Rightwing Backlash Increases

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

The right-wing backlash of name-calling and hatred is in full swing, many weeks before Inauguration Day.

If you've been following the backlash from my article about the Astroturf fear mongers at Grassfire.org, you won't be surprised to hear this from their shill at Democrats=Socialists.com:

"If you had a 'hate meter' and filled one gymnasium with 6,000 Klansmen and the other with a lone Obama button wearing liberal, the gymnasium with the liberal would emanate a spectrum of hate and intolerance that would take a team of NASA physicist years to interpret."

The writer still won't give his identity (he's actually quite paranoid about it, writing that my interest in his identity must be because I want to "email Obama HQ and have them look into my tax records." He does say he's named "Buffoon" and he's a father, husband and veteran), but he's aligned himself with the Klan. Enough said.

But it's not just anonymous racist nuts trying to get the hate out. It's full-fledged companies and their high-powered CEOs getting in on the game. Grassfire leader Steve Elliott spews the same anti-environment talking points on his blog heard earlier this month in West Virginia. Don Blankenship, CEO of Virginia-based coal company Massey Energy, used a recent speaking engagement to spread alarm among the business community.

According to the Williamson Daily News, Blankenship compared the editor of the Charleston Gazette to Osama bin Laden in his address to the Tug Valley Mining Institute in Williamson, West Virginia, Nov. 22. He also called prominent Democrats such as Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi "crazy" and "idiotic" for wanting to protect the environment.

Blankenship also said that global warming is a myth, and that he was afraid to say how he really feels about climate change because "the greeniacs are taking over the world."

He seems to think that water pollution doesn‘t matter either. Massey, the nation's fourth largest coal company, has ignored the Environmental Protection Agency's fines and warnings to such an extent that regulators took the highly unusual step to sue the company to stop violations, which occur up to 28 times a day. Massey settled and was fined the largest amount since the passage of the Clean Water Act, due to more than 4,500 violations over a six-year period.

Massey has perpetuated other serious environmental disasters in West Virginia and Kentucky. Massey has lost millions in lawsuits for polluting towns with coal dust in one area and soiling well water in another community.

With the sheer amount of lawsuits pending against Blankenship personally and Massey generally, it's no surprise that the CEO would try to buy himself a state Supreme Court Justice.

Blankenship spent $3.5 million on an ad campaign and virtually bought himself a justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court. Not only that, but he was revealed to have been vacationing in the French Riviera with another West Virginia justice at the time of a state Supreme Court case involving Massey worth millions of dollars.

Blankenship, like Grassfire and others, is forced to rely on some pretty shaky logic. For example, he told the Tug Valley Mining Institute that reducing emissions in the U.S. will somehow increase carbon releases in China. He also relies on the failed sales pitch of the McCain/Palin campaign that Obama is a socialist or communist.

Say What?

He said that a government that encourages conservation is the first step to communism, and that a plea from the president to turn down one's thermostat and buy fuel-efficient cars leads to "sharing kitchens with four families" and other socialist tendencies such as public transportation.

There is simply no accounting for some people's idiocy. These "Dudes" are just two examples!

He said he's seen what goes on in China and Russia, and that's what's going to happen here. To avoid that, Blankenship ironically proposes the United States do exactly what China and Russia are doing: burn dirty national energy reserves, shunning conservation at every opportunity.

While the recent election may seem to grant a progressive mandate, it's important to look beneath the surface to see what the new administration is up against. There are a lot of people, for reasons ranging from economics to racism to just plain fear of change, who are receptive to the lying invective of Blankenship, Grassfire and others. For that reason, BuzzFlash is still watching.

Why is it that these idiots cannot see the difference between socialism and communism. Have any of them actually ever read Marx's Communist manifesto? I seriously doubt it. What they seem to be talking about is Stalinism, which has nothing to do with the thoughts of Karl Marx.

Thanks, Buzzflash, for keeping an eye on these fools!

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

For more on Blankenship and Massey, watch this West Virginia public television documentary called "The Kingmaker."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bones

I could not agree more. The time has come for a real house cleaning.

I wonder if it has ever been considered that it would be far better for Bush, Cheney, and others to face our justice department in D.C. than the justice of the people?

By John S. Hatch

November 27, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" --- It is generally considered a courtesy for a newly inaugurated President to overlook any sins of the past incumbent in the interests of 'looking ahead' and in the knowledge that the same good manners will be repeated after his/her own end of term.

The most extreme example of this was Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon after the latter's ignominious resignation. Arguably necessary for the health of the nation after its 'long nightmare', it was nevertheless handled badly, and Ford paid a price by becoming a one-term President.

Not to trivialize Nixon's crimes (and part of the flawed pardon process meant there was no elocution, no admission of guilt, no mention of the many crimes besides Watergate), the three articles of impeachment mentioned the actual break-in, cover-up, including the payment 'hush money', misuse of the FBI and IRS, ignoring subpoenas, spying, and such matters (remind you of anyone?).

For these 'crimes and misdemeanors' he undoubtedly would have been impeached, but he resigned to avoid that outcome, and was pardoned for any of his actions which might have crossed the line into illegality. However one might have wished to see Mr. Nixon brought to account, no one argued that the pardon itself was illegal. The matter was handled constitutionally, and people got back to their lives and the nation tried to move on.

But what of Mr. Bush? It could be argued that his domestic crimes far surpass anything done by the Nixon Administration, and while some saw Nixon, Kissinger, McNamara and others as international war criminals, there again Bush has far surpassed Nixon in the number and nature of crimes against humanity, if not the numbers of dead. It's hard to keep track once you surpass a million corpses.

