Those who were relieved when incoming democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi, under pressure, reconsidered her first choice for House Intelligence Committee chairman, and refrained from appointed Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings, who was previously removed from the federal bench for corruption, are worrying again.

Canada Free Press reports:

Law enforcement and intelligence experts are scratching their heads in disbelief upon discovering that the next House Intelligence Committee Chairman doesn’t possess even a basic understanding of terrorism or terrorist groups. In fact, he’s never heard of Hezbollah.

Representative Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), who was Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s second choice to head the sensitive and vital committee, did not know what Hezbollah was and incorrectly described Al-Qaeda as being Shiite rather than Sunni.

Rep. Reyes appeared disoriented when a reporter asked him basic questions about the Islamic groups that are the principal targets of America’s intelligence agencies, including Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and others.

“Al-Qa’eda is what — Sunni or Shia?” Jeff Stein, the Congressional Quarterly magazine’s national security editor, asked Mr Reyes. “Al-Qaeda, they have both,” replied Reyes.

“You’re talking about predominately?”Predominantly — probably Shiite,” said the puzzled Democrat from Texas.

As Mr. Stein noted in his CQ column, “He couldn’t have been more wrong. Al-Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an Al-Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.”

He also asked Reyes about the terrorist group Hezbollah. “Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah…” he said, laughing. “Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

“This is no laughing matter. Where was this man when Israel and Hezbollah battled for almost two weeks?” asked a former intelligence officer and now New York City detective.

“We went from an impeached judge to a man ignorant of the basic facts regarding terrorist groups. What kind of oversight will that be?” he added.

You’re not dumb enough to have fallen for one of those Nigerian email frauds, are you?

But, then you’re not a former democrat Congressman, married to a current democrat Congresswoman, whose son is dating Chelsea Clinton, either. I guess if you can believe that socialized healthcare will work, believing in free millions from Nigeria is no problem.

The Blotter:

If reports are true that Chelsea Clinton and her boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky are considering marriage, the father of the groom won’t be able to attend the wedding until he is released from prison in November 2008.

Ed Mezvinsky, a former Democratic Congressman from Iowa, is serving a seven-year sentence for fraud after getting caught up in a series of Nigerian e-mail scams.

Initially, Mezvinsky became the victim of “just about every different kind of African-based scam we’ve ever seen,” federal prosecutor Bob Zauzmer told 20/20 for a report to be broadcast this evening.

But then, says Zauzmer, Mezvinsky began to steal from clients and even his own mother-in-law to raise the money to try yet another scheme.

NBC10.com:

Former U.S. Rep. Ed Mezvinsky pleaded guilty to stealing $10.4 million from his friends, family and business associates and even his mother-in-law .

Mezvinsky tearfully expressed remorse before being sentenced Thursday to six years, eight months in prison for defrauding business associates, friends and family.

Federal prosecutors called Mezvinsky, 65, a “con man” who faked mental illness to avoid punishment for bilking friends and business associates. They were seeking a nine to 11-year prison term for the disgraced lawmaker, who pleaded guilty to 31 counts of fraud in September.

Through tears, Mezvinsky told U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell that he still fails to completely understand his actions.

“I went into a spiral that turned into the house of cards that fell,” Mezvinsky said.

Dalzell gave credit to Mezvinsky for accepting responsibility with a guilty plea, but rejected a plea for leniency over Mezvinsky’s alleged mental capacity. He sentenced the former lawmaker to 80 months in prison.

“Whatever impairment Mr. Mezvinsky may have had — and I am dubious in the extreme about that — it simply did not contribute to the … crimes which took place over 12 years,” Dalzell said.

Mezvinsky and his wife, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, who also served in Congress, were once high-profile Democrats who hobnobbed with Bill and Hillary Clinton and raised 11 children, some adopted, at their suburban Philadelphia mansion.

Prosecutors said Mezvinsky began soliciting cash for fraudulent schemes in the 1980s, and eventually collected millions for business ventures that never materialized, including an oil deal, a coin trading company and an effort to sell bracelets in Africa.

In the meantime, Mezvinsky fell victim to several Nigerian investment scams and lost much of his borrowed money. He blamed the losses on a bipolar disorder and a bad reaction to anti-malaria drug Lariam.

“I have been in denial for a long period, and now I’m accepting responsibility,” Mezvinsky said.

Hat tip to John Brewer.

The Stiletto is listening to noises from the nation’s capitol:

Hear That? It’s The Sound Of Dem Campaign Promises Being Broken

Here’s a round-up of recent headlines that makes it clear that The Party With No Plan has no plans to keep its campaign promises:

” Dems Won’t Find Enacting 9/11 Ideas Easy: Remember how Pelosi & Co. was going to implement every single one of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations? Well, forget it. For one thing, many of the recommendations fall outside the purview of Congress.

