Rockin' The Boat!

THIS is who the rabid Bush supporters throw their blind support behind???? ROFLOL!

The Foley cover-up is just the tip of the iceberg. If the Democrats succeed in retaking Congress this fall, here are five investigations they should get started on right away.

The stately Russell Senate Office Building stands at one corner of a domestic Green Zone, just northeast of the Capitol building at the intersection of Delaware and Constitution avenues. In the past few years a maze of blockades has sprouted along the shaded avenues and curving drives of the Capitol complex. Checkpoints are patrolled by heavily armed police; guards watch for suspicious characters and prohibited items (which now include food and beverages; cans, bottles, and sprays; and bags larger than 13 by 14 inches). At the Russell Building, visitors encounter another set of barriers and metal detectors before being granted admittance to the elegant structure. Then, at the top of a sweeping staircase, they'll find a room walled in white marble, draped in deep red, overhung by a gilded ceiling, and fronted, altarlike, with a raised dais.

Here in the humbly named Caucus Room, the U.S. Congress has held some of its most famous public hearings, beginning with a 1912 investigation into the fate of the Titanic. The Watergate hearings unfolded here in the early '70s, beneath the ever-watchful gaze of Senator Sam Ervin (D-N.C.). It was here that Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-Texas), the first Southern black woman elected to Congress, declared: "My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution."

But in the past six years, congressional investigations of such bold, searching nature have disappeared. In a post-9/11 environment of silence and fear, the mood inside Congress has mirrored the bunkers and barriers outside: No one dares question the military or the intelligence services too closely, or to push the president too far. The Caucus Room continues to be used for party meetings and social events, and every so often there is a potted inquiry, as in the case of the 2003 hearings on the space shuttle. But on issues of war and peace, of corruption and graft, of civil rights, civil liberties, and constitutional breaches, meek questions are the rule, answered by dull assurances from the White House.

If the Democrats win back control of Congress (or even one of its chambers), if they can come up with the requisite moxie, and if they can muster the political will to reach out to their own base as well as to disaffected Republicans, they will have an opportunity to begin to change all that. They will need to overcome the myriad obstacles the Bush administration has created to keep lawmakers from obtaining and releasing critical information, such as its resistance to briefing congressional committees on intelligence issues, or its heavy hand in redacting congressional reports. When explosive information has leaked out -- the fact that documents offering "proof" of Saddam Hussein's intent to buy uranium from Niger had been forged, or that the United States is operating a network of secret prisons in other countries -- the administration's response has focused on condemning critics for politicizing national security -- a charge before which the Democrats usually crumble.

Still, there is a chance that some of the gutsier Dems, with the support of an increasingly fed-up public, could make progress toward exposing the truth.

But if lawmakers of either party do not begin to reclaim their constitutional powers -- by asking questions such as those listed below -- it's not hard to envision a time when visitors may come to the venerable Caucus Room as if to a museum, to learn about a bygone era when congressional investigations still served as a check on the imperial presidency.

1. Who lost Iraq?

It goes without saying that a congressional investigation -- a joint inquiry by both houses, given the gravity of the matter -- should address the causes, conduct, and effects of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, going back to the days immediately after Bush's election when the plans for invading Iraq were laid (see "A War Foretold," Page 61). But beyond that, the conduct of the war on terror has raised myriad vital questions that, at another time, would have been subjects of full-fledged inquiries on their own: the Pentagon's failure to adequately equip troops with armor, ammunition, radios, and the like; the use of mercenary forces; the contracting process; and the government's efforts to manipulate the press through outside PR agencies. Also worthy of scrutiny is the role of oil and gas, including the work of the secret Cheney energy task force, which points to prewar discussions with the ceos of major companies about Iraqi oil.

A congressional investigation into the Iraq war must make full use of subpoena power and must be prepared to forward findings of illegal acts to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. Just as important, public hearings could provide an opportunity -- and protection -- for would-be whistleblowers: Recall that Daniel Ellsberg didn't take his trove of documents, showing the Defense Department's true assessment of the war in Vietnam, to the New York Times until after he had been rebuffed by congressional Democrats. Somewhere inside the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies today's Pentagon Papers are waiting.

