Protect America Act will expire on Saturday

    After getting no-where with the Republicans on this bill, the House has adjourned for Presidents' Day weekend. This version of the bill goes D.O.A. and guess what? contrary to President Bush's statements, we are all still going to be safe. That is unless the Bush Crime Syndicate comes up with some sort of terrorist threat after Saturday just so that he can blame the Democrats. I wouldn't put it past this idiot.

     Cong. Steny Hoyer

    THE DEBATES WE HAVE BEEN HAVING OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS ARE CONSEQUENTIAL AND ABOUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT THIS BODY DOES. AND THAT IS UPHOLD THE LAW, NOT JUST PASS THE LAW, UPHOLD THE LAW. AND AS I SAID A LITTLE EARLIER IN THIS DEBATE, PART OF THAT WAS OVERSEEING THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT TO ENSURE THAT THEY EXECUTE OUR LAWS APPROPRIATELY AND LEGALLY, AND THE CONGRESS HAS BEEN GIVEN UNDER THE CONSTITUTION THE AUTHORITY TO SEEK INFORMATION. THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HAS SOUGHT INFORMATION, AND THAT INFORMATION HAS NOT BEEN FORTHCOMING. THE CONGRESS, AS MR. BOEHNER SAID, CANNOT DO ITS JOB. IF THE CONGRESS SIMPLY FAILS TO ASSERT ITS CONSTITUTIONAL ROLE. NOW, THERE IS A SITUATION THAT WE CONFRONT, A LARGE NUMBER SAY THAT THEY WANT TO ADJOURN. THEY'VE BEEN MAKING MOTION AFTER MOTION AFTER MOTION TO ADJOURN. NOW THEY HAVEN'T BEEN VOTING FOR IT, BUT THEY'VE BEEN MAKING IT. AND NOW THEY WALK OFF THE FLOOR ON THE ASSERTION THAT WE'RE NOT WORKING. THEY ASSERT THAT WE'RE NOT PASSING THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT. THEY ASSERT THAT BUT THEY ALL VOTED TO A PERSON NOT TO GIVE US THE TIME TO PERFORM OUR EXTRAORDINARILY IMPORTANT DUTIES IN RESOLVING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE SENATE AND IN THE HOUSE IN A CONFERENCE COMMITTEE. NOW, I'LL TELL MY FRIENDS ON THE REPUBLICAN SIDE OF THE HOUSE, THEY KNOW, AS WELL AS I DO, THAT THE REASON THE SENATE DID NOT PASS US A BILL THREE MONTHS AFTER WE PASSED OUR BILL TO THEM WAS BECAUSE OF REPUBLICAN DELAY IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. THAT'S THE REASON THIS BILL IS SO LATE GETTING TO US. THAT'S THE REASON WE DON'T HAVE TIME TO WORK IT OUT. THAT'S THE REASON THAT WE ARE NOT PASSING LEGISLATION. NOW, THE PRESIDENT ASSERTS THAT THE EXPIRATION OF THE PROTECT AMERICA ACT WILL POSE A DANGER TO OUR COUNTRY. THE FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL ADVISOR ON TERRORISM SAYS THAT'S NOT TRUE. FORMER ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL SAYS THAT'S NOT TRUE. NUMEROUS OTHERS, AND THE CHAIRMAN, HAS ASSERTED THAT'S NOT TRUE. WHY IS THAT NOT TRUE? BECAUSE FISA WILL REMAIN IN EFFECT. THE AUTHORITY GIVEN UNDER THE PROTECT AMERICA ACT REMAINS IN EFFECT. AND IF THERE ARE NEW TARGETS, THE FISA COURT HAS FULL AUTHORITY TO GIVE EVERY AUTHORITY TO THE ADMINISTRATION TO ACT. SO I TELL MY FRIENDS, WE ARE PURSUING THE POLITICS OF FEAR. UNFOUNDED FEAR. 435 MEMBERS OF THIS HOUSE AND EVERY ONE OF US, EVERY ONE OF US WANTS TO KEEP AMERICA AND AMERICANS SAFE. NOT ONE OF US -- NOT ONE OF US WANTS TO SUBJECT AMERICA OR AMERICANS TO DANGER. THE PRESIDENT'S ASSERTION IS WRONG. I SAY IT CATEGORICALLY. THE PRESIDENT'S ASSERTION IS WRONG. NOW, THE PRESIDENT SAYS HE'LL DELAY HIS TRIP TO STAY HERE AND WORK WITH US.

Technorati Tags: Protect America Act, FISA, President Bush, Republicans, terrorists, conference committee, Steny Hoyer

Chairman Reyes Writes to President Bush: “Put partisanship aside” on FISA

  Finally! Someone is taking Preznit Bush to task for his fear mongering bullshit!  Well worth reading. 

           The Gavel

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

The Preamble to our Constitution states that one of our highest duties as public officials is to “provide for the common defence.” As an elected Member of Congress, a senior Member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I work everyday to ensure that our defense and intelligence capabilities remain strong in the face of serious threats to our national security.

Because I care so deeply about protecting our country, I take strong offense to your suggestion in recent days that the country will be vulnerable to terrorist attack unless Congress immediately enacts legislation giving you broader powers to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications and provides legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the Administration’s warrantless surveillance program.

Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) has authority to conduct surveillance in at least three different ways, all of which provide strong capability to monitor the communications of possible terrorists.

First, NSA can use its authority under Executive Order 12333 to conduct surveillance abroad of any known or suspected terrorist. There is no requirement for a warrant. There is no requirement for probable cause. Most of NSA’s collection occurs under this authority.

Second, NSA can use its authority under the Protect America Act, enacted last August, to conduct surveillance here in the U.S of any foreign target. This authority does not “expire” on Saturday, as you have stated. Under the PAA, orders authorizing surveillance may last for one year – until at least August 2008. These orders may cover every terrorist group without limitation. If a new member of the group is identified, or if a new phone number or email address is identified, the NSA may add it to the existing orders, and surveillance can begin immediately. We will not “go dark.”

Third, in the remote possibility that a new terrorist organization emerges that we have never previously identified, the NSA could use existing authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to monitor those communications. Since its establishment nearly 30 years ago, the FISA Court has approved nearly every application for a warrant from the Department of Justice. In an emergency, NSA or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may begin surveillance immediately, and a FISA Court order does not have to be obtained for three days. The former head of FISA operations for the Department of Justice has testified publicly that emergency authorization may be granted in a matter of minutes.

As you know, the 1978 FISA law, which has been modernized and updated numerous times since 9/11, was instrumental in disrupting the terrorist plot in Germany last summer. Those who say that FISA is outdated do not understand the strength of this important tool.

If our nation is left vulnerable in the coming months, it will not be because we don’t have enough domestic spying powers. It will be because your Administration has not done enough to defeat terrorist organizations – including al Qaeda — that have gained strength since 9/11. We do not have nearly enough linguists to translate the reams of information we currently collect. We do not have enough intelligence officers who can penetrate the hardest targets, such as al Qaeda. We have surged so many intelligence resources into Iraq that we have taken our eye off the ball in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a result, you have allowed al Qaeda to reconstitute itself on your watch.

You have also suggested that Congress must grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies. As someone who has been briefed on our most sensitive intelligence programs, I can see no argument why the future security of our country depends on whether past actions of telecommunications companies are immunized.

The issue of telecom liability should be carefully considered based on a full review of the documents that your Administration withheld from Congress for eight months. However, it is an insult to the intelligence of the American people to say that we will be vulnerable unless we grant immunity for actions that happened years ago.

Congress has not been sitting on its hands. Last November, the House passed responsible legislation to authorize the NSA to conduct surveillance of foreign terrorists and to provide clarity and legal protection to our private sector partners who assist in that surveillance.

The proper course is now to conference the House bill with the Senate bill that was passed on Tuesday. There are significant differences between these two bills and a conference, in regular order, is the appropriate mechanism to resolve the differences between these two bills. I urge you, Mr. President, to put partisanship aside and allow Republicans in Congress to arrive at a compromise that will protect America and protect our Constitution.

