The Party's Over - Revisited

It seems the wheels are coming off the “straight talk express” as the Republican Party desperately tries to shake the (R) that follows their names in an attempt to gain credibility with the American people.

But the damage is done and America remembers. We are a forgiving people and we realize that we all make mistakes, however how can anyone forgive the gaffes of this magnitude? The Republican party has always voted along party lines and have supported each other no matter how bone headed the policies are, inflicting more and more wounds to our country.

Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.

Now the time has come to pay the piper. Accountability seems to be something foreign to the party of family values and now that it appears their day of reckoning is close at hand, they scurry like rats leaving a sinking ship. This is transparent in the campaign ads running for some candidates where their party affiliation is conveniently left out of the canned script.

They, for good reason, seem to be ashamed of their party. Yet they hold on tightly to the same Republican values. Barack Obama said you could put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. That statement holds a great deal of truth when it comes to the Republicans.

Just take a trip back eight years in history and remember the arrests and convictions, remember the accusations, remember the corruption exposed and remember the scandals that not only shook their party, but shook the very foundation of America.

And the American people DO remember.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly Lost the War On Terror.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly Got Us Into Iraq.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly have allowed our great infrastructure to deteriorate into despotism that abandons the poor in wakes of disasters like Katrina.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly denied Americans better opportunities for Healthcare.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly fought increasing the Minimum Wage so that workers could afford to LIVE.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly got us into our current mortgage Crisis by allowing Banks to issue predatory loans.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly got us into our current economic Crisis by Feeding the Greed Of Wall Street.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly blocked attempts to work on Global Climate Change and denied its very existence in the face of science.

We Remember Republicans Singlehandedly got us into our Constitutional Crisis by turning a blind eye to Bush's power grab and then legalizing his crimes.

Yes, Republicans. America remembers all too well what you have done to our country.

I consider it my patriotic duty as an American citizen to make sure people remember. Let us not forget the Tom Delay’s of the world, the Larry Craig’s, the Scooter Libby’s. They are all serving out or soon will begin serving sentences for the crimes they have committed. But let us not forget the ones that still need to be held accountable for their criminal and treasonous actions. The George Bush’s, the Dick Cheney’s, the Rumsfeld’s, the Rice’s – the list goes on and on and on.

The “shock and awe” perpetrated by this administration against America cannot go unpunished. History will no doubt cast a shining light of discontent against them, showing Bush as the absolute worse President America has ever seen, but that is nowhere near enough. Criminal acts have been committed and justice must prevail to assure us all that the system still works. We cannot let these deeds go unpunished. We must hold these criminals accountable.

What message will it send to the rest of the world if we don’t?

It will make us accomplices to their crimes and just as guilty as them.

There is a lot at stake when we go to the polls in November, to cast our vote for the next President of the United States. We will tell the world that we either support the crimes against humanity of the last eight years or we want to correct our course as a nation and return once again to our former greatness.

What’s it going to be? Are you a criminal or a patriot?

Republicans Don'T Want To Hang With Other Republicans

Talk about a sign of the times.

Whether it be the toxicity of Bush, the toxicity of the Republican brand or the acknowledgment that Republican incumbents in 2008 had better stay home and earn votes rather than attend the Republican convention, this really can't be good:

Nine of 12 targeted Republicans running in the most competitive Senate races this fall are either skipping the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., or have not decided whether to attend.

Among those who will not attend are Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who is not close to presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is a McCain loyalist. Stevens and Collins will use the convention week to focus on their campaigns.

Also sending regrets is former Rep. Bob Schaffer of Colorado, running for the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Wayne Allard.

Six others -- Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Gordon Smith of Oregon and challengers John Kennedy of Louisiana and Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico are still on the fence. Their spokesman offered responses ranging from "there are no plans yet" to "no decisions have been made."

Scratch that. Senator Dole is no longer on the fence.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina won't be attending the Republican national convention, which begins over Labor Day weekend.

Her spokeswoman, Katie Hallaway, said people shouldn't read too much into the decision -- either about the senator's support for John McCain, her party's likely nominee, or about how she views the security of her re-election in November against Democratic state senator Kay Hagan.

Oh, no, of course not. We wouldn't do such a thing. What's Dole's reasoning?

"She's got a busy week scheduled in North Carolina," Hallaway said. "When there are breaks in the Senate schedule, she spends as much time as possible in North Carolina."

Hmm, interesting, she found time for a prime time spot at the 2004 convention.

And here's Susan Collins' excuse:

"She is going to spend the time in Maine campaigning," said Steve Abbott, her campaign manager. "The conventions are too close to the election for a federal candidate to give up the time to attend, especially a current office holder who has to be in Washington for a busy legislative session for much of September."

Abbott would also like to remind us that Collins did not attend the '96 convention either. Of course, she wasn't in the Senate yet and she did attend the two subsequent conventions during her time in the senate, not to mention she's one of John McCain's campaign co-chairs. But other than that, really, it's no biggie that she won't be in Minneapolis to celebrate John McCain's acceptance of the 2008 nomination.

So, of the top targeted senate races, which GOP incumbents will be attending the festivities? Looks like McCain will be surrounded by Mitch McConnell and Norm Coleman, who lobbied to get Minneapolis to host the event. Wanna bet Norm is having second thoughts about that decision right about now?

Riding The Short Bus To The White House

The hits keep on coming in the never ending list of scandals for the bush minions.

In today’s line up, we have the news that the UN mandate for the US presence in Iraq is expiring at the end of this year. To no one’s surprise, the White House wants to continue an indefinite country-to-country commitment with Iraq. However, Prime Minister Maliki has other plans.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday he is negotiating a deal with
Washington that will for the first time set a timetable for a withdrawal of
foreign forces as part of a framework for a US troop presence into next year.

