Rebuffing assurances from President George W. Bush, bipartisan members of the US Senate's Intelligence Committee called on Tuesday for an immediate inquiry into his authorization of spying on Americans.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005R.shtml

As President Bush and his aides scramble to explain new revelations regarding Bush's authorization of spying on international telephone calls and emails of Americans, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has begun a process that could lead to the censure, and perhaps impeachment, of the president and vice president.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005Q.shtml

Progressive Democrats of America

CONYERS INTRODUCES BILL TO CREATE A SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE POSSIBLE CRIMES AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT

Ask your Congress Member to support these efforts!

Take Action Here

Congressman John Conyers has introduced three new pieces of legislation aimed at censuring President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and at creating a fact-finding committee that could be a first step toward impeachment.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION USING THE ABOVE LINK

The Censure Bush campaign will provide a new focus for town hall meetings about Iraq that PDA activists across the country are helping to organize, approximately 60 of which are scheduled on January 7th. See: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/event

GET MORE INFORMATION: http://www.CensureBush.org

That link will take you to a newly revised After Downing Street site, where you'll find at the top an extensive new report produced by the House Judiciary Committee and titled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War."


Informant: Martin Greenhut

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
December 16, 2005

[...] This is BuzzFlash's second interview with the former senator and presidential aspirant, Gary Hart. Last time, we interviewed him about his expertise on national security issues. Now, he has written a powerful commentary on religion and democracy, entitled God And Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion and Politics.

http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/05/11/pre05168.html

As we read it, we found ourselves thinking, "This is actually quite brilliant." Hart speaks with the kind of reflective persuasion born of our Jeffersonian tradition, combining that with his own religious upbringing and pursuit of a divinity degree at Yale (where he also received a law degree). In interviewing him, we have come to find him a thoughtful, knowledgeable, eloquent advocate for American values and national security. This is not a guy who needs a staffer sitting by his side or someone to brief him in advance about issues. If Jimmy Carter is the best ex-president we have had in America, Gary Hart may be our best ex-senator and ex-presidential contender. The United States could certainly use Hart's savvy now, instead of the dingbats who are captaining Bush's ship of fools. [...] Read the whole interview at the Buzzflash web site: http://tinyurl.com/9jzno


© Virginia Metze

Someone sent me this Judicial Watch article, dated April 20, 2005, and apparently "riding low on the radar," as he put it:

FBI PROTECTS OSAMA BIN LADEN’S “RIGHT TO PRIVACY” IN DOCUMENT RELEASE

Judicial Watch Investigation Uncovers FBI Documents Concerning Bin Laden Family and Post-9/11 Flights

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that fights government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) has invoked privacy right protections on behalf of al Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden. In a September 24, 2003 declassified “Secret” FBI report obtained by Judicial Watch, the FBI invoked Exemption 6 under FOIA law on behalf of bin Laden, which permits the government to withhold all information about U.S. persons in “personnel and medical files and similar files” when the disclosure of such information “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” (5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(6) (2000)) [...] Read it all at http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_5286.shtml


© Virginia Metze

This reminds me that Law Professor Francis Boyle said he wrote a letter to the government telling them that the particular kind of anthrax had come from a government lab in this country. This was when the government was trying to believe it came from Iraq or Iran or somewhere. Much, much later, it was indicated that yes, the anthrax had come from a federal lab. But to my knowledge there has not been an arrest. Professor Boyle does not seem inclined to mince words much; he says that the University of Chicago is a moral cesspool, for example.

Tomgram: The Forgotten Anthrax Attacks of 2001
Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch.com
posted December 18, 2005 at 1:25 pm

[...] skipping introductory paragraph
It Should Have Been Unforgettable
The Anthrax Attacks and the Costs of 9/11
By Tom Engelhardt

Imagine, for a moment, that someone had a finger on a pause button just after the attacks of September 11, 2001. That's not such a crazy thought. After all, most Americans watched the attacks and their aftermath on television; and, as coups de théâtre, they were clearly meant to be viewed on screen. Of course, the technology for pausing reality didn't quite exist then. But if someone in that pre-TiVo age had somehow hit pause soon after the Twin Towers came down, while the Pentagon was still smoking, when Air Force One was carrying a panicky George Bush in the wrong direction rather than towards Washington and New York to become the resolute war president of his dreams, if someone had paused everything and given us all a chance to catch our breath, what might we have noticed about the actual damage to our world? [...] fast forward over much good stuff to nearly the end:

The saddest story is this: If tomorrow, George Bush, Dick Cheney and their cohorts were somehow tossed out on their ears -- call it indictment, impeachment, or something else -- what they, not Osama bin Laden or the anthrax terrorists will have cost us, in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will still be incalculable. Among the greatest costs will be the way administration officials used the 9/11 attacks (and buried the anthrax ones) in order to breach so many levees of our world. [...]

