Where's the Apology?

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 30, 2004 New York Times

America's credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance.

America as a One-Party State
Today's hard right seeks total dominion. It's packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself.

By Robert Kuttner
Issue Date: 2.1.04

America has had periods of single-party dominance before. It happened under FDR's New Deal, in the Republican 1920s and in the early 19th-century "Era of Good Feeling." But if President Bush is re-elected, we will be close to a tipping point of fundamental change in the political system itself. The United States could become a nation in which the dominant party rules for a prolonged period, marginalizes a token opposition and is extremely difficult to dislodge because democracy itself is rigged. This would be unprecedented in U.S. history.
In past single-party eras, the majority party earned its preeminence with broad popular support. Today the electorate remains closely divided, and actually prefers more Democratic policy positions than Republican ones. Yet the drift toward an engineered one-party Republican state has aroused little press scrutiny or widespread popular protest.

We are at risk of becoming an autocracy in three key respects. First, Republican parliamentary gimmickry has emasculated legislative opposition in the House of Representatives (the Senate has other problems). House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has both intimidated moderate Republicans and reduced the minority party to window dressing, rather like the token opposition parties in Mexico during the six-decade dominance of the PRI.

Second, electoral rules have been rigged to make it increasingly difficult for the incumbent party to be ejected by the voters, absent a Depression-scale disaster, Watergate-class scandal or Teddy Roosevelt-style ruling party split. After two decades of bipartisan collusion in the creation of safe House seats, there are now perhaps just 25 truly contestable House seats in any given election year (and that's before the recent Republican super gerrymandering). What once was a slender and precarious majority -- 229 Republicans to 205 Democrats (including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who votes with Democrats) -- now looks like a Republican lock. In the Senate, the dynamics are different but equally daunting for Democrats. As the Florida debacle of 2000 showed, the Republicans are also able to hold down the number of opposition votes, with complicity from Republican courts. Reform legislation, the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), may actually facilitate Republican intimidation of minority voters and reduce Democratic turnout. And the latest money-and-politics regime, nominally a reform, may give the right more of a financial advantage than ever.

Third, the federal courts, which have slowed some executive-branch efforts to destroy liberties, will be a complete rubber stamp if the right wins one more presidential election.

Taken together, these several forces could well enable the Republicans to become the permanent party of autocratic government for at least a generation. Am I exaggerating? Take a close look at the particulars. "

Maybe I'm missing something.... but it seems to me that the lastest Budget has provisions that give greater "right to privacy" to those buying guns than to those checking out library books (USA Patriot Act).
How bizzare !!!

I couldn't say it a smidgen as well. Thank you Molly Ivins:

Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate - 01.22.04 "Meanwhile, Bush was running the same old plays in his State of the Union Address: fear, threat, danger, terror, war, enemies. He even trotted out the weapons of mass destruction again, just as though they had actually existed. And the media accuse Howard Dean of being negative!

President Bush's speech contained so many outrageous distortions -- on No Child Left Behind, Pell Grants, the PATRIOT Act, job training, the deficit, on and on -- it takes the public interest groups pages just to correct the most blatant disinformation in the speech.

My favorite line was, "Jobs are on the rise." Not a hey or a howdy to the 9 million unemployed Americans, just a flat lie. Piece of work, isn't he? "

Again Bush acts with complete DISREGARD of the constitution. We do not need or want a dictator....

Bush Seats Judge, Bypassing Senate DemocratsBy NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: January 17, 2004 - New York Times

"WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — President Bush on Friday used the Congressional recess to install Charles W. Pickering Sr. in a federal appeals court seat from which he had been blocked twice by the Senate because of Democratic opposition.

In using a president's power to make appointments during Congressional recesses to fill vacancies, Mr. Bush was able to skirt the Senate confirmation process, which Democrats have used for three years to block not only the Pickering nomination but also those of several other Bush judicial nominees."

Al Gore January 2004
"In preparing this series of speeches, I have noticed a troubling pattern that characterizes the Bush-Cheney administration's approach to almost all issues. In almost every policy area, the administration's consistent goal has been to eliminate any constraints on their exercise of raw power, whether by law, regulation, alliance or treaty. And in the process, they have in each case caused America to be seen by the other nations of the world as showing disdain for the international community."

Bush's Power to Plan Trial of Detainees Is Challenged
By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: January 16, 2004 - New York Times

"WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 — Five uniformed military lawyers assigned to defend detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have filed a brief with the Supreme Court, challenging the basis of President Bush's plan to use military tribunals without civilian court review to try some of the detainees there.

