Texas: Where Every Fascist Worth his Swastika Owns Himself a Politician Like Bush

Texas barely resembles the state it once was. Under Bush, it became a sleazy auction where would-be Bushes sell out the rule of law and the people. Columnist Joseph Galloway asks: "Why is it that the Bush administration, in its dying throes, looks remarkably more like an organized crime ring than one of the arms of the American government?" I have a simple explanation. The GOP looks and acts like a criminal conspiracy because it is one. It looks like a crime syndicate because it's cheaper to buy a politician than it is to obey the law. They proved it all in Texas.

Surely, there is probable cause in the public record to justify a Federal Grand Jury investigation of Bush's inner circle. Galloway goes on to ask:

What happened to him? Where did that George Bush go? When did he go over to The Dark Side? What enticements did Vice President Darth Cheney offer him? Was it the vision of unlimited, unchecked power over the world?

Joe, listen up! I am fourth generation, native Texan. I can tell you --Bush was always a crook. He didn't "go over to The Dark Side"! He never left it! He did leave Texas in ruins --dead last in education, polluted, divided. Bush is not a horseman in the Texas sense of the word. He is, rather, one of four horsemen of a GOP apocalypse. The others are Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice.

Remember the George Bush who declared that anyone who violated the law and participated in the leaking of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame would be fired on the spot?

What about Karl Rove who works beside President Bush and is his Mr. Fixit and Mr. Fix Them? Was it just my imagination or did I not hear sworn testimony and see documents indicating that he was up to his pudgy little neck in the whole deal?

Can we not suppose that Mr. Rove was, in fact, at the root of the 51 White House employees whose e-mails miraculously vanished from all those e-mail accounts that executive-branch employees maintained through a cut-out: the Republican National Committee? How many laws governing the preservation of White House records, passed by Congress after the sorry spectacle of Richard Nixon and the vanishing 18.5 minutes of taped chit-chat in the Oval Office, have Mr. Rove and his hench-people broken? What ARE they hiding?

What about the lies and lame excuses put forward to hide their actions in the case of the missing federal prosecutors by the chief law enforcement officer of our country, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and his sophomoric young assistant attorneys general with their degrees from universities where only one book is on the reading list?

Does anyone doubt that Karl Rove personally drew up the list of those prosecutors who were to be executed because they did not enthusiastically go after people who were likely to vote for the Democrats in any election?

--Joseph Galloway, What happened to the George Bush who insisted on honest government?

Bush is not Texan. He's a carpetbagger born in Connecticut who left the state of Texas much worse than he found it. Already the state of the state had not been good thanks to Texas' recent flirtation with Republicanism, corporatism, fascism. I am a Native Texan. I recall another Texas. A better Texas. A Texas not yet sold out to privilege with the Oil Depletion Allowance. While I still lived there, government at all levels outsourced almost everything to "private enterprise", most notoriously the prisons. Convicts are a source of cheap if not slave labor. It is an Orwellian nightmare of no accountability, waste, graft, and fascism.

Suicide Exposes Squalor in Texas Prison

Suicide Shows Squalid Conditions in Privately-Run Texas Prison; Company Operates in 15 States

By JOHN MILLER

After months alone in his cell, Scot Noble Payne finished 20 pages of letters, describing to loved ones the decrepit conditions of the prison where he was serving time for molesting a child. Then Payne used a razor blade to slice two 3-inch gashes in his throat. Guards found his body in the cell's shower, with the water still running.

"Try to comfort my mum too and try to get her to see that I am truly happy again," he wrote his uncle. "I tell you, it sure beats having water on the floor 24/7, a smelly pillow case, sheets with blood stains on them and a stinky towel that hasn't been changed since they caught me."

Payne's suicide on March 4 came seven months after he was sent to the squalid privately run Texas prison by Idaho authorities trying to ease inmate overcrowding in their own state. His death exposed what had been Idaho's standard practice for dealing with inmates sent to out-of-state prisons: Out of sight, out of mind.

It also raised questions about a company hired to operate prisons in 15 states, despite reports of abusive guards and terrible sanitation.

Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Associated Press through an open-records request show Idaho did little monitoring of out-of-state inmates, despite repeated complaints from prisoners, their families and a prison inspector.

...

While Governor, Bush presided over significant declines in Texas' education standards. Most notorious was the so-called "Houston Miracle", the brain child of then Governor Bush’s secretary of education, Rod Paige. Briefly, it was all a fraud.

