Well, maybe the dem congress didn't lower my earnings...sm
Posted By: I am better off on 2009-01-12
In Reply to: Congress dems lowered your earnings? - sm
But that is the timeline for my taxes that increased, and my take home being lower. I have made less in the last two years. First six years of Bush
administration were great.
And the Clinton years were crap....I still was inhouse and taxes were skyhigh...yuck.
Anyway...whatever the cause, if you're talking Bush years, Clinton years, and when Democrats are in control of Congress.....things for me monetarily have always been way worse under Democrats.
Just the facts for my case.
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Congress dems lowered your earnings?
Got any idea how silly you sound? Are you an MT? If so, you might want to consider some other factors, such as companies who are phasing out their US jobs market in favor of outsourcing that of late has put our earnings into a free fall.
oh, yeah? like the Dems in congress? with lower
nm
Bush didn't do anything before it was not a democratic congress.
.
I didn't need this info to NOT trust congress......our
x
The Republican Congress did a good job with fiscal responsibility, didn't they?
bout sums it up
Because he keeps dropping it lower and lower
And soon my $30 or $40K is going to be considered rich, hence my taxes will be increased!!!!!!
He paid with his own earnings? Oh how awful.
And what was your point? Wouldn't you tend to trust a candidate more who paid for his campaign with his own money, rather than taking bribes from special interests that he has to pay back later by stealing more freedom and cash from you?
And if your point was that his take on the case was so high that he could finance a whole campaign with it, again, so? - A jury of your peers made that award and likely you would have too had you been on the jury and had a chance to hear the facts. If he had been representing you in a case in which your child was disemboweled by a defective piece of equipment which the manufacturers knew full well tended to disembowel children but they sold it to you anyway, would you think the jury awarded too much or the lawyer might get paid too much?
Or instead of actually thinking about the need to have lawyers represent people who have been egregiously harmed by incompetent and negligent companies, and the need to have juries hear the facts and make appropriate awards when justified, is it just easier to nod at the bullcrap propaganda which says you don't NEED to be protected because look how much money the lawyer makes?
When it's your turn you're going to want that lawyer and you're going to want that jury to hear your story. So what is the problem you have with holding villains accountable and seeing other people get the settlements they deserve?
Of course it has to go lower. How else...
can we get it all the way to the bottom where it can start up again?
Right! O says he will lower taxes, which is really
nm
Just when we think pubs can't stoop any lower...
nm
Yep, they actually have a lower approval rating than
nm
How low can she go? No lower with frozen market.
can they stay frozen? Russian markets closed until Tuesday. What does it mean with futures are "bottomed out?" What happens when they do open? Boy oh boy. What's up with that?
Why should he lower himself to explain any such trash?
If you want a lower rate -- refinance it
If you're credit score is that good, you should have no problem securing a lower rate. By the sounds of things, you've got it pretty well paid down. Depending on the exact amount you owe, you could refinance it into a home equity loan, rather than a new mortgage, and end up only paying about $100 in closing costs. Check with your current lender.
Brad Pitt and Lower 9th ward.
If he is so worried about the people of the 9th ward, why doesn't he build his house down among the 9th ward people and live down there with them instead of living in a million dollar or however much it costs house? Have you seen pics of their house?? Makes mine look like a tarpaper shack. And I live in Michigan. He should put his money where his mouth is, not on Nob Hill, but actually in the streets of the 9th ward. JMO.
Instead of trying to move the lower income levels....
out of those levels by incentivizing them to work instead of stay there, he wants to move the upper income levels DOWN closer to them. Socialism. Makes absolutely NO sense. If he really cared about lower income levels, he would be trying to figure out a way to help them OUT of it, not keep them IN it and bring others DOWN. That is his idea of "economic parity." Misguided, to say the least.
I see the new middle class has dropped from 250,000 to 120,000 and could be lower.
Very, very contradicting to me. Obama changing a lot of what he said lately and it gets worse. He wants us to vote early and take off from work Nov. 4th to help him win. Fox news also reports Obama and his campaign lays out plans to kill expectations after win because of concerns that many supporters are now harboring unrealistic hopes of what can be achieved. What the heck? Now he says, "it will be hard to achieve goals and will take time." He says one thing and then says another. I want to know where these unauthorized credit cards came from for his campaign. I want to see his birth certificate that he cannot cough up and there is a petition out and he is under investigation if he was truly born in the good ole USA. Call your State Department and they will tell you there is an investigation and they trying to get this resolved before Nov. 4th. So much uncertainty. Hope I do not offend anyone, but just like a bumper sticker I read
I'll keep my God, my freedom, my guns, and my money, you can keep THE CHANGE. VOTE FOR MCCAIN/PALIN.
Aren't we NOWat the bottom? How much lower can it get?
Therefore we need CHANGE.
'You don't seem to understand.' Favorite sentence of McCain addressing Obama.
Smaller government, lower taxes...
xx
if you want to preach, go to church, I know better than you, see my lower posts...nm
nm
Buffett, 3rd richest man in world, pays lower
Even he see the unfairness here. Some conservatives are fond of saying that Democrats want to tax the wealthy unfairly, but what I would like to see is the wealthy taxed equally. "Mr. Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent." Here is the entire article. It's a great read. Trust me.
June 28, 2007
Buffett blasts system that lets him pay less tax than secretary
Warren Buffett, the third-richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system for allowing him to pay a lower rate than his secretary and his cleaner.
Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion), said: “The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”
Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent. Mr Buffett told his audience, which included John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Alan Patricof, the founder of the US branch of Apax Partners, that US government policy had accentuated a disparity of wealth that hurt the economy by stifling opportunity and motivation.
The comments are among the most signficant yet in a debate raging on both sides of the Atlantic about growing income inequality and how the super-wealthy are taxed.
They echo those made this month by Nicholas Ferguson, one of the leading figures in Britain’s private equity industry, when he criticised tax rates that left its multimillionaire venture capitalists “paying less tax than a cleaning lady”.
Last week senior members of the US Senate proposed to increase the rate of tax that private equity and hedge fund staff pay on their share of the profits, known as carried interest, from the 15 per cent capital gains rate to about 35 per cent.
Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, acknowledged in an interview yesterday that there were justified concerns about the huge profits generated by private equity firms and that he worried that income inequality was “poisoning democracy”. He also said that he would be voting for the Democrat candidate at the next election. Mr Blankfein is the highest-paid executive on Wall Street, earning $54 million last year.
Mr Buffett, who runs the investment group Berkshire Hathaway and is widely regarded as the world’s most successful investor, said that he was a Democrat because Republicans are more likely to think: “I’m making $80 million a year – God must have intended me to have a lower tax rate.”
Mr Buffett said that a Republican proposal to eliminate elements of inheritance tax, which raises about $30 billion a year from the assets of about 12,000 rich families, would broaden the disparity between rich and poor. He added that the Republicans would seek to recover lost revenue by increasing taxes for the less prosperous.
He said: “You could take that $30 billion and give $1,000 to 30 million poor families. Or should you favour the 12,000 estates and make 30 million families pay an extra $1,000?”
I'm glad you wrote bible with a lower case
Because there are a million bibles out there...bible simply means book. But the Holy Bible there is only one of, of which there are thousands of manuscripts, and of which authenticity was proved (again) by the manuscripts found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
I've told you a million times that I do not make that call, Jesus Christ does. All authority has been given to Him. I'm just one of many messengers.
And since you have no idea who I am, don't confuse yourself with thinking I am in a little locked-in box. You have no idea the kind of life I have led, the things I have seen, and the things I have done. I spent six years trying as hard as I could to disprove Jesus and Christianity. To this day I still doubt many things, but doubting is good, it makes you search for the truth that much harder. I question points all the time, but i do so in sincerity, not facetiousness. Therefore God reveals the answers to me. However, He didn't do so until I honestly asked Him.
helping the lower class and middle class will NOT
Giving handouts to those that do not work certainly does nothing to help their situations; it only encourages it. Middle class are your working class, the support and backbone of this country. Obama's interference in their lives is just that, interference. The democrats have always felt they have the right to interfere in our lives by taxing us to death. What does that do to help us? It only makes us MORE dependent on the government......nothing about MORE government is helping us in any way.
I'm glad you think crime is JUST a biproduct of poverty, not race, which proves you obviously don't live in an area where that would prove you wrong. I live in an area where I know that every BLACK has the same opportunities as whites, the EXACT same education and FREE two college years....FREE, FREE, FREE.....all they have to do is finish high school....not all As or even any Bs, just finish high school. Now, a lot of young people take advantage of that but MANY do not. What do they do instead? Stand on the street corner, run around with their pants hanging down to the knees, steal for drugs, sell drugs to make money so they can buy expensive hubcaps for their souped up cars, buy their expensive shoes and ugly pants, and make MORE BABIES, which by the way, I SUPPORT with my taxes. No, I don't want to hear all that hogwash about their poverty. The media has made so much of that garbage, those that don't live in or near it, don't realize many blacks have the same opportunities; it's just that a lot of blacks, especially in my town, have grown up generation after generation living off the taxpayer and see no reason whatsoever to change their situation. They make more babies.....I'm forced to raise them so that generation can make more babies. Do I wish their situation would change? ABSOLUTELY! Do they have plenty of resources available in this town alone to change that? ABSOLUTELY! Do most of them take advantage of that? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! Yes, the majority of crimes in our town is committed by blacks but it AIN'T because of poverty; it's because THEY WANT TO COMMIT A CRIME!! We have poor whites as well and the majority of those do not feel they have the right to steal what belongs to others, kill someone over drugs or a stupid girl, or whatever else one wants to use as an excuse.
Obama will do nothing to help those that feel entitled and look to Obama as just a bigger free paycheck. You don't help anyone by giving them free handouts. If they don't want an educate, won't help themselves, and continue to feel ENTITLED to MY money, Obama certainly won't change that by encouraging laziness and lack of worth ethics.
Making the middle class dependent on the government is in no way helping them; if anything, Obama will be the end to the middle class as we know it today.
Well all the Dem congress can do...
is run pointless investigations and make absolutely ludicrous comments that like Pete Stark saying today on the house floor that all the President wants to do is send our sons and daughters to Iraq to get shot for his own entertainment. Mr. Stark and several other useless dems are the chimps, because they couldn't use crude tools much, much less legislate. They've proven that point quite well over the last 10 months.
Their majority is going to be fleeting if they keep this up, because even their own constituents are getting steamed at their lack of progress.
