Bush Administration tried to curb election turnout in key states
Campaign against alleged voter fraud sought to bolster the GOP
By Greg Gordon
Mcclatchy-tribune
Originally published April 19, 2007
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.attorneys19apr19,0,94678.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines
WASHINGTON // For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates, according to former department lawyers and a review of written records.
The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.
Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy in April 2006 when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association.
Questions about the administration's campaign against alleged voter fraud have helped fuel the political tempest over the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys, several of whom were ousted in part because they failed to bring voter fraud cases important to Republican politicians. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales could shed more light on the reasons for those firings when he appears today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Civil rights advocates contend that the administration's policies were intended to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of poor and minority voters who tend to support Democrats, and by filing state and federal lawsuits, civil rights groups have won court rulings blocking some of its actions.
Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson called any allegation that the department has rolled back minority voting rights "fundamentally flawed."
She said the department has "a completely robust record when it comes to enforcing federal voting rights laws," citing its support last year for reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the filing of at least 20 suits to ensure that language services are available to non-English-speaking voters.
The administration, however, has repeatedly invoked allegations of widespread voter fraud to justify tougher voter ID measures and other steps to restrict access to the ballot, even though research suggests that voter fraud is rare.
Since President Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, a former Republican senator from Missouri, launched a "Ballot Access and Voter Integrity Initiative" in 2001, Justice Department political appointees have exhorted U.S. attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases, and the department's Civil Rights Division has sought to roll back policies to protect minority voting rights.
On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001, the division's Voting Rights Section has come down on the side of Republicans, notably in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Washington and other states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.
Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of the section in 2005, said these events formed an unmistakable pattern.
"As more information becomes available about the administration's priority on combating alleged, but not well substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens," he said.
Former department lawyers, public records and other documents show that since Bush took office, political appointees in the Civil Rights Division have:
• Approved Georgia and Arizona laws that tightened voter ID requirements. A federal judge tossed out the Georgia law as an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of poor voters, and a federal appeals court signaled its objections to the Arizona law on similar grounds last fall, but that litigation was delayed by the U.S. Supreme Court until after the election.
• Issued advisory opinions that overstated a 2002 federal election law by asserting that it required states to disqualify new voting registrants if their identification didn't match that in computer databases, prompting at least three states to reject tens of thousands of applicants mistakenly.
• Done little to enforce a provision of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that requires state public assistance agencies to register voters. The inaction has contributed to a 50 percent decline in annual registrations at those agencies, to 1 million from 2 million.
• Sued at least six states on grounds that they had too many people on their voter rolls. Some eligible voters were removed in the resulting purges.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Dem Leaders Reid, Pelosi hold firm vs Bush's blank-check war...
Democrats meet with Bush at White House: No give on Iraq positions by either side
David Espo, AP
April 18, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070418/us-iraq
WASHINGTON — President Bush sparred across the table with Democratic congressional leaders opposed to the Iraq war on Wednesday in a prelude to a veto showdown over a conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops.
During an hourlong meeting at the White House, the president told lawmakers directly he will not sign any bill that includes a timetable for a troop withdrawal, and they made it clear Congress will send him one anyway.
"We believe he must search his soul, his conscience and find out what is the right thing for the American people," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, told reporters after the session. "I believe signing this bill will do that."
But Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, said, "It appears that they are determined to send a bill to the president that he won't accept. They fundamentally disagree."
Several officials said the session was polite but turned pointed when Reid recounted a conversation with generals who likened Iraq to Vietnam and described it as a war in which the president refused to change course despite knowing victory was impossible. Bush seemed to bristle at the comparison, and said it didn't apply, according to one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.
It was the first time Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California have met with Bush to discuss the war since the House and Senate approved bills to provide funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with conditions that he has vowed to reject.
Top GOP congressional leaders, who support Bush's position, also attended.
Democrats hope to complete work on a House-Senate compromise in time to send it to the White House by the end of next week, with Bush's veto a certainty.
The House-passed bill requires the withdrawal of combat troops by Sept. 1, 2008. The Senate measure is weaker, requiring the beginning of a withdrawal within 120 days and setting a nonbinding goal of March 2008 for completion.
Given the narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, it appears unlikely the compromise will include the mandatory date for a complete withdrawal, although several Democratic aides cautioned that Reid and Pelosi have yet to make that decision.
Several officials described a meeting at the White House in which the president and congressional leaders discussed the establishment of standards for the Iraqi government to meet. The topic could assume a central role in war funding legislation that Congress must pass after the president vetoes the first bill.
Republicans in Congress advocate the establishment of so-called benchmarks but without a requirement for a troop withdrawal if the Iraqis fail to meet them. That sets them apart from Democrats, who tend to want to link continued U.S. participation in the war to the ability of the Iraqi government to create a fully democratic government, allocate oil resources and provide for its own security.
Outside the White House, Republicans followed Democrats to the microphones to say there was no hope Bush would sign a bill resembling the Democrats' legislation.
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said nothing had changed as a result of the meeting "except that people were polite, people were open, they were honest.
"The real issue ... is whether we're going to agree to a surrender date, and that's not going to happen," he said. Back in the Capitol, he said he would force a nonbinding vote within days on the troop withdrawal deadline.
Democrats said they were determined to press Bush for a change in policy.
"We came here in a spirit of hope, recognizing that this is a historic opportunity for the executive branch, the president and the Congress to work together to wind down this war and ensure the security of our country and the stability of the region," said Pelosi.
Sitting down with lawmakers, Bush acknowledged there were strong differences of opinion about how to proceed in Iraq.
"People have strong opinions around the table. I'm looking forward to listening to them," the president said. "I've got my own opinion, which I'm more than willing to share."
The meeting occurred on the same day that four large bombs exploded in mostly Shiite areas of Baghdad, killing nearly 200 people and wounding scores _ the deadliest day in the city since the start of the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital two months ago.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, traveling in the Mideast, called it "horrifying."
David Espo, AP
April 18, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070418/us-iraq
WASHINGTON — President Bush sparred across the table with Democratic congressional leaders opposed to the Iraq war on Wednesday in a prelude to a veto showdown over a conflict that has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops.
During an hourlong meeting at the White House, the president told lawmakers directly he will not sign any bill that includes a timetable for a troop withdrawal, and they made it clear Congress will send him one anyway.
"We believe he must search his soul, his conscience and find out what is the right thing for the American people," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, told reporters after the session. "I believe signing this bill will do that."
But Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, said, "It appears that they are determined to send a bill to the president that he won't accept. They fundamentally disagree."
Several officials said the session was polite but turned pointed when Reid recounted a conversation with generals who likened Iraq to Vietnam and described it as a war in which the president refused to change course despite knowing victory was impossible. Bush seemed to bristle at the comparison, and said it didn't apply, according to one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.
It was the first time Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California have met with Bush to discuss the war since the House and Senate approved bills to provide funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with conditions that he has vowed to reject.
Top GOP congressional leaders, who support Bush's position, also attended.
Democrats hope to complete work on a House-Senate compromise in time to send it to the White House by the end of next week, with Bush's veto a certainty.
The House-passed bill requires the withdrawal of combat troops by Sept. 1, 2008. The Senate measure is weaker, requiring the beginning of a withdrawal within 120 days and setting a nonbinding goal of March 2008 for completion.
Given the narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, it appears unlikely the compromise will include the mandatory date for a complete withdrawal, although several Democratic aides cautioned that Reid and Pelosi have yet to make that decision.
Several officials described a meeting at the White House in which the president and congressional leaders discussed the establishment of standards for the Iraqi government to meet. The topic could assume a central role in war funding legislation that Congress must pass after the president vetoes the first bill.
Republicans in Congress advocate the establishment of so-called benchmarks but without a requirement for a troop withdrawal if the Iraqis fail to meet them. That sets them apart from Democrats, who tend to want to link continued U.S. participation in the war to the ability of the Iraqi government to create a fully democratic government, allocate oil resources and provide for its own security.
Outside the White House, Republicans followed Democrats to the microphones to say there was no hope Bush would sign a bill resembling the Democrats' legislation.
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said nothing had changed as a result of the meeting "except that people were polite, people were open, they were honest.
"The real issue ... is whether we're going to agree to a surrender date, and that's not going to happen," he said. Back in the Capitol, he said he would force a nonbinding vote within days on the troop withdrawal deadline.
Democrats said they were determined to press Bush for a change in policy.
"We came here in a spirit of hope, recognizing that this is a historic opportunity for the executive branch, the president and the Congress to work together to wind down this war and ensure the security of our country and the stability of the region," said Pelosi.
Sitting down with lawmakers, Bush acknowledged there were strong differences of opinion about how to proceed in Iraq.
"People have strong opinions around the table. I'm looking forward to listening to them," the president said. "I've got my own opinion, which I'm more than willing to share."
The meeting occurred on the same day that four large bombs exploded in mostly Shiite areas of Baghdad, killing nearly 200 people and wounding scores _ the deadliest day in the city since the start of the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital two months ago.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, traveling in the Mideast, called it "horrifying."
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Lee Iacocca re Bush admin. CRIMINALITY: "WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?"
"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening?" Iacocca writes. "WHERE THE HELL IS THE OUTRAGE? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.' "
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070412/POLITICS/704120383
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070412/POLITICS/704120383
It is long past time for the Democratic Party and leaders to HIGHLIGHT the LIES, and chronic LYING, of Bush and Cheney....
Al Gore 'lost' election 2000 because he shelved the First Commandment of modern politics: "expose your opponent's weakness, and exploit those weaknesses in your campaign strategy."
Meanwhile, the Bush-Cheney campaign team, in typical Karl Rove fashion, could not only exploit their opponent's weaknesses, but could MAKE UP shortcomings out of thin air when needed, as for example the Rove-inspired South Carolina "push polls" that portrayed John McCain as "fathering a black baby" (when in fact McCain and his wife had adopted a Bangladeshi baby) in the Republican primary which with finallity ended McCain's presidential hopes that year.
But in Al Gore's defense, he was being attacked on the left as being "too negative," first by the Bill Bradley campaign, and then by the Ralph Nader campaign. (Make no mistake about it: the "left" wing of the Democratic Party and American politics worked very energetically to put the Right-Wing Bush-Cheney-Scalia-Roberts administration in the White House.)
John Kerry took all of Al Gore's mistakes - and DOUBLED them! Kerry, like Gore, gave Bush's "MORE BIPARTISAN TONE IN WASHINGTON" pledge a FREE PASS - even though PARTISAN ATTACK ADS and 'bash Democrats!" campaign photo-ops were the bread and butter of Bush's 2000 campaign and first four years of office, the very signature of the Bush-Cheney White House!
Kerry likewise stood there like a stupid punching bag as the Bush-Rove-Cheney team portrayed him (Kerry) as a "FLIP-FLOPPER!" Kerry was too stupid and clueless to reply the obvious - that the President who did nothing to prevent 9-11, then pledged to get Osama bin Laden "DEAD OR ALIVE!" - then, at a White House press conference, told the American people "I'm NOT THAT CONCERNED WITH bin Laden anymore" - that president has a hell of a lot of nerve accusing anyone of being a "FLIP-FLOPPER"!
The facts are that John Kerry realized that if he won the election of 2004, he would OWN the Iraq war for all eternity. We believe it is for these reasons that Kerry "pulled" his campaign punches in the long summer of 2004, not waging even a minimally competent campaign. Certainly, Kerry's wife and VP running mate were far more outspoken in their comments than the reasoned, senatorial "leader" of the Democrats ever was.
But there is an element of FRAUD to this analysis, if indeed our assesment is correct. To fight energetically and aggressively for the Democratic presidential nomination, then immediately go into "VACATION MODE", is ROBBING Democratic voters and activists of a FIGHTING candidacy. In boxing the terminology is "taking a fall."
WE HOPE THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP will not REPEAT the shortcomings and mistakes of the Kerry and Gore campaigns in this vital year between the 2006 campaign and the 2008 campaign.
Unfortunately the Democratic presidential front-runners ARE, INDEED, ALREADY REPEATING the lame tactics of Kerry and Gore - neither Hillary nor Obama nor even Edwards are exactly outspoken in calling the President and his Vice President LIARS - as they (Bush and Cheney) feel so free to call Democrats "OBSTRUCTIONISTS" and even impugn their patriotism.
WE AMERICANS DESERVE FIGHTING CANDIDATES and leadership - and WE DESERVE to have SOME OPPOSITION to the hubris and incompetence (if not criminal corruption) of the Republican administration!
The Democrats do indeed have FIGHTING candidates in this Congress - most of the freshmen Congressmen, Congreswomen, and Senators were far more outspoken in their individual 2006 campaigns as OUTSIDERS, than they now are as part of the Democratic congressional establishment. It is past time for the Democratic Party to ENCOURAGE, and not smoother, outspoken opposition to the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House!
-----------------------------------------
President Bush's infamous "I'm NOT THAT CONCERNED about bin Laden" comment, from the official White House (WhiteHouse.gov) website (slightly more than 1/3rd down)that John Kerry REFUSED TO USE in his pathetically lame 2004 campaign:
<< I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. >>
<< Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all. >>
NOTE: IF, as President Bush said, bin Laden's NETWORK HAS BEEN DESTROYED" in this MARCH 2002 White House press conference - then why is the President today in 2007 blaming Democrats for Al Qaida attacks in Iraq - a country that had almost zero Al Qaida presence before this president's invasion of that hapless country?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
Note 2: Sure enough, FRESHMAN Senator JAMES WEBB takes exception to Republican Senator John McCain's attempts to PORTRAY DEMOCRATS as UNPATRIOTIC.
THIS SHOULD BE THE _STANDARD_ RESPONSE of Democratic Leaders EVERY TIME Republicans or the Bush White House try to impugn Democratic leadership!
---------------------------------------
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/14/webb-mccain/
During his major Iraq speech last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) SMEARED congressional leaders who won the passage of legislation setting a timeline for withdrawal. “What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering,” McCain intoned.
Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), a former Marine and decorated combat veteran, responded aggressively to McCain’s comments during an interview with Bloomberg television:
WEBB: I, you know, I think that John McCain has been impugning people’s patriotism and I really regret that he’s doing that.
I’m disappointed in John McCain. I’ve known him for many years. The day before we begin the debate on the Iraq bills, he pulled me aside on the Senate floor and said, Jim, we do not want the situation we had in the Vietnam War. We do not want one side impugning the patriotism of the other side, and John McCain has been doing this consistently since that time. I don’t believe that it is in anybody’s interest for members of the Senate to be impugning the other side’s patriotism, or by the way, to be hiding behind the troops as political justification for what we’re doing.
=======================================
It's Time to Name It: Dems Should Now Call the Bushites the Liars That They Are
by Andrew Bard Schmookler
April 15, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_andrew_b_070411_it_s_time_to_name_it.htm
On Countdown (on Tuesday, April 10), President Bush was shown fully engaged in the dishonest game his regime is playing in Iraq. Bush was trying to pin on the Democrats the blame for the situation he himself has created. More specifically, he was saying that it is because the Democratic Congress hasn't agreed to give him the blank check he demands for his war that some troops will have to stay in Iraq longer, and some other troops will have to go to Iraq sooner, than they'd expected.
The message here was: If the troops and their families are suffering, it's because the Democrats are trying to influence policy. The overall message the Bushites are working to sell to the American people is: whatever is wrong in Iraq is the fault of the Democrats.
It is, I believe, the fear of this phony propagandistic move by the Bushites that most inhibits the Democrats from putting their fingerprints on this disaster in Iraq. Understandably so. But the time has come for the Democrats to be bolder, not more cautious, in approaching the Bushite propaganda. Not, perhaps --at least at this stage-- by taking greater ownership of the Iraqi debacle. That might play into the Bushites hands. But by counteracting the propaganda itself.
It is time for the lies to be boldly named as such and --thus discredited-- to be robbed of their power.
THIS IS AN ADMINISTRATION THAT HAS LIED TO AMERICA AT EVERY TURN
It is time for the Democrats to call the attention of the American people, by strong statements made through the mainstream media, to the whole pattern of dishonesty plain to see in the Bushites records.
"The president is lying here, when he claims that the way he's stretching our military to the breaking point has anything to do with what Congress has done. This is what they've been doing right along. And so also is the lying.
"This is the same president who "fixed the intelligence" to deceive the Congress and the American people to support a war, concocting a threat to justify what they wanted to do for other reasons they kept to themselves."
And this bold indictment should lay out some of the pattern of deceit on issues that go beyond Iraq as well.
"This is the same administration whose memoranda surrounding the firing of the U.S. Attorneys talked about stringing Congress along, making efforts in 'good faith' --with 'good faith' put in quotation marks.
