Yes, I believe that Obama might possibly make a decent President (Which I do NOT believe of Hillary!) HOWEVER! The ONLY "Change" that can make a difference in the "Loser" status of the "Democratic Party" RIGHT NOW, is a change of heart and mind on the part of Nancy Pelosi to allow the initiation of impeachment proceedings against Cheney. Otherwise you are going to see a rise in "Independent" votes at the general election that will upset a LOT of Democrats, and maybe return control of the Congress - and perhaps the Nation - to the Republicans! (And McCain wants us in Iraq for the next Century!) Or maybe Bloomberg will be able to buy the election, if he wants the job that badly - you think he'd be a good President?

The ONLY hope for the Nation is for Nancy to crawl out from under Felix Rohatyn's thumb, and stand on her own two feet. At least she'll guarantee her own re-election that way. If she keeps impeachment as an impossibility, there is a good chance that she'll be out of office in 2009.

Impeach Cheney, and MAYBE we won't nuke Iran, with concomitant war with Russia. We'd very likely LOSE that one! Don't let Dick do it to us!

You are helping to run out the clock on Bush by wasting precious time campaigning for Obama. He doesn't really need your help, but the American people do.

Bush has committed high-crimes and the proof is in their own words.

The Bush administration has admitted waterboarding prisoners. Waterboarding is not only a crime, it is a war crime.

The Boston Globe editorial board writes: "In 1901 in the United States, the military court-martialed and sentenced to 10 years hard labor a US major who had waterboarded a prisoner in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. The United States officially outlawed the practice after World War II, when the Germans and Japanese had both used it against Allied troops. The Allies executed eight Japanese officers for waterboarding British prisoners and sentenced another to 15 years hard labor for waterboarding a US civilian, among other crimes.

"The United Nations' Convention Against Torture prohibits any treatment of prisoners causing long-term physical or mental damage, which human-rights advocates believe includes waterboarding. . . .

"The Spanish Inquisition, Nazi Germany, militarist Japan, Pol Pot - this is the roster that Bush wants the United States to join. Congress should act to make sure that the United States does not once again stoop to using tortura del agua (water torture). That's what it was called during the Inquisition."
click here

You have the proof, Congressman Conyers, get off of the trail, and start issuing warrants and subpoenas, NOW!!! And if Pelosi tries to stop you, throw her in jail for obstruction.

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

The next president should open up the Bush Administration's record
ASK THIS | February 07, 2008

By now no one expects the Bush Administration to make itself accountable for its controversial and possibly illegal practices. But the next President will have a unique opportunity to reveal what has been kept hidden for the last seven years. Secrecy watchdog Steven Aftergood suggests a few questions for the presidential candidates about their willingness to disclose just what the current Administration has done.

By Steven Aftergood
saftergood@fas.org

In 2005, then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey told colleagues at the Justice Department that they would be “ashamed” when a legal memorandum on forceful interrogation of prisoners eventually became public. In fact, however, disclosure of such secret Bush Administration documents may be the only way to begin to overcome the palpable shame that is already felt by many Americans at the thought that their government has engaged in abusive interrogations, secret renditions or unchecked surveillance.

The next President will have the authority to declassify and disclose any and all records that reflect the activities of executive branch agencies. Although internal White House records that document the activities of the outgoing President and his personal advisers will be exempt from disclosure for a dozen years or so, every Bush Administration decision that was actually translated into policy will have left a documentary trail in one or more of the agencies, and all such records could be disclosed at the discretion of the next President.

A new President may find it advantageous to quickly distinguish himself (or herself) from the current Administration and its policies. By exposing what is “shameful” in our recent past the new Administration could demonstrate a clean break with its predecessor, and lay the foundation for a more transparent and accountable Presidency.

Most of the leading candidates from both parties have specifically criticized the secrecy of the Bush Administration. In particular, those who are now serving in Congress have repeatedly been on the receiving end of White House secrecy, and may be all the more motivated to repudiate it in deed as well as in word.

“Excessive administration secrecy... feeds conspiracy theories and reduces the public's confidence in government,” Sen. John McCain has said. “I'll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information,” said Sen. Barack Obama. “We'll protect sources and methods, but we won't use sources and methods as pretexts to hide the truth.” “We need a return to transparency and a system of checks and balances, to a president who respects Congress's role of oversight and accountability,” said Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The most troubling and the most secretive Bush Administration actions are those in the realm of national security policy, and that is the first place, though not the last, where the next Administration could constructively shed new light. It goes without saying that genuine national security secrets such as confidential sources and legally authorized intelligence methods should be protected from disclosure. But that still leaves ample room for revelation of fundamental policy choices, and certainly of any illegal or embarrassing (“shameful”) actions that may have been improperly classified to evade accountability. For example:

1. Domestic Surveillance. The White House is seeking and Congress is poised to grant retroactive immunity for telephone companies that assisted the Administration in its surveillance activities. But immunity for what? “This Administration may have enjoyed completely unrestrained access to the communications of virtually every American,” said Sen. James Webb (D-VA) earlier this month. “Do we know this to be the case? I cannot be sure. One reason I cannot be sure is that I have been denied access to review the documents that may answer these questions about the process.” Such uncertainty should be remedied once and for all by official disclosure.

2. Interrogation and Torture. After months and years of awkward circumlocution, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden admitted on February 5 that U.S. interrogators had subjected three al Qaeda prisoners to waterboarding, or simulated drowning. But the acknowledgment raised more questions than it answered. On what authority did interrogators engage in what has long been considered a prosecutable action? What other coercive interrogation techniques have been adopted? If waterboarding is now deemed permissible under some circumstances, is there any interrogation technique that the Administration would still rule out? What has been the humanitarian cost around the world? As a practical matter, has the U.S. government effectively legitimized torture? If there is to be accountability for the interrogation of prisoners in U.S. custody, the first step must be a forthright disclosure of what the Bush Administration has done.

3. Extraordinary Rendition. The U.S. Government has seized suspected terrorists and transported them without any semblance of judicial process to foreign countries where they have been tortured, a process known as “extraordinary rendition.” In one particularly outlandish case, a Canadian national named Maher Arar was arrested in New York on the basis of erroneous information and deported by the U.S. Government to Syria, where he was brutally interrogated over the course of a year. Following his release, the government of Canada concluded that his detention was a mistake and issued a formal apology. But the Bush Administration declined to follow suit.

4. And Much More. The topics noted above became controversial due to press reports, leaks, whistleblower accounts, lawsuits and similar indications. But there is reason to wonder what other yet unknown deviations from accepted practice the Bush Administration might have pursued under cover of secrecy. Of the 54 National Security Presidential Directives issued by the Bush Administration to date, the titles of only about half have been publicly identified. There is descriptive material or actual text in the public domain for only about a third. In other words, there are dozens of undisclosed Presidential directives that define U.S. national security policy and task government agencies, but whose substance is unknown either to the public or, as a rule, to Congress. Given what we do know of the character of the present Administration, this whole mechanism of executive authority seems in need of public ventilation.

And so here are some questions that journalists could usefully pose to the presidential candidates:

Q. Will you disclose the full scope of Bush Administration domestic surveillance activities affecting American citizens, including all surveillance actions that were undertaken outside of the framework of law, as well as the legal opinions that were generated to justify them?

Q. Will you specify precisely what sort of coercive interrogation techniques were employed by the Bush Administration, as well as their purported justifications, so that the nation may openly decide whether to embrace or to repudiate such techniques?

Q. Will you renounce the practice of extraordinary rendition that is not sanctioned by any judicial process? Will you issue a formal apology to Maher Arar for his mistaken arrest, deportation and torture?

Q. Will you disclose at least a summary account of the contents of each of the Bush Administration's National Security Presidential Directives, as well as your own?
click here

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg: Bush Likely to Attack Iran, Impeachment a Must
By Sari Gelzer, TruthOut.org
Posted on February 7, 2008, Printed on February 8, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76241/

Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the country's most famous whistleblower, fears that before the Bush administration leaves office, it will try to attack Iran.

Indeed, Ellsberg's argument gained merit as George W. Bush increased his rhetoric against Iran when he delivered his final State of the Union Address. Bush accused Iran of training militia extremists in Iraq and emphasized the United States will confront its enemies.

In a wide-ranging interview with Truthout, Ellsberg uses insight from his experience as a Pentagon analyst under the Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon administrations to discuss Bush's plans to begin a war with Iran, the role of the press to give whistleblowers exposure and how American democracy can be restored.

