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Off Shore Drilling: House Dems turn out the lights but GOP keeps talking
Paging Mr. Smith....
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Exposing Bush's historic abuse of power
Salon has uncovered new evidence of post-9/11 spying on Americans. Obtained documents point to a potential investigation of the White House that could rival Watergate.
July 23, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration, from the manipulation of intelligence to torture to extrajudicial spying inside the United States. But there are growing indications that these known abuses of power may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now, in the twilight of the Bush presidency, a movement is stirring in Washington for a sweeping new inquiry into White House malfeasance that would be modeled after the famous Church Committee congressional investigation of the 1970s.
While reporting on domestic surveillance under Bush, Salon obtained a detailed memo proposing such an inquiry, and spoke with several sources involved in recent discussions around it on Capitol Hill. The memo was written by a former senior member of the original Church Committee; the discussions have included aides to top House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, and until now have not been disclosed publicly.
Salon has also uncovered further indications of far-reaching and possibly illegal surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency inside the United States under President Bush. That includes the alleged use of a top-secret, sophisticated database system for monitoring people considered to be a threat to national security. It also includes signs of the NSA's working closely with other U.S. government agencies to track financial transactions domestically as well as globally.
The proposal for a Church Committee-style investigation emerged from talks between civil liberties advocates and aides to Democratic leaders in Congress, according to sources involved. (Pelosi's and Conyers' offices both declined to comment.) Looking forward to 2009, when both Congress and the White House may well be controlled by Democrats, the idea is to have Congress appoint an investigative body to discover the full extent of what the Bush White House did in the war on terror to undermine the Constitution and U.S. and international laws. The goal would be to implement government reforms aimed at preventing future abuses -- and perhaps to bring accountability for wrongdoing by Bush officials.
"If we know this much about torture, rendition, secret prisons and warrantless wiretapping despite the administration's attempts to stonewall, then imagine what we don't know," says a senior Democratic congressional aide who is familiar with the proposal and has been involved in several high-profile congressional investigations.
"You have to go back to the McCarthy era to find this level of abuse," says Barry Steinhardt, the director of the Program on Technology and Liberty for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Because the Bush administration has been so opaque, we don't know [the extent of] what laws have been violated."
more@url Salon has uncovered new evidence of post-9/11 spying on Americans. Obtained documents point to a potential investigation of the White ... more -
Pelosi: Bush 'a total failure'
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Bush "a total failure" on Thursday, among the California Democrat's harshest assessments to date of the president.
"God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States -- a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject," Pelosi told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an exclusive interview.
The comments came two days after the president sharply criticized Congress over what he described as relative inaction over the course of the legislative term. At the White House on Wednesday, Bush noted that there were only 26 legislative days left in the fiscal year and said Congress would need to pass a spending bill every other day to "get their fundamental job done."
"This is not a record to be proud of, and I think the American people deserve better," Bush said. VideoWatch Pelosi respond to criticism of Congress from the president »
In the interview, Pelosi said the president was in no position to criticize Congress and brushed aside the criticisms as "something to talk about because he has no ideas."
"For him to be challenging Congress when we are trying to sweep up after his mess over and over and over again -- at the end of the day, Congress will have passed its responsibility to pass legislation," she said.
But Pelosi's comments come as a new Gallup poll registers the lowest level of congressional approval among Americans in the polling organization's 30-year history of conducting that survey.
That poll showed that its approval rating had reached an anemic 14 percent, while more than 70 percent of those polled said they disapproved of the job Congress is doing.
The House speaker said she doesn't consider those numbers a negative referendum on the Democrats in charge, saying she thinks they stem largely from Congress' failure to end the war in Iraq.
"Everything I see says this is about ending the war -- 'I disapprove of Congress' performance in terms of ending the war,' " she said. "In the House, we, of course, have over and over, five or six times, sent to the Senate legislation for a time certain to reduce our deployment in Iraq and bring our troops home safely, honorably and soon. We haven't been able to get it past the Senate or the president of the United States.
"So, on the basis of that, count me among the 70-some percent," she continued. "But that is one measure. The other measure that I'm more interested in is the one that talks about what is their view of Democrats. And the generic, who do you prefer to run the country on all of these issues? We're in double digits in any poll that you can take."
Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant derided Pelosi's comments as "the sort of partisan politics that Democrats once decried and promised to change."
"Rather than personally critique others, Speaker Pelosi should reconsider her own out-of-touch stance against oil exploration," he said. "With Americans paying record prices at the pump and Congress in gridlock, this is no time for the speaker to only offer personal attacks."
In the wide-ranging interview, the entirety of which will air Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," Pelosi also reiterated her longtime opposition to lifting a congressional ban on offshore drilling as well as opening up areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil exploration. Bush and congressional Republicans have pushed for those two policy changes.
