Sen. Al Franken from the Oct. 29th Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing titled Pensions in Peril: Helping Workers Preserve Retirement Security Through a Recession. Video of the full hearing is available there.
Keep up the good work Senator.
Ed Schultz talks to Sheldon Whitehouse about tomorrow's torture hearings and on why Dick Cheney is speaking out in public the way he is.
Schultz: Senator, do you want to give us your opinion tonight why you think the former Vice President continually goes out and does these interviews? Is he ginning up support in case there are some legal ramifications down the road involving both him and the former President?
Whitehouse: Well he wouldn't be the first potential defendent to try to influence a potential jury pool. I think this would probably be the largest scale effort of that variety, but certainly there's a very intense messaging program going on and I think one of the things that these hearings will reveal is that the messaging program is very false and very misleading. But we want to develop it slowly and carefully through the evidence rather than running around making a lot of wild and unfactual assertions as the Vice President I believe is doing.
That's it. I think we need another good Sicilian kinky-haired, olive-skinned, jut-jawed lawyer from Manhattanin there mixing it up with these Banksters.
Pelosi calls for panel to probe Wall Street
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that the American people are demanding "discipline and accountability" following the multibillion-dollar federal bailouts, vowed today to initiate a legislative commission with broad oversight to investigate the causes of Wall Street irregularities and their full costs to taxpayers.
Pelosi, speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California, said she wants the panel to be modeled after the Pecora Commission, a bipartisan investigative body established by the U.S. Senate in 1932 to examine the causes and abuses of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and to prevent a repeat.
"They investigated what happened in the markets," including conflicts of interests and irregularities that set off such devastating effects on the U.S. economy, she said. When the commission issued its findings during the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "they had tangible recommendations," she said, which helped generate widespread public support for major banking system reforms and new securities laws.
You can watch the video segment Bill Moyers featured on PBS. He had a discussion about the Pecora Commission here. (h/t Heather)
Robert Borosage has been calling for hearings on Wall Street for a while now.
CFAF just released a statement on this by Borosage:
We applaud House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to create a special commission to investigate the roots of the financial collapse similar to the Pecora Commission that exposed the crimes and collusion's of Wall Street in the 1930s.
The devil, of course, is in the details – and the people. The commission needs subpoena power. It needs to be able to expose what appears to be widespread fraudulent and illegal practices – that can only be done with the power to demand production of documents and witnesses. It needs a large, aggressive and competent staff able to sort through volumes of material. It needs time to lay out the case to the public. And it needs courageous commissioners and a fearless prosecutor, a modern day Pecora, committed to unearthing the truth.
I was watching FOX News and every panelist was so terrified by the fact that there could be any kind of hearings about any of the garbage that happened these last eight years. They were calling in madness, but not what the Bush administration did of course. That's why the country is in this frakkin' shape. We need to know why and we need people held accountable.
I want to congratulate d-day, the Courage Campaign, John Podesta and everyone who signed all the many petitions put there because the California Democratic Party heard you loud and clear. (C&L joined with the Courage Campaign.)
Thanks again to all of you who signed petitions and made phone calls and helped push the resolution to open a Congressional inquiry into Torture Judge Jay Bybee, which the California Democratic Party adopted at its convention yesterday. I have been told by the authors of the resolution that the pressure from the outside really aided their efforts.
The passage of the resolution was a beginning, not an ending. I view the impeachment of Jay Bybee from the 9th Circuit Court as a moral and legal imperative, but also an entryway into the larger fight for justice and accountability for those who authorized and directed torture in our name.
UPDATE: Ryan Grim of The Huffington Post has the full story of the passage of the resolution at the convention.
So what do we do next? Keep the heat on.
So what do we do now? Members of the California Democratic Party include 34 members of Congress, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and six men and women who sit on the House Judiciary Committee, where an impeachment inquiry would be remanded. They need to hear that their party just recommended that they open an immediate Congressional inquiry into Judge Bybee, with all appropriate remedies and punishments available. In fact, the entire House Judiciary Committee needs to hear this.
You can contact all the members through d-days site, the tools were provided for by Jane, and you can call you can call your members of Congress and tell them that they must support an immediate inquiry into the actions of Jay Bybee, federal judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Congressional switchboard at 1-866-220-0044 can connect you to your member of Congress as well.
(Liddy mesmerizes Larry King)
UPDATE: Liddy is speaking to the HOUSE now.
The House has started their AIG hearing this morning, but we are waiting for the Big Kahuna, head of AIG, Edward Liddy. He's a typical right wing disaster capitalist, who was in business with Rumsfeld in the 80's, destroyed companies, maxed out his campaign contributions to McCain---so in essence---he's the perfect Bush pick.
DWT has more on Liddy's past:
I can't understand why a big Republican donor-- obviously a crook-- like Liddy was put in charge of a company the government basically owns. And it isn't just because he was a maxed-out McCain donor, as well as a contributor to the RNC, that should disqualify him from employment.
He was the chairman of Allstate when they were cheating Hurricane Katrina victims out of their insurance coverage. Before that Liddy was the CFO at a pharmaceutical company where Don Rumsfeld was the CEO.Together they axed most of the employees in order to make it an attractive property for Monsanto, which bought it in 1985 making Rumsfeld and Liddy immensely wealthy (although neither had contributed anything to the value of the company aside from firing 60% of the employees who had built it up.) See Liddy's swell digs on the right. I wonder who vetted Liddy for Bush when he wound up-- including himself, no doubt, among the losers he terms "the best and the brightest"-- as head of AIG in June, 2008.
Talk Left catches Liddy's op-ed in the WaPo.
These idiots at AIG are so insulated in their thinking that they actually thought America would just sit back and not take notice of what they are doing with our money? The public outrage is palpable and Howard Beale's are being born every second. And the Obama administration better keep on top of this too. Very bad communication and political skills have been practiced by the President Obama's economic team on this one and that was stunning to me...
And Chris Dodd is not responsible for these bonuses to be paid out as the right wing press have been pushing lately.
On CNN I just saw them do a segment on the clause on the bonuses and they can't figure out who did put it in.
Videos now working sorry for the probs....
Rep. Maxine Waters asks CEO's about their practice of raising credit card limits at the Bank CEO hearing today. How many of us have had a sudden jump in our interest rates without ever even knowing it.Which of course never allows people to pay off the debt. Waters is making a key point here.
Waters: Since you received TARP money, have any of you increased the amount of interest on the credit cards by sending out letters to the consumers, to your credit card holders indicating that this was part of the contract even though this was in small print and you now have the ability to do it, have any of you Did any of you do that?
Did you do this?
CEO: I was volunteering. First of all I feel like corporal of the universe not captain of the universe.
Waters: Did you increase your credit card interest rate?
CEO: In 2008, we increased interest rates on 9 % of our customers.
Waters: Thank you very much, did anyone else increase credit card rates after you received TARP money? Anyone else, if so would you please raise your hand. (most of them did)
You sent out the letters I'm trying to describe? Saying that you have the authority to do that. Did any of you reduce the amount of credit that was available to credit card holders because they shopped at certain stores? Just raise your hand if you did. None of you did. Let the record reflect, none of them raised their hands.
Tom Geoghegan has repeatedly talked about the idea of helping the American consumer with their credit debt by canceling their private consumer debt which would immediately stimulate the economy. He often speaks about how these institutions can raise their rates to as high as they want. The consumer can never catch up and it's a sad practice which will cripple Americans with overriding fear about their state of finances. And as he points out in the linked video, we always come up with the money for war....
The former Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee will support Eric Holder's nomination for attorney general, giving him a major boost toward confirmation.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), who chaired the panel for a decade beginning in 1995, told The Hill that he will support Holder. “I intend to,” said Hatch.
His decision could undermine GOP efforts to stall or block the confirmation. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said Friday that Holder would be the only Cabinet nominee to face a tough confirmation fight.
Hatch said that Republicans should try to strike a cooperative tone with President-elect Obama during the first days of his administration.“I start with the premise that the president deserves the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think politics should be played with the attorney general,” he said.
“I like Barack Obama and want to help him if I can.”
As obstructionists, I understand that the GOP will do everything they can to attack Obama, but I didn't see the political advantage to start the process by targeting Holder's nomination. I guess Orrin Hatch understands that his party should at least appear to want to work with Obama with them being so loathed in America and all, at least for the time being.
UPDATE: I finished this piece and saw an email that TP had a post up about Arlen Specter's wanking away on the Ashcroft nomination.
