College Republican Convention: Meet the Next Generation of GOP Hypocrites
In conversations with at least twenty College Republicans about the war in Iraq, I listened as they lip-synched discredited cant about “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here.” Many of the young GOP cadres I met described the so-called “war on terror” as nothing less than the cause of their time.
Yet when I asked these College Republicans why they were not participating in this historic cause, they immediately went into contortions. Asthma. Bad knees from playing catcher in high school. “Medical reasons.” “It’s not for me.” These were some of the excuses College Republicans offered for why they could not fight them “over there.”
These are the next generation of Republicans and they will carry on the Bush legacy of talking outside both sides of their mouths. They have every right to join in the national debate on Iraq or any other issue, but they have assigned themselves the role of cheer leading from the safety of the peanut gallery. A sad mix of unquestioning nationalism and convictions lighter then a yellow feather.
Remember part of the Republican mantra for years was that privatizing everything would increase effectiveness and effiency and the tax payer would get more value for their tax dollar. Like so many Republican mantras this one has been more smoke and mirrors then reality, Privatizing the War on Terror: Endangering the Homefront
As if that’s not enough, since 1999 Wackenhut has provided security at the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Y-12 nuclear weapons plant and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. DOE Inspector General and press reports portray a contractor there who under staffs the facility, forces officers to work persistent and excessive overtime, and has resorted to cheating and falsification of records to keep up the appearance of acceptable performance. Other reports of security lapses include discharging of live ammunition during weapons tests and security problems at a number of the national nuclear security administration sites that Wackenhut guards.
But it’s not just our national security and nuclear infrastructure that this company is endangering. They are also putting our public safety at risk in key cities like Miami, Florida, where they get county funds to guard the transportation system.
A quick search at PoliticalMoneyLine shows that Wackenhut gives the vast majority of its political contributions to, who else Republicans.
Bush administration thinks the Constitution says the executive branch is beyond the law,
Not every questionable assertion of Executive Privilege should be resolved in the context of a criminal prosecution because not every refusal to comply with a subpoena is criminal or even wrong. There is such a thing as “Executive Privilege,” and — like all other privileges, such as attorney/client or doctor/patient — it does sometimes entitle defiance of a subpoena. It happens all the time in judicial proceedings that subpoenas are issued, the subpoenaed party claims a right not to comply, and both sides then present their arguments to a court, which resolves the dispute.
But refusals to comply with subpoenas become criminal where they are grounded not in good faith (even if questionable) assertions of privilege, but where, instead, a contempt for the rule of law is evidenced because one party abuses legitimate privileges in order to shield itself from investigation and accountability.
What the Bush administration is asserting here is the power to abolish that distinction, to immunize itself completely from the threat of criminal prosecution in those cases where it plainly abuses the assertion of privilege (as it is undoubtedly doing now) in order to immunize itself from accountability under the law. It removes completely the specter of criminal prosecution for refusing to comply with lawful investigations by vesting in the President an absolute, unchallengeable power to defy all subpoenas even where it has no arguable basis for doing so, by vesting in him the power literally to order federal prosecutors not to pursue an indictment. (emphasis mine)
CNN uncritically reported Bush charge that Democrats are denying troops’ pay increase
Elaine Quijano uncritically reported that President Bush “essentially admonished lawmakers for failure to come to an agreement on the defense authorization bill,” and aired Bush’s statement, “Even members of Congress who no longer support our effort in Iraq should at least be able to provide an increase in pay for our troops fighting there.” Quijano did not mention Bush’s strong opposition — asserted merely two months ago — to any pay increase above 3 percent.
….As the blog Think Progress has noted, on May 16 the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) released a statement that said, “The Administration strongly opposes” section 601 of the House version of the defense bill — providing for a 3.5-percent increase in basic pay — and called the “additional 0.5 percent increase above the President’s proposed 3.0 percent across-the-board pay increase … unnecessary.”
This was that difficult all the producers and reporters at CNN had to do was make a mild effort at doing their homework. Just report the facts. Bush and only Bush is responsible for stopping a pay increase for the troops. He lied about in a speech ,
Military Pay: The Administration strongly opposes sections 601 and 606. The additional 0.5 percent increase above the President’s proposed 3.0 percent across-the-board pay increase is unnecessary.
Se story above about welfare for Wackenhut and the 12 billion we’re spending a month in Iraq and Bush just couldn’t budge on that half percent. Give me a break “liberal ?” media.
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson
The Long Goodbye 