AMEN!!!

Morning scarecrow

But will the “leaders” who may be facing criminal charges let the real (patriotic) leaders move forward?

I don’t think Pelosi has the guts. She seems content to have “made history” being the first speaker to wear a dress.

Heaven forbid she actually DO something historic… …like helping to save the nation!

I’m in full agreement here, Scarecrow. The key thing is that this WaPo story was leaked — probably by Porter Goss and Jose Rodriguez — in order to make the Dems back off.

Regardless of what I think of the implied approval that the story alleges (and I think we should all remember that defense and intel agencies, when doing presentations for Congresscritters, tend to, ah, pretty things up a bit, so we shouldn’t assume that what the CIA showed them was the full grim reality), we don’t want the Dems to back off — we want them to push HARDER.

If the Republicans (like Porter Goss) and their CIA buddies thought she’d sit meekly by and do nothing, this story would never have seen the light of day.

Instead, there’s now talk of appointing some sort of special counsel.

Dangit Scarecrow, yer gettin’ me fired up in spite of myself! I will call my representative the minute I get home… …any other way to push this?

Good morning, Scarecrow.

This is Pelosi’s defining moment. If there was any doubt before, we will now discover for certain what she is made of.

Yeah, lets call Speaker Pelosi and let her know this is her chance.

I had taken my “Pelosi 2007″ off my locker in disgust… …but I could be convinced to make a “Pelosi 2008″ version…

Pelosi is complicit. She goes along to get along. Pelosi should step down as Speaker.

Heads up; on CNN, Al Gore is starting his acceptance speech in Oslo.

Instead, there’s now talk of appointing some sort of special counsel.

finding myself unable to come up with names of suitable candidates for that position. (still hoping that Fitz will be tied up w/ Waxman for a while).

and Sheldon Whitehouse is busy with another gig.

OfT – Preview works!

Heads up; on CNN, Al Gore is starting his acceptance speech in Oslo.

Thanks Scarecrow.

So depressing that the Supremes screwed him and we wound up with a Chimpanzee instead.

Caw, caw! Good morning Scarecrow.

I like your choices for Chairmen, who else should be on the committee?

MSNBC started talking over Gore and has now cut away.

Scarecrow -

It’s a most excellent idea…the negative part of my brain (which these days consumes most of the capacity available) says, “Nagonnahappen!” The opportunity to watch Whitehouse leading such an investigation would cause progressives to buy out the world’s supply of popcorn.

Thanks for the heads-up on Gore!

Test for preview.

OMG! jayt – it really does work!

Good morning everyone.

Good story.

First order of business: Pelosi needs to call a Press Conference

Here is a teaser?

Who won the 1992 NH democratic primary…
I had forgotten and was amazed…
It appeared in a NY Times crossword last week

OT: To Siun and all the backroom techies: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Preview works for me too. Please, tell what the problem was and how you solved it.

the problem i see with the formation of a Joint Investigative Committee is who would be on it? unless it was co-chaired by russ feingold and rush holt, it would look like a whitewash. and even if the congressional leadership had the guts to put russ and rush in charge (which i doubt), are there enough people left in congress who are not tainted by the appearance (or reality) of conflicts of interest? i don’t think so.

it’s too late for the people who’ve helped in the cover up to be the ones trusted to get to the bottom of this. we need a (actually more than one) special investigator.

{{{ Smooches for the TECHIES }}}

I’m with Waccamaw:

Nah.Gonna.Happn

But this will:

1. Express outrage and say this shouldn’t happen in America

2. Go to Lunch

3. There is no three

thanks for the heads up on the “preview” function. i obviously didn’t use it for my last comment *g*

twolf -

CNN appears to be running the full Gore speech….if they don’t pull an MSNBC.

3 Go on Holiday break to raise money for re-election.

Good Morning Scarecrow!
Yesterday Jello Jay was on Face The Nation, according to him there’s no need for a special investigation, this was a job for congressional oversight. I wish I’d had a spew alert on that one

Jane Harman on the teevee this morning calling for investigations. Looking pretty steamed.

something else that irks me (yeah, it’s a long list – why do you ask? *g*)….

…is that why all the uproar in congress over destroying a couple of video recordings? why wasn’t there outrage about how our use of torture has destroyed people?

seems like a fake outrage to me – but i guess that it’s better than no outrage at all, which is what we’re seeing from too much of our congressional leadership.

I think we’re witnessing an historic speech. Eloquent, forceful, truthful — the essence of leadership.

What we have not seen in this country for the past 7 years!

Standing O for Gore!

Watching on CNN IN with actually a cogent summary.

And true to character, John Roberts couldn’t resist getting in his digs.

