Climbing Everest: The 2006 Congressional elections are upon us. The following is a stream of conscious enumeration of the legion of reasons WHY this Congress should be sent home. It is truly amazing to me that there are SO so so many reasons and yet it is like pulling teeth in many states to get these people out of Congress. What is the reason? I just don't know it is dismaying. Norway here I come.
A few reasons why this Congress is so putrid:
It is amazing in this country what the Democrats have to go through to win an election.
Any one of the following reasons would be enough in my mind for people in this country to see that a shift is in order.
My first reason was the lack of response of this administration to the August, 2001 warning of an imminent terrorist attack which might involve planes hitting buildings. The president dismissed the carrier of the warning and did nothing. The botching of the warning for 9/11 was ridiculous and cost 3000 lives. There was nothing done with regard to security, nothing done in view of what happened to the USS Cole, and nothing done when our African embassies were blown up but a LOT was done to try to say it was Clinton’s fault. Well, if it was Clinton’s fault Bush NEVER followed up on the mistakes he thought were committed. At least Clinton TRIED to attack Bin Laden. Bin Laden was never caught. He was never caught because the real focus of the war was in Afghanistan where our attention was diverted to fight a never ending useless war, costing billions of dollars in Iraq.
The next reason is, of course, Iraq. The president and his cohorts have lied us into a war which they had preconceived notions of beginning even before 9/11 occurred. There were no terror ties to Saddam and 9/11, no training grounds for terrorists and, of course, there were no weapons of mass destruction. Although Hussein was a tyrant that country did nothing to us. It did not attack us. As a matter of fact he was a bulwark against Al Qaeda because he hated them and thought of them as a threat. After the absence of WMD’s the administration had to manufacture a motive and, of course, our tried and true historical rationale for most of our ventures was spreading democracy. If one wants to spread democracy through military action and force one would have to send a military to over three quarters of the countries of the world. Hussein was certainly not the only dictator. Worse after invading Iraq, killing thousands, there was no adequate planning for the invasion. Looting was allowed, munitions were lost and ended up in the hands of our enemies. Adequate troops were rejected by Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld was told he needed about 400,000 troops. He fired those who said that. The troops too were ill equipped with no armor and other necessities. Congress has allowed this debacle to happen. It has cost the taxpayer a half trillion bucks. In addition it has ruined the balance of power in that region and empowered Shites who will ally themselves with Iran our worst nuclear powered enemy. No congressional oversight ensued and no subpoena under oath hearings occurred.
The next reason for removing the Republicans would the fact this administration along with the complicity of the US Congress though lack of oversight, got away with treason. If the outing for political reasons of CIA operative, Valerie Plame, by this administration were not enough, try spreading the secretes of how to build a nuclear bomb complete with heretofore top secrete instructions of constructing the actual trigger on the world wide web. This was done by complicity and advocacy of two Republican members of Congress over the objections of the head of the NIA Negroponte. If Democrats had done that can you imagine the uproar? I hear no outrage from the American public. We executed the Rosenbergs for less in the 1950’s. Spreading that on the Internet could mean not only our soldiers’ lives but the annihilation of our populous or a great deal of it as well.
The next reason is Katrina. The complete and utter bungling of this administration which cost hundreds of lives of US citizens not to mention the uprooting of thousands, comes and complete with cronyism, lack of oversight and incompetent people in the highest positions of national emergency management which resulted in catastrophic suffering and loss of life. The do nothing president was not involved. He sat at his Texas ranch, had a party and did nothing for days. He tells us no less that “Brownie you are doing a heck of a job” what job? He was head of the Arabian Horse Club who had given lots of money to the Bush campaign so he got a job with no background and NO much required expertise. Worse Bush inserted a signing statement in a bill which specifically required experts to manage FEMA. This statement said he did not have to do that. This is mind boggling. It’s like putting a ditch digger at the head of National Institute of Health. Nothing wrong with ditch diggers but they don’t belong at the head of an institution which is responsible for saving lives and requires very specific expertise.
