“WHO WOULD MAKE A BETTER PRESIDENT”

Or, Is Everyone a Lesser Evil?

Looking back and contemplating who would have been a better choice to serve as President, the urge to compile a list becomes irresistible. Here’s my top ten.

1. Bill Moyers. Intelligent, honest, researches before speaking, acts on facts rather than his guts, humble, appears to be genuinely compassionate rather than just mouthing the words for political gain, and is not tainted with cronyism and corruption. Last but not least, he always speaks excellent English instead of frequent gibberish. While he is not a professional politician, considering how badly the pros have been serving us, that’s a plus.

2. Al Gore. Since he actually won the election, it is only fair thing to include him, not to mention how he has proven to be so superior - intellectually, ethically as well as morally - to Bush. With the Academy Award, all he needs to complete a trifecta is the Nobel Prize although a Pulitzer or two wouldn’t hurt. Bush on steroids might have been an apt analogy for Gore if baseball Bonds had not put muscle juice in such disfavor.

3. Mike Bloomberg. Gosh. It is so refreshing to discover a politician acting like an adult should; i.e. showing he is not too embarrassed or too stubborn to change mind based on new info. Someone who is a fiscal conservative to the extent of believing in paying his bills while not wasting capital on capriciousness, yet still someone who seems to respect basic rights and recognizes there are some things that only government can do. If you stop to think about it, that’s probably what a true majority of Americans actually believe and how they try to lead their own lives.

4. Bill Maher. I know. He’s a comedian. But, at least he is an intentional one rather than a sad clown who shocks us by inadvertently initiating awesomely stupid stunts. How about where he is caught on film molesting the female leader of the German Republic or talks to the leader of Great Brittan with his mouth full of food? Funny stuff. Not so funny are the games played in Iraq. Sure, Maher has no foreign policy experience. That didn’t disqualify Bush though. Maybe Maher could make us laugh instead of cry as to how the White House is run.

5. Any Dead President with the operative word being “dead.” At least a dead president could do little harm. Well, come to think of it, maybe it shouldn’t be the dead Reagan. His devotees still manage to create a lot of mischief in his name.

6. Someone Selected at Random from Phone Book. Ancient Athens did it. Yes, Yes. Statistics insists that selecting office holders by lottery would result in a certain percentage of mental defectives and crooks. Fortunately though, the percentage would be smaller.

7. A typical 13 Year Old Boy. Granted, that would be putting a self centered, trash talking, violence loving, mean spirited, unthinking, hormonal driven, partially educated, braggart in the Oval Office. At the same time, at least it would have been no worse than Bush on a typical day.

8. Anyone Who Got at Least a “B” in Math, History, Geography and Social Studies Without Cheating. Come to think of it, anyone who got a B in even one of those subject and was capable of remembering what they learned would be a better President than the one we got.

9. Osama bin Laden. Yeah, I know. On the other hand, if the Republican Supreme Court had anointed bin Laden instead of Bush, at least we would have known he was a dedicated enemy of our Constitution, our ideals, our democracy, our economy, our environment, our workers, our children, our elderly and our soldiers. Better yet, we could have listened to what he said and known to do the exact opposite which is what we should have done with Bush all along.

10. Next to Last Person on Earth. Well, maybe there are a few more people than that worse than Bush. I acknowledge it. After all, I would not want anyone to think I am deliberately exaggerating or indulging in hyperbole here. But, you must admit the list of those who would have caused less harm is so long, it very possibly would be easier and shorter to list those would have been worse than Bush.

Who’s on your list?

“ARE THERE PRISON STRIPES IN BUSH’S FUTURE?”

Or, Ten Reasons Why Bush Assumes He won’t be Jailed

Other than the fact that Bush is utterly delusional and divorced from reality, why isn't he appearing more afraid of the day when a new President has access to the White House files? Surely, given what has already been found out about the many formerly secret and highly illegal activities, he must be worried about what will be disclosed when Cheney is no longer stamping all incriminating evidence “top secret” and forbidding staffers to be subpoenaed. Perhaps he forgot the classification of something as secret can be reversed just as easily as Bush himself already declassified and disclosed more important national security matters such as the Phlamegate “outing.”

Does he . . .

1. . . . believe he has actually done a great job and committed no crime? Not even Nixon seemed to believed that.

