quote:Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.
Mr. Bowen’s office has inspected and audited taxpayer-financed projects like this prison in Nasiriya, Iraq.
And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.
The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.
quote: Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who followed the bill closely as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, says that she still does not know how the provision made its way into what is called the conference report, which reconciles differences between House and Senate versions of a bill.
Neither the House nor the Senate version contained such a termination clause before the conference, all involved agree.
“It’s truly a mystery to me,” Ms. Collins said. “I looked at what I thought was the final version of the conference report and that provision was not in at that time.”
“The one thing I can confirm is that this was a last-minute insertion,” she said.
Cynical me thinks this is payback for embarrassing the administration and Halliburton. But then, why wait until October of 2007 to shut them down? Surely there must be a provision in the bill to replace this originally temporary office with something more permanent...
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I saw that Bechtel story this week. One of the few projects they couldn't complete was a sewage treatment plant in or near Baghdad, subject of repeated mortar and general attacks. Who is against clean water?
quote: Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who followed the bill closely ..., says that she still does not know how the provision made its way into what is called the conference report, which reconciles differences between House and Senate versions of a bill.
Neither the House nor the Senate version contained such a termination clause before the conference, all involved agree.
“It’s truly a mystery to me,” Ms. Collins said.
This is a prime example of why we need transparency in government. Last-minute additions to bills by unknown congressmen or staffers is no way to run a democracy. And it invites corruption, when changing a phrase can mean millions to a company, or even billions to an industry, as in the recent oil and gas lease scandals. Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Wait, wait: I'm supposed to vote for the GOP because they run wars BETTER than the Dems?
Not by this standard...
To be fair, we have no proof of how the Dems would run the war in Iraq. We know how they'd run FROM the war in Iraq, though... which isn't a viable option either, not with the mess over there.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
I don't care which party does it, but for the love of all that is holy, WHERE THE HELL IS CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT?!
It's one of their most important jobs and they've given up on it over the last 20 years.
All but five of the Bechtel employees killed in Iraq were Iraqi subcontractors. I remember that much from reading the article elsewhere.
They keep trying to find a point man to be in charge of everything, and it ALWAYS seems to fail. Whether it's Paul Bremmer (remember him?), or Michael Brown of FEMA, a single person that no one's ever really heard of before is blamed for everything, and the entrenched establishment is STILL THERE.
Forget special inspectors and crap like that, send a congressional commission over there to inspect everything and report back. The few times that Congress has called for a special report or a special commission in the last couple years, it has produced excellent results and suggestions (a la the ignored 9/11 Commission). Congress needs to get involved and stop foisting their responsibility off on others, or letting the President do a half hearted attempt to do their job.
To Congress -
Grow some self respect already, and do your friggin jobs.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
In this case, it was Duncan Hunter and a cadre of House Republicans who gave up that responsibility. John Warner, Republican senator from Virginia, had made explicit efforts to let Bowen continue his work (you can see in the legislative search engine, THOMAS, the amendments he offered to the defense appropriations bill).
Posts: 1784 | Registered: Jun 2001
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If it is discovered that they let a bunch of crooks or idiots waste/bilk our government out of billions of dollars, they can't get re-elected.
If is is discovered that people in the administration allowed a bunch of crooks or idiots to waste/bilk our government out of billions of dollars, those administrative hot shots won't be able to help them get re-elected.
If it is discovered that idiots and crooks who wasted/bilked our government out of billions of dollars, the crooks and idiots will be arrested, their fortunes confiscated, and their freedom curtailed. Then who will donate that hundreds of thousands of dollard that the legislators need to get elected?
I mean, even today, how many of our elected officials miss their hit of Enron money?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Glen Greenwald has a decent post on this issue on his blog. Apparently the prime candidates for inserting the clause shutting down the Iraq Inspector General's dept. is staffers of "Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and who declared on Monday that he plans to run for president in 2008."--NY Times http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/11/gop-congress-secretly-eliminates-anti.html
Storm, if this makes you mad, don't read the recent Rolling Stones' cover story, Inside the Worst Congress Ever. The conference committees have become the hackneyed smoke-filled rooms where democracy is strangled. The article is 8 pages. I had to stop at page 3 to prevent my blood from boiling. The part where Charlie Rangel plays Land Shark hide-and-seek with a conference committee is funny though, if sad.
quote: One of the most depressing examples of one-party rule is the Patriot Act. The measure was originally crafted in classic bipartisan fashion in the Judiciary Committee, where it passed by a vote of thirty-six to zero, with famed liberals like Barney Frank and Jerrold Nadler saying aye. But when the bill was sent to the Rules Committee, the Republicans simply chucked the approved bill and replaced it with a new, far more repressive version, apparently written at the direction of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.
"They just rewrote the whole bill," says Rep. James McGovern, a minority member of the Rules Committee. "All that committee work was just for show."
To ensure that Democrats can't alter any of the last-minute changes, Republicans have overseen a monstrous increase in the number of "closed" rules -- bills that go to the floor for a vote without any possibility of amendment. This tactic undercuts the very essence of democracy: In a bicameral system, allowing bills to be debated openly is the only way that the minority can have a real impact, by offering amendments to legislation drafted by the majority. In 1977, when Democrats held a majority in the House, eighty-five percent of all bills were open to amendment. But by 1994, the last year Democrats ran the House, that number had dropped to thirty percent -- and Republicans were seriously pissed. "You know what the closed rule means," Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida thundered on the House floor. "It means no discussion, no amendments. That is profoundly undemocratic." When Republicans took control of the House, they vowed to throw off the gag rules imposed by Democrats. On opening day of the 104th Congress, then-Rules Committee chairman Gerald Solomon announced his intention to institute free debate on the floor. "Instead of having seventy percent closed rules," he declared, "we are going to have seventy percent open and unrestricted rules."
How has Solomon fared? Of the 111 rules introduced in the first session of this Congress, only twelve were open. Of those, eleven were appropriations bills, which are traditionally open. That left just one open vote -- H. Res. 255, the Federal Deposit Insurance Reform Act of 2005.
In the second session of this Congress? Not a single open rule, outside of appropriation votes. Under the Republicans, amendable bills have been a genuine Washington rarity, the upside-down eight-leafed clover of legislative politics. [most of a page cut]
Closed rules, shipwrecked bills, secret negotiations, one-vote victories. The result of all this is a Congress where there is little or no open debate and virtually no votes are left to chance; all the important decisions are made in backroom deals, and what you see on C-Span is just empty theater, the world's most expensive trained-dolphin act. The constant here is a political strategy of conducting congressional business with as little outside input as possible, rejecting the essentially conservative tradition of rule-by-consensus in favor of a more revolutionary strategy of rule by cabal.
posted
I keep saying... we need a constitutional amendment banning committees and requiring all legislation be crafted in open sessions of congress.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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"Inside the worst congress ever" was probably the most heart-wrenching assault on the corpse of my political idealism that I have ever suffered.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:To ensure that Democrats can't alter any of the last-minute changes, Republicans have overseen a monstrous increase in the number of "closed" rules...
In 1977, when Democrats held a majority in the House, eighty-five percent of all bills were open to amendment. But by 1994, the last year Democrats ran the House, that number had dropped to thirty percent...
Is this really fair?
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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It's anathema to the way the federation is supposed to operate, but this is of no concern to unilateral radicals.
No, what really wrecked me was the Cunningham stuff, and it's ilk. Finding out that the Republican version of the spoils system was so significantly borkum that it would end up getting a legitimately barely literate numbskull (who, as a bonus, was also a crook) into the position of the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence.
If I think about it too much longer I will either laugh or grind my teeth into calcium dust!
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: In 1977, when Democrats held a majority in the House, eighty-five percent of all bills were open to amendment. But by 1994, the last year Democrats ran the House, that number had dropped to thirty percent...
This sounds like the trend had already started, the Republicans just did it better. There's something to be proud of from my party.
The worst part is, I have no idea how to fix something like this. How do you get Congress to reverse a thirty year trend?
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Well, this guy has a plan to fix Congress. Unfortunately, both he and the plan are waaay beyond crazy. And that's an understatement. Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Yeah, I think I'll pass on that one. Not killing people is fairly high on my list of priorities.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: But they are doing their jobs.
There job is to get re-elected.
While I get the sentiment, and really, the amusement behind it, I feel I need to say:
Their job isn't to get reelected. Getting reelected is KEEPING their job, it isn't DOING their job.
Their job is to be good stewards of the country, regardless of how easy or hard it is to pull a fast one on an apathetic citizenry.
And while I'm assuming you were being tongue in cheek with that Dan, too many people probably feel just that way about it, and it's bad for business.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Rolling Stone is plainly biased, but I think they do some excellent, excellent, excellent journalism.
I haven't read your piece yet, Mobo, since I don't have time, but if you get a chance, look for an article RS did called "Four Amendments and a Funeral". Sounds very similiar to what you posted.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Lyr I think you are on to something. I think that if you question our reps "What is your job." the answers you get and the answers we expect may be different.
Or more likely, while their job is to be stewards of our country, their handlers and campaign mangers jobs are to get them reelected.
The question is, whom is the boss?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Sadly, after much discussion, the best answer we'd probably be able to come up with is: The people.
Problem is, we aren't, as a society, doing our job either. But we're much better at blaming than we are introspection. Isn't that true of any society?
What I said earlier, about it being their job to do well for the country despite an apathetic population is probably a dream. In a perfect world they would do their jobs well even with America as a whole on autopilot. But the truth is, that when our government starts to fail us, when any government created BY the people, OF the people, fails, Washington isn't the first place we should be looking to lay blame, it should be with those who put them there.
