28 January 2008

Wexler, a Dozen Housemates say the "I" word...

(LETTER TO CHAIRMAN CONYERS)

January 16, 2008
John Conyers, Jr., Chairman
House Judiciary Committee
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Conyers:

You have been a tireless champion of providing oversight to an Administration that has run roughshod over our constitution, that operates with s no limits on executive branch authority and one that has repeatedly flouted the investigations and oversight the 110th Congress has tried to provide over the past year. We have the greatest respect for the work you have done and believe that impeachment hearings pertaining to Vice President Cheney are the best way to move that work forward.

Impeachment hearings will allow for the exact kind of oversight that you and the Democratic leadership have provided regarding the actions of the Administration but without the opportunity for the Bush Administration to ignore lawful requests for information, refuse subpoenas and effectively limit its own oversight.

Impeachment hearings can provide the opportunity to cut through the executive privilege defenses and force this Administration to answer a Congress it has clearly chosen to ignore. We know you would agree that as Members of Congress, we can not allow legitimate oversight to be thwarted or such a dangerous precedent to stand...As you know, the charges against Vice President Cheney include providing Congress and the American people false intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

We trust that you will hold a sober investigation and let the facts determine the outcome as you have as Chairman this past year. We sincerely believe that impeachment hearings are the appropriate and necessary next step given what we have seen of this Administration. Chairman Conyers, we are respectfully asking you join us and concerned citizens around the country in supporting impeachment hearings.

Sincerely,

Clarke, Yvette D., NY, 11th
Clay, Wm. Lacy, MO, 1st
Cohen, Steve, TN, 9th *
Farr, Sam, CA, 17th
Grijalva, Raúl M., AZ, 7th
Moore, Gwen, WI, 4th
Moran, James P., VA, 8th
Towns, Edolphus, NY, 10th
Wynn, Albert Russell, MD, 4th
Baldwin, Tammy, WI, 2nd *
Capuano, Michael E., MA, 8th
Gutierrez, Luis V., IL, 4th *
Thompson, Mike, CA, 1st
Wexler, Robert, FL, 19th *

(*= member of the Judiciary Committee)

21 January 2008

Here's Ralph Nader on impeachment...

Some say Ralph Nader is a key reason why we ended up with Bush and Cheney in the first place. For many years after the 2000 election, I thought Bush was disproving Nader's main argument: that there wasn't enough difference between the leaderships of the Democratic and the Republican parties. But given that Hillary and the majority of the Democrats in Congress supported the Iraq War - and that most of those same Demos won't pick up the impeachment ball - I'm not so sure that Nader was wrongheaded in his run against Bush/Cheney and Gore/Lieberman.

In this 3-minute YouTube snippet from a 2007 Nader speech, he shares the bizarre reason one Democratic congressman cited when asked why he won't support impeachment despite the fact that a majority of his constituents do:

12 January 2008

Need proof of media's anti-change bias?

Here it is, amigos. Fox did it to Ron Paul, too. If I owned a TV, this would make me destroy it:

NBC unplugs Kucinich from Presidential debate

Less than 44 hours after NBC sent a congratulatory note and an invitation to Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich to participate in the Jan. 15 Democratic Presidential debate in Las Vegas, the network notified the campaign this morning it was changing it announced criteria, rescinding its invitation, and excluding Kucinich from the debate.

NBC Political Director Chuck Todd notified the Kucinich campaign this morning that, although Kucinich had met the qualification criteria publicly announced on December 28, the network was “re-doing” the criteria, excluding Kucinich, and planning to invite only Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and former senator John Edwards. The criteria announced last month included a fourth-place or better showing in a national poll. The USA/Gallup poll earlier this month showed Kucinich in fourth place among the Democratic contenders.

In an email to the Kucinich campaign at 2:35 p.m. on Wednesday, January 9, Democratic Party debates consultant Jenny Backus wrote: “Congratulations on another hard-fought contest. Now that New Hampshire is over, we are on to Nevada and our Presidential Debate on Tuesday January 15. This letter serves as an official invitation for your candidate to participate in the Nevada Presidential Debate at Cashman Theatre in downtown Las Vegas. You have met the criteria set by NBC and the Debate.”

Todd notified the Kucinich campaign this morning that the network had decided to change the criteria and limit participation in the debate to only three candidates.

11 January 2008

Osama Bin Laden has been dead for years...

...that's the argument explored in a fascinating post on LittleCountryLost, an superb blog focused on stories left out of the mainstream media. The discussion starts with the clip below, an excerpt of a November '07 interview with Benazir Bhutto, in which she names people who she thinks want to kill her. According to Bhutto, one of these people - Omar Sheikh - "murdered Osama Bin Laden." Watch for yourself:



LittleCountryLost offers a timeline of Bin Laden-related events, and points out a troubling change in Bush administration rhetoric regarding Bin Laden. If he did die some time in the 18 months after 9/11, the case for the war on terror would have suffered, right? In that time period, Bush & Co. certainly shifted the emphasis away from Bin Laden:

September 15, 2001President Bush says of bin-Laden, “If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.”

September 17, 2001 – President Bush says, “I want justice. And there’s an old poster out West, I recall, that says, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’”

November 7, 2001 - Pakistani reporter Hamid Mir interviews Osama bin-Laden in person.

November 16, 2001 - Battle of Tora Bora begins.