2. . . . believe that he can keep everything buried? Like cornered beasts in a cage, the Republicans are already starting to turn on and bite one another. Heck, some Republicans may want to investigate just to clear themselves of Bush’s tar baby taint.

3. . . . believe that the next President automatically will pardon him as Ford did Nixon to supposedly “heal” the country? That seems to assume a lot, especially if the Democrats gain control as seems likely given the way the nation is headed.

4. . . . believe that the Democrats are too timid, weak or ineffectual to pursue the matter once he is out of office? Well, he may be right about that in light of the timid, weak and ineffectual response of the Democrats over the last seven years on just about everything. The voters though may replace irresponsible Democrats as well as Republicans in the next election with office holders who actually care about their oath of office to defend the Constitution.

5. . . . believe that he is untouchable because all his life someone has bailed him out of his many, many, many failures? Sorry Bush, the law of averages finally catches up to almost everyone. Murphy’s Law should have stopped him far earlier, but it is a “law” of a sorts and does seem to work. Besides, no one on earth, not even Bill Gates has enough money to bail the country out of the fiscal mess he has created, let alone the moral and ethical ones.

6. . . . believe that there are no prosecutors smart enough to convict him? Granted, the prosecutors normally selected by Republicans such as Ken Starr, Alberto Gonzales and the dufus who almost got the Padilla case (where the defendant freely admitted guilt of being a terrorist) thrown out of court tend to be an amazing collection of bumbling barristers unable to tie their own shoes. Nevertheless, not every available prosecutor is a Right Wing hack put into office solely for his or her slavish adulation of Bush. Out of the million or so licensed attorneys out there, there are many relatively bright prosecutors fully competent of finding at least one criminal act for which Bush should be jailed or turned over to an international tribunal.

7. . . . believe he will be forgiven for frivolously wasting lives, not to mention our treasury, our security, our military, our soil, our air, our forests, our country’s integrity and honor and allies, and you name it ad infinitum? Good luck on that one, Bushie. Those of us who want to prevent such fiascos in the future see a need to bring you to justice if for no other reason than future crime deterrence and dictatorship avoidance.

8. . . . believe that even if disgraced and punished he will ultimately be seen as a Christian martyr in future histories saving civilization from the Muslim horde? Okay, he is free to hope for that so long as he spends a long time in jail first.

9. . . . believe that the unshakable 25% who still faithfully support him will bust him out of jail? They are a rabid unreasoning bunch to be sure, but as unthinking cult-like followers, it is not evident that they would even be capable of sufficient independent thought to pull that off.

10. . . . believe Cheney will successfully pull off a coup and entrench fellow Neocons in power for the next several decades. He did come close to establishing an despicable dictatorship and apparently dreamed of family hereditary appointment like Caesar or Napoleon hoped. Fortunately, the minions he entrusted to accomplish that permanent takeover were just too incompetent. If you use the Keystone Kops as your Korp of Korruption, you get a komedy of errors. A tragic comedy perhaps, but a happy ending for the rest of us.

Nah. It’s probably none of those. Bush probably really is just delusional and divorced from reality.


[more irreverence at http://resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com]

“APPARENTLY THE WARRANTY ON THE CONSTITUTION HAS ELAPSED”

10 Motives to Fear Why the Democrats Voted to Allow Continuation of Warrantless Searches

I can see only ten potential reasons why those currently (and hopefully temporarily) in control of the Democratic Party so cravenly caved in to Bush and conspired with him to violate the Constitution and our fundamental freedoms by granting him near dictatorial powers for spying and searching without warrants:

1. They have never bothered to read the Constitution. Maybe all they have time to read is bribe requests from lobbyists.
2. They do not understand or have forgotten how central it is to our democracy and what we stand for in the world. D’oh.
3. They can’t read or are of such minimal intellectual capacity that they cannot comprehend the plain meaning and obvious intent of the words. It makes Bush’s stumbling through a children’s story while 9/11 was in progress seem professorial in comparison.
4. Their copies of the Constitution are missing several important pages. I wouldn’t put is past Bushites to razor blade all copies they can locate, but I am beginning to doubt the ability of Democrats to notice.
5. They don’t care or they are lazy, or incompetent or cowards afraid of a fight. From their actions over the last several years, this is sadly an emerging pattern.
6. They have been bought off or being blackmailed. Wouldn’t it be an interesting irony if whatever blackmail is being used was obtained by this same illegal power the Executive Branch has been using for years to secretly search communications?
7. They are more interested in preserving their perks of office than they are obeying their oath of office in which they expressly swore to defend the Constitution. The oath, by the way, is not to defend people or places from attack by terrorists, but to defend the CONSTITUTION.
8. They do not recognize how easily the power to spy and search without warrants can be abused. Nothing prevents it from being used against Americans for purely partisan purposes such as finding dirt to blackmail or destroy political opponents. This is especially possible when there is little or no oversight such as a neutral court to help, at least a little, to discourage violations. That is why the founding fathers made the absolute prohibition such a key and highlighted provision. If the ambiguous prohibition against infringing the right of “militias” to bear arms has been interpreted so broadly that it is perceived as allowing everyone to have any guns they want, then surely an explicit and unequivocal prohibition against searches without warrants ought to be enforced as written.
9. They do not believe Bush and his monomaniacal cabal are capable of using the power in ways not allowed by law. Actually, if this is the reason, it falls into the gross stupidity category already mentioned above since how could anyone who reads not be aware of what Bush and the minions he exemplifies have been doing?
10. They see themselves gaining control of the White House and want the power to spy and search without warrants for themselves.

Keep in mind that to prevent this particular assault on the Constitution, all the Democrats had to do was simply not bring the bill up for a vote. Nothing else. It would have automatically died a natural death this Fall. They did not need to fear a Presidential veto. They did not have to worry about a filibuster stalling work in Congress for a lengthy period. They did not have to worry about having enough votes to win. They did not have to worry about looking ineffectual. They would have greatly pleased their constituents. There would have been little harm as evidenced by the fact that the millions of violations by Bush for literally years so far has not actually accomplished anything useful in saving the nation for harm. The Democrats did not have to even take a position one way or the other and would have had cover by claiming it was not their fault. They could have legitimately said hundreds of bills never see the light of day and there are other things of more importance claiming attention on their limited time. Consequently, they had little worry that doing nothing could be effectively used against them when running for office.

Why then did the Democrats bizarrely go along with a lengthy extension of the surveillance and wiretapping of Americans without warrants outrage? It is not clear which of reasons speculated above resulted in such gross offenses against the Constitution, but whatever the reason, it is scary. We apparently need to replace the present Democrats in Congress as well as the President and all his followers.

Maybe what we need on ballots is a “NONE OF THE ABOVE” option when voting so that a new election is immediately held and none of those running at the time are permitted to be in the new race.

“THE APPARENTLY PRANKSTER FOUNDING FATHERS”

Or, According to Today’s Politicians, the Drafters of the Constitution Really Had Their Fingers Crossed When It Was Written

Let’s see if I understand this correctly. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution of which it is a part expressly state no searches shall be allowed without warrants. Together they are the governing documents for our society.

The Bush Administration however was secretly and illegally searching without warrants for years although through the entire period there was an easy and quick way to obtain warrants in a totally secret court even after the searches had already been completed. That latter Act, passed in a time of unreasoning fear and shortsightedness, is called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA. Its allowance of retroactively granted warrants is or should be of questionable validity. After all, anything allowing searches without warrants is of questionable constitutionality given the unambiguous prohibition in the supreme law of the land, not to mention the inherent danger of such a power being abused by the party in control of the Executive Branch. There is too much of a temptation to use it to spy on political opponents seeking dirt to blackmail or silence them. Remember after all, the Neocons touting Bush as the second coming have already publically declared at various times anyone who disagrees with them is ipso facto a “traitor” and guilty of “aiding” our enemies.

Despite Bush and his buds having an ostensibly legal Act on the books granting them permission, if they would just follow a couple of minuscule requirements, to do want they wanted, basically to secretly spy on just about anyone they wanted and search damned near all communications, they chose to ignore the Act in its entirety. The Administration implicitly acknowledged literally millions of violations. Arrogantly, the President did not even bother to seek the sweeping powers granted under FISA to invade privacy. He insisted he has an absolute right to do such searches and spying regardless of what that or any other law says. In fact, Bush and the Bush apologists seemed perversely proud of the fact that they were ignoring the Constitution. They practically bragged about it and used it in political campaigns seeking to keep them in power.

