Sedition --the first in a series on sedition

Sedition--what's it good for? If not treason, why not try sedition? -----lee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

     In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.
     Typically, sedition is considered a subversive act, and the overt acts that may be prosecutable under sedition laws vary from one legal code to another. Where the history of these legal codes has been traced, there is also a record of the change in the definition of the elements constituting sedition at certain points in history. This overview has served to develop a sociological definition of sedition as well, within the study of state persecution.
     The difference between sedition and treason consists primarily in the subjective ultimate object of the violation to the public peace. Sedition does not consist of levying war against a government nor of adhering to its enemies, giving enemies aid, and giving enemies comfort. Nor does it consist, in most representative democracies, of peaceful protest against a government, nor of attempting to change the government by democratic means (such as direct democracy or constitutional convention).
     Sedition is the stirring up of rebellion against the government in power. Treason is the violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or state, giving aid to enemies, or levying war against one's state. Sedition is encouraging one's fellow citizens to rebel against their state, whereas treason is actually betraying one's country by aiding and abetting another state. Sedition laws somewhat equate to terrorism and public order laws.

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Why President Obama is at Risk for Impeachment

Missed this earlier but it's more timely everyday.---rng

Preserve, Protect and Defend the Constitution

Mitch Biggs, Yahoo! Contributor Network

Aug 1, 2010 

In the United States, Federal Officials are exempt from a recall election. However, Article One of the Constitution does provide for impeachment. There are very compelling reasons why President Obama is at risk for impeachment. At the heart of the matter is the Oath of Office. On inauguration day, President Obama took the following oath:

     "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

    

     Rather than defend, preserve and protect the Constitution, President Obama has systematically set a course to dismantle the Constitution. The real question here is if President Obama has committed perjury. During his campaign he is documented stating that he wanted to fundamentally transform the United States. His appointments to the United States Supreme Court are clear evidence of a President seeking to create a judicial body that is biased toward liberal ideology rather than constitutional law. Furthermore, the President has been documented strongly suggesting that the Constitution is an impediment for his desire to redistribute the nation's wealth. (Politico.com)

     The Oath of Office specifically calls on the President to preserve, protect and defend. Immigration reform is another example where the President has condemned the Constitution. Securing our nation's border is a national security issue. Politics have been allowed to be center stage as a bargaining chip rather than uphold the law. We are a nation of laws. Illegal immigrants are breaking the law. The Federal Government must uphold the law. More troops have been sent to clean up the oil spill than defend our porous border. Litigation with Arizona is far removed from the fundamental responsibility of our nation's security.

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GOP Congressional Candidate Walberg Suggests Using Impeachment To Get Obama’s Birth Certificate

from thinkprogress.org

By Zaid Jilani

on Oct 13th, 2010 at 9:56 am

     As ThinkProgress previously noted, Tim Walberg — a former GOP congressman and current Republican nominee for the House of Representatives from Michigan’s seventh congressional district — appeared on a local Battle Creek radio show last month and told the host that he doesn’t “know” if Obama is a Muslim or born in the United States.

     Now, video has surfaced of Walberg once again addressing the “birther” issue. The congressional candidate told voters at a recent meeting at a coffee shop that, while he’s going to “take [Obama] at his word that he’s an American citizen,” the reason the issue isn’t “resolved” is because the “president hasn’t resolved it yet.” Walberg suggested that Obama call in radio hosts Alan Colmes and Rush Limbaugh, congressional leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and “maybe one justice of the U.S. Supreme Court” and present his birth certificate to them in private. He then explained that there is little that Congress can do to force Obama from “showing certain things,” but suggested that Congress could use the threat of impeachment, but “Republicans don’t have that majority“:

     WALBERG: Well I’m going to take him at his word that he’s an American citizen. I don’t know why it’s not resolved, other than the fact that the president hasn’t resolved it yet. [...] If I had to do it I’d just simply of course I had to show my birth certificiate to be on the ballot. If I were gonna do it I’d call Rush Limbaugh, Alan Colmes, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and maybe one justice of the US Supreme court. Call ‘em all into a room and lay out my birth certificate on a table…and say all of you take a look at it show me what you find. Now go and report it. [...] The Executive has an awful lot of power to keep from showing certain things unless the courts will stand up to him. Or unless Congress in majority will stand up, up to and including impeachment. And Republicans don’t have that majority.