When nominated to serve in Bush’s cabinet, many marveled at Paige’s triumphs as Houston’s superintendent of public schools in Houston from 1994 to 2000. Usually near the top of Paige’s list of accomplishments was his success in dramatically bringing down dropout rates in one of the nation’s largest school districts.

There was one funny thing about those dramatically curtailed dropout rates, though. They weren’t true.

In Paige’s last year as Houston’s superintendent, the school district reported an incredibly low dropout rate of 1.5%. That was better than any comparably-sized school district in America. The problem, however, is that the district, which was under Paige’s supervision, cooked the books and failed to count thousands of students who dropped out and didn’t return.

--Rod Paige’s Houston ‘Miracle’, The Carpetbagger Report

Texas still ranks dead last in education. But it was not only in education that Bush failed Texas. Bush left behind an environmental waste land. Under George W. Bush's "leadership", Texas went from dead last in education to "number one polluter" in many categories.

• 1 in the Emission of Ozone Causing Air Pollution Chemicals
• 1 in Toxic Chemical releases into the Air
  
• 1 in use of Deep Well Injectors as method of Waste Disposal
• 1 in counties listed in top 20 of Emitting Cancer Causing Chemicals
• 1 in Total Number of Hazardous Waste Incinerators
• 1 in Environmental Justice Title 6 complaints
• 1 in production of Cancer causing Benzene & Vinyl Chloride
• 1 Largest Sludge Dump in Country
[See: Toxic Texas referenced below]

Bush "outsourced", in other words, "corporatized" the protection of the Texas environment. He insisted upon the state handling the protection of endangered species even as he promoted further, corporate activities, primarily unchecked development, that would endanger those very species. There is, as far as I know, no moves to halt this practice. The Bush legacy in Texas remains a threat to endangered species, a threat to the global environment. Bush's legacy includes his misguided policies with regard to air pollution, wastewater discharges, pesticides, and even nuclear wastes. Bush's misrule was as disastrous to Texas as his occupancy in Washington has been to the rest of the world including Iraq. It was Bush occupied Texas!

It is no coincidence that the state's biggest polluters are also Bush's biggest contributors. The following list is what the word "fascism" is all about.

Apache Corporation $1,000

ARCO $13,250

Assn. of Electric Companies of TX $1,500

BP Amoco $5,000

Central and Southwest Corp/ American Electric Power Co $18,500

Champion International Corp $5,250

Coastal Corp $37,250

Crown Central Petroleum Corp $6,000

Dow Chemical Company $26,000

Duke Capital Corp $23,000

Eastman Chemical Company $7,200

El Paso Energy Corporation $6,000

Enron Corp $30,000

Entergy Gulf States $9,500

Exxon $24,200

Fulbright & Jaworski $67,000

International Paper $5,000

Hired Gun Lobbyists for Grandfathered Firms $150,500

Koch Industries $4,500

Lockheed $17,400

Lyondell Petrochemical GP Inc. $3,500

MND Energy Corporation $2,250

Mobil Oil $250

New Century Energies $2,000

Oryx Energy Company $3,000

PG & E $5,000

Phillips/GPM $11,998

Rohm & Haas $2,000

Southwestern Electric Service Co. $6,250

Tenneco, Inc. $1,000

Texaco Inc $20,000

Texas Utilities $64,800

Torch Energy Marketing $2,400

TX Assn. of Business & Commerce PAC $20,000

TX Cattle Feeders Assn./BEEF PAC $20,000

TX Cotton Ginners Assn. PAC $500

TX Mid-Continent Oil & Gas $18,000

Ultramar Diamond Shamrock $5,000

Union Carbide $3,500

Union Pacific Resources $11,000

Valero Refining $30,000

TOTAL $692,498

Why do corporate polluters buy politicians like Bush? It's cheaper to pony up for crooks than it is to respect the law and the environment. I've often wondered how big corporations could make a credible moral distinction between paying off the mob and paying off the GOP, a Bush, a Harding, a DeLay!

In Texas, it is all systemized. It's the way things are done. Election laws in the "Lone Star" state allow unlimited personal or political action committee contributions to elected officials. It's a licence to buy yourself a politician. Every fascist fat cat has one or several. As braggin' rights, it beats a four car garage, a membership at the River Oaks Country Club, or the Enclave. Best of all, it's a hedge against having to act responsibly. It's license to act like an asshole.

