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Mrs. Andrea Mitchell was trying very hard not to take any blame for the economic meltdown this country faces.

Waxman: shock. That sounds like to me you're saying that those who trusted the market to regulate itself, yourself included made a serious mistake.

Greenspan: Well I think that's true of some products, but not all.

Waxman: Then where do you think you made a mistake?

Greenspan: I made a mistake in the presuming that the self interest of organizations specifically banks and others was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders...

Waxman? Do you have any financial responsibility for the financial crisis?

(On his ideology)

Greenspan: ...to exist you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not and what I'm saying to you is "yes" I found a flaw...

He shucked and jived his way around this whole mess, but admitted I guess something. Who could have ever imagined that making millions of dollars a day with no oversight could possibly lead to greed and corruption and ultimate destruction?

As Barney Frank announces that he's pulled together a deal that will get the votes needed to pass through Congress, economists from some of the top schools in the country ask, "What's the hurry?": 

To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:

As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:

1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers' expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.

2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.

3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America's dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.

For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.

As the Wall Street meltdown causes John McCain to throw in the towel and George Bush attempts to pull off the biggest heist in history, it's becoming clear that pushing any bailout legislation too far, too fast, could be a total disaster for our country.  The Democrats need to listen to people who really know economics, keep a tight leash on Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, say no to Disaster Capitalism and take the time to get this right the first time. 

The list of economists who signed the letter is below the fold.

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The House Judiciary Committee is holding hearings today on the numerous abuses of power and impeachable offenses of George W. Bush and right out of the gate, Florida Rep. Robert Wexler lays out the clear case for the need to begin impeachment hearings. 

I fully recognize the significance of holding impeachment hearings and I have not come to this position lightly. Not one bit. But when an administration takes actions that amount to High Crimes, we, the Representatives of the people, are left with no option other than to seek impeachment and removal from office. Our government was founded by a delicate balance of powers, whereby one branch carefully checks the other branches to prevent a dangerous consolidation of power. The actions of this White House have eviscerated this careful balance. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. This is an American issue. Without these checks and balances the President can run roughshod over any law with impunity. Congress must end this disturbing pattern of behavior, and in these circumstances, unfortunately, the only option left is impeachment hearings.

You got to give Wexler credit, he's been very vocal for pushing for accountability and taking the hits from the wingnuts for it.  And now he's getting support from other Democrats in the House, like Maurice Hinchey: 

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, July 25, 2008 during a hearing entitled, "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations." Hinchey will highlight the reasons he co-authored two resolutions with U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) that formally condemn President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and former Attorney General Gonzales for misconduct regarding U.S. military involvement in Iraq and for repeated assaults on the rule of law. The hearing begins at 10:00am and can be viewed via the House Judiciary Committee's webcast.

"President Bush and senior members of his administration have repeatedly defied the Constitution, violated the law, put our country in jeopardy, and made a mockery of our judicial system," Hinchey said. "This hearing will enable the facts to be presented in a clear and straightforward way so that the Congress and the American people can more fully understand just how corruptly this administration has operated. With an eye toward the future, we must ensure that history books note that this Congress stood up to this administration and formally admonished it for all its violations of law."

Full transcript below the fold

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The House has sent articles of impeachment against George Bush to the House Judiciary Committee, however Speaker Nancy Pelosi now says that an actual impeachment VOTE isn't on the table. On Wednesday's Countdown, Jonathan Turley gives his expert analysis on this epic fail as well as the latest attempt by the president to obstruct Congressional oversight by claiming executive privilege in the CIA/Plame leak investigation.

As for Bush's executive privilege claims, Turley goes right for the jugular. Attorney General Michael Mukasey all but begged the president not to make him testify about Dick Cheney's role in the Plame case and has ignored a subpoena to appear to testify about the matter before Congress -- which Turley says should prompt Congress to charge him with Inherent Contempt. That's not likely to happen, and as Jonathan points out, Democrats who voted for Mukasey are now getting what they paid for:

"...This is why, when Senators Shumer and Feinstein saved Mukasey's confirmation, this is what they purchased. And, what Congress needs to do, the only thing they can do, is bring back Inherent Contempt and to say they're going to start to exercise contempt on their own, that the deal is off. Attorney General Mukasey has broken a very long standing promise to be a faithful broker, to bring these cases to the grand jury - he won't. And Congress has a right to now say we're going back to doing this stuff ourselves." 