Jello Jay and Harmon are both enablers of lawlesness and must not be trusted to tell the truth about any of this. I was revolted watching Jello Jay yesterday. I am no longer willing to give him the benefit of doubt on secrecy and national security. These are people that have clearly lost sight of the fact that thier oath of office is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. It is so stated because it is the Constitution that provides our security. More than ever, I miss Barbara Jordon.

Working towards critical mass……

And who will Feingold and Holt question? Members of their own caucus, some of whom will no doubt be serving on the same joint congressional committee? The Congress investigates itself? When one of the prime focus points is the Speaker herself? Not only an unlikely scenario, but it places the chairmen in a very difficult if not impossible position. And, if the committee calls up CIA staffers, much of that will almost certainly have to go into closed session anyway.

And what a gift to the GOP members on the joint committee. Do you think they’ll just sit there with folded hands? Of course not. They’ll have a field day. Just in time for the election.

The only meaningful way to handle this is through a special counsel. Which is why we are seeing some, like Rockefeller, try to steer clear of that possibility.

It was a great speech. Too bad CNN was the only coverage it got – that i saw anyway.

i’m jealous of all of you who can watch gore’s speech live. i’ll have to wait until it’s posted somewhere on the toobz. (please goddess, let there be a good audio file posted).

twolf1 – did you grab a digital recording of it?

twolf

for some reason when I send e-mail to you it keeps bouncing back to me—whether you get it or not. Is that normal for you?

yeah. sadly, all good points.

A special counsel can only get to the criminal behavior. While that must be done, it’s not enough. We also need accountability for public/political behavior. There will likely be Democrats who can be harmed by this, but that is not a reason not to make the whole matter public. In the long run, it will strengthen the party, and the country. JMO.

twolf

for some reason when I send e-mail to you it keeps bouncing back to me—whether you get it or not. Is that normal for you?

To my knowledge, that is not normal. I haven’t got complaints about that before. Let me send you an email from a different email address.

National security and state’s secrets are a facade for the business plan!!!

Great Energy Bill No 15 % Renewables 35 mpg requirement 35 year to late.

More money for war, cooked intel for past years, Iran, cooked intel for war in Iraq. Democrats and Repubs aka “Asselephants” cook the books and steal US blind, paying for wars on the futures dime. Now tapes are destroyed to protect the CIA while the president and his friends give other agents names away. This is sick retarded cant take it no more!!!! It like that junkie with a needle, death knocking on that door!!! It all about the “black gold” you see!!!

twolf1 – did you grab a digital recording of it?

No, unfortunately I didn’t. Hopefully one will turn up online soon, I would like to watch it again.

i agree with your goal of making the matter public. i just don’t think congress can reliably investigate itself… we need another mechanism.

Breaking news…

“Just days after Vice President Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on global warming, the United State Supreme Court handed Mr. Gore a stunning reversal, stripping him of his Nobel and awarding it to
President George W. Bush instead.
For Mr. Gore, who basked in the adulation of the Nobel Committee and the world, the high court’s decision to give his prize to President Bush was a cruel twist of fate.
But in a 5-4 decision, the justices made it clear that they had taken the unprecedented step of stripping Mr. Gore of his Nobel because President Bush deserved it more.
“It is true that Al Gore has done a lot of talking about global warning,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, “but President Bush has actually helped create global warning.”

Amen, sir! I watched part of that jay interview yesterday and he was so far past disgusting you could not get there from here! He gives slime a good name…

if democrats reviewing bush’s torture program felt they were bound to secrecy, i.e., there was nothing they could do to change or influence the situation, then they should have never participated – stupid them, shame on them. They were setup and are fools undeserving to be in leadership positions in the government. End of story, for whether democrats were brought in to silence opposition to the bush regimes criminality or not, the criminality remains, and those responsible for it have yet to be held accountable for their criminality. If holding the bush regime criminals accountable takes down a few democrats – so be it. The US can not function as a credible nation with such amoral criminality unpunished.
.

Once again a thread is caught up in the horror of it and it is horrible, but Nancy Pelosi won’t quit and it is unlikely the Democratic leadership will do anything anymore than they confronted Bush in any way. Senate Democrats cannot even decide waterboarding is torture. We should be beyond expecting anything from either side of the aisle, but that brings us to a painful dead end. What then? More irate phone calls? More letters? More comments on blogs?

i agree with your goal of making the matter public. i just don’t think congress can reliably investigate itself… we need another mechanism.

And what is the other mechanism? Perhaps this call will do nothing, but I think it’s worth putting pressure on the leadership to hold public hearings that aren’t a whitewash. Calling out Jello Jay is a way of pushing him to show some backbone.

OT

Anybody here thinking of going to the Take Back America Conference? Anyone gone to one before and found it to be well worth it?