In their 30-page brief, filed late Wednesday, the lawyers assert that President Bush worked to "create a legal black hole" and overstepped his constitutional authority as commander in chief in the way he set up the program for military tribunals,

"Under this monarchical regime, those who fall into the black hole may not contest the jurisdiction, competency or even the constitutionality of the military tribunals," the defense lawyers wrote. "

BUSH EXPLOITS MARTIN LUTHER KINGS'S GRAVE FOR POLITICAL FUNDRAISER
from daily Mislead.com 1/15/04

"On last year's Martin Luther King Day, President Bush eloquently honored the
memory of Dr. King, saying "I believe [in the] power of his words, the
clarity of his vision and the courage of his leadership." This year,
however, instead of honoring the legacy of Dr. King, President Bush has
decided to use Martin Luther King Day as tool to force the federal
government to subsidize a fundraising trip for his re-election campaign.

The New York Times reports that the President "hastily planned" a visit to
Dr. King's grave, and then will immediately go to "a $2,000-a-person
fundraiser in Atlanta." Even though Bush may spend the majority of his time
hobnobbing with donors at the fundraiser, because he will briefly visit Dr.
King's grave, he is allowed to deem the entire trip "official" and then bill
taxpayers for portions of the huge cost of hotel rooms, rental cars,
security, and travel. And those are no small costs - the Washington Post
notes that Air Force One alone costs $57,000 an hour to operate."

GREG PALAST New York, Dec. 2, 2003
"Last year, with little fanfare and less scrutiny, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, which effectively orders all states to buy the computerized voting machines that Mr. Krugman rightly dreads. Worse, the law requires all states to computerize their voter rolls and purge those lists of suspect voters, à la Florida.
Heaven help us when President Bush and Congress tell us that they are going to "help" us vote. "

The writer, an investigative reporter, is the author of a book about the disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida in the 2000 election.

Florida AGAIN demonstrated that our electorial process needs improvement. Electronic machines with no "paper trail" is NOT the answer:

Today's recount in the House District 91 race is likely to raise questions about electronic voting, including whether paper records are necessary.
BY ERIKA BOLSTAD
ebolstad@herald.com

"Three years after helping render punch-card voting systems obsolete, Broward County voters have proven that no election system is foolproof.

In Tuesday's special election to fill state House seat 91, 134 Broward voters managed to use the 2-year-old touch-screen equipment without casting votes for any candidate.

How so many happened to cast nonvotes remains a riddle. Unlike with punch cards or paper ballots, there's no paper record with electronic voting that might offer a clue to the voter's intent.

The percentage of nonvotes -- 1.3 percent -- is modest compared to the days of ''hanging'' and ''pregnant chads.'' But in Tuesday's race, every vote was crucial. In a seven-candidate field, Ellyn Bogdanoff beat Oliver Parker by just 12 votes.

''These were the new machines,'' said Chas Brady, a spokesman for Parker's campaign. ``This was not supposed to happen"

Former Treasury Sec. Paints Bush as 'Blind Man'
By Reuters

Friday 09 January 2004

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill likened President Bush at Cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," according to excerpts on Friday from a CBS interview. O'Neill, who was fired by Bush in December 2002, also said the president did not ask him a single question during their first one-on-one meeting, which lasted an hour.

Another reason why this "reign" is BAD for America....

Bush Grabs New Power for FBI By Kim Zetter
"While the nation was distracted last month by images of Saddam Hussein's spider hole and dental exam, President George W. Bush quietly signed into law a new bill that gives the FBI increased surveillance powers and dramatically expands the reach of the USA Patriot Act.

The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 grants the FBI unprecedented power to obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge.

Under the law, the FBI does not need to seek a court order to access such records, nor does it need to prove just cause.

Previously, under the Patriot Act, the FBI had to submit subpoena requests to a federal judge. Intelligence agencies and the Treasury Department, however, could obtain some financial data from banks, credit unions and other financial institutions without a court order or grand jury subpoena if they had the approval of a senior government official. "

More secrets ------
" It was reported that the CIA is planning to set up a new secret police force in Iraq, modeled after the Phoenix program of the Vietnam War, that will ensure the United States retains control over the country after official sovereignty passes to a native government. The secret plan, of which Dick Cheney was the purported secret author, will cost $3 billion
and will be funded from the CIA's secret budget. " Harper's Weekly

It's been a long time since I read this. Thanks to www.antiwar.com, it's again surfaced...
Happy New Year to all. And may we all take care and wish carefully.The War Prayer, by Mark Twain: "The War Prayer
by Mark Twain"