The next is shredding our constitution by making it legal to use torture, suspending habeas corpus the bedrock of our democracy, allowing thousands of signing statements attached to bills and investing the executive with huge amounts of power. Bush has used his veto only once against stem cell research and Congress did not override his veto.
The next reason is the ad infinitum scandals. Abramoff (who according to the White House hardly visited but looking at the White House logs visited 400 times), Delay, Ney, Safvaian, Duke Cunningham, the assistant to Karl Rove, investigation of Hastert, investigation of Frist for SEC violations to name but a few. This Congress has sold their soul to the “K” street lobbying project and did it with OUR taxpayer money. There are hundreds of illegalities attached to this scandal. The Congress abandoned the ethics committee chairman, an honest man and a Republican Joel Hefly because of his investigation of Tom Delay. Tom Delay put him there in the first place and fired him when Hefly did his job. The Congress never conducted the investigation into the K street project and influence pedaling of lobbyists that they said they would and had to be arm twisted to even investigate 9/11.
The next reason is huge numbers of contracts given to vendors who did not produce. No oversight was conducted by this Congress. Many billions have been wasted by giving no bid contracts to Halliburton and others in Iraq and many billions have been spent on local projects like the Alaskan bridge to nowhere and again it is our taxpayer money. This list of pork barrel spending of our money by Congress is endless.
Next reason is the Mark Foley scandal. It was a scandal which was egregious in and of itself because of the tremendous hypocrisy. Here is a homosexual page who voted for the Marriage Amendment, was against gay marriage and against homosexuality who was himself a flagrant homosexual and worse a pederast. Everyone knew it. Well, if everyone knew it how come no one else did? Oh yes, curiously enough the ethics committee won’t be able to finish their investigation until AFTER the election. People in the highest echelons of power knew full well about what Mark Foley might be doing, including Denis Hastert and including Karl Rove and they did nothing. In addition other Republicans knew about another Congressman from Arizona, Congressman Kolbe, who has allegedly done some egregious homosexuality with children. So much for family values. I guess the children they say matter so much do not matter at all. There have been cover-ups galore by many in Republican leadership and page oversight positions.
Stealing of elections by voter fraud, intimidation and Diebold (an administration supporter) voting machine fixing. Smearing of opposition by sleazy attack ads and false accusations. Everyone knew John Kerry did not mean his admittedly bad joke in the way he said they did but they smeared him anyway. Everyone knew that the ad that inferred a racial slur against Harold Ford, Jr. in Tennessee was just that racial. Everyone knows about Republican dirty tricks by the carload in places like Ohio, Montana, and Florida and elsewhere when Republicans inundate people with voicemail to vote for a certain Democrat until the person turns against that candidate because of the inundation. People know about the turning away of black and Hispanic voter through poll tax type ploys. No one does anything about it. The Republicans have bought the courts as well. These things are highly illegal and highly unconstitutional but no one cares.
Other reasons include lifting of air quality standards and rejecting the Kyoto Protocol which every nation has signed except the US so now we are more prone to cancer though air pollution. This Congress has had no investigations as to alternative energy sources which would take us away from oil dependence and dependence on the Arab world. Can you imagine how wonderful that would be. No efforts to stem GLOBAL WARMING. Scientific facts agreed by scientists were acutally altered. Those facts describe the dire threat. Someday because of this administration and this do nothing Congress New York City could be inundated with water. It will be destoryed this time not by terrorist but by our own incompetence. Stem cell research, who on earth could not be for the possibility of curing some of the most heinous diseases which happen to FULL TERM human beings. The majority of the American public is for this. Mostly Republicans are against it. Bankruptcy laws which favor huge corporations but if a single family has a medical catastrophe which uses up All their money THEY cannot claim bankruptcy.
For these and so many other reasons, this Congress should be given a swift boot in the ass. Will they? Incredibly, I doubt it.
