Friday, September 26, 2008

Crisis Portends Bush's Third Term and the End of America

Twelve bank failures in 2008, perhaps more by the time you read this. What's Next? Cancelled elections? I hope you like your soup thin and served up by the Salvation Army. The country is bust! You can thank the GOP.

For quite awhile, I had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, perhaps, another 911 triggering the rescension of posse commitatus, habeas corpus, the outright declaration of martial law. Habeas corpus fell of a thousand cuts some time ago. Rule by decree was effected with 'signing statements'.

Bush declared: "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" A legend in his own mind, Bush fell short of absolute power to rule absolutely and absolutely without Congress, the courts or the 'people'. However ineffective they may have been, the emasculated trappings of democracy lingered and grew stale.

Is 'this' manufactured crisis, this bail out of Bush's base of rich elites --'it'? To be expected from a mass murdering liar, Bush has lied about the 'crisis'. According to The Hive, the total cost of the bailout will be much more than $700 billion.
700 B for mortgage related costs
85 B  for AIG

200 B for Fannie/Freddy Mac

300 B for FHA insured loans

29 B for Bear Sterns

_____________ total

1.3 Trillion dollars

--The Hive

I wrote the following in October of 2007:
At a recent press briefing Bush was asked about Vladimir Putin's plans to hold on to power when his term runs out. Bush smirked and quipped: "I've been planning that myself." We should take Bush at his word. We should take that remark just as seriously as his recent veiled threat of World War III. We should take it as seriously as we should have taken his remark about how much easier it would all be "...if this was a dictatorship!"
So I told people [European leaders] that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested" in ensuring Iran not gain the capacity to develop such weapons.

--George W. Bush, Sociopath-in-Chief

How seriously should we take Bush's offhand remarks? His quips and unguarded remarks are the only truths to come out of his mouth. That applies to sinister references to summary executions in his 2003 State of the Union address: "Let's just say they are no longer a threat to the United States of America." It applies as well to his wistful longing for "dictatorship". Certainly, Bush is articulate only when he speaks of death, torture, vengence, warfare, execution, or punishment. He never stumbles, he never struggles to find the right word to describe pain, death or suffering!!

...

But in July, we filed some FOIA requests anyway. We asked five Justice Department offices for documents produced or revised after August 2001 "addressing the feasibility, advisability or lawfulness of deferring, rescheduling or canceling a US national election."

Bush Quips He Might Stay in Power (Threat Level Plays Along

Simply, the mechanisms by which Bush achieves his permanent dictatorship are in place. As banks continue to fall, another terrorist attack may not be required. [See How a Second Terrorist Attack Will Benefit George W. Bush]

Measured against our standards, the Bush administration is a catastrophe. Measured against Bush's hidden agenda, he is very near to achieving what Richard Nixon could not --an absolute dictatorship in the United States.

Bush has reduced the Congress to a debating club, the Supreme Court, a mere advisory panel. Sadly, it is SCOTUS who helped write themselves out of a real job. Fools!

Bush has declared 'this' a 'national crisis'. But the ground work had already been carefully laid. Gen. Tommy Franks was quoted in Newsmax on November 21st, 2003 that '...if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government." At a time when banks are toppling like dominoes, it will hardly require another 'inside job' like 911 or, indeed, any 'attack' of a military nature. The GOP conspiracy with an elite of just one percent of the nation will suffice.
In October 2006, Bush signed into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Quietly slipped into the law at the last minute, at the request of the Bush administration, were sections changing important legal principles, dating back 200 years, which limit the U.S. government's ability to use the military to intervene in domestic affairs. These changes would allow Bush, whenever he thinks it necessary, to institute martial law--under which the military takes direct control over civilian administration.

Sec. 1042 of the Act, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," effectively overturns what is known as posse comitatus. The Posse Comitatus Act is a law, passed in 1878, that prohibits the use of the regular military within the U.S. borders. The original passage of the Posse Comitatus Act was a very reactionary move that sealed the betrayal of Black people after the Civil War and brought the period of Reconstruction to an end. It decreed that federal troops could no longer be used inside the former Confederate states to enforce the new legal rights of Black people. Black people were turned over to the armed police and Klansmen serving the southern plantation owners, and the long period of Jim Crow began.

--Bush Paves the Way for Martial Law: 2007 National Defense Authorization Act overturns Posse Comitatus Act
It was asked: "would they go that far?" Simply, yes! The Bush Regime must be recognized as the most extremist, most imperialistic in US history. Bush, literally, dared the world to oppose him with his doctrine of 'pre-emption', a war crime in and of itself. John McCain has sought to wear the purple, promising to wage Bush's endless war, promising to stay in Iraq 100 years, 10,000 years if that is required.

