(It is comforting to know that government is looking after such vitally important issues. Once collectivism is accepted as the political model, it always grows until it controls even the most inconsequential aspects of human activity.)

AP | Yahoo.com

Dismissing complaints from some members that Congress had more pressing matters, a House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine its national champion.
“We can walk across the street and chew gum at the same time,” said the subcommittee chairman, Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush, one of the bill’s co-sponsors. “We can do a number of things at the same time.”

The legislation, which still faces steep odds, would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision game as a national championship unless it results from a playoff. The measure passed by voice vote in the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s commerce, trade and consumer protection subcommittee, with one audible “no,” from Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga.

“With all due respect, I really think we have more important things to spend our time on,” Barrow said before the vote, although he stressed he didn’t like the current Bowl Championship Series, either.
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Erika Lovely | Politicio.com

Talk about bad timing.

As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress.

Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That’s 44 percent of the body – compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall.

CRP says California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the richest lawmaker on Capitol Hill, with a net worth estimated at about $251 million. Next in line: Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), worth about $244.7 million; Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), worth about $214.5 million; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), worth about $209.7 million; and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), worth about $208.8 million.

All told, at least seven lawmakers have net worths greater than $100 million, according to the Center’s 2008 figures.

“Many Americans probably have a sense that members of Congress aren’t hurting, even if their government salary alone is in the six figures, much more than most Americans make,” said CRP spokesman Dave Levinthal. “What we see through these figures is that many of them have riches well beyond that salary, supplemented with securities, stock holdings, property and other investments.”

The CRP numbers are somewhat rough estimates – lawmakers are required to report their financial information in broad ranges of figures, so it’s impossible to pin down their dollars with precision. The CRP uses the mid-point in the ranges to build its estimates.

Senators’ estimated median reportable worth sunk to about $1.79 million from $2.27 million in 2007. The House’s median income was significantly lower and also sank, bottoming out at $622,254 from $724,258 in 2007.
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AP | YahooNews.com

CIA Director Leon Panetta has terminated a “very serious” covert program the spy agency kept secret from Congress for eight years, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a House Intelligence subcommittee chairwoman, said Friday.

Schakowsky said she is pressing for an immediate committee investigation of the classified program, which has not been described publicly. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has said he is considering an investigation.

“The program is a very, very serious program and certainly deserved a serious debate at the time and through the years,” she told The Associated Press in an interview. “But now it’s over.”

Democrats revealed late Tuesday that the CIA Director Leon Panetta had informed Congress in late June that the spy agency had been withholding important information about a secret program begun after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Panetta has launched an internal probe at the CIA to determine why Congress was not told about the program. Exactly what the classified program entailed is still unclear.

Schakowsky, D-Ill., said Friday that the failure to inform Congress about the program was intentional. The CIA and Bush administration consciously decided not to tell Congress, she said.

“It’s not as if this was an oversight and over the years it just got buried. There was a decision under several directors of the CIA and administration not to tell the Congress,” she said.
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DemocracyNow.org

Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta has admitted the CIA has misled Congress on intelligence matters since at least 2001. On Wednesday, a group of seven Democratic lawmakers released a letter describing Panetta’s comments. House intelligence committee chair Silvestre Reyes said CIA officials “affirmatively lied” in a recent briefing on an unspecified matter.

Steve Watson | InfoWars.com 

At time of writing, a bill that would see the Federal Reserve bank audited for the first time in 59 years has 207 cosponsers in the House and is gaining traction with every single day.

This means just 11 more are needed for a majority to be reached in the House.

If enacted, HR 1207 will amend title 31 of the United States Code and reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States.

In other words, for the first time since 1950, the the independent financial powerhouse that creates and regulates all money in the US will be forced by law to open its books.

HR 1207 was sponsored and introduced by Rep. Ron Paul. On February 26, 2009, it was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services, where it remains under consideration.

HR 1207 also has a companion bill, S 604: F R Sunshine Act of 2009, in the Senate.

This news also dovetails with reports detailing how the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the panel responsible for investigating the use of bailout money, has issued a subpoena to the Federal Reserve, asking them to hand over all documents relating to the takeover of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America.

Claims by New York Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo that former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke strong-armed BofA into buying Merrill, could see the two exposed to prosecution.

There is no doubt that the privately owned Federal Reserve is in hot water, and it knows it.

