Kerry lays out case against torture bill; reasons to bring back oversight

[ProSense]

Video clip:

John Kerry Speaks Against Torture

Text of Kerry's speech:

09/28/2006

Kerry Opposes Senate's Failure on Torture Compromise

Let me be clear about something—something that it seems few people are willing to say. This bill permits torture.

Declassified NIE

Kerry on the NIE:

“The National Intelligence Estimate provides jarring confirmation that the disastrous policy in Iraq is a giant recruiting poster for terrorists and it is weakening our hand in the war on terror. Terrorist organizations from Al Qaeda to Hezbollah are thrilled that we are bogged down in Iraq, even as the Administration misleads America with fear and sloganeering.

“The truth is clear: Rather than being the central front in the war on terror President Bush claims, Iraq is a fuel depot for terror fanning the flames of worldwide jihadism. Incompetence and ideology has left us with more terrorists in the world who want to kill Americans.

“Make no mistake, there is no way to regain lost ground in the war on terror without redeploying out of Iraq and making Iraqis stand up for Iraq. We must set a deadline to get out of Iraq and refocus on the real war on terror.”

The Abramoff Investigation

House Democrats' document:

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM — MINORITY STAFF
SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS DIVISION
JANUARY 17, 2006

CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT OF THE
BUSH ADMINISTRATION

PREPARED FOR
REP. HENRY A. WAXMAN

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................................................1
I. MANIPULATION OF IRAQ INTELLIGENCE...............................................................................2
II. TREATMENT OF DETAINEES.............................................................................................5
III. LEAK OF A COVERT CIA AGENT’S STATUS..........................................................................7
IV. AWARD OF HALLIBURTON CONTRACTS ..............................................................................9
V. WHITE HOUSE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE KATRINA RESPONSE ..............................................10
VI. SECRET NSA WIRETAPS ...............................................................................................11
VII. VICE PRESIDENT’S ENERGY TASK FORCE.........................................................................12
VIII. WITHHOLDING OF MEDICARE COST ESTIMATES ..............................................................13
IX. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AT MULTIPLE FEDERAL AGENCIES AND THE WHITE HOUSE.................14
X. POLITICIZATION OF THE FEDERAL SCIENCE-BASED AGENCIES ..............................................15
XI. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ENFORCEMENT OF VOTING RIGHTS LAWS ..........................................16
XII. CONTRACT ABUSES AT THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY .....................................17
XIII. INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS AT EPA ................................................................................18
XIV. INFLUENCE OF TOBACCO INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS ON U.S. TOBACCO POLICIES ........................19
XV. FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN ASHCROFT’S CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING ACTIVITIES..............19

Snip (pg. 1)
This report identifies 15 key oversight issues involving President Bush and his Administration that Congress has failed to investigate. They are:

• The role of the White House in manipulating intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda;
• The responsibility of senior Administration officials for the abuse of detainees;
• The role of White House officials in leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent;
• The role of the Vice President’s office in the award of Halliburton contracts;
• The responsibility of senior White House officials in the failed response to Hurricane Katrina;
• The secret wiretapping of U.S. citizens by the National Security Agency;
• The identity of the energy industry contributors who met with the Vice President’s energy task force;
• The role of the White House in withholding key Medicare cost estimates from Congress;
• Evidence of conflicts of interest at multiple federal agencies and the White House;
• The increasing politicization of science-based federal agencies;
• The failure of the Department of Justice to enforce voting rights laws;
• Contract abuses at the Department of Homeland Security;
• The influence of industry lobbyists in writing EPA regulations;
• The influence of the tobacco industry lobbyists on U.S. tobacco policies; and
• The role of former Attorney General John Ashcroft in illegal campaign finance activities.

The report examines the response of the Republican-controlled Congress to these 15 oversight issues. In each case, a large “accountability gap” has emerged. Despite repeated requests by Democratic members and news reports raising allegations of serious misconduct, the Congress has failed to convene hearings, issue subpoenas, and take the other steps necessary to fulfill its constitutional oversight role.


Snip (pg. 4)...

