For GOP only

[Rex Kickass]

It could also be the follow up to the secret session that Reid called last year regarding Iraq intelligence and the investigation that the 109th never actually got around to finishing.

[kapkomet]

It could also be the follow up to the secret session that Reid called last year regarding Iraq intelligence and the investigation that the 109th never actually got around to finishing.

Oh, but Rex, I thought they weren't going to waste their time on all the inquiries and all that crap? I thought they were "going to be above the fray"?

 

Pluuuuuheeease.

 

Anyone want to start an over/under when the censure/impeachment s*** starts up?

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Oh, but Rex, I thought they weren't going to waste their time on all the inquiries and all that crap? I thought they were "going to be above the fray"?

 

Pluuuuuheeease.

 

Anyone want to start an over/under when the censure/impeachment s*** starts up?

 

 

I give it a month or 2. Maybe 3 on the outside. Theres a lot of budget work that needs to get done.

[Balta1701]

I give it a month or 2. Maybe 3 on the outside. Theres a lot of budget work that needs to get done.

Which was technically supposed to be done 3 months ago by this Congress...but anyway...

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Which was technically supposed to be done 3 months ago by this Congress...but anyway...

 

 

Oh I know. Not like this is the 1st time Congress has failed to get spending bills done on time.

[Rex Kickass]

Oh, but Rex, I thought they weren't going to waste their time on all the inquiries and all that crap? I thought they were "going to be above the fray"?

 

Pluuuuuheeease.

 

Anyone want to start an over/under when the censure/impeachment s*** starts up?

 

When did I ever say that was going to happen? Of course there are going to be investigations. There needs to be some investigations. Especially about the situation in Iraq, and the terror front.

 

But from what I've read, this event is something Reid decided to do with the assistance and support of the new Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. And unrelated to that investigation that was promised but never done in the 109th.

[Balta1701]

When did I ever say that was going to happen? Of course there are going to be investigations. There needs to be some investigations. Especially about the situation in Iraq, and the terror front.

 

But from what I've read, this event is something Reid decided to do with the assistance and support of the new Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. And unrelated to that investigation that was promised but never done in the 109th.

The Republican Congress held over 150 hours of sworn testimony to determine whether or not President Clinton misused the White House Christmas Card List. The Republican Congress held about 12 hours of sworn testimony on Abu Ghraib.

Edited December 11, 2006 by Balta1701

[Rex Kickass]

Damn war on Chrimmas

[YASNY]

The Republican Congress held over 150 hours of sworn testimony to determine whether or not President Clinton misused the White House Christmas Card List. The Republican Congress held about 12 hours of sworn testimony on Abu Ghraib.

 

Christmas list? I thought he misused a cigar!

[Balta1701]

Christmas list? I thought he misused a cigar!

Something tells me that if I were to compare the number of hours of sworn congressional testimony on that matter to the entire number of hours of sworn testimony on the entire Iraq debacle, I'd come up with a similar ratio, or an even larger one.

[southsider2k5]

So remember the claims that the Foley emails were manipulated for political gain? Where there is smoke...

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20...23555-4731r.htm

 

Democrats shopped Foley story to papers

By Christina Bellantoni

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

December 12, 2006

 

 

Democratic campaign operatives pushed newspapers to write about then-Rep. Mark Foley's e-mails to teenage pages in the hope that a scandal would emerge before the midterm elections, according to a House ethics report.

 

The findings were bolstered when an aide to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Democrat, said the congressman also knew about the e-mails, which were dubbed "inappropriate" by the ethics panel. Mr. Emanuel, who was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) when Mr. Foley's sex scandal broke in late September, had denied knowledge of the Florida Republican's e-mails.

 

The House ethics panel, which is formally called the Standards of Official Conduct Committee, Friday released its final probe into Mr. Foley's behavior, scolding Republicans for failing to act on years of troubling signs and naming Democrats who knew about the e-mails.

 

CNN first reported Saturday that Mr. Emanuel, the incoming chairman of the Democratic caucus, was "informed" but never saw the e-mails that Mr. Foley sent to a former page in the summer of 2005.