I agree with your conclusion.

The outrage is not the lying or hiding of torture disgusting as that is, it’s the TORTUURE itself that we have been doing and CONTINUE to do by calling it another name – enhanced interrogation.

STOP the torture.

Geez we have the death penalty and we torture people, we don’t bother with habeus corpus, we kidnap and disappear people. Lovely, isn’t it? And we worry about who said what to whom and when they said it or didn’t say it.

Kabuki at its best – American politics

The only meaningful way to handle this is through a special counsel.

That’s why Biden’s pushing that very thing. I’m proud of him for that. He didn’t let the Porter Goss Blackmail Special scare him off.

And what is the other mechanism? Perhaps this call will do nothing, but I think it’s worth putting pressure on the leadership to hold public hearings that aren’t a whitewash. Calling out Jello Jay is a way of pushing him to show some backbone.

you just reminded me, wasn’t he awol for a while back then getting some of his backbone surgically removed? or at least repaired.

Scarecrow,

I suggest the damage to certain democrats is already acrueing. And regarding criminality, it could be that we are looking at a criminal act. The term “enhanced interrogation techniques” is an abomination. Let’s call it what it is: Torture. Illegal by treaty. Unconstitutional. High elected officials who enable torture may have criminal liability. They may not all be republicans. Some may be highly hypocritical democrats who have been demagogueing about torture after privately assenting that it go forward in 2002. Or even encouraging that it be done better, faster, more. I agree completely with you that this needs to be opened up, exposed to sunlight, made fully public. But doubt that the majority will do so in a meaningful way. Just my opinion, which is frequently wrong.

Scarecrow, please don’t upset me anymore than I already am about the fact that Gore will likely not be our future President. This is his year, yet he won’t run. More’s the pity!

Caw, caw to your current post. Excellent, as usual!

Thanks for the heads up about preview, everyone! So glad it’s fixed!

I wrote the following on Dec. 4, before the most recent news came out. Thought it might be too harsh, so I hesitated to send it:

Dear Madam Speaker Pelosi,

I have to hand it to you, Nancy. Thanks to your taking Impeachment off the table, George W Bush and the rest of his cohorts have free reign to do whatever destructive things that they want to our government. They had already started down a path and were progressing toward destruction of our Constitution, showing contempt for our duly elected representatives by disregarding virtually all their subpoenas and claiming executive privilege even when the President said he wasn’t involved in things.

As a result of your publicized decision to give this administration a blank check, immunity from prosecution for any offense at all, impunity to the highest degree, we now have a President who, in the face of an NIE that totally contradicts what his administration has been telling us for months, has taken a “who do you believe: me, or your lyin’ eyes!” position and may yet attempt to start a war with Iran which could become perhaps the final step toward WWIII. So, for each further shredding of the Constitution, for the granting of immunity to telecoms against my fourth amendment rights to privacy in my personal papers if that should happen, for each act of torture done by my government in my name, for each time this administration ignores congressional subpoenas or any other effort to ignore the congress’ responsibility of oversight, or to ignore orders of our courts, or for any other type of infringement of our laws, I will hold you personally responsible. Everybody knows that you don’t take bargaining points off the table before negotiations even begin.

I still maintain that there is nothing more important in a democratic, open society than maintaining the balance of power within our own government. We supposedly have a system with three co-equal branches of government. This is your main job: ensuring the checks and balances between the branches. Your taking Impeachment off the table upset that balance of power. It tipped the playing field, so to speak, toward the President. Is it any wonder why this arrogant President has been treating you, our elected representatives, like an inferior body? I am hoping that you can still find a way to set things right because, I fear, the 2008 election is probably at stake. We need leadership with much stronger positions against the onslaught of lawbreaking this administration is favoring. Otherwise, you’re just an accomplice, another part of the problem. Please fix. Thank you.

how would you prevent public hearings from being a whitewash? by what measure would you judge that they succeeded in not being a whitewash?

my problem is that i see absolutely no way of answering either of those questions… and our congressional leadership has proven itself to be untrustworthy.

a special counsel is, i think if given some independence, less prone to whitewash the matter. maybe the counsel could be tasked with investigating congress’ role in all this (as well as the administration’s) – and required to write a public report when the investigation is complete. congress could then hold hearings based on the report.

Jello Jay’s back surgery

Biden’s call for a special counsel makes sense. Of course, the danger here is that the Republicans will try to do to it what they did to the OIC probe of Clinton, which is to sabotage it and politicize it. (Anybody who thinks that the Dems would be as bad or worse than the Republicans in politicizing/sabotaging hearings really needs to pick up copies of Fools for Scandal and The Hunting of the President, not to mention anything written by David Brock after his conversion. The Republicans are worse than you can believe. Much, much, MUCH worse.)

