July 19, 2003
|
Welcome to the Soviet Style Republican Congress Presided Over by Stalinist Wannabes Bill Thomas and Tom DeLay
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
With
a Little Help from Our Readers
Yes, on July 18th, Soviet style Republican thug, House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, called the Capitol Police to stop Democrats from protesting his Brezhnev style committee dictatorship. But, of course, Thomas (who had an adulterous affair with a pharmaceutical company lobbyist while writing Medicare prescription legislation a couple of years back) wouldn't have called the cops without the okay of the Stalin of the U.S. Congress, the "Toxic Psychotic" Tom DeLay. (As we've noted many a time, Denny Hastert is just a figurehead. He was chosen because he was the only Republican who had no sexual skeletons in his closet. Denny is more interested in a turkey leg than the leg of a woman. Tom DeLay figured it was better to pick a guy for house speaker who had gravy stains on his tie than a guy who had panties -- or jock straps --in his desk drawer.)
Here's what two Democratic congressmen had to say about Thomas's KGB style behavior:
"My friends, this is how tyranny begins," said Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, a Ways and Means Committee member. "It is our responsibility to stand against a police state, to stand in favor of open dialogue rather than to permit a bill to pass with only the votes of one party, and move toward a one-party state."
"I never thought, as a member of Congress, that I would be threatened with arrest in the library of the Ways and Means Committee," [Congressman John] Lewis said during the House debate.
You see, Thomas claims that a 71-year-old Democratic was on the verge of physically harming Republicans:
Republicans defended Thomas, saying he had no choice but to call in police to head off physical attacks they said appeared imminent from Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, a 71-year-old Democrat from California.
They said Stark had threatened Rep. Scott McInnis, a 50-year-old Colorado Republican calling him "you little wimp" and "you little fruitcake."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., insisted that the police had already been called before the confrontation involving Stark and said Republicans were "in denial about their behavior.
Did Bill Thomas violate the Constitution? One BuzzFlash reader thinks so:
House Republicans Openly Violated the U.S. Constitution Today
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Sec. 6:
"[The Senators and Representatives] shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place."
After the Capitol Police Were Called by the GOP Thugs, The Republican Thugs Defeated This Nancy Pelosi Resolution to Protest the Stalinist Rule of Tom DeLay and Bill Thomas:
H.Res. 324 - Whereas during a meeting of the Committee on Ways and Means on July 18, 2003, for consideration of the bill H.R. 1776, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means offered in the nature of a substitute; Whereas during the reading of that amendment the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee directed majority staff of the committee to ask the United State Capitol Police to remove minority-party members of the committee from a room of the committee during the meeting, causing the United State Capitol Police thereupon to confront the minority-party members of the committee; Whereas pending a unanimous-consent request to dispense with the reading of that amendment the chairman deliberately and improperly refused to recognize a legitimate and timely objection by a member of the committee; Now, therefore, be it Resolved, that the House of Representatives disapproves of the manner in which Representatives Thomas conducted the markup of legislation in the Committee on Ways & Means on July 18, 2003, and finds that the bill considered at that markup was not validly ordered reported to the House.
Do we live in a police state? One BuzzFlash Reader Wants to Know.
"A top House leader called the Capitol Police to evict Democrats from a committee room…Infuriated, Ways and Means Committee Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) instructed the Capitol Police to remove the Democrats from the [Ways and Means Committee] library…After the one remaining Ways and Means Democrat got in a spat with a GOP committee member, Thomas dispensed with the reading of the bill altogether and pushed through the legislation, without a single Democratic vote."
– CBS Marketwatch and Washington Post, 7/18/03"A branch of the Department of Homeland Security got involved in the search for a plane believed to be carrying Texas House members…a federal agency responsible for fighting terrorism played a role in looking for a plane that supposedly had some of the exiled legislators in it…U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Thursday that his staff had asked the FAA to find former House Speaker Pete Laney's plane… Mr. DeLay, a Republican from Sugar Land, previously had acknowledged only asking the Department of Justice to clarify what role, if any, federal law enforcement might appropriately play in forcing Democratic state legislators back to Austin."
– Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, 5/16/03, Dallas Morning News, 5/23/03"On Wednesday morning, when the ABC news show reported from Fallujah, where the division is based, the troops gave the reporters an earful. One soldier said he felt like he'd been ‘kicked in the guts, slapped in the face.’ Another demanded that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quit. The retaliation from Washington was swift… ‘It was the end of the world,’ said one officer Thursday. ‘It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers… Abizaid said that soldiers quoted yesterday on ABC News' ‘Good Morning America’ questioning their mission in Iraq and calling for Rumsfeld's resignation were wrong and could be disciplined."
– SF Chronicle, 7/18/03 and Washington Post, 7/16/03
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