I, for one, do not intend to back down – not to the terrorists and not to anyone, including a President, who wants Americans to cower in fear.

We are a strong nation. We cannot allow ourselves to be scared into suspending the Constitution. If we do that, we might as well call the terrorists and tell them that they have won.

Sincerely,

Silvestre Reyes
Member of Congress
Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Technorati Tags: Silvestre Reyes, President Bush, FISA

FISA and The Bush Veto Threat

     Bush says that if there is no retroactive immunity ( amnesty ) for the telecoms, that he will veto the FISA bill. So, Bush is then willing to let Americans die ( won't happen if FISA bill expires ) if ATT and others aren't let off the hook for spying on us?

  Ted Kennedy summed it up on the Senate floor on Monday, before the Senate voted and this still holds true for the House.

  The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA.  But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retro-active immunity.  No immunity, no FISA bill.  So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.  Source

  Different day, same shit for Bush. He's making the amnesty issue the issue. Forget about the terrorist! More solid proof that this FISA version has nothing to do with monitoring terrorist and more to do with monitoring you and I.

Technorati Tags: FISA, Bush, Senate, the House, terrorists, telecom amnesty

Bush Tells The House: Pass FISA Bill Or Terrorist Will Kill Us, Again! Please Pass the Tums!

   Let me tell you something. After reading Crime Boss Bush's little press gathering, I had to reach for the Pepto-Bismol! This punk is so sickening that someone in the medical research establishment needs to come up with some kind of a vaccine for him.

  Some of Bush's comments:

   At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning new attacks on our country. Their goal is to bring destruction to our shores that will make September the 11th pale by comparison. To carry out their plans, they must communicate with each other, they must recruit operatives, and they must share information.

  It's a safe bet that Bush's terrorist are not emailing or using the phone system to let each other know the next stage of their plans. Bush's comment here is beyond ludicrous.

     The lives of countless Americans depend on our ability to monitor these communications.

  In that case Preznit Bush, bring forth the 5 million or so emails that the Bush Crime Syndicate has misplaced.  I'd like to read those terrorist emails.

Bush then goes on to say that the Senate did a wonderful thing in passing the Protect America Act in a " bipartisan majority. "  Here comes my favorite part.

The Senate bill also provides fair and just liability protections for companies that did the right thing and assisted in defending America after the attacks of September the 11th.

  Funny how Bush leaves out the part about him going to those same telecoms before 9/11 happened, and wanting our private records. He also didn't mention that the phone companies stopped assisting  in America's defense when the government wouldn't pay their phone bills.

In order to be able to discover enemy -- the enemy's plans, we need the cooperation of telecommunication companies. If these companies are subjected to lawsuits that could cost them billions of dollars, they won't participate; they won't help us; they won't help protect America. Liability protection is critical to securing the private sector's cooperation with our intelligence efforts.

  They won't help in an illegal manner if their asses are put to the fire! they sure as fuck will not cover for Bush if they have to go into a courtroom. Bush is only concerned with us finding out just how much of a gutter crawling scab he really is.

The House's failure to pass the bipartisan Senate bill would jeopardize the security of our citizens. As Director McConnell has told me, without this law, our ability to prevent new attacks will be weakened. And it will become harder for us to uncover terrorist plots.  

  This line of bullshit has been laid to rest Here.

It is time for Congress to pass a law that provides a long-term foundation to protect our country. And they must do so immediately.

  Better hurry up House before Bush's next telecom bribe gets withheld from him!

   Would somebody please pass me some more Tums? I feel sick again.

Technorati Tags: President Bush.FISA, Protect America Act, congress, The House, illegal wiretaps, telecom amnesty, civil rights

Facts about FISA

  We have all heard that if the FISA bill isn't passed by the House before February 15, that the government will have a harder time tracking our dreaded terrorist.

  You may know that the house wanted more time ( 21 day extension )  so that a House/Senate conference on a FISA modernization bill could be drawn up and agreed to. but dear old Bush and the rest of the communist Republicans will not have that! They do not want time for a legitimate discussing of this bill and the amnesty for the phone companies and Bush. Pathetic bunch of fucks!

   From The Gavel

Surveillance will continue should Protect America Act
expire on February 15

The refusal by President Bush and House Republicans to support an extension of last summer’s Protect America Act for twenty one days so that a House/Senate conference on a FISA modernization bill could be completed does not mean that surveillance activities will cease.

Richard Clarke, Former Chief National Security Council Counterterrorism Advisor: “On one issue in particular - FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) - the president misconstrued the truth and manipulated the facts… Simply put, it was wrong for the president to suggest that warrants issued in compliance with FISA would suddenly evaporate with congressional inaction.” [Philadelphia Inquirer, February 1, 2008]

Mort Halperin, Director of U.S. Advocacy for the Open Society Institute: “Even if the President permits the PAA to temporarily lapse, the intelligence community will have the authority not only to continue on-going surveillances for a year but to add other surveillances as long as they are consistent with the existing procedures.” [2/7/08]

“Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security, said in an interview that if the August bill was allowed to expire in 10 days, intelligence officials would still be able to continue eavesdropping on already approved targets for another year under the law.” [New York Times, 1/23/08]

Kate Martin, Director of the Center for National Security Studies: “If the government learns of new individuals apparently plotting terrorist activities, it can immediately surveil such individuals — whether they are here or calling here from abroad — by obtaining a FISA court order… As officials have confirmed to the Congress, the court can issue an order within literally minutes of being asked and such order can be implemented within minutes. Or the government can start surveillance without a court order under the always existing FISA emergency authority.” [2/7/08]

On the House Vote on FISA

February 13th, 2008 by Speaker Pelosi

All Members of Congress fully understand and support our responsibility to protect the American people and the need for the President, the Congress, and policymakers to have the best possible intelligence to fight terrorism.

On Friday, a surveillance law insisted upon by the President last August will expire. Today, an overwhelming majority of House Democrats voted to extend that law for three weeks so that agreement could be reached with the Senate on a better version of that law. The President and House Republicans refused to support the extension and therefore will bear the responsibility should any adverse national consequences result.

However, even if the Protect America Act expires later this week, the American people can be confident that our country remains safe and strong. Every order entered under the law can remain in effect for 12 months from the date it was issued.

Furthermore, the underlying Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which provides for the surveillance of terrorists and provides that in emergencies surveillance can begin without warrant, remains intact and available to our intelligence agencies. Unlike last August, the FISA court has no backlog of cases, and thus can issue necessary court orders for surveillance immediately.

 

Technorati Tags: FISA, The House, the Senate, republicans.president, George Bush, Richard Clarke, Protect America Act, telecom amnesty

Bush and Telecoms Get Amnesty In FISA Bill: Here's Why

  All of the illegal spying that President Bush has been doing since he was appointed President of the United States and all of the information that AT&T, Verizon, and others have turned over to the Bush Crime Syndicate has all been swept under the rug, never to see the light of day.

   This is a slap in the face to both you and myself. Every law-abiding citizen in this country should be up in arms and raising all kinds of hell with our elected Senate representatives who voted to let all of these crooks get a " get out of jail free " card! I expected this kind of voting from the GOP pieces of shit in the Senate, but I am deeply disappointed in the so-called Democrats who voted in favor of this bullshit!

   Those who voted for amnesty in the FISA bill ( democrats ):

Bayh (D-IN), Carper (D-DE), Conrad (D-ND), Feinstein (D-CA), Inouye (D-HI),

Johnson (D-SD), Kohl (D-WI), Landrieu (D-LA), McCaskill (D-MO), Mikulski (D-MD), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Rockefeller (D-WV), Salazar (D-CO), Stabenow (D-MI), Webb (D-VA), and let us not forget one other traitor, Lieberman (ID-CT)     Source

  Next up I guess that I will be posting the names out of this group who are up for re-election this year. They all need to be targeted for defeat!

  This is personal and it should be for you! I am hostile and you should be also!

