The Darker Side Of...
I wish I could say something light a funny right now. I wish I could be witty and acerbic, using words like rapiers, but I’ll just have to be outraged, saddened and use them like blunt objects.
CIA fires agent who might have leaked information about the secret prison network.
Now the agent did violate “Company” policy and they were perfectly within their rights firing him or her. However, thank the God that person did come forward.
When you combine this with Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and SCOTUS recent ruling on Jose Padilla (ie. ignoring the writ of Habeas Corpus, which is one of the things states held out signing the Constitution for), we are living in some pretty freakin’ scary times people.
As I have said before, when I was growing up, I was taught only “Bad Guys” like the USSR, China and Nazi Germany did these things. Now we’re doing them, what does this say about us? What does this say about what America has become?
Do we let “America” come to mean “hypocritical capitalist tyranny”, or do we fight to maintain it’s definition of “freedom, democracy, equal rights for all”?
It just makes me sick...
Bush Continues to Prove He is Insane
"I hear the voices…”
Oh, I’m sure you do George, I am sure you do…
“…and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."
One of the popular definitions of insanity is: “Doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting different results.”
Bush fits this definition.
There is also the Megalomaniacal tendencies, as well as bad grammar, revealed in the “I am the decider…” He is not the person who makes sweeping decision based off his own personal agenda, he is an elected representative of the people of the United States and as such, owes it to them to make sure his staff fulfills their duties.
You're not a king George, you're just a president.
This is also where those of us who have argued over whether Bush is an astute manipulative demagogue over a stupid true-believer demagogue gain some insight.
Iraq is a mess. It’s a huge mess. Even if you think we should have gone in there, no sane person can say that our efforts there have been successful. The Iraqis are not being trained fast enough to replace us, the new government is in disarray, our troops are under attack from insurgents, terrorists and getting caught in the cross fire of a civil war, the “rebuilding” has been an overall failure, Iraq people are actually more at risk and live in worse conditions than they did under Saddam and they can’t stand us.
An astute manipulator would have fed Rumsfeld to the wolves ages ago, he is the perfect sacrificial lamb because he was in on ignoring all those recommendations before the war. But Bush is a true believer, a zealot who is absolutely certain that what he has chosen in the right path and he refuses to be swayed no matter how much evidence mounts that shows him he is wrong. As I observed a while back: It’s “faith based governing”, nothing to do with reality.
Meanwhile Rumsfeld blamed his troubles on terrorists.
“For one thing, Rumsfeld said it was important to "recognize that the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees. They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States. They are very good at it. They're much better at (laughing) managing those kinds of things than we are."
Yes, I am sure that bin Laden has paid off the “liberal media’ types, like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Riley, Rush Limbaugh and Brit Hume Don. I’m sure that the fact that you forced the retirement of any experienced military commander that didn’t agree with you had nothing to do with it. I’m sure the utter failure that Iraq is has nothing to do with it.
And my (old) senator, Dianne Feinstien has joined the chorus.
In the meantime, not only has the war cost over 2300 American military personnel and 35,000 Iraqi’s lives, it will probably cost the American tax payers over a trillion dollars, thanks in part to people like this.
Meanwhile, Haliburton posts record profits.
It's called war profiteering folks, people used to be shot for it.
I think everyone who still thinks Bush is “doing a great job” needs to read the issue of the Rolling Stone that came out today. For all those that have claimed in recent weeks that “History will vindicate him”*, they have posted their cover story here.
And here is a sample:
"By contrast, the Bush administration -- in seeking to restore what Cheney, a Nixon administration veteran, has called "the legitimate authority of the presidency" -- threatens to overturn the Framers' healthy tension in favor of presidential absolutism. Armed with legal findings by his attorney general (and personal lawyer) Alberto Gonzales, the Bush White House has declared that the president's powers as commander in chief in wartime are limitless. No previous wartime president has come close to making so grandiose a claim. More specifically, this administration has asserted that the president is perfectly free to violate federal laws on such matters as domestic surveillance and the torture of detainees. When Congress has passed legislation to limit those assertions, Bush has resorted to issuing constitutionally dubious "signing statements," which declare, by fiat, how he will interpret and execute the law in question, even when that interpretation flagrantly violates the will of Congress. Earlier presidents, including Jackson, raised hackles by offering their own view of the Constitution in order to justify vetoing congressional acts. Bush doesn't bother with that: He signs the legislation (eliminating any risk that Congress will overturn a veto), and then governs how he pleases -- using the signing statements as if they were line-item vetoes. In those instances when Bush's violations of federal law have come to light, as over domestic surveillance, the White House has devised a novel solution: Stonewall any investigation into the violations and bid a compliant Congress simply to rewrite the laws.
