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Tuesday, 06 June 2006 13:06 |
| Bill Walz
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I??m glad to see that the polls show that the American people have had enough of the continuing deceptions of the Bush administration and the Republican Party.
These ideological holdovers from the Nixon administration seemingly didn??t learn anything from the last time they were caught, tarred and feathered and run out of town.
Not
one to give up, however, George Bush wants us to trust that, after
taking us to war on lies, his pronouncements on the war??s progress,
which keep turning out to not be true, are this time, truthful.
Frighteningly, he continues clinging to wanting us to trust that his
argument that prisoners in the ?®War on Terror?∆ are neither ?®prisoners
of war,?∆ nor civilian criminals, making it OK to violate international
treaties and U.S. law, and we shouldn??t be concerned that this won??t
come back to harm us.
He wants
us to trust that violating a keystone tenet of our law, habeas corpus,
is necessary, and that this constitutional evisceration will never be
turned against anyone who isn??t one of the ?®bad guys.?∆ He wants to use,
as Nixon and Joseph McCarthy did, national security as an all-purpose
blank check and smokescreen as he hunts down ?®enemies?∆ and
?®terrorists,?∆ but without ever clearly defining just what the criteria
are for ?®enemies?∆ and ?®terrorists.?∆
Lately,
we have George Bush telling us to trust him that sending thousands of
National Guard troops to the Mexican border is not militarizing the
border. He also wants us to trust that tracking hundreds of millions of
Americans?? phone calls is not a threat to privacy or liberty. Sorry,
I??m having a hard time here.
Then
there are Republicans wanting us to trust them when they accuse
Democrats of waging ?®class warfare?∆ any time the Democrats resist
Republican attempts to recklessly bankrupt America through tax breaks
and federal outlays to corporations and the rich. They even want to be
trusted that it is they who have the people??s interests in mind while
they shuttle their careers back and forth between high-paid corporate,
government and lobbyist positions. Again, uh-uh.
And now
we have another mind-twisting revelation. The Washington Post reported
on May 16 that the oxymoronic Bush Environmental Protection Agency has
flouted the laws set for regulating emissions from coal-fired power
plants with logic that should cause a con man or a master propagandist
to smile.
The EPA has
embraced a ruling, from the 4th Circuit Court in Richmond, Va., in a
suit brought by Environmental Defense, that there is not an increase in
emissions when Duke Power plants increase their number of hours of
operation, causing more emissions. The ruling says it is an emissions
increase only if the plants increase their emissions per hour.
It is
factual that the total emissions from the plants have indeed increased
and the law is clear that this cannot occur without taking remedial
actions, but the 4th Circuit magically found that there has been no
emissions increase, and so no remedial actions are necessary.
First, it
must be understood that the 4th Circuit has no jurisdiction, all EPA
cases, by Congressional order, being assigned to the D.C. Circuit
Court. Yet, having no jurisdiction, these, conservative ?®don??t
legislate from the bench?∆ judges created entirely new rules governing
coal-fired emissions that contradict existing legislation.
In other
words, the Bush EPA is using an unlawful ruling by a federal circuit
court that does not have jurisdiction to rewrite legislation so that
its friends in the energy business can break the existing law. The
audacity leaves one breathless, doesn??t it?
Oh, by
the way, on May 27, the Republican Senate confirmed former White House
aide Brett Kavenaugh to the D.C. Circuit Court, so such machinations to
put profit over environment won??t have to be quite so bald-faced
anymore. I??m sure the energy industry is pleased. Are the American
people about to have had enough of these Republican deceits and bring
out the tar and feathers again? We??ll see this November.
?ÿ
Bill Walz is a
UNCA adjunct faculty member and a private-practice teacher of
mindfulness, personal growth and consciousness. Walz may be contacted
at billwalz-at-worldnet.att.net or (828) 258-3241.
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