Congress, despite its flaws and unpopularity, remains the country’s best hope for the major reforms that the United States requires.

That was the messages of two longtime counter-terrorism experts, Jeffrey and Michele Steinberg, who spoke Dec. 17 to the McClendon Group speaker society at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

McClendon Chairman John Edward Hurley introduced them by saying, “Executive Intelligence Review magazine has two of the best counterintelligence writers in Washington. A husband and wife team, they have been hunting down the oligarchical enemies of the United State for more than 40 years.”

Hurley is a former White House correspondent with the late Sarah McClendon’s DC-based news service and is a director of the Justice Integrity Project. He organizes frequent gatherings that provide a venue for newsmaking experts whose messages, ironically enough, may be too bold except for their traditional niches.

Among past guests have been Accuracy in Media founder Reed Irvine, Ralph Nader, Helen Thomas, future Obama National Security Director James Clapper (shown with the president at right in a White House photo), former congressional representatives Ron Paul (R-TX), Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and Charles Wilson (R-TX), and former Pentagon-CIA liaison Fletcher Prouty. The latter, referenced on this cite multiple columns in recent months, in 1973 became one of the first insiders ever to document the CIA’s vast abuses of power, including a key CIA role that Prouty alleged in the murder of President Kennedy.

This week Hurley introduced the Steinbergs by predicting they would show that President Obama “is nothing more than a Bush-Cheney neo-con in sheep’s clothing.”

The couple alternated in their remarks, speaking in a low-key style to a dinner audience conveyed around a one large rectangular table.

The speakers asserted that the United States faces extreme threats of economic contraction, war, and massive corruption fostered by top leaders in both major parties and the oligarchs who wield great and near-unaccountable influence over government.

The threats are so dire, they stated, that a reinvigorated Congress operating under the Constitution is the best option for serious reformers, even though a survey this month shows the body with an approval rating in the low 20s.

Congress obtained 90 co-sponsors this term for a re-enactment of Glass-Steagall Depression-era protections for bank depositors, the researchers noted. “It’s not bad for a start,” said Jeff Steinberg, even though he recognized the number as far short of the 218 representatives needed to pass a bill in the House to reverse the 1999 bipartisan removal of Depression-era protections for bank customers.

“If you want to bankrupt the oligarchs,” he continued, “then you forbid the taxpayer from having to fund their ‘gambling’ losses.”

Such reforms are urgently needed, the lecturers said, because Congress this month voted for automatic federal bailouts by taxpayers for risky banking investments, that is the “gambling losses,’ under certain conditions.

Executive Intelligence Review has also advocated for House members to read and declassify 28-pages of a Senate-House Joint Investigation of 9/11 reporting the funding sources for the 19 terrorists accused of the fatal hijackings that day in 2001. U.S. Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) is one of three House members — two Republicans and one Democrat — who have led the congressional push for release.

In Capitol Hill Press Conference Slams Obama as a 9/11 Liar, the magazine reported a congressional briefing featuring 9/11 families outraged over Obama’s flip flop on the issue after his election.