Iraqi politicians have not only bristled at the duration of any continuing defence pact with the United States, they have also expressed reservations about how many bases Washington should retain, what powers the US military should continue to hold to detain Iraqi civilians, and what immunity US troops should have from US law.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said that Washington has agreed to one key demand from Baghdad, the scrapping of immunity from prosecution in Iraq of the tens of thousands of foreign security contractors operating in the country.

Timetables for withdrawal?

What, does Maliki and the Iraqi government want the terrorists to "win"? (whatever the fuck THAT means)

Next up is the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which according to a recent investigation by the LA Times has refused to release any information on professional misconduct. However, with all we’ve learned about the leaking of Valerie Plame’s name, the US Attorneys purge, Monica Goodling’s hiring practices, not to mention the counsel sought by Mukasey and Gonzales on warrantless wiretapping, torture and terror detainees, does anyone have any doubt that the OPR is up to their gills in complaints?

And finally, there is the ultimate Slow Learner (retard) in Chief, who was told by Pres. Clinton and Richard Clarke in no uncertain terms that his biggest concern entering the Oval Office would be al Qaeda. Now it’s bush’s turn to get his successor up-to-date on the biggest threats. Guess what his report says?

Now bush has weighed in on his successor’s big problem: Not Iraq, but Pakistan. Pakistan, home of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda now back to its pre- 9/11 strength, plotting its next attacks, in a Pakistani safe haven that was created in a stunning act of appeasement, approved and defended by bush.

Heckuva job, (asshole) bushie.

Stupid Republican Criminals

If you or I refused to obey a subpoena we would certainly be under punishment.

In fact, it used to be that laws in this country could be applied to everyone, even presidents. When President Richard Nixon refused to comply with subpoenas from a prosecutor, the Supreme Court told him he had to.

When Nixon refused to comply with subpoenas from Congress, the House Judiciary Committee passed an article of impeachment against him. Nixon claimed "executive privilege," and the Supreme Court and Congress both told him to take his privilege and stick it in a helicopter home.

bush and Cheney have refused to comply with numerous subpoenas, have instructed current and former staff not to comply, and have refused to enforce contempt citations arising out of their refusal to comply with subpoenas. They have also instructed current and former staffers who testified to refuse to answer certain questions, and to claim "executive privilege."

When the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed White House Political Director Sara Taylor and Deputy Political Director J. Scott Jennings a year ago, they showed up and refused to answer questions. A complete list of witnesses who have thus refused would be quite long.In many other cases, the Bush-Cheney gang has simply refused to produce documents or witnesses at all.

Subpoenas not complied with at all include:--A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents from the Department of Justice, issued April 10, 2007;--A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena for the testimony of the Secretary of State, issued April 25, 2007;--A House Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, issued June 13, 2007;--A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, issued June 13, 2007;--A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents and testimony of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, issued June 26, 2007;--A Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena for documents from the White House, Vice President Richard Cheney, the Department of Justice, and the National Security Council. If the documents are not produced, the subpoena requires the testimony of White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Chief of Staff to the Vice President David Addington, and National Security Council executive director V. Philip Lago, issued June 27, 2007;--A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena for testimony of Lt. General Kensinger;--A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena for documents from the Environmental Protection Agency, issued April 16, 2008.

This is a partial list based on no sort of thorough research whatsoever, and not all subpoenas are ever publicized.

So, who knows what the full extent of this pattern of behavior comes to?

The list already dwarfs Nixon's and is probably much longer. And, remember, these are actual subpoenas. These don't include rejected requests not in the form of subpoenas, or votes by committees to approve subpoenas that the chairman never bothers to send. And remember, too, that a number of these subpoenas are for unnecessary evidence related to crimes and offenses already solidly documented.

Congress members, afraid to produce articles of impeachment, have produced subpoenas instead, and then discovered that with impeachment removed from the table, the subpoenas have no teeth.We are in completely uncharted waters.

The White House has reduced the Congress to a debate club or a gang of court jesters, and Congress has gone along with the complete removal of its power.

But do Republicans want the power to subpoena the Obama administration? Do Democrats want the power to subpoena the McCain administration? Do any congress members with decency that reaches outside a party want the power to hold any future administration in check?

If so, then we need impeachment, even if it's on this issue alone. When your Congress member comes home next week, ask them to introduce this article of impeachment. They can copy Congressman Dennis Kucinich's 27th article already introduced. Or they can borrow from the third article passed against Nixon. Or they can give up the pretense of being an actual member of the U.S. government. Perhaps you can begin your conversations this way:"

So, Congressman, how does it feel to be impotent?"

Never Going To Leave

Dick Cheney wants the Iraqi government installed by the U.S. occupation to sign a “security pact” with Washington by the end of July. (The pact, including a status-of-forces agreement, would be signed by the U.S. president but not constitute a treaty requiring Congressional approval.)

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has been feverishly struggling to meet the deadline and to commit the next administration to the agreement’s terms. But that may be a tall order. Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki says negotiations are only in a beginning stage; public opinion is opposed to the pact based on leaked information about its content; and a majority of members of the Iraqi parliament have endorsed a letter to the U.S. government demanding U.S. withdrawal as the condition for “any commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States.”

Few Americans are familiar with the proposed treaty. If they were, they might be shocked at its provisions, ashamed about its naked sadism.

It:

• grants the U.S. long-term rights to maintain over 50 military bases in their California-sized country
• allows the U.S. to strike any other country from within Iraqi territory without the permission of the Iraqi government
• allows the U.S. to conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting with the local government
• allows U.S. forces to arrest any Iraqi without consulting with Iraqi authorities
• extends to U.S. troops and contracters immunity from Iraqi law
• gives U.S. forces control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft.
• places the Iraqi Defense, Interior and National Security ministries, under American supervision for ten years
• gives the U.S. responsibility for Iraqi armament contracts for ten years

But Iranian political leader Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani hardly exaggerates in saying the proposed deal is designed “to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans” and to create “a permanent occupation.” Many Iraqis use similar language. “The agreement wants to put an American in each house,” claimed a supporter of Shiite cleric and nationalist firebrand Mutada al-Sadr. “This agreement is poison mixed in poison, not poison in honey because there is no honey at all.” “Why,” he asks, “do they want to break the backbone of Iraq?”

