Nice to see someone asking the tough questions
 

I'm glad there's at least one member of congress has the courage to stand up to this administration.

Representative Cynthia McKinney Grills Rumsfeld On Dyncorp Sex Rings, Missing Pentagon Trillions & 9/11 Wargames

I can already hear the Neo-con talk shows bashing her tomorrow. I'm not even a Democrat but the level of corruption in the government is disgusting.

Rummy and Jones were completely intellectually bankrupt with no answers to her scathing questions. They just sat there and looked stunned. Must have taken some serious cojones on McKinney's part. *applause*

She's in for it now lol. It's about time someone started asking questions though, i mean seriously. That pentagon thing is disturbing. I can't even understand losing $1 trillion, how can $3 trillion happen? A TRILLION dollars is a lot of fucking money.

I most especially enjoyed how she pressed the questions and tried to make them answer them instead of wiggling away. I wonder if she'll get that written response, and if she'll be back next time asking the same questions again because she never recieved any answers. I suspect one of the questions on her next turn will be something along the lines of "well, when WERE you planning on going back and checking that?"

Damna lot of hemming and hawing and um's and circle talk and stuttering.....

This lady is making a name for herself fast.....

"Um.... ahhh....I've forgotten what the second question was????????".....LOL........

"I would rather not name the corporations contracted....."
"are they priveleged information?"
"NO"

Russian bomber activity??????

Damn this chairman is even trying to give them an out and they are plugging along digging deeper.

wow if the Dems don't jump on this and all of them start asking then they are missing a great oppurtunity.

If I were a Dem senator or REp I'd be on every tv show asking these questions, I'd be stumping at home asking these questions.......... demanding answers and not easing up.

DON'T LET THIS DIE KEEP PRESSING

And if I were a Republican senator or rep I would be asking these questions.

Shit, I annot believe it (well I guess I can). That lady should be a hero, Medal of Honor what-not. That takes guts.

I can't believe people aren't outraged but they get all worked up over a bj in the Oval Office....?

And yet again it appears the media has dropped the ball on this. Where's the coverage? I mean mainstream media.

Maybe you have not heard of Cynthia Mckinney before, but I can assure you that she is up against formidable odds against rehabilitating her reputation after saying a bit too much that shocked the establishment about three years ago. She was the target of a campaign by Republicans in her Atlanta congressional district in the pre-election primary in 2002. Republican strategy was to take advantage of local laws that allowed them to vote for her democratic opponent for the nomination for the congressional seat against a local judge, also a female black democrat, in a heavily democratic district, Denise Majette. With the added votes of the Republicans urged to vote for her and against Cynthia, Majette unseated Cynthia Mckinney, and the Republicans congratulated themselves on their shrewdness and Cynthia was paid back for accusing the Bush administration of complicity and personal enrichment in the 9/11 attacks.

Cythia is back in congress because Majette gave up the seat to run unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat against Republican Johnny Isakson.
Majette could not prevail over Isakson even though she documented his past unethical conflict of interests and accusations that he reaped a $500,000 profit as a result:<a href="http://www.majetteforsenate.org/newsroom_print.asp?id=139">http://www.majetteforsenate.org/newsroom_print.asp?id=139</a>

Republicans are not intimidated by Cytnhia Mckinney because they did an <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg041202.asp">admirable job</a> of portraying her as a tin foil hat lunatic, so don't get your hopes up, now. She made the mistake of making outrageous (in their minds)public accusations against Bush that she was unable to back up at the time:
Do not misunderstand me......I believe that there are ways to discredit the
more outlandish Bush regime's post 9/11 claims, using their own speeches and press releases:

Shiavo.

things that ought to make one go hmmmm....

Yes, why aren't republicans or democrats making this a huge issue? Especially democrats. When they have someone step up and be a leader no one follows them.

3 TRILLION MISSING
They debate ferociously about mere billions, yet won't even touch talking about trillions. This country is in a sad state.

No one has paid any attention to Cynthia McKinney since the Saudis bought her off.

This is just one more of her pathetic attempts to draw attention to herself.

Ya I guess your right, it should be acceptable to loose track of 3 trillion dollars. Don't question government.

Haha! That one made me laugh. :thumbsup:

This woman, along with Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, deserves a medal. She and Rep. Paul are the only non-traitors in that whole bunch; I'm amazed either of them has lived this long ( politically and literally ).

