George H. W. Bush

Bad News for Farmers in Bush's Last Three Months

davidswanson — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:35:15 -0400

By Linn Cohen-Cole

While the left is watching the election and the war and impeachment issues and global warming issues, they have missed - entirely - the IMMEDIATE threat to their own food supply and to our "real" farmers who are being pushed to the brink on purpose, our only hope for sustainable agriculture.

For some reason, liberals who distrust the government (and not just this one) when it comes to corporations running the energy department or making drug policy for Medicare or using contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater, and sees through lies to who profits, are utterly naive and trusting of the USDA and FDA about food scares.

They see through threats of "domestic terrorism" as ploys to allow us to be spied on as well as to shift massive control over to the government, gutting our constitution, but they jump about food scares just like the right wing jumps about terrorism warnings. The threat of "food born diseases" is being used in exactly the same way.

We should all know something is fishy when regulations are being heavily pushed "for food safety" and corporations want them. And who is pushing them? The very ones responsible for the revolting conditions in feedlots and animal factories and who block inspections. And that includes the USDA which not only won't inspect but will not allow farmers to pay for independent inspection.

So, something is VERY fishy at the outset with the National Animal Identification System - NAIS. I'll explain in moment what it is but "anything" being changed right now before the election, when everyone is distracted, should make us wary. Especially when it is something huge and coming in purely as a regulatory maneuver and not something that has ever been voted on.

Under cover of the election, NAIS, which farmers were told would be voluntary, just got made mandatory.

NAIS is a USDA regulation that would require the registering of ALL property with any farm animals on it with the USDA, and that global tracking tags be inserted under the skin of every farm animal. The data would feed into a corporate data bank from which agribusiness could watch the moves of every farm animal (chicken, duck, guinea, lama, cow ...) in the country and thus the moves of every farmer.

Ever dream of getting a bit of land and a few chickens and disappearing into peace and quiet. Give that up. You will be mandatorily signed on, without wanting to, without agreeing to, a system that will will track you and which will punish you if your chicken accidentally crosses the road and you don't report it within 24 hours. Do that again, and your life is ruined. http://www.opednews.com/articles/NAIS---the-Fourth-Componen-by-Darol-Dic...

It makes NSA-spying look like a walk in the park. There, you don't have to pay for the equipment used to spy on you or maintain it or fear if you accidentally slip out of range or punish you if you don't follow the "rules" with draconian fines that not only would take all you own but destroy your family's generations of livelihood. With NSA-spying, you can pretend you are still free. Not so for farmers.

NAIS is meant to wreck the few farmers we have left and prevent the emergence of sustainable agriculture. A single infraction could do that. And farmers, who care about their independence, who are living on the margin as it is, know how deadly NAIS is.

They filed suit against the USDA this summer. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Legal-Defense-Fund-Files-S-by-Farm-to-C...

"... existing programs for diseases such as tuberculosis, brucellosis and scrapie together with state laws on branding and the existing record keeping by sales barns and livestock shows provide the mechanisms needed for tracking any disease outbreaks.

... the suit charges that USDA has never published rules regarding NAIS, in violation of the Federal Administrative Procedures Act; has never performed an Environmental Impact Statement or an Environmental Assessment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act; is in violation of the Regulatory Flexibility Act that requires the USDA to analyze proposed rules for their impact on small entities and local governments; and violates religious freedoms guaranteed by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

"Other mandatory implementations, which weave NAIS into existing regulatory fabric and programs, have occurred in the States of Wisconsin and Indiana where premises registration has been made mandatory; in drought-stricken North Carolina and Tennessee, where farmers have been required to register their premises in order to obtain hay relief; and in Colorado where state fairs are requiring participants to register their premises under NAIS," explained Judith McGeary, a member of the Farm-to-Consumer Fund board and the executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance.

"We are asking the court to immediately halt implementation of the program nationwide before more farmers and ranchers are strong-armed into participating in a program that the USDA has called voluntary."

McGeary also questioned the accuracy of the existing database noting that an attempt by the USDA to make the information in the NAIS database subject to Privacy Act safeguards thereby removing them from public scrutiny was suspended indefinitely in a ruling last month by the same federal court that will hear arguments in the current suit. That suit had been filed by a journalist seeking access to the database to determine its accuracy."

The lawsuit has not stopped the Bush administration's USDA from shifting to a full mandatory system right before the end of his term. Is that not enough to make us sit up and take notice? Is complete control over all farmland and livestock by corporately run USDA not enough to make the left question they knee-jerk reactions to "food scares"? Or to wonder about how the public is revved up to want more regulations ... which the corporations want, too?

Industrial agriculture gave us Mad Cow disease and its unregulated practices abroad of spreading waste from millions of chickens is linked to Bird Flu and in neither is the USDA pushing for regulating the filth and cruelty. NAIS gives them (through the USDA) control over their competition and the ability to wipe any one of them out in an instant.

The WMD trick is being played again, around food. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Tomatoes-and-Osama-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-0...

If you look at what is happening in California and Pennsylvania right now with fresh milk (straight from the cow) http://www.counterpunch.org/cohen04262008.html, and understand that sustainable agriculture and any true farming community depends on dairies, you'll begin to see the larger picture and the moves being made to eliminate independent (non-corporate) farming just when liberals are expecting, like surprising Pollyannas, for sustainable agriculture to come waltzing in because it is good (and it is) and solve things.

But it can't and won't without real farmers and farm animals. Then who wins? You got it. Industrial agriculture. And that will be the only source for all your food and their profits will be 100% guaranteed.

To get an even fuller picture, look at two more things coming at us. Canadian Bill C-51 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/06/19/vitamin-c-... would criminalize natural substances. While it is certainly meant to destroy alternative health just as we are moving in that direction - having recognized that orthodox medicine has failed to cure cancer or diabetes or heart diseases - the greater threat of the bill, is control over all seeds and the criminalization of private (non-corporate) seed banking.