The mainstream Shiite cleric and politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC; formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq or SCIRI), agrees that the proposed agreement would “violate Iraq's national sovereignty.” He claims a “national consensus” against it has developed. (President Bush in December 2006 met with al-Hakim, calling his “one of the distinguished leaders of a free Iraq,” and he is sometimes mentioned as Washington’s first choice for prime minister if al-Maliki doesn’t adequately put out. So his opposition is especially significant.)

Al-Hakim is close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most widely respected Shiite cleric in 60% Shiite Iraq. The ayatollah is thought to oppose the pact but has not yet made a pronouncement about it. Meanwhile the Association of Muslim Scholars, the largest Sunni political group in the parliament, warns that the pact paves the way for "military, economic and cultural domination” by the Americans.

Al-Sadr’s followers staged rallies around the country after prayers last Friday and plan to continue weekly peaceful demonstrations demanding that the Baghdad government hold a national referendum on the security treaty issue. The U.S. opposes such a referendum, aware that pact opponents would surely win.

SOURCE

How To Catch A War Criminal - 8 Easy Steps

1. Don't announce that you're coming, because the war criminal will escape.

2. Pick your war criminal. Here are their names, where to find them, and some of the charges against them.

Note: War Criminals travel frequently. Watch http://convictbushcheney.org for notice of when they'll be appearing publicly near you. Below are their home locations.

CALIFORNIA

John Yoo: Professor of Law at Boalt Hall School of Law in Berkeley, California, (but a lawyer with the Pennsylvania bar from which he should be debarred and would be if enough people demanded it) counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, wrote this memo promoting presidential power to launch aggressive war, and claimed the power to decree that the federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming, and stalking do not apply to the military in the conduct of the war, and to announce a new definition of torture limiting it to acts causing intense pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body functions will likely result.

Jay Bybee: federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, headquartered in San Francisco, California, counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, including by helping Yoo draft the memo linked above.

William Haynes: Chief Corporate Counsel at the Chevron Corporate Office in San Ramon, California, counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, including by drafting memos for Yoo.

Colin Powell: strategic limited partner with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, appears as a speaker in a series of motivational events called Get Motivated, board member of Revolution Health and of the Council on Foreign Relations, took part in White House meetings personally overseeing and approving torture by authorizing the use of specific torture techniques including waterboarding on specific people, lied to the United Nations about the grounds for war in a failed attempt to legalize a war of aggression, and was in fact a leading liar in making the false case for an illegal war of aggression.

NEW YORK

Henry Kissinger: lives in Kent, Connecticut, and works at Kissinger Associates, 350 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y., had a resume envied by other war criminals long before he advised George W. Bush to commit war crimes. Here's a partial list of his crimes.

Nicholas E. Calio: Citigroup's Executive Vice-President for Global Government Affairs served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies.

TEXAS

Karen Hughes: lives in Austin, Texas, served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

David Addington: chief of staff to Dick Cheney in Washington, D.C., counseled the White House on how to get away with war crimes, including by helping Yoo draft the memo linked above, and drafted signing statements for Bush declaring the right to violate laws redundantly banning war crimes including torture and the construction of permanent bases in Iraq and efforts to control Iraq's oil.

Condoleezza Rice: serving as Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., and can be found frequenting shoe stores, served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies, took part in White House meetings personally overseeing and approving torture by authorizing the use of specific torture techniques including waterboarding on specific people, lied about mushroom clouds, and was in fact a leading liar in making the false case for an illegal war of aggression.

Donald Rumsfeld: lives in Washington, D.C., and at former slave-beating plantation "Mount Misery" on Maryland's Eastern Shore near St. Michael's and a home belonging to Dick Cheney, as well as at an estate outside Taos, New Mexico, took part in White House meetings personally overseeing and approving torture by authorizing the use of specific torture techniques including waterboarding on specific people, and was in fact a leading liar in making the false case for an illegal war of aggression, and pushed for wars of aggression for years as a participant in the Project for a New American Century.

George Tenet: Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., took part in White House meetings personally overseeing and approving torture by authorizing the use of specific torture techniques including waterboarding on specific people, oversaw the Central Intelligence Agency as it engaged in illegal renditions, detentions, torture, murder, and coverups of crimes, as well as helping to build a false case for an illegal war of aggression.

John Ashcroft: has his own lobbying company through which to profit from his government connections: The Ashcroft Group, LLC, 1399 New York Avenue, N.W., Suite 950, Washington, DC 20005, Phone: 202.942.0202, Fax: 202.942.0216, info@ashcroftgroupllc.com took part in White House meetings personally overseeing and approving torture by authorizing the use of specific torture techniques including waterboarding on specific people.

Alberto Gonzales: has hired a criminal-defense lawyer George Terwilliger, partner at White & Case, to defend him, while others have created a trust fund to help pay for his legal expenses, meanwhile Gonzales has been unable to find work as a lawyer himself, so his income comes from speaking engagements, then White House counsel, wrote a memo on January 25, 2002. It explained that under the 1996 War Crimes Act, U.S. officials might be prosecuted for violating the Geneva Conventions for actions in Afghanistan (and future parts of the "war on terror"), with penalties up to and including death. He suggested that Bush declare that the Taliban and Al Qaeda weren't covered by Geneva, to be on the safe side. Bush did so.

Paul Wolfowitz: lives in Chevey Chase, Maryland, and is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., advocated illegal war of aggression, and pushed for wars of aggression for years as a participant in the Project for a New American Century.

Doug Feith: serves on the faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., as a Professor and Distinguished Practitioner in National Security Policy, manufactured, cherry picked, and distorted information, and pressured others to do the same, to help build a false case for an illegal war of aggression, and advocated early and openly for an illegal war of aggression against a "non-al qaeda target."