Watch it:

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Talk of Impeachment

     The violation of public trust. We trust our elected officials to obey the laws and the foundation of our laws in letter as well as in spirit----the constitution. We trust our elected officials to protect our borders, i.e.. controlling immigration and keeping border battles on the other side of the border. We trust our elected officials to pass laws that don't result in tyrannical bureaucracies and the loss of freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. Yet another reason for impeachment: the violation of the public trust. ------lee

July 29, 2010

By Alan Caruba 

     The last time I recall the nation being this concerned over the state of the presidency was during the Lewinsky scandal and ensuing impeachment proceedings against President Clinton. Before that it was during the slow revelation of the Watergate scandal that finally forced Richard Nixon’s resignation.

     On Thursday, July 22, an editorial opinion by Tom Tancredo in The Washington Times called for the impeachment of President Obama. A column by Jeffrey Kuhner was titled “President’s socialist takeover must be stopped.”

     Tancredo, a former five-term member of Congress, is now the chairman of the Rocky Mountain Foundation. Kuhner, a Times columnist, is president of the Edmund Burke Institute.

     Burke, an Irish orator, philosopher and politician (1729-1797) is best known for his warning that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”, but he also said, “Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.”

     It is the conceit of every generation that those that preceded it were less sophisticated, but it is clear from Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Paper number 65, published in the New York Packet on March 7, 1788, that the question of impeachment as defined in the Constitution was being debated, the subtleties of the issue were not only understood by the author, but by Americans of his era as well.

     Hamilton wrote: “A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.

     They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused.”

     The removal of Barack Hussein Obama from the office of the presidency is increasingly spoken of among concerned Americans and now has risen to the level of discussion in print. The two Times articles enumerated the reasons why.

     Tancredo began by reminding us that “every citizen elected to serve in Congress or any person appointed to any federal position” must swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.”

     “For the first time in American history,” said Tancredo, “we have a man in the White House who consciously and brazenly disregards his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution.” Going straight to the heart of the issue confronting all Americans, Tancredo said, “Our president is an enemy of the Constitution and, as such, he is a danger to our safety, our security, and our personal freedoms.”

     Kuhner wrote that Obama is “slowly, piece by piece, erecting a socialist dictatorship. We are not there yet, but he is putting America on that dangerous path. He is undermining our constitutional system of checks and balances, subverting democratic procedures and the rule of law…”

     Tancredo listed what he regards as impeachable offenses which the Constitution describes as “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Impeachment has twice been attempted in the nation’s past and neither succeeded. Among those cited by Tancredo are:

    

     # Disenfranchising General Motors and Chrysler bondholders in order to transfer billions of investor dollars to his supporters in the United Auto Workers;

     # Implementing a third ban on off-shore drilling despite the rejection by two federal courts.

     # The appointment of judges who want to create law rather than interpret it.

     # The failure to defend the nation’s southern border against an invasion of illegal aliens.

     Tancredo could have added the questionable demand that BP create a $20 billion fund to cover the cost of the oil cleanup and the losses incurred by those affected by it. That was entirely without any previous historic or legal precedent.

     The creation, too, of an entire level of presidential advisors (czars) within the White House who appear to have been granted greater powers than Secretaries of various federal departments in determining policy is highly questionable. Few underwent any examination by the Senate.

     Kuhner warned about Obamacare’s funding of abortion, along with the creation of “a command-and-control health care system, “a frontal assault on property rights”, the new financial reform act that he deemed “essentially nationalize the big banks” while noting the same effect on the financial sector, and the student loan industry. He too noted the takeover of the automakers.

     Kuhner warned that Obama’s “comprehensive immigration reform” would grant amnesty to 12 to 20 million illegal aliens “would sound the death knell for our national sovereignty.” The Obama Justice Department’s decision to sue Arizona for its immigration law was deemed as “siding with criminals against his fellow Americans” and desecrated his constitutional oath. Kuhner deemed it “treasonous.”

