About a year from now pundits and instant historians will point back at the firing of the federal prosecutors and say, ‘That’s where the impeachment began.’I'm glad that it began with, or at least around, Alberto.
The attorney general takes an oath to uphold the constitution and execute the law. When controversial matters come up his role, traditionally, is often to be the guy who says, we can’t do that, it’s against the law.
Gonzales took a different approach. He brought the ethics of a corporate lawyer to his office. He took it to be his job to find, or invent, a theory that would allow the administration to go forward. If the theory wouldn’t hold up in court, or made little sense, that didn’t matter. They could still maintain, with straight faces, that they believed that what they were doing, on the advise of the attorney general, was legal and constitutional. If worst came to worst, they’d back off and move on, so long as the profit outweighed the penalty.
The most flagrant example is when Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld decided they wanted to torture people.
Aside from the moral, practical and traditional problems with torture, there were legal problems. America’s own War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions prohibit torture, torture lite, and even real life re-enactments of episodes from the TV show 24.
So Gonzales and his legal team came up with the theory the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to opponents in the War on Terror. Neither does domestic law. Indeed, nothing applies. They invented a category of person who has no rights. Even if they’re American citizens. Gonzales knew exactly how illegal it was. That’s why he wrote a memo that explained, explicitly, that the reason to employ his theory was to “provide a solid defense to any future prosecution.”
The administration also wanted to snatch people off the street - usually abroad, but here too - and not bother with all the legal mumbo jumbo. Annoying. Cumbersome. Too expensive.
Unfortunately, Article 1, section 9, of the Constitution says, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Habeas corpus means that if you are arrested or detained, the government has to bring you into the legal system and say why. Without that right, you don’t have any other legal rights. You can’t defend yourself, you can’t call a lawyer, you can’t notify your family. You just disappear.
Gonzales came up with the astonishing theory that the Constitution doesn’t give people the automatic right to habeas corpus, it only says that if they happen to have it, it can’t be taken away.
Gonzales was also the architect of the legal theory that ‘permits’ the NSA - and now we know, the FBI, and probably other agencies yet to be discovered - to spy on US citizens without warrants. He combined two ideas, that the War Powers Act, which Congress unfortunately passed after 9/11, allowed the president to do anything that could be said to be necessary to pursue the War on Terror, and that his authority as commander-in-chief trumped legal niceties like Article IV of the Bill of Rights: “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 …”
He was not above using such thinking for his own benefit.
The Office of Professional Responsibility, a government watchdog group, began an investigation of the NSA program of wiretaps without warrants. Gonzales learned that he would be a likely subject of the investigation. He then advised President Bush to deny security clearances to the investigators. Bush did so, which brought the probe to a dead stop.
But that’s not why I’m so happy it’s starting with Alberto.
It’s that Gonzales starred in my favorite love to hate moment, so far, in the strange fog of madness and deception that fell over the country during this administration. It occurred on February 6, 2006, when he was called before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about that NSA program.
Democrats, then in the minority, asked that Gonzales testify under oath.
An astonishing little charade was played out. Gonzales got to say he was glad to do so. The chairman at the time, Arlen Specter (Rep. Pa.) - who totally adores the rhetorical high ground of posing to be a tough defender of the Constitution and the rule of law - stepped in and ruled that it would not be necessary.
It must be acknowledged that not being under oath is a courtesy frequently extended to members of the executive branch. However, Gonzales was being questioned about a program that he had helped keep secret from congress, that on the face of it was unconstitutional, and that explicitly evaded the FISA laws. Furthermore, the program had been briefly suspended during the run-up to, and during Gonzales’ confirmation hearing, when he did have to testify under oath. Presumably so that when he was asked, in a necessarily general way, if the administration would engage in a program that evaded or broke the laws of the United States, in the name of national security, he could say that the question was a hypothetical and he could avoid answering and thus avoid committing perjury. Shortly after he was confirmed, the program was resumed.
Yet Specter insisted that Gonzales, our top law enforcement officer, didn’t have to be under oath.
Now, we get to Prosecutorgate.
A few short months ago, Arlen Specter would still have been chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And like all the Bush scandals of the last six years, it would have languished and disappeared into obfuscation, unsworn testimony, secret testimony without transcripts, and no testimony.
After all, Specter enabled the scandal. He was the one who ‘slipped’ the special clause into the Patriot Act that allowed the administration to avoid the confirmation process for the replacement federal prosecutors. Specter has explained, in that special Republican way, that it was really his chief of staff who did it and that he himself didn’t even know about it.
But now, as Nancy Pelosi so gleefully said, “There’s a new Congress in town.” With subpoena power.
In short order, we’ve already learned that:
· The reasons given for the firings were false.
· Gonzales lied (including under oath).
· The culture of present Justice Department makes no distinction between partisan politics and public policy, indeed they believe they should be one and the same.
· That the people at the justice department were conscious that they were not using the law as intended.
· The administration was pushing the Justice Department to help disenfranchise minority voters (under the doublespeak name ‘voter fraud). Disenfranchising minority voters got Bush close enough in 2000 for the Supreme Court to toss him the election, it won him Ohio in 2004. Making sure black people (likely Democratic voters) don’t vote is among the Republican Party’s most vital programs. The opposite, getting more people to vote, from any walk of life, is presumably in the national interest.
· There is a pattern that the fired prosecutors were investigating important Republican office holders.
· The next person along the food chain wants to take the Fifth rather than testify.
· Two of Bush’s closest advisors, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers were involved.
· Additionally, out of another investigation, we have learned that when members of the administration wanted to do something that they knew was illegal or unethical, they used other computers for their emails
The trail of testimony has already gone into the White House.
It is a fantasy to think that this took place without Bush’s knowledge, involvement and approval.
The trial of breadcrumbs goes right down the hall and into the Oval Office.
Prosecutorgate is not about Alberto Gonzales. It’s about impeachment.
Not because Democrats want impeachment, but because testimony under oath, under the penalty of perjury, will reveal that high crimes and misdemeanors have been committed. And that additional ones, like destruction of evidence, were subsequently committed in the process of covering up the original crimes.
The White House has already begun to make claims of executive privilege and is trying to block testimony, and higher up it goes, the more adamant they will be about refusing testimony. They will speechify, and name call, and stall. They will hide documents and probably destroy some. They will search for distractions. If they can find generals on the Joint Chiefs reckless enough to go along, they may even start a new war.
In resisting, they will create new impeachable offenses.
Perhaps the Supreme Court, which made him president, will try to save him, by supporting executive privilege. The only way for Congress to then get at the truth, past the Court’s roadblock, is through impeachment.
Perhaps Karl Rove will fall on his sword (It was all me! Farewell, I die for my Ceaser!
To become a billionaire lobbyist-consultant instead! Such sweet sorrow!). But then who will they they blame for the next scandal, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
From Prosecutorgate, every road leads to impeachment.
And it’s right that it started with Alberto.
Larry Beinhart is the author of Wag the Dog, The Librarian, and Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin. All available at nationbooks.org
Responses can be sent to beinhart@earthlink.net
Alberto Gonzales seems to be a prime example of many of the very troubling activities of the Bush-Cheney administration.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq triggered many other actions, many with the help of Gonzales: attempted “legalization” of torture, suspension of Constitutional protections for American citizens and other highly questionable policies.
Although many people have pointed out the similarities between the Vietnam War and the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the differences include the kinds of legal maneuvering by Gonzales and others in the Bush-Cheney administration.
Comparing our current situation with the Vietnam War years might be useful. Some of these comparisons are explored in:
“‘Nam War, ‘Raq War: Similarities, Differences”
http://www.populistamerica.com/nam_war_raq_war
Larry, your observations and comments are correct. However, given the inept or disinterested qualities of the current congress, I doubt anything is going to happen, certainly not impeachment. Oh, I suppose we’ll hear lots of noise from Capital Hill, but it will be caused primarily by hot air of little substance.
Shortly after we received the ” peace dividend ” by outgrowing war in the 70’s, the lazier and more mal-intentioned among baby boomers started playing around with sadism, power plays for their own sake ( as if some type of cynic’s wisdom ), and the like.
This is what happens when you don’t use honesty and discipline toward maintaining the gift of a peace dividend; you ” slouch ” toward bottom feeding lowest common denominators like gonzo and boy bush.
There would have to be a real opposition party, and some interest in the truth — some interest in determining whether or not serious crimes have been committed — in order for impeachment to happen.
But there are none of these things. In fact, instead of an opposition party, we have the Democrats, who are in effect functioning as protectors of Bush.
Therefore, impeachment won’t happen. The system is simply too deeply corrupt to be able to fix itself. There is no solution inside the framework of the existing system.
The only way things could be set right again would be if the broad mass of angry citizens rose up to depose this hopelessly corrupt government. Unfortunately, however, this is also not in the cards, because the population, raised on TV & the braindead bullshit of American culture, lack the courage, organizing skills, & dedication to principle that would be required.
Therefore, things will continue exactly along the current path until the Law of Consequences intervenes. There will have to be a catastrophic war, or a financial collapse, or an environmental catastrophe, or a spectacular “terrorism” event (very possibly staged by our own government). Then the course of things will change, but not in any sort of controlled fashion. Things will take their own course, and when the dust settles, if there are any survivors, perhaps they will do better than the today’s ‘Murricans.
America is a failure. Its people are brainless fat cowards. It’s altogether probable that the day the ship really goes down, millions of Murricans will be watching it on TV, stuffing their fat faces with Cheezits, and muttering, “Wow, man, bummer!”
Hopefully this black chapter in our history will be righted. What kind of people are these? He’s still in office as far as I can tell. Is there going to be any action soon? I can’t wait to be rid of this abomination.
All is not lost. Even as the rotting corpse of the US political/economic system festers on the outer reaches of human civilization, others will inevitably take note and learn lessons regarding the dangers of the “free market” religion, the lunacy of using unfettered free enterprise as an organizing principle for a society, the unavoidable decadence of a corporate-controlled culture and government, and the poisonous effect of money in politics.
I listened to Kucinich on Monday, and I think there is more going on relative to impeachment than we think there is. I believe that “Prosecutorgate” is going to be the trigger that starts the process in earnest. I know you problably think that is wishful thinking on my part, but it is my belief that Congress is not going to be able to ignore the outrage of the American people (no matter what party) as they learn some of the facts as they unfold in the Gonzo mess.
I think Beinhart has made some good observations here. LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!!!
Reb Farmer - The Dems have already surrendered on ProsecutorGate. See for example Democratic cave-in on White House testimony in US attorney firings, which describes what Schumer said on Sunday’s “Face the Nation.” They’re not going to demand sworn testimony.
Kucinich is more or less alone in his party — only a small handful are anything like him, in terms of trying to do the right thing. All the party leaders & the great majority of its members will cave in, time after time.
As for Congress not being able to ignore outrage — the way they handle this is that the Democrats do things which on the surface are designed to look like “opposing Bush” or “trying to stop the war,” etc. But these things always have gigantic loopholes in them — by plan. In this way, the Dems defuse & deflect public outrage, but still manage to let Bush get his way. The “supplemental” funding bill is a perfect example of that.
Still, it would be sweet to see ‘berto, Dickster, and Shrub all thrown out on their collective asses–until we ask who will replace them–I fear they are but totems of a far more pervasive and systemic disease in the body politic.
I also saw where Harry Reid said there will be no stand alone supplemental bill. I thought, what’s gotten into him? Is he planning to run for President? Take heart, friends, we’re just getting started on this impeachment thing. My new bumper sticker just arrived: IMPEACH CHENEY 1ST
Our ranks are growing. The more we give this topic the light of day, the more the general public will get used to it, and the bolder they will feel. We were pretty much all of us traumatized by 9/11, and the majority of Americans turned to Bush and clung to him for safety. Well, most of them have realized their mistake, but u-turns take time. As long as we’re seeing progress - and we are - let’s keep it up. We don’t have anything better to do anyway. More fun maybe, but not better.
Beinhart flatters Gonzales by calling him (the ethics of) a corporate lawyer. I’d say the analogy is closer to a mafia “father” and his favorite attorney. These people play by their rules which have nothing to do with decency, fair play, “freedom” for citizens or any ideal remotely connected to the US and its brilliant founding government structure. One of the things that keeps me sane is my realization that while these thugs think they can get away with murder, there indeed IS a higher justice (Karma), although it may or may not arrive on our mortal time line. I highly recommend everyone read John Dean’s VERY important book, Conservatives without Conscience. The mindset of these authoritarian types is the antithesis of what both democracy and a diversified society call for. These people are dangerous because they all line up rank and file for a cause that uses PR to sound like some American ideal when it tramples everything sacred to a truly sovereign people. If Bush gets to stack the courts, it’ll be like a sci-fi flick with 1000 Kenneth Starrs. Purported Christians, every thing they do insults their master and teacher; and their strict “letter of the law” enactments, always so punitive to outsiders, are exactly what JESUS spoke against as per following the SPIRIT of the law. I am worried about the legacy in our courts that will follow Bush, if his whole illegitimate regime is not expunged; and ultimately inasmuch as our “INTELLIGENCE” lacked SAME in making (albeit under force) a case for war, our SUPREME COURT sages lacked any remote sense of wisdom or justice in putting this dangerous incompetent into high office. Let THEM fall on their swords! In less “civilized” times, the hordes would storm the Bastille and do this group the JUSTICE it deserves!
Hope this works - the website is rejecting my comment
I also saw where Harry Reid said there will be no stand alone supplemental bill. I thought, what’s gotten into him? Is he planning to run for President? Take heart, friends, we’re just getting started on this impeachment. My new bumper sticker just arrived - IMPEACH CHENEY 1ST*
Our ranks are growing. The more we give this toopic the light of day, the more the public will get used to it, and the bolder they will feel. We were pretty much all of us traumatized by 9/11, and the majority of Americans turned to Bush and clung to him for safety. Well, most of them have realized their mistake, but u-turns take time. As long as we’re seeing progress - and we are - let’s keep it up. We don’t have anything better to do anyway. More fun maybe, but not better.
RichM In my bleaker moments, which seem to be predominating these days, I agree with you. Yes, the problems are systemic. A system that defines “success” as endless, greedy growth must fail, as I think we are beginning to see.
That said, we can limit the damage and regain some level of hope again with the present cabal of thieves out. Yes, the Dems are embedded in the same corrupt system, but I doubt very much if they would have invaded and occupied Iraq, gutted the Constitution, normalized torture, elevated party hacks to positions for which they are incompetent, treated scientific findings as fiction that you can rewrite as you please, and the list goes on.
The heat is on! It’s easy to get confabbed. Of course Monica Goodling can’t refuse to appear before a Senate committee. If she could, we wouldn’t have had any House UnAmerican Activities Committee hearings. A big difference between appearing and answering specific questions. I only wish this was going to be a public hearing. Read on, the Democrats are still pushing. I excerpted this from Truthout.org and the last line is really choice. Talk about thinking you’re above the law!
Washington (AP) - House Democrats on Tuesday asked a top Justice Department aide to come to Capitol Hill for a private interview in the next week on the firing of federal prosecutors. They said she cannot simply refuse to testify on the matter.
Monica Goodling, who has said she would assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid appearing at Senate hearings, must tell Congress which specific questions she’s refusing to answer, Democrats said in a letter to her lawyer.
Goodling was senior counsel to embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and was the department’s White House liaison before she took a leave earlier this month amid the uproar over the ouster of eight U.S. attorneys.
With Gonzales’ credibility about his role in question and the White House now pushing to get him to Capitol Hill quickly to testify about it, lawmakers say Goodling’s account could be crucial to their probe of the firings.
After she was subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, her lawyer John Dowd told lawmakers last week that Goodling would not appear. He called the congressional investigation a perjury trap for his client and said she could be in “legal jeopardy” even if she testified truthfully.
“Her claims do not constitute a valid basis for invoking the privilege against self-incrimination,” Reps. John Conyers of Michigan and Linda Sanchez of California wrote in a letter to Dowd Tuesday.
Lawmakers’ doubts about Gonzales’ credibility and that of his deputy, Paul McNulty, do “not in any way excuse your client from answering questions honestly and to the best of her ability,” wrote Conyers, the House Judiciary chairman, and Sanchez, who heads the subcommittee handling the inquiry.
“If her testimony is truthful, she will have nothing to worry about in terms of a perjury prosecution,” the Democrats wrote.
Dowd said Tuesday that Goodling wouldn’t change her stance, and he suggested the Democrats were trying to intimidate her into testifying.
“Threats of public humiliation for exercising her 5th and 6th Amendment rights are not well taken,” Dowd said in an e-mail responding to the letter. “In a free country, every citizen should have the liberty to exercise their rights without threats or coercion.”
In German there is a saying “kein antwoert is auch ein antwoert”–No answer is also an answer. As far as I am concerned Monica has provided all the impetus the Congress needs to begin impeachment proceedings on ‘berto post haste.
Dear Lord! I soooo hope you’re right, Larry. It’s been so obvious for such a long time that high crimes have been committed over and over by this Administration. The only mystery is why no one has been willing to point to the elephant in the middle of the room. It is shocking and more than alittle scary how close we’ve come to losing our democratic institutions. And it ain’t over yet!
It’s underway. The Hearings and Investigations, already, three months in, are piling up the garbage where people can smell it. This is exactly what an impeachment is built on. This is how we will get through to the 18 Republican Senators we need to Sustain an Impeachment. We’ve peeled off four so far, maybe, and many more are getting nervous, looking at poll numbers and the Thugs policies. The actual Bill of Impeachment should be filed when we’ve solidly landed the votes and that will come from the evidence and the arrogance that are on display in Congressional Hearings ongoing. Then it’ll go quickly.
Watch this.
If Bush vetoes the Supplemental and kicks it back to Congress, he risks his support from some of the GOP members that worked the floors for him to prevent a much less palatable (to him) bill from landing on his desk. They got the best deal they are going to see and it cost them. We might be able to pick up enough over that.
As the Thugs are pushed back into the corner, they will become more dangerous. Bienhart touches on this “…They will search for distractions. If they can find generals on the Joint Chiefs reckless enough to go along, they may even start a new war.
..”
Even as we struggle to end the Occupation of Iraq, we have to keep these Thugs from starting it up with Iran. More Coffee.
Everyday someone comes up with a new reason to impeach Bush. To do it through Alberto Gonzales is just the latest.
They all have one major flaw. They all depend on further investigation, and proof, before they can be acted on. In the case of Alberto Gonzales Bush can make a somewhat legally reasonable argument that he was acting on the advice of legal counsel. It would have to be legally proven that Bush pushed Gonzales to provide the answers he wanted. Keep in mind that believing something and legally proving it are two different things.
The only one where Bush doesn’t have any out is his public statement that he violated the 1978 FISA law. The FISA law is directly linked to the 4th amendment to the constitution. In violating it he also violated that amendment, and further violated his oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Lobo Gris
I hope nobody’s put off by a guided tour of some federal laws. Worth looking at are a few key sections of Title 18 of the United States Code, which contains the criminal laws of the United States.
Sec. 1962, which is part of a cleverly named statute that doubles as an ethnic slur–the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, affectionately known as RICO–provides, in pertinent part, as follows: “(b) It shall be unlawful for any person through a pattern of racketeering activity . . . to acquire or maintain, directly or indirectly, any interest in or control of any enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce . . . (c) It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.”
This law, passed in the Nixon years, was supposed to be a foolproof means of conquering organized crime. The attorney general and his U.S. attorneys are the enforcement officers, and there’s also a provision that allows victims of the racketeering activity to sue the racketeers and collect triple their damages.
Sec. 1961 of the law consists of definitions: “(1) ‘racketeering activity’ means . . . (B) any act which is indictable under any of the following provisions of title 18, United States Code: ” followed by a list of 80 sections defining distinct federal crimes including “section 1503 (relating to obstruction of justice) . ” “‘(P)attern of racketeering activity’ requires at least two acts of racketeering activity . . . the last of which occurred within ten years . . . after the commission of a prior act of racketeering activity.’ “‘(E)nterprise’ includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.” A government agency is considered an enterprise under the statutory definition.
Section 1503 defines obstruction of justice: “Whoever corruptly . . . or by any threatening letter or communication, endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede any . . .officer in or of any court of the United States in the discharge of his duty shall be punished as provided in subsection (b),” providing for ” imprisonment for not more than 10 years.”
In view of these laws, imagine a situation in which a creditor or supervisor or benefactor or relative of a federal law enforcement officer requests that the officer arrest a particular person without legal cause. That would be a violation of section 1503, and the supplicant could get ten years for it, and so could the law enforcement officer if he satisfied the request.
