This last week there were hearings in congress on the illegal spying on american citizens. John Dean (nixons white house lawyer), gave testimony, and heres the text.



Testimony of John Dean on censure

Filed by RAW STORY

Testimony of John W. Dean before the Senate Judiciary Committee Regarding Senator Feingold’s Proposed Senate Resolution 398 Relating To the Censure of George W. Bush, March 31, 2006:


Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I have set forth a brief overview of the testimonial subject where I feel I might be of assistance to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s consideration of Senate Resolution 398 relating to the censure of President George W. Bush, for (1) unlawful electronic surveillance of Americans contrary to the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended; (2) the failure of the President to inform the respective congressional committees of his actions as required by that law; and (3) the presidents conspicuously misleading statements to the American people about the nature of his actions along with his dubious legal arguments claimed as justification for his actions.

I assume it is stipulated that no one disagrees with the Administration’s desire to deal aggressively with terrorism. Rather the question is about ways and means not about desired results or hopeful outcomes.

Qualifications To Testify:

My qualifications for addressing the committee are more expertise than anyone might wish to have based on personal experience in how presidents can get themselves on the wrong side of the law. Obviously, I refer to my experiences at the Nixon White House during Watergate. That, as it happens, was the last time I testified before the Senate. As with my testimony today, that testimony was voluntarily given. I appear today because I believe, with good reason, that the situation is even more serious. In addition to my first-hand witnessing a president push his powers beyond the limits of the Constitution during my years as White House counsel from, 1970 to 1973, I have spent the past three plus decades studying presidents past and present.

No presidency that I can find in history has adopted a policy of expanding presidential powers merely for the sake of expanding presidential powers. Presidents in the past who have expanded their powers have done so when pursuing policy objectives. It has been the announced policy of the Bush/Cheney presidency, however, from its outset, to expand presidential power for its own sake, and it continually searched for avenues to do just that, while constantly testing to see how far it can push the limits. I must add that never before have I felt the slightest reason to fear our government. Nor do I frighten easily. But I do fear the Bush/Cheney government (and the precedents they are creating) because this administration is caught up in the rectitude of its own self- righteousness, and for all practical purposes this presidency has remained largely unchecked by its constitutional coequals.

Must Censure Be A Purely Political Condemnation?

Members of this committee are quite familiar with the debate that arose during the Clinton impeachment proceedings regarding the propriety of censuring a president. That thirteen month debate involved members of the House and Senate, as well as political commentators and constitutional scholars. Some members thought it a viable alternative to impeachment or conviction of a president; other members believed it a threat to the separation of powers. For example, Senator John D. Rockefeller of West Virginia thought it an effective way "to say to myself and my people” that President Clinton had done something wrong. (Washington Post, Feb. 9, 1999, at A17.) Senator Larry Craig of Idaho viewed it as "a raw political cover” and “nothing more than a slap on the wrist." (Time , Feb. 15, 1999). Senator Phil Gramm of Texas thought it was too easy a way out of a difficult political decision that could “corrode” the constitutional structure of the separation of powers. (Washington Post, Feb. 13, 1999, at A32.) Legal scholars fell on both sides of the question of whether it was a constitutionally permissible action, although the weight of the arguments clearly fell on the side of its constitutionality. Michael Gerhardt, whose work is very familiar to this committee, observed that there are several provisions in the Constitution, including the First Amendment, that authorize both the House and the Senate to take appropriate action. As Gerhardt summed it up, “One may plainly infer from these various textual provisions the authority of the House, the Senate, or both to pass a non-binding resolution expressing an opinion - pro or con - on some public matter, such as that a president's conduct has been reprehensible or worthy of condemnation." (Michael J. Gerhardt, “The Constitutionality of Censure,” University of Richmond Law Review, vol. 34 (1999) at 34.)

One thing was clear from this protracted debate during the Clinton impeachment, and the same can be said of the debate so far that has been provoked by Senator Feingold’s proposed resolution, censure has long been viewed as a purely political action. That has been true historically as well. Historian Richard Shenkman assembled the precedents for censure during the Clinton proceeding, which he recently republished. * This entire debate is fully reviewed in the transcript prepared by Thomas R Lee of a 1999 panel on impeachment, published in the Brigham Young University Law Review (1999). (http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/22843.html). Shenkman found, “All four censures [John Adams, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, and James Buchanan], however, have more in common than that they simply have been largely forgotten. All were the work of highly partisan politicians eager to score political points.” He concluded, “censures must be bipartisan to carry weight with the American people. History suggests that a resolution passed along party lines would be a source of palpable political divisiveness.”

