Dems in Senate Once Again Enable Bush

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorials/152

Dems in Senate Once Again Enable Bush and Cheney to Spy on Us: The GOP Three-Pronged Effort to Permanently Control America
Submitted by mark karlin on Sat, 08/04/2007
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

It’s a roller-coaster ride that we all can’t seem to get off of.

Just when the Dems at least are talking tough (even if they aren’t acting tough), they let Bush and Cheney intimidate them into giving them more spying powers. This appears incomprehensible for a number of reasons, including the repeated illegal use of spying powers by the Bush Administration, perjury concerning that activity, and the generally accepted knowledge that the enhanced spying powers are meant for partisan purposes, not for fighting terrorism.

Can’t the Democrats just say "no," as in "Sorry, you have proven that you can’t be trusted with increased spying powers, in fact you are still failing to fully inform Congress and the American people about the illegal spying you have conducted in the past and are still, apparently, conducting"?

Now, wouldn’t that articulate a little bit of basic truth about the Bush-Cheney betrayal of America by using terrorism as a faux cudgel? Haven’t we seen the Democrats chased around the block by this political scare tactic countless times before?

Can we get off the roller coaster of Democratic leaders teasing us with the expectation of enforcing accountability followed by craven submission to the demagogic threats of the White House?

Apparently not.

While the Republicans march lockstep under authoritarian marching orders to control the steering wheel of government indefinitely into the future, the Democrats in Congress appear unable to proceed beyond skirmishes into battling the overall GOP game plan of one-party rule.

Congressional hearings have exposed the basic Republican three-pronged long-term plan for seizing the ship of state and turning it into something akin to a Brezhnev, Mussolini or Franco style of government.

What we knew – and now have confirmed is this: the GOP is using three basic techniques, and the Democrats are doing little – even now – to stop their nefarious implementation.

The Republicans are proceeding on a broad array of fronts to expand their institutionalized suppression of minority and other Democratic votes. This was a key component of the ongoing scandal known as ProsecutorGate, but it is also being implemented through a number of other vehicles, including: state voter suppression laws, partisan judicial verdicts on voting rights, a decrease in voting rights prosecutions by the DOJ, the privatizing of vote counting software, misleading robo-calls, etc. This is a fundamental usurpation of the basic process of democracy and allows the GOP to steal elections.

It has been a highest priority for the Republicans to ensure a partisan federal court system, loaded with GOP hacks, which will generally rule in favor of Republican administrations and issues that will benefit the Republican agenda. As recently as this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was demanding an "up or down" vote on a racist Bush nominee to the appellate court, Leslie Southwick, even as McConnell continued to obstruct the passage of Democratic bills in the senate by invoking cloture to prohibit "up or down" votes. This travesty was not denounced by the Dems. In fact Dianne Feinstein aided the ongoing right-wing silent coup of the federal courts by helping the Republicans to vote Southwick’s nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The third prong relates to the immediate occasion for this BuzzFlash editorial. The continued pressure to expand Bush Administration spying powers, despite past illegal spying conducted by the Bush Administration and the opposition of the FISA court (which now consists primarily of Republican appointees), should be among the top priorities of Congressional Democrats to stop dead in its tracks. We recall in one Gonzales appearance before Congress when the illegal spying story first broke that he could not provide assurance that the spying was not being used for political purposes. Does anyone think that given past experience the Bush White House would NOT use domestic spying powers to gain political advantage?

The continued full court press on all three of these fronts by the White House indicates that they have not in any way given up on the goal of controlling the Executive Branch by – as in 2000 – seizing the presidency, whatever the will of the voters.

Would the Bush Administration be so concerned about expanding unitary authority powers at a time when a Democrat could assume the presidency in about a year and a half?

We highly doubt it, don’t you?

Why the Democrats continue to enable the Bush Administration to vigorously pursue this three-pronged approach to subvert democracy is mind boggling. It’s kind of like handing over to the White House the noose to hang yourself.

The Democrats in Congress should be impeaching Gonzales, Cheney and Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors, not enabling their continued efforts to establish a de facto dictatorship for radical extremists.

Bush is as low in the polls as a president has historically gone. He and Cheney are one door away from being nailed with multiple counts of illegal activity – and that’s just from what is visible to us at this time. God knows what is still hidden below the tip of the iceberg.

Amidst this sordid unraveling of a corrupt administration that is intent on destroying democracy and the Constitution, the Democrats in the Senate give Bush more legal power to spy on us!

This is democracy committing suicide.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

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