c span

Remember last month how the GOP constantly said cameras should be rolling during health care negotiations? Now that there’s a chance for that, well look at what’s happening:

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) today echoed Rep. John Boehner's (R-OH) supposed concern that televising President Obama's bipartisan health care reform summit would turn it into a "media show" -- even after both called for him to make the process more transparent.

Much like Boehner, Enzi was one of the Republicans who earlier called for Obama to televise the health care debate on C-SPAN, in the name of "increased transparency."

What are these Republicans afraid of? There must be something there. I mean if they had such a great position then you would think they would want the cameras rolling. I guess their position isn’t that great after all….

A new Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll, which was released today, has some very good news in it:

With less than two weeks before the November 4 election, Obama leads McCain 52 percent to 40 percent among likely voters in the latest three-day tracking poll, which had a margin of error of 2.9 points.

The biggest part of this is coming from Independents now going more for Obama:

And independent voters, who have been the target of intense campaign efforts by both sides, have now swung behind Obama by a 30-point margin, 59 percent to 29 percent.

That margin is huge and I wonder how much of it is reflective of Powell's endorsement.

This is possible the most telling set of numbers:

Obama holds a 6-point lead among men, 48 percent to 42 percent, while white voters -- who had been among McCain's core support groups -- now only back McCain by a 2-point margin.

McCain's finding out the hard way that this nation isn't full of a bunch of racists like McCain wants. People worry more about leadership and the direction of the country than they do skin color.

Because cronyism and profits always trumps life and pure ethics:

The private security firm Blackwater USA, which has faced mounting criticism following an incident earlier this month in which armed guards from the group purportedly killed 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians, has numerous links to the White House as well as many current and former Republicans.

The connections include the firm's chief operating officer Joseph Schmitz, who was tapped by President Bush in 2002 to "oversee and police the Pentagon's military contracts as the Defense Department's Inspector General."

And the Republicans think the Congress should allow the administration to investigate. Something about a wolf in a hen house comes to mind. Of course we also got Republicans issuing veiled threats against the investigation by Congress. As Atrios points out, Darrell Issa had this to say on C-Span this morning:

If Henry Waxman today wants to go to Iraq and do an investigation, Blackwater will be his support team. His protection team. Do you think he really wants to investigate directly?

If a Democrat said anything similar then you could bet the house on the fact the Republicans would be screaming about threats. But that doesn't matter now. All the does matter is the money the GOP makes - no matter how many lives are lost getting it.

The NSA hearings will start tomorrow at 9:30am eastern and
Glenn Greenwald will be doing
live blogging. If you are not near a television, the hearings can be watched on
C-Span's website.

Two weeks ago tomorrow was when Democrats shut down senate in order to get
answers about the intelligence committees phase two report. That is the second
part of the report that looks into the intelligence leading up to the war in
Iraq. During that closed session, it was agreed upon that a committee be formed
including three Senators from each side of the aisle. They were to act as a over
site into Sen. Pat Robert's committee and find out why the report has not been
completed. Today is the deadline for that committee to report back.

Now I am sitting here wondering if we will actually hear back from that
committee today, or if it will just be forgotten like phase two was. If that is
the case then perhaps another ballsy move by Harry Reid is in order. The
American people deserve to know and are demanding to know the truth. We want to
know if the President lied, manipulated the intelligence, or disposed of key
intelligence so he could promote this invasion. With over 2,000 soldiers dead it
is not just our right to know, it is our duty as citizens and voters to know the
truth.

I will be following C-Span closely today to see if anything comes out on this
story. Hopefully we will start hearing the truth but I won't hold my breath. It
seems as though there are too many important questions that still need to be
answered and those answers will only come from the President and vice-President
and they must be under oath. If a blow job can be important enough to make a
President swear on the Bible to tell the truth then A war certainly is.

It had some of the atmospheric sense of the hearings that Rep. Conyers held
on the Downing Street Memo. The only difference this time is that it was not being
held in a basement room of the Capital. It was being held in an actual chamber
of Congress. The hearing was however, only attended by members of Congress who
sit on the left side of the aisle.

On Monday, Democratic Congressmen conducted a hearing into the actual
contracts by Halliburton for the rebuilding of Iraq. This hearing did not get
any press, except for being showed on C-Span. The hearing asked questions
involving the actual work that Halliburton and it’s Subsidiary, KBR, has done in
Iraq. This was, as the conservatives would call it, another “mock” trial.
Testimony was given by some experts including, Allan Waller who is C.E.O. of
Lloyd Owen International and Gary Butters who is the chairman of the same company.

Lloyd Owen International is a company that was contracted by the Iraqi
Government to deliver fuel to the people of Iraq. They are a security and
operations firm with a U.S. office based out of Florida. During the testimony of
the two top officials of this company, they gave compelling statements of how
Halliburton has not worked on the actual restoration of the oil infrastructure
as pursuant to their contract with the United States. Mr. Butters said that to
date they have only seen one K.B.R. official at one of the sites used to restore
the oil infrastructure to Iraq. Lloyd Owen employees visit all these sites on a daily basis. K.B.R. was suppose to be repairing the
infrastructure and get it back in operation, however Lloyd Owen has had to
purchase their own equipment in order to get fuel to the Iraqi people.