Due to Ellsberg's experience working within the government, I wanted his insight into how the Bush administration is attempting to begin a war with Iran.

When I highlighted his experience working for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1965 to draft a speech with the goal of rationalizing and gaining public support for the Vietnam War, Ellsberg gave a very long sigh.

"That was not my finest hour that I look back on. That was something that I am ashamed of," he tells me with a heavy heart.

Ellsberg wishes he had spoken out against the Vietnam War sooner. As a civilian working for the government, he says his oath was always to the Constitution, and he violated that oath until the day he decided to leak the Pentagon Papers in 1971 to reveal the war was unlawful.

Ellsberg now spends his time ardently encouraging and supporting whistleblowers to come forward when they see constitutional violations. He emphasizes the importance of documents as evidence and of timeliness so that lies are exposed before an actual war occurs.

Pending war with Iran or Gulf of Tonkin deja vu

The recent announcement in December by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) revealed, counter to the president's claims, that Iran did not have an active nuclear program. This was unexpected, says Ellsberg.

The administration had said, weeks before this release, it had no intention of putting out NIE summaries, Ellsberg says. However, the information was released because, according to newspaper reports, there was a threat of leaks:

"As one news story put it, intelligence officials were lined up to go to jail if the administration did not release those findings," says Ellsberg, emphasizing his creed in the need to take risks for the sake of revealing truth.

"I wish I could say it made an attack on Iran zero, and it hasn't, but it has reduced it and confirms, in my opinion, the power of being willing to risk prosecution, willing to give up your career, your clearance, which these people would have done if they'd put that information out -- and the mere threat was enough to get it out in this case," emphasizes Ellsberg.

Ellsberg says Bush will simply find a different pretext from the nuclear program.

"After all, it was about a year ago that he really stopped pressing the nuclear program as the main reason to start attacking Iran and start talking about what they were doing against U.S. forces in Iraq," says Ellsberg, who claims people in the military have recently undercut this statement by saying there is no evidence of Iran's involvement against U.S. forces in Iraq.

Bush could also use an incident that is blamed on Iran as a means to begin a war with them.

Early this year, Ellsberg experienced deja vu when the White House and a complicit media portrayed an incident in the Strait of Hormuz that deeply paralleled the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident was an alleged attack by North Vietnamese ships upon American boats. As a result of this alleged aggression, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave former President Johnson the permission to expand the Vietnam War.

The recent incident involving Iran alleged serious threats were being made to U.S. ships by Iranian speedboats. Within days of the events in the Straight of Hormuz, information revealed the details of the entire event had been fabricated. Ellsberg sees promise in the quickness of this revelation because, in contrast, it was only in 2005 and 2008 that the inaccuracies and deceptions of the Gulf of Tonkin incident were revealed by the declassification of National Security Administration reports.

Ellsberg is worried Congress has not put forth an effort to demand it be informed before an attack on Iran should occur. Currently, there is a Senate resolution to demand Congress be consulted in the event of plans to attack Iran, but it has not gotten out of committee.

Instead, the Senate has virtually endorsed the president's power to begin a war with Iran, says Ellsberg, with the passage of legislation last September declaring that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is a terrorist organization.

"To say that the Revolutionary Guards in Iran are a terrorist organization ... is very close to saying that the president is able to attack them at his discretion. Now to give this president that discretion is inexcusable, outrageous," says Ellsberg.

The Democratic Congress should be having open hearings on Iran, says Ellsberg, as well as on how we got into the war against Iraq and regarding Guantanamo. But the Democratic chairmen are not holding such hearings.

The American public, and media in general, have not picked up on the urgency surrounding a pending war with Iran, Ellsberg says. For over two years, Sy Hersh and others have been writing detailed articles stating operational plans against Iran are being updated to the minute, so that within hours or a day they can be implemented.

The problem with these articles, says Ellsberg, is not that Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, lacks credibility, it's that his sources are not willing to go beyond their anonymity. Ellsberg emphasizes the sources in Sy Hersh's reports, and others within the government, must reveal documents, risk their career and testify before Congress if they wish to profoundly alter the course of a pending war with Iran.

Gateway for whistleblowers: the press

Whistleblowers depend strongly on the press to relay their information to the American public, who will then be able to exert pressure in politics. When I ask Ellsberg if he believes the press is doing a good job of this, he gives me the most matter-of-fact answer of the evening: "No."

In October of 2004, whistleblowers gave the New York Times knowledge of an illegal and unconstitutional domestic spying program that was being carried out by the U.S. government. The newspaper waited a year to reveal this information.

This was not just any year, says Ellsberg. The Times held this information at the request of the White House until after the 2004 election, avoiding the possible impact it could have had in swaying voters.

The New York Times, says Ellsberg, was pressured to publish the article because its internal reporter, James Risen, was going to release a book regarding the Times' decision to remain silent at the White House's request.

The New York Times received a Pulitzer Prize for releasing this story. Ellsberg says he believes not only reporters but whistleblowers who reveal important information should also receive a prize in recognition of their public service. This is not a retroactive attempt on his part, he says, to receive an award.

Ellsberg smiles. "In my case my prize was the indictment," which he says he has taken to be as great an honor as he needs in life.

The press in America, says Ellsberg, is currently avoiding the story of an explosive whistleblower by the name of Sibel Edmonds. A former FBI translator of Turkish and Persian, he says she has been attempting to speak before Congress for five years.

Early last month, Sibel Edmonds appeared on the front page of the London Sunday Times to reveal information she learned as an FBI employee. Ellsberg describes her claims that the U.S. government is giving nuclear materials, equipment and expertise to countries, including Turkey, which in turn sell them to other countries, including Pakistan. In effect, says Ellsberg, criminal bribery is occurring.

Ellsberg says Edmonds is also revealing the U.S. government is allowing a drug trade that finances terrorist operations, such as al-Qaeda, to continue. Ellsberg describes her revelations further, saying the U.S. government is turning a blind eye to the drug trade of U.S. allies such as Turkey and Pakistan, as well as countries such as Uzbekistan, where the United States wants to gain military base rights.

These allegations are only part of the knowledge Edmonds wishes to share before Congress, and she awaits the chance to do so, claiming she knows people in the FBI, CIA and NSA who will corroborate her statements, says Ellsberg.

This is in direct parallel, says Ellsberg, to what happened to Catherine Gunn, a British whistleblower whose actions, he believes, were more important than the release of the Pentagon Papers, because she provided information early enough to have prevented the Iraq war.

Gunn, who worked as an employee for British Intelligence, Government Communication Headquarters, revealed a document showing the United States was "tapping the U.N. Security Council members in order to influence their votes in support of an aggressive war, which was about to take place," says Ellsberg.

This was front-page news, not only in London, says Ellsberg, but all over the world, except the United States, where it did not appear for about 11 months. Ellsberg says it was reasonable to believe Gunn could have stopped the war, and he believes she prevented a U.N. Security Council vote in support of the war.

"The same thing is happening to Sibel Edmonds as we speak," says Ellsberg, intensely.

How to restore American democracy

As the days of Bush's final term in office dwindle, Ellsberg emphasizes that, no matter how much time is left, impeachment is one thing that must happen for the sake of preserving American democracy.

Impeachment proceedings are essential, says Ellsberg, "both for the information that it will produce and above all to make it clear that Congress perceives the illegal and unconstitutional acts taken by this administration to be high crimes and misdemeanors, and for the deterrent effect that they will have on future presidents."

In addition to impeachment hearings, Ellsberg says Congress must reverse the laws that have "outrageously" passed under "intimidation" by Bush. These include say Ellsberg: "The Patriot Act; the Military Commissions Act, which among other things essentially denies habeas corpus; the signing statements, which essentially give the president the power to ignore constraints on torture; and they could change the so-called Protect America Act which legalized much of the unconstitutional surveillance that the NSA was doing without Congress even knowing what they were legalizing."

For those things that Congress cannot overturn, Ellsberg suggests hearings by Congress to show, for example, that "not only was torture illegal, it should continue to be illegal because it hurts our national security."

None of these changes will happen without an active American movement, says Ellsberg, which must demand Congress members uphold their oath to support the Constitution rather than their political career.

Looking at the current primaries and the future presidential election, Ellsberg says the American public must create priorities that are different from those offered by the current candidates.

The changes that need to occur are drastic, and given the stakes, Ellsberg believes the American public should be willing to invest its time so that the crisis we currently find ourselves in can be met with strong action:

"If enough people simply look clearly at what we are doing in our course towards an abyss right now, they do have the power with the remaining democracy we have still in this country to turn it around."