   Right to Privacy? R.I.P. 2008

Technorati Tags: FISA, telecom amnesty, the Senate, ATT, Verizon

Senate Sold Our Rights To Verizon And AT&T By Way Of FISA/Amnesty Bill

     From Senator Russ Feingold

    “The Senate passage of this FISA bill, while not surprising, is extremely disappointing. The Senate missed a golden opportunity to pass a bill that would give our intelligence officials the tools they need to go after suspected terrorists while also safeguarding the privacy of law-abiding Americans. Instead the Senate, with the help of too many Democrats, is yet again giving the administration sweeping new powers – and letting it off the hook for its illegal wiretapping program. I hope that our House colleagues will hold a stronger line, and refuse to accept the deeply flawed Senate bill. The calls from Americans tired of having their rights and their Constitution trampled on by this administration are only growing louder. Congress should stand up for the American people, and the Constitution, by opposing such a badly flawed bill.”

   Once again, the citizens of America have been fucked up the ass by our so-called elected Representatives in the Senate. I do include Senator Harry Reid as one who stabbed us in the heart even though he voted " nay " on cloture. Mr. Reid could have solved this problem with FISA and telecom amnesty simply by using the House version of FISA. All of this bullshit could have been averted from the start, but I guess that all of that cash from the telecom industry was just to much to pass on.

   I'll have much more on this subject later in the evening and certainly on tomorrow!

Technorati Tags: FISA, telecom amnesty, Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, the Senate

Telecom's Ready to Enjoy Amnesty For Criminal Acts: There Will Be No Filibuster By Chris Dodd

    Time for a little update on the FISA bill and amnesty for criminals who gave our personal records ( calls, emails,ect. ) to the Bush Crime Syndicate ( NSA ).

    As we all know, the vote on this junk FISA bill is tomorrow and this is looking as if the Democrats in the Senate ( Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, and others ) are going to get on their collective knees and suck Bush's dick once again and give him and the telecom's the amnesty that he needs to avoid possible prosecution for felony acts of lawbreaking for spying on United States citizens.

   Glenn Greenwald on what will happen in the Senate tomorrow.

What the Senate is about to do tomorrow is very simple: it will (a) vest vast new powers in the President to spy on the calls and emails of American citizens, inside the U.S., with no warrants, and (b) grant amnesty to telecoms that broke multiple federal laws. In sum, it will legalize the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" that the President ordered for years in violation of the law -- a program aimed at eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, inside the U.S.

   So what about Chris Dodd's threat of a filibuster?

     Contrary to the emphatic promise Dodd repeatedly made during his presidential campaign to lead a filibuster on the floor of the Senate to stop any bill that has telecom immunity in it (a promise which, incidentally, led to hundreds of thousands of dollars being donated to his campaign), there isn't going to be any actual filibuster tomorrow. Under the Unanimous Consent framework agreed to by all Senators (including Dodd), there will be a 60-vote requirement to invoke cloture on the FISA bill and for ultimate passage, followed by an allotted 4 hours of post-cloture "debate," but there will not be any real filibuster to prevent cloture. When Leahy says that he will "join" Dodd's filibuster, what he means is that he will merely cast a vote against cloture.

Dodd's efforts against this bill have been quite commendable, and the UC Agreement isn't completely worthless. It means that Democrats do not need 60 votes, or even 50 votes, to stop this bill. Rather, they only need 41 Senators willing to oppose cloture (which everyone knows they're not going to get).

Still, Dodd is not, after all, going to lead an actual filibuster on the floor of the Senate to stop the bill. Worse, the Republicans are going to be permitted to impose 60-vote requirements on key Democratic amendments without actually having to filibuster at all -- exactly the situation which Harry Reid vowed just two weeks ago he would not permit.    Salon

   So once again, bend-over Harry is going to kiss George Bush's ass to score what he thinks are brownie points for later on. Is this man to old to handle his job or is he just totally dumb, stupid, and ignorant? I guess that he could be all of them. Either way, he needs to either find himself a nice quiet place to retire to, or fired from his position in government.

   One question? Do We The People even have any real Democrats in the Senate?

Technorati Tags: FISA, telecom amnesty, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, Unanimous Consent, George Bush, filibuster, Democrats, cloture vote

FISA And The Filibuster

  Back to the important matters, FISA being one of them.

  First off, Sen. Patrick Leahy has said that he will support Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold, and the others in opposing the Senate version of the FISA bill. One more joining the good guys for a change. Senator Leahy is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee so this means a lot as he can now look over at Jay Rockefeller, another chairman, to let him know what a piece of shit that he is in supporting amnesty for the telecoms.

  Sen.  Leahy's Office:

Tuesday is a critical day in our fight to stand up for American values and preserve our freedoms while protecting our national security.

Tomorrow the Senate will vote on amendments to FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law governing the use of wiretaps and other means to conduct surveillance of foreign threats.

Unfortunately, the new FISA bill we'll be voting on Tuesday still has many problems.  I will do everything in my power -- including joining my colleague Chris Dodd in a filibuster against this legislation -- to fix it. 

Now I need your help to encourage more of our House and Senate colleagues to stand with us. 

Tell Congress that any new FISA bill must both protect our national security and preserve our civil liberties. Please email your home state Senators and Member of Congress now!

I strongly support surveillance targeting foreign threats and terrorists who wish to do us harm -- but we must take care to protect Americans' liberties in the process.  That's what the FISA amendments we passed through the Judiciary Committee would have done. 

Our Judiciary Committee amendments also would have given the existing FISA Court a more meaningful role in overseeing law enforcement's expanded surveillance activities, providing a crucial independent check on potential government excess.  We must not forget that earlier abuses of power are the reason FISA was enacted in the first place.

Unfortunately, the Bush-Cheney Administration and its allies oppose these safeguards.  They are voting in lockstep to kill all of our efforts to improve the new FISA bill, basically telling Senate Democrats to "take it or leave it."

Here's what they need to know: Passing legislation through the U.S. Senate isn't a "take it or leave it" enterprise.  Not when they want to park Americans' civil liberties in a blind trust.  They lost their credibility on "just trust us" long ago.  Will you help convince Senators and Members of Congress to agree to our common-sense changes to improve this bill and protect the rights of all Americans?

In addition, the Bush-Cheney Administration is trying to avoid any and all accountability for conducting illegal, warrantless surveillance for the past 5 years.  They are insisting on granting blanket retroactive immunity to phone companies for their warrantless surveillance activities beginning in 2001, activities which explicitly violated existing FISA law and violated the privacy rights of Americans.

Clearly, the Bush-Cheney Administration does not want their law-breaking to be exposed.  Retroactive immunity would assure that they get their wish.

When the public found out that the Bush-Cheney Administration was violating FISA and spying illegally on Americans without warrants, the Administration and phone companies were sued by citizens whose privacy rights were violated.  These lawsuits may be the only way that the Bush-Cheney Administration is truly held accountable for its flagrant disrespect for the rule of law.

Well, no one -- no citizen, no company, no Senator, and no President -- is above the law.  By offering blanket immunity to telecom companies, the Administration is trying to avoid accountability -- and that is unacceptable.

Tell Congress that any new FISA bill cannot grant blanket retroactive immunity to phone companies. Please email your home state Senators and Member of Congress now!

I'm going to do everything I can to fix the FISA bill on Tuesday -- but I need your help to do it.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,
Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator

       All of you know what to do, so go to those phones and emails and let's get to it. This is an important bill and the amnesty for BUSH and the rest of his Crime Syndicate needs to be stopped! NOW!

Technorati Tags: FISA, Senate, Patrick Leahy, Chris Dodd, telecom amnesty, George Bush, ATT, Verizon, filibuster

Bush's 2009 Military Budget

  I am having to actually for today, for a change, so I am bringing this article to you from Common Dreams. This was originally posted at The Independent/UK.

The official Pentagon budget for 2009 runs to $515bn (£265bn), or around 4 per cent of America’s total economy (the equivalent figure for Britain is 2.5 per cent), and about the same size as the entire output of the Netherlands. Throw in an expected $150bn of supplementary outlays and you’ve got defence spending larger than Australia’s entire gross domestic product.

