Opinion Polls: Delphi's Polling Place
Hosted by Showtalk
Opinion polls on all subjects. Opinions? Heck yes, we have opinions - but we're *always* nice about it, even when ours are diametrically opposed to yours. Register your vote today!
- 5012
MEMBERS - 130435
MESSAGES - 30
POSTS TODAY
Discussions
118th US Congress Rules & Investigations The Serious You: How Current Events Affect You
Started 2/11/23 by WALTER784; 40866 views.
Staff
From: WALTER784
2/14/23
What matters in this case is that the House can block future such bills as well!!!
FWIW
Staff
From: WALTER784
2/15/23
A Checklist for House Select Subcommittee on COVID-19 Pandemic to Hold Government Accountable
Robert Moffit
January 19, 2023
The House of Representatives in the new 118th Congress is off to a good start. In adopting a set of innovative rules governing its parliamentary deliberations, the new House Republican majority has authorized the creation of a Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic with broad jurisdiction.
After three years, and more than 1 million deaths in the U.S. associated with COVID-19, a comprehensive, sober, and detailed investigation into the federal government’s response is a necessary precondition for restoring Americans’ trust in federal public health agencies.
Specifically, that includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services.
A Heritage Foundation analysis of the federal public health performance identified 13 pandemic-related topics that deserve detailed congressional inquiry. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
Narrow partisanship has no place here. Several of these key problem areas span the presidential administrations of both Donald Trump, a Republican, and Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The first order of business is, and should be, a deep dive into the origins of the novel coronavirus and any American taxpayer funding that may have contributed, perhaps inadvertently, to its evolution.
Given Communist China’s stubborn noncooperation, answering the question of how, exactly, the virus developed is an enormous challenge. Congressional work by the minority staff in the House and Senate has already helped to lay the groundwork for future probing.
In conducting such a probe, congressional investigators should be prepared to summon credible Chinese defectors and enlist the crucial assistance of scientists who specialize in the field of evolutionary virology.
Beyond that challenging task, Congress should, among other things, get some clear answers from the relevant federal officials on several other key questions. For example:
Why did the CDC, despite statutory requirements dating back to 2006, fail to modernize and upgrade its systems of data collection and dissemination? Dr. Deborah Birx, former coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force under Trump, has already told Congress that “the No.1 public health issue in the United States today is that there is no comprehensive database or integration of data from laboratories, public health institutions, and clinics.”
Why did federal public health authorities send out confusing messaging on the value of masks and mask mandates? Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the CDC and then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams initially insisted, very publicly and sometimes vehemently, that masking was unnecessary or ineffective. Previous studies on masking indeed failed to provide strong support for cloth masking, let alone mask mandates. Between February and April 2020, however, top federal officials did a U-turn, and insisted on the value of a masking policy that they previously opposed. What was the new scientific evidence, then available in the professional literature, for such a dramatic policy reversal in that brief period? Congress should find out.
Why did federal officials attempt to impose a set of unprecedented vaccine mandates on tens of millions of Americans without weighing the risks and benefits of vaccination for different cohorts of the population, based on age, the acquisition of natural immunity, or an underlying vulnerability to the virus? Young and healthy persons faced little danger of severe illness or death from COVID-19. Robust findings in the professional literature demonstrated the strength of natural immunity. Recent research on vaccine boosters for young adults concludes that potential harms outweigh the benefits of the vaccination.
Answers to these questions are just the tip of the iceberg that the subcommittee must get to the bottom of. The Heritage analysis catalogues and documents other key topics and questions that must be pursued.
For example, at the outset of the national medical emergency, federal officials botched diagnostic testing to assess the extent of the contagion; coordination among federal agencies was poor; the Strategic National Stockpile of medical equipment and supplies was deficient; federal recommendations for school closures and business lockdowns entailed enormous costs in lost learning, economic disruption, and damage to mental and physical health; and federal offic
...[Message truncated]
Staff
From: WALTER784
2/15/23
Twitter Files Hearing: Ex-Twitter Employees Grilled by Rep. Nancy Mace | Twitter Hearing
FWIW
Staff
From: WALTER784
2/18/23
'Never seen anything like this': 'Dozens' of agents come forward to blow whistle on FBI
'It's as if there became two FBIs'
By WND News Services
Published February 11, 2023 at 1:02pm
The House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held its first hearing Thursday, featuring tips from dozens of former FBI agents and the testimony of two former agents who have come forward to expose politicization within the agency.
