Congress

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A Number That’s Nobody’s Business

Here’s an odd thing: the muscular US Chamber of Commerce, long a force for extreme big-business values, fighting off universal health insurance, minimum wage increases, global warming action and the like, is actually much smaller than it makes itself out to be. According to Mother Jones reporter Josh Harkinson, the Chamber, aided and abetted by news organizations, exaggerates its membership… [Read the rest]

Lack of Mercury Reporting is Fishy

On August 20, while scanning the New York Times the old-fashioned way, i.e. on paper, I stopped to look at a small article, no bigger than a long paragraph, tucked away in a column full of short items called “National Briefing.” The headline read: “Mercury Found in Every Fish Tested, Scientists Say”.
I stopped to read, and found that “When government… [Read the rest]

A Drive for Unrestricted Executive Power

The New York Times comes out with a strong editorial, calling for an investigation into Bush administration security abuses, now that it is clear that the practices were not necessary to protect the national interest.
We’ve known for years that the Bush administration ignored and broke the law repeatedly in the name of national security. It is now clear that many… [Read the rest]

Questions about Developing C.I.A. Story

An official story is forming about the secret program that the C.I.A. hid from Congress: the agency planned to organize assassination squads to target Al Qaeda terrorists around the world, according to a lead article in today’s New York Times.
Although this account has gained widespread acceptance, there’s reason to be skeptical. As I noted recently in an update, the Washington… [Read the rest]

Has the CIA lied to Congress?

Russ recently suggested that we need an investigation of the congressional briefing process. As we continue to follow the political fight between Congress and the CIA, let us not forget the story of Mary McCarthy.
A senior CIA official, meeting with Senate staff in a secure room of the Capitol last June, promised repeatedly that the agency did not violate or… [Read the rest]

Interrogating Congress

Recently, I raised some questions about the reports that Democratic members of Congress had been aware of CIA interrogation methods.
Now, members of Congress themselves are suggesting that the CIA put out the information about the briefings in order to pass the buck. There are crucial questions we should be asking about the CIA, about the efficacy of the so-called “oversight”… [Read the rest]

Tortured Rationalizations

In an opinion piece, the Wall Street Journal convincingly argues that top Democrats in Congress have been speaking out of both sides of their mouths in criticizing Bush Administration policy on Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs), also known as torture.
These days, Speaker Pelosi insists she heard and saw no evil. “We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of… [Read the rest]

Ownership Society

Last Thursday, April 30, there was a flood of stories that the evening news and the next morning’s papers had to cover: swine flu, Souter’s retirement from the Supreme Court, and the Chrysler bankruptcy, for starters. But the story with perhaps the largest public import somehow managed to escape attention, namely the Senate’s decision to snub desperate homeowners.
The Senate voted… [Read the rest]

obama-new

THE GAME THAT GOES ON AND ON: A SWISS BANK, A PRESIDENT, AND THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT

THE GAME THAT GOES ON AND ON: A SWISS BANK, A PRESIDENT, AND THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT

A little-noted presidential golf outing opens the door to an intrigue-filled world of financiers, murky international interests, money-laundering, tax evasion, and politics as not-so-usual.
 — 
Last August, the presidential press corps followed Barack Obama and his family to Martha’s Vineyard for their brief vacation. The coverage focused on summery fare—a visit to an ice cream parlor, the books the president… [Read the rest]

What Obama Is Up Against

What Obama Is Up Against

The first anniversary of Barack Obama’s historic election finds many of his supporters already grousing. Fair enough: Obama has been more vigorous in some areas than others. But one essential question goes unasked: How much can any president accomplish against the wishes of recalcitrant power centers within his own government?
We Americans harbor a quaint belief that a new president… [Read the rest]

Behind Clinton Backer’s Arrest:  a Bipartisan, International Affair

Behind Clinton Backer’s Arrest:
a Bipartisan, International Affair

AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano

WhoWhatWhy.com reports exclusively on the background of Hassan Nemazee, the top Hillary Clinton fundraiser who was arrested and charged with forging loan documents. Early media accounts cast the event as an embarrassment for Ms. Clinton and the Democratic Party involving the financial misdoings of one prominent backer. Actually it is much more.  Behind the Nemazee… [Read the rest]

Hillary’s Bush Connection

Hillary’s Bush Connection

Research support for this story was provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute. Published in conjunction with The Nation.
IN THE CLINTONS’ PURSUIT OF POWER, there is no such thing as a strange bedfellow. One recently exposed inamorata was Norman Hsu, the mysterious businessman from Hong Kong who brought in $850,000 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign before being unmasked as… [Read the rest]

CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture

CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture

Newly released internal CIA documents assert that former president George Herbert Walker Bush's oil company emerged from a 1950's collaboration with a covert CIA officer.
A Real News exclusive, first published on The Huffington Post
Bush has long denied allegations that he had connections to the intelligence community prior to 1976, when he became Central Intelligence Agency director under President Gerald Ford.… [Read the rest]

25 Democratic Consultants

25 Democratic Consultants

Jack Quinn served as Vice President Gore’s Chief of Staff, and later as Counsel to President Clinton. Now he is a partner in a political consulting and lobbying firm with a close friend of Tom DeLay, and together, they have represented clients who want to drill in fragile areas of Alaska, put the screws to already beleaguered American consumers, and… [Read the rest]

Unholy Trinity: Katrina, Allbaugh and Brown

Unholy Trinity: Katrina, Allbaugh and Brown

Michael Brown will forever remain the poster child for federal incompetence. And the central question has yet to be answered: who was Michael Brown, and how did he end up at the helm of the Federal Emergency Management Agency? Indeed, how did he and his predecessor and mentor, Bush political operative Joe Allbaugh, manage to turn FEMA, a once proud… [Read the rest]

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