"Warrants? We Don't Need No Stinking Warrants"

The neocons who run the White House are so brazen (no doubt due to their big balls, small brains as pointed out by the Daily Curmudgeon), that they are sending out Bush to read speeches that DEFEND their criminal actions in spying on thousands of its citizens. The only way that such a clear violation of citizens' rights could happen in this country is when an evil cabal of people manage to install someone as president who thinks the Constitution of the United States is an annoyance: “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!” But, let's not be unreasonable. I admit that on 9-11-2001, it was perfectly reasonable for a commander-in-chief to say, "Damn the niceties of civil rights, start tapping the phones of anyone connected to the animals that did this." I'll even admit that on 10-11-2001 that you could make a case for illegal wiretaps. But at some point in late 2001, someone with an inkling of what it means to be an American would have stood up in a White House meeting and said, "You know, the crisis has somewhat passed and I don't think it's unreasonable to go to the SPECIAL COURT SET UP JUST FOR THIS THING and get warrants for these wiretaps." It's not like they would have any trouble getting warrants, as in the 25 years the secret court had existed, of the thousands of warrant applications it had received, it denied a grand total of FOUR. I'm sure if anyone in this administration had suggested following the law, they would have been met with blank stares, replies of "why bother" and a pink slip.

Gimme an "I", Gimme an "M"...

Back on July 21, 2005, in only my second blog entry, mine was a very lonely voice calling for the impeachment of the "president". I'm now happy to say I was just a little ahead of my time, as a new Zogby poll shows that a majority of Americans now support impeaching Bush for wiretapping by a margin of 52% to 43%. Back in July, I was musing that Bush must be investigated on the emerging Valerie Plame scandal and most likely the trail would lead to impeachment. I could just as easily been posing impeachment for creating a web of lies to justify a rush to war, or creating a web of lies (see a pattern here?!) to push through a prescription drug law that is a boondoggle for the pharmaceutical companies. Today, we can add impeachment articles for total incompetence (New Orleans), absence of compassion for those in need (New Orleans) and racism (New Orleans). The case for impeachment at this time based on the outrageous criminal wiretapping by an administration that believes it is above the law is best put by former congressman, Elizabeth Holtzman, who served four terms in Congress, where she played a key role in House impeachment proceedings against the last totally corrupt republican president, Richard Nixon: "the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)--and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws--that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of President Bush. A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law--and repeatedly violates the law--thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office." Have more beautiful words ever been written?!

This Is Progress?

How is it that Iraq, a country that is in total disarray, has settled all claims of vote fraud within one month of an election, and I'm still waiting to hear the truth about how the voting in Ohio was manipulated in 2004 using voting machines from Diebold whose CEO guaranteed a win in Ohio for Bush. Even when the republicans had their vote stealing people in place in Florida in 2000, it took us months to get a final settlement from Scalia.

Good News, Boom News

First, the good news...it's becoming increasingly clear that the country is rising up to force the Bush adminstration to abandon the mindless "stay the course" approach to their disaster in Iraq and begin the process of bringing our troops home. Latest example of this was the incredibly large turnout of people for a symposium on Iraq in the sleepy town of Northbrook on a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in January. Ellen describes the day much better than I can here. She also mentions that our absentee congressman, Rooster Kirk, was surprisingly not present for yet another important open meeting in his district. He probably should be excused as his leader, Tom DeLay, was at the time scurrying to try to protect his lucrative leadership position. Now that the party of the culture of corruption has finally given up hope of keeping DeLay in charge of the dirty money chute into their pockets, they are very busy trying to find someone who can paint a false front of supporting campaign reform while making sure that the money continue to flows to them behind the scenes.
Now, the bad news...it's not going to matter anyway as it looks like the planet will be blown up soon. Those paragons of stability, the religious crazies who run Iran, have decided to openly resume development of nuclear weapons. They don't even try very hard to hide their intentions as they use the ridiculous justification that their work is for peaceful, nuclear power research. When you are sitting on more oil than your can ever pump out of the ground? Hmm, sounds a bit suspicious. Let's see, their president actually claimed that the Holocaust never happened and that Israel should be wiped off the map. I wonder what their first target will be? Until three years ago, the world was a safer place because these crazies would be put in their place by the reasoned actions of other countries, especially the superpowers. Economic sanctions would be threatened, technology would be embargoed, United Nations pressure and sanctions would be brought, and if all else fails, the military might of the United States would be brought to bear and nuclear facilities of rogue nations would be bombed or more secretively destroyed. These type of actions were effective because of the strong moral international reputation of the United States and its allies that backed them up. That moral reputation has been totally ruined by the precipitant actions of the Bush administration in Iraq. To think that the US could go before the world and propose that it must unilaterally act militarily to stop Iran is laughable. No matter what evidence they would present, no one would be believe them as they will be comparing it to Collin Powell holding up a vial of "anthrax" and all the other distortions used by the neocons to rush to war in Iraq. Our only hope is that Iran will need more than a few years to go nuclear. Once our government starts to shift to sanity in November with the election of a Democratic House and Senate, we can begin the long process of restoring the reputation of the United States and making the world a safer place.