I am hopeful that Congress for institutional reasons, not partisan gamesmanship, will act on Senator Feingold’s resolution. If the term “censure” carries too much historical baggage, then the resolution should be amended, not defeated, because the president needs to be reminded that separation of powers does not mean an isolation of powers; he needs to be told he cannot simply ignore a law with no consequences.

Institutional Reason for Censure: Preventing Waiver

Justice Felix Frankfurter’s concurrence in Youngstown recognized the power of "executive construction of the Constitution," citing United States v. Midwest Oil Co., 236 U.S. 459 (1915), as the basis for that authority, but finding it to exist only when there is a showing of "a systematic, unbroken, executive practice, long pursued to the knowledge of the Congress and never before questioned." (Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 610-11). Midwest Oil – the leading case on Congressional acquiesce -- is pretty old and times have changed. Nor is this a very precise body of law. What does it take for Congress to question presidential action? Does it mean a member of Congress, a committee, a single chamber, or both houses? And what if the president deliberately and knowingly ignores Congress, relying on his own construction of the Constitution, when both houses have questioned presidential conduct and a law has been signed by a predecessor president? Is it a “political question” that the courts today will not touch? What if Congress does nothing about it? At some point will not a waiver occur when we are talking about constitutional co-equals? These, I suggest, are issues this committee must address. There are two ways to address them: legislation or a resolution expressing the sense of the Congress. Or, of course, doing nothing, and permitting the President to break the laws adopted by Congress.

Bush’s on-going action with his NSA wiretapping (if not secrecy, torture, etc.) and Congressional inaction (or acquiescence) must, sooner or later, intersect, and a point will be reached and crossed when the Congress has all but sanctioned the conduct and the president can violate the law with utter abandonment. No one can say that the Congress has not been put on notice. While there is vague law that says Congressional inaction is not a license for executive action, Congress is now confronted with executive branch attorneys who take the most aggressive reading possible in all situations that favor executive power. It is only necessary to look at the Administration’s interpretation of the September 18, 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541) which it reads as authorization for the NSA program, to appreciate how far it will push.

And that is what I believe will happen if Chairman Specter’s proposal to involve the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court should become law. If past is prologue, President Bush will not bother to veto the bill, rather he will quietly issue a signing statement saying as Commander in Chief he disagrees with the bill, and he does not care what the FISA court says, and he will just keep doing what he has been doing. In short, should Congress pass Chairman Specter’s bill, the Chairman should recall what happened to Senator John McCain’s torture amendment before he attends the photo op at the White House while Vice President Cheney is off somewhere approving the signing statement – and gutting the law. If this committee does not believe this Administration is hell bent on expanding its powers with such in-your-face actions, you have been looking the other way for some five years of this presidency.

That is why censure might be the only way for the Senate to avoid acquiescing in what is clearly a blatant violation of the 1978 FISA stature, not to mention the Fourth Amendment. If “censure” is politically too strong for the Senate, then an appropriately worded Sense of the Senate resolution not acquiescing in the president’s defiance of the law might be a fall back position to prevent a waiver, and preserve Congress’s prerogatives.

In short, I implore the Senate to undertake not a partisan action, but a strong institutional action. I recall a morning – and it was just about this time in the morning and it was exactly this time of the year – March 21, 1973 – that I tried to warn a president of the consequences of staying his course. I failed to convince President Nixon that morning, and the rest, as they say, is history. I certainly do not claim to be prescient. Then or now. But actions have consequences, and to ignore them is merely denial. Today, it is very obvious that history is repeating itself. It is for that reason I have crossed the country to visit with you, and that I hope that the collective wisdom of this committee will prevail, and you will not place the president above the law by inaction. As I was gathering my thoughts yesterday to respond to the hasty invitation, it occurred to me that had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented. Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it.

I have attached a number of articles that I have published on this and related topics and I ask that they be included in the record. The full text of these articles can also be found at http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I would be happy to answer your questions.