"This is the same administration that has pressured its scientists not to speak the scientific truth when it runs counter to the political agenda of the White House."
The sooner the American people --or at least the 2/3 who are not under the Bushite trance-- stop giving any credence whatever to what this Bush White House says, the sooner American policy --not just on Iraq but generally-- can become sane.
BRING ON THE DESIGNATED HITTER
It would be good for the Congressional leadership to work toward naming this persistent LYING by the Bushites and toward thus discrediting --in the eyes of the public-- whatever the White House says. But it might be good for this perception to be given a secure beachhead in the American consciousness by being delivered by someone not directly in the partisan fray, and in a better position therefore to speak boldly.
This would be one excellent occasion for Al Gore to play that role as "designated hitter" about which I wrote not long ago (at www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=537).
If not he, then perhaps Jimmy Carter who has some moral authority, and has shown himself willing to speak plainly about the disreputable nature of this regime.
And then perhaps there are the presidential candidates. In particular, perhaps Barrack Obama could be the one who delivers this message in a powerful way. This would require him to get beyond his stance as the man of hope and add to it a more prophetic dimension-- an addition that might carry some risk but that could also make him a more full-bodied spokesman for the opposition to these Bushites.
IN CONCLUSION
"To the American people, then, I say: Do not allow this administration to deceive us further. It's time for us to ignore the smoke-screen this administration creates to obscure our real situation and its real purposes.
"And to the president, who is trying to put the blame for his own failures and blunders onto others, who continues to insist on playing politics when American lives are at stake, I ask: At long last, sir, have you no decency?
"When will you --who spoke so glibly about bringing integrity to the Oval Office-- start taking responsibility for what you have wrought?"
Meanwhile, the Bush-Cheney campaign team, in typical Karl Rove fashion, could not only exploit their opponent's weaknesses, but could MAKE UP shortcomings out of thin air when needed, as for example the Rove-inspired South Carolina "push polls" that portrayed John McCain as "fathering a black baby" (when in fact McCain and his wife had adopted a Bangladeshi baby) in the Republican primary which with finallity ended McCain's presidential hopes that year.
But in Al Gore's defense, he was being attacked on the left as being "too negative," first by the Bill Bradley campaign, and then by the Ralph Nader campaign. (Make no mistake about it: the "left" wing of the Democratic Party and American politics worked very energetically to put the Right-Wing Bush-Cheney-Scalia-Roberts administration in the White House.)
John Kerry took all of Al Gore's mistakes - and DOUBLED them! Kerry, like Gore, gave Bush's "MORE BIPARTISAN TONE IN WASHINGTON" pledge a FREE PASS - even though PARTISAN ATTACK ADS and 'bash Democrats!" campaign photo-ops were the bread and butter of Bush's 2000 campaign and first four years of office, the very signature of the Bush-Cheney White House!
Kerry likewise stood there like a stupid punching bag as the Bush-Rove-Cheney team portrayed him (Kerry) as a "FLIP-FLOPPER!" Kerry was too stupid and clueless to reply the obvious - that the President who did nothing to prevent 9-11, then pledged to get Osama bin Laden "DEAD OR ALIVE!" - then, at a White House press conference, told the American people "I'm NOT THAT CONCERNED WITH bin Laden anymore" - that president has a hell of a lot of nerve accusing anyone of being a "FLIP-FLOPPER"!
The facts are that John Kerry realized that if he won the election of 2004, he would OWN the Iraq war for all eternity. We believe it is for these reasons that Kerry "pulled" his campaign punches in the long summer of 2004, not waging even a minimally competent campaign. Certainly, Kerry's wife and VP running mate were far more outspoken in their comments than the reasoned, senatorial "leader" of the Democrats ever was.
But there is an element of FRAUD to this analysis, if indeed our assesment is correct. To fight energetically and aggressively for the Democratic presidential nomination, then immediately go into "VACATION MODE", is ROBBING Democratic voters and activists of a FIGHTING candidacy. In boxing the terminology is "taking a fall."
WE HOPE THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP will not REPEAT the shortcomings and mistakes of the Kerry and Gore campaigns in this vital year between the 2006 campaign and the 2008 campaign.
Unfortunately the Democratic presidential front-runners ARE, INDEED, ALREADY REPEATING the lame tactics of Kerry and Gore - neither Hillary nor Obama nor even Edwards are exactly outspoken in calling the President and his Vice President LIARS - as they (Bush and Cheney) feel so free to call Democrats "OBSTRUCTIONISTS" and even impugn their patriotism.
WE AMERICANS DESERVE FIGHTING CANDIDATES and leadership - and WE DESERVE to have SOME OPPOSITION to the hubris and incompetence (if not criminal corruption) of the Republican administration!
The Democrats do indeed have FIGHTING candidates in this Congress - most of the freshmen Congressmen, Congreswomen, and Senators were far more outspoken in their individual 2006 campaigns as OUTSIDERS, than they now are as part of the Democratic congressional establishment. It is past time for the Democratic Party to ENCOURAGE, and not smoother, outspoken opposition to the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House!
-----------------------------------------
President Bush's infamous "I'm NOT THAT CONCERNED about bin Laden" comment, from the official White House (WhiteHouse.gov) website (slightly more than 1/3rd down)that John Kerry REFUSED TO USE in his pathetically lame 2004 campaign:
<< I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. >>
<< Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all. >>
NOTE: IF, as President Bush said, bin Laden's NETWORK HAS BEEN DESTROYED" in this MARCH 2002 White House press conference - then why is the President today in 2007 blaming Democrats for Al Qaida attacks in Iraq - a country that had almost zero Al Qaida presence before this president's invasion of that hapless country?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html
Note 2: Sure enough, FRESHMAN Senator JAMES WEBB takes exception to Republican Senator John McCain's attempts to PORTRAY DEMOCRATS as UNPATRIOTIC.
THIS SHOULD BE THE _STANDARD_ RESPONSE of Democratic Leaders EVERY TIME Republicans or the Bush White House try to impugn Democratic leadership!
---------------------------------------
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/14/webb-mccain/
During his major Iraq speech last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) SMEARED congressional leaders who won the passage of legislation setting a timeline for withdrawal. “What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering,” McCain intoned.
Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA), a former Marine and decorated combat veteran, responded aggressively to McCain’s comments during an interview with Bloomberg television:
WEBB: I, you know, I think that John McCain has been impugning people’s patriotism and I really regret that he’s doing that.
I’m disappointed in John McCain. I’ve known him for many years. The day before we begin the debate on the Iraq bills, he pulled me aside on the Senate floor and said, Jim, we do not want the situation we had in the Vietnam War. We do not want one side impugning the patriotism of the other side, and John McCain has been doing this consistently since that time. I don’t believe that it is in anybody’s interest for members of the Senate to be impugning the other side’s patriotism, or by the way, to be hiding behind the troops as political justification for what we’re doing.
=======================================
It's Time to Name It: Dems Should Now Call the Bushites the Liars That They Are
by Andrew Bard Schmookler
April 15, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_andrew_b_070411_it_s_time_to_name_it.htm
On Countdown (on Tuesday, April 10), President Bush was shown fully engaged in the dishonest game his regime is playing in Iraq. Bush was trying to pin on the Democrats the blame for the situation he himself has created. More specifically, he was saying that it is because the Democratic Congress hasn't agreed to give him the blank check he demands for his war that some troops will have to stay in Iraq longer, and some other troops will have to go to Iraq sooner, than they'd expected.
The message here was: If the troops and their families are suffering, it's because the Democrats are trying to influence policy. The overall message the Bushites are working to sell to the American people is: whatever is wrong in Iraq is the fault of the Democrats.
It is, I believe, the fear of this phony propagandistic move by the Bushites that most inhibits the Democrats from putting their fingerprints on this disaster in Iraq. Understandably so. But the time has come for the Democrats to be bolder, not more cautious, in approaching the Bushite propaganda. Not, perhaps --at least at this stage-- by taking greater ownership of the Iraqi debacle. That might play into the Bushites hands. But by counteracting the propaganda itself.
It is time for the lies to be boldly named as such and --thus discredited-- to be robbed of their power.
THIS IS AN ADMINISTRATION THAT HAS LIED TO AMERICA AT EVERY TURN
It is time for the Democrats to call the attention of the American people, by strong statements made through the mainstream media, to the whole pattern of dishonesty plain to see in the Bushites records.
"The president is lying here, when he claims that the way he's stretching our military to the breaking point has anything to do with what Congress has done. This is what they've been doing right along. And so also is the lying.
"This is the same president who "fixed the intelligence" to deceive the Congress and the American people to support a war, concocting a threat to justify what they wanted to do for other reasons they kept to themselves."
And this bold indictment should lay out some of the pattern of deceit on issues that go beyond Iraq as well.
"This is the same administration whose memoranda surrounding the firing of the U.S. Attorneys talked about stringing Congress along, making efforts in 'good faith' --with 'good faith' put in quotation marks.
"This is the same administration that has pressured its scientists not to speak the scientific truth when it runs counter to the political agenda of the White House."
The sooner the American people --or at least the 2/3 who are not under the Bushite trance-- stop giving any credence whatever to what this Bush White House says, the sooner American policy --not just on Iraq but generally-- can become sane.
BRING ON THE DESIGNATED HITTER
It would be good for the Congressional leadership to work toward naming this persistent LYING by the Bushites and toward thus discrediting --in the eyes of the public-- whatever the White House says. But it might be good for this perception to be given a secure beachhead in the American consciousness by being delivered by someone not directly in the partisan fray, and in a better position therefore to speak boldly.
This would be one excellent occasion for Al Gore to play that role as "designated hitter" about which I wrote not long ago (at www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=537).
If not he, then perhaps Jimmy Carter who has some moral authority, and has shown himself willing to speak plainly about the disreputable nature of this regime.
And then perhaps there are the presidential candidates. In particular, perhaps Barrack Obama could be the one who delivers this message in a powerful way. This would require him to get beyond his stance as the man of hope and add to it a more prophetic dimension-- an addition that might carry some risk but that could also make him a more full-bodied spokesman for the opposition to these Bushites.
IN CONCLUSION
"To the American people, then, I say: Do not allow this administration to deceive us further. It's time for us to ignore the smoke-screen this administration creates to obscure our real situation and its real purposes.
"And to the president, who is trying to put the blame for his own failures and blunders onto others, who continues to insist on playing politics when American lives are at stake, I ask: At long last, sir, have you no decency?
"When will you --who spoke so glibly about bringing integrity to the Oval Office-- start taking responsibility for what you have wrought?"
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Impeach Bush and Cheney... or get out of the way.
note: every word in this short op-ed by the Vermont Reformer newspaper is a journalisic and historical gem.
<< There will be a time when future generations will look at us and wonder why President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not removed from office.
They will look at us and question why, when confronted by the most corrupt and incompetent administration ever witnessed in the United States, nothing was done to stop Bush and Cheney. >>
<< When the story of our time is written by future historians, there will be but one question asked: When confronted with the MALEVOLENCE and MENDACITY of the Bush administration, how did the people in positions to do something about it react? >>
---------------------------------------
Impeach Bush, Or Get Out of The Way
Friday, April 13 2007
Reformer.com
http://www.reformer.com/ci_5657073
There will be a time when future generations will look at us and wonder why President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not removed from office.
They will look at us and question why, when confronted by the most corrupt and incompetent administration ever witnessed in the United States, nothing was done to stop Bush and Cheney.
They will look at the craven behavior of the Democrats, too afraid to take on the president when it mattered. They will look at the Republicans, so intoxicated with power that they backed their president to the hilt, even as he ran this country off a cliff. They will look at the press, and how too many journalists were cowed into parroting the words of the administration. They will look at the voters, and shake their heads in disbelief that a number of Americans voted for all this -- the electoral equivalent of the chickens voting Colonel Sanders president.
And they will look at Vermont, and how a bottom-up impeachment effort with broad support ran into a brick wall of indifference in Montpelier as well as Washington.
History will not look kindly on House Speaker Gaye Symington for her insistence that her chamber must focus on "important matters" and that the House "does not have the time" to deal with impeachment.
History will not look kindly on Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, who has talked loudly about impeaching Bush and Cheney, but won't pursue the issue as long Symington says no.
Even though an impeachment resolution, like any other Vermont law, can start in either chamber, Shumlin is using decorum and the "we don't have time" argument as an excuse to duck this important issue.
History will not look kindly on Sen. Bernard Sanders, and his successor in the House, Peter Welch, as well as Sen. Patrick Leahy, for treating impeachment as if it were a barrel of toxic waste. Short-term political considerations apparently are more important than the Constitution, which they took an oath to uphold and defend.
Nearly 40 towns voted for impeachment at their town meetings this year. There is little support for Bush, Cheney and the war in Iraq that they lied us into. The list of the administration's failures at home and abroad is long and embarrassing. Yet Symington, Shumlin, Welch, Sanders and Leahy feel no sense of urgency to hold Bush and Cheney accountable.
We believe this is unacceptable and that both the Vermont Legislature and Congress are shirking their responsibilities. There is time to deal with impeachment and we believe nothing is more important.
When the story of our time is written by future historians, there will be but one question asked: When confronted with the malevolence and mendacity of the Bush administration, how did the people in positions to do something about it react?
Does Vermont want to go down in the history books as standing up to the worst president ever? We, the people of Vermont, have the chance to affect the outcome of this story. We must seize this opportunity.
<< There will be a time when future generations will look at us and wonder why President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not removed from office.
They will look at us and question why, when confronted by the most corrupt and incompetent administration ever witnessed in the United States, nothing was done to stop Bush and Cheney. >>
<< When the story of our time is written by future historians, there will be but one question asked: When confronted with the MALEVOLENCE and MENDACITY of the Bush administration, how did the people in positions to do something about it react? >>
---------------------------------------
Impeach Bush, Or Get Out of The Way
Friday, April 13 2007
Reformer.com
http://www.reformer.com/ci_5657073
There will be a time when future generations will look at us and wonder why President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not removed from office.
They will look at us and question why, when confronted by the most corrupt and incompetent administration ever witnessed in the United States, nothing was done to stop Bush and Cheney.
They will look at the craven behavior of the Democrats, too afraid to take on the president when it mattered. They will look at the Republicans, so intoxicated with power that they backed their president to the hilt, even as he ran this country off a cliff. They will look at the press, and how too many journalists were cowed into parroting the words of the administration. They will look at the voters, and shake their heads in disbelief that a number of Americans voted for all this -- the electoral equivalent of the chickens voting Colonel Sanders president.
And they will look at Vermont, and how a bottom-up impeachment effort with broad support ran into a brick wall of indifference in Montpelier as well as Washington.
History will not look kindly on House Speaker Gaye Symington for her insistence that her chamber must focus on "important matters" and that the House "does not have the time" to deal with impeachment.
History will not look kindly on Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, who has talked loudly about impeaching Bush and Cheney, but won't pursue the issue as long Symington says no.
Even though an impeachment resolution, like any other Vermont law, can start in either chamber, Shumlin is using decorum and the "we don't have time" argument as an excuse to duck this important issue.
History will not look kindly on Sen. Bernard Sanders, and his successor in the House, Peter Welch, as well as Sen. Patrick Leahy, for treating impeachment as if it were a barrel of toxic waste. Short-term political considerations apparently are more important than the Constitution, which they took an oath to uphold and defend.
Nearly 40 towns voted for impeachment at their town meetings this year. There is little support for Bush, Cheney and the war in Iraq that they lied us into. The list of the administration's failures at home and abroad is long and embarrassing. Yet Symington, Shumlin, Welch, Sanders and Leahy feel no sense of urgency to hold Bush and Cheney accountable.
We believe this is unacceptable and that both the Vermont Legislature and Congress are shirking their responsibilities. There is time to deal with impeachment and we believe nothing is more important.
When the story of our time is written by future historians, there will be but one question asked: When confronted with the malevolence and mendacity of the Bush administration, how did the people in positions to do something about it react?
Does Vermont want to go down in the history books as standing up to the worst president ever? We, the people of Vermont, have the chance to affect the outcome of this story. We must seize this opportunity.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Senator Levin PUBLICLY CALLS Vice President Cheney a liar. Let the Impeachments begin!
What the Democratic Party leadership fails to remember is, that
#1. unrestrained HATE RADIO in America leads to Tim McVeigh's DOMESTIC TERRORISM.
The Alpha and Omega of right-wing hate radio, of course, is smearing all those who do not conform to the "whitebread" view of the world - for example, hating "socialized big government spending" while entire swaths of the American economy depend on federal road and highway spending - and SMEARING people to the edge of calling them TREASONOUS, which of course in war is a capital crime. Thereby, ergo, Right-Wing hate-radio shock-jocks are implicitly arguing for the ability to cull from society "treasonous" dissidents, by execution preferably, much as the Communist and Nazi regimes and lesser dictators before and since have for centuries.
