Old Wine, New Bottle

Yes, straw man voting has started for the Republican party. Straw man voting for the straw man party. But what does it really matter? They are the same party they've always been. So some of them didn't support the Dubai Ports World deal, so what. The only reason they didn't go along with King bush is because the public didn't go along with it. They are all trying to save face for the '06 and '08 elections.

bush couldn't give a damn because he's already gotten everything he wants. He can go party with the UAE and get more millions with his shady business partners after his dead duck presidency is finished. The Republican Party on the other hand will be around a bit longer than bush will. They need to get away from the imploding President bush.

Unfortunately Frist can't distance himself from bush. People thought this cat slicer might have been bush's Vice President if not for the fact that Cheney has been shooting people in the face and sucking their soul to keep his heart beating. So Frist made his one move in teaming with Schumer and he thinks that sucking up will be enough to pull his party out of the dumps. It's too late though.

We have already seen these "through the looking glass" party antics. It's a party that helps the rich 1% and leaves the poor drowning. It attacks countries that have nothing to do with 9/11 while their executive's administration let's facilitators of the attacks do business with us. It's a party that equates women's choice with pro-death. Frist, bush. bush, Frist. It's all the same. Romney and McCain are all the same.

Just bush: Part 2

So bush has made his way into the White House. Luckily for him my memory grows a bit foggy. I remember him beginning his fight for ANWR. This land was originally a wild life refuge in the 60

(draft cut short and finally posted on 1/31/08 just for the sake of it)

Just bush: Part 1

Ever since George Bush got into office I was against him. Let me correct that. Ever since I learned he was running for president I was against him. I remember being in the politics chat in Yahoo telling people George Bush's state had the 2nd highest number of state sanctioned capital punishments in the world followed by CHINA. Back then I didn't add these fancy links that back up what I say.

Back then the president was arrogant enough to say "I'm confident, that every person that has been put to death in Texas under my watch has been guilty of the crime charged, and has had full access to the courts." Even when gross inadequacies in the trials of those convicted were shown to the man he replied "We've adequately answered innocence or guilt". (Answers like these would foreshadow his attitude in the future when he believed he had done everything adequately before wiretapping U.S. citizens, torturing prisoners in Abu Graib and attacking a country under false assumptions.) Yes, this president deals with inadequacies in the same way an absent-minded teenager deals with a minimum wage job.

But most of America doesn't appear to care about the murders occurring in the industrial prison complex. Americans manage to shrug off the the possibility of innocence and continue supporting the death penalty. So at the time I thought I could use shock value.

George Bush has never really been an "environment man". He truly does look out for the interests of large companies (or the friends that own them). For at least a decade during Bush's reign as governor of Texas there were babies being born without brains in the Rio Grande Valley. Along the U.S. Mexican border the rate of babies born with anencephaly can be anywhere from 2 to 8 times the nation-wide rate each year and tends to be higher than rates in many third world countries. The $3-$4 million dollars spent on researching this phenomena makes you wonder how much the businesses Bush supported in Texas are getting. Just as the Bush administration argues global warming doesn't exist he argued the increase in businesses (businesses that were largely not held accountable for the toxic waste they exported) would help environmental conditions. You increase industrial activity and population and pollution decreases. Go figure.

So no one listened to that. Then I remember personally talking to someone from Florida. (I didn't know it would be the problem it turned out to be at the time. I thought it would be close at the time I was talking about it but I didn't think they'd be subtracting votes and acting like the state was theirs from the get-go) This person from Florida personally told me their vote would not count. This person was not a convicted felon, didn't err in registering and probably could have made it to the booth (all three things that disenfranchised thousands of voters). This was a democrat who just said "I'm not voting", a youth. I'm a youth too and it pains me to speak to another who doesn't care. No, I can't say it truly pains me. It angers me that I can't be empathetic with their position. If not for ethical reasons I'd bust someone upside the head when they tell me they're not voting when they are able.

So I had my dose of pre-election fire. I remember printing out "Vote Gore" several times on sheets of paper and placing those pieces of paper across the country during a road trip. Fun times. Alas, Gore did not win. My first time being more than superficially involved with the upcoming election turned out to be a bust. I actually couldn't believe it. My family had been watching the television until we saw Gore win Florida. Then we went to the voting booth (this was in California). After we came back home (which didn't take more than 15 minute) Gore had some how lost control of the state. Talk about surreal.

Confessing Their Sins

by mcjoan [at Daily Kos]

Wed Mar 01, 2006 at 01:32:02 PM PDT

"We have to address the fact that the president has broken the law." -- Senator Russ Feingold

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary committee yesterday, Attorney General Gonzales provided a "clarification" of his previous testimony in which he admitted that, from the very beginning, the President as King theory upon which this administration operates has guided the President's actions. He confirmed that the President has been acting as though the Constitution allows him to break the law.

In his letter, Gonzales revisited earlier testimony, during which he said the administration immediately viewed a congressional vote in September 2001 to authorize the use of military force against al-Qaeda as justification for the NSA surveillance program. Bush secretly began the program in October 2001, Gonzales's letter said.

On Feb. 6, Gonzales testified that the Justice Department considered the use-of-force vote as a legal green light for the wiretapping "before the program actually commenced."

But in yesterday's letter, he wrote, "these statements may give the misimpression that the Department's legal analysis has been static over time."

Fein said the letter seems to suggest that the Justice Department actually embraced the use-of-force argument some time later, prompting Gonzales to write that the legal justification "has evolved over time."

One government source who has been briefed on the issue confirmed yesterday that the administration believed from the beginning that the president had the constitutional authority to order the eavesdropping, and only more recently added the force resolution argument as a legal justification. [emphasis mine]

Let me repeat. The administration believed from the beginning that the president had the constitutional authority to violate FISA. The administration believed from the beginning that it was above the law and because they believed the President was above the law, the President BROKE the law. All of these "evolving" legal justifications for the illegal warrantless wiretapping of American citizens have been nothing more than diversions, window-dressing to make us think that the administration FELT like it had to provide justification for it's illegal actions. Whether he intended it or not, Gonzales just admitted that, from the very beginning, the President has operated as King.

Before the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees even consider revising FISA, they need to address the fact that the President of the United States is an admitted criminal.

-Taken from DailyKos