It is easy to see why the President felt he could openly thumb his nose at the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. The Republican Party dominated Congress at the time and rubber stamped whatever their anointed Caesar did or desired. To show their complicity in the destruction of the Constitution and its safeguards, rather than impeach the President for admitted violation of his oath of office to defend the Constitution as written, the then Republican dominated Congress passed a new Act declaring the Constitution should be ignored on this point. Fortunately, the potential oppression under that new Act was not made permanent. It was about to expire and the Republic was about to be saved, at least from that particular attack on freedom. Hallelujah.

Better yet, the Republicans no longer controlled Congress and it would not matter that they still made the Supreme Court and the White House bark a Neocon Republican tune. The current Democratic Party leadership, had been elected for the primary purpose of putting a break on the imperialist cravings and excesses of the Bush Administration and had the ability to block re-enactment. Best of all, surely they would oppose re-enactment since they had been complaining mightily about the many, many ways Bush and his boys have been trashing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They had also been complaining that bills they attempt to pass themselves to rein in Bush II’s reign were getting vetoed or threatened to be vetoed, frustrating their efforts.

Here, they did not have to experience the frustration of a veto. They did not have to face the painful decision of using any of the 10,852 other reasons they had to impeach Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and others in the Bush monarchy continuing to gleefully violate their oaths swearing to defend the once proud and useful Constitution. Since the dictatorial searches without warrants “law” pasted by the Republicans was about to run out of its own accord, it was the perfect opportunity for the Democrats to do some good finally with their majority position in both houses. All they had to do was do NOTHING. Nothing at all, which is something they seem to be good at. They could have simply keep their mouths shut and not bring up a renewal of the obnoxious and dangerous spying law for a vote. It would have finally died of its own accord. It would have been VETO PROOF for once since the Prez cannot veto what is not passed nor can the Supreme Court overturn not passing a law.

Amazingly, astonishingly, mind blowingly though, the emasculated wimps in the Senate whose symbol is a jackass have decided to let the President continue his violations of the wording of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I cannot decide if current slate of Democrats in control have never read the Constitution, have only read a copy with pages missing, don’t think it is important, believe their oaths of office are quaint anachronisms, feel their personal power is more important, are gutless, are lazy, are incompetent, still believe anything emanating from Bush’s mouth or some combination of those. Do the Democrats want the spying/searching power for themselves now that they assume they will gain control of the White House?

Rather than acquiescing to Bushies constant demands for Kingship, rather than seeking how closely they can shave the Constitution, why aren’t the Democrats seeking to expand civil rights and protections or at least attempting to return them to something more closely resembling the actual wording of the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Why are the Democrats saying the new extension of the Presidents right to search and spy without warrants is only for a short period of time? Forget tacking on minor restrictions which the President has already promised to veto or ignore, why was there a vote to extend at all? Why, why, why?

Why aren’t they listening to their constituents or re-reading their sworn oaths of office? Moreover, why aren’t they looking at the general track record and proclivities of the Bushies on issues such as this when the Bushies assert such a power is needed? Has anyone in the Administration or the pundits who applaud and encourage him ever been ultimately proven right on anything? Anything at all?

We need to undo everything Bush and his minions have done. We need to undo them loudly to let the world know we are no longer a proto-fiefdom operating on whim and ego. We need to replace everyone who was ever hired or appointed Bush or at a minimum those who didn’t quit in disgust or get replaced. Why are we then perpetuating Bush aggrandizements such as his warrant less searches and ubiquitous spying on Americans?

I am starting to think we need to replace all the current leadership of the Democrats as well as all Republicans. This latest fiasco has lead me to wonder if we wouldn’t be better off having office holders at all levels selected at random similar to how jury pools are chosen. That way we might at least have a statistical chance of putting people in office who have common sense, are honest, ethical and honor the genius of our Founding Fathers who designed a marvelous document. Granted, statistics suggest a certain percentage of those who might be randomly selected for office would be morally deficient or mentally incompetent, but the percentage would be smaller apparently than what we have now. In any event, I for one am tired of the Constitution being trashed by both parties so blatantly.

At a time when Republicans are terrifying in their attempts to establish a lasting dictatorship, why do the Democrats have to be so gullible and ineffectual? Is it a sign democracy in this country is doomed? It will be unless we let the Democrats know their actions on things like renewing the warrant less searches law are unacceptable.