#2. The Republicans were able to build their movement to IMPEACH president Bill Clinton, through a campaign of 1,000 slashes: FAKE SCANDALS, from "Travel-office-gate" to "file-gate" to "Whitewater" to "LINCOLN BEDROOM" to "WHITE HOUSE TRASHING" eabled Republicans to investigate and subpoena the entire Clinton White House and supporters, not only empowering Republican prosecutorial thugs like KEN STARR, but allowing Republican senators, representatives, and party leaders to call Clinton "A LIAR" for almost an entire decade.
Note: The "LINCOLN BEDROOM SCANDAL!" and "WHITE HOUSE TRASHING SCANDAL!" were ENTIRELY FABRICATED "scandals" there was never so much as ONE PHOTOGRAPH produced to document the "trashing" of the White House, and to think that the Republicans and their media allies were able to create a false 'scandal' out of the Clinton's overnight guest list - when the George W. Bush White House won't even confess to having convicted bribery felon JACK ABRAMOFF, convicted fraud felon KEN LAY, and professional gay male prostitute Jeff Ganon all visit the White House repeatedly! And what of Ken Starr's great "WHITEWATER" investigation? Besides poor Jim McDougal DYING IN PRISON, on a cold concrete floor, in isolation, in a max-security prison despite his age and heart condition, KEN STARR's other grand conviction was of Clinton friend and counsel Webster Hubblell's conviction for - OVERBILLING CLIENTS and partners!
OVERBILLING CLIENTS is a felony?? If clients or partners don't like or agree with counsel's legal bill, they DON'T PAY IT! Charging, much less, convicting Web Hubbell of "overbilling clients" is like the scene in the Vietnam movie "Apocalypse Now" where the CIA assassin (played by Martin Sheen) tells the general "charging a man with murder in this place is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500".
It is BEYOND LUDICROUS to recall Ken Starr's conviction of Webster Hubbell for "overbilling clients," when the Republican Party (and Demcoratic 'leadership') do NOTHING about President Bush stacking the nation's emergency disaster administration with an ENTIRELY UNQUALIFIED, INCOMPETENT HACK ("Heckuva job, Brownie" Administrator MICHAEL BROWN put in charge of FEMA, despite Brown having NO disaster relief or emergency experience.)
Not to mention Vice President Cheney's ongoing financial ties to Halliburton and the huge no-bid, no-oversight, no-performance government contracts for that company; his inextricable connection to the "outing" of CIA agent Valerie Plame and the OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE conviction by his own Chief of Staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby that pushed that scandal past the 2004 election; or his role in convincing America that Iraq was an immdiate threat to America when it was his administration's failure to heed warnings about SAUDI-based Al Qaida which allowed terrorists to attack America, UNIMPEDED BY EVEN MINIMUM SECURITY PRECAUTIONS, on 9-11-2001.
----------------------------------------------------
Tell us another one, Mr. Vice President
Dick Cheney is still trying to link Iraq with Al Qaeda and 9/11.
By Senate Carl Levin
CARL LEVIN, a Democratic senator from Michigan, is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
April 12, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-levin12apr12,0,7221964.story?track=mostviewed-homepage
TO PARAPHRASE President Reagan, there he goes again.
On Rush Limbaugh's radio program last week, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke about Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi and stated: "He went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al Qaeda operations inside Iraq…. This is Al Qaeda operating in Iraq and, as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."
It is incredible that more than four years after the invasion, the vice president is still trying to convince the public that Saddam Hussein's regime was connected to Al Qaeda and that Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was evidence of a connection.
While the vice president doesn't say directly that there was a tie between the two, his clear purpose is to blur the line between Al Qaeda — the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks — and the Iraqi dictator in order to justify the war in Iraq.
The problem is, that's simply not supported by the facts or by our intelligence community — and everyone except the vice president acknowledges it. In September, for example, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a bipartisan report that Hussein was "distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operational support." And the CIA reported a year earlier, in October 2005, that the Iraqi regime "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates." As the Intelligence Committee report noted, the Iraqi intelligence service was actually trying to capture Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad under an alias. Is the vice president willfully ignoring what the rest of the government has concluded? Or does he have access to information he hasn't shared with us? If so, he should produce it.
The vice president has a clear, documented pattern of overstating and misstating information with regard to Iraq. He also, for instance, continued to claim that 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta may have met with an Iraqi agent in Prague — long after the intelligence community believed otherwise. Again, his obvious purpose is to link Hussein's regime with Sept. 11, even though the rest of the world has concluded that no such link exists.
The vice president has made so many outlandish statements that the country barely raised an eyebrow at his false statement last week. The public has stopped believing the words of a man who promised, before we invaded Iraq, that we would be "greeted as liberators" and reassured us nearly two years ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes."
But his comments continue to erode our credibility with the international community, which has already been severely damaged by our rush to war with Iraq with little international support. If, in the months ahead, we face a crisis over Iran's weapons programs and need to rally the international community, we may find that the world has little interest in trusting an administration that misstates facts.
By all accounts, Dick Cheney is one of the most powerful vice presidents in our history, if you define power as influence over policy. We need to ask ourselves: What does it mean for our country when the vice president's words lack credibility, but he still wields great power?
#1. unrestrained HATE RADIO in America leads to Tim McVeigh's DOMESTIC TERRORISM.
The Alpha and Omega of right-wing hate radio, of course, is smearing all those who do not conform to the "whitebread" view of the world - for example, hating "socialized big government spending" while entire swaths of the American economy depend on federal road and highway spending - and SMEARING people to the edge of calling them TREASONOUS, which of course in war is a capital crime. Thereby, ergo, Right-Wing hate-radio shock-jocks are implicitly arguing for the ability to cull from society "treasonous" dissidents, by execution preferably, much as the Communist and Nazi regimes and lesser dictators before and since have for centuries.
#2. The Republicans were able to build their movement to IMPEACH president Bill Clinton, through a campaign of 1,000 slashes: FAKE SCANDALS, from "Travel-office-gate" to "file-gate" to "Whitewater" to "LINCOLN BEDROOM" to "WHITE HOUSE TRASHING" eabled Republicans to investigate and subpoena the entire Clinton White House and supporters, not only empowering Republican prosecutorial thugs like KEN STARR, but allowing Republican senators, representatives, and party leaders to call Clinton "A LIAR" for almost an entire decade.
Note: The "LINCOLN BEDROOM SCANDAL!" and "WHITE HOUSE TRASHING SCANDAL!" were ENTIRELY FABRICATED "scandals" there was never so much as ONE PHOTOGRAPH produced to document the "trashing" of the White House, and to think that the Republicans and their media allies were able to create a false 'scandal' out of the Clinton's overnight guest list - when the George W. Bush White House won't even confess to having convicted bribery felon JACK ABRAMOFF, convicted fraud felon KEN LAY, and professional gay male prostitute Jeff Ganon all visit the White House repeatedly! And what of Ken Starr's great "WHITEWATER" investigation? Besides poor Jim McDougal DYING IN PRISON, on a cold concrete floor, in isolation, in a max-security prison despite his age and heart condition, KEN STARR's other grand conviction was of Clinton friend and counsel Webster Hubblell's conviction for - OVERBILLING CLIENTS and partners!
OVERBILLING CLIENTS is a felony?? If clients or partners don't like or agree with counsel's legal bill, they DON'T PAY IT! Charging, much less, convicting Web Hubbell of "overbilling clients" is like the scene in the Vietnam movie "Apocalypse Now" where the CIA assassin (played by Martin Sheen) tells the general "charging a man with murder in this place is like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500".
It is BEYOND LUDICROUS to recall Ken Starr's conviction of Webster Hubbell for "overbilling clients," when the Republican Party (and Demcoratic 'leadership') do NOTHING about President Bush stacking the nation's emergency disaster administration with an ENTIRELY UNQUALIFIED, INCOMPETENT HACK ("Heckuva job, Brownie" Administrator MICHAEL BROWN put in charge of FEMA, despite Brown having NO disaster relief or emergency experience.)
Not to mention Vice President Cheney's ongoing financial ties to Halliburton and the huge no-bid, no-oversight, no-performance government contracts for that company; his inextricable connection to the "outing" of CIA agent Valerie Plame and the OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE conviction by his own Chief of Staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby that pushed that scandal past the 2004 election; or his role in convincing America that Iraq was an immdiate threat to America when it was his administration's failure to heed warnings about SAUDI-based Al Qaida which allowed terrorists to attack America, UNIMPEDED BY EVEN MINIMUM SECURITY PRECAUTIONS, on 9-11-2001.
----------------------------------------------------
Tell us another one, Mr. Vice President
Dick Cheney is still trying to link Iraq with Al Qaeda and 9/11.
By Senate Carl Levin
CARL LEVIN, a Democratic senator from Michigan, is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
April 12, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-levin12apr12,0,7221964.story?track=mostviewed-homepage
TO PARAPHRASE President Reagan, there he goes again.
On Rush Limbaugh's radio program last week, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke about Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi and stated: "He went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al Qaeda operations inside Iraq…. This is Al Qaeda operating in Iraq and, as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."
It is incredible that more than four years after the invasion, the vice president is still trying to convince the public that Saddam Hussein's regime was connected to Al Qaeda and that Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was evidence of a connection.
While the vice president doesn't say directly that there was a tie between the two, his clear purpose is to blur the line between Al Qaeda — the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks — and the Iraqi dictator in order to justify the war in Iraq.
The problem is, that's simply not supported by the facts or by our intelligence community — and everyone except the vice president acknowledges it. In September, for example, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a bipartisan report that Hussein was "distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operational support." And the CIA reported a year earlier, in October 2005, that the Iraqi regime "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates." As the Intelligence Committee report noted, the Iraqi intelligence service was actually trying to capture Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad under an alias. Is the vice president willfully ignoring what the rest of the government has concluded? Or does he have access to information he hasn't shared with us? If so, he should produce it.
The vice president has a clear, documented pattern of overstating and misstating information with regard to Iraq. He also, for instance, continued to claim that 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta may have met with an Iraqi agent in Prague — long after the intelligence community believed otherwise. Again, his obvious purpose is to link Hussein's regime with Sept. 11, even though the rest of the world has concluded that no such link exists.
The vice president has made so many outlandish statements that the country barely raised an eyebrow at his false statement last week. The public has stopped believing the words of a man who promised, before we invaded Iraq, that we would be "greeted as liberators" and reassured us nearly two years ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes."
But his comments continue to erode our credibility with the international community, which has already been severely damaged by our rush to war with Iraq with little international support. If, in the months ahead, we face a crisis over Iran's weapons programs and need to rally the international community, we may find that the world has little interest in trusting an administration that misstates facts.
By all accounts, Dick Cheney is one of the most powerful vice presidents in our history, if you define power as influence over policy. We need to ask ourselves: What does it mean for our country when the vice president's words lack credibility, but he still wields great power?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Republicans have politically assassinated a previous Democratic Speaker, over an illegal and murderous war, before....
Once again Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats are bearing the brunt of the burden imposed on them by... the often COWERING SENATE DEMOCRATS, who only rarely, if at all, used their FILIBUSTER POWERS to OBSTRUCT Bush nominees and policies in the past 6 years, while such "OBSTRUCTIVE" use of the filibuster is already a commonplace under 3 months of this new Republican minority senate.
Now this excellent article by Jim Lobe and William LeoGrande of The American Prospect magazine connects some more dots on Republican hypocrisy and criminality, stretching back the almost 3 decades to the Iran-Contra scandal. Sure enough, current administration neo-con Lies-to-War hawk ELLIOT ABRAMS is at the center of this diabolical history, Abrams having touted the assassinations, death-squads, and democracy-voiding coups of the Reagan-Bush (Sr.) Iran-Contra era, just as glibly as he has recently been a chief architect, along with Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz (et al) of the Lies-to-War for Bush Jr's invasion and conquest of Iraq.
And, then as now, DICK CHENEY and NEWT GINGRICH were there immediately behind Abrams to bolster his case for US regional leadership by death squads, bribery and voter suppression; and then as now, Gingrich and Cheney had unfettered access to the US media. And then, as now, the oh-so-wise "Conventional Wisdom" at the top tiers of the Democratic Party held that America's best interest would be to allow the Republican architects of death-squad diplomacy to proceed with their careers barely impeded - AS THE SENATE DEMOCRATS refused (or were unable) to block CONVICTED WATERGATE FELON Eliott Abrams' REAPPOINTMENT to senior levels of government in the Bush-Cheney administration.
Ms. Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House, might be wise to take a page from the Republican playbook: THE BEST DEFENSE is a take-no-prisoners ATTACK-and-DESTROY offense. The Republicans can create Democratic SCANDALS out of thin air - file-gate and Whitewater and Travel-office-gate and LINCOLN BEDROOM! - while they can simultaneously make the hundreds-of-billions of dollars of S&L debacle VANISH from the front pages of media coverage, much less more obscure crimes and criminality like the Iran-Contra scandal, the BCCI scandal, the Iraq-gate WMD precursors for Saddam scandals, or even the recent massive, systematic, and illegal VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT (and corrupt voting machiens) scandals.
Ms. Pelosi and the House and Senate Democratic leadership and staffers would do well to read the first chapter of Robert Parry's book "Secrecy and Privilege," in which Parry documents the way that incoming President Bill Clinton cluelessly abandoned and suppressed ON-GOING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS into Republican crimes and malfeasance. This is the relatively unknown chapter of the "Whitewater," Monica, and Impeachment of President Clinton scandals; that in return for going easy on Republican malfeasance and underminning investigations into Republican criminality, President Clinton ONLY EMBOLDENED HIS ENEMIES, and gave them the very soap-box and media access ("Moral Values!") they would need to amplify his (Clinton's) faux pas into an on-going string of slow-burn scandals and tear down his administration.
At one point, we (in our previous blog manifestation) called for Nancy Pelosi to RESIGN as House Minority Leader, because Ms. Pelosi was, like Bill Clinton before her, trying to MINIMIZE Republican malfeasance as an election issue. Fortunately THE VERY LAST VESTIGES of an independent US government bureaucracy kicked in, when the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House was UNABLE TO DERAIL the Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Ken Lay, and Jeff Skilling (Enron) prosecutions, each of which led to one or more FELONY CONVICTIONS, many from close to or within the Bush-Cheney White House. (Although the web-master of many of those scandals, White House Political Affairs chief KARL ROVE, was able to duck and weave his way out of a perjury indictiment and conviction that his fellow senior White House advisor, VP Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of after the 2006 elections.)
Since those scandal CONVICTIONS helped put the Democratic "outsider" candidates over the top in mid-term election 2006, thereby giving the incumbent Democrats the majority in the Congress, we have been surprised and encouraged by the tenacity of Speaker Pelosi, even if her crew has, for now, put a muzzle on Representative John Conyers outspoken calls for confronting the Bush-Cheney White House.
In sum: 1.) Republican anti-democracy criminality stretches back 3 or more decades. 2.) Today, many of the same players from the Iran-Contra scandal - Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, and Eliott Abrams - are not only major players in the US government, but they are even far more powerful than they were back then, despite their own string of scandals and the fact that Abrams was actually convicted for his role in the Iran-Contra obstruction of justice. 3.) The Democrats have a long history of SHORT-CHANGING investigations into Republican malfeasance, or wrist-slapping those caught red-handed or convicted - in the case of President Clinton, EMPOWERING Republicans to come right back against his own administration and supporters with a vile stew of half-baked accusations and fake scandals; 4.) The Republicans WILL come after Speaker Nancy Pelosi's efforts to try and provide an alternative to Bush's "Black hole of Iraq" budget-busting and military-trashing war.
Given that all the above are inevitabilities, Speaker Pelosi could at least make it interesting... Simply take the muzzle off of Chairman Conyer's Committee, COORDINATE the compilation of evidence from other House and Senate Committees (Chairman Waxman's committee, and investigations into Enron, disenfranchisement, lies-to-war, and even 9-11) - and then TAKE YOUR CASE of Republican Malfeasance TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Daily, Energetically, and Forcefully. Put Karl Rove on the hot seat, and make Bush and Cheney HIDE behind Executive Privilege - and even drag up Vice President Cheney's ONGOING FINANCIAL TIES TO HALLIBURTON, and as well the minutes and persons of his 2001 "Secret Energy Task Force" that in all probability (now there's an understatement!) examined the invasion of Iraq.
The Speaker should realize she has nothing to loose. The Republcans are, as we speak, cranking up their "Swift Boat Smear Mob" against the Speaker, and before anyone even heard of "Swift Boats", they used similar tactics to DRAG DOWN AND IMPEACH A SITTING PRESIDENT, Bill CLinton.
