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COMMENTARY
Censure
Is Only A Start
Commentary
by Bonnie McFadden, Makawao resident
Senator Russ Feingold announced on March 12, 2006 that he intends
to request the U.S. Senate vote to censure President George W.
Bush for violating our criminal laws against electronic surveillance.
I hope that Senators Akaka and Inouye will join Feingold and vote
for censure. But censure is nowhere near enough.
This Republican administration has repeatedly flaunted the clear
mandates of our Constitution and criminal codes, claiming that,
as commander in chief, President Bush has the authority to ignore
our laws. This is nonsense.
The founding fathers of our country knew all too well the dangers
of imperious rulers. That’s why they fought a revolution
to free our people from the imperial caprices of the British king.
They outlawed searches without warrant – such as those the
Bush administration has admitted to conducting – because
they themselves had been the victims of such searches by King
George.
Our founders required that no one could be arrested without being
brought before a neutral magistrate and told the charges against
them. This decision stemmed from the fact that some of our founders
themselves had been arrested without charges and shipped off to
England without having the opportunity to prove their innocence.
Bush’s “extraordinary rendition” is not a new
invention. American colonists were also abducted and sent off
to Britain to be tortured, jailed and executed.
Bush has arrested thousands without charges and shipped them off
to GITMO and other private jails, without allowing them to test
the evidence against them. While so imprisoned, he had them tortured.
Our forefathers outlawed cruel and unusual punishment in our Constitution.
Bush has inflicted cruel and unusual torture upon prisoners without
giving them even the benefit of a constitutionally required trial.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claims that the GITMO prisoners’
complaints about being tortured are fabrications, but he cannot
so easily dismiss the complaints of FBI agents who wrote horrific
reports about witnessing torture at GITMO. Such FBI reports can
be read on the Internet at www.aclu.com.
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, one of
those responsible for appointing George W. Bush to office in 2000,
just gave a speech at Georgetown University in which she expressed
concern that the Bush administration is turning our democracy
into a dictatorship. Justice O’Connor is no flaming liberal.
She was always a staunch Republican and cast one of the five votes
that put Bush into office.
George W. Bush and his neo-conservative advisors are turning our
democracy into a dictatorship, while destroying our military and
allowing their super-rich friends to loot our economy, as well
as Iraq’s.
We must demand that our Congressional Representatives have the
guts to actively resist Bush’s dictatorship by not only
censuring him, but by refusing to approve funding for his illegal
acts.
We must stop our tax dollars from paying for illegal surveillance,
for illegal imprisonment and torture, for illegal attacks upon
other countries, as is planned for Syria and Iran.
The Bush administration’s push to “privatize”
our military has raised war profiteering to a high art. As the
recent Custer-Battles civil court case revealed, American taxpayers
were being systematically swindled by these war profiteers. Bush
administration cronies, have used their Republican connections
to get millions, if not billions, in no-bid contracts then didn’t
even provide the required services.
And why did it take a few private citizens to sue them to expose
their corruption? Bush’s attorney general apparently was
not interested in prosecuting Republican campaign donors for stealing
taxpayers’ money.
Our Representatives must stop the Bush administration’s
use of expensive private companies to do the jobs our military
can do better and cheaper.
Before Rumsfeld’s “privatization” of many military
functions, our soldiers were better housed and better fed. When
soldiers were cooking for their fellow soldiers, they never allowed
cockroaches and mouse droppings to get in the food. Since Halliburton
has been preparing the food, vermin in it is common. Halliburton
could not care less what our soldiers eat as long as they make
their profits.
The Bush administration is thoroughly corrupt and needs to be
removed. Censure is only a start. But we cannot succeed in removing
these crooks without electing a Democratic majority to the U.S.
House and Senate next November. That will be the critical first
step to ending the dictatorship and restoring our Constitutional
government.
Bonnie McFadden is a former deputy public defender, law professor
from both the University of New Guinea and the University of Hawai}i,
and director of the Cambodia Defenders Project in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia. She currently resides and practices law on Maui and
is a core member of Maui Peace Action.
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2:00 every Thursday afternoon on KAOI 1110 AM
Maui County DBEs Urged to Compete
The Maui County
Office of Economic Development and the State of Hawai`i Department
of Transportation (HDOT) Airports Division are seeking companies
on Maui, Moloka‘i, and Lana‘i that qualify as Disadvantaged
Business Enterprises (DBE) to compete for concession contract to
operate and maintain a Retail Concession at Kahului Airport for
a period of five (5) years.
A DBE is a for-profit, small business concern that is at least 51
percent owned by one or more socially and economically disadvantaged
individuals. Or, in the case of a corporation, a firm in which 51
percent of the stock is owned by – and whose management and
daily operations are controlled by – one or more socially
and economically disadvantaged individuals.
Socially and economically disadvantaged individuals are defined
as any citizen or lawfully admitted permanent resident of the United
States who 1) HDOT finds to be socially and economically disadvantaged;
and, 2) are members of groups that are, arguably, presumed to be
socially and economically disadvantaged: Black Americans; Hispanic
Americans; Native Americans including American Indians, Eskimos,
and Aleuts and Native Hawaiians; Asian Pacific American; Subcontinent
Asian Americans; women; and, and other group designated socially
and economically disadvantaged by the Small Business Administration.
DBEs interested in competing for this concession contract are asked
to call Maui Economic Development Coordinator Lynn Araki Regan at
(808) 270-7710 to obtain the necessary paperwork. Tenders by sealed
bids must be received by the Director of Transportation, c/o Airports
Division, Head-Property Management Staff, Department of Transportation,
Honolulu International Airport, Inter-Island Terminal Building,
400 Rodgers Boulevard, Suite 700, Honolulu, HI 96819-1880, up to
2 p.m. on May 11, 2006.
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