David Addington today offered a preposterous reason for refusing to answer a question about whether or not he was party to talks about torture with his superiors -- al-Qaeda may be watching CSPAN and he can't give away any information that may benefit them. Really.

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DELAHUNT: Oh I can understand why [the President] doesn't talk about it.

ADDINGTON: Because you gotta communicate with al Qaeda. If you do -- I can't talk to you, al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN.

DELAHUNT: Right. Well, I'm sure they are watching, and I'm glad they finally have a chance to see you, Mr. Addington.

ADDINGTON: Yeah, I'm sure you're pleased.

UPDATE: Digby has much more on Addington:

Addington ought to be held in contempt of Congress for just plain contemptuousness. As Scott Horton noted on Pacifica's coverage, he clearly believes himself to be smarter than all the Representatives in the room, and he has no problem bullying them around the way he reportedly bullies everyone in the executive branch. He also doesn't mind lying about his role in designing torture tactics after a personal trip to Guantanamo...read on

Murray Waas' explosive investigative reporting on how more BushCo. cronyism led to a quarter of a billion dollars in payouts to loyal GOPers from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has led to at least one DOJ offical to be fired so far.

I was told that Murray's post called " The Price of Political Favoritism and Cronyism: Lost Lives," was used as source material during the hearing. While the lead cronyist----Robert Flores did testify, his his chief of staff, Michelle Dekonty, informed the committee through counsel that she was invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Well, she got fired.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform this morning held a hearing on alleged favoritism in the awarding of grants by the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). While Robert Flores testified at length, his chief of staff, Michelle Dekonty, informed the committee through counsel that she was invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination...read on

  Who can forget Rep Steve King's horrible words about Obama back in Iowa?

King: "And I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the, the radical Islamists, the, the al-Qaida, and the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11....

Well, he's baaaack. In one of the most reprehensible lines of questioning today - and Lord knows there were many as Republicans desperately try to outdo each other on who can cover Bush's ass best - GOP stooge Steve King takes the cake with this gem:

"Couldn't you have taken this to the grave with you and done this country a favor?"

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You see, in bizarro Republican world, staying silent and allowing your fellow citizens to remain clueless about how their leaders lie to them is the right, patriotic thing to do. Only traitors speak up about how their country is being flushed down the toilet when there's still time to actually do something about it.

You should be ashamed of yourself, Scott.

At an EPA hearing today on Capitol Hill about ozone standards, Henry Waxman got into a heated exchange with Administrator Stephen Johnson over his evasive non-answers to simple, straightforward questions about whether or not he had certain discussions with the White House about key environmental issues. It got so tense at one point that a frantically gavel-slamming Waxman threatened to have Rep Darrell Issa "physically removed" from the hearing if he continued to obstruct Waxman's line of inquiry. Classic.

It seems to me you're being awfully evasive and I don't know why you can't tell this committee whether you, in fact, had a discussion about this rule or that rule...either you did or you didn't and I don't know why you can't tell us that information.

"I will have you physically removed if you don't stop."

Why is it that conservatives consistently appoint people to head agencies who have nothing but contempt for the issues those agencies are supposed to oversee? Well, I guess they can't later claim that their self-fulfilling prophecy of "government is the problem" is true. The problem lies not with government, but rather with the stooges who run the government and appoint their incompetent cronies to fix problems they have no intention of fixing.

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60 Minutes on Sunday explored the rampant corruption going on throughout the Iraqi government, and how much of the up to $18 billion missing or unaccounted for has been finding its way into the hands of militias that have been responsible for attacks on coalition forces. What's more, they detail how Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was able to immunize all current and former Iraqi officials, including himself and his family, from any further investigation or prosecution, the State Dept's refusal to cooperate with any investigation, the ostracism and apparent abandonment of the one Iraqi official who braved death threats, and the murder of dozens of his staff, to successfully prosecute corrupt officials before PM Malaki effectively shut him down, and how one such former official, Aiham Alsammarae, who had already been convicted and was set to face even more charges for billions of missing funds while he was the Minister of Electricity, brazenly escaped a Green Zone jail with the help of U.S. contractors (twice) and is currently living large in a Chicago suburb.

Full 13 minute report and transcript here. A look at some of the events, documents and key players after the jump.

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had this to say after Petraeus' and Crocker's testimony yesterday:

It is clear from today’s testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker that the Iraqi government remains unwilling or unable to take the steps necessary to reach the political reconciliation needed to secure their country’s future.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker made it official that the Bush Administration will not reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq below pre-surge levels. That is not a policy that appropriately reflect the enormous costs of the war in Iraq, nor what the American people want.

