Henry Waxman is doing yeoman work today at a House Oversight Committee hearing on Blackwater, not only taking them to task for the irresonsible and lawless behavior of their security personnel within Iraq, but directly blaming the State Department for blocking meaningful investigation.
Waxman pointed to a Dec. 2006 incident, in which a drunken Blackwater contractor shot the guard of the Iraqi vice president:
The State Department advised Blackwater how much to pay the family to make the problem go away and then allowed the contractor to leave Iraq just 36 hours after the shooting. Incredibly, internal e-mails documented the debate over the size of the payment. The charge d'affaire recommended a $250,000 payment but this was cut to $15,000 because the diplomatic security service said Iraqis would try to get themselves killed for such a large payout.
Waxman noted that in light of such evidence, it's hard "not come to the conclusion that the State Department is acting as Blackwater's enabler."
If Henry Waxman today wants to go to Iraq and do an investigation, Blackwater will be his support team. His protection team. Do you think he really wants to investigate directly?
It's hard to characterize this as anything but a veiled threat. Disgraceful.
(Incidentally, for another California connection, the CEO of Blackwater was an intern for Dana Rohrabacher many years ago. Can you say "conflict of interest"?)
I'm guessing that at tonight's Calitics' Actblue Celebrations there will be a lot of discussion about the votes to condemn MoveOn. The CA delegation split 50-50 in the senate and 16 yea and 17 nay in the house -- wedged successfully by the GOP in half. After the flip is the scorecard.
Yesterday, the UN held a major conference on climate change (Bush was a no-show) and the Secretary-General called for immediate action to preserve the future of the planet. In a separate event, the President will call for a consensus about the world's highest-emitting nations that would allow each to set their own voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions instead of it being ordered by an international treaty.
Not a good idea, I know. But let's accept Bush's logic for a moment (and only a moment, before you slip into dementia). He believes that governing entities should be given latitude to make the climate change policies that they see fit, rather than having them signaled from on high. Unless, of course, that refers to states in this country and the one on high is him:
The Bush administration has conducted a concerted, behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to try to generate opposition to California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, according to documents obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform [...]
A flurry of e-mails among Transportation Department (DOT) officials and between its staffers and the White House, released yesterday, highlights efforts that administration officials have made to stir up public opposition to the waiver. Rather than attacking California's request outright, Bush officials quietly reached out to two dozen congressional offices and a handful of governors to try to undermine it.
One May 22 e-mail written by Jeff Shane, undersecretary of transportation for policy, outlined how Transportation Secretary Mary Peters orchestrated the campaign. Peters "asked that we develop some ideas asap about facilitating a pushback from governors (esp. D's) and others opposed to piecemeal regulation of emissions, as per CA's waiver petition," Shane wrote. "She has heard that such objections could have an important effect on the way Congress looks at the issue."
Not wanting to miss out on the growing uproar over the Dirty Tricks Initiative plan, The Hill breaks down the plans of California's Congressional Delegation to get involved. Representative Darrell Issa sounded less than enthusiastic about members of the Republican delegation getting involved, saying "We barely mention them until they qualify...Usually they're just talked about to get us to spend money."
Democrats on the other hand sound ready to battle. Rep. Waxman leads off:
"We'll all be part of an effort to fight it," Rep. Henry Waxman said of his fellow California Democrats. "We've been successful in beating back efforts in the past."
And then Rep. Lofgren starts talking strategy:
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the state's Democratic delegation, estimated that all California Democrats in Congress "are going to oppose it."
She emphasized that the campaign is a long way away but said Democrats are taking the effort very seriously and plan to let their constituents know about its true intent: helping Republicans elect the next president.
On the flip, analysis and a Republican acknowledges reality, even in passing.
We all know about Ellen Tauscher not knowing that Alberto Gonzales can be impeached; she cleared that one up. Now we have a report from the LA National Impeachment Center, including a lot of my fellow 41st AD delegates, on a meeting they held this week with Henry Waxman:
Towards the end of the meeting, Dorothy Reik, President of Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains, urged Waxman to use the inherent contempt power of Congress to bring criminal charges against Bush and Cheney and their aides, hold a hearing in Congress on those charges, and then hand down the punishment, prison time. Reik expressed frustration with the refusal of Bush administration officials to testify before congressional committees, despite the fact that subpoenas had been issued.
