The "I" word (long)
Great thread...but its fact check time for some....
Have any of y'all seen this? From CapitolHillBlue.com, the oldest internet news service....
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Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."
"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
I've [Doug Thompson] talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper."
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the ???? that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the "Constitution is an outdated document."
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Wow....of course, I can't confirm this quote and Mr. Thompson states that he would never 'burn' any of his sources, but if it IS true....
For now, put aside all personal beliefs or party affiliation. It doesn't matter if you are a red- or blue-stater, liberal or conservative, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent or even Druid (Reformed). It doesn't matter if you support the invasion or Iraq... or not. For centuries, The Constitution has stood as the defining document of our government, and the ultimate source to determine if something is legal or right.
From the POTUS on down, every federal official who takes an oath of office swears to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."
What really ticks me off about the neo-cons - that is, despite the outright incompetence, blatant cronyism, and deplorable hypocrisy - is that whenever any aspect of W's agenda is challenged, we get statements like "red-on-red" or "commisar", or even the stupid "they must hate freedom" comment, all while they wrap themselves in a flag. "If you don't support us you must be a terrorist" is one of the more moronic replies.
In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote a satirical, best-seller titled "It Can't Happen Here" about a populist President becoming dictator in order to "save" the country from welfare cheats, sex, crime, the liberal press, etc., all while wrapped up in a patriotic, red-white-and-blue outfit.
Lewis's book chronicles the fictional rise of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a charismatic, southern Senator who becomes President against the protests of FDR and some of America's saner citizens. Though always proclaiming the common man, Windrip is on the take of big business (i.e. Corpos in the book), is favored by religious extremists, and though he talks of freedom and prosperity for all, he eventually becomes the ultimate crony capitalist. Championed by the Hearst newspaper syndicate (the 1930's equivalent of FOX News), he nullifies both Congress and the Supreme Court, before stripping people of their civil liberties and installing an Orwellian dictatorship.
Well, it *could* happen here. It *is* happening here. "The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present he truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public."– Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, the New York Times, April 9, 1944
As if in opposition to the Founding Fathers of this nation, there is more than ample evidence that W&Co. is trying to set up a fascist state. And the damage that the Repugs are doing to this country will be long-lasting indeed. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this as "a philosophy or system of government that is marked by stringent social and economic control, a strong centralized government, usually headed by a dictator, and often a policy of belligerent nationalism. Go to Cornell University's website for another definition: "a philosophy or system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism."
My own Webster's Unabridged states that it is: "any program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalist policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce and finance, rigid censorship, and forcible suppression of opposition."
Any of this sound vaguely familiar with regard to the current antics of those in charge in Washington? Going beyond these definitions, take a look at the research of Laurence W. Britt (former exec with Allied Chemical, Mobil and Xerox) published two years ago in Free Inquiry magazine. Britt analyzed seven fascist regimes, including Nazi Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Spain under Franco, Salazar in Portugal, Pinochet in Chile, and Suharto's Indonesia, and found "fourteen common threads that link them to recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power." Count all those that currently apply:
1. Powerful and continuing nationalism.
2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. Supremacy of the military.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. Controlled mass media..
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and government intertwined.
9. Corporate power is protected.
10. Labor power suppressed.
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist here...how many did you count? Ten? A even dozen?
The most recent highway appropriation bill was so filled with ‘pork', despite Tom Delay's public assertions that nothing more could be cut, that it amounted to nothing more than a corporate feed trough. Oil companies are being given tax credits in spite of record revenues. One Bush environmental agenda, the "Clear Skies Plan" is an abject sellout to the energy companies, in that it calls for scrapping existing anti-pollution programs in favor of voluntary measures to reduce mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide releases. It does nothing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the principle cause of global warming, and allows coal-fired power plants to avoid forced clean up costs. Of course Bush doesn't believe in global warming - or evolution - the recent record hurricane season notwithstanding.
Prior to the Clear Skies initiative, the EPA had proposed more stringent terms for reducing air pollution, which would have prevented 19,000 premature deaths and saved $154 billion in annual health care costs by 2020.
A year ago, as a part of the "Healthy Forests Program," the 30 year-old National Forest Management Act was re-written, making it easier to clear-cut old growth forests and drill and graze in formerly protected areas. Clear-cutting environmentally-sensitive habitats as a means to prevent forest fires is something that sounds a lot like the Vietnam-era slogan, "in order to save the village, we had to destroy it." Unbelievably, the new rules also allow "independent audits" to be conducted by the timber companies themselves, which is very much a case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton used to be a lobbyist for the timber industry.
A current proposal will exempt forest management plans from public review. These plans are in essence the owner's manual or operational guidebook for each unit administered by the Forest Service. The National Environmental Policy Act is a law that gives concerned citizens rights to comment on environmental policies. The proposed exemptions would greatly reduce information available to the public, and it would make difficult or impossible for the public to provide comments, objections or alternatives to Forest Service proposals. It also would make it easier for Forest Service officials to ignore the impacts of logging and other development on an area's wildlife, watersheds, recreational uses (including hunting and fishing), and cultural resources. Our national assets are being given away, quite literally, for fractions of a penny on the dollar. Remember, Enron was Bush's largest contributor in 2000.
The Reinvest Foreign Earnings provision in last year's laughably-named American Jobs Creation Act, was nothing more than a corporate tax gimme to drug and other big corporate contributors to Bush's campaign. In essence, companies that move operations off-shore get to pay 5% tax, while those that remain in the good ol' US of A get to pay 35%. How is this creating jobs here?
Bush's tax policies have only benefitted the wealthiest 2% of our population. Gone is the budget surplus of $122 billion at the end of the Clinton administration, replaced with current annual deficit of $317 billion, primarily as a result of the Iraq war. Of course, the administration's spin is that this year's deficit is supposed to be 96 billion less than last year's record budget shortfall of 412.55 billion dollars. Whoopee. I certainly feel better. Guess I'll go out and charge something....
According to the conservative Brookings Institute: "The U.S. federal budget is on an unsustainable path. In the absence of significant policy changes, federal government deficits are expected to total around $5 trillion over the next decade. Such deficits will cause U.S. government debt, relative to GDP, to rise significantly. Thereafter, as the baby boomers increasingly reach retirement age and claim Social Security and Medicare benefits, government deficits and debt are likely to grow even more sharply. The scale of the nation's projected budgetary imbalances is now so large that the risk of severe adverse consequences must be taken very seriously, although it is impossible to predict when such consequences may occur."
Who is Bush & Co. kidding with regard to this immense deficit? Who will pay for it - besides you and me - or our kids? We got a $300 bribe, but only the wealthy and big corporations are the better for these tax breaks. No, these tax cuts have not created jobs, spurred growth or increased industrial investment. Was the administration stupid or lying when these were proposed? Of course, some cuts are proposed. Over a ten-year period, the GOP is proposing a cut of $9.7 billion in veterans' health care and other benefits, including reducing cash payments to veterans disabled by military service. (Iraqi war veterans, you're entirely welcome.)
But with Dick Cheney in charge, we'll only see more of our tax dollars shoveled out to the super rich.
H. L. Mencken, the humorist, social critic and long-time editor of the Baltimore Sun, best summed it up over a half-century ago: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence, clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." Or, if you prefer Groucho Marx: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." I don't know of a better way to describe Bush's policies both domestically and in the Middle-East.
Will Bush get impeached? I seriously doubt it, given the Republican majority in Congress - and the fact that Cheney is ample "insurance" against it. I could go on, but even I'm getting bored....and I need a drink. A double....
Cheers