If McCain had not sold his soul for the hope of gaining the Oval Office, would Bush have openly declared his intention to retain the Presidency for himself --indefinitely? If Bush is seen to have been but a puppet of the ruling elites, the actions of lap dog McCain make sense. McCain hardly inspires even Republicans. He seeks nothing more, nothing higher than to be Bush's third term. Bush himself will flee angry mobs or --worse for him --prosecution for his many war crimes and domestic capital crimes like mass murder and high treason.

No one learns the lessons of history. As peasants starved and revolution neared, Marie Antoinette was accused of saying "Let them eat cake!". Later, the proto-typical gopper, Herbert Hoover, coughed up his own version: "Let the poor sell oranges from a push cart!" I say: "Let George W. Bush blow it all out his sorry ass enroute to the dock where he will be charged with the capital crimes of high treason and mass murder.

The only good news coming out of all this is that Bush's bailout has split the GOP. Southern 'social conservatives' oppose bailing out Wall Street while Bush's elite argues that the bailout is necessary to prevent a total collapse. See: Republican Party Meltdown: Bailout Splits the Party. I am nostalgic for a time when the nation came so very near to its liberation:
On January 14, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush emerged in front of a press conference with a very prominent broken blood vessel welt on his cheek, and said that he had choked on a pretzel while watching television the day before. Bush had reportedly been sitting on his couch, 90 minutes into watching an NFL football Miami vs. Baltimore play-off game on television, when he choked on the pretzel, falling to the ground, injuring himself, and briefly losing consciousness before awakening to see his dogs Barney and Spot showing alarm at his state.[1] Laura Bush was reportedly in the adjoining room at the time, and Bush was alone watching the football game.

His physical injuries consisted of a scrape and bruise across his cheek and lower lip, injured by his glasses when he fell from the couch.[2] He was attended by a physician following the incident.[2] United States Air Force physician Dr. Richard Tubb, who performed the follow-up examination, theorized that the food morsel may have stimulated a nerve, upon becoming lodged in the President's throat. The incident did not affect the President's scheduled flight the following day,[3] and as a joke he had a bag of pretzels sent back to the media pool aboard Air Force One with a note scrawled on the bag, "Chew slowly", once the plane was en route.[4]

--Wikipedia, George W. Bush chokes on a pretzel

I will leave you with this update:
Washington Mutual, the giant lender that came to symbolize the excesses of the mortgage boom, was seized by federal regulators on Thursday night, in what is by far the largest bank failure in American history.

Regulators simultaneously brokered an emergency sale of virtually all of Washington Mutual, the nation’s largest savings and loan, to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion, averting another potentially huge taxpayer bill for the rescue of a failing institution.

The move came as lawmakers reached a stalemate over the passage of a $700 billion bailout fund designed to help ailing banks, and removed one of America’s most troubled banks from the financial landscape.

Customers of WaMu, based in Seattle, are unlikely to be affected, although shareholders and some bondholders will be wiped out. WaMu account holders are guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to $100,000, and additional deposits will be backed by JPMorgan Chase.

--Government Seizes WaMu and Sells Some Assets
From the Out of Iraq Blog Caucus:



Thursday afternoon we first heard that there had been an agreement in principle struck by criminals and thieves masquerading as politicians in Washington to stick their greedy little fingers in your pocket and give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke nearly a trillion dollars of your money to bail out their buddies on Wall Street.


We then later in the day heard that there had been a hastily arranged meeting in the White House with both presidential candidates invited by Bush in which John McCain had "destroyed" chances of an agreement in a desperate political stunt of an attempt to bolster his failing campaign. McCain's involvement, in the words of House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, was compared to "Richard Nixon blowing up the Vietnam peace talks in 1968."

Country first my ass!

McCain's stunt was not a stupid stunt.

It was part of a shell game. A setup designed to con you. Designed to con you by giving top Democrats, Pelosi, Reid, et al a reason to support Bush's plans to rob you blind while looking like they are saving you from a Republican plan to kill the bailout.

Think about that for a minute. Remember who passed all the Iraq Occupation funding bills for the past two years?

Oppose Bush my ass!

They are on his side. They are part of the scam. How clear does it have to be?