And yet in Bush's case, impeachment has always been 'off the table' due to the peculiar spinelessness of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, and their willingness to sell out justice to gain power that they're too servile to exercise in any meaningful way.

Having stated that he would request that his new Attorney General investigate whether crimes were committed during the previous Administration, Mr. Obama seems to be distancing himself from that view, as if investigating the most serious crimes known to man would somehow constitute a distraction. From what? And isn't that what Mr. Bush said about an investigation into 9/11 even as the public clamored for one? An investigation into America's greatest terrorist attack would distract from the war on terror, said Mr. Bush (or was it Inspector Clousseau?).

Indeed there would be a lot to investigate. Domestic spying on a colossal basis. Domestic illegal detention and torture. Misuse of the FBI, ICE and other federal organizations. Ignored subpoenas. Illegal signing statements. Treason.

The AG would be kept busy on the foreign policy front also. Kidnapping (Italy has warrants out on 22 CIA operatives with regard to one case alone). Illegal detention. Torture (which we know with certainty was planned at the top). Vile torture, possibly the lowest indulgence of which humanity is capable, embraced with zeal by an Administration which uses terror to fight imagined terror. (Given a preponderance of evidence, many of us do not believe that 9/11 was concocted in a cave, but perhaps in boardrooms a lot closer to home.)

Then there is the matter of two illegal invasions. Attacking Afghanistan had nothing to do with capturing Osama bin Laden, who it seems is more valuable as cave/bogeyman on the loose, and everything to do with establishing and protecting an oil pipeline. There has been precious little rebuilding but plenty of indifferent collateral damage. One woman who lost her home and her entire innocent family was called a beggar by American officials and was ordered off American embassy property in Kabul. And there has been plenty of innocent fodder for Bagram, Guantanamo Bay, and the many secret dungeons to justify the unjustifiable and bogus 'war on terror'.

The invasion of Iraq was as absurd as it was brutal and criminal. The MSM didn't report what went on in Fallujah (indeed, America is now in the business of murdering journalists who simply do their jobs), where almost no structure escaped severe damage. Water and power infrastructure were deliberately destroyed. America did what it falsely accused Saddam of doing in Kuwait-it kicked seriously ill patients out of a hospital in order to make room for potential American casualties. It bombed others. American forces prevented 'military-age' males (roughly 12-65 years old) from leaving the city and then declared a 'free-fire zone' on anyone remaining. They used white phosphorus and thermobaric weapons. They used snipers against unarmed civilians. They killed, and killed, and killed. It was like Poppy's 'Highway of Death', but worse. Congratulations, Junior, you finally outdid the old man. Not even animals were spared.

A new day needs to dawn in America, and that is what President elect Obama has promised. But that can't occur if the past is not acknowledged and reconciled. A harmless skeleton or two left behind in a White House closet is one thing. But in this case the rattling of bones could drown out Mr. Obama's eloquent voice and poison his Presidency. If it's indeed time for change, then it's time to stop pretending that America can do no wrong, and to bring criminals to justice, whoever they are.

John S. Hatch is a Vancouver writer and film-maker.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

If Obama Doesn't Prosecute Bush's Torture Team, We'll Pay a Big Price Down the Road

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Posted on November 28, 2008, Printed on November 28, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/108905/

"How did it come about that American military personnel stripped detainees naked, put them in stress positions, used dogs to scare them, put leashes around their necks to humiliate them, hooded them, deprived them of sleep and blasted music at them? Were these actions the result of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own? It would be a lot easier to accept if it were. But that's not the case."

-- Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, June 17, 2008

***

It was a short but significant report in Newsweek last week, and it began like this:

Despite the hopes of many human rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible. "At a minimum, the American people have to be able to see and judge what happened," said one senior adviser, who asked not to be identified for talking about policy matters. The commission would be empowered to order the U.S. intelligence agencies to open their files for review and question senior officials who approved "waterboarding" and other controversial practices.

The article, written by Michael Isikoff, came at the heels of another report by the Associated Press, which quoted a pair of anonymous Obama advisors as saying that there was little-to-no chance that an Obama Justice Department would try to prosecute Bush-era officials for torture. The same report quoted Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as saying that members of the Bush administration would not face war crimes charges in the United States. "These things are not going to happen."

( Why the hell not? If we can't bring justice to our own officials, who did very definitely commit war crimes, we will never have any moral authority to say a damn word about the dictators and other snakes around the world. Barack, you are wrong on this. Please reconsider!)

Common consensus is that the Bush administration has been the most lawless in U.S. history. From its illegal invasion of Iraq to the corporate-assisted, warrant-less wiretapping of its own constituents, the Bush White House seems never to have held a view of the law from below. And, since long before the election of Barack Obama, a number of groups and individuals have called for accountability, from a vocal network of people calling for impeachment for Bush's illegal and fraudulent invasion of Iraq, to, this summer, the bluntly labeled campaign, Send Karl Rove to Jail.

But if ever there was a stain on the fabric of American democracy that must be deserving of prosecution, it is the dark legacy of torture left by the Bush administration. From Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo to the CIA's "secret sites," proof abounds that the U.S. government engaged in systematic torture that was approved by top government officials. Ironically, a central laboratory for this corrosion of the country's moral and legal code was the very office charged with defending the rule of law: the Department of Justice.