Your opinion is dead on.
Pelosi and Reid should hold a presser… NOW

The presidency is a position of spokesmen for the elite. You either do it with gusto as in the case of Bush(s) and Regan, or by coercion in case of Clinton, or they humiliate you as in the case of Carter or they off you as in the case of Kennedy.

Gore woulda been offed if he lippped off too much. The latest crowd are just power freaks and thrilled to be puppet for power with the illusion that they can do anything.

No populist with ever be president.

Pheonix, I agree. It’s the right thing to do. Or at least ‘a’ right thing to do.

“Digby has more.” Isn’t that almost always the case?

*g*

I like the update she has from Michael Froomkin:

Thanks to the Speech and Debate Clause there was a way for any Senator or Representative who wanted to blow the whistle to do so in a way that involved no risk of jail or fines – at worst they might have lost their security clearances (and even there the law is a little murky).

Article I, section 6 of the Constitution reads as follows,

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

It might cost someone a security clearance — at least for a while — but it seems pretty straightforward: speeches on the House or Senate floor saying, for example, “I was briefed on these illegal and unconstitutional practices, and want to bring them to light.”

Nancy, take note. Is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?

[big happy dance for Preview!]

Let’s spread the word.

How to Spotlight this article

Our friend Preview has returned although the links may not work in Preview.

…is that why all the uproar in congress over destroying a couple of video recordings? why wasn’t there outrage about how our use of torture has destroyed people?

The reason the tapes were destroyed is because it implicates Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as being part of the 9-11 attacks.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring.html

The next bombshell will be the infiltration of the US Government by IS**EL. The companies CONVERSE INFOSYS and AMDOCS supply all the surveillance equipment that the telecoms use to spy on us all. But this is a front for the government of IS**EL. A “back door” on this equipment allows these foreign spies to know everything that our government does. Remember the “dancing Arabs” in New York on 9-11, who were “documenting” the attack on the World Trade Center.

Speaker Pelosi and Congressional Democrats are too busy keeping impeachment off the table to consider creating a Joint Investigative Committee.

Second step for Pelosi and Reid is to haul back to Congress, all those
running for President and start governing the Nation.
Romney was out of Massachusetts some 153 days while Governor. How can this
be?

The NYT picks up an earlier story on Sylvester Reyes. (h/t dakine01) Also, a statement from Pelosi:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among the lawmakers who attended the briefing, issued a statement on Sunday saying that she eventually did protest the techniques and that she concurred with objections raised by a Democratic colleague in a letter to the C.I.A. in early 2003.

Nancy P should have been nicer to Jane.

OT
Really good article on why nation building doesn’t work. Short version:

At bottom, the answer is that policymakers have overlooked the first, necessary requirement for democracy, which is a low level of political violence.

Full article http://www.independent.org/new…..sp?id=2083

OK now. It’s all better. Nothing to see here, move along. . . . . .

sheesh!

was she struck dumb at the time.

I thought that was going to be an article from the Onion saying he had emergency spine insertion. too bad.

The NYT picks up an earlier story on Sylvester Reyes. Also, a statement from Pelosi:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among the lawmakers who attended the briefing, issued a statement on Sunday saying that she eventually did protest the techniques and that she concurred with objections raised by a Democratic colleague in a letter to the C.I.A. in early 2003.

i have yet to see a statement on either of her websites.

Nor I. I saw an earlier version of the Times article with that paragraph, but nothing else. I’d expect her office to issue a statement today, but it’s still early.

Cross-posting my comment on Greenwald:

The Bob Graham mystery
The role of Bob Graham in the running of the Senate Intelligence Committee is very interesting to me. Here are a few things I’ve been able to piece together so far, and it leads to quite a mystery.

Bob Graham began service on the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1993 (this and all dates, unless otherwise noted, come from his Wiki entry). He was Chair of the Committee on 9/11 and was very concerned when he learned, in early 2002, that Bush was beginning to divert assets from Afghanistan to prepare them for Iraq:

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq — a war more than a year away.
Graham took his role on the Committee very seriously, and pushed for verification of Administration claims on Iraq:

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.
http://tinyurl.com/dtpyy [Emphasis added.]

Now the timeline gets very interesting. Graham pushed for an NIE in September, 2002 and then after the 2002 election, he was replaced on the Senate Intelligence Committee in January, 2003 by Rockefeller. In February, 2003, he then announced his candidacy for President. This campaign lasted until he dropped out in October, 2003. Just one month later, he announced that he would not seek re-election to the Senate.