Congress
Actually the Congress should be smarter than to be snookered. They're snookered because they want to be. None of them are looking out for the American citizens. After all, would they give any of us billions of dollars in loans without knowing what we were going to do with the money? Think what they'd do if we borrowed money to buy a house and then spent the money on a posh vacation. We'd be in the federal pen is where we ordinary peons would be!!!
letter to Congress
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 13:59:37 -0800 (PST)
From: NT <nancyt1210@yahoo.com>
Subject: Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Stan Goff is Vietnam veteran and son served in Iraq. An Open
Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad On Power By STAN
GOFF, Dec. 2, 2005
(Disclaiming in advance for the rare exceptions in Congress)
If there is one thing we can always count on, it's politicians who
walk over human corpses to show fear only in the face of something as
formless and abstract as an opinion poll. Many of us in the veterans and
military families antiwar movement are well-versed on so-called
realism--and that deference we are supposed to exercise when we approach
elected officials, hat in hand, for a few crumbs of your attention and
support.
We understand power very well.
You are fighting each other for your careers, and you are retaining
your power over us through distance and guile, and trying to promote
that power by pretending you are hearing our concerns. But we have more
than concerns at stake here.
It is because we understand power that we haven't the slightest
intention of allowing ourselves to be used to promote your careers past the
2006 elections. If you fail to demand US withdrawal now, you are
supporting the war; and if you support the war, as far as we are concerned,
you can go straight to hell in 2006.
It is because we understand power that we are not going to forgive
and forget that when the war fever was up, fed by the lies of
Republicans, the war was facilitated by the eager xenophobic complicity of most
Democrats, and by the slavish obedience of the corporate press. Most of
you not only co-signed what you knew to be an illegal invasion--you have
continued to sign the checks to perpetuate the war.
You wanted to be lied to about the war, because the polls supported
the war, and you were sniffing the political air.
It is because we understand power that we know that most of you did
this out of craven opportunism and a concern for your political
ambitions--knowing full well that no one you loved was likely to be sent home
without a limb, without an eye, without a life.
It is because we understand power that we know how cynically cavalier
you are with the lives of others, and how narcissistically
self-promoting.
It is because we understand power that we understand why many of you
are backpedaling in your support for the war. You are maneuvering to be
critical of the war. You demand the administration provide an
effective exit strategy. And you haven't said a goddamned substantive
thing, as the cameras shutter away for you. And you want us to play
along--so you can beat Republicans without taking a single real position. You
don't want to stop this war. You want to win an election. By the time
you win that election, another thousand troops and another 20,000 Iraqis
could be dead. We do not calculate time the way you do.
It is because we understand power that we know most of you will stand
by while those of us with less privilege see our loved ones sent to
kill and die. The real corpses produced by the exercise of power are no
more to you than a political calculation.
We understand power, because we know what really stands behind it.
Power is embodied in the mounted cops you use to police our protests.
Power is expressed by the armed guards for your gated communities. Power
is the ability to kill and maim and get away with it, even if you dress
it up in $5,000 suits and trot it out on the talk-show circuit, on
C-Span, in your interviews with CNN.
Power is projected onto other peoples using your Cruise missiles and
A-10s and Bradley fighting vehicles and the people who join the
military. And the price of that power doesn't merely come from our pockets. We
probably wouldn't fight you about how you rob us for your pork barrel
defense contracts. The price that has us in motion right now--you really
must understand this, because it means we will never back off--is
exacted on the bodies of human beings.
The price is exacted with mortars, with IEDs, with high powered rifle
ammunition, with bombs, with the same A-10s and Bradleys; and it is
exacted on the bodies of our loved ones and the loved ones of the Iraqi
people.
That's why we are not going to grant you the power to manipulate us,
to contain us, to corral us, or to pimp our grief over this war and its
costs on behalf of your political careers or the needs of a political
party. That's why were are going to be rudely explicit when we say that
your bombast against the Bush administration--as if they did this
without your help--in calling for a more effective exit strategy and
demanding that people merely think about a plan for withdrawal from Iraq
that will take months or years this verbiage is meaningless and
manipulative. We will never stand for studying a withdrawal, for phasing a
withdrawal, for delaying a withdrawal, for setting conditions for a
withdrawal, or for partial withdrawal. Never.
Our demand from the beginning remains unchanged. It is for
withdrawal, and for immediate, unilateral, unconditional withdrawal; and if
political careers go up in smoke as a consequence, we do not give a good
goddamn. People are dying in Iraq as a direct result of this war every
single day. Go back to your fucking law offices and let our children live.
Gradual, phased, planned, strategized, conditioned, delayed, partial
withdrawals get implemented, if at all, while those military sedans
continue to roll up in front of people's houses to announce the extinction
of a human being to his or her family and while the bodies are dropped
into the fresh graves at the cemeteries of Iraq.
Gradual, phased, planned, strategized, conditioned, delayed, partial
withdrawals get implemented, if at all, while the poisons accumulate in
the soil and water and food of Iraq, and in the bodies of Iraqis and
occupation troops.
Gradual, phased, planned, strategized, conditioned, delayed, partial
withdrawals get implemented, if at all, while the hospitals fill up
with the lamed, maimed, blinded, and disfigured.
Gradual, phased, planned, strategized, conditioned, delayed, partial
withdrawals get implemented, if at all, while the grief and horror
associated with this criminal war become the daily emotional fare of more
and more people, occupation forces and Iraqis.
No member of Congress has the moral right to dither on the question
of his or her precious career while a single constituent is facing the
fear of that devastating knock on the door. We say the emperor has no
clothes; and we say we know you when you feign concern with your eye
fixed firmly on your ambition.
An exit is not a strategy. An exit is a command.
