Scandal in Congress

[michelle]

From the NYTimes:
November 20, 2005

Corruption Inquiry Threatens to Ensnare Lawmakers
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - The Justice Department has signaled for the first time in recent weeks that prominent members of Congress could be swept up in the corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff, the former Republican superlobbyist who diverted some of his tens of millions of dollars in fees to provide lavish travel, meals and campaign contributions to the lawmakers whose help he needed most.

The investigation by a federal grand jury, which began more than a year ago, has created alarm on Capitol Hill, especially with the announcement Friday of criminal charges against Michael Scanlon, Mr. Abramoff's former lobbying partner and a former top House aide to Representative Tom DeLay.

The charges against Mr. Scanlon identified no lawmakers by name, but a summary of the case released by the Justice Department accused him of being part of a broad conspiracy to provide "things of value, including money, meals, trips and entertainment to federal public officials in return for agreements to perform official acts" - an attempt at bribery, in other words, or something close to it.

Mr. Abramoff, who is under indictment in a separate bank-fraud case in Florida, has not been charged by the federal grand jury here. But Mr. Scanlon's lawyer says he has agreed to plead guilty and cooperate in the investigation, suggesting that Mr. Abramoff's day in court in Washington is only a matter of time.

Scholars who specialize in the history and operations of Congress say that given the brazenness of Mr. Abramoff's lobbying efforts, as measured by the huge fees he charged clients and the extravagant gifts he showered on friends on Capitol Hill, almost all of them Republicans, the investigation could end up costing several lawmakers their careers, if not their freedom.

The investigation threatens to ensnarl many outside Congress as well, including Interior Department officials and others in the Bush administration who were courted by Mr. Abramoff on behalf of the Indian tribe casinos that were his most lucrative clients.

The inquiry has already reached into the White House; a White House budget official, David H. Safavian, resigned only days before his arrest in September on charges of lying to investigators about his business ties to Mr. Abramoff, a former lobbying partner.

"I think this has the potential to be the biggest scandal in Congress in over a century," said Thomas E. Mann, a Congressional specialist at the Brookings Institution. "I've been around Washington for 35 years, watching Congress, and I've never seen anything approaching Abramoff for cynicism and chutzpah in proposing quid pro quos to members of Congress."

Even by the gold-plated standards of Washington lobbying firms, the fees paid to Mr. Abramoff were extraordinary. A former president of the College Republicans who turned to lobbying after a short-lived career as a B-movie producer, Mr. Abramoff, with his lobbying team, collected more than $80 million from the Indian tribes and their gambling operations; he was known by lobbying rivals as "Casino Jack."

Mr. Abramoff's lobbying work was not limited to the casinos, though. Newly disclosed documents from his files show that he asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of Gabon, in West Africa, to set up a White House meeting with President Bush; there was an Oval Office meeting last year, although there is no evidence in the public record to show that Mr. Abramoff had a role in the arrangements.

Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, an ethics watchdog group that has called for tighter lobbying rules, said it was too early to say whether the Abramoff investigation would produce anything like the convulsion in Congress during the Abscam investigations of the 1980's, when one senator and five House members were convicted on bribery and other charges after an F.B.I. sting involving a phony Arab sheik.

"But this clearly has the potential," Mr. Wertheimer said.

So far, one member of Congress, Representative Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the House Administration Committee, has acknowledged receiving a subpoena from the grand jury investigating Mr. Abramoff. Another, Representative John T. Doolittle, Republican of California, has acknowledged that his wife, who helped Mr. Abramoff organize fund-raisers, was subpoenaed.

The Justice Department signaled last month that Mr. DeLay had come under scrutiny in the investigation, over a trip that Mr. Abramoff arranged for Mr. DeLay and his wife to Britain in 2000 that included rounds of golf at the fabled course at St. Andrews in Scotland.

The department revealed its interest in Mr. DeLay, who is under indictment in Texas in an unrelated investigation involving violations of state election laws, in an extraordinary request to the British government that police there interview former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about the circumstances of a meeting in London with Mr. DeLay during the trip five years ago.

London newspapers quoted a document prepared by the British Home Office that outlined the Justice Department's investigation and said that "it is alleged that Abramoff arranged for his clients to pay for the trips to the U.K. on the basis that Congressman DeLay would support favorable legislation."

Richard Cullen, a lawyer for Mr. DeLay, said in an interview Friday that he was "glad that the Justice Department is looking into all aspects of the trip because I think that a thorough investigation will show that the trip was substantive and transparent."

Mr. Cullen said that shortly after he was hired several months ago, he contacted the Justice Department "to let them know that Mr. DeLay is available to cooperate in any way."

The lawyer said he was "convinced that when the Justice Department completes its investigation of Abramoff and Scanlon, that it will be clear Tom DeLay has acted ethically and has conducted himself consistent with all laws and House standards of conduct." He said he had not heard from federal prosecutors since the initial contacts.

The situation could be more serious for Mr. Ney, a five-term lawmaker whose position as chairman of the House Administration Committee gives him power over the operations of the Capitol building and allows him to divide up Congressional perks like office space and parking.

Mr. Ney's ties to Mr. Abramoff have been revealed slowly over the last year, largely through testimony before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which has held a series of hearings into accusations that Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon defrauded their Indian tribe clients.

Mr. Ney was not identified by name in the documents filed against Mr. Scanlon on Friday. But the Ohio lawmaker's lawyers acknowledged that Mr. Ney was the lawmaker identified as "Representative #1" in the Justice Department papers, which charged Mr. Scanlon with conspiring to provide "Representative #1" with a golfing trip to Scotland, meals at Mr. Abramoff's Washington restaurant and campaign contributions.

Mr. Ney took part in a golf trip to Scotland in 2002 with Mr. Abramoff, where they played at St. Andrews, as Mr. DeLay had done two years earlier. Documents and testimony to Congress showed that Mr. Abramoff had asked an Indian tribe in Texas to sponsor the trip and that Mr. Ney was then asked for his help in trying to reopen a casino owned by the tribe that had been shuttered by state officials.

Mr. Ney was also a regular at Signatures, the expensive Washington restaurant that Mr. Abramoff owned and used to entertain clients, colleagues and lawmakers. Former Signatures employees have said that Mr. Ney frequently ate and drank at the restaurant without paying. Mr. Ney has acknowledged the gifts but said they were within limits set by Congressional ethics rules.

[DT1]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 7 , 2006 CONTACT:
Annie Strickler [phone]
sierraclub.org




DRILLING CAUSES MAJOR CRUDE OIL SPILL NEAR ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE -- POTENTIALLY LARGEST IN ALASKA NORTH SLOPE HISTORY


March 7, 2006. Last week during the Senate Energy Committee¡¯s hearing on the Fiscal Year 2007 Budget, Chairman Domenici praised Secretary Norton and the Department of Interior for promoting "environmentally-gentle" oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Just days after these remarks, America got an unfortunate preview of just how "gentle" oil drilling operations could be if allowed on the Arctic Refuge¡¯s fragile Coastal Plain.

On Thursday, March 2, a BP oil operator discovered signs of an oil spill at a caribou migration site on the snow-covered tundra of Alaska¡¯s North Slope. Three days later, response workers finally uncovered the source of the spill ¨C a breach in an oil transit pipeline feeding into the larger trans-Alaska oil pipeline infrastructure stretching some 800 miles across the state.

Clean-up crews have already vacuumed up more than 50,000 gallons of crude oil and melted snow off the delicate tundra, but at least one report from an industry expert has indicated that up to 798,000 gallons could be unaccounted for, possibly making this the largest crude oil spill in the history of the North Slope, and second in Alaska only to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Oil is still dripping from the breached pipeline and the full extent of the damage and affected acreage are unknown. The multi-agency spill response team will attempt to come up with an estimated spill volume in the next two days.

