In the wake of an historic Senate filibuster over the murky U.S. laws governing drone strikes, Colorado Senator Mark Udall on Thursday urged his colleagues to confirm John Brennan as the new director of the CIA.
For years, Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall has been seeking and failing to gather information on counter-terrorism laws that allow the government to spy on Americans without obtaining warrants.
Tisha Casida is a 29-year-old southern Colorado-bred conservative. The Keystone XL Pipeline, she suggests, is safer and probably better for the environment than sending oil tankers across the Atlantic. The country’s conflict over carbon dioxide, she hints, may be as much a waste of time as the war on drugs. She makes no bones that she is disappointed in her congressman, Scott Tipton, because he hasn’t demonstrated leadership on a few crucial issues, like speaking out against the Patriot Act.
Richard Nixon is perhaps the best-known outed liar in history. In 1975, the year after he resigned in disgrace and was lifted away from the White House in a helicopter, the ex-president gave testimony before a grand jury investigating his administration. University of Wisconsin professor Stanley Kutler recently persuaded a federal judge to release the transcript for its public educational value. A quick scan of the trove of documents reveals a Cold War defense of secrecy, where Nixon leans on his idea of America’s special role as defender of freedom in the world to lie to his questioners. The line of argument will strike a familiar note to critics of Bush-Obama national security policies that have run over concerns for government accountability, civil rights and individual liberties.
Colorado Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Udall has long urged his colleagues to reform three of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, saying the provisions are ripe for abuse. This week Congress decided against reform and extended the act as it stands for four more years. In voting with the slim minority that opposed extension, Udall made clear that, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee privy to executive branch information, he felt the provisions were now being abused, that the government was unnecessarily trampling rights and also blocking oversight.
Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall joined with a small bipartisan band of colleagues to slow the move on Capitol Hill to quickly reauthorize the Patriot Act and extend its most controversial provisions for another four years. That effort was derailed Tuesday when Majority Leader Harry Reid called for a vote to “table” or stop work on the act. He got his wish. The Senate voted to block debate 74 to 13 votes.
Michael Brown, Bush Administration FEMA chief and soon-to-be University of Denver law school instructor, has weighed in on climate change, taking the kind of stance you might expect from the man notorious for doing little to alleviate suffering as…
Michael Brown, the disgraced head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during Hurricane Katrina, lives in Boulder now and, four years after the epic disaster, is apparently ready to dip back into the world of law and government. Brown
Rep. Mark Udall, stumping in Edwards Sunday, came as close as he’ll likely ever come to saying “I told you so,” comparing his two “no” votes last week on the financial bailout package to his dissent on the Iraq War and the Patriot Act.
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