Public Oversight of Congress Archive

This is an archive of blog content related to overseeing Congress.

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Observe

How well does Congress respond to We the People?

Ref Forcing the Committees to take an organized approach to their Constitutional requirements and Oversight responsibilites.

Ref Op ED Article

Ref Wiki: Congressional Committees [ Yahoo Group ]

Ref Wiki: Standards of Conduct

Ref Kos

The Warning

Ref Rome's historian Tacitus warned what leaders did when creating the appearnce of war: There are subseuqnet agreements and frauds yet to be revealed.

Ref Pay increases without work: RNC Members of Congress put vacation and inaction before their oath of office.

Audit Scope Increase

Ref SAS70, SAS99 Planning Matrix

Ref Drafit Audit Report

Unfolding Legal Action

Ref War Crimes indictments against Members of Congress: Failing to prevent war crimes when had power to investigate, document, and direct IG and US Attorneys to review legal matters; failing to remove themselves from the illegal insurrection and rebellion in Congress against the US Constitution.

Ref War Crimes Tribunal Discovery Plan: Lawfully targeting Pelosi, Senators, and Represenatives for Alleged war crimes, maladministration, defiance of oath, and failure to prevent war crimes.

Ref War crimes information Members of Congress ignored, failed to report, and did not timely remove themselves.

Ref Members of Congress implicated in war crimes conspiracy.

Ref State Attorney General Targeting President

Ref Draft Grand Jury Indictment Against Congressional Leadership [ Discuss ]

Ref Draft Member of Congress Disbarment Effort For Alleged 5 USC 3331 violations, and failure to protect Constitution [ Discuss ]

Ref Proclamation Calling for State-level officials to lawfully target Members of Congress for alleged war crimes and unconstitutional Conduct.

Public Oversight Of Congress

Ref Monitoring the Committee Hearings

Ref Indicators

Ref Oversight Plan: Checklist to lawfully target Members of Congress for increased oversight, and reminders between Nov 2006 and Nov 2008 they remain on probation, subject to lawful removal.

Ref Sample Performance Audit Report

Ref Standards to Oversee Congress

Ref Success criteria for public oversight plan of Congress: (a) Is the criteria valid; and (b) How does the proposed Oversight Plan compare.

Ref Oversight Problem

Ref Leaders lead, or we'll find new leaders.

Ref Americans United to Protect the Constitution

Ref Targeting Congressional Staff Counsel for Reckless Defiance of Attorney Standards of Conduct

Ref Congressional Staff Counsel Problems

Ref Voters Recognize the leadership problem in Congress and the failure to timely check abused powers.

Ref Magna Charta: Showing us that governance problems can be solved with agreements, not excuses.

Ref Reasonable Expectations of a Constitutional government.

Ref Discussion on a Modernized Congressional Code of Conduct.

Ref Ethics: Meaningful sanctions for failing to protect the Constitution.

Reference

Marker

House Rules

Ref Ranking Members of Ethics Committee had options to start informal inquiries of Members of Congress on alleged complicity with war crimes without a formal complaint. Why is there no record of the DNC Members of Congress working with the DNC Ranking Ethics Committee to review allegations Members of Congress have been complicit with illegal Constitutional violations and war crimes?

Statutes

Ref Overview of Title 28 and Title 50 exception reports: Why they're important for monitoring Congress and evaluting their fitness for duty.

Ref Important Checklist, Discussion on US Government-Congress-Executive Branch Joint Complcity With Illegal Activity: Showing How Statutes Below Interweave with Presidential Impeachment; Alleged Malfeasance by Members of Congress; and Alleged Failure of Members of Congress to Prevent/Stop War Crimes.

Ref Title 28: AG written notification of deviations to Congress

Ref Title 50: POTUS written notification of deviations to Congress.

Ref ORCON: Illegal to classify evidence of unlawful activity.

Ref Duty to report misleading testimony to US Attorney.

Ref Neglect of Duty: Basis for Congressional Staff Removal

Ref Congressional Committee Report to Leadership on Statutory Enforcement [Every two years; Due March 2007]

Ref Committee Reports on Compliance -- Ex: Lack of Evidence on WMD; no imminent threat, basis for illegal warfare, yet Congress still appropriation funds for unlawful occupation which does not meet Geneva requirements.

Ref Problem of making appropriations for illegal things, without conducting inquiry or reviewing facts related to the illegal activity.

Ref Contrast (a) Congressional intent in the FISA statutes with (b) what DoJ, NSA, and DoD were actually doing with FISA-NSA activity; rendition; prisoner abuse; DHS warrantless interrogations; and illegal warfare/occupation in Iraq.

Evidence

Ref POTUS Subpoena: Follow-up?

Ref NSA IG/DoJ IG, Gonzalez alleged perjury: No basis to ignore FISA requirements; DoJ Staff not busy as Attorney General allegedly told Senate. [Evidence: US Attorney notified by Congress of concerns with problems with Gonzalez testimony? There should be a letter from Senate to US Attorney.]

Ref Senator Graham's Fatal Outburst: Denial of something never accused. Why concerned about what was or wasn't done in re Geneva and war crimes?

Ref Contractor Award Fees: Who was paid to commit war crimes, violate the Supreme Law, defy the US Constitution, and hide evidence of war crimes?

Ref Illegal exercise of "permission power" by Legislature.

Ref The Vice President's 1987 statements on fact finding and investigations in re Iran-Contra. Why the double standard on Congressional investigations and refusal to appear if subpoenaed?