This weekend¡¯s accident is just one in a long history of substantial spills seen on Alaska¡¯s fragile North Slope since development began there. In fact, despite industry hype about the safety of development and new technology, the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and Trans-Alaska Pipeline have caused an average of 504 spills annually on the North Slope since 1996, according to the Alaska¡¯s own Department of Environmental Conservation. Past spills have included a 300,000 gallon crude oil spill from the Trans-Alaska pipeline that was detected as far as 166 miles away; a 110,000 gallon crude oil spill caused by a bulldozer which created a geyser that spewed oil over 20 acres of tundra wetlands; the infamous 285,000 gallons of crude oil that spilled into the boreal forest after a local hunter shot the pipeline with a high powered rifle; and the disastrous 675,000 gallons that were leaked after a saboteur exploded a two inch hole in the pipeline just a few miles north of Fairbanks.

As crews of up to 70 people work 12-hour shifts around the clock to clean up after this massive oil spill, we are sadly reminded that there is no such thing as "environmentally gentle" oil drilling. Some places, like America¡¯s Arctic Refuge, are just too important to be put at risk for a speculative oil fix.

For More Information, please contact:

Annie Strickler, Sierra Club: [phone]

Drew McConville, The Wilderness Society: [phone]

Vinay Jain, National Wildlife Federation: [phone]

[DT1]

Criminalizing exposure of government wrongdoing

Editor & Publisher reports that the proposed legislation for the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006 to be introduced by Ohio Sen. Michael DeWine -- the principal purpose of which is to legalize the Bush Administration's illegal warrantless eavesdropping on Americans -- contains unprecedented provisions which create whole new categories of crimes designed to punish any future discussion of the President's eavesdropping activities, including by reporters:


Reporters who write about government surveillance could be prosecuted under proposed legislation that would solidify the administration's eavesdropping authority, according to some legal analysts who are concerned about dramatic changes in U.S. law. . . .

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the draft of the legislation, which could be introduced as soon as next week.

The draft would add to the criminal penalties for anyone who "intentionally discloses information identifying or describing" the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program or any other eavesdropping program conducted under a 1978 surveillance law. Under the boosted penalties, those found guilty could face fines of up to $1 million, 15 years in jail or both.

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the measure is broader than any existing laws. She said, for example, the language does not specify that the information has to be harmful to national security or classified.

"The bill would make it a crime to tell the American people that the president is breaking the law, and the bill could make it a crime for the newspapers to publish that fact," said Martin, a civil liberties advocate.

While DeWine's office denied any intention to criminalize discussions by journalists of these programs, that is clearly the effect. And the fact that they are attempting to add whole new categories of criminal conduct arising out of any discussion of the Administration's eavesdropping conduct -- even if such discussion does not entail the harmful disclosure of classified information -- demonstrates, yet again, that the primary lesson learned by the Administration from the NSA scandal is that new ways must be invented to punish those who report on the illegal conduct in which they engage.

These new provisions in the DeWine legislation are clearly part of the Administration's campaign to increase the scope of whistle-blowing and journalistic activities which are treated by the government as criminal. As part of that campaign, Pat Roberts last month announced that he would introduce legislation adding new categories of whistle-blowing activities to the criminal law and which severely increase the penalties for violations of those laws.

The Administration self-evidently intends to use the criminal law to prevent further revelations of their illegal behavior, whether the disclosures come from ordinary citizens, government whistle-blowers or investigative journalists. They want anyone who is considering disclosing government wrongdoing to fear the prospects of criminal prosecution so that they remain silent. As I've documented several times before, journalists are the primary target of this intimidation campaign, but it extends far beyond them as well.

One no longer is surprised when the media ignores or fails to understand severe crises in our government, but one would expect that if they take a stand against anything, it would be crusades of this sort to intimidate and silence the adversarial press. So far, at least, their silence is deafening.

[michelle]

Statement from CREW's Executive Director Melanie Sloan on the Passage of Today's Lobbying Reform Bill

5/3/2006 7:36:00 PM

Contact: Naomi Seligman Steiner of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, 202-408-5565

WASHINGTON, May 3 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement from CREW's Executive Director Melanie Sloan on the passage of today's pathetic lobbying reform bill:

The public would be mistaken to believe that passage of the so-called lobbying reform legislation will have any impact on Washington's culture of corruption. This bill does nothing to stem the abuse of the system perfected by Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham and their ilk. Most significantly, this bill fails to include any oversight or enforcement mechanisms that would discourage Members of Congress from violating the ethics rules. Although the majority has historically valued the deterrent effect of stiff penalties, their hypocrisy is showing: there are no such penalties in this bill.

Link to Statement on CREW's Website: www.citizensforethics.org/press/newsrelease.php?view=120

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit, legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions. For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org or contact Naomi Seligman Steiner at 202.408.5565/[e-mail].

[michelle]

Reed Tries to Buy Election With Lobbyist Fees; Watchdog Group Blasts Reed For Using Christian Groups As Fronts For Abramoff's Clients

7/11/2006 4:38:00 PM

Contact: Rick Bielke of Campaign Money Watch, 202-293-0222

WASHINGTON, July 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today Campaign Money Watch questioned Ralph Reed about where the $500,000 he loaned his campaign for lieutenant governor of Georgia came from.

According to Campaign Money Watch, Reed made millions of dollars as a lobbyist for American Indian casinos and the Northern Marianas Islands, where employers forced female employees to become prostitutes and to have abortions if they became pregnant. He used Christian organizations as front groups for his lobbying activity paid for by disgraced, convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients.

"Ralph Reed spun his relationships with Christian organizations into personal gold by using them as fronts for convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff's sleazy clients," said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch. "Now he's taken that money to try to buy the election. Campaign Money Watch will tell voters exactly where he got it: Lobbying against legislation that would have protected female workers from being forced to have abortions and to become prostitutes."

"Thousands of Georgia voters have already responded to our demand that Reed once and for all release the complete list of who he lobbied for and how much he made. But what is already known should be evidence enough: Ralph Reed values cash and little else," said Donnelly.

Campaign Money Watch is a national nonpartisan watchdog group that holds politicians publicly accountable for doing favors for their big money supporters. It ran a radio ad linking Reed to Abramoff's casino clients earlier this election.

[michelle]

September 15, 2006 2:19:00 PM

Rep. Ney Pleads Guilty Today; CREW: Abramoff Scandal Is Far from Over

Contact: Naomi Seligman Steiner of CREW, 202-408-5565

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- "After months of loudly proclaiming his innocence, Rep. Ney (R-Ohio) has finally been forced to take responsibility for his actions," said Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director. In March 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) prepared an ethics complaint against Rep. Ney regarding his relationship with Abramoff, but no member of the House was willing to file it. Outsiders are barred from filing such complaints with the House ethics committee.

Today's plea agreement highlights how ineffectual the ethics committees really are. So far this Congress, two House members have pleaded guilty to crimes involving abuse of their office. How many members need to go to jail before the ethics committees take their roles seriously?

Today's announcement that Rep. Bob Ney is pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of lying on his financial disclosure forms shows that the Jack Abramoff scandal is far from over. One member of Congress likely made nervous by today's events is Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), who has engaged in conduct similar to Rep Ney's. Like Rep. Ney, Sen. Burns frequented Signatures restaurant at Abramoff's expense and like Rep. Ney, he offered repeated legislative assistance to Abramoff's clients. In addition, some of the Senator's top staffers flew to the 2001 Super Bowl on a private jet at Abramoff's expense.

Another member likely on edge today may be Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), already under federal investigation for misstatements on his financial disclosure forms. If the Department of Justice can charge one member of Congress for lying on his forms, they can certainly charge another.

Sloan stated, "Rep. Ney's conviction should be a wake-up call for Congress, which should immediately reinvigorate the ethics process and begin aggressively policing the conduct of its members."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit, legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions. For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org or contact Naomi Seligman Steiner at 202-408-5565/[e-mail].

Note from Michelle: A detailed dirty laundry list on Abramoff is available here at the forum, under:
The Immoral Presidency of George W. Bush
Reply #20 on Jan 29, 2006, 9:31am
JACK ABRAMOFF, MISANTHROPIC CRONY OF THE
BUSH ADMINISTRATION[/color]
tinyurl.com/fepej

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Pelosi to Hastert: Take Steps to Remove Ney From Subcommittee Chairmanship

9/15/2006 6:10:00 PM

Contact: Brendan Daly or Jennifer Crider, 202-226-7616, both of the Office of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi sent the following letter to Speaker Hastert today urging him to take the steps necessary to strip Congressman Bob Ney, who will plead guilty to federal criminal charges, of his subcommittee chairmanship.

Below is the text of the letter:

September 15, 2006

The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert

Speaker

United States House of Representatives

H-232, The Capitol

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker:

Today, Representative Robert Ney agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges involving corruption and false statements. Among other things, Mr. Ney has now admitted to undertaking a number of official actions in exchange for gifts, travel, and campaign contributions. Justice Department Criminal Division chief Alice Fisher noted that Mr. Ney has engaged in a "long-term pattern to deprive the public of his honest, unbiased services as an elected official."

According to the Department of Justice press release issued today, Mr. Ney will not formally enter his guilty plea until October 13, at which time he must refrain from participating in the deliberations of any Committees of which he is a member and relinquish the Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing and Opportunity of the Committee on Financial Services.

In view of his admissions, it is unseemly for Mr. Ney to retain this sensitive position until October 13. I request, therefore, that you take whatever steps are necessary to remove him therefrom. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Nancy Pelosi

House Democratic Leader

[DT1]

Compact with Evil: The McCain "Compromise" on Bush's Torture Program
informationclearinghouse.info
By Chris Floyd

09/22/06 "EP" -- - After George Bush's Rose Garden hissy fit, in which he declared that he would simply stop interrogating suspected terrorists unless he could torture them, John "I Only Flip-Flop On Matters of Deep Principle" McCain and the other so-called "Senate rebels" have capitulated to the unpopular president's petulant demands.

In the universe of moral perversion in which we now live, White House National Security (sic) Adviser Stephen Hadley called the pro-torture, anti-due process agreement between these deeply cynical power-gamesters "a good day for the American people." Here's how the Gamester-in-Chief described it (from the NYT):

“I’m pleased to say this agreement preserves the most single, the most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks,” he said, adding, “The agreement clears the way to do what the American people expect us to do — to capture terrorists, to detain terrorists, to question terrorists, and then to try them.”

In other words, not until this very day was the American government able to capture, detain, question and try terrorists. I'll bet you didn't know that. I'll bet the men who were captured, detained, questioned, tried and convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing didn't know that either. Really, that's what Bush said; the agreement "clears the way" for the government to actually detain and interrogate terrorists -- as if they weren't able to do that before. What he means, of course, is that the ability to torture alleged terrorists -- snatched arbitrarily, anywhere in the world, simply on the say-so of the Leader or his designated minions -- will be preserved. Bush obviously has a deep psychological need to feel that someone is being tormented at his orders at all times.

But the demented psychology of this sad little shriveled-up nothing of a man is of slight import. What matters are the actions and policies that are being carried out by the junta operating in his name -- and the countenancing of this gang's crimes by the United States Congress. And that is what we have seen today: the countenancing of torture and kangaroo courts by some sad sacks of shinola lauded by the media as "men of principle." This is what we've come to, this is where are today: sick bastards and cynical bastards openly and eagerly gutting the very core of American law.

Let's have Bill Frist -- surely one of the most pathetic creatures ever inflicted on the U.S. Senate and the long-suffering people of Tennessee -- explain exactly what this great "agreement" means:

Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said the agreement had two key points. “Classified information will not be shared with the terrorists” tried before the tribunals, he said. And “the very important program of interrogation continues.”

There you have it. People snatched off the street -- or sold to spies by snitches and scamsters -- can be tried, in military tribunals, without seeing the evidence against them; and Bush's "program of interrogation continues."

Let's be very clear on the latter point. What Bush has been talking about and protesting against were efforts to ensure that CIA interrogators could not torture suspects. Because of course they could continue to use ordinary methods of interrogation -- which experts uniformly agree produce better intelligence -- just as they have always been able to. When Bush and Tennessee cat-torturer talk about the "program of interrogation" continuing, they mean allowing the CIA to torture captives by various methods without being charged with war crimes and felony violations of American law. That is precisely what they are talking about, and nothing else. But you won't see it put that way on the pages of our most august journalist institutions nor on the broadcasts of our world-renowned network news shows.

And let us make one other point -- and in a most impolitic way, for the truth is often an impolitic commodity: John McCain is a goddamned liar. Yes, he himself suffered torture, yes he came through it, yes, we all admire his fortitude during that ordeal in his youth: but his record in later life, in politics, is that of a moral coward with good PR skills. (Not that it takes much skill to wow the poltroons who squat on the commanding heights of the corporate media world today.) And today, he has opened his mouth and emitted a damnable lie, to wit: "the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved.”

This is an untrue statement, analogous to saying the moon is located in his rectum or that he can bite through pig iron with his bare teeth. Every step the Bush gang has taken in this pro-torture, don't-prosecute-us campaign is designed to weaken the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions. The Conventions, which have been adopted into American law by Congress -- in bills sponsored and championed by Republicans -- are crystal clear on torture. There is no need to "preserve" their integrity with new legislation; there is nothing wrong with the Conventions that need to be "fixed" -- unless, of course, you wish to use interrogation techniques that any sentient human being would recognize as torture. In that case, of course you have to "fix" the Conventions by gutting their integrity, letter and spirit.

John McCain might be a moral coward in his old age, but he's not stupid. He knows all this. He knows that the Bush Administration has been trying to wriggle out of the Conventions since the earliest days of the "War of Terror." He knows that gutting the Conventions is at the heart of Bush's "interrogation program" which McCain and his "rebels" have just saved with their grand "compromise."

Therefore, we will say it again clearly, so that even the nabobs on the Washington Post editorial page can hear it: John McCain is a goddamned liar, and his "agreement" today serves some of the most evil principles ever supported openly by the United States government since slavery.

And let's put this other point plainly one more time: the American government has always been able to capture, detain, question and try terrorists. Always. The American government has for 28 years had the power to eavesdrop on anyone in the world or in the country whom they suspected even slightly of terrorism or terrorist connections. And they could and can do that instantly, without waiting for a court order or jumping through any bureaucratic hoops, under the long-existing law. Everything that Bush says his clearly illegal surveillance programs do can already be done within the law. Therefore, it is clear that the whole raison d'etre behind the illegal programs is to establish the principle that the president is beyond the law. (And also, almost certainly, to perform illegal surveillance that has nothing to do with terrorism.)

What we have seen today is no "grand compromise," no "great debate," no "act of principle" and certainly no "preservation" of the Geneva Conventions. What we have seen instead is a small group of rich, cynical, power-hungry old bastards belch forth lies in the service of torture and tyranny. And if you're not angry about that, if you're not "shrill" about that, then by God you are one piss-poor American citizen. You shame every man and woman who have fought and died and marched and worked and dreamed for our freedoms.

Chris Floyd is an American journalist. He is the author of the book, Empire Burlesque: The Secret History of the Bush Regime. Visit his website www.chris-floyd.com

[michelle]

REPUBLICAN 'FAMILY VALUES' PARTY CAN'T PRAY FOR FOLEY SCANDAL TO GO AWAY [Story and more below]

Foley,Crusader against Internet porn. "I'm Mark Foley from Florida's 16th ... a parent's best hope," Foley (R-FL)

Foley's office contended that the Congressman was only guilty of being overly-friendly and has categorized the story as part of an opponent's "smear campaign."

Foley has long marketed himself as a protector of children from sexual predation. An amendment by Foley to change federal sex offender laws became part of the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act of 2006. It's a federal offense to send dirty e-mails to a minor. He can't say he didn't know about the law; he wrote it.
****************************************************
Top Republicans accused of cover-up over sex scandal
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Published: 02 October 2006

The abrupt resignation of a Florida congressman caught sending sexually explicit computer messages to teenage pages at the House of Representatives has developed into a full-blown Republican Party scandal with senior party leaders accusing each other of knowing about the e-mails for months and doing nothing about them.

Within hours of the departure of Mark Foley, a lawmaker from the Palm Beach area dogged for years by rumours about his sexuality, the party of "family values" turned on itself in an unseemly sequence of denials, accusations and counter-accusations in which the party's top leaders appeared frantic to save their own political skins.

The furore has sucked in the Speaker, the Majority Leader and the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, all of whom are now in the firing line just a few weeks before next month's pivotal mid-term elections.

Mr Foley's eye-popping indiscretions with the teenage boys who act as runners and factotums on Capitol Hill - including one lengthy exchange about masturbation and his own sexual arousal - might have been less damaging had he not also served as co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

That, in turn, has raised the age-old Washington question of who knew about the exchanges, and when they knew it. The House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, initially denied all knowledge before a few days ago, only to concede hours later that he might have been told about an e-mail exchange between Mr Foley and a page from Louisiana as long ago as last November.

In the early hours of a fast-moving weekend, the leader most directly in the firing line was Tom Reynolds, the Republican congressional committee chair who is already fighting for his political life in a close re-election fight in upstate New York. He acknowledged being told about the e-mail exchanges several months ago, but insisted he had not seen the messages themselves.

When it appeared that the party leadership itself was piling on to him, however, he responded with a statement saying he had briefed Mr Hastert on everything he knew.

The House Majority Leader, John Boehner, meanwhile, issued his own statement, saying he recalled a "brief, non-specific" conversation on the subject during the spring, but could remember nothing more.

Finally, on Saturday night, Mr Boehner and Mr Hastert clubbed together to denounce Mr Foley's behaviour as "an obscene breach of trust" that deserved a full criminal investigation.

Elected Republicans further down the food chain - whose jobs and majority status in the House are all under direct threat - were far from satisfied with that response, and demanded a full and immediate inquiry into the party leaders themselves.

"If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership," the Connecticut congressman Christopher Shays told The New York Times.

Mr Foley's e-mail exchange with the page from Louisiana was more suggestive than overtly sexual - asking the boy what he wanted for his birthday and asking him to send a digital photograph of himself.

The page, who has not been named, described the exchange as "sick, sick, sick" and forwarded the correspondence to his boss, Congressman Rodney Alexander. Mr Alexander then took the issue up with his party superiors.

Last Friday, ABC news released not only the e-mail exchange but also a subsequent instant message correspondence with another page that was much more explicitly sexual. Unconfirmed reports out of Washington suggest four or five pages in all may have come forward to denounce Mr Foley.

Democrats, meanwhile, are quietly ecstatic at the pickle their adversaries find themselves in. They now hope to pick up Mr Foley's seat in Florida - previously regarded as unassailable - and see improved chances of beating Mr Reynolds. If the media frenzy over the Foley resignation persists, it will also derail Republican plans to keep public attention focused on national security and the "war on terror", issues they see as key to preventing a Democratic takeover of the House, or Senate, or both.

The abrupt resignation of a Florida congressman caught sending sexually explicit computer messages to teenage pages at the House of Representatives has developed into a full-blown Republican Party scandal with senior party leaders accusing each other of knowing about the e-mails for months and doing nothing about them.

Within hours of the departure of Mark Foley, a lawmaker from the Palm Beach area dogged for years by rumours about his sexuality, the party of "family values" turned on itself in an unseemly sequence of denials, accusations and counter-accusations in which the party's top leaders appeared frantic to save their own political skins.

The furore has sucked in the Speaker, the Majority Leader and the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, all of whom are now in the firing line just a few weeks before next month's pivotal mid-term elections.

Mr Foley's eye-popping indiscretions with the teenage boys who act as runners and factotums on Capitol Hill - including one lengthy exchange about masturbation and his own sexual arousal - might have been less damaging had he not also served as co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

That, in turn, has raised the age-old Washington question of who knew about the exchanges, and when they knew it. The House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, initially denied all knowledge before a few days ago, only to concede hours later that he might have been told about an e-mail exchange between Mr Foley and a page from Louisiana as long ago as last November.

In the early hours of a fast-moving weekend, the leader most directly in the firing line was Tom Reynolds, the Republican congressional committee chair who is already fighting for his political life in a close re-election fight in upstate New York. He acknowledged being told about the e-mail exchanges several months ago, but insisted he had not seen the messages themselves.

When it appeared that the party leadership itself was piling on to him, however, he responded with a statement saying he had briefed Mr Hastert on everything he knew.
The House Majority Leader, John Boehner, meanwhile, issued his own statement, saying he recalled a "brief, non-specific" conversation on the subject during the spring, but could remember nothing more.

Finally, on Saturday night, Mr Boehner and Mr Hastert clubbed together to denounce Mr Foley's behaviour as "an obscene breach of trust" that deserved a full criminal investigation.

Elected Republicans further down the food chain - whose jobs and majority status in the House are all under direct threat - were far from satisfied with that response, and demanded a full and immediate inquiry into the party leaders themselves.

"If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership," the Connecticut congressman Christopher Shays told The New York Times.

Mr Foley's e-mail exchange with the page from Louisiana was more suggestive than overtly sexual - asking the boy what he wanted for his birthday and asking him to send a digital photograph of himself.

The page, who has not been named, described the exchange as "sick, sick, sick" and forwarded the correspondence to his boss, Congressman Rodney Alexander. Mr Alexander then took the issue up with his party superiors.

Last Friday, ABC news released not only the e-mail exchange but also a subsequent instant message correspondence with another page that was much more explicitly sexual. Unconfirmed reports out of Washington suggest four or five pages in all may have come forward to denounce Mr Foley.

Democrats, meanwhile, are quietly ecstatic at the pickle their adversaries find themselves in. They now hope to pick up Mr Foley's seat in Florida - previously regarded as unassailable - and see improved chances of beating Mr Reynolds. If the media frenzy over the Foley resignation persists, it will also derail Republican plans to keep public attention focused on national security and the "war on terror", issues they see as key to preventing a Democratic takeover of the House, or Senate, or both.
SOURCE:
news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1780549.ece
****************************************************
HASTERT, SPEAKER OF HOUSE, KNEW FOLEY WAS PREYING ON CHILDREN AND DID NOTHING

Hastert and Boehner can't get their stories straight about who knew what when, although Boehner told today's Washington Post that he had learned this spring of some 'contact' between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and that Hastiest assured him 'we're taking care of it.'

Hastert has refused to comment on why, even after finding out that Foley had a diseased attitude towards children, he still allowed him to chair the House caucus on missing and exploited children.
SEE: House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) spring of "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page
mparent7777.livejournal.com/12914931.html

Hastert is in a lot of trouble here. First, John Boehner said he told Hastert about Foley, then Boehner changed his story, and Hastert's office flatly denied Hastert knew. But Tom Reynolds emphatically said that he also told Hastert about this months ago, directly contradicting Hastert's denials. [CREW REPORT HAS DETAILS BELOW]

Even if everything happened the way Hastert claims, it sounds more like an attempt to cover it up. Several high-ranking members of Hastert's staff were coordinating the handling of the page's complaint about Foley. If it is so that Hastert didn't learn of this, wouldn't complaints about a GOP Congressman's conduct regarding a Congressional page be something they would tell Hastert? Hastert says he has no reason to doubt Reynolds' claim that he spoke to Hastert about this, but Hastert doesn't recall that. If Rep. Reynolds told Hastert that a Congressional page and his parents complained about Foley's behavior and insisted that he not contact the page again, isn't that something Hastert would remember?

Also, there is this statement from Rep. Dale Kildee, the Democratic member of the House Page Board, who says: "any statement by Mr. Reynolds or anyone else that the House Page Board ever investigated Mr. Foley is completely untrue. I was never informed of the allegations about Mr. Foley's inappropriate communications with a House Page and I was never involved in any inquiry into this matter."
FULL Statement here:
www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010071.php

The Republicans purposely excluded the Democratic member of the Board from knowing about these accusations to ensure that the accusations would remain concealed and un-investigated.