This morning, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) took to right-wing talk radio to continue his politically-motivated crusade against President-elect Obama’s Attorney General designate Eric Holder.
{snip}
Specter’s dismay at Leahy’s prediction is ironic, considering his past statements. On December 24, 2000, two days after then President-elect Bush announced that he had selected John Ashcroft for Attorney General and three weeks before Ashcroft’s confirmation hearings, Specter went on Face the Nation and confidently predicted that Ashcroft would be confirmed by the Senate:
SCHEIFFER: Senator Specter, you’re on the Judiciary Committee. Can John Ashcroft be confirmed?
SPECTER: Yes, I think he can be, and will be. I think the president is entitled to great latitude in the selection of his Cabinet officers. And I know John Ashcroft very well. He’s a first-rate lawyer. He was attorney general of Missouri.
Republican hypocrisy will never cease...
Mrs. Andrea Mitchell was trying very hard not to take any blame for the economic meltdown this country faces.
Waxman: shock. That sounds like to me you're saying that those who trusted the market to regulate itself, yourself included made a serious mistake.
Greenspan: Well I think that's true of some products, but not all.
Waxman: Then where do you think you made a mistake?
Greenspan: I made a mistake in the presuming that the self interest of organizations specifically banks and others was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders...
Waxman? Do you have any financial responsibility for the financial crisis?
(On his ideology)
Greenspan: ...to exist you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not and what I'm saying to you is "yes" I found a flaw...
He shucked and jived his way around this whole mess, but admitted I guess something. Who could have ever imagined that making millions of dollars a day with no oversight could possibly lead to greed and corruption and ultimate destruction?
As Barney Frank announces that he's pulled together a deal that will get the votes needed to pass through Congress, economists from some of the top schools in the country ask, "What's the hurry?":
To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:
As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:
1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers' expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.
2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.
3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.
For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.
As the Wall Street meltdown causes John McCain to throw in the towel and George Bush attempts to pull off the biggest heist in history, it's becoming clear that pushing any bailout legislation too far, too fast, could be a total disaster for our country. The Democrats need to listen to people who really know economics, keep a tight leash on Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, say no to Disaster Capitalism and take the time to get this right the first time.
The list of economists who signed the letter is below the fold.
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The House Judiciary Committee is holding hearings today on the numerous abuses of power and impeachable offenses of George W. Bush and right out of the gate, Florida Rep. Robert Wexler lays out the clear case for the need to begin impeachment hearings.
I fully recognize the significance of holding impeachment hearings and I have not come to this position lightly. Not one bit. But when an administration takes actions that amount to High Crimes, we, the Representatives of the people, are left with no option other than to seek impeachment and removal from office. Our government was founded by a delicate balance of powers, whereby one branch carefully checks the other branches to prevent a dangerous consolidation of power. The actions of this White House have eviscerated this careful balance. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. This is an American issue. Without these checks and balances the President can run roughshod over any law with impunity. Congress must end this disturbing pattern of behavior, and in these circumstances, unfortunately, the only option left is impeachment hearings.
You got to give Wexler credit, he's been very vocal for pushing for accountability and taking the hits from the wingnuts for it. And now he's getting support from other Democrats in the House, like Maurice Hinchey:
Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, July 25, 2008 during a hearing entitled, "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations." Hinchey will highlight the reasons he co-authored two resolutions with U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) that formally condemn President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and former Attorney General Gonzales for misconduct regarding U.S. military involvement in Iraq and for repeated assaults on the rule of law. The hearing begins at 10:00am and can be viewed via the House Judiciary Committee's webcast.
"President Bush and senior members of his administration have repeatedly defied the Constitution, violated the law, put our country in jeopardy, and made a mockery of our judicial system," Hinchey said. "This hearing will enable the facts to be presented in a clear and straightforward way so that the Congress and the American people can more fully understand just how corruptly this administration has operated. With an eye toward the future, we must ensure that history books note that this Congress stood up to this administration and formally admonished it for all its violations of law."
Full transcript below the fold
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The House has sent articles of impeachment against George Bush to the House Judiciary Committee, however Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that an actual impeachment VOTE isn't on the table. On Wednesday's Countdown, Jonathan Turley gives his expert analysis on this epic fail as well as the latest attempt by the president to obstruct Congressional oversight by claiming executive privilege in the CIA/Plame leak investigation.