Your witnesses aren't showing up -- They're ignoring your subpoenas, said Reik, so it is time for you, Congressman Waxman, to recognize that there is a precedent for members of congress to initiate and follow through on criminal proceedings.
Waxman said he was unaware of the inherent contempt power. In a follow-up letter after the meeting, Winograd emailed him information on the inherent contempt precedent.
Inherent contempt hasn't been used in decades, so it's a little excusable. But Congressmen like Waxman ought to know about all of the tools at their disposal in fighting the intransigence of the Bush Administration and getting to the truth.
Waxman's thoughts on other topics, including impeachment, on the flip.
We didn't need any more evidence that the Bush Administration uses the executive branch as a political instrument. But this latest example shows that they will use federal agencies to work to oppose legislative efforts at the state level, making a complete mockery of the entire premise of federalism itself.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Henry Waxman has received information that the Department of Transportation has been lobbying members of Congress to oppose state efforts, sought by California and others, to regulate tailpipe emissions. California is waiting for an EPA waiver to implement their tailpipe emissions proposal. The Governor has threatened to sue the EPA if they don't receive that waiver. The first roadblock that the EPA tried was to appeal to the Supreme Court by claiming that they didn't have the ability to regulate greenhouse gases, but in a landmark decision the Supreme Court said that they did. So plan B, apparently, is to use the DOT to threaten legislators in automobile-producing districts that their local economies would be severly impacted by any efforts to regulate. This excerpt is from a letter by Waxman to Transportation Secretary Mary Peters:
I watched a little of today's hearing on Iraq war profiteering and contracting. It's really nothing short of amazing. It's like watching the movie Iraq For Sale in Congressional hearing form. They're focusing on Blackwater Securities today, whose contract for Iraq couldn't even be found until today, and who were sending out truck drivers without proper equipment to save money, while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars through overcharging the government. It's great to see these bastards nailed to the wall.
And the man who's putting this all together is my Congressman, Henry Waxman. He is nothing short of heroic for bringing the spotlight to this war profiteering in his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. And he's a dogged investigator and questioner. He painted the picture in yesterday's session with Paul Bremer of the Federal Reserve packing 363 tons of cash in palettes onto military aircraft to be sent to Iraq to simply be passed out. Today, Waxman repeatedly asked a spokeswoman from the Army how many security contractors they have hired, and she dodged and dodged and finally had to answer that she didn't know the precise number. And finally, there was his brilliant smackdown of GOP attack dog Rep. Patrick McHenry, who spent the entire session trying to blame profiteering on the Clinton Administration and calling it a show trial: he said "I suggest the Congressman return under his rock."
Waxman deserves a lot of credit for his pursuit of lawbreaking and official corruption. And his reputation in this district is gold sterling. He was right there on the front page of the New York Times the other day. And he's a great, longtime champion for liberal values. He took on the cigarette companies. He wrote the Clean Air Act. And on and on.
However, it's important to note that Waxman voted for the war, is not part of the Out of Iraq caucus, and while he has finally come out against the escalation, is "on the fence" about de-funding the war and bringing the troops home.
Originally I had planned on only doing this until the election, but I've found it quite satisfying to just write a short pithy comment on each story and move on to the next. Also, I felt that I had been ignoring so many issues out there. These will probably be shorter now, but I'll try to get these out daily during the week. No guarantees though. :)
So, teasers: Waxman attacks?, Jerry goes to DC, the failure of the metrics, and the LA Times saga continues. Plus more!!
The Ojai Post has a great, er, post about Michael Tenenbaum, Republican candidate for CA-24, a trial attorney who seems to be at odds with the Republican policy of attacking trial attorneys.
Bob Harris does a nice roundup and summary of the "crime" and prosecution of the man who blew the whistle on Diebold's failure to comply with Californa law.