 

An Emanuel aide yesterday confirmed to The Washington Times that DCCC staffer Bill Burton told the congressman about the Foley e-mails in fall 2005. The aide said Mr. Emanuel took no action because the e-mails were mentioned in passing as a "rumor" about Mr. Foley.

 

On Oct. 8, Mr. Emanuel was put on the spot during his appearance on ABC's "This Week."

 

"Did you or your staff know anything about these e-mails or instant messages before they came out?" host George Stephanopoulos asked. Mr. Emanuel interrupted with "No."

 

"George -- Never saw 'em," he said twice.

 

When Rep. Adam H. Putnam, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee and a guest on the show, started questioning Mr. Emanuel, the DCCC chairman blanched.

 

"What you guys want to do is take your dirty laundry and throw it over the fence and try to blame other people for the problems," Mr. Emanuel told the Florida Republican.

 

Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, North Carolina Republican, called the news "stunning," and accused Mr. Emanuel of letting a "predator roam free" for "cold, calculated political advantage."

 

The DCCC aide also told The Times that Democrats had no knowledge of the interest Mr. Foley had been displaying in pages, actions that prompted one Republican to tell the ethics panel Mr. Foley was like a "ticking time bomb."

 

The ethics report outlined the Republicans who were uncomfortable for a decade with Mr. Foley's behavior toward the pages, criticizing lawmakers for failing to follow up, but recommending no penalty. The panel found "political considerations played a role in decisions that were made," and theorized Republicans didn't act for fear of exposing Mr. Foley's homosexuality.

 

The page, sponsored by Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, said Mr. Foley was "starting to freak me out," the panel reported. The 16-year-old forwarded the Foley e-mails to fellow Alexander staffer Danielle Savoy, wondering whether he was just being "paranoid."

 

According to the panel, Miss Savoy forwarded the e-mails to a lobbyist friend, who forwarded them to her boyfriend, Justin Field, a staffer for the House Democratic Caucus. Mr. Field gave caucus press aide Matt Miller a copy of the e-mails. Mr. Miller testified he "feared nothing would come" of forwarding the messages to the ethics panel, which at the time was not even meeting because of partisan deadlock over other matters.

 

Instead, Mr. Miller redacted the page's name and faxed copies of the e-mails to reporters in Florida. Mr. Miller then alerted Mr. Burton, who worked for Mr. Emanuel at the DCCC, to see if his hunch was correct that a Foley story was brewing.

 

Mr. Burton spoke with a few reporters about the e-mails and mentioned them to Mr. Emanuel in passing, the DCCC aide said.

 

According to ethics panel testimony by the page's father, a staffer for Mr. Alexander told the family they did not have to speak with reporters who had been calling. The father also told the ethics panel that the staffer warned them that "Democrats would like to use something like this" for political gain.

 

ABC News first reported the existence of the e-mails to one page and later broke the news that Mr. Foley also had been sending sexually suggestive instant messages to other teenage pages. The news prompted Mr. Foley to resign and, according to most analysts, contributed to the Democratic wins in November.

 

The ethics report outlined several Republicans and staffers who were aware of Mr. Foley's drunken late-night visit to the page dormitory, but concluded no Republicans knew about the sexually explicit instant messages.

 

The ethics panel said the tone of the e-mails and instant messages were vastly different, but said Republicans failed to exercise due diligence about the e-mails back in 2005, when the former page told his friends on Capitol Hill the Foley e-mails were "sick."

 

Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi of California yesterday announced changes to the page board's structure and oversight in light of the ethics report. She said the board's membership will expand to include two page parents and that it will now have equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats.

[Balta1701]

So remember the claims that the Foley emails were manipulated for political gain? Where there is smoke...

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20...23555-4731r.htm

So, the Democrats who had them started sending them around to the press in late 2005 (something we already knew by the way). Clearly, they timed this because they knew that it would take 1 year for the Press to start believing in them, and then finally run with them, thus producing the perfect October surprise.

 

But you are missing the one interesting note in that article...Rahm Emmanuel is clearly a liar. Not exactly a surprise, but that one is a claim you could make and no one could possibly oppose you. It'd be nice if he were to get whatever punishment was meted out on the bunch of other Republicans who had a hint of it earlier. (which of course turned out to be no punishment at all).