2. Who blew 9/11?

It's high time to follow up on the startling discoveries of the Senate and House's joint inquiry, back in December 2002, on pre-9/11 intelligence. In reconstructing the hijackers' trail, the inquiry's staff discovered that the FBI had failed to report, and had later balked at making public, information showing that it knew that a bureau informant in the San Diego Muslim community had socialized with two of the hijackers, and that another man who had been investigated by the FBI had rented an apartment to one of them. Both of the future hijackers had been closely followed by the CIA as they made their way from the Middle East to Malaysia; the agents lost track of the men before they boarded a plane to California, where they then lived openly, with driver's licenses and a phone book listing in their own names. So far, no one has been able to discover how they escaped detection by the FBI -- and why the bureau refused to let Congress find out what happened.

The joint inquiry also discovered a Saudi spy operating in California -- the same man who had rented an apartment to one of the hijackers -- along with suggestions of a larger network, according to former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.). The spy nominally worked for a Saudi government contractor, and the committee followed a money trail going back to the royal family and the Saudi government, according to Graham. This was a tantalizing find. Congressional sources have suggested that Saudi spooks may have been sent to California to keep tabs on Saudi students who might be tempted by democratic ideas; it has also been speculated that some of these undercover agents could have become enmeshed with Al Qaeda. In any event, the White House has adamantly refused to declassify 28 pages of the final committee report that dealt with Saudi Arabia. When Congress later set up an independent commission to look into 9/11, it pointedly ordered the panel to "build upon the investigations of other entities" such as the joint inquiry. Yet the commission's report glossed over many questions involving Saudi Arabia. A new select committee could pick up where other probes left off.

3. How wide is the domestic surveillance net?

In the mid-1970s, the Church Committee, named after Idaho Democratic senator Frank Church, put out 14 separate reports that exposed the intelligence agencies' abuses of law. The Pike Committee, named after Rep. Otis Pike (D-N.Y.), conducted a parallel inquiry in the House, focusing mostly on the CIA. Among other things, the investigations discovered the notorious COINTELPRO operation to spy on and disrupt left-wing groups. Thirty years later urgent questions are once again piling up: Just what is the extent of the agencies' spying inside the United States? What are the true motivations and outcomes of this surveillance? How much money is going into spying programs? There is much evidence that domestic intelligence gathering is not limited to the infamous NSA surveillance project. The ACLU, for one, has obtained numerous files describing FBI cooperation with local police in joint terrorism task forces that have targeted groups such as Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, Code Pink, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

4. Is Big Oil pulling an Enron?

The last serious investigation of the oil industry concluded in 1952 with the Federal Trade Commission's staff report on the International Petroleum Cartel, published by the monopoly subcommittee of the Senate. That study laid out a now-familiar pattern: A major concern of the oil industry has always been the threat of surpluses driving down prices. To prevent surpluses, oil and gas companies have employed means such as instituting quota systems, closing off reserves from market, and setting up cartels, or agreements among producers.

Today, while many experts believe oil will soon run out, there is no actual shortage that could be blamed for driving up gas prices. The hurricanes of 2005 did not put the supply in any serious jeopardy, nor was lack of refinery capacity a real factor. (According to the U.S. Department of Energy, refineries along the Gulf Coast and elsewhere frequently run below capacity, meaning that there was some slack in the system.)

There is, however, evidence to suggest practices reminiscent of Enron's market rigging: Last year, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, a California-based consumer group, released a series of internal memos from Chevron, Texaco, and Mobil that laid out the industry's thinking. A Texaco memo, for example, warned that "supply significantly exceeds demand year-round. This results in very poor refinery margins and very poor refinery financial results. Significant events need to occur to assist in reducing supplies and/or increasing the demand for gasoline." An investigation would subpoena internal company documents and take testimony from oil executives under oath -- not just in an "unsworn" chitchat like the sideshow put on by the Senate commerce and energy committees last year -- to discover whether the companies conspired to rig prices or manipulate supply.

5. Who's making money off your retirement?

It's been predicted that at least 1 in 10 retirees in 2020 will teeter on the edge of financial collapse or plunge into outright poverty. Social Security is just a small bit of the problem. The potentially much bigger challenge is the disappearance of pensions, most of which have been replaced with 401(k)-type accounts dependent wholly on the securities market. This is an enormous shift: Corporations have succeeded, with amazingly little protest from labor, in transferring the cost -- and the risk -- of retirement from employer to employee. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. provides some backup when a company with a standard pension plan goes under (think United Airlines). With 401(k)s, there is no insurance. The Securities and Exchange Commission is supposed to regulate mutual funds, which handle most 401(k) money; the sec has nowhere near the resources to keep tabs on the $9 trillion business, so policing is largely left up to the funds themselves.

