Bush's 41-Second F.U. To The United States

     Back on January 4,2006 Bush did another one of his " screw America " jobs by appointing 17 of his friends to posts in the Federal Election Commission, National Labor Relations Board, and a few other federal offices. It would appear that since he couldn't get them confirmed by the Senate, he waited for a congressional recess so that he could just bypass the confirmation process. Keep in mind that this was a Republican controlled Senate at the time and even they didn't like his choices for these positions.

   As Nick Burt over at In These Times has pointed out, this would be just more cronyism of the part of Bush. So what's new, right?

The recess appointments avoided floor fights over dubiously credentialed nominees, including a former oil executive, a former president of a weapons manufacturer and a relative of a cabinet employee. All told, they include eight donors to Bush’s presidential campaigns.   

Two of the appointees are 2004 Bush-Cheney Campaign “Rangers,” supporters who are being rewarded for having “bundled” at least $200,000 in $2,000 contributions from individuals. Among the 221 Rangers were Roger Wallace, who was named to the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Foundation, and Stephen Goldsmith, who now sits on the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service.       MORE

  This is a pretty loyal group of " bushies " in which nine of the seventeen have contributed $440,585 to either Bush or the GOP.

   These appointments were made by Bush between sessions of Congress in order to have them around for a longer period of time. Many thought that these hoods would be gone in January 2007 with the new Congress coming in, but that ain't so.

If the President makes a recess appointment between sessions or between Congresses, that appointment will expire at the end of the following session. 

If he makes the appointment during a recess in the middle of a session, that appointment also will expire at the end of the following session. In this case, the duration of the appointment will include the balance of the session in progress plus the full length of the session that follows.

   As is noted at the Daily Kos:

The Senate calendar on the Democratic site shows no meeting until Congress opened on January 18, 2006, which would lead one to assume that date marked the opening of the second year of the 109th Congress. But the Library of Congress indicates a session was held on January 3, 2006, thus officially opening the 109th. And lo and behold, the Daily Digest reports a 41-second pro forma Senate session, from 12:00:04 PM to 12:00:45 P.M., on that date. The Senate convened, immediately adjourned and thus began a "recess in the middle of the session," not meeting again until January 18, 2006.

The day following the less-than-a-minute convening, of course, Bush made his recess appointments—now officially during a session of Congress—which allowed his eminently rejectable appointees to complete the "balance of the session in progress plus the full length of the session that follows."

  So Bush and the rest of his criminal enterprise snuck in a 41 second session of Congress just so that he could appoint these inept fools and keep them around for a few years instead of a few months.

   Yet, we still have House Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid saying that they have more important things to do other than impeaching Cheney and Bush. They might as well start working on impeachment since they aren't doing a whole hell of a lot about getting our troops out of Iraq.

 

Tags: George Bush Senate recess appointments Julie Myers Federal Election Commission National Labor Relations Board,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are The Democrats Supporting Bush Or The Troops?

     Much is being made as of late about the Bush veto of the Iraq war funding bill last week and we are already hearing a bunch of shit about how Bush will veto the next bill that the Democrats are crafting.

   Now the bill would fund the war only through July, instead of September. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that this would be disastrous. What else would this shithead say?

   Bush is looking for some $90 billion in funding for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, not a partial payment, which the Democrats are offering.

In a flash of defiance, House Democratic leaders this week promoted legislation that would provide the military $42.8 billion to keep operations going through July, buy new equipment and train Iraqi and Afghan security forces. Congress would decide shortly before its August recess whether to release an additional $52.8 billion to fund the war through September.

"In essence, the bill asks me to run the Department of Defense like a skiff, and I'm trying to drive the biggest supertanker in the world," Gates told senators Wednesday. "And we just don't have the agility to be able to manage a two-month appropriation very well."     Yahoo News

   I put in all of this to get to this.

   If the Democrats are serious about getting our troops out of Iraq, then why are the screwing around with " benchmarks " and " timelines " and such crap? Why the hell are they even considering funding  any of this crap in the first place, only in stages? Funding the war for two months at a time doesn't support our troops any more than funding them eternally does!

  If these clowns ( Pelosi, Reid, Murtha ) where serious about bringing our troops back from Iraq, there would be not one dime spent with the exception of the money to bring the troops and the equipment home.

  It is that simple! don't let the politicians con you with the crap about these things take time because that's bullshit. You either fund the war, or you don't fund the war, plain and simple.

   So now we have the Democrats wanting to wait a little longer and see what happens with this troop surge. That simply means that the house leadership  have no problem with a few more of our troops getting killed.

Tags: Democrats Iraq Bush Nancy Pelosi Congress