variety of issues factored into the dynamics of this year’s midterms. For us, however, the just-concluded campaign, like every federal election, was fundamentally about national security. The federal government’s principal task is providing for the defense of the nation, without which justice, welfare, and all the other blessings of liberty enjoyed inside the various states are, at best, aspirations.

Does the presumptive Speaker of the House agree with the above? Then surely she isn’t going to do what has been reported in the WASHINGTON POST,

and more recently in the MIAMI HERALD.

What’s the beef? Well, the current ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (which exercises oversight of organizations ranging from Central Intelligence Agency to the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Department, including the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency) is a California representative named Jane Harman.

While highly critical at times of the Bush administration’s conduct of intelligence and counterterrorism operations, Ms. Harman has displayed a keen understanding of intelligence issues, and has introduced quite sensible legislation on national security concerns, including government-wide security clearances and enhanced seaport security.

But, she beat a peace activist in her primary out West, and she has been criticized as insufficiently confrontational with the current Administration. So, the plan apparently is to replace her with Representative Alcee Hastings from Florida, a man with a past.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives impeached Hastings for bribery and perjury by a lopsided vote of 413 to 3. Then the Democrat-controlled Senate convicted him on eight articles of impeachment by well over the required two-thirds majority in 1989. Thus Mr. Hastings became only the sixth judge in the history of our Republic (and only the third in the 20th Century) to be removed by Congress. He was, and is, an utter disgrace to the nation and to the legal profession. Among those voting to impeach him were Ms. Pelosi herself, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip who is likely to become the new House majority leader, and Mr. Hastings’ fellow African-American Congressman, Michigan’s John Conyers, who took pains to deny that race had anything to do with the removal of the bribe-taking jurist.

Furthermore, his activities since entering the House in 1992 are anything but reassuring, unless you are one of those who see President Bushitler leading us into a dark age of oppression at the hands of the fascists.

The disgraced judge-cum-legislator’s record on national security—the most basic criterion for leading the intelligence committee at any time, much less in the midst of a war on terror—has not been reassuring. In the 109th Congress alone, Mr. Hastings voted consistently against key counterterrorism tools, including the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act, the Intelligence and Law Enforcement Resolution, and the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act. He has been an opponent of the trial by military commissions of unlawful terrorist combatants as well as border control, NSA communications intercepts, and terrorist financing tracking measures.

Furthermore, Rep. Hastings appears to be using his current post to carry on some of his former shenanigans.

The American Policy Center (APC), a conservative group, has called attention to the fact that, in recent years, Hastings has been under investigation for other ethics violations by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The APC reports that Hastings has also been investigated by the Florida Elections Commission and the Federal Election Commission for various charges of impropriety. Political Money Line, a watchdog group that tracks money in national politics, points out that Hastings ranks second among all American lawmakers in the number of taxpayer-funded trips he has taken since 1994, at a price tag of over $152,000 (not counting expenses incurred by his accompanying “assistants”).

It looks like the first test of the Democrat majority’s grasp of the world situation is upon them. Is the threat to our nation real? Does it require serious people with the good of the nation in mind to set aside partisan bickering and focus on the protection of our country in time of war? Or is the whole Global War on Terror simply a cynical ploy by the opposition party employed to scare the citizenry into electing them?

If political considerations take precedence over demonstrated competence, so that a man with a history of ethical lapses gets a crucial post in the fight against Islamist terror, the Democrats in the House of Representatives will have made a very big statement about their priorities and where the safety of every one of us ranks on their list.

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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 11/12 at 10:58 AM

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