Nothing Unusual

There is nothing unusual about George W. Bush overriding the U.S. Constitution to increase power and control over money and life itself.

There is nothing unusual about George W. Bush protecting corporations over people.

There is nothing unusual about George W. Bush showing contempt and disrespect for the bottom 99 percent of the U.S. population.

There is nothing unusual about George W. Bush ignoring the rule of law.

There is nothing unusual about George W. Bush not caring about freedom and liberty.

There is nothing unusual about George W. Bush terrorizing his own country by promoting weakness, hatred, and fear of outside terrorism to accomplish the above. 

What is unusual is when all of the above statements come together in one act. It became clear this week when George W. Bush actually stated his intention to veto FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act designed to actually protect Americans against acts of terrorism, if Congress didn't also grant immunity for past criminal acts carried out by phone companies at the request of Bush.

Mind you, the FISA bill doesn't expire until August. So why is he throwing a tantrum about it now? Because the immunity for criminal behavior expired yesterday.

He's actually willing to create a greater threat of terrorism against the United States because he's not getting immunity for his business criminal buddies having broken the law at his command. He's doing it by telling (i.e. lying to) the American people by saying holding up immunity of these past criminal activities helps terrorists win, and. by golly, he'll actually help terrorists win just to prove it.

The Republican Congress made a big show of storming out of Congress (after the media had assembled their cameras, naturally) so they wouldn't have to do their job of checks and balances against their savior, George W. Bush. It also helped that they were scheduled to vote on contempt charges against John Bolton and Harriet Miers for ignoring Congress' orders to testify before them. Imagine - two reasons for Republicans in Congress to show their cowardice at one time.

And what was the law the corporate criminals broke the Republicans favor? They spied on American citizens, collected email, telephone, text messages, web activity, and every other bit of information they could find by peering into the private thoughts of Americans, recorded it, and refuse to destroy it or turn over this illegally-obtained information to anyone.

They stole our privacy and they don't want to give it back. But most of all, they don't want to be held responsible for their criminal activities - even it if kills us.

I can't believe this is what Americans wanted to vote for in 2000 and 2004.