"Cry Havoc and Let Slip your dogs of Congressional Investigations!" Madame Speaker. America and the world deserve SOME alternative to the Black Hole of Baghdad, and the minions who brought America to its brink.
---------------------------------------------------
Wright Redux
The flap over Nancy Pelosi's Syria trip echoes a 20-year-old fight with a previous Democratic House Speaker -- and is being driven by the same right-wing Republican hawks.
By William M. LeoGrande and Jim Lobe
Web Exclusive: 04.09.07
http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=12626
Nancy Pelosi had better watch her back. The last time a Democratic Speaker of the House tried to help extricate the United States from a stalemated war, it cost him his job.
Twenty years ago, congressional Democrats rebelled against President Ronald Reagan's covert "contra" war to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, threatening to cut off the funds for it, just as they are now threatening to cut off funds for the war in Iraq. Then, as now, a Republican president was determined to stay the course despite mounting evidence that the war was unwinnable and only diplomacy could end it. With the executive branch bereft of ideas on how to escape the quagmire but dead-set against engaging its perceived adversaries, Congressional leaders stepped into the breach.
Speaker Jim Wright, with the quiet support of Republican realists, took an active role in support of the 1987 Central American Peace Accord sponsored by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, whose efforts won him the Nobel Peace Prize that year. Despite the Reagan administration's bitter denunciation of the Arias plan, Wright not only endorsed it, he worked actively to bring the Sandinistas together with their opponents to make the plan work. For this he was vilified by Reagan officials, foremost among them Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams, who accused Wright of staging "an unbelievable melodrama," when he met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. "This was not forward movement," Abrams charged. "This was screwing up the process."
On Capitol Hill, Abrams's charges were echoed by Congressmen Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, who launched a campaign that eventually forced Wright to resign for alleged ethical lapses. "My role in the peace process contributed more than any other one thing to the determination of the Republican rightwing to destroy my effectiveness," Wright wrote later. "The determination to try to destroy my personal character originated with people like Gingrich, Elliott Abrams, and Dick Cheney."
---
Last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to the Middle East, stopping in Syria to meet with President Bashar al-Assad -- much to the dismay of President Bush, Cheney, and Abrams, who is now deputy national security adviser and the White House's top aide on the Middle East. As a second-tier member of the Axis of Evil, Syria is on the State Department's list of countries that support international terrorism, and the administration's policy toward Damascus has been one of hostility and isolation. Unfortunately, Syria's cooperation is probably indispensable for stabilizing the security situation in neighboring Iraq-- a reality that led the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to recommend that Washington directly engage both Syria and Iran diplomatically, just as Republican realists twenty years ago supported dialogue with Nicaragua. President Bush has ignored that recommendation, as he has ignored many of the Study Group's conclusions.
Pelosi has pledged that congressional Democrats will push for implementation of the Study Group's recommendations even if the president will not. Her diplomacy in Damascus has put her on a collision course with administration hardliners like Cheney and Abrams. Cheney blasted Pelosi's "bad behavior," and a Washington Post editorial called her mission "foolish " -- echoes of how the Post denigrated Jim Wright's efforts twenty years ago as "reckless."
As the ranking Republican congressman on the Iran-Contra Committee that investigated the Reagan administration's secret arms sales to Iran and funding of the Nicaraguan contras, Cheney defended Reagan's officials, including Abrams, who lied to Congress and ignored the law. Cheney argued that presidential power in foreign policy is essentially unlimited and that Congress can and should do nothing to constrain it -- a view he has faithfully carried with him into the White House.
No president likes to see Congress take an active role in foreign policy, especially when the two branches are at odds over what policy should be. But although the Constitution gives the president the leading role in international affairs, it does not give him an exclusive mandate. When a president insists on pursuing policies that, despite mounting costs, show no promise of success and have lost the support of the American people, he should not be surprised to find Congress becoming more assertive.
In the 1980s, Cheney and Abrams made clear their contempt for Congress and disdain for diplomacy. For them, foreign policy took on the tenor of a moral crusade, making compromise anathema. Despite their best efforts, Congress cut the funding for Reagan's wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, eventually forcing President George H. W. Bush to embrace the peace plans that Reagan's hawks abhorred. The plans worked, and the wars ended on terms that safeguarded U.S. interests. The hardline crusaders like Cheney and Abrams, despite their moral certitude, turned out to be wrong. Twenty years later, they still think diplomacy is for sissies, they still think Congress has no legitimate role in foreign policy, and they are still wrong.
William M. LeoGrande is dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC, and author of Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992. Jim Lobe is the chief of the Washington bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS).
* * *
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to The American Prospect here.
Support independent media with a tax-deductible donation here
Now this excellent article by Jim Lobe and William LeoGrande of The American Prospect magazine connects some more dots on Republican hypocrisy and criminality, stretching back the almost 3 decades to the Iran-Contra scandal. Sure enough, current administration neo-con Lies-to-War hawk ELLIOT ABRAMS is at the center of this diabolical history, Abrams having touted the assassinations, death-squads, and democracy-voiding coups of the Reagan-Bush (Sr.) Iran-Contra era, just as glibly as he has recently been a chief architect, along with Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz (et al) of the Lies-to-War for Bush Jr's invasion and conquest of Iraq.
And, then as now, DICK CHENEY and NEWT GINGRICH were there immediately behind Abrams to bolster his case for US regional leadership by death squads, bribery and voter suppression; and then as now, Gingrich and Cheney had unfettered access to the US media. And then, as now, the oh-so-wise "Conventional Wisdom" at the top tiers of the Democratic Party held that America's best interest would be to allow the Republican architects of death-squad diplomacy to proceed with their careers barely impeded - AS THE SENATE DEMOCRATS refused (or were unable) to block CONVICTED WATERGATE FELON Eliott Abrams' REAPPOINTMENT to senior levels of government in the Bush-Cheney administration.
Ms. Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House, might be wise to take a page from the Republican playbook: THE BEST DEFENSE is a take-no-prisoners ATTACK-and-DESTROY offense. The Republicans can create Democratic SCANDALS out of thin air - file-gate and Whitewater and Travel-office-gate and LINCOLN BEDROOM! - while they can simultaneously make the hundreds-of-billions of dollars of S&L debacle VANISH from the front pages of media coverage, much less more obscure crimes and criminality like the Iran-Contra scandal, the BCCI scandal, the Iraq-gate WMD precursors for Saddam scandals, or even the recent massive, systematic, and illegal VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT (and corrupt voting machiens) scandals.
Ms. Pelosi and the House and Senate Democratic leadership and staffers would do well to read the first chapter of Robert Parry's book "Secrecy and Privilege," in which Parry documents the way that incoming President Bill Clinton cluelessly abandoned and suppressed ON-GOING CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS into Republican crimes and malfeasance. This is the relatively unknown chapter of the "Whitewater," Monica, and Impeachment of President Clinton scandals; that in return for going easy on Republican malfeasance and underminning investigations into Republican criminality, President Clinton ONLY EMBOLDENED HIS ENEMIES, and gave them the very soap-box and media access ("Moral Values!") they would need to amplify his (Clinton's) faux pas into an on-going string of slow-burn scandals and tear down his administration.
At one point, we (in our previous blog manifestation) called for Nancy Pelosi to RESIGN as House Minority Leader, because Ms. Pelosi was, like Bill Clinton before her, trying to MINIMIZE Republican malfeasance as an election issue. Fortunately THE VERY LAST VESTIGES of an independent US government bureaucracy kicked in, when the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House was UNABLE TO DERAIL the Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Ken Lay, and Jeff Skilling (Enron) prosecutions, each of which led to one or more FELONY CONVICTIONS, many from close to or within the Bush-Cheney White House. (Although the web-master of many of those scandals, White House Political Affairs chief KARL ROVE, was able to duck and weave his way out of a perjury indictiment and conviction that his fellow senior White House advisor, VP Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of after the 2006 elections.)
Since those scandal CONVICTIONS helped put the Democratic "outsider" candidates over the top in mid-term election 2006, thereby giving the incumbent Democrats the majority in the Congress, we have been surprised and encouraged by the tenacity of Speaker Pelosi, even if her crew has, for now, put a muzzle on Representative John Conyers outspoken calls for confronting the Bush-Cheney White House.
In sum: 1.) Republican anti-democracy criminality stretches back 3 or more decades. 2.) Today, many of the same players from the Iran-Contra scandal - Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, and Eliott Abrams - are not only major players in the US government, but they are even far more powerful than they were back then, despite their own string of scandals and the fact that Abrams was actually convicted for his role in the Iran-Contra obstruction of justice. 3.) The Democrats have a long history of SHORT-CHANGING investigations into Republican malfeasance, or wrist-slapping those caught red-handed or convicted - in the case of President Clinton, EMPOWERING Republicans to come right back against his own administration and supporters with a vile stew of half-baked accusations and fake scandals; 4.) The Republicans WILL come after Speaker Nancy Pelosi's efforts to try and provide an alternative to Bush's "Black hole of Iraq" budget-busting and military-trashing war.
Given that all the above are inevitabilities, Speaker Pelosi could at least make it interesting... Simply take the muzzle off of Chairman Conyer's Committee, COORDINATE the compilation of evidence from other House and Senate Committees (Chairman Waxman's committee, and investigations into Enron, disenfranchisement, lies-to-war, and even 9-11) - and then TAKE YOUR CASE of Republican Malfeasance TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Daily, Energetically, and Forcefully. Put Karl Rove on the hot seat, and make Bush and Cheney HIDE behind Executive Privilege - and even drag up Vice President Cheney's ONGOING FINANCIAL TIES TO HALLIBURTON, and as well the minutes and persons of his 2001 "Secret Energy Task Force" that in all probability (now there's an understatement!) examined the invasion of Iraq.
The Speaker should realize she has nothing to loose. The Republcans are, as we speak, cranking up their "Swift Boat Smear Mob" against the Speaker, and before anyone even heard of "Swift Boats", they used similar tactics to DRAG DOWN AND IMPEACH A SITTING PRESIDENT, Bill CLinton.
"Cry Havoc and Let Slip your dogs of Congressional Investigations!" Madame Speaker. America and the world deserve SOME alternative to the Black Hole of Baghdad, and the minions who brought America to its brink.
---------------------------------------------------
Wright Redux
The flap over Nancy Pelosi's Syria trip echoes a 20-year-old fight with a previous Democratic House Speaker -- and is being driven by the same right-wing Republican hawks.
By William M. LeoGrande and Jim Lobe
Web Exclusive: 04.09.07
http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=12626
Nancy Pelosi had better watch her back. The last time a Democratic Speaker of the House tried to help extricate the United States from a stalemated war, it cost him his job.
Twenty years ago, congressional Democrats rebelled against President Ronald Reagan's covert "contra" war to overthrow the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, threatening to cut off the funds for it, just as they are now threatening to cut off funds for the war in Iraq. Then, as now, a Republican president was determined to stay the course despite mounting evidence that the war was unwinnable and only diplomacy could end it. With the executive branch bereft of ideas on how to escape the quagmire but dead-set against engaging its perceived adversaries, Congressional leaders stepped into the breach.
Speaker Jim Wright, with the quiet support of Republican realists, took an active role in support of the 1987 Central American Peace Accord sponsored by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, whose efforts won him the Nobel Peace Prize that year. Despite the Reagan administration's bitter denunciation of the Arias plan, Wright not only endorsed it, he worked actively to bring the Sandinistas together with their opponents to make the plan work. For this he was vilified by Reagan officials, foremost among them Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams, who accused Wright of staging "an unbelievable melodrama," when he met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. "This was not forward movement," Abrams charged. "This was screwing up the process."
On Capitol Hill, Abrams's charges were echoed by Congressmen Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, who launched a campaign that eventually forced Wright to resign for alleged ethical lapses. "My role in the peace process contributed more than any other one thing to the determination of the Republican rightwing to destroy my effectiveness," Wright wrote later. "The determination to try to destroy my personal character originated with people like Gingrich, Elliott Abrams, and Dick Cheney."
---
Last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to the Middle East, stopping in Syria to meet with President Bashar al-Assad -- much to the dismay of President Bush, Cheney, and Abrams, who is now deputy national security adviser and the White House's top aide on the Middle East. As a second-tier member of the Axis of Evil, Syria is on the State Department's list of countries that support international terrorism, and the administration's policy toward Damascus has been one of hostility and isolation. Unfortunately, Syria's cooperation is probably indispensable for stabilizing the security situation in neighboring Iraq-- a reality that led the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to recommend that Washington directly engage both Syria and Iran diplomatically, just as Republican realists twenty years ago supported dialogue with Nicaragua. President Bush has ignored that recommendation, as he has ignored many of the Study Group's conclusions.
Pelosi has pledged that congressional Democrats will push for implementation of the Study Group's recommendations even if the president will not. Her diplomacy in Damascus has put her on a collision course with administration hardliners like Cheney and Abrams. Cheney blasted Pelosi's "bad behavior," and a Washington Post editorial called her mission "foolish " -- echoes of how the Post denigrated Jim Wright's efforts twenty years ago as "reckless."
As the ranking Republican congressman on the Iran-Contra Committee that investigated the Reagan administration's secret arms sales to Iran and funding of the Nicaraguan contras, Cheney defended Reagan's officials, including Abrams, who lied to Congress and ignored the law. Cheney argued that presidential power in foreign policy is essentially unlimited and that Congress can and should do nothing to constrain it -- a view he has faithfully carried with him into the White House.
No president likes to see Congress take an active role in foreign policy, especially when the two branches are at odds over what policy should be. But although the Constitution gives the president the leading role in international affairs, it does not give him an exclusive mandate. When a president insists on pursuing policies that, despite mounting costs, show no promise of success and have lost the support of the American people, he should not be surprised to find Congress becoming more assertive.
In the 1980s, Cheney and Abrams made clear their contempt for Congress and disdain for diplomacy. For them, foreign policy took on the tenor of a moral crusade, making compromise anathema. Despite their best efforts, Congress cut the funding for Reagan's wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, eventually forcing President George H. W. Bush to embrace the peace plans that Reagan's hawks abhorred. The plans worked, and the wars ended on terms that safeguarded U.S. interests. The hardline crusaders like Cheney and Abrams, despite their moral certitude, turned out to be wrong. Twenty years later, they still think diplomacy is for sissies, they still think Congress has no legitimate role in foreign policy, and they are still wrong.
William M. LeoGrande is dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC, and author of Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992. Jim Lobe is the chief of the Washington bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS).
* * *
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to The American Prospect here.
Support independent media with a tax-deductible donation here
Monday, April 9, 2007
Rethugs may use FILIBUSTER to keep Bush RECESS ambassador Sam Fox payoff...
NOW, of course, is the time for cowering Democrats and "major media" whores to FORGET ABOUT Senator Jesse Helms "pocket veto" OBSTRUCTION - - - by REPUBLICAN Senator JESSE HELMS opposition to REPUBLICAN GOVERNORN William Weld's nomination to be Ambassador to Mexico - by President Clinton!
ARE the Democrat Senate 'leaders' going to COWER FROM THIS FIGHT...??? Are they going to be ONE-TENTH as powerful as Rethuglican troglodyte JESSE HELMS, and ALLOW President Bush to REWARD his lynch-mob ("Swift Boat Liars Against Kerry") funder, WITHOUT A FIGHT?
STAY TUNED! The FATES are DEFINITELY INTERESTED in this little toss-up!
===========================================
Republicans may be forced to filibuster Bush's Swift Boat nominee Michael Roston
Monday April 9, 2007
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Republicans_may_be_forced_to_filibuster_0409.html
If Senate Democrats succeed in invoking an obscure law on recess appointees, Republicans may be forced to filibuster nominee Sam Fox, the controversial pick for Ambassador to Belgium that President George W. Bush appointed last week during the Senate's easter break. If they don't, the president could face a significant defeat in the Senate chamber.
A Senate Democratic aide confirmed to RAW STORY that some Senate Democrats were pushing to invoke legislation requiring the President to send recess appointees back to the Senate for an up or down vote within 40 days of the appointment.
"If it works out, the nomination would definitely be defeated on the Senate floor," the Democratic aide told RAW STORY. "The Republicans might not want to let that pass, and then they'd be in the strange position of filibustering their own nominee."
Fox, who donated $50,000 to the anti-John Kerry Swift Boat Veterans For Truth in 2004, faced certain rejection in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee two weeks ago. President Bush had suddenly withdrawn Fox's nomination before the committee met. But the President quietly gave Fox a recess appointment last week, a move which Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), who is running for president, called "underhanded and an abuse of Executive authority."
