Another day,
another demand from the Dictator in Chief (DiC) included in the newest cry from the wah-baby Bush's executive order:
_Requires agencies to identify "market failures," where the private sector fell short in dealing with a problem, as a factor in proposing a rule. The White House regulatory affairs office is given authority to assess those conclusions.
_States that no rulemaking can go forward without the approval of an agency's Regulatory Policy Office, to be headed by a presidential appointee.
_Directs each agency to provide an estimate of costs and benefits of regulations.
_Requires agencies to inform the White House regulatory affairs office of proposed significant guidance documents on complying with rules. Critics say this will create a new bottleneck delaying the issuance of guidelines needed to comply with federal regulations.
"This can only further delay implementing health, safety and environmental protections," said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a private watchdog group that joined numerous labor and good-government groups, including the AFL-CIO, Public Citizen and the Union of Concerned Scientists, in opposing Bush's order.
Sit back and think real hard about the ramifications of such a policy, effectively taking away all rights of Congress to create the law and putting it in the hands of presidential appointees to rewrite as they see fit.
Colin McEnroe was 100% correct. These are the actions of a tyrant, a dictator, A despot.
July 4th is a good day to start calling it what it is -- "absolute Despotism." When you use "signing statements" to gut the meaning of new laws, you're a tyrant. When you hold people in prisons without even telling them what they're charged with, you're a tyrant. When you appove the use of torture by agents of the government, you're a tyrant. When you use your armies to attack another nation that has not attacked you, you're a despot. When you mislead your people about the reasons for a war, you're a despot. When you ignore a law you find inconvenient, you're a dictator. When you send your henchmen out to destroy your legitimate critics, you're a dictator. When you overturn the work of a rightful judge and jury to protect one of those henchmen, you're a tyrant.
Let's use the right words from now on. George W. Bush is not a knave or a fool or a bully. He is a tyrant, a dictator, a despot. He has ruled as a king on the soil of a democracy. His instincts are those of a cruel and perfidious monarch.
We now have a DiC that refuses to listen to the American people.
And I mean that literally:
Jane Hamsher:
The dirty unwashed masses who populate our juries are fit to judge each other, but evidently not the ruling class. David Broder can breathe a sigh of relief that People Like Him are safe from those overly zealous US Attorneys who might want to hold them accountable to the same absurd standards that the little people must live by. How quaint.
The White House has turned off their phone lines. Evidently they don’t want to hear what you think. There will still be phones tomorrow, and I don’t imagine anyone who cared enough to drop Dubya a line is going to forget.
They have literally shut down the phone lines and refuse to listen to American citizens that are mad as fuck. (h/t
Crooks and Liars) Mad as fuck because bush has pardoned his own assistant in the outing of not just one CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson, but an entire network of covert CIA operatives that were tasked with the most important issue of our time, Counter-Nuclear Proliferation duties while under the most dangerous classification of
non-official cover and working for the CIA fronted
Brewster Jennings and Associates:
And so the cover up of a conspiracy of treason in the White House begins, as bush takes away Fitzgerald's lever to get at the truth:
President George W. Bush commuted Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence in the CIA leak case, sparing him from punishment the president called ``excessive.''
Bush acted after a U.S. appellate court today refused to let Libby, 56, stay out of prison during his appeal. Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of lying to investigators probing the 2003 leak of CIA official Valerie Plame's identity. Libby's backers had argued for a pardon.
``My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby,'' Bush said in a statement. ``The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long- lasting.''
The only thing worse than the traitors that gave up Valerie Plame Wilson, Brewster Jennings and all of the CIA assets associated with their cover for the anti-nuclear proliferation duties they were in charge of in order to protect the USA?
Finding out that your President is willing to aid and abet the cover up these guilty traitors.
What was bush so afraid of that he yanked this lever to get Libby to testify truthfully out of Fitzgerald's hands?
bush is afraid of the TRUTH. Because the truth would have exposed a conspiracy to illegally out CIA agents. One that bush is now confirming he was part of.
Traitors. This ain't about a blow job. This is about treason against the USA at a time of war.
EVERY FUCKING SINGLE ONE OF THEM IN THE WHITE HOUSE ARE TRAITORS.
Via HuffPo:
The Libby Pardon: Dancing Around the Central Issue The Huffington Post - The ONLY reason to send Libby to jail during his appeal is to pressure him to sing, and the ONLY incentive to pardon him if he is forced to go to jail is to buy his silence. For all those who say Libby's misstatements were the product of pressure and faulty memory, note this and note it well: Libby's lies were not random, as they would have been if he had just "misremembered". They were all carefully designed to obstruct the investigation from reaching the vice president.
I think bushies action speak to his own treasonous involvement as well.
I said the pardon clock was ticking... It only took a couple of hours for bush to admit his guilt. bush has obstructed any further investigations into these treasonous actions with his Commuting of his assistant's sentence.
Via TPM Muckraker... Joe Wilson on bush commuting the traitor's sentence:
"From my viewpoint, the president has stepped in to short circuit the rule of law and the system of justice in our country. In so doing, he has acknowledged Mr. Libby's guilt for, among other things, obstruction of justice, which by definition is covering up for somebody in a crime. By commuting his sentence, he has brought himself and his office into reasonable suspicion of participation in an obstruction of justice. The commutation of (Libby's) sentence in and of itself is participation in obstruction of justice."
Asked if he expected Bush to pardon or commute Libby's sentence, Wilson replied, "I have never known what to expect. The administration is now trying call this compromise. At end of day, it's allowing a neoconservative cult to engage in special pleading. …
We have had it with their illegal actions, their criminal intent to subvert the Constitution at every turn. If you are unclear on how bad it is in the eyes of the American citizen MSNBC had a
Bush Impeachment Poll up at the end of May:
Live Vote | Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment? * 460598 responses | |
|
| Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
88%  |
|
| No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors."
4.3% |
|
| No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.
5.8% |
|
| I don't know.
1.9% |
|
It is long past time for Congress to take action and carry through on the will of the people. This is no longer a time for petty bipartisan bickering, the kind encouraged everyday by the
hyper-partisan Joe Neocon the Warmonger Lieberman, this is a time for action in the interests of carrying through on Congress' oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, and protecting the rights and the will of the citizens against a tyrant, a dictator, a despot.
I defy anyone to take a good hard
look at this document and not find equally numerous egregious actions, and many that surpass the actions of King George in criminality and despotism, taken by the current criminal and traitorous bush administration.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Once again it falls on a few real Patriots to begin the actions needed to remedy
this intolerable situation of tyranny,
abusive dictatorial actions, and
despotism.
The one and only question that remains to be answered:
