Waxman Wants Abramoff Documents!!

By- Suzie-Q @ 3:03 PM MST

Today Chairman Henry Waxman of the Oversight Committee wrote to White House Counsel Fred Fielding asking him to turn over more than 600 pages of documents relating to the activities of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff that are being withheld because they involve internal White House deliberations.

Full text of the letter

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Former White House political director called Abramoff ‘point of information,’ says Waxman

The Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee is demanding that the White House hand over more than 600 pages of documents detailing the nature of its contacts with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

“The White House is withholding hundreds of pages of documents about the activities of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff on the grounds that these documents involve internal White House deliberations,” wrote Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) in a Wednesday letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding. “Unless the President is prepared to assert executive privilege over these documents, they should be turned over to the Oversight Committee without further delay.”

President Bush has previously denied any connection to Abramoff, who was convicted on three felony counts and sentenced to more than five years in prison. “I don’t know him,” said the president in 2006.

The letter recounts a number of similar statements from top White House officials seeking to distance themselves from the lobbyist, including former senior advisor Karl Rove, who had described Abramoff as a “casual acquaintance,” through a spokesman.

But Waxman says that former White House political director Matt Schlapp, who is cooperating with House Oversight’s investigation and provided testimony in a deposition, tells a different story:

“Mr. Schlapp estimated that he had ‘monthly’ contact with Jack Abramoff on subjects that often involved official government business,” writes the chairman. “He also told the Committee that Mr. Abramoff and his associates ‘had many friends in the administration’; that Mr. Abramoff was regarded as a ‘point of information’ because of ‘his knowledge and his experience and his judgment on issues surrounding politics and policy and how the town works.'”

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Bad Boys (Music only-no video)

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Afternoon Jukebox… It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World

By- Suzie-Q @ 2:53 PM MST

James Brown – It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World

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Famous Author Karen Hughes, “A Charge To Keep”, retires from White House

by Geezer Power …11:03 am

Famous author Karen Hughes is retiring from Bu$hco’s White House staff. She was appointed by Duhbya as counseler to the president from 2001 to 2002 and has been called the most powerful woman to serve in the White House.

Since the 1990s, Hughes has worked with George W. Bush :first as director of communications while he was governor of Texas, from 1995 to 2000, and then as counselor to the president from 2001 to 2002, while he was President of the United States.

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson once said of Hughes, “I’ve obviously been lied to a lot by campaign operatives, but the striking thing about the way she lied was she knew I knew she was lying, and she did it anyway. There is no word in English that captures that. It almost crosses over from bravado into mental illness.” Hughes is the credited co-author of Bush’s 1999 memoir…

A Charge To Keep

The book was originally authored by, Mickey Herskowitz, but Bu$hco was unhappy of the image it portrayed, especially about Duhbya ‘s avoidance of the draft.

According to Mickey Herskowitz, who was ghost writing for George W Bush’s book, “A Charge To Keep”, Dubya was planning on going to war with Iraq. long before he ever took office.

Exclusive: Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000

By Russ Baker Wed, 27 Oct 2004

Two years before 9/11, candidate Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer
Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

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Ron Paul: Our Greatest Threat is the loss of our Civil Liberties!

by GEF @ 8:22 am MST

Ron Paul: “Our Greatest Threat is the loss of our Civil Liberties!
..The message of Liberty is what America is all about…”

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UN spokeman accused US of torture

Sudhan@11:45 CET

Under fire … the US government has been criticised by the UN.
Photo: AFP

 

The Sydney Morning Herald | Ian Munro Herald Correspondent in New York, October 31, 2007

Page 1 of 2 | Single page

THE United States’s willingness to resort to harsh interrogation techniques in its so-called war on terror undermined human rights and the international ban on torture, a United Nations spokesman says.

Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, said the US’s standing and importance meant it was a model to other countries which queried why they were subject to scrutiny when the US resorted to measures witnessed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison.

Mr Nowak was speaking after releasing his finding that the use of torture was routine and widespread in Sri Lanka, despite laws against it.

“I am very concerned about the undermining of the absolute prohibition of torture by interrogation methods themselves in Abu Grahib, in Guantanamo Bay and others, but also by rendition and the whole CIA secret places of detention. All that is really undermining the international rule of law in general and human rights but also the prohibition of torture,” said Mr Nowak.

“(Other countries) say why are you criticising us if the US, the most democratic country with the oldest history of human rights, if they are torturing you should first go there. It has a negative effect because the US is a very powerful and important country and many other countries take the US as a model.”

Keep reading . . .

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Karen Hughes leaving the Sinking Titanic!

by GEF @ 1:28 PM MST

Longtime Bush Adviser Leaving State

WASHINGTON — Karen Hughes, who led efforts to improve the U.S. image abroad and was one of President Bush’s last remaining advisers from the close circle of Texas aides, will leave the government at the end of the year.