As we reported last week, the Fed is hiring a veteran lobbyist to “manage its relations with Congress”. According to a Reuters report, the Fed plans to hire Linda Robertson, who previously worked for now-defunct energy company Enron, as well as the Clinton administration.

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NAFTALI BENDAVID and SIOBHAN GORMAN | WSJ.com

Speaker Claims Intelligence Officials Failed to Reveal Waterboarding Was Used; Spy Agency Denies Misleading Congress

The top congressional Democrat on Thursday accused the Central Intelligence Agency of deceiving her about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists.

The accusation pits House Speaker Nancy Pelosi against the CIA in a war of words over whether she was specifically told in September 2002 that waterboarding was being used on detainees. Republicans accuse her of being hypocritical for criticizing Bush-era interrogation techniques, and say she should have spoken out against them when she was first briefed if she opposed their use.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is making an explosive charge against the Central Intelligence Agency. She’s responding to accusations that she was fully briefed on harsh interrogation technniques like waterboarding.

Pelosi Says She Was Misled about Waterboarding At a contentious news conference Thursday, Mrs. Pelosi said that during the 2002 briefing, “we were told that waterboarding was not being used.” Mrs. Pelosi acknowledged that as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, she was briefed on Sept. 4, 2002, about waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning that critics, including President Barack Obama, call torture. But she said CIA officials told her and other lawmakers only that the Justice Department had concluded the procedure was legal.

A CIA report released last week said that at the briefing, officials described the use of interrogation techniques on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah, who had been waterboarded 83 times the month before.
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Dissident Voice

by Kim Petersen / February 11th, 2009

Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada was charged Tuesday with lying to the US Congress about taking a performance-enhancing substance. Tajeda is expected to plead guilty to lying to a Congressional investigation about taking steroids and about knowledge of other players taking steroids.

Tajeda’s alleged lies about the steroid usage did not result in one person, and certainly not 1.3+ million people, being killed.

Tajeda’s alleged lie was not a pretext to enable launching an assault on human beings. Moreover, his alleged steroid usage did not result in widespread destruction of another country’s economic infrastructure, hospitals, centers of worship, schools, the ransacking of a country’s historical artifacts, the littering of a country with depleted uranium. It did not result in war crimes being committed with glaring impunity. It did not result in the erasure of habeas corpus, the humiliation and torture of captives, and setting up of gulags around the world. Tajeda did not occupy another person’s land.

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http://weblogs.newsday.com

John Riley: Long Island/Queens Congressman Gary Ackerman — who sounds like he would make a pretty good blogger — went off on a panel of witnesses from the SEC yesterday, accusing them of total incompetence in failing to discover what was going on with Bernie Madoff.

This being the same outraged Ackerman who, as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, did such a great job in discovering the entire economy was about to collapse, and taking such effective steps to prevent it. Quoting him: “This is huge. How do you miss that?”

Warns that a panic atmosphere is intentionally being nurtured to get bill passed

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
October 3, 2008

A Democratic Congressman has warned that a panic atmosphere is being intentionally created in order to get the financial bailout billed passed, further stating that several members of Congress were told before Monday’s vote that martial law will be instigated in America if the legislation fails.

Congressman Brad Sherman of California’s 27th congressional district told the House in a speech yesterday evening that he personally knew of several Congressional representatives who have said they were threatened with the prospect of all out martial law should they vote in opposition to the $700 billion bailout. Read the rest of this entry »

D. H. WilliamsDaily NewscasterSeptember 28, 2008Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) reports from the floor of the House that the Republicans have been cut out of the process and called unpatriotic for not blindly supporting the fraudulent bailout. He says the only debate has been about what talking points to use on the American people.The most ominous revelation is when he claims the Speaker has declared martial law.“I have been thrown out of more meetings in this capital in the last 24 hours than I ever thought possible, as a duly elected representative of 825,000 citizens of north Texas.” Said Congressman Burgess.Burgess asks the Speaker of the House to post the bailout bill on the internet for at least 24 hours instead of passing the largest piece of legislation in US financial history in the “dark of night.”The most frightening part of Rep. Burgess’ one-minute floor speech is when he says, “Mr. Speaker I understand we are under Martial Law as declared by the speaker last night.” EDITOR’S NOTE: Since this information first came out we have learned the following:“the term “martial law” when used in the context of debate within the House is a misnomer for “gag order” on debate, it is not “martial law” in the sense of military rule over the country.”We sincerely apologize if we frightened anyone unduly but this is NOT the big bad ML we’ve all been waiting for - as for the future, who knows.