In response, Roll Call's John Stanton reported last week that Senate Democrats were looking for ways to block the nomination. The obscure legal provision they considered invoking would require the president to resubmit Fox's nomination within 40 days.
A spokesman for the minority leadership said Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would not comment on the possibility of the Republicans filibustering a vote that would be a certain loss for Bush's nominee until the Democrats made their plans clear. He also accused them of wasting time on the issue.
"Once the Democrats figure out how they want to waste time on this, Senator McConnell will decide how to respond," Jon Henke, a spokesman for McConnell, told RAW STORY in an e-mail. "If the Democrats want to waste some time in a pointless personal fight about the Ambassador to Belgium, I’d only note that recess appointments are very common and we don’t recall Democrats citing this law when President Clinton made similar recess appointments."
Even if Senate Democrats do not invoke the 40 days provision of recess appointments legislation, Fox could face other problems.
Although the State Department would not confirm it last week, Fox appears to be planning to work on a volunteer basis. Senator Dodd, with Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Bob Casey (D-PA) wrote to the Government Accountability Office last week seeking clarification of the legality of having Fox serve without pay.
ARE the Democrat Senate 'leaders' going to COWER FROM THIS FIGHT...??? Are they going to be ONE-TENTH as powerful as Rethuglican troglodyte JESSE HELMS, and ALLOW President Bush to REWARD his lynch-mob ("Swift Boat Liars Against Kerry") funder, WITHOUT A FIGHT?
STAY TUNED! The FATES are DEFINITELY INTERESTED in this little toss-up!
===========================================
Republicans may be forced to filibuster Bush's Swift Boat nominee Michael Roston
Monday April 9, 2007
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Republicans_may_be_forced_to_filibuster_0409.html
If Senate Democrats succeed in invoking an obscure law on recess appointees, Republicans may be forced to filibuster nominee Sam Fox, the controversial pick for Ambassador to Belgium that President George W. Bush appointed last week during the Senate's easter break. If they don't, the president could face a significant defeat in the Senate chamber.
A Senate Democratic aide confirmed to RAW STORY that some Senate Democrats were pushing to invoke legislation requiring the President to send recess appointees back to the Senate for an up or down vote within 40 days of the appointment.
"If it works out, the nomination would definitely be defeated on the Senate floor," the Democratic aide told RAW STORY. "The Republicans might not want to let that pass, and then they'd be in the strange position of filibustering their own nominee."
Fox, who donated $50,000 to the anti-John Kerry Swift Boat Veterans For Truth in 2004, faced certain rejection in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee two weeks ago. President Bush had suddenly withdrawn Fox's nomination before the committee met. But the President quietly gave Fox a recess appointment last week, a move which Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), who is running for president, called "underhanded and an abuse of Executive authority."
In response, Roll Call's John Stanton reported last week that Senate Democrats were looking for ways to block the nomination. The obscure legal provision they considered invoking would require the president to resubmit Fox's nomination within 40 days.
A spokesman for the minority leadership said Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would not comment on the possibility of the Republicans filibustering a vote that would be a certain loss for Bush's nominee until the Democrats made their plans clear. He also accused them of wasting time on the issue.
"Once the Democrats figure out how they want to waste time on this, Senator McConnell will decide how to respond," Jon Henke, a spokesman for McConnell, told RAW STORY in an e-mail. "If the Democrats want to waste some time in a pointless personal fight about the Ambassador to Belgium, I’d only note that recess appointments are very common and we don’t recall Democrats citing this law when President Clinton made similar recess appointments."
Even if Senate Democrats do not invoke the 40 days provision of recess appointments legislation, Fox could face other problems.
Although the State Department would not confirm it last week, Fox appears to be planning to work on a volunteer basis. Senator Dodd, with Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Bob Casey (D-PA) wrote to the Government Accountability Office last week seeking clarification of the legality of having Fox serve without pay.
Krugman: LYNCH-MOB campaign politics marks the Bush grip on US Justice Department....
In a terrific column by famed and outspoken New York Times columnist PAUL KRUGMAN, Krugman documents the "LITTLE LIES" and "big lies" that mark the past decade of politics in America. The "little lies" included:
<< The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out.
...Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was NO "there" there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run — especially compared with its successor — seem mired in scandal. >>
As Mr. Krugman notes, the Bush-Cheney administration was able to resort to the "BIG LIES" once 9-11 (which happened only becuse of their own gross incompetence, if not premeditated Dereliction of Duty) gave them the soap-box they were so desperately seeking to justify an attack on and invasion of Iraq. (Former Bush administration Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill, in his biographical account co-written with Wall St. Journal reporter Ron Suskind, details that "FROM THE VERY FIRST, IT WAS ABOUT IRAQ." That is, TEN DAYS into the first Bush-Cheney term of office, in January 2001, President Bush, his vice president, and his administration WERE DETERMINED TO ATTACK IRAQ!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml
<< And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.
“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.” >>
But don't be distracted: the notion that the Bush adminsitration was not focused on Iraq until 9-11 is only ONE of the BIG LIES to come out of that White House; that Saddam had a WMD program (when UN inspectors on the ground in Iraq, our own CIA, and Saddam's son-in-laws all documented that Saddam's WMD program had been destroyed after the Gulf 1 war); and that Saddam had ties to Al Qaida and was a THREAT TO AMERICA were all "BIG LIES" that President Bush and his administration shamelessly and energetically pushed on the American people.
But all the above is only the prelude to one little sentence buried in Mr. Krugman's latest editorial: that AMERICA IS NOW BACK IN THE LYNCH-MOB ERA, with Mr. Bush's "Justice Department" tasked to energetically and forcefully TARGET DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES and campaigns WITH ABUSIVE and destructive FALSE ACCUSATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS.
<< There’s a lot of talk now about a case in Wisconsin, where the BUSH-APOINTED U.S' ATTORNEY PROSECUTED THE STATE's PURCHASING SUPERVISOR - over charges that a COURT RECENTLY DISMISSED after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence “BEYOND THIN.” But by then THE ACCUSATIONS HAD DONE THEIR JOB: the unjustly accused official had served almost FOUR MONTHS IN PRISON, and THE CASE FIGURED PROMINENTLY in [REPUBLICAN] ATTACK ADS alleging corruption in the Democratic governor’s administration. >>
IF the Democratic Party leadership is willing to allow these ABUSES OF JUSTICE to stand, they will go down in history as the "opposition party" that ROLLED OVER for the NEW AMERICAN LYNCH-MOB, unwarranted and injurious prosecutions of innocent citizens to establish and maintain political supremacy by the entrenched autocracy.
=================================================
PAUL KRUGMAN: Sweet Little Lies
(i.e. "Major Media" echoes Republican LIES, big and small, as Democrat leader plays oblivious.)
by Paul Krugman, New York Times economic columnist
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can’t picture their leaders being dishonest about such things.
But there’s another political lesson I don’t think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie — the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren’t meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong.
For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush’s credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most people found it inconceivable that an American president would, for example, assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies. Mr. Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn’t believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security.
Before 9/11, however, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots.
The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out.
Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was no there there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run — especially compared with its successor — seem mired in scandal.
Even in the post-9/11 environment, little lies never went away. In particular, promoting little lies seems to have been one of the main things U.S. attorneys, as loyal Bushies, were expected to do. For example, David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, appears to have been fired because he wouldn’t bring unwarranted charges of voter fraud.
There’s a lot of talk now about a case in Wisconsin, where the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney prosecuted the state’s purchasing supervisor over charges that a court recently dismissed after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence “beyond thin.” But by then the accusations had done their job: the unjustly accused official had served almost four months in prison, and the case figured prominently in attack ads alleging corruption in the Democratic governor’s administration.
This is the context in which you need to see the wild swings Republicans have been taking at Nancy Pelosi.
First, there were claims that the speaker of the House had demanded a lavish plane for her trips back to California. One Republican leader denounced her “arrogance of extravagance” — then, when it became clear that the whole story was bogus, admitted that he had never had any evidence.
Now there’s Ms. Pelosi’s fact-finding trip to Syria, which Dick Cheney denounced as “bad behavior” — unlike the visit to Syria by three Republican congressmen a few days earlier, or Newt Gingrich’s trip to China when he was speaker.
Ms. Pelosi has responded coolly, dismissing the administration’s reaction as a “tantrum.” But it’s more than that: the hysterical reaction to her trip is part of a political strategy, aided and abetted by news organizations that give little lies their time in the sun.
Fox News, which is a partisan operation in all but name, plays a crucial role in the Little Lie strategy — which is why there is growing pressure on Democratic politicians not to do anything, like participating in Fox-hosted debates, that helps Fox impersonate a legitimate news organization.
But Fox has had plenty of help. Even Time’s Joe Klein, a media insider if anyone is, wrote of the Pelosi trip that “the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal.” For example, CNN ran a segment about Ms. Pelosi’s trip titled “Talking to Terrorists.”
The G.O.P.’s reversion to the Little Lie technique is a symptom of political weakness, of a party reduced to trivial smears because it has nothing else to offer. But the technique will remain effective — and the U.S. political scene will remain ugly — as long as many people in the news media keep playing along.
<< The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out.
...Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was NO "there" there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run — especially compared with its successor — seem mired in scandal. >>
As Mr. Krugman notes, the Bush-Cheney administration was able to resort to the "BIG LIES" once 9-11 (which happened only becuse of their own gross incompetence, if not premeditated Dereliction of Duty) gave them the soap-box they were so desperately seeking to justify an attack on and invasion of Iraq. (Former Bush administration Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill, in his biographical account co-written with Wall St. Journal reporter Ron Suskind, details that "FROM THE VERY FIRST, IT WAS ABOUT IRAQ." That is, TEN DAYS into the first Bush-Cheney term of office, in January 2001, President Bush, his vice president, and his administration WERE DETERMINED TO ATTACK IRAQ!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml
<< And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.
“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.” >>
But don't be distracted: the notion that the Bush adminsitration was not focused on Iraq until 9-11 is only ONE of the BIG LIES to come out of that White House; that Saddam had a WMD program (when UN inspectors on the ground in Iraq, our own CIA, and Saddam's son-in-laws all documented that Saddam's WMD program had been destroyed after the Gulf 1 war); and that Saddam had ties to Al Qaida and was a THREAT TO AMERICA were all "BIG LIES" that President Bush and his administration shamelessly and energetically pushed on the American people.
But all the above is only the prelude to one little sentence buried in Mr. Krugman's latest editorial: that AMERICA IS NOW BACK IN THE LYNCH-MOB ERA, with Mr. Bush's "Justice Department" tasked to energetically and forcefully TARGET DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES and campaigns WITH ABUSIVE and destructive FALSE ACCUSATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS.
<< There’s a lot of talk now about a case in Wisconsin, where the BUSH-APOINTED U.S' ATTORNEY PROSECUTED THE STATE's PURCHASING SUPERVISOR - over charges that a COURT RECENTLY DISMISSED after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence “BEYOND THIN.” But by then THE ACCUSATIONS HAD DONE THEIR JOB: the unjustly accused official had served almost FOUR MONTHS IN PRISON, and THE CASE FIGURED PROMINENTLY in [REPUBLICAN] ATTACK ADS alleging corruption in the Democratic governor’s administration. >>
IF the Democratic Party leadership is willing to allow these ABUSES OF JUSTICE to stand, they will go down in history as the "opposition party" that ROLLED OVER for the NEW AMERICAN LYNCH-MOB, unwarranted and injurious prosecutions of innocent citizens to establish and maintain political supremacy by the entrenched autocracy.
=================================================
PAUL KRUGMAN: Sweet Little Lies
(i.e. "Major Media" echoes Republican LIES, big and small, as Democrat leader plays oblivious.)
by Paul Krugman, New York Times economic columnist
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can’t picture their leaders being dishonest about such things.
But there’s another political lesson I don’t think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie — the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren’t meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong.
For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush’s credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most people found it inconceivable that an American president would, for example, assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies. Mr. Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn’t believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security.
Before 9/11, however, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots.
The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out.
Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was no there there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run — especially compared with its successor — seem mired in scandal.
Even in the post-9/11 environment, little lies never went away. In particular, promoting little lies seems to have been one of the main things U.S. attorneys, as loyal Bushies, were expected to do. For example, David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, appears to have been fired because he wouldn’t bring unwarranted charges of voter fraud.
There’s a lot of talk now about a case in Wisconsin, where the Bush-appointed U.S. attorney prosecuted the state’s purchasing supervisor over charges that a court recently dismissed after just 26 minutes of oral testimony, with one judge calling the evidence “beyond thin.” But by then the accusations had done their job: the unjustly accused official had served almost four months in prison, and the case figured prominently in attack ads alleging corruption in the Democratic governor’s administration.
This is the context in which you need to see the wild swings Republicans have been taking at Nancy Pelosi.
First, there were claims that the speaker of the House had demanded a lavish plane for her trips back to California. One Republican leader denounced her “arrogance of extravagance” — then, when it became clear that the whole story was bogus, admitted that he had never had any evidence.
Now there’s Ms. Pelosi’s fact-finding trip to Syria, which Dick Cheney denounced as “bad behavior” — unlike the visit to Syria by three Republican congressmen a few days earlier, or Newt Gingrich’s trip to China when he was speaker.
Ms. Pelosi has responded coolly, dismissing the administration’s reaction as a “tantrum.” But it’s more than that: the hysterical reaction to her trip is part of a political strategy, aided and abetted by news organizations that give little lies their time in the sun.
Fox News, which is a partisan operation in all but name, plays a crucial role in the Little Lie strategy — which is why there is growing pressure on Democratic politicians not to do anything, like participating in Fox-hosted debates, that helps Fox impersonate a legitimate news organization.
But Fox has had plenty of help. Even Time’s Joe Klein, a media insider if anyone is, wrote of the Pelosi trip that “the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal.” For example, CNN ran a segment about Ms. Pelosi’s trip titled “Talking to Terrorists.”
The G.O.P.’s reversion to the Little Lie technique is a symptom of political weakness, of a party reduced to trivial smears because it has nothing else to offer. But the technique will remain effective — and the U.S. political scene will remain ugly — as long as many people in the news media keep playing along.
Friday, April 6, 2007
An immature and petulent president courts confrontation with Congress....
(sigh) We realize that few Democratic elected leaders... at least few elected representatives in the Democratic leadership - favor or desire an IMPEACHMENT of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. But as this excellent editorial by Joseph A. Palermo points out, if the Congress does not move to impeach this out-of-control and dangerously arrogant president, THEN THE IMPEACHMENT CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION is a DEAD LETTER.
<< So there you have it. Even after losing both houses of Congress, Bush is ruling as if he is some kind of emperor. He seems to be deliberately provoking Congress in the most immature and petulant manner. If the Congress does not move to impeach this President, then the impeachment clause in the Constitution is a dead letter. >>
----------------------------------------
Bush: As Immature and Petulant as Ever
Joseph A. Palermo
04.05.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/bush-as-immature-and-pet_b_45093.html
On Tuesday, April 3, President George W. Bush said: "I think the voters in America want Congress to support our troops who are in harm's way. They don't want politicians in Washington telling our generals how to fight a war." So the best Bush can do nowadays is to blame "politicians in Washington" for criticizing his war of choice in Iraq?
I felt like saying to him: "Dude, your granddaddy was a Senator, your daddy was president, and you're the key 'Washington politician' who sent the troops into 'harm's way' in the first place. What are you thinking?"
Somehow this little Bonaparte can prance around at the top of the food chain in Washington, raising money, cutting deals, politicizing key government departments, but then pretend in his own mind that he is some kind of Washington "outsider."
And then Bush responded to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Syria: "Sending delegations hasn't worked. It's just simply been counterproductive." This bold assertion raises the question: When did Bush ever send a delegation to Syria? And if he has never sent one then how does he know it has been "counterproductive?"
One Wednesday, April 4, Bush said of his "surge" in Iraq: "Just as the strategy is starting to make inroads, a narrow majority in the Congress passed legislation they knew all along I would not accept." This utterance is contemptible on two counts: 1). There is no evidence that the "surge" is making "inroads," (whatever that means); and 2). He seems to truly believe that the role of Congress is only to pass legislation he finds "acceptable."
And to rub salt in the wounds, he just made an end run around the Senate with three odious appointments. First, Bush used the Congressional recess to appoint Sam Fox, one of his big campaign donors, to be the ambassador to Belgium, a plumb assignment. Bush is rewarding Fox for his $50,000 contribution to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," the vicious Bush campaign front that shamelessly pissed all over John Kerry's war record saying he didn't deserve the three Purple Hearts the U.S. Navy had awarded him. During the 2004 campaign, Bush told the bold faced lie that he had no ties to the group even though his Republican buddies from Texas, including Mr. Fox, bankrolled it.