If the commander in chief won't give that command, then you in
Congress--if you want to salvage anything that looks vaguely like a
conscience or a soul--will refuse to grant this administration another penny to
continue this war. We are not hearing you when you tap dance about
political realism. The mounting mass of corpses, that you have walked
over every time you voted a cent to continue this war, is about as real as
it gets. Don't you dare ever lecture military families and veterans
about realism. And don't you doubt that we understand power.
You may think you can respond to your careerist concerns in the face
of reversing polls. You may think you can pretend to do something, that
you can bewilder us into accepting half a loaf better than none.
To the tiny handful of you in Congress who have said what we say,
Out Now!, we commend you and thank you for your principled voices.
To those of you who are openly supporting this criminal
administration, we'll see you in the street, and history will consign your names to
the chapters about imperial bullying, comb-over machismo, and cognitive
mediocrity.
To those of you who call for half measures, phases, and strategies,
you are directly in front of us now. You are standing directly in our
path, and we are not going to go around you.
We are not going to commend you on being better than the
reactionaries.
We are not going to thank you for our half a loaf.
We are not going to try and give you the political cover you need to
wiggle around those shifting opinion polls while you salvage your
careers.
We do not love you. We find your ambivalence contemptible.
We love the people who are facing the real consequences of this war
while you schmooze your way through the chicken-salad circuits of
imperial power, nattering on about realism and phases and strategies.
You will not divert our attention away from you. You will redirect
neither our anger nor our will away from you. It is you who are standing
directly in our way; and every time you try to dicker about people's
lives with us like we are in street market, every time you try to pimp
our outrage at this crime, as a mere concern that only you are entitled
to address with your careerist half-measures, we will call you to
account. We will embarrass you. We will shine a spotlight on your cowardice,
your opportunism, and your grotesque cynical hypocrisy.
November 2006 is not an election to us; it is a body count. If you
think you can take us for granted over an election, think again.
Get it right, because we have never wavered on our position. The mass
of American society is moving toward us, not you. They are listening
more and more to us, and less and less to you. We are about saving lives,
not saving face. So get it right, and get it right fast. We are looking
at your political house with an eye to pulling it down.
We understand power very well.
Stan Goff is the author of Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the
US Invasion of Haiti (Soft Skull Press, 2000), Full Spectrum
Disorder (Soft Skull Press, 2003) and Sex & War which will be released
approximately December, 2005. He is retired from the United States Army. His
blog is at www.stangoff.com.
Goff can be reached at: sherrynstan@igc.org
Yep, the dems in congress won't do anything
until they have a dem as president. They know if they do something positive, such as helping us with our oil/energy problem, Bush will get the credit and they won't stand for that.
That is the facts people and it is so unbelievably ridiculous that these people who we vote in and pay 6-figure salaries to won't do their job. It's a huge joke and it scares the crap out of me.
Because he will likely have a majority in Congress....
and THAT is how you get things passed.
We have only had a dem congress for 18 months. nm
.
You cant thank the democratic congress too.
nm
way to go democratic congress
nm
Bush does what he wants regardless of the Congress, BUT..
...this is the SECOND time he snookered Congress: First with his Chicken Little rush to hurry up and go to war with Iraq (which most of us were stupid enough to buy hook, line and sinker, myself included).
Now the economic "crisis" that required us to hurry up and give more money to reward the Wall Street crooks who have already stolen from us WITH THE EXPRESS CONDITION that there be no oversight, that we simply hand the money over to former Wall Street guru Paulson (wink wink) and let him and Bush figure out (wink wink) with no questions asked regarding the identity of the recipients. (Apparently, they are changing the rules as they go along, as we saw today regarding where the money is going.)
If you REALLY want to get your blood boiling, read the following two articles. Seems everyone who is a decision-maker in the administration regarding this whole fiasco is a former employee of one of the failed companies.
Bush has always held America and Americans in contempt. I now hold Congress in contempt and place the blame squarely on them for being stupid enough to believe Bush again.
Fed loans to AIG make Paulson's previous employer rich
http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=335924
---
And just last week, the Federal Reserve hired a BEAR STEARNS reject.
Federal Reserve Hires Bear Stearns Fox to Fix the Hen House
November 6, 2008 | From theTrumpet.com Another sign the economic system cannot be fixed.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=5646.3994.0.0
Congress should tell him to sell the jet!
sale of the jet would provide about 15% of the bailout money they are asking for. okay, not sure of that percentage as my math skills are sorely lacking but either way common sense is most definitely lacking.
CONgress - that's funny -nm
x
Congress looks at Big 3 plans...... sm
Congress has looked at the Big 3's plans to cut costs in order to "qualify" for a bailout, the amount of which has now grown to $34B. Nancy Pelosi seems to be in favor, so my bet is they will get it.
Some of the concessions the auto makers are ready to make is slashing the executive pay, getting rid of executive bonuses, postponing employee merit raises for next year, suspending health care payments into a union health care plan, and possibly getting rid of the controversial job banks.
Ford said they only wanted a standby line of credit with the government in case the other two go belly up. GM seems to be the one hurting the most.
I really have to wonder, will a bailout REALLY help or will it just postpone the inevitable with the rest of the economy dying the way it is???? 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97737508&ft=1&f=1001
At least Congress is looking at something. The Bush
administration has blocked any kind of transparency and refuses to be acountable to the American citizens who are funding the Wall Street giant giveaway.