” Democrats Split On How Far To Go With Ethics Law: After months of yammering about the “culture of corruption” on the other side of the aisle, Dems are dancing as fast as they can away from their promise of a “complete overhaul” of Congressional ethics rules. For one thing, there are no plans to curtail earmarks.

Byron York wonders (along with the rest of us) if Nancy Pelosi will turn over oversight of US Intelligence to the man she voted to remove for corruption from the federal bench.

But she finds what the democrats will do with the opportunity presented by their recent electoral success is unclear.

As for Democrats, they have a unique opportunity, one they haven’t had in 14 years, to redefine for the public what their party is. It is their chance to change their public label. Now, with the cameras of the country trained on Capitol Hill, they can throw off the old baggage of the 1960s and ’70s and erase the cartoon version of their party, which is culturally radical, weak in its defense of America, profligate, McGovernite, bitterly devoted to the demands of its groups as opposed to the needs of America.

In 1992 the young Southern moderate Bill Clinton got a chance to erase the cartoon, and he did, for a while. But he quickly slid back, undone by his own confusion as to the purpose of his power, and reinforced the public’s worst assumptions about his party with everything from the health-care fiasco to using the Lincoln bedroom as a comp room for big rollers to horrifying fund-raising and personal scandals. What he did prove — and the area in which he did break away from the cartoon version of Democrats — was that he didn’t dislike money or its makers. He did nothing to harm Wall Street, little to slow the economy, displayed a personal tropism toward the rich. Beyond that he didn’t change his party’s rep.

Can Nancy Pelosi? She looked radiant when she was elected by the Democratic conference Thursday, and she was careful to speak — everyone was careful to speak — of children and grandchildren. No one held up a sign saying “We’re Normal,” but the message was sent.

Can the Democrats spend the next two years showing a moderate, centrist, mature face to the country? Republicans say — this is the big phrase — “It’s not in their DNA.” But betting on the other guy’s inability to change is not, really, a plan. And these Democrats, or many of them, seem a rising generation of pragmatists. They seem to know what’s at stake. If they scare America, they give Republicans a ready campaign theme for 2008: If you liked the crazy Democratic Congress, you’ll love a crazy Democratic White House.

Can they go down the center, or will radicalism of various sorts erupt and gain sway? No one knows. The Democrats don’t know. The answer is going to help shape America’s future political history. And it will help shape George Bush’s. If the Democrats are radical, he will look more reasonable, not only in the eyes of the public but of history. If the Democrats are moderate, I think he will do something surprising, and yet much in line with his personality and nature.

She predicts, on the other hand, that George W. Bush will outdo both the Paleocons and the Neocons in dumping the Republicans.

Old affection and regard for the White House and the president have dissipated. But fear remains. They have two more years, they have the power to nominate, they have money. And so a party that might begin the process of refinding itself by thoughtfully detaching from the White House will, likely, not.

But I see a surprise coming.

What is the first thing men do when they’re drowning? They save themselves. With the waters rising on every side the president will attempt to re-enact his first and most personally satisfying political success when, as governor of Texas, he won plaudits and popularity for working hand in glove with Democrats. He accepted many Democratic assumptions — he shared them, it wasn’t hard.

The White House’s reaction to the recent election was, essentially, Now we can get our immigration bill through with the Democrats. That was a clue. I suspect the president will over the next two years do to Republicans what he did to Donald Rumsfeld: over the side, under the bus and off the sled.

He doesn’t need them. They’re not popular. They’re not where the action is. He’ll work closely with Democrats, gain in time new and admiring press — “Bush has grown,” etc.

This is the path he will take to build his popularity and create a new legacy. If the Democrats let him. It would be in their interests, so I think maybe they will.

A significant factor in the democrats’ capture of control of Congress was the public’s perception of a Republican “culture of corruption.” Voters forgot all about the pre-1994 democrat Congressional culture of corruption. That was a real culture of corruption featuring the resignation of Speaker of the House Jim Wright and House Majority Whip Tony Coelho.

But Nancy Pelosi is already providing a quick refresher course. John Murtha proved very useful to the democrat left as front man in legitimizing opposition to war. A decorated Marine veteran denouncing the war came in handy by providing crucial patriotic cover for radical leftist war opponents. Nancy Pelosi was born the daughter of a democrat big city machine boss, and she knows the importance of paying off for favors, so she is supporting John Murtha for Majority Leader.

What kind of congressman is John Murtha really? Well, he’s a very slippery one, who narrowly escaped getting nailed by the 1980 FBI Abscam Investigation. Watch the videos, and make up your own mind about Murtha.

Key excerpts:

Abscam video 1– 6:51

Abscam video 2 – 6:15

Full 54 minute video at American Spectator with article.

