March 4, 2009 archive

To contradict the Firesign Theatre, everything we knew…..was right.

George Bush DID give himself dictatorial powers. And Congress let him. John Cornyn at the Leahy Torture Commission today said that Congress should be given credit for oversight. I can’t even give them credit for sight.

With the crimes that were committed….and those that could have been committed….under these memos, what we have is a massive house of cards. Now, one by one, as evidence emerges piece by piece, those cards are being pulled out from under the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress. As well as the Democrats who let the Republicans buffalo them…as a President gave himself secret dictatorial powers.

The Bush Crimes and attempted usurpation of the Constitution were committed under a shroud of secrecy. The Bush corruption of the Department of Justice made that shroud impenetrable.

But let it never be forgotten that the Speech or Debate Clause existed during those eight years. If there has ever been a time in our history when an opposition party should have put everything on the line to expose what they knew, this was it. And they didn’t.

Now, they have to fix this. They have power now, almost unlimited power, as (ironically) many of the gross excesses of the Unitary Executive/dictatorial powers are still in place.

This cannot stand.

Barack Obama and the Democratic controlled Congress MUST investigate fully and expose exactly how this was allowed to happen, but most importantly, they must find a way to FIX the system that allowed a president to become a dictator by his own fiat. Or it will surely happen again. Investigate and reform Executive Branch Powers, investigate and reform the Department of Justice.

Clean house.

From the Congressional oath of office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;”

A domestic enemy assaulted the Constitution, that is clear now. What is not clear is what will be done about it. In light of the vast scope of the corruption of democracy itself, I have to say that Senator Leahy’s truth commission is needed. Only a vehicle of immensely broad scope, as opposed to the relatively narrow scope of prosecutions, can address something so vast. No single case or even congregation of cases will ever truly capture what happened…and what could have happened.

While prosecution of these domestic enemies must take place, the scale of what happened to corrupt our very form of government is not and never will be fully prosecutable. It goes beyond that. Well beyond. And the American people must be made to know what occurred, how deep and wide the threat to democracy itself truly was. The Constitution was assaulted, democracy was assaulted, We The People were assaulted.

What occurred in this country is well beyond politics, and perhaps even beyond the Law itself. It is so momentous that at this time, it cannot even be comprehended. But comprehended it must be.

Now we have to figure out how, next we have to figure out what to do about it.

In about an hour On The Bus is going to start a front page liveblog of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings on establishing an investigation of the numerous crimes committed by the administration of George W. Bush.

The evidence is already clear and undebatable.  George W. Bush and Richard Cheney have publicly confessed on video tape.

On more than one occasion.

To what?

• Torture.

• Murder.

• Spying on you.
• All of you.
• All the time.

This is what we already know Pat.

They’re also common thieves who stole billions and billions of dollars shrink wrapped on pallets.  Their bankster paymasters are 14 trillion dollar Ponzi scammers.

If you and the Villagers try another Iran-Contra Immunity Bullshit Whitewash we’ll know that too.