Corporations get away with it because they claim the right of free speech. It's called "corporate personhood" i.e., corporations have the same rights as do individuals. Clearly, however, corporations do not have the same responsibilities. I submit to this forum that if corporations have the same rights as people, then, when corporations break the laws, then the President, the Chairman of the board, the entire board of directors and every large stockholder should be rounded up and brought to trial. They are, after all, "persons" in the eyes of the law. Do the crime. Do the time!

Goebbels Would be Proud.

How did it get like this? How does it continue? Yes, corporations are running the show and that guarantees fascism; that’s how fascism happens. Yes, the leaders are all in hock to the money men. You can’t get elected if you don’t have the money. Yes, the people aren’t as bright as they once were and that isn’t saying much. Yes, the glitter of bright shiny plastic and the star power veneer of bimbo and bozo celebrity as well as the gangsta soundtrack make what should embarrass a borderline intellect look hot, but, what’s the real problem? ...

Deny personhood to "legal abstractions"! The idea that corporations, mere legal abstractions, are to be treated in the eyes of the law as persons possessing First Amendment rights including free speech is absurd. Begin a citizen's movement now to support a Constitutional Amendment spelling out clearly that corporations are not people and are, therefore, subject to any law that "we the people" care to legislate in order to keep out environments clean, our governments free of crooks and liars, our schools excellent, our neighborhoods free of poisons, our lives free of war crimes and the megalomaniacal ambitions of fascist admirers of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot.

Source: Public Research Works.

The Sleeping Giant Awakes

The People have spoken END THE WAR! NOW!

The People have Spoken. SAVE THE PLANET! NOW!

The People have spoken. STOP TORTURE! NOW!

The People have spoken. CREATE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE! NOW!

The People have spoken. REIN IN THE CORPORATIONS! NOW!

The People have spoken. STOP GIVING AWAY AMERICAN JOBS! NOW!

The People have spoken. STOP THE REPUBLICAN CRIME FAMILY! NOW!

The People have spoken. FOLLOW THE CONSTITUTION! NOW!

The People have spoken. FIX NEW ORLEANS! NOW!

The People have spoken. STOP SPENDING TRILLIONS ON ARMS! FIX THINGS HERE! NOW!

The People have spoken. ENFORCE THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE! NOW!

The People have spoken. STOP THE DRUG WAR! NOW!

The People have spoken. STOP THE PRIVATIZATION OF OUR GOVERNMENT! NOW!

The People have spoken. CEASE AND DESIST THE POLICE STATE!!! NOW!!!!

The People have spoken. ELECTION CAMPAIGN REFORM! NOW!

The People have Spoken. END POVERTY! NOW!

The People have spoken. IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY! NOW!

"Old mother Texas, what did she give to me? Not a goddamn thing" --Jett Rink, Giant

The character Jett Rink, portrayed by James Dean, was patterned after Houston oil tycoon Glenn Herbert McCarthy who died in 1988. Novelist Edna Ferber met McCarthy at the landmark Shamrock Hotel in Houston. The fictional Emperador Hotel was inspired by the Shamrock Hotel which is no longer standing, a victim of "progress" and even worse architecture. It stood just across the street from the famous Texas Medical Center.

Additional Resources:

• It is time to rethink the notion of free speech for corporations
• Corporations Are Not People
• Polluters Bet Big On Bush On The Campaign Money Trail
• Toxic Texas: The Environmental Legacy of Governor George W. Bush
• 60 Minutes: The 'Texas Miracle'
• Houston Miracle: all children left behind?
• Texas is dead last
• Big Bend: Air Pollution Threatens
  Texas' Majestic Landscape
• America: The Uneducated

Discoveries

• Rennes-le-Château
• Mr. Bean Dancing In The Market Square
• Norman Blake - Nashville Blues

The Existentialist Cowboy

Conservative Lies
Indict Bush
Why Conservatives Hate America
GOP Crime Syndicate
Bush

Spread the word:

Lessons Bush Learned from Hitler

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Bush learned how to slaughter civilians. In Iraq, US troops, commanded by Herr Bush slaughter some 10,000 Iraqi civilians per month. Bush will cite that as proof that his war crime is "winding down" but that's an absurd right wing spin.

The US slaughter rate in Iraq had been as high as 30,000 Iraqis per month, 1,000 per day. It was earlier this year that the Lancet study was made public by the British Guardian, which reported the extent to which Bush is "winning" the war against Iraqi civilians.