Thank you for reminding me who this nut is. I had forgotten that.

Ah yes call her crazy and ignore her arguments.

FTFY


I didn't hear alot of solutions or suggestions in that piece.

I never realized that it was anyones responsibility to find a solution for someone elses possibly criminal acts.

Man, I'm so behind the chat speak thing. What is FTFY?

Oh yeah, actual discussion - $3 trillion. That's only like 12 zeros - no big deal. Our government isn't hurting for $$$ right now or anything, right? Slave trade, smave trade - seriously - human trafficking is really pretty common. I mean, if we were to really throw all the hypocrites out of government, I suspect there wouldn't be too many people left. I think they call quasi-controlled hypocracy with $$$ attached to it politics, no?

edit ok, that probably sounds a little frustrated. Well, welcome to my world. no offense to anyone, i'll cut the post if desired.

Don't cut it. It almost hurts to think about 3 trillion missing. This years budget is like 2.6 trillion? The Pentagon is missing more money than the current budget, and the response is just basically OOPS...

Oh, she may have some legit beefs...even a broken clock is right twice a day.

But I place extra burden of proof on someone who has proven to be a nut.

well, i'm sure they didn't mean to...

seriously, don't you get a receipt with that kind of thing? if i find out they're not funnelling that money to insurgency groups to destabilize lebanon, or fight insurgents in iraq / n. korea / columbia something, i'll be might sore. i mean, we could probably feed the homeless or buy a bunch of kids clothes or something stupid with that money. just tans my hide.

I don't care if she's as crazy as all get out...if I asked Rumsfeld "Where were you on Oct. 12, 2004 at precisely 2:16:24 pm?" and he fumbled, well then ok. If I say "And what about that 3 trillion bucks" on live TV and he says "Ooohhh...look over there. How about a fistful of I don't know..." then I start to get a little queasy. I can't view the reel - I'm just going off the description.

I installed RealPlayer to watch that? I feel so used...

I was expecting something more... meaty, I guess. Glad to see Rummy "forgets" things like the rest of us, however.

She's a congresswoman, that is precisely her job. The make law, call hearings, hold debates, ect.....

You want someone who finally asks tough questions? I'll volunteer.

What was the last Dem solution to any problem? What was their last legislative intiative and where did it go?

I always found it rather difficult to solve a problem if I couldn't even get any information on what the problem was or details on what it was producing.

Here's a "new idea":

Fire Rumsfeld. That will definitely solve the problem we are having in getting Rumsfeld to answer questions.

How is this even remotely related to her being a democrat? Since she doesn't offer a solution it's ok for this train wreck to continue? The Pentagon can waste trillions, give money to companies involved in sex slave trading, and continue to lie about the events of 9/11. After all I heard Bush and Condi say they never thought planes could be used as missles. Yet Myers admits we were running four drills on 9/11 related to flying hijacked planes into buildings.

Real conservatives need to wake up to the illusion that this administration is somehow conservative. If someone from the democratic party does something that is right or wrong, it's our job to point it out. Likewise, if someone from the republican party says something that's right or wrong it's our job to point it out. Things in this country will not get better unless people can stop playing this left vs. right game.

Ok, Dyncorp is a company that provides small pox immunizations and other immunzations for our troops. Now if we cut them loose, who will provide the shots? Who will be able to match Dyncorps turna around time and supply? Will their product be as good?

Answer those questions, and I'll help y'all petition for a change in contractors.

Hey, at least the right questions are finally being asked. That's an improvement. I'm pretty much staying out of the fiasco that the Politics threads normally become, save for some obvious exceptions - so I don't plan to exhaustively follow this thread. However, I'll back up samcol's assertion that adherance to party line politics is more apt to complicate matters than really tend towards understanding / discussion of solutions. I mean, if you can let your hair down somewhere and break out into new modes of thought, I would think the old anonymous internet would be a pretty good place.

The question remains: Where is the money? What happened? This is kinda like that $27.5 million shipping charge from the other thread.

I am shocked: as a conservative I feel deeply betrayed. I thought Republicans and conservatives were supposed top be fiscally prudent and conservative. I also thought they were supposed to be savy financial managers. This is a deep betrayal.

NCB, you want solutions? ME too. I suggest common sense and fiscal prudence. Is it that hard? Granted. I'm not a politician so maybe it really is that hard. But still, it's like when Arnold said he was going to "clean house" and find all this waste. I was like, "yeah, here we go,now we're talking. But it turns out he's just the same as everyone else. A special interest whore.

