Clipmarks | Congress Clips

New progressive movement emerging from Denver?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:15:13 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Beyond the spectacle, something deeper and more important was taking place.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

I can also report that this spectacle actually had value

it will likely be remembered as one of many events that helped forge a contemporary progressive movement.

the convention's value was most pronounced at the interpersonal level where liberal activists kibbutzed with campaign operatives, bloggers met politicians, and -- as I saw firsthand -- potential Obama administration officials began dialoguing with Congress' most committed progressive leaders.

Standing in the hot sun on the convention's third day, I happened to be arguing trade policy with Austan Goolsbee, the moderate University of Chicago professor who is Barack Obama's chief economic adviser. In the corner of my eye, I saw an old Capitol Hill acquaintance, Rep. Peter DeFazio -- the progressive champion from Oregon. I introduced the two, and within minutes they were finding points of agreement on economic issues.

I considered how many similar bridge-building conversations were happening all week

Tags: denver, dnc

Blessed By Misfortune - McCain’s Speech

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:56:20 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: McCain has changed the GOP into the party outside the mess in DC and ready to clean it up. The liberals played the useful idiot roles by giving McCain the opportunity to go off speech and use them of an example of why hyper partisanship has destroyed DC. We don’t want purity to party, we want solutions to problems. McCain reminded us we can easily solve the aging and dysfunctional services like education, energy, taxes, security, etc.

McCain, through his own riveting personal story of transformation from self centered cocky fly boy to dedicated man of his country, reintroduced himself to America, and reintroduced us to ourselves. The speech was a huge hit. And the comparisons to Obama were striking.

Clip Source: strata-sphere.com

The John McCain I met tonight was incredibly Reaganesque as he reminded us that American pride comes from winning the fight - not from whining for handouts as victims.

We all know those things we have had to fight to gain, those times we were tested and succeeded, were the most memorable of our existence. Trivial and easy equals forgettable.

Obama and the left want to whine and moan about how hard it all is and how we must ask government to take care of us. Very European.

While the left wallow in the challenges facing this nation and wring their hands praying for government solutions, McCain said if government and gridlock gets out of the way we could fix them.

McCain wants to fix government so we can fix our problems. Obama wants us to hand our problems to the idiots in DC to fix, who got us in this mess in the first place.

If the do-nothing Congress would get out of the way we would be building nuclear power plants, drilling for oil here in the US and easing the cost of energy

Tags: mccain's speech, education, energy, taxes, security

Abramoff asks for Mercy

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:52:23 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Here's your true face of the Rethuglicans...corruption, and mewling beggars for mercy when caught!

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Jack Abramoff, once a top GOP lobbyist, is asking a federal judge to show mercy when she sentences him Thursday.

Jack Abramoff, once a top Republican lobbyist on K Street, is asking a federal judge to show mercy when she sentences him Thursday in an epic corruption case that continues to rock Capitol Hill and the GOP establishment.

Abramoff, who is already serving a 70-month sentence stemming from his fraudulent purchase of a Florida casino-cruise ship company, will go before District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle to be sentenced in a scandal that resulted in a prison term for one former member of Congress, a dozen other guilty pleas by former Republican aides and officials, and new ethics legislation enacted at the start of the 110th Congress.

In an e-mail letter to Huvelle that was released on Wednesday, Abramoff told the judge that he was "not a bad man (although to read all the news articles one would think I was Osama Bin Laden), but I did many bad things.

Comcast to sue FCC

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:06:28 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: arstechnica.com

Federal Communications Commission Chair Kevin Martin said today that he was "disappointed" by Comcast's decision to sue the FCC over its move to sanction the company for P2P throttling.

Anticipating Comcast's arguments that the FCC has no jurisdiction to sanction its behavior, Martin reminded the company that when the FCC approved it and Time-Warners' acquisition of Adelphia Communications in July of 2006, the FCC "put Comcast on notice" that it would act on complaints of degraded Internet content. "Comcast nonetheless chose to close on that deal," Martin noted.

The FCC still wants answers, Martin's statement concludes. "Perhaps more importantly, Comcast's subscribers deserve to know the answers."

"The future of the Internet is too important to let Comcast tie it up in legal limbo," Scott said. "Congress should act now to pass net neutrality laws that clear up any uncertainty once and for all."