A monstrous war crime

With more than 650,000 civilians dead in Iraq, our government must take responsibility for its liesRichard Horton
Wednesday March 28, 2007
The Guardian

Our collective failure has been to take our political leaders at their word. This week the BBC reported that the government's own scientists advised ministers that the Johns Hopkins study on Iraq civilian mortality was accurate and reliable, following a freedom of information request by the reporter Owen Bennett-Jones. This paper was published in the Lancet last October. It estimated that 650,000 Iraqi civilians had died since the American and British led invasion in March 2003.

Immediately after publication, the prime minister's official spokesman said that the Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate". The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that the Lancet figures were "extrapolated" and a "leap".

Not surprisingly, Bush responded: "I don't consider it a credible report". Recent updates to the report now estimate the number of civilian dead at well over one million. Bush calls that "kickin' ass". I call it mass murder, a capital crime perpetrated by George W. Bush. Meanwhile, Sydney Blumenthal says Bush knew Saddam had no WMD.

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

Salon exclusive: Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

Sept. 6, 2007 | On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

As Salon broke that exclusive, we learned elsewhere that Bush was yucking it up with another right wing seed pod --Australia's PM, John Howard.

Today the US President will visit the National Maritime Museum to view the bell. It could be construed as an act of symmetry, given if Howard loses the election, this week would be the last time he and Bush see each other in their respective roles.

This was obviously apparent to Bush, who arrived in Australia in a chipper mood.

"We're kicking ass," he told Mark Vaile on the tarmac after the Deputy Prime Minister inquired politely of the President's stopover in Iraq en route to Sydney.

--By George: now it's all the way with Howard J

Bush deliberately defrauded the troops, the nation, the Congress, the world. He calls it "kickin' ass". I call it a capital crime!

Bush is now criminally culpable, subject to prosecution for capital crimes for the deaths of his every victim on either side. Words cannot describe the venal idiocy of this cretin so at ease with his disconnect with common sense and morality, so comfortable wallowing in the misery his lies have caused and continue to cause. Psychologists use the term "lack of empathy" to describe this pathology, better known among the volk as pure "evil"!

From the Third Reich, Bush learned how to exploit "terrorism" to consolidate his dictatorship. Bush is on the Hitler end of the political spectrum opposing the very principles of our founding. What Bush knows he most surely learned by way of his Grandfather's old trading partner --Adolf Hitler. Hitler's Lesson Number he summed up himself in one sentence.

Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.

--Adolf Hitler

Bush learned how to rule ruthlessly. Hitler never got more than 37 percent of the vote in several elections called over a short period of time ending with an act of terrorism that Hitler would exploit to consolidate his dictatorship. That act was the Reichstag Fire, Hitler's 911.

It's hard to imagine that anyone would dare go back to the well given the press "Reichstag" gets. Nevertheless, the tactic, having proved successful for Nazis, would be tried again. No one ever accused Bush of being imaginative. His gang would simply repeat a tired, old Nazi tactic and expect the people to go along. And, for the most part, the people did precisely that.

On February 27, 1937, Hitler was having dinner with Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels when the phone rang to inform the future Fuhrer: "The Reichstag is on fire!" At the scene, Hitler and Goebbels, found Hermann Goring, later Hitler’s air minister, shouting "at the top of his lungs", blaming communists for an act of terrorism.

How Hitler became a dictator is recounted in many sources but William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is still among the very best.

From Goring's Reichstag President's Palace an underground passage, built to carry the central heating system, ran to the Reichstag building. Through this tunnel Karl Ernst, a former hotel bellhop who had become the Berlin S.A. leader, led a small detachment of storm troopers on the night of February 27 to the Reichstag, where they quickly scattered gasoline and self-igniting chemicals and then made their way quickly back to the palace the way they had come. At the same time a half-witted Dutch Communist with a passion for arson, Marinus van der Lubbe, had made his way into the huge, darkened and to him unfamiliar building and set some small fires of his own. This feeble-minded pyromaniac was a godsend to the Nazis. He had been picked up by the S.A. a few days before after having been overheard in a bar boasting that he had attempted to set fire to several public buildings and that he was going to try the Reichstag next.