Second, Bush appointed Andrew Biggs, a craven mouthpiece for the financial services industry who has spent a lifetime trying to privatize Social Security out of existence, to be his new deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Despite the GOP's loss of Congress in 2006, Bush insists on appointing foxes to protect chicken coops. Bush has lost not one iota of his startling arrogance.
Third, in yet another slap in the face of what it means to govern, Bush by-passed the Senate again to appoint Susan Dudley to be the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. Ms. Dudley is a free-market ideologue of the highest order and does not believe the government has the right to regulate the private sector short of a "significant market failure." Where does Bush find these people?
So there you have it. Even after losing both houses of Congress, Bush is ruling as if he is some kind of emperor. He seems to be deliberately provoking Congress in the most immature and petulant manner. If the Congress does not move to impeach this President, then the impeachment clause in the Constitution is a dead letter.
<< So there you have it. Even after losing both houses of Congress, Bush is ruling as if he is some kind of emperor. He seems to be deliberately provoking Congress in the most immature and petulant manner. If the Congress does not move to impeach this President, then the impeachment clause in the Constitution is a dead letter. >>
----------------------------------------
Bush: As Immature and Petulant as Ever
Joseph A. Palermo
04.05.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/bush-as-immature-and-pet_b_45093.html
On Tuesday, April 3, President George W. Bush said: "I think the voters in America want Congress to support our troops who are in harm's way. They don't want politicians in Washington telling our generals how to fight a war." So the best Bush can do nowadays is to blame "politicians in Washington" for criticizing his war of choice in Iraq?
I felt like saying to him: "Dude, your granddaddy was a Senator, your daddy was president, and you're the key 'Washington politician' who sent the troops into 'harm's way' in the first place. What are you thinking?"
Somehow this little Bonaparte can prance around at the top of the food chain in Washington, raising money, cutting deals, politicizing key government departments, but then pretend in his own mind that he is some kind of Washington "outsider."
And then Bush responded to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to Syria: "Sending delegations hasn't worked. It's just simply been counterproductive." This bold assertion raises the question: When did Bush ever send a delegation to Syria? And if he has never sent one then how does he know it has been "counterproductive?"
One Wednesday, April 4, Bush said of his "surge" in Iraq: "Just as the strategy is starting to make inroads, a narrow majority in the Congress passed legislation they knew all along I would not accept." This utterance is contemptible on two counts: 1). There is no evidence that the "surge" is making "inroads," (whatever that means); and 2). He seems to truly believe that the role of Congress is only to pass legislation he finds "acceptable."
And to rub salt in the wounds, he just made an end run around the Senate with three odious appointments. First, Bush used the Congressional recess to appoint Sam Fox, one of his big campaign donors, to be the ambassador to Belgium, a plumb assignment. Bush is rewarding Fox for his $50,000 contribution to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," the vicious Bush campaign front that shamelessly pissed all over John Kerry's war record saying he didn't deserve the three Purple Hearts the U.S. Navy had awarded him. During the 2004 campaign, Bush told the bold faced lie that he had no ties to the group even though his Republican buddies from Texas, including Mr. Fox, bankrolled it.
Second, Bush appointed Andrew Biggs, a craven mouthpiece for the financial services industry who has spent a lifetime trying to privatize Social Security out of existence, to be his new deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Despite the GOP's loss of Congress in 2006, Bush insists on appointing foxes to protect chicken coops. Bush has lost not one iota of his startling arrogance.
Third, in yet another slap in the face of what it means to govern, Bush by-passed the Senate again to appoint Susan Dudley to be the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. Ms. Dudley is a free-market ideologue of the highest order and does not believe the government has the right to regulate the private sector short of a "significant market failure." Where does Bush find these people?
So there you have it. Even after losing both houses of Congress, Bush is ruling as if he is some kind of emperor. He seems to be deliberately provoking Congress in the most immature and petulant manner. If the Congress does not move to impeach this President, then the impeachment clause in the Constitution is a dead letter.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Senate Leader Reid and Congress leader (Speaker) Pelosi PROVIDE LEADERSHIP vs Bush-Cheney disasters...
note: According to this CBS news article, citing the administration's own Secretary of Treasury, President Bush HAD THE INVASION OF IRAQ as "TOPIC A" on his agenda ONLY DAYS AFTER HIS INAUGUERATION... in JANUARY of 2001! Eight long months before 9-11-2001.
Eight months in which the president and his national security team did NOTHING to respond to Al Qaida's suicide bomb attack on the US Navy warship Cole in a Yemen harbor; Eight long months in which the President and his team did NOTHING to provide even one roadblock or obstacle to what the CIA and FBI informed the White House was Al Qaida's determination to attack inside the United States.)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml
This president and his administration HAVE BEEN A DISASTER for America ever since his brother "put the fix in" to steal legal votes from legal voters in Florida during the 2000 election and Florida recount debacle. On the 2000 campaign trail then Governor Bush PROMISED American voters and TV viewers that he would embody "a more humble foreign policy" - code for "none of that Clintonesque 'NATION BUILDING' for unloved trash nations like Haiti and Somalia and Sudan." Yet, as the above CBS news story and video point out, Mr. Bush was lying through his teeth as much as is humanly possible; for far from a "more humble foreign policy" HE WAS DETERMINED TO ATTACK IRAQ and replace the Iraqi government FROM DAY ONE of his new administration - which is to say during his campaign as well!
It is in the face of this abject deceit and gross hypocrisy (not to mention murderous incompetence flirting with outright treason - the looting of Iraq's ammunition dumps as American combat soldiers were ordered to do KP duty that Iraqis would have done for pennies; the drowning of New Orleans as the president strummed guitar and ate cake; the monnth-long August 2001 vacation as terrorists finalized thier 9-11 hijack plans) that America so needs an OPPOSITION PARTY to function as a democratic restraint on an out-of-control, imperial, dictatorial presidency.
-------------------------------------
Reid And Pelosi Have Bush Flanked
by Brent Budowsky
April 4, 2007
http://pundits.thehill.com/2007/04/04/reid-and-pelosi-have-bush-flanked/
America, Iraq and the Middle East may have entered a profound and historical turning point.
At this moment, the Reid-Pelosi flanking maneuver is brilliant and powerful. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) moves aggressively to turn around the military escalation, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) moves aggressively to support Middle East peace initiatives.
Lets begin with one key point. When George Bush said yesterday that he decided to surge the troops and escalate in Iraq at the request of American commanders, he was telling a bald-faced lie.
No more niceties. This is so fundamental and important, with so many American lives at stake, that we should be crystal-clear about the truth.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff overwhelmingly advised against the surge while Bush was making the decision. The commanders in Iraq similarly, overwhelmingly, advised against the surge when Bush was making the decision. This is a matter of indisputable public record and any assertion to the contrary is a proven lie.
Period.
After Bush disrespected and overruled the overwhelming advice of the Chiefs and of the Iraq commanders, and did the surge they pleaded with him not to do, he found a new commander. He also, by the way, ignored and disrespected the advice of Republican leaders such as Sen. John Warner (Va.) and countless Senate GOPers.
When the president claims, falsely, that he decided to surge based on the requests of commanders, who in truth pleaded against the surge, there is a delusional and dishonest quality to this, which is extremely dangerous and symptomatic of what has gone wrong.
It is sad to see Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), with his famous walk in Baghdad, look equally delusional and disingenuous.
The state of play today is that Harry Reid moves boldly against the military escalation while Nancy Pelosi moves boldly in favor of the diplomatic option. In essence Bush is flanked, which explains much of his recent anger.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are home hearing the riot act from voters. When close to 70 percent of Americans want major change in the policy, when Bush attacks Democrats in demeaning terms, he is also attacking a large majority of the American people, who agree with the Democrats.
Regarding Syria, I have long argued that a diplomatic move is the potential game-changer. A deal with Syria offers potential benefits to Israel, to America in Iraq, to Lebanon and to broader Middle East progress while also isolating Iran and creating pressure on that country to make concessions.
Jim Baker has been very visible and aggressive arguing in favor of a mega-diplomatic move with Syria. It is no gimme; it would take hard and tough negotiations, with no downside for trying and huge upside for success.
Regarding the Pelosi trip, I’ve done a number of these congressional trips working for the Democratic leadership, in my case during a Republican presidency, in my case: Reagan’s.
I would predict that when all is said and done, it will be seen that the Pelosi trip supported American goals, and Israeli goals, and is most likely in line with the private thinking of the secretaries of State and Defense. (Though this is speculaton based on experience.)
As both Sen. Reid and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), among others, have said: The president is not a king. America tried that before, and we didn’t like it. Congress is a co-equal branch of government; the Senate has a major constitutional role in foreign affairs; and the Speaker of the House is challenging the Syrians to do what the Bush administration, Israel and the entire free world has called on them to do.
I predict that before the rooster crows 60 times, our president and secretary of state will be sounding and acting like the Speaker today.
The Reid-Pelosi pincer maneuver has begun.
The future will soon be now, and it will be where the majority leader and the Speaker are standing today.
Eight months in which the president and his national security team did NOTHING to respond to Al Qaida's suicide bomb attack on the US Navy warship Cole in a Yemen harbor; Eight long months in which the President and his team did NOTHING to provide even one roadblock or obstacle to what the CIA and FBI informed the White House was Al Qaida's determination to attack inside the United States.)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml
This president and his administration HAVE BEEN A DISASTER for America ever since his brother "put the fix in" to steal legal votes from legal voters in Florida during the 2000 election and Florida recount debacle. On the 2000 campaign trail then Governor Bush PROMISED American voters and TV viewers that he would embody "a more humble foreign policy" - code for "none of that Clintonesque 'NATION BUILDING' for unloved trash nations like Haiti and Somalia and Sudan." Yet, as the above CBS news story and video point out, Mr. Bush was lying through his teeth as much as is humanly possible; for far from a "more humble foreign policy" HE WAS DETERMINED TO ATTACK IRAQ and replace the Iraqi government FROM DAY ONE of his new administration - which is to say during his campaign as well!
It is in the face of this abject deceit and gross hypocrisy (not to mention murderous incompetence flirting with outright treason - the looting of Iraq's ammunition dumps as American combat soldiers were ordered to do KP duty that Iraqis would have done for pennies; the drowning of New Orleans as the president strummed guitar and ate cake; the monnth-long August 2001 vacation as terrorists finalized thier 9-11 hijack plans) that America so needs an OPPOSITION PARTY to function as a democratic restraint on an out-of-control, imperial, dictatorial presidency.
-------------------------------------
Reid And Pelosi Have Bush Flanked
by Brent Budowsky
April 4, 2007
http://pundits.thehill.com/2007/04/04/reid-and-pelosi-have-bush-flanked/
America, Iraq and the Middle East may have entered a profound and historical turning point.
At this moment, the Reid-Pelosi flanking maneuver is brilliant and powerful. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) moves aggressively to turn around the military escalation, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) moves aggressively to support Middle East peace initiatives.
Lets begin with one key point. When George Bush said yesterday that he decided to surge the troops and escalate in Iraq at the request of American commanders, he was telling a bald-faced lie.
No more niceties. This is so fundamental and important, with so many American lives at stake, that we should be crystal-clear about the truth.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff overwhelmingly advised against the surge while Bush was making the decision. The commanders in Iraq similarly, overwhelmingly, advised against the surge when Bush was making the decision. This is a matter of indisputable public record and any assertion to the contrary is a proven lie.
Period.
After Bush disrespected and overruled the overwhelming advice of the Chiefs and of the Iraq commanders, and did the surge they pleaded with him not to do, he found a new commander. He also, by the way, ignored and disrespected the advice of Republican leaders such as Sen. John Warner (Va.) and countless Senate GOPers.
When the president claims, falsely, that he decided to surge based on the requests of commanders, who in truth pleaded against the surge, there is a delusional and dishonest quality to this, which is extremely dangerous and symptomatic of what has gone wrong.
It is sad to see Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), with his famous walk in Baghdad, look equally delusional and disingenuous.
The state of play today is that Harry Reid moves boldly against the military escalation while Nancy Pelosi moves boldly in favor of the diplomatic option. In essence Bush is flanked, which explains much of his recent anger.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are home hearing the riot act from voters. When close to 70 percent of Americans want major change in the policy, when Bush attacks Democrats in demeaning terms, he is also attacking a large majority of the American people, who agree with the Democrats.
Regarding Syria, I have long argued that a diplomatic move is the potential game-changer. A deal with Syria offers potential benefits to Israel, to America in Iraq, to Lebanon and to broader Middle East progress while also isolating Iran and creating pressure on that country to make concessions.
Jim Baker has been very visible and aggressive arguing in favor of a mega-diplomatic move with Syria. It is no gimme; it would take hard and tough negotiations, with no downside for trying and huge upside for success.
Regarding the Pelosi trip, I’ve done a number of these congressional trips working for the Democratic leadership, in my case during a Republican presidency, in my case: Reagan’s.
I would predict that when all is said and done, it will be seen that the Pelosi trip supported American goals, and Israeli goals, and is most likely in line with the private thinking of the secretaries of State and Defense. (Though this is speculaton based on experience.)
As both Sen. Reid and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), among others, have said: The president is not a king. America tried that before, and we didn’t like it. Congress is a co-equal branch of government; the Senate has a major constitutional role in foreign affairs; and the Speaker of the House is challenging the Syrians to do what the Bush administration, Israel and the entire free world has called on them to do.
I predict that before the rooster crows 60 times, our president and secretary of state will be sounding and acting like the Speaker today.
The Reid-Pelosi pincer maneuver has begun.
The future will soon be now, and it will be where the majority leader and the Speaker are standing today.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Has anyone noticed? Within HOURS of Speaker Pelosi visiting Syria, Iran RELEASES the BRITISH naval HOSTAGES.
Pelosi brings message of peace to Assad
By Jamal Saidi, Reuters
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-04-pelosi-syria_N.htm?csp=34
photo- Pelosi and President Assad in Damascus on Wednesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Pelosi toured parts of Damascus. Here, she walks through a popular market in the downtown area.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held talks with Syria's leader Wednesday despite White House objections, saying she pressed President Bashar Assad over his country's support for militant groups and passed him a peace message from Israel.
VIDEO: Pelosi meets with Syria's President
The meeting was an attempt to push the Bush administration to open a direct dialogue with Syria, a step that the White House has rejected. Congressional Democrats insist the U.S. attempts to isolate Syria have failed to force the Assad government to change its policies.
Rep. Tom Lantos, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was in Pelosi's delegation, said the meeting "reinforced sharply" the potential benefits of talking to Syria. "This is only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria and we hope to build on this visit," he told reporters.
ON DEADLINE: How Syrian media are covering the visit
On Tuesday, President Bush denounced Pelosi's visit to Syria, saying it sends mixed signals to Assad's government. "Sending delegations doesn't work. It's simply been counterproductive," Bush said.
Washington says Syria is fueling Iraq's violence by allowing Sunni insurgents to operate from its territory. It also accuses it of backing terrorism because of its support for the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups and of destabilizing the Lebanese government.
"We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Pelosi told reporters after her talks with Assad.
Pelosi said she and her delegation "expressed our concern about Syria's connections to Hezbollah and Hamas" and discussed the issue of militant fights slipping across the Syrian border into Iraq.
"These are important issues not only in the fight against terrorism but important priorities for us for peace in the Middle East," she said.
She said she brought a message to Assad from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel was ready for peace talks with Syria. Assad gave assurances that "he's ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel," Pelosi said. She later left Syria, heading for Saudi Arabia, the next leg of a Mideast tour.
AUDIO: Pelosi addresses 'road to peace' through Damascus
At a meeting Sunday, Olmert asked Pelosi to take a message to Assad that Israel would be interested in peace if Syria stops its support for terrorism. Assad has repeatedly said in the past year that Damascus is willing to negotiate with Israel, insisting the talks must lead to the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.
In the talks with Assad, the delegation raised the issue of Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas and conveyed "the importance of Syria's role with Hamas in promoting peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis," Pelosi said.
Syria hosts the exiled leadership of Hamas, as well as other Palestinian radical groups, and is a major patron of Hezbollah. But while the United States regards Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, Syria insists that Hamas is a legitimate resistance movement working for Palestinian freedom and Hezbollah is a regular Lebanese political party.
Pelosi's visit to Syria was the latest challenge to the White House by congressional Democrats, who are taking a more assertive role in influencing policy in the Middle East and the Iraq war.
Last year, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended Washington open talks with Iran and Syria to try to resolve the war in Iraq and other regional crises. Bush rejected the recommendations, insisting dialogue would not bring results. But in February, the U.S. joined a gathering of regional diplomats in Baghdad that included Iran and Syria for talks on Iraq.
