Senator Roberts Tries To Derail Senate Transparency Bill

Roberts’ amendment would illegally intimidate non-profit organizations, stifle ethics complaints against senators

With the U.S. Senate winding down to take its annual August recess, maybe lawmakers want to show constituents some full-throated support for disclosure before they leave?

Ten government transparency groups, including the Center for Responsive Politics, are hoping senators will soon pass a bill to bring them up to speed with their counterparts in the U.S. House and those who run for president.

Unlike candidates for president and for the House, senators still file campaign finance reports on paper rather than electronically—meaning it can take weeks, if not months, to fully know what interests are bribing backing them.

The “Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act” (S. 482) would finally provide electronic filing for Senate candidates.

It has strong support from both parties, but Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS.) is playing politics by blocking the bill from moving forward – no doubt wearing his hat as chairman and fundraiser-in-chief for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

While Roberts claims to support the bill, in reality he is trying to kill it by attaching an irrelevant amendment which would force non-profit organizations to expose their members and donors when they file ethics complaints against senators. This tactic has been used in the past to intimidate and is clearly unconstitutional.

Please call your senators today urging them to pass S. 482, establishing electronic filing for senate campaign finance records, and to oppose Senator Roberts’ ghastly amendment designed to derail the campaign finance reporting measure.

NASA Warming Scientist James Hansen Blasts Obama's 'Counterfeit' Climate Bill

Calls H.R. 2454—the Waxman-Markey bill “a monstrous absurdity...less than worthless!”

James Hansen, the rogue NASA researcher largely responsible for the “Global Warming” hysteria, rakes the “climate” bill over the coals

Excerpt from James Hansen’s statement:

It didn't take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama's agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked…

This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won't get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests.

For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme…

The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It's less than worthless, [Emphasis mine] because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation.

Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws:

•It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants.

•It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.

•Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives."

•It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short.

End Hansen Excerpt.

To read the complete Hansen article go to this link.

My, my. A falling-out amongst thieves.

Even the most rabid climate-change lunatics are demonizing H.R. 2454, the so-called Waxman-Markey or Cap-and-Trade, (more like Graft-and-Tax), bill as an abomination.

For more on Hansen and global-warming go to this link.

GOP Fairytale? $30 Million For Harvest Mouse?

Here is the interesting tale as reported by PolitiFact:

No money in the stimulus for San Francisco mice

To hear Republican House members tell it, you'd think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stuffed $30 million into the stimulus bill to benefit an endangered mouse in her district.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa called it an earmark and "a pet project" while pointing to a sign he made that said "Pelosi's Mouse slated for $30 Million."

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio opposed the bill and asked how money "for some salt marsh mouse in San Francisco is going to help a struggling autoworker in Ohio?"

And Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana said on Fox News that there was "$30 million in there to protect mice in San Francisco."

The tale of the mouse appears to have originated around Feb. 6, 2009, from Republican staff members of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

"Appropriations Republicans, concerned with this irresponsible process and possible abuse of taxpayer funds, have asked various federal agencies how they intend to spend the windfall of cash that Congress may approve in the 'stimulus' bill," said a memo posted to the site. "One peek behind the bureaucratic curtain has yielded the following examples of hidden program information that is not included in the language of the bill or report . These are programs which various federal agencies have privately indicated they will fund with 'stimulus' money."

The memo lists a number of projects, including up to $37.5 million for "wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area — including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse."

That became fodder for a Feb. 11 e-mail from Michael Steel, Boehner's spokesman. "Thirty million dollars for wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area — including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse," Steel wrote. "This sounds like spending projects that have been supported by a certain powerful Democrat in the past. And it certainly doesn't sound like it will create or save American jobs."

That e-mail made it into a Feb. 12 story in the Washington Times headlined "Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese." The story stated, incorrectly as it turns out, that the stimulus bill "includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse."

And that story was then picked up by the Drudge Report.

That's when the mouse references exploded, morphing from a possible project of an unnamed agency to Pence's "$30 million in there to protect mice in San Francisco."