The corporate drive to control ALL food, animals and water is proceeding rapidly. Indigenous seeds and animals are being eliminated and replaced with genetically engineered seeds and cloned animals (that is, with PRIVATIZED seeds and animals). Yet, there are few liberals even noticing the immense trap being laid and how they and their naive trust in "the benefits of science" and "food safety" are part of helping. The FDA or USDA need only put out a warning on some food and liberals beg the Bush administration for regulations! Monsanto announces its next genetically engineered crop that comes with ramped up fears about starvation in Africa (though the UN just put out a study that organic farming can feed Africa), and liberals are thrilled because "science is so wonderful." Bill Gates announces a giant seed bank under Iceland to hold ALL seeds in the world and liberals are impressed, not noticing Monsanto (and the Rockefellers) lurking in the background, casting a dark shadow over what is really going on there.

So, how do liberals respond to plans in 2009 for a huge centralized "Food Safety Department"? Whew, food will finally be safe? Or do they pause a moment and think about the centralizationg of our spying agencies or of Homeland Security which them immense powers and hands over more and more technology to watch us and control everything? Do they think about who will run such food agency and what it will "really" mean for food? http://www.counterpunch.org/cole02082008.html

We see how fear is used in all other arenas and even laugh at the right wing for not seeing the game they are jerked around by. But meanwhile liberals are being set up to jump on cue at "bacteria" annd to be grateful for government protection.

I keep being reminded of how Germans used fear of germs and racial "hygiene" to get rid of Jews. There is something about the drive for total purity that is killing whereas multiculturalism, biodiversity, or a good healthy mix of bacteria, are about thriving life.

Frank Pitz says that "Bush's use of fear and the big lie stands on the shoulders of Goebels and other fascists" and he is more than right because what is happening to farmers is fully totalitarian.

The left can go back to fighting corruption and war and global warming and poverty, but meanwhile, our country is being taken over - from the seeds to animals - and those who protect us, the farmers, are RIGHT NOW, are being set up to be wiped out ... through a little USDA regulation being slipped in at the very end of Bush's term.

Bush/Cheney and special contracts with Big Oil in Iraq - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!

seandiego — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:32:23 -0400

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE TODAY (7/2/08). THE AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST UNITE TO SHOW THE WORLD WE DID NOT SUPPORT OR APPROVE OF THE INJUSTICES OF THIS ADMINISTRATION AND THE CRIMES IT COMMITTED AGAINST IRAQ, THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD. TO REGAIN OUR STATURE IN THE WORLD, WE MUST CHARGE BUSH AND CHENEY WITH WAR CRIMES BEFORE THE REST OF THE WORLD DOES IT FOR US. CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSPERSONS TODAY!

Opening Iraq's oil fields to Big Oil

By Bob Herbert
THE NEW YORK TIMES

July 2, 2008

It's getting harder and harder to remain deluded. With each day comes new facts to drag our heads out of the sand.

Two weeks ago, The New York Times reported that four Western oil giants were on the verge of signing no-bid contracts that would return them to Iraq, the third-most bountiful petroleum playground on the planet. It was the kind of news that big oil lives for.

Giddy executives singing “Oh Happy Day” could be heard in the corporate offices of Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP, which had been shut out of Iraq for three and a half decades.

We also learned this week that a group of American advisers, led by a team from the State Department, played a key role in drawing up the contracts between the companies and the Iraqi government. Chevron and several smaller oil companies also got contracts.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney, both former oil company executives, have long tried to tell us this war was about terrorism, about weapons of mass destruction, about bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people, about anything but oil.

Said Bush: “We cannot wait for the final proof: the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

He didn't wait. It didn't matter that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the United States. Or that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The troops were sent into battle in early 2003 and there is still, after more than five years and more than 4,000 American deaths, no end to the war in sight.

One of the starkest examples of U.S. priorities came during the eruption of looting that followed the fall of Baghdad. With violence and chaos all about, U.S. troops were ordered to protect one particularly treasured target – the Iraqi Oil Ministry. As David Rieff wrote in The New York Times Magazine in November 2003:

“This decision to protect only the Oil Ministry – not the National Museum, not the National Library, not the Health Ministry – probably did more than anything else to convince Iraqis uneasy with the occupation that the United States was in Iraq only for the oil.”

How convenient that the peculiar perspective of the oil-obsessed Bush administration can now be put to use advising the Iraqi government on its unusual no-bid contracts with big oil.

The contracts themselves are not huge. They are like the keys on a coveted ring that will begin opening the doors to Iraq's vast oil reserves. As the Times reported Monday, “At a time of spiraling oil prices, the no-bid contracts, in a country with some of the world's largest untapped fields and potential for vast profits, are a rare prize to the industry.”

A prize, yes. But at what cost?

In addition to the terrible toll of Americans and Iraqis killed and wounded, the war in Iraq has diverted attention and resources from critical problems here in the United States, where the housing market has been crippled, the stock market has tanked, gasoline has soared past $4 per gallon, unemployment is increasing and an extraordinary number of debt-ridden working families are staring into a financial abyss.

Even as oil companies are enjoying staggering profits, many Americans – in July! – are already worried sick about the potentially ruinous cost of heating their homes next winter.

And then there's the so-called war on terror.

The latest news is that al-Qaeda, the terror network that actually did attack the United States, has successfully regrouped in the tribal areas of Pakistan and has reconstituted its ability to institute terror attacks from the region.

For an administration joined at the hip to the oil industry, the lure of Iraq's enormous reserves was stronger even than the impulse to conquer an enemy that murdered more than 2,700 civilians on Sept. 11, a toll greater than the number of Americans killed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.

