What indeed are our elected “representatives” doing about W.’s obvious abuse of power? Earlier this week I faxed off letters to my fearless Republican leaders, Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison, John Cornyn and U.S. Representative (Houston) John Culberson. I am not holding my breath that my very long letter (that merely scratches the surface of W.’s systematic abuse of power) will end up anywhere except in the official shredders.
Whether it goes to the shredder or not, if our so-called “representatives” don’t get a reality check, i.e. that somewhere in Texas, there are some very outraged voters who demand accountability, good the hell luck next election cycle. Burn babies, burn.
They aren’t going to be able to distract us with “family values” “gay marriage, “abortion,” “terrorists are lurking under every rock,” “a strong economy” when there isn’t one, and other BS this time around.
Nope, especially after Gonzo Gate blew wide open yesterday.
On to my letter of letter of July 23:
I am writing to you about the recent highly disturbing and somewhat appalling behavior on the part of President Bush for what is becoming increasingly clear as his willful and blatant abuse of power. The President has overstepped the bounds of his office and is behaving as if he is above the law, accountable to no one.
I am no lawyer but I do know when something is terribly wrong in our government.
There are a number of recent developments that support my claim of Presidential abuse of power. Within the last two weeks, the President has ordered former members of the White House staff, Ms. Sarah Taylor and Ms. Harriet Miers, to refuse to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Although Ms. Taylor presented herself at the hearing and answered very few questions, she did make it quite clear that her loyalty belonged to the President and not to the United States. Such a belief on the part of a staff member is both shocking and frightening. It is unheard of in the history of the United States. Indeed, even President Richard Nixon did not possess the authoritarian arrogance to prevent White House staff from speaking the truth to the Congress (i.e. we the people) during his term as President. And surely no staff member in our nation’s history has ever taken an oath to a person, even a President during wartime! I do not know where Ms. Taylor went to school, but she surely should have known better. If she does not, Ms. Taylor had no business serving in the White House in the first place.
President Bush has very recently pardoned a White House Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, for perjury and the obstruction of justice. Mr. Libby lied under oath and obstructed justice to protect Vice President Cheney in the unconscionable outing of an undercover CIA agent, Ms. Valerie Plame Wilson. Americans can now assume the President is definitely covering up criminal acts that were committed in the White House, likely in his very office and that of the Vice President. President Bush’s pardon of Mr. Libby also tells we the people that there is two sets of rules at play in America: one for the President’s people and one for the rest of Americans.
I also find it shocking and frightening how the Bush Administration has deliberately attempted to politicize federal agencies (The Justice Department, the Interior Department, to name just two) in order to turn them into operational arms for the Republican National Party.
The recent firings of the 8 U.S. attorneys for purely political purposes are further evidence of the Administration’s calculated goal to ensure a permanent Republican majority for decades to come. The political imperatives of rule under this “permanent Republican majority” seems to have little in common with the democratic principles that have guided this great nation for well over 200 years. In fact, one party rule has proven to be detrimental and destructive to the very foundations of a democratic society. And for this very reason, the people spoke in November 2006.
It is crystal clear that the Department of Justice, at the urging of the White House, had every intention to replace all U.S. attorneys who did not aggressively pursue voter fraud cases where only Democrats were concerned.
Apparently the DOJ forgot that it is supposed to serve the people and not a President or an Administration. I find it inexcusable and unpatriotic for people in our government who serve, such as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Ms. Sarah Taylor, to demonstrate such distain and contempt for the Constitution, the people, and the democratic principles that are supposed to guide our Republic. It seems that many Bush appointees seem to believe they are working within the framework of a monarchy in which they are servants for a king.
Concerning the firings of the U.S. attorneys, I find it very interesting indeed that Mr. Tim Griffin, who replaced Mr. Bud Cummings in Arkansas, is a former protégé of Karl Rove. Mr. Griffin is known to have produced illegal voter caging lists in Florida during the 2000 election. Evidence of such has been produced by Mr. Greg Palast, an investigative journalist who has obtained Mr. Griffin’s 2000 caging lists. I understand that the caging lists have been turned over to the House Judiciary Committee.