"It is these attorneys -- Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, James Bybee, David Addington and William Haynes -- who provided the legal basis for much of the torture and abuse that occurred at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other U.S. detention facilities around the globe," Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, writes in the recently published The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book. In Ratner's view, the prosecution of these attorneys, as well as Bush, Cheney and the rest, is a critical part of not just imposing accountability on those who approved and carried out torture in the name of the American people, but in dismantling a legal framework that could lead to more torture in the future.

'This Was an Assault on the Law Itself'

Members of the legal and human rights community are currently grappling with the question of how to hold the Bush administration accountable for its crimes. In a recent cover story of Harper's Magazine, human rights legal scholar Scott Horton lays out the rationale for pursuing the crimes of the Bush administration. The good news is there is plenty of historical precedent for going after government torturers in the United States. The bad news is that they have been uneven, at best. From an Army captain who was court-martialed for imposing the "water cure" on Filipinos during the Spanish-American War ("He was forced to pay a $50 fine") to Japanese military officials tried for war crimes (including waterboarding) after World War II -- some of whom were sentenced to death, the severity of the sanction has depended on who is meting it out.

Prosecuting the torturers of accused "terrorists" in far-away places may not inspire a call to action by Americans now -- especially when a few token prosecutions of soldiers have taken place (most famously, Abu Ghraib Army Reservists Cpl. Charles Graner and Pfc. Lynndie England). But a policy systematically designed to subvert the law should be intolerable to those who place any kind of faith in American democracy. Horton's article -- parts of which should be required reading -- discusses how, during the Nuremberg trials, "the Americans and Soviets … wanted to prosecute the people who had created the legal framework for the Nazi regime, but British and French leaders objected."

"Consequently, the United States, acting on its own, convened a separate Nuremberg tribunal to try lawyers, judges and legal policymakers," thereby establishing "the principal that policymakers who occurred the mandatory prohibitions of international law against harming prisoners in wartime could be prosecuted as war criminals, no matter how many internal memos they had written to the contrary."

This leads to a critical point: "The key issue that Scott pointed out in his article," Ratner says, "is that this was an assault on the law itself." If legal opinions that sanctioned torture are left untouched, it sets a dangerous precedent. As Ratner recently wrote on his blog, "If laws can be broken with impunity today, they can and will be broken with impunity tomorrow. Not just laws against torture and war crimes, but any and all laws; any and all limits on government."

"The only way to prevent this from happening again," he tells me, "is to have prosecutions that will send a deterrence message" to future administrations.

'We Owe the American People a Reckoning'

How to do this is the most pressing -- and difficult -- question. Horton considers the various forms such prosecutions might take, from the International Criminal Court (too dependent on the support of the United States) to foreign courts (viable, but "true justice cannot be compelled from without"), to domestic courts (unlikely, because prosecuting war crimes are rarely done against those at the top of the chain of command). Ultimately, he settles on a model of the truth-and-reconciliation commissions carried out in South America and South Africa. Although they have had imperfect results in the past -- "In some cases, a bargain was struck under which the truth about past misconduct was divulged in exchange for a pardon" -- the value of the commissions largely lies in the educational benefits a commission might bestow on the public. But beyond that, a "commission plus special prosecutor," as Horton calls it, could be carried out in public, in order to "find the facts, weigh them, and if the facts warrant, make a formal recommendation for the appointment of a prosecutor."

For Ratner, the models that have been suggested thus far don't go far enough. In his view, the only way to restore the rule of law is to pursue criminal investigation and prosecution. "People have been pulling their punches when it comes to seeking full prosecutions," he says, "because of the feeling that is not politically feasible." It may be true in the end, "but unless you demand it, you're not going to get it." Failing to try, he says is "the worst defeatism you can have."

Indeed, given the destruction of the past eight years to the fabric of American democracy, to shy away from torture prosecutions would seem profoundly -- and dangerously -- shortsighted. Obama has stated that as a country, the United States does not torture -- most recently in an interview with 60 Minutes -- and much of the support he gained as a candidate from the legal and human rights community was based on his vocal opposition to the Military Commissions Act. Although his opposition to torture has been unequivocal in tone, Obama has been hesitant to state in solid terms what exactly he would do about the torture that already took place. Responding to the question this summer, from a reporter from the Philadelphia Daily News, Obama responded:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my attorney general immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my attorney general -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important -- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings, and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in cover-ups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

It's hard to imagine the lawlessness of the Bush administration falling short of "exceptional." But regardless, whether Eric Holder, Obama's pick for attorney general, would take this on is questionable. "Everybody has advice for Holder," Slate legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick recently wrote, "starting with shuttering Guantanamo and repairing detention and interrogation policies; recalibrating the legal limits on information-gathering by intelligence agencies; doing away with provisions of the Patriot Act that encroach on civil liberties; and restoring the integrity and independence of the Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the president on the lawfulness of a proposed action." But Holder has been known to criticize the violations committed by the Bush administration. "We owe the American people a reckoning," he said in a speech in June.

Still, in Horton's opinion, although torture is a federal crime and a federal prosecutor has the power to prosecute it, it is unlikely any U.S. attorney would possess the independence to do so. "Indeed," says Horton, "so many high-level figures at Justice were involved in creating the legal mechanism for torture that the Justice Department has effectively disqualified itself as an investigative vehicle, even under a new administration." Ratner agrees.

So what is a "reckoning"? And where are the consequences?

For Ratner, now is the time to push Obama, hard, on seeking independent prosecutions, "partisan witch hunt" concerns be damned. After all, Obama brings with him enormous moral credibility. Lifting the stain of torture is a project that could -- and should -- transcend partisan politics. "Obama could change this (discussion) as he changed the dialogue on race in this country," suggests Ratner, "with a speech on torture."