     Kuhner urged that, should the Republicans win back Congress in November “formal investigations into this criminal, scandal-ridden administration” should be launched.

     I doubt that even Republican control of Congress in both houses would undertake impeachment proceedings against Obama. That did not go well when it was tried against Clinton.

     At best a Congress in which they controlled either or both houses would become a bulwark against further predations by the first Marxist president ever elected in America and, hopefully, the last.

    

Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

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Meeting With The Boss

Hu Jintao has dinner with Obama---two leaders with the same political philisophy breaking bread. -----lee 

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http://www.nma.tv/hu-jintao-jets-washington-2/

Top US federal judge assassinated after threat to Obama agenda

If you're keeping score, the liberals managed to gun down two, count 'em, a judge and a blue dog democrat, two conservatives in Tuscon, and now they blame it on the conservatives.  The "sheer brilliance" of the maneuver as Colnel Kurtz of "Apocalypse Now," would say.  What did Chris Matthews know and when did he know it?---rng

from European Union Times
posted Jan. 09, 2011

A Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that the top US Federal Judge for the State of Arizona was assassinated barely 72-hours after he made a critical ruling against the Obama administrations plan to begin the confiscation of their citizen’s private retirement and banking accounts in order to stave off their nations imminent economic collapse, and after having the US Marshals protecting him removed.

According to this SVR report, Federal Judge John McCarthy Rollwas the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Arizona who this past Friday issued what is called a “preliminary ruling” in a case titled “United States of America v. $333,520.00 in United States Currency et al” [Case Number: 4:2010cv00703 Filed: November 30, 2010] wherein he stated he was preparing to rule against Obama’s power to seize American citizens money without clear and convincing evidence of a crime being committed.

The case being ruled on by Judge Roll, this report continues, was about bulk cash smuggling into or out of the United States that the Obama administration claimed was their right to seize under what are called Presidential Executive Orders, instead of using existing laws. The Obama administration used as support for their claim before Judge Roll, the SVR says, the seizing of all American citizens’ gold, in 1933, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 6102, which was ruled at the time to be constitutional.

Should the Obama administration win their argument to seize their citizen’s money by Executive Order without having to abide by the law was made more chilling this past week when reports emerged from the US stating that President Obama and his regime allies were, indeed, preparing to rule America by decree since their loss this past November of their control over the US House of Representatives, and in the words of the Washington Posts columnist Charles Krauthammer: “For an Obama bureaucrat … the will of the Congress is a mere speed bump”.

Since taking office in early 2009, Obama has completely overturned the once free United States through his use ofExecutive Orders that asserts his power to put anyone he wants in prison without charges or trial forever and hisright to assassinate any American citizen he deems a threat.

The most chilling of these powers Obama has asserted for himself, however, are contained in Executive Order 13528 he signed nearly a year ago (January 10, 2010) creating a Council of Governors he has hand-picked to rule over the United States in place of its elected representatives when their next “disaster” strikes and orders themto begin “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities”.

Going from the chilling to the outright scary, about whatever “disaster” the American regime is preparing their people for, is Obama’s Homeland Security Department, through their Ready.Gov organization, beginning to airthis past week a public service television commercial titled “World Upside Down” that shows a typical family sitting in their home suddenly losing all of its gravity and warning all who watch it to begin preparing.

Note: In our previous reports US Descends Into Total Police State As 2012 ‘Solar Chaos’ Fears Grow, Pole Shift Blamed For Russian Air Disaster, Closure Of US Airport and Poisonous Space Clouds Slamming Into Earth Cause Mass Bird And Fish Deaths we had detailed some of fears the US government are most worried about, but which they still will not be truthful to their citizens about.

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Will Republicans now impeach Obama? (Is that a serious question?)

If a movement to impeach Obama is started and properly led it will force a debate on securing our borders and restoring our jobs and thus our tax base.  The public needs to hear this discussion.  Start the impeachment and repeal health care and outsourcing, offshoring and illegal immigration.  Move on all fronts.---rng  

 Emboldened by their massive success in the House Tuesday, Republicans are crowing about repealing 'Obamacare.' Democrats fear the GOP will now try to impeach Obama. Take all this with a grain of salt, one expert says.