On multiple occasions, Republican Committee chairmen in the House have denied requests from ranking Democratic members to hold hearings into the manipulation of Iraq intelligence. On July 15, 2003, Rep. Waxman asked Rep. Porter Goss, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to hold hearings in the use of the forged nuclear evidence.9 On October 4, 2004, Rep. Waxman asked Rep. Tom Davis, the Chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, to hold hearings on new revelations casting doubt on the “nuclear tubes” evidence cited by multiple Administration officials.10 On June 30, 2005, Rep. John Conyers and over 50 other Democratic members of Congress asked Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of House Judiciary Committee, to hold hearings into the “Downing Street Memo,” a British document suggesting the United States and the United Kingdom may have manipulated intelligence about Iraq.11 And on November 4, 2005, Rep. Jane Harman asked Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the new Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to examine “how intelligence products and presentations were developed, whether dissents were properly reflected, and what steps, if any, were taken by the IC to correct misstatements of intelligence by senior Administration
officials.”12 All of these requests were ignored or rejected.

On the Senate side, after pressure from Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said in February 2004 that the Committee would look at this issue.13 But he subsequently stated the matter is “basically on the back burner.”14 Following the disclosure of the Downing Street Memo, Senator John Kerry and other Democratic Senators again urged Senate intelligence committee hearings on Iraq intelligence, but the Chairman declined this request.15

http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20060117103554-62297.pdf

[Don1]

1. Good Stuff

"Mr. President, we all want to stop terrorist attacks. We all want to effectively gather as much intelligence as humanly possible. We all want to bring those who do attack us to justice. But, we weaken – not strengthen – our ability to do that when we undermine our own Constitution; when we throw away our system of checks and balances; when we hold detainees indefinitely without trial by destroying the Writ of Habeas Corpus; and when we permit torture. We endanger our moral authority at our great peril. I oppose this legislation because it will make us less safe and less secure. I urge my colleagues to do the same. " -- John Kerry

[chill_wind]

2. Good Kerry stuff. And there's Henry Waxman at work again.

God, how I love that man's diligence!

[karynnj]

3. That speech is incredible

The written speech is much longer and makes an incredibly strong case, but this is so focused and clear - this bill allows torture. I wish some of the 65 would have actually listened to the words and looked into their consciences.

[ohtransplant]

4. The guy is everywhere.

People may even start to take notice.

He's been right on so many issues - with his Dayton plan having been in the Defense bill - the national media might even have to start reporting on him.

Go figure...

[OneBlueSky]

5. here's what puzzles me about Kerry and others who are . . .

speaking out so strongly against the torture bill now that it's been passed . . . (although I'm delighted that they are) . . .

if they feel this strongly about it, why weren't they demanding that their party at least attempt to filibuster it before it was passed? . . .

I know that some were speaking against it before passage, but did they not consider this a serious enough affront to the Constitution to do everything and anything in their power to stop it? . . .

and if not, why not . . .

[ProSense]

6. This wasn't after the bill.

Senator Kerry made this case against the bill on the Senate floor before the vote. It was an extremely strong and damning case, but those who voted for the bill obviously had other inexplicable concerns. They obviously were not going to support a filibuster. This was not the same as the Alito filibuster attempt when enough Democrats intended to vote no anyway. In this case, too many, enough to spoil a filibuster, intended to and did vote yes.

[karynnj]

8. Kerry has spoken out very strongly against torture all month

Far more than anyone else. On September 7, he was on Hardball and in answer to what torture was acceptable, he said: "No torture, period", in a big "Faneuil Hall speech on Real Security, he talked about the need for moral leadership and spoke against torture. At Pepperdine, he very emotionally answered a question on toture to applause from a conservative crowd. He also spoke against it in a speech on foreign policy the morning of the day of the vote. This speech was given before the vote.

I assume that Kerry and others DID question a filibuster in their caucus meeting, but you need 41 Senators to filibuster - there were only 34 who voted against it. They did so after hearing this clear cut argument why not to vote for it.

It seems what happened was the trio of Republican Senators were given creit for fixing the bill until they caved a week before the bill - the actual bill was being rewritten up till the day before the vote. This left no time to raise a public outcry. Most of the media was still praising McCain. Kerry did every thing he could - given a party that still triangulates.