Hastert, Reynolds, and Boehner all knew about Foley's problems with this page and effectively did nothing even to investigate, let alone take any action (other than to ensure that the whole thing would be covered up). The consequences here cannot be confined just to Foley; surely this should be a wakeup call for all Americans, even die hard Republican supporters.

We're going to be hearing a lot more of this from Republicans and Democrats in the coming days. The bulk of the GOP House leadership is implicated here.
****************************************************
CREW Calls For House To Appoint Outside Counsel To Investigate Foley Page Scandal

9/30/2006 3:21:00 PM

Contact: Naomi Seligman Steiner of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, 202-841-5096; www.citizensforethics.org

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today called upon the House of Representatives to appoint an outside counsel to investigate the House leadership's role in covering up Rep. Mark Foley's (R-FL) inappropriate email exchanges with a sixteen-year-old former House page.

Several members of the Republican leadership have now admitted to knowing for nearly a year that Rep. Foley engaged in email exchanges with a sixteen-year-old former House page. These members, including Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Reps. Rodney Alexander (R-LA), John Shimkus (R-IL) and Tom Reynolds (R-NY) have all claimed that they failed to take action because the boy's parents did not want to pursue the matter. The decision not to investigate further left other House pages unprotected and vulnerable to a potential sexual predator.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) decision to have Rep. Shimkus review the page system is particularly ludicrous, given that it was Rep. Shimkus who, despite having been made aware that the boy and his parents were concerned about Rep. Foley's emails, readily accepted Rep. Foley's explanation that he was merely mentoring the boy. Rep. Shimkus is the chairman of the House page board.

Although the matter allegedly was raised before the House page board, the failure to insulate pages from further contact with Rep. Foley and the failure to implement measures to protect the pages suggests that the leadership failed to take the matter seriously.

Because the House leadership has demonstrated a shocking lack of judgment in dealing with Rep. Foley's conduct, those in charge cannot now be trusted to examine the matter candidly. To ensure a thorough investigation of this sordid episode and the roles of everyone involved, it is imperative that the House immediately appoint an outside counsel. To that end, the chairman and the ranking member of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, Reps. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Howard Berman (D-CA) respectively, should jointly choose an outside counsel with prosecutorial experience to get to the bottom of this sorry affair. It is the very least the House can do for the teenagers entrusted to its care.

Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director, said today, "It is horrifying to learn that some members of Congress were more concerned with covering up a potentially embarrassing situation than with protecting the teenage pages." Sloan continued, "the American people, and particularly the parents of other pages, have a right to know if congressional leaders put politics above the safety of children."
****************************************************
FBI Opens "Preliminary Investigation" of Foley
October 01, 2006 6:00 PM
Brian Ross Reports:

The FBI has opened a "preliminary investigation" of disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley over the sexually explicit Internet messages he sent to congressional pages, all male high school students under the age of 18.

Agents in the FBI's Cyber Division have already begun to examine the texts of some of the messages, according to a FBI spokesperson.

Officials say the FBI and Department of Justice lawyers are trying to determine how many such e-mails were sent, how many different computers were used and whether any of the teenage victims will cooperate in the investigation.

It's possible Foley could be prosecuted under laws he helped to enact, as the co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

Two sets of sexually explicit instant messages obtained by ABC News were sent to pages beginning in 2002.

GOP Staff Warned Pages About Foley in 2001
October 01, 2006 4:00 PM
Maddy Sauer and Anna Schecter Report:

A Republican staff member warned congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.

Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor in the House Clerk's office.

Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff."

Staff members at the House Clerk's office did not return calls seeking comment.

Some of the sexually explicit instant messages that led to Foley's abrupt resignation Friday were sent to pages in Loraditch's class.

Pages report to either Republican or Democratic supervisors, depending on the political party of the member of Congress who nominate them for the page program.

Several Democratic pages tell ABC News they received no such warnings about Foley.

Loraditch says that some of the pages who "interacted" with Foley were hesitant to report his behavior because "members of Congress, they've got the power." Many of the pages were hoping for careers in politics and feared Foley might seek retribution.

Loraditch runs the alumni association for the U.S. House Page Program, and he is deeply concerned about the future effects this scandal could have on a program that he sees as a valuable educational experience for teens.
SOURCE FOR ABOVE ARTICLES:
blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/fbi_opens_preli.html
****************************************************
If you want to see why Foley resigned within hours of the revelations read the raw IM log from ABC News (21 or older or if you have parental permission): abcnews.go.com/images/WNT/02-02-03b.pdf

[DT1]

Well,lets turn over some rocks and find out what's not being reported about during Pervgate...

Halliburton Hearts Congress
Do partisanship and cronyism trump congressional oversight and corporate accountability?
By Frida Berrigan

Feces in the soldiers’ water. Blood on the mess hall floor. Expired and substandard food. $85,000 trucks with flat tires abandoned in the desert. Embroidered towels for twice the cost. More than $1 billion in “questionable charges.”

These are just a few of the allegations levied against Halliburton, and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), by former employees, soldiers and their families as well as Pentagon and congressional investigators. Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, Halliburton has been working for the Pentagon under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP)—a multi-billion dollar agreement that guarantees the contractor receives a fixed profit based on the quote the company gives for tasks like food service, provisioning and outfitting of U.S. soldiers. Last year alone, Halliburton brought in $5.4 billion for its work in Iraq.

In July, the Army announced it was discontinuing the controversial contract and will re-open bidding on a new logistics contract to be split between four companies, one of which will perform oversight functions. Despite its track record, Halliburton is free to make a bid.

In addition to its lucrative military logistical work, Halliburton recently checked off their $2.41 billion “Restore Iraqi Oil” contract as complete—even though gas is $3.20 per gallon in Baghdad and the oil infrastructure remains in shambles. Among its other contracts, Halliburton is also working on a $30 million project to build more prisons at Guantánamo.

Checks and balances
With billions of dollars at stake and the war prospectively stretching into the next decade, why isn’t Congress banging the gavel on oversight and corporate accountability? And why have congressional Democrats been forced to resort to guerilla tactics to wring information from Halliburton and other companies?

Sen. Byron Dorgan, the North Dakota chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, is tirelessly pushing for a Truman-style commission on war profiteering, but his amendments have been repeatedly defeated in party line votes—mostly recently in June with a 52-44 vote. As Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt explains, “There is one-party control. Republicans hold the White House and the House and Senate and they are not interested in embarrassing each other.” But, Piatt insists, “We aren’t either. We’re interested in getting the troops what they need, and in safeguarding the taxpayers’ money.”

The Truman Commission, created during World War II and credited with saving taxpayers $15 billion ($200 billion today), is a good model. Hoping to undercut the rank partisanship surrounding congressional investigation of war profiteering, Missouri Democratic Senator Harry Truman began his investigations while a Democrat—Franklin Delano Roosevelt—was President.

In the service of this project, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee has been churning out reports like “The Failed Republican Strategy in Iraq Has Made Us Less Safe at Home.” In the House, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is running a watchdog cottage industry out of his office—enlisting lawyers, investigators and technical experts to issue reams of reports like “Dollars, Not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration.” In both houses, Democrats are holding hearings with whistleblowers, former employees and analysts. These events generate news attention and outrage, but—thus far—not legislation or change.

Shtick or substance?
Republicans sneer at these outsider efforts. “It gets to a point where it’s more shtick than substance,” says Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). Rep. Tom David (R-Va.), chair of the Government Reform Committee, defends Republican inaction by declaring, “We aren’t going after the mini scandal du jour trying to embarrass the administration at a hearing that’s going nowhere.”

Yet, during the Clinton years, Republicans seemed to love “nowhere” investigations. Did President Clinton sell Arlington cemetery plots to his big donors? Did he misuse the White House Christmas card list to hunt for potential contributors? The answers to these and many other questions were sought in aggressive and voluminous investigations by the Republican-controlled Congress. In all, between 1997 and 2002, the Government Reform Committee issued 1,052 subpoenas against the Clinton administration and the DNC and only 11 related to Republican abuse.

