June 24, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

MAKING THEIR OWN REALITY

The Bush administration has been an astounding mix of arrogance, incompetence, hypocrisy, and greed. The administration didn't like the reality about Iraq, so they created their own reality, even using forged documents to suggest Iraq was buying enriched uranium from Niger. They didn't like the fact Al Gore really won the election in 2000, so they used the Supreme Court to invalidate the will of the American people. If they don't like legislation, Bush will sign the bill and then use a "signing statement" to say he's not really going to enforce the legislation. We have Dick Cheney making the astonishing claim that the Vice President is not a part of the executive branch and not subject to the laws governing the executive branch. This editorial is from www.newyorktimes.com:

President Bush is notorious for issuing statements taking exception to hundreds of bills as he signs them. This week, we learned that in a shocking number of cases, the Bush administration has refused to enact those laws. Congress should use its powers to insist that its laws are obeyed.

The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, investigated 19 provisions to which Mr. Bush objected. It found that six of them, or nearly a third, have not been implemented as the law requires. The G.A.O. did not investigate some of the most infamous signing statements, like the challenge to a ban on torture. But the ones it looked into are disturbing enough.

In one case, Congress directed the Pentagon in its 2007 budget request to account separately for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a perfectly appropriate request, but Mr. Bush issued a signing statement critical of the rule, and the Pentagon withheld the information. In two other cases, federal agencies ignored laws requiring them to get permission from Congressional committees before taking particular actions.

OVERWORKED AMERICANS

In one of his more infamous gaffes George W. Bush told a woman who was working two jobs, "How uniquely American." Bush seemed to think that having to work multiple jobs was a good thing. While right-wingers chirp about "family values," they have no problem with people working weeks more in the United States than workers do in other industrialized countries, often being denied paid vacation time or sick leave or holidays. Right-wingers even objected to unpaid family leave so people could attend to family emergencies. The United States needs to start treating working people humanely with better wages, health care, vacation time, and holidays. This article by David Moberg is at www.inthesetimes.com:

Why do workers in other rich countries have more paid time off? Mainly because laws demand employers provide it. The European Union requires its members to set a minimum standard of four weeks paid vacation (covering part-time workers as well). Finland and France require six weeks paid vacation, plus additional paid holidays. Most countries require workers to take the time off and employers to give them vacation at convenient times. Some governments even require employers to pay bonuses so workers can afford to do more than sit at home on vacation. On top of that, unions in Europe and other rich industrialized countries—whose contracts cover up to 90 percent of the workforce—typically negotiate additional time off. Meanwhile, the standard workweek is slightly shorter in many European countries, and workers retire earlier with better public pensions.

Until the early ’70s, European and American workers logged similar hours. But the pattern then drastically diverged, with Europeans getting more vacation time, around the same time that U.S. income inequality began growing. In the United States, corporations gained the upper hand against workers and their declining unions, and the Democratic Party started shifting away from working class concerns. In Europe, stronger unions and left political parties pushed for shorter work hours. In some cases, as jobs were lost when traditional industries restructured or work was outsourced, unions saw reduced work time as a way to share work. But more often, unions were continuing the battle to share wealth in the form of more leisure, which had started a century earlier with the movement for an eight-hour day—the goal of Chicago protestors in May, 1886, that ended in the Haymarket Massacre, repression of the labor movement, and creation of May 1 as the international workers’B holiday.

March 21, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

WORLD CLASS ARROGANCE

George W. Bush once said the Constitution is just a "piece of paper." That has been the modus operandi of this administration. The Constitution doesn't matter, ethics and morality don't matter, international law doesn't matter, and treaties don't matter. The only thing that matters is what Bush and his cronies want. We see that same arrogance with the firing of eight U. S. attorneys for blatantly political reasons. The administration has tried to spin this as normal operating administration for every administration, but the historical record is clear. This is highly unusual and deserves a full investigation. This column by Eugene Robinson is at www.washingtonpost.com:

Arrogance has been the most consistent hallmark of George W. Bush's presidency. His administration's simple philosophy of government has been consistent: We can do any damn thing we want.

We can invade Iraq. We can blow off the Geneva Conventions. We can listen to your private phone calls, Mr. and Ms. America, and we can read your private e-mails, too. We can arrest anybody we want and hold them as long as we want, and we don't even have to tell them why, much less file formal charges or hold a trial. We can even defy the laws of science -- or at least ignore the ones that annoy us, such as that whole "greenhouse effect" thing. We can use the troops for photo ops when they come back from war grievously wounded and then basically forget about them.

DEREGULATION FAILS AGAIN

One of the big mantras we've gotten from right-wingers is about the wonders of deregulation. It fosters competition, they say, and drives down prices and gives consumers more choices and lower prices. Just about everything that has been deregulated has become more expensive, less efficient, and more confusing. A great example was the deregulation of electricity in California. We got rolling blackouts and shafted by Enron. Phone bills are higher since deregulation. Airline service is worse. And banking is truly on the precipice. When Bush I was in office a massive federal bailout was required because of the savings and loan debacle created by deregulation. Now we have the teetering of the subprime mortgage business. This article by Robert Kuttner is at www.prospect.org:

In the past decade, as regulators discarded rules, shady mortgage banking companies, financed by the bluest-chip outfits on Wall Street, calculated that they could make a lot of money offering bait-and-switch mortgages to poor credit risks. Default and foreclosure rates would be greater, but higher profits would more than compensate for the risks. So the subprime mortgage industry, enabled by the big banks, invented amazing gimmicks. These included not just variable-rate mortgages, but mortgages that were initially interest-only, mortgages with introductory teaser rates, mortgages with no down payment. No income verification required! No credit check! Subprime operators targeted people with horrific credit histories and families desperate for housing who could not afford the debt they were taking on. Last year, 60 percent of subprime loans required no meaningful documentation.

Then came the morning-after: As higher payments kicked in, people couldn't meet them. Defaults skyrocketed, to an estimated 13 percent of all such loans. At least 25 subprime lenders have gone out of business. The big dogs on Wall Street, who had invested in the subprime operators, took a big hit, too.

It's not clear where this will end. Many low-income families will lose their homes. Innocent investors will suffer the spillover effects on the stock market, and general mortgage rates may have to go up to compensate for these losses of reckless speculation.