The human cost of the war has been enormous, with more than 4,000 lives lost and tens of thousands injured, many of them permanently. The cost to our national security has been immense – our military readiness is stretched thin and our reputation in the world is damaged. And now, the trillion dollar war in Iraq is damaging our economy by taking us deeper into debt.

The Iraqi government is not worthy of the sacrifice of our troops or the cost that the war is having on our readiness and our economy. We need a New Direction in Iraq, but what General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker offered today was many more years of the same.

Also:  The Cost of War in Iraq: Numbers That Add Up

Open thread below 

A timely oldie but goodie from the brilliant folks at Project for the Old American Century. Click for larger.

Open Thread below...

During a superb line of questioning today, Senator Menendez (D-NJ) ran through a damning laundry list of how our invasion and subsequent reconstruction billions have actually worsened the plight of average Iraqis.

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Some of Menendez's figures are downright infuriating. This is what $25 billion has gotten us:

• 43% of population lives in absolute poverty
• prior to war 19% of children suffered malnutrition; today 28%
• last year 75% elementary-aged kids went to school; now 30%
• prior to war 50% lacked access to clean water; now 70%
• only 50 of 142 primary health care centes are open to public

Ambassador Crocker's response is exactly what you would expect:

"Security conditions made it difficult to bring projects to closure in a timely fashion."

What a tangled web we weave.

During tough questioning from Senators Biden and Feingold today, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker admit, despite their best attempts to downplay, that al Qaeda's main base of operation and greatest threat comes from Pakistan and Afghanistan; not Iraq.

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As VoteVets.org founder Jon Soltz says, the Bush policy has been a failure because it's a "policy of retreat from bin Laden and Afghanistan." Perhaps people may have forgotten, but the 9/11 attacks were planned from terrorist safe havens in that country. Terrorist safe havens that still exist and are even stronger today than they were 7 years ago.

Digby has more...

c/o The Politico

Rep. Robert Wexler is still working towards getting hearings started for VP Dick Cheney.  I don't think I'm violating any confidences to say that the support he's seen from the netroots has been really stunning to him.  We have close to 200,000 signatures at WexlerWantsHearings.com and now he's looking for some of his fellow Congresspeople to join him in calling for hearings.  Rep. Wexler sent this to C&L:

In our efforts to push for hearings on Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment for Dick Cheney, we have run into a number of different obstacles.  Some of them , naturally, relate to the debate within my party as to the need for Impeachment and/or its effect on the agenda. 

While I have been making my case for impeachment hearings to my colleagues (and will do so on the House floor this evening) and disagree with those opposing them, there is at least a rationale for the debate on either side.

The virtual media blackout, however, has no rationale.  I am perplexed and dismayed at the fact that - with so much at stake - the mainstream media still largely continues to ignore this movement.  Few papers in the country have reported on it.  Few columnists have acknowledged it.

I understand that some in the media feel this movement will fail - but when three, and now four, Judiciary Committee members call for impeachment... that should at least warrant space at some point over four weeks.

Without public reaction, however, there is little incentive for the media to change its ways.   I urge all of you to continue to put pressure on national and local media alike to give attention to this movement.  The Netroots has been critical in the outreach effort.  I hope that continues over the coming days.

If you haven't already signed on to www.WexlerWantsHearings.com, please do so.

Congressman Robert Wexler

Democrats.com has more: 

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Hear that, Joe Biden?

Download | play QT later... (h/t JL) DailyKos:

So this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough had Pat Buchanan on the phone to discuss the recent NIE revelations about Iran, and Bush's pathetic performance yesterday in saying that he didn't find out about it until just now. Both Pat and Joe were absolutely incredulous at that statement.

Buchanan went one step further. He said Joe Biden needs to get back to Washington and HOLD HEARINGS on who knew what, and when. He actually called on Biden to haul Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ask them if they knew about the NIE report, and if they had ever told Bush. Pat and Joe were both adamant that if either of those two knew about this report, and didn't let the President know about it, they should be fired immediately. And if they DID tell Bush, and yet Bush still went on warmongering with the knowledge that Iran had stopped its nuclear program in 2003, then, well... they didn't exactly define what the consequence should be then. Read on...

I've got a few suggestions for some very apt consequences, how about you?

Partial transcript below the fold:

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