In contrast, during the 108th Congress, the Government Reform Committee grudgingly held four hearings on Iraq reconstruction contracting. Their final report dismissed critical witnesses as “so-called whistle blowers” and attributed multi-million dollar bungles to the “fog of war.” In Sen. Dorgan’s view, the hearings “were called in order to defend Halliburton, which is a pretty pathetic way to do investigative oversight.”

Frank Silbey, a former investigator for the Senate Labor Committee under both the Republicans and the Democrats, says he’s never seen it so bad. “Congress has enormous power and it does nothing.”

In March, the House had a chance to do something when Waxman attached Amendment 746 to the $70 billion plus emergency war and reconstruction package. The amendment prohibited future contracts with companies that had overcharged the government by $100 million or more. Even though Halliburton is the only company with such a dubious distinction, only 11 Republicans voted for the measure. House Armed Services Chair Duncan Hunter went so far as to praise the company for its “good, hardworking people” and to claim that he and other House leaders did not know why Waxman wanted hearings on Halliburton’s track record in Iraq.

Cozying up to Congress
Why doesn’t Congress do more? Part of the answer lies in the political weight Halliburton throws around Washington, doling out hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions and accumulating more than $1 million in lobbying bills in the past few years. Since 2000, the company has contributed more than $645,000 to congressional campaign coffers, with more than 90 percent going to Republicans. Their lobbying expenditures are also sky-high. After spending more than $1 million on the services of firms like Baker Botts LLP (as in Bush Senior’s Secretary of State James Baker III) and Vinson & Elkins in 2004, Halliburton spent another $372,000 in 2005.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s relationship to the company is widely known: Despite almost no corporate experience, Cheney was hired to head the oil services company in 1995, just a few years after completing his tenure as Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush. When Cheney took the helm, the company was 73rd on the list of the Pentagon’s top contractors, bringing in about $1 billion in defense contracts a year. In part because of the contacts Cheney brought to the company, Halliburton now stands at number 6, with $5.8 billion in Pentagon contracts in 2005.

Cheney is a great friend to have, but it doesn’t hurt that the company has other close ties. Richard “Plame-gate” Armitage did freelance consulting work for Halliburton before assuming the number two position at the State Department. In 2005, KBR hired Joe Allbaugh, an aide to George W. Bush when he was governor of Texas and former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as a consultant. For good measure, they hired Allbaugh’s wife Diane too.

Nonetheless, the idea of a Truman-style investigation into war profiteering is catching on and gaining traction.

MoveOn, the progressive lobbying and education organization, has made political hay of Republican advocacy for corporations with a series of “Caught Red Handed” advertisements. One television ad highlights Halliburton’s donations to Rep. Thelma Drake (R-Va.) alongside information about her vote against Waxman’s March amendment that would have barred the company from further Pentagon contracts.

Congress’ role as corporate watchdog might have a better chance in the 110th Congress with Democratic candidates like Tammy Duckworth and Jim Webb campaigning on a platform of corporate accountability. Duckworth, a disabled Iraq war veteran, wants to fill the House seat vacated by the retiring Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.). The Black Hawk helicopter pilot lost both her legs in a November 2004 grenade attack. As a soldier in Iraq, Duckworth saw “numerous examples of questionable spending on military operations and reconstruction projects at the same time that our troops were facing shortages in the field.” Cooks in her National Guard unit were replaced by KBR employees paid $10 a day while the company charged the government $22 a meal.

Along with Jim Webb, a former Secretary of the Navy running for the Virginia Senate seat against the incumbent Republican, George “Macaca” Allen, Duckworth has pledged to “introduce legislation to establish a special committee to investigate the billions of dollars being spent on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan” if elected.

If Congress can’t put aside partisanship, cronyism and greed to curb the most flagrant, egregious and criminal war profiting behavior from companies like Halliburton, it will have a very hard time cracking down on smaller but no less troubling companies like Blackwater or DynCorp. Maybe it is time for a people’s Truman Commission—start with the companies, and then look at Congress.


Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center,
a project of the World Policy Institute.
Comments,my friends?just click on reply to add your thoughts...

[DT1]

Peter Rost: I Grew Up as a Republican, So Why Do I Feel Joy Today?
Submitted by buzzflash.com on Sat, 11/11/2006 - 4:44pm.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Peter Rost, M.D., author of "The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman."

JOY.

I GREW UP AS A REPUBLICAN, SO WHY DO I FEEL JOY TODAY?

In fact, one of the reasons I moved from Europe to the U.S. was because I couldn't stand socialism and left-wing rhetoric. I voted with my feet when I came to the U.S., twenty years ago. And I was proud to become an American.

I loved Ronald Reagan, the open market, capitalism, and all what this stands for.

So why do I feel joy today?

I feel joy because of the powerful message the voters have given the Republican Party. I feel that joy because the Republican Party is no longer my party and since they no longer stand for an open and free market.

I feel joy for their loss, because the conservative movement has been hijacked by corporate interests that have no interest in fair competition or an open and free market.

The drug industry, for instance, doesn't want lower priced drugs from other countries. They want to block drugs from Canada and Europe. The auto companies don't want foreign imports. They want trade barriers. The insurance companies don't want universal healthcare. They want to continue to mint new CEO billionaires on the back of the American People.

So I feel joy, because in spite of all the money those organizations have heaped over Republican candidates, they lost. I feel joy because perhaps, after all, this is a new beginning.

I feel joy because Rumsfeld is gone and I never believed for a second there were any weapons of mass destruction, and I was abhorred when I witnessed a war hysteria that reminded me of a dark past in European history. I feel joy that the American people finally stood up and said enough is enough.

But I also feel concern. I'm concerned that we'll just exchange one part of the establishment with another establishment. I'm saddened that we continue to have a voting system in which the winner takes it all and only two parties are allowed to flourish.

I'm saddened that we don't have a true democracy, in spite of being the first democracy. And I worry that not much will change. But I hope that I'm wrong. I hope we'll see a woman president one day and I hope we'll raise minimum wage and give healthcare to every American.

But I doubt that this will happen soon, because no matter who is in power, the money that fuels our system doesn't allow for us to be a true democracy.

So while I feel joy today, I also feel sadness for our country. We could be so much more, so many great things and such an inspiration to the world.

But we aren't.

Because the world knows that our system is built on greed and we don't care that we have the highest infant mortality and the shortest life span in the entire industrialized world, as long as we can give tax breaks to billionaires.

So I don't only feel joy, but also sadness. But what's more important, I do feel some hope. After all, the fact that Rumsfeld is finally gone must be good news.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Peter Rost, M.D., is a former Vice President of Pfizer. He became well known in 2004 when he emerged as the first drug company executive to speak out in favor of reimportation of drugs. He is the author of "The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman." See:
the-whistleblower-by-peter-rost.blogspot.com/

[DT1]

The Democrats & Civil Liberties
Will They Turn A Blind Eye To The
Destruction Of The Bill Of Rights?
By Paul Craig Roberts
11-14-6
rense.com
Unless November's new blood improves the Democratic Party's civil liberties pedigree, the Democrats will have failed even before they are sworn in next January.

In its disregard for truth, public opinion, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, the US Constitution and statutory law, the Bush administration has been more of a regime than an administration. The Bush/Cheney executive branch has operated independently of all the constraints that provide accountability and prevent despotism.

The Bush regime was able to evade these restraints, because Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and because Republicans wielded 9/11 as a weapon to forestall political opposition.

With signing statements and other unilateral declarations of presidential authority, the Bush regime asserted executive branch powers beyond the reach of Congress and the judiciary.

The Bush regime was a coup d'etat against the Bill of Rights and the jurisdictions of Congress and the courts. Unless Democrats roll back this coup, Americans have seen the last of their civil liberties.

Judging by Democrats' statements in the flush of their electoral victory, Democrats have little, if any, awareness of this critical fact. Democrats are anxious to get on with their agendas and have shown no recognition that the first order of business is to repeal the legislation that permits torture, warrantless detention and domestic spying.

