‘Congress’ Archives
‘This Hearing Saved the Government 20 Million Dollars’
by David Phinney Feb. 7, 2007 -- From the time four U.S. security contractors were killed in streets of Fallujah on March 31, 2004 until yesterday, the U.S. Army couldn't determine if, in fact, Halliburton/KBR had broken its multibillion-dollar contract agreement by commissioning the private security company, Blackwater, to guard a [...]
Squandering Iraqi Money
Feb. 6, 2007 -- Almost $12 billion in Iraqi assets disappeared while under control of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority -- much of it arrived in $100 bills on pallets straight from the Federal Reserve in New York. In the past, government auditors said the Coalition Provisional Authority lost track of $8.8 billion in seized and frozen [...]
So, Are you Saying Nancy Will Be Flying Commercial?
Emails from damage-controlling Democratic fact-checkers generously point out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi DID NOT request personal military flights to jet her and other California lawmakers between DC and the Golden State on a regular basis. Apparently, it was the House Sergeant at Arms who offered to make the inquiry. His name, I kid you not, [...]
Blackwater’s Christmas Mystery
When Rep. Henry Waxman bangs the gavel and opens hearings on Blackwater's security operations in Iraq Wednesday, let's hope the California Democratic chairman of the House Government Reform Committee asks about the rumor of a murder in the Green Zone on Christmas Eve: The rumor began this way via email: "On eve (2006) here in the Green Zone a [...]
Civilian Reserve Corps: Private Army?
Jeremy Scahill opines in a Los Angeles Times op-ed about President Bush's proposal for a Cvilian Reserve Corps on Tuesday night: A privatized version of it was floated two years ago by Erik Prince, the secretive, mega-millionaire, conservative owner of Blackwater USA and a man who for years has served as the Pied Piper of a campaign to repackage [...]
Arianna’s Aggressive Pursuit of (the) Action
Talk about swing voters! Some readers may take interest in remembering that Arianna Huffington, publisher of the innovative, liberal Huffington Post, first spun into the American political limelight as the GOP diva and head ideological cheerleader when Republicans took control of Congress in 1995 for the first time since 1952. She could be [...]
Follies for Foley
The Republican effort to cast blame on the media for publicizing Rep. Foley's masturbatory online flirtations with teenage house pages doesn't appear to stick..... I ran into a friend who told me he was sitting on a story about a then-unnamed US Representative with a predilection for young teenage pages last spring -- say six months ago. He said [...]
