Many of our financial lives began getting shaky as far back as late 2000. Since 9/11/01 it has been a steady down-hill slide, even though many of our membership saw the writing on the wall when the towers came down. (The initial expense of getting as far off the grid as possible is a bit staggering, especially if your name isn't Rockefeller or Kennedy, Gates or Winfrey, and it takes time.)
Or could it be that the world economies, especially that of the U.S., have become so obviously in deep trouble that even the most concrete among their constituents cannot help but see it, so Bush and Congress have no choice but to get their act together (even if it is way too late to do anything but, maybe, kick the can down the road (which was the Bush plan all along) until he is no longer in office? Of course, the latest quakes on Wall Street are always another excuse for a few more billion in corporate welfare. The Democrats will be all too happy to give a rebate to taxpayers of the poorest kind, who will have no choice but to spend it....on a tank of gas, maybe.
Those who are too poor to even pay taxes are still invisible, as they always have been and always will be, no matter what Hillary says, until they realize that invisibility has its advantages and decide to use those advantages in some fairly creative ways to begin stirring the waters of revolution. It has been a very long time, if ever, since the poorest of the poor stood a chance of being joined by others of higher socio-economic levels in a true revolt against a system that is killing them and will leave their children with no future at all.
So, why delay contempt citations when no one, not even Bush the Dumber, can refuse to get on-board with the stimulus package? What does one have to do with the other?
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| House Democrats will postpone votes on criminal contempt citations against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, while congressional leaders work with President Bush on a bipartisan stimulus package to fend off an economic downturn, according to party leaders and leadership aides. Senior Democrats have decided that holding a controversial vote on the contempt citations, which have already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, would “step on their message” of bipartisan unity in the midst of the stimulus package talks. Bush, citing executive privilege, has refused to allow Bolten or Miers to testify before the House Judiciary panel about the prosecutor purge. And former deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove was barred by the administration from appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the same issue. “Right now, we’re focused on working in a bipartisan fashion on [the] stimulus,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), indicating that the contempt vote is not expected for weeks, depending on how quickly the stimulus package moves. Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said “no decision has been made” as to when a criminal contempt vote would be held by the House. The Judiciary Committee approved contempt citations against Bolten and Miers on July 25, but Pelosi has yet to bring the measures to the floor. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved similar contempt citations against Bolten and Rove shortly before Congress adjourned in December.  The White House has declined to turn over internal documents sought by House and Senate Democrats looking into the U.S. attorney firings. And White House counsel Fred Fielding has offered only very limited circumstances under which current and former top White House aides can be interviewed about the firings. Miers, a lawyer now back in private practice in Dallas, cited a White House claim of executive privilege and declined to appear at a July 12 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. White House aides have dismissed the prospect of a contempt battle with the Democratic-controlled Congress as a distraction from more pressing work, such as dealing with the war in Iraq and the nation’s sagging economy. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales also threatened to prevent Jeffrey Taylor, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who would represent the Congress in a legal battle with the White House, from going to court to enforce the subpoenas. And Gonzales’ successor, Michael Mukasey, declined during his confirmation hearing to say definitively how he would handle the issue. Pelosi, who personally supports the contempt citations, has gotten mixed messages from her own leaders, as well as rank-and-file members, on whether to move ahead, although it is clear that there are not now enough votes for the citations to be approved by the House, according to Democratic insiders. “When we have the votes, we’ll go ahead with this. Right now, the votes are just not there,” said one top House Democratic insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and other members of his panel have pressed Democratic leaders to hold the contempt vote, arguing that a failure to move would set a dangerous precedent that could weaken the Congress in any future investigations of the White House. Conyers’ staff declined to comment Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee has not received any word from Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) when a floor vote on contempt citations might occur. “Sen. Reid is consulting with Sen. [Patrick] Leahy [D-Vt.] and others when to hold a vote,” said Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley. | |
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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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