Bush's alarmingly aberrant take on the Constitution is ironic. One need go back in the record less than a decade to find prominent Republicans railing against far more minor presidential legal infractions as precursors to all-out totalitarianism. "I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the president," Sen. Bill Frist declared of Bill Clinton's efforts to conceal an illicit sexual liaison. "No man is above the law, and no man is below the law -- that's the principle that we all hold very dear in this country," Rep. Tom DeLay asserted. "The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door," warned Rep. Henry Hyde, one of Clinton's chief accusers. In the face of Bush's more definitive dismissal of federal law, the silence from these quarters is deafening.
The president's defenders stoutly contend that war-time conditions fully justify Bush's actions. And as Lincoln showed during the Civil War, there may be times of military emergency where the executive believes it imperative to take immediate, highly irregular, even unconstitutional steps. "I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful," Lincoln wrote in 1864, "by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation." Bush seems to think that, since 9/11, he has been placed, by the grace of God, in the same kind of situation Lincoln faced. But Lincoln, under pressure of daily combat on American soil against fellow Americans, did not operate in secret, as Bush has. He did not claim, as Bush has, that his emergency actions were wholly regular and constitutional as well as necessary; Lincoln sought and received Congressional authorization for his suspension of habeas corpus in 1863. Nor did Lincoln act under the amorphous cover of a "war on terror" -- a war against a tactic, not a specific nation or political entity, which could last as long as any president deems the tactic a threat to national security. Lincoln's exceptional measures were intended to survive only as long as the Confederacy was in rebellion. Bush's could be extended indefinitely, as the president sees fit, permanently endangering rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to the citizenry
Stop voting for people just because they belong to your political party! This isn't about "us vs. them", it's about all of us together. Pay attention and find out who you are voting for. Find out what they have done and where they stand on issues by looking at their records, then cast your ballot for the person you believe would do the best job.
*Aside: Whenever someone is reduced to saying “History will vindicate him”, you know they haven’t a rational leg to stand on in their position.
CIA fires agent who might have leaked information about the secret prison network.
Now the agent did violate “Company” policy and they were perfectly within their rights firing him or her. However, thank the God that person did come forward.
When you combine this with Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and SCOTUS recent ruling on Jose Padilla (ie. ignoring the writ of Habeas Corpus, which is one of the things states held out signing the Constitution for), we are living in some pretty freakin’ scary times people.
As I have said before, when I was growing up, I was taught only “Bad Guys” like the USSR, China and Nazi Germany did these things. Now we’re doing them, what does this say about us? What does this say about what America has become?
Do we let “America” come to mean “hypocritical capitalist tyranny”, or do we fight to maintain it’s definition of “freedom, democracy, equal rights for all”?
It just makes me sick...
Bush Continues to Prove He is Insane
"I hear the voices…”
Oh, I’m sure you do George, I am sure you do…
“…and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."
One of the popular definitions of insanity is: “Doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting different results.”
Bush fits this definition.
There is also the Megalomaniacal tendencies, as well as bad grammar, revealed in the “I am the decider…” He is not the person who makes sweeping decision based off his own personal agenda, he is an elected representative of the people of the United States and as such, owes it to them to make sure his staff fulfills their duties.
You're not a king George, you're just a president.
This is also where those of us who have argued over whether Bush is an astute manipulative demagogue over a stupid true-believer demagogue gain some insight.
Iraq is a mess. It’s a huge mess. Even if you think we should have gone in there, no sane person can say that our efforts there have been successful. The Iraqis are not being trained fast enough to replace us, the new government is in disarray, our troops are under attack from insurgents, terrorists and getting caught in the cross fire of a civil war, the “rebuilding” has been an overall failure, Iraq people are actually more at risk and live in worse conditions than they did under Saddam and they can’t stand us.
An astute manipulator would have fed Rumsfeld to the wolves ages ago, he is the perfect sacrificial lamb because he was in on ignoring all those recommendations before the war. But Bush is a true believer, a zealot who is absolutely certain that what he has chosen in the right path and he refuses to be swayed no matter how much evidence mounts that shows him he is wrong. As I observed a while back: It’s “faith based governing”, nothing to do with reality.