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/76241/

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Myself, I’m still skeptical about impeachment hearings occurring in the 110th Congress at all but that doesn’t mean I can’t hope.

Following his Thursday hearing with Attorney General Michael Mukasey at which the AG said he would not investigate torture (video) or warrantless spying (video); he would not enforce contempt citations (video), and he would treat Justice Department opinions as providing immunity for crimes, (report) the venerable Mr. Conyers must have been in some kind of mood. He and two staff members actually agreed to talk with two members of Code Pink about impeachment. The meeting lasted a full hour and a half.

(snip)
Activist David Swanson of afterdowningstreet.com wrote about the meeting over @ OpEdNews:
After an hour delay, Conyers entered the room attached to the committee room with three beers, a bag of nuts and two staffers. According to Swanson, nobody drank the beers but Conyers did eat the nuts. Conyers’ staffers were Perry Appelbaum, whom I’ve spoken with on a number of occasions, and George Slover. Appelbaum left the meeting early.

You wouldn’t normally think that a man who wrote a book two years ago titled "The Constitution in Crisis," which details many of Bush and Cheney’s impeachable offenses, would need pushing, but both members of Code Pink did their best to impress upon the chairman the importance of the Constitution; the crisis it faces, and how Congress’s lack of action jeopardizes democracy in America.

More here

On Thursday, AG Mukasey refused to do his job.

“He said he would not investigate torture or warrantless spying, he would not enforce contempt citations, and he would treat Justice Department opinions as providing immunity for crimes”

The House Judiciary Committee and the Chairman have two choices:

Choice One: Begin impeachment hearings, and re-establish the dangerously eroded co-equal status of the Legislative Branch.

The Committee has an abundance of Impeachable Administration Criminals from which to choose: They could - Bring charges against Mukasey himself as an accessory after the fact in criminal activities with his refusal to prosecute these criminal activities. Or they could - Bring charges against Mukasey’s boss(es) the President and/or Vice-President for their roles in all the crimes that have been documented by many people, including the Chairman himself.

Choice Two: The Chairman and the Democratic “leadership” can meekly accept this latest arrogant dictatorial message sent from Bush/ Cheney and delivered by their latest messenger boy, Mukasey. That message is: The Bush Administration is accountable to no one—most certainly, it is not accountable to Congress, and there’s nothing that the Congress can do about it.

If the Chairman continues to choose to be trampled by the lame duck he’ll have plenty of time to write the sequel to his “Constitution in Crisis” (the title of which was later changed to “George W. Bush vs. the US Constitution”).

The working title of the new book could be: “Who Needs a Constitution Anyway?” (Subtitle: “I Had More Important Stuff to Do than Defend The Constitution").

While Congress dithers about the "smartness" of accepting their Constitutional and voter mandates to provide oversight on an Executive that has broken numerous laws, there’s more: Here’s something that in a normally functioning Congress populated by honorable citizens and headed by competent leadership, would automatically lead to immediate oversight hearings:

Via this diary, and this article FBI Deputizes Business:

“Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the DHS. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.

“InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard…and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm. ..InfraGard itself is still an FBI operation, with FBI agents in each state overseeing the local InfraGard chapters. (There are now eighty-six of them.)”

“We are the owners, operators, and experts of our critical infrastructure…says Schneck, who by day is the vice president of research integration at Secure Computing...To join, each person must be sponsored by “an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization. The FBI then vets the applicant” (Oh Now I feel much better…).

“…The ACLU is not so sanguine. ‘There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI,’ …There’s no ‘business class’ in law enforcement. If there’s information the FBI can share with 22,000 corporate bigwigs, why don’t they just share it with the public?..."

"...One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation—and what their role might be…”

‘The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,’ he says. ‘From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.’ These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out…

“…But that’s not all. Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,’ he says.

Well, AG Mukasey just testified and basically said that he’s not going to uphold any Constitutional limitations on the Executive. Apparently, the Bush Administration sent Mukasey to Congress to tell them to “go Cheney themselves”.

Mr. Chairman: Whether or not the current Administration would declare martial law and use civilian business people to “shoot to kill” their fellow citizens with impunity, as long as this program is in place, any future Administration will also be free to misuse and abuse it. Isn’t it the better part of wisdom for Congress to step in NOW and provide some co-equal Branch oversight?

Yes, we need "Change". We need our elected representatives to "Change" into people who take seriously their oath of office to "Support and Defend the Constitution". We need them to change into representatives who will put the good of the Country before party politics--and if they continue to refuse, we need to "Change" those "representatives".

Though Congress seems to be content to be humiliated by the Administration’s latest waterboy, Mukasey, many who live outside the poisonous fog of the Beltway see that the bush Administration no longer feels the need to even appear to be bound by or to enforce laws if he chooses not to. The current AG may be more intelligent than the previous AG, but he is every bit as concerned with defending the Executive rather than defending and enforcing the laws of the US:

Turkana says:

“It comes down to this: the Bush Administration believes it is above the law, and Congressional Democrats concur. There is no other way to explain the unwillingness of the Democrats to force the confrontations that would reassert the primacy of law. The Administration demonstrates, time and again, that as long as it is allowed to get away with anything, it will do whatever it wants. The rule of law and the balance of powers are irrelevant… When Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table, it signaled to the Administration that it had a green light to function as a monarchy…”

“…Now, keep in mind that Mukasey is not saying that these acts may not have been illegal, nor is he saying that there are questions about whether or not these acts were even committed. He is saying that neither the facts nor the law matters. He is saying that if officials of the Department of Justice give permission for the commission of possibly illegal acts, those perpetrating said acts are automatically immunized from legal consequences…”

As dday put it:

“…The Attorney General is saying that the President can do anything he wants, break the law any way he wants, as long as the President's own Justice Department, populated by his own handpicked officials, validates it. And he's saying it directly to members of Congress, essentially telling them that they don't exist…”

David Kurtz at Talking Point Memo says:

“…We have now the Attorney General of the United States telling Congress that it's not against the law for the President to violate the law if his own Department of Justice says it's not…”

“…President Bush has now laid down his most aggressive challenge to the very constitutional authority of Congress. It is a naked assertion of executive power. The founders would have called it tyrannical. His cards are now all on the table. This is no bluff…”

Tyrannical indeed. The founders understood that tyranny cannot be tolerated and they put their fortunes, their personal freedom and their very lives on the line to stop the tyranny. It may not have been “smart”, but the Founders knew that if they didn’t stand up, they would be crushed under the boot of the tyrant. It is simply beyond comprehension that the 110th Congress continues to fail to stand up to the tyrant, in spite of his escalating lawbreaking.

Why is Bush continuing to ignore the law? Because he can. Because Congress has taken Impeachment—the lawful remedy bequeathed by the Founders to the Legislative Branch, the remedy to rid the nation of tyrants—off the table.

The citizens are speaking more and more loudly. They are demanding accountability and oversight. They are demanding that the Democratic "leadership" Change--that they actually become leaders and take decisive action to end the torture and lawbreaking by the Executive.

As of this afternoon, 223, 510 (and still counting) citizens have signed Representative Wexler's petition for accountability.

Since Mukasey won't, why won't you?

Oh, I forgot, you've been coerced into embracing the concept that Congress is irrelevant to the Administration. You've tolerated being swept aside by this Administration. You've accepted the notion that you CAN be usurped and dismissed by the Administration. You've concluded that the DOJ, as partisan as it is, not only is something to emulate, but in that process, it is their partisanship that trumps the rule of law.

I know why this is not a "CHANGE" issue. For if it were, it would mean that Congress matters, even to a Democratic Administration. That the Rule of Law matters, even to a Democratic Administration. That this egregious assertion of power is unacceptable, even to a Democratic Administration.

Hell, I'm hedging that these Candidates want this level of power. Why not? What with all this inaction to correct the course.

Congressman,
You can not guarantee to America that bloviating about these problems will fix them any more than you can guarantee that moving on consequential accountability will be a distraction. At that moment you're pleading to America your own irrelevency!

And you want me to support that?

==============
I M P E A C H
or RESIGN !!!

from him.

Dear (deleted),

Our Constitution is under threat and the most basic principle of checks and balances is being undermined. Not since Watergate has a president so openly disregarded the will of Congress.

During hearings in the Judiciary Committee yesterday, I told Attorney General Michael Mukasey that I called for impeachment hearings because of the stonewalling and blatant abuses of the Bush Administration. He responded by stating that he will NOT enforce a contempt of Congress citation against Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten for refusing to testify before Congress. The video is here: Video

Alberto Gonzales may be long gone, but the Bush Administration continues its executive overreach with the new Attorney General.

We can debate the need for Impeachment hearings. We can argue its effects on the election or our agenda. But one thing is abundantly clear:

If Congress' right to require testimony is undermined, then our country's leaders - Democrat, Republican, or Independent - will be immune from accountability.

The power of the subpoena - to call officials before us - is one of the most fundamental safeguards in our system of government. To have it effectively discarded - by virtue of the President instructing Administration officials to ignore a congressional subpoenas and not even appear before Congress - is unprecedented. The idea that the Attorney General would willingly defend this position - despite Congress' constitutional right to call such witnesses, is outrageous.

Impeachment hearings could render this moot: The President, Vice President, and all officials under them would no longer invoke executive privilege. There would be no more smokescreens.

In one week, I will be delivering my letter calling for impeachment hearings to Chairman John Conyers. Already, 16 Members of Congress have joined my call, including 3 Judiciary Committee members. I am hopeful for more in the coming days, but it is important for you to reach out to your representative in Congress to express how you feel. You can view the current list of signers, here: List of Signers

I do not know how Congress will react, but I do know this: I will pursue this course aggressively. I will not compromise away the constitutional role of Congress. Your support is invaluable. Please know that I am working everyday to ensure that the Bush Administration is held accountable.

Please continue to support this movement at WexlerWantsHearings.

Yours truly,

Congressman Robert Wexler

DONATE

If your Congressman is not on the list as having signed Wexler's letter, please get on the horn on Monday and get on his/her case.

I recently contributed to Cong. Wexler -- I hope everyone, who is able, will contribute, as well.

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Does The Brownshirt Party Have Aces Up Its Sleeve?

By Paul Craig Roberts

08/02/08 "ICH" -- -- The Brownshirt Party has chosen John “hundred year war” McCain as its presidential candidate. Except for Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and billy kristol, McCain is America’s greatest warmonger.

In a McCain Regime, Cheney will be back in office with another stint as Secretary of War. Norman “Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran” Podhoretz will be Undersecretary for Nuclear War with General John “Nuke them” Shalikashvili as his deputy. Rudy Giuliani will be the Minister of Interior in charge of Halliburton’s detention centers into which will be herded all critics of war and the police state. billy kristol will be chief White House spokesliar.

The whole gang will be back--Wolfowitz, Perle, Wurmster, Feith, Libby, Bolton. America will have a second chance to bomb the world into submission.

With the majority of voters sick of war, sick of lies, sick of fraud from the Federal Reserve and Wall Street, and sick of stagnant and falling incomes, McCain is poised to capture 20% of the vote--the Christian Zionists, the rapture evangelicals, and the diehard macho flag-waving thugs who believe America is done for unless “Islamofacists” are exterminated.

The accumulated lies, deceptions, war crimes, the shame of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons, Bush’s police state assault on civil liberty, countless numbers of Iraqi and Afghan men, women, and children murdered for the sake of American and Israeli hegemony, and the collapsing US economy indicate a political wipeout for the Brownshirt Party. In a country with an informed and humane population, the Republican Party would be reduced to such a small minority that it could never recover.

What will happen in America? Polls show that Americans have had it with Bush, and the 2006 congressional election showed that the voters have had it with Republicans. But the Republicans have seen the message and ignored it, and the people and the Democrats have continued to tolerate and to enable that which they claim to oppose.

Meanwhile Bush holds on to his determination to find a way to bomb Iran, dismissing along with the neocons the unanimous NIE report that there is no Iranian weapons program, just as Bush and the neocons dismissed the Iraq weapons inspectors who reported truthfully that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. What the American people and the Democrats have not understood is that a party with an agenda could care less for the facts. As Lenin declared, truth is what serves the agenda.

The Democrats are far from pure, but they lack the fervor and determination that only ideology can provide. The Democrats might have issue-specific ideologies, but they lack an over-arching ideology that makes it imperative for them, and only them, to be in power.

In contrast, the Brownshirt Party is fueled by the neocon ideology of American (and Israeli) supremacy. The neocon ideology of supremacy is more far-reaching than Hitler’s. Hitler merely aimed for sway over Europe and Russia. The neocons have targeted the entire world.

Neocons have prepared plans for war against China. They are ringing Russia with military facilities and paying millions of dollars to leaders of former constituent parts of the Soviet Union to sign up with NATO, which the neocons have turned into a mechanism for drafting Europeans to serve American Empire.

All this work, the neocon Project for a New American Century, the costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the demonization of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, the ghettoization of the West Bank and Gaza, the police state measures that Bush has succeeded in putting on the books, the concentration of power in the executive branch, these are successes from which the Brownshirts will not walk away.

Possibly the neocons and their Brownshirt followers are so delusional that they do not realize that their glorious aims are not shared. Maybe they are no different from Americans, maxed out on credit and unable to make mortgage payments, who believe that next week they will win the lotto.

On the other hand maybe the Brownshirts have a plan.

What could the plan be?

They can steal the election with the Diebold electronic voting machines and proprietary software that no one is allowed to check. There are now enough elections on record with significant divergences between exit polls and vote tallies that a stolen election can be explained away. The Democrats have been house trained to acquiesce to stolen elections. The voters, whose votes are stolen, dismiss the evidence as “conspiracy theories.”

Or what about a well-timed orchestrated “terrorist attack” to drive fearful Americans to the war candidate. False flag events are stock-in-trade. Hitler used the Reichstag fire to turn German democracy into a dictatorship overnight.

And what about the widespread spying on Americans? The Bush regime’s explanation for its violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes no sense. Bush’s violation of the law is clearly a felony, grounds for impeachment, arrest, indictment, and a prison sentence. Moreover, no intelligence purpose was achieved by Bush’s illegal acts. The FISA law only requires the executive branch to come to a secret court to explain its purpose and obtain a warrant. The law even allows the executive branch to spy first and obtain the warrant afterward. The purpose of the warrant is to prevent an administration from spying for political purposes. The only reason for Bush to refuse to obtain warrants is that he had no valid reason for the spying.

Does this mean that during the presidential campaign we will hear from Attorney General Michael Mukasey that candidate Hillary is under investigation for a Whitewater related offense, or that candidate Obama is linked to an alleged crime figure or Islamist?

The neocons control most of the print and TV media, and the right-wing radio talk hosts are no friends of Democrats. As Americans have fallen for every other fraud perpetrated upon them, they are likely to be suckers as well for “investigations” or rumors of investigations of the Democratic candidate. Hillary is widely disliked and easy to distrust. Obama is a new face with which voters have little experience. He is partly black and has a funny name.

John McCain is a war hero, a graduate of the US Naval Academy. His father and grandfather were admirals. On his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam in one of America’s orchestrated wars, he was shot down and injured. A POW for 5.5 years, he was tortured by communists due in part to traitorous actions by Democrats like Jane Fonda.

McCain has been in Congress and thus in the public eye since 1983. The only scandal with which he is associated is that he was one of “the Keating five,” one of five senators associated through campaign contributions with S&L owner and real estate investor Charles Keating and alleged interveners in his behalf. Keating was framed by prosecutors, but was later exonerated by a federal judge.

Adolf Hitler never had the support of a majority of the German electorate. In the November 1932 election, he received 33.1 percent of the vote. His peak was March 6, 1933, with 43.9 percent following the Reichstag fire a few days before on February 27, blamed on the communists. Hitler’s minority support in a democracy did not prevent him from becoming dictator of Germany.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19308.htm

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Well, he held one back in 2005. Isn't it time he hold another hearing on the subject, this time an official bi-partisan hearing? He can even get an official hearing room this time. C'mon, Congressman, you have the authority now. Use it!! Or,lose it!!

You did more when you had no power, Mr. Conyers.

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

John Conyers; Don't Be Brave. Be Smart- Smart Enough to Use the Claw of the Impeachment Hammer.
by Rob Kall

Last week, when we spoke, you told me that there were good reasons you weren't initiating impeachment hearings at this time. (see video of me and Congressman Conyers here)

I tried to tell you that impeachment is a tool, and you turned to me with a wry, frankly, contagious grin, and asked me (with a who-the-hell-do-you-think-you're-talking-to-you-young-whippersnapper look) if I knew who had more experience with impeachment than anyone else in congress.

But then you went on to tell me how concerned you were with how we would look if impeachment failed. You mentioned how the Republicans ran against the Dems in '06 with the threat that the Dems would waste time and divide the country with impeachment.

And you and I both know that this is the talking point that the Dem leadership has actually borrowed from the Republicans-- that impeachment would take up all of congress's time to get other things done. But Mr. Conyers, you, being the most experienced member of congress, regarding impeachment, you know that this is not true. You know that when the Nixon and Agnew impeachment hearings were going on, congress got its other work done.

What I tried to tell you, when we spoke last week (readers see the youtube video here and the transcript of the conversation here) was that the members of congress are really not thinking through the concept of impeachment. They keep mistakenly focusing on the vote in the house to send Cheney, then Bush to the senate, and then, of the senate trial.

You know that that is not what happened with Agnew. It is not what happened with Nixon. It was not what happened with Alberto Gonzales. Now, ordinary hearings were enough to force Gonzales to resign. But as you know, since Bush is instructing his appointees to disobey subpoenas, and Mukasey is refusing to support the subpoenas, that the only recourse you have to get testimony is through impeachment hearings, because there is NO EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE in response to impeachment hearing subpoenas.

You know that since the Democrats control the house, there is no reason for a vote to send Cheney or Bush to Senate hearings that are doomed to fail. You know that you can hold hearings which force Bush appointees at all levels to testify, exposing criminal, duplicitous, horrific crimes and behaviors by Cheney, Bush and probably numerous other Right wingers. You know that, while there will absolutely be complaints and outcries from the Republicans, that they will be silenced as soon as the dirt, the massive river of sewage starts to spew from the testimonies of Bush's people.

And then, about those misplaced fears that the leaders in the house, perhaps fears that the Bluedog dems will be at risk if hearings are started-- those fears will be replaced with confidence and satisfaction that the hearings will be the insurance that the Democratic majority will not only be maintained, buy dramatically expanded.

You heard me right. The House Democratic leadership is totally misguided in the way they are conceptualizing the way impeachment would look. As I tried to convey to you last week, it's not about the hammer, it's the claw. Forget about the senate. Forget about a vote in the house. That vote, at least for Cheney, was already held-- to get the hearings started. The house needs to do the same thing for Bush, but with the focus on getting Cheney to resign first. We all know that Cheney will, as soon as he feels the heat, get a note from his doctor and take a medical resignation.

Then, Bush will have the opportunity to nail down his legacy. He can appoint a woman or black or Hispanic as vice president. Elizabeth Dole, former head of the Red Cross, comes to mind. Then,after watching the ocean of sewage reporting misbehaviors and crimes of Bush for enough time to realize that the future of the Republican party is at risk, the Senate Republican leadership will take "THE WALK" to the whitehouse to inform Bush that if he doesn't resign, they will support impeachment.

If you're lucky, this will happen near November. The Democrats will be hailed as having stood up for the constitution and setting justice on a positive path.

Worst case, the hearings continue after the elections. Even then, there is no need to ever push for a vote in the house, let alone hearings in the senate. History has shown that aggressive hearings, when there are real crimes, not blowjobs, lead to resignations. That is, and forgive me for lecturing you, Mr. Conyers, the way that impeachment works and has always worked, when there were real crimes. Rather than being the hammerhead that slams down on the criminals, it is the claw, prying the criminal president and vice president out, forcing him to extract himself.

I'm certain you know all of this. It seems what you need is some way to educate the leaders in congress so THEY get it and stop thinking of impeachment in terms of the senate vote.

My conversations with impeachment advocates has led me to believe that on solution is to commission polling regarding impeachment. But past polls have asked the simple question-- "Should Bush or Cheney be impeached?"

That's not the way to frame the polling. Instead, a series of questions should be asked. They would look something like this:

1) Do you believe that congress should hold hearings on the several hundred lies an independent organization reports that Bush and Cheney used to sell America the Iraq war, as well as violations of numerous laws?

2) Since President Bush has commanded his appointees to refuse to respond to house judiciary committee subpoenas to testify in hearings, and since Bush's Attorney General is refusing to enforce Congressional subpoenas, do you believe that the committee should use all the laws at its disposal to get to the truth by requiring the witnesses to testify at hearings, in spite of Bush's interference in the judiciary proceedings? This would then allow testimony to proceed.

3) Are you aware that impeachment is a tool used to get to the truth, through hearings, and not just a vote in the house, then a trial in the senate?

4) If the only legal means to require witnesses to testify in the face of claims of Executive privilege is to open impeachment hearings, which are not subject to executive privilege, would you support starting the hearings, so the evidence and testimony can be accessed?

5) If your legislator supports impeachment HEARINGS, to enforce subpoenas so testimony and hearings can proceed, would you be more or less likely to vote for your legislator.

I"m not a pollster, though I've commissioned and participated in developing a few polls, so these are not the way the final poll questions will or should look. But the step by step approach is the way to really see if voters actually support or oppose impeachment. I've put in a call to get pricing on the poll and it could be done in under 10 days, if we can raise the funding for the poll. Then, we'll know what voters really think.

Mr. Conyers, what you could be doing now is helping to educate the voters and the legislators. You could be doing that by following through on what you told me, that impeachment is "not off the table." Then, do some rounds on TV, making it clear what impeachment would look like, so the pundits and legislators are straightened out.

We have a constitution and a democracy to protect and fear of reactions by Republicans is no way to run a democracy. Your legacy is at stake. You have the power to go down in history as a hero who was smart and courageous enough to navigate the impeachment through the most treacherous of waters. That's a much more arduous and challenging task than resting on your career's already estimable laurels. I hope you chose the more difficult path.

Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor and organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects.

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I M P E A C H
or RESIGN !!!

The Chicken Doves
Elected to end the war, Democrats have surrendered to Bush on Iraq and betrayed the peace movement for their own political ends

MATT TAIBBI Posted Feb 21, 2008 12:00 AM

Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."

There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again. "We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it."

Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal. "We just didn't have any plays we liked down there," said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game...."

In reality, though, Pelosi and the Democrats were actually engaged in some serious point-shaving. Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war. "Our focus is on the Republicans," one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "How can we juice up attacks on them?"

The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House. And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame.

The controversy over the Democratic "strategy" to end the war basically comes down to whom you believe. According to the Reid-Pelosi version of history, the Democrats tried hard to force President Bush's hand by repeatedly attempting to tie funding for the war to a scheduled withdrawal. Last spring they tried to get him to eat a timeline and failed to get the votes to override a presidential veto. Then they retreated and gave Bush his money, with the aim of trying again after the summer to convince a sufficient number of Republicans to cross the aisle in support of a timeline.

But in September, Gen. David Petraeus reported that Bush's "surge" in Iraq was working, giving Republicans who might otherwise have flipped sufficient cover to continue supporting the war. The Democrats had no choice, the legend goes, but to wait until 2009, in the hopes that things would be different under a Democratic president.

Democrats insist that the reason they can't cut off the money for the war, despite their majority in both houses, is purely political. "George Bush would be on TV every five minutes saying that the Democrats betrayed the troops," says Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Then he glumly adds another reason. "Also, it just wasn't going to happen."

Why it "just wasn't going to happen" is the controversy. In and around the halls of Congress, the notion that the Democrats made a sincere effort to end the war meets with, at best, derisive laughter. Though few congressional aides would think of saying so on the record, in private many dismiss their party's lame anti-war effort as an absurd dog-and-pony show, a calculated attempt to score political points without ever being serious about bringing the troops home.

"Yeah, the amount of expletives that flew in our office alone was unbelievable," says an aide to one staunchly anti-war House member. "It was all about the public show. Reid and Pelosi would say they were taking this tough stand against Bush, but if you actually looked at what they were sending to a vote, it was like Swiss cheese. Full of holes."

In the House, some seventy Democrats joined the Out of Iraq caucus and repeatedly butted heads with Reid and Pelosi, arguing passionately for tougher measures to end the war. The fight left some caucus members bitter about the party's failure. Rep. Barbara Lee of California was one of the first to submit an amendment to cut off funding unless it was tied to an immediate withdrawal. "I couldn't even get it through the Rules Committee in the spring," Lee says.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a fellow caucus member, says Democrats should have refused from the beginning to approve any funding that wasn't tied to a withdrawal. "If we'd been bold the minute we got control of the House — and that's why we got the majority, because the people of this country wanted us out of Iraq — if we'd been bold, even if we lost the votes, we would have gained our voice."

An honest attempt to end the war, say Democrats like Woolsey and Lee, would have involved forcing Bush to execute his veto and allowing the Republicans to filibuster all they wanted. Force a showdown, in other words, and use any means necessary to get the bloodshed ended.

"Can you imagine Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert taking no for an answer the way Reid and Pelosi did on Iraq?" asks the House aide in the expletive-filled office. "They'd find a way to get the votes. They'd get it done somehow."

But any suggestion that the Democrats had an obligation to fight this good fight infuriates the bund of hedging careerists in charge of the party. In fact, nothing sums up the current Democratic leadership better than its vitriolic criticisms of those recalcitrant party members who insist on interpreting their 2006 mandate as a command to actually end the war. Rep. David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee and a key Pelosi-Reid ally, lambasted anti-war Democrats who "didn't want to get specks on those white robes of theirs." Obey even berated a soldier's mother who begged him to cut off funds for the war, accusing her and her friends of "smoking something illegal."

Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that "anti-war activism" became synonymous with "electing Democrats." Capitalizing on America's desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.

This supposedly grass-roots "anti-war coalition" met regularly on K Street, the very capital of top-down Beltway politics. At the forefront of the groups are Thomas Matzzie and Brad Woodhouse of Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq, the leader of the anti-war lobby. Along with other K Street crusaders, the two have received iconic treatment from The Washington Post and The New York Times, both of which depicted the anti-war warriors as young idealist-progressives in shirtsleeves, riding a mirthful spirit into political combat — changing the world is fun!

But what exactly are these young idealists campaigning for? At its most recent meeting, the group eerily echoed the Reid-Pelosi "squeezed for time" mantra: Retreat from any attempt to end the war and focus on electing Democrats. "There was a lot of agreement that we can draw distinctions between anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans," a spokeswoman for Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq announced.

What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group's leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In addition, these anti-war leaders continue to consult for many of the same U.S. senators whom they need to pressure in order to end the war. This is the kind of conflict of interest that would normally be an embarrassment in the activist community.

Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. Anyone bothering to look — and clearly the Post and the Times did not before penning their ardent bios of Woodhouse — would have found the youthful idealist bragging to newspapers before the Iraq invasion about the pro-war credentials of North Carolina candidate Erskine Bowles. "No one has been stronger in this race in supporting President Bush in the War on Terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq," boasted the future "anti-war" activist Woodhouse.

With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008. David Sirota, a former congressional staffer whose new book, The Uprising, excoriates the Democrats for their failure to end the war, expresses disgust at the strategy of targeting only Republicans. "The whole idea is based on this insane fiction that there is no such thing as a pro-war Democrat," he says. "Their strategy allows Democrats to take credit for being against the war without doing anything to stop it. It's crazy."

Justin Raimondo, the uncompromising editorial director of Antiwar.com, regrets contributing twenty dollars to Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq. "Not only did they use it to target Republicans," he says, "they went after the ones who were on the fence about Iraq." The most notorious case involved Lincoln Chafee, a moderate from Rhode Island who lost his Senate seat in 2006. Since then, Chafee has taken shots at Democrats like Reid, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, all of whom campaigned against him despite having voted for the war themselves.

"Look, I understand partisan politics," says Chafee, who now concedes that voters were correct to punish him for his war vote. "I just find it amusing that those who helped get us into this mess now say we need to change the Senate — because we're in a mess."

The really tragic thing about the Democratic surrender on Iraq is that it's now all but guaranteed that the war will be off the table during the presidential campaign. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they've made to the contrary, in the end they've done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they've been asked to give, every step of the way.

Even beyond the war, the Democrats have repeatedly gone limp-dick every time the Bush administration so much as raises its voice. Most recently, twelve Democrats crossed the aisle to grant immunity to phone companies who participated in Bush's notorious wiretapping program. Before that, Democrats caved in and confirmed Mike Mukasey as attorney general after he kept his middle finger extended and refused to condemn waterboarding as torture. Democrats fattened by Wall Street also got cold feet about upsetting the country's gazillionaires, refusing to close a tax loophole that rewarded hedge-fund managers with a tax rate less than half that paid by ordinary citizens.

But the war is where they showed their real mettle. Before the 2006 elections, Democrats told us we could expect more specifics on their war plans after Election Day. Nearly two years have passed since then, and now they are once again telling us to wait until after an election to see real action to stop the war. In the meantime, of course, we're to remember that they're the good guys, the Republicans are the real enemy, and, well, go Hillary! Semper fi! Yay, team!

How much of this bullshit are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting, deep down in their moldy hearts, to do the right thing?

Look, fuck your hearts, OK? Just get it done. Because if you don't, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in '08, but it'll be soon. Even Americans can't be fooled forever.

click here

Your response, Congressman?

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Documentary: Military brass frequently viewed hooded, shackled detainees
02/09/2008 @ 2:06 pm
Filed by Nick Langewis and Mike Aivaz

I was kidnapped; abducted, forced imprisoned, tortured, threatened with further torture, without charge. Without trial.

Even many soldiers had said to me afterwards...if you weren't a terrorist when you came in here, by the time you leave, I'm sure you would be because of the way you've been treated.

--Bagram detainee Moazzam Begg

Flying in the face of statements members of the Bush Administration have made denying the use, and advocacy, of torture in their war effort, evidence of brutal treatment of captives continues to accumulate.

PBS' Bill Moyers delves into Oscar-nominated documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side," highlighting an Afghan taxi driver who was detained and beaten to death by American forces.

"Go see it," says Moyers. "Not in a while has the truth hit so hard."

In 2002, Dilawar, 22, and his passengers were stopped at Bagram Air Base and held under suspicion of involvement in a rocket attack. Five days later, his death from blunt force trauma would be ruled a homicide, as written on the death certificate, in English, given to Dilawar's family with his body.

Captain Carolyn Wood, overseeing interrogation at Bagram, would be awarded a Bronze Star for "valor" and tapped to begin similar operations at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

Prisoners were assigned numbers, which were written on sheets of paper hung outside the airlocks in which they were kept, and directly on their bodies.

"Detainees were actually chained with their hands above their heads in these airlocks," says Moazzam Begg. "His number, 421, was something that I could see often, because his back was towards me."

"There were always officers coming and going through the facility," says Eric Lahammer. "We kind of joked about it as being the 'greatest show on earth'; everyone wanted to come and look at the 'terrorists.'"

"[Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld's office called our office frequently," adds Pfc. Damien Corsetti. Very high commanders would want to be kept up to date, on a daily basis, on certain prisoners there."

"The brass knew," Corsetti continues. "They saw 'em shackled. They saw 'em hooded, and they said 'Right on. Y'all are doin' a great job.'"

click here

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

Your inaction speaks for you, Mr. Conyers...

The Reich Ministry of Justice Strikes Again...

Are you a Democrat or worse, a Democrat who in any way upset the President of the Far-Right of America? Well then, be afraid, be very afraid. I will let Scott Horton play you the latest song:

It’s beginning to sound like a stuck record. Another strike by the Bush Justice Department, keeping the country safe. Who’s the target this time? A crack dealer? An al Qaeda terrorist? No. It’s a wing-tip shoed Miami lawyer, who served as president of the bar association, is held in universally high esteem (outside, of course, of the political hacks who run the Bush Justice Department) and who advised Al Gore in the 2000 Florida recount battle. According to the Justice Department, the lawyer’s involvement with Democratic politics has nothing to do with his being charged. Quite a few of his contemporaries are having problems buying that, and still bigger problems understanding his supposed “crime.”

Some other facts make the Justice Department’s conduct look stranger still. The matter was not determined by local attorneys in the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office, but by political appointees from main Justice in Washington. Law.com collects a number of statements from leaders in the Florida bar, reacting angrily to the charges, including Kuehne’s lawyer:

“This highly improbable charge involves important and unprecedented issues of law, policy and procedure,” Moscowitz wrote. The indictment was brought by Assistant U.S. Attorneys John Seller and Thomas Pinder of the Justice Department’s asset forfeiture and money laundering section in Washington. The case went to Washington because the U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami had a conflict as Ochoa’s prosecutor. Magistrate Brown’s courtroom overflowed with attorneys who support Kuehne. They included CNN legal commentator Jayne Weintraub and criminal defense attorney Frank Quintero Jr., who won a hard-fought acquittal on drug-smuggling conspiracy and laundering charges. Others waited outside because the courtroom was too small for everyone who wanted to attend. Leaving court, Kuehne was upbeat and thanked everyone for their support. “Ben Kuehne has more integrity than any lawyer I know,” Weintraub said. The prosecution is “an indictment on the legal profession.”

Other lawyers angrily denounced the charges.”It’s now official: It’s a crime to be a criminal defense attorney,” Miami criminal defense attorney Milton Hirsch said. Referring to Kuehne’s courtly, buttoned-down demeanor, he said, “They picked a guy who sleeps with wing-tipped shoes on and indicted him for going above and beyond to make sure legal fees paid to a different lawyer are clean.”

In sum, the prosecutors are saying that by rendering a legal opinion, Kuehne made himself into a part of a conspiracy. So whether his opinion was right or wrong, he was just another cog in a criminal enterprise. They’re arguing that he cannot claim an innocent mistake as to the law as a defense."

In short my friends, time to start demanding impeachment. In fact, I will support any candidate of any party who will demand impeachment be back on the table. Anyone failing to do so, is not qualified to be the President of the United States. Simply put, I don't give a rat's ass about your position on anything, until you make clear your position on the Constitution. So, what is your position on the Constitution candidate x?

I want that question answered now. I don't care who made someone's kid cry or who Oprah adores. I don't care if they think God is their real-life best friend who visits daily and shares recipes. I don't want to hear anything about anything until I have heard the first and most important thing: rule of law. Because in reality the only time the phrase "you are either with us or against us" should be applied is when discussing the one thing that makes us all Americans. The Constitution. Do you get it yet?

Posted by Larisa Alexandrovna on February 09, 2008 at 09:41 PM
click here

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You can lead a republican to the truth, but you can't make him think it...

From The Black Agenda Report

. . . . In a recent interview he testily claimed that Pelosi "can't stop me from anything really." In the same conversation he immediately back pedaled, claiming that the Republicans would use impeachment to demonize Democrats in the upcoming elections. He didn't mention that Republicans' efforts to do the same thing in November 2006 failed when Democrats won the day. He makes the bizarre claim that a losing strategy should be feared.

Democratic voters across the country must do anything and everything in their power to impeach Cheney and or Bush. Those Democrats, especially those on the Judiciary committee, who oppose impeachment must themselves be opposed. Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the rotten leadership will be forced to take notice and act as most Americans want them to act.

"Those Democrats, especially those on the Judiciary committee, who oppose impeachment must themselves be opposed."

FRConyersWname Impeachment is the great issue of 2008, more so than the presidential election. There is no reason to believe that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will stand up if Bush starts a new war, suspends habeas corpus rights for the entire population, or declares martial law. Impeachment will have two benefits. It will keep Bush from doing further damage and it will put President Clinton or President Obama on notice that Democrats will not stand for being ignored. We will have two victories for the price of one.

Hopefully a good progressive candidate will emerge to run against Conyers. Nostalgia for the old John Conyers, or sentiment about the loss of a chairmanship held by a black person will only keep the tyranny alive."Let black Democrats be black" was the Black Agenda Report rallying cry in 2006. If Conyers won't act in the way black America wants him to, there is little reason to fight for him. A concerted effort to impeach is the only hope left for democracy. If our representatives won't do that, they must step aside and cede their place to people who will.

My sentiments, as well. If the Chairman does not want to do the job, why doesn't he appoint someone in the House Judiciary, like Wexler, to do the job?

(emphasis mine)

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

then raise our Federal indebtedness to something like $9 trillion, $3 trillion (right now) owed to Saudi Arabia, China, and Japan. Plus, Bush, when visiting King Abdullah recently, asked for billions to fund the US Treasury and Citibank and sold us off for $100 a barrol for crued, plus a cost of 7% interest to Citibank (owned by the King's nephew) and 9% interest to Merrill, Lynch.

Now, with Bush's proposed 2009 budget, it seems the agenda is already being set for the next Administration:

. . . . A budget, after all, is a statement of values. Where your purse is so there is your heart, we are taught. The budget provides a snapshot of what the president considers to be national priorities. In his $3.1 trillion annual budget for FY 2009, with a deficit of $400 billion borrowed from the future, Bush tells us what is important.

This nation now spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. It is, the president tells us, not enough. This budget expands the Pentagon's budget to levels, in inflation adjusted dollars, not seen since World War II. And that's not counting the cost -- now nearing a trillion and counting -- of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . .

plus, in addition to our already existing maledies in this country, a host of more ills will beset us:

. . . . This nation's education system suffers a savage inequality. For much of America, we're failing to provide even the basics of a world-class education -- preschool, modern school facilities, small classes in early grades, afterschool programs, affordable college. This inequality, the president tells us, is not savage enough, so this budget cuts spending on education, removes 200,000 low income children from child care support, and does nothing to bring college within reach of working families.

This nation's health care system is broken. But it is, the president tells us, not broken enough. This budget would cut Medicaid, at the very time states are facing stark cutbacks to balance their budgets in a recession. It would reduce the number of children covered under the Children's Health program. It would freeze payments to doctors and hospitals under Medicare, and stunningly, cut support for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, even as a global economy puts us at greater risk of importing global pandemics.

This nation's basic infrastructure -- from bridges in Minneapolis to levees in New Orleans, from sewage and clean water treatments, to mass transit and fast broadband -- is decrepit and collapsing. But not, the president tells us, fast enough. This budget continues to cut domestic investment across the board, even reducing federal support for "first responders" -- police, fire and public health officials by 45 percent percent.

With the housing bust, over a million families are slated to lose their homes this year. Not, the president tells us, enough, so his budget slashes housing vouchers, eliminating rental support for an estimated 100,000 low income families.

Families across America are struggling with the soaring cost of gas and home heating. Not, the president tells us, enough, so his budget, in an act of seeming perverse cruelty, calls for cutting home heating support for low-income families by 22 percent, even without adjusting to the increase in gas prices.

At the same time these cuts are being made, the president projects deficits of over $400 billion a year for two years. But the problem isn't what he borrowed but what he spent it on. He will rack up some $4 trillion in debt by the time he leaves office, squandering it largely on tax cuts for the wealthy, and a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. He mortgaged the house, and wasted the dough on misbegotten adventure and conspicuous consumption.

None of this would matter, except that those vying to succeed him promise more of the same, only worse. Like Mr. Bush, John "I'm the Sherriff" McCain pledges to sustain the war, spend more on the military and make the tax cuts permanent. But he also vows to cut domestic spending more deeply to bring the budget into balance. That won't happen: it would require eliminating virtually everything the government does at home other than entitlements like Social Security and Medicare to cover the true level of Mr. Bush's annual deficits.

But his pledge shows where his heart is. He'll continue to police the world and pamper the privileged while starving investments vital to our future. McCain and Romney and Huckabee provide the rhetoric. Mr. Bush's budget provides the numbers. Ever wonder how great powers decline, how empires collapse, how advanced countries fall behind? Read the numbers and weep.

$178 billion to be stripped from Medicare. In addition, slashes to community development programs, law enforcement, Safe & Drug Free School grants, Even Start, Upward Bound and Amtrack have been added to the above.

My suspicion is that some of this money is already earmarked -- Iran! Bush has said that
troop withdrawals will be slow or will stop this summer.

The continual increases for the budget (a request of $518.3 billion) of the Pentagon is asinine! To buy more nuclear missiles, drones, etc. Certainly, to keep The Carlyle Group very happy, you know, United Defense, Lockheed, Martin and a host of defense manufacturers whose profits profit those involved with The Carlyle Group. You know, the Bushies, Cheneys, Baker, etc. The Pentagon needs this extra money like a hole in the head. We have enough war power to blow the world up several times over.

Of, and of course, Bush promises to continue the tax cuts, which continue to benefit the rich.

Bush has left the poor victims of Katrina "for dead." Now, it looks like he wants to render the elderly and our children to the same demise.

Impeachment is the only way to put a STOP to these psychos who will drive us completely in the ground, while destroying other nations, in order to satisfy their aims and agenda.

(emphasis mine)

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Recalling for consideration two (limited in deference to simplicity) recent Supreme Court decisions (gone awry) : Hudson v. Michigan and Garcetti v. Ceballos :
In which the theories of respondent superior and immunity for acts of office were elevated above the Court, the Legislature and the Law ; thereby bringing our Nation to within spitting distance of the state of affairs that precipitated the American Revolution :
And noting in the light of this consideration the Intention signaled to both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees by the sitting Attorney General to decide himself which, if any, of the Laws and Treaties instituted under our Constitution shall have Legal Force :
It would seem that we have arrived at a point of decision.

In the event the Attorney General is allowed to proceed down the path he has clearly marked ; that of enforcing only those Laws which are found to be convenient at the moment, and by virtue of this being restricted by only those Laws found similarly convenient ; then there will be set the precedent that the Legislature and Court may at will be disregarded by the Executive.

Removing, for the moment, the History Book from under the corner of the Couch and flipping thru it to about two thousand years ago, it may be noted that at one time Rome was a Republic. And a short time later Rome was an Empire. Between, something important happened. It was not done with a sword, on a battlefield. It happened in the Legislature, where power was ceded to one man. First because of fear. Then because of habit. And in the end because the option, thru neglect, faded to nil. Thus, the Legislature, by extension the Law, and by extension the Courts, became subsumed by the Executive. Became each merely one of the Powers of the Executive.

This was not the first, or the last, time this same event overcame a great nation. There remain among us a treasured few who personally recall this same event transpiring in Germany in the early part of the last Century. These also recall the events brought by the transformation of the Reichstag into a rubber stamp mill. Those not of age to posses such wisdom from personal experience may obtain it from History Books such as this one, which I now place back under the corner of the Couch.

If you would like to borrow it, You may. But this is not necessary, for we have before us current events, and an opportunity to obtain personal experience. History, as has been said before, repeats itself. Sometimes as tragedy. Sometimes as farce. And here we go again.

This leads naturally to a question, the same question the led Peter to return to Rome and there become the Foundation of the Church just as Christ had foretold.

Peter asked God : "Quo Vadis?" I would ask the same of the Esteemed Chairmen.

And I appreciate the opportunity to do so.
Frosted flake

Because it is - and it's illegal - and I want to know what you intend to do about it, Chairman. You could start by using the correct term for the practice - it's called "water torture", and anyone who refuses to recognize that fact should be corrected in congressional hearings, for the record. Anyone who has ordered this practice - or who has been aware of its use in the administration - should be held accountable: Mukasey, Bush, Cheney.

This in the Washington Post from one who knows:

Why It Was Called 'Water Torture'

"Last week, much to my dismay, government officials testified before Congress that the United States has used the interrogation technique known as waterboarding and would like to hold out the option of using it in the future. As someone who has experienced waterboarding, albeit in a controlled setting, I know that the act is indeed torture. I was waterboarded during my training to become a Navy flight crew member. As has been noted in The Post and other media outlets, waterboarding is "real drowning that simulates death." It's an experience our country should not subject people to...Pulling out my fingernails or even cutting off a finger would have been preferable. At least if someone had attacked my hands, I would have had to simply tolerate pain. But drowning is another matter...Waterboarding has, unfortunately, become a household word. Back then, we didn't call it waterboarding -- we called it "water torture." We recognized it as something the United States would never do, whatever the provocation. As a nation, we must ask our leaders, elected and appointed, to be aware of such horrors; we must ask them to stop the narrow and superficial thinking that hinges upon "legal" definitions and to use common sense. Waterboarding is torture, and torture is clearly a crime against humanity."

Chairman, Congress has allowed members of this administration to violate the laws, commit hienous crimes, and has allowed the mainstreaming and misnaming of acts that constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. It's time to stop calling this practice "water boarding". It's really called water torture, because it is water torture. You and your colleagues should call it what it is, and you should take any steps necessary to stop it and hold those in the administration accountable for their crimes.

if this is what they've threatened you with Representative Conyers.

Pelosi & AIPAC to Kucinich: drop impeachment or lose seat in Congress by Professor Smartass

Before Nevada primary, Dennis was visited by representatives of Nancy Pelosi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC. They told Dennis that if he would drop efforts to impeach Cheney & Bush, they would guarantee his re-election to Congress. He kicked them out, and now faces several well-financed primary challengers.

Kucinich: "The Incident Did Not Happen" via David Swanson by rjones2818

rjones who I trust with everything Kucinich says it didn't happen:

The Pelosi/AIPAC rumor, as diaried here, has been debunked according to David Swanson at AfterDowningStreet.org's site.

I Just pulled this comment from Crooks and Liars....WOW..
These are not statements of fact, merely allegations. There is no assertion that Conyers is guilty of war crimes. This is for discussion purposes only by State Grand Juries, the public, and State Governors for purposes of appointing replacement Members of Congress.

Draft War Crimes Indictment: John Conyers

1. John Conyers [”Conyers”, or “defendant”] was sworn as a Constitutional officer, 5 USC 3331 in Jan 2007. Conyers as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee knew, or should have known, the oath was his binding agreement to fully enforce the Constitution and Geneva Conventions.

2. Conyers in or about 2006 drafted, “Constitution in Crisis,” a well-researched list of exhaustive war crimes, impeachable offenses, and other high crimes of the President and Vice President.

3. Conyers is an attorney licensed to practice law in the State of Michigan.

Count 1: Conspiracy

4. In or about December 2006, John Conyers and Nancy Pelosi allegedly conspired to agree to remove impeachment from the legal options of Congress to prosecute, investigate, and challenge the President’s war crimes. Conyers and Pelosi allegedly knew, or should have known, such an agreement would impermissibly leave the Constitution, Supreme Law, and Geneva Conventions unenforced, contrary to their oath of office.

5. The aim of the alleged conspiracy was for Conyers and Pelosi to agree with the President that there would be no impeachment, and a DoJ OLC agreement not to investigate Conyers, Pelosi, and other alleged co-conspirators for their knowledge of, and failure to prevent planned war crimes abuses against prisoners of war. In exchange for the agreement not to prosecute or impeach, Conyers and his alleged co-conspirators were promised by the DOJ Attorney General immunity from prosecution for any and all acts they may have been aware related to war crimes planning, policy making, and implementation. This promise of immunity from prosecution was impermissibly relied upon as an excuse not to fully assert his oath of office.

Count 2: Malfeasance

6. Incorporating all paragraphs above, Conyers allegedly knew or should have know that as a sworn Constitutional officer, he had the legal obligation to keep impeachment on the table, fully investigate facts, and where appropriate issue a final Congressional report related to the alleged war crimes of the President. Conyers refused to do this.

7. Despite Congressman Kucinich’s resolutions calling for an investigation to the Vice President’s alleged war crimes, Conyers and his alleged co-conspirators did not fully investigate the facts outlined in the “Constitution in Crisis,” did not fully enforce Article 82 of the Geneva conventions, a legal duty on him as an attorney to enforce Geneva; and they refused to fully assert their oath of office to defend the Constitution, Supreme Law, and Geneva Conventions.

Count 3: Breach of Fiduciary Duty

8. Incorporating all above paragraphs, as a sworn Constitutional officer, Conyers and his alleged co-conspirators did not fully meet their legal obligations under the US Constitution, despite exhaustive evidence of those standards in “Constitution in Crisis.”

9. Conyers when working on the Watergate Hearings knew, or should have known, the importance of enforcing the Constitution against the President. Despite knowing this legal duty on him, Conyers and his alleged co-conspirators refused to meet their legal obligations.

Count 4: Refusal to Investigate War Crimes

10. Incorporating all above paragraphs, Conyers and his alleged co-conspirators did not meet Article 82 legal obligations under Geneva; nor did they fully investigate the alleged war crimes of the President. His Committee did not issue a final report.

Adjudication

Incorporating the above paragraphs, Conyers and his alleged co-conspirators did not meet the minimum legal standards expected of an attorney, a member of the House of Representatives, a sworn Constitutional officer, nor as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. His alleged malfeasance in re war crimes has no mitigations. If convicted by a lawful tribunal, the maximum penatly for war cimes is the death penalty.

Quote This Comment February 11th, 2008 at 9:23 PM - PST

Enough Talk of Impeachment.

The first candidate that says he will ensure they are put on trial for treason get's my vote.
Otherwise, there's really no reason to vote.

...meanwhile the Campaigning goes on, without any of the Candidates showing any real LEADERSHIP--certainly not outrage at the gutting of the Constitution. No promise of restoring the democracy that bush has pretty much destroyed. No--we're just continually entertained with vague happy talk about how they'll make things better. Right...

And we should vote for them because? -- Because they promise and don't deliver? Because they'll do their job -- after the next election? I know--because we gave them a mandate for CHANGE in 2006 and they did what they said...Oh, wait....