If Bush threatens to veto the resurrection of US civil liberty, the Democrats can impeach Bush as a tyrant as well as for pushing America into an illegal and catastrophic war on the basis of lies and deception.

Bush is the most impeachable president in American history. However, the incoming Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has declared impeachment to be "off the table." Obviously, this means that Bush will not be held accountable and that the Bill of Rights is a casualty of the vague, undefined, and propagandistic "war on terror."

Do Pelosi and the incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have the intellect and character to deliver the leadership required for Americans to remain a free people? Instead of bemoaning the damage Bush has done to civil liberty, Democrats are up in arms over one child in five being raised in poverty. The more important question is whether children are being raised as a free people protected by civil liberties from arbitrary government power.

Do Democrats share the delusion of Bush supporters that it is only Middle Eastern terrorists who are deprived of the protection of the US Constitution? One can understand the reluctance of Americans to extend constitutional protection to terrorists who are trying to kill Americans. However, without these protections, there is no way of ascertaining who is a terrorist.

Currently, a "terrorist" is anyone given that designation by any of a large number of unaccountable government officials and military officers. No evidence has to be provided in order to detain a designated suspect. Moreover, designated suspects can be convicted in military tribunals on the basis of secret evidence not made available to them or to any legal representation that they might be able to secure. In other words, you are guilty if charged.

As the case of US citizen Jose Padilla makes clear, these gestapo police state proceedings apply to Americans. Padilla was declared to be an "enemy combatant." He was held in a US prison for three and one-half years with no charges and no warrant. He was kept in isolated confinement, tortured, and denied legal representation.

In order to avoid US Supreme Court jurisdiction over the case, the Bush regime filed charges after stealing three and one-half years of Padilla's life. However, the charges have no relationship to the Bush regime's original allegations that Padilla, an Hispanic-American, was an al Qaeda operative who was going to set off a radioactive dirty bomb in an American city. The US government no longer designates Padilla as an "enemy combatant." The dirty bomb charge has disappeared, and US Federal District Judge Marcia Cooke has criticized the government's indictment as vague with sketchy evidence "weak on facts."

The reason that the Bush regime wants to detain people indefinitely without evidence is that it has no evidence. The reason the Bush regime passed torture legislation is in order to produce the missing evidence by torturing a suspect into self-incrimination. "Evidence" procured by torture has been illegal in civilized societies for centuries. But the Bush regime has resurrected the medieval rack and substituted it for the Bill of Rights.

If Democrats cannot bring themselves to rectify the inhumane and barbaric practices that now pass for US justice, then they, too, have failed the American people.


Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolutin (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholar journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He can be reached at: [e-mail].

[DT1]

A New Year's Resolution for ALL Presidential Candidates
by Joel S. Hirschhorn
www.dissidentvoice.org
December 30, 2006






No matter how awful you think our government and political system have become, odds are you do not know about this travesty of justice, an incredible failure to honor our fabled Constitution. This failure has removed the sovereignty of we the people, and made Congress much more powerful than it should be. Let me acknowledge that even though I have been pegged as "Democracy's Mr. Fix It," until recently I too was ignorant about this blatant disregard for a key part of our Constitution.



Our Founders were acutely aware of the need to create a mechanism for we the people to, when necessary, circumvent the political power of the federal government. They built in a critically important form of direct democracy that, however, our elected MISrepresentatives have refused to implement. Here it is: Article V of our Constitution specifies two distinct routes to amending our Constitution: "The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress."



Conventions to consider constitutional amendments should be seen as peaceful revolutions -- a remedy specified in our Constitution for addressing a national government and political system that no longer serves public interests. Congress has been so corrupted for so long that it has blatantly ignored the constitutional provision for conventions. It wants exclusive power over amending our Constitution in violation of the Constitution itself.



The key point is that our Founders gave states this route to address excess federal power. All of the twenty-seven amendments thus far incorporated into the Constitution were proposed by Congress. Granted, Article V has sparse language. But clearly Congress "shall" call a convention to order when the only stated requirement is met, namely that two-thirds of state legislatures request a convention. There are NO other stated requirements. So, have state legislatures requested a convention and has Congress fulfilled its constitutional, legal responsibility and called for one?



Yes, a sufficient number of state legislatures have requested a convention. With 50 states presently in the Union, there must be applications made by lawmakers in at least 34 states in order to trigger the constitutionally specified convention option. In fact, there have been over five hundred state applications requesting a convention and Congress has never called for one. All the state applications are there in the Congressional Record and Congress is ignoring them. Legally known as laches, things that are ignored on purpose.



As noted in Wikipedia: "The framers of the Constitution wanted a means of sometimes bypassing a potentially unwilling Congress in the amendment-proposing process. They thought that there could be circumstances in which Congress, for self-serving reasons, would ignore valid pleas to amend the Constitution and so the framers established an alternate means of proposing change in the Constitution." Just as an example, consider that a convention might decide to alter or abandon the Electoral College system for choosing a president.



What has Congress done? Congress has never obeyed Article V and certified that a national Constitutional convention must be held -- remember, NOT by itself to amend the Constitution, but solely at its discretion to propose amendments -- just as Congress has done in the past. Then, it would be up to state legislatures or state conventions to actually pass or not pass any proposed amendments. Congress has never even established a procedure for tracking state requests for a convention. Congress' power-grabbing behavior is by itself sufficient reason why Americans should want a convention -- one possible amendment would be to amplify the language on conventions to make Congress more responsible.



This point is especially important. As noted in Wikipedia, Congress has never responded to many requests from states by calling a convention, supposedly because those applications requested amendments on different subjects.



However, Article V does not explicitly require that state requests must specify what amendment(s) they are interested in pursuing. Congressional inaction has contributed to the impression that states must petition for the same amendment(s). However, federal courts have never ruled on this "precedent," nor should they. We do not need any judicial decision, because Article V does not require that states specify anything other than their desire for a convention. Logically, to require states to signal in advance what they were interested in doing would create the potential for congressional refusal to call a convention. Thus, the Founders knew what they were doing when they did not require such notification.



As if the illegal inactions by Congress is not enough to make your patriotic blood boil, the Supreme Court rejected hearing a case that claimed it was illegal for Congress to avoid calling a convention. In August 2006, Bill Walker filed a petition of close to 1,000 pages; he noted that 49 states had requested a convention. He correctly emphasized that "On its face, that fact alone compels Congress to call a convention, which it has not, and compels the judicial system, under its oath to support the Constitution, to enforce that document's provision and declare such inaction by Congress, unconstitutional."



On October 30, 2006 the Supreme Court denied certiorari to this question in Walker v. Members of Congress (06-244). By refusing to hear the case it allowed the direct text of the United States Constitution to be vetoed with impunity by Congress. What is so disturbing is that the Supreme Court did not think it worthy or that it had a Constitutional duty to address the power of Congress by itself to veto an explicit clause and provision in our Constitution. Thus two branches of the federal government violated their sacred, sworn oath to obey the Constitution. Simply put, the refusal of Congress to issue the call for a convention even when a sufficient number of applying states exists is unconstitutional, and the refusal of the Supreme Court to rule that Congress has acted unconstitutionally was itself unconstitutional.



Imagine this: Congress upholds its oath and issues a call for a Constitutional convention. The states would hold special elections for delegates; the delegates would convene and make their own rules for reaching decisions. Once all the delegates had proposed their ideas and agreed on what amendments should be ratified by the states, the convention would end. The proposed amendments would then be sent out to the states by Congress; the ratification process would begin. Once any single amendment garnered the approval of 38 states -- a high hurdle -- it would be amended to the Constitution. A host of electoral reforms could be enacted to rejuvenate our American democracy.



If you truly believe in our constitutional republic and representative democracy with safeguards, then you must demand that every presidential candidate take a clear, unequivocal position on this Article V constitutional convention requirement. It is time for the Executive Branch to stand up for constitutional integrity. Every single one of us should demand from whoever becomes our new president in 2008 a commitment to pressure Congress for a convention. He or she should do that soon after taking office -- after swearing to defend and uphold our Constitution. Should we accept anything less?