Tags: fcc, comcast, internet, bandwidth, lawsuit

VP Candidate Biden Is No Friend to File Sharing, Net Neutrality Protection or Online Privacy

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:47:41 GMT

clipped by: The REAL Napster
clipper's remarks: I wonder how many young voters know this about the choice their 'messiah' has made for them? I'll bet very few. I'll make sure the word quickly gets out.

Clip Source: gizmodo.com

VP Candidate Biden Is No Friend to File Sharing, Net Neutrality Protection or Online Privacy

CNet's Declan McCullagh wrote up an informative history of Joe Biden's tech-related voting record—if Biden's name rings a bell, it's because he's the guy Barack Obama picked to be his vice president last Friday night. Maybe you don't care about the doings in Washington, but you may want to know that Biden considers a lot of what you do care about criminal activity. Here's what I'm talking about:

• He asked Congress to spend $1 billion to monitor peer-to-peer activity. (In fairness, much of this is to prevent child pornography, but the tactic is apparently a little blunt.)

• He has expressed support for internet taxes and internet filtering in schools and libraries.

• Biden was one of just four senators invited to attend a celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA's Jack Valenti and the RIAA's Hillary Rosen, two of American file-sharer's most wanted.

Tags: joe biden, riaa, net neutrality, taxes, p2p, jail

JAIL for the Rest of the Criminals

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:27:27 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: Don't stop now! Arrest the Gang that also profited from his deceptions among them Bush and Cohorts.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

Lobbyist Abramoff gets four years in prison

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose corruption scandal shook up Washington's power elite and contributed to the Republican loss of control in Congress, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in federal prison.

Abramoff is already serving a nearly six-year term on unrelated charges and the new sentence will be served at the same time, meaning he will not spend any extra time behind bars once his original sentence ends in 2012.

"I've fallen into an abyss, your honor, and I don't quite know how to get out," he said.

Several members of Indian tribes victimized by Abramoff urged the judge to give him the maximum sentence, but one tribal member spoke in his defense. Huvelle said because Abramoff cooperated with authorities on other criminal investigations, his sentence was significantly reduced from what guidelines suggested.

fraud charges in the purchase of a Florida casino cruise line

Ecuador Constitution Would Grant Inalienable Rights To Nature

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:43:43 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: A wonderful thing, this....Good for Ecuador and we could take example.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

Ecuador's proposed constitution includes an article that grants nature the right to "exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution" and will grant legal standing to any person to defend those rights in court.

A sea lion pup on Santiago Island, one of Ecuador's famed Galapagos Islands. (MELANIE STETSON FREEMAN/STAFF/FILE)

Voters will get to decide on Sept. 28 whether to adopt the new constitution, which would allow the president to run for reelection, to dissolve Congress, and to exert great control over the country's central bank. According to Reuters, 56 percent of Ecuadorans approve of the proposed document.

The blog Green Change quotes the five articles that acknowledge rights said to be possessed by nature, or "Pachamama," a goddess revered by indigenous Andean peoples whose name roughly translates into "Mother Earth."

rights to nature may represent a larger shift in how humans view their place

US aide lied about lobbyist links

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:02:17 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A jury in the United States has found a former top Bush administration aide, David Safavian, guilty of lying about his ties to a disgraced lobbyist.

Safavian was chief of staff at the General Services Administration

The trial was the first connected to the scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff, convicted fraud, tax evasion and bribing public officials.

Abramoff is now helping prosecutors with their corruption inquiry.

Safavian resigned last year from his post as the US government's chief procurement officer.

The jury found Safavian guilty on four counts of lying and obstructing justice.

Once one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington DC, Abramoff pleaded guilty in January to fraud, tax evasion and bribery charges.

That guilty plea sparked speculation that several members of Congress could potentially find themselves indicted and prompted Democrats to denounce what they called a Republican culture of corruption.

US lobbyist jailed for corruption

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:59:36 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been sentenced to four years in prison for corruption.

