Wednesday, May 15th
Last update06:56:01 AM GMT
Congressional Glance
With impeachment ruled out, it’s unclear how much the Judiciary Committee’s inquiry can accomplish, given Bush’s broad assertion of executive privilege when his subordinates are faced with congressional questions about criminal and other wrongdoing.
TVNL Comment: As I have said many times...it's all a show. Nobody will be held accountable for the plethora of crimes commited by the Cheney/Bush administration.
Nancy Pelosi was secretly briefed on torture many, many years ago, and yet did nothing to stop those unlawful programs. Indeed, she egged the torturers on.
Pelosi also hid from the 9/11 Commission and the American people the fact that the interrogations of 9/11 suspects were videotaped, and that the alleged "confessions" of those held at Gitmo were wholly unreliable. She could have stopped the whole farce cold -- but chose to go along with it.
Even covering up a crime committed by someone else is itself a crime:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
TVNL Comment: This is why Pelosi immediately took impeachment off the table...as we have said from the moment that happened...it is because Peoplsi is complicit. She knew all along about the torture crimes committed by the Cheney Bush cabal. If there were to be war crimes trials...guess what...Pelosi would have to be arrested and tried. Wake up Democrats...the problem is not only with the right!
Republican presidential candidate John McCain cashes his monthly Social Security checks despite calling the federal program "a disgrace," the Associated Press reports.
B.J. Jarrett from the Social Security Administration said that individuals can refuse retirement benefits.
In 2006, McCain's wife Cindy earned $6 million, and has a net worth of approximately $100 million.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Wednesday affirmed its intention to protect from civil lawsuits telecom companies that helped the government wiretap Americans without court authorization after the Sept. 11 attacks.
It turned back three amendments that were offered during final debate on a bill that overhauls the rules on secret government eavesdropping.
TVNL Comment: The US Senate just joined the House in trampling on the Fourth Amendment. Does anyone care?
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 235 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
I excluded all but the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.
No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislation's responsibility to determine how he votes.
With the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement remaining stalled, the State Department has issued a ‘virtual gag order’ to the Congress asking it to keep even unclassified information ‘secret’ out of fear that public disclosure could ‘torpedo’ the deal.
Lynne Weil, a spokeswoman for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the State Department provided a lot of information on the deal, but the committee has agreed not to disclose the answers because some data might be considered diplomatically sensitive.
TVNL Comment: How is that for democracy?
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