Elliot Abrams: serves as Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy in Washington, D.C., and wherever he can do the most damage around the world, was a well-established war criminal even before he pushed for wars of aggression for years as a participant in the Project for a New American Century, helped to build a false case for attacking Iraq, and supported a failed coup attempt in Venezuela.

Karl Rove: owns million dollar houses in Washington, D.C., and Florida, and works for Fox News, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal, served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies, and took part in exposing an undercover agent as retribution for exposing one of WHIG's lies.

I. Lewis Libby: lives in McLean, Virginia, and has been disbarred in Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies, took part in exposing an undercover agent as retribution for exposing one of WHIG's lies, has already been convicted of obstruction of justice for interfering with investigation, and pushed for wars of aggression for years as a participant in the Project for a New American Century.

Mary Matalin: married to James Carville, both of them addicted to Washington, D.C., served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies.

Stephen Hadley: serves as National Security Advisor to the President in Washington, D.C., served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies, and took part in exposing an undercover agent as retribution for exposing one of WHIG's lies.

James R. Wilkinson: works for Bush as Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications in Washington, D.C., served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies.

John Bolton: lives in Bethesda, Maryland, is a member of a Lutheran Church, works for the law firm Kirkland and Ellis LLP, 655 Fifteenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005-5793, T: +1 202-879-5000, F: +1 202-879-5200, is associated with the American Enterprise Institute, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Institute of East-West Dynamics, National Rifle Association, US Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the Council for National Policy, helped to launch an illegal war of aggression by disseminating false claims through the State Department while he was under-secretary of state for arms control, and pushed for wars of aggression for years as a participant in the Project for a New American Century.

The war that the war criminals above helped to launch is a war of aggression, the highest crime, understood to contain within it all other war crimes. In fact, the current occupation of Iraq has seen the United States target civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, use antipersonnel weapons including cluster bombs in densely settled urban areas, use white phosphorous as a weapon, use depleted uranium weapons, employ a new version of napalm found in Mark 77 firebombs, engage in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian populations, including by blocking roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and plowing down orchards, detain people without charge or legal process without the rights of prisoners of war, imprison children, torture, and murder.

3. Form a team. We need teams in California, Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C., among other places. Your mission is to locate a war criminal from the list above in a public place, detain them, handcuff them, phone the police, read the criminal their rights and the charges against them, ask them if they have anything to say in response, videotape the arrest and post it online. Your team should include one or more people who can produce an excellent video and be extremely fast in editing and posting it online. Your team should include people capable of physically detaining your war criminal. Your team should ideally include a lawyer. And, of course, people who can read the charges and question the suspect. Everyone on your team should be able to keep a secret while you're planning your arrest.

4. Prepare to follow this script.

Apprehend and handcuff the war criminal.

Read the war criminal their rights, rights they have denied others:
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you."

Read the war criminal the charges against them. See above.

Ask the war criminal if they would like to say anything.

Once you have good video footage, your top priority becomes immediately getting it edited (if necessary) and online.

Turn the war criminal over to the police.

Pass out flyers to passersby.

Send statement to the media.

5. Consult a lawyer to avoid unnecessary risks of violating laws while enforcing the law. According to Wikipedia, "A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a person who is not a sworn law enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval England and the English common law, when sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers. Despite the title, the arresting person does not usually have to be a citizen of the country where he is acting, as they are usually designated as any person with arrest powers.... Each state with the exception of North Carolina permits citizen arrests if the commission of felony is witnessed by the arresting citizen... The application of state laws varies widely with respect to ... felonies not witnessed by the arresting party. American citizens do not carry the authority or enjoy the legal protections of police, and are held to the principle of strict liability before the courts of civil- and criminal law including but not limited to any infringement of another's rights. Though North Carolina General Statutes have no provision for citizen's arrests, detention by private persons is permitted and apply to both civilians and police officers outside their jurisdiction. Detention, being different from an arrest in the fact that a detainee may not be transported without consent, is permitted where probable cause exists that one has committed a felony, breach of peace, physical injury to another person, or theft or destruction of property ... A person who makes a citizen's arrest could risk exposing himself to possible lawsuits or criminal charges (such as charges of impersonating police, false imprisonment, kidnapping, or wrongful arrest) if the wrong person is apprehended or a suspect's civil rights are violated." In the case of the war criminals we propose detaining, they are public figures and we have all witnessed their felonies, as detailed above.

A good source of legal advice is the National Lawyers Guild, whose permission we have not asked to post this recommendation, and which does not necessarily support this project: http://www.nlg.org

6. Be prepared to post your video online in multiple places: Youtube, Google, and convictbushcheney.org (for that last one, mailto:david@davidswanson.org ">contact us).

7. Aquire and learn to use handcuffs.

8. Prepare flyers to hand to passersby and a statement to send to the media.

If you have more information on where these war criminals live and work please post it below and we'll add it above.

SOURCE

McClallan's Book Fallout

Today Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) called for former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan to appear before the House Judiciary Committee to testify under oath regarding the devastating revelations made in his new book on the Bush Administration’s deliberate efforts to mislead the American people into the Iraq War.

“The admissions made by Scott McClellan in his new book are earth-shattering and allege facts to establish that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby – and possibly Vice President Cheney - conspired to obstruct justice by lying about their role in the Plame Wilson matter and that the Bush Administration deliberately lied to the American people in order to take us to war in Iraq. Scott McClellan must now appear before the House Judiciary Committee under oath to tell Congress and the American people how President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and White House officials deliberately orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people.”

“The allegations by this former top White House aide – that Rove and Libby deliberately coordinated their stories in order to obstruct justice in the Plame case, that the President deliberately disregarded contradictory evidence related to Iraq, should outrage every American and Congress must respond by initiating immediate aggressive oversight starting with an appearance by McClellan before the House Judiciary Committee. Any continued obstruction by this Administration to prevent White House officials from appearing before Congress cannot be tolerated by this Congress in the face of these shocking revelations.”

