Bring in the clowns…….. today we have the House Financial Services Committee hearing with Bozo, Cookie and their magic box of tricks. Watch em make $700 billion disappear! You can view the hearing online here.

One of the things Paulson said yesterday was all telling. When it was suggested that he not be given the full $700 billion at once and have to come back for further requests his response was:

“I don’t like to be in this position, asking for things and, you know, answering to the American taxpayer.”

Gee that’s just too fucking bad Hank!

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

A little bit of good news…….

A federal judge yesterday refused to delay his order requiring former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers to testify in Congress, another legal setback for the Bush administration’s attempts to limit cooperation with Democratic lawmakers.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates rejected the administration’s argument that Miers should not be required to cooperate with Congress while the government appeals an earlier ruling he issued.

In the previous decision, Bates rejected the administration’s assertions that Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten were protected by executive privilege and could not be forced to testify or provide documents to Congress about the controversial firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. The judge said that the government’s position was excessively broad and that senior aides must be more specific about the information they say is protected.

The new ruling will make it more difficult for Miers to avoid testifying by running out the clock on the 110th Congress, which ends in early January. Without a stay, she could be compelled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee as early as next month.

More at the Washington Post

1 CommentEmail Post Toggle Meta

“When our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence they were not worried about political will, how much time there was, or about any parties’ political future, they were just worried they were going to be hanged by the neck. But they did what was right. Now it is your time.”
Elliott Adams, President, Veterans for Peace, testimony July 25, 2008

Read more at Scoop.com

3 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

From Justice Watch:

Have the midsummer blues caught up with you yet? If the heat, mosquitoes or boredom are starting to get to you, boy have we got some diversions for you. Well, DC-style diversions, anyway.

As far as Justice Watch is concerned, the week starts and ends with Gitmo, as the House Armed Services Committee will hold a pair of hearings entitled “Implications of the Supreme Court’s Boumediene Decision for Detainees at Guantanamo Bay.” Part I will take place Wednesday morning, and will feature “Non-Governmental Perspectives” from a quartet of witnesses, including a Georgetown law professor, a couple of private practice lawyers, and, as the main event, the former Chief Prosecutor of the Office of Military Commissions, Colonel Morris Davis. Thursday afternoon’s Part II will trot out several Bush cronies–who apparently are so scared of opposition that they wanted a hearing of their own–for an “Administration Perspective” that should prove to be infuriating.

Read more »

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

Is there anyone in this administration who HASN’T committed perjury? Yes there is……the one’s who have yet to testify.

A former Environmental Protection Agency official yesterday contradicted EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson’s congressional testimony on one of the administration’s key global warming decisions, saying the White House ordered Johnson to block California’s bid to regulate vehicles’ tailpipe emissions.

On Jan. 24, Johnson told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under oath that he had made the decision on his own after determining there was no compelling evidence to justify California’s plans. “The responsibility for making the decision for California rests with me and solely with me,” Johnson said at the time. “I made the decision. It was my decision. It was the right decision.”

Yesterday, however, former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason K. Burnett — who resigned last month and has since divulged key details about how President Bush and his deputies have influenced the agency’s decisions on climate policy — testified before the committee that Johnson had concluded that California’s request was legally justified — until White House officials ordered him to reverse the decision.

More at the Washington Post

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

Ok, what’s so hard about answering with what I like to call THE CORRECT ANSWER: NO! That Yoo doesn’t state the correct answer explains how we got where we are today. Good God……
Fmr. Deputy Asst. Attorney General Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) during House Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on Detainee Interrogation, June 26, 2008

The other thing is, Conyers is real good at talking tough in these hearings, but what ever comes of them? Nada!

Here’s Addington’s answering nothing…….put your boots on prior to watching cause the bullshit gets deep…….

He thinks Al Qaeda may be watching C-Span

2 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

From TPM:

Was the State Department involved in a shoddy and potentially illegal ammo shipment that led to the arrest of a 22-year-old Miami arms dealer last week?

That’s what Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) now says. The House oversight committee says it has evidence that the U.S. embassy in Albania helped Albanian officials keep the allegedly illegal shipment of Chinese-made ammunition to Afghanistan under wraps and then failed to disclose that information when Waxman’s committee asked about it.

Last week we updated you about the arrest of Efraim Diveroli and three of his business partners with AEY Inc. Federal prosecutors say he violated the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits buying and selling weapons from certain countries, including China. The ammunition in question was obtained by AEY from an Albanian arms dealer.

Waxman’s new– and potentially explosive — evidence stems from an interview by the oversight committee of Army Maj. Larry Harrison, the Chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Albania. Harrison told the committee about a previously undisclosed November meeting that included Albanian officials and U.S. Ambassador John Withers and others from the U.S. embassy in Tirana.

