• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t trust women.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Let’s finish the job.

Everybody saw this coming.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Mobile Menu

  • Four Directions Montana
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2024 Elections
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / Laws for the Lawless

Laws for the Lawless

by John Cole|  July 10, 20079:03 am| 24 Comments

This post is in: Military, Politics, War on Terror aka GSAVE®

FacebookTweetEmail

Interesting:

At the Pentagon’s request, Senate defense authorizers tucked deep within a defense bill a repeal of the department’s restriction on granting security clearances to ex-convicts, drug addicts and the mentally incompetent.

The repeal provision now is creating discord between the Senate Armed Services and the Intelligence committees. In its markup of the 2008 defense authorization bill, the Intelligence panel voted to delete the Armed Services provision.

The fate of the provision could become a flashpoint this week as the Senate takes up the bill.

The Senate Armed Services panel seeks to repeal a seven-year-old law that established mandatory standards disqualifying certain people from receiving security clearances.

Under the law, members of the military services, employees of the Department of Defense or contractors working for the Pentagon cannot receive a security clearance if they were convicted of a crime in any U.S. court and went to prison for at least one year; if they are unlawful users of illegal substances; if they are considered mentally incompetent or if they were dishonorably discharged or dismissed from the armed forces.

Three ways to look at this, I guess:

1.) The Pentagon and the Armed Forces have suddenly decided they believe in rehabiliation.

2.) The military and defense establishment are so broken and desparate for recruits that they have to relax EVERY standard in place in order to have enough bodies.

3.) The military and defense department are concerned that after the Bush administration, so many Republicans are going to have criminal records that they won’t be able to staff all their positions.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Official Tim Schadenfruede Thread
Next Post: Surgin’ »

Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    scav

    July 10, 2007 at 9:08 am

    well, the “mentally incompetent” add-in would retroactively cover the CiC…… no? Sort of a two-fer with all the criminal record elements touched on in point 3)

  2. 2.

    Snarky Shark

    July 10, 2007 at 9:10 am

    All of the above.

  3. 3.

    Zifnab

    July 10, 2007 at 9:24 am

    well, the “mentally incompetent” add-in would retroactively cover the CiC…… no? Sort of a two-fer with all the criminal record elements touched on in point 3)

    Please. Like Cheney even lets his sock-puppet read anything with security clearance. Bush had a hard enough time with “My Pet Goat”.

  4. 4.

    Wilfred

    July 10, 2007 at 9:38 am

    if they were convicted of a crime in any U.S. court and went to prison for at least one year

    Is that the Eliot Abrams/Neocon clause? The one year prison condition seems to have been written with Presidential pardons in mind.

  5. 5.

    RSA

    July 10, 2007 at 9:41 am

    Just who I want to have security clearances: drug-addled, mentally incompetent ex-convicts. I feel safer already.

  6. 6.

    Cyrus

    July 10, 2007 at 9:47 am

    #2 seems most likely to me, and agrees with lots of stuff I seem to recall reading elsewhere. While the idea of lifting the ban might not be a horrible idea — if someone did their time, that should probably be it, etc. — this will go wrong like everything else related to the war. To me, the real scandal here seems to be the provision “tucked deep within a defense bill”, which makes it sound like not everyone who voted on the bill was aware of it. Sure, that’s not new either, but it’s also bad and stuff.

  7. 7.

    Dennis-SGMM

    July 10, 2007 at 9:51 am

    A couple of years ago one of the neighbor kids dropped by to proudly announce that he’d joined the Army and that he would be going to boot camp then to jump school to train as an Airborne Ranger.

    I knew the young man well because he had been in Special Ed classes with my autistic son throughout Middle and High School so I was more than surprised that the Army had enlisted him. Nonetheless, I congratulated him and wished him good luck.
    A few weeks later, his father told me that he’d returned home. That was all he said and I didn’t ask. The young man has not left the house since.

    The heartless SOB who recruited that kid and the heartless, brainless SOB who made recruiting such kids necessary by starting an unnecessary war should burn in Hell.

  8. 8.

    Jake

    July 10, 2007 at 9:55 am

    I pick Number 3.

    The military and defense establishment are so broken and desparate for recruits that they have to relax EVERY standard in place in order to have enough bodies.

    Unless those bodies are gay bodies. Remember: Gays & Lesbians = Bad for morale. Crazy, drug addicted, ex-cons = Good for morale.

    I suppose allowing people back in after a dishonorable discharge might cover people kicked out under DADT a second chance. If it doesn’t, DoD sucks. If it does, it still sucks.

    Sure, come on back, just sit over there on the Group W bench with the mother rapers and father stabbers.

    Arseholes.

  9. 9.

    Crust

    July 10, 2007 at 10:00 am

    I guess a fourth possibility is for some reason they affirmatively want to grant security clearances to selected people with criminal backgrounds for certain roles. I’m thinking something like drug dealers in Iran Contra. That’s no less crazy than the other three possible reasons. Still crazy, though.

  10. 10.

    scav

    July 10, 2007 at 10:00 am

    Leaving the docs out loose when the sock puppet is around at least gives you another layer of plausible deniability and a little extra executive privilege to fling about with the feces. Or, if you’re really concerned about security, don’t leave the papers loose and throw the sock puppet in the man-size safe with them.

