In May a chorus of Republicans inside and outside Congress made hay out of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim that the Central Intelligence Agency had not revealed its waterboarding policy during a 2002 briefing. Many demanded an investigation into the allegations. Minority leader John Boehner said of Pelosi,

"She made this claim and it's her responsibility to either put forward evidence that they did in fact lie to her, which would be a crime, or she needs to retract her statements and apologize."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was among the Republican talking heads who demanded Pelosi's resignation. According to Gingrich, Pelosi's assertion was "stunning" and "dishonest."

Representative Steve "10 Worst" King (IA-05) accused Pelosi of "actively undermining our national security" and called for suspending the speaker's security clearance:

Speaker Pelosi has accused the CIA of committing a federal crime - lying to Congress. The CIA and other American defense and intelligence agencies cannot trust Nancy Pelosi with our national secrets, let alone our national security, until this matter is resolved. If true, there has been a serious violation of federal law. If false, American national security requires a new Speaker of the House. The severity of Speaker Pelosi's accusations leaves no middle ground, and her security clearance should be suspended pending investigation.

Now we have learned that

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday. [...]

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

So not only was Congress misled, CIA staff did not even inform Panetta about the program until four months after he was sworn in. Charles Lemos is absolutely right that it's time for a special prosecutor to investigate this matter.

Republicans who trashed Pelosi in May and June owe her an apology, but like Rude Pundit, I'm not holding my breath. They've always been easygoing about Bush administration law-breaking while throwing fits about Democrats who criticized it.

There's more...

This bulletin just came in from Wikileaks:

Wikileaks has released over 600 United Nations investigative reports, over 70 of which are classified. The reports expose sensitive matters from allegations of hundreds of European peace-keepers sexually abusing--and impregnating--refugee girls, to generals in Peru using Swiss bank accounts to engage in multi-million dollar procurement fraud.

A number of the reports have not only been marked "Strictly Confidential" but as an additional measure have had selected regions redacted before before internal distribution.  Often these redacted regions can be "unredacted" by simply "cut and pasting" the blanked area.  On the description page for each report, where possible, Wikileaks has provided a simple text version of the report that includes the redacted portions.  

Since the number of reports is subtantial we ask that journalists, bloggers and other investigators take responsibility for those those reports closest to the month and day of their date of birth before considering the material at large.

(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)

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I read Bob Burnett's excellent and timely post yesterday over at HuffPo, entitled "Bush's Day of Reckoning."  I recommend reading it in its entirety.  The topic is whether or not to proceed with criminal investigations of Bush, Cheney & their ilk over torture and any other violations of the Constitution.  Bob does point out that incompetence is not a crime and focuses on things like ordering torture or illegal spying on Americans, which are crimes.

He points out that Congress will not take the lead on prosecution because they rolled over for Bush & Cheney at every opportunity.  So, it comes down to Obama to take the lead on cleaning up the US Government, its checks & balances and the Constitution.  In other words: the rule of law.

(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)

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Is the United States of America the world's largest dealer of illegal drugs?  What about the world's largest gun runner?  For years our government has used the CIA, NSA & other super-secret 'intelligence' agencies to cultivate drug harvest and distribution in SE Asia and Afghanistan.  We offer 'aid' and 'trade' to countries in the forms of weapons and ammunition.  The drugs come home to the US to poison and kill our own population.  The weapons we sell are used either against us directly by people to kill others, who then seek to kill Americans.  Did the founding fathers envision a country that would become the world's largest debtor and blood merchant?

(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)

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Here's another affirmation that the GOP is buried in the mindset of Nixon and Stalin.  Wikileaks and the ACLU (MN) have recently covered the super secret security briefing from the RNC that indicates the usage of the US Military against law abiding US citizens.  Another 'dragnet' surveillance conducted by paranoid tyrants in the party of hate and lobbyists (aka GOP).

In a nutshell, the party that loves (using) the military (to seize power and make fortunes) - the GOP, used military spy satellites to spy on US citizens.  This should come as no surprise, given the Bush/Cheney dictatorship's penchant for spying on us all.  

(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)

There's more...