Does anyone know why Daschle removed Graham from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2003 and replaced him with Rockefeller? Was it because Graham actually tried to stand up to Bush on Iraq intelligence, or was he a “sacrifice” for intelligence not preventing 9/11? Why did Graham go in just a few months from being a presidential candidate (and probably number two on the list for Kerry’s running mate) to deciding not to run for re-election to the Senate? Graham seems to me to be the least likely victim of what some have proposed as Bushco “extortion” based on illegal wiretaps. Graham was known to have kept meticulous records, in diary format, of every event of every day. He would have been able to account for every decision and every conversation he took part in during his service, and therefore could refute any smear directed at him. I think we need a full exposition on the swap of Rockefeller for Graham.

In the WaPo article that was the basis of yesterday’s post, Graham denied that he had been briefed on waterboarding or other extreme interrogation techniques and stated that he felt they were illegal. Note that this time period around the switch from Graham to Rockefeller on the committee is precisely the time when briefings on torture began.

Does anyone here have any information on the Rockefeller for Graham swap back in 2003? I think it plays a major role in how we got where we are today.

Don’t forget the highly credible Dana Perino says that Congress knew more about the CIA tapes than Bush did.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/…..are-tapes/

You want to put your head through a wall waiting for these people to fight back.

OT – weekly update: congressional hearings list:

Here are a few picks of open hearings for the week (see complete list):

Tuesday, 10 am – Senate Appropriations
Hearing to examine the President’s proposed budget request for fiscal year 2008 for the supplemental request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Witness: Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State

Tuesday, 10 am – Senate Judiciary
Hearing to examine the legal rights of Guantanamo detainees, focusing on what they are, should they be changed, and is there an end in sight.

Tuesday, 2 pm – House Armed Services
Hearing on Security and Stability in Afghanistan: Status of U.S. Strategy and Operations and the Way Ahead. Witnesses: Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, DoD; Admiral Michael G. Mullen, USN, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Wednesday, 9:30 am – House Energy and Commerce
Energy Speculation: Is Greater Regulation Necessary to Stop Price Manipulation

Thursday, 10 am – Senate Judiciary
To hold hearings to examine S. 2402, FISA Intelligence Surveillance Substitution Act of 2007, S. 344, to permit the televising of Supreme Court proceedings, S. 1638, and other matters.

Thursday, 10 am – House Education and Labor
Hearing on “The National Labor Relations Board: Recent Decisions and Their Impact on Workers’ Rights”

Details and scores more hearings (on topics ranging from breast cancer to media consolidation to the Palestinians) at the full list.

WAGing here . . .

I could imagine Graham saying, “Look, I’m planning on running for President, and doing that while chairing the intelligence committee would be too much. The intelligence committee chair can’t be labelled as partisanly political — not right now, so swap me out with someone.”

It’s a pretty generous guess, but not beyond the realm of possibility.

would that be the same highly credible Dana Perino who didn’t know if the bay of pigs fiasco was the same thing as the cuban missile crisis?

THANK YOU! I have been asking the same question about Graham for a few years now. I couldn’t get anyone interested. My take when he retired was that he was PISSED and really pissed that he couldn’t say why. I knew he was holding back something that had him so disgusted he just couldn’t go on.

He had heart problems IIRC, in the middle of his presidential campaign and missed too much of the campaign to continue.

Yes, that possiblity crosssed my mind, but given Biden’s current candidacy and his continued position as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, that looks less likely to me.

On Thursday night went for a hair cut. The place was packed with an almost equal number of men and women ages 18 to 75 (about 50 patrons and staff). I asked, “Any candidates on either side stand out for any of you?” Received a collective, “No!” Asked, “Who would you vote for?” Got a unanimous, “Gore!” Surprisingly, those present represented an almost equal number of Reps, Dems and Independents. Many said, “With Edwards running on his ticket.”

This happened in Columbus, Ohio.

It my be a small polling, but…

Many liked the idea of forming a party platform on critical issues that would be guaranteed to be addressed.

Investigations- YES

Ultimately, all this was done in the name of the every American. If there is one shred of a notion that this is still a democracy- we must have full knowledge of the extent and authority under which these inhuman acts were carried out.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among the lawmakers who attended the briefing, issued a statement on Sunday saying that she eventually did protest the techniques and that she concurred with objections raised by a Democratic colleague in a letter to the C.I.A. in early 2003.

This is foreshadowing. Nancy herein attempts to cover her own hide and nothing more with a flip flop. She was for it b4 she was against it. Politically astute, no?

Oh, the event that nearly destroyed humanity on the planet…THAT Cuban ……………….Missile ………………………………………………Crisis………………………………………………………………………………………????!!

I just can’t take these morons anymore.