[Laurab]

9. Kennedy said

they didn't have the votes to filibuster (on Yahoo interview - sorry I don't have a link, but it's on here somewhere). So, obviously, some people wanted to. While I don't want the dems to be in lockstep on everything, this is one case where I wish we had a Frist/Delay type to MAKE them be in lockstep.

It's really sad that some dems were apparently more worried about re-election than about giving * the authority to torture, but if it helps them get re-elected, and we take the majority, those are the dems I'd like to see gone - but not until AFTER we have the majority.

[blm]

12. Reid made a trade to get Dem amendments to the bill - I think so-called

moderate GOPs made noises like they would be voting for the Dem bills, and then when they actually came up, voted with Bush.

Unfortunately Reid traded the filibuster in exchange for adding the Dem amendments to the schedule.

Reid and the Dems are always stuck countering unethical GOPs who change the rules at will.

The next Dem president will have to issue an executive order that this country goes back to Geneva Convention rules.

[texpatriot2004]

7. Thank you Senator Kerry nm

[ProSense]

10. "This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified? "

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Many in this country and around the world believe that the United Nations involvement in Iraq is necessary because the way you've conducted the war in Iraq is illegitimate and has lowered the moral standing of the United States around the world. However, one could also argue that the United Nations has moral authority problems of its own with the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq, for instance. How do you respond to those who think that the United Nations has greater moral standing in the world than the United States? Or do you think the United States maybe is held to a higher standard than the United Nations?

THE PRESIDENT: I think the United States is a strong, compassionate nation. And as President of a strong, compassionate nation, I'll do what it takes to defend us. We're at war. We're at war with an enemy who killed thousands of our citizens on September the 11th, 2001. And since that time, they've killed hundreds elsewhere. They're killers, and I have an obligation to defend our country.

And the war on terror is a different kind of war. It requires international cooperation to fight it. And there's excellent international cooperation in the war against terror. There's excellence -- there's excellent intelligence-sharing, not only with nations in the G8, but nations throughout the world. There's excellent law enforcement operations -- joint operations. We have got special forces from Europe side-by-side with special forces in the United States in remote regions of Afghanistan trying to find remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda. There's substantial cooperation.

Snip...

Q Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we've learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?

THE PRESIDENT: Look, I'm going to say it one more time. If I -- maybe -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of -- from me to the government.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040610-36.html

Oops! Lying!

[brainshrub]

11. Did he filibuster?

Nope.

Oh never mind.

[ProSense]

13. There weren't enough no votes to filibuster.

SENATOR KENNEDY: Well, you're absolutely right in terms of your understanding of what took place on the floor of the United States Senate. I welcomed the opportunity to stand with the thirty-four Democrats, one Republican, on this. Three-quarters of the Democrats opposed the legislation; virtually all the Republicans supported it. We haven't got the votes for the, we didn't have the votes in terms of filibustering that legislation.

[brainshrub]

15. BS. You need no votes to filibuster.

You just get up and start talking. That's the point of a filibuster.

It might get overturned, but at least you make it clear that you are against this:

http://www.brainshrub.com/node/526 (YouTube video)

The fact that no Dems make the effort to do so is pathetic.

[ProSense]

16. Nonsense!

In 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, he threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton rebuked Clay for trying to stifle the Senate's right to unlimited debate.

Three quarters of a century later, in 1917, senators adopted a rule (Rule 22), at the urging President Woodrow Wilson, that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote, a device known as "cloture." The new Senate rule was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. Even with the new cloture rule, filibusters remained an effective means to block legislation, since a two-thirds vote is difficult to obtain. Over the next five decades, the Senate occasionally tried to invoke cloture, but usually failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote. Filibusters were particularly useful to Southern senators who sought to block civil rights legislation, including anti-lynching legislation, until cloture was invoked after a fifty-seven day filibuster against the Civil Right Act of 1964. In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or sixty of the current one hundred senators.

Many Americans are familiar with the filibuster conducted by Jimmy Stewart, playing Senator Jefferson Smith in Frank Capra's film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but there have been some famous filibusters in the real-life Senate as well. During the 1930s, Senator Huey P. Long effectively used the filibuster against bills that he thought favored the rich over the poor. The Louisiana senator frustrated his colleagues while entertaining spectators with his recitations of Shakespeare and his reading of recipes for "pot-likkers." Long once held the Senate floor for fifteen hours. The record for the longest individual speech goes to South Carolina's J. Strom Thurmond who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm

An attempted filibuster is a delay tactic without the votes to support it! They didn't have the votes!