"People say that prosecuting torture is 'looking backward,' " says Ratner, "but in my view, prosecutions are looking forward -- looking forward so that this doesn't happen again."

Liliana Segura is an AlterNet staff writer.

I could not agree more; PROSECUTE!

If we have a choice, I don't see it.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Time To Speak Truth

Quote of the Week

"This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days."

Franklin D. Roosevelt,
First Inaugural Address
4 March 1933.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

When a Country Gets Lost --

And Finds Its Way Back

By Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor
The Crisis Papers

November 25, 2008

Let's face it. Countries, like individuals, get lost sometimes -- really lost, ignoring the maps of morality and civil behavior, bringing shame and disrepute on themselves.

In terms of individuals, good people do weird stuff on occasion: run off, or inexplicably go on a bender, or visit purveyors of easy virtue, or get addicted, or use hate-speech in extremes and so on. Stuff happens.

Nations, too, often take leave of their senses. Crises occur. Citizens get frightened by something and don't know how to respond. A strong leader comes along and channels that fright, usually aiming it at perceived enemies, real or invented, or at least highly exaggerated.

The powers-that-be love crises and catastrophes; at such nodal points, the public is more malleable, more easily rolled. (See Naomi Klein's brilliant book "The Shock Doctrine.")

And when these power-hungry rulers or elites grossly abuse their granted authority, the result often is social chaos, police-state laws, warped or broken economies, and often hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dead and maimed in ill-advised wars of choice.

AUTHORITARIAN RULERS

History is replete with examples of nations, even democratic ones, that go crazy like this for awhile, head off into authoritarian rule, and sometimes even totalitarian control. And it isn't easy to turn that ship around. Sometimes that reversal can be accomplished by the populace, who wake up to what atrocities are being carried out in their name and throw the bums out at the next election, or by a coup. Sometimes natural death intervenes, making intervention moot. Other times, it takes a village, so to speak: The regional or world community has to act in concert to force a change in behavior by removing the ruling elite from the country in question.

You know what I'm talking about. Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe, Amin, George W. Bush.

You may think it's unfair to throw Dubya into that line-up of political monsters, and I agree that not all miscreants are equal. George W. is no Hitler or Stalin or Idi Amin.

But it's fair to acknowledge that Bush does deserve to be in that continuum of grossly awful leaders who used and then abused their power and, by so doing, brought their countries to wrack and ruin and to worldwide condemnation and shame. Because Bush was in charge of the world's most powerful nation on earth, his crimes were magnified in their consequences and in their regional and global social impact, so his place in the pantheon of shame is correct.

WHY BUSH IS STILL A DANGER

So why am I bringing up Bush now, after a democratic election has, as it were, thrown out the bums? Am I being mean-spirited, just beating a dead horse?

Two reasons:

1. Bush will still be president for the next two months. Out of failed ideology and thoroughgoing ignorance and incompetence, he has left his successor with an ungodly mess to deal with. But he ain't through yet. He has concocted, so to speak, a scorched-earth welcome-to-the-White-House for Barack Obama, along with burrowing key political-appointed Bushies into civil-service positions of power in order to gum up the works even more for the incoming administration.

By executive order in the past several months, Bush, for example, has bent all sorts of environmental rules and regulations to give the exploiters and polluters even more leeway to take what they want, including permitting cutting some of the last old-growth forests in Oregon and oil/gas drilling in public lands and immediately adjacent to key National Parks, in particular in Utah. The idea is to get these projects started, with money in the federal pipeline, before Bush leaves office, making it more difficult for the Obama Administration to execute an immediate U-turn.

In addition, Bush has taken many of his mid-level political appointees and placed them under the civil-service umbrella in jobs overseeing energy and science experiments for which they are not trained or have no experience. Being civil service employees makes it virtually impossible for the new president to get rid of them. In effect, they would be moles inside the new government in key positions to harm or hamstring Obama's environmental policies. Among many others complaining about this last-minute tactic by Bush are scientists, angry that political ideologues with no scientific training will have important input on scientific policy.

AUTHORITARIAN-TYPE RULES

2. Many of the authoritarian rules and precedents established during the CheneyBush years are still in place, and could be abused by Obama or presidents who follow him. True, Obama's transition team has listed 200 of Bush's executive orders that they will rescind quickly with the stroke of a pen. But some of the larger issues are still hanging out there:

• The overuse of presidential "signing statements" to nullify aspects of laws passed by the Congress, as part of the "unitary executive" theory of government, which theory basically turns the president into a near-dictator;
  

• The policy of "pre-emptive war," attacking a country that is not an actual imminent threat to the U.S.;
  

• The use of torture as official state policy;
  

• The nullification of the legal concept of habeas corpus from American law, whereby a judge has to certify the legitimacy of an arrest;
  

• The employment of massive domestic spying on and data mining of American citizens, including eavesdropping without a court warrant on phone conversations, snooping into mail, examining personal computer files without the knowledge of the citizen, etc;
  

• The throwing of citizens into jail as suspected "terrorists" or "enemy combatants," with no access to lawyers; etc. etc.

All of these violations of the Constitution's Bill of Rights, in the Patriot Act and elsewhere, have been enacted on a regular basis during the past eight years of CheneyBush. How much of this will be quickly and aggressively reversed by Obama and how much will he keep some of these police-state tactics still in place, just in case he wants to use them?

TRUST OBAMA TO DO RIGHT THING?

