Congress reduces its oversight role

[YankeyMCC]

(snip)

WASHINGTON -- Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors.
Article Tools


In the past two years, a House committee has managed to take only 12 hours of sworn testimony about the abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

(snip)

Party loyalty does not account for the difference: In 1993-94, the Democrats were investigating a Democratic administration.

Representative Tom Davis, the current chairman of the Government Reform Committee, the chamber's chief watchdog for government waste and abuse, said his panel had not abdicated its oversight role, which many consider critical to the separation of powers in government.

(snip)


http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/11/20/congress_reduces_its_oversight_role/

[DeepModem Mom]

1. I wish more people understood the role of separation of powers...

in our democracy, and realized that the Bush cabal endangers this critical balance.

[justabob]

5. yes, me too

I don't think that BushCo "endangers" the balance though... separation of power was been all but erased in the last few years. grrr

[ixion]

2. ah, but party loyalty is exactly what's to account

for the difference, as the rethugs are, apparently, grossly unethical.

That's obvious, but the statement the article makes is misleading in a rather devious way, if you ask me.

[Democat]

3. The author makes a mistake in the quote about party loyalty

The problem is that party loyalty comes before loyalty to country for Republicans. Democrats put country before party.

So party loyalty by Republicans does account for the difference.

Republican corrpution is to blame, as usual.

[UpInArms]

6. perhaps not "party loyalty" in the classic sense of the term -

but the "party loyalty" to the slavic devotion to control instead of to a democratic republic or to our country or to the Constitution or to anything more than their utter and complete control of power - that Machiavellian thing.

Mach•i•a•vel•li•an

Pronunciation: (mak"ē-u-vel'ē-un),
—adj.
1. of, like, or befitting Machiavelli.
2. being or acting in accordance with the principles of government analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince, in which political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described.
3. characterized by subtle or unscrupulous cunning, deception, expediency, or dishonesty: He resorted to Machiavellian tactics in order to get ahead.

—n.
a follower of the principles analyzed or described in The Prince, esp. with reference to techniques of political manipulation. Also,Mach"i•a•vel'i•an.

from the article in the OP:

Across the House, panels that once aggressively scrutinized the workings of the government are now restricting themselves largely to subjects that advance a particular goal or a cause favored by the GOP leadership, such as recent oversight hearings on the benefits of having social services provided by faith-based organizations and drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, whose Reagan administration-era investigation into reports of mismanagement at the Environmental Protection Agency led to the resignation of the EPA administrator, Anne Gorsuch Burford, has also become far less aggressive in its investigations of energy interests and the administration.

<snip>

Further, some of the recent hearings defined as oversight by panel leadership in fact served to advance a Bush administration agenda. In addition to the hearings into faith-based service providers and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, House and Senate panels have sought to expose the dangers of buying imported or pharmaceuticals sold on the Internet, buttressing a Republican and drug-industry position that Americans should not be permitted to buy cut-rate prescription drugs outside the United States.

...more...

[salin]

4. 140 hours on a Christmas card list; 12 hours on Abu Ghraib

Doesn't this exemplify the screwed up priorities of the GOP in congress? Doesn't it rather prove that the constant hounding of Clinton was about POLITICS and never about policy or abuse of power - given what this GOP congress doesn't seem to give a whit about these days?

Or is Davis, claiming that his committee isn't abrogating it oversight role, really claiming that the Christmas card list was a much more serious issue for Congress to study than what appears to be admin policy that breaks international (and national) law? Let alone how those policies could make us 'less secure'?

[Rose Siding]

7. Wow. How'd this make it to print?

;)

Of course they *should* have written:

"Party loyalty does not account for the difference on the part of the Democrats"

[Mandate My Ass]

8. WOW! What a read. My only problem with this piece is the title

I'd call it something like: "Congress refuses to do its job. Enables and ignores corruption in executive branch."

[baby_bear]

9. Everyone here w/ a Republican rep. should mail this article to him/her

They need to know their constituents are not all oblivious to the
horrific negligence occurring on the part of the Republican-dominated House and Senate.

And the Dems need to keep up the pressure on the Repugs to fulfill their oversight obligations. Like Reid calling for a closed session.

b_b

[stillcool]

10. But isn't the real problem...

those 'operations' that the Congress has no oversight of? If the only reason they are originated and funded in secrecy, is because of their questionable legality why does it not only continue to occur, but grow in funding? It seems that the private/secret/corp-military adjunct of government is driving the bus.

[MsMagnificent]

11. That's what happens with One Party Rule

[Patrick J Fitzgerald]

12. Mellow...

I am creating a new gtand jury and I have subpoena power and based on results am not affraid to indict evil doers and pond scum.

http://patrickjfitzgerald.blogspot.com :)

[meganmonkey]

13. Welcome to DU!

:toast:

You are not really him. He would be more subtle than that :P

[meow2u3]

14. GOP party loyalty is like the mob's loyalty to its godfather

We have trouble exposing the corruption because we can't seem to penetrate the Red Wall of Silence: snitches get stiches; opposition gets demonized even to the point of murder that's made to look either like suicide or an accident; blackmailing fellow Republicans into voting with the criminals in charge, etc.

Yet the bosses act as if they're above the law. I wouldn't put it past them to pay off judges, politicians, or even juries. The GOP of the 21st century is being run like a protection racket; they should be prosecuted under RICO law as a racketeer-influenced organization.

[dxstone]

15. Blood boiling here...

None of the general info is new to me--this is apparent to ANYONE who actually follows the news...
But the specifics... good lord...
Really excellent article; highly recommended.
To the Globe editors: I'd tread carefully out there, fellas... anthrax? Sudden urge to suicide? Everyone knows (haha) these things cluster around the holidays...

Proof positive. To those who say we shouldn't compare the neocon reeps to Nazis, I agree. No comparison.
These bastards make the Nazis look like gentle lambs, misled fools and RANK AMATEURS!

WAKE UP, AMERICA! WAKE UP, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!
d







President Evil Online

[rodeodance]

16. my gawd--this really puts things into prespective doesn't it!!

WASHINGTON -- Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors.
Article Tools


In the past two years, a House committee has managed to take only 12 hours of sworn testimony about the abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

[coda]

17. "The Democrats are trying to criminalize politics!"

100 to one. One hundred subpoenas to one.

The government reform panel alone, for example, issued 1,052 subpoenas related to investigations of the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 2002, and only 11 subpoenas related to allegations of Republican abuse.






===
http://www.thehill.com/news/051304/oversight.aspx


Dems did oversight better, says Grassley
Lawmakers lament lack of scrutiny
By Geoff Earle
May 13, 2004

"We Republicans have never quite reached the level of competent oversight that the Democrats developed over their 40 years that they controlled Congress. We tried to emphasize legislating, and we’ve delegated so much authority to the executive branch of government, and we ought to devote more time to oversight than we do."

- Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate Finance Committee chairman, May 2004

--

"When your party controls Congress and the White House, "You get less oversight, that’s the way it goes."


- Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), who chairs the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. May 2004


--

"We’ve been so busy trying to get our bills passed through conference. It takes away from the time we should have been applying towards oversight."


- Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), House Appropriations Committee Chairman, May 2004

LOL, yeah that's right Bill, it's tough getting those bills through a Republican controlled(HAMMERed™) conferences. :eyes:

--

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and
judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many,
and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may
justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

--James Madison

[BikeWriter]

18. "Tyranny" being the key word here.

[madmark]

19. What oversight role? I saw McCain beat up on some affiliates of an indian

lobbyist the other day on CSPAN and that's about it.

[Thom Little]

20. Bend over - Here they come again