Hughes told The Associated Press that she plans to quit her job as undersecretary of state and return to Texas, although improving the world’s view of the United States is a “long-term challenge” that will outlast her.

“This will take a number of years,” Hughes said in an interview Tuesday.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Hughes told Bush _ her “very, very close friend” _ as far back as the summer that she would need to be back home in Texas by the end of the year. The president was sad to hear the news, but understood, Perino said.

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HR 1955 turns Patriotic Americans into Terrorists

by Geezer Power …8:50 pm

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Dick Cheney is Ripe for Impeachment!

by GEF @ 5:58 PM MST

Dick Cheney’s Iraq-like warmongering to attack Iran is more than most Americans can take, especially during this housing crisis! The Time is ripe to get rid of him and Bush once and for all because as Fitzgerald said in the Scooter Libby Trial of the outing of covert agent Valerie Plame:

“There is still a black cloud that lingers over the White House!”

Kucinich to Introduce Cheney Impeachment Resolution

By Bill Hare

Dennis Kucinich told a group organized by Progressive Democrats of America by telephone on October 23 that he intends to introduce to the House of Representatives on a point of personal privilege a resolution of impeachment against Dick Cheney sometime before Thanksgiving.

Impeachment is imperative in the face of Cheney-Bush neoconservative actions in brutal defiance of the U.S. Constitution and international law. A current point of international concern is the hot rhetoric coming from White House sources about Iran. It is comparable to that delivered before the Iraq War.

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Congress is in Turmoil because they won’t Impeach!

by GEF @ 1:38 PM MST

The Polls show them at record lows and they’re ignoring the will of the people. We want the War to End and we want Bush and Cheney Impeached and Incarcerated for Treason. It’s simple!

They are not listening to We the People!… THEY ARE A MESS!

New Congress at war over everything
By: Patrick O’Connor
October 30, 2007 07:25 AM EST

In a closed-door meeting before the last vote on the children’s health care bill, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer appealed for the support of about 30 wavering Republican lawmakers. What he got instead was a tongue-lashing, participants said.

The GOP lawmakers, all of whom had expressed interest in a bipartisan deal on the SCHIP legislation, were furious that the Democratic leader from Maryland had not reached out to them in a more serious way early on. They also criticized him and Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois for failing to stop his allies outside Congress from running attack ads in their districts, while they were discussing a bipartisan deal.

The result was a predictable one for this bitterly divided Congress. The House vote for a second SCHIP bill was a healthy majority, but not the two-thirds needed to override another veto vowed by President Bush. Only one Republican switched his vote — to oppose the measure.

Democrats accused Republicans of hurting kids. Republicans howled about a heavy-handed, uncompromising Democratic majority. And another chance at bipartisan consensus slipped away.

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Blackwater highlighted as Iraq government overturns Directive 17

by Geezer Power …11:19 am

Iraq To Lift Immunity For Private Security Firms

Oct 30, 2007 8:15 am US/Pacific

(CBS) BAGHDAD The Iraqi government on Tuesday approved draft legislation lifting immunity for foreign private security companies, sending the measure to parliament, a spokesman said.

The question of immunity has been one of the most serious dispute between the U.S. and the Iraqi government since a Sept. 16 shooting involving Blackwater USA guards that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead.

The government’s decision followed reports that the State Department has promised Blackwater bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month’s shooting.

The State Department immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

State Department officials declined to confirm or deny that immunity had been granted. Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell has declined comment about the U.S. investigation.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the draft law approved Tuesday would overturn an immunity order known as Decree 17 that was issued by L. Paul Bremer, who ran the American occupation government until June 2004.

“It will be sent to the parliament within the coming days to be ratified,” he told The Associated Press.

~MORE~

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NOTE: Coalition Provision Authority Order 17

Article 1 of Section 2 of CPA order 17 issued by then US administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer, stipulates that the “multinational force, foreign liaison missions, their personnel, property, funds and assets and all international consultants shall be immune from Iraqi legal process.”

Blackwater is still doing business as usual from their headquarters in the Green Zone …G:

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Ambassador Ryan Crocker said on Oct. 25th
“Something bad did happen and what we’ve got to do now, sobered by that, is then look at the whole thing and that’s what we’ve done,”.

One of the most serious disputes with the Iraqi government hinges on an immunity decree for security contractors issued by L. Paul Bremer, who ran the American occupation government until June 2004. The order, known as decree 17, was made just before he handed sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said his Cabinet is drafting legislation that would overturn Decree 17 and force the State Department to replace Blackwater with another security company.

Crocker said he was unaware al-Maliki had taken that step.

“Decree 17 hasn’t been discussed with us,” he said, referring to a bilateral committee of U.S. and Iraqi officials that is handling the fallout from the Sept. 16 shooting.

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