WND is now on Trump's Truth Social! Follow us @WNDNews
The two former agents, Thomas Baker and Nicole Parker, spoke on their experiences while working at the FBI. Parker said that she is enduring the stress of “putting a target” on her back and testifying to speak on behalf of “numerous current and former bureau employees who feel similarly that they do not have a voice.”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan opened the hearing with an overview of FBI whistleblowers, amounting to “dozens and dozens” of individuals.
“In my time in Congress, I have never seen anything like this,” Jordan said. “It’s not Jim Jordan saying this, not Republicans, not conservatives, good FBI agents who are willing to come forward and give us the truth.”
Jordan sampled a handful of these tips, spanning back to Nov. 18, 2021, when an FBI whistleblower alerted House Judiciary Republicans that the FBI had create a threat tag for parents expressing concern at school board meetings, and ranging to Nov. 4, 2022, when a whistleblower revealed the FBI accepts private user information from Facebook without user consent, according to a House Judiciary report.
Johnson said at the hearing that he expects many of the whistleblowers will sit for transcribed interviews or testify during future open hearings.
“Every day, I woke up and I embraced being an FBI special agent until things changed,” said former FBI Agent Nicole Parker during the hearing.
Over her twelve years with the agency, Parker said its trajectory “transformed” and principles “shifted dramatically.”
“The FBI became politically weaponized starting from the top in Washington and trickling down to the field offices,” Parker said.
“It’s as if there became two FBIs,” she continued. “Americans see this, and it is destroying the bureau’s credibility, and therefore the hardworking and highly ethical agents who still do the heavy lifting and pursue noble cases.”
Thomas Baker, former FBI Agent of 33 years, said the public loss of faith in the agency “breaks [his] heart.” He said the shift in culture was “deliberate” and set in place by former FBI director Robert Mueller.
“The FBI director set out deliberately to change the culture of the FBI from a law enforcement agency to an intelligence driven agency,” he said.
“The FBI, by urging Twitter to censor speech, which it could not itself do, was engaging in a perversion – a perversion of the First Amendment,” Baker later continued. “For most of FBI history, agents were trained as part of the FBI’s mission was to be a guarantor of the Bill of Rights. That has been turned on its head.”
'Never seen anything like this': 'Dozens' of agents come forward to blow whistle on FBI (wnd.com)
FWIW
Host
From: Showtalk
2/18/23
There are two types of agents. Those who are there to uphold the law wherever it takes them and those with a political agenda.
Staff
From: WALTER784
2/18/23
Proper agents who uphold the law vs rogue agents who attempt to subvert the law.
Eventually, the truth will be found out... sad thing is, will it take 5, 10, 15 or 20 years to restore trust in our government agencies again.
This time, the enemy was from within!!!
FWIW
Staff
From: WALTER784
2/22/23
House Republicans begin probe into Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan
BY REBECCA KAPLAN, KATHRYN WATSON
FEBRUARY 17, 2023 / 12:00 PM / CBS NEWS
Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Committee are kicking off their investigation into the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan Friday, sending letters requesting information to the White House, Pentagon, State Department, Department of Homeland Security, USAID and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
This investigation is one Republicans tried to start in August 2021 while they were in the minority, but they say they didn't receive substantive responses. Now in the majority, House Republicans on the committee, led by Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, are giving the various agencies until March 3 to respond. Holding the House majority also gives the GOP subpoena power, although Republicans haven't issued subpoenas at this point.
Comer and his fellow Republicans on the committee are requesting all documents, communications and information related to what they call the administration's "disastrous" military and diplomatic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Thirteen U.S. troops were killed in an suicide attack in Kabul during the August 2021 withdrawal, and that, combined with the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and forces, led to a refugee crisis, as Afghans tried to escape the country while the Taliban were taking over. The U.S. conceded that it had underestimated how quickly Afghan forces would collapse.
"The Biden administration was tragically unprepared for the Afghanistan withdrawal and their decisions in the region directly resulted in a national security and humanitarian catastrophe," Comer said in a statement. "U.S. servicemen and women lost their lives, Americans were abandoned, taxpayer dollars are unaccounted for, the Taliban gained access to military equipment, progress for Afghan women was derailed, and the entire area is now under hostile Taliban control. The American people deserve answers and the Biden Administration's ongoing obstruction of this investigation is unacceptable."
President Biden rarely brings up the withdrawal from Afghanistan, although he forcefully defended it at the time.
"I was not going to extend this 'forever war,' and I was not extending a 'forever exit,'" he said at the time.
House Republicans begin probe into Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan - CBS News
FWIW
TOP