It seems that the same in the Department of Defense and the Pentagon had preceded the politicization of the Justice Department since 2001. It is now common knowledge that the Bush Administration did not tell the American people the truth when making the case to go to war with Iraq. We all know there were never any ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda under Saddam Hussein and neither were there WMD. We also know that many members of Congress who supported President Bush in his trumped up case for war did not even bother to read the NIE Intelligence Report that could have changed a few minds and perhaps a deadly, costly and catastrophic failure may have been avoided.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney have routinely used the notion of terrorism and the fear it engenders as an excuse to run roughshod over the laws that bind this nation together as a democratic republic.
Since President Bush’s tenure as President, the heretofore unthinkable has happened, such as warrantless wiretaps and spying on American citizens. President Bush publicly admitted he knew about the domestic spying program. A federal court has ruled that such spying is a felony. And yet the Congress has failed to hold the President accountable for his actions. Is the President above the law? It certainly seems to be the case nowadays.
Our country now embraces torture and has willingly abandoned not only the principles of the Geneva Convention but the very moral and legal underpinnings that have governed our democratic republic and our stature in the world. The Supreme Court has ruled the President and Vice President’s system of detention is unconstitutional. Has the detention system changed yet? Not to my knowledge. Why?
As if the evidence mentioned above on the President’s abuse of power isn’t enough, it is both distressing and tragic to write there is yet more.
President Bush has reversed laws with signing statements. He has deliberately undermined the Congress by making whatever changes he deems fit to laws already passed by the representatives of the people! The President’s statements are posted on the White House website. A recent GAO report found that with 30 percent of Bush's signing statements, in which President Bush announces his right to overrule laws, he has in fact proceeded to overrule those laws.
Yes, it is now obvious. President Bush believes that he is well above the law. Some of our lawmakers in our nation’s Capitol obviously hold the same belief.
What else is a citizen to conclude when the sound of silence coming from our Congress on this issue is simply deafening?
When is enough enough? When are our members of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate going to hold this President accountable for his blatant disregard and obvious calloused and cynical contempt for the rule of law that has governed this land for well over 200 years? President Bush and Vice President Cheney’s equal scorn for the people has not been lost on the vast majority of Americans, either.
Should you think that I am some left wing liberal who is exaggerating the President’s evident abuse of power, several former officials who served under President Reagan believe President Bush has assumed powers well beyond the legal jurisdiction of a President. Two of them call for the immediate impeachment of Vice President Cheney. Mr. Ron Paul, A U.S. Texas Representative and candidate for President in 2008, shares similar views with his colleagues in the former Reagan Administration. (Two of the three Republicans have also predicted that war with Iran is imminent and Congress will not be consulted about it.)
In a recent online newspaper (July 19, Raw Story.com) a former appointee of Ronald Reagan, Mr. Paul Craig Roberts, commented on the new Executive Order that allows the government to seize the assets of anyone who interferes with its Iraq policies. According to Mr. Roberts, "Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran.”
He goes on to argue, “When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order] ... there's no check to it. It doesn't have to be ratified by Congress. The people who bear the brunt of these dictatorial police state actions have no recourse to the judiciary. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule. ... The American people don't really understand the danger that they face."
The article about Mr. Roberts’s views on President Bush can be found here
Mr. Bruce Fein, who served as Deputy Assistant Attorney under former President Reagan and wrote the first article of impeachment against former President Clinton, also calls for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney.
Mr. Fein recently was featured on the PBS Bill Moyers’ Journal on July 13, 2007. The journal can be viewed: Bill Moyers Journal
Following are excerpts from Mr. Fein’s interview.
Recently, Fein has been in the national spotlight after his editorial in the online newsmagazine SLATE called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, in which he outlines the various cases against the Vice President. Fein also testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee on June 27, 2007 about President Bush's use of "signing statement."