The coincidence that the Nazis had found a demented Communist arsonist who was out to do exactly what they themselves had determined to do seems incredible but is nevertheless supported by the evidence. The idea for the fire almost certainly originated at the top with Goebbels and Goring. Hans Gisevius, an official in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior at the time, testified at Nuremberg that 'it was Goebbels who first thought of setting the Reichstag on fire' and Rudolph Diels, the Gestapo chief, added in an affidavit that 'Goring knew exactly how the fire was to be started' and had ordered him 'to prepare, prior to the fire, a list of people who were to be arrested immediately after it.' General Franz Halder, Chief of the German General Staff during the early part of World War II, recalled at Nuremberg how on one occasion Goring had boasted of his deed.

At a luncheon on the birthday of the Fuehrer in 1942 the conversation turned to the topic of the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears when Goring interrupted the conversation and shouted: "The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" With that he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand.

The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich (Touchstone Edition, 1990, p. 192-)

Hitler ordered a round up of the usual suspects, in other words, his opposition, consisting largely of communists whom the Nazis could, with but a shred of credibility, blame for an act of bloody terrorism.

Nazis knew what goppers know now --that frightened and anxious people will willingly surrender the blessings of liberty. From Hitler's experience, Bush learned how to use a "Patriot Act" to crack down on dissent.

Hitler wasted no time. The very next day, he was in President Hindenburg's office urging the aging statesman to issue a patriot act, a decree entitled, “For the Protection of the People and the State.” Justified as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state,” the decree suspended the constitutional guarantees pertaining to civil liberties:

Patriot Act vs, German Enabling Act:

The Decrees of 1933

(a) The February 28 Decree. One of the most repressive acts of the new Nazi government, this one allowed for the suspension of civil liberties ....The president was persuaded that the state was in danger and, hence, that the emergency measures embodied in the decree were necessary. Even though under Art. 48 of the constitution, the decree would have been withdrawn once the so-called emergency had passed, any hope of this happening was prevented by the establishment of Hitler's dictatorship following the Enabling Act (see below). It was in fact never withdrawn and remained until the end as an instrument of Nazi terror against ordinary citizens who ran foul of the regime.


ARTICLE 1. In virtue of paragraph 2, article 48,* of the German Constitution, the following is decreed as a defensive measure against communist acts of violence , endangering the state:

Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Thus, restrictions on personal liberty [114], on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press [118], on the right of assembly and the right of association [124], and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications [117], and warrants for house-searches [115], orders for confiscation as well as restrictions on property [153], are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.


*Article 48 of the German Constitution of August 11, 1919: If public safety and order in Germany are materially disturbed or endangered, the President may take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, and, if necessary, to intervene with the help of the armed forces. To this end he may temporarily suspend, in whole or in part, the fundamental rights established in Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 ...........

Patriot Act:

Section 218 which amends the "probable cause" requirement before conducting secret searches or surveillance to obtain evidence of a crime;

Sections 215, 218, 358, and 508 which permit law enforcement authorities to have broad access to sensitive mental health, library, business, financial, and educational records despite the existence of previously adopted state and federal laws which were intended to strengthen the protection of these types of records;

Sections 411 and 412 which give the Secretary of State broad powers to designate domestic groups as "terrorist organizations" and the Attorney General power to subject immigrants to indefinite detention or deportation even if no crime has been committed; and
Sections 507 and 508 which impose a mandate on state and local public universities who must collect information on students that may be of interest to the Attorney General.

Bush learned how to suspend civil liberties after a terrorist attack. It must be noted that Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio is the only candidate for President calling for a repeal of the Patriot Act. That tells me that the Democrats are not up to the challenge of restoring American democracy. The question now is one of some urgency: is it too late to save our nation? Is it too late to stop Bush? Are Americans screwed?

Just as Karl Rove spoke wistfully of a "permanent Republican majority", Hitler planned to establish a "permanent" majority of elected Nazis in the Reichstag. That body would later become Hitler's rubber stamp, passing whatever laws he desired, making all his crimes perfectly legal. Bush's lesson: make legal all the crimes you want and plan to commit; bully Congress into absolving you ex post facto for crimes already committed. Hire Alberto Gonzales to be the "enabler".

Two weeks after the Reichstag fire, Hitler requested the Reichstag to temporarily delegate its powers to him so that he could adequately deal with the crisis. Hitler denounced his opposition, shouting at them "Germany will be free, but not through you!” Hitler won the vote 441 to 84. It gave him a two-thirds majority needed to suspend the constitution. On March 23, 1933, the “Enabling Act”--a patriot act -- made Hitler dictator of Germany. It is not recorded whether he said, as did Bush much later: this would be a whole lot easier if this was a dictatorship ...just as long as I'm the dictator!

