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americanre
There Oughta Be A Law! - Subscribe
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Bush commutes Libby prison sentencePresident Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak investigation Monday, delivering a political thunderbolt in the highly charged criminal case. Bush said the sentence was just too harsh. Is that what Bush would say to Genarlow Wilson, who is under a ten year prison sentence for consensual teen sex ? Would he have felt that way about mocking the appeal by Karla Faye Tucker to stay her pending execution? HELL NO! That bastard usurper will forgive any sin committed by a Republican faster than he can condemn any act that goes against his wishes, especially if performed by anyone not one of his pet Republicans! The Democrats are complicit in that their responses to this travesty of justice are so mild mannered as to be tepid. Take House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (PLEASE!): "He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his Administration accountable." Check out some of the other lame retorts delivered by the "opposition": "The Constitution gives President Bush the power to commute sentences, but history will judge him harshly for using that power to benefit his own vice president's chief of staff who was convicted of such a serious violation of law." â€" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., at least acknowledges what is now the fact of legal life in our nation: "When it comes to the law, there should not be two sets of rules â€" one for President Bush and Vice President Cheney and another for the rest of America." But there are, Senator! And there have been - ever since your party passed the Patriot Act without reading even a summary and then voted for Bush's STAR(K) Chamber [See definition at the end of the post] "Accountability has been in short supply in the Bush administration, and this commutation fits that pattern." â€" Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. I'm sure you're shocked by this revelation, Senator! Are you finally ready to push those subpoenas through the mail slot at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Of the 2008 Democratic Candidates, only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson expressed real outrage: "The arrogance of this administration's disdain for the law and its belief it operates with impunity are breathtaking. Will the president also commute the sentences of others who obstructed justice and lied to grand juries, or only those who act to protect President Bush and Vice President Cheney?" The only other expression of real outrage comes from former Ambassador Joe Wilson, whose wife's career as an undercover CIA agent was sacrificed on the altar of political revenge - the very act for which Libby was convicted for blocking the investigation: "[Today's presidential decision] "should demonstrate to the American people beyond a reasonable doubt how unbelievably corrupt this administration is from top to bottom. At end of day, it's allowing a neoconservative cult to engage in special pleading." It should now be clear to all sentient beings on this planet that there is no longer a government of law in the United States. It should also be clear that there is no one in the Democratic Party worthy of taking power away from those who should never have had it in the first place! |
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americanre
Who Would GOP Jesus Beat? Jul 9th, 2007 3:48:18 am - Subscribe
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Fred Thompson is delusional. Speaking at the Young Republicans National Convention in Hollywood, Florida, Thompson pronounced: "I'm getting tired of having to apologize for the United States of America around the world. I'm tired of other people's perceptions that we need to apologize." You certainly do, Fred. Either you were lying when you worked for a pro-abortion rights group lobbying Bush I attempting to ease regulations eliminating Federal funding for clinics offering abortion counseling, or you are lying now when you claim to be against it. But you aren't alone in having something the world might think you need to apologize for. It only takes a few incidents involving young GOP morons like this one, in which a few deluded young Texas men belonging to a "radical Christian activist group" attempted to blow up a church in Burleson, Johnson County, Texas, to make the world think America may not be such a good and moral place after all. "[The suspects] admit to being Christian, and being brought up Christian, but they believe there should be one denomination and one church, not multiple denominations," said Police Department spokesman Cmdr. Chris Havens. These wackos described their organization as a leaderless and nameless radical Christian activist group of 10 to 15 members, which expresses their belief through Bible study, consensual fighting and destructive acts. And just who would Jesus pummel? I'm guessing they got their DVDs of Fight Club and The Passion of the Christ mixed up in their feeble ADHD minds. But as Good Republican Christians, they are only emulating the delusions of their political leaders, like Thompson and