April 28 2007 : IMPEACH

I Stand With Dennis Kucinich

I've been looking for MSM articles on this story, which surely deserves attention... it isn't every day that a Congressman brings Articles of Impeachment against a Vice President, after all! But where are they? I haven't even heard this news on NPR. What an amazing pity!

PoliticalAffairs.net nicely summarizes the three Articles of Impeachment here.

During the press conference announcing this resolution, reporters asked Representative Kucinich if he had co-sponsors for HR 333. Dennis responded that he did not stand alone, and as anyone outside the beltway knows, the courageous Kucinich is indeed supported by hundreds of thousands of people who are damn tired and awful angry about the lies and illegal actions of many members of Bush's inner circle.

Dana Milbank, in his washingtonpost.com video-story about the impeachment filing, stated with certainty that it was 'going nowhere.' I feel sorry for fellows like Dana Milbank. They are slimy, obsequious, full-of-themselves people who pretend to be news reporters but whose real vocation is a Bush boot-licker. Mr. Milbank, Dennis Kucinich is much more a man than you ever will be.

And in case any of my readers wonder just what Richard Cheney, VP, has done to deserve impeachment, The Nation article by John Nichols is a good read.

Impeach

The title says it all.

Kudos to all the state legislatures and city governments that are passing resolutions in favor of impeaching Cheney and Bush.

That is our remedy, my friends. And it is the only way we can start to make things right, absent a full blown insurrection and help from the other nations in the world.

We have, on our hands, an abysmal, decadent, wholly illegal leadership. We have to give it a shot at removing these criminals in the way prescribed. If we fail, I truly hope our friends outside this country give us a hand... either fiscally... or worse comes to worse, militarily.

Help now. Thank you. We, the people of the United States are sick and tired of being used in the name of torture and death. Honest to god, we do not want this legacy like a dead seagull draped over our neck and shoulders.

We DO NOT SUPPORT GW Bush and his minions.

Gonzales Testimony April 19 2007

Today's Senate hearing with Alberto Gonzales was really sad. He didn't know anything, was not in the loop, could not recall a meeting he attended, and frankly, he couldn't tell us anything about HOW the 8 attorneys made it onto the now-infamous list.

Alberto kept trying to convince us that really, nothing he did was improper even if it was ill-advised and ill-executed. Reminded me of heck-of-a-job Brownie actually. If he really takes responsibility for this mess he'd step down. But like other appointees in over his head (think BUSH, who was appointed President by the Supremes) he thinks even though he f'd up he should be able to continue to lead the DOJ.

He also reminded me of a cornered weasel, snarling at times, interrupting the Senate questioners a lot, contradicting them and lecturing them. He almost makes me feel sorry for him but then I remember he's the one who told Bush it was okay to torture.

Real weasels are cuter.

Can We Impeach Them for Blowing the Job?

We've got Dick (aka Darth) Cheney on Sunday morning talk shows maintaining that Iraq had connections with Al Qaida (you're supposed to think about 9/11 again) and insisting that more troops killing more Iraqis will give us a victory in this (faux) War on Terror.

We've got George (aka would-be-king) Bush sucking up TV time by commiserating with (and creating photo-ops with) the bereaved fellow students, faculty, staff and family members of Virginia Tech as a result of a very odd shooting on that campus.

So many other blogs have detailed the abysmal record of Dick and George's administration, that I hardly feel it is worth repeating the record here. I recently heard a phrase, I think a suggestion for a bumper sticker, that said: "Can we impeach them for blowing the job?"

I am very dismayed that "impeachment is off the table." Why? For God's sake, why? How else do we demonstrate in deed that we do not approve of the lawbreaking, arrogant politicians who have the nerve to tell us that we have no say in what happens in our country?

Anyway, in keeping with my thought process that every word posted on the 'net adds to the sum total of the words that represent how we, the people, really feel, let me say it again. IMPEACH. IMPEACH GW BUSH, IMPEACH DICK CHENEY.

I've submitted impeachment papers to members of Congress. Dennis Kucinich is ready to begin impeachment proceedings but he needs to know we support that. Please let Dennis Kucinich know we do support that.

Alberto Dodges the Bullet... for now

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is off the hook today and tomorrow, and won't have to testify until Thursday. The shootings at Virginia Tech are taking top billing in the media and Senator Leahy has determined that holding the hearing today is "inappropriate."

On Friday, Gonzales' office released a prepared statement [PDF] in advance of his long-awaited appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In it, Gonzales says he is "committed to assuring the Congress and the American public that nothing improper occurred here."

TheBlueState takes a look at some excerpts here. It seems Mr. Gonzales cares more about convincing us that nothing improper happened than providing full and complete information about what did happen, who made it happen, and why.

When Truth Is Told

How are you going to feel about torture then? How are you going to feel knowing that you silently assented to carrying out cruel and unusual interrogation methods that destroyed hearts, minds and bodies for no reason, for so long?