How could candidates for the presidency say that a clear constitutional clause is not valid? Nor must they be allowed to do what Congress has done -- simply ignore the whole Article V convention issue. Take a stand! Inaction means our Constitution will suffer three strikes and have even less credibility with the many U.S. citizens and people worldwide who already see American democracy riddled with hypocrisy.



And where the hell is our mainstream news media? Is not obeying our Constitution worthy of their attention?



Joel S. Hirschhorn is author of the new book, Delusional Democracy: Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government.

[DT1]

A Way Out of Iraq That Sidesteps Bush
by Roscoe C. Born
commondreams.org
A new year, a new Congress, a new milestone as U.S. deaths exceed 3,000: This is a decisive moment in the urgent matter of the chaos and carnage in Iraq. With the report of the Iraq Study Group completed (and seemingly shelved), and with President Bush closeted with his war advisers, the question raised in conversation, on television news and in the press is: What will Mr. Bush decide?

A Newsweek cover, for example, asks, "Will Bush Listen?" An op-ed by David Ignatius in The Washington Post ends with these words: "The man under the spotlight knows he will have to make this decision alone." The unexamined premise is that America's next course of action in Iraq depends entirely on the final judgment of one man, George W. Bush.

But the nation's next step is not the president's alone to decide. The more important question is:
What will Congress decide?
There is a way for Congress to swiftly stanch the flow of American blood in Iraq without a bitter, partisan debate over the causes or conduct of the war.

Although President Bush might have invaded Iraq even without congressional approval, he did seek and get that authority in "The Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq," passed by Congress in October 2002 and still in effect. That document presented 23 declarations of "fact," stated in "whereas" clauses, that, in the president's view, warranted his use of our military to invade Iraq. Congress agreed and authorized this war.

Now, regardless of whether those statements were at that time false or misleading, and putting aside any confrontations about the blame for the war, the fundamental "whereas" clauses that were the basis for war are now clearly wrong or no longer applicable. A few examples:

• "Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations."

That declaration, as we now know, was not true in 2002 and is not true today. Even if it had been true, the Iraqi regime that allegedly committed those offenses no longer exists. Today's Iraqi government poses no military threat to any other nation.


• "Whereas the current Iraq regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people."

The "current Iraq regime" referred to did use chemical weapons against its enemies and its own citizens. But the leader of that regime has been captured and hanged. Again, Iraq today poses no military threat to anyone.


• "Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law No. 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."

The United States has invaded Iraq and removed "the current Iraqi regime" from power and has promoted a series of efforts to create a democratic Iraqi government - all declared by President Bush to be successful.

Whatever motives led the president to ask, and Congress to grant, authority to use the U.S. military to invade Iraq, the justifications stated in whereas after whereas are not true today. Yet they remain on the books, still the official position of Congress.

So the vital decision is not President Bush's alone, and Congress should not wait to proceed on its own. Congress is morally obligated - now - to review its outdated joint resolution authorizing force against Iraq, and to undertake a new joint resolution declaring, in essence, "Whereas the purposes of the original authorization have been served; whereas the stated reasons justifying the authorization no longer exist; whereas the objectionable Iraqi regime has been removed and the new Iraqi regime poses no military threat to its neighbors or the United States; that, therefore, U.S. military forces are no longer authorized to remain in Iraq."
Far-fetched? Not in the least. Congress used this very procedure in 1993 to withdraw U.S. troops from Somalia.

Their orderly departure should begin as promptly as the military protocols for force protection will allow and be completed within six months of the passage of a new joint resolution.

It is important to note that this approach bypasses, for now, a divisive debate about Mr. Bush's war policies. If Congress wishes to examine the causes of this war, that is a separate matter that should not interfere with a rational review of a joint resolution that is obsolete.

Roscoe C. Born, a Sykesville resident, was Washington editor of Barron's magazine and a reporter in The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau.

I am currently sending Mr. Born's essay to every new member of the 110th Congress,under the heading;
Congratulations-now get to work
A tedious task,to be sure,but I feel that it must be done.-Dt1

[DT1]

Please post,dear members and guests.
If you agree,use your voice.
If not,tell us why.
I cannot imagine an issue more urgent...
Bring em on?
I'll be glad to give all three of the Islamofascist dead-enders W's home address.
(Commander Terror lives in a times square PO box,for tax evasion purposes).
Mail Forwarded to Paraguay...

Mr.Bush,Chickenhawk In Chief,you have gone as far as you're gonna go.
My response,in advance of your address..
Either send in the twins,or get out of my face with mumblings about"sacrifice"...
I know good men who are DEAD becouse of your agenda...
Now you are preparing to sell a "surge"?
With all the due respect I can muster...

Go To Hell!!!

"Mr.Bush,The American Citizens,the people for whom you work,have told you they do not want this..
Moreover,they do not want you to do this...
Yet again,Sir,you have ignored all of us."-Keith Olberman

Bring Them Home Now!!!-----------------------------------------------------------


Just re-enacting Pay-As-You-Go
will bring this damn death machine to it's knees.
Eleven percent of The American people still want this corporate,utterly b******t war.
This is madness.
First,we turn off the meat-grinder.
Then, let the floodgates open on investigations,indictments,
about twelve or sixteen Independent Prosecutors,
a War Crimes Tribunal....
As we begin to clean up W's godawful mess,we have to look to preventative maintinence.
We have to make sure that war proffiteering always results in a cinderblock 6x9.
This must never be allowed to happen again.

The times,they are a'changin.

Your thoughts,please...

[DT1]

And now,if I may convey a few words from EMK:
(I got this in my in-box today, as a response to several E-mails I've sent
to The Honorable Senator,regarding the abyssmal administration of Bushco...)

Dear Dt1,

For six years, President Bush and his rubber-stamp Congress had an opportunity to pass the American people's agenda with little partisan obstruction. But in that time, the only agenda we saw from the White House served the narrow interests of their radical right-wing Republican base.

Now the tables are turned. In 2006 an overwhelming majority of Americans voted for change -- and the new Democratic Congress is already hard at work on that change.

But we can't do it without your help. Each of you can make an impact in your local community by writing a letter to your local newspaper supporting our agenda.

Take a moment to write a letter to your local newspaper about the change Democrats are bringing in Congress:

www.tedkennedy.com/letters

We're taking concrete steps to put America back on track:

Americans don't want even more of our troops put in harm's way in Iraq. I've introduced binding legislation that will stop any further escalation of the war -- unless or until the President obtains the consent of Congress for the troop increase he wants.
I've demanded a vote on the Fair Minimum Wage Act for years, and this week, the Senate is at long last voting on that critical issue for millions of families in all parts of America. In the coming days, working families should finally get the raise they deserve.
As Chairman of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I recently held the Committee's first hearing on expanding health care coverage to every American. Health care should be a basic right for all, not just an expensive privilege for the few.
This week I'll be reintroducing two important pieces of legislation to lower the cost of student loans and give every young American the opportunity they deserve to earn a college degree.
I'm also doing all I can to abolish the President's unreasonable restrictions on stem cell research. The need is obvious -- this basic research holds the vast promise of bringing hope for fuller and longer lives to countless Americans suffering from debilitating diseases.
If we work together, we can enact all of this legislation and much more, even if we have to override a veto by President Bush.

Last night, the President claimed that he's moving forward with his plans not because they're popular but because they're right. In fact, he's been wrong again and again for the past six years, and America's problems can't wait any longer.

Write a letter to your newspaper and let your community know that what Congress has planned is right for America:

www.tedkennedy.com/letters

We have a country full of people with hope, determination and good ideas --
and at last we have a Congress ready to act on their agenda.
Let's get it done!

Sincerely,
Senator Edward M. Kennedy

I am not cynical...Never have been.
Don't tell me the tide didn't turn last month.
Oppose.Refuse.Resist.
We turned the tide.Now let our reps know we are watching.We must make them do thier jobs...Or toss them out.
Speak up,dammit.Failure in the task of returning the Government to the American People would have horrific consequences.Never give in to these treasonous Corporatist scumbags.
For our children's sake,
Don't you dare give up hope...