Conyers Illuminates Bush Hypocrisy

Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) writes in his blog:

“The significance of improper intervention in the Schiavo case goes beyond the narrow facts of the case and concerns about federalism and separation of powers (as important as they are). With Schiavo, the entire nation was exposed to the win at all costs mentality of the Republican Party, and the fact that their deeds do not match their rhetoric:

– You can’t talk about being pro-life, when your decimating Medicaid, when you are preventing life-saving stem cell research, when you allow guns to flow freely to terrorists, when your abortion laws actually threaten women’s health and lives, and when more than 1,500 American soldiers and countless innocent civilians have died in Iraq as a result of a misguided war.

– You can’t say your pro-democracy when you ignore not only repressive regimes abroad, but tolerate and encourage torture, and disparage voting rights in our own nation.

– You can’t talk about saving Social Security, when your privatization plan would bankrupt the program.

– You can’t say your pro-family, when your bankruptcy bill would put credit card companies ahead of families, and your labor policy harms working families by denying overtime and any increase in the minimum wage.

– You can’t say your the party of fiscal solvency, when we began the Bush presidency with a more than 200 billion/year surplus, and our deficit is now some 420 billion per year and counting (and the voters now realize all that red ink can’t be explained away by 9/11)

– You can’t come up with Orwellian names like “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests” bills when the policies in those bills sell out to the polluters and you’re gutting the EPA’s budget.

– You also can’t champion a bill known as “No Child Left Behind” (which was actually stolen) when you won’t even keep your promise to fund the program.

– You certainly can’t support bills like the “Patriot Act,” which so unpatriotically allow sneak and peek searches and snooping on people’s library records.

– You can’t claim to court immigrants with your policies, when your proposals would gut asylum protections, take away habeas corpus rights, and allow deporations for donating to groups you had no idea were associated with terrorists.

– You can’t claim to be anti-crime, when the crime rate is going up, and funding for local law enforcement and local cop on the beat program is in a free fall.

– You can’t claim to support the rule of law, when you change the redistricting rules to suit your whims and political needs, and are considering going “nuclear” on the Senate fillibuster rules.

The list goes on and on.

The long and short of it is that the Republican Party has sold our nation a bill of goods, and it is only now that people are realizing the promises don’t simply add up. I thought that most Americans would have realized this after 4 years of Bush, but now I realize it may take 6 years. That is why I now believe that the ‘06 midterms are so important, and I am going to devote myself to helping take back the House for the Democrats.”

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You can’t claim to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and then proceed to dismantle it piece by piece either, but that’s exactly what’s being done.

Indeed the list does go on and on, but how many people are going to remember all of this when it comes time to go to the polls next time? And even if they do, will their votes be counted? I’m happy to say that Conyers is one of the few in Congress that is working with the Velvet Revolution to see that those votes WILL be counted. Assuming, of course, that we aren’t under Martial Law by then. Heh.

At the rate things are going now, though, it looks like a Republican implosion is in progress. *grabs the popcorn*