*To use your road example, once the road is actually built, you have to pay for it unless you can show that it wasn’t built right. If ACORN had a contract to do X, and they did X correctly, then the fact that they’re doing illegal things AB&C, unrelated to X, doesn’t change the fact that they are owed money for X. It would be different if they haven’t performed yet, but we’re talking about contracts already performed, for which the gov’t hasn’t paid up. To make an even clearer example: if a man kills his neighbor on Sunday, and goes to work all week, and is caught on Saturday (and subsequently fired), his employer still has to pay him for that week of work.

All top “Management” at DOJ should be appointed by Am. Legal Assoc and Am. Bar Assoc. Then said “management” of DOJ appoint the various US Attorney’s.

Certainly would keep the focus on EQUAL protect under laws and no more of this political B/S.

The airlines “broke’ their contracts with retired pilots. The Auto MFG’s broke their contracts with retired workers.

If you inadvertantly hire a company that is a “front” for the Mafia, eg. a road contracting company, and later learn they are burying bodies under a road, how difficult would it be to break the contract?

SEIU, closely tied to ACORN is a thug outfit. Say we learn that their cleaning union workers are all Islamists being used to clean Congressional and White House offices. How difficult would it be to break that contract on grounds of National Security?

Bill of attainder is ONE part of an issue. Aren’t there also laws on the books that allow for termination of contracts for cause?

Your point is taken that ACORN National hasn’t been convicted yet! However they are clearly a partisan organization, and there ARE laws that prohibit using government funds for Partisan organizations.

No where in the constitution is there a requirement to fund these groups. Taxpayer money belongs wot WE THE PEOPLE and is not Congresses or the White Houses personal slush funds.

My point is how really difficult would it be to hold ACORN’s feet to the fire, and freezing all funds, until all arguments and appeals are completed?

Further Holder, and this David Barron both need to be removed from office and have hearings regarding the nullification of their licenses.

For example the filter does not like the word “i.d.i.o.t” (remove the dots) for some reason.

In any case, I see no censorship going on: they put up with me here!

How about this?

Reminiscing past injustice to counter present injustice is still all injustice…

I read it on a box of Fruitloops.

He has never truly risked losing – most recently he had all the media and the DNC working/cheating for him, and before that his operatives did things like leaking sealed divorce records for his benefit.

If public opinion is mostly against him, I don’t think he’ll even run for a second term.

Both situations are bad, but I would posit that someone stealing votes is more destructive to our democracy than someone stealing money.

I still believe the Clintons love America and wanted to create a true democracy that would offer opportunities to everyone, not just specific swing groups who voted them into office. Now we have a facist state.

For anyone who feels opinions like yours are unpopular because they perceive this as an against Bush II against Obama blog I state the following:

Generally speaking it is true the general sentiment of this blog is against Bush II and Obama as well. That being said, it is also true some of us would rather have Bush II in office than Obama, lesser of two evils axiom applies. We never thought we would say that, either.

But here goes, anyway.

(Background music, For What It’s Worth, by Buffalo Springfield, ref. lines, “Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep …” If you haven’t listened to it lately, do so–the points it makes are just as relevant today as they were in the 60s.)

The belief that George W. Bush (regardless of what any of us think of him, or of his policies, or of his failures or successes, or of the legitimacy of Supreme Court’s decision in the 2000 election) ever had any intention of usurping the orderly political process of executive succession in order to stay in office beyond the end of his second term is the product of a specific, long-term campaign of corporate media-disseminated disinformation and corporate media-induced paranoia. The same applies to VP Dick Cheney, whatever else he may have done or not done while in office. It also applies to the other member of the Republican establishment under Pres43. Even the most cynical members of the Republican Party (including those who aren’t too big on the ideals of the Constitution and might consider violating it so blatantly if they thought they could get away with it) are not that bloody stupid. They also still, to this day, adhere to the “gentleman’s agreement” that used to exist between the parties before the present group of radicals hijacked the once-great Democratic party and reneged on that agreement.

This extra-Constitutional, unwritten agreement, in general, is used to ensure that the transition of power, despite any bitterness on the part of the losers, takes place smoothly. The parties have traditionally adhered to this agreement in part to guarantee the integrity of the process, but also, in large part, to maintain their dominance within and stranglehold upon the two-party political system. It’s a part cynical, part noble, and typically American political compromise–it generally works, or it used to work.

Obvious evidence of how this agreement works is the close personal friendship and working relationship that former Presidents George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton have formed. When the two of them visited Galveston after the hurricane hit last year, Pres42 suggested, and Pres41 readily agreed, that, once he’d finished his term in office, they would do their best to co-opt Pres43 into their Bush-Clinton humanitarian initiative. I don’t think either of them were lying, and I don’t think either of them would have suggested this if they thought that Pres43 would have ever violated his oath and the Constitution to seize power or extend his term unlawfully.

Yes, I have my suspicions and my concerns about the present administration’s intentions, these based on what happened in the Democratic primaries, the obvious reneging by the “new” Democratic party on the “gentleman’s agreement,” election support from shady groups like ACORN and the SEIU, and the destructive nature of just about all of its actions and proposed programs. Still, until we see what happens in the 2010 and the 2012 elections … well, I’ll withhold my judgement as to whether or not the members of the present administration might indeed be that bloody stupid.

The primary tactic that this administration’s backers used to put it into office was the sowing of disregard, divisiveness, hatred, and outright paranoia among not only their political enemies but among their supposed political friends–and it started at least ten years ago. Most of you here first recognized the existence/use of this tactic when it was shamefully turned against Sen. Clinton and even Pres42 during the primaries; some of us had become aware of it much earlier, especially as it was used extensively against Pres43. The shock troops, the front men in the paranoia campaign against Pres43 were the same group of corporate media hacks who later attacked Sen. Hillary Clinton, Pres42 Bill Clinton, Sen. John McCain, and Gov. Sara Palin in exactly the same fashion, using exactly the same tactics. This is the same group of corporate media hacks who have fallen all over themselves to support every aspect of this administration and its policies, no matter how cynical, corrupt, or destructive.

Tingles up the leg, anyone?

Yeah, I know that I liked Pres43 better than most here, but then, I also liked Pres42 enough to vote for him and to support some aspects his agenda–I’m an Independent, remember?–even while I disagreed with others. I’ve never blindly supported any political figure. My standard answer to any enthusiast is that the politician never lived and never will that I’d trust as far as I can toss a cheesecake under water.

In fact, my biggest gripe with Pres43’s performance in office has a bearing on this subject. It was something that he overlooked in his zeal to effectively prosecute the war (something I heartily approved of) against the enemy. To wit, the fact that his expansions of executive powers would persist beyond the end of his term and the end of the war; the fact that there was never any guarantee that those powers wouldn’t be abused by his successors, that they might be used against someone other than the enemy.

Scary thought, that–especially nowadays.

There’s always a danger when you cede too much citizen power to public servants, even for the best of reasons, and I believe that we’ve certainly allowed that to occur in the past half century. As Heinlein noted through one of his fictional characters (paraphrased from memory here), “In most advanced societies, ‘civil servant’ can be translated as ‘civil master.’” This condition is what we should be most concerned about, and what we should guard against, and, I think, what the present administration and its backers plan to bring about (or bring to an even greater consummation than already exists).

Juvenal said it best: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (Who watches the watchmen?)

I think it’s up to you and me–all of us–to watch the watchers. It’s up to you and me not to be deceived by disinformation, or to allow ourselves to be divided, or to give in to hatred, or to allow paranoia-mongers to addle our brains with fear.

Paranoia Strikes Deep.