Referring to al-Qaeda members who regrouped in Pakistan, the Times reported on Monday:

“Current and former military and intelligence officials said that the war in Iraq consistently diverted resources and high-level attention from the tribal areas. When American military and intelligence officials requested additional Predator drones to survey the tribal areas, they were told no drones were available because they had been sent to Iraq.”

Who knows how long it will be before the United States disengages in any significant way from Iraq. What you can take to the bank is that this country will not make any major advances in energy policy, in health coverage, in rebuilding its infrastructure, in improving its public schools or in curtailing runaway public and private debt until our open-ended commitment to this catastrophic multitrillion-dollar war comes to an end.

How long will it take before that finally sinks in?

Finding Voters 'Bitter and Frustrated,' Obama is Sounding Like Nader

dlindorff — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:55:21 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

I haven’t lived in rural Pennsylvania or in rural Indiana, but I have lived in rural upstate New York, in towns where there are so few Democrats that on some local election ballots, not a single position, from town council to justice of the peace, has a contest. As in China, your option is to vote for the Republican candidate, or to leave that line blank.

And many of the people in these towns, uniformly white, when they talk politics, spend a lot of their time complaining about black people, immigrants (neither of whom can even be found in the vicinity) and the threat to their guns.

Barack Obama is exactly right.

In Hancock, NY and Spencer, NY, there are no factory jobs. There used to be in Hancock, but the companies where hundreds of people used to work have long since folded or moved south of the border, courtesy of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) aggressively promoted and pushed through Congress by Bill and Hillary Clinton during the 1990s. In Spencer, there are no jobs because in the free-for-all bidding by companies for tax giveaways between communities, Spencer had nothing much to offer. The town is so dirt poor that when the library board, of which I was briefly president, got a measure on the ballot to have one extra dollar per taxpayer of school district taxes allocated to support the local little library, which was at that time totally supported by donations, the measure went down to resounding defeat (I was labeled a communist by some for promoting the idea!).

In 1992, neighbors in Spencer told me they were voting for George H. W. Bush—a patrician blue blood if ever there was one—because Bill Clinton, if elected “would take away our guns.”

Of course, he didn’t, and had no intention of doing so, but that didn’t matter.

Don’t get me wrong—the people in Hancock and Spencer are good folks. I'm pretty sure many of them probably give a higher proportion of their meager incomes to charity than do millionaires John McCain and Hillary Clinton. But Obama is right that in their angst and frustration at seeing the good economic times pass them by, at seeing themselves abandoned by the federal government in hard times, and at seeing candidates promise them everything during campaigns, only to ignore them after winning, they are bitter and frustrated.

And they have a right to be, and they should be.

One response to that bitterness and frustration is that they are open to the charlatans in both parties, and especially the Republican Party, who have played on their basest fears. It’s Republicans who have whispered the poison in their ears that their high taxes are because “the Blacks” are getting all that welfare money and are getting all the jobs through “quotas.” It's the Republicans who have warned them about "hoards" of Mexicans coming across the border to steal their jobs. It’s the Republicans who have been warning them that Democrats are going to take their hunting rifles and shotguns away. It’s the Republicans and their Christian fundamentalist front men who have been saying that the Democrats have been causing the nation’s decline by supporting licentiousness and a “gay” agenda. And it's Republicans and Democrats who have been hyping the bogus issue of national defense to keep people from focusing on the deliberate dismantling of the US economy that is underway. (Over years of Republican and Democratic administrations, the tax contribution of US corporations to the national budget has fallen from 50% in 1940 to just 14% today. Between 1996 and 2000, 61% of all corporations and 39% of large corporations paid no taxes at all, and that situation has only gotten worse in the Bush years.)

Anything but the real issue, which is how to provide funds so that the children in places like Spencer and Hancock can get a decent education without bankrupting the local taxpayers, how those communities can get jobs again, so that their children won’t have to move out, how to ensure that everyone in town can have health insurance and access to medical care.

Barack Obama is right. I've seen it in person. The people in rural America are bitter and frustrated, and after years of being played by politicians, they fall victim to the charlatans who tell them it’s all because of “the Blacks,” or the immigrants, or who tell them that their guns are in danger. Or they turn to religions that preach division or apocalypse—a concept that offers the chance of a final, delicious revenge against the rich and the powerful oppressors on Wall Street and in Washington.

Now I don’t know what Obama has in mind to try and turn things around for these good people, but it’s a start that he’s at least talking to them, not down, but honestly.
His talk in response to attacks on his statement about rural residents being “bitter and frustrated” is as good as anything Ralph Nader has said about the power and mendacity of the ruling political elite in America.

As he put it, to wild applause at a rally in Terra Haute, Indiana, explaining the difficulty of appealing to the rural working class voters in Pennsylvania:

“For the last 25 years they’ve seen jobs shift overseas, they’ve seen their economies collapse, they have lost their jobs, they’ve lost their pensions, they’ve lost their health care. And for 25-30 years, Democrats and Republicans have come before then and said we’re gonna make your community better. We’re gonna make it right.
“And nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter, and of course they’re frustrated. You would be too, in fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing has happened across the border in Decatur. (Wild applause) The same thing has happened across the country. Nobody’s looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you.

“And so people end up, they don’t vote on economic issues, because they don’t expect anybody’s gonna help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns—you know are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. You know, they, they take refuge in their faith, and their communities, their families—things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.

“So here’s what’s rich. Sen. Clinton says, `Well I don’t think people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know I think Barack’s being condescending.’ And John McCain says, `Oh how can he say that? How can he say that people are bitter? You know he obviously is out of touch with the…’”
“Out of touch? Out of touch! I mean, John McCain, it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch?”

“Sen. Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt, after taking money from the financial services companies and she says I’m out of touch?

“No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania, I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. (Standing ovation) People are fed up! They’re angry, and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter and they want to see a change in Washington, and that’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America!”

Now who knows whether this is all talk too. Maybe Obama is just one more political charlatan.

What is clear though is that this was a speech that we have not heard from a Democratic politician for decades, and it sure sounded good to hear it.

If Obama sticks to this rhetorical approach in the coming weeks, he will nail this nomination in spite of a concerted attack on him by the corporate media and by the combined forces of the Clintons and McCain.

And if he does win the nomination, and resists the siren calls of the Democratic Party leadership to “move to the middle,” and instead hones this populist message, he will go on to win the presidency.

That’s when the real challenge will come, for an aroused citizenry, in those rural communities and in the larger cities across that nation, to make a President Obama and a Democratic Congress deliver on these words.

For now, they’re pretty powerful words, and just hearing them coming from a Democratic Party frontrunner is an exciting change.
____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. He lived with his family in Spencer, NY from 1986-1992 and has had a home in Hancock, NY since 1984. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Spitzer Bust Provides a Warning Regarding NSA Spying

dlindorff — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:15:53 -0400

I have no sympathy for New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the hot-shot prosecutor of call-girl operations who was hoist on his own petard, as it were. I mean, what a jerk! And aside from the hypocrisy, what a fine message he was sending to his three teenage daughters about the role of women.

Having said that, Spitzer's bust should give pause to those in Congress who are ready to hand President Bush a free pass to continue his six-year campaign of warrantless spying on Americans.

We now know from yesterday's Wall Street Journal article that the spying Bush has been doing through the National Security Agency since early 2001 has included vast computer sweeps of not just internet and phone activity, but also bank and credit card transactions. These are sweeps of ordinary everyday people, with computers looking for odd transactions, or for codewords, or for transactions involving specific targeted organizations or addresses.

What nailed Spitzer, we now learn, was a series of bank transactions he had with the bank account of the Emperor's Club VIP callgirl operation.

Now reportedly, this particular investigation was being conducted by the IRS, which allegedly was investigating the Emperor's Club. Once the IRS discovered it had caught the New York governor in its web, it forwarded the case to the US Attorney General's Office, where it was pursued by the FBI, apparently on the instructions of AG Michael Mukasey. The investigation moved from monitoring the bank to monitoring phones, and Spitzer was captured talking to the Emperor's Club dispatcher. Bingo. Promising Democratic political career ruined.

Now the monitoring of the Emperor's Club was reportedly done with a court-ordered warrant. That's fine.

But this case shows us how people can get caught up by this kind of investigation really quickly.

Now imagine that instead of a call-girl operation, this had been a mosque or an international charity organization, and suppose you were someone who had made a call to ask about making donations to help the victims of the last earthquake in Indonesia? If that mosque, or charity, happened to be on the list of outfits being monitored by the NSA's computers, your call might well have been picked up. Then the focus would shift to your phone and your internet server, and conceivably every communication you made would be watched.

This is the America we now live in. According to the Wall Street Journal, after a wave of national outrage forced the Bush administration to shut down its Total Information Awareness project at the Pentagon, Bush and Cheney simply moved their scheme to subject all telecommunications and bank transactions to computer monitoring over to the NSA.

Since none of this spying activity is subject to court supervision and warrant requirements, we are left having to trust the personnel at the NSA, the so-called Justice Department, and the president and his administration, not to abuse it.

Right. And think of the temptations!

Want to know what the House leadership strategy is regarding renewal of the NSA wiretap authorization? Want to know whether the Congress is serious about imposing a time limit on troops in Iraq? Just start monitoring their emails and phones.

Want to make sure Democratic members of Congress go along with a war on Iran? Just monitor their phones and emails and catch them in conversations that are suitable for a little blackmail.

Is this kind of thing happening? Well, I keep marvelling at the cowardly behavior of leading members of Congress like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Chair John Conyers. Maybe something is being held over their heads.

We know that the prosecution and conviction of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was an administration hit on a popular Democratic official. Siegelman is now in jail. Ditto Wisconsin state employee Georgia Thompson. These blatant political prosecutions certainly weigh on the minds of all Democratic elected officials.

Who, after all, is safe in this kind of environment, where the Bill of Rights has been set aside?

Spitzer, who no doubt made use of phone taps himself in his day, and who was ruthless as New York's attorney general in bringing down many of his own targets, may well deserve what he is getting. But the way he was ensnared, via the secret monitoring of a bank's activity, and via phone taps, should put us all on guard.

With that kind of power, unchecked in the hands of an intensely political administration, it's almost a certainty that it is being used and used inappropriately for political ends.
____________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Crime of the Century: Time for Congress to Stand Up

dlindorff — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:38:48 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

Who’s minding the store in Washington?

While President George W. Bush was standing before the members of Congress on January 28 laying out his plans, such as they are, for the final year of his second term in the White House, he was also seriously and perhaps fatally undermining the authority of Congress with a new signing statement, attached to the latest National Defense Authorization Act, in which he declared that he would simply violate or fail to comply with four provisions.

Let me say that again. The president states in writing that he is not going to obey and will not be bound by four parts of a law duly passed by the Congress.

Just so you know that we’re not talking about the naming of a bridge or a new ship, the four provisions of the act which the president is going to ignore are:

* the establishment of a commission to investigate contractor fraud in Afghanistan and Iraq
* the protection or whistleblowers who report contractor fraud from harassment or official retribution
* a requirement that US intelligence agencies respond to Congressional requests for documents
* a ban on funding for any permanent military bases in Iraq, and on any actions that would seek to give the US control over Iraq’s oil resources or oil money.

Now first of all, let’s see what the constitution has to say. Article I, the first actual statement about how our government works, which comes right after the preamble about “We the People,” states unambiguously:

“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”

It goes on to state that:

“Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration by two thirds of that House shall agree to apss the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law…If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it.”

Note that there is no asterisk or footnote saying anything about the president having the power to simply ignore those legislative powers or to violate them at will. If he does not veto the entire bill—and in this case he did not, he signed it—it becomes the Law of the Land.

Article I also defines the powers of the Congress expansively, stating that it has the power to lay and collect taxes, to regulate commerce, to coin money, to declare war, ro call forth the militia, and

“to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

Article II goes on to define the powers of the president. It states:

“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

It goes on to explicitly define and limit the president’s powers, specifically to being “commander in chief” of the armed forces (not of the country or of the government!), to the granting of reprieves and pardons (except in the case of impeachments), to making treaties (subject to Senate approval) and appointing officers to the cabinet and the courts (all subject to Senate approval).

That is it. There are no other presidential powers in the Constitution. Certainly there is no power granted to disobey or ignore Acts of Congress or to violate the law.

And yet here we have the president, at the start of his last year in office, announcing that he will not obey a law duly passed by the Congress that requires his administration to establish a commission to investigate the rampant corruption among private contractors operating in Afghanistan and Iraq, that he will not obey a law barring him from punishing whistleblowers who disclose such corruption, that he will not obey an order that his intelligence services must respond to requests from Congress for information (about such issues as torture of captives, or spying on American citizens, or destroying documents), and that he will not obey an order banning the establishment and construction of permanent military bases in Iraq, and banning attempts to gain US control over Iraqi oil.

Logically one would expect members of Congress in both parties to be up in arms over this illegal and clearly unconstitutional defiance—the more so because both houses of Congress are in the hands of the Democratic Party.

But we have heard not a peep from the “people’s representatives” at this brazen abuse of power.

The reason: Congress is afraid of impeachment.

It is so afraid to confront this usurper president that, incredibly, its members, Republican and Democrat alike, seem happy to surrender not only their own power, but the power of the institution of Congress, to avoid doing what the Constitution calls upon them to do: to impeach a criminal in the White House who has abused his powers of office, who has violated his oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution, and who has broken the law multiple times.

This is an appalling abrogation of responsibility on the part of our elected representatives in Washington, who also took oaths of office committing themselves to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution.

How can these hundreds of cowards and traitors in the Capitol, with straight faces, hold hand to heart and pledge allegiance, as they do at the start of every day in Congress? How can they with straight faces go before their constituents and pose as honorable men and women?

The Constitution is clear. It states that:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Please observe that the word is shall, not may.

Now although the evidence is overwhelming, one can nonetheless debate whether the president broke the law when he went to war in Iraq or whether he knowingly lied about the reasons for that war. One can debate whether he broke the law by personally authorizing torture of captives. One can even debate whether he broke the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These are matters that require hearings in the House Judiciary Committee. But there is no need to hold hearings to decide whether the president has abused his power by declaring his intention to ignore laws passed by the Congress. This is an objective fact. A High Crime has been committed and openly confessed to by the President of the United States. Congress has only to vote on it as an impeachable act to restore its Constitutional authority, and to restore the damaged Constitution.

There is no question here of “diverting” Congress from its important duties. This need not be time-consuming business. Moreover, defending its authority from a usurper is surely the most important thing Congress can do. Neither is there any question of this being “divisive.” Every member of Congress should want to protect the Constitutional authority of the legislative branch from this fatal encroachment which, if unchallenged, renders Congress nothing but a talk shop no better than the local diner. Nor can there be any question about whether the votes are there or not, either to vote for an Article of Impeachment, or even to convict in the Senate. What member of Congress, of either party, would vote to approve and to sanction in perpetuity this or any president’s right to ignore the Constitution and willfully violate laws passed by the Congress—particularly given the likelihood that the next president could be a Democrat?

Here then, is an issue that Congress cannot ignore. Here is an issue that renders ludicrous House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assertion that “impeachment is off the table.” Here is an issue that should inflame every American citizen. Here is an issue that should be put to every candidate for office, including those running for the office of president:

Is President Bush, and is every future president, a dictator, who personally determines what laws are to be obeyed and what laws are to be ignored? Or is the president bound, like the rest of us, by the rule of law and the Constitution?

The choice is now squarely before us all.
_____________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net where you may also order a signed hardcover copy of the impeachment book at an author's discount.

Congressman Nadler on Impeacment or My Search for the Fountain of Youth

theBlueHighwayman — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:51:32 -0500

Dispatch from New York City - 4:00P EST

This is a recording of a quote from Congressman Nadler made at the NOW meeting Sunday Jan 13, 2008 in the Gramercy Park National Arts Club. Unfortunately his words are rhetoric, nothing more, just meant to terrify us into voting for the Democratic Party in November. He does Hillary, whom he supports, no favors by using this tactic because it makes one wonder why a Congressman, who has sat on the Judiciary Committee in the House since January with the Democrats in control, has not started the Impeachment of Bush and Cheney. (Click on the word Transcript to hear the audio, sorry if it doesn't work I'm still learning)

Transcript of remarks: This is not very clear but it is as good as I can get it.

Nadler:

“The Constitution, they’ve shredded it. I never thought that in my wildest dreams from the time I started to work on politics that I would one day introduce a bill called the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act” (Laughter)

Garble (Something about the Magna Carta)

“We have a President with claims of power that include jailing anyone in this room because you’re an enemy combatant because I say so
And because I say so we’re going to throw you in jail forever
With no hearing, no appearance before a judge, no due process, no evidence, no nothing of any kind.”

End

He went on spouting so much hot air I was wondering why he didn’t float up to the ceiling but he must have been tethered to his chair. This is what happens when a Congressman is so comfortable about reelection that he considers himself invulnerable to any opposition. He may be right as no one in his District is running against our favorite ‘Liberal’.

I caught up with the Congressman at the cheese table and it was indeed admirable to see him resisting temptation to gorge on the snacks so close at hand. (I truly do admire it and wish I could have been so in control!) The following is a recording of my conversation with the Representative Nadler. He was on the verge of sprinting out of the Arts Club on hearing my first question and I had to rapid fire questions just to slow him a bit. I admit to having very little patience when asking about Impeachment these days being so disgusted with the frightened Democratic Majority in Congress. So I tried to appeal to his patriotic side in doing so we got hung on the technical issue of needing a simple majority to Impeach but not needing a majority to start an Impeachment. Congressman Nadler knew full well the difference but was most likely amused at my mistake. (Click on the word Transcript to hear the audio, sorry if it doesn't work I'm still learning)

Transcript of Conversation:

BlueHighwayman: When does the Constitution become more important than reelection?

Nadler: That’s not the question

Bluehighwayman: If he (Bush) is shredding the Constitution why isn’t he impeached?

Nadler: Because we don’t have the power to do it. To be blunt we don’t have the power to do it.

BlueHighwayman: You don’t need a super majority to impeach.

Nadler: First of all you couldn’t get a simple majority.

Here we banter back and forth about the simple majority to impeach required by the Constitution. My mistake but he knew I meant to start an Impeachment which after three tries I finally correct. Stupid me!

BlueHighwayman: Does the Constitution say you have to have a majority to Impeach?

Nadler: Sure

BlueHighwayman: Does it?

Nadler: Yes

BlueHighwayman: Really?

Nadler: Yes (With Emphasis Added) You have to impeach

BlueHighwayman: No I mean to start a case

Nadler: To start it no, To start it no, There’s no point starting it if you can’t finish it

BlueHighwayman: Didn’t you take an oath to defend the Constitution?

Nadler: Yeah, and it’s up to me the best way of doing that. I think I’m going over here (some word)

End

I was not surprised at any of his responses and admit I cut him off several times. It’s just that we’ve been hearing these lame excuses a million times by now. I’m feeling like Ponce de Leon searching for the ‘Fountain of Youth’ even though everyone says it doesn’t exist when asking about impeachment.

Politicians like Congressman Nadler will be shouting all over the country this year of the extreme violations of the Constitution by Bush and Cheney. They will claim since the Democratic Congress came into office there has been accountability. We will hear of the screaming need for a bigger Democratic Majority in Congress and a Democratic President to stop these outrageous violations of our freedoms and, to use Rep. Nadler’s parlance, the ‘shredding of the Constitution’. There are those in Congress that do care but I’m sad to say it is a pitifully small number like Congressman Wexler and Congressman Kucinich who still have some of the backbone of our Founding Fathers. In the end though the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq have more courage in their little toes because they put their lives on the line everyday thinking the Constitution actually matters.

I, like most people on this site, will likely vote Democratic this year not out of the pride we take in what the Democratic Congress has done but because there is no other feasible choice. It is too bad the Democratic Party chose not to make 2007 a historic year by Impeaching both Bush and Cheney for their crimes! Together with the historic campaigns of Senator Clinton and Senator Obama people would've look back to this time and said,

“The Democratic Party had the courage to restore the Constitution and make America truly the land our Fore Fathers dreamed of when they laid the foundation of this nation.”

I guess one out of two isn't that bad at least to some people!

Hey Iowa, Only One Candidate Links Education with War Spending...

Heather Wokusch — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 02:42:08 -0500

“If we cut the Pentagon budget 15%, $75 billion will go into a universal pre-kindergarten program so our children ages 3, 4 and 5 will have access to full-time day care and more money would go into elementary and secondary education. Our college-age students need to know that with a Kucinich administration they're guaranteed a two- or four-year college, tuition free, and it'll be paid for by the government investing in our young people. That's the kind of approach I'll take to education.” - Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Oct 30, 2007, Democratic debate at Drexel University

In a Gallup poll released on December 10 2007, Education scored a respectable #12 for the issues determining Americans’ choice of president in 2008. Education even scored above Terrorism, Environmental Issues, Employment Issues and World Peace.

So it’s no wonder that Democratic presidential candidates have aggressively criticized No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the Bush administration’s disastrous excuse for an education policy.

Obama said the law was “demoralizing our teachers” and Clinton promised to “do everything I can as senator, but if we don’t get it done, then as president, to end the unfunded mandate known as No Child Left Behind.” Of the law’s emphasis on standardized testing, Edwards told Iowans, "You don’t make a hog fatter by weighing it.” But only one presidential candidate has connected the dots from Baghdad to our nation’s classrooms: Dennis Kucinich. In calling for 15% of the Pentagon’s budget to fund education instead, Kucinich stands alone in promising books, not Army boots, to the nation’s youth.

Doing the math on Bush’s education disaster is easy. Opinions may differ about the merits of NCLB, but on one point there is little disagreement - it hasn’t been funded properly.

Soon after signing NCLB into law in early January 2002, Bush released his 2003 education budget which not only cut 40 educational programs but also came up short on funding his own program.

As of 2004, Bush had allocated NCLB $27 billion less than Congress authorized, with programs for disadvantaged students underfunded by a full $7.2 billion. Things just got worse from there.

For FY 2005, Bush’s budget underfunded NCLB by $9.4 billion, and other crucial partner programs were cut altogether. Among those on the 2005 chopping block: Even Start (reading program for poor families), Javits Gifted and Talented Program (for gifted students who are minorities, disabled or who speak limited English), Dropout Prevention, Foreign Language Assistance, and Arts in Education. All in all, the Bush administration’s 2005 budget proposed cutting $1.4 billion from the education budget and axing 38 federal education programs.

Bush’s proposed FY 2006 budget was even more extreme, underfunding NCLB by a full $12 billion, or roughly 33% of its authorized amount. Also slashed were programs for disadvantaged students and those with special needs.

The FY 2007 proposed budget similarly underfunded NCLB by over $15 billion and eliminated numerous critical educational programs.

Factoring in the $14.8 billion underfunding slated for 2008 in Bush’s budget request, NCLB is left with a cumulative funding gap of $70.9 billion.

How can schools be held accountable for failing to reach NCLB goals if the federal government isn’t held accountable for meeting its funding promises?

Meanwhile, the states have faced a one-two budgetary punch as the weak economy has driven down tax revenues yet simultaneously increased demand for social services. All of this has led to across-the-board cuts in education, combined with increased pressure to shell out money on standardized tests.

Doesn’t help that the costs for war have simultaneously skyrocketed. Just last week, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) estimated that the US presence in Iraq was costing almost $15 billion per month. 15 billion dollars per month.

Connecting the dots here is simple, but most Democratic candidates are avoiding the elephant in the classroom. They criticize NCLB and promise more educational funding but don’t say where that money will come from.

Voters know better. In the December 2007 Gallup poll, respondents listed the War in Iraq as the most important issue determining Americans’ choice of president in 2008. It’s worth noting that Kucinich is the only Democratic Presidential candidate who voted against the Iraq war authorization in 2002 and every war-funding measure since then.

He also is the only Democratic Presidential candidate directly linking war spending to education funding.

The Des Moines Register (which used a ridiculous technicality to exclude Kucinich from their presidential debates) is predicting that first-time voters could determine the winner of Thursday’s Iowa Democratic caucus.

Obama is aiming for younger caucus-goers.

Clinton is targeting women.

Both demographic groups should take another look at Kucinich, and his plan to put the nation’s youth in college, not in Baghdad.

Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives' Handbook: Get the Facts and Make a Difference Now, which went to #1 on Amazon's political activism charts in December 2007 (www.progressiveshandbook.com.)

How the Bush Administration Is Turning the USA into a Subprime Borrower

Heather Wokusch — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:47:01 -0400

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." - George W Bush

Much in the same way that US investors were “steered” into rip-off mortgage loans, the entire country has been “steered” into an economic crisis. The question is how to get out of it.

In the subprime loan scandal, unscrupulous brokers conned home buyers with poor credit histories into deals designed to profit lenders and bleed borrowers. Contract “teasers” hid ballooning monthly payments while a lack of regulation allowed the scam to continue unabated. Millions more Americans now face losing their homes.

The Bush administration similarly used promises of cakewalks and increased security to con the US public into wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. US taxpayers have spent over $450 billion on Iraq alone, while Bush/Cheney cronies continue making a killing from military contracts. Meanwhile, global security has degenerated and over 4,100 US service members have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with an untold number of coalition troops, contractors and civilians.

Bush’s military adventurism, not to mention his administration’s exorbitant tax cuts for the wealthy, gutted the surplus of $128 billion Clinton handed him in 2001 into a deficit of well over $200 billion today. And Bush has simultaneously increased the national debt by over $3 trillion (to roughly $9 trillion), effectively nailing each and every US citizen with a bill for almost $30,000.

While heavy borrowing from Asia has mopped up some stateside red ink, there’s an inherent threat: China, for example, has an estimated $900 billion in US bonds and can increasingly call the shots on the US economy and foreign policy.

Just weeks ago, Beijing warned that if the Bush administration pushed for a revaluation of the Chinese currency, then Beijing would sell dollars, thereby threatening the greenback’s reserve currency status. Washington backed down. It had little other option.

In other words, the US itself has become as vulnerable to its lenders as any other subprime borrower.

Overall, the US debt situation looks so dire that the non-partisan Government Accountability Office Comptroller recently warned, America is on a path toward an explosion of debt. And that indebtedness threatens our country’s, our children’s, and our grandchildren’s futures. With the looming retirement of the baby boomers, spiraling health care costs, plummeting savings rates, and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks.”

Financial analysts say credit markets are facing a Minsky moment – the inevitable downward spiral when over-leveraged investors have to sell valued assets just to pay back their loans. Some analysts have even coined a new term, suggesting we are in a “Minsky meltdown” – the prelude to a wider market crash.

But it looks more like a “Minsky massacre,” not an unavoidable economic downturn but rather a coldly-calculated hit, with the intention of transferring wealth from the lower and middle classes to an unaccountable few at the top.

Bottom line, this economic downturn isn’t hurting everyone. Select brokers and lenders made a fortune off the backs of subprime borrowers, and now that the related hedge funds are collapsing, well-leveraged private equity firms can buy assets at fire-sale prices.

And as Jim Hightower recently noted, a “hands-off regulatory ideology” is complicit: “There are no less than five financial agencies at the federal level that could have protected people, yet the subprime surge was allowed to proceed .... The Federal Reserve Board, for example, has direct authority under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act to ‘prohibit acts or practices in connection with mortgage loans that the board finds to be unfair, deceptive or ... associated with abusive lending practices, or that are otherwise not in the interest of the borrower.’ The Fed simply ignored this law.”

The US has been down this road before. The Savings and Loan (S&L) crisis of the late 1980s was also characterized by loose lending requirements, lax regulation, obscene profits for the few - and US taxpayers left holding the bag for $125 billion.

Ironically, the Bush family was involved in that scandal too, with Bush Jr.’s brother Neil serving on the board of the disgraced Silverado Savings and Loan, which went bust and stuck US taxpayers with a $1.3 billion debt. Regulators accused Neil of "multiple conflicts of interest" but he never did jail time – thanks at least in part to the S&L bail out engineered by his father, Bush Sr., who happened to be President at the time.

Just as in the S&L crisis, the poor and middle class have borne the brunt of the current subprime disaster, an especially nasty fact given the nation’s huge wealth gap. As Inequality.org points out, “The richest one percent of U.S. households now owns 34.3 percent of the nation's private wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent. The top one percent also owns 36.9 percent of all corporate stock.”

It’s probably no coincidence that terms associated with both corporate and developing country indebtedness are being used to discuss the US subprime meltdown (payment defaults, vulture funds, distressed debt, etc). Perhaps the US hasn’t reached banana republic status yet, but the increasing wealth gap, not to mention ballooning budget deficits, low capital spending and reliance on foreign capital are disturbing signs.

Doesn’t help either that the Federal Reserve stopped releasing M3 money-supply data in 2006. M3 data (covering Eurodollars, repurchase agreements and large-denomination time deposits) is critical in determining how fast the Fed is printing money, which in turn impacts inflation.

So, what further fallout from the subprime scandal can be expected? Millions more Americans will lose their homes, and as The New York Times recently reported, “for the first time since federal housing agencies began keeping statistics in 1950,” the median price of homes in the US will fall.

Ratings agencies, such as Standard & Poor's and Moody's, will take some heat for their role in the scandal, but the Bush administration will focus on bailing out predatory lenders rather than helping Americans keep their homes. Congress and most presidential candidates will protect financial services campaign donors by not pursuing true reform.

Meanwhile, Asia and Europe will continue “decoupling” from increasingly volatile US markets, threatening the dollar’s reserve currency status even more. Fresh off its recent war games with China and four Central Asian republics, Russia will more actively confront the US on the world stage. The Bush administration will move closer to a war with Iran.

Of course, these dire predictions don’t have to materialize - we can regroup and fight back. One avenue is by urging Congress members to take action, such as changing foreclosure rules to protect homeowners and supporting Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act (H.R. 2895). Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) push to have the Fed start releasing M3 data again (H.R.4892 ) is also urgent.

At the very least, we must frame the Bush administration’s war-making as a direct threat to the US economy, not to mention national security, and just like maxed out home buyers, confront our nation’s culture of debt.

Action Tips:

1. For online videos about the subprime issue and “Money as Debt,” visit Brasscheck TV (www.brasschecktv.com/page/135.html)
2. Check out two groups working on affordable US housing: the Community Land Trust (www.iceclt.org/clt/) and the National Housing Trust Fund (www.housingmatters.net)
3. Learn more about “America’s growing economic divide” Inequality.org (www.demos.org/inequality/index.cfm)
4. Concerned about predatory lending? So is The Center for Responsible Lending (www.responsiblelending.org/).

Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives’ Handbook series (www.progressiveshandbook.com)

What We Choose to Ignore

Chip — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:15:45 -0400

1988-2004: The Submerging Democratic Majority

Gore4US — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:24:26 -0400

1988-2004 Election Analysis: The Submerging Democratic Majority http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm#HistoricalElections

The Democrats actually won all FIVE elections by an average 8.9 MILLION vote margin. That’s the True Emerging Democratic Majority. Don't believe it? Run the numbers yourself.

This analysis is based on the 1988-2004 Election Calculator model. The model first estimates the number of returning voters by adjusting prior election recorded vote totals for uncounted votes and mortality. An estimated turnout percentage is applied to this value. As preliminary NEP vote shares were not available for 1988-2000, Final National Exit Poll shares (which were matched to the recorded vote) were assumed for the base case. In 2004, however, preliminary 12:22am "pristine" vote shares were available, so these were used instead.

The model used Census-reported total votes cast as the base case assumption. The pool of potential returning voters was assumed to include all who cast votes, rather than just those whose votes were recorded. Uncounted vote rates based on the Census are much higher than the assumed 3.0% rate in prior models. Another assumption change is the mortality rate. Annual voter mortality, estimated as 1.22-1.30%, is more accurate than prior models which assumed the total US 0.87% mortality rate.

The new base case assumptions had the effect of increasing Democratic vote shares compared to prior models. For example, the Election Calculator indicates that Kerry won by 53.0- 45.9%, a 9 million vote margin. The prior True Vote Model had Kerry winning by 52.6-46.4%.

Following are the key results based on AVERAGE CALCULATED 1988-2004 Vote shares:

- The Dem share was 3.8% HIGHER than the RECORDED share.

- The GOP share was 3.2% LOWER than the RECORDED share.

- The Dem share was 1.4% HIGHER than the PRELIMINARY Exit Poll.

- The GOP share was 0.1% HIGHER than the PRELIMINARY Exit Poll.

Voter turnout of prior election Dem, GOP and Other voters is calculated as:

Turnout = prior election (recorded vote + uncounted votes - voter deaths)* voter turnout percentage

The True vote for the Dem, GOP and Other candidate is calculated as:

True Vote = shares of returning (Dem + GOP + Other + New voters)

Summary Statistics (1988-2004)


	Calculated
	TRUE Vote			Exit Poll		Recorded			Calculated Dem
	Dem	Rep		Dem	Rep	Dem	Rep		Margin (mil)
Average	50.9%	43.0%		49.5%	42.9%	47.1%	46.2%		8.86

2004	53.0%	45.9%		50.8%	48.2%	48.3%	50.7%		8.96
2000	51.1%	46.0%		48.5%	46.2%	48.4%	47.9%		5.66
1996	52.0%	39.3%		52.2%	37.5%	49.9%	41.4%		13.36
1992	47.9%	35.0%		46.0%	33.1%	43.3%	37.7%		14.71
1988	50.2%	48.7%		49.8%	49.3%	45.6%	53.4%		1.61


1988-2004 Avg	Total	Dem	Rep	Other	Margin	Dem	Rep	Other	Margin
Calculated	111.5	56.76	47.90	6.86	8.86	50.9%	43.0%	6.2%	7.9%
Recorded	102.9	48.47	47.66	6.74	0.81	47.1%	46.2%	6.7%	0.9%
Prelim Exit poll	102.9	50.84	44.28	7.93	6.56	49.5%	42.9%	7.9%	6.6%
Discrepancies
Calc - Recorded	8.7	8.29	0.24	0.12	8.05	3.8%	-3.2%	-0.5%	7.0%
Calc - Exit poll		5.92	3.62	-1.07	2.30	1.4%	0.1%	-1.7%	1.3%
Exit - Recorded		2.38	-3.38	1.19	5.76	2.4%	-3.4%	1.2%	5.7%