GOPAC Chairman Michael Steele, who incorrectly fulmonated that "our enemies do not have rights under our Constitution" during the 7/6/07 episode of Hannity & Colmes. Steele - who claims a law degree from Georgetown University - must have bribed the professors for a passing grade in his US Constitution class. If he were a true and honorable scholar, and not just pretending to be one on television, he would review the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and maybe pass a retest. But why should he bother, when it seems that the Ninth Circuit Court hasn't read either document either? But aren't they reputed to be he most liberal Appeals court in the nation? There must then be another reason they found as regressively as they did. Might it be that they know that crossing a Bush might result in the loss of their lucrative pensions in retaliation? That would really be delusional! |
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americanre
Oil Diller, Oil Dollar Jul 20th, 2007 8:26:20 pm - Subscribe
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All of you 12 o'clock scholars out there are probably still celebrating the rise of the Dow to 14,000 recently. If you were watching Fox "News" that day, you would think that we were back to prosperity with no end in sight! Two Mercedes in every garage! Two chickens in every pot! But you would be well advised, based on yesterday's drop, not to count your chickens before they hatch. There are many people out there pointing to many signs that everything isn't rosy in the economic world. Anyone who has bothered to hear what the rest of the world is saying and doing would abandon all the party celebrating Bush's economic wreckage and begin to head to the life rafts, for the iceberg is dead ahead of the Bushtanic and the lookouts see it. But no matter how loudly they shout, the revelry from the Wealth Party drowns out the warnings to the helm. For those of you who aren't enraptured revelers, I'll relate what is being said. Mere citizen Ronald Blais of Center Barnstead, NH, wrote a July 20, 2007 letter to The Concord Monitor editor which asks the pertinent questions: Do these people realize that part of the reason for this [$3 per gallon cost for gasoline] has been the steady devaluation of the U.S. dollar versus the Euro, U.K. pound and Canadian dollar? Since the cost of a barrel of oil is priced in U.S. dollars, the Saudis, Brits, Canadians and Norse need to charge a higher price in order to just stay even. Those with deeper economics educations see that lesson being learned by some, as Nick Raich, director of research at National City Private Client Group, reports: "As people start to absorb the numbers and start to see the second-quarter numbers aren't good as the first quarter, that starts to create some pullback a bit." And who are these people who will be absorbing those numbers? Martin D. Weiss, chairman of The Weiss Group, notes: "The world's biggest owners of U.S. bonds are not American residents. They're in Japan, China or Germany. And every time the dollar falls, those investors lose money." There may well be a move underway toward the exits. The Sydney Morning Herald opined this morning: "Yes, we have a US dollar rout. The markets have begun to discount a nasty crunch in the US as the subprime debacle spreads through the credit markets. The prospect of rate cuts by the Federal Reserve is knocking away the US dollar's yield prop. Investors have switched to the euro as the default currency." Needless for those who are in the know to discover, the Euro soared to a new record high against the dollar yesterday, followed by the U.K. Pound and the New Zealand dollar. Another Anglophonic nation's currency didn't reach new highs, but is still in that neighborhood. Dr Weiss adds: "The dollar has plunged to a 26-year low against the pound, a 30-year low against the Canadian dollar, and an all-time low against the euro. The dollar is falling against the Brazilian real, the Mexican peso and even the currencies of smaller, previously impoverished countries." Dr. Weiss also points out in this article that of 194 nations in the world (192 UN member nations and 2 non-members), 102 of them have trade surpluses with the United States. These include such economic powerhouses as Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Zimbabwe - and even the small French outpost in Antarctica. As Dr. Weiss recalls in another recent article: "Years ago, if we suffered a dollar decline of this breadth and depth, policymakers in Washington could quickly come to its rescue. They could dig into a rich stash of foreign reserves. They could consistently buy up dollars in foreign exchange markets. And they could make a solid effort to support its value." But now, that option is virtually out of the question. America's reserves are too slim; its foreign debts, too large. The U.S. Treasury Department simply cannot afford it. So, as militarily muscle-bound as the United States is, we are an economic pushover, a ripe target for the world's beach bullies to kick oil sand in our faces. All of those foreign investors aren't as stupid as too many Americans, so they will be heeding the advice of one of Dr. Weiss' colleagues at Money and Markets, Larry Edelson, who