Meanwhile Rumsfeld blamed his troubles on terrorists.
“For one thing, Rumsfeld said it was important to "recognize that the terrorists, Zarqawi and bin Laden and Zawahiri, those people have media committees. They are actively out there trying to manipulate the press in the United States. They are very good at it. They're much better at (laughing) managing those kinds of things than we are."
Yes, I am sure that bin Laden has paid off the “liberal media’ types, like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Riley, Rush Limbaugh and Brit Hume Don. I’m sure that the fact that you forced the retirement of any experienced military commander that didn’t agree with you had nothing to do with it. I’m sure the utter failure that Iraq is has nothing to do with it.
And my (old) senator, Dianne Feinstien has joined the chorus.
In the meantime, not only has the war cost over 2300 American military personnel and 35,000 Iraqi’s lives, it will probably cost the American tax payers over a trillion dollars, thanks in part to people like this.
Meanwhile, Haliburton posts record profits.
It's called war profiteering folks, people used to be shot for it.
I think everyone who still thinks Bush is “doing a great job” needs to read the issue of the Rolling Stone that came out today. For all those that have claimed in recent weeks that “History will vindicate him”*, they have posted their cover story here.
And here is a sample:
"By contrast, the Bush administration -- in seeking to restore what Cheney, a Nixon administration veteran, has called "the legitimate authority of the presidency" -- threatens to overturn the Framers' healthy tension in favor of presidential absolutism. Armed with legal findings by his attorney general (and personal lawyer) Alberto Gonzales, the Bush White House has declared that the president's powers as commander in chief in wartime are limitless. No previous wartime president has come close to making so grandiose a claim. More specifically, this administration has asserted that the president is perfectly free to violate federal laws on such matters as domestic surveillance and the torture of detainees. When Congress has passed legislation to limit those assertions, Bush has resorted to issuing constitutionally dubious "signing statements," which declare, by fiat, how he will interpret and execute the law in question, even when that interpretation flagrantly violates the will of Congress. Earlier presidents, including Jackson, raised hackles by offering their own view of the Constitution in order to justify vetoing congressional acts. Bush doesn't bother with that: He signs the legislation (eliminating any risk that Congress will overturn a veto), and then governs how he pleases -- using the signing statements as if they were line-item vetoes. In those instances when Bush's violations of federal law have come to light, as over domestic surveillance, the White House has devised a novel solution: Stonewall any investigation into the violations and bid a compliant Congress simply to rewrite the laws.
Bush's alarmingly aberrant take on the Constitution is ironic. One need go back in the record less than a decade to find prominent Republicans railing against far more minor presidential legal infractions as precursors to all-out totalitarianism. "I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the president," Sen. Bill Frist declared of Bill Clinton's efforts to conceal an illicit sexual liaison. "No man is above the law, and no man is below the law -- that's the principle that we all hold very dear in this country," Rep. Tom DeLay asserted. "The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door," warned Rep. Henry Hyde, one of Clinton's chief accusers. In the face of Bush's more definitive dismissal of federal law, the silence from these quarters is deafening.The president's defenders stoutly contend that war-time conditions fully justify Bush's actions. And as Lincoln showed during the Civil War, there may be times of military emergency where the executive believes it imperative to take immediate, highly irregular, even unconstitutional steps. "I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful," Lincoln wrote in 1864, "by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation." Bush seems to think that, since 9/11, he has been placed, by the grace of God, in the same kind of situation Lincoln faced. But Lincoln, under pressure of daily combat on American soil against fellow Americans, did not operate in secret, as Bush has. He did not claim, as Bush has, that his emergency actions were wholly regular and constitutional as well as necessary; Lincoln sought and received Congressional authorization for his suspension of habeas corpus in 1863. Nor did Lincoln act under the amorphous cover of a "war on terror" -- a war against a tactic, not a specific nation or political entity, which could last as long as any president deems the tactic a threat to national security. Lincoln's exceptional measures were intended to survive only as long as the Confederacy was in rebellion. Bush's could be extended indefinitely, as the president sees fit, permanently endangering rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to the citizenry
Stop voting for people just because they belong to your political party! This isn't about "us vs. them", it's about all of us together. Pay attention and find out who you are voting for. Find out what they have done and where they stand on issues by looking at their records, then cast your ballot for the person you believe would do the best job.
*Aside: Whenever someone is reduced to saying “History will vindicate him”, you know they haven’t a rational leg to stand on in their position.
posted by KiplingKat | 3:31 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home