Via
Atrios
New connections between Tom DeLay, Russian business and security interests, and a particularly nasty House vote in 1999 are being made.
First, 1999:
PAUL GIGOT: It was a bad day for the House. It was also a bad day for the president. It was a no confidence vote in his conduct during the war, Jim.
The US House was facing a turning point in the war in Kosovo. Would it support President Clinton's policy of intervention or
would it turn a blind eye to Milosevic's adventure?
MARK SHIELDS: Tom DeLay, the House Whip, and a member of House Republicans, this actual impeachment. That's exactly what it is. They're going to make it Clinton/Gore's war and they're going to guarantee that it doesn't work. Paul can say they're emulating, they're simulating. What that was - you had the House Republican Whip whipping members on the floor to vote against air cover that had been supported by president George Bush, supported by Bob Dole, the last Republican nominee, supported by Dick Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and John Warner, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Dick Shelby, Richard Shelby, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
And he whipped them to the point where they were contradictory. They're saying we're against bringing our troops home. We're just going to leave them there.
---
JIM LEHRER: The bombing war was more intense today than it has been since it began. Does that make kind of the House of Representatives almost irrelevant in this? Have they made themselves irrelevant?
PAUL GIGOT: I doubt it was irrelevant to Slobodan Milosevic. What message do you think he took with a 213 to 213 vote? Do you think he thinks Bill Clinton is leading a unified country? I don't think so.
So there you have it. Tom DeLay and the House repubs playing politics with soldier's lives, attempting to undercut Clinton's power at home with a cynical vote against his policy, a vote to put our own soldiers in harm's way.
Fast forward to today:
A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements.
DeLay reported that the trip was sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit organization. But interviews with those involved in planning DeLay's trip say the expenses were covered by a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas that also paid for an intensive $440,000 lobbying campaign.
---
In this case, travel funds did not come directly from lobbyists; the money came from a firm, Chelsea Commercial Enterprises Ltd., that funded the lobbying campaign, according to the sources. Chelsea was coordinating the effort with a Russian oil and gas company -- Naftasib -- that has business ties with Russian security institutions, the sources said.
So DeLay's trip was paid for by a firm associated with Russian security interests. Kevin Drum asks this question:
Hmmm. Back in the mid-90s, wasn't DeLay awfully vocal about opposing action to stop Serbian genocide in Kosovo? And wasn't the Russian security establishment one of the biggest defenders of Serb interests?
Bugman is unAmerican, in the sense that his interests lie not with those of the betterment of the American people. He is quite American, in the sense that his interests lie solely in expanding his estate, no matter the cost to fellow human beings, be they American soldiers or the American people.
Update [2005-4-7 19:20:7 by lapin]: Check out the American Prospect's Tapped for a more in depth and very much up to date review of the DeLay/Russian connection.
Update [2005-4-7 19:41:3 by lapin]: Hey, I got my first hate mail due to this post! It's really mild, but still, it's the first. I'll remember it forever.
Subject: Delay Conspired with the Russians
And Ted Kennedy conspired with the KGB in '79-'80 to get the presidential nomination over Carter, and Clinton sold military secrets to China for foreign cash contributions .. whats your point ???
Michael
So I replied:
Right back at you: what's your point? You got a
problem with the post, get a user id and make a
comment on the diary. That way, your thoughts can
enlighten us all.
So then Michael said:
You moron left wing American haters "censored" me and I was banned after 2 posts.. So much for "compassion" and allowing other opinions to partake in the conversation. But thats what you get from a bunch of baby killing terrorist supporting panty wearing tree hugging liberals.
Michael
I didn't know I wore panties!