Even that may be an understatement. Add in various “black items”, such as military spending tucked away in other parts of government, and some claim that America’s total annual spending on the military now exceeds a trillion dollars - roughly half the entire British economy.     More Here

  Lots of cash going to Lockheed Martin and others.

Technorati Tags: Lockheed Martin, Pentagon budget, George Bush, defecits

Bush Ad Infinitum...

by Devilstower @ Daily Kos

Sun Feb 10, 2008 at 11:33:47 AM PST

While most calendars start on January 1 and end on December 31, I think I'm not alone in saying that the X's on my fridge are counting down toward January 20, 2009.  I might mention the alarm set to go off at the stroke of noon, but that would seem obsessive.  Still, while I may give a hearty cheer (and I'm trying to select between a set of appropriate quips) the truth is, we won't be shed of George W. Bush on that wondrous day.

He's not leaving.  He's never leaving.

By that I don't mean that Bush has a nefarious plot to exercise the Poppa Doc President for Life clause.  I mean that the Bush legacy will not be restricted to that "the less said, the better" note he'll receive in future history books.  The evil that presidents' do lives after them; the good is left as a target for the next conservative president.  Bush hasn't left much good behind him, but what he has left is a set of policies and decisions that may cripple whichever of our Democratic candidates is so unfortunate as to succeed Bush.

First up in the things we may have to live with for a long, long time is the gift of a radicalized Supreme Court.  While it's easy to say that it will take a generation to mend, the truth is a generation might not be enough.  Of the sitting Supreme Court justices, two of them are Reagan appointees from the mid-80s.  One of them is an appointee of Gerry Ford who has been in his robe since 1975 (thank you, Justice Stephens, and hang in there).  That means that we could still be dealing with Alito's snarling rants when Malia Obama is facing off against senior senator Hillary Duff.  Even a couple of back to back Democratic administrations might not be enough to patch the tears put into the Constitution by the "strict constructionists," as the three youngest members of the court are Roberts, Alito, and Thomas.

Moving beyond the court, there's the perennial target of the Republicans: the people, their pocketbooks, and the planet.

There's a popular theory of a "business cycle" in which the economy goes up and down in somewhat regular waves.  I can't help but view it as a political cycle, one in which a decade or so is enough to make people forget that conservatism does not work.  Watch the folks around you for the next few years.  As the Iraq Recession cuts into their lives, they'll momentarily get that splash of cold water awareness that the Laffer Curve has absolutely no evidence, that trickle down economics is a joke, and that the Magical Invisible Hand of Greed only ends up bankrupting the nation to the benefit of a chosen few.  Then, as Democrats gradually put the world back together again, eyelids will droop, and the siren song of "you can have your cake and eat it too" will once more ring out across the land.

The only thing that might prevent this cycle from repeating again over the next few years is how spectacularly conservatism has failed during this spin of the wheel.  Having presided over seven years of the spendthrift's ball, wrecked most every fundamental of the economy, invested a couple of trillion as a downpayment on the new Hundred Years War, and cheered an "expansion" in which the average American went backwards, you might think that the public would be in no hurry to trust Republicans with the check book again.  Don't bet on it.  After all Saint Ronald of Death Valley Days reversed thirty years of saving in a single decade while taking the national debt from 30% to 60% of the GDP.  The expanded spending under Reagan so outpaced economic growth that a plot of it looks steeper than the Nepalese approach to Everest.  Yet Ronnie is now regarded as a champion of sound economic practices.  Why are we that stupid?  Well, there are at least three television networks completely dedicated to spreading the "go greed!" message 24/7 (for every other TV network, promoting greed is only on 23 hours out of 24).  Wake me when the Sustainability Network gets on the air.

In casting his inky-red shadow across coming administrations, Bush is still insisting that his tax cuts for the wealthy be extended -- right now, today -- even though they don't run out until 2010.  Expect that theme to be a part of the race next fall and, no matter who wins, expect any effort to allow these cuts to expire to be portrayed as a "massive tax increase."  In fact, I'll give you 10:1 odds it's called "the greatest tax increase in American history" before we get to pull the lever in November.  This will be done by using revenue projections that run from now until the entropy death of the sun.  

A great deal will be made of how, after seven years of residing over skyrocketing Republican graft and record setting corporate handouts, Bush has decided to play fiscal hardball when it comes to "earmarks."  Except, of course he hasn't.  He's only threatened to put into effect an executive order that would limit the number of earmarks to something greater than that ever passed by a Democratic president.  And that limit starts in fiscal 2009.  So any program cuts resulting from this new flowering of restraint won't come due under Bush's watch, they'll only affect the next president.  And yet, should our next president rescind this order, you'll have to cover your ears to keep from being deafened by the howls of Republicans who are suddenly dead set against anyone doing what they've been doing for a decade.

That's the Bush economic goal at this point: lay mines around the gravy train they've built, pretend that they left something less than the worst fiscal catastrophe since the Big Bang, and scream if anyone touches their cheese.  We had better hope we can land 60 Democrats in the Senate, because otherwise everything the next president attempts to do will be filibustered in support of the "economic discipline" Republicans were never able to practice when they had control.

Of course the Bush legacy will include Iraq.  Not just the unsustainable deployment of troops, but the shotgun marriage to the dysfunctional Iraqi government.  And then there are the permanent enduring bases in Iraq.  At this moment, the Bush administration is negotiating a treaty that will "maintain our current level of authority to conduct operations in Iraq" indefinitely and secure those permanent enduring bases.  You can bet that any attempt to move a single soldier from Iraq will bring cries of "retreat" and closing those bases will be "surrender."  Oh, and expect the same Republicans who have spent the Bush administration sneering at any international treaty, to suddenly discover that any treaties negotiated by Bush deserve a reverence somewhere between mom and apple pie.

But as bad is the situation in Iraq is and will be, perhaps the worst thing Bush can still stick us with in this final year is something less visible in the short term, but vitally important in the long term.  Having started his administration destroying the environment through executive orders bearing laughable names like "Clear Skies," Bush is ending his official tenure by systematically dismantling out last wild places.

In the last month, Bush has placed a giant "for sale" sign on America's largest national forest, the Tongass rainforest in Alaska.  58 million acres there have been opened up to development.  The same thing has happened recently in Idaho and Colorado.  It's not just the trees that are threatened.  Last week the Bush administration auctioned off oil drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea, just off Alaska's northwest shore, despite the fact that it's an environmentally fragile area where polar bears are struggling to hang on.  You'll be happy to know that Shell and ConncoPhillips now hold the rights to drill an area about the size of the state of Pennsylvania.

It may not seem like it, but on many fronts the now Democratic congress can act as a check on the Bush administration and stifle their worst impulses, but when it comes to the lands held in public trust, the president's authority is expansive.  And where recovering from the foolish economic voodoo of conservatism can take decades, public lands surrendered to private greed is forever.  Wilderness squandered is wilderness lost.

Repairing the damage that Bush has done is going to be an enormous task.  Before the next president can move the nation forward, that president will first have to fill in the massive hole dug during this administration.  Education.  Our right to privacy.  Trade policies.  The tarnished reputation of the United States around the world.  Even locating all the damage Bush has started rolling could take the next President most of her/his tenure.

To save time, I suggest the next president start with Executive Order #1: Every executive order issued by George W. Bush is hereby rescinded.  Effective immediately.

Technorati Tags: George W. Bush, permanant tax cuts, earmarks, Iraq

Bush Lies To Troop's Families Again

  This creature is so pathetic that it is not funny.

   Remember Bush's State of the Union speech back in January when he urged Congress to allow the U.S. troops to move their unused education benefits to other members if their families? That was the good part, the bad part is that President Bush forgot to add any funding in his 2009 budget request for this initiative. The government people say that this proposal will cost somewhere around $1 billion to $2 billion annually. this is a $3.1 trillion budget request, in case you have forgotten.   Source

  Think about this ploy for a minute. Bush says that he wants Congress to pass this initiative for the military families, but, he doesn't leave any funding for it. this would then leave it up to the next president to figure out all of the details unless Bush throws the funding in with his next request for more Iraq war funds.