And yet transit workers striking in an effort to just get better wages, are fined $1 million a day. How about figuring out a fine for all of these Neoconservatives of something like $1 trillion a day. That would at least help .... Read this long but interesting TomDispatch at http://tinyurl.com/84ol4


© Virginia Metze

Molly Ivins
The Free Press
December 19, 2005

AUSTIN, Texas -- Uh-oh. Excuse me. I'm so sorry, but we are having a constitutional crisis. I know the timing couldn't be worse. Right in the middle of the wrapping paper, the gingerbread and the whole shebang, a tiny honest-to-goodness constitutional crisis.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country: Damn the inconvenience, full speed ahead. On his own, without consulting the Congress, the courts or the people, the president decided to use secret branches of government to spy on the American people. He is, of course, using 9-11 to justify his actions in this, as he does for everything else -- 9-11 happened so the Constitution does not apply, 9-11 happened so there is no separation of powers, 9-11 happened so 200 years of experience curbing the executive power of government is something we can now overlook.

That the president of the United States unconstitutionally usurped power is not in dispute. He and his attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, both claim he has the right to do so on account of he is the president.

Let's try this again. The president is not above the law. I wish I thought I were being too pompous about this, but the greatest danger to our freedom always comes when we are scared or distracted -- and right now, we are both.
[...] Read the rest of what Molly has to say at http://tinyurl.com/c5p8b


© Virginia Metze

by proudprogressiveCA
Sun Dec 18, 2005 at 07:31:00 PM PDT
Daily Kos

Barbara Boxer and John Dean sat down today in front of an audience of about three to four hundred in Los Angeles to discuss her book ' A Time to Run'. Although part of the discussion was about the book many more issues came up in the Q and A section. Sen. Boxer has always been an outspoken liberal from the Golden state and today was no exception.

Seeing these two great minds converse on the topic of the Bush Administration was truly an honor. John Dean has seen a lot in his life especially being so close to the demise of the Nixon Administration. I believe both lied to protect a false image, yet the difference in the price to the country is enormous.

proudprogressiveCA's diary :: ::
http://proudprogressiveca.dailykos.com/

The hour long talk was hosted by Writers Bloc in Beverly Hills this afternoon and touched on a number of subjects but most importantly the issue of the secret wiretaps that is all over the news in the last few days.

John Dean remarked that Bush is the first President to ever willingly admit to an impeachable offense. Of course this got a huge rouse from the audience. He also made the assertion that using 9/11 as a defense for his actions is 'baloney'. Being Nixon's former counsel and one of the whistleblowers bringing the downfall of Tricky Dicky's Administration, his words are very appropriate when it comes to the Office of the President and if the President is fulfilling his oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Thankfully more and more people are realizing that the current resident has acted unconstitutionally (with regard to the FISA court only) over thirty separate times. [...] Read the rest at Daily Kos site: http://tinyurl.com/asocj


© Virginia Metze



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

TPM Cafe
By Ed Kilgore
Dec 19, 2005 -- 10:24:35 PM EST

The brazen we-make-the-rules-around-here attitude reflected in the Bush administration's domestic spying ukase, and its let's-punish-the-leakers reaction to its exposure, is certainly not just an executive branch phenomenon. Last night's House Republican maneuvers on budget and defense appropriations measures exhibit the same mentality, especially in the strategem that made it possible: a rules change that basically abolished all the rules.

The House's adoption, on a party-line vote, of so-called "martial law,"

http://www.cbpp.org/12-18-05bud.htm

suspending, among other items, the normal requirement that Members have at least 24 hours to read major legislation before they vote on it, was authoritarian even by House GOP standards.

Thanks to martial law, the incredibly convoluted series of decisions made totally behind close doors on the budget bill, turned into a simple loyalty test for partisans. There was a grand total of 40 minutes of debate, which was probably about right since nobody had the chance to read the bill in the first place. [...] Read the rest, including comments to the article, at http://tinyurl.com/9todz


© Virginia Metze

Democrats see hopes in GOP strongholds

By John Biemer
Tribune staff reporter
Chicago Tribune
Published December 17, 2005

In little more than a year, Tammy Duckworth has gone from a casualty in Iraq to a congressional candidate at home, her campaign a symbol of the partisan battle being waged at the highest reaches of the U.S. House.

By seeking the west suburban 6th Congressional District seat being vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Henry Hyde of Wood Dale, Duckworth joins a host of military veterans running as Democrats for House seats in GOP-leaning districts, seizing upon war as a chief campaign issue.

Duckworth, who lost her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade blew up in the helicopter she was piloting, calls the Iraq war "a mistake."

"Nobody in Congress right now has the perspective that those of us who've served in Iraq have," Duckworth said Friday as she sought signatures for her candidacy petitions from the lunch crowd at a Streamwood restaurant.

"Only those of us who've served on the ground over there understand the dynamics that are truly going on over there right now." [...] Read the rest at the Chicago Tribune: http://tinyurl.com/ap32l It is really a shame that we have two very good candidates running in the same district!


© Virginia Metze