According to Fein, Cheney has:
• Asserted Presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes.
• Claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the President's say-so alone.
• Initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists.
• Championed a Presidential power to torture in contravention of federal statutes and treaties.
• Engineered the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance program targeting American citizens on American soil in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
• Orchestrated the invocation of executive privilege to conceal from Congress secret spying programs to gather foreign intelligence, and their legal justifications.
• Summoned the privilege to refuse to disclose his consulting of business executives in conjunction with his Energy Task Force.
• Retaliated against Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, through chief of staff Scooter Libby, for questioning the administration's evidence of weapons of mass destruction as justification for invading Iraq. (Read Fein's SLATE article)
End of excerpt.
Representative Ron Paul (Texas) has stated, “All evidence suggests that the NeoCon war on Iran is about to be sprung.”
According to him: “we're sending the oldest aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf to replace a newer one --- making another trumped up 'Gulf of Tonkin incident' less costly. That is, stage an attack on the Nimitz, and say it was caused by Iran. This would happen in August, with congress on break.”
The bare suggestion that we would go to war with a nation without Congressional oversight tells me that we are no longer living in a democracy.
The silence from our Congress tells me that our elected officials embrace the Bush monarchy.
Sincerely yours,
Friday, July 27, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Cheney’s Secret Energy Task Force List: The Dudes Who Paid to Play
A friend of mine from California sent me a link to an article written in today’s Washington Post which reveals at least a partial list of Cheney’s secret and very special invitees to his former energy task force meetings. Of course, as we would have expected, environmental and renewable energy groups were granted token participation. The fix was already in for Cheney’s energy policy and so the environmental folks and Democrats were invited just for the photo ops and news reports.
The Republican will to power and lust for greed dominated the entire process as it always does (remember this happened during the Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff heydays) and so the party’s pay to play decree drove the process. Those in big oil, gas and trade groups that were among the first to participate in Cheney's task force had all been major donors to the Bush/Cheney campaigns.
Gosh, maybe this is why we have so few options available to us in terms of alternative choices for fuel. Are we therefore doomed forever to life long addiction to the pusher men in the Middle East? Does this mean we are damned to life long wars to fight over the pollution producing evil crap that should have been rendered at least partially irrelevant to us at least thirty years ago?
Who are the winners in our national addiction to oil? Guess. It’s a no brainer…..It would be none other than Cheney’s best buds the Saudis, of course, and Dictator Greedy Dick too. The Dictator is obviously addicted to money. For himself. Hmmmm… is this why we attacked Iraq and forgot about Osama boy? Is this why Cheney would stop at nothing to hide his evil little list?
Cheney fought tooth and nail to keep his filthy little list a secret and everyone probably remembers how this issue went to the Supreme Court. Naturally, with a politicized judicial system comprised of embedded party hacks and rubber stamps, Cheney won as he always does. What Cheney wants, Cheney gets. This is why I have nicknamed him Dictator Dick. No one or branch of our government seems able, willing or courageous enough to stop him. When an individual or a federal institution should dare to rear a brave head in protest, Cheney will simply chop it off and replace the head with one of his clones. Hmmm… maybe I should call Cheney Dick the Butcher instead or Dick the Terrible. Or perhaps Dr. Evil Dick, or Dick the Tyrant.
Excerpts from The Washington Post
If the time has not come to impeach this monster, when will it?
It’s time for the Dick to do some time.
The Republican will to power and lust for greed dominated the entire process as it always does (remember this happened during the Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff heydays) and so the party’s pay to play decree drove the process. Those in big oil, gas and trade groups that were among the first to participate in Cheney's task force had all been major donors to the Bush/Cheney campaigns.
Gosh, maybe this is why we have so few options available to us in terms of alternative choices for fuel. Are we therefore doomed forever to life long addiction to the pusher men in the Middle East? Does this mean we are damned to life long wars to fight over the pollution producing evil crap that should have been rendered at least partially irrelevant to us at least thirty years ago?