Which brings us to a key dilemma facing the progressive base of the Democratic Party: After eight years under CheneyBush, during which the U.S. was lost in a dark ideological/corrupt shadow world, President-Elect Obama promises us, finally, the return of light in our politics so that we can find our way back to some higher level of moral/spiritual/social health. He probably won't take the country as far in that regard as many of us might wish, but his landslide victory did break the back of the CheneyBush HardRight as an all-powerful movement and offers us, yes, hope for significant change and progress in righting many of the wrongs of the past eight years.

As many of us have been saying for months now, if you believe Obama will do, or even can do, all of the many things he's promised, you're in for a rude surprise. Obama is not a radical or progressive in how he operates; he's a pragmatic centrist, with liberal leanings but beholden to many of the same economic and political forces that have great influence in contemporary politics. But he's an unusually intelligent politician, open to argument and persuasion. That's why we on the progressive left must speak out forcefully when we see him straying from positions that we think can be most useful in repairing the damage of the past eight years.

So here's the nub of our current dilemma, much talked about in liberal/progressive circles: How much should we trust Obama to do the right thing and thus hold back our criticisms of his actions and policies during this interregnum before he actually is inaugurated as President and during the first few-months "honeymoon" period? And how much should we start criticizing him now for his sins of omission and commission, especially with regard to his somewhat more hawkish foreign/military policies? (See Jeremy Scahill's "This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House.")

SLACK VS. PRESSURE

My inclination, given the enormity of the problems facing the new president, is to cut Obama some slack, at least until he takes office and starts messing up. On the other hand, he's making key decisions now, especially as he fills out his Cabinet and operational staff, and unless progressives take a stand now, it may be too late later.

For instance, as far as we can tell, most of his national-security appointments seem to come from the middle to the middle-right; there is not one true progressive who can balance out the arguments that will be made inside the Cabinet. Not a good sign.

I'll be interested to hear where you come down on this dilemma. How we act in the next few months may have much to do with how President Obama begins his Administration post-January 20. Join the debate and help "change the world."

Copyright 2008, by Bernard Weiner


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Bush's Last Days: The Lamest Duck

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008

By JOE KLEIN

We have "only one President at a time," Barack Obama said in his debut press conference as President-elect. Normally, that would be a safe assumption — but we're learning not to assume anything as the charcoal-dreary economic winter approaches. By mid-November, with the financial crisis growing worse by the day, it had become obvious that one President was no longer enough (at least not the President we had). So, in the days before Thanksgiving, Obama began to move — if not to take charge outright, then at least to preview what things will be like when he does take over in January. He became a more public presence, taking questions from the press three days in a row. He named his economic team. He promised an enormous stimulus package that would somehow create 2.5 million new jobs, and began to maneuver the new Congress toward having the bill ready for him to sign — in a dramatic ceremony, no doubt — as soon as he assumes office.

That we have slightly more than one President for the moment is mostly a consequence of the extraordinary economic times. Even if George Washington were the incumbent, the markets would want to know what John Adams was planning to do after his Inauguration. And yet this final humiliation seems particularly appropriate for George W. Bush. At the end of a presidency of stupefying ineptitude, he has become the lamest of all possible ducks. (See TIME's best pictures of Barack Obama.)

It is in the nature of mainstream journalism to attempt to be kind to Presidents when they are coming and going but to be fiercely skeptical in between. I've been feeling sorry for Bush lately, a feeling partly induced by recent fictional depictions of the President as an amiable lunkhead in Oliver Stone's W. and in Curtis Sittenfeld's terrific novel American Wife. There was a photo in the New York Times that seemed to sum up his current circumstance: Bush in Peru, dressed in an alpaca poncho, standing alone just after the photo op at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, with various Asian leaders departing the stage, none of them making eye contact with him. Bush has that forlorn what-the-hell-happened? expression on his face, the one that has marked his presidency at difficult times. You never want to see the President of the United States looking like that.

So I've been searching for valedictory encomiums. His position on immigration was admirable and courageous; he was right about the Dubai Ports deal and about free trade in general. He spoke well, in the abstract, about the importance of freedom. He is an impeccable classicist when it comes to baseball. And that just about does it for me. I'd add the bracing moment of Bush with the bullhorn in the ruins of the World Trade Center, but that was neutered in my memory by his ridiculous, preening appearance in a flight suit on the deck of the aircraft carrier beneath the "Mission Accomplished" sign. The flight-suit image is one of the two defining moments of the Bush failure. The other is the photo of Bush staring out the window of Air Force One, helplessly viewing the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. This is a presidency that has wobbled between those two poles — overweening arrogance and paralytic incompetence.(President Bush in the Middle East.)

The latter has held sway these past few months as the economy has crumbled. It is too early to rate the performance of Bush's economic team, but we have more than enough evidence to say, definitively, that at a moment when there was a vast national need for reassurance, the President himself was a cipher. Yes, he's a lame duck with an Antarctic approval rating — but can you imagine Bill Clinton going so gently into the night? There are substantive gestures available to a President that do not involve the use of force or photo ops. For example, Bush could have boosted the public spirit — and the auto industry — by announcing that he was scrapping the entire federal automotive fleet, including the presidential limousine, and replacing it with hybrids made in Detroit. He could have jump-started — and he still could — the Obama plan by releasing funds for a green-jobs program to insulate public buildings. He could start funding the transit projects already approved by Congress.