Congressman Wexler has led a nationwide campaign in favor of holding impeachment hearings for Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Kids Camp

Surely nothing that bush has done in his two wretched terms of office—not the invasion and destruction of Iraq, not the overturning of the five-centuries-old tradition of habeas corpus, not his authorization and encouragement of torture, not his campaign of domestic spying—nothing, can compare in its ugliness as his approval, as commander in chief, of the imprisoning of over 2500 children.

According to the US government’s own figures, that is how many kids 17 years and younger have been held since 2001 as “enemy combatants”—often for over a year, and sometimes for over five years. At least eight of those children, some reportedly as young as 10, were held at Guantanamo. They even had a special camp for them there: Camp Iguana. One of those kids committed suicide at the age of 21, after spending five years in confinement at Guantanamo. (Ironically and tragically, that particular victim of the president’s criminal policy, had been determined by the Pentagon to have been innocent only two weeks before he took his own life, but nobody bothered to tell him he was slated for release and a return home to Afghanistan.)

I say bush’s behavior is criminal because since 1949, under the Geneva Conventions signed and adopted by the US, and incorporated into US law under the Constitution’s supremacy clause, children under the age of 15 are classed as “protected persons,” and even if captured while fighting against US forces are to be considered victims, not POWs. In 2002, the Bush administration signed an updated version of that treaty, raising the “protected person” age to all those “under 18.”

Treaties don’t mean much to this president, to the vice president, or to the rest of the administration, but they should mean something to the rest of us.

source

Republicuntardation

The most sweeping takeover of the new millennium didn't take place among the telecoms or the big oil companies, or in Silicon Valley.

It took place in Washington, but we can see and hear and feel its effects nationwide on our televisions, radios, and computer screens. And America is much the worse because of it. I'm talking about the takeover of the Republican Party by its own lunatic fringe, and the Right's hijacking of America.

Yes, the Republican Party has always had its far-right cowboys, its Jesse Helmses and Spiro Agnews. Yet they were removed from the party's more sober core.

But these days, judging by the opinions and actions of the Republicans in office and the party's candidates for president, it has become impossible to tell where this core stops and the fanatical fringe begins. Just look at what the party is endorsing.

We have a Republican Party that continues to back the White House's delusions about Iraq at the expense of our military, our treasure, our safety, and our standing in the world.

We have a mainstream on the Right that supports torture, that confirmed an attorney general nominee who is officially agnostic on torture, and that rallies behind a president who refuses to define what the very word "torture" means.

We have a mainstream that supports -- even applauds -- the behavior of thuggish Blackwater mercenaries, that supports the gutting of our civil liberties, that opposes universal health care, and that has views on immigration that wouldn't have been heard outside a John Birch Society meeting ten years ago.

It can no longer be denied: The right-wing lunatics are running the Republican asylum, and their madness has infected the entire country and poisoned the world beyond.

Right Is Wrong - Ariana Huffington

More bush Waste

A trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, and soon you're talking real money.

But when it comes to reporting on what the Bush war legacy has cost American taxpayers, the media have been shockingly indifferent to the highest run-up in military spending since World War II.

Even the devastating defense spending audit released Monday by the Government Accountability Office documenting the enormous waste in every single U.S. advanced weapons system failed to provoke the outrage it, and five equally scathing previous annual audits, deserved.

This is not about the waste of taxpayer dollars -- already pushing a trillion -- in funding the Iraq war, which, while reprehensible enough, pales in comparison to the big-ticket military systems purchased in the wake of 9/11. In the horror of that moment, the floodgates were lifted and the peace dividend promised with the end of the Cold War was washed away by a doubling of spending on ultra-complex military equipment originally designed to defeat a Soviet enemy that no longer exists, equipment that has no plausible connection with fighting stateless terrorists. Example: the $81-billion submarine pushed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, presumably to fight al-Qaida's navy.

That's the huge scandal the media and politicians from both parties have studiously avoided. But as the GAO's authoritative audit details, the costs are astronomical. The explosion of spending on expensive weaponry after 9/11 had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of that day. The high-tech planes and ships commissioned for trillions of dollars to defeat an enemy with no navy, air force or army, and using $3 knives as its weapons arsenal, were gifts to the military-industrial complex that will go on giving for decades to come.

The Iraq war may end someday, but rest assured that major weapons systems, once commissioned, have a life-support system unmatched in any other sector of public spending. Rarely does the plug get pulled on even the most irrelevant and expensive war toy. Not while both Democratic and Republican politicians feed at the same trough, and when so much is at stake in the way of jobs and profit.

Just how expensive and wasteful this is was marked in the GAO's audit: "Since 2000, the Department of Defense (DOD) has roughly doubled its planned investment in new systems from $790 billion to $1.6 trillion in 2007, but acquisition outcomes in terms of cost and schedule have not improved." Pentagon cost overruns, always a huge problem, have mushroomed. As the GAO reported, "Total acquisition costs for major defense programs in the fiscal year 2007 portfolio have increased 26 percent from first estimates, compared with 6 percent in 2000."

I know eyes glaze when government budgets are discussed, but keep in mind that defense spending accounts for more than half of all the federal government's discretionary spending. In short, funding for all the other stuff we argue about -- science research, education, Arabic translators, insuring uninsured children -- is minor compared to the waste on these military boondoggles that go unexamined.

Yet nothing else the federal government does involves such waste because we are talking about weapons systems shrouded in secrecy and protected from unwelcome scrutiny by the Teflon coating of "national defense." Credit the GAO for providing a rare glimpse into the most egregious waste of taxpayer dollars, concluding in its exhaustive, 205-page report:

"Of the 72 programs GAO assessed this year, none of them had proceeded through system development meeting the best-practice standards for mature technologies, stable design, or mature production processes by critical junctures of the program, each of which are essential for achieving planned cost, schedule, and performance outcomes."

