Amen.

The whole debate is ridiculous. All you have to do is watch the press conference to see that she is lying. A 10 year old could tell that she is lying. All the talking head Liberals acting like "we don't know who is telling the truth" are just exposing themselves as partisan hacks.

Nancy Pelosi IS the poster child for PLANNED PARENTHOOD.

You know none of this matters. Let sleeping dogs lie.

What really bothers me is that no one is remotely concerned about what the terrorists who were waterboarded were doing. All of their attacks and plan and killings are Ok, but we are terrible for torturing them????

What about the torture they are doing to the millions of Americans????

Pelosi, get a life, admit you screwed up and get on with what is inportant, this countries economy. Stop worring about what the other countried think of us, we know they hate us anyway, and frankly I don't care if they hate us.

I think this is the Texas Hold 'em version of a bluff, then being called on the bluff, and no going all in. In other words, she's trying to wiggle out of her credibility issue by raising the stakes...she's still busted as far as I'm concerned. It's about time she got called on some of her BS statements and everyone taking what she says at face value.

Good point Chuck. Stop all the nonsense. Everybody knew what was going on...EVERYBODY....Democrats, Republicans, Independents......EVERYBODY, and they all agreed it needed to be done at the time. Now they want to drag the US threw the mud to gain political points. THAT is the real crime here!!

You do realize she is third in line behind barry don't you? She lied, we know she lied, she knows she lied, CIA will prove she lied. Hey Nancy, stay as speaker until they snatch the gavel from you. You are a real asset to conservatives.

The down side is the harm she is doing to national security. Oh yeah, I forgot, we have Napalitono in charge. My bad.

Pelosi, Dodd, Murtha, FRANK, they all need to go.
Commentaries/anchors at MSNBC amd ABC cannot help you out of the damage the above politicians are causing the DNC. I have tried to repect the left wing media, but I can't.

They are what they accuse Republicans of being. BIASED HATEMONGERS.

I suggest you rein in Obama as well. Empathy for TERRORISTS, wanting to bring Gitmo prisoners to America, Driving the country Financially broke.
You have opened the door towards an Islamic controlled America. Dreams of his father.

Sit back and watch, Pelosi, Dodd, Frank, & Murth are Destroying the Liberal Democratic Socialist Party.

Because of these 4 politicians, I am voting straight republican in 2010.

Maybe you can change my mind for 2012. Right now it's not looking good

You better wait for the facts on this one, Former Republican and Democratic committy members are saying the same story Pelosi is saying, as for mister Goss he said he knew, not that they were told in that meeting, as bad as some of you want Pelosi you are depending on an adminstration that was allowed to lie for eight years and the facts may come back to haunt them real soon, the CIA is back tracking at the moment, when you consistently lie its hard to remember which lie you told first....

The CIA even says she's lying...and there's a Obama appointed head of the CIA saying it!! Nancy Pelosi has been caught lying, plain and simple. It appears she won't win re-election from her home state in 2010, and it also appears she won't be re-elected to be speaker of the US House again. Just say "bye" Nancy, go home in disgrace! She will be the first of many during the mid-term elections that will become unemployed. The politicians in Washington, DC need to realize, the American people are MAD as hell, and we aren't taking the spending and waste from either party!

palco, did you WATCH the press conference? Do you believe that was someone telling the truth? Put the partisan politics aside and open your eyes. She is lying and willing to drag the CIA through the mud to wriggle out of it.

She needs to resign. She will do this country more harm than good! To even think that she could be third in line is very frightening! We do not need her! I don't know how she made it this far! Wake Up America! We need her about as much as we need the terrorist!

Well, if I was in Calif and had her on my ballot I'd probably laugh so hard I'd have a hard time marking the other candidates block! Frankly this is another nail in her coffin. The way she and her cohorts trashed Bush for their mistakes using media was just awful. He was not the villian that should have been hung out to dry.

I would have screamed blue murder that she got 30M for a mouse habitat and want to rehabit the Bay Area(exclusive property) but she did absolutely nothing for the thousands of people in her area who are losing their homes to foreclosures. If you just think about it, she could have taken that 30M and paid a lot of back mortgage payments to prevent many people from being thrown out of their homes. Or given it to the state to help their deficit problems. Not to mention Pelosi's husband has massive investments in AIG who she bailed out to the tune of 172B and her own retirement is insured by it.

It is time to put a limit on the term length these career politicians can serve(screw) our country. This is becoming more of a pack of theives running rampant ever day and the voters need to take action. When the UAW is running our government with huge campaign contributions by their officials out of the union coffers it is time to put a law in force that stops all company contributions and only allow individual contributions located inside the US. Put a stop to this crap of pay-n-play now! Time to combine all government retirement money into the Social Security Fund and make them use Medicare too.

Hey Nancy, those John Kerry "flipflops" are not doing so good for you either.

Kick her AND her cronies to the curb and let's get some responsible people in Congress.

To: John Boehner Keep up the pressure on her, don't let her weasel her way out of this.

For once in your life Pelosi do something honorable for yourself and your country - RESIGN !

Exactly. This is the perfect example of why Americans need to be outraged by the tatics of the democratic congress. Between Pelosi, ther President's tax cheats and the bankrupting of the country, Chris Dodd and Frank's criminal conduct, the US is in serious trouble.

Sure she's lying. Or she's admitting she's stupid. But nothing will come of it because the Democrats hold the White House and both Houses of Congress. Her lies will be swept under the table while the Dems go after Bush, Cheney, CIA officials, etc.

The thing that gets me is, she's basically admitting she's dumb as a post. Does she think foreign Intelligence services are going to be up front with her?

Good Post, HouseNegro LOLROF!!!!!!!

@Chuck. Everyone wanted to let sleeping dogs lie but Obama's team was determined to make something out of this and now it has come back to bite them in the rear. I'm so glad Pelosi's true colors are starting to come to the surface, so much so that she is becoming a liability to the left. They'd better get rid of her while they can.

Nancy Pelosi has put the CIA Director Leon Panetta and President Obama between rock and a hqard place. If Panetta releases documents showing she was briefed, proving shes lying, Obama has to force her to resign.

If Panetta gives in to pressure from Obama not to release the memos, Panetta loses the trust of the people under him at the CIA.

If Nancy's NOT lying, (insert maniacal laughter here), then the CIA is indeed lying and we're in deep trouble because we won;t be able to trust them when they tell us something is coming.

If Nancy were to resign without admitting anything, the county could move on.

That plastic faced broom-riding Liar even has the democrats running from her pack of bumbling lies.........I was briefed but not informed.....uhhhhhh of the informed briefing at the time......uuuhhhhhh....and the CIA are uuhhhhhhh.....just a bunch of misinformers. WTF????

It seems from what I've read that Pres would rather set appropriate policies and continue to do what's necessary for our country but some factions of the public want the bush admin held accountable for their actions. Pelosi is not looking like an honest and forthright leader right now but if you want her held accountable, you need to hold people like Cheney, Rove, Rummy etc also held accountable. In my view, their actions were much worse than Pelosi's. That being said, if you hold others accountable for lying and Pelosi is lying -- hold them & her accountable.

This is a can of worms that sould never have been opened. It is easy for those to continue to run around with torches and pitchforks. Pelosi is lying that is for sure but the far left wants blood so bad it is not going to drop this and it is not going to only endanger our service men and women but allow those extremist to come back harder and more deadly. The Far left Including Pelosi are only worried about one thing and that is a lynching!!! American people forget that this is not a new problem and has been building long before 9/11. These folks have one goal and that is to win at all cost!! As this circus continues to go on all the quote enemy is doing is laughing and strengthening.

Let me get this straight now. You are calling for Pelosi to resign for alledgedly knowing that the CIA was waterboarding, but we shouldn't go after the Bush administration for authorizing and implementing the practice?

Pelosi should answer to the charges and face the consequences. And so should the instigators of the practice.

Willowbrook-

Kick her AND her cronies to the curb and let's get some responsible people in Congress.

Term limits in Congress would ferret out these fools.

Just another political HACK!!! She knew full well in 2002 and 2003 but went along at the time based solely out of political expediency. Now the political winds have changed and water-boarding (also called "enhanced interrogation") is unacceptable. She like most bleeding heart liberals go for whats politically beneficial rather than whats best for the nation.

Willow -What you say is true, but what will be left of the country by then??????? Fix the problem BEFORE they ruin everything. Oh, and we need to waste AS LITTLE taxpayer money as possible doing it. (THey need to pay for their OWN legal defence.)

even as it raised some questions about the speaker's credibility.

Lets see a hyper partisan lifetime politician might have some credibilityproblems? So what is the irony? The idea that the speaker might stretch the truth or even lie to further her agenda or cover her posterior? That a reporter would be surprised at the alleged movtives and actions of the speaker? Can you imagine the mood of the press if we were talking about the CEO of GM rather than the Speaker of the House? There would be no question that the CEO was lying in my view the press would sharpen their knives and fillet the poor schmuck. Granted the opposition is sharpening their claws and will rip her to shreds, they have no moral authority they are also liars. In the world of the partisan crowd and the reporters, truth and logic have no place in the equation. So as always the defenders see no problem and the other side is feasting on the hypocrisy. And the rest of us, we are the victims of the 2 party's and their supporters. Its business as usual in Washington, theater of the absurd!

Pelosi is a total waste of time. And to think she had so much involvement with authoring the stimulus plan. Go figure the stimulus plan turned out to be useless.

I find it extremely amusing that the very subject that she wants dealt with, brings her down. Pelosi is a typical Bush hater blinded by her greed and simply can't let go.

Yea. Nancy is a real piece of work. Bad eye job and all.

No OU Shark...She should resign for either 1) condoning waterboarding while saying it is a crime (it isn't) 2)Lying profusely to CYA 3)Being so inept that she didn't know what she had just been briefed on 4) spending time worrying about a swamp rat when she should have been paying attn to national security. You pick.

lets see, first she didn't know anything about waterboarding, but I specifically asked if they were waterboarding,then oops, I guess they did tell us they might, then oops i guess they did tell us they were, but that was later and I wasn't there, and everybody else is lying. Then oops---------- If water boarding hadn't been raised, why did she bring it up????

She is lying through her teeth!!!!!

Reminds me of a certain ex presidents wife testifying under oath before congress about being in a certain dead man's office and then oops, I guess I misspoke and then oops, I guess I misspoke again!!!! But now I am telling the truth after I have been caught lying twice. If you are a democrat, that is how you get elected to office and then get the job of secretary of state! A necessity to rising in power in the democrat party!

I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT WOMAN!!!!!!

If Dame Pelosi's face doesn't move when she speaks...she's lying....oh I forgot, her face can't move no matter what she does.

How does this moron get elected to office ??? She had to fumble with her notes and papers like a president with a jumbled teleprompter signal to answer very basic questions asked of her. She could not simply provides answers to questions.

People like this are making decisions every day that affect all of us in this country. What a sham !!!

FIRST--9/4/02--Pelosi and Goff were informed of the new EITs that were GOING to be introduced and used. When asked if these included waterboarding she was told NO.

SECOND--FEB/03--Pelosi was informed by an aid (Sheehey) that waterboarding was being used.

THIRD--All of the intelligence gathered was gathered by the same intelligence officers and agencies that gathered information leading up to the invasion of IRAQ.

FORTH--The credibility of those agencies have been in question for YEARS.

FIFTH--RichardBaxter--you are wrong the CIA does NOT say she is lying, in fact, from yesterday--

In a written response issued moments after Pelosi spoke, an official at the CIA neither disputed nor accepted the California Democrat's statements.

Instead, George Little, head of the CIA office of public affairs, said it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate. He said the notes could be made available at the CIA "for staff review."

FIFTH--This is a she said/he said dispute, and until you can PROVE she lied, and not just because you hate her or her "eye job", or even if you dont think she is very good politician, she will have the benefit of a doubt. Remember, people, innocent until proven guilty, in this country. Or have you all become what you hate? Only strong armed regimes like Iraq, Iran, N.Korea etc lock up and sentence to death without proof!!!

FINALLY--Even if she was told on 9/4/02, she could not expose that she knew this info--BECAUSE IT IS AGAINST THE LAW TO DISCLOSE ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED IN A BRIEFING.

Please people--I know you are scared of Ms. Pelosi and her obvious power, but, give it up. The @!$%# you are trying to stir up will eventually end up on your face!!!

And I'm done!

Westbury64 has said it all.  Like the lady on SNL says, but substituting Congress for her word that rhymes with witch..."Congress...PLEASE!"

miesque

miesque Excuse me DIP, but Nancy Pelosi is not allowed to talk about anything she learned in a security briefing. And lest we forget how the Bush administration worked, if she HAD repeated anything she learned in a "National Security" briefing while George W. Bush was still in office, she would have been instantly called a "enemy combatant/traitor" and hustled off to some Black Ops prison in BFE!.....

Yeah Bush would have definitely have held her accountable and would have buried her so deep in a hole she would still be praying for sunshine huh? Like he did to her when she violated the Logan Act. She violated the very laws she took an oath to uphold...then Bush smacked her down and threw her in Gitmo. Good Point!

More koolaide miesque?

Right on! She's a liar just like her boss!

They should have let sleeping dogs lie, but nope wanted to punish Bush so now they are finding out Pelosi is just as guilty, so Now they have choice pursue it and look bad, Pelosi resign and drop the games of attacking the past and move on..There is no point to it, Obama closed the darn place, move on!!

I didn't like things Bush did but I see no point in all this Bs, every president has screwed up, lied, had crooked crooks within ETC., If we Jail Bush, Obama's exit would be the same. Force the trash out, take away pensions, medical ETC. >>> Term limits NOW !!

Let's waterboard the truth out of Pelosi. She is such a two-faces bi%$#. If she's the best Cal. has to offer, no wonder their going bankrupt.

Ok so its one of those " I knew cause they told the guy who worked for me, but, i really did not know cause they did not tell me personally to my own ears and eyes" So, they lied. Why does Nancy have people in her administration. lets get real here. You know there is not secret one up there. Makes me think of ants on an ant hill. They are too busy climbing over one another acting like they don't see each other and they think we are not watching. Its really unfortunate and, not helping the tenneous situation of all the people who are secretly wanting the sucessfull aspects of the Obama administration to break through. Time for Nancy to get out of her own way and ours. good job getting your party there now let someone else take a shot at it.

1

Ron-374386

Cite your sources with valid information. I do not like Pelosi but I do not like conjecture either.

Well, now, Nancy gets to go down that same drain she promised to "Drain the swamp" with when she became speaker. Shows what such pompous, righteous indignation actually yields.

The liberals have stepped way over the line. Looks like the 2010 mid-terms could get real exciting for these thugs.

Oh please! If you are going to remove Nancy Pelosi for knowing about the torture, then you have to remove every member of the government in office during the entire war. Any legislater who claims to not have had any knowledge of those events is a liar. And anyone who knows anything about history knows that the U.S. has always employed torture from the Civil War on. In Viet Nam torture was synonymous with interogation, and when the U.S. soldiers didn't want to do it they simply employed the Vietnamese to do it for them.

"You know none of this matters. Let sleeping dogs lie."

I love this sentiment repeatedly being presented... Maybe we should have just let sleeping dogs lie in regards to Saddam Hussein's war crimes.... We found it urgently necessary to depose the leader of a sovereign nation that did not attack us hunt him down as a fugitive and bring him to justice for his crimes by hanging him.... but.... if we committed war crimes - as long as it was in our best interest to do so - we should just let sleeping dogs lie and move on......

Same as the defense - I find it a telling statement that the argument is now that we should not recognize water boarding and placing nude prisoners in boxes with insects as torture because it is now in our best interest to do so. If we do not recognize these acts as torture (there being no evidence that these acts do sustained damage to an individual) then we don't have to suffer as a nation through the trials... Makes me wonder if this doesn't state the obvious about the whole mess - We were never in Iraq to liberate - we were their to serve our own interests in protecting the flow of oil.

News leaks happen in the government all the time. It is the great thing about our country. There was no national security risk for her to call the NYT and say, 'Hey, start digging, we are torturing people in secret prisons."

That not only would have been the 'right' thing to do, it would have helped her destroy her enemy and gain power. So, if she did know, she has some moral questions to ask and needs to explain the lies, and if she did not know, then lets review it all and get it done with. Her story though does not add up, and considering that this was all written before hand and she was not ambushed, I have a hard time beleiveing her.

A third grader could have come up wiht a better excuse in 20 minutes than she did. She has confused stories, contradictory reports, and has already admitted to knowing about the torture methods in early 2003. She had a moral obligation to come out on that and she failed to do so.

So, go ahead Ms. Pelosi and start your hearings against the Republicans if you think that is the correct thing to do, but do not be surprised if you are on that list too. If not, than take Mr Obama's recommendation, fix the system so it no longer happens, and let sleeping dogs lay.

The Democrates have been politicizing national security since about 6 months after we went into Iraq largely because we didn't find the WMD as we thought were there. This invasion was not done on the sly, 6 months of UN negotiations and 19 UN resolutions ignored by Saddam. We and many of our allies came the the same conculsion (which much of the same intelligence although flawed) and our Congress voted to go in. NO war goes as planned and miscues/mistakes will be made. But once we're in, we're in to win and get our soldiers out. The constant, hateful barrage from the left on the war effort and the out and out statement by many that the war is lost, we can't win, comparing Bush to Hitler, etc., served to embolden our enemies (kinda like Hanoi Jane and her bunch during Vietnam) is nothing short of treasonous. Now, the Dems are still after the previous administration for political benefit and it has backfired. Obama started it by SELECTIVELY declassifying certain documents for political purposes and then wanted to make many photos public. He is a tremendous security threat to our country and should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States of America. This guy is clueless not only on the economy but national security. Well, maybe he's not clueless in the economy if you believe in an all powerful and controlling central gov't, i.e. socialism. His administration has served to discredit and dismantle, with little thought and debate over the consequences, much of what was done to protect us from another attack. I strongly believe, after living quite a while, the worst is yet to come if he is allowed to continue his march to a socilized nation and then into the "new world order". With him as the golbal leader. Our constution and the protection it uniquely affords us as American citizens will be gone. The arrogance of this man knows no bounds.

People should be outraged for sure . But not just at one person..the outrage should be at all of our elected for not doing their jobs...none of them are watching out for what they were elected to do..and that is give us honest guidance to make this country even better. But so far all we have seen is our country being sold out and all our elected claiming its someone elses fault..none of them are to blame if you listen to them.

What I was really suprised about is how ALL of the Press wwnt after her. MSNBC the POST, The Times All the agencies that are in the pockets of the DeM's. This is great. And if Bush was commiting a crime it was only due to the lawyers who said it was legal. So if it's legal then it's legal. You can't prosicute some for doing something that was legal.

It only appears that the DEMS hate Bush for doing his job, Soldiers for doing their jobs, CIA, DIA, NSA, Etc.

The CIA met with a staff member instead of Nancy. Yeah right. If this is true, which I doubt, this shows that she is yet more incompetent than what anyone thought that she was. We should just sweep it under the rug and get on with more important business such as destroying the country a bit more. Time for old Nancy to go.

Why does anyone even listen to this worthless Shru?

Pelosi has become a lightning rod for criticism from conservatives, and a hero to the left, much as former vice president Richard B. Cheney has become a target of the left and the darling of many on the right.

Is that supposed to be a joke?

A hero to the left?

If ANYONE claims Peligrosi is a hero, they're either reading from a teleprompter or absolutely clueless.

I love how MSNBC tries to pass off an editorial as journalism.

Give me a break! Do you honestly thing that the CIA doesn't lie to congress, the people....even to the president?!?! Grow up - there is no Santa, Easter bunner and the CIA lies. They have to to be able to do the work that they do. And here's a question for Kit bond: If you were aware of these atrosities going on such as weater-boarding, as an American citizen how could YOU remain quiet? This entire discussion stinks of politics.

What the hell difference it makes, in 2002 the Bush Administration ruled with an iron fist. Do you really think people belive that they came to a democrat and said " Hey we are committing a federal crime" Get real and get back to the real question. Did they committ torture (Answer: Yes) Was it a crime in 2002 (Answer: Yes) Action: Put their ass in jail just as you would do to me if I committed a crime.

The CIA became a political tool under Dubya, and I don't place any more credibility in their "notes"at the time than I do Pelosi. This is just another "Who shot John?" circus which has become almost the norm in Washington.

Either bring up charges, to whomever, or move on. Would love to know her real motivation for this rehash. Glad I live in Cali, so I can vote for someone else next time around - and it isn't just for this new flap, she is ineffective as a congress member.

We cannot trust anyone that was in the Govn't when all this took place. We need to put these people in their place, with Jail Time for going against all we stand for in this country and the world. When are "REAL AMERICANS" going to stand up and not take the word of either party at this time. These politicians are the worst that money can buy.

The CIA, by design are spys. They lie all of the time to someone. Why do you find it so hard to believe that they would not lie to congress, Pelosi, the American people, or anyone else? They have lied in the past, are lieing now, and will lie in the future, if it suits their purpose.

Simple solution- Water-board Piglosi to get her to speak the truth for the first time in her political life!

She told the world today that the CIA COMMITED A FEDERAL CRIME.. Now this woman needs to go along with all who support her.. This woman is a danger to the US.

pelosi is a liar and always will be. She is still lying because pelosi knows that no matter what the naive and blinded voters in her district do not care what she does or lies about. She will still be reelected. Most politicians are shady from one extreme to another, but the democrats are on the worst side of the scale. They know that they can get away with it and are.

Very good you have proof the President and Vice President tortured anyone? Or do you watch to much OLBERMAN and MADDCOW?

Let's get her! Let's take her down! Come on people!

Release ALL the memos! I want to know exactly who knew what and when! Then let the Justice Department take over. It's time to throw ALL those who ordered or agreed to break American and international law into prison! It is time to stop the cherade.

The best part about tagging Pelosi with this is we are MORE likely to get all the information on who exactly pushed for torture, who agreed with it and who knew about it. Before Obama was trying to avoid this turning into a political sh**storm. But now, both Repubs and Demos can be held accountable. Let's start the trials! I would predict international law convictions for many in the Bush administration, several Senators and House members from both parties were complicit. Accessories to torture is what I'd call them. They all need to go to prison. It would be nice to see Bush, Gonzalez, Cheney and Pelosi chained to one another for their sentencing.

A: She knew, now wants us to believe that mean old bush was too much for her to stand up to, next she'll cry.

B: I'd still do her.

What does the person that was with her at the September 02 briefing say about what was discussed at the meeting?

It should be easy to determine if Pelosi is lying.

This is scary, since she is third in line for the presidency.

RELEASE the minutes of Pelosi's meetings with the CIA. THE MINUTES.

Ken

You should be put in jail for Pure 100% stupidity. Are you stupid (Answer: Yes) Have you proved it (Answer: Yes)

The sad fact is she is either going to end up being proven to be a liar which we all know she is or she is saying she is flat out stupid. She has said Bush was an idiot, well if an idiot can fool you what does that say about you. The problem here is she is still on the blame Bush wagon and can't manage to find her way off. She has spent the better part of the last 9 years blaming him for everything under the sun. Now that she and her buddies in Congress were called out for causing the financial mess by the deregulation of it in 1999 she is looking for something to grasp onto her obsession of Bush blaming. I truly think she is just lost at this point she can't blame the white house now......her messiah is in the white house, she can't blame the secretary of state Clinton and she doesn't want to take accountability for the Dems having had control of the congress and senate for more than 2.5 years. She just doesn't know what to do she has no way of doing things knowingly and then having the fall back to blame someone, anyone in the GOP for it. She has a long road for herself with the possibility for being held accountable for her own vote and her own actions. Maybe we can help her out and vote against her when she comes up for election, kind of like a mercy vote out like on survivor when they get homesick. California can do it! I just moved here and when she and her buddy Barbara Boxer come up for election neither will get my vote even if Mickey Mouse IS running.

The Democrat Left Wing Liberal nut job activists have circled the wagons. So what if she knew? It's Bush's fault. Arrest him!!!!!!!!! AAAAAhhhhhh!!!!!! You do know why they call her Gotee Pelosi, right?

So some of the apologists suggest that she was lied to, misled, or even bullied by the Bush administration and/or the CIA? Ok, even if that is the case she is not strong enough to be a leader for her party. Period. The fact is that she has always spoken her mind and I really doubt that she is being truthful, but it will all come out eventually. And we wonder why all of the 'Truth Commission' talk, after everyone got their press out of it, lost its legs so quickly.

Folks, there are a number of agencies and departments (Fed, CIA, etc) that either have Congressional oversight or can have more AND THEY DO NOT WANT MORE NOR DO THEY WANT ADDITIONAL SCRUTINY. To lie to Congress in non-public venues is counter-productive for many of these departments. Please, Nancy; you have been caught. Why not admit this? Oh, because it makes you look VERY bad.

Let's hope the voters in California are smart enough - I have to wonder about that. She appears to be lying, or stupid, or does she go to important meetings and simply not listen? This is a woman who routinely displays her lack of leadership in partisan rants, and misuses taxpayer funds for her "private" airline, a disgusting misuse of taxpayer funds.

she may have known about the torture and she may have lied but what you repugs fail to realize is that your man bush was the decider, thats what bush said , i did not make that up.so if bush was the decider then bush the man you repugs put in office twice is responsible no matter who else knew.you repugs need to grow a pair and just admit that you and your party are responsible for the suffering that America has gone through for the last 8 yrs.

poor joe, 8 yrs ago he didn't know what a president was, now he says it's a "decider" whatever that is. quetion: what is "repug" short for? bet you don't know.

I love you everyone, to defend Pelosi, throws the Bush argument out there again. What did he lie about? The fact that American Intelligence indicated that Sadam had WMD's (which, for those with selective memories, HE USED ON HIS OWN PEOPLE). Now, if you are the President and your intelligence folks tell you that a country that is continually a threat to its neighbors and has the leverage to destabilize a volatile region has WMD's, what do you do? Keep talking? That got us nowhere. Sanction? Again, nowhere. President Bush made a tough call, one most do not have the stones to make.

Please don't defend Pelosi with this red herring.

Hey, libs, try as you might you can't defend her. Some of you are saying to cite proof - crap, just watch her news conference from yesterday - she's so full of her lies, she stumble and bumbles around trying to decide what to say without contradicting herself, how to say it, etc. She is clearly lying - a third grader could figure that out..

The reason this is important - she knows the very same thing she accused the Bush ADM of knowing and condoning - and she condoned it herself by not saying a word, yet she rips the Bush ADM for the very same thing and then says the CIA (led by Clinton nominee Geroge Tenet) lied to them ( her 6th version of the story, BTW). You want to talk about the REP party imploding - crap, look at the Dem party - Rangel, Harmon ( deals for her husband's business), Dodd, Frank, Pelosi, William Jefferson, Murtha, John Edwards, and all the people in the Obama ADM who didn't pay taxes or recinded their nomination b/c they had issues)...yeah, it's a bad day to be a DEM.

