Declaration of Independence under review

From freewayblogger:

Washington DC: Key provisions of the U.S. Declaration of Independence are currently under review by the Bush administration, according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

“We are studying the document with an open mind and absolute respect for the authors’ intent.” he announced today in a morning press conference. “Let me assure you that this President considers the Declaration of Independence to be the very bedrock of American democracy. However, given the seriousness of the threats facing our nation today, it would be a forfeiture of our duty not to reconsider some of its more outmoded provisions.”

Originally written and signed into law on July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence has long been considered an untouchable “third rail” of American politics. According to Gonzales though, “9/11 changed all that…”

Read the rest here.

Hero Sheriff faces prosecution

Of all the unbelievable government nonsense we’ve heard about since Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, this one just about takes the cake:

From the AP:

Randy Walker swears he would have died from his diabetes after Hurricane Katrina had a sheriff not seized two FEMA trucks filled with ice and distributed it to residents, many of whom had to keep their insulin cold.

Now, that sheriff could be prosecuted on charges of interfering with a federal operation.

Forrest County Sheriff Billy McGee commandeered two 18-wheelers full of ice from Camp Shelby, a Federal Emergency Management Agency staging area, after five days passed with little relief for residents living without electricity in the wake of the deadly storm.

[snip]

McGee had worked out a deal to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of interfering, intimidating and impeding a federal officer, but U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton withdrew from the case without explanation and the Justice Department sent it to federal prosecutors in Louisiana. U.S. Attorney David R. Dugas in Baton Rogue, La., said he has not decided whether to prosecute McGee.

[snip]

The ice trucks had been sitting idle at Camp Shelby, a National Guard base just south of Hattiesburg, before the sheriff ordered them sent to the towns of Petal and Brooklyn on Sept. 4. McGee has said his deputies detained a National Guard soldier who tried to interfere.

What utter bullshit! To prosecute a man who took his obligation ‘to serve and protect’ seriously and did what had to be done to save lives?!

Maybe if FEMA could have gotten off their asses and done their job, he wouldn’t have had to do their job for them.

The economy’s just perking along, right?

Last year set a new record for personal bankruptcy filings. And yes, the reason for that was the number of people rushing to file before the new law went into effect on Oct 17, 2005.

From CNNMoney.com:

The number of Americans filing for bankruptcy jumped 30 percent last year to the highest on record as debtors rushed to file petitions before new restrictions took effect, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Personal bankruptcies filed in the federal courts totaled 2,078,415 in 2005, up from 1,597,462 petitions filed in 2004, the office said in a statement on its Web site Friday.

It was the largest number of bankruptcy petitions ever filed in any 12-month period in the history of the federal courts, according to the office, which collects information for the federal judiciary.

Bankruptcy filings for the period between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2005, also hit a record high for any quarter, the office said.

The increase was largely in response to the passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, which went into effect on Oct. 17, 2005.

Under the new law, it became harder for individuals to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7, which would let them clear their debts and get what’s known as a “fresh start.”

A ’spending economy’ is not a good economy. For one, it encourages people to run up a lot of debt, and second, a country needs to be manufacturing goods and encouraging its consumers to buy those home-grown items in order to grow.

Remember the ‘Buy American‘ campaign from years ago? There was a reason – buying from American manufacturers encouraged them to continue making things.

Since they needed workers in America to make those things, buying American helped other Americans keep their jobs.

And, as more Americans started working, they also started buying, thus companies had to increase their workforces to keep up with demand. Nowadays, we’ve got the reverse going on.

And, the biggest obstacle to buying American? The prices. Prices on American-made goods are higher for several reasons.

1. Union wages – China sends us lots of cheap shit because their workers are getting paid jack. Of course, what’s jack to us allows them to buy phones, computers, cars, etc. – it’s creating a middle-class in China while the middle-class in America is going under.

2. CEO salaries – what the hell is some guy doing making tens of millions (or more!) when his company, the one he’s in charge of, is going under?

3. Shoppers – Americans are cheapskates. No doubt about it. Some of us are forced by necessity to find the cheapest price out there because we don’t earn enough to take us above poverty level. Others just like the bragging rights of finding the lowest price.

Remember when Wal*mart used to have ‘Made in America’ signs hanging all over their stores? Do they have even one product in their stores these days that is made in the US? They sell, to quote a few folks I know, ‘cheap, Chinese shit.’

And while shoppers lap it up, they’re also moaning and whining about all the American companies that are outsourcing, laying off workers, or just closing up shop. I mean, we’ll buy the Wal*mart brand, Chinese-made, trash bags, and then turn around and complain if Hefty ™ goes out of business – or moves its production facilities to Bangladesh or China.

By the way, while Wal*mart is busy selling us cheap, Chinese shit, their average worker is making somewhere around $9.68 an hour, and the CEO is making 871 times what their average worker does. (2004 statistic, source: Institute for Policy Studies)

The ‘Friends Equal Money Agency’

Surprise, surprise. FEMA has announced it is not going to re-open four bids given out to politically-connected firms after Katrina, despite promising to do so last fall. Three of those contracts being ones given to companies that federal auditors say wasted the millions given to them.

From the Associated Press:

Officials said they awarded the four contracts last October to speed recovery efforts that might have been slowed by competitive bidding. Some critics, however, suggested they were rewards for politically connected firms.

Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison pledged last fall to rebid the contracts, which were awarded to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. Later, the agency acknowledged the rebidding wouldn’t happen until February.

This week, FEMA said the contracts wouldn’t be rebid after all. In fact, they have been extended, in part because of good performance, said Michael Widomski, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

I’m sure political connections had nothing to do with it.

The Shaw Group’s lobbyist, Joe Allbaugh, is a former FEMA director and friend of President Bush. Bechtel CEO Riley Bechtel served on Bush’s Export Council from 2003-2004, and CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. have done extensive previous work for the government. The companies have denied political connections played a factor.

As far as ’speeding recovery efforts’….is anyone in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama seeing any real recovery yet? Did New Orleans get back to normal, and I missed it?

What does he think he is? President or King?

George Bush has done it again. Said to the American people, and to the Congress, that he, and only he, is in charge.

Congress may as well disband at this point because George has spoken and said they have no power to enforce any laws they pass. They are nothing more than an extremely large advisory committee – and even that’s in doubt.

From the Boston Globe:

When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act’s expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrrism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

[snip]

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law’s requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ”impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties.”

Bush wrote: ”The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . “

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.

How can any Republican in Congress continue supporting him? They had a hard enough time getting this re-authorization of the Patriot Act to pass even with the additional safeguards, and now, the President is saying, ‘F**k yourself!’ I’ll do what I want, how I want, when I want, and you can’t do jack to stop me.

Anyone want to place bets on how soon King George declares himself ‘President for Life’? Under the guise of ‘protecting America’, naturally – after some future national crisis.