[karynnj]

18. Not true - those were old rules You need 41 votes to filibuster

The Senators get only the time they are allocated. For instance, Kerry was allocated 5 minutes to speak. Here Reid and Frist agreed to 2 hours of debate followed by a vote. Each Senator had to negotiate to get time. (Tom Harkin actually gave his speech after the vote - to get it on record)

The Senate rules usually involve Frist calling a cloture vote. That is a vote that will limit the date to a specific number of hours at which time the vote will occur. To "filibuster", you need 41 Senators to vote "nay" to cloture. In this case, they didn't even need a cloture vote (which they would have lost), the time for the vote was agreed upon by Reid and Frist.

[TayTay]

20. No it isn't. That isn't done that way anymore

And has been for a long, long time.

It was obvious that a vote was taken in the Dem Caucus in the Senate last Tuesday and the votes for a filibuster weren't there. That's why there was no filibuster.

If you have a problem with that then maybe you should take it up with the Dems who voted for the Torture Bill and not the ones who voted against it. (But then again, why pass up another chance to beat up people who are working for the issues you agree with. Sigh!)

[blm]

14. Reid gave up the minority party's right to filibuster this bill in

exchange for Democratic amendments being allowed a vote.

As president, I have no doubt Kerry would issue an executive order returning this country to the Geneva Convention agreements.

[IndianaGreen]

19. There is a pattern here, Reid wasn't happy about Kerry

filibustering Alito.

The Democratic Amendments had no chance of passage. The Reid capitulation on the torture bill was a shameful spectacle, one of many capitulations by Reid on crucial core issues.

[blm]

21. I think Reid gave up filibuster to prevent a Kerry, a Kennedy or Feingold

type of senator FROM launching this filibuster.

Remember, they were not ONLY mad about Kerry-Kennedy filibustering Alito which put them in a bad spotlight according to them, but they were still FURIOUS about Kerry-Feingold withdrawal plan vote which helped turn many Democrats in Connecticut AWAY from Lieberman after he went to the senate floor speaking for the GOP. That was the last straw for many Dems who switched to Lamont and never looked back.But senators like Reid and Clinton pledged their support to Lieberman.

[IndianaGreen]

17. If the Democrats take Congress, we must demand the Republic be restored

In practical terms, this means reversing everything the Bush regime has done to amass power since 9-11. We either restore the republic, or we will lose our country forever to tyranny.

[blm]

22. Someone asked Kerry in Q&A how it can be restored and he said it can be

done "overnight" as soon as another administration takes over. I read that as by executive order.

[ProSense]

23. 9/11 Commission saw the 'scary' briefing of 2001 (left out of report)

Posted on Mon, Oct. 02, 2006

9/11 Commission saw the 'scary' briefing of 2001

By JONATHAN S. LANDAY, WARREN P. STROBEL and JOHN WALCOTT
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission was given the same “scary” briefing about an imminent al Qaida attack on a U.S. target that was presented to the White House two months before the attacks, but failed to disclose the warning in its 428-page report.

Former CIA Director George Tenet presented the briefing to commission member Richard Ben Veniste and executive director Philip Zelikow in secret testimony at CIA headquarters on Jan. 28, 2004, said three former senior agency officials.

Tenet raised the matter himself, displayed slides from a Power Point presentation that he and other officials had given to then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on July 10, 2001, and offered to testify on the matter in public if the commission asked him to, they said.

In the briefing, Tenet warned "in very strong terms" that intelligence from a variety of sources indicated that Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization was planning an attack on a U.S. target in the near future, but didn't provide specifics about the exact timing or nature of a possible attack, or about whether it would take place in the United States or overseas, said the former senior intelligence officials, all of whom requested anonymity because Tenet’s presentation was classified.

Snip...

The 9/11 panel, however, never asked for additional information or mentioned the briefing in their report.

more...

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/15662785.htm

So much to investigate!