Just as Hitler cut a deal with Thyssen, Krupp, I.G. Farben et al, the DUMB-umvirate of Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld carved up the map of the Middle East with big oil and Halliburton. Just as the Middle East is rich in oil, Poland was rich in coal from which synthetic fuels (to drive the Panzers) could be produced.

Bush used Hitler's play book. And, as it was then, it's all about energy. The esteemed historian John Keegan has written that Hitler might have won WWII had he kept Rommel supplied to seize the oil fields of the Middle East, rather than invading Russia. It would have all been over --save for an "insurgency" that most surely would have opposed Rommel.

Bush learned from his grandfather that there is big money -- a killing in fact --in the industrial murder business. Our own Treasury Department is the source for the following information about how US corporations, primarily US Steel, for whom Prescott Bush was banker, helped Hitler arm and wage war on the world while carrying out mass murder throughout Europe. US steel made it possible for Hitler to arm for war, producing the following percentages of war munitions for Hitler and his Nazi war lords: Pig iron 50.8%; Pipe & tubes 45.5%; Universal plate 41.4%; Galvanized sheet 38.5%; Heavy plate 36%; Explosives 35%; Wire 22.1%.

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
--
How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

In effect, Prescott Bush was Hitler’s American banker.

Bush also learned how to outsource murder and atrocity in ways that benefit his right wing supporters. Called "private enterprise", it is, in fact, corporatism, Mussolini's word for farming out the work of killing to partners, robber barons, death merchants and hired murderers like Blackwater! Blackwater is a gang of paid thugs whom National Public Radio charges has strong connections with America's radical, religious, fascist right wing.

NPR: The war in Iraq has been partly outsourced to private military contractors which are performing many of the services that used to be done by the military. My guest, Jeremy Scahill, has written a book about one of those companies, Blackwater, which he describes as "the world's most mercenary army and the embodiment of the Bush administration policy of privatizing military functions." The company, which was founded in 1996, made headlines in 2004 when four of its men were ambushed and set on fire by Sunni gunmen in Fallujah. The charred remains of two of the men were hung on a bridge for public display. The families of the four men are suing Blackwater for wrongful death, raising a lot of questions about accountability and oversight when private contractors play a major role in war. Jeremy Scahill is a Polk Award-winning journalist who is a frequent contributor to The Nation and a correspondent for the radio and TV show, "Democracy Now." Jeremy Scahill -- if you wanted to write about a private military contractor, why did you focus on Blackwater?

--Blackwater: USA in Fallujah

Bush is ideologically allied with Hegel, for whom the "state" is "God". That notion opposes every "American" value, including that of truly religious folk who find the equation of "God" with the "state" a blasphemous notion. And so it is, not merely of religion but of reason.

Bushism is anathema to American ideals espoused by real patriots like Thomas Jefferson whom Bush and Dick Cheney would have derided as "pro-French". James Madison who wrote the first draft of our Constitution would have been demonized as "quaint" by idiots like Gen. Hayden and Al Gonzales.

Bush must surely hate our Declaration of Independence. In it, Thomas Jefferson sides generally with "insurgencies" against despots. Bush will, of course, have missed or dismissed obvious analogies to Iraqi civilians upon whom the US has waged not a war --but a crime punishable by death under our own federal statutes!

It was William Pitt, Earl of Chatham in England who denounced the British position in our war of independence. His words ring so very true today, words that Bush must surely hate:

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms -- never! never! never!

--William Pitt the elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, Viscount Pitt of Burton-Pynsent , byname The Great Commoner, 1708-1778

Bush is blinded by raw, ruthless ambition. Like Dick Cheney and the robber barons of privilege, they are blind to obvious analogy. America is not fighting for freedom against terrorism in Iraq. Rather, Bush embodies monolithic corporate totalitarianism and the theft of Iraq's natural resources. Never mind that Iraq was a sovereign nation that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with 911, Bush's ex post facto lies about it notwithstanding. The record clearly proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush's quarrel with Saddam had to do with the fact that Saddam favored lower prices for oil while Bush, OPEC, and the Saudis in particular favored higher prices.

Bush is anti-American. Bush is not fighting for Americans in Iraq. He is fighting to further enrich corporate fascist powers who would enslave you! Bush has more in common with Hitler and Stalin than with Madison or Jefferson.

