The Bush/Cheney Administration: Political Corruption On Steroids

The following article is reprinted. Again, if someone has already said it, and said it well, I don't need to try to recreate the wheel.





http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__070703_political_corruption.htm

July 3, 2007 at 08:14:22 Political Corruption On Steroids by Stephen Crockett Page 1 of 1 page(s) http://www.opednews.com

Corruption and dirty politics is nothing new in America. However, the level and scope of dirty politics within the Republican Party at this point in American history seems to be unprecedented! It increasingly looks like the Republican leadership has become a kind of mafia-style criminal gang pretending to be a political party.

Both elections that put the Bush-Cheney ticket in the White House in 2000 and 2004 were questionable at best. Millions of votes were not counted. Millions of Americans were denied their voting rights. The Bush vs. Gore ruling by partisan Republican judges on the Supreme Court was blatantly unjust and stopped a legal statewide recount in Florida ordered by the Florida Supreme Court.

Republican statewide election officials misused their offices to tilt election outcomes to favor the Republican ticket. Republican judges provided legal cover. Corporate controlled media (therefore Republican controlled media since corrupt corporations are the dominant force behind Bush Republicanism) feed the public a much distorted view of the process by hiding the extent of the corrupted electoral process.

The Bush-Cheney White House was born in a corrupt process and remains to this day completely corrupted. The Republican Party was already deeply corrupt before 2000. The “get Clinton” movement that forced thru the trumped-up impeachment of President Bill Clinton clearly demonstrated the unethical and often illegal behavior of the national Republican leadership. The Republicans never accepted the reforms needed to purge political corruption after the Nixon scandals of Watergate.

It is unfortunate that President Ford pardoned Nixon. If Nixon had gone to jail, reformers would likely have won control of the Republican Party and the current situation been prevented. America needed to see Nixon tried and convicted. He was not the only source of Republican corruption. Americans often forget that some super wealthy citizens and corporations helped finance Nixon’s illegal political activities.

Many current Republican leaders cut their political teeth as part of the Nixon machine. It was no accident that some of the top players in the Iran-Contra scandal were part of the Nixon machine. Others from the Iran-Contra scandal are now players in the Bush-Cheney machine.

Iran-Contra was much more serious than the public generally realized. The White House knowingly and intentionally ignored the law to impose their illegal policies. The Reagan White House claimed nonexistent Presidential powers. The current White House routinely does the same. The main lesson that the Bush-Cheney seems to have learned from both Watergate and Iran-Contra is that the US Department of Justice and the federal courts must be politicized and corrupted for Republican politicians to get away with ignoring the rule of law.

The various corruption scandals involving powerful Republican members of Congress from Tom Delay to Duke Cunningham to all the Abramoff characters can be closely connected to the Republican culture of corruption resulting from this mindset. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and George W Bush have criminalized the political mindset of the national Republican leadership. They all seem to believe that they are more powerful than the rule of law.

They are routinely hiding illegal and shameful behavior under the veil of secrecy, claiming powers that would make them virtual dictators.

The political prosecution of Governor Siegelman in Alabama on trumped-up charges seems to be connected to the Abramoff scandal, Karl Rove and possible election fraud concerning the questionable defeat of Siegelman by now Republican Governor Riley. Many observers believe that massive, politically-motivated illegal activity was involved in pushing for the prosecution of the Democratic candidate, Siegelman.

The Alabama prosecution looks to be a blatant and successful attempt to destroy the career of a popular Democratic figure in Alabama. It reminds this writer of the Clinton impeachment effort. It also shows the importance of investigating the US Attorneys firing scandal. It is vital to our democracy to investigate and prosecute the politicization and corruption of law enforcement. I hope Congress investigates the Siegelman prosecution aggressively. The next Democratic President should pardon Siegelman.

Legal corruption and lying on political issues is bad enough. The recent vote and statements by Republican Senators on the Employee Free Choice Act were definitely unethical but not really illegal. Republican Senators blatantly lied that workers were being denied their voting rights by adopting card check unionization by a majority of workers. The card check system is just another kind of voting but not one easily subject to employer intimidation and manipulation. The current system is rigged against workers but Republicans simply lied about that fact with the notable exception of Senator Specter.

This kind of corruption demonstrated by all the other Republican Senators can just be dealt with at the polls. The kinds of corruption demonstrated, in the current White House abuses of office, calls for more aggressive tactics and punishment.

All aspects of corruption and abuse of office connected to the Bush-Cheney White House needs to be investigated including the Cheney Energy Task Force, White House involvement in the California electric price-gouging scandal, lying about WMD’s in Iraq, torture, secret prisons, wiretapping of American citizens without court orders, election manipulation, gutting civil rights enforcement, no-bid contracting and more. If needed, we should impeach federal judges whose rulings condone illegal behaviors or grant un-Constitutional powers to officeholders. America cannot tolerate corruption on steroids by any public officials!

www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com

Stephen Crockett is co-host of Democratic Talk Radio and author of the Democratic Voices opinion column.

It is the 4th of July, and America needs to act on the Bush/Cheney atrocities

It is the 4th of July here in the United States. In 1776, a group of brave visionaries declared that they'd had enough of the tyranny perpetrated by their rulers, and they signed the Declaration of Independence. This holiday commemorates their brave action.

We are at a similar crossroads today. The current presidential administration has played fast and loose with the US constitution for too long. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and their underlings have done illegal, immoral, unspeakable things and tried to pass it off as in our best interests.

Last night, on his "Countdown . . ." show, Keith Olbermann called them on it. Rather than try to say what needs to be said myself, I present Mr. Olbermann's commentary. He paints the picture beautifully, and I could not say it better. Thank you, sir!!

"SPECIAL COMMENT: IT'S TIME TO RESIGN

http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/03/256978.aspx

Posted: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 8:57 PM by Countdown

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on what is, in everything but name, George Bush's pardon of Scooter Libby.
---
"I didn't vote for him," an American once said, "But he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."
That -- on this eve of the 4th of July -- is the essence of this democracy, in seventeen words.
And that -- is what President Bush threw away yesterday in commuting the sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The man who said those seventeen words -- improbably enough -- was the actor John Wayne.

And Wayne, an ultra-conservative, said them, when he learned of the hair's-breadth election of John F. Kennedy instead of his personal favorite, Richard Nixon in 1960.
"I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

The sentiment was doubtlessly expressed earlier.
But there is something especially appropriate about hearing it, now, in Wayne's voice:
The crisp matter-of-fact acknowledgement that we have survived, even though for nearly two centuries now, our Commander-in-Chief has also served, simultaneously, as the head of one political party and often the scourge of all others.
---
We as citizens must, at some point, ignore a president's partisanship. Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead the world -- but merely that we may function.
But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne, is an implicit trust -- a sacred trust:
That the president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.

Our generation's willingness to state "we didn't vote for him, but he's our president, and we hope he does a good job," was tested in the crucible of history, and earlier than most.
And in circumstances more tragic and threatening.
And we did.... that with which history tasked us.

We envelopped our President in 2001.
And those who did not believe he should have been elected -- indeed those who did not believe he had been elected -- willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and shaped it to a razor-sharp point...,and stabbed this nation in the back with it.
Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.
Did so even before the appeals process was complete…
Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice…
Did so despite what James Madison -- at the Constitutional Convention -- said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes "advised by" that president…
Did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder:
To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish -- the President will keep you out of prison?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact between yourself and the majority of this nation's citizens -- the ones who did not cast votes for you.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States.
In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President… of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party.
And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party over nation.

This has been, of course, the gathering legacy of this Administration.
Few of its decisions have escaped the stain of politics.
The extraordinary Karl Rove has spoken of "a permanent Republican majority," as if such a thing -- or a permanent Democratic majority -- is not antithetical to that upon which rests: our country, our history, our revolution, our freedoms.

Yet our Democracy has survived shrewder men than Karl Rove.
And it has survived the frequent stain of politics upon the fabric of government.
But this administration, with ever-increasing insistence and almost theo-cratic zealotry, has turned that stain… into a massive oil spill.

The protection of the environment… is turned over to those of one political party, who will financially benefit from the rape of the environment.

The protections of the Constitution… are turned over to those of one political party, who believe those protections unnecessary and extravagant and quaint.

The enforcement of the laws… is turned over to those of one political party, who will swear beforehand that they will not enforce those laws.

The choice between war and peace… is turned over to those of one political party, who stand to gain vast wealth by ensuring that there is never peace, but only war.

And now, when just one cooked book gets corrected by an honest auditor…
When just one trampling of the inherent and inviolable fairness of government is rejected by an impartial judge…
When just one wild-eyed partisan is stopped by the figure of blind justice…
This President decides that he, and not the law, must prevail.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war.
I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people, a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.
I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient.
I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors.
I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely-motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent.
I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.
I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents.
I accuse you of handing part of this Republic over to a Vice President who is without conscience, and letting him run roughshod over it.
And I accuse you now, Mr. Bush, of giving, through that Vice President, carte blanche to Mr. Libby, to help defame Ambassador Joseph Wilson by any means necessary, to lie to Grand Juries and Special Counsel and before a court, in order to protect the mechanisms and particulars of that defamation, with your guarantee that Libby would never see prison, and, in so doing, as Ambassador Wilson himself phrased it here last night, of becoming an accessory… to the obstruction of justice.

---
When President Nixon ordered the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20th, 1973, Cox initially responded tersely, and ominously.
"Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men, is now for Congress, and ultimately, the American people."

President Nixon did not understand how he had crystallized the issue of Watergate for the American people.

It had been about the obscure meaning behind an attempt to break in to a rival party's headquarters; and the labyrinthine effort to cover-up that break-in and the related crimes.

And in one night, Nixon transformed it.
Watergate -- instantaneously -- became a simpler issue: a President overruling the inexorable march of the law… of insisting -- in a way that resonated viscerally with millions who had not previously understood - that he was the law.
Not the Constitution.
Not the Congress.
Not the Courts.
Just him.