  His handlers say that Bush threw this idea in at the last minute after having spoke to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, and it would seem that even many of the Republicans were caught off guard by the Minion in Chief. I guess that President Bush's mouth got ahead of his brain once again. I am shocked!

Technorati Tags: U.S. troops.George Bush, 2009 budget, Congress, U.S. military

George Bush's 2009 Budget And His Permanent Tax Cuts

  President Bush must be getting paid very well by the Military War Machine and its corporate sponsors and by his rich friends. You all know about Mr. Bush and his tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 which he wants to make permanent. With all of the money that the Bush Crime Syndicate has looted from the treasury and stolen from the taxpayers, they need all of these tax cuts made permanent in order to keep a much, much bigger slice of the pie!  Here is a breakdown based on percentages.

  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the wealthiest 1 percent would receive 31 percent of the windfall over the next 10 years, the top 20 percent would receive 74 percent, and those in the lowest 60 percent of households would receive only 12 percent.    Source

  Between this and the increased military spending, we add to the deficit some $407 billion in 2009, and $410 billion in fiscal year 2008

  They call Republicans "conservatives "? I have not met one yet in this lifetime. Maybe by  " conservative " they mean that you and I could have been robbed even more if they had wanted to do it.

  You are aware that many domestic programs will be reduced in funding in order to pay for this " conservative " bullshit.

Technorati Tags: 2009 budget, George Bush, tax cuts, conservative, Iraq war

John McCain: Other Son Of George Bush?

   Resident Bush did a taped interview for " Fox News Sunday " and had a few things to say about his other son, Senator John McCain.

   First, Bush had the nerve to say that McCain is a "true conservative."

   Yes he is. another one of those conservative's who will spend this country even further down into oblivion just so that he can line his corporate master's pockets and bankrupt the country.

  President Bush:"He is tough fiscally. He believes the tax cuts ought to be permanent. He is pro-life. His principles are sound and solid as far as I'm concerned."

  As if Bush would know anything about sound principals or any kind of principal.

     "I think that if John is the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative and I'll be glad to help him if he is the nominee."

  More quotes from Bush interview:

    "I think the experts would tell you we are not in recession. ... But I will tell you that the signs are troubling enough that we all came together and got a robust (economic stimulus) package out."

"Whatever we have done was legal, and whatever decision I will make will be reviewed by the Justice Department to determine whether or not the legality is there."    concerning waterboarding

"We will be there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. ... We won't have permanent bases. I do believe it is in our interests and the interests of the Iraqi people that we do enter into an agreement on how we are going to conduct ourselves over the next years."    concerning our visit to Iraq

Do we really need another Bush in the White House? I think not.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, John McCain, conservative, Republican, Iran, Iraq

Republican Election Tactics That Scare You Into Voting GOP

Published on Saturday, February 9, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

The Right-Wing: SOL

by Guy Reel

Writing in The New York Post, Charles Hurt noted that conservative Republicans fear John McCain will make a left turn if elected. “He will,” they suspect, “return to his lifelong positions as soft on illegal immigration, skeptical of tax cuts and favoring strong federal control over things like campaign financing.”

Wow. God forbid that we might stop the insanity of tax cuts for millionaires when we’re facing trillions in debt, largely a result of reckless Republican borrowing from countries like China and Saudi Arabia. God forbid that we might have someone “soft” on illegal immigration (that is, someone uneasy about rounding up and deporting 11 million people and turning American into a police state at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars). And God forbid that we might attempt to address a campaign finance system that is utterly corrupt and corrupting.

Later, McCain was booed at the Conservative Political Action Conference for not being outrageously narrow-minded and homogenous enough. Many in the right wing say they would rather have - gasp! - Hillary Clinton in the White house than allow for the possibility that any nuance whatsoever exists in the Republican Party. Some commentators, in a nice display of their idea of patriotism, said that after Hillary destroys the country, Republicans can win indefinitely after that, so it won’t be so bad. Hmm. You mean after she gets us into an optional war, runs up trillions in debt and sits by idly smirking while eco-systems and coastlines face extinction?

Oh wait, that’s what the last guy did.

But all of this isn’t surprising coming from the right-wing extremists. Though they claim otherwise, their positions are rarely about right and wrong. They’re about what wins them elections. In fact, many of the right’s policies are directly contrary to the national interest and they hurt America. But in some way, the Republican Party usually benefits from them because the policy either a) hurts Democrats or b) allows the wealthiest to line their own pockets at the people’s expense.

It’s sad that we have a large portion of a political party that will choose their narrow worldview over the national interest. And, given the ideology of the most venal among them, candidates must vow to sacrifice the future of America in order to win their support. Why? Well, because they’re fighting liberals and Democrats!

This became crashingly apparent, if it wasn’t already, from the “farewell” speech of Mitt Romney. In disgraceful display of counterfeit patriotism, Romney claimed he was withdrawing from the race for the good of America because of the horrible things that might happen if a Democrat wins in November. Setting aside the pious, petty and obviously phony rationale - everyone knows Romney dropped out because he was such a bogus purveyor of mixed messages that he couldn’t even beat a guy who’s loathed by the very people that Romney genuflects before - his speech amounted to little more than an egregious display of anti-American partisanship. Oh, but that’s what these people love. It’s all about hating liberals and Democrats, you see, not about Republican policies that have overextended the nation’s military, ignored the health of millions of children and mortgaged the future to China.

Romney is among the nastiest of those right-wingers who employ what I call the SOL strategy - suppress, obstruct and lie.

It goes like this:

1) Suppress the vote because in fair elections with large turnouts, Republicans can’t win. Here’s a dirty little secret: most people don’t agree with policies that hurt America - even if they do hurt gays or the poor. So, under this part of the strategy, we see such frauds as “voter i.d. cards” that affect only the elderly or the poor - those who are mostly likely to vote Democratic - and that solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Or, we see the purging of voter roles (Florida 2000) that remove perfectly eligible voters.

2) Obstruct the passage of legislation that may actually improve the quality of people’s lives, even if it is supported by the vast majority of voters. (See SCHIP.) This strategy allows them to argue that “government doesn’t work,” another lie that allows outsourcing to private industry which almost always proves more costly, less efficient and less accountable than government programs. Sure, there’s waste in government; but don’t you think there’s waste, fraud, greed and criminal activity in private industry? Take a look at the outsourcing for war profiteers in Iraq. The Republicans actually love big government when it allows them to line their own pockets - just don’t ask any questions about where the money goes.

3) Lie about their own message; lie about the Democrats’. Romney is a dissembling machine in this area - look at his goodbye speech. He loves to say Democrats want to wave the “white flag of surrender” in Iraq and in the war on terror. Never mind that no Democrat has ever advocated anything of the kind; rather, the fact is, the war on terror has been severely damaged by the war in Iraq - ask any national security specialist, including those in the Bush administration. Republicans employ this strategy on a whole host of issues, from gay marriage to gun control to health care to flag burning. For example, the Republican candidates keep saying Democratic candidates want “socialized medicine.” Not even close. They say the Democrats are for gay marriage. Um, no. Some Democrats may support civil unions, but most Democratic candidates do not support gay marriage. Guess who signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to ignore gay marriages sanctioned in other states? (Hint: it was another person named Clinton.) Another favorite whopper - “Democrats want to take away your guns!” Nope. While some may want to ban, say, assault weapons in schools, nearly all mainstream Democratic candidates support the use of firearms for hunting or protection. Just recently I heard the right-wing’s favorite theory about the Clinton campaign - that it was trying to appeal to the racist Democrats in order to stop Sen. Barack Obama. Um, actually, if there was any racial undertone there, it was about trying to make the point that Obama might have problems in the general election because of the racist right-wingers. All of these are classic propaganda devices - create false issues and accuse your opponent of being extreme to hide your own extremism. (When was the last time you saw somebody burn a flag?)

Sigh. One has to admit that the strategy has been successful - successful in electing Republicans. Never mind that America’s economy, armed forces, health care, natural resources, educational system, deficits and foreign alliances have all been made worse over the last seven years. That doesn’t matter, you see; they believe the country must be destroyed in order to save it - from the Democrats.

