Bushites demand No Accountability. Again!

Dodd: Financial crisis is not a ‘natural disaster like the Gustav hurricane.’

Today in an interview with NPR, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) sharply criticized the Bush administration for demanding $700 billion with no accountability, noting that no accountability largely led to this financial crisis in the first place:

I spent quite a bit of time last night with my colleague from Alabama, Sen. Shelby, who is the ranking Republican on the banking committee. I ran into Mel Martinez of Florida, the Republican senator from that start. I’ve talked to others here. This isn’t just Democrats. This isn’t a natural disaster like the Gustav hurricane. This is a man-made, avoidable, preventable problem — and a lack of oversight and accountability was one of the problems.

Dodd’s comments were a swipe against President Bush, who last week cited the financial crisis in the same breath as terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

Update: Krugman has more on Dodd's alternative to the Bush administration's financial bailout plan.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Dodd Throws Support To Obama

updated 5:35 a.m. ET, Tues., Feb. 26, 2008

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut plans to endorse former presidential rival Barack Obama.

Dodd will endorse his colleague, a senator from Illinois, in Cleveland on Tuesday, according to a Democratic official close to Dodd who requested anonymity because no formal announcement had been made.

Dodd’s support, coupled with his liberal credentials, could provide a boost for Obama as major contests near in big states such as Ohio and Texas on March 4. Obama has won some key Democratic endorsements in recent weeks, including Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, a close friend of Dodd.

Much sought-after support

Obama and rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had been vying for Dodd’s support since he exited the presidential race after a poor showing in the Iowa caucus last month. Dodd, who won his Senate seat in 1980 and chaired the Democratic National Committee from 1995-1996, has long-standing ties to the Clintons.

Dodd is a “superdelegate,” one of nearly 800 Democratic officeholders and party officials who automatically attend the national convention and can vote for whomever they choose. They have become an important force in the close race between Clinton and Obama, and both candidates are lobbying hard for their support.

During the campaign, Dodd cast himself as an experienced leader who unites people. He stressed his long Senate career, foreign policy experience and work on education and children’s issues. But his long-shot candidacy, overshadowed by the huge campaign accounts and star power of Clinton and Obama, never caught fire.

Still, Dodd’s popularity with liberal voters could benefit Obama on both domestic and foreign policy issues.

Dodd voted in 2002 to authorize military intervention in Iraq, but has become an outspoken critic of the war and now calls his vote a mistake. He has said he would oppose an escalation of U.S. forces in Iraq and has said Congress should consider withholding funding for such a troop increase.

Dodd's influence

Dodd also could help Obama with Hispanic voters. A fluent Spanish speaker, Dodd served in the Peace Corps in a rural village in Dominican Republic from 1966-68 and has had a strong interest in Latin American affairs throughout his career.

Since his election to the House in 1974, Dodd has forged strong ties with labor unions, tried impose fiscal accountability on corporations and championed family and children’s issues. He chairs the powerful Senate Banking Committee.

Dodd was the chief Senate sponsor of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child, or to tend to a personal or family illness.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

ATandT Whistleblower: Just As We Suspected

Here’s my transcript:

My name’s Mark Klein; I used to be an AT&T technician for 22 years.

What I figured out when I got there [AT&’s secret room at 611 Folsom Street, San Francisco] is that they were copying everything flowing across the Internet cables, and the major Internet links between AT&T’s network and other company’s networks, and it struck me at the time that this is a massively unconstitutional, illegal operation.

It affects not only AT&T’s customers, but everybody, ‘cause these links went to places like Sprint, Qwest, a whole bunch of other companies, and so they’re basically tapping into the entire Internet.

But isn’t the government only monitoring suspected terrorsits and not ordinary Americans?

To perform what they say they want to do, which is look at international traffic, none of this makes any sense. These installations only make sense if they’re doing a huge, massive domestic dragnet on everybody, in the United States.

Shouldn’t the telecoms trust that the Bush Administration’s requests are legal?

These companies know very well what’s legal and what’s illegal; they’ve been dealing with this for decades. And it’s a fact that Qwest refused the NSA’s approach, because they weren’t showing any legal justification for it, and they did the right thing and said No.

What I’m here for is, it looked like a few weeks ago that the Senate bill which passed the Intelligence Committee would give immunity to the telecom companies and that would probably put an end to the lawsuits. So I came here to lobby against giving retroactive immunity to the telecom companies, and let the court cases process, and Congress should not interfere in that.

As we’ve been saying. Nice to see the Beltway Dems stepping up on this, to preserve our Constitutional rights. Oh, wait… Just to refresh your memories—Harry, Nance; Hillary—here’s the Fourth Amendment of the United States:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Back in the 1700s, “papers and effects” were letters and records, on physical media, like dead trees and parchment. This—Harry, Nance; Hillary—is three hundred years later. My email is digital paper. My web site an electronic effect. The government has no right to read them without a warrant.

With most of this, we agree. However, websites and blogs are quite different from email. Websites are meant to be read, as are most blogs. That includes reading by anyone, including BushCo's spys. Email should be treated like the mail in our mailboxes, according to the 4th amendment which, by the way, has been being shredded since Reagan declared War On Drugs.

Every time our government declares war on anything, our constitutional rights become fewer and fewer and less protected.

NOTE Sign Chris Dodd’s petition against retroactive im[pum]munity for the telcos here.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.