"It's That Pesky Prisoner Abuse Scandal Again..."(IPS) Wm. Fisher

[laststeamtrain]

POLITICS-US:
It's That Pesky Prisoner Abuse Scandal Again...
William Fisher

NEW YORK, Aug 2 (IPS) - As the U.S. Congress left town for its August vacation, the George W. Bush administration was congratulating itself on its legislative victories.

Critics, however, saw few victories in what Congress accomplished -- bankruptcy ”reform” that they say heavily favours the credit card industry, an energy bill that does little to reduce the United States' dependence on foreign oil, a highway bill larded with wasteful and unnecessary projects, the highly controversial Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and more protection from lawsuits for the gun industry.

But when Congress returns in September -- aside from the confirmation hearings for Judge John Roberts to be the next associate justice of the Supreme Court -- it will be facing multiple other political tsunamis: reauthorisation of the USA PATRIOT Act, federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, immigration reform, and consideration of the 491-billion-dollar defence bill.

Picking up consideration of the defence bill -- which includes 50 billion dollars for U.S. troops in Iraq -- is likely to cause widespread White House heartburn. Lively debate was already well underway when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Republican from Tennessee, abruptly pulled the bill from consideration...

The rest: http://tinyurl.com/9h888

[MissMarple]

1. Wait, wait, ...what happened to mandated school prayer, rollback of Roe,

government money for parochial schools, stricter laws on public indecency, "family values" oversight of all films and book publishing, negating of all civil rights for gays, criminalizing any gay behavior, of all "liberal" behavior, the outlawing of contraception, the draconian rollback of the divorce laws, corporal punishment for all children, putting women back in the home where they belong... what about all that stuff? You know, the we're Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum and we know what's right for America stuff?

You mean all they have done is give tax breaks to Paris Hilton and Barbara Streisand and deregulated as much of corporate behavior as they had time for, made sure more jobs go out of the country leaving the working public in the quite sad lurch? Huh...go figure. :eyes: