Democrats Fiddling As The World Burns (published today!)

http://www.alternet.org/story/27639/

Democrats Fiddling as the World Burns
By Jan Frel, AlterNet
Posted on November 1, 2005, Printed on November 1, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/27639/

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George Bush's White House has been served with an indictment on five counts against the chief of staff to the Vice President. Tom DeLay's trial is under way. And Bill Frist is the subject of a formal investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for selling off his family's stock.

And there are more investigations against Republicans lurking just below the surface. Powerful House member Bob Ney is wrapped up tightly with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff; Congressman Randy Cunningham is in bed with a defense contractor; House Republican Richard Pombo, who chairs the House Resources Committee, has gone on travel junkets paid for by a shady private foundation.

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Each crime is a fitting symbol of each Republican's particular brand of political criminality: George Bush's team got busted in a smear attempt against an Iraq war opponent -- but the entire case for war was a crime if there ever were one. DeLay's case is about him funneling corporate money to political causes to scorch Texas' political landscape with R's in every district -- but he's done nothing but funnel money from corporations for pork and political advantage every year he's been in Congress. Richard Pombo was found to have taken money from a group funded by whalers, mink farmers and veal barons -- poetic justice for a guy who has tried to sell off our national parks to mining and lumber interests. And so on.

It's time for the Democrats to seize the political advantage, right? Every single political branch in D.C. is on fire. The world is also on fire, or drowning: the American public has clear, massive majority positions on Iraq, Katrina, our $8 trillion national debt, world poverty, $3 gallon gas and rapid climate change. Yet what we've gotten so far from the Democratic leadership is meaningless sloganeering.

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