As fallout from the Downing Street Minutes continues to rock Capitol Hill, more unwanted attention to Administration policies on the war and human rights abuses looks to be on the way.
MoveOn.org joined the call for signatures earlier this morning for John Conyers letter to George W. Bush asking for clarification about several matters in the official British minutes now known as the Downing Street Minutes. That recently released information documents an official UK meeting describing the Bush Administration policy to topple Saddam Hussein through military means and to “fix” intelligence around the policy as early as eight months prior to the war. The BRAD BLOG has learned that MoveOn.org has received well over 240,000 350,000 new signatures to that letter in just the few hours since joining the campaign, and is receiving several thousand new signatures each minute.
But Conyers and Company are not resting. The BRAD BLOG has learned that the ranking House Judiciary Member has just announced additional hearings will be held tomorrow morning concerning the allegations of Human Rights abuses at U.S. Terror Prisons, including Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. The hearings will feature testimony from a representative of Amnesty International, the first such congressional testimony since the group released their recent report on alleged Human Rights abuses at the U.S. run prison camps.
The following Press Release was issued just moments ago concerning hearings to be held tomorrow on Capitol Hill…
HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE TO HOLD OFFICIAL OVERSIGHT HEARING ON PATRIOT ACT ABUSES
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a rarely used procedural move, House Judiciary Committee Democrats invoked Rule 11 of the House Rules and requested an additional day of hearings on the Patriot Act and civil liberties implications of the Administration’s terrorism related efforts. This will be the first hearing in which Members of the Committee will have the opportunity to address in detail, the horrific human rights abuses of detainees that occurred in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons, as well as the ongoing problems of racial profiling and hate crimes that have plagued Muslim and Arab Americans since the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001. In addition, this will be the first time Amnesty International has testified before Congressional Committee since the publication of their 2005 Annual Report on human rights abuses throughout the world. The Committee will also hear testimony how the Administration has abused the immigration system to hold people without charge or bond, and have proceedings behind closed doors.
WHAT: House Judiciary Committee Democratic Oversight Hearing on Patriot Act Abuses
WHEN: Friday, June 10th @ 8:30am
WHERE: 2141 Rayburn House Office Building
WITNESSES:
Chip Pitts, Chair of the Board, Amnesty International USA
Dr. James J. Zogby, President, Arab American Institute
Deborah Pearlstein, Director, U.S. Law and Security Program, Human Rights First
Carlina Tapia-Ruano, American Immigration Lawyers Association
UPDATE: Tomorrow’s hearing, clearly, is different from the one later announced by Conyers concerning the Downing Street Minutes. That one, scheduled for next Thursday, will feature testimony from Constitutional Attorney John Bonifaz (featured on last weekends BRAD SHOW) as well as CIA Analyst Ray McGovern (scheduled for this Saturday’s BRAD SHOW! Do we got your news agenda right here or what?! 🙂
UPDATE 6/10/05: Holy Meltdown, Batman! Watch Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) go nuts at this morning’s Patriot Act hearings! Full BRAD BLOG team coverage right here…
Wow! Lots of good news in this post; thanks again, Brad!
I got an e-mail today from MoveOn.Org and I noticed that it misspelled the names of both Rep. Conyers and Sir Richard Dearlove. The e-mail says "Coiners" rather than "Conyers" [twice!] and instead of "Sir Richard Dearlove" they’ve written "Sir Richard Dear love" … and I’m LOL@MoveOn.Org!
But on the other hand, if they can get 240,000 sigs in a matter of hours, maybe they know something we don’t.
So from now on I’m gonna spell the Congressman’s name "John Coiners" … and we’ll see if that helps.;-)
Had trouble getting to the site earlier – glad to find it back on line and glad Conyers (Coiners?) continues to work so hard for issues that matter.
btw – u see where MoveOn held a protest at the wrong senator’s office earlier this week? Same name, different state! At least their hearts are in the right place!
Although now that gets me wondering as to how reliable that number of "thousands per minute" really is… Can they back that up? Heck, maybe it’s freepers filling it out (or even hacking it with scripts) to load the petition with bogus info to invalidate the whole process. I hope someone’s on top of it over there!
#2, I raised that issue at Co(in)er’s blog, about fake signatures, and the staff said they were rooting out the obvious ones and making sure the same IP wasn’t signing 50 times within minutes. Hopefully MoveOn will be just as cautious.
