Tag: Jane Harman

So I was sitting around my house today, putting off doing my Latin homework, when it hit me – instead of just opening the fridge a dozen times and checking my facebook a hundred times, I could be putting this time to good use!  And I did.  I started doing some online phonebanking for Marcy Winograd‘s campaign for Congress in California’s 36th district.

If you’re bored, feeling helpless and alone amidst a sea of political currents fighting against you, excited about the upcoming primaries and election, overcome with energy you need to spend on something, or feeling any other emotion, this is for you!  Marcy has been a member of the Netroots for years and is a firebrand progressive.  Since she’s running against a corrupt Blue Dog (Jane Harman), this is one of the best races in the country for progressives to get involved in.

I live in Pennsylvania, yet I’m still able to help Marcy’s campaign, because of a neat online phonebanking tool that has been set up.  Follow me below the fold to learn how you can help, too.

 

Over the past 16 months, what members of Congress knew and when did they know it has slowly emerged in newspaper accounts. Four select members of Congress were notified in September 2002 when the CIA gave a secret high level briefing regarding the use of “harsh interrogation” and “overseas detention sites”.

U.S. law requires Congress be informed of covert activities, but allows for limited access to briefings in sensitive matters. In this meeting, four members of Congress were informed. They were Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Porter Goss, and Senators Bob Graham and Richard Shelby. The ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees sometimes described as the “Gang of Four”.

According to the Washington Post in December 2007, the four Congress members raised no objections to the “interrogation” techniques described, including waterboarding.