Pelosi has long opposed drilling offshore, a popular policy position among Californians, many of whom fear its environmental consequences along the state's coastline.
But a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll showed that more than 73 percent of Americans polled approved of lifting the 1981 ban, and the move holds support among many in Pelosi's own party, whose constituents are growing increasingly angry over rising gas prices. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Bush "a total failure" on Thursday, among the California Democrat's harshes... more -
Why Impeachment was "Off the Table"
In December of last year, The Washington Post revealed:
Four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA’s overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
Identically, numerous key Democrats in Congress were told that Bush had ordered the NSA to spy on American without warrants and outside of FISA. None of them did anything to stop it.
In light of this sordid history of active complicity, is it really any wonder that these leading Democrats are desperate to quash any investigations or judicial adjudications of Bush administration actions that they knew about and did nothing to stop, in some cases even actively supporting? In December of last year, The Washington Post revealed: ... more -
Tell Senator Obama: Don't cave on telecom immunity
Subject: Tell Senator Obama: Don't cave on telecom immunity
Dear Friend,
This week, Senators Dodd and Feingold won a battle in the fight to stop the FISA capitulation: they've delayed a vote on the bill until after the July 4th recess, which buys them more time to shore up the votes they need to defeat the bill.
However, it's unlikely they'll succeed without real support from leaders in Congress, most of whom have already abandoned us: Senator Reid caved in long ago, and Speaker Pelosi finally folded last week. There is one major leader left who should support our cause: Senator Barack Obama. Senator Obama said he was "unequivovally opposed" to retroactive telecom immunity last December, but lately, he's started to backpedal. We need to make sure he does what's right.
I just signed a petition calling on Senator Obama to stand up for the Constitution by voting no on FISA -- I hope you will too.
Please have a look and take action.
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/obama_stop_fisa/?r_...
Thanks!
CredoAction.com
________________________
From TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com Subject: Tell Senator Obama: Don't cave on telecom immunity Dear Friend, ... more -
Behind the Compromise on Spying
A compromise deal to extend the federal government's domestic spying powers, passed by the House on Friday and expected to sail through the Senate next week, has drawn attacks from both sides of the political spectrum. The right is unhappy at concessions made to protect civil liberties; the left is furious that the Democrats allowed the domestic spying powers to be extended in any form. Much of the latter's rage has been directed against Nancy Pelosi, the liberal House Speaker who was instrumental in negotiating the deal — attacking her on the internet and virtually shutting down her switchboard with complaints. One blogger called Pelosi "disturbingly disoriented" and said the deal she and her allies have cut will "eviscerate the Fourth Amendment, exempt their largest corporate contributors from the rule of law, and endorse the most radical aspects of the Bush lawbreaking regime."
END QUOTE A compromise deal to extend the federal government's domestic spying powers, passed by the House on Friday and expected to sail t... more -
We broke it, they buy it -- Dems take aim at reconstruction funds
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are saying that Iraq's government needs to spend more of its own money on reconstruction now that the United States has spent more than $45 billion. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., says future U.S. reconstruction payments should be in the form of loans, not grants — resurrecting a proposal that died in the Republican-controlled Congress at the start of the war five years ago.
Nelson, a member of the Senate committee that oversees spending legislation, says it's not fair for the United States to pay for reconstruction when Iraq's oil revenue could be $60 billion or more this year because of record prices. Nelson said he planned to offer an amendment to the Iraq spending bill that would require Iraq to pay back future reconstruction aid as well as money approved by Congress but not yet spent."
I don't know about you, but proposing loans sounds to me like another structural adjustment debt disaster waiting to happen. Whenever the next President decides to withdraw combat forces, we should still be helping Iraq fix the infrastructure that we have been responsible for decades for destroying. I assume at that point congressional oversight on wasteful spending and corrupt or inefficient contracting will still be sorely needed. "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders are saying that Iraq's government needs to spend more of its own mo... more -
China locks down restive regions
China continues to increase security in Tibet, as a leading US lawmaker and others urge international condemnation of its actions. In one town in Gansu, a BBC journalist saw rows of armed soldiers and heard broadcasts telling people to surrender.
On Thursday, China admitted for the first time that troops had shot and injured protesters during the unrest.
A senior US lawmaker, Nancy Pelosi, has called on the international community to denounce China's rule in Tibet. Ms Pelosi is holding talks in northern India with the Dalai Lama, who Chinese authorities accuse of inciting the violence. China continues to increase security in Tibet, as a leading US lawmaker and others urge international condemnation of its actions. In ... more -
Town Hell
Control of the nation hangs in the balance between Republicans and Democrats. While the mainstream media and political machines focus on the last laps of the horse race, how do ordinary citizens get their voices heard? Control of the nation hangs in the balance between Republicans and Democrats. While the mainstream media and political machines focus... more
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