Before this crisis grows greater, Congress ought to launch a serious investigation into the retirement system. We've got to know all the ways companies are bailing on their pension plans -- by converting them into 401(k)s, by filing for bankruptcy, or simply by quietly not paying into (or "underfunding") them for years at a time. We need to understand who controls the money in 401(k)s, what the hidden costs are, and to what extent these accounts are threatened by Wall Street conflicts of interest. For example, thanks to deregulation laws passed during the Clinton administration, commercial banks can now sell the mutual funds that their investment-banking arms manage, but investors have no recourse if their 401(k)s lose value because of bad management. With Social Security privatization refusing to die, and Wall Street eager to get its hands on that money, Congress should do some due diligence.

BONUS: Grounds for impeachment?

Congressional investigators digging into the aforementioned questions cannot ignore the possibility of impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney, who figures prominently in almost every one of the scandals engulfing the administration. It was Cheney who ran the government's response to the 9/11 attacks without constitutional authority, at one point ordering shoot-downs of commercial planes and what would turn out to be a medevac helicopter; who led the secret meetings of administration officials and oilmen to set energy policy; who allowed Ahmed Chalabi to play the U.S. government like a violin; who very well may be the origin of the whisper campaign that culminated in the Plame leak; and, of course, it was Cheney's former employer (and source of continuing deferred compensation paychecks) that benefited enormously from no-bid contracts in Iraq. Judicial Watch, the conservative legal outfit in Washington, has unearthed an email dated March 5, 2003, sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official whose name had been blacked out, that said of a pending deal under which Halliburton would rebuild the Iraqi oil industry, "We anticipate no issue since the action has been coordinated w VP's office." There's plenty more where that came from; whether any of Cheney's actions constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors" is for Congress, and the nation, to debate.

Read about additional questions the Democrats should be asking at MotherJones.com.

James Ridgeway is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief.

 

Calling all Democrats, from left to left of center to center....here is what is on the agenda, and what YOU can do to help.

1.  Check out Progressive Democrats of America.  There you will find an organization that is focused on helping YOU to organize in a grassroots movement to route out the corporate influence in the Democrat party, and return it to the middle class base it is supposed to represent.  It's impossible to effect change by yourself, we need each other, and this will give all of us an excellent vehicle for systematically working to undo the damage that's already been done in our country. You can either find a group in your area, or start one yourself.

2.  Get educated!  You can NOT cast an informed vote if you aren't informed!  First find out who your current representatives are if you don't already know.  PDA has an excellent database you can use to get that info. Next, go to the Congress Votes Database provided by the Washington Post, look up your representatives, and SEE FOR YOURSELF how they actually voted. Do NOT go by political ads or interviews, use your brain, use your eyes, and see for yourself who is representing you and who is selling you out to corporate interests.  Keep checking the PDA site, as well, because they are actively covering politicians who oppose the current power structure.

3.  Work towards getting new Democratic blood elected to Congress.  We cannot change what needs to be changed if the same people stay in office who have proven by their votes that they are only paying lip service to representing us. A message needs to be sent loud and clear to them that we aren't surrendering our party to their corporate sellout mentality. It's our  party, take it back!

Now that you've laid the groundwork, here is what we will be working towards...

A.  Raising the minimum wage.

B.  Roll back parts of the Republican prescription drug law.

C.  Actually implement the security measures called for in the 9/11 Commission Report.

D.  Reinstate lapsed budget deficit controls.

E.  Launch a series of investigations of the Bush administration, beginning with the White House's first-term energy task force and including the use of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.  If you are tired of seeing this administration not held accountable, this is a goal that we can all get behind!

F.  Invest in and encourage more research in alternative energy sources.

G. Create and enforce rules that demand the highest ethics from every public servant, sever unethical ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, and establish clear standards that prevent the trading of official business for gifts.

H.  Expand the Pell Grant, cut student loan interest rates, and make college tuition tax deductible.

I.  Join with 36 other industrialized nations in making sure everyone has access to affordable health care, starting by fixing the prescription drug program and investing in stem cell and other medical research.