"These people in the United States who are opposing dialogue I tell them one thing: Dialogue is ... the only method to close the gap existing between two countries," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told reporters after the Assad-Pelosi meeting.
"Everyone knows there are different point of view between Syria and the United States," he said. "We are happy that Mrs. Pelosi and her delegation had the courage and determination to bridge these differences."
Bush said Pelosi's trip signals that the Assad government is part of the international mainstream when it is not. "A lot of people have gone to see President Assad ... and yet we haven't seen action. He hasn't responded," Bush told reporters soon after Pelosi arrived in Damascus on Tuesday.
Relations between the U.S. and Syria reached a low point in early 2005 when Washington withdrew its ambassador to Damascus to protest the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese blamed Syria — which had troops in Lebanon at the time — for the assassination. Damascus denied involvement.
Washington has since succeeded in largely isolating Damascus, with its European and Arab allies shunning Assad. The last high-ranking U.S. official to visit Syria was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in January 2005.
The isolation, however, has begun to crumble in recent months, with visits by U.S. lawmakers and some European officials.
By Jamal Saidi, Reuters
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-04-pelosi-syria_N.htm?csp=34
photo- Pelosi and President Assad in Damascus on Wednesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Pelosi toured parts of Damascus. Here, she walks through a popular market in the downtown area.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held talks with Syria's leader Wednesday despite White House objections, saying she pressed President Bashar Assad over his country's support for militant groups and passed him a peace message from Israel.
VIDEO: Pelosi meets with Syria's President
The meeting was an attempt to push the Bush administration to open a direct dialogue with Syria, a step that the White House has rejected. Congressional Democrats insist the U.S. attempts to isolate Syria have failed to force the Assad government to change its policies.
Rep. Tom Lantos, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was in Pelosi's delegation, said the meeting "reinforced sharply" the potential benefits of talking to Syria. "This is only the beginning of our constructive dialogue with Syria and we hope to build on this visit," he told reporters.
ON DEADLINE: How Syrian media are covering the visit
On Tuesday, President Bush denounced Pelosi's visit to Syria, saying it sends mixed signals to Assad's government. "Sending delegations doesn't work. It's simply been counterproductive," Bush said.
Washington says Syria is fueling Iraq's violence by allowing Sunni insurgents to operate from its territory. It also accuses it of backing terrorism because of its support for the Hezbollah and Hamas militant groups and of destabilizing the Lebanese government.
"We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Pelosi told reporters after her talks with Assad.
Pelosi said she and her delegation "expressed our concern about Syria's connections to Hezbollah and Hamas" and discussed the issue of militant fights slipping across the Syrian border into Iraq.
"These are important issues not only in the fight against terrorism but important priorities for us for peace in the Middle East," she said.
She said she brought a message to Assad from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel was ready for peace talks with Syria. Assad gave assurances that "he's ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel," Pelosi said. She later left Syria, heading for Saudi Arabia, the next leg of a Mideast tour.
AUDIO: Pelosi addresses 'road to peace' through Damascus
At a meeting Sunday, Olmert asked Pelosi to take a message to Assad that Israel would be interested in peace if Syria stops its support for terrorism. Assad has repeatedly said in the past year that Damascus is willing to negotiate with Israel, insisting the talks must lead to the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.
In the talks with Assad, the delegation raised the issue of Israeli soldiers kidnapped by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas and conveyed "the importance of Syria's role with Hamas in promoting peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis," Pelosi said.
Syria hosts the exiled leadership of Hamas, as well as other Palestinian radical groups, and is a major patron of Hezbollah. But while the United States regards Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, Syria insists that Hamas is a legitimate resistance movement working for Palestinian freedom and Hezbollah is a regular Lebanese political party.
Pelosi's visit to Syria was the latest challenge to the White House by congressional Democrats, who are taking a more assertive role in influencing policy in the Middle East and the Iraq war.
Last year, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended Washington open talks with Iran and Syria to try to resolve the war in Iraq and other regional crises. Bush rejected the recommendations, insisting dialogue would not bring results. But in February, the U.S. joined a gathering of regional diplomats in Baghdad that included Iran and Syria for talks on Iraq.
"These people in the United States who are opposing dialogue I tell them one thing: Dialogue is ... the only method to close the gap existing between two countries," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told reporters after the Assad-Pelosi meeting.
"Everyone knows there are different point of view between Syria and the United States," he said. "We are happy that Mrs. Pelosi and her delegation had the courage and determination to bridge these differences."
Bush said Pelosi's trip signals that the Assad government is part of the international mainstream when it is not. "A lot of people have gone to see President Assad ... and yet we haven't seen action. He hasn't responded," Bush told reporters soon after Pelosi arrived in Damascus on Tuesday.
Relations between the U.S. and Syria reached a low point in early 2005 when Washington withdrew its ambassador to Damascus to protest the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese blamed Syria — which had troops in Lebanon at the time — for the assassination. Damascus denied involvement.
Washington has since succeeded in largely isolating Damascus, with its European and Arab allies shunning Assad. The last high-ranking U.S. official to visit Syria was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in January 2005.
The isolation, however, has begun to crumble in recent months, with visits by U.S. lawmakers and some European officials.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Democrats reverting to form: AFRAID of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush...
Are Democrats POWERLESS? Despite reams of evidence that KARL ROVE is at the center of every scandal, and that the PURGING of US Senators was a premeditated effort to DERAIL the ON-GOING PROSECUTIONS of REPUBLICAN officials, Senator Leahy AVOIDS demanding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resign for lying to Congress, and the purge-replacement prosecutors put in by the Gonzales-Rove purge of US Attorneys ARE STILL IN PLACE...
This may not be the best editorial to post for documenting the Democrat's tendency... to WILT like flowers in the desert sun 3 weeks after the most recent rains, but across the nation Americans are disgusted with the crass, craven politics behind PURGE-gate... the firing of competent and effective US Attorneys, at least 7 of them in the middle of prosecuting Republican officials - and STILL the Democratic pooh-bahs of the Senate and House REFUSE to link the CRIMES and CONVICTIONS of the past 6 years to the President or Vice President!
The Democrats are so cowering and craven (at the very least, subservient to the "conventional wisdom" of the 'major media') that they ALLOW the perception that President Bush did not know Ken Lay, and that he did not meet with Jack Abramoff in the White House - despite the FELONY CONVICTIONS of both Mr. Lay and Mr. Abramoff, and VOLUMES of evidence that both men were welcome friends of Mr. Bush before their scandals lead to indictment and convictions.
As a columnist has written this past week, the Democrats did not so much win the House and Senate in 2006, as the tide of scandals and convictions crashing over Republicans lost it for Republican Party. And those scandal convictions were often due to NO EFFORT by the cowering Democrats, but by the LAST REMAINING VESTIGES of an independent branch of the Justice Department - a remaining vestige of government independence the cowering Democrats seem perfectly willing to allow the Bush administration to corrupt!
The Republicans have built their entire political empire on the politics of ATTACK and accusation, and especially personal attacks on individuals and candidates (Al Gore as "Sore Loserman") - but the Democrats, having compiled lists of Republican ciminality, REFUSE TO DEMAND JUSTICE.
The Libby trial proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that not only did the Vice President's Chief of Staff OBSTRUCT JUSTICE to put the "CIA outing scandal" past the 2004 presidential election.... but so too did the entire Bush-Cheney White House. And everyone knows, from long before the Libby trial, that the "outing" of an undercover CIA "covert operations officer" was a typical Karl Rove smear-job against that CIA agent's husband, who was an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's changing and fabricated justifications (lies) for the invasion of Iraq. (In addition to the published comments of the president's own REPUBLICAN Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, who upon being dismissed by the president from the Dept. of Treasury informed Americans that the first National Security Conference held by the president and vice president discussed - how to justify and execute a "regime change" invasion of Iraq.)
The Republican (Bush-Cheney) administration "won" re-election in 2004 ONLY by OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE... and the Democrats PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE!
So now, in April of 2007, the Democrats are comfortably falling into the Republican and media "business as usual" conventional wisdom rut: the ONLY thing that is important is election 2008, and the ONLY thing that matters in 2008 is MONEY - fundraising!
Just WHAT THE HELL IS HILLARY CLINTON telling her big corporate donors when they write her a $10,000 or larger check?
Are we supposed to be impressed by Hillary's approximately $30 million fundraising prowess... when Exxon-Mobile, alone, made THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS in PROFIT last year, and could underwrite a $100 million dollar candidate's campaign with ease, were it to guarantee them a sympathetic White House for another 4 years?
This is the American media's dog-and-pony show: "LOOK HOW MUCH THE CANDIDATES RAISED!" knowing that the majority of that money will be used to pay for expensive air-time ads that enrich that very corporate media.
Just where the hell does BARACK OBAMA stand on wounded veterans being SHAFTED by the Department of Defense and Bush administration?
Where the hell do both Hillary and Obama stand on OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE from the very core of the Bush-Cheney White House before the 2004 election?
THE DEMOCRAT FRONT-RUNNERS are selling us the same bill of goods John Kerry sold Democrats in the long summer of 2004! "Just give me the nomination, then I'll fight for you."
But Kerry REFUSED to use Bush's FLIP-FLOPPING on "We'll get Osama bin Laden dead or alive"/"I'm really not that concerned with him anymore." Kerry REFUSED to use the open CIA-outing scandal, and brewing OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE scandal, against the Bush White House. Kerry REFUSED to use the Lies-to-War as an issue in campaign 2004, and he REFUSED to make an issue out of voting machines that would not pass any state's routine inspection of computerized gambling slot-machines, to prevent a few lines of computer code being inserted to 'skim' a portion of the machine's take - a possibility that becomes a certainty without stringent code inspections!
And today, the Democratic front-runners and Democratic leadership REFUSE TO USE opposition research to DEFINE President Bush and Vice President Cheney as being the REAL core of all that deceit and corruption coming from the White House and US government!
The name "Karl Rove" is as VERBOTTEN from Obama, Hillary, and John Edward's lips, as it is from the "mainstream media" reporters!
In short, we are over 15 months away from election 2008, and ALREADY the damn Democrats are SNATCHING DEFEAT from the jaws of victory, as Gore and Kerry did.
Already the Democratic "front-runners" are AFRAID to mention KARL ROVE, AFRAID to mention OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, AFRAID to mention "outing an undercover CIA operation is a crime"; AFRAID to demand the resignation of Alberto Gonzales and his FIXED prosecutors (installed without senate confirmation over firings of previous US Attorneys); AFRAID to mention computerized voting machines that are the laughingstock of world elections.
THE DEMOCRATIC FRONT-RUNNERS, and Democratic leaders, are now DEFINED by what they are AFRAID to talk about.
HOW the United States of America, the "land of the free" and "home of the brave" came to be represented by politicians who are MARKED BY FEAR, AFRAID to talk about what is most important for America, is simply an amazing example of the power of big-money corruption.
===================================================
And the Bushevik Band Played On
BuzzFlash.com editorial
Tue, 04/03/2007
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/128
In case you didn’t notice, Alberto Gonzales is still Attorney General (although that may change soon, with the even more unctuous and repellent Orrin Hatch possibly replacing him) – and those political hacks who were "temporarily" appointed as partisan U.S. Prosecutors are going to do their dirty work unimpeded.
It’s like a nightmare without end.
No matter how much the evidence piles up, the Bushevik crime family still runs America – and George and Dick are left to litter the airwaves with their threats of the Democrats abandoning our troops "in harm’s way." But, of course, we all know our troops are needlessly "in harm’s way" because George and Dick put them there with insufficient resources – and a game plan that was dead on arrival -- for oh so many years.
Nothing could symbolize the excess of a morally decaying empire that cannot stop its suicidal journey than the loathsome White House Correspondents Dinner this year. It was the same group of incestuous politicians, lobbyists and D.C. mainstream media transcriptionists who yucked it up when Bush looked for non-existent WMDs under a dinner table, as our GIs were being blown to bits in Iraq.
It was the same group of decadent elitists who gave Stephen Colbert the cold shoulder last year when he dared to pierce the bubble of sycophantic excess with his finely barbed truth.
So this past week, the White House Correspondents Dinner attendees laughed uproariously when some mediocre comedians invited Karl Rove up to do a corrupt white man’s rap. (As usual, Jon Stewart has the definitive take on Rove’s tasteless jailbird performance: "Let’s say Jeffrey Dahmer came to your Bar Mitzvah and turned out to be a great dancer. He’s still Jeffrey Dahmer.")
The descent of our executive branch and media lackeys into a pit of mad excess has even brought right wing critics out of the closet, such as Vic Gold, a conservative hit man who goes back to Barry Goldwater. In a scathing forthcoming book on Bush and Cheney, Gold notes:
"For all the Rove-built facade of his being a 'strong' chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times," Gold writes. "Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots."
Gold is even more withering in his observations of Cheney. "A vice president in control is bad enough. Worse yet is a vice president out of control."
For Gold, Cheney brings to mind the adage of Swiss writer Madame de Stael, who wrote, "Men do not change, they unmask themselves." Cheney has a deep streak of paranoia and megalomania, Gold suggests -- but he says he did not see it at first.
In the last few months, we have finally seen on public record the corruption, failure, mendacity and irresponsibility of the Bush Administration. And the faucet is just getting turned on.
But like an orchestra that has the stage surrounded with armed guards, this band refuses to stop playing.
The only people left who are dancing to their tune are the masters of industry and a sycophantic D.C. press corps, who receive their salaries from those same corporations.
And the Bushevik band ceaselessly plays on. No one can seem to end its hymn to death, greed, empire, and utter incompetence.
We are forced to be witnesses to the tittering of the ruling class -- Busheviks, D.C. media, and corporate barons – as the Titanic sinks of its own hubris and unrestrained egotism, while Karl Rove, a man who should be serving consecutive life sentences, performs a shameful pudgy white man’s rap.
This may not be the best editorial to post for documenting the Democrat's tendency... to WILT like flowers in the desert sun 3 weeks after the most recent rains, but across the nation Americans are disgusted with the crass, craven politics behind PURGE-gate... the firing of competent and effective US Attorneys, at least 7 of them in the middle of prosecuting Republican officials - and STILL the Democratic pooh-bahs of the Senate and House REFUSE to link the CRIMES and CONVICTIONS of the past 6 years to the President or Vice President!
The Democrats are so cowering and craven (at the very least, subservient to the "conventional wisdom" of the 'major media') that they ALLOW the perception that President Bush did not know Ken Lay, and that he did not meet with Jack Abramoff in the White House - despite the FELONY CONVICTIONS of both Mr. Lay and Mr. Abramoff, and VOLUMES of evidence that both men were welcome friends of Mr. Bush before their scandals lead to indictment and convictions.
As a columnist has written this past week, the Democrats did not so much win the House and Senate in 2006, as the tide of scandals and convictions crashing over Republicans lost it for Republican Party. And those scandal convictions were often due to NO EFFORT by the cowering Democrats, but by the LAST REMAINING VESTIGES of an independent branch of the Justice Department - a remaining vestige of government independence the cowering Democrats seem perfectly willing to allow the Bush administration to corrupt!
The Republicans have built their entire political empire on the politics of ATTACK and accusation, and especially personal attacks on individuals and candidates (Al Gore as "Sore Loserman") - but the Democrats, having compiled lists of Republican ciminality, REFUSE TO DEMAND JUSTICE.
The Libby trial proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that not only did the Vice President's Chief of Staff OBSTRUCT JUSTICE to put the "CIA outing scandal" past the 2004 presidential election.... but so too did the entire Bush-Cheney White House. And everyone knows, from long before the Libby trial, that the "outing" of an undercover CIA "covert operations officer" was a typical Karl Rove smear-job against that CIA agent's husband, who was an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's changing and fabricated justifications (lies) for the invasion of Iraq. (In addition to the published comments of the president's own REPUBLICAN Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, who upon being dismissed by the president from the Dept. of Treasury informed Americans that the first National Security Conference held by the president and vice president discussed - how to justify and execute a "regime change" invasion of Iraq.)
The Republican (Bush-Cheney) administration "won" re-election in 2004 ONLY by OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE... and the Democrats PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE!
So now, in April of 2007, the Democrats are comfortably falling into the Republican and media "business as usual" conventional wisdom rut: the ONLY thing that is important is election 2008, and the ONLY thing that matters in 2008 is MONEY - fundraising!
Just WHAT THE HELL IS HILLARY CLINTON telling her big corporate donors when they write her a $10,000 or larger check?