[Balta1701]

Bloomberg.

 

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who has pledged to stop ``dead-of-night legislating,'' did a little of his own in the final hours of this year's congressional session.

 

Reid slipped two home state projects into the last major bill Congress passed last week: a transfer of federal land in Nevada to state and private control that's almost two-thirds the size of Rhode Island; and a $4 million grant for a hospice. Neither had been approved by any congressional committee.

 

Reid said the land measure will help Las Vegas and other cities in his state grow and the hospice money rights a flawed Medicare ruling. One senator and some government watchdog groups criticized the actions, pointing to promises by Reid and the new Democratic majority in Congress to change a lawmaking process known for targeted funding and secretive deals.

 

``Doing anything last minute shoved into an irrelevant measure -- that's exactly what Harry Reid said he was going to stop,'' said Steve Ellis, vice president of programs at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based nonprofit that monitors government spending. ``It goes against the grain of transparency and openness.''

[NorthSideSox72]

Bloomberg.

Nice way to start, jacka**. I really do think there are some in the democratic party who want to do positive things, but Reid is one who has never impressed me. He is not the guy I'd want leading the Senate.

[Balta1701]

Nice way to start, jacka**. I really do think there are some in the democratic party who want to do positive things, but Reid is one who has never impressed me. He is not the guy I'd want leading the Senate.

I think Harry Reid's done some darn good things already, but he's also got a bit of a dark streak in him where he's willing to compromise in areas he shouldn't. Certianly has a record thus far a ways in front of his predecessor, but he really needs to stop doing this sh*t.

 

Say what you want about the internet, the blogosphere, etc., but the one thing it's really good at is catching and publicising this sort of crap.

[NorthSideSox72]

I think Harry Reid's done some darn good things already, but he's also got a bit of a dark streak in him where he's willing to compromise in areas he shouldn't. Certianly has a record thus far a ways in front of his predecessor, but he really needs to stop doing this sh*t.

 

Say what you want about the internet, the blogosphere, etc., but the one thing it's really good at is catching and publicising this sort of crap.

I agree that the internet can be used as a nifty tool that way.

 

Tell me some things Reid has done "already" that are darn good. Seriously, I want to know.

[Balta1701]

I agree that the internet can be used as a nifty tool that way.

 

Tell me some things Reid has done "already" that are darn good. Seriously, I want to know.

Off the top of my head (yes, I know this is the GOP only thread), first holding together the Senate Dems in the face of Bush's Social Security assault last year which was very impressive, the move to the "closed session" to focus attention on the failure of the Senate to complete the WMD investigation, preventing the "Nuclear option" on Bush's judicial nominees, the agreement to keep the government running sans earmarks for the next year as a way of overcoming the Republicans failure to pass their budget bills, telling the Senate it's actually going to have to work more than 3 days a week next term (the horror!).

 

He's also made some important Dem infrastructure improvements, such as setting up a rapid-response system of the type the Republicans have had over the last few years, which has worked fairly well thus far. And of course, he won a damn election.

 

He's done just about as good of a job as I could have expected him to do given the total-minority position the Dems were in. 2 items of disappointment also come quickly to mind - the lack of a fight on the detainee bill the Republicans rushed through Congress before taking office, and the lack of an organized fight on Alito, were pretty big disappointments.

[YASNY]

Same song. Different beat.

[southsider2k5]

Sandy Berger hid and destroyed classified documents...

 

Gee I wonder who he was protecting?

 

Report Says Berger Hid Archive Documents

 

 

Email this Story

 

Dec 20, 7:56 PM (ET)

 

By LARRY MARGASAK

 

(AP) National Security Adviser Sandy Berger briefs reporters at the White House in this 1998 file photo....

Full Image

 

 

 

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WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton's national security adviser removed classified documents from the National Archives, hid them under a construction trailer and later tried to find the trash collector to retrieve them, the agency's internal watchdog said Wednesday.

 

The report was issued more than a year after Sandy Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removing the documents.