We wanted to get to the bottom of this issue and find out what was up with the mouse.

Turns out the salt marsh harvest mouse is a previously obscure beneficiary of a major environmental restoration project for the San Francisco Bay area.

"A friend e-mailed me and asked me if any of the $30 million for the mouse was for us, and I was like 'What are you talking about?'" said Steve Ritchie, an engineer with the California State Coastal Conservancy, a state agency charged with preserving and restoring the coastline.

When the stimulus bill was first proposed and a call went out for ready-to-go projects, Ritchie prepared a list of the agency's shovel-ready projects and submitted it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, both of which received money in the final version of the stimulus bill.

Three projects would turn abandoned industrial salt operations back into natural wetlands, about 26,000 acres in all. It turns out the mouse is an endangered species that likes tidal salt marshes, and it's mentioned by name as one of several species that will benefit.

But the projects themselves — the South Bay Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project , the Napa Plant Site , and the Napa Salt Marsh restoration — are intended to do more than just benefit wildlife. It's major construction work to create recreation areas and to restore marshland that will resist flooding and storm surge.

"This is bulldozers, front-end loaders, backhoes. These are major earth-moving projects to break down levees, to resculpt the landscape and to make sure nature can do its thing," Ritchie said. "Right now, we just have these lousy little salt pond levees and they break."

"These are real jobs, and these are truly ready to go," he added. "We can definitely spend this money for construction by Nov. 30, 2010."

Given this description of the projects, which were first reported in the San Jose Mercury News , it's a serious distortion to say there's money in the bill to protect San Francisco mice. The bill doesn't even list the San Francisco projects by name. And the funding agencies — the Corps of Engineers or NOAA — could still decide to fund the projects or not. The bill passed a final vote in the House on Feb. 13, with no Republicans supporting it.

So Pelosi did not put an earmark in the bill to save the mice. In fact, there's no money in the bill for mice. For this reason, we rate Pence's remark False.

And here is the take on the tale from Media Matters for America:

In his February 12 blog entry, posted at 1:27 p.m. ET, Sargent explained how he determined the source of the Pelosi-mouse allegation, and how he debunked it:

How did this one get going? Yesterday a House Republican leadership staffer circulated a background email, which I obtained, charging that GOP staffers had been told by an unnamed Federal agency that if it got money from the stim package, it would spend "thirty million dollars for wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area -- including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse."

The GOP staffer's email didn't say what agency it was. It didn't say the money was actually in the package -- just that an unnamed agency had said they would spend it on that if they got it.

But conservatives picked up the claim and began stating as fact that the mouse money was in the bill. On Fox News yesterday, Mike Huckabee blasted the bill for containing money for Pelosi's mouse, and today GOP Rep Dan Lundgren hammered the alleged mouse money in the bill as "absurd." Today's Washington Times ran with a story called: "Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese."

But I just contacted the House GOP staffer [and his name would be…?] who wrote the initial email laying out this talking point, and he conceded that the claim by conservative media that the mouse money is currently in the bill is a misstatement. "There is not specific language in the legislation for this project," he said.

Politicians: Loathe them or despise them, you can’t like them.

Or trust them.

Congressional Witness Intimidation: David Sokol Video Interview

As reported in my 16 June article, GOP Congressmen have accused Congressman Ed Markey of witness intimidation during the dissenting testimony of MidAmerica Energy CEO David Sokol.

Although the vast majority of the media has remained ominously—and unconscionably—silent, Larry Kudlow of CNBC interviewed Sokol on the matter.

Congressman Joe Barton, (R-Texas), appears, in committee, at the beginning of the video, questioning Markey’s actions.

Sokol states that in a conversation with the Congressman, Markey suspiciously maintains that—though his signature was on the letter to FERC—he had no knowledge whatsoever of the letter until after it was sent.

Below is an embedded video of the Kudlow-Sokol interview, (you may have to suffer a brief advertisement at the beginning). Shockwave-flash is required to view the video.