Abramoff's assistance led to other corruption convictions

Abramoff had pleaded guilty in a Washington court to charges of trading expensive gifts, meals and sports trips in exchange for political favours

The case caused a scandal in Washington and sparked off a wide-ranging public corruption probe

The court had heard how Abramoff made tens of millions of dollars by steering clients to consultants who charged excessive fees and then split the profits with him

In 3,000 hours of interviews with the FBI, he gave information leading to the conviction of a string of lawmakers and high-profile political figures, including one member of Congress

He said that much of the activity of Washington "lives in the loopholes" but that he had "blundered farther than even those excesses would allow

The BBC's Richard Lister in Washington says that the scandal was a disaster for the Republican party

Inaleinable Rights For Nature

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:58:58 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: Every Country Should Grant Nature By Definition Its Inalienable Rights, Ecuador may just be on to something here

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

Ecuador Constitution Would Grant Inalienable Rights To Nature

A sea lion pup on Santiago Island, one of Ecuador's famed Galapagos Islands. (MELANIE STETSON FREEMAN/STAFF/FILE)

Palin's credibility

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:07:27 GMT

clipped by: lp97702
clipper's remarks: She's got credibility problems...

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

Tags: palin

New Spy Software Coming On-Line: "Surveillance in a Box" Makes its Debut

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:21:16 GMT

clipped by: pperazzo

Clip Source: www.globalresearch.ca

New Spy Software Coming On-Line: "Surveillance in a Box" Makes its Debut

You've heard of the FBI's "Quantico Circuit" and were outraged by illegal warrantless wiretapping by Bushist minions. To no avail, you flooded Congress with emails and phone calls, angered by the bipartisan "FISA Amendments Act of 2008" and the swell party thrown by AT&T for "Blue Dog" Democrats in Denver this week for the convention.

According to New Scientist, German electronics giant Siemens has developed software allegedly capable of integrating

...tasks typically done by separate surveillance teams or machines, pooling data from sources such as telephone calls, email and internet activity, bank transactions and insurance records. It then sorts through this mountain of information using software that Siemens dubs "intelligence modules". (Laura Margottini, "Surveillance Made Easy," New Scientist, 23 August 2008)

Palin

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:05:10 GMT

clipped by: lp97702

Clip Source: www.bloglines.com

I suspended the state fuel tax, and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. Strike One.

I told the Congress “thanks, but no thanks,” for that Bridge to Nowhere. Strike Two.

If our state wanted a bridge, we’d build it ourselves. When oil and gas prices went up dramatically, and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged - directly to the people of Alaska. Strike Three.

Bush Seeks New Congressional War on Terror Declaration

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:47:06 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Another attempt by the Bushistas to keep us on a permanent war footing and economy. The War Profiteers no doubt will love this and may have even written it. (I expect Congress to kiss the Preznut's ass again on this) Corporate war crimes are the norm.

Clip Source: www.democracynow.org

The New York Times is reporting President Bush is seeking Congress to explicitly acknowledge that the nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations. The measure carries significant legal and public policy implications for Bush, and potentially his successor. It would allow them to claim the approval of Congress to use the tools of war, including detention, interrogation and surveillance, against the enemy. Some lawmakers are concerned that the administration’s effort to declare anew a war footing is an eleventh-hour maneuver to reestablish its broad interpretation of the president’s wartime powers, even in the face of challenges from the Supreme Court and Congress. It is uncertain whether Congress will take the administration up on its request.

Palin was on McCain's Earmark Hit List

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:36:24 GMT

clipped by: DanaGarrett
clipper's remarks: Now this is embarrassing. As mayor and governor, Palin requested and supported congressional earmarks that McCain called excessive. How, then is she like him? Opportunistic comes to mind.

LOL!

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

For much of his long career in Washington, John McCain has been throwing darts at the special spending system known as earmarking, through which powerful members of Congress can deliver federal cash for pet projects back home with little or no public scrutiny. He's even gone so far as to publish "pork lists" detailing these financial favors.

Three times in recent years, McCain's catalogs of "objectionable" spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time -- Sarah Palin.

records show that Palin

was far from shy about pursuing tens of millions in earmarks for her town, her region and her state.

The Arizona senator targeted $1 million in a 2002 spending bill for an emergency communications center in town -- one that local law enforcement has said is redundant and creates confusion.

McCain also criticized $450,000 set aside for an agricultural processing facility in Wasilla that was requested during Palin's tenure