 

I understand, and even partially agree with that, but your only portraying one side of the issue or the offenders on one side when the real problems are the sides themselves.

It was many years ago but I remember the comments of an independent candidate about how the only way he could tell the two parties apart was the one would rape, steel and raise taxes slightly more than the other. Funny he later ran under one of the parties and won [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

So I believe if you can find a way to continue to show the things people need to see to get them involved so that they can see for themselves just how poorly things have been handled by all involved without having it appear that you or those your posts quote are on a republican bashing binge I think you will find it will reach many more people.

Remember most voters at the election booths are registered or married to one party or the other (or somehow making a living or killing from their legislations), and its only when there is something that gets the average voter off their ***** and out to vote that either side has any unknown issues to worry about, and also when we the people may actually have a chance to see real positive changes on any level.

I look at all the selfish and greedy voters who ignored all the warnings from the stand in "acting govenor" here in NJ about future increases in taxes, and reductions in our freedoms, and an ever increasing govt etc and still voted directly down party lines electing another dem who may very well out do every one before him in further backrupting everyone in this state who is not living high on the hog thru the state in some manner.

So many actually voted in a manner that they knew would further damage the state and cost everyone in the long run just because they somehow believed that this candidate would in some way benefit their specific position more than the other.

As long as people make their voting decision based only on their personal situation and not what is best or who is the better person for the job it doesnt matter if its a single person sweeping the street, a clerk at some state office, or an entire teachers union (lets not forget all the business owners and their employees etc with state contracts) because they are all too short sighted to see that even they would benefit from a reduced govt and overall tax burden for all, and are over run by the FEAR that there may be some changes in their position.

I also believe this begins to snow ball when the state becomes the largest employer within its borders, and govt positions in general far outweigh the total jobs avail. So add another one to the doom and gloom column but maybe this one will break down when enough of the party line voters see that their peers are taking early retirement or being moved and their positions eliminated even with their preferred party in charge.

Kinda of suks when the guys known for taxing and spending are now spending so much on their personal programs and interests etc that they actually have to eliminate those jobs that were in the past thought to be well protected and safe for a favorable retirement etc due to their overspending in every area.

Lets not forget how this also plays into our protect our rights theme too as there are now several new laws limiting everything from where to smoke too properly preparring your kitchen for fighting a fire and so many inbetween I dont know where to start, but oddly these types of ins co pandering laws and feel good laws seem to somehow be written as a money maker for the state with a fee schedule too.

 

I totally believe its both parties at fault...my only reason for hammering on the republicans is because they have all the major news outlets working in concert with their agenda, and the disappointments arent covered very well..and i just want to make sure it gets covered. But my dislike for the so called opposition party, is as strong as it is for the party in charge. They are just as guilty for dumping on the middle class, and not being a true oppostion party.

I keep asking, in most of my political discussions, for someone to come up with 5 things the republicans have done for the middle class. We can all name 5 things theyve done TO us, but for us is a bit of a stretch. Its funny how they totally controll the government, and all three branches..yet somehow cant implement anything positive for the middle class.

 

I am pretty sure you meant funny in a sarcastic way, but how the entire political machine has done nothing but look at the middle or working class as little than a vote, and the ones paying for all their mis-managing is well beyond that and actually more like disgusting.

From my view point there are some things that the republicans have done for the middle class, but I am not sure any hardcore party followers will like all of what I see.

One of the most beneficial things I have seen is that as a group they have a tendency to be in favor to actually allow public access to public or govt lands, and yes that does include us to a certain point.

Another is that they typically limit goverment assistance and various hand outs that are ultimately funded by the middle class. This one is a dbl edged sword though as more than once funding has been cut where its actually needed to support something totally unusual and very questionalble as well as not falling into the same catagory at all.

As a general rule the party seems to be more interested in smaller govt than their democratic foes, but they also seem to have a list or something of specifically which friends, contributors and corps they intend to funnel our tax dollars thru (many times companies that actually employ them in some way) This is what may be meant by the trickle down theory [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Lastly it just seems to be thought that they just dont tax and spend as much as the other party (something that seems obvious around here) and by eliminating much of the money spent on programs and other assistance there is some relief to the average tax payer, but all the similar actions to the other party seem to cause little of the relief to be noticable.