Hey Brad,
What are your thoughts on the hearing for the Downing Street Memo as reported by raw story…..
please comment on what if any impact these hearing could have, in fact anyone please explain what impacts they could have…
charlie
In the middle of a bunch of stuff for the moment, Charlie. Including dealing with some residual issues of the site having gotten knocked out all day.
But I’ll update this item shortly to point to info on the DSM hearings, and will point out that John Bonifaz will be testifying (last week’s BRAD SHOW guest) and that we will have CIA Analyst Ray McGovern, who’s testifying at the DSM hearings, as a guest on this week’s BRAD SHOW! If you have any questions for him, feel free to send and/or call the show live this Saturday Night!
I will be thinking about my question and I will be calling. Thanks for the invitaiton Brad…
{ed note: Deleted. Same poster posting as different names. When he posts as Atty Jim again his posts will be allowed to stay.}
RIDDLED WITH phonies –
We are talking about the Bush administration, right?
I signed the petition but didn’t give any money.
Even if half that number are legit, that’s a quarter million pissed off Americans (counting the signatures Coinyers already had) – they know what’s going on – Bush is robbing us blind. Now who’s really the sucker, james?
This is great news, Brad. Now if everyone who voted for Kerry would sign the letter, we’d have more than 60 million signatures, wouldn’t we? Come on, America! The pen (keyboard?) is mightier than the sword (bomb?). God bless you all!
Brad –
What happened earlier? This site was down for hours, as you said. I missed it!
Here’s a link via Kos to a Knight Ridder link site, with KR’s reporting on B*’s intentions to invade Iraq as far back as early 2001. Note especially the one from February, 2001, in which several administration officials are quoted as talking about the planned Iraqi invasion.
Link here
In light of this info, Colin Powell’s performance on Jon Stewart last night reeks of a bit more than just disingenuousness.
Excuse me; that was Feb.13, 2002. Here’s a direct link to it.
Brad – Any idea why the site went down? I had a chance to be the first to post a comment on this thread and I missed it *pouts*
Hey, I’m kiddin, when it comes to this bunch, I don’t mind being an "and also posted" at all.
Am I being too optimistic when I say it looks like America is starting to come out of its coma?
WooHoo! You’re back! So how much longer kids, how much longer? Some in the media seem to be coming to and Rep Conyers is hitting them as fast as they’ve been hitting us the last 5 years!
Sounds like another GREAT show lined up for Sat. night Brad! Sorry you’ve got the additional website problems on top of everything else, but I know the show’s gonna run PERFECTLY this week!
Is there a website that has current total signitures? That’s always updated.
I couldn’t find one at Rep Conyer’s . I’ve been meaning to ask for days.
Hooray! Ray McGovern on Sat. Night! WooHoo indeed! I’m thrilled beyond belief!
Hahah WP #1!!!! I’m glad I wasn’t sipping hot tea when I read your comment! By the time moveon sent an email to me they had already been stood corrected. (Thank God.) LOL@moveon.org!!!
I wonder what would be a good jingle for Rep. Coiners?
This one’s "in the pocket", Rep. Coiners
You’re not just "small change", Rep. Coiners
Your bills always land "heads-up", Rep. Coiners
Your integrity is in "mint" condition, Rep. Coiners
im a bit confused with the Rep. "coiners" name. tu prey tell?
Oh and brad, I must remember to drop some change in your purse pockets.
ok, sorry, read the 1st post. MAYBE he does know something we don’t. If it leads to that chimp being impeached then more power to him:)
I am actually feeling a little bit of hope here! Once again our champion John Coiners (ahem) has done what the other 540+ allegedly elected representatives in the senate and the house should have been doing–ignoring the republicans and going ahead and having hearings without any help or support from them. The hell with them.
In 1861, 11 senators were thrown out of the Senate for supporting the Confederacy. How many do you think we can boot this time?
I think maybe these some Dems–yes, even Conyers (but woefully, not Kerry, who becomes more pathetic by the day)–are realizing that the only way to get the MSM to pay attention to this truth is to FORCE them to. Let the arm-twisting begin!
On a side note, I wonder: why would Eli and his Move On buds support Conyers on THIS one, but not on the stolen election? And could this be the beginning of a relationship that could actually sway Move On into actually helping on that front? I’ve been saying since 11-5-04 that if Move On had put their muscle into exposing the election fraud, things would be different. I don’t get those guys, I really don’t. Their silence is as much a betrayal to everyone who worked so hard on Kerry’s behalf as Kerry’s was(is.)