J.  Ensure that a retirement with dignity is the right and expectation of every single American, starting with pension reform, expanding saving incentives and preventing the privatization of social security.

K.  Fight to strengthen the laws that ensure we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, and make sure these laws are enforced.

L.  Protect fundamental civil rights in America.

M.  Reform the voting system in this country so that it includes verification, accountability, and accuracy, modernize election equipment, and guarantee access to polls with common sense reforms such as Election Day registration, shorter lines, and early voting.

N.  Stabilize the situation in Iraq and bring our troops home. 

Get involved now!  There is a lot of work to be done, we've got a lot of damage to undo, and it's time Americans stepped up to the plate and reclaim our heritage of a government of the people, for the people, by the people, NOT of, by, and for corporations and corrupt politicians! Get focused, stay focused, and let's work the plan and get 'er done!

We've watched our jobs systematically outsourced at a phenomenal rate for the past six years, as ever more Americans are forced to take low wage jobs just to survive, and the number of Americans falling into poverty continues to rise.

We've seen deficits run up that go beyond setting new records, they are unheard of in the history of civilization, and the numbers just keep spiralling up and up out of control...our grandkids won't be able to pay off this debt!

We've shaken our heads at learning the sad fact that China owns a huge chunk of those record deficits, along with Saudi Arabia, and knowing that they could call those notes due at any time and turn our economy belly up makes us wonder whose side our Congress is really on?

We've made our opposition to the Iraq War known beyond any shadow of a doubt, with every poll showing that the majority of Americans have had enough and believe that this administration lied us into this war, yet the drums of war continue to be beaten loud and strong, as more and more of our people die in the quagmire of Iraq.

We've burned up the phone lines to DC, demanding accountability for an administration that more and more openly embraces illegal wiretapping and torture, yet instead of our Bill of Rights being respected and enforced, and instead of torture being outlawed and the Geneva Convention honored and the once higher ground moral standing of our country against torture being honored, Congress instead once again rolls over for this administration, gives them another free pass on their criminal actions, and gives them what they want.

Environmental protection laws have been dismantled, programs to help our elderly have been gutted, our votes have been hijacked via a system wide imposition of corrupted machines built by Republican supporting companies, wages have continued on a downward spiral as the American working force is systematically reduced to the status of third world country workers, and through it all, corporations rake money in hand over fist at our expense, not only at the cash register, but in government handouts, tax cuts, and kickbacks for outsourcing our jobs, at taxpayer expense.

We're gouged at the gas pumps, gouged at the department store, gouged when we pay our light bills, gouged when we buy groceries, and nothing is ever done.

When is enough, enough?  What will it take before Americans wake up and fight back?

We are all paying the price for government corruption and Congressional selling out to corporate interests. I just wonder how high the price will have to go before Americans finally say enough is enough...

You might think we Americans would care about torture, about pollution, about alternative sources of energy, about stopping wars based on lies.

You would be wrong.

What Americans care about is...the almighty penis.

Yes, that's right, folks, you read that right. With this administration pushing through legislation that legitimizes torture, and Congress going along with little more than a whimper, if that, the main focus of all the political news coverage this week has been, once again, someone's penis, what he wants to do with it, what he may have done with it.

Read with me this exploration of our fascination with this most important of topics as posted on AlterNet...

From AlterNet ===

Let's Face It, Penises Dominate American Politics

By Larry Beinhart, BuzzFlash. Posted October 7, 2006.

Americans entering politics should not worry if they commit war crimes; the key to survival is to leave your sex organs at home before you do battle in Congress.

Thank God for Mark Foley.

It proves that the American people still care about something.

It happens to be penises. But still.

They care about who talks about them, who plays with them, who covers them up, who uncovers them, who covers up the uncovering of them.

Even Jon Stewart put the big penis cover-up ahead of the fact that this government just passed a law that says that George Bush can say, "Hey you, you're an enemy combatant, "and once he says that they can whisk you away.

This is literally true. It's like that joke in the first grade.