Who are the winners in our national addiction to oil? Guess. It’s a no brainer…..It would be none other than Cheney’s best buds the Saudis, of course, and Dictator Greedy Dick too. The Dictator is obviously addicted to money. For himself. Hmmmm… is this why we attacked Iraq and forgot about Osama boy? Is this why Cheney would stop at nothing to hide his evil little list?
Cheney fought tooth and nail to keep his filthy little list a secret and everyone probably remembers how this issue went to the Supreme Court. Naturally, with a politicized judicial system comprised of embedded party hacks and rubber stamps, Cheney won as he always does. What Cheney wants, Cheney gets. This is why I have nicknamed him Dictator Dick. No one or branch of our government seems able, willing or courageous enough to stop him. When an individual or a federal institution should dare to rear a brave head in protest, Cheney will simply chop it off and replace the head with one of his clones. Hmmm… maybe I should call Cheney Dick the Butcher instead or Dick the Terrible. Or perhaps Dr. Evil Dick, or Dick the Tyrant.
Excerpts from The Washington Post
Papers Detail Industry's Role in Cheney's Energy Report
By Michael Abramowitz and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 18, 2007; Page A01
Cheney was not there, but so many environmentalists were in the room that introductions took up "about half the meeting," recalled Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth. Anna Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Group said, "It was clear to us that they were just being nice to us."
A confidential list prepared by the Bush administration shows that Cheney and his aides had already held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. By the time of the meeting with environmental groups, according to a former White House official who provided the list to The Washington Post, the initial draft of the task force was substantially complete and President Bush had been briefed on its progress.
One of the first visitors, on Feb. 14, was James J. Rouse, then vice president of Exxon Mobil and a major donor to the Bush inauguration; a week later, longtime Bush supporter Kenneth L. Lay, then head of Enron Corp., came by for the first of two meetings. On March 5, some of the country's biggest electric utilities, including Duke Energy and Constellation Energy Group, had an audience with the task force staff.
The list of participants' names and when they met with administration officials provides a clearer picture of the task force's priorities and bolsters previous reports that the review leaned heavily on oil and gas companies and on trade groups -- many of them big contributors to the Bush campaign and the Republican Party. But while it clears up much of the lingering uncertainty about who was granted access to present energy policy views to Cheney's staff, it does not entirely explain why the Bush administration fought so hard to keep it and other as-yet-unreleased internal memos secret.
If the time has not come to impeach this monster, when will it?
It’s time for the Dick to do some time.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Cheney Shows His Love for America
While Dictator Dick thumbs his nose at the U.S. Constitution, our individual rights and the basic tenets of Democracy, he is busy at work safeguarding the personal fortunes he has amassed.
Alas, it seems that Dictator Dick has very little faith in the future of the American economy.
According to Mr. Mike Whitney of the Information Clearing House.com. (see link below), Dictator Dick is investing millions in European markets as well as in inflation linked short term municipal bonds, and inflation protected securities funds. As Mr. Whitney suggests, Cheney will watch his fortunes grow in Old Europe while we the suckers – i.e. the average American will have to struggle with increasing energy prices and inflation. Our savings and assets could very well dwindle while those of Dictator Dick grow by leaps and bounds.
Thank God for tax cuts for the mega wealthy. There isn’t even a morsel of cake left for we the little irrelevant people who don’t factor in the Bush/Cheney world, except to fight in and pay taxes for their wars with the rest of the world.
I do not have a background in economics or finance, but I know full well when I smell huge stinking rats gnawing and devouring our political, geo-political and economic well-being. Not to mention our national ethos as a people.
Excerpts:
This should put to rest once and for all the foolish notion that the “Bush Economic Plan” is anything more than a scam aimed at looting the public till. The whole deal is intended to shift the nation's wealth from one class to another. It’s also clear that Bush-Cheney couldn’t have carried this off without the tacit approval of the thieves at the Federal Reserve who engineered the low-interest rate boondoggle to put the American people to sleep while they picked their pockets.