     Impeach President Obama! Repeal “Obamacare!” UFOs have landed!

     OK, that last one is made up (pretty sure…), but the first two are rattling around the rhetoricsphere of election night speechifying, even showing up on news shows and media blogs that cover the conversation on an election night.
     The first one took flight through the blogosphere after MSNBC’s Ed Schultz posed the hypothetical question to the soon-to-be House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio – who, incidentally, was not on the show. Would he pledge to take impeachment of President Obama “off the table,” Mr. Schultz asked rhetorically. This was picked up and replayed by the conservative blog, mediate.com.
     On the second question, CBS News’ “Campaign 2010: Election Night," Katie Couric interviewed Republican Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, who told her: “In January, I hope that we’re able to put a repeal bill on the floor right away.”
     Are these serious intentions or political theater? The latter, says John Hart, professor of communication at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu. It’s the kind of partisan rhetoric designed for the party faithful and geared towards an emotional, not a rational response, he adds.
     "Election night winners get to indulge in this kind of flight of fancy, preaching to their choir at a big moment,” he says.
     But it is not really meant for the sober light of day. Rather, he says, “extreme rhetoric like this can begin to set extreme boundaries for actual moves down the line.”
     For instance, while a total repeal of the massive health-care bill is not in the cards, such comments can prime the conversational pump for something far less extreme, such as amending provisions, Mr. Hart says.
     A glance to the past sheds helpful light on such whopping talk.
     First of all, he points out, Obama himself set a fantastical bar for the administration with his “Yes, we can!” and change-the-world talk. Moreover, the party in power historically loses ground in mid-term elections – though not to this extent. Still, the resurgent party nearly always indulges in emboldened rallying cries.
     Will the Republicans move on impeachment proceedings? Since Watergate and President Richard Nixon, this word has been part of the dialogue of opposition, says Hart. But that doesn’t make it a reasonable possibility, he adds.

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Bachmann: Impeach Obama? That's Up To Congress

Now that her name is being touted as a Presidential possibility, Ms. Bachmann needs to climb down from the fence.  Will she move for impeachment for, among other things, Obama's failure to seal the borders?  If not, what is her real agenda, who does she really serve, and is she really fit to be President?---rng

Eric Kleefeld | July 28, 2010, 1:39PM
from TPM

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the chair of the new House Tea Party Caucus, seems to be sitting on the fence over whether President Obama should be impeached. Instead, she's saying that those questions are up to Congress to determine.

In an interview with NewsMax, Bachmann was asked about former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo's (Republican/Constitution) statements that Obama should be impeached for allegedly refusing to secure the border in order to force an immigration reform package. Bachmann -- who has said that subpoenaing and investigating the Obama administration is "all we should do" if Republicans gain control of Congress -- didn't quite give a definite answer.

"When it comes to the issue of securing our borders, again it seems to have a political basis rather than a basis that is grounded in what is good for America, our economy, and the safety and health of the American people," said Bachmann. "Whether or not this is an impeachable offense is one that the Congress would have to make a determination on. But I think clearly the president isn't acting out of the best interests of what would be good for people's safety and good for our economy."

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Is health-care reform constitutional?

And just who (which president of the US signed this legislation into law, hmmmm?) And is he liable for impeachment for doing so? ------lee

Sadly, passing and signing unconstitutional legislation has so far not been considered treasonable although it should be.  One can only hope.  Below, a still timely article about the expensive lawsuits that ill conceived legislation brings about.---rng

By Randy E. Barnett

Sunday, March 21, 2010 

     With the House set to vote on health-care legislation, the congressional debate on the issue seems to be nearing its conclusion. But if the bill does become law, the battle over federal control of health care will inevitably shift to the courts. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II, has said he will file a legal challenge to the bill, arguing in a column this month that reform legislation "violate[s] the plain text of both the Ninth and Tenth Amendments." On Friday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster and Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum announced that they will file a federal lawsuit if health-care reform legislation passes. 

