By Ralph Nader
Nader.org
Reposted to IPR by Paulie
Can Congress “walk and chew gum at the same time?”
This phrase used by President Lyndon Johnson for one of his political opponents comes to mind at a time early in the first 100 days of the Obama Administration when supposedly many long-overdue changes and rollbacks are possible.
It is not just that Congress is completely absorbed with the tax-cut-stimulus package. It is stasis that seems to be enveloping, even within its numerous well-funded and staffed committees in the House and Senate, from even the signaling of serious movement toward rolling back Bush-pushed legislation and starting widely supported forays that take hope to change.
The continuation of this state of stasis is made more likely because the Republican minority is feeling its oats. It put the White House on the defensive during the struggle to enact economic recovery legislation even though previous Republican policies and coddling of Wall Street for eight years build a steep cliff for financial collapse. Add the de-regulatory moves of 1999 and 2000 by the Clinton-Rubin crowd and the financial meltdown accelerates.
There is something else operating. One gets the feel on Capitol Hill among some fairly sharp people of a lack of horizon, a paucity of progressive determination, a sense of being overwhelmed by the corporate forces still bearing down on Congress—easily the most powerful branch of government under our Constitution.
But Congress does not act as if it is the most powerful branch. It routinely abdicates its constitutional responsibilities—the declaration of war authority and the plenary authority to investigate and require access to information in the executive branch.
Even after the Democrats took control of the Congress in January 2007, George W. Bush again and again got his way including a rubber stamp for the huge Iraq and Afghanistan war budgets outside of the normal appropriations processes.
Efforts by Senator Russ Feingold and Cong. John Conyers to move a modest censure resolution of Bush and Cheney for their many constitutional and statutory violations were aggressively rejected by their leaders—Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid. In January 2007, Pelosi and Reid two took impeachment off the table allowing the most chronically impeachable presidency in our history to continue undisturbed.
Some staffers in Congress privately assert that the Democrats are not acting like a majority party. It is worse than that. They are not acting—period.
From their majority status in 2007 to 2009 and a Democratic President in the White House, the Congressional Democrats are not moving swiftly to repeal the ban on Uncle Sam negotiating drug prices from volume discounts under the drug benefit law. They are not moving to amend the Patriot Act, regain control of warrantless surveillance, strengthen the corporate criminal laws and enforcement budgets. Congress is not even pushing to require taxing Hedge Fund manager’s income as ordinary income not as capital gains.
I cite these policies because they are policies much favored by many Democratic lawmakers. But in practice lawmakers duck and duck and duck from translating their beliefs into contentious action vis-à-vis the lobbyists and their captive legislators.
Senator Chris Dodd and the vast majority of the American people want to do something about credit card company abuses and gouges. But he is surrounded not just by the Republicans on the Senate Banking Committees but high-ranking Democrats beholden to the financial goliaths who, are demanding and receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts.
There is word from the politicians that consideration of health care insurance—apart from a quickly enacted expansion of some coverage for more poor children—will be put off for a year. The trade unions’ top priority to enact labor law reforms, supported by Obama during his presidential campaign, are being held back by the Democrats.
There is even doubt whether the District of Columbia will get a voting Representative in the House when push comes to shove in the Senate.
The one-subject-at-a-time attitude is coming from the White House. “Obama doesn’t want it now” is a common phrase used by legislators to excuse themselves from exercising the separate but equal Congressional powers. This pretext applies to taking away some of the hugely expensive and unnecessary weapons systems like the F-22 aircraft decried by many military and retired military analysts. The vast, bloated military budget is sacrosanct on Capitol Hill as it is in the White House.
At a time of widely perceived needs for Congressional action, with large corporations busy applying for corporate welfare and on the defensive, the Democrats are not generating any momentum for standing for and with the people. Even in the midst of food contamination, illnesses and fatalities, they cannot turn around forty years of delay on giving the Food and Drug Administration adequate authority and inspectors to protect our food supply.
It is going to take a very focused civic jolt from you all to your Senators and Representatives. A couple of million jolters from our large country can get the train moving on the tracks. It doesn’t take much time to holler, yell or bellow with the facts.
As long as (Weak and stupid) Americans keep
putting KNOWN CORRUPT Parties in the
White House and Government, Americas is
sure to continue it’s Demise !!!
Change?
http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2009/02/another-day-in-bushi-meanobama.html
Unless there is enormous pressure put on congress and the Obama administration, all of the campaign promises will go out the window as many already have. Despite the fact that administration has only been in office for a month, ALL of the signs are that change will not be coming. It will be more corporate bailouts, more war, more homeland security and more of the same straight down the line.
Fire the BODs – CEOs – Impeach Congress and let the young and the restless rule the world.
An old woman…
Ja, some of zees dumkopfs don’t know how to follow the leader, yes? One nation, one people, one leader…ze more…civilized nations, we understand this…do you follow?
I am amazed the critical comments constantly being thrown at this administration which is about ONE MONTH!!! old. Too much negativity is harmful to our nation. Lighten up guys. Anything President Obama does is so much better than what we had. I guess being supportive doesn’t up your numbers.
I hope you aren’t serious…………
ROFL. Of course I’m serious. Did you know the nazi SS unit that found the fountain of youth in the Amazon, also ran into one breasted female archers from the Isle of Lesbos while they were out there? It was brutal.
read the article and write your representatives.
I usually prefer to call him. I won’t tell you what I call him, but you can probably guess a few of the words. Let’s just say that if you are trying to raise little kids or give an interview to a family newspaper, you probably don’t want to use them.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure Spencer knows that I think SS is an evil pyramid scheme created by mutant nazis from outer space.