Waxman describes Harrison’s account of the meeting in a letter today to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

Nice that they had YET ANOTHER hearing, but why aren’t heads rolling? They want to privatize the military, yet no one is accountable……this shit wouldn’t be tolerated in the real business world. I wonder how much money has been wasted on all the hearings in the past two years…..hearings to NOWHERE. No resolve…..no consequences.

The Pentagon cannot account for nearly 15 billion dollars in payments for goods and services in Iraq, according to an internal audit which members of Congress blasted Friday as a “shocking” accountability failure.

Of 8.2 billion dollars in US taxpayer-funded defense contracts reviewed by the defense department’s inspector general, the Pentagon could not properly account for more than 7.7 billion dollars.

The lack of accountability of the funds, intended for purchases of weapons, vehicles, construction equipment and security services, amounted to a 95 percent failure rate in basic accounting standards, according to the report.

More at AFP

5 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

blah blah blah……..

From the AP:

The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove as part of its inquiry into whether the Bush administration politically meddled at the Justice Department.

Accusations of politics governing decisions at the agency led to the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The subpoena issued Thursday orders Rove to testify before the House panel on July 10. He is expected to face questions about the White House’s role in firing nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers had negotiated with Rove’s attorneys for more than a year over whether the former top political adviser to President Bush would testify voluntarily.

3 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

Like Bro says…….blah blah blah……..more theatrics. Means nothing. Gas will continue to go up up up up.

On a day oil prices leaped to unheard-of highs, senators lined up Big Oil’s biggest executives and pummeled them with complaints that they’re pretending to be “hapless victims” while raking in record profits.

“Where is the corporate conscience?” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked the top executives of the five largest U.S. oil companies.

It’s all about economics, came the reply. Supply and demand. The company leaders tried to shift attention from motorists’ anger over $4-a-gallon gasoline to a debate over new areas for drilling.

More at Yahoo News

2 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

Leahy is right. “Disconnect” is the word for the day.

Oil Execs tell Congress: Don’t Blame Us

It’s wonderful to be rich and be an American resident. You have politicians catering to your every whim. You decide to break the law, the law looks the other way. Man-on-man sex in a public restroom? No problem! Taxes? Who the hell pays taxes?!

And when you decide to hold Americans up at the pump and rob them of their hard-earned money, money earmarked for food or some other essential item, the strength of the mighty U.S. Congress swoops down from above and raps you with a newspaper.

Yep. Wealthy Americans have it tough.

Big Oil defends profits before irate senators

WASHINGTON (AP) — On a day oil prices leaped to unheard-of highs, senators lined up Big Oil’s biggest executives and pummeled them with complaints that they’re pretending to be “hapless victims” while raking in record profits. [...]

It’s all about economics, came the reply. Supply and demand. The company leaders tried to shift attention from motorists’ anger over $4-a-gallon gasoline to a debate over new areas for drilling.

But senators at the Judiciary Committee hearing weren’t having any of that. They wanted to press the executives about public anguish over paying $60 or more to fill up a car’s gas tank.

“People we represent are hurting, the companies you represent are profiting,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told the executives. He said there’s a “disconnect” between legitimate supply issues and the oil and gasoline prices motorists are seeing.

3 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing featuring EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, May 20, 2008

1 CommentEmail Post Toggle Meta

Big fucking deal. More threats. And if they show up and testify, then what? Is someone going to be charged with human rights violations? War crimes? I think not. Yesterday there were hearings with former KBR employees testifying to the waste and theft. Others have testified. What’s happened? N O T H I N G. Oh wait, I take that back. What happened was KBR was given another huge contract. I’m sick to death of these hearings. You should have started impeachment proceedings when you took control John Conyers. But you did an about face and took it off the table.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Monday threatened to serve subpoenas on former Attorney General John Ashcroft and two others associated with the Bush administration’s interrogation policies if they don’t agree to testify.

If the three - including John C. Yoo, the former assistant deputy attorney general, and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff - do not reply by Friday, “I will have no choice but to consider the use of compulsory process,” Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote in letters to them.

That’s Washington’speak for issuing congressional subpoenas, tough talk that Conyers has leveled at the White House before. A previous dispute is being hashed out in federal court, with Conyers’ committee suing White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers for refusing to comply with subpoenas on the firings of federal prosecutors. The White House maintains that their testimony is off-limits from congressional oversight under executive privilege.

More at CBS News

2 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

You can watch the video of this hearing at Senator Nelson’s website. Following was in an email I received from his office. Senator Bill Nelson doesn’t always vote the way I’d like him to, but he’s got this one right, and hopefully congress will do something to correct this injustice. It’s so very shameful.