     Will these cases get anywhere? Here is a guide to the possible legal challenges to a comprehensive health-care bill.

The individual mandate.

    

     Can Congress really require that every person purchase health insurance from a private company or face a penalty? The answer lies in the commerce clause of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power "to regulate commerce . . . among the several states." Historically, insurance contracts were not considered commerce, which referred to trade and carriage of merchandise. That's why insurance has traditionally been regulated by states. But the Supreme Court has long allowed Congress to regulate and prohibit all sorts of "economic" activities that are not, strictly speaking, commerce. The key is that those activities substantially affect interstate commerce, and that's how the court would probably view the regulation of health insurance.

     But the individual mandate extends the commerce clause's power beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity. That is unprecedented. While Congress has used its taxing power to fund Social Security and Medicare, never before has it used its commerce power to mandate that an individual person engage in an economic transaction with a private company. Regulating the auto industry or paying "cash for clunkers" is one thing; making everyone buy a Chevy is quite another. Even during World War II, the federal government did not mandate that individual citizens purchase war bonds.

     If you choose to drive a car, then maybe you can be made to buy insurance against the possibility of inflicting harm on others. But making you buy insurance merely because you are alive is a claim of power from which many Americans instinctively shrink. Senate Republicans made this objection, and it was defeated on a party-line vote, but it will return.

The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, Gator Aid and other deals.

     Some states are threatening lawsuits to block the special deals brokered by individual senators in exchange for their votes. Unless the reconciliation bill passes the Senate, such deals could remain in place. Article I of the Constitution allows Congress to tax and spend to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." Normally, this is no barrier to legislation benefiting a particular state or city. Congress can always argue that, say, an Air Force base in Nebraska benefits the United States as a whole. But the deals in the Senate bill are different. It is really hard to identify a benefit to all the states from exempting one state from an increase in Medicare costs or allowing only the citizens of Florida to get Medicare Advantage.

The Slaughter House rule.

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In House, new Republican majority plans to act fast to undo Obama's agenda

     Next on the agenda: congressional investigations of the Obama administration. Act fast guys and decisively: this is total political war. TAKE NO PRISONERS!!!!-----lee

By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 5, 2011; 12:43 AM 

     Almost as soon as they take control of the House at noon Wednesday, Republicans will embark on a 20-day plan aimed at undoing major aspects of President Obama's agenda as they seek to take advantage of the weeks before the Senate's return and the president's State of the Union address.

     The first move will come Friday, when the House begins the process of repealing the new health-care law. House leaders will then quickly begin to identify tens of billions of dollars in proposed spending cuts and to ease regulations that businesses find burdensome.

     Much of what Republicans do will be symbolic, given that Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. But the quick action will allow Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the incoming speaker, and House Republicans to follow through on campaign pledges and to try to establish their party as a bulwark against what they see as an out-of-control government.
     Recognizing the limits of their power, Republican leaders said they will follow their initial aggressive stance with efforts to force Obama into what they consider principled compromises. Those would most likely come with attempts to cut federal spending and spur job growth, two agenda items that both parties have set as priorities.
     "This is a two-way street going on here, and results are going to be judged through the prism of whether jobs are created and whether spending is cut and the deficit is brought back under control," Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the incoming House majority leader, told reporters Tuesday. "And it is as much the responsibility of this administration as well as the Senate to join with us in echoing what we heard in the last couple months."
     While the Democratic majority in the Senate was diminished in November, the party still holds a 53-to-47-seat edge, giving Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) the votes he'll need to block Republican legislation coming from the House.

More bipartisanship?

     But the upper chamber's new margin could force the two sides into more-bipartisan talks than the narrow negotiations held in 2009 and 2010. Then, Democrats needed to win over just a couple of Republicans to overcome filibusters, but now Democrats need at least seven Republicans - and the GOP needs at least 13 Democrats - to maneuver.
     "Any solution now is going to have to have at least 10 to 20 senators from the other side," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), the No. 3 Republican leader.
     That will probably make Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a critical player in the coming months, since he could either engineer bipartisan agreements or be a deal-breaker.
     Senate Republicans are looking ahead to a pair of opportunities in the next several weeks in which McConnell could re-create his role in negotiating the broad bipartisan deal last month to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. Party leaders said they hope to use the March 4 expiration of the temporary measure that funds the government, as well as the need to lift the federal debt ceiling above $14 trillion, to extract concessions from Obama.