Murtha and ABSCAM: What Really Happened

Jim Kouri discusses Nancy Pelosi’s possible House Intelligence Chairman appointee Alcee Hastings’ past and notes the silence of the MSM.

The fact that Hastings is being seriously considered for such a sensitive position and the mainstream news media don’t appear outraged adds to the enormous amount of evidence that the MSM are lapdogs for the Democrats. Imagine if Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert appointed an impeached judge to a key committee chairmanship. Would not that be tied into the mantra “a culture of corruption” by the elite news media?

Read the whole thing.

Can rumors that Nancy Pelosi intends to appoint Rep. Alcee Hastings to the Chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee possibly be correct?

Mark Steyn discusses John Kerry and his party.

what (Kerry) said fits what too many upscale Dems believe: that America’s soldiers are only there because they’re too poor and too ill-educated to know any better. That’s what they mean when they say “we support our troops.” They support them as victims, as children, as potential welfare recipients, but they don’t support them as warriors and they don’t support the mission.

So their “support” is objectively worthless. The indignant protest that “of course” “we support our troops” isn’t support, it’s a straddle, and one that emphasizes the Democrats’ frivolousness in the post-9/11 world. A serious party would have seen the jihad as a profound foreign-policy challenge they needed to address credibly. They could have found a Tony Blair — a big mushy-leftie pantywaist on health and education and all the other sissy stuff, but a man at ease with the projection of military force in the national interest. But we saw in Connecticut what happens to Democrats who run as Blairites: You get bounced from the ticket. In the 2004 election, instead of coming to terms with it as a national security question, the Democrats looked at the war on terror merely as a Bush wedge issue they needed to neutralize. And so they signed up with the weirdly incoherent narrative of John Kerry — a celebrated anti-war activist suddenly “reporting for duty” as a war hero and claiming that, even though the war was a mistake and his comrades were murderers and rapists, his four months in the Mekong rank as the most epic chapter in the annals of the Republic.

Read the whole thing.

The Marine Corps tells recruits in boot camp that pain is just the natural sensation of weakness leaving the body. We conservatives can look upon an electoral defeat as the sensation of opportunists and trimmers losing control of the Republican Party.

Success in 1994, 2000, and 2004 largely led to Republican cowardice, compromise, complacency, and SPENDING. If the GOP goes down in flames in 2006, let’s just hope many of the current pilots meet their political demise in the crash.

The Conservative Movement has come back, more than once, from grave reverses, each time stronger than before. We need to do now, as we did then: wage the battle of ideas; and, after winning, go on to govern on the basis of those ideas.

A democrat majority, resting on its hard left base, is a recipe for disaster. If we are forced to step aside, we will have the opportunity to recover ground with every democrat blunder, every democrat outrage, and every democrat scandal. And they may be relied upon to supply plenty of all three.

Moreover, there is reason to believe that any democrat majorities which occur will be built upon the electoral success of far more conservative democrat candidates than have been seen in a long time. If they win in 2006, the democrat party’s radical base loses anyway.

Excellent GOP response ad.

video

Hat tip to José Guardia and Dean Esmay.

Peter Schweizer, at National Review Online, argues, that while the Republican Party is often looked upon as the party of the rich, the very wealthy are more often democrats.

As U.S. News & World Report political reporter Michael Barone points out, John Kerry won only one county in the state of Idaho, but it was the county that included the super-rich enclave of Sun Valley. And he carried only one county in Wyoming, the one which included the super-rich community of Jackson Hole. Barone calls this part of the “trust-funder Left.”

So why are we seeing the emergence of liberal millionaires and billionaires?

Part of the answer may lie in the way much of this wealth was accumulated. Some of these individuals (Kerry, Dayton, Rockefeller, etc.) inherited their wealth and are thus less familiar with the rigors of the marketplace. Sure they have stock investments, but they haven’t spent time building a business or even holding down a demanding job in corporate America. Others, particularly in the high-tech sector and Hollywood, amassed their wealth quickly and faced fewer challenges in dealing with invasive government and regulations. They see wealth as something that happens quickly, not something that is build up over time. The Silicon Valley 30-year-old worth $200 million on a stock IPO after six years in the business is likely to have a different view of wealth accumulation than the industrialist who amassed a similar fortune over the course of a lifetime. A life of wealth seems more like a lottery, and less like the end result of hard work.

Ironically, Democrats, who talk about income inequality and plutocracy, are now the party of the super rich. The super rich have different priorities and concerns than other Americans. Taxes don’t bite as hard because they can hire accounts and lawyers to avoid or minimize them. They tend to be less religious and therefore less concerned with issues of faith. And they can embrace causes that will impact society and not really affect them… In short, a political party dominated by the super rich is going to have some issues knowing what concerns ordinary Americans.