Re: #14 Colleen —
We’ve achieved 80 % of our 500,000 goal (404,253)!
Good question, anyone know if Noe, Blackwell and numerous others go to jail for being involved in Election Fraud and Bush, Cheney booted will or WON’T all the judges he appointed be unconfirmed?
Will they have to remove the judges? Put it into debate? Will anything happen at all? Never thought of it.
For Jim Cirile: It was MoveOn that inspired me and thousands like me to travel to battleground states at our own expense to assure a clean election on Nov. 2. Then, after the election was stolen AGAIN, MoveOn suddenly forgot why we all went.
The other day, believe it or not, I got an e-mail from these fog-bound idealists that said, "We can’t do anything about the election. Darn. But we can (make changes for the future), yada yada…." It then asked for money (again) and asked me to complete a questionnaire (again), prioritizing issues but excluding the 2004 election.
Pathetic. MoveOn should merge with the DNC at this point. It’s equally relevant to the concerns of freedom loving Americans.
I love the notion of calling John Conyers "Coiners."
I don’t think he’d mind…after all, the gold coin scandal in Ohio is growing in importance, thanks to the Toledo Blade and people like Marcy Kaptur and Sherrod Brown. It fits perfectly.
Y’all are gettin’ WAAAAY out there talking about "if Bush is impeached…" Now, I’m a fan the idea of impeachment as much as anyone, but the reality is there are not many Repubs who are people of integrity; and it would have to be one of them, a major figure, to come around to seeing the election fraud, the war lies, etc. as a high crime against America; and then that person would have to lead and convince other Pubs to follow – enough of them to join with most Dems to make it happen. Does anyone see that happening? Can anybody see any moderate Pubs that might be brought around to join such an effort? It would take tremondous strength on the part of such a hero, to differ with their (lockstep, non-thinking, non-breaking-ranks) party. I am not familier with Congress enough to know ’em. Are there any moderate Pub women to talk with? I think (not to sound too sexist, but…) that women are naturally more inclined to compromise; and I’m speaking as your basic competative male.
A lot of y’all are looking at this stuff as Watergate-like. It looks more to me like Iran-Contra. Lots of obvious crimes reaching all the way to the White House, but power concentrated (much more so now…) in Pub hands, so even if crimes are proved, only low level heads will roll, and they will (like Ollie North) write books and become Pub heros.
So, what to do? I dunno, I’m gonna continue talking to every moderate and non-voter, trying to convert ’em to our cause; trying to get ’em to care. I’m also gonna start trying to respectfully engage Pubs who are good people, who do mean well, who don’t want elections to be stolen. If a significant number of the Pub rank and file can be peeled away over these issues, we could produce some movement.
Impeachment of Dubya working in Congress? Next shot 2006. Then we could get a Dem Congress where the possibility would be greater. But the people have to want Dems (and Indies and Greens…) as their reps. And the people have to have the means to avoid having their will hijacked – paper ballots, mandatory small random recounts to verify – and THEN the people have to actually fight the meanest, nastiest political infighters ever seen in the USA.
Ruff deal…
So, me, I’m gonna keep on keepin’ on. Working for election reform in my state. That’s still the giant issue. It’s only our and our children’s freedom that’s at stake.
Peace out.
Funny you should mention Iran-Contra, Shannon. Of all the ridiculous lies ever told by high-profile poliiticians, the most laughable one might have been George Bush-the-elder saying, "I wasn’t in the loop on that." This, from a man who attended every cabinet meeting and was already preparing his own run for president a year later.
I have to disagree with you. I think Bushgate is closer to Watergate…and that isn’t wishful thinking. Systematic abuse of power (Iran-Contra was really a wild-eyed scheme gone awry), dissent from within taken as disloyalty, a White House run by public relations/media gurus (Haldeman, Ehrlichmann, Rove) rather than statesmen, blind hatred of the opposition, political dirty tricks and stigmatization of opponents, and lies, lies, lies.
The missing elements, of course, are an absence of a Deep Throat (so far), and the fact that the G.O.P. controls Capitol Hill (unlike 1973-74). But I suspect there is a Deep Throat within the Republican party who knows enough about stolen elections, 9/11 coverups, and WMD/Iraq intelligence fraud to bring the whole house of cards down. McCain might be too much the "patriot," as the son of an admiral and a war hero. Powell is too much the loyal soldier, too.
