BUSH SHOULD BE IMPEACHED ALONG WITH CHENEY!

*note to readers; this particular piece is a work-in-progress, and until I feel it is complete, it will continue to change. It is intended as a speech, and anyone who might wish to use all or part of it is welcome to it, this is all I have to give right now.

The first draft was written in the heat of a common citizen's righteous rage, in the half-hour after Bush made his recent speech calling this DOJ investigation a political witch-hunt. I used terminology and framing that I have edited out of the published version, in order to maintain a modicum of civility on my own blog. But the truth is, we really are faced with the degradation of our democratic system of government, and a constitutional crisis is not impending, it is full-blown, and nearly 7 tears old...it has been upon us since the Supreme Court made its Gore V. Bush decision and declared it could not be used as future precedent.

Since that moment, we have been operating under a cloud of failed Constitutional authority, authority that was usurped by a corporate cabal that personifies what Eisenhower warned us about, the congressional-military-industrial complex.

New posts again, starting tomorrow morning...

IMPEACH BUSH!

We have no alternative, he is UTTERLY beneath the law, and made that choice quite publicly, TODAY, by claiming this inquiry into the attorney firings is partisan politics. And for obvious reasons, we need to impeach Cheney right along with Bush.

I'm one of those who has always considered Bush a hand-puppet, much like Rush Limbaugh, just one more ignorant, impotent player in a game managed by smarter people who feed them their lines. I have little doubt that Rove is and always has been the author of both those puppet's lines, while Cheney helped foment thier strategy of deception and divisiveness.

So I have been much more forgiving towards Bush, because he always seemed like a goofy dupe, much more of a victim than a leader.

But this latest escapade is so shameful, it proves beyond any doubt Bush is just as guilty as the managers around him, and cares nothing for the rule of law, especially any law that applies to him and limitations to his power. He has become THE LAW UNTO HIMSELF and in that arrogance, constantly changing the rules of the game to match his handlers' pernicious necessity.

The consequences of this lawlessness go well beyond this US Attorney scandal, it encompasses a raging, worthless war, that has taken the lives and diminished the physical and psychological health of so many of our most precious young members, and countless other innocents, Iraqis and Americans, who deserved a better life, and a better death, than the awful fate they were given, in the name of war and its profit machine. And I may have been much too unforgiving towards Bush, his culpability is onlymatched by his desperate denials and obfuscations.

Bush, or ANY president for that matter, is just a man, an elected official, and should consdier himself nothing more than a devoted public servant, and not some royal ruler his delusions of grandeur and his minions apparently have convinced him of. Bush forgot long ago that "The President" is not a king. He habitually fails to realize that in this nation of peers, honor and glory are earned, not inherited. In this new era of universal equality, those virtues belong only to people who stand forth and do what is right, regardless of the consequences.

That is the true meaning of nobility in this age of reason, freedom, and equality. If the man behind the office were a truly noble person, none of this would have ever happened in the first place. He has proven today he is, at best, history's most mediocre president, totally bereft of the real "excellency" of truth and honor.

His nobility is imaginery, and his glory is vain.

And his loyalties are to his cronies, not to the taxpayers OR the citizen/voters, or to the constitution he swore to protect.

It is time to hang the impeachment sword over his head, and give him an historic asterisk as big as his arrogance. It is time to start the impeachment process to hold him accountable for his hubris and deviousness, and his deference to lesser officials, handing over his precious authority to profane manipulators like Cheney and Rove.

All I have is my keyboard, a computer and a list of people who seem to tolerate my vociferous political emails. And a bunch of blogs I inhabit now and then. It may not be much, compared to the apparent power and wealth of our adversaries, but it might well be enough, if there are many of us who will make the same commitment.

Call it the liberal blogosphere, call it grassroots, call it a popular groundswell, whatever label it takes, it is really a new revolution.

We do not need to resort to violence or insurrection, for our guns are keyboards and our bullets are words of truth, that can not be denied without another lie. If we will simply seek out and nurture a resurrection of our democratic spirit, we can and will affect an historic change, simply by our mutual will.

I hope many of you will join me in making a pledge to redouble the effort to remove these despots from our highest office, well before the next election. The speech I just watched made me ashamed of our government, and that shame has turned to slow, deliberate rage, the kind that keeps me up at nights, searching the news for one more tiny piece of evidence that might be used to topple these arrogant rogues. And it is there every day, hidden between the lines of the daily news.

The Truth shall set us free.

So I'm making this personal commitment, as John Brown did when he stepped forth and made his pledge to help free the slaves.

In the name of Voltaire, Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy and King, and for the sake of my children and grandchildren, I am committed to peacefully casting these dark angels from our highest office, before their time is due. And I don't suggest we do this out of hatred or vindictiveness, it should be done as a rock-hard history lesson for future dishonorable despots-in-Republican- clothing, who would assume their no-bid, book-cooking ways can go on forever, at the expense of our free and equal nation, "the last, best hope of mankind on Earth."

Ohio election fraud perpetrators asked to resign from rogue county election board:
from the blogosphere
(just out from the AP, thanx to Brad Blog for the scoop)

Ohio Secretary of State demands resignations across the board in rogue district;
All four election board members for Cuyahoga County, troubled by recount rigging charges and voting machine problems, have been told to resign or face being fired, a state official said Monday. Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said she called the four board members of Ohio's most populous county late Sunday, asking them to leave by close of business Wednesday
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4292://


A very suspicious connection; numbers never lie, only people do..
Was Carol Lam Targeting The White House Prior To Her Firing?
From the folks at "Think Progress"
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/19/carol-lam-white-house/
"To recap, the White House awarded a one-month, $140,000 contract to an individual who never held a federal contract. Two weeks after he got paid, that same contractor used a cashier’s check for exactly that amount to buy a boat for a now-imprisoned congressman at a price that the congressman had pre-negotiated."Blogger's note: PLEASE, if ever there was a story you needed to check, this is the one. This may be the political mushroom cloud we've all been expecting as the corruption scandals begin to melt into one big Cheney/Bush tale of intrigue, greed and the profane sellout of our government, in a pay-for-play travesty that may well prove to be even worse than everything we ever suspected.