The General Accounting Office says the Wall Street bailout isn't being policed properly:
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers want the Treasury to do a better job of insisting that banking institutions sharing in the $700 billion bailout comply with limits Congress imposed on executive salaries and use the money for its intended purposes.
In the first comprehensive review of the rescue package, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday that the Treasury Department has no mechanisms to ensure that banking institutions limit their top executives' pay and comply with other restrictions.
"The GAO's discouraging report makes clear that the Treasury Department's implementation of the (rescue plan) is insufficiently transparent and is not accountable to American taxpayers," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The auditors acknowledged that the program, created Oct. 3 to help stabilize a rapidly faltering banking system, was less than 60 days old and has been adjusting to an evolving mission.
But auditors recommended that Treasury work with government bank regulators to determine whether the activities of financial institutions that receive the money are meeting their purpose.
In a response to the GAO, Neel Kashkari, who heads the department's Office of Financial Stability, said the agency was developing its own compliance program and indicated that it disagreed with the need to work with regulators.
Continued at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/03/the-bailout-isnt-being-po_n_147982.html
P.S. Neel Kashkari, formerly of Goldman Sachs (a/k/a the fox guarding the hen house), just recently got his job. His bio:
http://www.ustreas.gov/organization/bios/kashkari-e.html
I agree. The ones in congress who think it is okay
I do NOT want to fund this crap, but I am sure maybe some of the 25 in the stimulus might be okay, but then again MAYBE NOT. IF and ONLY IF some of the 25 others parts mentioned in the stimulus were okay, then I agree to add on later, but NOT NOW.
Control of Congress???
If you don't know what you are talking about - maybe you should venture to a safer topic, like, I don't know, knitting? Bush vetoed and obstructed the Dems at every turn (do you read?). Just like right now - the pubs are obstructing and delaying at every turn. Same old games just a different President. Obama is getting a crash course in "Politics as Usual." He may have been woefully mistaken in believing the 2 parties could work together. Won't happen. The pubs will trumpet their BS and obstruct everything they can all in the name of trying to exert their power. They don't give a rats about what happens to the American people. They really don't. They want to keep big corporations and banks in power - not We The People. Do you really think they care if people stay in their houses or not? NO. The problem is all these banks with empty houses they can't sell. Gotta save the mortgage companies and Banks - screw the people. There will be some kind of bendover in the new mortgage contracts with lower interest - watch and see. WHAM! It'll hit those people right between the eyes just when they thought things were going good, that is, if the economy turns around - which I doubt. Not enough cooperation.
Yeah! Joe for Congress. He's my guy!
x
And it is usually Congress that prevents
them from pursuing their promises.....
How could he VOTE when he isn't in congress?
duh
In Congress We Trust....NOT
SIBEL EDMONDS: In Congress We Trust...Not
The former FBI translator and whistleblower suggests blackmail may be at the heart of Congressional refusal to bring accountability and oversight to its own members - such as both Hastert and Harman - in matters of espionage and national security
Exclusive to The BRAD BLOG...
Posted By Sibel Edmonds On 4th May 2009 @ 13:41 In Dennis Hastert, NSA, National Security, Mainstream Media Failure, Accountability, U.S. House, FBI, Henry Waxman, U.S. Senate, Nancy Pelosi, Bush Legacy, Jane Harman | 54 Comments
Guest Editorial by Sibel Edmonds
I have been known to quote long-dead men in my past writings. Whether eloquently expressed thoughts by our founding fathers, or those artfully expressed by ancient Greek thinkers, these quotes have always done a better job starting or ending my thoughts - that tend to be expressed in long winding sentences. For this piece I am going to break with tradition and start with an appropriate quote from a living current senator, John Kerry: "It's a sad day when you have members of Congress who are literally criminals go undisciplined by their colleagues. No wonder people look at Washington and know this city is broken."
The people do indeed look at Washington and know that this city is 'badly' broken, Senator Kerry. The public confidence in our Congress has been declining drastically. Recent poll results [1] highlight how the American people's trust in their Congress has hit rock bottom. A survey of progressive blogs easily confirms the rage rightfully directed at our Congress for abdicating its role of oversight and accountability. Activists scream about promised hearings that never took place - without explanation. They express outrage when investigations are dropped without any justification. And they genuinely wonder out loud why, especially after they helped secure a major victory for the Democrats. The same Democrats who had for years pointed fingers at their big bad Republican majority colleagues as the main impediment preventing them from fulfilling what was expected of them.
The recent stunning but not unexpected revelations [2] regarding Jane Harman (D-CA) by the Congressional Quarterly provide us with a little glimpse into one of the main reasons behind the steady decline in the integrity of Congress. But the story is almost dead - ready to bite the dust, thanks to our mainstream media's insistence on burying 'real' issues or stories that delve deep into the causes of our nation's continuous downward slide. In this particular case, the 'thank you' should also be extended to certain blogosphere propagandists who, blinded by their partisanship, myopic in their assessments, and ignorant in their knowledge of the inner workings of our late Congress and intelligence agencies, helped in the post-burial cremation of this case.