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Guerra Reveals Evidence On Cheney

Wednesday , November 26, 2008 Posted: 07:14 PM

Guerra unveils why his investigation led him to the Vice President

WILLACY COUNTY - District Attorney Juan Guerra says his investigation took him all the way to the top, to the Vice President of the United States. He showed NEWSCHANNEL 5 records that he says could be used to prove Dick Cheney is guilty of criminal activity.

The charges against the Vice President stem from the Willacy State Jail in Raymondville and from the inmate, Gregorio De La Rosa, Jr., who was killed there by a fellow inmate in 2001. Guerra says that the elected officials let the jail get away with murder so that they can keep making money.

"Greed will get you discovered and arrested every time, and that's what happened to Cheney," Guerra said.

Guerra says he went through Cheney's financial records and the prison companies' financial records and found the connection. The three top prison companies Guerra researched were Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group and Cornell. Those three have the Vanguard Group in common, which is an investment company that puts money into all three prison companies.

"We knew Vanguard was the key," said Guerra.

Guerra showed us the Vice President's financial disclosure from last year and it shows he owned shares in the Vanguard Group. Guerra estimates Cheney has $85 million invested in Vanguard and in turn, into the prison companies.

"The problem you have is he now has a direct interest," said Guerra. And according to Guerra, it's a direct interest in making sure the prison companies stay in business.

In Cheney's indictment, Guerra wrote that "no government officials made efforts to properly investigate the death of Gregorio De La Rosa, Jr.," he says that was due to the "money being made by...government officials."

Guerra claims Cheney put a stop to the De La Rosa investigation in 2006. He claims that Cheney is simply looking the other way while inmates across the country are dying in private prisons which is why Cheney is charged with engaging in organized criminal activity.

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

New Details on F.B.I.’s False Start in Anthrax Case

November 26, 2008

By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — A federal court on Tuesday unsealed documents that shed new light on why F.B.I. anthrax investigators spent years pursuing the wrong man, Steven J. Hatfill, who was exonerated by the government this year and received a $4.6 million settlement.

Search warrant affidavits said that Dr. Hatfill filled prescriptions for the antibiotic Cipro, the preferred drug for treatment of anthrax, two days before each of the mailings of anthrax-laced letters in September and October 2001. Under questioning by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he denied taking Cipro at that time, the affidavits said.

The documents report that Dr. Hatfill spoke of serving in a Rhodesian military unit accused of starting an anthrax epidemic in 1979, told an acquaintance that it would take a “Pearl Harbor-type attack” to awaken the United States to the bioterrorist threat and kept an anthrax simulant in his apartment. They said Dr. Hatfill had access to the Ames strain of anthrax used in the attacks while working at the Army biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., from 1997 to 1999.

In August, after the suicide of another researcher who worked at the same Army laboratory, Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, the F.B.I. said it had concluded that Dr. Ivins alone had carried out the anthrax attacks, which killed 5 people and sickened 17 others.

The Justice Department then made public search warrant affidavits laying out circumstantial evidence against Dr. Ivins, including symptoms of mental illness, late hours in the laboratory before the mailings and genetic evidence linking the mailed anthrax to a supply in his laboratory. But no definitive evidence has tied Dr. Ivins directly to the letters or to the site of the mailings in Princeton, N.J., and many of his colleagues and friends have said they do not believe he committed the crime.

The Hatfill search warrant material shows how an accumulation of claims from acquaintances can cast an innocent person in a highly suspicious light, said Mark A. Grannis, a lawyer for Dr. Hatfill. As an example of how innocent details can be made to look suspicious, Mr. Grannis said Dr. Hatfill was taking Cipro, a widely prescribed antibiotic, after sinus surgery in 2001.

Search warrants, Mr. Grannis said, often use hearsay and unconfirmed information to convince a judge that a suspect is worthy of further investigation.

“Whether or not it was right for the government to rely on this kind of information to obtain a search warrant in 2002, we know in 2008 that Steven Hatfill had nothing to do with the anthrax attacks,” Mr. Grannis said.

The F.B.I. affidavits were used to obtain a search warrant in August 2002 for Dr. Hatfill’s apartment and a basement storage room in his building in Frederick, Md., as well as his car and a storage locker he rented in Ocala, Fla. The agency had conducted a search with Dr. Hatfill’s permission two months earlier, but it was considered inconclusive.

In searching Dr. Hatfill’s apartment, investigators seized biological equipment, glass laboratory slides, plastic tubing and a gun silencer, among other belongings, the documents say.

Dr. Hatfill was never charged in the anthrax case, but the searches and government leaks identifying him as a leading suspect drew widespread news coverage. He lost a teaching job at Louisiana State University after officials at the Justice Department, which was paying for the courses, objected to his employment. For months, F.B.I. surveillance teams followed Dr. Hatfill every time he left home.

Dr. Hatfill later sued the F.B.I. and the Justice Department for leaking information about him. A separate lawsuit he filed against The New York Times was dismissed and a lawsuit against Vanity Fair magazine was settled.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Lobbyist Getting The Boot From Obama?

Published on Thursday, November 13, 2008 by The Independent/UK

Obama Acts To Drive The Lobbyists Out of Washington

by Leonard Doyle

The leader of Barack Obama's transition team has delivered some bad news to the hordes of lobbyists plying their trade in the fancy restaurants and faceless offices along Pennsylvania Avenue: they are not welcome.

