America the Fearful by Bob Herbert, New York Times

In the dark days of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt counseled Americans to avoid fear. George W. Bush is his polar opposite. The public’s fear is this president’s most potent political asset. Perhaps his only asset.

Mr. Bush wants ordinary Americans to remain in a perpetual state of fear – so terrified, in fact, that they will not object to the steady erosion of their rights and liberties, and will not notice the many ways in which their fear is being manipulated to feed an unconscionable expansion of presidential power.

If voters can be kept frightened enough of terrorism, they might even overlook the monumental incompetence of one of the worst administrations the nation has ever known. …

The Bushies will tell you that it is dangerous and even against the law to inquire into these nefarious activities. We just have to trust the king.

Well, I give you fair warning. This is a road map to totalitarianism. Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included an excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.

There are not enough pretty words in all the world to cover up the damage that George W. Bush has done to his country. If the United States could look at itself in a mirror, it would be both alarmed and ashamed at what it saw.

ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

No U.S. Safeguards for Detainees

RE: “GITMO Visits Reveal Policy Gone Bad” commentary

The article is a travesty. Mahvish Khan is an absolute dupe of the Taliban and al-Qaida. The Guantanamo detainees are trained by al-Qaida to lie through their teeth to elicit sympathy for them and their cause.

The writer doesn’t show a shred of evidence about the veracity of their statements, yet she believes them implicitly, thereby damning the honorable soldiers who captured these terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, and the soldiers and sailors who treat these despicable people with respect and excellent treatment.

The American writer of this op-ed went in with a built-in bias and an agenda. There is absolutely no objectivity in the article. The detainees were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan and should be tried by military tribunals.

They are not U.S. citizens and are not entitled to the protections of the U.S. Constitution.

JACK MAHER
Albuquerque

Let us remember that we don’t necessarily know the truth about every single person we’ve imprisoned. It has to be conceivable that one in 400 is neither a liar nor guilty. These are not simply soldiers rounded up in the middle of battle. These are suspects and we all know how trustworthy our intelligence has been in larger matters.

Perhaps we have no obligation to treat these people as we would hope we would treat American citizens with the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair, speedy and open trial. But, they are where they are in part to be certain they can’t be touched by our judicial system. And, if our own standards of justice are so flexible, why should any American citizen expect any better treatment. Mr Maher could be declared an enemy combatant tonight and disappear. Surely he knows that.

Maher has the right to object to Mahvish Khan’s story, but he is very willing to accept the sketchy claims of an administration that seems incompetent and untrustworthy in many matters. mjh

mjh’s blog — I felt that my own country had taken a wrong turn

Guantanamo’s innocuous men By Mahvish Khan, Special to The Washington Post

Budget Cut Would Shutter EPA Libraries By Christopher Lee, Washington Post Staff Writer

Proposed budget cuts could cripple a nationwide system of Environmental Protection Agency libraries that government researchers and others depend on for hard-to-find technical information, library advocates say.

The $2 million cut sought by the White House would reduce the 35-year-old EPA Library Network’s budget by 80 percent and force many of its 10 regional libraries to close, according to the advocates and internal agency documents.

That, in turn, would dramatically reduce access to certain EPA reports, guidance and technical documents that are used by the agency’s scientific and enforcement staff as well as private businesses and citizens, they say. …

The public has a lot at stake in the future of these libraries, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit advocacy group that obtained internal EPA documents on the proposed cuts.

“We view this as another example of the Bush administration marginalizing EPA research so that the agency scientists and other specialists can’t do their jobs,” Ruch said. “And then in the absence of information, plans by industries and others that have environmental implications go forward.”

A major thrust of the Bush Administration has been to abrogate the classic checks and balances of the Constitution — at the very time he has profound influence over Congress and the Supreme Court and the Media and the Public.

Ask yourself for a moment: what kind of Constitutional scholar is Bush? Stop laughing — whose idea is this? Someone is tweaking, amending and editing the Constitution and we don’t actually know who it is or what their motives are.

Much has been made of Bush never vetoing anything. These “signing statments” are essentially line-item vetoes; he’ll ignore what he chooses. Congress and the Court have no process for reviewing, objecting or over-riding these stealth vetoes.

Bush’s strange need to leave a paper trail everywhere is beginning to look like Nixon’s tapes. Hopefully, they will contribute to his undoing. They definitely will give History real substance to judge his administration by.

Had enough? mjh

Bush challenges hundreds of laws – The Boston Globe
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 30, 2006

WASHINGTON — President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ”whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush’s assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ”to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ”execute” a law he believes is unconstitutional. …

Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws — many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush’s theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

Search Results (v2)
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (2006); Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (2005); Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (2004); Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (2003); Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (2002); Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (2001)
For: “”statement on signing””

Daily Kos: Re-Improved Colbert transcript (now with complete text of Colbert-Thomas video!)

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in “reality.” And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass — it’s important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it’s 2/3 empty. …

The greatest thing about this man is he’s steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man’s beliefs never will.

As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president’s side, and the vice president’s side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they’re super-depressing. And if that’s your goal, well, misery accomplished.

Over the last five years you people were so good — over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction!

Read the whole transcript — it is full of zings and barbs. Colbert’s presentation is amazingly blunt and wreckless. I hope everyone in the audience squirmed constantly. mjh

[Thanks, Jas.]

All Kidding Aside By Dan Froomkin, Special to washingtonpost.com

So was the biggest news of the night that Bush so effectively and humorously poked fun at himself? Or that a captive president — and, to a lesser degree, the press corps — had so sit and watch as they were subjected to devastating, vitriolic satire?

Possibly because they themselves were targets, most reporters chose to downplay the Colbert part of the evening. …

“As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and handshakes, and left immediately.”

Here’s what CNN’s Ed Henry reported: “Now, the president ended his remarks by — his official remarks by saying that it’s really important to laugh in this job. That’s probably more true than ever, now that he’s so low in the polls. But I have to tell you, near the end of Stephen Colbert’s routine, the president didn’t really seem to be laughing. He actually seemed to be a little bit annoyed at some of the pokes from Stephen Colbert, it went on for a bit.”

The Moderate Voice – Colbert’s White House Correspondent Dinner Performance Underscores Irony’s Power And Delicacy [lots of excerpts of reactions from Left and Right]