Update! Articles pertaining to the scandal may be found at these links:
Congressman Intimidates Congressional Witnesses
Congressional Witness Intimidation: David Sokol Video Interview (this article)
Is The Media Covering Up A Political Scandal?
Why The Media Blackout Of Congressional Scandal?
GOP Press Release On Congressman Markey Scandal
Congressional Scandal Videos: Sokol Testimony, Markey Apology

Congressman Intimidates Congressional Witnesses

Congressional witnesses intimidated, major news media silent

The individual you see on the right is Congress-critter Ed Markey, (D-Mass.), one of the co-authors of the Waxman-Markey bill, (AKA Cap-and-Trade bill), H.R. 2454. On Tuesday, 9 June 2009, Markey’s subcommittee held hearings on the bill.

Among the witnesses heard by the subcommittee on that day was David L. Sokol, Chairman of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company, who testified on behalf of GOP opposition.

Mr. Sokol spoke against the bill on his company’s website:

“The Waxman-Markey bill is a cap and trade program that will force our customers to pay two expensive costs,” Sokol said. “First, they will pay the cost of emissions allowances purchased on a complex auction market that will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and second, they will pay the cost of replacing our existing fossil-fuel generation facilities with low-carbon alternatives.”
As a result, Sokol said MidAmerican could not join the Edison Electric Institute in endorsing Waxman-Markey. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce began legislative consideration of the measure today. “Cap and trade will have a profoundly negative impact on people who are struggling to make ends meet in an economy still in distress[.]”

David L. Sokol

Mr. Sokol said that and much more in his testimony before the subcommittee, apparently provoking a criminal response from Markey, according to The Hill:

Energy panel Republicans are levying accusations of witness intimidation against Democratic Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the key authors of the contentious House climate change bill.
Republicans have seized on a letter – a copy of which was obtained by The Hill – that Markey penned to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff asking FERC to investigate the actions of a major energy company on the same day that the company’s CEO was set to testify before the energy panel on the dangers of a carbon cap and trade system.
According to the June 9 letter, Markey requested that Wellinghoff probe how thoroughly MidAmerican Energy Holdings – a $41 billion company in which Warren Buffet is a major investor – followed up on promises to invest as much as $15 billion in electric transmission expansion in the wake of the repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act in 2005.
In fact, Markey singled out MidAmerican Energy to also ask FERC to look into his concerns “that the repeal of PUHCA has also freed large multi-state public utility companies to diversify into other potentially risky business, to the potential detriment of utility investors and consumers.”
“For example, MidAmerican Holdings has acquired the second largest real estate brokerage company in the country,” Markey wrote in his six-page letter. “What protections have been put in place to prevent utility shareholders, such as those of MidAmerican Holdings’ regulated utilities, to prevent them from rate increases, higher costs for borrowing, or other risks with might be associated with unsuccessful or failed diversifications?”

The Hill continued:

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on Markey’s Energy and Environment Subcommittee, received a copy of the letter.
GOP sources confirmed that Republicans reacted furiously when they saw that the letter was sent the very same day that MidAmerican’s CEO, David L. Sokol, was testifying as a Republican witness before Markey’s subcommittee.

I should add: Markey’s letter was sent during Sokol’s testimony.

You may download a scanned copy of Markey’s letter to the FERC as a PDF at this link.

In the 11 June 2009 edition of the Omaha World-Herald, Sokol said he was “he was singled out by name” in the letter, (indeed, he was, as were his company and it’s primary shareholder), and accused Markey of trying to intimidate him into backing off on the Cap-and-Trade issue.

Rep. Lee Terry, (R-Neb.), a member of the Energy and Environment committee, said Markey's letter was retaliation for Sokol's testimony and intended as a message for future witnesses:

"Having Warren [Buffet] and Dave's credibility questioned like that—the whole result of that is to intimidate the next witness.”

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), also a member of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee had this reaction:

“I am deeply troubled by the message this sends, whether it was accidental or intentional… If I had gotten that letter, I would have gotten the message that it was sent to intimidate me.”
“It is essential that witnesses be allowed to come forward and give candid testimony.”