I am sure all my republican friends would have a list a mile long, but I am also sure it would be 98% BS.

I wont even get into the democratic party since not only are they without any direction as a party, but they also are driving us all to the poor house on every level due to trying to burn the candle on both ends, and have the middle (class) somehow keep the ends from meeting.

 

Wow that was only four, but three didnt count since it wasnt what they did, but rather what they didnt do as excessively as the democrats.

Daumnnnnnnn [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Heres some of what politicans have done to us, still looking for what theyve done for us.


A Culture of Corruption
Let's Save Our Democracy by Getting Money Out of Politics
by Bill Moyers


Money is choking our democracy to death. Our elections are bought out from under us and our public officials are doing the bidding of mercenaries. So powerful is the hold of wealth on politics that we cannot say America is working for all Americans. The majority may support such broad social goals as affordable medical coverage for all, decent wages for working people, safe working conditions, a secure retirement, and clean air and water, but there is no government "of, by, and for the people" to deliver on those aspirations.

Our system of privately financed campaigns has shut regular people out of any meaningful participation in democracy. Less than one-half of one percent of all Americans made a political contribution of $200 or more to a federal candidate in 2004. When the average cost of winning a seat in the House of Representatives has topped $1 million, we can no longer refer to that chamber as "The People's House." Congress belongs to the highest bidder.

At the same time that the cost of getting elected is exploding beyond the reach of ordinary people, the business of influencing our elected representatives has become a growth industry. Since President Bush was elected the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled. That's 16,342 lobbyists in 2000 and 34,785 last year: 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress. The total spent per month by special interests wining, dining, and seducing federal officials is now nearly $200 million. Per month.

Numbers don't tell the whole story. With pro-corporate officials running both the executive and legislative branches, lobbying that was once reactive has sallied forth to buy huge chunks of public policy. One example: In 2004 the computer maker Hewlett-Packard sought Republican-backed legislation that would enable it to bring back to the United States, at a dramatically lowered tax rate, as much as $14.5 billion in profits from foreign subsidiaries. The company nearly doubled its budget for contract lobbyists and took on an elite lobbying firm as its Washington arm. Presto! The legislation passed. The company's director of government affairs was quite candid: "We're trying to take advantage of the fact that Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House."

GREED WITHOUT APOLOGIES—I am an equal opportunity muckraker. Anyone who saw the documentary my team and I produced on the illegal fund-raising for Bill Clinton's re-election knows I am no fan of the Democratic money-machine that helped tear away the party from whatever roots it had in the struggles of working people. But today the Republicans own the government lock, stock, and barrel. And they have turned their self-proclaimed revolution into a cash cow.

Look back at the bulk of legislation passed by Congress in the past decade: an energy bill that gives oil companies huge tax breaks at the same time that ExxonMobil has just posted $36.13 billion in profits and our gasoline and home heating bills are at an all-time high; a bankruptcy "reform" bill written by credit card companies to make it harder for poor debtors to escape the burdens of divorce or medical catastrophe; the deregulation of the banking, securities and insurance sectors, which brought on rampant corporate malfeasance and greed and the destruction of the retirement plans of millions of small investors; the deregulation of the telecommunications sector, which led to cable industry price-gouging and an undermining of news coverage; protection for rampant overpricing of pharmaceutical drugs; and the blocking of even the mildest attempt to prevent American corporations from dodging an estimated $50 billion in annual taxes by opening a P.O. box in an off-shore tax haven like the Cayman Islands.

In every case the results were produced by rivers of cash flowing to favored politicians from interests whose return on their investment put Wall Street equities to shame. This happens because our public representatives need huge sums to finance their campaigns, especially to pay for television advertising. The masters of the money game have taken advantage of that weakness in our democracy to turn our elections into auctions.

A WALK DOWN K STREET—It's the Wall Street of lobbying, the address of many of Washington's biggest lobbying firms. The "K Street Project"—the most successful shakedown operation since the first Gilded Age—was the brainchild of Representative Tom DeLay and Grover Norquist, the right-wing strategist who famously said that his goal is to shrink government so that it can be "drowned in a bathtub" (when, finally, it will be too impotent to protect democracy from plunder and powerless citizens from the rapacity of corporate power). For his part, Tom DeLay ran a pest exterminating business in Sugar Land, Texas, where he hated government regulators who dared to tell him that some of the pesticides he used were dangerous. He got himself elected to the Texas legislature at a time when the Republicans were becoming the majority in the once-solid Democratic South, and early in his new career "Hot Tub Tom," as he was known in Austin, became a born-again Christian.