By Zachary Roth - September 26, 2008, 2:00PM

Murray Waas reports on the website of the Atlantic that Alberto Gonzales is now telling investigators that he was being personally directed by President Bush when, as White House counsel, Gonzales made a much-discussed late-night visit in 2004 to the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, in order to get Ashcroft to certify that the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program was legal.

During Congressional testimony last year, Gonzales repeatedly refused to answer persistent questioning from Sen. Chuck Schumer as to whether the president, or Vice President Cheney, had directed him to seek out Ashcroft in the hospital. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday 22 September 2008

by: Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t | Report

Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has entered into negotiations with the Bush administration over the Wall Street bailout. (Photo: Getty Images)

Washington, DC - Push back against the massive $700 billion Wall Street bailout proposal has come hard and fast from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday, September 12, 2008 | 07:14 AM

“As with any contract, the parties to the agreement may modify the covenants by mutual agreement only.”

-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson

Hank Paulson’s God Complex just got bigger. The Director of Government Bailouts, and head of the Socialism Departmant at Treasury has informed Congress to back off his turf.

“All your legislation belongs to us!”

Now, last I checked, it was Congress that had the power of authorization disbursements, and that Treasury does not have the authority to spend 5.3 trillion dollars. Comrade Paulson does not seem to understand the way the different branches of government work in the United states, and is apparently unfamiliar with a little parchment called the Constitution. Perhaps we can get Ron Paul to explain how these things work to our friend from the People’s Republic of Goldman.

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How to Celebrate Constitution Day

by Joel S. Hirschhorn

Yesterday, September 17, here in the States was Constitution Day. But very, very few Americans know this or will celebrate it. If you think of yourself as a politically engaged, civic-minded, and patriotic American, then I urge you to celebrate today by expanding your mind about a critically important but never-used part of our Constitution. All you have to do is go to the site of Friends of the Article V Convention click here and spend some time learning the truth about the option given to us by the Framers because they anticipated that Americans would lose trust and confidence in the federal government. That day has surely arrived. So I beg you to suspend your current beliefs and fears and open your mind to learning the truth about this option. Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Singel | Wired.com Just days before the Senate will convene to give a final blessing to President Bush’s secret, warrantless wiretapping program, a federal court judge ruled that his legal justification for the surveillance has no legal merit.

He’s the same judge Congress is trying to save the nation’s telecoms, such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, from having to face in court.

Late Wednesday, U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker issued a ruling(.pdf) in a case against the government alleging illegal spying, finding that in 1978 Congress had clearly set out the rules for wiretapping inside the United States and that Bush’s claims to have inherent authority outside of those rules did not pass Constitutional muster.

Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive  means for foreign intelligence surveillance activities to be conducted. Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities. 

Walker, the chief judge of the Northern District of California, affirmed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is the exclusive legal method for conducting surveillance inside the United States against suspected spies and terrorist. The Bush Administration argues that Congress’s vote to authorize military force against Al Qaeda and the president’s inherent war time powers were exceptions to the exclusivity provision.

Not so, according to Walker:

This provision and its legislative history left no doubt that Congress intended to displace entirely the various warrantless wiretapping and surveillance programs undertaken by the executive branch and to leave no room for the president to undertake warrantless surveillance in the domestic sphere in the future. 

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Ryan Singel | Wired.com

Mark Klein, the retired AT&T engineer who stepped forward with the technical documents at the heart of the anti-wiretapping case against AT&T, is furious at the Senate’s vote on Wednesday night to hold a vote on a bill intended to put an end to that lawsuit and more than 30 others.

[Wednesday]’s vote by Congress effectively gives retroactive immunity to the telecom companies and  endorses an all-powerful president. It’s a Congressional coup against the Constitution.

The Democratic leadership is touting the deal as a “compromise,” but in fact they have endorsed the infamous Nuremberg defense: “Just following orders.” The judge can only check their paperwork. This cynical deal is a Democratic exercise in deceit and cowardice.

Klein saw a network monitoring room being built in AT&T’s internet switching center that only NSA-approved techs had access to. He squirreled away documents and then presented them to the press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation after news of the government’s warrantless wiretapping program broke.

Wired.com independently acquired a copy of the documents (.pdf) — which were under court seal — andpublished the wiring documents in May 2006 so that they could be evaluated.

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The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.

Seymour Hersh | NewYorker.com

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

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