A dog passes in front of a mural painting of US President-elect Barack Obama in Venice Beach, California. Mr Podesta, Obama's transition manager, unveiled what he said was "the strictest, the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history," and declared "that the undue influence of Washington lobbyists and the revolving door of Washington ceases to exist." (AFP/Gabriel Bouys)

John Podesta, the transition chief, has revealed a set of draconian new regulations aimed at curbing the excessive influence of lobbyists, as Mr Obama promised throughout his election campaign. They are to be denied their normal role of greasing the wheels of the new administration's costly transition to power by paying for office space and staff between now and the inauguration on 20 January.

Mr Podesta unveiled what he said was "the strictest, the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history," and declared "that the undue influence of Washington lobbyists and the revolving door of Washington ceases to exist."

The White House and the Capitol are the two most impressive buildings in Washington but power is really along Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street, where the top-tier lobbyists arrange access to decision-makers and cut backroom deals for special interest groups.

Now, in the dying days of the Bush administration, an unprecedented frenzy is under way as Washington's legal and lobbying establishment tries to get its hands on some of the $700bn (£470bn) financial rescue package for clients before a deadline of tomorrow.

One of the top firms is Alston & Bird, which boasts it has the former Republican presidential contender and senator, Bob Dole, on its books. But Democrats are no slouches at lobbying either. The national co-chair of Mr Obama's election campaign, former Senator Tom Daschle also works for Alston & Bird though not, we are assured, as a registered lobbyist. Instead he provides "high level advisory and strategic advice" to the company.

To cope with the crush of lobbyists at its doors, the Treasury Department hired Jeb Mason, a 32-year old Texan who wears cowboy boots and hat to work. A former White House aide of the political adviser Karl Rove, he is now the point of call for the hired guns of the banking industry, insurance and credit card companies lining up to get some of the taxpayers' billions.

Talking about the dozens of phone calls and emails he gets from lobbyists, he told the New York Times, "this must have been how the Politburo felt".

Mr Obama's transition team is planning to hire about 450 people, who will be divided between Washington and Chicago, at a cost of about $12m. Less than half of that amount will be paid for from the public purse and Mr Obama is planning to fund the rest by asking the more than 3 million people who poured small amounts of money into his campaign to make up the rest. No incoming president before him has had access to such a potential well of money and his team has already sent out emails offering "Victory T-shirts" in return for fresh contributions.

Ever since Ronald Reagan's day, corporations and law firms have picked up the tab for presidential transitions. To avoid even the appearance of abuse, the Obama team is limiting private donations to a maximum of $5,000 and will disclose the names of all donors. "So you'll see our contributions... to the transition prior to the inauguration, yes," Mr Podesta said.

One problem the Obama transition team faces is that some of the brightest Washington brains it might want to hire for the transition and later in government are already registered lobbyists. "I've heard the other complaint, which is we're leaving all these experts on the side... We're leaving all the people who know everything out in the cold," Mr Podesta said. "And so be it."

Mr Podesta, who is himself the head of a think-tank, the Centre for American Progress, says that any lobbyists who are hired will be banned from working in areas for which they have previously lobbied.

And anyone who turns to lobbying after gaining insights and contacts working on the transition for the next 69 days, will be barred for 12 months from lobbying the new administration on a subject area they worked on.

The restrictions are viewed as pious hopes by many in Washington. Former president Bill Clinton tried to restrict lobbyists and failed. President Bush did little to stop their growth and they are now a multibillion-dollar business of influence. Even if Mr Obama succeeds in limiting their access to his administration, Congressmen and women are particularly soft targets. For many politicians, getting elected and serving a term or two is merely a rite of passage on the road to a lucrative Pennsylvania Avenue career.

© 2008 The Independent

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

U.S. religious groups want Obama to ban torture

It would be a great first step, but only that. Let the investigations begin and we'll go where they lead us, no matter how hurtful and nightmarish the revelations. No more can be swept under the national carpet. It's getting to lumpy to walk on.

Wed Nov 12, 2008 1:03pm EST

By Michael Conlon, Religion Writer

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A coalition of more than 200 religious groups urged U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday to sign an order, once he takes office, banning torture by any federal government entity.

"This is an opportunity where one official could ... with one stroke of a pen, really change history here," said Linda Gustitus, president of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

The group, which has been pressing the issue since 2006, also wants the U.S. Congress to establish a special committee to investigate the use of what the Bush administration has called "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on terrorism suspects detained after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

President George W. Bush has said the United States does not practice torture. But the Central Intelligence Agency has admitted using waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, on three occasions. Critics consider waterboarding torture.

"We want a full accounting," Gustitus said in a telephone briefing from Washington. "We know that we tortured people ... the country needs to come to grips with this."

The Bush administration has been under fire both at home and abroad for its interrogation and detainment practices, particularly at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

During the campaign both Democrat Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, said they wanted the detention center at Guantanamo closed. Obama takes office on January 20.

Revelations of prisoner abuse by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq caused an international outcry in 2004.

The coalition said it was mounting events on Wednesday at locations across the country, including a demonstration outside the White House, and was lobbying members of Congress on the issue. It was also dropping off its petition to Obama's representatives at his offices in Chicago.

The coalition said more than 240 religious groups have joined in the effort, including representatives of Roman Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Sikh communities.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Get Out of Jail Free Card for Bush?

Here's hoping it doesn't work

Is Bush's kindness to Obama really a "get out of jail, free" card?

 

One of the many surprising developments over the last week has been both the speed and extent of the graciousness that President Bush and his team have shown to President-elect Obama, especially considering how long and how hard-fought the 2008 campaign turned out to be, and the Democratic standard bearer's frequent and unusually harsh criticism of the GOP president out on the trail.