Guy Reel is an assistant professor of mass communication at Winthrop University. He can be reached at reelg@winthrop.edu

Technorati Tags: Republican, GOP, voter suppression, Democrats, police state, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain

The Telecoms, FISA, And Amnesty For Illegal Spying

  This has got to be my pet peeves, I think. It just galls the fuck out of me that I, and you, have been paying our phone providers every month just for them to spy on us and turn all of our records over to the Bush Crime Syndicate! I use to have cell service with Verizon but canceled it over a bill dispute so I went to ATT. Was that a big mistake or what? But you and I did not know, at the time that I changed providers, that we were be eaves-dropped on. That our SMS's were being read or that our emails were being stored in someone's database somewhere. Rumor has it that a bill is supposed to be introduced this month, by Republicans, that would make it okay for our government to monitor the entire Internet! This would be passed due to worries that cyber-terrorist might destroy our banking system somehow or some other large financial institutions. Of  course, The rumor is also that the Internet would become a playground for the U.S. Military. Do we really need this? I think not.

  Back to the telecoms and the Bush administration.

There simply is no separation between these corporations and the military and intelligence agencies of the Federal Government. They meet and plan and agree so frequently, and at such high levels, that they practically form a consortium. Just in Nacchio's limited and redacted disclosures, there are descriptions of numerous pre-9/11 meetings between the largest telecoms and multiple Bush national security officials, including Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and counter-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke.

The top telecom officials are devoting substantial amounts of their energy to working on highly classified telecom projects with the Bush administration, including projects to develop whole new joint networks and ensure unfettered governmental access to those networks. Before joining the administration as its Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell spearheaded the efforts on behalf of telecoms to massively increase the cooperation between the Federal Government and the telecom industry.

The private/public distinction here has eroded almost completely. There is no governmental oversight or regulation of these companies. Quite the contrary, they work in secret and in tandem -- as one consortium -- with no oversight at all.   Source

  If you wish to learn a little bit more about the FISA/amnesty bill and its impact on you, then I suggest reading THIS from the ACLU and/or this concerning one of the lawsuits against AT&T.

    More:   Later On      Reclaim the Media    FISA     Protect America Act

Technorati Tags: FISA, telecom amnesty, NSA, Congress

John McCain

  As many of you know, the GOP is now bound and determined to have Senator McCain as their next leader, which is their right. However, it is not within their right to set this man up as the leader of our country. If they want this old man as a president, then they might as well keep Bush in, since it would be the same old song and dance for another four years. It might even be worse. Much worse.

   The media is making a big deal of McCain's war record and his stint as a Prisoner Of War. He did his thing in service to our country, which is all well and good. That does not guarantee that he will be a good president. Just look at Bush as an example. He went to the better schools and all of that bullshit and even got himself an M.B.A.  at a grade of " c." The better schools,and daddy's money still did not make him any smarter. Most of you know that pretty much every business that Bush has ever been involved with has been a failure, just like his time in the White House has been a failure. Does this country really need/want more of this shit? I know that I do not. I really do not care for either of the Democrats that we have to choose from either. Once again, the media and the corporations have given you and I our choices. The Democratic choices are once again the lesser of two evils. What a choice. I seriously doubt that we even get to choose among our chosen ones any more. I think that our next president has already been decided and that you and I get to vote anymore just to make us feel like we have a say in the matter.

  Back to Senator McCain. I would have actually voted for this man back in 2000 and I have supported him up until the he and Bush agreed on the torture ban.

McCain said.

"We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists. We have no grief for them, but what we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people, no matter how evil or bad they are," McCain said. "I think that this will help us enormously in winning the war for the hearts and minds of people throughout the world in the war on terror."      Source

  As we all know, this agreement on the torture bill turned out to be nothing more than show for the public as McCain pretty much went along with Bush on everything that Bush said to go along with. McCain was doing nothing but playing theatre with the American public.

  Another reason that McCain should not be the president is, simply, that he is to damned old! We do not need another old fart who is near his end to be sitting in the White House running our country. Come on now! Let's get a younger person in the chair for once. I don't mean Obama or Clinton as I have no use for these two either. McCain is just to old to be sitting in the White House, getting hot-headed and impatient and having to make quick decisions on important matters.

   Did I say hot-headed?

    McCain's political colleagues, however, know another side of the action hero - a volatile man with a hair-trigger temper, who shouted at Senator Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor to "shut up", and called fellow Republican senators "shithead ... fucking jerk ... asshole". A few months ago, McCain suddenly rushed up to a friend of mine, a prominent Washington lawyer, at a social event, and threatened to beat him up because he represented a client McCain happened to dislike. Then, just as suddenly, profusely and tearfully, he apologised.  

Many Republicans who have had dealings with McCain distrust him (not just conservatives but traditional Republican moderates too). While taking rightwing positions on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, his simmering resentment of Bush led him virtually to caucus with the Democrats in early 2001 (before September 11). Then, abruptly, he rushed to embrace Bush.      Source

    Though McCain can still get up and move around, he has lost something in his life. That would be the life itself. he's gotten older and it shows when you look at him closely while he is giving a speech. He is distant and this country does not need some like this inside the White House. Plus, he will always be tied to George Bush and his policies. Enough is enough.

   Do what is best for this country John McCain. Go back to Arizona, retire, and have a few drinks because you did very well while you could.

Technorati Tags: John McCain, republicans.president, White House

Harry Reid And The Suicidal Democrats

Published on Friday, February 8, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

Particide in Six Easy Steps: Diligent Democrats Demonstrate Dumbness Daily

by David Michael Green

Suppose you had a political party you were trying to get rid of. How would you do it?

Would you give it some cement shoes and toss it into the bay? Would you roll it up in a carpet and drag it into the trunk of your car in the middle of the night? Would you put out a contract on it?

If the latter sounds appealing, no need to get your hands dirty messing with any nasty mob guys from Jersey. I know some very upstanding establishment folks who’ve perfected a killer formula (pun intended) for particide. They’re called Democrats, and they know how to get the job done right.

In fact, they’ve demonstrated it again for the umpteenth time just as I’m writing these words. Yesterday, that tough guy Harry Reid laid down the law for congressional Republicans thinking he wouldn’t play hardball on the much-needed economic stimulus package now working its way through Congress. He told them: “Well, I think that if they think this is a bluff, wait until we have this vote and they’ll find out if it’s a bluff. I’m not much of a bluffer.” Then, today, he completely caved into their pressure on the bill, proving - though perhaps not quite in the manner he intended - that he is in fact not much of a bluffer, after all, even if he is from Nevada. Nor, as it turns out, is he much of a negotiator either.

Yep, ladies and gentlemen, if it’s particide you’re after, Reid and his fellow Democrats would be happy to show you how it’s done. It’s pretty simple, really. There are just six easy steps that you need to follow to take out a political party that’s grown a bit, shall we say, inconvenient.

First of all, make sure it does nothing. If you’re looking for a good way to anger voters, here’s the best. Have them send you to Congress to address a host of their urgent concerns. Let them invest their full faith in you to rescue them from all the effects of a country gone completely off the rails. Let them believe and let them hope. Then do nothing. Crush their pedestrian little dreams in your blood-soaked hands by protecting corporate interests instead. Spend two years racking up not a single notable legislative accomplishment, and then go before the voters asking for another term. They’ll remember your name.

A second excellent technique is to fail to block the worst tendencies of the worst president ever, the very mission you were most entrusted with by the voters. If they hate this president’s stinking war, make sure you give him the money for it every time he asks. Send all his reactionary nominees to the Supreme Court after they mock you in bullshit hearings. Yeah, go ahead. Allow a supporter of torture and Constitution-shredding to become the highest law enforcement officer in the land. Etc., etc. Get it? Sure, you can go through the motions of opposition, but at the end of the day, be sure to bungle it so badly that you leave everybody scratching their heads and wondering which party actually controls Congress.