 

Berger took the documents in the fall of 2003 while working to prepare himself and Clinton administration witnesses for testimony to the Sept. 11 commission. Berger was authorized as the Clinton administration's representative to make sure the commission got the correct classified materials.

 

Berger's lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said in a statement that the contents of all the documents exist today and were made available to the commission.

 

But Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., outgoing chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said he's not convinced that the Archives can account for all the documents taken by Berger. Davis said working papers of National Security Council staff members are not inventoried by the Archives.

 

"There is absolutely no way to determine if Berger swiped any of these original documents. Consequently, there is no way to ever know if the 9/11 Commission received all required materials," Davis said.

 

Berger pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents. He was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.

 

Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that National Archives employees spotted Berger bending down and fiddling with something white around his ankles.

 

The employees did not feel at the time there was enough information to confront someone of Berger's stature, the report said.

 

Later, when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he lied by saying he did not take them, the report said.

 

Brachfeld's report included an investigator's notes, taken during an interview with Berger. The notes dramatically described Berger's removal of documents during an Oct. 2, 2003, visit to the Archives.

 

Berger took a break to go outside without an escort while it was dark. He had taken four documents in his pockets.

 

"He headed toward a construction area. ... Mr. Berger looked up and down the street, up into the windows of the Archives and the DOJ (Department of Justice), and did not see anyone," the interview notes said.

 

He then slid the documents under a construction trailer, according to the inspector general. Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.

 

"He was aware of the risk he was taking," the inspector general's notes said. Berger then returned to the Archives building without fearing the documents would slip out of his pockets or that staff would notice that his pockets were bulging.

 

The notes said Berger had not been aware that Archives staff had been tracking the documents he was provided because of earlier suspicions from previous visits that he was removing materials. Also, the employees had made copies of some documents.

 

In October 2003, the report said, an Archives official called Berger to discuss missing documents from his visit two days earlier. The investigator's notes said, "Mr. Berger panicked because he realized he was caught."

 

The notes said that Berger had "destroyed, cut into small pieces, three of the four documents. These were put in the trash."

 

After the trash had been picked up, Berger "tried to find the trash collector but had no luck," the notes said.

 

Significant portions of the inspector general's report were redacted to protect privacy or national security.

[kapkomet]

Sandy Berger hid and destroyed classified documents...

 

Gee I wonder who he was protecting?

But it's DIFFERENT! Obstruction of justice, etc. when it's to protect the Clintons is just protecting our country!

[NorthSideSox72]

But it's DIFFERENT! Obstruction of justice, etc. when it's to protect the Clintons is just protecting our country!

The strawman thing went out of style a while ago, Kap. No one has said anything to defend this, and I suspect no one will.

 

Its not different. Its the same. Show me where anyone other than you said otherwise.

[EvilMonkey]

The strawman thing went out of style a while ago, Kap. No one has said anything to defend this, and I suspect no one will.

 

Its not different. Its the same. Show me where anyone other than you said otherwise.

Well, the judge sure did by giving him a small fine and community service.

[NorthSideSox72]

Well, the judge sure did by giving him a small fine and community service.

He pleaded guilty to removing and retaining classified documents, not selling them to foreign countries. I wonder what the max penalty is for that? I'm guessing not much. Jail time may not have even been an option. I really don't know.

 

My point is, no one said this was OK, or "different", in any way shape or form. What penalty he received from the judge doesn't say anything about that.

 

Here is a question - what is a fair penalty for this, anyway? Just curious what people think.

[YASNY]

He pleaded guilty to removing and retaining classified documents, not selling them to foreign countries. I wonder what the max penalty is for that? I'm guessing not much. Jail time may not have even been an option. I really don't know.

 

My point is, no one said this was OK, or "different", in any way shape or form. What penalty he received from the judge doesn't say anything about that.

 

Here is a question - what is a fair penalty for this, anyway? Just curious what people think.

 

Obstruction of justice is not too much of a stretch here.

[NorthSideSox72]

Obstruction of justice is not too much of a stretch here.

Oh definitely. In fact I'd say its exactly that - the crime he pleaded to is just a version of such. And obstruction usually doesn't get people jail time (Martha aside for the moment). It CAN, though.

 

So, should Berger have gone to jail?