That's a grade of zero for every major weapons system. Let's take just one, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a program estimated to be worth $300 billion in sales to its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, the nation's biggest defense contractor and most generous donor to lobbyists and politicians' campaigns. The program to build what Lockheed boasts is "the most complex fighter ever built" is also the most expensive, with estimated acquisition costs having increased a whopping $55 billion in just the last three years.

Lockheed need not worry about future profits, because the procurement schedule on this troubled plane has been stretched out to the year 2034. As the GAO says, "currently unproven processes and a lack of flight testing could mean future changes to design and manufacturing processes." Hey, no problem, Lockheed will just add that to the taxpayer tab. Maybe by 2034, the plane will be ready to go take out Osama bin Laden.

Or not.

Originally published here.

"W" Sneak Peak

Oliver Stone's biopic of bush is to show him as a hot-headed, once hard-drinking man whose relationship with his father influences much of his life, including an obsession with Iraq.

According to an early screenplay obtained by ABC News, the film, entitled W, will chart the President's journey from troubled alcoholic to world leader.

It goes back to the President's drink-sodden misbehaviour at Yale, where at one point he loudly denies he plans to follow his father into politics.

At one point he also insults his father as "Mr Perfect, Mr War Hero, Mr Fucking God Almighty", after being urged to contact Alcoholics Anonymous.

W, which shows how the younger Mr Bush gave up drinking after his 40th birthday and became a born-again Christian, also investigates what Stone sees as his determination to avenge Saddam Hussein's attempt to assassinate his father.

When Donald Rumsfeld, then defence secretary, asks: "What's the big deal about Saddam? Bin Laden's the trained ape", Mr Bush responds: "You don't go after the Bushes and get to talk about it. Ya got me?"

Stone, a polarising director who has described Mr Bush as "a synthetic person", could face more of the criticism he elicited for his takes on Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy, which some historians saw as full of inaccuracies.

But the film, which may come out before November's presidential election, also seeks to capture Mr Bush's inner struggles.

At one point he is shown telling the Rev Billy Graham that "there's this darkness that follows me. People say I was born with a silver spoon, but they don't know the burden that carries".

Yup. This poor idiot bastard carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

This out of touch with reality simpleton wouldn't know a burden if it was pointed out to him.

What a fucking asshole.

God Damn Republican Criminals

I said that I would never mention this fucking blowhard in my blog again but this just can't go unmentioned.

We all remember earlier this month when Rush Limbaugh encouraged Republicans to vote for Hillary in Texas and Ohio’s primaries. In Ohio when you change parties you must sign a form stating you are doing so because you believe in the political ideals of that party. Lying on that form is a criminal act, and has now spawned an investigation:

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has launched an investigation that could lead to criminal charges against voters who maliciously switched parties for the March 4 presidential primary.

Elections workers will look for evidence that voters lied when they signed affidavits pledging allegiance to their new party. And at least one board member, Sandy McNair, a Democrat, wants the county prosecutor to review the findings.

But it remained unclear Wednesday whether the four-member board will agree to pursue prosecution. A 2-2 vote would mean that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, would have to break the tie.

After the election a lot of these cross overs went on the air and proudly proclaimed that they did it for Rush. Little did they know they were admitting before the nation that they may have just broken the law.

Now the question remains about Rush’s involvement in this. Using the public airwaves to encourage people to break the law has been a shady area in the past. If charges do come out of the investigation, then the FCC needs to look at Rush’s involvement and possibly take action against him, as well as all affiliates that carry his show.

Proud To Be An American - Well I Used To Be

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
~~~ George W. Bush ~~~


With the fifth anniversary of our illegal, immoral, ill conceived and idiotic incursion into Iraq fast approaching, perhaps it's time to take an accounting of our actions.

Supposedly, we've lost about 4,000 dead American boys and girls. That's the official toll but the real toll maybe many times that as any one who dies off of Iraqi soil isn't counted.

Even if they're brain dead when the evacuation flight takes off they won't be counted dead in the official count. Nor will they if they succumb to their wounds if they die in the air or in a hospital in Germany or America.

Isn't that special?

Again the official toll for those wounded in Iraq is slightly more than 16,000, many with head wounds that leave them just shadows of their former selves. The cost in treasure is well over two trillion dollars and rising, something that we, our children and their children will be paying off for decades to come.

Now you would think that when we combine our losses in Iraq with those in Afghanistan we'd know we have enough on our plates and have paid a high enough cost in blood and treasure. All this just so our masters in the oil cartels can rake in record, obscene, profits while various other corpo-rat entities and private armies of soldiers of fortune fill their coffers with riches supplied by American dead. You might think this but you'd be wrong.

Everyone in the Junta from Smirky on down to Proconsul Admiral William Fallon, the former commander of this flying circus, keep dropping hints that there is more death and destruction awaiting across the border in Iran.

As costly as this war has been on America, it is but a drop in the bucket compared to what it has cost the Iraqis and the surrounding countries. The current count by the rest of the world stands at 1.3 million Iraqi dead. I say the world count as we don't bother counting the dead in Iraq since they're not considered human and, thus, not worth counting by the Pentagoon.

Add to that another 2 million wounded Iraqis and another 4 million who were forced to flee their homes and become refugees. Count in this group most of Iraq's educated and skilled workers, couple that with the damage we've caused to the infrastructure and Iraq may never recover from our Imperial scams.

Throw in Bush's constant demands on the puppet government for an invite to maintain those permanent bases we've built all over the country and any hope the Iraqi's have is gone.

If they hated us for our freedoms, they wouldn't hate us now as our freedoms are all but gone. They never hated us for our freedoms to begin with. They respected us for our freedoms.

They hate us for what we do to them and others!

Let me close on our five years in Iraq with a very funny joke.

Have you heard the one about Tony Blair, co-architect of this war crime and star of the Blair Bitch Project?

He is going to be teaching "religion" at Yale.

I guess the Church of England doesn't have the commandments "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's" in their Bible?

A Plea For American's

Dear Fellow American who is living in this country as the neocons bring us to the brink of disaster,

Two weeks ago, the House took a bold step demanding accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration by holding former White House Council Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in Contempt of Congress for blatantly ignoring congressional subpoenas for over 8 months.

Though it was not a surprise, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, wrote a letter to the House of Representatives stating that he refuses to call a Grand Jury to enforce those contempt citations.

The Attorney General’s letter, effectively claiming that members of the executive branch are immune from congressional subpoenas, calls for quick action.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Chairman Conyers have smartly decided to pursue a civil lawsuit to force Bolton and Miers to appear before Congress. We should pursue a lawsuit – but I think we can do even more.

While a court may order – months from now –that Miers and Bolten must appear before Congress, by then George Bush and Dick Cheney will have largely accomplished their goal of running out the clock on the investigation into this Administration’s politicization of the Justice Department. Even a successful outcome in federal court might only mandate that they appear, at which time the witnesses are likely simply to continue their obfuscation by claiming executive privilege of the 5th Amendment in person.

The House of Representatives must re-establish its legitimate rights as a co-equal branch of government. Congress cannot allow its power to be summarily ignored and justice delayed.

The House was correct to hold these renegade White House officials in contempt, and much credit should be given to Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Conyers for pushing for that outcome. Now, we must go further: The House must immediately consider taking the following actions:

- Initiating impeachment hearings that would likely break through the reckless claims of executive privilege made by the Bush Administration.

- Approve a resolution that calls for an inherent contempt citation which would give the House Sergeant at Arms the power to bring Miers and Bolton before Congress.

As you may know, 17 of my colleagues, including four of my fellow members of the Judiciary Committee have joined my call for impeachment hearings. This is not an issue between Democrats and Republicans. As members of Congress, we have an absolute duty to enforce the checks and balances prescribed by our Constitution.

We have ceded too much for too long, enabling George W. Bush to assume a unitary imperial Presidency. It is long past time to secure accountability for those who have, by all appearances, committed significant breaches of our laws and trust.

Mukasey’s claims are simply the latest in a long line of outlandish legal arguments ranging from the idea that we can selectively cherry-pick from torture laws to the concept that the Vice President is no longer part of the Executive Branch (except, of course, when he needs to claim Executive Privilege).

Over the past months, I have received tens of thousands of emails and letters from you expressing your great support for my efforts. Your encouragement and activism on these causes are much appreciated. I continue to work hard on your behalf and hope you feel these updates are valuable.

With kind regards,

Congressman Robert Wexler
www.WexlerForCongress.com

Fuck The bush Puppet Mukasey

Two weeks ago, the House took a bold step demanding accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration by holding former White House Council Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in Contempt of Congress for blatantly ignoring congressional subpoenas for over 8 months.

Though it was not a surprise, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, wrote a letter to the House of Representatives stating that he refuses to call a Grand Jury to enforce those contempt citations.

The Attorney General’s letter, effectively claiming that members of the executive branch are immune from congressional subpoenas, calls for quick action. [..]

The House of Representatives must re-establish its legitimate rights as a co-equal branch of government. Congress cannot allow its power to be summarily ignored and justice delayed.[..]

This is not an issue between Democrats and Republicans. As members of Congress, we have an absolute duty to enforce the checks and balances prescribed by our Constitution.

We have ceded too much for too long, enabling George W. Bush to assume a unitary imperial Presidency. It is long past time to secure accountability for those who have, by all appearances, committed significant breaches of our laws and trust.

Mukasey’s claims are simply the latest in a long line of outlandish legal arguments ranging from the idea that we can selectively cherry-pick from torture laws to the concept that the Vice President is no longer part of the Executive Branch (except, of course, when he needs to claim Executive Privilege).



You can support Robert Wexler by signing up at WexlerWantsHearings.com.

Oh Johnny, We Hardley Knew Ye

Senator John McCain likes to present himself as the candidate of the “Straight Talk Express” who does not pander to voters or change his positions with the political breeze.

But the fine print of his record in the Senate indicates that he has been a lot less consistent on some of his signature issues than he has presented himself to be so far in his presidential campaign.

Mr. McCain, who derided his onetime Republican competitor Mitt Romney for his political mutability, has himself meandered over the years from position to position on some topics, particularly as he has tried to court the conservatives who have long distrusted him.

For its part, the McCain campaign told the Times that the senator “has evolved rather than switched positions in his 25-year career.” That’s a perfectly sensible spin — when a politician holds one position, and then, for apparently political reasons, decides to embrace the polar opposite position, it’s only natural for his or her aides to say the politician’s position has “evolved.”

But in McCain’s case, the spin is wholly unfulfilling. First, McCain sells himself as a pol who never sways with the wind, and whose willingness to be consistent in the face of pressure is proof of his character. Second, Republicans have spent the last four years or so making policy reversals the single most serious political crime in presidential politics. The dreaded “flip-flop” is, according to the GOP, the latest cardinal sin for someone seeking national office.

And if we’re playing by Republican rules, McCain’s “inconsistencies” should be a fairly serious problem.

For a list of McCain's oopsey's, CLICK HERE!

What's Turd Blossom Cooking Up Now?

Karl Rove played a leading role in the demise of the Republican party, and now as a FOXNews pundit he has been desperately trying to rewrite history and on yesterday's Fox News Sunday, he was laying down some of his patented fact-free spin on Iraq, Al Qaeda and the 2008 presidential campaigns.

Wallace pointed out that the American people are solidly against this war by every poll known to man, but Rove acting as a propagandist frames it this way.

Rove: "If we were to give up Iraq with the third largest oil reserves in the world to the control of an Al Qaida regime or to the control of Iran, don’t you think $200 a barrel oil would have a cost to the American economy?"

Rove calls Senator Barack Obama a “Neo-Isolationist” for daring to say that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq in the first place (repeatedly misrepresenting Obama’s withdrawal plans) then goes on to say that we must stay in Iraq because we can’t let the third largest oil reserves in the world to fall into the hands of an Al Qaeda-led Iraq — which is a giant red herring considering Iraq’s government is dominated by Shiites who would never allow a few thousand Sunnis who call themselves Al Qaeda to take over their country under any circumstances. There’s absolutely no data to suggest this could ever happen and in fact, our presence there is merely perpetuating the problem.

Rove also floats the notion that oil prices will soar to $200 per barrel if we redeploy, but the reality is that our invasion of Iraq is the reason oil prices have now breached the $100 mark in the first place and our continued destabilizing presence in the Middle East will continue to drive prices higher.

From the Democratic standpoint, we can only hope that Senator McCain is stupid enough to continue to support Bush’s failed policies in Iraq all the way to November.

bush Fucked Us All

THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.

Australia also faced a real bill much greater than the $2.2billion in military spending reported last week by Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston, Professor Stiglitz said, pointing to higher oil prices and other indirect costs of the wars.

Professor Stiglitz told the Chatham House think tank in London that the Bush White House was currently estimating the cost of the war at about $US500 billion, but that figure massively understated things such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.

The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said.

The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.

"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.

That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.

Professor Stiglitz, an academic at the Columbia Business School and a former economic adviser to president Bill Clinton, said a further $US500 billion was going to be spent on the fighting in the next two years and that could have been used more effectively to improve the security and quality of life of Americans and the rest of the world.

The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world, he said.

Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered, he said.

The public had been encouraged by the White House to ignore the costs of the war because of the belief that the war would somehow pay for itself or be paid for by Iraqi oil or US allies.

"When the Bush administration went to war in Iraq it obviously didn't focus very much on the cost. Larry Lindsey, the chief economic adviser, said the cost was going to be between $US100billion and $US200 billion - and for that slight moment of quasi-honesty he was fired.

"(Then defence secretary Donald) Rumsfeld responded and said 'baloney', and the number the administration came up with was $US50 to $US60 billion. We have calculated that the cost was more like $US3 trillion.

"Three trillion is a very conservative number, the true costs are likely to be much larger than that."

Five years after the war, the US was still spending about $US50billion every three months on direct military costs, he said.

Professor Stiglitz and another Clinton administration economist, Linda Bilmes, have produced a book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, pulling together their research on the true cost of the war, which does not include the cost to Iraq.

One of the greatest discrepancies is that the official figures do not include the long-term healthcare and social benefits for injured servicemen, who are surviving previously fatal attacks because of improved body armour.

"The ratio of injuries to fatalities in a normal war is 2:1. In this war they admitted to 7:1 but a true number is (something) like 15:1."

Some 100,000 servicemen have been diagnosed with serious psychological problems and the soldiers doing the most tours of duty have not yet returned.

Professor Stiglitz attributed to the Iraq war $US5-$US10 of the almost $US80-a-barrel increase in oil prices since the start of the war, adding that it would have been reasonable to attribute more than $US35 of that rise to the war.

He said the British bill for its role in the war was about 20 times the pound stg. 1billion ($2.1 billion) that former prime minister Tony Blair estimated before the war.

The British Government was yesterday ordered to release details of its planning for the war, when the country's Information Commissioner backed a Freedom of Information request for the minutes of two cabinet meetings in the days before the war.

Commissioner Richard Thomas said that because of the importance of the decision to go to war, the public interest in disclosing the minutes outweighed the public interest in withholding the information.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-26397,00.html

YEEEEEHAW! Another Republicunt Goes Down!

In his 30-plus-year legal career in Harris County, Texas, Chuck "Rosey" Rosenthal has been no stranger to controversy. As a prosecutor he lit firecrackers in the stairwell of the district attorney’s offices soon after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings. (It was a prank, he said.) After he was elected DA in 2000 he called the death penalty a “biblical proposition” and lobbied unsuccessfully to maintain Texas’s sodomy law…

Rosenthal is back in the headlines again. Last December, as part of a federal civil rights lawsuit into how justice is meted out in the county, he turned over the partial contents of his government e-mail account.

And what a batch of e-mails it was.

Black ministers called for the Republican to resign because of racist material, including a cartoon depicting an African-American suffering from a “fatal overdose” of watermelon and fried chicken. There were adult video clips and love notes from Rosenthal to his secretary, his mistress during a previous marriage.

Now it appears that Rosenthal’s on-the-job antics have done him in. In the wake of the e-mail revelations, local GOP leaders forced him to abort his re-election bid. Then, on Feb. 15, after Lloyd Kelley, the attorney in the civil rights case, brought a lawsuit accusing him of drinking on the job and “incompetence, or official misconduct,” Rosenthal resigned. Read on…

The article also states that Rosenthal isn’t out of the woods yet. Following in the footsteps of the Bush administration and the GOP, it appears he deleted e-mails he was supposed to have saved and could be in some hot water.

President's Day

Let this President's Day serve as a reminder that there is a criminal holding the office of the Presidency who must be held accountable and impeached as required by the Constitution of the United States.

With the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaching, impeachment activists are in high gear across the country. The war is an ongoing crime against the people of Iraq and the people of this country, but the perpetrators and torturers in chief go unpunished. The violations of civil rights and civil liberties in the United States by the administration are unbounded.

Let us remember the words from Keith Olbermann, MSNBC show host. Let these words burn into your soul.



It is now increasingly common to hear people including some in the mass media and in Congress say as Mr. Olbermann does on this video, "As recently ago as 2006, we spoke words like these with trepidation. The idea that even the most cynical and untrustworthy of politicians in our history, George W. Bush, would use the literal form of terrorism against his own people was dangerous territory. It seemed to tempt fate, to heighten fear.

"We will not fear any longer. We will not fear the international terrorists, and we will thwart them. We will not fear the recognition of the manipulation of our yearning for safety, and we will call it what it is: terrorism. We will not fear identifying the vulgar hypocrites in our government, and we will name them. And we will not fear George W. Bush."