Tag: Democrats

Crossed-posted at EENR.

While the corporate punditry is distracted by the flap over Geraldine Ferraro’s comments about Barack Obama and the sex scandal plaguing soon-to-be-former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, the battle over FISA continues as U.S. dictator George W. Bush threatens to veto a House bill over the issue of retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that helped him break the law.  According to Reuters:

Bush is seeking immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in his warrantless domestic spying program after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 and are now facing lawsuits.

The House legislation, scheduled for a vote later on Thursday, would allow phone companies to present their defense behind closed doors in federal court, with the judge given access to confidential government documents about eavesdropping begun after the September 11 attacks.

But the shrub is not satisfied with even this charade, instead selfishly insisting that telecommunications companies be granted full immunity from all lawsuits in addition to immunity from prosecution.  He also demands that all immunity be retroactive, so that he and his co-conspirators may avoid prosecution for past violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

FISA was originally passed by Congress in 1978, following the revelations of illegal spying by president Richard Nixon during his tenure earlier in the decade.  The thirty-seventh president had resigned in 1974 ahead of impeachment proceedings for having violated the law and the Constitution.  FISA was designed to limit the scope of executive power to eavesdrop on American citizens.

The shrub has claimed unchecked power to spy on Americans in the name of fighting terrorists, but has consistently failed to provide any substantive evidence to show that his violations of FISA have actually prevented terrorist attacks on the U.S.  FISA requires that the federal government obtain warrants from a special court in order to conduct surveillance on foreign nationals.  The FISA court, which grants 99% of all warrants applied for, was amended in 1994 so the federal government may spy for up to seventy-two hours before having to apply for a warrant.

But even this proved insufficient for the shrub’s demands.  An exposé by the New York Times in December of 2005 revealed some of the extent of Bush’s lawbreaking.  Last year, Congress — by then under Democratic Party rule yet still caving in to the shrub’s demands — passed the unlawful “Protect” America Act, which violates the Fourth Amendment right against illegal searches and seizures by the government.  The act expired in early February, but all illegal surveillance ordered in that six-month period is still able to be carried out with no hope of prosecution against abuses.

Last month, Senate capitulation leader Harry Reid succeeded in passing a bill that grants the retroactive immunity demanded by Bush.  It has since been tied up in the House of Representatives, but immunity is likely to pass that body in some form despite public efforts to pressure Congress not to allow any such amnesty.

Amnesty for telecommunications companies means that in any official investigation, persons involved would have no incentive to cooperate with authorities or turn over evidence.  This means that, in the highly unlikely event Congress upholds its Constitutional duty to impeach Bush for high crimes, those in a position to provide testimony or evidence have no reason to cooperate.

Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic Congressman from Ohio’s 10th district, won renomination last night.

Via The Nation’s blog:

Ohio voters head to the polls for a primary election Tuesday, and that can mean only one thing: The Cleveland Plain Dealer is griping about Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Republicans have been gang-raping the Constitution since December 12, 2000, when five Supreme Court justices appointed George W. Bush President of the United States. The BushCheney crime family’s brutal assault on the nation’s founding document began immediately, and was cheered on and supported by a Republican-led Congress that whooped in drunken bloodlust every time the administration flagrantly violated the highest law of the land.

The Republican Congress cheered encouragement every time Americans’ civil liberties were violated. The Republican Congress roared approval at every demeaning abuse of the rule of law. They pushed to the front of the mob any time there was an opportunity to have their own crack at the battered, dazed body politic, who couldn’t believe what was happening to it, who couldn’t believe that it could be violated so relentlessly, so repeatedly, so thoroughly, over and over and over again, and no one put a stop to it.

Dennis has an op-ed in the NY Times today!

Timothy Gatto posted a column at SmirkingChimp.com Thursday that really, I think, illustrates the fraudulence of this year’s presidential election.  No matter who wins, we’ll be stuck with a president who shall do little or nothing to alter the terrible course our once-great nation has been dragged on these last seven years.  It really is like being given a choice between Coca Cola and Pepsi; no matter how you vote, you’re still casting your ballot for empty calories and other toxic wastes that serve only to slowly destroy the body.