Specter is sick, and wouldn’t have a lot to lose as a whistle-blower. I think he’s a more likely Deep Throat. Anyone running for president in 2008 would lose party support, so it has to be someone like a Specter, with a reputation for integrity and political independence and nothing to lose.
Good point Mr. Mills (Post # 25 re: Specter). Would it help if we sent him some fan mail urging him to speak up? What do you think he knows?
Trouble is, Curtiss spoke up, even took a lie detector test and his story still goes awol. But someone with the credibility and profile of Specter could do a lot of damage if he’s got the goods.
Or what about other potential "Deep Throats". I think that there must be a few candidates out there. Someone who’s been uncomfortable going along with all the treason but up to this point, but hasn’t had the courage or incentive to speak up. What would it take for someone with inside knowledge to cross the line? How could we help them?
I just called Sensenbrenners office and told them how appalled at the performance he put on this morning at the hearing.What a farce,He limited questions and answers to five minutes not enough time for anthing of value.PLease do the same and let him know how pissed you are at this travesty.Capital switchboard toll free1-800-247-2971.We should clog his phones all day,He is just an _ss! I am infuriated.He has no respect for the law or the American peoples Civil Rights.Lets make some noise people!
WP or Brad sojo #20 post has a wide URL in it … which is messing up the format …
Mr Mills- Don’t you think a modern deep throat would be irrelevant in our modern media. The only reason deep throat brought down the house of cards was because of the media. Do you think our media really gives a shit about what is right and wrong?
Charlie
Conyers can call these hearings on the Patriot Act and on the Downing Street memo but if the mainstream media doesn’t cover it, there will be few in the public who will know about it–just like his hearings in Ohio. If we want a ground swell of public outrage and a move for accountability, the American people have to be told what is going on. So, everyone should contact the various national news programs and tell them you want coverage of the hearings! Not more Michael Jackson or runaway bride bull.
For Charlie: If it’s somebody of Specter’s stature, the mainstream media couldn’t avoid it. They can’t ignore a U.S. Senator who brings dramatic charges against a president, especially one of his own party.
Likewise a former Cabinet official would get attention, or someone who worked inside the White House…like an Ari Fleischer.
We shouldn’t underestimate ourselves. As Brad has said, WE ARE THE NEW MEDIA. We are making an enormous difference. Why do you think we have so many trolls telling us nobody cares about us? It’s precisely because we’re scaring the shit out of them! The Downing Street minutes wouldn’t have gotten beyond London without us…the coin scandal in Ohio is getting bigger by the hour, because of The Toledo Blade and us…Bolton would be seated in the United Nations by now except for us.
Calling all patriots! Be a hero in the name of freedom, and enter your names in the history books alongside Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale! All it takes is a love for truth and knowing you won’t get a Christmas card from the White House.
Jim Circle, I read in the raw story article that Conyers saw from what happened with blogs (perhaps speficially this one?) exposing the Ohio election fraud, that you don’t need the MSM accept an issue in order for you to push it. And that is how he approached the Downing Street Minutes – he went right to the online community – and now, next week, we will have the first hearing on the Downing Street Minutes.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/H...t_mi_0609.html
One could foresee that with the clout Conyers gains from impeaching Bush, he could bring the stolen election right back into the forefront. My question is, if the election is found to be stolen, does that mean all Bush’s judges get unconfirmed?
re #18 Yeah, good post, Jim.
I got an invitation to participate in a MoveOn survey the other day where they listed about a dozen issues and asked which 3 or 4 we care about most. Election reform wasn’t even on the list.
I didn’t check any of the boxes. But in the comments where it said "what is your opinion of MoveOn.Org?" I wrote "ignores the urgent need for election reform".
If 5 or 6 other people could do the same thing, that would make 6 or 7 all together and at that point they might take us seriously.
Sensenbrenner is a fascist, he shuts down public dissent. It’s time to take the truth to the masses in real time!!!!!
Just like how we got election reform to the masses, through the streets!!
Shame on James Sensenbrenner and the House Republicans for their atrocious and illegal behavior at the Judiciary Committee hearing today. This is not how a democracy works.
🙂 Thank you for speaking truth to power–for keeping the light burning during these dark times.
Nov 2006 is only 17 months away and all Repub House members are up for re-election. By then our dead troops in Iraq will number over 3000 and every community will have returned wounded and handicapped vets to testify about Bushs Wasted War. A coalition of independents and Demos could make Impeachment and removal of the White House Death Squad a success.