Five things the new congress needs to investigate

The American people have spoken and they said loudly "enough already!" and I could not agree more. Given that is my prevailing sentiment, the most beautiful words to these ears right now are Henry Waxman has subpoena power.

I do not desire that the Democrats play nice. Remember the last six years. Republicans not only shut the Democrats out of the legislative process; in many instances they did not even let Democratic members of committees know where committee meetings were being held. It was like double-secret governance or something.

Enough alredy indeed. Time for oversight to return.

I can think of a few things the Democrats need to start investigating the very minute the 110th congress convenes in January.

I want answers about a lot of things. Where have our pension and retirement funds been going? What really happened to lose Iraq? Why was pre-September 11 intelligence ignored? How widespread is the NSA's domestic spying program? Is "big oil" using those oh-so-creative Arthur Anderson accounting methods? By the way, we want a look at the Vice President's super-secret energy task force documents, too.

Retirement funds: Due diligence must be done and retirement funds must be managed properly. For years, corporations have been underfunding their pension funds, and shifting the risk from the corporations to the workers through the proliferation of 401k and 503c funds that are tied to the market. The Securities and Exchange Commission is too understaffed to apply due diligence, leaving policing of the funds mostly up to the administrators of those funds. Can you say fox in the hen house?

Big Oil: Why did gas priced shoot to $3.00 per gallon right after Hurricane Katrina? Refining capacity was not dramatically affected. The impact on extraction from off-shore rigs was a blip at best. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that the gulf coast refineries are not operating at capacity, which indicates that there is actually some slack in the system. This internal Texaco memo is pretty telling, however:

supply significantly exceeds demand year-round. This results in very poor refinery margins and very poor refinery financial results. Significant events need to occur to assist in reducing supplies and/or increasing the demand for gasoline.

Say it out loud, you know you are thinking it...Price fixing is going on and price fixing is illegal. Period.

The last serious investigation into the oil industry was concluded in 1952, a full decade before I was born. I think it is high-time they get scrutinized. Darth Cheney's energy task force would fall into this category, since so many petrol people were on it...Supposedly. One of those for the public good things that has been kept from the public. Why the hell would that be? (Plans to invade Iraq to get their oil are, perhaps, lurking in those documents?)

September 11: Investigate further what happened to the run up to the terror attacks of September 11 2001. More than one ball got dropped there. An informant for the FBI rented an apartment to two of the highjackers. The CIA had followed the two Saudi nationals to Malaysia and lost track of them before they left for California. But they remained off the FBI radar, even though they rented from an FBI informant (who was also a Saudi spy).

They had the August 06 2001 daily briefing that was dismissed with that immortal aWol-ism "okay, you have covered your ass now."

Oh yeah. I have a lot of unanswered questions about this cock-up that cost 3000 American lives.

Domestic Spying: I for one have seen this movie before. The cast of characters included the Church Committee, the Pike Committee and COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO was a domestic spying operation that targeted the peace movement. Now we have the FBI and local law enforcement spying on groups that oppose the war. Once again, they need to be brought to heel.

The NSA wiretapping probram is the part of the iceberg above the water line. The real danger lurks beneath the surface.

Iraq: We have a fuck-up of monumental proportions on our hands. Iraq had nothing to do with September 11, and now we know that plans to invade Iraq were laid before September 11 occured, if not before the boy king was installed. This absolutely must be investigated thoroughly, and if war crimes have been committed, the perpetrators must be surrendered to The Hague.

There you go. A handfull of investigations that should commence immediately. Representative Waxman, your country awaits and we know you will not disappoint. Give 'em hell, Henry.

Bush Fesses Up!!!

The Decider had a sit-down with that paragon of journalistic virtue Rush Limbaugh (Gawd, I need a shower just hitting that succession of keystrokes) and he basically came clean about the reasons we are in Iraq and American kids are dying daily. Turns out it was all about oil, afterall. Who woulda thunk it?

Give me a second here, Rush, because I want to share something with you. I am deeply concerned about a country, the United States, leaving the Middle East. I am worried that rival forms of extremists will battle for power, obviously creating incredible damage if they do so; that they will topple modern governments, that they will be in a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the West. People say, "What do you mean by that?" I say, "If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies.

Of course, It also just highlights the fact that our president is a blooming idiot. Now, where to start? How about with the fact that this supposed oil-man apparently has no effing clue how the world oil markets work.

First of all, Iraq hasn't the production capability to threaten the world markets. We are getting by without Iraqi oil now, so what would change, really? If the Iraqi supply were to be cut off it would just inspire greater production from Venezuela, Nigeria, Canada, Mexico and the North Sea producers.

Nobody is going to control Iranian oil besides Iranians. If the Iranians can't see to that by their own devices, I am pretty sure that the Chinese would have their backs, because they have an even greater appetite for the sticky black stuff than Americans do.

Oil fuels the economic engine, world-wide, and that is a fact. But some of us do not feel that is sufficient cause to invade sovereign nations, occupy their land and construct hardened permanent bases. We certainly do not feel it is sufficient reason to bury 2800 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.

Instead, being the sober adults that we are, we would have much prefered the money that we have charged on that Chinese credit card to fight the war in Iraq to have been spent pursuing alternative and clean energy sources. That would have made much more sense, and I bet they could even have cajoled Halliburton into producing wind turbines and solar panels.

Every newspaper in the land should scream from the headlines tomorrow morning BUSH CONFESSES...IT WAS ALL ABOUT OIL AFTER ALL. But they won't. Where is this "liberal media"I keep hearing about?