On Friday, 12 June 2009, Markey dismissed the GOP’s concerns, claiming his letter to the FERC was in process days before he knew Sokol would be testifying: Yet, he sent it anyway, surely realizing how it would be perceived—realistically, how on Earth could he possibly not?

If you, gentle reader, were sitting on that committee, listening to testimony which could reduce or help reduce your bill to a smoking, useless ruin, and you knew your letter was going out within moments, singling out the witness by name and launching an investigation into his company in particular, would it never, ever occur to you that such letter and subsequent investigation would be regarded as nothing other than direct and retaliatory intimidation—intimidation not only of this witness but of all future dissenting witnesses sitting before congressional committees?

Of course it would occur to you; and I submit it beggars credulity to suppose it did not occur to Markey or his staff.

In a grammatically-disgraceful attempt at damage control, Markey said:

“I would never seek to intimidate or retaliate against a person from having to come in and having to testify before this subcommittee.”

And in a hasty—this time, merely grammatically-awkward—follow-up letter to the FERC, Markey wrote:

“I did not intend for the Commission to focus on just one company but rather on the industry as a whole.”

My friend, if you buy into that steaming pile of horse-hockey, you must still be dazed from your fall off the turnip truck.

Other than Sokol, Buffet and their company, no other companies or individuals—outside of government—are mentioned or alluded to in Markey’s entire 6-page letter to the FERC.

Yet Markey maintains he didn’t intend to focus on Sokol’s company? This must be some new and esoteric use of the word “focus” about which I haven’t been informed.

Few things are more important in a free society than the sovereignty of a witness.

If a witness—any witness, anywhere, in any court or governmental venue—fears personal or professional reprisals due to his testimony, unless he is a very special individual he will simply parrot what he believes will please his questioners and the truth be damned.

Any behavior—intentional or otherwise—which threatens the sanctity of official testimony threatens our freedom, threatens our society, threatens our families, threatens us as individuals and simply cannot be tolerated in the slightest.

Even if you believe Markey so incredibly stupid as to be oblivious to the timing and implications of his action, the fact is—by his own admission—he did it!

Any witness before a congressional committee—now, and long into the future—will think twice before he opens his mouth.

Markey has done an awful thing. A frightful thing. An intolerable thing.

For Congress to maintain whatever credibility, legitimacy and efficacy it may have left, Markey has to be called before the mast.

Markey must be punished and Congress must see to it that he is. Publically.

For all that, there is another—equally disturbing—issue here:

Clicking this link will take you to a Google News search for the keywords: Markey intimidation.
At that link, you will see that not one major media outlet is giving this scandal any coverage whatsoever!
In point of fact, as of this writing, 16 June, only The Hill, the Omaha World-Herald and the Salt Lake Tribune—out of all the major and minor newspapers and TV news outlets—have even mentioned this, and those three have been utterly silent since 13 June.

How can this be? How can this possibly be?

President Clinton did the smokey-pokey with a dumpy intern and the whole world knew about it! They must have heard of it on Pluto for pete’s sake!

Yet, members of the Congress of the United States have accused a sitting congressman of intimidating a congressional witness during hearings on a presidentially-approved, trillion-plus-dollar bill and no national media outlet is giving it so much as a brief mention?

It doesn’t matter who is right or who is wrong—this is nonetheless a very serious matter, but the media is keeping mum.

Why?

They must know about it: I do, you do, the mentioned newspapers do.

You might think that some journalists are ignoring the scandal because they want Markey’s climate bill to pass and to hell with propriety; but not all of them support this or, indeed, other climate bills. Yet, they are silent as well.

It’s quiet—too quiet.

There’s something going on here that I don’t like—and you shouldn’t either.

Update! Articles pertaining to the scandal may be found at these links:
Congressman Intimidates Congressional Witnesses (this article)
Congressional Witness Intimidation: David Sokol Video Interview
Is The Media Covering Up A Political Scandal?
Why The Media Blackout Of Congressional Scandal?
GOP Press Release On Congressman Markey Scandal
Congressional Scandal Videos: Sokol Testimony, Markey Apology