More Of The Same? Not This Congress

November 14, 2006
BY JESSE JACKSON  @ Chicago Sun Times
As Democrats take control of the House and Senate, many wonder whether it makes a difference. The corporate lobbies aren't gong anywhere -- they started to hedge their bets by contributing to Democrats late in the election. The foreign policy establishment that led us into Iraq and continues to support a global economic posture that benefits the capital but undermines work isn't going anywhere. Does it make a difference?

Yes, it does, in ways that are big and small. First, the agenda of the country will change. Consider the six-point agenda that Democrats will pass through the House in the first 100 hours. They will vote to raise the minimum wage for the first time in a decade; cut interest rates on student loans in half and expand Pell grants; lower drug prices by removing the ban on Medicare's negotiating bulk purchases; revoke subsidies to Big Oil and put it in renewable energy; revoke tax breaks for companies outsourcing jobs and take commonsense homeland security steps like requiring chemical companies to have their defense plans reviewed.

Second, the new congressional majority will force the administration to face oversight and accountability for the first time. Perhaps the worst aspect of one-party rule is that Congress stopped holding the executive branch accountable. The result was billions looted in the reconstruction of Iraq, regulatory agencies simply handed over to the companies they were supposed to regulate and a lawless president checked only by the courts. Many commentators warn Congress against holding hearings, using subpoena power, inquiring into the presidential lawlessness, claiming it would descend into partisan spitball fights. That's nonsense. Accountability is vital and exposing the waste, fraud and abuse that has gone on would be a national service.                MORE HERE

Dissenters Are Now In The Axis Of Evil Group

    I'm mot even going to make a comment on this topic because we all know that under the Bushco reign of terror that most of our most sacred constitutional rights have been or are being stripped away from us!

Here is the article from DailyKos

by  georgia10
Sat Nov 18, 2006

Some of us who actually know what the Fourth Amendment says believe that its plain language guarantees us a freedom from unwarranted governmental intrusion. Those of us who don't engage in the intellectual dishonestly employed by the supporters of the domestic program know full well that FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) already establishes a framework for warrantless spying, and that it permits for broad surveillance of suspected terrorists. In view of this already adequate framework for terrorist surveillance, we consider the President's extra-judicial, unchecked, and ineffective spying program to be both an abuse of power and a curtailment of the freedom and privacy afforded to every American under the Constitution.

Apparently, those of us who believe in this definition of freedom are a national security threat.

So sayeth Attorney General Gonzales, who in an address today categorized a large swath of American citizens as a "grave threat" to national security:

Gonzales told about 400 cadets from the Air Force Academy's political science and law classes that some see the program as on the verge of stifling freedom rather that protecting the country.

"But this view is shortsighted," he said. "Its definition of freedom one utterly divorced from civic responsibility is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people."

"Grave threat." It's a heavy phrase, one traditionally reserved only for Iran, post-invasion Iraq, and North Korea.

This demonization of ideas which don't square with the notion of an imperial presidency is a failsafe tactic employed by this administration whenever it happens to find itself on shaky legal and ethical footing--which is to say, it's employed quite often. Criticism of the war was dangerous, as now, the mere idea that the government should be obey the Fourth Amendment is a "grave threat" to national security.

MORE HERE