Ironically but understandably, the Harman case has become one of rare unequivocal bipartisanship, when no one from either side of the partisan aisle utters a word. How many House or Senate Republicans have you heard screaming, or even better, calling for an investigation? The right wing remains silent. Some may have their hand, directly or indirectly, in the same AIPAC cookie jar. Others may still feel the heavy baggage of their own party's tainted colleagues; after all, they have had their share of Abramoffs, Hasterts and the like, silently lurking in the background, albeit dimmer every day. Some on the left, after an initial silence that easily could have been mistaken for shock, are jumping from one foot to the other, like a cat on a hot tin roof, making one excuse after another; playing the 'victims of Executive Branch eavesdropping' card, the same very 'evil doing' they happened to support vehemently. Some have been dialing their trusted guardian angels within the mainstream media and certain fairly visible alternative outlets. They need no longer worry, since these guardian angels seem to have blacked out the story, and have done so without the apparent need for much arm twisting...
Hastert Redux
I am going to rewind and take you back to September 2005, when Vanity Fair published an article [3], which, in addition to my case and the plight of National Security Whistleblowers, exposed the dark side of the then Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert (R-IL), and the corroborated allegations of his illegal activities involving foreign agents and interests.
Vanity Fair printed the story only after they made certain they were on sure footing in the face of any possible libel by lining up more than five credible sources, and after triple pit-bull style fact-checking. They were vindicated; Hastert did not dare go after them, nor did he ever issue any true denial. Moreover, further vindication occurred only a month ago. On April 10, 2009, The Hill reported [4] that the Former Speaker of the House was contracted to lobby for Turkey. The Justice Department record on this deal indicates that Hastert will now be "principally involved" on a $35,000-a-month contract providing representation for Turkish interests. That seems to be the current arrangement for those serving foreign interests while on the job in Congress --- to be paid at a later date, collecting on their IOU's when they secure their positions with 'the foreign lobby.'
In a recent article [5] for American Conservative Magazine, Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer stationed in Turkey, made the following point: "Edmonds's claims have never been pursued, presumably because there are so many skeletons in both parties' closets. She has been served with a state-secrets gag order to make sure that what she knows is never revealed, a restriction that the new regime in Washington has not lifted."
And then, he hits the nail on its head: "In Hastert's case, it certainly should be a matter of public concern that a senior elected representative who may have received money from a foreign country is now officially lobbying on its behalf. How many other congressmen might have similar relationships with foreign countries and lobbying groups, providing them with golden parachutes for their retirement?"
Congress went mum on my case after the Vanity Fair story, with, of course, the mainstream media making it very easy for them. They turned bipartisan in not pursuing the case, with the same zeal as they have, so far, not pursued the Harman case. Similarly, the mainstream media is happily letting it all disappear.
I was not aware that during the publication of the Hastert story in Vanity Fair, Jane Harman's AIPAC case was already brewing in the background. Moreover, one of the very few people in Congress who was notified about Harman was none other than Hastert --- the man himself. The same Hastert, who in addition to being one of several high-ranking officials targeted by FBI counterintelligence and counterespionage investigations, was also known to be directly involved in several other high profile scandals: from his intimate involvement in the Abramoff scandal [6], to the Rep. William Jefferson scandal [7]; from his 'Land Deal' scandal [8] - where he cashed in millions off his position while "serving", to the 2006 House Page scandal [9].
All for One, One for All?
How does it work? How do these people escape the consequences of accountability? Are we talking about the possible use of blackmail by the Executive Branch against Congressional representatives, as if the days of J. Edgar Hoover were never over? Cases such as NSA illegal eavesdropping come to mind, when Congressional members were briefed long before it became public, yet none took any action or even uttered a word; members of both parties. Or is it more likely to be a case of secondhand blackmail, where members of Congress watch out for each other? Or, is it a combination of the above? Regardless, we see this 'all for one, one for all' kind of solidarity in Congress when it comes to criminal conduct and scandals such as those of Hastert and Harman.
Although at an initial glance, based on the wiretapping angle, the Harman case may appear to involve blackmailing --- or a milder version, exploitation of Congress by the Executive Branch --- deeper analysis would suggest even further implications, where Congressional members themselves use the incriminating information against each other to prevent pursuit or investigation of cases that they may be directly or indirectly involved in. Let me give you an example based on the Hastert case mentioned earlier:
In 2004 and 2005 I had several meetings with Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) investigative and legal staff. Two of these meetings took place inside a high-security SCIF [10], where details and classified information pertaining to my case and those involved could be discussed.
I was told, and at the time I believed it to be the case, that the Republican majority was preventing further action - such as holding a public hearing on my whistleblower revelations. Once the Democrats took over in 2006, that barrier was removed, or so I thought.
In March 2007, I was contacted by one of Rep. Waxman's staff people who felt responsible and conscientious enough to at least let me know that there would never be a hearing into my case by their office, or for that matter, any Democratic office in the House. Based on his/her account, in February 2007 Waxman's office was preparing the necessary ingredients for their promised hearing, but in mid-March the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, called Waxman into a meeting on the case, and after Waxman came out of that twenty-minute meeting, he told his staff 'we are no longer involved in Edmonds' case.' And so they became 'uninvolved.'
What was discussed during that meeting? The facts regarding the FBI's pursuit [11] of Hastert, and certain other representatives, were bound to come out in any Congressional hearing into my case. Now we know that Hastert and Pelosi were both informed of Harman's role in a related case involving counterespionage investigation of AIPAC. Is it possible that Pelosi asked Waxman to lay off my case in order to protect a few of their own in an equally scandalous case? Was there a deal made between the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House to keep this and other related scandals hushed? Will we ever know the answer to these questions? Most likely not, considering the current state of our mainstream media.
And the victims remain the same: The American people who have entrusted their Congress with the role of ensuring oversight and accountability.