I can't say I blame MYSELF, I've voted in every election I could for the last four years (since I turned 18 I mean). But maybe we have a more important question than "whom is the boss," and I think that question is, "when did it become okay to not vote?" Why isn't there a negative stigma attached to the lazy apathetic people of this country who decide NOT to involve themselves in national affairs, but still feel inclined to rail on about the ills within?
I wonder more often than not, if we don't deserve EVERY HORRIBLE CONGRESSMAN AND PRESIDENT we get, as punishment to the whole, for the actions of the many. How bad does it have to get before people are shocked out of their carelessness to actually step up and grab onto the reins of government? Maybe this is what Jefferson meant when he talked of refreshing the tree of liberty, maybe he was talking about a nation that used to celebrate the right to vote as a God given right, a right that every person here, regardless of race, gender or creed, has at some point in their lineage had to fight for, no longer caring at all.
Being an incumbent shouldn't be a free ride to reelection. In fact, being an incumbent shouldn't matter at all. You get reelected, or booted out, based on the good or ill you've done in Congress, and not "Oh, John Smith, he's been in Congress for 12 years now, he must be doing a good job, otherwise he wouldn't be there."
Sorry, I got a bit carried away there ::gets off soap box:: Ignore me and carry on.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Being an incumbent shouldn't be a free ride to reelection. In fact, being an incumbent shouldn't matter at all. You get reelected, or booted out, based on the good or ill you've done in Congress, and not "Oh, John Smith, he's been in Congress for 12 years now, he must be doing a good job, otherwise he wouldn't be there."
This is a good first step to fixing Congress. I'm so sick of people re-electing some idiot again and again just because he has seniority and good committee placement or chairmanship, therefore he can bring home the federal bacon to their state or district. People complain about out-of-control federal spending, but often prioritize pork for themselves. It's selfish and illogical, and leads to bridges that go nowhere for no one.
Two other things we can do: 2)Encourage 3rd parties. In my state, Georgia, the incumbent governor has a real lock on re-election this year, so I think I'll vote for a Green or Libertarian candidate to show my support for a 3rd party. I've bemoaned the lack of 3rd parties for years, so I should finally vote for one.
3)End gerrymandering. It's really gotten out of control. I have no practical thoughts on how to accomplish this.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Morbo: 3)End gerrymandering. It's really gotten out of control. I have no practical thoughts on how to accomplish this.
California had a proposition up in the last election cycle to have districts redistricted by three appointed (by a bipartisan committee) retired judeges with no (apparent) political bias. The judges were suppose to set up the districts by the natural communities, unlike the jigsaw craziness we have in California right now. Wouldn't completely fix the problem but I think it would be a positive step forward.
...of course, it was voted down by the majority of the California people.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I'd love it if ever congressional district in the entire country were redistricted once, and were made to follow a mix of geographic/population lines. Districts have to be a certain size so they all represent the same number of people (well, obviously except for the states that have less than the required number necessary for that many representatives.
Watching The Colbert Report's "Better Know a District" has emphasized how ridiculous some of the district lines are. There's no reason at all that a district should look like a six year old was playing pictionary with a map of the United States.
I wonder what it would do to remove seniority from Congress. Make it impossible for how long you've been there to have anything to do with your ability to bring home money to your district. It's not like how long you've been there is a reflection on how good a legislator you are, just on how good a politician you are, and being a good politician doesn't necessarily mean you've been productive. If their are leadership spots, or Chair spots open on committees, then the party who gets them can vote on the best man for the job. Voting should be based on what the Congressman thinks is best for ME, not for what is best to help get HIM reelected. Seniority shouldn't matter.
Congress should be about job performance. I want every congressman wrestling in his mind with the idea that everything he votes for, and all the legislation he puts forth will personally effect everyone in his district, and could change whether or not they vote for him. That isn't pandering, it's REPRESENTATION. I don't get it sometimes, when a poll is released that says 80% of a certain district wants A done, and the congressman for that district goes and does A, it's called pandering. Don't get me wrong, I want someone in Congress representing me that can make hard choices, choices that while I might not like them at first, will be good for me in the long run, like higher taxes to pay for huge deficits and national debt.
It's complex, the relationship between voting for what your people want, and for what you think is best for them. Well, too bad. That's the job. No one said being a congressman or senator was easy, and it should be THAT hard, it should scare the hell out of them, and it should encourage brave, smart, and honorable men and women to attempt to serve the post.
Dr. Lyman Hall of Georgia, representative to the second continental congress, when asked (yeah I know this was in 1776, but from what I've read, this particular sentiment is based in reality and history) "where does Georgia stand on the subject of independene?" he answered "Georgia is split right down the middle. The people are against it, and I am for it." He deferred to their wisdom at first, but later changed his mind, citing Edmund Burke: "a representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion."
And I want this entire debate ravaging their minds while they make decisions. I don't want it to hamper their efforts, but I'd rather their concerns with good governing hamper their efforts, than a concern over whether or not a decision will harm their electability, or their ability to get campaign funds.
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I think you are on to something. I think that if you question our reps "What is your job." the answers you get and the answers we expect may be different.