advises, "Go East, Young Money!" "I can't understand why anyone would want to invest heavily in the U.S economy right now. There is much to support Edelson's contention. The Chinese renminbi reached a new post-revaluation high versus the US dollar on Thursday, and the Turkish lira was up, although not to record levels. But the hits just keep on comin'! The Philippine peso reached a seven-year high against the dollar, the Indian rupee on Friday ended trading at a nine-year high against the dollar, and the Thai baht remained at a 10-year high against the US dollar despite the central bank's interest rate cut aimed at curbing the local unit's too-rapid rise. In addition, the Malaysian Ringgit is up versus the dollar, and the South Korean won reached its highest exchange rate of the year against the US dollar Friday. The won has gained about one percent against the greenback this month alone, leading to observations that the won-dollar pair may test levels last seen prior to the 1997 Asian financial crisis as early as next week. But the best indicator of the lack of international investor confidence in the dollar comes from this article: Gold prices in dollars were up sharply in London, Zurich, and Hong Kong. Do you notice that there is a slant to the deck that wasn't there before? |
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americanre
A New York State Of "Mine" Jul 25th, 2007 9:06:39 pm - Subscribe
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John Dean, in his 07/25/07 post, says that "Conservatives fight dirty and dishonestly." As a former member of the infamous Nixon White House staff, he would certainly know. Just today comes proof of Dean's charge against the neo-confidence men:"If there are cover-ups, the public has a right to know what has been covered up," Mr. Bruno said, speaking to reporters at Saratoga Springs, the Associated Press reported. He said the [executive] office "has seen fit to abuse the power of that office to spy and track and attempt to really destroy what apparently the [executive] office considers a political rival," according to the Associated Press. Strong words! Do they emanate from a Congressional Democrat seeking to uncover the mysteries regarding the political terminations of US Attorneys across the land? They do not. At the national level, the contest over that issue is still being contested over the extra-Constitutional claims of executive privilege. These words come instead from the New York State Legislature, where Republican members there are making charges against Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer which echo the charges levelled against the Bush administration by Congressional Democrats. But here's the difference. Spitzer has suspended or demoted members of his staff for misleading him over the use of the New York State Police to investigate Republican State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's use of air and ground security escorts. Has Bush done anything similar when confronted with charges of malfeasance by aides? No, he has not. He has, in fact, strongly defended their disdain for Congressional subpoenas. [The Bush administration is no stranger to the political use of subpoenas or the controversy they engender.] But in getting back to the opening uproar, despite the political nature of many of Bruno's trips, he has regularly been granted the use of state aircraft and security personnel by Gov. Spitzer's office, even though the New York Times reports that - like Bush - Spitzer leads an office whose "us-versus-them mentality" is at the root of the riot. But unlike the Congressional Democrats v. Bush, the GOP opposition is cheering the hits they have scored, loudly proclaiming that "The steam is gone from the steamroller" and "Eliot has blown reelection" whether that is truly the case or not. Why is it that the abuses detailed by the report written by a fellow Democrat rate such a hue and cry comment as "a major scandal reminiscent of Watergate" [Baruch College public affairs professor Doug Muzzio] due to "a chief executive's office spying on the opposition and then lying about it", when at the national level the defense rests on the idea that a similar Congressional investigation for similar Executive branch crimes against the populace would "assail the concept of executive privilege" [White House Press Secretary Tony Snow]? Returning to John Dean: "... authoritarian conservatives want the world to 'Do as we say, not as we do.'" They also express this alleged "superiority" through ideas like ""The only moral abortion is MY abortion" and "The only True Religion is MY Religion". Such anti-democratic elitist notions must be defeated. To accomplish this defeat, it may well take some to ask the rest the vital questions: "How do you know when you are losing your freedom in a democracy? How do you know if you are colluding in the demise of freedom and justice? And how can you regain them once they have been lost?" The short answers: Look around you [More here]. Doing nothing - "no matter what outrages the government commits against the Constitution, civil liberties, and the rule of law" [Laurence M. Vance] - is collusion. You can't - not without outside intervention - which for us isn't going to arrive. |