Next, while you’re at it, don’t do anything to make this hated president and his administration accountable for their manifold crimes of the century. Treat them as though they’ve got pictures of you in some airport men’s room somewhere that they’re threatening to release if you dare do anything remotely resembling oversight (or patriotism). Let these guys absolutely run rampant thrashing the republic in every imaginable way, while you sit on top of your congressional majority abdicating any responsibility for protecting the people who sent you there to protect them. Show the public how tough you can be by investigating the use of steroids in baseball, while lies about war and illegal phone-tapping and torture and suspension of habeas corpus go ignored. Keep your priorities straight and you’re guaranteed to score points with the voters, for sure.

Of course, not only must you fail to oppose an insane kleptocratic dictator, but it’s crucial that you also have absolutely no program or ideas of your own to offer. I mean, who can’t never not get no excitement going about nothing? Er, something like that… Anyhow, the point is that a political party without ideas is like a car without wheels. And it will go just about as far, too. If you want to get rid of your party, be sure to be about nothing whatsoever.

And yet, even while trying to be the Seinfeld of political parties, you will no doubt sometimes accidentally advance some sort of popular idea or another, despite yourself. You know, like a million monkeys at a keyboard… When these inadvertently beneficial bills are immediately destroyed by the obstructionist minority party - who continually overuse and abuse parliamentary tactics you (of course) never dreamed of all those years when you were in the minority - make sure that nobody in the voting public knows about it. You could run around screaming about them continually blocking you from doing the people’s business, but that would only increase public sympathy for you. And since you’re trying to kill your party, you surely won’t want to do that. No, like a good Democrat, you want to make sure the other guys never have to pay for their crimes.

Finally, one of the very best things you can do to destroy a political party is to avoid at all costs articulating an alternative narrative. Play ball on their turf! Let the other guys define the issues, frame the discussion, and paint you in the worst possible light - as deviants, traitors, cowards and haters of your own country! Now you’re talkin’, my friend. You want your house robbed right? Hand the door key to the thieves! You want your car crashed properly? Park it on railroad tracks! You want your party rubbed out completely? Let the other guys make the rules, fool! Heck, if you really want to make sure of your party’s demise, you can even encourage them steal elections you’ve actually won! It worked in Florida and Ohio!

If these six steps seem like a ridiculously reliable way to destroy a political party, that’s because they are. Still, they may not be entirely infallible. This year will be the acid test.

The good folks running the Democratic Party have assiduously followed the above formula to the letter, carefully dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’. But damned if the recalcitrant right isn’t failing to play ball! What’s up with that? Have Republicans become so intractable nowadays that they’re even blocking the Democrats’ own self-induced demise? Is destruction obstruction the latest GOP game?

Or are Republicans just following their own particide formula, which - needless to say, like everything they do - is more disciplined and effective than even this fine blueprint belonging to Dumb Dems’? It kinda looks like it, after all. Consider their prescription: Take the biggest surplus in the history of the federal government and turn it into the biggest deficit. Fight a hugely unpopular war. Get caught lying about the rationale for it. Block efforts to save the planet from a looming environmental crisis, while pretending it isn’t real. Allow religious crazies to deny effective medical treatment to suffering humans in order to protect about-to-be-destroyed blastocysts. Get caught in all manner of corruption and sexual ‘deviancy’ while interminably preaching your own holier-than-thou sanctimonious purity. Shred the Constitution in every way imaginable. Load the government up with every incompetent low-wattage political hack you can find stuck behind a church pew somewhere. Make the whole world hate us. Use the federal government to prosecute people on the basis of their party affiliation. Stand by and watch one of the country’s major cities drown. Destroy a foreign country. Destroy the middle class of your own country. Be asleep at the wheel (at best) when the country is attacked. Fail to come even close to winning a war against the people you blame for that attack. And so on…

Quite a litany, eh? Yet, for all their best efforts, Republicans still can’t seem to get the Democrats to put the GOP out of its stinking misery. Still can’t get them to investigate. Still can’t get them to impeach. Still can’t get them to win. So now Republicans have brought out the big guns, engineering what looks like a massive economic recession on top of everything else. And they’re throwing people out of their homes in droves so that Wall Street can profit even more. Right before an election, too!

Yes, indeed. These guys aren’t messing around. Democrats seeking to kill their party are going to have to work extra hard in 2008, that’s for sure! Six steps may not be enough. If Democrats want to rub themselves out this year, they may need a seventh.

Get on their knees and beg the public not to vote for them? Nah. Too subtle.

Change their name to the Socialist Party? Nah. It might actually increase their share of votes.

Have their own sex scandals? Nah. Been there, done that.

Something else is going to be required to kill the party off for sure this year.

Oh, I know! They could nominate Hillary Clinton!

David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers’ reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.

Technorati Tags: Harry Reid, Democrats, Senate, George Bush, White House

An Eye On Washington

  I am letting you know that over this coming weekend, this site will be changing its name. Why is this happening? A couple of reasons, but the main one being that I feel that our elections in November are irrelevant and that the winner has been decided already no matter your vote. Another reason is the fact that our country is under siege by terrorist within our government and our corporations, not from the middle east so much. Our government is the biggest worry that we have at the present time and you, the reader, need to realize this.

  For the most part, this site will be dealing mostly with things such as the FISA Bill, Protect America Act, and other subjects which deal with you're civil rights as well as the constitutional ones. What is our government up to, our corporations, our neighbors? You and I are getting fucked in this country, one which I love and cherish and we cannot allow our government to keep fucking us up!

   The 90% of you who pay no attention to life, need to get your heads our of your asses while you still can, and wake the fuck up!

   This may turn out to be a reality-based soap opera for the Internet seeing that this country appears to be in one.  This is your life!

   Welcome to " An American Gothic ".

Technorati Tags: Washington, fascist, The Contstitution, civil rights, blackwater, FISA, illegal wiretaps

Deficient Kevlar in Military Helmets Cost Company A Slap On The Wrist $2 Million

  This is just one more example Of the Bush Administrations support of the U.S. troops.

  Sioux Manufacturing, a manufacturer based in Fort Totten, North Dakota, has agreed to a payment of $2 million to settle a lawsuit which says that the company pretty much was manufacturing helmets for the military that was not made to standards. 2.2 million helmets went onto the heads of our first troops who went to Iraq and Afghanistan.

  What really sucks with this is the fact that just 12 before this settlement was announced, the company had received a new $74 million contract to make helmets which are to replace some of the older ones! The old ones were made from the late 80's up until last year.

      NYTimes

     At the core of the investigation was the contention by two former plant managers that Kevlar woven at Sioux failed to meet the government’s “critical” minimum standard of 35 by 35 threads a square inch.

When properly woven, Kevlar, a polymer thread made by Dupont, is stronger than steel, and able to deflect shrapnel and some bullets. Government regulations call for rejecting Kevlar below the 35-by-35 standard.

The company “was underweaving,” Mr. Wrigley said.

“That is undebatable,” he said.

The factory’s own inspection records often showed weaves of 34 by 34 threads or as low as 32 by 34 and 33 by 34. Looms were “always set for 34 by 34, always,” said Jeff Kenner, who operated and repaired the looms and oversaw crews on all three shifts.

In a statement, the company president, Carl R. McKay, denied “any and all of the allegations originally brought to the attention of the Department of Justice by disgruntled ex-employees.”     READ MORE

  This was a whistle-blower lawsuit which was seeking $156 million, so $2million is a very tiny slap on the wrist. Business as is usual for the Bush Crime Syndicate.

Technorati Tags: Sioux Manufacturing, kevlar, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, Iraq war, Afghanistan

Will Congress Allow More Spying By Bush?

   You know my thought on this so I'll just let you read a little more on the FISA subject, written by Ari Melber over at The Nation.

posted February 5, 2008

Will the Senate OK More Bush Spying?

Ari Melber

This week Americans face a profound choice--and it has nothing to do with the presidential election.

The Senate is about to vote on legislation, favored by President Bush, to strip American courts of their authority to supervise massive government surveillance. The Senate intelligence bill sidelines the US intelligence court, established by a 1978 law, and grants Bush new spying powers. Under the proposal, the Administration merely needs to "certify" it will not abuse them.