This kind of infestation touches everyone in Congress; one need not have a skeleton of his own to get sucked into the swamp of those infested. Does Waxman have to be a sinner to take part in the sin committed by the Hasterts and Harmans of Congress? Certainly not. On the other hand, he and others like him will abide by the un-pledged oath of 'solidarity with your party members' and 'loyalty to your dear colleagues.'
Rotten at its Core
Back to the enablers: How can we explain the continued blackout by the mainstream media, and/or, the logic-free defenses of the Harmans and Hasterts alike by the apologist spinners --- some of whom pass as the 'alternative' media? Some are committing what they rightfully accused the previous administration and their pawns of doing: cherry picking the facts, then, spin, spin, and spin until the real issue becomes blurry and unrecognizable. The conspiracy angle aimed at the timing; Porter Goss' possible beef with Jane Harman; accusing the truth divulgers, CQ sources, of being 'conspirators' with ulterior motives; portraying Harman as an outspoken vigilante on torture. And if those sound too lame to swallow, they throw in a few evil names from the foggy past of Dusty the Foggo man! If the issue and its implications weren't so serious, these spins of reality would certainly make a Pulitzer-worthy satire.
Let's take the issue of timing. First of all, the story was reported [12], albeit not comprehensively, by TIME magazine years ago. It took a tenacious journalist, more importantly a journalist that could have been trusted by the Intel sources to give it real coverage. It is also possible that the sources who leaked in the Harman case got fed up and disillusioned by the absence of a real investigation and decided to 'really' talk. After all, the AIPAC espionage case was dropped [13] by the Justice Department's prosecutors within two weeks of the Harman revelations.
Same could be said about the Hastert story. At the time, many asked why the story was not told during the earlier stages of my case. It took three years for me and other FBI and DOJ sources to exhaust all channels; Congressional inquiry, IG investigation, and the courts. Those who initially were not willing to come forward and corroborate the details opened up to the Vanity Fair journalist, David Rose, in 2005.
Now let's look at the 'blackmail' and 'Goss Plot' angles. Of course the 'blackmail' scenario is possible; in fact, highly possible. We all can picture one of the President's men in the White House pulling an opposing Congressional member aside and whispering 'if I were you, Congressman, I'd stop pushing. I understand, as we speak, my Justice Department is looking into certain activities you've been engaged in.'
We all can imagine, easily, a high-ranking Justice Department official having a 'discreet' meeting with a member of Congress who's been pushing for a certain investigation of certain department officials for criminal deeds, and saying, 'dear Congresswoman, we are aware of your role in a certain scandal, and are still pondering whether we should turn this into a direct investigation of you and appoint a special prosecutor…'
But, let's not forget, the misuse of incriminating information, for the purpose of blackmail, does not turn the practitioner of the wrongful deed into a victim, nor does it make the wrongful criminal deed less wrong. Instead of spinning the story, taking away attention from the facts in hand, and making Harman a victim, we must focus on this case, on Harman, as an example of a very serious disease that has infected our Congress for far too long. Those who have been entrusted with the oversight and accountability of our government cannot do so if they are vulnerable to such blackmail from the very same people they are overseeing…Period.
Those who have been elected to represent the people and their interests cannot pursue their own greed and ambitions by engaging in criminal or unethical activities against the interests of the same people they've sworn to represent, and then be given a pass.
As for far-reaching ties such as Harman's stand on torture, or a specific beef with former CIA Director Porter Goss, or wild shots from the hip in bringing up mafia-like characters such as Dusty Foggo; please don't make us laugh! Are we talking about the same Hawkish Pro-Secrecy Jane Harman here?! Harman's staunch support of NSA Wiretapping of Americans, the FISA Amendment of 2008, the Patriot ACT, the War on Iraq, and many other activities on the Civil Liberties' No-No list, is widely recognized by almost everyone, apparently, but the authors of the recent apologist spin.
And, let's not forget to add her own long-term cozy relationship with AIPAC, and the large donations she's received from various other AIPAC-related pro-Israeli PACs. To these certain 'wannabe' journalists, driven by far from pure agenda(s), shame on you; as for honor-worthy vigilant activists out there: watch out for these impostors with their newly gained popularity among those tainted in Washington, and take a hard look at whose agendas [14] they are serving as a mouthpiece for.
Despite a certain degree of exposure, cases such as Harman's and Hastert's, involving corruption of public officials, seem to meet the same dead-end. Criminal conduct, by powerful foreign entities, against our national interest, is given a pass, as was recently proven by the abandonment of the AIPAC spy case. The absence of real investigative journalism and the pattern of blackout by our mainstream media seem now to have been almost universally accepted as a fact of life.
Pursuit of cases such as mine, via cosmetically available channels, has been, and continues to be proven futile for whistleblowers.
Therefore, you may want to ask, why in the world am I writing this piece? Because more and more people --- although not nearly enough --- are coming to the realization that our system is rotten at it's core; that in many cases we have been trying to deal with the symptoms rather than the cause.
I, like many others, believed that changing the Congressional majority in 2006 was going to bring about some of the needed changes; the pursuit of accountability being one. We were proven wrong. In 2008, many genuinely bought in to the promise of change, and thus far, they've been let down.
These experiences are disheartening, surely, but they are also eye-opening. I do see many vigilant activists who continue the fight. As long as that's the case, there is hope. More people realize that real change will require not replacing one or two or three, but many more. More people are coming to understand that the road to achieving government of the people passes through a Congress, but not the one currently occupied by the many crusty charlatans who represent only self-interest --- achieved by representing the interests of the few, rather than the majority of the people of this nation. And so I write.