In addition to finding Jesus, Tom DeLay discovered the power of money to drive his career. By raising more than $2 million from lobbyists and business groups and distributing it to dozens of Republican candidates in 1994, the year of the Republican breakthrough in the House, DeLay bought the loyalty of many freshmen legislators who helped elect him Majority Whip, the House's number three man.

He wasted no time in inviting lobbyists to write the Republican agenda. Their first priority was "Project Relief"—"relief" from labor standards that protected workers from the physical injuries of repetitive work, "relief" from tougher rules on meat inspection, "relief" from effective monitoring of hazardous air pollutants. Scores of companies were soon adding one juicy and expensive tidbit after another. On the eve of the debate, according to Michael Weisskopf and David Maraniss of the Washington Post, 20 major corporate groups advised lawmakers that "this was a key vote, one that would be considered in future campaign contributions."

The Machine was off and running. As then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich famously told the lobbyists: "If you are going to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules." The rules were simple enough. Contribute to Republicans only. Hire only Republicans as lobbyists (priority preference: DeLay's own staff). Centralize the power to write legislation in the hands of the party bosses (assisted by hovering lobbyists). Allow no amendments. Produce bills in secret. Permit members no time to read them. Pass important bills late at night. Avoid compromise by banning Democrats from conference committees. Give lobbyists and campaign contributors what they want.

While examples abound of how the rules stacked the deck, consider one: the Medicare prescription coverage bill. Enacted after midnight, its hundreds and hundreds of pages unintelligible to anyone but lobbyists, the legislation enriched the pharmaceutical and insurance companies while giving senior citizens and taxpayers the shaft.

THE MONEY MAN—DeLay, who had announced that God had chosen him to return American to a "biblical worldview," needed help to sustain the cash flow necessary for spreading the Gospel of Greed. He found it in a fellow right-wing ideologue named Jack Abramoff, who personified the K-Street money-machine of which DeLay, with the blessing of his party's leaders, was the major-domo. It was Abramoff who helped DeLay raise those millions of dollars from campaign donors to create the base for an empire of corruption.

Abramoff has now pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to bribe public officials. It's a spectacular fall for a man whose rise to power began in his school days with his election as chairman of the College Republicans. Despite its innocuous name, the organization became a political attack machine for the far right and a launching pad for younger conservatives on the make.

"Our job," Abramoff, then 22 years old, wrote after his first visit to the Reagan White House, "is to remove liberals from power permanently. . . ." (He would later acknowledge that his agenda also included moving K Street closer to the Republican Party.) Karl Rove had once held the same job as chairman. So did Grover Norquist, who ran Abramoff's campaign. A youthful $200-a-month intern named Ralph Reed was at their side. These were the rising young stars of the conservative movement who came to town to lead a revolution and stayed to run a racket.

CASINO ROYALE—Abramoff made his name, so to speak, representing Indian tribes and their gambling interests. As his partner he hired a DeLay crony named Michael Scanlon. Together they would bilk half a dozen tribes who hired them to protect their gambling interests from competition. What the two men had to offer, of course, was their connections to the Republican power structure, including members of Congress, friends at the White House (Abramoff's personal assistant became the personal assistant of Karl Rove), Christian Right activists like Reed, and right-wing ideologues like Norquist. The network hummed smoothly for its inside traders—as, for example, when two lobbying clients of Abramoff paid $25,000 to Norquist's organization, Americans for Tax Reform, for lunch at the White House and a meeting with President Bush in May 2001, according to the Texas Observer.

In a scheme they called "Gimme Five." Abramoff would refer tribes to Scanlon for grassroots public-relations work, and Scanlon would then kick back about 50 percent to Abramoff, all without the tribes' knowledge. Before it was over, the tribes had paid the two lobbyists $82 million, much of it going directly into Abramoff's and Scanlon's pockets. And that doesn't count the thousands more that Abramoff directed the tribes to pay out in campaign contributions.