Just - Mr. Bush - as you did, yesterday.
The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the "referee" of Prosecutor Fitzgerald's analogy… these are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.
But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush -- and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal -- the average citizen understands that, Sir.
It's the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one -- and it stinks.
And they know it.

Nixon's mistake, the last and most fatal of them, the firing of Archibald Cox, was enough to cost him the presidency.
And in the end, even Richard Nixon could say he could not put this nation through an impeachment.
It was far too late for it to matter then, but as the decades unfold, that single final gesture of non-partisanship, of acknowledged responsibility not to self, not to party, not to "base," but to country, echoes loudly into history.
Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign

Would that you could say that, Mr. Bush.
And that you could say it for Mr. Cheney.
You both crossed the Rubicon yesterday.
Which one of you chose the route, no longer matters.
Which is the ventriloquist, and which the dummy, is irrelevant.
But that you have twisted the machinery of government into nothing more than a tawdry machine of politics, is the only fact that remains relevant.
It is nearly July 4th, Mr. Bush, the commemoration of the moment we Americans decided that rather than live under a King who made up the laws, or erased them, or ignored them -- or commuted the sentences of those rightly convicted under them -- we would force our independence, and regain our sacred freedoms.
We of this time -- and our leaders in Congress, of both parties -- must now live up to those standards which echo through our history:
Pressure, negotiate, impeach -- get you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. Cheney, two men who are now perilous to our Democracy, away from its helm.
For you, Mr. Bush, and for Mr. Cheney, there is a lesser task.
You need merely achieve a very low threshold indeed.
Display just that iota of patriotism which Richard Nixon showed, on August 9th, 1974.
Resign.
And give us someone -- anyone -- about whom all of us might yet be able to quote John Wayne, and say, "I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."
---
Good night, and good luck."

And now he pardons Libby?!!

I personally think that Mr. Libby's pardon was another blatantly wrong (that is what the "W" stands for, isn't it?) Bush action meant to protect Bush and members of his administration from well-deserved prosecution for high crimes and misdemeanors.

But, then again, like the vast majority of Americans, (CNN: 80% thought Libby's pardon was wrong; Wall Street Journal: 69% and counting thought the pardon was wrong) I didn't agree with Libby's pardon.

Further, I think that Bush, Cheney, Rove and most members of the administration belong in prison for (minimally):

• Gross dereliction of duty for not going after and bringing to justice whomever was responsible for attacking the USA on 9/11/01,
• Attacking Iraq with no provocation, after lying about the WMDs that weren't there,
  
• Destroying the US economy by continuing Bush's Iraq "war" since that time,
• and for killing and maiming thousands of American military personnel and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in that same "war".

As the "Baretta" theme song said "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."


An opinion by an American who served this country in the military in 'Nam:


"July 2, 2007 at 20:03:48

THE GUILTY PLEASURES OF BUSH AND THE GUILTY

by Lawless One

http://www.opednews.com

Or, Commuting the Sentence of Guilty White House Leaker of National Security Secrets Doesn't Compute

Bush Junior apparently has decided that Libby, an Administration senior official found guilty of deliberately lying under oath while being questioned about his admitted leaks of a national security secret regarding CIA personnel, should do no jail time for his crimes.

Obviously, the Republican campaign ads had it wrong. Why should al-Qaida ever want Democrats to win when they can have a helpful fellow like Bush and his buddies in the White House? So much for the supposed promises of Republicans to safeguard our national security and keep convicted criminals behind bars. Frankly, King Bush routinely does more for terrorists in a month than a battalion of terrorists can do in a year.

Can you imagine what McCarthy and Goldwater would have said if a Democratic President had let the criminal go? Hell, can you imagine what Bush Senior would have said? After all, he got in office on the strength of his opponent supposedly letting convicted Willie Horton out of jail early.

It was a nice additional touch of irony that Bush Junior, who routinely ordered the torture of detainees and death sentences for the mentally ill, called the few months to be spent in a cushy US prison as 'excessive.'"

http://resistence-is-possible.blogspot.com/

"It's probably obvious I'm a CYNICAL PESSIMIST. Why a cynical pessimist? Possibly it's the result of expending a full lifetime defending, first with rifle in hand and then with a legal pad, "truth, justice and the American Way." Observing the less than perfect result and the fact that it must be unending tends to incubate pessimistic cynicism. There is actually a better answer though. As a pessimistic cynic, I know I'll always be either right or delighted. I'm probably also affected by the fact I live at the very edge of the earth, about as far as someone can get from our nation's centers of power and still have dry feet. (Minor quibble to establish my unfailing honesty: I don't actually live at the edge. Nevertheless, I really can at least see the edge from here.) The commentaries submitted to this website are some of the views from that edge, for the most part political and social observations and questions tinged (or perhaps more accurately, tainted) with humor to make the point. The name "lawless one"? It was my call sign in Nam and ironic in other ways."