December 26, 2005

 

 

 

Just for fun I thought I'd give you a peek at MamaLiberty in South Dakota! I hope your Christmas was filled with blessings and love as mine was. Let's put that wonderful spirit of light and real Christian love to work teaching everyone possible about the blessings of liberty and justice for all. God bless and keep you all! MamaLiberty

Presidential Power
By Nathan A. Barton (TM and © 2005)

The recent publicity over revelations that the National Security Agency and other fedgov organizations have been wiretapping and in other ways spying on American citizens in the United States has added a new element to the current debate in Congress on renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act. It has further complicated the national debate over the “war on terrorism” and over the continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has also cast a new light on the ways in which both state and federal governments are spying on various segments of the population, in a way reminiscent of Beria, Himmler, and Big Brother. Although it should come as no surprise, this has added little but vitriol and a further hardening of positions (if such is even possible) for those who love Bush and those who hate Bush. At the same time (and again no surprise), conservatives are rallying once more to W’s defense, and liberals are crowing loudly about the entire matter, which helps hide their own peccadilloes a bit more. Some are crowing so loudly and enthusiastically that they are making claims about their own past action that aren’t even true – again, business as usual. (Read the rest here)

President Not Above The Law
By Chuck Baldwin

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are fuming over the revelation that President George W. Bush secretly authorized domestic eavesdropping without court approval. Senators Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) said they intend to hold hearings on the matter.

For the record, we owe Senator Feingold a debt of appreciation for how he single-handedly (at first) stood up against a broadside assault against our Bill of Rights in the form of the USA Patriot Act which was passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and was (and still is) intensely lobbied for by the White House. Feingold's stubborn resistance to the Patriot Act was rewarded last week when senators from both parties rallied in sufficient numbers to support his filibuster, thus stopping the Patriot Act (for the moment) dead in its tracks. Thank you, Senator Feingold! (Read the rest here)

Why I Will Vote for the Evil Hillary Clinton
by Bob Wallace

That's it, I've had it, no more. I will no longer trust my brain when it comes to voting. Politics has done me wrong for the last time! It, and my brain, has betrayed me every time, 100%, without fail. So I'm no longer listening to my brain, ever again. From now on, if I ever vote again, I'm doing the exact opposite of what that supposedly smart organ tells me to do.

That's why if the evil Hillary Clinton runs, I'm voting for her. Because if my track record holds up -- and I guarantee you it will -- then she'll turn out to be a wonderful President. (Read the rest here)

Making the World Safe for Theocracy
By Ivan Eland

The much-ballyhooed elections in Iraq later this week are likely to dig the Iraqi hole a little deeper for the Bush administration. The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shi’ite Muslim cleric in Iraq, has indirectly ordered fellow Shi’a to cast their ballots for representatives of the Shi’ite religious parties that now control the interim Iraqi government. A permanent Shi’ite-Kurdish government may prove even more intransigent than the interim government in addressing Sunni concerns about being cut out of Iraq’s oil revenues—thus accelerating the incipient civil war in that nation.

The ever over-confident Bush administration, controlling the levers of authority in the globe’s only hyperpower, has never really bothered to understand important characteristics of nations it invades. In its lust for the rhetoric of “spreading democracy,” the administration has failed to notice that the term means something different in countries with little democratic experience, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, than it does in the United States. In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, voters cast their ballots as prominent leaders desire. In Afghan elections, people voted as their tribal leaders or warlords directed. In Iraq, most of the majority Shi’a population (60 percent of Iraqis) will reliably vote the way al-Sistani wants. In contrast, American voters—even fundamentalist Christian ones—don’t usually vote solely on the basis of their religious leader’s political wishes (if they are expressed at all). (Read the rest here)

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