Here I go again, rather than ending this in a long paragraph or two, I will let another long-gone man do it shortly and effectively: "If we have Senators and Congressmen there that can't protect themselves against the evil temptations of lobbyists, we don't need to change our lobbies, we need to change our representatives." - Will Rogers
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Sibel Edmonds is a former FBI translator and noted whistleblower who has been under a years-long "gag order", prohibiting her from discussing many details of her allegations of corruption and espionage gleaned during her time at the FBI, due to the continuing "States Secrets privilege" assertions by the Executive Branch. Her own story has been partially documented over the last several years in several different media outlets, including a lead story on CBS' 60 Minutes [15], a detailed feature in Vanity Fair [16] and, over the years, in a number of exclusive articles here at The BRAD BLOG [17]. She is the Founder and President of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. [18]
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Article printed from The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com
URL to article: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7117
URLs in this post:
[1] results: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0708/p...uspo.html.com/
[2] revelations: http://static.cqpolitics.com/harman-3098436-page1.html
[3] article: http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle9774.htm
[4] reported: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/...r-turkey-2009-
04-10.html
[5] article: http://amconmag.com/article/2009/may/04/00016/
[6] scandal: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/...l_officia.html
[7] scandal: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/...son/index.html
[8] scandal: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n1740900.shtml
[9] scandal: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/wa....html?_r=2&hp
8;ex=1160020800&en=a3fbb0550d8f4163&ei=5094&partne r=homepage
[10] SCIF: http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_te...i=55745,00.asp
[11] FBI's pursuit: http://www.nswbc.org/Press Releases/PressRelease-March5-07.htm
[12] reported: http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...549069,00.html
[13] dropped: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi...e_dropped.html
[14] agendas: http://blogs.jta.org/politics/articl...orter-goss-fin
ger-jane-harman
[15] lead story on CBS' 60 Minutes: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in526954.shtml
[16] feature in Vanity Fair: http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle9774.htm
[17] articles here at The BRAD BLOG: http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=58
[18] National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.: http://nswb.org
a pick-me-up for Congress???
you're kidding right?? Pick them up from what? all the hard work they have been doing finding new ways to spend our money??
My congress person is
Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH - and yet another d*mned lawyer) who is a ''freshman.'' She has spent the last 20+ years with her face in the public trough: school board, county commissioner, has run for this and that (treasurer, etc.) lost a very close congressional election in 2006 (absentee votes gave her opponent the edge) and finally the party decided it was her turn to go to Washington in 2008.
She is all over local radio today selling the ''larger issue'' of energy independence that Cap & Trade will guarantee. Riiight. I have e-mailed and faxed her offices all week but I doubt there is much point, since her yes-vote is the bag. Still, gotta try. She will not have the excuse that she thought she was serving her constituents by following the party line.
Ahem...that was due to what was done in Congress during those years....
and you should really give credit where credit was due...there was a Republican majority in congress during most of Clinton's years as President and THAT is where all the changes are made, friend...in CONGRESS. So, on behalf of the Republican majority congress during the Clinton years, THANK YOU SO MUCH for endorsing the job they did, but please to give them the credit along with Mr. Clinton for all those years of prosperity you enjoyed.
I really love the way you paint it with such a broad brush...like Bush in and of himself could do any of those things. One man CAN'T. Congress is in the driver's seat. And the sound bite of most of the world not dependent on our good will hate us. And who would that be? France? They have ALWAYS hated us. It started right after we liberated their country during World War II and they immediately told us to get out. Yeah, the French, they loved us. Russia? Yeah, they realllyyy loved us. China? Wellll, they certainly loved Bill and Hill and the offshoring they did...google them and China some time for a real eye opener. Canada? Yeah they hate us, until they need to come here for medical care they can't get in their own country because of socialized medicine. Exactly what countries loved us before Bush and hate us now?
If you really want it back like it was in Bill's time, let's elect a Republican Congress. You will have it back then. And it really doesn't matter as much who is President...it matters who has the majority in Congress. And what pray tell has the Democratic majority done since they have been in office? Zip, zilch, nada as far as I can see. All those promises they made? Not one have they met. Why are you not posting about that?
credit to the repub congress
Are you KIDDING me? They shut down the government in a tiffy fit. They fought him tooth and nail on everything. They spent countless time and money trying to impeach him. You need to get a library card an USE it, girlfriend.
If you are talking about the war debt, your congress did...
when they voted to go to Iraq. Would not have passed without Dems' support as well.
Who controlled congress until 2007 whenever
Which side of congress voted down any suggestion of setting time limits or considering troop withdrawals. Which candidate voted against the war 5 years ago? Which candidate brought a timetable for troop withdawal up for consideration in February 2007? Who lobbied to defeat that initiative? Which party is now trying to highjack that same initiative and take credit for it in an election year? Simple questions. Direct answers, please.
Hasn't McCain only been in Congress also?
What executive experience does he have? From your answer, Palin seems more qualified than McCain even.
So did the majority of Congress, Dem and Repub...
or nothing would have passed. Sheesh. You act like McCain passed every bill all by his lonesome. Let's be real here.
I agree, but congress will never let Obama
do everything he wants to do anyway. They never do for any president. When they do agree on something, congress will always have something in it for them or their interests and the middle class pays out nose for it.
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