There seems to be something seriously “off” about this leaking that the gang of stupid from the Congress were briefed about torture. When briefing the legislature, the smallest number possible were included and mostly the dumbest by design of Cheney. If the WH was using members collusion in initiating torture to blackmail them into stopping investigations, why would they out them after the intelligence community leaked? Seems to me they would want to continue blackmailing them to make this all go away. Now the intel people do not want it to go away, so what better way than to discredit the very folks in Congress who could make things go nowhere such as “impeachment is off the table” Pelosi. By involving Pelosi and Rockefeller, you can preclude a “investigations are off the table” move by them, and guarantee that investigations will go forward since the accomplices will have to excuse themselves. This just seems like something done by intelligence to get Pelosi and Jello Jay out of the way. Also Jane Harmon is looking for payback.

It’s really more of a pseudo-theocracy controlled by Republics and their election manipulators now.

correcto

Thanks for the link to that excellent article.

CSPAN just announced they will be showing the Nobel presentation to Gore – did anyone catch what time it was going to be aired?

Ron Paul’s suggestion of opening up trade with Cuba went over like a lead balloon en frente de un grupo de Republican supporters.

You’re welcome.

Trade with Cuba can only start with Cuba requesting to buy many copies of Neil Bush’s software.

CSPAN is going to Gore speech NOW

FYI -Gore at Oslo ceremony next up on CSPAN

Ron Paul’s suggestion of opening up trade with Cuba went over like a lead balloon en frente de un grupo de Republican supporters.

I’ll bet they don’t even know why they object.

up next on c-span1

can you grab a good quality audio? i can only get the online stream, so am limited by that.

Laugh of the day (h/t Glenzilla):

“I don’t think there’s a need for a special counsel, and I don’t think there’s a need for a special commission,” Rockefeller said. “It is the job of the intelligence committees to do that.”

Interestingly, they were mostly white voters whom panned Paul’s suggestion. One might be inclined to think that non-cuban (Republican)Americans might think it prudent to soon end the bloqueo. But no. They all think with the same stupid lizard brain.

1,691 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND..

Citizen Scarecrow and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

“We will need a joint investigative committee composed of and led by those whose integrity on these matters is unquestioned.”

Noble sentiment and honest intentions but I’m afraid, Brother Scarecrow, that it it impossible to get “those whose integrity is unquestioned” onto and in a majority on such a committee. Indeed, what we have seen is that the corporatization of both political parties which began in the 1940’s but was completed with the election of 1980 makes any corrective action through established political means impossible. The entire leadership of the Democratic Party has been corrupted not just by this war but over time since 1965 and the Warren Commission. Indeed, how DID that Warren Commission work out…and what about the Warren Commission’s grandchild, the 9/11 commission? Remember the Iran Contra investigation, how’d that one work out?

No Firepups, the only democratic political action that can save us here is that which begins in the street and is focused on the Democratic Party and it’s candidates for everything from President to local dogcatcher. Only the pressure of direct mass action and local activists coordinating with organizations like Moveon etc can keep this issue in folks’ living rooms and remove the smoke behind which corporatist Democrats like Mrs. Clinton can hide.

My country has been involved in illegal occupations, wars, torture and murder for a long time…the only way we restore any honor to our history and keep faith with our brothers and sisters who have been left in the fields and rice paddies of our corporate police actions is to get into the street and draw the fascists fire (and fire they will, brothers and sisters, fire they will). The fascists have taken the honor and sacrifice of our veterans and thrown them into the fire of political oppression…ask Max Cleland, John Kerry or Joe Wilson. Some of us understand that the biggest loss in war is to the soul of every individual touched by the evil of it. And in our country, no one is untouched by the corruption of war because corporate war is total war and it’s first victim is the soul of the body politic.

So,don’t jest call for investigations and special commissions DEMAND them and make those demands in the faces of every political leader in every state and community in the country, there is no other way…

KEEP THE FAITH WITH THE CHILDREN AND PASS THE FUCKIN’ AMMUNITION, GOD IS WATCHIN’ AND SHE’S PISSED OFF!!

Pivot.

And ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK.

retiring was the cowards way out,he wrote a book too iirc…will anybody turn on the light? dear jeeeeeebus

Blue Texan has the next thread ready.

Anybody here thinking of going to the Take Back America Conference? Anyone gone to one before and found it to be well worth it?

Haven’t been. Was thinking about attending this year since it would be local for me. But then I dug a little deeper at your link and it appears that Ms. Pelosi was the keynote last year? Not sure I need that.

Chairing the Foreign Relations committee is not on the same level as chairing the Intelligence committee. It’s the last bastion of non-partisan comity — or was, before Pat Roberts chaired it — and Graham is old-school enough to have wanted to keep it that way.

