Put Up or Shut Up

Republicans to Pelosi: Prove Your Case or Apologize to CIA

House Minority Leader John Boehner told FOX News that lying to Congress is a crime, so if Speaker Nancy Pelosi thinks agency officials did so, she needs to present evidence and have the Justice Department prosecute it or apologize for casting aspersions.

It's week two and Republicans aren't about to let House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's accusation that the CIA lied to Congress slip between the cracks.

House Minority Leader John Boehner told FOX News on Monday that "the ball is in the speaker's court." If she is accusing the CIA of lying, she "needs to come forward, either present evidence or do an apology, and let's get this behind us."

"Lying to Congress is a crime. Purposely misleading Congress is a crime. And if the speaker is accusing the intelligence community of lying to her or purposefully misleading her, then she ought to present that evidence, turn it over to the Justice Department, have them prosecute it," Boehner said.

But Boehner did not call for Pelosi's ouster.

"Let's not get too far down the road here. I'm not going to take anything off the table, but I do believe that -- that the ball is in her court. And she has to either put up or have an apology and move on," he said.

Pelosi caused a stir last week when she accused the CIA of misleading Congress about its use of enhanced interrogation techniques on terror detainees, particularly on Abu Zubaydah.

"Yes I am saying the CIA was misleading the Congress, and at the same time the (Bush) administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to which I said that this intelligence doesn't support the imminent threat," Pelosi said at her weekly news conference on Thursday.

"Every step of the way the administration was misleading the Congress and that is the issue and that's why we need a truth commission," she said.

On Friday, CIA Director Leon Panetta issued a letter to CIA staff repeating his statement of a day earlier that the agency's response to congressional inquiries shows that "our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing 'the enhanced techniques that had been employed.' Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened."

"I think that it's pretty clear that Mr. Panetta and the CIA believe that they were truthful in their briefings to Ms. Pelosi. There's been no reason to lie," Boehner said Monday.

According to a Rasmussen poll out on Monday, 43 percent of voters nationwide say they believe the CIA could have misled Pelosi about the use of waterboarding while 41 percent said that's unlikely. The belief and disbelief tracked closely with political party affiliation.

The poll of 1,000 likely voters taken over the weekend has a 3 percent margin of error. In it, 58 percent said they don't want any probes of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects.

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said that Pelosi either needs to prove her case or apologize.

"If indeed Nancy Pelosi has lied, which it seems to me that she has, then she either needs to resign or at the very least have a public and open apology to the CIA," Franks said.

Franks then accused Democrats, including Pelosi, of constantly undermining the Bush administration for political points.

"They held themselves completely unconstrained to the truth in all of those debates and it was I think damaging to our country and damaging to our national security, and it seems like now that they are in the supermajority, they've completely disinvited the truth from the entire discussion," Franks said.

"We could be facing nuclear jihad in the coming years, and being able to rely on what people say is of more and more importance to the American people," he added.

Franks acknowledged that for now it's more advantageous to Republicans for Pelosi to stay in office.

"Politically it might be better for us if she stays in because I think she's lost credibility with the American people, and it's easier for us to point out some of the foibles of the Democrat leadership with her in the leadership," he said

The Truth About “Torture” Obama Is Hiding From The Public

H/T Pat Dollard.

When the Obama Adminiistration released the CIA memos this week, they released what we did to get the information, but not what we got. All sections listing our success were literally blacked out, redacted. Then they sent out talking heads claiming that Dennis Blair concluded “it wasn’t worth it”, which is entirely untrue. Here’s some further insight:

Media Lizzy: 

Later today, I will interview former DoD official Bryan Del Monte about his role in crafting Detainee policy — and we will wade into the debate about interrogations, torture, and the ugly underbelly of keeping America safe. While preparing for this show, I have read the recently released “terror memos.” Which begged the question, what did the High Value Terrorist Detainee program accomplish? How successful were our Clandestine operators? What oversight and legal advice was really given? Were we made safer? Is waterboarding really torture, when we subject our servicemen to it repeatedly during SERE and other training maneuvers?

With humble thanks to the former Senior CIA Official that gave me some profound things to think about, some of which I will write about in the coming days, I highly recommend you read the following document - it was issued by the Director of National Intelligence in late summer 2006: SUMMARY OF THE HIGH VALUE TERRORIST DETAINEE PROGRAM.

Further, read this release from the Bush White House: Bringing the Terrorists to Justice.

Continue reading Media Lizzy’s post

Reaching Out To The Enemy and Throwing Our Country Under The Bus

OP:ED from Pastor Ed Boston

Someone needs to let the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave know whose side the Commander-in-Chief belongs on. While reaching out to the dictators and scum leaders of the world, this administration is throwing our country and proud Americans under the bus.

In an article from the AP found at Yahoo News, we read the following:

Obama said he was ready to accept Cuban President Raul Castro's proposal of talks on issues once off-limits for Cuba,....

Later, during a group photo, Obama reached behind several leaders at the summit to shake Chavez' hand for the third time. Obama summoned a translator and the two smiled and spoke briefly......

Obama also extended a hand to Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, whom President Ronald Reagan spent years trying to drive from power. Ortega was ousted in 1990 elections that ended Nicaragua's civil war, but was returned to power by voters in 2006.....

We also know that BHO has reached out to Iranian mad man President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Iran said on Wednesday it would welcome President Barack Obama's offer of a change in U.S. policy provided it involved a withdrawal of U.S. troops from abroad and an apology for past "crimes" against Tehran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was speaking after Obama offered to extend a hand of peace if Iran "unclenched its fist."

If those items aren't enough to swallow, we can't forget that the current administration is labeling patriotic red-blooded Americans as Domestic Terrorists.

We now hear from former heads of the CIA that throwing the previous administration under the bus has put our nation at further risk from "REAL TERRORISTS".

In releasing the documents, the most comprehensive accounting yet of interrogation methods that were among the Bush administrations most closely guarded secrets, Obama said he wanted to move beyond "a dark and painful chapter in our history."

Past and present CIA officials had unsuccessfully pressed for more parts of the four legal memos to be kept secret, and some critics argued the release would make the United States less safe.

Michael Hayden, who led the CIA under George W. Bush, said CIA officers will now be more timid and allies will be more reluctant to share sensitive intelligence.

It is more than obvious that BHO is making friends with the worlds undesirables who hate America while alienating those of us who love the greatest nation in the world.