  11. 11.

    SPIIDERWEB™

    July 10, 2007 at 10:14 am

    I would go with 2 and 3.

    Just my opinion which is worth exactly what it’s costing you.

  12. 12.

    RandyH

    July 10, 2007 at 10:18 am

    This applies to civilian employees and defense contractors as well. This is something that Cheney/Rumsfeld would have needed in order to employ or give contracts to many of their neo-con friends. They would only go to such lengths to protect one of their own.

  13. 13.

    John Bode

    July 10, 2007 at 10:24 am

    Crust’s hypothesis actually sounds the most likely to me, at least as far as criminal convictions and drug use go. The mentally incompetent provision I don’t quite get.

    Then again, if talking points are to be “treated as” Top Secret/SCI, one could make the case that mental competence isn’t much of a concern anymore.

  14. 14.

    grumpy realist

    July 10, 2007 at 10:47 am

    Warm bodies. They don’t care. Just as long as they have sufficient warm bodies to throw into the meat-grinder.

    Hey, Mr. President, why don’t you get your daughters to sign up if this “war” is as important as you claim it is?

  15. 15.

    scarshapedstar

    July 10, 2007 at 10:53 am

    well, the “mentally incompetent” add-in would retroactively cover the CiC…… no? Sort of a two-fer with all the criminal record elements touched on in point 3)

    Somehow I suspect the “drug addicts” part isn’t entirely unrelated to the CiC, either.

  16. 16.

    George B.

    July 10, 2007 at 11:02 am

    As an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal, I feel very positive about this development.

  17. 17.

    Andrew

    July 10, 2007 at 11:42 am

    if they are considered mentally incompetent

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you what is now the most prescient line in movie history:
    “Don’t worry scrote. There are plenty of ‘tards out there living really kick ass lives. My first wife was ‘tarded. She’s a pilot now.”

    I just hadn’t realized she was in the military.

  18. 18.

    Tsulagi

    July 10, 2007 at 11:43 am

    From that three-way buffet, I’ll go with a bit of #2 and a slice of #3.

    Also a selection of #4. The article you linked to mentions there is already a waiver process to allow in the convicted drug using mentally incompetents. But there is a 18 month backlog in processing.

    See, that’s the problem! Not enough people like Bush getting into the Pentagon fast enough.

  19. 19.

    Jeff A

    July 10, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    Well, while it could be some combo of all three, I’ve got my money on option 3. :-)

  20. 20.

    Nancy Irving

    July 10, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    Do you have to be drug-addicted, convicted AND mentally-incompetent to qualify, or will just one do?

  21. 21.

    Jon H

    July 10, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    “Unless those bodies are gay bodies. Remember: Gays & Lesbians = Bad for morale. Crazy, drug addicted, ex-cons = Good for morale.”

    Oddly enough, if homosexuality were still considered a mental illness, they’d be okay to serve now!

  22. 22.

    rachel

    July 10, 2007 at 11:57 pm

    Dennis-SGMM Says:

    A couple of years ago one of the neighbor kids dropped by to proudly announce that he’d joined the Army and that he would be going to boot camp then to jump school to train as an Airborne Ranger.

    I knew the young man well because he had been in Special Ed classes with my autistic son throughout Middle and High School so I was more than surprised that the Army had enlisted him. Nonetheless, I congratulated him and wished him good luck.
    A few weeks later, his father told me that he’d returned home. That was all he said and I didn’t ask. The young man has not left the house since.

    Oh, the poor boy… Can anything be done to cheer him up?

  23. 23.

    Pete Guither

    July 11, 2007 at 5:45 pm

    Paragraph 1: “drug addicts”

    Paragraph 5: “unlawful users of illegal substances”

    Which is it? These are not equivalent terms by any means. Plenty of drug addicts are not unlawful users of illegal substances, and most unlawful users of illegal substances are not drug addicts.

  24. 24.

    Pete Guither

    July 11, 2007 at 5:45 pm

    Paragraph 1: “drug addicts”

    Paragraph 5: “unlawful users of illegal substances”

    Which is it? These are not equivalent terms by any means. Plenty of drug addicts are not unlawful users of illegal substances, and most unlawful users of illegal substances are not drug addicts.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • rikyrah on I Am All For This! (Apr 17, 2024 @ 5:11pm)
  • Jay on I Am All For This! (Apr 17, 2024 @ 5:11pm)
  • rikyrah on I Am All For This! (Apr 17, 2024 @ 5:09pm)
  • Baud on I Am All For This! (Apr 17, 2024 @ 5:09pm)
  • WaterGirl on I Am All For This! (Apr 17, 2024 @ 5:09pm)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Talk of Meetups – Meetup Planning
Proposed BJ meetups list from frosty

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8
Virginia House Races
Four Directions – Montana
Worker Power AZ
Four Directions – Arizona
Four Directions – Nevada

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
Positive Climate News
War in Ukraine
Cole’s “Stories from the Road”
Classified Documents Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Political Action 2024

Postcard Writing Information

Balloon Juice for Four Directions AZ

Donate

Balloon Juice for Four Directions NV

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2024 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!