Now Wall Street financial analyst and historian Dr. Michael Hudson, Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City, cuts through all the crap to say bluntly that the proposed bailout is an empire buster likely to virtually destroy an already very shaky US and global economy, and is nothing more than a pyramid scheme, a blatant Once In A Century Rip-Off intended as a last ditch effort to save, at your expense, the finally and utterly discredited neocon "philosophy" of economics and governance, and George Bush and his criminal friends. The crooks attempting to steal every last cent they can bullshit you out of before republicanism and the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush finally go down in flames and ignominy. Taking you down with them.

If there is one overriding reason to oppose this "bailout" with everything in you, it's this - it's A Once In A Century Rip-Off --of you!!


September 26, 2008 - Once In A Century Rip-Off

Economist Michael Hudson: the bailout is a giveaway that will cause hyperinflation and dollar collapse
Bailout talks stall as Bush meets with Congressional leaders and Presidential candidates. German Finance Minister says US will no longer be the financial Superpower. French President Sarkozy says the days when "the all powerful market is always right are over". The Real News Network spoke to economist and historian Dr. Michael Hudson who says that it's not a "bailout" but a "giveaway" and will create a new kleptocracy of billionaires.

Dr. Michael Hudson is a Wall Street financial analyst and historian. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City, he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire and of Super-Imperialism and of The Myth of Aid .
The view around the world of the banking crisis and Paulson's bailout proposal appears to be much less as panicky as closer to home, if at all, and more of recognition of the realities of the situation with a general attitude of encircling and isolating a cancer to keep it localized.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A quietly disturbing story that appeared in the Army Times September 8th:

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1

3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008 6:15:06 EDT

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one.

“Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”

The command is at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., but the soldiers with 1st BCT, who returned in April after 15 months in Iraq, will operate out of their home post at Fort Stewart, Ga., where they’ll be able to go to school, spend time with their families and train for their new homeland mission as well as the counterinsurgency mission in the war zones.

Stop-loss will not be in effect, so soldiers will be able to leave the Army or move to new assignments during the mission, and the operational tempo will be variable.

Don’t look for any extra time off, though. The at-home mission does not take the place of scheduled combat-zone deployments and will take place during the so-called dwell time a unit gets to reset and regenerate after a deployment.

The 1st of the 3rd is still scheduled to deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan in early 2010, which means the soldiers will have been home a minimum of 20 months by the time they ship out.

In the meantime, they’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it.

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or area.

The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

“It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the first time that these modules were consolidated and this package fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the first to get it.”

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.

“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds ... it put me on my knees in seconds.”

The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF (pronounced “sea-smurf”).

“I can’t think of a more noble mission than this,” said Cloutier, who took command in July. “We’ve been all over the world during this time of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home ... and depending on where an event occurred, you’re going home to take care of your home town, your loved ones.”

While soldiers’ combat training is applicable, he said, some nuances don’t apply.

“If we go in, we’re going in to help American citizens on American soil, to save lives, provide critical life support, help clear debris, restore normalcy and support whatever local agencies need us to do, so it’s kind of a different role,” said Cloutier, who, as the division operations officer on the last rotation, learned of the homeland mission a few months ago while they were still in Iraq.

Some brigade elements will be on call around the clock, during which time they’ll do their regular marksmanship, gunnery and other deployment training. That’s because the unit will continue to train and reset for the next deployment, even as it serves in its CCMRF mission.

Should personnel be needed at an earthquake in California, for example, all or part of the brigade could be scrambled there, depending on the extent of the need and the specialties involved.
Other branches included

The active Army’s new dwell-time mission is part of a NorthCom and DOD response package.

Active-duty soldiers will be part of a force that includes elements from other military branches and dedicated National Guard Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams.

A final mission rehearsal exercise is scheduled for mid-September at Fort Stewart and will be run by Joint Task Force Civil Support, a unit based out of Fort Monroe, Va., that will coordinate and evaluate the interservice event.

In addition to 1st BCT, other Army units will take part in the two-week training exercise, including elements of the 1st Medical Brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Bragg, N.C.

There also will be Air Force engineer and medical units, the Marine Corps Chemical, Biological Initial Reaction Force, a Navy weather team and members of the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

One of the things Vogler said they’ll be looking at is communications capabilities between the services.

“It is a concern, and we’re trying to check that and one of the ways we do that is by having these sorts of exercises. Leading up to this, we are going to rehearse and set up some of the communications systems to make sure we have interoperability,” he said.

“I don’t know what America’s overall plan is — I just know that 24 hours a day, seven days a week, there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are standing by to come and help if they’re called,” Cloutier said. “It makes me feel good as an American to know that my country has dedicated a force to come in and help the people at home.”