Analysis
Hastert's new House order
By Charles Babington
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — In scuttling major intelligence legislation that he, the president and most lawmakers supported, House Speaker Dennis Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress will vote on bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them.
Hastert's position, which is drawing fire from Democrats and some outside groups, is the latest step in a decade-long process of limiting Democrats' influence and running the House virtually as a one-party institution. Republicans earlier barred House Democrats from helping draft major bills such as the 2003 Medicare revision and this year's intelligence package. Hastert, R-Ill., now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if "the majority of the majority" supports them. . . .
[ full article ]
Don't just take my word for it. Read the signs of Fascism and give it some thought.
Fascism Anyone?
Laurence W. Britt
from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2.
http://secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm
...the fascist or protofascist model...
...fourteen common threads...
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.