The American republic at the time Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence was the latest development in a liberal trend that had begun with the English Civil War. Certainly, Oliver Cromwell dismissed Parliament in a fit of pique; certainly he arrogated unto himself the powers of an absolute dictator but stopped short of taking the title. He was, he said, a Lord Protector. Charles I was most certainly England's last absolute despot in the Hobbesian, Hegelian sense of the word.

---

Democrats Fight Heroically for the Moral Middle Ground!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is wrong about Bush when she says he is not worth impeaching. He is not worth not impeaching and neither is the rest of his junta. At a time when the only scientific study of Iraqi deaths now estimates almost a million Iraqi civilians are dead as a direct result of the evil, criminal conspiracy of a handful of administration miscreants, it is unthinkable that Democrats should try to triangulate a moral middle ground.

The legal standard to begin criminal charges is probable cause. Probable cause will normally empanel a Grand Jury with sweeping subpoena powers. In the case of Dick Cheney, there is often an open and shut case in the public record. Specifically, his participation with George W. Bush in a fraud perpetrated upon the America people. Not a mere felony under RICO statutes, this fraud amounts to high treason. The conspirators have been named: Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld.

Representative Dennis Kucinich has most certainly learned by now how lonely it must be to have courage. Kucinich has moved to impeach Dick Cheney.

Throw these liars out of office. Demand that they be impeached. Demand that the Congress act now!

Nancy Pelosi is playing cynical politics with this issue. Bush is not worth impeaching, she says. If he's not worth impeaching, then he is most certainly not worth the deaths of some one million innocent Iraqi civilians [See: Iraqi Deaths Due to Invasion]. He is most certainly not worth the lives of US service personnel sacrificed for Bush's psychotic delusions of vainglorious conquest. He is most certainly not worth the harms done the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the rule of law. He is most certainly not worth the betrayal we have suffered, the lies we have endured, the threats we must survive. Bush is not worth another hour, another minute in the White House.

It is clear to the world that a prima facie case --for which the penalty is death --can be made against the lot of them: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld! To play politics at this tragic, crucial moment in our history is cynical, cruel, unforgivable. If Pelosi will not move, then she risks being considered an accessory to Bushco's perpetual betrayal of the American people.

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Grand Jury: "Can We Indict Bush & Cheney?"

The answer is: Yes! A recently expired grand jury raised the question. It might have indicted but for a few details. Think of it. Bushman and Dickster might have been looking at hard jail time, impeachment, the possibility of war crimes trials.

My recent article --How the People May Bring Criminal Charges Against Bush --urged citizens to petition a judge to empanel a grand jury. My article pointed out that the people themselves may petition a court to convene a grand jury to investigate Bush's corrupt administration. Such a panel would have the power of the subpoena and the indictment. The legal standard for bringing an indictment against Bush or Cheney is "probable cause".

Since writing the article and while researching existing literature, I learned that the issue of of indictments against Bush and/or Cheney had, indeed, come up in the proceedings of at least one sitting grand jury.

Praise from a Member of a Recently Expired Grand Jury R. S. Nelson (SF Bay Area)

Shortly after this book [ United States V. George W. Bush et al. ] became available, but before I became aware of it, I asked the federal prosecutor (or "AUSA" for Assistant US Attorney) we were working with at the time whether we could indict Bush & Cheney. As I expected, the question was not answered. Another member of the federal Grand Jury sharply and quickly asked me "Who would write the indictment?" Ms. de la Vega points out in the first paragraph of her Introduction that writing an indictment of Bush & Cheney is not a smart move for an AUSA to make if they wish to remain employed.

Had I known of retired AUSA de la Vega's book, I might have pushed for our Grand Jury to issue our own indictment without the help of the staff of the local US Attorney's office! There just might have been 11 other jurors besides myself who would have voted in favor of such an action... While Bush's Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez would be unlikely to allow prosecution of his fellow Republicans, the issuance of an indictment by a sitting federal Grand Jury would probably garner some interesting news coverage!

...

On some days the start of the Grand Jury session needed to be postponed until a quorum appeared. It was during these interludes of waiting with the AUSA present that questions like "Can we indict Bush & Cheney" could be entertained.

I have long believed that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld are criminals. Elizabeth de la Vega provides the evidence and legal framework clearly meeting the "Probable Cause" standard to indict these people. They appear to have committed serious crimes against the people of the USA, and should be held to account.