Of course, Bush already has abused his spying powers. He conceded in 2005 that the Administration conducted massive surveillance without the warrants required by law. A judge resigned in protest; Bush's former attorney general, his deputy attorney general and the FBI director also threatened to resign; and one federal court found the warrantless spying illegal.

Yet the Senate's legislation fails to confront that history. Instead, Democratic leaders are poised to validate Bush's illegal surveillance--giving even more ground than the Republican Congress ever did. Worse, the current bill would cover up Bush's abuse by granting retroactive amnesty to telecommunications companies accused of breaking the law, even if the people involved acted knowingly or maliciously.

The retroactive amnesty proposal is so extreme, in fact, it is hard to fathom how Congress, as a law-making body, can advance this blatantly lawless approach. This amnesty makes presidential pardons look tough. While pardons save convicted felons from jail, a controversial tack, they still require a full public trial. Retroactive amnesty just squashes entire cases. No investigation. No judicial fact-finding. And the public gets no information about these alleged crimes at the highest levels of American government and business. What if the spying was abused to distort elections or pad corporate profits? The bill would keep the public in the dark.

The intelligence bill is not just unpalatable; it is indefensible on the facts. That may be why the Senate is pushing the bill now, during the distractions of the busiest week in presidential politics. (The ACLU, MoveOn and liberal bloggers have also been fighting the bill, causing some delays and fortifying efforts by Senators Feingold and Dodd to amend it this week.) The Administration has also savaged the facts to bolster a weak hand. Bush officials have mischaracterized the bill, impugned the security credentials of their opponents and threatened to veto a temporary version so they could blame any ensuing intelligence problems on Democrats.

Bush's bad faith nearly derailed everything, because his veto threat enraged the bill's chief sponsor, Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Bush ally on intelligence issues. Last week, in a showdown on the Senate floor, the normally mild-mannered Rockefeller even accused the White House of "political terrorism." Then Bush buckled, signing a temporary measure despite his veto threats, while reiterating his demand for amnesty in a final bill. Jacob Sullum, a conservative writer for the libertarian Reason magazine, described it as "the latest in a series of Bush administration reversals and self-contradictions" on intelligence legislation. "If the president and his men can't even get their public story about warrantless surveillance straight, how can we trust them to secretly exercise the unilateral powers they are seeking?" he asked.

We can't. And it's not just Bush, who has little time to exercise these unfettered powers, anyway. Spying abuse has bipartisan roots, from Democratic administrations infiltrating the anti-war movement to Nixon taping everyone from John Kerry to his own aides.

Surveillance is only more crucial and ubiquitous now, in an asymmetric war with elusive non-state actors. The core issue is whether Congress will ensure that our government conducts surveillance the American way, with oversight by American courts and public accountability for anyone who would exploit security concerns for illicit ends.

Proponents of warrantless surveillance like to say that "you have no problem if you have nothing to hide." Put aside the unconstitutional premise about individual rights, though, and that dare works in the other direction. Congress can confront Bush with a similar imperative: court oversight is no problem for you or the telecommunication companies, as long as you have nothing to hide.

( My emphasis )

Technorati Tags: FISA, Congress, Democrats, George Bush, warrantless surveillance, the Senate

President Bush's 2009 Budget Proposal

    “One thing we can say about President Bush and his budgets: at least he’s consistent. President Bush has run deficits for seven straight years, and this year is no different. The President has submitted a budget that would saddle America with one of the largest budget deficits in history, while cutting health care for seniors and education for our children. Democrats will propose a budget that is balanced and is balanced with our priorities.”     Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel

President Bush’s Budget Deficits

FY 2002: $158 Billion
FY 2003: $378 Billion
FY 2004: $413 Billion
FY 2005: $318 Billion
FY 2006: $248 Billion
FY 2007: $162 Billion
FY 2008: $410 Billion
FY 2009: $407 Billion
TOTAL: $2.49 Trillion  Source

  Who taught this idiot how to make a budget? I'll bet that he was AWOL from that class also!  George Bush is solid proof that even a vastly wealthy idiot who was educated (?) at the better schools, will remain an idiot after being educated. Money can't buy a functioning brain for a moron!

For more on the education cuts and funding reductions in the President's 2009 budget (PDF, 46KB) »
For more on how the President's 2009 budget leaves workers behind (PDF, 53KB) »

Technorati Tags: President Bush, Rahm Emanuel, 2009 budget

Mitch McConnell Introduces More GOP FISA Obstructions

  I'm not even going to comment of this sub-human piece of gutter garbage. I'll let you read about it yourselves.

       DailyKos

by mcjoan 

Mon Feb 04, 2008 at 03:22:50 PM PST

McConnell and Reid are on the Senate floor trading verbal blows over the most recent obstructionist move by the Republicans. They have tied up what was supposed to have been quick consideration of the economic stimulus package by invoking 30 more hours of debate, using the argument that they got it too late to fully consider it. They're actually raising hell about low-income heating assistance being "slipped" into the bill. Heartless bastards.

Reid is as steamed as I've ever seen him, and is actually sounding like us in talking about the important constitutional issues and executive overreach on FISA. He's arguing that McConnell is using this stall tactic to try to run out the clock on the 15 day extension of FISA, thereby trying to get us back to the position we were in last August, forcing through a bad bill under strict time constraints.

This means that we are pretty unlikely to see any votes on FISA before Thursday. Which means that we could get past Super Tuesday and perhaps have a full Dem caucus in DC when the votes happen.

Update: dsmilev sums it up perfectly in the comments:

"Republicans want to let poor people freeze so they can protect multi-billion-dollar companies from their own lawbreaking."

   Against my better judgement, I live in the state of Kentucky and that embarrassment of a Senator, McConnell, is my representative. That is enough to make one throw-up. This asshole needs to be removed from office come November, so let's get with the program and nail his sorry ass to the wall!

Technorati Tags: FISA, illegal wiretaps, telecom amnesty, Mitch McConnell

Why Have a Congress?

  That is something that many of us have been asking ourselves since the latest edition of the peoples representatives came into being back in November, 2006. But it seems that the people of the United States have had a problem with our Congress way before then, as noted by Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under the Reagan Administration and was once an editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal,Business Week, and other things.

"In truth, Congress gave up its law-making powers to the executive branch during the New Deal. For three-quarters of a century, the bills passed by Congress have been authorizations for executive branch agencies to make laws in the form of regulations. The executive branch has come to the realization that it doesn't really need Congress. President Bush appends his own 'signing statements' to the authorizations from Congress in which the President says what the legislation means. So what is the point of Congress?" Source

  It has been bad enough to begin with, having a spineless Congress even when both parts of the equation were Republican controlled, but it has gotten down right ludicrous since the Democrats captured the House and the Senate, even though by a narrow margin in the Senate.

  Just what has this Congress accomplished other than a raise in the minimum wage ( much needed, not enough ) and lip service to the Bush administration only to back down and give him pretty much everything that he has wanted, the way that he has wanted, on most of the other important matters?

   We have a Congress which is still giving the Bush Crime Family every dime that it asks for to go and get more of our people killed in Iraq. There is no improvement in Iraq after this much vaulted " surge " came into being. Nothing there that resembles success in the least bit. You all know the rest of the story, so I'm not going any farther with a list.If this Congress can't do its job, then maybe it is time for a newer, better one in its place.

  This comes back to my usual topic of FISA and the telecom amnesty amendment attached to it. I already have and you need to let your Senators know that amnesty for the telecoms ( Bush Administration ) is not an option and it will never be. I guess that you and I have to force some backbone upon our Congress, so lets get to work and do it, shall we?

Technorati Tags: U.S. Congress, the Senate, George Bush, FISA, telecom amnesty

The Senate Vote On FISA...

   is today and the votes on the amendment are not under way. It is thought that the telecom amnesty part of this will not come up until tomorrow so there is still plenty of time for you to contact your Senators to let them know to vote  NO on telco amnesty, basket warrants or reverse targeting, sequestration of illegally harvested evidence. You can also tell them to make FISA the only means of surveillance, and to vote for a 4 year sunset.

Technorati Tags: FISA, senate, telecom amnesty, illegal wiretaps