I think it’s time to face facts: the Democratic Party as we knew it is no more.  It has ceased to be.  What we have left is a pale imitation of the Republican Party.  And 2007 is a perfect example.  What Progressives really need to do is bring back the Progressive Party.  Read on, and I’ll explain further.

For a little while now I have been doing my own part to accomplish this goal on my discussion forum.  But my efforts are neither original or the first to be made.  Already some states have revived the Progressive Party, including Washington and Vermont.  In the latter state, Progressives have gotten a number of members elected to the legislature, and are now running their own candidate in the gubernatorial election.

What does this mean for Vermont?  Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature are forced to work with the Progressives to get anything done.  The political power the party has in this capacity is, therefore, significant — and growing.

This did not happen overnight, but it did so with surprising swiftness; the Washington Progressive Party reformed in 2003, according to its web site, with assistance from the Vermont chapter.  So all this has taken place within the last five to seven years.  Not bad for a revived political party that, nearly a century ago, made history by causing an incumbent Republican president to come in last in a three-way election.

Whatever doubts you might have about the effectiveness of bringing back the Progressive Party, the examples of states such as Washington and Vermont should ease or eliminate them.  Allow me to paint a portrait in your mind.  It’s not very likely to happen, but let your imagination loose for a bit as I describe this scenario:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus, made up of seventy-one House members and one senator (Vermont’s Bernie Sanders).  Frustrated with the refusal of Democratic leaders to end the occupation of Iraq, impeach the Bush-Cheney regime, and pass progressive legislation.  Imagine if, some day soon, each and every member were to leave the Democratic Party and register under a newly revived Progressive Party.  Like I said, not likely, but suspend your disbelief for a few minutes and bear with me.  Imagine the sheer power Progressives would have, especially over Democrats.

“We’ll caucus with you, so you keep control of the House,” they say to the leadership.  “But here are the things you must do for that to happen.”  And then the Progressives would trot out their list of demands.  If the Democrats balk, the Progressives caucus with no one, and control reverts to the GOP.  Do you think the spineless, conniving Democratic leaders would dare let that nightmare come to pass?  I don’t.  No, they’d fall all over each other to please the Progressives, desperate to retain their tenuous hold on power in the Legislature.

This is, of course, wishful thinking on my part.  But consider the headway already made in just a handful of states by the Progressive Party.  Yes, it would take years to achieve results on a national level.  We’d have to start locally, of course, work our way up to county and state-level offices.  And then, once each state in the Union has enough of a party presence, run national-level candidates.

This is already happening.  It has already achieved tangible results.  It is now time for Progressives in every state to ask themselves if it’s worth the heartbreak, frustration, and continuous disappointment by sticking with the Democratic Party.  If you’re interested in bringing back a political party to your state that can give real political power to Progressives, you could do a lot worse than to start exploring ways to revive the party that bears our name.  If you’d like to give it a try, you may either register an account at my forum or, better yet, establish contacts with the Vermont and Washington state parties to learn how you can bring it to your community.

If we’re to eradicate movement conservatism once and for all, we need to create a strong, energized Progressive movement to counter it.  It’s worth trying.

Crossposted at Orange Satan.

On Tuesday March 4 voters in Brattleboro, VT will vote on a non-binding resolution calling for the following:

According to the organizers the resolution a largely symbolic gesture. One organizer wrote, “it was born simply out of the devastating realization that our Constitution and entire system of government were – and still are – under assault, and that such extraordinary circumstances sometimes call for extraordinary measures.” Now organizers claim the initiative now has real legal teeth. How legal is it?

Read below the fold.

As if it even needs to be said, our thanks should be going out to Dennis Kucinich! For standing up for Single Payer Not-for-Profit Health Care for all. For calling on the withdrawl from NAFTA. For standing against the war and occupation in Iraq, and not voting to fund this catastrophe. And for standing up to Dick Cheney and W by calling for their impeachment.