Reasonable people can dispute that Bush is “intentionally” skewering the dollar with his lavish tax cuts, but how does that explain Cheney’s portfolio?
It doesn’t. And, one thing we can say with metaphysical certainty is that the miserly Cheney would never plunk his money into an investment that wasn’t a sure thing. If Cheney is counting on the dollar tanking and interest rates going up, then, by Gawd, that’s what’ll happen.
The Bush-Cheney team has racked up another $3 trillion in debt in just 6 years. The US national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion dollars while the trade deficit has ballooned to $800 billion nearly 7% of GDP.
This is lunacy. No country, however powerful, can maintain these staggering numbers. The country is in hock up to its neck and has to borrow $2.5 billion per day just to stay above water. Presently, the Fed is expanding the money supply and buying back its own treasuries to hide the hemorrhaging from the public. Its utter madness.
Do the math! They're not investing in America anymore. They are decreasing their stockpiles of dollars. We’re sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are manning the lifeboats while the public is diverted with gay marriage amendments and “American Celebrity”.
No job is safe. American elites and corporate tycoons are loading the boats and heading for foreign shores. The only thing they’re leaving behind is the insurmountable debt that will be shackled to our children into perpetuity and the carefully arranged levers of a modern police-surveillance state.
End of excerpt.
This chilling piece can be read in its grim entirety here
If this isn’t enough to get the impeachment ball rolling, I do not know what is. It is time to press criminal charges. The short list: the Bush/Cheney Administration has misled this nation into an unnecessary, catastrophic and horrific war. It has seriously compromised both our national security and economic well being. It has flipped the bird at the rule of law, as demonstrated in the Scooter Libby trial and the outing of an undercover CIA agent for political revenge. It has given generous tax cuts to the extraordinarily wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. The middle class is clearly dying a slow death with sure-fire membership in the under class club. Our military troops are required to serve 3-4 if not 5 tours of duty in hot combat with little reprieve. When our brave, determined and courageous troops do return home it is a national disgrace that they must face yet more battles to get proper medical attention for posttraumatic stress disorder, catastrophic wounds such as severe brain injuries and the loss of limbs. What about the families of the fallen soldiers who are left to grieve alone, after an American flag is summarily handed to them at their loved one’s funeral? That’s it? A flag in exchange for a life? For?
Please.
How much is too much? What kind of people have we become?
To recap, in case anyone should be asleep and doesn’t get it, the Bush/Cheney Administration has willfully and knowingly used propaganda to sell a war and a political agenda that is downright destructive of our national security, our military, our geo-political standing and our economic underpinnings. Worse, it has turned us into a people that we are not. Our future in a Bush/Cheney Land promises a whole third world of hurt, pain, suffering and death.
For? So Bush, Cheney and their best buds can amass personal fortunes? They have distracted us for far too long with emotional and unproductive issues like gay marriage, abortion and heaven knows what else. They have scared the living crap out of us with terror threats that were non-existent. Their motto: keep the people scared, dumb and angry. And the Bushies did the devil’s work while we allowed ourselves to become dumb, scared and angry.
Stand up for impeachment, folks, or go broke and learn how to cope in third world living. The choices aren’t easy but at least we still have a few choices left to us. LS
Alas, it seems that Dictator Dick has very little faith in the future of the American economy.
According to Mr. Mike Whitney of the Information Clearing House.com. (see link below), Dictator Dick is investing millions in European markets as well as in inflation linked short term municipal bonds, and inflation protected securities funds. As Mr. Whitney suggests, Cheney will watch his fortunes grow in Old Europe while we the suckers – i.e. the average American will have to struggle with increasing energy prices and inflation. Our savings and assets could very well dwindle while those of Dictator Dick grow by leaps and bounds.