As for Bush's executive privilege claims, Turley goes right for the jugular. Attorney General Michael Mukasey all but begged the president not to make him testify about Dick Cheney's role in the Plame case and has ignored a subpoena to appear to testify about the matter before Congress -- which Turley says should prompt Congress to charge him with Inherent Contempt. That's not likely to happen, and as Jonathan points out, Democrats who voted for Mukasey are now getting what they paid for:
"...This is why, when Senators Shumer and Feinstein saved Mukasey's confirmation, this is what they purchased. And, what Congress needs to do, the only thing they can do, is bring back Inherent Contempt and to say they're going to start to exercise contempt on their own, that the deal is off. Attorney General Mukasey has broken a very long standing promise to be a faithful broker, to bring these cases to the grand jury - he won't. And Congress has a right to now say we're going back to doing this stuff ourselves."
David Addington today offered a preposterous reason for refusing to answer a question about whether or not he was party to talks about torture with his superiors -- al-Qaeda may be watching CSPAN and he can't give away any information that may benefit them. Really.
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DELAHUNT: Oh I can understand why [the President] doesn't talk about it.
ADDINGTON: Because you gotta communicate with al Qaeda. If you do -- I can't talk to you, al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN.
DELAHUNT: Right. Well, I'm sure they are watching, and I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you, Mr. Addington.
ADDINGTON: Yeah, I'm sure you're pleased.
UPDATE: Digby has much more on Addington:
Addington ought to be held in contempt of Congress for just plain contemptuousness. As Scott Horton noted on Pacifica's coverage, he clearly believes himself to be smarter than all the Representatives in the room, and he has no problem bullying them around the way he reportedly bullies everyone in the executive branch. He also doesn't mind lying about his role in designing torture tactics after a personal trip to Guantanamo...read on
Murray Waas' explosive investigative reporting on how more BushCo. cronyism led to a quarter of a billion dollars in payouts to loyal GOPers from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has led to at least one DOJ offical to be fired so far.
I was told that Murray's post called " The Price of Political Favoritism and Cronyism: Lost Lives," was used as source material during the hearing. While the lead cronyist----Robert Flores did testify, his his chief of staff, Michelle Dekonty, informed the committee through counsel that she was invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Well, she got fired.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this morning held a hearing on alleged favoritism in the awarding of grants by the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). While Robert Flores testified at length, his chief of staff, Michelle Dekonty, informed the committee through counsel that she was invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination...read on
Who can forget Rep Steve King's horrible words about Obama back in Iowa?
King: "And I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the, the radical Islamists, the, the al-Qaida, and the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11....
Well, he's baaaack. In one of the most reprehensible lines of questioning today - and Lord knows there were many as Republicans desperately try to outdo each other on who can cover Bush's ass best - GOP stooge Steve King takes the cake with this gem:
"Couldn't you have taken this to the grave with you and done this country a favor?"
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You see, in bizarro Republican world, staying silent and allowing your fellow citizens to remain clueless about how their leaders lie to them is the right, patriotic thing to do. Only traitors speak up about how their country is being flushed down the toilet when there's still time to actually do something about it.
You should be ashamed of yourself, Scott.
At an EPA hearing today on Capitol Hill about ozone standards, Henry Waxman got into a heated exchange with Administrator Stephen Johnson over his evasive non-answers to simple, straightforward questions about whether or not he had certain discussions with the White House about key environmental issues. It got so tense at one point that a frantically gavel-slamming Waxman threatened to have Rep Darrell Issa "physically removed" from the hearing if he continued to obstruct Waxman's line of inquiry. Classic.
It seems to me you're being awfully evasive and I don't know why you can't tell this committee whether you, in fact, had a discussion about this rule or that rule...either you did or you didn't and I don't know why you can't tell us that information.
"I will have you physically removed if you don't stop."
Why is it that conservatives consistently appoint people to head agencies who have nothing but contempt for the issues those agencies are supposed to oversee? Well, I guess they can't later claim that their self-fulfilling prophecy of "government is the problem" is true. The problem lies not with government, but rather with the stooges who run the government and appoint their incompetent cronies to fix problems they have no intention of fixing.