The hypocrisy never ends - don't throw rocks if you live in a glass house!

Pelosi didnt order the torture of prisoners. Cheney and Bush did - they should both rot in prison.

TBA, Don't you think every one who knew and didn't raise any objections to the use of waterboarding should also "rot in jail" if this is such a heinous "crime"?

Between this and her stubborn refusal to entertain impeachment when it was clearly the appropriate remedy, it is now clear to me that Ms. Pelosi should not be the House Speaker. I voted for Obama but I am not a Pelosi fan and I simply cannot trust her!!!

Demoncrats!

Joe-You should try to get a job working for Pelosi you are still on the blame Bush bandwagon. You truly don't understand how government works do you? The President can do almost NOTHING without Congressional and Senatorial approval period. He CAN'T write laws he can't do anything other than veto something and then that only works if the Congress can't override him. You apparently paid as much attention in government class as Pelosi is claiming to have paid in her briefings. You weren't complaining about this after 9/11 and more than 3000 people were killed by these radicals. You weren't whining about it when the videos came out of the beheadings. Only NOW when it serves your political agenda are you whining about it. You should become Pelosi's speech writer or publicist....you are on the same page as she is. Whine about things you knew about but only when it serves you politically, talk about a self serving nit wit. If she didn't like it she should have had the guts to say so back then instead of lobbing accusations at an administration that is no longer in office. Give me a break I am sure there are many more important things she SHOULD be doing on Capitol hill at this point and taking time and resources to continue to play the Bush blame game is spending taxpayer money for her own political gain and nothing else.

Joe-I would truly like to know what 'suffering' you went through in the last 8 years......were you broke, hungry or what. Did you have a radical islamic attack your house. I am guessing not after 9/11 you weren't complaining now when you think it serves you best you whine. The fact is that CONGRESS deregulated the financial industry back in 1999 BEFORE Bush took office. So what now you going to use the arguement he didn't do anything about it........well same goes for Pelosi then.......deal with it. Congress created the financial mess and they and Pelosi are trying to distract people from that FACT by going back to ANYTHING they can find to turn it back to the 'good old days' of being able to pin anything and everything on Bush. Those days are over grow up yourself and handle the fact that Bush was NOT a dictator and controlled NOTHING without Congressional and Senatorial approval and no matter who is in the majority it takes both sides to vote things through so the Dems take blame for everything as well so suck it up and deal with the truth of the matter.

VFW

I must respond to your comment because I agree with it so much. This was a nation founded on honor. I keep watching this circus play out and I wonder where we lost that.

I grew up believing that we were better than other countries, but now I hear others saying that if another group does something to us, we have the right to do something even worse to them.

I even see people calling for beheadings. Of course Speaker Pelosi is lying about something. We have had top politicians (including presidents of all political stripes) lying about something for generations. Unfortunately, lying isn't against the law. If it was, we would have had a President impeached two administrations ago and almost no government at all for even longer.

But some things are much more serious. Our good name used to mean something. Our word to other countries of the world used to mean something. The code our military fights under I believe still means something. But apparently not to the Commander in Chief of those most exceptional troops, nor to many of our citizens.

When did we as a people decide that our honor was not worth fighting for? And without being an honorable nation, there is no guarantee of freedom, so what exactly is worth fighting for?

The Bush administration was one of the most arrogant, corrupt, and dishonest administrations this country has ever had. He, Cheney, and the GOP, led this country to ruin over the last eight years. I and many others rejoiced when Obama was elected President.

Now that the Democrats have control of the White House and the Congress, we have to hold ourselves to the same standards by which we judged the Bush Administration.

It is immaterial whether Pelosi knew in 2002 or 2003 - there is a scant five months between the dates. The point is she knew and her cries of outrage now are cries of hypocrisy. I, for one, do not want someone like that as Speaker of the House.

Of course, some Democrats are afraid that by removing Pelosi as Speaker of the House, it will strengthen Cheney's position. I understand the concern. Cheney is one of the biggest dirt bags in American politics. He is a liar. He is corrupt. He is without morals. In short, he is a scum bag.

But as Democrats, we should not let that stop us from doing the right thing. Pelosi has embarrased the party - and not for the first time. She needs to be removed as Speaker of the House and then the voters in her district can decide her fate in 2010.

I know it must look to her like Guantanamo is nothing more than a glorified dog pound, but does she really think all we did was make them comfortable and feed them regularly? Either she's an incompetent politician caught in a VERY SERIOUS LIE, or she's too stupid to represent the people of her state, and certainly not qualified by intellect to be Speaker of the House, and next in line for the Presidency if anything dire were to happen to President Obama and Vice President Biden. This is a matter that needs to be thoroughly investigated and the CIA exonerated of any blame whatsoever. I do not think anyone at the CIA would be stupid enough to withhold any intelligence information from a ranking member of the committee. She knew, and now she's trying to pretend that had she known she would have protested in the strongest manner. What? Protest something after the fact? Either we got the information we wanted or the prisoner died. Where's the harm in that?

dirty little secrets, dirty little lies..American politics thrives on twisted propaganda..how else can they achieve their goals ?? hell, we'll take this land, because those uncivilized inhabitants are not capable of running a government..or lets, take their oil, they're going to attack us, with WMD's..or go ahead attack/ hit us, so we can, beat the holy hell out of you..and then Love you..we live in the zanniest Country in the world..we even do it to our own..unemploy, them all- many will turn to drugs and crime.. then we will incarcate them..they won't have sex, or babies that way..we'll make them lovers of men, so they cannot pollute..welcome to America !! where labor is cheap, and belly's are full..the zanniest, but best country in the world, at this point...........

Obama tried to put this topic behind us (as far as prosecutions are concerned), but this hag insisted on making it an issue. Now that she's caught up in the mess, she can't keep her story straight. Did she really think Republicans wouldn't point out her complicity through knowledge if she kept running her piehole?

"She needs to resign as Speaker or be removed or the voters will do it for her in 2010." -- Ron

Her constituents are San Francisco liberals. Should she refuse to resign or be removed, she will continue to be re-elected by these 'socially enlightened people'.

Once again PINCH, nice post.

What's so wrong with putting Pelosi on the witness stand at a congressional hearing? It would set a good example that can be followed by the former Bush administration. Put her under oath and ask her simply what she knew, who told her, and what she agreed to.

If she's lying, the minutes of the meetings, as well as the sworn testimonies of former Bush officials, will prove it. This is why Obama should release all the memos pertaining to our Gitmo torture. I want to know who ordered the breaking of laws and who complied. Only then can we get to the bottom of this.

This also goes for any other Senator or House member who approved of waterboarding.

The Democrats want blood from the Bush administration, but are now beginning to realize they can't do that without implication some of themselves. So her only option is just to act like she didn't know even though there is proof to the contrary. Soon this will all be dropped as the Democrats realize they are involved just as heavily as the previous administration. I predict it will disappear from the radar screen in about a month. We've all been played again.

Man,you people are dumb.stop thinking or trying to. Just go to your little churches and do as your told............thats it.Thats what it's all about for you,

They were not "involved just as heavily." At the end of the day Dubya ordered the torture. Pelosi's job, according to former Bush administration officials, was little more than an advisory role.

Let's not conflate a 2003 ranking member of the minority party in the house to the status of having made a decision. That was not the case. The decision to torture, if that's what the Right is charging her with, lies squarely in the executive branch.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to Deceive"

I would think it's time for the CHANGE Pres. Obama promised. She MUST go, otherwise, his entire Campaign promise about "change" is no more than smoke and mirrors, to seduce the American Voter, into electing him. Seems to me, we are getting more of the "same" and the transparency he promised, is being back pedalled, when he uses excuses, to ban the photos, of treatment of the prisoners.

It's time he had the courage, to tell it like it is, and clean house, or his credibility will never be what he hoped. Any other kind of action on his part, will show him as the Congress' Puppet.

So, in2003 she was informed by a member of her staff, Michael Sheehy, that he attended a meeting with the CIA and they informed him that waterboarding had been used. Now that means she knew in 2003 that it was being done. She chose to take no action. Then she lied about knowing. Now she's lying about being told and she has called the CIA liars. Porter Goss was in the meeting in 2002 with Pelosi and said he knew. The CIA say they told her. She needs to resign as Speaker or be removed or the voters will do it for her in 2010.

How nice that you and most other posters on this thread have all the answers! You know Pelosi is lying...because you hate her guts, so she must be lying! In this case, it's a matter of which side is lying, Pelosi or the Bush Administration, and you're convinced that Bush wouldn't lie. But wait...didn't Bush and Cheney cherry pick some "intelligence" to convince us to invade Iraq? Hasn't Cheney personally made millions from his stock in Halliburton, who coincidentally got numerous no-bid contracts in Iraq? But no...it must be Pelosi lying, because Bush wouldn't have!

Are you really that convinced that Pelosi will be "removed (as Speaker) or the voters will do it for her in 2010"? A liberal, from a very liberal district? Do you really think that if you bleat it loud enough, and say it enough times, that it will actually come true? Do you really think that the Republicans -- the Party of "No" -- are going to take back Congress in 2010, and the White House in 2012? Think the "tea parties" are the next American Revolution? That states are going to secede from the Union?

Remember...the Republicans had their heads handed to them in the last election, and since then have given us a Keystone Kops show of bumbling around trying to figure out what to do next. The de facto "leader" of the party is a self-confessed drug addict with a radio show. The leading politician, at least the loudest, is Dick Cheney, he of the 15% approval rating. The leading candidates for the GOP nomination in 2012 are people like Sarah Palin, who made a fool of herself last fall, a former Speaker of the House who slams Obama one week, speaks glowingly of him the next, then goes back to slamming him, unknowns like Bobby Jindal and Mark Sanford, and Mitt Romney, who couldn't hold his advantage in 2008 within his own party. Yep, the GOP will sweep the next two elections! Then George W. Bush will get his rightful place on Mt. Rushmore...

I would think it's time for the CHANGE Pres. Obama promised. She MUST go, otherwise, his entire Campaign promise about "change" is no more than smoke and mirrors, to seduce the American Voter, into electing him. Seems to me, we are getting more of the "same" and the transparency he promised, is being back pedalled, when he uses excuses, to ban the photos, of treatment of the prisoners.

FYI. The president doesn't have the power to remove members of the House.

You misspelled reign and used the word resign. You silly dolt.

When did the American public learn that the Bush Government Policy had turned to accepting torture as a means of taking out their frustration for being inept at accomplishing the job of hunting down Osamabin Laden? A job they've left for a capable Administration, but not without draining the Treasury and dumping the nation into this Depression. Not without loosing the moral high ground and loosing the support of Nations of the world. A cold trail and a house divided [and backed by a pack of jackals, all members of the party of NO?]

The Democrats want blood from the Bush administration, but are now beginning to realize they can't do that without implication some of themselves.

So if Pelosi must fall in the torture scandal, from her position as a member of the minority party at the time the decision was announced to Congress, how many members of the Bush administration must suffer the same fate? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, every Republican in the Republican led Congress...

Be careful what you wish for...

Hey schwannomin. Want to confuse a Democrat. Just tell them the truth.

O.K. Now it's your turn to make the opposite statement and just substitute the word "Republican." Since the Democrats have change the political landscape into a cult of personality, I think they get what they deserve. Unfortunately they are bringing us all down with them. Pelosi in 2012. Waahoo.

So if Pelosi must fall in the torture scandal, from her position as a member of the minority party at the time the decision was announced to Congress, how many members of the Bush administration must suffer the same fate? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, every Republican in the Republican led Congress...

Isn't that exactly the point? Cheney wants memos released. Pelosi wants memos released. If this is truly not a political game, if the Obama administration actually wants to get to the bottom of this torture garbage - as do the majority of Americans - it's time to release all the memos, minutes of every meeting, the names of every operative who suggested torture, cooked up the legal justification for torture, and carried out torture.

I suspect what we'll find is there will be an awful lot more Bush administration folks than congressional Democrats who go to jail over full disclosure.

O.K. Now it's your turn to make the opposite statement and just substitute the word "Republican." Since the Democrats have change the political landscape into a cult of personality, I think they get what they deserve. Unfortunately they are bringing us all down with them. Pelosi in 2012. Waahoo.

I was just telling you she was not "involved just as heavily." I'm all for prosecuting her if she gave any kind of approval to torture. I can't imagine the President handed the decision role for use of torture to a ranking House Democrat, but there is only one way to find out. That would be a special prosecutor with subpoena power. I'd love to find out who was involved.

I am a life long Democrat and I tell you right now as long as that crazy loon is in charge I'll never vote Democrat again. She needs to be removed from power before she does any more damage. I have a friend who works for a Republican Congressman and she told me that at their first Washington retreat after Pelosi took over they were all cramped into a small office with no desks or anything to sit at. I do believe that is totally inappropriate on her part. She's the one who assigns rooms for meetings and such. I think she's a very vindictive person who is taking partisanship a little to far in her idea of political correctness.

THANK-YOU NANCY PELOSI!

You have succeeded in energizing other forces that may help us to have a more balanced government!

(.... start the music maestro! ) .... man, there's nothing more soothing than a politician to hate!

BigGreen

Now that I have had my say on the loss of honor in this country, I would like to agree with you. This is not the first time we have had a problem with a conflict between what has happened in our intelligence operations and what we, the American people, or our elected officials have been told.