He is usually a grade A deep fried idiocrat, but every once in a while he says something somewhat intelligent. Here is one of those few times:
Read this article…. http://www.alternet.org/workplace/126898/
I hope you aren’t serious…………read the article and write your representatives.
Forgotten nazi Waffen SS unit on secret mission in Amazon Jungle discovers fountain of youth. News at 11
hahaha. Paulie, ironically my first reaction was “S.S? Like Hitler’s?”
Wow…SS units are still hiding out, unaware that WW II is over? And they are still in fighting shape at their age? Scary stuff!
I read an interesting article by William Grieder on alter net 2/16/09 he remarks that S.S. is under assault. Check it out.
http://wilderside.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/poll-23-americans-support-investigating-bush-crimes/
Poll: 2/3 Americans Support Investigating Bush Crimes
from DemocracyNow.org
In a new USA Today/Gallup poll, two-thirds of Americans say they want investigations into the role of Bush administration officials in torture, warrantless wiretapping and the politicization of the Justice Department. 40 percent of respondents said they want to see prosecutions. Senator Patrick Leahy recently proposed the formation of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate Bush administration crimes. On Monday, President Obama was asked about Leahy’s proposal.
President Obama: “My view is also that nobody is above the law, and if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted, just like any ordinary citizen, but that, generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards. I want to pull everybody together, including, by the way, the—all the members of the intelligence community who have done things the right way and have been working hard to protect America and I think sometimes are painted with a broad brush without adequate information. So I will take a look at Senator Leahy’s proposal, but my general orientation is to say let’s get it right moving forward.”
Some Obama administration officials have already ruled out prosecutions. Earlier this month, the new head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, said CIA officers would not be prosecuted for harsh interrogations authorized by the Bush White House. On Thursday, the Senate confirmed Panetta by a voice vote.
Lawyer: Torture Evidence “Hidden from Obama”
Meanwhile, The Guardian newspaper reports US defense officials may be preventing Barack Obama from seeing evidence that Binyam Mohamed, a former British resident held in Guantánamo Bay, has been tortured. The prisoner’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, says he sent Obama evidence of what he called “truly mediaeval” abuse, but substantial parts were blanked out before the President could read it. Smith says Obama should be aware of the “bizarre reality” of the situation. Smith said, “You, as commander in chief, are being denied access to material that would help prove that crimes have been committed by U.S. personnel. This decision is being made by the very people who you command.” The Guardian reports US defense officials might have censored the evidence to protect the President from criminal liability or political embarrassment.
Documents Reveals CIA & Pentagon Worked Closely on Rendition
In related news, three human rights groups released more than a thousand pages of Pentagon and CIA documents Thursday that reveal the two agencies worked closely together in rendering terrorism suspects to black sites. The documents also confirm the existence of secret prisons in Iraq and Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2009/02/vice-admiral-albert-church-us.html
Vice-Admiral Albert Church: US abused/tortured prisoners to death in Afghanistan
“This is not change,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero correctly told the Associated Press. “Candidate Obama ran on a platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President Obama’s Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that important civil liberties issue.”
That’s
http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2009/02/when-holding-president-obamas-feet-to.html
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/776
Via
http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/
A Gallup Poll released February 12 revealed that 62 percent of Americans want to investigate or criminally prosecute Bush administration officials who authorized torture in the so-called “war on terror.” But even hough President Obama has said numerous times that “nobody’s above the law,” on February 10 he used the Bush administration’s “state secrets” gambit to quash a lawsuit attempting to penalize some of those involved in renditioning torture subjects.
Bush must be impeached.Obama is not the man for this job.
Obama already has the job. You can’t impeach ex-presidents. Criminally prosecute, yes.
Its in the presidents supposed blind trust that you will find the engine for his greed and the many ca. legistrators corruption. stealing presidential protected lands in San Bernardino forest. These lands were set apart for us.Not for Bush and his greedy friends like the Bass Brothers and Bush to change the forest lines and then elect a fool like arnold to use state and local law officials to harrass and destroy honest peoples lives who speak out against one raped forest for its trees, water and land. Impeach REP. Jerry Lewis and this house of cards will lead straight to Boise Cascade, and Richard Rainwater, Bush’s man running his “Blind Trust” You will find repeated over and over Tax deducted delict mines that are not to be developed but returned to their natural state illegally rezoned and then developed by Bush held co. through Goldman Sacs and other bail out int. money houses now owned by banks that will wash the money and the tittles. This story comes to you from one person who has been repeatedly smeared and denied his constitional rights by the Justice Dept. and the F.B.I. Please, stop one world order. I did not vote for it and neither did you. A return to the class structure of England and the monarcy that the wealthy in this country need to make us the tax payer their legal serfs must be stopped. Corruuption at this scale must be stopped. Bush must be impeached.Obama is not the man for this job.We must make him by continuing to expose this theft of our natural resources by world supremecist.Only a strong third party can accomplise this.The dems. in office like pelosia boxer and feinstein are only covering up for there husbands association with these traitors. Thank-you. martin haneline political and religious prisioner residing in the expanded jail of the u.s. in so. ca.
I agree. I don’t understand why the Democrats will never realize that Republicans don’t care about being bi-partisan. You were elected to Congress by liberals, so be liberal! You don’t have to keep moderating your stance just to get Republican support. The Republicans didn’t liberalize their stances just to get Democrat support.
Our legslatures receive thousands of dollers more from corporations to vote for their interest then they get from their salary. That is why a senate seat is worth a million dollars. I say through all the bums out.