YMMV.

Collateral viewing/listening note: Imus guest Tuesday Col. Jack Jacobs. Imus getting cranked up about “nothing has changed” for treatment of vets. Issues like brain injuries, etc. Beschloss also scheduled.

wabc.com for livestream
RFD-TV on DirectTV @ 379, Dish @ ? — I’m partial to country….

Don’t forget the highly credible Dana Perino says that Congress knew more about the CIA tapes than Bush did.

unbefuckinglievable!!

Graham served two terms as governor of Florida. He was a conservative Democrat. IOW, he was a lot like a republican. Dixiecrat-styled thinly veiled racism is what got him elected twice. He was no populist. Lawton Chiles wasn’t bad. At least he maintained the appearance of caring about people. Then, Chiles’s LT. Governor Buddy McKay ran the most pathetic campaign against JEB. McKay had been a sparkplug in the past and had run effective campaigns. McKay just laid down for JEB Bush – like it was rigged. Shortly after the election, Buddy McKay died.

The article itself is carefully parsed, too, to give the impression that people were kept apprised. For instance it says there were 30 briefings. Well, was that all of them 30 times, one of them 30 times, 5 people 5 times plus 5 people once? And what they were actually told is not at all clear.

Gotta disinfect this nasty work with sunshine.

I got it with only the ending s.

Yeah, we third worlders (Floridians) are so used to this crap in state politics we don’t bother to think much about it any more.

I don’t really 100% excuse these snakes, but the atmosphere in our federal government in 2002 was NOT conducive to brave actions. The laws and procedures in place to protect any dissenters would have just been overrun by the out of control GOP mafia. I cannot really believe that anyone that was briefed and went public to complain would either have a job or not be in jail. To say these people could’a/should’a done this is to ignore the destruction of our democratic system that has been going on. We have seen the prosecutions of how many Dems and dissenters throughout the country?

Now that the (singular?) blackmail has been executed, does this free up the victims to act?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake……he-spooks/

Go read EW’s take. It makes sense.

(Sorry people the link function is not working on my end when I highlight.)

”blackmail”? Is that what this is?
Funny,that’s not how I see it. It seems to me that impeachment was taken off the table because it would necessarily implicate the democratic leadership, people like pelosi and rockefeller and others.

Sorry scarecrow. I’m not running interference for these criminals anymore. Not after the MCA of 2006, the repeated blank checks for war, taking impeachment of the table, refusing to do oversight, confirming Mukasey, more blank checks, the attempts to give retroactive immunity to telecoms.

You have to be deliberately and willfully blind to the facts to see this as ”blackmail.” The Democrat Party (they can have their ”ic” back when they start acting democratically) is complicit in the torture and the lying. Glenn Greenwald has been all over this and his conclusions are spot on.

Not sure what the right word is, “blackmail” or “extortion.”

“Nice little Congressional majority you got there Harry, Nancy. Be a shame if somethin’ should happen to it.”

NYTimes:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among the lawmakers who attended the briefing, issued a statement on Sunday saying that she eventually did protest the techniques and that she concurred with objections raised by a Democratic colleague in a letter to the C.I.A. in early 2003.

So, is there a copy of this letter to read online?

Reyes should recuse himself, post haste. That seems not to be his intentions, but someone above should see to it, at once.

y’know it’s funny:
when the CIA exposes the republicans as the criminals they are, everyone says ”thank god for sunshine! thank go for pushback!”

when the CIA exposes the DEMOCRATS as criminals, all of a sudden it’s ”blackmail” and ”extortion”.

Am I the only one having trouble with this distinction?

The Democrat Leadership knew what was going on, and did nothing. They did nothing even though, at the time, the torture was a crime: the MCA wasn’t enacted until 2006.

Sorry, scarecrow, but having endured the farce of the joint Congressional Iran-Contra investigations, I say the options are a special proscutor and/or torches and pitchforks, period.

In Iran-Contra, as in today’s interlocking scandals, many Democrats were complicit in what was never explicitly stated as the core crime: funding a war of aggression (that time, through proxy agents) against a nation that had not attacked or threatened us. The Joint Iran-Contra committee investigations danced around the margins, focusing on relative trivia, sometimes maddeningly off-target, such as Oliver North’s accepting a private gift of a security fence for his home. And of course, the limited use immunity granted those who testified ultimately allowed for the overturning of key subsequent convictions.

All the worse here and now, because top Congressional Democrats may actually (caveat: IANAL) prove vulerable, through their silent complicity, to war crimes prosecution.

Plus, from a political standpoint, joint congressional hearings will just provide a platform for wingnut Rethug blowhards to obfuscate, bloviate, and rally their slack-jawed base.

