You Decide

Interesting video interview Sen. Kit Bond first article. 

Second one Pelosi doing the backstroke fast as she can.   Way too power hungry for any high position, she does not wear it well. 

Wish she'd do the honorable thing and resign.

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Video: Sen. Kit Bond on Pelosi's CIA Claim

http://thepage.time.com/video-sen-kit-bond-on-pelosis-cia-claim/

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"Hoyer wants Pelosi facts out

By Jared Allen and Mike Soraghan
Posted: 05/12/09 07:53 PM [ET]
Source The Hill

"The No. 2 Democrat in the House on Tuesday said Americans should be provided answers on what Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about interrogations of suspected terrorists and when she knew about it.

But he also indicated that those answers might give the embattled Speaker political cover.

"I think the facts need to get out," Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters on Tuesday when asked about calls from both sides of the aisle for congressional investigations into the formulation of the so-called torture memos.

The Pelosi interrogation controversy has become a major distraction as the White House and congressional Democrats are seeking to move their top agenda items, most notably healthcare reform and climate change legislation. It is likely that Pelosi (D-Calif.) will be grilled about interrogations at her weekly press conference on Thursday.

Hoyer accused Republicans of creating a diversion by focusing on what information leading Democrats received about interrogation techniques. But he is now the highest-ranking Democrat to say that such information should be made public.

"I think the Republicans are simply trying to distract the American public with who knew what when," Hoyer said. "The issue is not what was said or what was known; the focus ought to be on what was done.

"But I think, frankly," the majority leader added, "the information about what was said and when it was said and who said it - I think that probably ought to be on the record, as well, so the American public knows that rather than what I think is somewhat of a distraction rather than a substantive debate."

Since the release of Bush administration memos authorizing interrogation practices that President Obama has deemed "torture," Republicans have deflected the heat back at Democrats.

Over the last couple of weeks, they have highlighted a steady drip of revelations that have undercut Pelosi's statement that she was told that waterboarding had been declared legal in 2002, but not used on prisoners. She has also said she had no power to stop it, and little ability to protest.

Republicans claim that Pelosi has known for years that intelligence agents were waterboarding terrorism suspects, but waited to complain until years later, when the practice was made public. The revelations have infuriated liberal activists.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, has pushed for hearings after engineering the release of CIA documents that say Pelosi, the panel's ranking Democrat in 2002, was briefed on interrogation techniques used on a terrorism suspect who is now known to have been waterboarded.

But former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who received a similar briefing at the time, has also said he wasn't told that prisoners were being waterboarded.

Pelosi did join in a protest filed after the first briefing that specifically mentioned waterboarding in 2003

Democrats are stressing that Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who became ranking Democrat when Pelosi became minority leader, were not explicitly told of waterboarding until the 2003 briefing, when it had been used for six months, and that it continued after Harman protested.

They also note that the House passed legislation that would have banned waterboarding months after Democrats took control of the chamber in 2007.

Pelosi herself has not asked for any information about the briefings to be made public. And on Tuesday the respected political fact-checking website PolitiFact deemed Pelosi's explanations on waterboarding "false," in light of the CIA documents released last week and even in spite of CIA Director Leon Panetta's letter accompanying the documents saying agents' memories about the briefings could be faulty.

Hoyer's comments seem to indicate that Pelosi may be vindicated at the end of the day.

"To some degree she was in a position where ... she was bound by requirements of secrecy as a condition of those briefings, so it's a little bit of a conundrum there as well," he said.

And when asked if the controversy surrounding what the Speaker knew about interrogation tactics was damaging her support among House Democrats, Hoyer answered flatly: "No."

Yet Hoyer left unclear the manner in which he would like to see such information made public, and did not directly answer a question about whether Pelosi and other members of Congress should have to testify publicly, as Republicans have called for.

While calls for a "truth commission" have faded, congressional hearings are already under way on the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

The Senate Judiciary Administrative Oversight and the Courts subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday billed as the first hearing on the "torture memos" since their release.

Subcommittee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who also is a member of the Intelligence Committee, told The Associated Press that he offered legislation in the committee to ban the harsh methods, which was later incorporated into broader legislation.

But Whitehouse said he never protested to the Bush administration because "it never crossed my mind that it would make the least bit of difference."

Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday to discuss the memos. "

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/hoyer-wants-pelosi-facts-out-2009-05-12.html

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"Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0509/Panetta_to_CIA_employees_We_told_Pelosi_the_truth.html?showall