This Will Knock Your Socks Off!

I was just reading through some articles on Clinton and Banking Regulation (yeah I know, get a life..) when I came across this gem entitled “Clinton’s Post-Impeachment Push for Power” in the Phyllis Schlafly Report: http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1999/mar99/psrmar99.html In this 1999 article, the Republican poster girl (don’t call her a woman, she hates feminists!) villifies Clinton for wanting to intervene with the UN in Kosovo. If you read this article and subsitute Bush for Clinton (unfortunately we have) and Iraq for Kosovo (except, this time, against the UNs wishes) you will be truly amazed at how every single thing they said was so horrible about Clinton is being done by Bush right now! What’s funny is the things they never never let Clinton do. Not ha ha funny, but tragic funny, like the way that Republican attack dogs were so concerned with bringing down the President that they let national security go out the window! They said Clinton was using Kosovo to distract from his problems (Lewinsky, Whitewater). Clinton didn’t have domestic issues as the economy was going gangbusters, we were running a budget surplus and making great economic and environmental progress so personal issues were all they had. Clinton was accused of having “no clear-cut military goals” and that “there is no hope that our involvement can eliminate the causes of the conflict, and there are even questions about who is at fault in the civil war. Clinton’s Kosovo war will, like Bosnia (where we still have 6,900 U.S. troops), become a permanent, no-exit, costly U.S. project.” Sound like any wars we know? Except we have 138,000 troops in Iraq in a permanant, no-exit, costly U.S. project! I love this point they make: “Second, by putting U.S. troops in Kosovo, Clinton is provoking terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals connected to Saudi renegade Osama bin Laden, who has declared a worldwide war on Americans. Fanatics bent on jihad against the “Great Satan” United States could hardly ask for a more tempting target than Americans deployed close to terrorist bases in northern Albania.” Clinton wasn’t ignoring Bin Laden, he was going after him. Also, in hindsight, it looks like there was a more tempting target after all, and Bush led us to that promised land. The article derides Clinton for predicting on Jan 22 (of 1999) “that it is “highly likely” that a terrorist group will attack on American soil within the next few years.” The Eagle Forum rallied Republicans to stop Clinton from “using this risk as the excuse to create a Domestic Terrorism Team headed by a military “commander in chief,” with a $2.8 billion budget” – and they did stop it in Congress! Furthermore, as soon as they got Clinton and Gore out of office Republicans made damn sure the Bush transition team ignored all that terrorist nonsense. http://www.pjw.info/dianereport.html Clinton’s Defense Secretary, William Cohen warned that “Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive means of protection.” This was 1999 folks! Clinton had already gone on the offensive against Bin Laden in August of 1998 when he ordered a strike against his terrorist training camp in Afghanistan: http://www.cnsnews.com/InDepth/archive/199808/IND19980820o.html The Republicans used the memory of Waco in 1993 and a boarder incident in 1997 as reasons Clinton should not have the power to hunt domestic terrorists. You almost have to laugh at the way they complain about spending $2Bn a year on Kosovo, about the cost of a week in Iraq! And who stood up to Bill Clinton in Congress, saying the US had no business intervening in a foreign civil war? Why it was Senator John Ashcroft (who lost his reelection bid to a dead guy but was made Bush’s AG ), who opposed ratification of the NATO Expansion Treaty. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/07/senate.missouri/ I do agree with Schlafly’s assertion on one point: “If Republicans allow Clinton to go ahead with his unconstitutional, costly, foolish and dangerous expedition to Kosovo, where we have no national security interest, they are forfeiting any claim to lead America.” We just need to substitute Bush for Clinton and Iraq for Kosovo… As we are now well aware, the terrorism threat was closely monitored by the Clinton White House despite Republican objections and remained their top priority even after the Supreme Court decided to make George Bush President: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0320-07.htm There is an extensive report by Time magaine on the subject as well: http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020812/story.html Now, as I said, I wasn’t looking for this originally but the hypocricy is just so astounding that I felt it had to be brought to your attention – please bring it to the attention of others as well as this is just a humble blog and I think this issue needs to be discussed by millions! What I was looking for was something on Clinton’s dealings with S&L regulations but what I found here, below the article we just discussed, was also interesting – Clinton wanted to monitor “unusual” bank activity in order to catch possible terrorist financing activities and the Republicans didn’t like that one bit! Schlafly equates Clinton’s wishes to have banks report “inconsistent” transactions (like $300,000 being wired to unemployed Saudi Nationals living in Florida so they can have flight training) as the creation of a Federal Gestapo. Pretty harsh words from the party that gave us wiretapping on every phone! So the Republicans circled the wagons to stop Clinton’s people from doing far, far less than the Bush administration is now doing: “Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) has introduced the American Financial Institutions Privacy Act to block implementation of the Know Your Customer regulations. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has introduced the Financial Privacy Protection Package to do likewise, and to sunset the Bank Secrecy Act that has encouraged such overreaching regulations.” Thanks boys, Osama couldn’t have funneled all that money in without you! As the Eagle Forum tells us “The threat of terrorism is another Clinton excuse for anti-privacy regulations.” She goes on to rant: “Hitler and Stalin gave us the model of how tyranny takes over and maintains itself. Pass so many laws that everyone is a potential criminal, and then law enforcement can be arbitrary, selective, and very political.” Wow, say that about our current administration and you’ll be spending the Holidays in Guantanamo Bay! Even in the closing section of this article titled “Power Grab through Executive Order” they are very precient by saying “Bill Clinton has unleashed a blizzard of Executive Orders to grab new powers for the executive branch, make broad public policy changes, and even restructure our governmental system.” If we substitute Bush for Clinton this would all be funny if it weren’t so tragic: “Bill Clinton has almost two more years as President. Congress and the American people must call a halt to his unprecedented and unconstitutional grab for new executive-branch powers through phony “peacekeeping” expeditions, using the Army for domestic law enforcement, monitoring our bank accounts and cell phone whereabouts, building databases of our medical records, and issuing power-grabbing Executive Orders. Our freedom and independence are at stake.” Our freedom an independence are at stake! If you send this article to ten people and they send it to ten people and so on then we can have a national discussion about this next week! Please do your bit for democracy and pass this along! http://philstocks.blogspot.com/2006/08/this-will-knock-your-socks-off.html Thanks, – Phil