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Darrell Issa reveals list of investigations

Investigations for impeachment for failing to seal the borders and giving aid and comfort to Mexicans that want to take back the South West should head the list.  While we're at it, how about an investigation to see if there is any undue "coziness" between the drug cartels and American officials and politicians?---rng  

There is certainly enough impeachable material there to indict a few or many more. -----lee.


By JAKE SHERMAN
1/3/11 6:01 AM EST Updated: 1/3/11 2:37 PM EST

     Rep. Darrell Issa is aiming to launch investigations on everything from WikiLeaks to Fannie Mae to corruption in Afghanistan in the first few months of what promises to be a high-profile chairmanship of the top oversight committee in Congress.
     According to an outline of hearing topics obtained by POLITICO, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is also planning to investigate how regulation affects job creation, the roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the foreclosure crisis, recalls at the Food and Drug Administration and the failure of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to agree on the causes of the market meltdown.
     The sweeping and specific hearing agenda shows that Issa plans to cut a wide swath as chairman, latching onto hot-button issues that could make his committee the center of attention in the opening months of the 112th Congress. By grabbing such a wide portfolio — especially in national security matters — Issa is also laying down a marker of sorts, which could cement his panel as the go-to place for investigations.
     An order for hearings has not been set and witnesses have not yet been notified. The committee staff is still moving offices, and subcommittees are currently being organized. Hearings aren’t likely to begin until late January or early February.
     Issa’s broad portfolio of investigations — some of which could target the Obama administration — harks back to the days of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who squared off against the Bush administration, and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who picked fights with former President Bill Clinton’s White House.
     "If we can take any lessons away from the results of the midterm elections, it's that the American people will no longer tolerate a government that has institutionalized a culture of waste and abuse that acts carelessly with their tax dollars,” Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella said in a statement to POLITICO. “As chairman of this committee, [Rep.] Issa will pursue an agenda that aims to shed light on the failures of government for the purpose of reforming them so that the government is more transparent and accountable to the American people.”
     Issa’s counterpart will be the panel’s top Democrat, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, who was given the top minority party position in order to be an effective foil to the aggressive chairman. Cummings, who represents Baltimore, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that Congress must “be careful with this power” — referring to oversight — and use caution and austerity in hearings.
     “You know, I think we — I sat on this committee for 14 years and I watched what happened with the Clinton administration and how witnesses were dragged into depositions, people making $50,000 a year had to pay $25,000, $30,000 to hire a lawyer,” Cummings said.
     In a statement to POLITICO Sunday, Cummings said he would “draw a line at which any witch hunts or hearings that are conducted purely for partisan gains.”
     “Like Mr. Issa, I want to ask tough questions and ensure the highest standard from our public employees,” Cummings said. “However, I will ask him not to prejudge any of these issues, nor [to] seek answers only to confirm political leanings.”

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TRENDING: GOPer calls Obama administration 'corrupt'

Can you say "impeachment hearings"? -----lee

By: CNN's Gabriella Schwarz


     (CNN) – The incoming House Oversight and Government Reform chairman on Sunday tried to clarify his recent remarks to Rush Limbaugh where he called President Obama "one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times."


Rep. Darrell Issa said he meant to say the Obama administration instead of the president.

     "When you hand out $1 trillion in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus, that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in health care and government, it has a corrupting effect," Issa said on CNN's "State of the Union."
     Although TARP – the program passed in 2008 intended to strengthen the financial sector by purchasing assets from financial institutions – was passed by Congress under the Bush administration, Issa said the unregulated funds were used by Obama like "presidential earmarks."

But the California Republican also admitted Congress shares some of the blame.

     "All of that would not have been possible if Congress had done its job," Issa told CNN Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry. "Instead what happened was we gave President Bush (the money and) President Obama inherited $800 billion worth of walking-around money with no guidelines."

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