Some of the money found its way into an outfit called the Council of Republicans for Environment Advocacy, founded by Gale Norton before she was appointed to run the Department of the Interior, which—surprise! surprise!—is the agency most responsible for Indian gaming rights. Some went to so-called charities, set up by Abramoff and DeLay, that filtered money for lavish trips for members of Congress and their staffs, as well as salaries for Congressional family members and DeLay's pet projects.

And some of the money found its way to the Holy High Rollers of the Christian Right. Ralph Reed, for one, had his hand out. Reed had become the religious right's poster boy against gambling ("We believe gambling is a cancer on the American body politic," he had said). Now Abramoff and Scanlon would pay Reed some $4 million to help them protect their own gaming interests. His assignment was to whip up Christian opposition to gambling initiatives that could cut into the profits of Abramoff's clients.

Reed enlisted some of the brightest stars in the Christian firmament in a ruse conducted on Abramoff's behalf: they would oppose gambling on religious and moral grounds in strategic places at decisive moments when competition threatened Abramoff's clients. Bogus Christian groups were part of the strategy. A gaggle of influential Baptist preachers in Texas danced to Reed's fiddling. Folks in Louisiana heard the voice of God on the radio—performed by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson—thundering against a riverboat gambling scheme that Abramoff feared would jeopardize the profits of a client. Reed even got James Dobson, whose nationwide radio "ministry" reaches millions of people (and whose videos helped Tom DeLay find Jesus) to deluge the Interior Department and White House with telephone calls from indignant Christians.

Abramoff arranged for the Mississippi Choctaws, who were trying to stave off competition from other tribes, to contribute over $1 million to Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, which then passed the money along to the Alabama Christian Coalition and to another anti-gambling group Reed had duped into aiding the cause. It is unclear how much these Christian soldiers knew about the true purpose of their crusade, but Reed knew all along that his money was coming from Abramoff. The e-mails between the two men read like a modern version of Elmer Gantry.

As reported by the Washington Post and National Journal, some of Abramoff's money from lobbying went to start a non-profit organization called the U.S. Family Network, founded with the help of a top aide to Tom DeLay while he was still in DeLay's employ (his salary at the time paid by—you guessed it—taxpayers). DeLay even wrote a fundraising letter in its behalf. The group announced that its purpose was to promote policies favorable for "families, the economic prosperity, social improvement, moral fitness, and general well being of the United States," and its fund-raising screeds warned that the American family "is being attacked from all sides: crime, drugs, pornography . . . and gambling." But its first donation came from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, followed by other Abramoff clients who couldn't care less about the professed moral agenda.

The U.S. Family Network turns out to be another scam in the Abramoff-DeLay money laundering machine. Its money paid for attack ads on Democrats, bought a townhouse three blocks from DeLay's Congressional quarters, providing him with free office space where he could go to raise funds for the Machine, and awarded DeLay's wife a sizable salary.

But that's the least of it. Working with Abramoff through a now defunct law firm in London and an obscure offshore company in the Bahamas, oil and gas executives from Russia used the U.S. Family Network to funnel money to influence Tom DeLay, then-majority leader of the House of Representatives. A Christian pastor recruited to serve as the titular president of the organization was told by DeLay's sidekick that $1 million was passed through from sources in Russia who wanted DeLay's support for legislation enabling the International Monetary Fund to bail out the faltering Russian economy without demanding new taxes on the country's energy industry. Lo and behold, there was Tom Delay, appearing on an obliging Fox News television show, arguing the Russian position. The rueful pastor who was the organization's nominal head said he was told, "This is the way things work in Washington."

"REFORM" TALK FIZZLES—The Republican leaders would have us believe this is just a "lobbying scandal." They assume that if they pass a few minor reforms to put a little distance between the politician and the lobbyist, we will think everything is okay and they can go back to business as usual. Just look at Congressman John Boehner, elected to replace Tom DeLay as House Majority Leader. He's been a full player in the K Street Project and DeLay's money machine. The top lobbyists in town frequent his office. He thinks nothing of cruising with them in the Caribbean or of hopping on corporate jets arranged by them. This is the man who ten years ago moved around the floor of the House—the "People's House"—handing out checks from tobacco executives.