DOJ ATTORNEY FIRINGS;
Justice Dept. worked to contain U.S. attorney fallout
Documents show that officials scrambled to curb bad publicity over the widening scandal. As the scandal over the firing of a select group of U.S. attorneys was building two weeks ago, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department tried to persuade one of those being removed that Washington was not out to ruin their reputations.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/hBLHO0RvPwf0G2B0IRJv0Ed

Fitzgerald Ranked During Leak Case: Justice Dept. Fired 2 With Same Rating
U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W2RH022191851E0C6446D304CA2D40

SMITHSONIAN CHIEF LUXURIATES AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE; IG'S GET SAME TREATMENT AS US-ATTORNEYS
Former IG Says Small Asked Her To Drop Audit
The former Smithsonian inspector general who launched an audit of high-ranking officials and their business practices said yesterday that Secretary Lawrence M. Small tried to pressure her to drop the inquiry shortly after she announced it last year.Debra S. Ritt said Small called her before the audit was widened to include his own compensation, but she still found it highly inappropriate. Ritt reported to Small at the time.
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W2RH02219D5E0E0C6446D304C3A920

THE WAR IN IRAQ
Police Yield to Sunni Insurgents' Ultimatum
In Town North of Baghdad, Five of Eight Stations Are Destroyed. Apparently content, the insurgents stole the officers' decrepit weapons and the station's communications equipment, blew up the building and released the officers. A similar scene played out simultaneously at another police station in the town, said police Capt. Hussein al-Jaburi. It was the fifth police station in the town to be destroyed by Sunni extremists in two weeks, he said, leaving just three standing.
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W2RH02219D7E8E0C6446D304C3A920

Army Brigade Finds Itself Stretched Thin
The war in Iraq has taken a toll on the military’s ability to train, equip and deploy soldiers in an emergency. In effect, the Army has become a "just in time" organization: every combat brigade that finishes training is sent back to Iraq or Afghanistan almost immediately. Equipment vital for protecting troops, like armored vehicles, roadside bomb jammers and night vision goggles, is rushed to Iraq as quickly as it is made, officials say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/us/20army.html?th&emc=th

Iraq hangs Hussein's ex-vice president
Human rights groups and some government organizations, including an arm of the United Nations, have said that the conviction was the result of guilt by association and that the evidence supported conviction only on lesser crimes, such as unlawful imprisonment and inhumane acts. http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/hBLHO0RvPwf0G2B0IRKB0Em

Iraq War: Still wrong course
Seattle P-I Editorial: The Bush administration produced bogus evidence to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. With the horror of the 9/11 attacks fresh in American minds, the majority of the country swallowed the fabrications. It supported the war, fearing another gruesome terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Never mind that there were no links between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorists. Never mind that Bush & Co.'s claims (backed by Britain's Tony Blair) were contrary to those of Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Unhappy that ElBaradei wasn't playing along, the White House then tried to oust him from the agency, even though he was right. "We believe (Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong," said Vice President Dick Cheney.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/pimail.asp?uid=38863&url=opinion/308091_anniversaryed.html

GITMO
Detainee Says He Was Abused While in U.S. Custody Since his capture, David Hicks, an Australian detainee now seeking British citizenship, says he has been stripped, beaten and given injections. In an affidavit supporting his request for British citizenship, Mr. Hicks contends that before he arrived at Guantánamo, his American captors threw him and other detainees on the ground, walked on them, stripped him naked, shaved all his body hair and inserted a plastic object in his rectum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/world/europe/20hicks.html?th&emc=th

WALL STREET'S INSIDER INJUSTICES
Investors Defeated In Enron Decision A federal appeals court yesterday thwarted attempts by a group of Enron investors to sue investment banks over their role in the Houston energy trader's collapse, giving Wall Street a powerful weapon to defend itself against future claims.
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W2RH02219C113E0C6446D304C3A920


From the Highlander Independence files:
Scotland's 300-year itch ON A winter’s' day in 1707, this old, stone town saw the Scottish Parliament sign itself and the independence of Scotland out of existence by voting for a treaty of union with England that created Great Britain. Today, 300 years later, polls suggest that Scots who would undo all that seem poised for a significant victory in a restored Scottish Parliament during elections in May.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/03/20/scotlands_300_year_itch/


From the "Most outrageous stories of the day" files
Watergate plotter may have a last tale Two of E. Howard Hunt's sons say he knew of rogue CIA agents' plan to kill President Kennedy in 1963... before his death at age 88 in January, E. Howard Hunt had reconciled with his children and left the sons one last tantalizing story, they say. The story, which he planned to detail in a memoir and could be worth big money — was that rogue CIA agents plotted to kill President Kennedy in 1963, and that they approached Hunt to join the plot but he declined.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/hBLHO0RvPwf0G2B0IRKA0El


Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior
Dr. Frans de Waal argues that human morality would be impossible without certain emotional building blocks that are clearly at work in chimp and monkey societies. Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days. Biologists argue that these and other social behaviors are the precursors of human morality. They further believe that if morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution, it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?th&emc=th