So screw hearings. Special proscutor, plus pressure for a bloodless coup to overturn the compromised Democratic leadership.

I agree that blackmail may be the wrong term. But I think the WH did use their complicity against them to shut them up and squash any investigations. By blackmail I did not mean to imply that Dem leadership is not in this up to their necks. These leaks look like a means to neutralize any attempt by the Dem leadership to cover their own butts and sweep it under the rug. Would coercion be more accurate.

Here’s Pelosi’s statement, courtesy of TPM (h/t madmsf):

“On one occasion, in the fall of 2002, I was briefed on interrogation techniques the Administration was considering using in the future. The Administration advised that legal counsel for the both the CIA and the Department of Justice had concluded that the techniques were legal.

“I had no further briefings on the techniques. Several months later, my successor as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, Jane Harman, was briefed more extensively and advised the techniques had in fact been employed. It was my understanding at that time that Congresswoman Harman filed a letter in early 2003 to the CIA to protest the use of such techniques, a protest with which I concurred.”

TPM’s Spencer Ackerman’s trying to say that this somehow throws Harman under the bus, but a number of TPM commenters have called him out on this (emphases mine):

RandyR wrote on December 10, 2007 10:42 AM:

This explanation seems reasonable to me. Members of the Intel Committee can speak to very few people about briefings. In Pelosi’s case Harman is a natural confidant, no matter animosity on other issues, as I suspect Pelosi’s briefing was pretty cryptic and Harman’s graphic. A discussion would be reasonable and legal. A letter about the interrogation would seem in order.

—

Lisa wrote on December 10, 2007 10:59 AM:

How has she thrown Harman under the bus if Harman received the further breifings (and Pelosi didn’t) and Pelosi supports Harman’s letter to the CIA? You’re making no sense. Pelosi’s blog has Harman’s letter to the CIA asking to declassify her letter. Can’t imaginge Pelosi would want that on her website if she were throwing Harman to the wolves. Stop reading more into this than is there. And even more importantly, stop believing the CIA.

—

visitor wrote on December 10, 2007 11:25 AM:

It seems to me that Pelosi was involved in a briefing she says of what techniques were being considered for use and that had been deemed legal(???) by the DOJ or WH. How can you really object to something at that point in time so close to 9/11 and the terror climate of the time that supposedly they were going to use? Then later Harmon gets a briefing of techniques that they had now been using and objections arise…. I don’t see a big todo here because you know as well as anyone else that what the admin says it is going to do rarely turns out to be what it does do. And I have no problems with any of these explanations. The big problem I have is who okayed the leak to the Washington Post to implicate and switch the attention to Pelosi and the Democrats rather than the fact of destroying the tapes themselves. Who is feeling the heat to allow this classified info out about the meeting itself and what went on at it? More importantly why are we all believing this leak as if it is the gospel truth anyway? They could be lieing just as easily as telling the truth yet everyone now rushes to blame Pelosi and the ruse has worked just as it was supposed to do – deflect to another messenger and forget the message

—

CalD wrote on December 10, 2007 11:40 AM:

Two: Never mind the brief mention of Jane Harman’s protest. Pelosi just threw Harman under the bus. It’s no secret that the two Californians don’t get along. But she didn’t need to put the blame on her committee successor in her statement on this controversy.

Oh, bullshit. That’s not a fair characterization of what she said at all. Who controlled the congress in 2003 and how did they run things? What else was Harman supposed to do besides file a protest? This was, no doubt, classified material we’re talking about. It’s not like she could have gone public with it.

And it’s also not like Democrats have been sitting on their thumbs about this issue since they took over the House. To the contrary, they’ve been coming at it from every angle they can think of, given that they currently still don’t have the muscle to shove any new law down Republicans’ throats. Do you believe you’d be hearing as much about this issue as we are right now if Republicans still controlled the congress?

I didn’t think so.

Sorry, scarecrow, but having endured the farce of the joint Congressional Iran-Contra investigations, I say the options are a special proscutor and/or torches and pitchforks, period.

I’m not sure those are the only options. I doubt you will get a special prosecutor (BTW the blackmail may be more than secret intelligence briefings-maybe affairs or other illegalities) so that leaves torches and pitchforks, a nasty conclusion. What we should talk about is how to use the internet to organize and communicate. I don’t mean MoveOn and the like which are basically hierarchical, I mean something involving the liberal blogging community as individuals. Can we act together like not go to the movies to support the writers or whatever other cause attracts?

But who would appoint this Congressional Investigative Committee? Wouldn’t it be the same leaders whose leadership is in question? I hope this happens, but I won’t hold my breath.

Bob in HI

http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs…..8;Code=CS2

speaking of truth and justice….