That this route is considered is symptomatic of a state of official lawlessness in Washington and disdain for the rule of law throughout the Bush administration. What can be done when the House of Representatives will not adequately investigate 911 let alone begin impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush?

Here's what can be done: the people can petition a judge to convene a grand jury charged with considering a panoply of criminal charges against George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell.

There is an appalling lack of general understanding about grand juries. An early objection was simply the creation of a "legitimate authority". A judge IS a legitimate authority. A grand jury appointed by a judge IS a legitimate authority. There are only about three ways in which grand juries are convened. A petition to a judge is one of them. The people may petition a judge to convene a grand jury and judges have always had that authority. A grand jury itself has sweeping authority. Some grand juries have been called "run away grand juries". In my previous article, I mentioned that one such panel investigated organized crime in New York and returned numerous indictments against alleged crime bosses. Make no mistake about it. A bona fide grand jury, duly appointed by a judge, could investigate and return indictments against all the crooks inside Bush's corrrupt crime syndicate of an administration.

It was facetiously objected that "..it is a wonderful idea ...of delivering all of our nuclear war fighting elite up to a Grand Jury." Well, we gave that power to Bush!!! I fail to see how a grand jury, if consisted of straw suckin' simpletons, could do any worse!

A grand jury investigating the Bush White House would have sweeping powers to define the scope of its own investigation. It would have the power of the subpoena to back it up. I recommend the following handbook for the would-be activist: Facts About Grand Juries. As for the question of who shall write the indictment, I appeal to readers of this forum. There must surely be someone of the caliber of author Elizabeth De La Vega who could assist a grand jury in the drafting of a comprehensive indictment against Bush and Cheney.

If Alberto Gonzales should try to restrain the scope of such an investigation, my advice would be to investigate Gonzales for possible obstruction of justice. Clearly, Gonzales' primary responsibility has been that of an "enabler" tasked with making legal, after the fact, many crimes that have surely been committed by both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Should anyone doubt that such an indictment could be returned, I recommend de la Vega's book.

Elizabeth De La Vega builds a legal case that President Bush and top members of his administration engaged in a conspiracy to "deceive the American public and Congress into supporting the war." Drawing on her experience as a federal prosecutor, as well as the work of scholars and legal experts, she brings a well-honed legal perspective to the issue. She presents her argument in transcript form as a hypothetical weeklong presentation to a grand jury, including extensive testimony from three fictional investigative agents. Despite her somewhat specialized approach, the author clearly defines the legal terms and issues and avoids jargon.

Elizabeth de la Vega is a former federal prosecutor with twenty years of experience. If anyone could draft an indictment, she can and has done so in her book. Clearly, the defendants --George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell --have committed the crime of taking this nation to war upon a fraud, a pack of malicious lies. The indictment will most certainly charge the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The facts of Ms de la Vegas' case are indisputable, the case is real. George W. Bush et al perpetrated a cynical, callous fraud upon the people of the US that resulted in the deaths of some 2,500 American soldiers, over 650,000 Iraqis. The cost of the "war" has surpassed $450 billion dollars as of this writing.

Our founders foresaw problems with a rogue executive and provided the mechanism of impeachment to address the issue. Unfortunately, the Congress seems content to muddle through to the end of this "President's" term. I consider that option to be disastrous. The Constitutional process is already weakened, perhaps beyond the political will to repair it and the people are increasingly demoralized an ongoing war crime in Iraq, beyond description in terms of its human toll and unimaginable in terms its fiscal effects now and in the future. Bluntly, Bush is a rogue "President" of doubtful legitimacy who has shown disdain for the very principle that is summarized in three words: "rule of law". Various statements attributed to him having to do with the Constitution are credible because they are in character. Bush is, in fact, on network video tape declaring "...this would be a whole lot easier if this was a dictatorship...just as long as I'm the dictator." I didn't think it funny.

Let's get on with it. Petition a judge. Empanel a Grand Jury. There is probable cause NOW to bring indictments against both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Should Gonzales not allow it, he had best have sound legal reasons for his position. Else, indict him for obstruction of justice!

Resources:

• United States V. George W. Bush et al. (Paperback)by Elizabeth De La Vega
• American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
• Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush And Cheney
• Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
• Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War
• Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans--Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild

The Existentialist Cowboy

Conservative Lies
Indict Bush
Why Conservatives Hate America
GOP Crime Syndicate
Bush

Spread the word: