History's Brutal Lessons

I've hesitated to broach this angle on the subject of executive power, but the relentless assaults by the Bush administration on our civil liberties under the excuse of wartime necessity is pushing us dangerously close to the brink of a precipice from which there is no recovery without disaster and mass suffering.

Last year, I returned to my onetime home of Berlin, Germany, to revisit a city which hosted me for over four years. It had been nearly 30 years since I had been there, and the Cold War had ended, the country was united, and Berlin had reclaimed its status as an international capital city.

It was a marvelous reunion, but I'll leave the tourism and cultural report for another time. What I was most struck by were two exhibits, one entitled "The Topography of Terror," and the other "Legalized Robbery." The first covered the manner in which the Nazi regime legitimized its oppression, imprisonment, and execution of dissidents, all the way to the extreme of genocidal attacks on Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, and other groups. The keyword here is "legitimized."

We'd all like to think of the Nazis as just a bunch of gangsters who illegally seized the power apparatus and then ran amok. But that was hardly the case. Hitler was elected. Then he used the apparatus of the state to dismantle all checks and balances and concentrate power in fewer and fewer hands. When the Gestapo kicked down a door and dragged a family to interrogation and then concentration camps, it was all done with the legal authority of legislation and the blessing of courts packed with sympathetic justices. One of the most striking images for me was a photograph of black-robed judges giving the Nazi salute as they swore allegiance to the fuhrer. Remember that judges were supposed to be independent arbiters of legality under the constitution, just like here in the US.

The other exhibit, "Legalized Robbery," was as heartbreaking as it was informative. Relics of Jews whose names had been lost were on display: letters, combs, household articles, locks of hair, rings, photographs. Again, what was most striking was the careful explanation how it was under legal authority that these people were dispossessed of their personal property, and then charged, tried, imprisoned, and exterminated, all with the blessing of law. The paperwork was filled out properly and duly signed by empowered authority. Courts jammed with crony judges presided over trials and appeals processes.

You know the rest. I just wish we could heed the warnings of history about executive authority claiming greater and greater power for fear of external threats, and now a perpetual war against a concept of terror, rather than a specific enemy. This vagueness is no error, for in attempting to constitute unlimited authority it is necessary to keep the rationale as vague and shapeless and fearful as possible.

Yes, they claim that this time it's different. But if we did not have to yield so much of our civil freedom during the Cold War when the Soviet Union had the means, method, and motivation to lob thousands of nuclear warheads upon our heads, and also permeated our society with spies, then why is it that disorganized bands of religious fanatics require even more stringent restrictions?

The reasons are clear, and it has little to do with protecting American citizens. This is about power and its seizure by dangerous people, just as it was in 1933 in central Europe. The Germans aren't afraid to face their own horrible past. Why are we so frightened to benefit from those same lessons?

More Fuel for Chimpie's Pyre

From an article in The Texas Monthly, rightly entitled "The Pimping of the Presidency":

Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the President. From the same two clients he took to the White House in May 2001, Abramoff also obtained $2.5 million in contributions for a non-profit foundation he and his wife operated.

Rotten from the head down, from the tail up, from the spleen out, from the skin in. Dirty, filthy, stinking, rotten.

You're Doin' a Heckuva Job, Chimpie

More good news for those who keep insisting on a war on terror that should "last the rest of our lives," since their own actions seem to be creating yet more of what they claim to want to stop.

President Bush's efforts to spread democracy to the Middle East have strengthened Islamists across the region, posing fresh challenges for the United States, according to U.S. officials, foreign diplomats and democracy experts.

Islamist parties trounced secular opponents in recent elections in Iraq and Egypt.

Isn't that swell? Of course, in Bushworld, up is down, democracy is tyranny, and torture is affection, so I guess Islamist victories over secular candidates is, what? The triumph of American values?

If you're Pat Robertson or Sen. Tom "Kill the Abortionists" Coburn of Oklahoma, then yes, indeed, theocratic fascists rising to power must be something to really celebrate. And perhaps that reveals what may be the Bushit secret agenda to roll out in the Mideast what they desire for this country--a totalitarian state run by clerics of a certain fanatical Christian persuasion.

Or it could be another case of the marvelous and stupefying incompetence of these idiots. It's hard to know. Diabolical or stupid?

Probably both.

Time for a Diaper Change at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Proof of torture, bribery scandals, admissions of illegal spying, lies leading to a horrible war, low poll numbers--on and on it goes, and still Chimpie and Company claim that everything is cool and they are going to resolutely stay the course until the country is finally trashed into the oblivion of history. But something passed under my eyes from Zogby that should have the Bushits crapping their pants. Why has the Chimperor's job approval rating slipped back below 40 percent?

The deterioration in the President’s numbers appears to be the result of eroding support among the investor class and others who supported him in his 2004 re-election bid, said Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. And the problem is the Iraq war – just 34% of respondents said Mr. Bush was doing a good or excellent job managing the war, down from 38% approval in a Zogby poll taken in mid-October.

Yes, folks, the investor class has at long last realized that national bankruptcy, unlimited defense expansions, and imperial wars are perhaps not going to fatten their 401Ks quite as much as the peaceful 1990s did. They're slow, to be sure, but they do catch on, and when they do and all those low-tax-lovin' quasi libertarians realize that their privacy is pierced, their sex lives will be judged by Pat Robertson and their kids are going to be working minimum-wage jobs for managers out of Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur, suddenly the crypto-fascism of the Bushits does have a price too high to pay, no matter how much wealth it means they can pry from the tightening fists of the underprivileged everywhere else.

Tightening fists of rage against the US. To wit, according to Forbes,

Socialist Michelle Bachelet won Chile's presidential with 53.5 pct of the vote and a seven-point lead over her rival, according to partial results with most of the ballots counted.

Where have you gone, Augusto Pinochet? No, it doesn't look like good times are coming for US companies in Chile, or in the rest of Latin America. I guess decades of supporting right-wing death squads are finally completing the karmic circle, not to mention supporting an attempted coup against a legally elected leader in Venezuela, and God knows what other shenanigans are in the works to try to destabilize Bolivia, Brazil, and any other nation that decides to look after its own people instead of US business interests.

The virtue of business is that it has only a single virtue--making money for the investors--and its pretty good at it, all the way to the point of influencing/coercing the military and espionage arms of government to do dirty work for it. But when that government is run by a bunch of half-witted ideologues who also happen to be almost perfect incompetents in everything they attempts, well, the business community, under which stands the "investor class" gets rather pissed off. The Bush policies have made it popular to boycott American products, have virtually ensured the death of the US auto industry, pushed the health care system to the precipice, and failed to do anything smart about immigration, among other idiocies, that are making the moneymakers very, very nervous.

And the investor class, baby, it wants to get paid. I know--I'm one of 'em. Give me my pound of flesh you Chimpite motherfuckers!

Why I'm Proud to Be a Swedish Boy

I am so grateful for my Swedish heritage when I read something like this. Swedes rise up and declare your secular militancy!

Swedish logo designer Bjorn Atldax did something that even the American ACLU could not do: He made walking advertisements among young Swedes for an anti-Christian message.

I don't know if it's really anti-Christian. It seems to me more as play with symbols. Also, if you're a gnostic and believe that Christians are mistaken in worshipping the current God (because Satan really took over at the crucifixion) then what could be more Christian than upsetting the current dogma? Anyway...

In tragically hip Sweden, where churchgoing has been declining for decades, Bjorn Atldax is seen as something of a folk hero. Secular Sweden is far more concerned about maintaining free speech.

Imagine that! A country that values free speech!

Go Ingrid! Go Jonas! Go Astrid, Ingemar, and Olaf! Go Sweden!

Out On a Limb: Olaf Predicts

(Holding the envelope to my forehead, a la Karnak the Magnificent)

"And the answer is California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrbacher."

(Tearing open the envelope at one end, flexing it slightly, blowing in to open it. Pulling out the paper inside.)

"Who will be one indicted congressional representative in the Abramoff bribery scandal?"

Now how would old Olaf, aka Karnak, know that, or guess it at least? Easy. Just read who's making excuses, the lamest excuses, for Abramoff, who was a Republican operative for decades and who has now pleaded guilty to numerous felony counts.

"They're portraying Jack as a monster. I see him more as a good person who's done bad things and has to be punished for doing bad things," Rohrabacher, a longtime friend of Abramoff, said in a phone interview.

Don't you just love that? "A good person who's done bad things." I'm sure that's true for most of your villains in the world, you know. They're just poor, tortured, misunderstood people who make themselves and their buddies rich by preying on others. But they're good people. Good people. Good people.

Hmmm. You'll recall how Chimpie is fond of that phrase: "He's a good person," or "They're good people," when speaking of his allies.

Now I know exactly what that means.

The Devil's Gouty Foot

Dick Cheney has been reported to be walking with a cane, and now has had to be checkedout for shortness of breath resulting from treatment for a "foot problem." It sounds like Dear Dickie is suffering from gout (yes, I'm exercising my Bill Frist option on long-range diagnosis). How perfect, how just like the aristocrats that once tyrannized France and England, so overfed on red meat and rich desserts that they reach a state of excessive uric acid in the bloodstream which manifests itself as pain in joints like the big toe. Overfilled with uric acid--how perfect is that? And even an old atheist like me begins to believe that Satan is real when I read Cheney's medical history.

McBride said the foot condition was not related to surgery last September to repair aneurysms behind both knees or the 64-year-old vice president's lengthy history of heart problems. He has had four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, two artery-clearing angioplasties and an operation to implant a special pacemaker in his chest.

I mean, what's keeping this guy alive? Must be...Satan!

And what could a report of Dickie be without a quote from the Chimperor himself, who seems to be stuck in a groove when it comes to job assessments.

"The vice president's doing a great job on behalf of the American people," [Bush] said. "He's a very important member of the team."

Sounds like the end of the line for Dickie-poo, since the last time Chimpie gave such a ringing endorsement for an administration official, New Orleans was under water. Where's Brownie now?

Fundamental Bush Developmental Disability--No Sense of Irony

When the Germans are shaming your country about its detention camps, maybe it's time to reevaluate the policy, wouldn't you say?

There is widespread skepticism in Germany about the way the United States is fighting its "war on terror," compounded by the recent scandal over the CIA's abduction and detention of German citizen Khaled el-Masri -- later acknowledged to be a mistake.

Oops! Yes, and we're the beacon of liberty around the world. And we don't torture...unless the president says we can even though he signed the McCain bill against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, but you see, he had his fingers crossed...

Bush Signs with Fingers Crossed: "King's X!" he declares. Too bad we're not in the schoolyard any longer.

The Chimperor, after realizing that being the lone holdout against a ban on torture was beginning to darken his already shit-and blood-stained legacy, grudgingly signed the McCain bill banning cruel, unusual, or degrading treatment. However, not being of sufficient intellect to deal in nuance and debate whether the interstices left between the definition of "torture" and "cruel, unusual, or degrading treatment" as his buttlicking minions have started to do, Bush resorted to another of his childish responses to real-world politics.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

That's right, he pulled the old, "Naw, naw, naw, naw nad--King's X! Doesn't count!"

The real force behind it all, of course, is Dick "Champion of Evil" Cheney who made his belief in the Emperor of the USA mode of rule even clearer:

Vice President Dick Cheney recently told reporters, ''I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it. . . . I would argue that the actions that we've taken are totally appropriate and consistent with the constitutional authority of the president."

You know, maybe I should agree with this, because imagine that some opposition party--I can't think of one, but just humor me--was voted into power after a successful campaign against the abuses of the Bushit administration. The new president then wouldn't have to bother with justice or legislative issues. In the interest of national security--and who is a bigger threat to it than the Bush-Cheney cabal of evil--he could have the former leadership remanded to a military prison by the power of his or her "strong, robust executive authority," and then, by God, let the games begin!

I always wanted to be an interrogator.

The Disgusting Spin of Chris Matthews

There is something very fishy about Chris Matthews' support and spin of the Bushits and the Republicans in general. Yesterday, he claimed that the Abramoff scandal "wasn't partisan," which fits nicely into the right-wing spin that is being used to try to defuse this huge bomb of a scandal. The tactic is to make it a Congressional scandal rather than a Republican scandal, which it clearly and exclusively is, at least according to the way Abramoff spread his largesse around. From Bloomberg News on December 21:

Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats, federal records show. At the same time, his Indian clients were the only ones among the top 10 tribal donors in the U.S. to donate more money to Republicans than Democrats.

So why would Matthews join in the spin game in the face of hard facts of the dough distribution by now-convicted felon Jack Abramoff, claimed as a "best friend" by Tom "Giant Flying Cockroach" DeLay?

Well, over at Americablog, John Aravosis has stitched together the details of an event planned for an Abramoff-related charity that would have had Matthews as a host. And, surprise! surprise! this charity was as crooked as Abramoff's other endeavors:

In its first four years of operation, the charity has collected nearly $6 million. A gala fundraiser last year at the International Spy Museum at one point attracted the Washington Redskins' owner as its chairman and was to honor the co-founder of America Online.

Records for GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Capital Athletic Foundation show that less than 1 percent of its revenue has been spent on sports-related programs for youths, and federal investigators are looking into how large amounts of money were funneled through the nonprofit group to support Abramoff's interests.

Once again, we find the media "watchdogs" aiding and abetting interests that they then claim to objectively report. Shouldn't Matthews have disclosed his connection to Abramoff before passing on opinions (falsely supported) of bipartisan corruption in this scandal?

No, I guess not. If you drink the yellowing spooge from the peckers of lying scum, then you can't be anything different yourself. Understand, of course, that the reason for this tactic is that the Repugs know that they're fucked because Abramoff is going to sing his ass off, and I imagine he has a paper trail to support every contention. So as they have done in the past when faced with irrefutable evidence of their corruption, the Repugs will try to dilute the charge by turning it into "everyone does it," and "business as usual" while at the same time running like hell from any association to anyone indicted. The only thing more certain than Republican corruption is Republican turncoating. "Jack who? Tom who?" And you can bet that Chris Matthews will take his finger out of Chimpie's ass long enough to test the winds and shift accordingly.

And if it is true that this is "business as usual," then the whole stinking thing needs to be taken down, regardless of politics. If any Dems were stupid enough to succumb to this selling out of the American people, I hope they end up rotting in a federal prison right next to DeLay, Hastert, and the rest. Maybe it's time for a true revolution in the political order.

The New Slogan for 2006

Happy New Year to all of you!

This is the year to Rise Up.

This is the slogan of the year: Rise Up!

Here is reason # 1 to rise up:

The same report, by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning research center, and United for a Fair Economy, a group seeking to narrow the gap between rich and poor, found that in 2004 the ratio of C.E.O. pay to worker pay at large companies had ballooned to 431 to 1. If the minimum wage had advanced at the same rate as chief executive compensation since 1990, America's bottom-of-the-barrel working poor would be enjoying salad days, with legal wages at $23.03 an hour instead of $5.15.

Is the work done by minimum wage employees more important or less important than that done by most executive level leadership? Which group, were they to go on strike for two weeks, would paralyze the country more?

Unite, workers! Rise Up!

This Week's Best Description of the Bush Strategy

From Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone:

Up until now this president's solution to everything has been to stare into the cameras, lie and keep on lying until such time as the political problem disappears. And now, unable to comprehend that while political crises may wilt in the face of such tactics, real crises do not, he and his team are responding to this first serious feet-to-the-fire Iraq emergency in the same way they always have -- with a fusillade of silly, easily disprovable bullshit. Bush and his mouthpieces continue to try to obfuscate and cloud the issue of why we're in Iraq, and they do so not only selectively but constantly, compulsively, like mental patients who can't stop jacking off in public. They don't know the difference between a real problem and a political problem, because to them, there is no difference. What could possibly be worse than bad poll numbers?

Right on the money. The money shot, so to speak.

Someone Who Knows About War Crimes

Last night I watched a rerun on C-SPAN of a panel presentation at Georgetown Law School regarding the Nuremberg Trials after World War Two. What particularly struck me were some of the fundamental principles that had been set down in 1945-46 for the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court, to which agreement there are now over 100 nations. The United States, however, is not one of them.

Mr. Benjamin Ferencz, one of the prosecutors at Nuremberg, has a terrific website, and has devoted his life to international law. If you don't yet subscribe to the idea of the Bush regime as a collection of war criminals, I would ask you to consider that the invasion of Iraq was done without United Nations authorization (unlike the 1991 Gulf War) and on the basis of "pre-emption." Here's what Mr. Ferencz has to say about that after he had obtained convictions for war crimes of Nazis by their own admission

The twenty-two defendants in the Einsatzgruppen case were selected on the basis of high rank and education. Many held doctor degrees -- six were SS Generals. The principle defendant, General Dr. Otto Ohlendorf, patiently explained why his unit had killed about 90,000 Jews. Killing all Jews and Gypsies was necessary, said Ohlendorf. as a matter of self-defense.

According to Ohlendorf, it was known that the Soviets planned total war against Germany. A German preemptive strike was better than waiting to be attacked. It was also known, said Ohlendorf, that Jews supported the Bolsheviks - therefore all Jews had to be eliminated. But why did he, the father of five children, kill the little babes -- thousands of them? The bland reply was that if the children learned that their parents had been eliminated, they would grow up to be enemies of Germany. Long range security was the goal. He lacked facts sufficient to challenge Hitler's conclusions. It was all very logical -- according to General Dr. Ohlendorf.

Please note how a kneepad press might contribute to the dissemination of such beliefs.

I had not called for the death penalty, although I felt it was richly deserved. I simply asked the court to affirm the right of all human beings to live in peace and dignity regardless of race or creed. It was "a plea of humanity to law." The three experienced American judges concluded that a preemptive strike as anticipatory self-defense was not a valid legal justification for mass murder. If every nation could decide for itself when to attack a presumed enemy, and when to engage in total war, the rule of law would be destroyed and the world would be destroyed with it.

As to those 100 nations who do support the International Criminal Court, the signatories include our European allies from WWII as well as Germany itself. Mr. Ferencz makes this final point that is perhaps what should have the Bushits running scared most of all:

Aggression, according to the Nuremberg judges and other precedents, is "the supreme international crime" since it includes all the other crimes. There can be no war without atrocities and unauthorized warfare in violation of the UN Charter is the biggest atrocity of all.

I encourage you to visit this site and look over Mr. Ferencz's writings in which he lays out a convincing case of the ICC, the UN, and the need for law instead of war. When we, as a nation that spends more on its military than all other nations combined, fail to adhere to international law, then it is clear that our ideas need reexamination, paricularly regarding the means by which we wish to spread these ideas.

Question of the Day

Joe Conason, one of the true journalists still standing, poses a question worthy of speculation in this paragraph posted today in an article on the requirement for impeachment of Bush:

Why would the President instruct the Attorney General not to seek warrants from the FISA court, as the statute requires? What did he and his aides fear from that court's conservative judges -- appointed by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- who have routinely approved all but a tiny percentage of the warrants presented to them by this and other administrations over the past quarter-century? Which wiretaps did he expect those pliable judges to reject?

Wiretaps on people from his enemies list? Wiretaps on journalists who badmouth his administration? You have to wonder that when a FISA warrant can be obtained after the wiretap has been ordered, and when the FISA court has rejected almost none of the 19,000 requests made since the law was enacted, just how outrageous were the wiretaps that El Presidente wanted?

At home my telephones sport stickers that say "This phone is tapped," and it was originally meant as a joke. Little did I expect that it would turn out to be an accurate assessment of the violation of the Fourth Amendment by the criminals that continue to assault the Constitution in the name of security.

Assault on the First Amendment

Those-who-wish-to-be-tyrants despise a free press. Of course, if we really had a free press, I wouldn't be to worried about what is happening when Bushito summons New York Times and Washington Post editors for some strongarming on truths they might care to tell. You see, although the First Amenedment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a free press, it does not guarantee the existence or availability of a free press, particularly within an environment so controlled by strictly commercial interests (GE owns NBC, Disney owns ABC, Viacom owns CBS, etc.) whose leadership hobnobs and begs favors from the political establishment. So this revelation is all the more chilling by its secrecy.

Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, would not confirm that he, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman had an Oval Office sit-down with the president on Dec. 5, 11 days before reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed that Bush had authorized eavesdropping on Americans and others within the United States without court orders.

But the meetings were confirmed by sources who have been briefed on them but are not authorized to comment because both sides had agreed to keep the sessions off the record. The White House had no comment.

You see, now we not only have to depend on leakers to get the truth out about what goes on in the White House, we have to have leakers to find out what goes on in the press when it deals with the White House.

If these meetings had occurred three years ago, or even one year ago, do you think that Keller and Taubman would have had the courage to run the stories Bush was trying to suppress? Well, we already know that the Times sat on the NSA domestic spying case for a year.

Free press my fucking ass.

Mythology of Terrorism

Do terrorists exist? Yes, of course, and they exist in many guises. Do some of them want to do us harm? Unquestionably! It's a fact of life in any civilization, and 9/11 brought it home in spades to the U.S. (but let's not forget domestic terrorism like McVeigh in Oklahoma City, or Eric Robert Rudolph in Atlanta and Birmingham).

But the way the Bush administration wants to cast what is really a highly fragmented and variegated collection of terrorist groups into some monolithic threat on the order of the Cold War Soviet regime is a lie on a scale so massive that it can only have a single purpose. The so-called "War on Terror" has been fabricated so that under this phony blanket of fear the fascist-minded zealots can keep chipping away at limits to their power, visibility into our own government, and our very rights as citizens.

The War on Terror is a marketing scheme, designed to collect any threat or act anywhere and put it into the pot of rationalization that this group of thugs keeps stirring and serving up as a gruel of repression. Quit eating this shit! Quit using the term. Start talking about the war on Al Qaeda, or Indonesian bombers, or Islamic extremists in Spain. Get specific.

The reason for this is that how we use language to describe what must be done reveals whether or not we understand--or intend to explain--what our plan is for dealing with the situation. If the police simply talked about our "war on crime" every time a robbery occurred, wouldn't you be asking who did it, where, with what, and how? And yet our news media doesn't seem to want to delve any deeper than the thin porridge of platitudes that Chimpie's gang serves up in steaming bowls.

The threat of terror is real, but it is no more or less than it was four years ago, or ten, or twenty, or fifty. It's a fact of life, but rather than effectively dealing with terrorists, the game is now played to hold up terrorism as a justification for acts by government that are much more of a real threat to our way of life.

Don't be conned. Demand specifics, and demand specific actions. The next time someone says "War on Terror," ask where that war is being waged, with what means, and against whom. These are not phantoms or supermen or boogiemen. And we don't have to surrender to fascist fear-mongering to effectively deal with them. Unless, that is, you're running a corrupt and incompetent evil empire of your own.

The Belly Laugh

Last night on The Late Show with David Letterman, I had myself a truly purging release through laughter. Dave introduced a segment called "The Late Show Response to Bush Spying" (or something like that), bringing up stage manager Biff Henderson, who was standing next to a telephone.

Dave: Take it away, Biff.

Biff: All right, Dave. (Picks up telephone receiver.) Hey Bush. Mind your own fucking business. (Hangs up.)

Dave: And there you have it.

I think I had an abdominal rupture or something after that.

Another chant for the season.

Oh My, More on Impeachment

Go to this Editor and Publisher issue for a great piece on this subject. And they answer the accusation that the MSM is still largely a gargling nest of bum-slurpers:

When Washington Post pollster Richard Morin finally answered the "I" question in his online chat, he said, "We do not ask about impeachment because it is not a serious option or a topic of considered discussion -- witness the fact that no member of congressional Democratic leadership or any of the serious Democratic presidential candidates in '08 are calling for Bush's impeachment. When it is or they are, we will ask about it in our polls."

Oh, WaPo, how far you've fallen since Nixon.

Told You So

My relatives, even my wife, have long considered me to be wild-eyed and prone to overstatement with regard to the Bush administration. Two years ago I was severely taken to task for referring to them as a "criminal enterprise," and when I was hollering for impeachment on the basis of the many, many offenses committed against the U.S. Constitution and international law, again my various in-laws told me I was nuts. There was no way that was going to happen, what with a Republican controlled Congress, blah, blah, blah.

Well, friends, the word "impeachment" has now reached a level of play that even the mainstream media is afraid to ignore, and when even those sycophants rise up far enough from their kneepads to clear their throats of Cheney's cock and cough out the "I-word," then things must be in a state of panic inside the White House.

Howard Fineman of Newsweek, who I must grudgingly respect as he seems to have remained an actual journalist instead of an eager-to-swallow stenographer for the Official Word of Emperor Bush, has put the issue front and center.

For months now, I have been getting e-mails demanding that my various employers (Newsweek, NBC News and MSNBC.com) include in their poll questionnaires the issue of whether Bush should be impeached. They used to demand this on the strength of the WMD issue, on the theory that the president had “lied us into war.” Now the Bush foes will base their case on his having signed off on the NSA’s warrant-less wiretaps. He and Cheney will argue his inherent powers and will cite Supreme Court cases and the resolution that authorized him to make war on the Taliban and al-Qaida. They will respond by calling him Nixon 2.0 and have already hauled forth no less an authority than John Dean to testify to the president’s dictatorial perfidy. The “I-word” is out there, and, I predict, you are going to hear more of it next year — much more.

And Patrick Fitzgerald is still working on the Karl Rove treasongate issue too.

It's getting to feel a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. Hee-hee-hee.

Time to Impeach, and then Indict

Am I missing something? Here's the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Now here's George W. Bush, presidential impostor, lying about how he has authorized violations of this law, from the White House's own website, from April 20, 2004:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

Further on in the speech, however, he was frighteninly candid about how far he and his criminal gang were prepared to go:

. And we needed to change the whole attitude about how we protect the homeland. We'll do everything we can to stay on the offensive.

Apparently, even to the point of tossing out the Constitution. Who needs to fear Osama (still on the loose, by the way) when we've got our own domestic forces destroying our protections?