Time to Throw the Rascals Out 2 Feb, 2008


Surveys have shown that almost two thirds of the American electorate claim "Independent" credentials rather than subscribing to the entrenched Republican or Democratic party preference. Unfortunately these Americans have few choices when it comes to casting their votes.
Many if not most state's primary elections will permit only registered voters from the two major parties to participate, leaving Independent voters little choice but to stay home or hold their noses and vote for the lesser of two evils.
This would explain why there are so few Independents in both Houses of Congress. Independent candidates have been effectively locked out by a sufficiently unfair nomination process.

The (Independent) voter has little representation in Congress, while the major party's entrenched members pander to the select few, the one third of the electorate that consider themselves "true believers."

Both parties have systematically provided for our country's incremental destruction, socially and economically, by abdicating their powers under the Constitution to the President, giving him almost unlimited powers. President Bush and his cronies likes to refer to this power grab as the "Unitary Executive theory.

Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibilities and allowed an out of control Executive to run up huge deficits, declare war, commit war crimes and most of all, hold in contempt, the Constitution of the United States. Both parties have given this president almost unlimited power in contravention Article I, Section 8 and Article II, Presidential powers of the US Constitution.

It will be of little consequence as to which party's candidate is elected to the presidency, as it will be business as usual if the same Congress is returned.
The Founding Fathers were adamant in their conviction, that an Executive, unrestrained by Congress, would simply replicate another monarch.

What the founders did not take into consideration is that the Congress could just as easily become as corrupt as any monarch as they have demonstrated today.
They simply did not comprehend the penchant for corruption of 20th century members of Congress or the Executive. To arrogate their delegated and enumerated powers to the President, as the last twenty or thirty Congress' have done was simply unimaginable, not to mention a serious violation of the oath of office and other numerous impeachable offenses.

An important new report by the libertarian Cato Institute (http://www.cato.org/) "Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush" is an unblinking 28-page analysis of our slow devolution into autocracy. Its message can be summed up with this quote:
"Under (the president's) sweeping theory of executive power, the liberty of every American rests on nothing more than the grace of the White House."

The real ringleaders however, are the entrenched members of the Congressional leadership. They have mastered the art of behind the scenes manipulation of the public, the rank and file membership, and the executive branch. They have made sure that the President can serve only two terms while they enjoy unrestricted tenure in their respective houses. They control the President's budget and the Pentagon's.
The Congress has become the ultimate king maker with the complicity of both party's leadership. In short, the President serves at their pleasure and not the other way around.
When there is Congressional overreach, as in the Iraq "Authorization to Use Force" debacle, it is disguised as the Commander and Chief's misguided handling of the continuing "War Against Terror." When Congress gives up their power to declare War on the word of known liars like Ahmed Chalabi, a traitor to his own country. Allows the president to do as he pleases in violation of the Nuremberg Crime of Agression ruling, attacking a sovereign country, and then blames the executive for the war, now that's skillful, Congressional manipulation.

The Congress, if it had a mind to, could in fact bring the Pentagon and even the Presidential cabal of Cheney, et.al. and the Likud party's illegal influence on our government to rapid halt. The whole bunch and their fantasyland ambitions of democratizing (conquering) the entire Middle East.

But the Congress will not because the half baked scheme to dominate the world and concurrently transform the United States into the world's largest Banana Republic I fear, most likely originated in some House and/or Senate cloak room and not in the Oval Office.