Make me a milkshake

Poof: You're a milkshake

If George Bush says: you're an enemy combatant. Poof! You are one. And then they can take you to Guantanamo, do not pass go, do not call your attorney, do not see a judge, do not hear the charges against you, go straight to the cage they want to put you in. The cage comes with lights that stay on 24 hours a day and wake-up calls every fifteen minutes so you never get to sleep and special exercise programs where you stand for hours in 'stress' positions, upward screaming cat, squatting tortured turtle, and other lite abuses that used to quaintly be prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

Today's joke:

Q: What do Americans do after they commit war crimes?

A: They pass a law that says they can't be prosecuted for committing war crimes.

If you don't find that funny, if you actually think that's serious, then I ask you how come nobody else does. How come CNN doesn't care, NBC, the NY Times? How come the Democratic leadership doesn't care?

How did that that bill -- that contains all those provisions and more -- get passed without a filibuster? Without a fuss?

Thank God for Mark Foley. An old congressman hitting on teenage boys, that's real news.

I was watching CNN yesterday afternoon. It was All Penis, All the Time.

Here's a quote, from one of their reporters, "One question always rises to the top: 'who knew what, and when did they know it.'"

That's true, but only when it has to do with a penis.

Last week Bob Woodward's new book came out. One of the things he revealed was an additional meeting between the head of the CIA and Condoleeza Rice, back in July 2001, in which they tried to shock her, shake her up in doing something about terrorism.

That meeting is important for several reasons.

The fact that she didn't anything about it led to the deaths of at least 3,000 people. Call me me crazy, call me irresponsible, but that seems more important than an old queen hitting on young teens.

That meeting was kept secret from the 9/11 Commission, congress and the American people. There's no security reason for it to be secret. Only a political one. Proof, once again, that 9/11 happened because the Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel.

When the book came out, Rice denied the meeting had happened. She flat out lied about it.

Documents proved it took place.

I don't see CNN, or anybody else, hounding the White House about Condoleeza Rice's cover up and her lies.

"One question always rises to the top: who knew what and when did they know it?"

Yeah, when the warnings are about the use of a penis. But not when the warnings are about a terrorist attack on New York.

The Rice lie and cover-up is not insignificant. It's not ancient history. Because the whole point of Woodward's book is that it's still going on. The real experts are still warning the Bush administration that their policies -- and lack of policies -- are deadly disasters. Costing lives, costing money, creating enemies, with no chance of success. The president is still putting his fingers in his ears and not hearing them. His spokespeople are continuing to pretend the information doesn't exist and lying, by omission and commission, to congress and the American people.

Even if we concede that obscene instant messages are a greater danger to the Republic than a military quagmire that we entered into based on deliberate lies, the danger from Mark Foley is done. The danger from additional congressman trolling for young stuff, if there are any, is easily met (A War on Congress, does have a certain appeal and would be vastly cheaper than the War on Terror). But the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan, go on and on and on, like toxic Energizer Bunnies killing and maiming, laying waste to the landscape and breeding virulent new strains of violent jihadists.

A few years ago,there was a play -- still around -- called the Vagina Monologues.

American politics, at the same time, turned into the Penis Monologues.

Anything else, in between penises, is just marking time. Fail to get bin Laden, who cares? Discover proof that the administration made up stories so they could have their war in Iraq, no big deal, not even news, according to the New York Times. Best estimate is that US bombs and artillery killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians, it would be rude to mention it. Then there's all that money that disappeared. Paul Bremer blew through twenty billion (yes, Billion) dollars that was supposed to be held in trust for the Iraqi people and there's no records and nothing to show for it. After that was gone, the occupation authorities blew through another twenty billion that was supposed to go for the reconstruction of Iraq. Let's not ask where the money went -- no major media outlet has.

If you're in the cable news business, you're happy. This is the first really good penis since Bill's.

If you're anti-Republican, there's another bit of good news. The Republican's are slipping. It took Dennis Hastert a full week before he remembered to blame Bill Clinton.

Let me close with this. Advise to the youth of our country.

Dear youth; if you have dreams of going into politics, you should be fearless. Do not fear committing war crimes. Do not fear lying about terrorist warnings. Do not fear losing billions of dollars or reconstructions that never happen. But if you have a penis -- whether you're a man or a woman -- leave your penis at home, before you venture forth to do battle in field of America's political wars.

Hello to anyone reading this. First blog posts are usually boring, aren't they? This one is no different. I just want to introduce myself, and say that I look forward to getting more familiar with this setup and with other bloggers here.

Here's to rockin' the boat!!!!