Thank God for tax cuts for the mega wealthy. There isn’t even a morsel of cake left for we the little irrelevant people who don’t factor in the Bush/Cheney world, except to fight in and pay taxes for their wars with the rest of the world.
I do not have a background in economics or finance, but I know full well when I smell huge stinking rats gnawing and devouring our political, geo-political and economic well-being. Not to mention our national ethos as a people.
Excerpts:
This should put to rest once and for all the foolish notion that the “Bush Economic Plan” is anything more than a scam aimed at looting the public till. The whole deal is intended to shift the nation's wealth from one class to another. It’s also clear that Bush-Cheney couldn’t have carried this off without the tacit approval of the thieves at the Federal Reserve who engineered the low-interest rate boondoggle to put the American people to sleep while they picked their pockets.
Reasonable people can dispute that Bush is “intentionally” skewering the dollar with his lavish tax cuts, but how does that explain Cheney’s portfolio?
It doesn’t. And, one thing we can say with metaphysical certainty is that the miserly Cheney would never plunk his money into an investment that wasn’t a sure thing. If Cheney is counting on the dollar tanking and interest rates going up, then, by Gawd, that’s what’ll happen.
The Bush-Cheney team has racked up another $3 trillion in debt in just 6 years. The US national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion dollars while the trade deficit has ballooned to $800 billion nearly 7% of GDP.
This is lunacy. No country, however powerful, can maintain these staggering numbers. The country is in hock up to its neck and has to borrow $2.5 billion per day just to stay above water. Presently, the Fed is expanding the money supply and buying back its own treasuries to hide the hemorrhaging from the public. Its utter madness.
Do the math! They're not investing in America anymore. They are decreasing their stockpiles of dollars. We’re sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are manning the lifeboats while the public is diverted with gay marriage amendments and “American Celebrity”.
No job is safe. American elites and corporate tycoons are loading the boats and heading for foreign shores. The only thing they’re leaving behind is the insurmountable debt that will be shackled to our children into perpetuity and the carefully arranged levers of a modern police-surveillance state.
End of excerpt.
This chilling piece can be read in its grim entirety here
If this isn’t enough to get the impeachment ball rolling, I do not know what is. It is time to press criminal charges. The short list: the Bush/Cheney Administration has misled this nation into an unnecessary, catastrophic and horrific war. It has seriously compromised both our national security and economic well being. It has flipped the bird at the rule of law, as demonstrated in the Scooter Libby trial and the outing of an undercover CIA agent for political revenge. It has given generous tax cuts to the extraordinarily wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. The middle class is clearly dying a slow death with sure-fire membership in the under class club. Our military troops are required to serve 3-4 if not 5 tours of duty in hot combat with little reprieve. When our brave, determined and courageous troops do return home it is a national disgrace that they must face yet more battles to get proper medical attention for posttraumatic stress disorder, catastrophic wounds such as severe brain injuries and the loss of limbs. What about the families of the fallen soldiers who are left to grieve alone, after an American flag is summarily handed to them at their loved one’s funeral? That’s it? A flag in exchange for a life? For?
Please.
How much is too much? What kind of people have we become?
To recap, in case anyone should be asleep and doesn’t get it, the Bush/Cheney Administration has willfully and knowingly used propaganda to sell a war and a political agenda that is downright destructive of our national security, our military, our geo-political standing and our economic underpinnings. Worse, it has turned us into a people that we are not. Our future in a Bush/Cheney Land promises a whole third world of hurt, pain, suffering and death.
For? So Bush, Cheney and their best buds can amass personal fortunes? They have distracted us for far too long with emotional and unproductive issues like gay marriage, abortion and heaven knows what else. They have scared the living crap out of us with terror threats that were non-existent. Their motto: keep the people scared, dumb and angry. And the Bushies did the devil’s work while we allowed ourselves to become dumb, scared and angry.
Stand up for impeachment, folks, or go broke and learn how to cope in third world living. The choices aren’t easy but at least we still have a few choices left to us. LS
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