If a cabal inside our government sponsored a false flag event on 9-11, what then? Would weaselly Alberto Gonzalez and John Yoo still try to legally justify using waterboarding, humiliation, attack dogs, pissing on holy books, hanging by wrists or ankles, isolation, extreme temperatures, eardrum-piercing music for hours on end, on prime suspects?

If the vile and vicious persons -- the ones whose plans ended up destroying the entire World Trade Center complex, a wing of the Pentagon, a few planes and almost 3000 lives -- include some white Americans, will it be okay to torture them to find out who all was in on it?

There's more evidence that Cheney was involved in state-sponsored terrorism than there is for hundreds of detainees still held in Gitmo. Let's torture Dick for a few years and see what he'll confess to.

If it is okay to torture even one person, we are no better than anyone else who tortures.

The D'vidus Touch

Back when George W. Bush was campaigning to be president he promised he'd be a uniter and not a divider. He wanted to change the tone in Washington. Work with Congress, no matter what political affiliation. Of course, he also promised he would not do nation-building. So where did the hate start?

My take is, cleverly disguised think tanks planted the seeds during the Bill Clinton presidency. Some people became real Clinton-haters. I remember thinking at the time, how rude and cruel and crazy the voices sounded -- calling Clinton a murderer and rapist, a thief and a fraud. Hillary called it a "vast right-wing conspiracy." But eight years ago the words liberal and conservative weren't dirty words. Right-wing and left-wing were both valid political stances. Neo-conservatives did not sit at the main table.

Fast forward to today. So many aspects of our lives are weighed and measured and judged based on whether one calls oneself a Democrat or a Republican. When you testify in a Congressional committee, some lawmaker just has to ask, "Are you a Democrat?" Nevermind that you honorably served a Republican Administration. If you question a GW Bush appointee, or oppose US foreign policy, you deserve to be discounted, swift-boated, and discredited. You get to be called a traitor who deserves public humiliation and there are even some who will call for your hanging.

The US is more divided today than I can ever remember. The right doesn't trust the left any more than the left trusts the right. If you aren't with "them" you're against "them." Evil vs. good. Black vs. white. Dirty liberal pinko-commie hippie weaklings who want peace which equals surrender, vs. strong gun-toting smoke-em-out or just nuke the crap out of 'em, real Amurikans who won't settle for anything but victory.

It is as if GW Bush has the hands of a neo-conservative version of Midas. Everything he touches splits into opposing camps. Here in the US, it's rich vs. poor, corporations vs. workers, right vs. left, business vs. the environment. Iraq used to be united, but now... We have Sunni vs. Shia, Shia vs. Shia, Kurdistan vs. the rest of Iraq, Iraqi people vs. the puppet government that is trying to privatize Iraqi treasure.

Divide and conquer. It works the same at home as it does abroad.

Meet George W. Bush: the man with the D'vidus Touch.

Impeach!!

What is it going to take!? For God's sake, we have a president who can be proven to have LIED on multiple occasions, who can be proven to have KISSED OFF so many laws that the legislative branch has passed under the guise of his "signing statements," and who has blatantly rejected International Treaties and abused the Patriot Act and other laws to his own ends (witness recess appointments that would never pass congress).

I swear to God, if this were a Democratic president with a Republican congress, there is no way in hell he'd be allowed to continue. Impeachment would BE the subject of the day. This administration has gone beyond pushing the envelope in so many ways, and yet why ... WHY ???? .. are do our elected representatives look like they are pussyfooting around King George's throne?

The only reason I can imagine is that our so-called Democrats have been neutered somehow.

Give it up, Dems! State here and now why you cannot/will not impeach, let us know what you are being threatened with. Else, we have no recourse but to presume you are part and parcel of the despicable, greedy, propaganda-furthering war machine that GWB contributes to (with or without his conscious consent).

Truth in Media: Iran

Rosie O'Donnell upset quite a few pundits recently, and I think they were at least as upset by her questioning the official story about 9-11-2001 or wondering if we can trust the government (ours or the Brits') about maritime boundaries as they were about her insistence that we have to go outside of our country for unfiltered news.

Television is a fantastic propoganda machine. Talking heads on US "news" channels frequently appear in succession using the same key words or phrases to describe a situation. It's almost as if someone wrote a script for them.

It is plain for me to see that the latest churnings of the propaganda machine we Americans are exposed to daily seek to incite distrust and even hatred against Iran. With that in mind, here's a little background information concerning the most often repeated phrase attributed to Iran's President Ahmadinejad, that he wants to see Israel wiped off the map.

[source: Ahmadinejad DID NOT threaten to "wipe Israel off the map."]

If you don't know how to read or speak Iranian, and you know the media lies to us about everything else, wouldn't it be prudent to get a second or third opinion on this kind of contagious rhetoric?