As for Tom Delay? He is under indictment in Texas for money laundering and had to resign as Majority Leader. But just the other day the party bosses gave him a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, where big contributors get their rewards. And—are you ready for this?—they put him on the subcommittee overseeing the budget of the Justice Department, which is investigating the Abramoff scandal, including Abramoff's connections to DeLay. I'm not making this up. It's business as usual. Rotten business as usual.

I have touched on only a few of the astonishing details pouring out about the sacking of Washington. The corrupting power of money in politics is an old story. This time is different, because in a one-party government the opposition is impotent and the corporate media, with a few notable exceptions, have bought into the notion that this is "just the way Washington works." Already the calls for reform are fading away.

CLEAN ELECTIONS—You may say, "What can we do about it? These forces are too rich, too powerful, too entrenched to be defeated." Maybe. But if others had given up before us, blacks would still be three-fifths of a person, women wouldn't have the vote, workers couldn't organize, and children would still be working in the mines. It's time to fight again. These people in Washington have no right to be doing what they are doing. It's not their government, it's your government. They work for you, and if they let you down and sell you out, they should be fired. That goes for everyone, from the lowliest bureaucrat in town to the senior leaders of Congress on up to the president of the United States. The stakes are too high for us to give up.

Fortunately, there is something we can do. A movement is gathering across the country that could restore democracy to a country run by money. It's the "clean money" campaign for the public funding of our elections. Maine led the way in 2000. Arizona followed suit. So have several municipalities, including Portland, Oregon, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Races are more competitive and attract a more diverse group of candidates.

No sooner had Janet Napolitano been elected governor of Arizona under the state's public financing program than she instituted reforms establishing low-cost prescription drug subsidies for seniors. There have also been advances in Maine in providing low-cost prescription drugs for residents. Why? Because the politicians write the legislation, not the lobbyists.

Look what happened in Connecticut last year, a state rocked by multiple political scandals. People decided to break the link between big donors and public officials. By December the legislature had passed clean-money reform, banning campaign contributions from lobbyists and state contractors. Connecticut is the first state where the legislature and governor have approved full public funding for their own races. In thirty other states clean-money campaigns are also forming. (You can find out more about the movement at the website of Public Campaign.)

While public funding won't solve all the problems—the Abramoffs and DeLays of the world will always find ways to abuse the public trust—it would go a long way toward restoring the hope of government "of, by, and for the people." Even some business lobbyists are having second thoughts. Business Week recently quoted one of them as saying: "As a conservative, I've always opposed government involvement. But it seems to me the real answer is federal financing of Congressional elections."

Just think: For about $10 per taxpayer, per year, we, the people, could buy back our politicians in Congress and the White House with full public funding. But time is running out. Unless we offer qualified candidates a different source of campaign funding with clean, disinterested and accountable public money, the selling of America will go on, and we will wake up one day in a country we no longer recognize.

 

I agree with most all off that just like I believe do the majority of Americans, but there is one question that needs to be answered.

Just how does one plan to make a change away from the status quo over the last 40+ years that will essentially move the "power", and money away from those who continue to legislate the problems purpetuation and growth.

I just dont see the typical "fat and happy", "never been off road suv driving", "excuse making", living in denial", and basically just your average working american who is either just getting by, or struggling to etc ever becoming willing to accpet the problems exist, that they can be part of making a change, and ultimately will be willing to chance all that they have worked for their entire lives (their career, marraige, family, home, status, and even freedom) while they still have enough to get by.

Maybe after things become so unbarrable that there is little to gamble (similar to the conditions often seen overseas on the news) there will be an outcry or even more, but sadly I believe by then it would be seriously too late, and between the loss of freedoms and increases in police and milatary ranks most would be rounded up and jailed immediately.

So unless there becomes a way to colonize the moon real soon to recreate what was originally started here I doubt there will be a better time than now to start becoming involved and help make a change.

No ware to run, and no ware to hide holds more truth today than ever before, and in an atmosphere where its obvious that takling against the status quo may soon become an offense against the govt there may be little the masses can do thru normal methods, and those entertaining other methods will just be labled trouble makers, and terrorists and thrown into some dingy jail in a foreign country without any of their contstitutional rights to trials or times etc.

I can only imagine how much worse this can become if ms billery was to take the pres office in two years!!!