I understand full well that our intelligence cannot tell us everything, in order to protect people's lives. I understand that although I think Speaker Pelosi has herself in a corner now, entirely of her own making. She was not supposed to take notes or even discuss this with others, and there are no real minutes of these meetings or briefings. Even former Vice-President Cheney knows this, as he so loudly calls for release of documents he knows do not exist (they are little better than the "memos" we have already seen, human notes by careful human hands, either designed to be self-protective or designed to be disingenuous.)

Now we are seeing a flurry of briefing recollections from others from both parties working off of very old calendars and discreetly taken and unauthorized notations which have been carefully hidden for years. There are no transcripts, briefing "minutes" are conveniently missing, people who were there are now unclear in their memory of various events, etc.

But in one instance, we do have a number of corroborative reports saying that the individual first waterboarded was a military man of known rank in the Iraqi government and very close to Saddam Hussein. He voluntarily cooperated with the Americans giving up the names of Al Qaeda members who turned out to be key players in 9/11, and the name of Padilla, the famous "shoe bomber". He also explained how Hussein had no tolerance for groups he could not totally control, and as a result did not allow Al Qaeda in the country.

This information was sent to Washington where it was intercepted by the Office of the Vice President. The response indicated that the American people had been told that the invasion of Iraq was necessary partially because of the ties to 9/11 and this link had to be established. A second response was sent reiterating that this was not true and that the enhanced interrogation techniques requested for this very useful and cooperative person were not only unnecessary but "reprehensible" as one field director wrote. At that point, CIA contractors (Blackwell) were sent in to remove the prisoner over the objections of our military people and the man was waterboarded 83 times, still without giving them the connection they wanted.

It is important to remember that Vice-President Cheney was the former CEO of Hallibuton, which helped develop Blackwell, and who was instrumental in getting both huge no-bid contracts. Cheney collected pay from Halliburton for several years after becoming Vice-President until a separete law was passed to allow him to "defer" his pay until after he left office. He is collecting that now, but will no longer have to reveal any of it to taxpayers.

The action of these contractors was in violation of the Geneva Convention and our own military codes on three grounds. Enhanced interrogation procedures, including waterboarding, were not to be used as a part of military interrogation of a uniformed enemy combatant, also know as a legitimate "prisoner of war", and this was a cooperating one at that. Enhanced interrogation procedures were only to be considered to avert an imminent threat to our nation or any part of it, which did not apply in this case either. In addition, the memos back and forth clearly state that the information being sought was for political purposes, in this case to justify this war to the American people. This is specifically forbidden.

There is no way to know who actually wrote those memos, and we may never know, but then again, Cheney's apparent deal to have Scooter Libby take the fall for a later move and then his anger when Libby did not get his anticipated pardon might have some bearing here. But, bottom line, the office dispensing the memos was quite clear, as is the connection between those who were sent in to break these laws and that same office. And there is no question that we did in fact break several laws.

The media reported it. The American people knew it. The Europeans knew it. Her aide knew it. BUT PELOSI NEVER KNEW IT. The third in command knows nothing. The third in command shuttles on military jet weekly between DC and California, knew nothing!!

If she doesn't know anything, she is useless! She would not be able to protect the lives of the American people. She is two steps away from PRESIDENCY and she knows NOTHING! I hope she would have the courage and integrity to RESIGN.

So, okay, I've just read over 108 msgs/responses just on comment #1 alone and I have to conclude that the MSNBC report contains one glaring error:

They claim that Nancy Pelosi has, as a consequence of this flap, become a "hero to the left".

Well, save for a couple of entries, it seems that the "left" is just as disgusted with her as the "right", as well they should be, since her abyssmal behavior and performance reflects far more poorly on her own side than on the other side. In fact, the "left" should be utterly outraged at her for turning what was supposed to be an inquiry into "enhanced interrogation/torture" into a referendum on Nancy Pelosi's character and honesty. Reasonable minds can differ on interrogation techniques, but there can be no reasonable or tenable disagreement on the proposition that Nancy Pelosi is a miserable, self-serving liar and hypocrite. If Pelosi had any decency, she'd resign now so that she doesn't sink her ostensible cause along with her career, but it is apparent that, given the choice between country and self, Nancy is less driven by her convictions than by her desire for self-preservation and self-aggrandisement.

Oh, and "c'mon" (Msg. #1.74), you've GOT to be kidding (Point B)...

She was not speaker in 2003, daniel. She was minority leader.

Either way, if she's going down for this, she should take the Bush administration down with her. Her home district (SF) would build a statue of her and hand her permanent keys to the city if she forced the Repubs' hand on this one. She is in a brilliant position to demand all memos and meeting minutes be released to clear her name. Even if they don't clear her name, she will have implicated numerous Bush officials in the ordering of torture.

This is all just crap! Pelosi never should have commented on the 'what did she know, and when did she know it' question.

What she should of said is "President Bush enacted this policy, it doesn't matter what I knew or when I knew it, I couldn't have stopped it. Period."

It's interesting to think along the lines of the Republicans twisted logic. If the owner of a business puts a policy in place that the manager doesn't like, the manager can't change it. He/she can complain but that's about it and at the end of the day the policy doesn't change. Period.

Keep defending torture Republicans. There's an old saying in politics, when you're in a hole, stop digging.

she could take no action because she was bound by the national security rules. She couldn't even talk about it whatsoever. WoW what a uninformed statement.

Methinks Ms. Plasticheeks has her pants on fire.

Pelosi has dug herself a hole so deep that I actually feel sorry for her. Her press conference was embarrassing - her comments and body language prove she is guilty. I watched Keith Olberman 5/14/09 and was shocked to see him present so few facts, ignore Pelosi's contradictory statements, and defend her so vigorously. I used to respect Howard Fineman, but his commentary on the show was equally laughable. I have to say that Bill O'Reilly's coverage has been much more fair, where at least he and the guests debate the different points of view. Geez, even Shawn Hannity had far left guests, and I got both sides of the story there too.

The real question is what to do. If the right and the left can go above politics for once, appoint a special commission to investigate the whole mess, keep classified what needs to be kept secret, yet outline where both sides have screwed-up, then maybe we can preserve our national security while also holding people accountable and continue to show to the world we are a good country.

By the way, if you release more photos, how about photos and video of victims being beheading by terrorists? Regardless of your position on waterboarding, it's quite obvious which is worse by orders of magnitude.

So, a politician is lying. Big deal. If that was all that's at stake. But it's not.

Pelosi's bigger sin is not that she's a liar, but she's also a hypocrite and is conducting a witch hunt by going after Bush administration officials who were doing what she was condoning.

But her biggest offense, by far, is that she is an unscrupulous, treacherous coward who is willing to ruin the reputations of CIA agents and officials who are protecting this country to save her own sorry skin.

If the Democrats have any decency or patriotism in them at all they need to toss that sorry excuse for a human being overboard and select a new Speaker of the House. It's unconscionable that they would allow her to remain in a position where she is third in line for the presidency.

I challenge the Democrats to put American loyalty before party loyalty.

Doesn't it scare the hell out of everybody that this pathological liar is third in line to the Presidency ???

OFF WITH HER HEAD !!

schwannomin

Nice to see you again. I always enjoy reading your posts, even if we don't always agree on everything.

That said, Speaker Pelosi has made one mistake after another over the years since her first briefing. I know, 20/20 hindsight is easy, but she is a shrewed, ruthless, and experienced politician and should have known better all along the way.

But the bigger issue she has now chosen may be her only perceived way out. Unfortunately, it may not work. Others are scrambling now on all sides, and their disallowed notes are faulty, as are their memories, and the CIA is already admitting a lack of the critical data. After all, this is not the first time something like this has happened, most notably during Iran-Contra. But the probable lying of the Speaker of the House is unfortunately not illegal. if the lying of a government official was a high crime, we would have had no real government for generations.

The real issue here is behind the smokescreen that both she and former Vice President Cheney are creating. Laws were broken - real laws.

Let me say up front that although I understand where the buck is supposed to stop, I really feel I have no choice but to give a pass to former President Bush on this one. I don't find any evidence that he was ever really in the loop, or if he was it was the result of being fed very bad data, as were the American people.

After the overthrow of Baghdad, we do have a number of corroborative reports saying that the individual first waterboarded was a military man of known rank in the Iraqi government and very close to Saddam Hussein. He voluntarily cooperated with the Americans giving up the names of Al Qaeda members who turned out to be key players in 9/11, and the name of Padilla, the famous "shoe bomber". He also explained how Hussein had no tolerance for groups he could not totally control, and as a result did not allow Al Qaeda in the country.

This information was sent to Washington where it was intercepted by the Office of the Vice President. The response indicated that the American people had been told that the invasion of Iraq was necessary partially because of the ties to 9/11 and this link had to be established. A second response was sent reiterating that this was not true and that the enhanced interrogation techniques requested for this very useful and cooperative person were not only unnecessary but "reprehensible" as one field director wrote. At that point, CIA contractors (Blackwell) were sent in to remove the prisoner over the objections of our military people and the man was waterboarded 83 times, still without giving them the connection they wanted.

It is important to remember that Vice-President Cheney was the CEO of Hallibuton from his exit as Secretary of Defense under Bush 41 until his entrance as Vice-President under Bush 43. During that interval, he developed Blackwell, and responsible in arranging the huge no-bid contracts for both companies. Cheney collected pay from Halliburton for several years after becoming Vice-President until a separete law was passed to allow him to "defer" his pay until after he left office. He is collecting that now, but will no longer have to reveal any of it to taxpayers.

The action of these contractors was in violation of the Geneva Convention and our own military codes on three grounds. Enhanced interrogation procedures, including waterboarding, were not to be used as a part of military interrogation of a uniformed enemy combatant, also know as a legitimate "prisoner of war", and this was a cooperating one at that. Enhanced interrogation procedures were only to be considered to avert an imminent threat to our nation or any part of it, which did not apply in this case either. In addition, the memos back and forth clearly state that the information being sought was for political purposes, in this case to justify this war to the American people after the fact. This is specifically forbidden.

There is no way to know who actually wrote those memos, and we may never know, but then again, Cheney's apparent deal to have Scooter Libby take the fall for a later move and then his anger when Libby did not get his anticipated pardon might have some bearing here. But, bottom line, the office dispensing the memos was quite clear, as is the connection between those who were sent in to break these laws and that same office.

And there is no question that we did in fact break several laws.

On the basis of this instance alone, the Justice Department is derelict in its duties if is does not pursue this one illegality. It does not involve declassifying anything (those documents probably don't even exist anymore). Cheney's house was blocked on Google Earth and other satellite surveillance methods during his stay there. When he moved out, he would not allow helpers to move some of his private records, which accounted for further injury to his back. There was evidence of massive amounts of shredding.

Is some of this circumstantial, yes. But some of it is not. Some of it clearly says that at least in one instance, we the American people hired mercenaries to break our laws and sully our honor.

Personally, I am appalled that my name as a citizen was made part of this without my knowledge or permission, not to keep me safe, but for money, pure and simple.

I wish Nancy Feminazi would just take a long walk and never be seen again. Every time she opens her mouth a lie comes out. She is one of the biggest dangers to this country today. She is bound and determined to make the former administration guilty of something. It will be a happy day when she and her cohorts are led out in handcuffs for what they are doing to this country.

The good news is as it says in the article, she was grilled by reporters. Maybe the press is starting to do some objective reporting. They could also grill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful head of the House Financial Services Committee about their past with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as Pelosi on the matter.

The sad part is , they spend all their time on this which is in the past and is not going to make any difference . While they are makeing all this fuss they are not paying attention to the real threat s to our country, and it takes the attention off what Obama is doing to our economy. Watch tthe right hand over here over here , while the left is stealing usblind. They hate the Reps. so bad that they will destroy what is left of this country to get them. They all need to go Dem and Rep alike.

So if Pelosi must fall in the torture scandal, from her position as a member of the minority party at the time the decision was announced to Congress, how many members of the Bush administration must suffer the same fate? Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, every Republican in the Republican led Congress...

Isn't that exactly the point? Cheney wants memos released. Pelosi wants memos released. If this is truly not a political game, if the Obama administration actually wants to get to the bottom of this torture garbage - as do the majority of Americans - it's time to release all the memos, minutes of every meeting, the names of every operative who suggested torture, cooked up the legal justification for torture, and carried out torture.

I suspect what we'll find is there will be an awful lot more Bush administration folks than congressional Democrats who go to jail over full disclosure.

Couldn't agree more. The right, desperately trying to find something to hang onto (besides those silly "tea parties"), is as happy as can be about the Pelosi deal. And they will not let it go for as long as they possibly can, because it takes the focus away from the real guilty parties -- the Bush administration -- and puts it on a liberal Democrat. They, with the aid of Fox News, will try to make it sound like Pelosi made the decision to waterboard, when the reality is that she was a very minor player in this drama. At least it will get Sean Hannity off the William Ayers rhetoric!

Note to the right: if Pelosi falls after this, there will be numerous Republicans who suffer the same fate. All of the higher-ups in Bush's government will go to prison (because they made the decision to torture), while Pelosi will just be retired. Or do you actually think that you can "get" one liberal while carefully avoiding the truly guilty ones?

Yep...you probably think you can...

Black Knight writes in post# 1.118:

Like most Democrats they find it easier to blame someone else so they don't have to take responsibility for anything....

Interesting conclusion, completely false but interesting nonetheless...

You go on about 'responsibility' in regards to Nancy Pelosi, what is it that she's supposed to be responsible for?

Bush was president, Cheney vice president, what was Nancy Pelosi responsible for??