3 trillion missing is no small change, it's nothing to shrug our shoulders at. Yet congress voted themselves pay raises 4 years in a row. Unbelievable.

Non-answer. Very compelling on an emotional level, but it doesn't answer the question on McKinney's compalints against Dyncorp.

Fair enough NCB, but I actually wasn't trying to go for an emotional appeal. Come to think of it, not really sure what I was going for. Anyways...

It's funny, I have the line form "A Few Good Men" going through my head:

"You want answers?!"

"You bet I want answers!"

"You want answers?!

"I want the truth!!"

"You can't handle the truth!"

*giggle*

Ok, so solutions: I guess I don't know enough about it to disseminate a comprehensive answer and solution set. But to start, based off of what I do know:

1. A more transparent bidding process. For example: Is Dynacorp the only company that provides this service? Are they the best? If not, open bids for competitors.

2. Accounting - I would assume that there would be a transparent and thorough accounting to simply see where the money is going etc. Is there "padding" of the bill? are the xpenses "reasonable" (I realize this is subjective but I'm trying my best here ina short amount of time - just showing basic idea not details).

3. Why not reveal the names of corporations in question? If it's not priviledged information like the other congresswoman said so why not? Nothing to hide, then nothing to fear (I think this is another thing that annoys me. The whole dogdiness of it). Transparency lends trust and confidence. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not a nitpicker or whatever but to me, this sort of "mishandling" is unacceptable (3 trillion,wow!). I tend to prefer to let others do their job.

4. Accountability - Where does the buck stop? Who's in charge? Too much bureaucracy? Too much government? How do you lose the money? (didn't something like this happen in th UN, the worst bureaucracy of them all). So maybe Rums et al really don't know cause it one big mess. If that's the case, then fix the organizatoinal structure so it's clear who responsible for what. In Rums defense, he acknowledged that "what happened - slaves etc" was against US policy and that he was not aware of it. But he insisted that it's not right and they'll look into it.

NCB, this what I meant actually, more or less, when I said "common sense and fiscal prudence." Hope that clears thing a little.

Secondly,


Quote:
Originally Posted by dksuddeth
I never realized that it was anyones responsibility to find a solution for someone elses possibly criminal acts.


She's a congresswoman, that is precisely her job. The make law, call hearings, hold debates, ect.....

You want someone who finally asks tough questions? I'll volunteer.

What was the last Dem solution to any problem? What was their last legislative intiative and where did it go?

I agree that the Congresswoman was doing her job, asking questions etc. Did you not think she was tough enough? What kind of questions would you have asked? I thought she did ok - direct and to the point, respectful and civil. Though I don't really frame these issues along Dems vs Reps. lines.

The media (there's no such thing as a "liberal" media) is owned by corporations that helped get dumbya elected. Twice. That's why there's no coverage my friend. The newscasters on tv read from a prompter for a reason.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

thats great.

I'm just a simple pigglet doing what he can...seriously, this is when they need to hire Ollie North to come on back. That guy was a classic.

oh yeah, 3 trillion that's only $10,000 for every U.S. citizen. Why the big fuss?

I'd put it a little higher than that per *citizen*. We all know that all of our citizens don't count in any substantial way. Undesirables and all that stuff. Let's just bump it up to about $20,000 / citizen, and take it as a tax-cut. That's when I'll start buying into some trickle-down economics...when I can trickle my ass down to the store and hook up my home recording studio.

/mildly toungue-in-cheek - no corronary reactions required.
/Zig Heil!!!

anyone know where there's a transcript of that question and answer session?

I just found out some new old news about the trillions missing. Apparently Rumsfeld announced the missing money on none other than 9/10 2001. Now I know not all of you are conspiracy theorists, but what a convienient day to announce it to allow the issue to be swept under the rug for years.

The War on Waste

does she have FACTS to back up her claims? hell no! 3 trillion? i heard her state 1999 thats before bush was in office. sex trade? why is it our govts fault if EMPLOYEES of a international company sells sex, its not like the COMPANY is making money or endorsing it as she suggested. she was a crazy back then and still is one now. sure she asked tuff question, but were they based in fact? if so show me them.

Her questions were based on fact. In the post above yours I quoted:
"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

Why does it matter that Bush wasn't in office? the Department of Defense is still responsible for it.