Are we supposed to be impressed by Hillary's approximately $30 million fundraising prowess... when Exxon-Mobile, alone, made THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS in PROFIT last year, and could underwrite a $100 million dollar candidate's campaign with ease, were it to guarantee them a sympathetic White House for another 4 years?
This is the American media's dog-and-pony show: "LOOK HOW MUCH THE CANDIDATES RAISED!" knowing that the majority of that money will be used to pay for expensive air-time ads that enrich that very corporate media.
Just where the hell does BARACK OBAMA stand on wounded veterans being SHAFTED by the Department of Defense and Bush administration?
Where the hell do both Hillary and Obama stand on OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE from the very core of the Bush-Cheney White House before the 2004 election?
THE DEMOCRAT FRONT-RUNNERS are selling us the same bill of goods John Kerry sold Democrats in the long summer of 2004! "Just give me the nomination, then I'll fight for you."
But Kerry REFUSED to use Bush's FLIP-FLOPPING on "We'll get Osama bin Laden dead or alive"/"I'm really not that concerned with him anymore." Kerry REFUSED to use the open CIA-outing scandal, and brewing OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE scandal, against the Bush White House. Kerry REFUSED to use the Lies-to-War as an issue in campaign 2004, and he REFUSED to make an issue out of voting machines that would not pass any state's routine inspection of computerized gambling slot-machines, to prevent a few lines of computer code being inserted to 'skim' a portion of the machine's take - a possibility that becomes a certainty without stringent code inspections!
And today, the Democratic front-runners and Democratic leadership REFUSE TO USE opposition research to DEFINE President Bush and Vice President Cheney as being the REAL core of all that deceit and corruption coming from the White House and US government!
The name "Karl Rove" is as VERBOTTEN from Obama, Hillary, and John Edward's lips, as it is from the "mainstream media" reporters!
In short, we are over 15 months away from election 2008, and ALREADY the damn Democrats are SNATCHING DEFEAT from the jaws of victory, as Gore and Kerry did.
Already the Democratic "front-runners" are AFRAID to mention KARL ROVE, AFRAID to mention OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, AFRAID to mention "outing an undercover CIA operation is a crime"; AFRAID to demand the resignation of Alberto Gonzales and his FIXED prosecutors (installed without senate confirmation over firings of previous US Attorneys); AFRAID to mention computerized voting machines that are the laughingstock of world elections.
THE DEMOCRATIC FRONT-RUNNERS, and Democratic leaders, are now DEFINED by what they are AFRAID to talk about.
HOW the United States of America, the "land of the free" and "home of the brave" came to be represented by politicians who are MARKED BY FEAR, AFRAID to talk about what is most important for America, is simply an amazing example of the power of big-money corruption.
===================================================
And the Bushevik Band Played On
BuzzFlash.com editorial
Tue, 04/03/2007
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/128
In case you didn’t notice, Alberto Gonzales is still Attorney General (although that may change soon, with the even more unctuous and repellent Orrin Hatch possibly replacing him) – and those political hacks who were "temporarily" appointed as partisan U.S. Prosecutors are going to do their dirty work unimpeded.
It’s like a nightmare without end.
No matter how much the evidence piles up, the Bushevik crime family still runs America – and George and Dick are left to litter the airwaves with their threats of the Democrats abandoning our troops "in harm’s way." But, of course, we all know our troops are needlessly "in harm’s way" because George and Dick put them there with insufficient resources – and a game plan that was dead on arrival -- for oh so many years.
Nothing could symbolize the excess of a morally decaying empire that cannot stop its suicidal journey than the loathsome White House Correspondents Dinner this year. It was the same group of incestuous politicians, lobbyists and D.C. mainstream media transcriptionists who yucked it up when Bush looked for non-existent WMDs under a dinner table, as our GIs were being blown to bits in Iraq.
It was the same group of decadent elitists who gave Stephen Colbert the cold shoulder last year when he dared to pierce the bubble of sycophantic excess with his finely barbed truth.
So this past week, the White House Correspondents Dinner attendees laughed uproariously when some mediocre comedians invited Karl Rove up to do a corrupt white man’s rap. (As usual, Jon Stewart has the definitive take on Rove’s tasteless jailbird performance: "Let’s say Jeffrey Dahmer came to your Bar Mitzvah and turned out to be a great dancer. He’s still Jeffrey Dahmer.")
The descent of our executive branch and media lackeys into a pit of mad excess has even brought right wing critics out of the closet, such as Vic Gold, a conservative hit man who goes back to Barry Goldwater. In a scathing forthcoming book on Bush and Cheney, Gold notes:
"For all the Rove-built facade of his being a 'strong' chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times," Gold writes. "Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots."
Gold is even more withering in his observations of Cheney. "A vice president in control is bad enough. Worse yet is a vice president out of control."
For Gold, Cheney brings to mind the adage of Swiss writer Madame de Stael, who wrote, "Men do not change, they unmask themselves." Cheney has a deep streak of paranoia and megalomania, Gold suggests -- but he says he did not see it at first.
In the last few months, we have finally seen on public record the corruption, failure, mendacity and irresponsibility of the Bush Administration. And the faucet is just getting turned on.
But like an orchestra that has the stage surrounded with armed guards, this band refuses to stop playing.
The only people left who are dancing to their tune are the masters of industry and a sycophantic D.C. press corps, who receive their salaries from those same corporations.
And the Bushevik band ceaselessly plays on. No one can seem to end its hymn to death, greed, empire, and utter incompetence.
We are forced to be witnesses to the tittering of the ruling class -- Busheviks, D.C. media, and corporate barons – as the Titanic sinks of its own hubris and unrestrained egotism, while Karl Rove, a man who should be serving consecutive life sentences, performs a shameful pudgy white man’s rap.
Monday, April 2, 2007
The restoration of justice and equality in the American justice system will require a GRAND JURY investigation, or impeachment, of Alberto Gonzales...
The Democrats may not have asked for the duty to investigate, under oath if need be, every aspect of the Bush administration, and especially the corruption of justice to further political ends (namely to harass and intimidate legal Democratic-leaning voters, and to obstruct the on-going prosecutions of senior Republican officials) by the Alberto Gonzales US Justice Department "purge" of almost four dozen competent, qualified, and effective US Attorneys.
But a huge part of the problem America now finds itself in - a disastrous war built on lies and untruths; the trashing of the GENEVA CONVENTIONS along with dozens of other treaties great (nuclear non-proliferation) and small (Kyoto accords); the bastardization of the US voting process using computer vote-counting machines that would not pass ANY state's "anti-skimming" slot-machine soft-ware code inspections - is because the Democratic Senate did not stand up and provide the leadership that was necessary to derail some of the Bush administration's more criminal, authortarian tendencies. (e.g. spying on American citizens without warrants after President Bush, in video and audio tapes, asserted that he was well aware that government surveillance demanded full judicially signed warrants, and that his government was following those laws.)
<< When Gonzo [US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales] appears before the committee he will lie and parse and dissemble and prevaricate and "not recall" ad nauseum. IT's GOING TO TAKE A GRAND JURY TO EXTRACT ANY TRUTH OUT OF HIM, (unless the rats start jumping ship or trip up in their conspiracy of lies).
Those eight U.S. Attorneys were clearly fired for crass political reasons; we don't need Matlock to prove the case. These firings are more serious than garden variety "politics," THEY WERE CARRIED OUT TO BLOCK THE PROSECUTION OF REPUBLICAN CROOKS, or to plant cronies to "investigate" Democrats, (as was the case against New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez). Despite what Senator Jon Kyl and other Bush apologists say, the Senate is under no obligation to abide by "reasonable doubt" evidence required of criminal courts in its censuring of Gonzales.
You might recall that Gonzo is the same guy who argues that the Geneva Conventions are "quaint," and that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right of habeas corpus. What would you expect from a former Enron lawyer? >>
<< And if the Congress can't stomach impeaching Gonzales, maybe a grand jury or two could return some indictments on his ass! OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE? Sure! MAKING FALSE STATEMENTS? You Betcha! PERJURY? Yep! CONSPIRACY? Probably. SUBORNING PERJURY? I Wouldn't Doubt It. CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS? Absolutely! >>
=======================================
Gonzo Justice
Joseph A. Palermo
04.02.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/gonzo-justice_b_44764.html
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be spending the next fortnight rehearsing in front of a mock panel of questioners for his much-anticipated appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17th. He wants his lies about turning over the Department of Justice to Karl Rove's political hatchet shop to be more satisfying than his extemporaneous remarks of March 13th.
GOP Senators like Arlen Specter and Jeff Sessions prattle as if they are truly concerned with the Republican top cop's false statements, but we know in the end they'll just close ranks behind their fellow partisan as they have done with all of the other abuses of power emanating from this rogue administration, (I won't deign to list them).
When the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress they were happy to rewrite the laws that George W. Bush had broken, such as their passage of the odious "Military Commissions Act," to clear their standard bearer ex post facto of wrongdoing. For Bush, it was like getting charged with a D.U.I. and then having his friends in the legislature change the acceptable blood alcohol level to make it go away.
But alas, the Senate will get nothing out of Gonzo; he'll just say: "I don't recall," or "I have no recollection," or "to the best of my recollection," and so on. His chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who looks like the lovechild of Karl Rove and George Castanza, told the Judiciary Committee 122 times that he could "not remember." Gonzo's memory is sure to be as selective as Sampson's. It's an old Richard Nixon trick. Nixon was caught on tape giving pointers to an aide about how to stymie a grand jury, "just say you don't remember," he advised.
Gonzales reminds me of Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitchell, the last A.G. to run the D.o.J. as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Mitchell holds the dishonor of being the only Attorney General in U.S. history to go to jail; he served nineteen months. With hope, Gonzo will someday join him in the history books for a similar distinction.
When Gonzo appears before the committee he will lie and parse and dissemble and prevaricate and "not recall" ad nauseum. It's going to take a grand jury to extract any truth out of him, (unless the rats start jumping ship or trip up in their conspiracy of lies).
Those eight U.S. Attorneys were clearly fired for crass political reasons; we don't need Matlock to prove the case. These firings are more serious than garden variety "politics," they were carried out to block the prosecution of Republican crooks, or to plant cronies to "investigate" Democrats, (as was the case against New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez). Despite what Senator Jon Kyl and other Bush apologists say, the Senate is under no obligation to abide by "reasonable doubt" evidence required of criminal courts in its censuring of Gonzales.
You might recall that Gonzo is the same guy who argues that the Geneva Conventions are "quaint," and that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right of habeas corpus. What would you expect from a former Enron lawyer?
Even if Gonzo somehow wriggles out of this tight spot his credibility has been shot to hell. His lying about his role in Rove's political purge of the eight U.S. Attorneys has discredited him. The Senate must determine whether Gonzo in his wounded state can still head the nation's most important body for the administration of justice. The answer is no. Gonzo must go. Either he voluntarily steps down, or he must be impeached.
And if the Congress can't stomach impeaching Gonzales, maybe a grand jury or two could return some indictments on his ass! Obstruction of Justice? Sure! Making False Statements? You Betcha! Perjury? Yep! Conspiracy? Probably. Suborning Perjury? I Wouldn't Doubt It. Contempt of Congress? Absolutely!
But a huge part of the problem America now finds itself in - a disastrous war built on lies and untruths; the trashing of the GENEVA CONVENTIONS along with dozens of other treaties great (nuclear non-proliferation) and small (Kyoto accords); the bastardization of the US voting process using computer vote-counting machines that would not pass ANY state's "anti-skimming" slot-machine soft-ware code inspections - is because the Democratic Senate did not stand up and provide the leadership that was necessary to derail some of the Bush administration's more criminal, authortarian tendencies. (e.g. spying on American citizens without warrants after President Bush, in video and audio tapes, asserted that he was well aware that government surveillance demanded full judicially signed warrants, and that his government was following those laws.)
<< When Gonzo [US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales] appears before the committee he will lie and parse and dissemble and prevaricate and "not recall" ad nauseum. IT's GOING TO TAKE A GRAND JURY TO EXTRACT ANY TRUTH OUT OF HIM, (unless the rats start jumping ship or trip up in their conspiracy of lies).
Those eight U.S. Attorneys were clearly fired for crass political reasons; we don't need Matlock to prove the case. These firings are more serious than garden variety "politics," THEY WERE CARRIED OUT TO BLOCK THE PROSECUTION OF REPUBLICAN CROOKS, or to plant cronies to "investigate" Democrats, (as was the case against New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez). Despite what Senator Jon Kyl and other Bush apologists say, the Senate is under no obligation to abide by "reasonable doubt" evidence required of criminal courts in its censuring of Gonzales.
You might recall that Gonzo is the same guy who argues that the Geneva Conventions are "quaint," and that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right of habeas corpus. What would you expect from a former Enron lawyer? >>
<< And if the Congress can't stomach impeaching Gonzales, maybe a grand jury or two could return some indictments on his ass! OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE? Sure! MAKING FALSE STATEMENTS? You Betcha! PERJURY? Yep! CONSPIRACY? Probably. SUBORNING PERJURY? I Wouldn't Doubt It. CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS? Absolutely! >>
=======================================
Gonzo Justice
Joseph A. Palermo
04.02.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/gonzo-justice_b_44764.html
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be spending the next fortnight rehearsing in front of a mock panel of questioners for his much-anticipated appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17th. He wants his lies about turning over the Department of Justice to Karl Rove's political hatchet shop to be more satisfying than his extemporaneous remarks of March 13th.
GOP Senators like Arlen Specter and Jeff Sessions prattle as if they are truly concerned with the Republican top cop's false statements, but we know in the end they'll just close ranks behind their fellow partisan as they have done with all of the other abuses of power emanating from this rogue administration, (I won't deign to list them).
When the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress they were happy to rewrite the laws that George W. Bush had broken, such as their passage of the odious "Military Commissions Act," to clear their standard bearer ex post facto of wrongdoing. For Bush, it was like getting charged with a D.U.I. and then having his friends in the legislature change the acceptable blood alcohol level to make it go away.
But alas, the Senate will get nothing out of Gonzo; he'll just say: "I don't recall," or "I have no recollection," or "to the best of my recollection," and so on. His chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who looks like the lovechild of Karl Rove and George Castanza, told the Judiciary Committee 122 times that he could "not remember." Gonzo's memory is sure to be as selective as Sampson's. It's an old Richard Nixon trick. Nixon was caught on tape giving pointers to an aide about how to stymie a grand jury, "just say you don't remember," he advised.
Gonzales reminds me of Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitchell, the last A.G. to run the D.o.J. as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Mitchell holds the dishonor of being the only Attorney General in U.S. history to go to jail; he served nineteen months. With hope, Gonzo will someday join him in the history books for a similar distinction.
When Gonzo appears before the committee he will lie and parse and dissemble and prevaricate and "not recall" ad nauseum. It's going to take a grand jury to extract any truth out of him, (unless the rats start jumping ship or trip up in their conspiracy of lies).
Those eight U.S. Attorneys were clearly fired for crass political reasons; we don't need Matlock to prove the case. These firings are more serious than garden variety "politics," they were carried out to block the prosecution of Republican crooks, or to plant cronies to "investigate" Democrats, (as was the case against New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez). Despite what Senator Jon Kyl and other Bush apologists say, the Senate is under no obligation to abide by "reasonable doubt" evidence required of criminal courts in its censuring of Gonzales.
You might recall that Gonzo is the same guy who argues that the Geneva Conventions are "quaint," and that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right of habeas corpus. What would you expect from a former Enron lawyer?
Even if Gonzo somehow wriggles out of this tight spot his credibility has been shot to hell. His lying about his role in Rove's political purge of the eight U.S. Attorneys has discredited him. The Senate must determine whether Gonzo in his wounded state can still head the nation's most important body for the administration of justice. The answer is no. Gonzo must go. Either he voluntarily steps down, or he must be impeached.
And if the Congress can't stomach impeaching Gonzales, maybe a grand jury or two could return some indictments on his ass! Obstruction of Justice? Sure! Making False Statements? You Betcha! Perjury? Yep! Conspiracy? Probably. Suborning Perjury? I Wouldn't Doubt It. Contempt of Congress? Absolutely!
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Update: "Purge-gate potentially about OBSTRUCTION of JUSTICE," Bush-Cheney White House sought to derail prosecutions of Repuiblican politicians
<< The senators questioning Mr. Sampson pointed to a troubling pattern: MANY of the FIRED PROSECUTORS WERE INVESTIGATING HIGH-RANKING REPUBLICANS. He was asked if he was aware that the fired United States attorney in Nevada was investigating a Republican governor, that the fired prosecutor in Arkansas was investigating the Republican governor of Missouri, or that the prosecutor in Arizona was investigating two Republican members of Congress. >>
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/opinion/30fri1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/opinion/30fri1.html
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