Apparently you don't know much about how our government works, the president consults Congress about the doings of his/her administration. The president doesn't ask Congress for permission, he only has an obligation to keep them informed. So again, what is it that Pelosi is responsible for???

She wasn't the president, vice president or any other official able to change US policy that George Bush set in motion. So again, what is it that she's responsible for????

Here's an idea, while you're busy parroting the idea of responsibility why don't you require the last administration, coincidentally the administration that instituted the policies of torture that we as a nation now find ourselves embroiled in, to take some responsibility for their own policies?

STOP DEFLECTING, George Bush was in charge! What happened on his watch was his fault, no one else!

You can go on and on about Pelosi and what she knew, and when she knew it. The thing you can't do is say how she's responsible for George Bush's torture policies.

She is in a death spiral.... simply amazing her constituents back her...hopefully they won't next election.

It seems Nancy either asleep during the meeting. I would think that must be some sort of meeting minutes or a transcript of what was said and by whom. Isn't it funny that they don't produce meeting minutes? Every meeting I have been in has some one taking minutes so that action items get documented and what the expectations are for resolving them and who is responsible to take the actions.

If everyone else in the meeting said they understood that water-boarding was in use and Nancy did not I do not believe she should be in Washington at all, and certainly not hold the position she has. It would indicate that she is either to dumb to understand what is (was) said or she is not telling the truth. It seems rather strange that she can remember what some one from her staff told her in 2003 and never took action don't you think? Even then (2003) it seems it was not enough to trigger an outrage from her then but now it seems this is a good time to say "I have no knowledge of that being stated in my presence". How convenient.

Not sure it really matters if she or anyone else for that matter, knew or not. The way that administration was being run it would have happened over the objections of any of them anyway.

If she is lying she is calling one helluva bluff.

At the moment I think have lots more important things to focus on but.. this was coming sooner or later.

Lastly I don't think there are too many liberals that care if Pelosi stays or goes. She isn't very popular and yeah she is a drag on the Dems. Let her go...

Weakened position? She has been caught in a bold faced lie. Her and good ole Bill, or Ted, need to get together and work out a believeable story before she opens her mouth again. I'd say her political career is about in the toilet. polls in California show her behind in her re-election bid in 2010. See ya Nancy.......you and Arnold can ride into the sunset on your newly funded rail-car and play the slots.

To Paul Kahn - interesting post, if we were lucky, they'd kill each other and we would be rid of 2 bad people.

The CIA would NEVER lie to Congress. I could probably buy that if I could get past one thing. WMD.

Anyone remember the times? Cheney is damned convincing when he wants to be. Got everyone, even Powell, thinking there were WMDs. Got most voting for the war. Got most voting for added funding. Got his way with Halliburton contracts. He was to be feared and, even with his approval rating in the dirt, is still feared.

Okay, so Pelosi is looking really weak here. She claims she didn't recall, then changed to mislead. I have no doubt that there was some misleading going on. Pelosi was mislead and didn't want to admit it and got caught in a lie. And when her aid told her what was up, there was no way she was in for a fight with Cheney. Look at this guy! Listen to him! Would you take him on in his prime power times?

Do what you will with her, but remember what the real issue is here! They used Torture.

But here's my real bottom line... we are possibly headed for a full depression if we don't get our respective heads out of our butts and start working together on this economy.

Lost jobs = Less GNP = Less jobs = Less GNP, etc, etc and if we don't figure a way out of this the only things we'll have to eat will be our "glimers of hope" and our "warnings of future deficits". We need jobs now at any cost!

Wake up!

Yes I do remember, but not exactly the way you do. It was actually Bill Clinton, in 1998, that was planning a strike against Iraq and Saddam Hussein for WMD. So you need to go back and check out your history book.

miesque Comment collapsed by the community

Can someone explain how this post was collapsed by the community??? there are far more offensive comments on this post than this one, the post may be agreeable or not agreeable but was not out of bounds in any sense of comment/ Who decides?

Palco,

Your question regarding comments collapsed by the community,

Who decides?

Each comment has a double box on the bottom right hand corner, if you click on the exclamation mark it will bring up a menu. If enough readers report a comment as inflammatory it will be collapsed. Then it will appear as you see it in your example of miesque's collapsed comment.

Up side is it's not unviewable by readers, you can click on it and see the content of the post, it's just not openly viewable by the community. Newsvine is a bit like elections, majority decides what is openly viewable. Fair or not, that's the way it is...

I believe that she did in no way help her cause with the news conference. She was either lying or not capable of understanding what she was being told. Either does not speak well for the speaker.

With that being said we still have to look at the subject as a whole. Was it legal to administer the torture? Who gave the order to do so? What information of value came from the torture? What was the goal of the torture?

Reports are coming in now from those directly involved in the interrogations that most of the information was obtained prior to the torture. The part that was missing was the link between Iraq and the individuals involved with 9/11.

People if tortured enough will tell you what you want to hear regardless of the truth. What would the people who administered the torture tell us if they were put though the same treatment?

Would we get the truth if we tortured Pelosi, Cheney, members of the Committee, and those who used the methods separately? I bet we could get Pelosi to tell us she was involved in the torture herself, Cheney to say he ordered it to make money, the committee to say they were acting on orders from President Obama instead of Bush, those that administered the torture to say they did it because they were perverts. We could even get House to say he had a man crush on Obama.

Torture will get you the answer you want not necessarily the truth. McCain and several other POWs in Viet Nam denounced the U.S. after they were tortured but was it the truth? Karl Rove used the statements made by McCain against him in the 2000 Republican primary. He called him a coward, traitor, and guilty of leading to the deaths of numerous Marines. Do you "kill em all cowboys" believe that to be true?

For Pelosi it is like the Seinfeld episode when George proclaims" Is it a lie if you really believe it"?

Roger...

Spoken like a true liberal. When cornered, spin like a top.

Bring on the investigation and bring down the house of Pelosi!!! This lying, conniving, self-serving hag! How in Haites did she ever rise to the position of authority she has?!?! Oh, that's right - California. Land of fruits and total nuts. She will deserve everything she gets. Love to watch her squirm & backpeddle and she has run out of sides of her face to talk out of. The QUEEN of "Do as I say, not as I do!!!"

Woody,

Roger has valid points. There is no evidence released yet that proves that torture works. There are some questions let unanswered. He asked those questions and presented the findings so far on torture. That it will often lead to bad intel.

There are enhanced techniques that are not questionable. These are battlefield techniques that are used quickly and they leave no damage. They are only good for finding real time information and if the person does not reveal the information quickly, the information is useless.

Long term interrogation is not proven to work. We broke one guy and got a high ranking member in Al Queda. There is no proof after that says torture works. If the memos are released and it proves that the torture has an 80% success rate, than great.

No need to call him names, he presents a valid question and presented his findings on the subject. Actions like the one you just took contribute nothing and make the resk of us look bad.

Yes Roger

The fact that Peligrosi is lying (not very well I might add) has nothing to do with the so-called "torture" , other than the fact that she was more than willing to hang Bush and Cheney for KNOWING.

ANYONE who tries to defend this Bit$h is obviously uninterested in rational thinking.

Does the term "double-standard" mean anything to you?

Even liberals are waking up to the nonsense this Congress and all it's contributors are trying to sell the American people. I think you're going to see a massive "house cleaning" in 2010!

I don't care what you do to the terrorist.. This lame excuse that if we don't do it to them they wont do it to us excuse is pathetic.. The Japanese did it to every country they invaded and to the US Military men and women they committed great atrocities. The MUSLIMs will not stop cutting off heads of our service members just because we stop dunking them in water or keep them in a cold room or interrogate them with a woman.. The US is the greatest country on earth but we are not going to remain there long with people like Nancy accusing the CIA OF A FEDERAL CRIME.. Who would want to work there if the CONGRESS thinks you are l criminal.. And the President does not come out and rebuke her or tell her to make an apology.. Ya makes me want to continue working for the.. And she was in Iraq? Why? a vacation from Washington with her family? get this dangerous woman out of CONGRESS NOW..

clinthorace cracks me up, "even liberals are waking up" with a coolaid hangover.

the question here isn't the validity of torture, it's about those lying eyes.

Remeber NOT one of them was complaining about ANY of this in 2002 right after 9/11 only now are they whining about it when it serves them politically. Back then these techniques were used to get information about potential future attacks on the US and no one had a problem then. It is only now when they think the political picture has changed and the liberal left bleeding hearts are whining about torture. Gee no one seems to care what they do to prisoners that the radicals have......oh that's right we forget about them because they are no longer around they are DEAD by having their heads sawn off and it all gets video taped for propaganda for them.......killing infadels. I wonder what Daniel Pearls family has to say about 'waterboarding' I am certain they would have preferred that to what he got..........his head sawn off, not chopped off, sawn off back and forth with the blade while he screamed while he was being murdered. These people don't have 'rules' except we KILL you in any way we can find. These people want us ALL dead, liberals too they don't care if you are nice to them and follow rules they just think you are weak. They aren't just going to offer up information about where Osama Bin Laden is and when the next attack is planned without being forced period. If you really think they are going to just open their mouths and tell us everything they know because they are being held in jail you are as stupid as Pelosi. They are willing to die for the hope of 72 virgins do you really think a little water concerns them in any way. Pelosi, you knew it and allowed it when it was convenient and popular for your political career and now when it isn't you try to claim you were LIED to. Give us all a break one way or another you need to be out of that cushy office of yours because either you are a HUGE LIAR or are stupid as the day is long and either way you do NOT belong in ANY position of power. I wouldn't want this woman on my PTA committee let alone in charge of making the laws for our country.

Virgins are highly overrated!

Woody and Clint,

I have been called several things but a liberal is not one of them. I am a former Marine with two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star and very much in support of our troops and Country.

You are quick to call anyone who disagrees with your opinion a liberal but a little slow on reasons why. Being conservative does not mean you have to be some "kill em all cowboy" that listens to Limbaugh. I see those people just as dangerous if not more so than the left radicals.

Clint, if you would take the time to read What I said I do believe she is either lying or stupid . I also think sneaky Cheney is up to something. You call it a double standard but I see it as one standard for all regardless of their party.

You are trying to sell a party I am defending our Country as a whole. I am conservative but I do not see a house cleaning at all in 2010. The same people that are in now will stay in. Until the Republican party develops a leader that is inclusive and under 70 you will not see a change. The red States will stay where they are as will the blue States. Cheney and Limbaugh are too far right for the majority of the party and the Country.

There are Liberals, Democrats, Republicans, and fundamentalists where do you see yourself? To me I would represent a Republican and you and Woody as Fundamentalists. No I will not support your extreme right agenda anymore than I will Pelosi's extreme left. You people need to understand 68% of us are in the middle. I don't care who fixes our Country as long as it gets fixed.

Roger,
what? Conservatives not listed? I'm a Conservative. You can have the Republican moniker.

Good one!

winkiesixpack

Nice to see you again. I agree with everything you say except the middle section where you seem to imply that we are entitled to do anything to anyone as long as someone else has done it first.

We have criminals in this country who have similar feelings about many of us. They have made it clear that they have people, individuals or groups, who they want tortured or dead. As a dramatic example, back some years ago, we had a group that made it known that they believed it was okay to hang a black person from a tree, or burn their house or church with families and children in in. So why, using your reasoning, was it not okay to do the same with them, especially the ones who openly bragged about what they had done?

Charles Manson is in prison for life. He mutilated and killed several people he didn't even know, including an unborn child. Under your logic again, we should have mutilated and killed him.

I thought our country had decided to become a nation of laws, where the "eye for an eye" philosophy was no longer the ruling mandate. Am I wrong? Do we now allow fear or even worse, revenge, to trump honor?

Pinch, I understand what you are trying to say but the "group" who believed it was okay to hang the black person, etc. is a perfect example of how we - the United States - are much more tolerant than the radical terrorist nations in that we typically don't practice the actual eye for an eye justice no matter how warranted. We as a nation do not believe in the extreme murderous torture that such a group or the Islamist extremists believe in. But like it or not, we are at war with an enemy we will never EVER be able to reason with or negotiate & offer them anything that will make them happy other than our demise AS A WHOLE. No more Americans - PERIOD. That's what they want. We have got to be able to protect ourselves and our citizens. To do that, we have to employ tactics that assist in gathering information that enables us to protect ourselves - period. As a whole and on the grand world scale, we are always the kinder gentler nation and I'm so tired of not being appreciated for that by the rest of the world, but worse that we are not being appreciate for that by our own - the politicians (like Pelosi or Murtha) who would rather cut us down, encourage the world hate, and in my opinion criminal in their comments against our institutions and citizens who are doing what they need to do to protect their worthless rears.

Also, just in case you didn't know, Charles Manson did not commit one single murder by his own hand. His followers did it for him. Further proof of the power of mind control.

It just hit me....doesn't Madam Pelosi look a bit like the Tin Man from the "Wizard of Oz" ???

I had nothing against Roger Clemens until I saw him testify before Congress.

After that, I despised the man because he's obviously a lying piece of cow dung.

What makes me so mad is the fact that both Clemens and Pelosi think the public is so stupid, we're unable to make a distinction between fact and fiction.

If you're telling the truth, you don't need to consult a lawyer or "check your notes", or stammer and stutter your way through an interview.

And the embarrassments just keeps coming , hey Bush bashers?

Clint....

Absolutely agree....Princess Pelosi having to shuffle through her notes to find answers to posed questions is a disgrace....I was hoping a long hooked poll extended from the side of the TV screen and yanked her off the podium.