On the morning after Obama's victory, Bush could have easily phoned it in and offered up a bland, pro forma congratulation, but instead he went before the cameras in the Rose Garden with highly laudatory praise, saying that American voters had "showed a watching world the vitality of America's democracy and the strides we have made toward a more perfect union."

He didn't stop there. Bush invited Barack and Michelle Obama to the White House ASAP -- the visit that in fact took place yesterday -- for both a humble tour of where the 44th president and his family will live and a substantive discussion of the issues that have boiled over during Bush's watch, especially the ravaged world economy. The images that these meetings produced of a peaceful and cooperative transition have been reassuring to Americans, and to the world.

 It's difficult, however, to get any frame of reference for Bush's handling of the transition: The last real time that the White House changed hands from a president of one party to a president of the other party that hadn't defeated him personally, under normal circumstances, was in 1968; it also happened in 2000 but the Florida recount led to a warped and shortened transition.

Sometimes, according to Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is the best one. With his approval rating at or even worse than any president since modern polling began, it's surely possible that Bush is smart enough to see that a gracious transition could be a baby step to restoring his reputation down the road. In that same vein, an early solution to the economic mess under President Obama would mitigate some of the damage to Bush's reputation there.

I believe those factors are present, but we should also not suspend all cynicism in the euphoria of the moment of Obama's election. We should never forget that same president who was so welcoming to Obama is the very same president whose war cabinet authorized torture practices and rendition of terrorism suspects, massively expanded government spying in a web that caught untold American citizens, launched (as just reported this week) secret military strikes around the globe, and through the abuse of signing statements and other unprecedented tactics treated the Constitution, its separation of powers and international law like pieces of crumpled up waste paper. No hailing of Obama's "awesome" victory erases that stain.

And so one of many, many difficult decisions that Obama and his team will faces during his first 100 days in the Oval Office will be this: Should the new president's Justice Department take a more aggressive pose toward investigating this unprecedented White House power grab and some of the toxic symptoms that flowed from that, from waterboarding to the firing of U.S. attorneys for raw political reasons.

I've been following this back-burner issue much more closely than most. That's because his only comments on the subject came back in April, when I had the opportunity to raise the issue with him when he appeared here in Philadelphia before the editorial board of the Daily News. A summary of his answer is that while he seeks to be a forward-looking president, he would likely want his Attorney General to make at least a preliminary inquiry.

Here's a snip of what Obama said then:

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity.

A follow-up story published in Salon in August took the story a step farther:

Prosecution of any officials, if it were to occur, would probably not occur during Obama's first term. Instead, we may well see a congressionally empowered commission that would seek testimony from witnesses in search of the truth about what occurred. Though some witnesses might be offered immunity in exchange for testimony, the question of whether anybody would be prosecuted would be deferred to a later date -- meaning Obama's second term, if such is forthcoming.

That being the case, do you honestly think the Bush, Dick Cheney, and Co. are not seriously worried about this possibility? If you don't believe that, you haven't been paying close attention to the full-story of the Bush administration and its steady reach for executive power. In fact, many of the administration's most audacious moves have been accompanied with memos that seem to serve one primary purpose: To shield White House officials and those who carried out their orders in the field from future prosecution.

This is the best-known example, from 2002, pertaining to the use of torture in interrogating suspects:

Lawyers in the Justice Department had written a classified memo, which was extensively reviewed, that gave formal legal authority to government interrogators to use the "enhanced" questioning tactics on suspected terrorist prisoners. The August 2002 memo, signed by then head of the Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee, was referred to as the so-called "Golden Shield" for CIA agents, who worried they would be held liable if the harsh interrogations became public.

But other controversial and arguably unlawful policies have been justified with official memos or documents. This week, the New York Times reported on a hitherto secret 2004 order by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that okayed attacks on al-Qaeda sites around the globe:

Bush administration officials have shown a determination to operate under an expansive definition of self-defense that provides a legal rationale for strikes on militant targets in sovereign nations without those countries’ consent.

When you combine all these memos, secret orders and signing statements with the Bush administration's long record of seeking to foil investigators from Congress and elsewhere asking for documents, emails and testimony from former White House officials, and it all adds up to one thing: A president and vice president who have long dreaded what a Democratic president might learn, and what he might do with that information, come Jan. 20, 2009.

With this as a backdrop, comes now the sudden Bush charm offensive. Now, there's a debate to be had about whether justice requires that past criminal acts be pursued, even after an administration has yielded its power, or whether the greater good of a forward-looking nation means that violations of the law should be forgiven, as President Gerald Ford decided in 1974 when he pardoned Richard Nixon. Whatever the right solution is, Bush is smart enough to know that he's complicating Obama's decision by seeking to connect with him as an Oval Office teammate so quickly out of the gate. Is the 43rd president's graciousness really his "get-out-of-jail free card," if not for him then for some of his White House underlings?

The more that it looks like Obama and Bush had worked together to solve the economic crisis, the more jarring it might sound to many Americans to learn that a criminal inquiry is underway -- even though the sad facts of the last eight years would seem to justify exactly such a probe, at the minimum. Politics, like war, is ruled by the art of deception. Don't be deceived by everything you heard coming from the Oval Office yesterday, and in the name of justice, let's hope that Obama and whoever he named as attorney general are not fooled, either.

Posted by Will Bunch @ 12:57 PM  Permalink

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

All right, already!

O.K. We've heard enough. We'll keep this site as our news site and refer seekers of all types to our new site:

 http://weveonlyjustbegun-pelican693.blogspot.com 

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.