Now suppose that the law enforcement officer is a U.S. attorney and the person making the request is a U.S. senator with political influence among the prosecuting attorney’s bosses in Washington. That’s a violation of section 1503, and if the U.S. attorney resists the requests and is punished by his bosses for that, that’s a conspiracy to obstruct justice among all involved, and the penalties are multiplied. Now suppose those same bosses make similar moves on other U.S. attorneys within ten years of the first wrongful act. Maybe they remove a U.S. attorney who dared to prosecute a political ally. That’s a pattern of racketeering activity, and the defendants are looking at 20 years, minimum.
Except for one thing. The guilty parties are all part of the Justice Department, which is charged with enforcement of this law. What happens when the United States Justice Department is controlled by a pattern of racketeering activity?
What might happen is a RICO lawsuit. Section 1964 provides “(c) Any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter may sue . . . in any appropriate United States district court and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.”
Who might sustain damage in consequence of a pattern of racketeering activity of this kind? Any of the fired attorneys, certainly. Maybe some of the retained attorneys, if they were impeded professionally as a result of the racketeering enterprise, such as a prosecutor who didn’t advance but would have if he or she had cooperated in a proposed obstruction of justice. Maybe some criminal defendants, if a prosecuting authority deprived them of due process or equal protection of the laws in consequence of the racketeering activity. Maybe any lawyer at all, inasmuch as a stain on the integrity of the system of justice impedes each of us in his or her exercise of professional judgment on behalf of clients. Even a lowly law student might claim damages to the extent that his expectations of professional standing are damaged by the defendants’ corruption of the institutions of justice.
Here’s a possible strategy: bring a RICO claim against Bush, Gonzalez, Sampson, Miers, and a few select others who were in on the racket. Start by recruiting a team of motivated law students to put a complaint together and prosecute it under the supervision of an attorney, with all the advocates serving also as plaintiffs. If the federal court throws the plaintiffs out for lack of standing or insufficient proof of damages or on some other pretext, prosecute the case anyway in a mock proceeding. It would be fun. It would be educational for all of us. It could produce justice. It might make history.
stepfour *********
Very good comment on the RICO law. ‘Organized Crime’ activity certainly does seem to fit the definition for what has been taking place at the apex of power in this pyramid. If not RICO, no doubt, they have burst the shackles for every other known constraint defining illegal activity.
Another item for great concern is that we might want to consider dumping WAR REPARATION CHARGES upon the entire Oligarch structure, Haliburton, KBR (Kellogg Brown and Root)et al, and where ever else the war profiteering tentacles might be found to reach. Torn hearts and souls savagely severed from their families can not easily be healed, but some entity will be expected to bear the financial burden for this great misdeed.
Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
Once again, Beinhart distills the byzantine superstructure of this administration down to its essence: raw sewage. The RICO model of prosecution proposed by Stepfour above is a thing of beauty. There’s no doubt that these bastards have been engaged in such conspiratorial racketeering enterprises from the first day they walked through the White House doors. Pelosi going to Syria against the public protest of Bush and company is a small taste of what things could be like if we move into impeachment mode. The right-wing press on TV are bleating like stuck pigs, comparing Pelosi to Jane Fonda in Hanoi, her status as SOTH be damned. I love it. Impeachment proceedings will bring them out of the woodwork like panicky cockroaches, where we can swat and spray them at will. Impeachment will be hardball addiction rehab for the country, forcing us to withdraw cold turkey from the embedded Constitutional destruction and pernicious propaganda engine that’s been revved up and rammed into our veins these past 7 years by these scoundrels and thieves, with the pathological, developmentally challenged Dubya as the proverbial “fish head” (”the fish stinks from the head on down”–well known Mafia bylaw). So many of us hate these bastards so much, some good has to come out of it. Impeachment is it!
AGITATE! AGITATE! AGITATE! Keep on shoveling the coals folks. The flames grow higher!
March
Strike.
Sit-in.
Sit-out.
Ring the phones.
Refuse to pay taxes into the war machine.
Cry out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-NRriHlLUk
Give Peace a Chance!!! How difficult a diplomatic statement can that be, Mr. Bush?
Eventually, the dark clouds will be displaced by the light of day.
Best wishes and, never give up hope.