Ref Senator Rockefeller's Memo: He knew enough to document it privately, but where's the letter in re Title 28/Title 50 to the US Attorney, IG, or Senate colleages on the illegal activity prompting his concerns in the letter?

Charts, Precedents, and Contact Info

Ref Illusory Ambiguity over Geneva: Changing the focuse from abuse to feigned confusion over torture.

Ref DoJ IG/NSA IG: JROC Charts on NSA Program.

Ref Congressional Malfeasance By Design -- There is an Option

Ref Members of Congress complicity with war crimes: What they failed to prevent, and did not shut down funding for, as required under laws of war.

Ref Members of Congress knew, or should have known, that it was not lawful to assert Judicial power and to target ongoing litigation with specific bills.

Committee Action

Ref Monitoring the Committee Hearings.

Ref Waxman: A track record of competence, results. When will the Committee chairmen learn from his example?

Ref NSA: House Committees Refuse to shut down illegal appropriations -- Evidence for war crimes.

Ref Evidence of Congressional malfeasance cross both political parties.

Ref Senate Judiciary: Targeting the DOJ Staff Counsel

Ref Senate Intelligence: Rockefeller's unimpressive performance as Ranking Member -- more excuses, double standards on the way

Ref Judiciary: Following up on the non-sense answers from the White House in re FISA-NSA.

Ref Judiciary: Compare the revelations to what the most likely answers to the questions.

Ref Armed Services: NSA Discovery plan.

Ref Armed Services: Investigating the NSA illegal activity.

Ref Armed Services: Rendition discovery plan.

Impeachment Illegally Thwarted

Ref Threats to stifle Committee Oversight of GOP Member of Congress complicity with war crimes.

Ref Power of impeachment, and decision related to Presidential charges delegated to House of Representatives, not the Speaker.

Ref New Leadership needed

Ref Draft Grand Jury Indictment

Ref Draft Member of Congress Disbarment Investigation

Ref DoJ Grand Jury Information

Impeachment

Ref Multiple Impeachments of a Sitting President.

Ref Arbitrary, Surprise Assertion of House Power Against Tyrant Through Impeachments Is Warranted and Appropriate

Ref Excuses for inaction fail to grasp the enormity of the evidence the Grand Juries, FBI, war crimes prosecutors, DoJ OPR, and US Attorneys have already collected. This investigation isn’t' starting from square one.

Ref Reasons for investigating a wartime President.

ref War crimes Evidence: Members of Congress refuse to face their complicity

Ref Do-Nothing President cannot credibly argue that impeachment might be a distraction. It will give him something to do.

New Congressional leadership needed

Ref GOP Rules to Stifle DNC Oversight: Questions related to decision to impeach; how Iraq is used as a distraction from the symptom: The Oval office

Ref President threatens to hold Congress to standards, but Congress refuses to consider impeachment. Gag!

2008 Presidential Election

Ref Winter of Inaction -- No basis to claim more fit to lead: Inaction in 2006

Projects

Ref Pre-emptive government oversight.

Ref Filibustering the Motion to Adjourn: The 2006 Decision of GOP to lead

Ref Can Opener: Should We the People have the Constitutionally protected right to remove a government when it is unresponsive to the Rule of Law?

Ref Clambake: Monitoring Whether GOP in November 2006 to subpoena

Ref Fitness for Duty.

Ref Prosecuting President

Ref State Proclamations: Compelling Congress to Vote on Issue

Issues

Ref Revoking abused powers.

Ref Article 1 Section 5: When Congressional self-oversight fails.

Ref Credibility: Members of Congress need to put it in writing and sign/date it; maybe we'll think about taking their claims seriously.

Ref Congress and President at opposite ends of same snake of Tyranny.

Ref Congress illegally concludes an unreviewed program does or does not comply with the law -- Congress has no judicial power to make this finding; nor has it engaged in any fact finding to credibly make this legal conclusion.

Ref Member of Congress complicity with war crimes

Ref Geneva, GTMO, Abu Ghraib: Congress failed to timely shut down funding for illegal activity, gather facts, stop war crimes.

Ref Refusing to enforce laws of war subjects non-combatants to Geneva abuses.

Ref Military Commissions: Member of Congress not serious about enforcing law

Ref Immunity Language: Illegal rewards to US government officials for not enforcing law

Ref Multi-branch complicity in refusing to investigate, prevent, and prosecute war crimes.

Ref When Political Parties put themselves above the law.

Ref Private citizen responsibility to remove themselves from unlawful government conduct.

Ref War Crimes Archive

Ref Public Oversight of House Ethics Investigation

Ref House ethics

Loyalty to Other Things

Ref Double Standards on Concerns: Book Title

Ref Inaction in Action

Ref Legacy of Inaction: Excitement over the trivial, but devoted to inaction

Case Studies

Ref Powell and Iraq WMD: Failure of Checks and Balances.

Ref Iraq ISG: US Congress refusal to review Presidential misconduct undermines credibility of overseeing Iraq. A refusal of Congress to examine the causes of the Iraq problem dooms the Congressional review of ISG to repeat errors.

Ref Iran-Contra: US Congress failed to assert power against President, and abuses continued.

Ref Smokescreens: Congressional Excuses to Ignore Unconstitutional conduct.

Ref Smokescreens: Debating the definition of torture, while ignoring the illegal abuses violating Geneva.

Ref DOJ pretends it well supports Congress, despite defective DOJ Staff counsel work products for Congress.

Ref Congress blames the blogger-messenger.

Other Content

Ref Legal Action Against Congressional leadership for alleged malfeasance, defiance of oath, and not asserting rule of law.

Ref Options: It only takes one blogger.