November 25, 2001 - Osama bin-Laden gives his last known public speech to his followers in Milawa, Afghanistan, a village located on the route from Tora Bora to the Pakistani border.

November 28, 2001 - Osama bin-Laden reportedly escapes Tora Bora

December 15, 2001 - Osama bin-Laden's voice is reportedly intercepted for the last time communicating with his fighters in Tora Bora via his shortwave radio

December 17, 2001 - US Intelligence and Pentagon officials admit they have lost Osama bin-Laden

December 17, 2001 - United States declares victory at Tora Bora

December 26, 2001 - Article about Osama bin-Laden's funeral is published in Pakistan and Egypt. The funeral allegedly takes place about 10 days earlier. The article is also discussed by Fox News.

December 28, 2001 – President Bush says, “Our objective is more than bin-Laden”

January 18, 2002 – Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf tells CNN that he believes Osama bin-Laden to be dead

January 27, 2002 - Vice President Dick Cheney says that Osama bin-Laden "isn't that big of a threat. Bin Laden connected to this worldwide organization of terror is a threat."

January 27, 2002 – White House Chief of Staff Andy Card tells CNN, “"I do not know for a fact that he's alive. I happen to believe he's probably alive… Our overall objective is to defeat terrorism, wherever it is around the world. And so, our objective is not to get Osama bin Laden."

January 29, 2002 – President Bush delivers his first State of the Union address since 9/11. While he labels Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the “axis of evil”, he fails to mention Osama bin-Laden at all.

March 13, 2002 – President Bush says, “Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all… He’s a person who’s now been marginalized.… I just don’t spend that much time on him.… I truly am not that concerned about him.”

April 4, 2002 - Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers says, "The goal has never been to get bin-Laden"

October 14, 2002 – President Bush says, “I don’t know whether bin-Laden is alive or dead”

October 16, 2002Middle East Newsline reports that Israeli Intelligence officials confirmed that Israel and the United States believe Osama bin-Laden was killed in mid-December 2001 during the Tora Bora bombing campaign.

This timeline, with Osama bin-Laden's death allegedly occurring in the middle of December 2001, makes it possible that Omar Sheikh could have committed the murder. From October 2001 through January 19, 2002, Omar Sheikh was living openly in his home in Lahore, Pakistan. His positions as leader of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (a Taliban and Osama bin-Laden partner) and ISI agent (the source of funds for Harkat-ul-Mujahideen) would also have given him means for access to Osama bin-Laden.

10 January 2008

Tony, Tony, Tony...

...congrats on your new job. I always suspected you were working for a higher power, and now I know for sure. And now all your connections are really gonna pay off!

Tony Blair starts $1M bank job

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who left office last June, has taken up a part-time job with a Wall Street bank on an estimated $1 million salary.

Blair will work with JP Morgan Chase, a firm with assets of $1.5 trillion and operations in more than 50 countries. He will advise the bank on global political and strategic issues, a company statement said.

"We operate our business all over the world, and Tony Blair will bring our leaders and clients a unique and invaluable global perspective that is especially critical in turbulent times like these," said Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of the company, in the statement.

Neither Blair nor the bank would say how much the former PM would be paid. A New York recruitment consultant though told the Financial Times that the job was likely to be worth more than $987,000 (£500,000) a year.

Advisory jobs such as the one Blair has accepted are popular among former world leaders. His predecessor as prime minister, John Major, took a position with the Carlyle Group, a private investment house, as did former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

09 January 2008

Poems written by Guantanamo inmates...

...read by Hadi Jawad, one of the founders of the Crawford Peace House.

06 January 2008

Interesting email from Dennis Kucinich...

...who still strikes me as the only candidate who is talking about the substantive changes our country needs. John Edwards' anti-corporate bluster belies his big-money ties to the Fortress Investment Group. And ABC/Disney's decision to exclude Kucinich from the New Hampshire debate is telling...Kucinich is the candidate that the corporates are really afraid of!

RE: New Hampshire, Iowa and Edwards

Dear Supporter,

For the record:

  1. New Hampshire is the first state where we are aggressively campaigning. Due to the Party lockout in Iowa, we chose to focus on New Hampshire.
  2. I am the only person running for President who voted against the war, against funding the war 100% of the time, against the Patriot Act, and who stands for a universal single-payer not-for-profit healthcare system. Nevertheless I was excluded from Saturday night's ABC Presidential debate, or four tone monologue as it was.
  3. In answer to your questions about why I didn't support former Senator John Edwards on the second ballot in Iowa: I have serious concerns about his connections to a Wall Street hedge fund, Fortress Investment Group. While attacking others for accepting campaign money from Washington lobbyists, he is up to his ears in money from Wall Street special interests.

He made half a million dollars in a single year for attending a few meetings for Fortress and has invested a substantial part of his own personal wealth in the hedge fund whose portfolios are responsible for sub-prime predatory lending practices, Medicare privatization, and an entire range of corporate sharp dealings that are driving the middle class into poverty.

While I indicated Senator Obama as a preferred second choice in Iowa, Progressives have fundamental disagreements with him and all of the other Presidential candidates on most of their major positions on the issues.

We must have the courage of our convictions to fully support and vote for what it is we really want. For once, we must realize our power, stop playing tactical games, and vote as a bloc - which, as you know, is what the religious right does and why they often win.

We Progressives are in the majority in this election. We will win only when we refuse to compromise and vote with integrity.

--Dennis Kucinich