But just watch her get easily re-elected when her current term expires. Exactly WHO are this moron's voters and supporters ??????????

Nancy definitely time to resign. Not sure who is going to vote for you anymore, but I would think many dont want you reelected. Youre bad for politics as you can not get along with anyone to get things done. End of the lesson. NA NA NA AN>>>>>>>>>>NANANANA EH EH EH GOODBYE>>>>>>>>>.

Skiddy, what I meant was that I don't believe the nation will elect a Democratic Congress if she remains the speaker. It's a dead heat right now, and it won't get any better if she is still running the show. The Democrats know it, and may force her out. She's a detriment, not an asset, and they know it.

It is scary to think that the fringe element in SF can have such an impact on the rest of the country. Every resident of SF should be embarrassed this morning.

westbury64 - Considering the lifestyles of those in SF, I think you're expecting too much of them to feel embarrassed. It appears someone neglected to teach those people shame.

He can't get away from her. She and reis are yanking his strings and playing him like a puppet.

Where's Barney and Harry nobody told them anything either.

A few possibilities here. 1)The CIA told truth to everyone else they briefed, but misled Pelosi, just to have a little fun with her.

2) Pelosi doing a John Kerry type flop. ie.....I was briefed on enhanced interrogations in 2002, but didn't know about them until five years later. I was in favor of enhanced interrogations b4 I was against them.......

3) Pelosi doing a Clinton type lie........I attended a briefing on enhanced interrogations, but what is your definition of enhanced interrogations, and besides I did not have sex with that woman.....Monica Lewinsky.

In any event, as several posters have said, a ten year old could tell Pelosi was lying in the videos. If Dems are so intent on "cleaning up Washington", get rid of this lying, POS, Botox babe.

If she didn't know she is incompetent and if she did know well we know what she is, so choose and rejoice in the wonders of partisan government and the lovely 2 party system and the circus they oversee.

darrell,

You left out 4) Bush telling us there were WMDs in Iraq.

and #5, no one in congress asking for proof or clarifying questions. In this matter or in the war vote.

Imagine where we would be today if people just asked questions.....

Roger,

At least Bush admitted and apologized about being wrong. Unlike Pelosi , Bush has some moral authority to admit he was wrong.

I find it funny how the libs are blaming Bush for everything. I suppose he was the one not Hitler who persicuted the Jews. Your ignorance is intolerable give it up.

Roger; Saddam Hussein nerve gassed and thus murdered thousands of Kurds. I call nerve gas a wmd. Perhaps you don't remember the months that Iraq was given to hide its wmd,while the united nations sat trying to decide if they should force his hand.

Right Wing Extremist--

You cant rewrite history - as much as you want too.

The only thing that BUSH regretted (not apologize) was when he said "Bring it on"

there have been no admission of error from the prior administration and you know it!!

All of the comments here are for the most part -- viscous, verbal attacks, that quite frankly are akin to that which we are fighting. Extremism at its worst!! Go ahead, say the things you want to say how ever you want to say them, it only makes you look like the "terrorist" we so vehemently want to destroy.

Again Kool-aid for everyone -- it comes in all flavors!!!

Bethany,

Terrorist? Really!!!!!!

What an idiot.

Terrorism is exactly what you libs are commiting with OUR CONSTITUTION. You can say what you will, but you will never be correct. I may be a terrorist coming to take out all the godless libs that don't know anything better than to try and spew your vile idiological beliefs on to people that don't know any better. All mens are created equall, but only the strong survive!!!!!!

Bethany,

The extremism we are fighting is the jihadists not those that believe in the AMERICAN DREAM. Liberty and Freedom always come with a cost. What are you willing to do?

I will fight to the death for America, not your socialist ideas. If you want to be controled by someone there are plenty of other countries you can live in other than my America, so please by all means GET OUT!!!!!!!

Don't press you ill-will on me and my children you'll never win.

Skiddy

The relationship between Obama and Pellosi has proven to be anything but ideal. She worked hard for his election and expected that for her reward she would simply control the White House too, and he was critically disappointed in the very first important task he gave her to do, the stimulus bill, which she botched. Things have been a lot cooler since then. So I doubt her absence will give him any heartburn.

But there is little he can do Constitutionally, and he does not figure into the Legislative rules. Because of the partisanship there, I doubt the Democrats will remove her as Speaker. The only other people who have any say are her own constituents in her small district, where she is still very popular. Subsequent polls may prove otherwise. The rest of us don't get a say, so I guess some of you will have to be content with just name-calling and making fun of her appearance. Kind of like in middle school.

Of if you really believe that strongly, move to her district, find a candidate you can believe in, start raising money, and work your butt off to make sure they beat her. Some of us have done just that. It's hard work, but it the only way in a representative democracy. It looks like people are doing that in Chris Dodd's constituency. We'll see.

As you read through some of these posts, you can imagine this nation becoming a country of gypsies at this rate, if people really believe what they write. Otherwise, relative to the Legislative branch, you have a say only over your one representative out of hundreds and two senators out of a hundred. And every four years, you can work for and vote for the person you believe should be the head of the Executive branch.

And if you don't work for candidates, vote, and then hold them accountable by constantly tracking their progress and giving them feedback, you have no business commenting at all.

It is possible to make change. As of this year, many of us worked hard to get Congress to retract automatic pay raises and have them have to vote on a raise each year. They also have to published the individual votes of every member of Congress. A small step, yes, but progress is made of small steps by people who do more than complain.

Right Wing Extremist,

You said, "I find it funny how the libs are blaming Bush for everything. I suppose he was the one not Hitler who persicuted the Jews. Your ignorance is intolerable give it up."

First of all I have said nothing about President Bush. You don't see him out running his mouth like Cheney do you. I also don't see where the "PERSECUTED the Jews comment" has anything to do with the conversation. I must be too ignorant to follow your right wing ideology.

Roger,

Slowly read back through the statements made up to your comment. 'Bush. W.M.D.'s'??

Slowly reread my comment, then you might understand what i was saying if not I'll explain. Everyone is blaming Bush for "everything", so i was saying that next he will be blamed for the holocaust. Understand????

Cheney is out raising the questions as to why only part of the documents were released and not the whole thing. It is typical that they would only give enough info. to get people that don't have a mind of their own angry at them. (Bushs' admin.) You can't make good judgement without the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

PINCH,
remember Gotee Pelosi's behavior at President Obama's address to the joint session of Congress? Talk about middle school behavior. She acted like a school girl at a Beatles concert. You are correct in your post relative to what power we have over our elected representatives. I wrote my Congressman, Tom Price, to support the "Rangel Rule" legislation. He actually sent me a letter with his signature that he would support it. You're right, that's about all we can do.

Right Wing

Let's all agree that Pelosi is in deep trouble. Her boat is sinking, and she is bailing as fast as she can. She is wrong. Period.

Bush should get a pass since he was not in charge, and he got the same bad information every American got.

Read the memos. They say nothing. No one has any records, and even the CIA has admitted they have no transcripts from any of these briefings or from the interrogations. Of course Cheney can speak with impunity. He knows this.

But what all this smoke screening being done by both Pelosi and Cheney distracts the American people from is that fact that there were laws broken.

In one instance, we do have a number of corroborative reports saying that the individual first waterboarded was a military man of known rank in the Iraqi government and very close to Saddam Hussein. He voluntarily cooperated with the Americans giving up the names of Al Qaeda members who turned out to be key players in 9/11, and the name of Padilla, the famous "shoe bomber". He also explained how Hussein had no tolerance for groups he could not totally control, and as a result did not allow Al Qaeda in the country.

This information was sent to Washington where it was intercepted by the Office of the Vice President. The response indicated that the American people had been told that the invasion of Iraq was necessary partially because of the ties to 9/11 and this link had to be established. A second response was sent reiterating that this was not true and that the enhanced interrogation techniques requested for this very useful and cooperative person were not only unnecessary but "reprehensible" as one field director wrote. At that point, CIA contractors (Blackwell) were sent in to remove the prisoner over the objections of our military people and the man was waterboarded 83 times, still without giving them the connection they wanted.

It is important to remember that Vice-President Cheney was the former CEO of Hallibuton, which helped develop Blackwell, and who was instrumental in getting both huge no-bid contracts. Cheney collected pay from Halliburton for several years after becoming Vice-President until a separate law was passed to allow him to "defer" his pay until after he left office. He is collecting that now, but will no longer have to reveal any of it to taxpayers.

The action of these contractors was in violation of the Geneva Convention and our own military codes on three grounds. Enhanced interrogation procedures, including waterboarding, were not to be used as a part of military interrogation of a uniformed enemy combatant, also know as a legitimate "prisoner of war", and this was a cooperating one at that. Enhanced interrogation procedures were only to be considered to avert an imminent threat to our nation or any part of it, which did not apply in this case either. In addition, the memos back and forth clearly state that the information being sought was for political purposes, in this case to justify this war to the American people. This is specifically forbidden.

There is no way to know who actually wrote those memos, and we may never know, but then again, Cheney's apparent deal to have Scooter Libby take the fall for a later move and then his anger when Libby did not get his anticipated pardon might have some bearing here. But, bottom line, the office dispensing the memos was quite clear, as is the connection between those who were sent in to break these laws and that same office.

In this instance, we have evidence that involves no declassifying, no truth commission, and no dependence on people's scribbled notes or faculty memories. These is information that is all out now, and in the hands of the Justice Department.

And there is no question that we did in fact break several laws. Not only our own, but international laws, which does effect our own military, which we all wish to try to protect.

We may not have all the truth in every instance which has been raised, but we have this one instance, and it is major.

Right Wing Extremist,

I believe I understand what you are trying to say the problem is that I don't agree with you.

Rather than try to talk down to people you may want to look at them as equals. Like I said before I am a former Marine with two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star and am currently a Vascular Surgeon. I made the comment that Bush told the Country that Iraq had WMDs was that wrong?

You said, "You can't make good judgement without the whole truth and nothing but the truth" That I will agree with you. You or I don't have a clue what the motivation behind Cheney's sudden rise from the land of the hidden is. The difference rather than assume like you are I choose to question all of it regardless of the party. You cannot find truth if you only look left or right.

Isn't it Blackwater?! And your "facts" are definitely skewed otherwise as well. You state:Enhanced interrogation procedures were only to be considered to avert an imminent threat to our nation or any part of it, which did not apply in this case either.

You do NOT know that! Where do you get this information!

Pinch,

I cannot disagree with you on this and don't intend to. I think this is all bull. I do not agree with what Cheney has done (Haliburton). Then again being in the construction business i see this all the time with government officials. My point being is you can't blame everything on Bush and Cheney and his admin. without then looking into everyone else involved or knowing. This is a slippery slope that they are treading on the could be dangerous to the nation. CIA will no longer believe in the Obama admin. rightfully so, after being scape goated. They are after all a pretector of the free world and now being thrown to the wolves for others political winfall. This admin. is a total disgrace to Americans, I know libs believe in it but history writes itself.

I find it amusing that people are talking about her and her frisco backgrounds and ger detrement to the democrats, because she is no worse than any other democrat.

HN You seem to be overstating a bit, Pelosi has been on record as saying that torture is unacceptable for the US, that those who ordered it should be held accountable. If what I've read is right, she is not saying the soldiers following orders should be prosecuted. Again, if Pelosi is lying, hold her accountable along with everyone responsible for approving the use of torture.

The United States government cannot even get "torture" right. Outside of Mr. Obama's sales job...what was done was a pretty poor example of "torture".

Will all you defenders of waterboard please sthu?

It doesnt matter what you think you would do to save your kid, or 1000 people or the country. What matters is---the UNITED STATES signed an agreement with multiple countries stating that it would not torture--and waterboarding has been deemed torture. We have executed people for doing that very thing. We have imprisioned many for doing that very thing. Yet--when WE do it -- it is OK?

WRONG!!! It is illegal and it is something that needs to be investigated and those responsible for making the decisions to allow it need to be charged and justice should prevail.

I am tired of the arguement of "if it was my kid?" As for all you Know-It-Alls regarding the waterboarding proceedures. Have you been waterboarded? Probably not, unless you are a NAVY Seal, and I truly doubt that you all are! When prisoners are waterboarded, they are not gently brought down to the area, and told that there is no danger, and that a doctor is there to make sure nothing happens.

They are blindfolded and probably denied sleep for hours before, then thrown onto a board and tied to it. The blindfold remains in place while another larger wetted material is put over their nose and stuffed partially into their mouth, to inhibit breathing, and then water is poured over the clothes, making the recipient believe he is drowning because he will breathe in water while trying to take a breath. This proceedure will last 40-60 seconds, doesnt sound like long, but, it gets repeated 100 to 200 times during a couple of hours. My guess is you would want it stopped also.

The ends do not justify the means, and, if we can impeach and NEVER, EVER, NEVER forget that a prez got a BJ and lied about, then we can indeed investigate the authorization for torture?

As for Ms. Pelosi, you drink your Kool-aid and I will drink mine!

Blue: Remember Polosi also says it is wrong for us to enforce our countries laws on the poor illegals. The point is, her and the others are ruining this country with the liberal crap they are pushing for. The rights of criminals are more important to these people than the rights of the people supporting this country! That is WRONG no matter how you look at it!! Necessity is the mother of invention, not the government. War is hell and things that happen at these times need to be viewed with plenty of compassion and attempts to correct anything need to be done quietly without judgement. None of us were in the position to know half of what has happened, and for anyone to want revenge that will only harm the soldiers and our country is truely anti-American! Say what you want, it is our right, but I may not agree with much that has happened and I really do not pitty the (poor prisoners). This is all political!! Torture: TO INFLICT SEVERE PAIN OR INTENSE SUFFERING. It's OK for our training but not for our enemies, that is pretty sad! To bad everyone pushing this political agenda isn't over-seas in a sand storm and sleeping in a tent, maybe then they could realize how things sometimes happen. As for Polosi and the majority of the administration - they need to be removed and replaced with reps that care about this country more than their own wealth and agenda.

