Bush adopts new notion of states' rights

[struggle4progress]

Former governor now employs the federal mandates he used to disdain
By JULIE MASON

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - <snip>

Why should anyone be surprised? Well, it used to be that Texans were states' rights advocates and didn't relish the federal government telling them what to do. Republicans particularly abhorred federal mandates, preferring to leave the big-government initiatives to the Democrats. "Let Texans run Texas," President Bush said as governor. <snip>

Bush's first heresy against states' rights was the No Child Left Behind Act, which imposed federally mandated testing standards. <snip>

The case of brain-damaged woman Terri Schiavo, the law banning late-term abortions and the proposed federal marriage amendment trample on states' rights, and all are embraced by Bush.

These days Bush is pursuing medical liability reform. It's an issue he used to believe was one for states to decide. <snip>

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3220849

[RC]

1. What's so surprising here...

The state of Texas and the Unites States are being dictated on by the same group of sociopaths.

[ixion]

2. maybe it's time for dems to pick up the states rights banner

that the thugs have left laying in the mud -- the one they exchanged for the Pax Americana banner.

State's Rights is actually a progressive notion, in that individual communities can better govern their people than can a broad centralized federal government.

Now that the rethugs no longer champion it, instead championing a new breed of fascism, it's ripe for the picking, IMO.

[ClintonTyree]

3. You may be correct...

although wresting it from their clammy hands won't be easy. Even though they've abandoned the States' Rights standard, they'll lie and say they never have and put up a hell of a fight before they'll cede it to us.