HouseNegro, you just can't reason with these people of the house of Pelosi. You could photoshop their mothers/fathers/children's faces on to those videos and make them believe their loved ones were about to get their heads hacked off and they'd still look at you with this bewildered, catatonic look and say something ridiculous like "Look what Bush is doing to my loved one!". Perfect example: Ms. STFU BethanyB (B stands for Brainwashed)

Amazing how we always come back to the perceived injustice of the Bill Clinton BJ,

"NEVER forget that a prez got a BJ and lied"

I know this won't be a once and for all comment, but please, Clinton was not impeached for getting a BJ in the oval office. Clinton took an oath of office to defend and support the Constitution of the United States. An essential principal of any oath is giving one's word, staking your honor on that oath. Then he swore in a court proceeding to tell the truth, under oath, and he lied. Plain and simple, the one single person whose office should be held to the highest standard, lied under oath, that's perjury, and the breaking of one's solemn oath tears at the very foundations of our democracy. Get over it, Bush was no prize either, and he lied and misled, just not under oath.

Depends of what your definition of is…..is

Who deemed waterboarding to be torture? For all these geniuses on here, who just want another arrow in their quiver to attack the prior administration, where were you when we tortured thousands of our own troops? Hell, that's not even as bad as what I've heard they to do to Seal recruits. They actually drown them. Just so they know what it's like. In regards to the statements, and there have been plenty, that we executed Japanese for waterboarding I sure would like a link to that. One Japanese soldier was sentenced to 15 years hard labor for waterboarding, among many other charges, a CIVILIAN American Citizen. "In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk. In waterboarding as it is practiced by the U.S., cellophane or cloth is placed over the subject's mouth to keep water out of nose and mouth. Asano was pouring water directly into the mouths and noses of subjects which is considerably more harsh and dangerous. Among the other tortures Asano was charged with were beating people with clubs and burning them with cigarettes.

I'm really sick of all of this lying about our troops and our intelligence agencies. If you don't have actual proof and feel the need to spin reality to whatever your agenda is, do it on one of your radical liberal left wing blogs. There you can be the pivot person in a mental masturbation orgy. You're making me literally sick by what you will do to this Country to further your ideological goals. Enough!

HouseNegro

I guess I thought we were a nation of law and honor. By your definition, O. J. Simpson didn't need a trial. We should have just stabbed him to death. Every criminal who shot someone should be shot on the spot in the same place the victim was shot. A beating deserves a beating. A child molestation deserves molesting. Vehicular manslaughter deserves being killed by a car.

You are not talking about protecting anyone at all. You are talking about old-fashioned revenge.

I think most Americans are above that. I'm sorry you are not, and I hooe there are not too many like you, but after reading some of these posts, I'm not so sure. You would be better off in the lawlessness of the old west, but perhaps not, because even then, a man's word or his signature on a contract was a sign of honor and was valued as such.

Godda love Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey. Where's Chic Bowdrie when you need him?

Hate to say it House, but there actually are a few cases where instant justice would've been not only more effective but also more appropriate. But unfortunately which cases is obviously a matter of personal opinion based on personal experiences/beliefs. OJ? Come on, don't go there!! ;-/

It cannot and should not be forgotten. She's 3rd in line for the Presidency and she's an incompetent liar that is not fit to lead. It needs to hammered until action is taken.

The most reprehensible thing is that she realized that it was necessary to do what needed to be done in 2002. Now she is willing to ruin the careers of politicians and government employees over a policy that she knows was correct just to score political points. Disgusting!!!!

"Closing the Book" on the Bush administration years will not happen: Pelosi and Obama won't allow it; they need to blame someone. This has been a mainstay of the Dems for the past six months and Pelosi for years.

["But in attempting to defend herself, Pelosi took the remarkable step of trying to shift the focus of blame to the CIA and the Bush administration"] Remarkable?? NOT

It's unreal - the Media is well aware of "Bush bashing" and frequent blaming of his administration: for practically everything. Now, the WP has the audacity to call her move "remarkable"??

She is only third in line if something were to happen to both Biden and Obama at the same time. If something were to happen to Obama, then Biden would be president and able to choose his VP, as stated in the 25th Amendment, passed in 1967.

The amendment states that the president may appoint a vice president to fill a vacancy in that office, subject to approval by both houses of Congress. Source: http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Vice_President.htm

Probably because they pass HB 1388 and don't want it to hit the media till it's too late.

20M for immigration of HAMAS refugees into the US! Start screaming now before Obama gets these terrorists over here

Maybe Obama and his liberal friends should allow these dear, misunderstood individuals to come and work in Washington at the senate, the House, or the White House. There might be a chance of rehabilitation. Prehaps they should be taken in by the voting discricts of Murtha, Pelosi or some opther liberal. Besides, they would definately take care of the Pelosi problem (think about their view of women).

I don't know what's worse, her or Biden to become President. God help the uNited States if either happened. I didn't vote for Obama, but he cannot be worse than those 2, or Hillary.

Time to call for Pelosi to step down...way down.

"Impeachment"... Don't waste my time or money. Just throw the B-tch OUT. She is not what I would want the rest of the world to see as an example of our people in leadership positions, along with Obama and the rest of his messed up crew. There is a very short list of them who aren't in some way guilty of violating laws like tax evasion, conflicts of interest, coersion(?), or various forms of accounting "errors". It's a who's who of stupid people who were elected by `stupider' people who voted them in because they were "Democrat" instead of ""Republican" crooks. The majority of this country has gotten what it deserves. The rest of them are taken down this rosy path of destruction of the American way of life.

Once again, give me life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not debt, taxation and another four years of suffering.

Mark my words: within the last year of Obama's reign, there will be a bill introduced to repeal term limits for the POTUS.

Barry cannot do the job now without the three stooges in place, Reed Pelosi and Dodd, without them he's lost his power base. POTUS (Pretender of the United States).

WELL SAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't you believe that for a minute... the depravity runs very deep.

She is just one example of what the dem controlled congress has to offer. Blinky is on her way out in 2010 and the rest will follow. We can expect to see a new cartoon series starring Blinky, Odrama and gang real soon.

Newbie- Blinky, LMAO, I never thought about it, til you pointed it out.

Blinky is on her way out in 2010 and the rest will follow.

Ibeokaywillyou?- Of course the corruption runs so deep, and politics and corruption are synonymous, but Congress is certainly a place to start. Where else would you flush out the problems?

Those of you on this thread need to check on a variety of news and actual government sources a little more often. Pelosi worked her butt off to get Obama elected. She figured she'd be running the White House as well. He trusted (and tested) her with his first important piece of legislation, the stimulus bill, and she totally blew it

Things have been decidedly cool between the Legislature and the White House since then. I don't think Obama will have any heartburn if she goes. But he has no control over that, Constitutionally.

Because of the partisonship, I don't know if the Democrats will be able to get her to step down.

So that leaves her district constituency, and she is still very popular there. Future polls will tell. Chris Dodd's supporters have had enough, so it's not inconceivable.

If you really feel as strongly as your posts indicate, do what some of us have in the past. Move to her district, find a candidate that can run against her, work your tail off to raise a great deal of money, and get someone to beat her.

Judging from these posts, if everyone actually put their money where their mouths are, we could have a nation of gypsies.

Jerry D

what a great post - did you find that from a vine post in 2003/2004/2005/2006/2007...fits perfectly for that time period..........

Nancy Pelosi has been the same type of legislator since she came to Congress. But this is still a representative democracy and she is the continuing choice of her constituency. There is little chance that she will lose her position as Speaker, but she has certainly distanced herself still further from the White House.

I am against most of what Obama does but I agree with your assessment 100%!!!

Time to get rid of the power mongers in Congress, obviously starting with Pelosi. Waht a cheap shot accusing the CIA of lying. Was she having a senior moment, or did too many face lifts affect her thinking ability?

TERM LIMITS in Congress is the way to start ridding it of its wickeded ways.

Obama's built a foundation built on sand and is crumbling washing away now for 2012. What will he do without Nancy and her gand of crooked fat cats. Obama was Nancy's lap cat.

We could do well to kick all of them out and just govern ourselves by public votes for a while. Purge this generation of politicians before we elect anybody else to run OUR country.

Include Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and Chris Dodd in that and I might agree.

Ram-

I agreed with you everytime, MSNBC keeps shifting the blame and softening the story each time. The truth will come out one wasy or another there are other media outlets. Barry is in it deep, and his little world is falling apart very quickly.

She is trying to say her political bacon, and is not afraid as they all do at pointing the story away from themselves then elsewhere. Nancy who 1n 2010.

Morning Joe took her to task this morning. As one of their guests said this morning, the CIA does not give briefings on what they are NOT going to do. The silicone has finally gotten to her brain cells.

Where Waldo? I mean Barry, he and his teleprompter are conspicuously absent on this topic. Wht a surprise!

He can't handle the tough topics, just campaign BS.

New topic to try and distract us, what an Obamation or really abomination of an administration. Today,s MSNBC Barry headline, now he's talking about trade in Canada and keeping jobs in America. Excuse me Barry, what about your bestest friend Nancy's news (lie) conferences yesterday?

We want answers, what is your position on this matter, quit straddling the fence and thing for yourself just once.

Waldo, I mean BO, is distancing himself just like all his other life-long friends and associates when they get into hot water. Talk about a fair weather friend! Now he's getting us into battle with Canada!!!

clickit45-

Barry doing his usual distraction and a battle with Canada is an lousy attempt to change the focus of Nancy follies.

Willow

If you had been paying attention, Obama has not been a great fan of Pelosi's since he first tested her after his inauguration. She worked her butt off to get him elected, but she thought she was going to get control of the White House too. He gave her a chance with the stimulus bill and she totally blew it. Since then, their relationship has noticeably cooled. I don't think he will have any heartburn over her situation.

exactly right...she wants us to believe she was duped by someone dems and the MSM said was a moron. What does that say about her highness?

History shows she is a liar. She lied when she said her families business didn't hire illegals - this is just another lie. Democrats should be embarrassed with her. San Francisco isn't embarrassed since she is part of their extreme liberalism.

Bobby

Unfortunately, her constituency is the only one that gets to vote.

Willow, if Barry is smart, he needs to distance himself from her ASAP. He has enough problems without having to deal with her incompetence. She is a part of the fringe element that is making the rest of us look bad.

I don't know who Barry would turn too, but it has been my observation that many of the decisions he has been making have been "after" the subject has been discussed on this board. The majority of the time, his decision has mirrored the majority view of the board. And the board did not always approve of his "campaign promises" or "liberal agenda." (Much to the chagrin of his supporters.) Could it be that he is ACTUALLY listening to the American people, not just his cronies? We could only hope so..........

sad thing is she will ride on the tax payers for life!

willowbrook; OB is part of that same "fringe"; just not so dedicated that he won't go with the flow - if it'll keep his good graces. His "side" doesn't even notice the change of position (or maybe they understand it's temporary), so he won't lose by changing faces occasionally.
Pelosi is a rabid liberal activist who seems to be using her position (especially with another activist Democrat "in charge") to get revenge for perceived slights by "the opposition".
Still - in character

Obama and Pelosi parted ways when she messed up his stimulus bill. That was his first test of her, and she blew it big time. He will have no heartburn over her problems.

But the fact that she has called attention to the fact that we did break both an international law and our own code of military conduct may become a problem for him.

The CIA is actually being truthful, because they did not do anything to the Iraqi official themselves (the terrorists don't technically count under the treaties or the code). They allowed the Vice-President to send paid mercenaries in from one of his own companies to do the job. So they can actually say they did not break any laws. Fortunately, those records were preserved, and they show we did break several laws as a nation, regardless of who did the dirty work, because of where the order came from.

I doubt Obama is too happy about this, since I think he knew and hoped he could just put it behind him, but it is in the Justice Department, so we'll see what Holder will do.

Time will tell. Love to see the links about Barry and Nancy's split.

Excuse me, but they have offered quite alot: Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, Murtha, Biden, Rangle, Napaliotonio (probably misspelled, but who cares), Schumer, Waxman, Gore and the ringleader - Chairman Obama. Reminds me of Chicago in the 1930s. Ooops, I apoligize to Mr. Capone.

Well, Chicago and the state of Illinois appear to be incredibly corrupt - spiritual "leaders" and politicians, and retired policeman - serving themselves, not the public! Can anything good comeout of Illinois anymore?

Our cultural survival is not at stake because of the terroists, who killed less that 10% of ANNUAL toll we allowed to be slaughtered on our highways by drunk drivers like our former President and Vice President, but by the willingness to say that our Constitution is a sham and we are helpless. Tell that to the Japanese, the Germans, the Soviets, the Spanish, the North Koreans. I don't need to be babied by leaders who think we are spineless wimps. Torturing prisoners is what we executed Germans and Japanese soldiers for after the war.

And if you want to talk about endless attacks, talk to the Republican party that funded $70M for 6 years to find something on Clinton. They found stains on a dress that had nothing to do with the original investigation. Which proves that if you investigate any of us long enough, you will find something.

Yes, Pelosi is a Party politician which automatically means "liar". That applies to both parties equally.

Remember the base of your culture comes from men like Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up liberty for security, deserve neither." Thomas Jefferson, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." George Washington, "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." Everyone of these people stood for defending their liberty and one of the reasons we stood against England was torture was still allowed. You do not give up your ideals, our constitution, because it is inconvenient! Everyone of our founding fathers would fight any government that would torture its people.

They also thought parties in the legislative branch was the worst part of the British government. Now we know why.

Anti

You have stated the problem here eloquently and it is well beyond Pelosi, who has all the problems she deserves.

We were formed as a nation of laws and honor. We have given our word and our signature to ourselves, and to other nations.

Now I see these posts which reek with revenge and the bullying attitude that we should do unto others before they do unto us and in the same ways they do unto us, if not worse.

So what good are our laws? Where is our honor as a nation? What do we stand for now?

.....is an idiot.

Or a Politician!!!!!!

Unfortunately, lying is generally not a crime unless you are under oath.

But breaking laws is, and a violation of treaties is, and hiring mercenaries to do what our own military advisors say is "reprehensible" is, especially when the mercenaries are being paid by a company paying "defered money to a government official.

Sorry. Pelosi should resign, but the government official should be prosecuted.

Because they are as bad as she is or maybe worse.

They may demote her, but only her constituency can fire her.

Yep. Just when we finally learned the definition of "is," we now have to learn the definition of "told." Goofballs.

Obama has been distancing himself from her since she messed up his stimulus bill. She thought because she worked so hard to get him elected, she would own the White House too. He tested her and she failed. They have a very cool relationship now, and he won't have any heartburn from her problems.

But the CIA use of the mercenaries that is going to the Justice Department, because that did break laws, may very well cause him some problems. I think he has known all along and that was why he kept saying we needed to put this all behind us. It's probably also why he was secretly wishing Cheney would keep quiet. He has a tremendous job to deal with, and he doesn't need any of these folks dredging up a past issue that may have to be dealt with now.

on the contrary he needs to stop trying to get along with all of this and do what he should release the pictures and proscecute every last one of them who were involved and definetely let they world know that he is no fool and nancy is not going anywhere

Prosecute the heroes of this country who did all they could to protect this country. Are you serious? After 9/11 we did not have a clear picture of Al Qaeda, who they were or what they were capable of. We only knew the main players and that they were a threat. The people you want to prosecute are the very people who are winning this war for us...lets not be childish and naive. The world is not interested in peace. Countries do whatever they can in their own interest, and that is a fact that will never change. Its the blind optimism of people who think that human nature is inherently good that is dangerous to this country. Countries and dangerous individuals are constantly maneuvering pieces, like in a game of chess, to procure our downfall. We should do whatever in necessary to defeat them.

“We ought not to be still inquiring into the facts of our wrongs, but into the means of our defense. For the aggressor with matured plans to oppose to our indecision have cast threats aside and betaken to action…you alone wait till the power of an enemy is becoming twice its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy.” - Corinth to Spartan Assembly, Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War

Austin, who do you define as heroes protecting this country? It certainly wasn't Dubya or Cheney.

Austin, So you are saying that the US did not have a clear picture of the folks we gave weapons and money to in our efforts to thwart Russia in Afghanistation? Well, that either means that Ronald Reagan and GHW Bush were very stupid... or that you just don't know what you are talking about. One other question... which war is it exactly that we are "winning?"

Torture is indefensible and ALL who knew about it and said nothing deserve to answer for it. If that includes Nancy Pelosi, so be it.

Well said My Thoughts--but, you can' explain this to the extremists on this vine, they are only out for Pelosi's blood. According to most -- she and only she is the representitive of the torture and only she is the one who should be punished for it. Proof or no proof!!! Just because they say so!!!

Austin, are you kidding? They had great piles of information. The Director of the CIA was driving all over DC trying to get people to listen in June of 2001. Rice was trying to get GW to read the reports. GW listened to Rove, who told everyone that terrorism was way to get Clinton out of the doghouse, instead of listening to his Secretary of State, his NSA chairperson, and a terrorism advisor that had served with Reagan, his father, and Clinton. Anyone who can function with all three is good at his job. The Attorney General, who lost to a deadman in Missouri, threw three top agents of the FBI out of his office swearing and giving Rove's line. (That's in the congressional record under oath, uncontested by that moron.) We could have stopped it RIGHT THERE!

Just because I think we should live up to our own standards, such as executing Japanese and Germans for torture, does not mean I think everyone likes us. I also know that you can't throw out the Constitution because it is inconvenient on one day, because the next, it will be your turn to be waterboarded or to have your nails pulled out, or your testicals with batteries attached. AND you will tell them anything, lies or truth, to make it stop. People are trained to tell just the right amount of truth with just the right amount of lies to expose the fact that they have been compromised. Read some history of esponage. It's been done since the 1100's.

I stand with the Founding Fathers who thought torture was a reason to revolt. That throwing people in jail without due process was a reason to pick up arms. Who felt that you had to stand in the open light of day and defend your freedom.

No, terrorism is not new. It is not a special case. Again, it has been going on since governments were formed. Heroes don't torture people off in other countries. Heroes don't "do anything" to protect their country. Heroes know the Constitution and defend it by upholding it. Let Lincoln convince you: "Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others." Of course, I guess you could say Lincoln was a soft-hearted liberal that didn't know the world was a bad place. You'd be wrong, but you could say it. I won't stop you because I believe in the Constitution even if what you say is opposed to what I belive.

Austin

What you are advocating is a country without laws or honor. This would be a place where any ends justify a means. Our military people are better than that. We the American citizens are better than that.

In the specific case of an Iraqi officer who cooperated with military officials and gave up not only Padilla, the "shoe bomber" but the names and locations in Afghanistan of the people responsible for 9/11, we have treaties and a military code, which our soldiers take an oath to uphold, and which outlines how a person in uniform, duly taken as a "prisoner of war", was to be treated,.

Unfortunately, when this information was sent to our government, it was taken not by our Commander in Chief, to whom I will give a pass, since I do not believe he ever knew what was happening, but to the Office of the Vice President. Whoever responded made it quite clear that the objective of the interrogation was to establish a clear link between Saddan Hussein and Al Qaeda. Further interrogation revealed that Saddam tolerated no group he could not fully control, and banned Al Qaeda from his country. The meeting Cheney claims took place in Europe between a representative from Iraq and a representative from Al Qaeda had already been proven false, so another connection was needed. The Office of the Vice President instructed our military to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" to get this information, which was clearly against the law in this situation. Even our own people referred to this as "reprehensible".

So the mercenaries arrived. These were people from the same companies which were developed by Cheney during his stint as CEO of Halliburton where he was between his service as Secretary of Defense under Bush 41 and Vice President under Bush 43. He was receiving deferred payment from Halliburton while in office, which he is collecting now.

The paid "contractors" were the ones who waterboarded this officer, over and over, and were still unable to get this information which was critical to defending our invasion of Iraq to the American people. After all, we were told that and the never-found WMDs were why we had to go there instead of after bin Laden in Afghanistan.

So the CIA can technically say they never did break the law. But someone did. And someone gave that order. And we may not know who actually typed it, but we know where it came from.

Our laws specifically say we cannot use torture for political reasons and waterboarding was still clearly listed at that point (before someone got attorneys to say otherwise). How can anyone say that this is not in violation of our laws?

And what does that say about us as citizens of the United States of America, a land founded on laws and honor?

NO POWER!?!? Congress has ALL the power, that is why they need to be briefed on everything. If they did nothing, then blame them and stop pointing the finger at people who were keeping us safe.

What do you think of Maddow saying Cheney "ordered" someone waterboarded for political reasons last night. The main guy in the story said someone "asked" if they should use enhanced techniques and the other guy said "anaymous" sources said it came from VP's office. You don't believe she is trying to make something out of nothing? Nobody "ordered" anything.

westbury-

Keep up the good work. You save me from having to respond!

Marcy, you need to move to Iran or go live with the Taliban, maybe you'll figure out it's not so bad here. Give them a cup cake and be nice and maybe they'll leave you alone, that is, until you open you mouth and something stupid comes out. Then they'll show you the real meaning of torture.

The Department of Justice has the communications. Someone missed them in the shredding.

Pelosi has indeed dug her own hole. But this is a representative democracy, and the only people that can remove her are her constituents. Her Democratic colleagues in the House can encourage her to step down as Speaker, but they can't force her. Constitutionally, no one else can do anything.

She lied. But unfortunately, lying is not a crime, or we would have had no government for generations.

The only crime was not by the military. It was the direct violation of our own treaties and military code, which even our own military people called "reprehensible". To use mercenaries arranged for by a government official to administer torture to a legitimate "prisoner of war" ( forget the terrorists) for political reasons was a crime.

So far, this is the only absolute crime. If we are a nation of honor and laws, we as the citizens cannot allow this to go unpunished.

These people are not Prisoners of war they are TERRORISTS they are not millitary and DO NOT fall under the millitary code of conduct.

tom

if hanging Pelosi means you repubs agree that Bush and Cheney committed "War Crimes" then that would make for a very good compromise.......hell, we'll even throw in Reid, Dodd and Barney.

I, for one liberal, would be more than happy to add the third noose, as long as Bush and, especially, Cheney, were the first two.

I'm pretty sure you are all speaking metaphorically - sort of gives new meaning to "let he who has no sin cast the first stone..."

Thats the problem with Dems, they think the people they vote for are outstanding citizens who could do no wrong. If you hang Bush and Cheney as you say, then you need to hang about 99% of our elected officials, metaphorically speaking, of course!

More proof of the typical dem behavior of throwing their friends to the wolves when convenient. Fair weather back stabbers, liars, of whom Pelosi and Obama are the royal couple.

you repubs are really all screwed up....

yoiu bitch* about Pelosi, Dodd, Barney........we say o.k. we agree let's string em up like you want...

then you lecture us because we "agree with you"?????

21% and sinking like a rock.........

Great Post, Vote all incumbents out!

We have to fight this battle in the states to remove all references to party affiliation from the ballots. Make people understand the represent their state or their district, not some party.

They all work to make sure their party looks good. The writers of our constitution left parties out because they felt they tore Britian apart. They are right. Look at what they have done to us. We have had a President elected by a minority of voters. (Wrong even if it had been Gore who was elected, and could have been.) Not to mention, allowing the Patriot Act to be put through. One side claiming they were lied to. Yeah, but they knew they were being lied to, they just wanted to wait until it made their party look good. (You can substitutute Republican or Democrat at will.)

You become a party hack and you have a job for life if you tote the line.

Here here! All of 'em out in 2010!!! I agree, those same people make me hurl.

It's that whole checks and balances thing built into our form of government. Weren't the Founding Fathers brilliant? We sure could use some of that today.

Our Founding Fathers are probably rolling over in their graves. I doubt very seriously they could have envisioned what their beloved country has become.

They did envision what it could become, and built in checks and balances, but these have been overridden by emotion driven justices, and lawyers who love to sue, and the rights of groups suchs as Acorn, the Aclu, etc. It is shameful.

Yes, we found that out under GW and the Republicans. Trillions in debt, two wars, the first right, the second a set of lies. This smacks of that other Texan, LBJ, under the Democrats. History repeats itself. Did you know the Gulf of Tonken Incident was a lie? It's in LBJ's own library.

Stop calling people by their party, be an American not a Republican or Democrat. You are right divided government works better. BUT no parties in Congress works best, just like our Founding Fathers wanted it.

They may have wanted it but all of them ended up in one party or another. The fear we all should have is the movement, by the left, in this Country to do away with the Electoral College. If that happens this great experiment will be over.

True and honesty - Can you post the links, I would love to see Barry and the media talking about this, especially how it fits into this timeline. Thanks.

"Lying is now an acceptable means of communication".

Since your handle is Truth and Honesty and you put "Lying is now an acceptable means of communication" in quotations - you have claimed it came from Obama and the Media...

Well "Truth" time to produce.....let's see the "quote from Obama" or even the "quote from the media"

since "they" said it "recently" it shouldn't be too hard for you to track it down....

if you can't maybe your handle should be "Stretch the Truth and sometimes Honest"

Well, it is amazing what seems like truth and transparency, when you are a really smooth talker. However, this is not the same as integrity.

You forgot to mention the eight years of lies we got from the previous kabal that ran the counrty.

yep chris the list of repuke scum got longer under the bush regime. but is that an excuse for pelosi??
now the dems are closing fast on the ever growing list of scum dems

Truth and Honesty,

Right... Obama said that, sure... I think we can see your name is a misnomer.

Oh, and like the last 8 years was a cake walk? I am a Jeffersonian Conservative when it comes to spending my descendant's money. I place the multi-trillions that we have stolen from generations unborn right at the Republican party's feet. They spent it. There is NO denying that. The Republicans are just as "tax and spend" as the Democrats, as long as it is for their pet projects. And it is not you who will feel it, it is your grandchildren.

Make no mistake, parties in congress are wrong.

Exactly !!!

I agree! She knew everything, it's even in writing and now she is saying she didn't know. Come on! It's like, "I didn't have sex with that women".

She has lied so many times she doesn't know what the truth is.

I'd love to see her kicked out!

im really so glad she made it clear biz as normal for the goverment,obama get her out now

all this talk about her takes the attention away from Cheney, he seams to be heavily involved in the first water boardings!

dale...let's get the info that Cheney wants released and we can hang him and pop up nancy.....da, ha, um, what story do you want to hear today? Let's get that truth commision up and going too. How many dems will also go down with the repubs?

hey nancy get me a bail out and ill say your sweet as a rose and could never lie about anything.price tag 2m