Chorus To Impeach Grows
"Others are convinced there is a good case against Bush based on the 2002 Downing Street memo — revealed by The Sunday Times — in which Richard Dearlove, then head of M16, said “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” of removing Saddam Hussein. Congressman John Conyers, the senior Democrat who took part in Watergate proceedings against President Richard Nixon in 1974, has called for a committee of inquiry into the grounds for impeachment."

Resignations Threatened In DOJ Congress Raid
"... Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, his deputy, and the FBI director all hinted that they were ready to quit over the raid of a Democratic congressman's office ... within the administration there was a significant battle ... resignations were averted by agreeing to a 45-day "cooling-off period" where the evidence seized in the raid would be sealed."

Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney: Shoot First, Diplomacy Later
"Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ... raised the possibility that the recent rambling letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush ... could be seen as an opportunity to open contacts ... Both Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former top aide to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state under Mr. Powell, have also advocated talks with Iran ...President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have opposed direct talks, even through informal back channels ..."

Bush-Enron-Ken Lay Connection Ran Deep - Beyond 9-11
"... the Bush-can't-be-bought spin was never true ... evidence is now clear that in summer 2001 - at the same time Bush's National Security Council was ignoring warnings about an impending al-Qaeda terrorist attack - NSC adviser Condoleezza Rice was personally overseeing a government-wide task force to pressure India to give Enron as much as $2.3 billion ... even after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when India's cooperation in the "war on terror" was crucial, the Bush administration kept up its full-court press to get India to pay Enron ... the pressure on India went up the chain of command to Vice President Dick Cheney, who personally pushed Enron's case, and to Bush himself, who planned to lodge a complaint with India's prime minister ..."

Is He Drinking AGAIN?

(Hat tip to Digby)

Bush Warmongering Despite Iran Attempts To Reconcile:
"Iran 2003 diplomatic initiative toward the United States in which they made a very favorable offer and expressed willingness to at least talk about anything in exchange, basically, for the United States agreeing to halt various efforts to overthrow the Iranian government or impoverish the country. Needless to say, the administration rejected the opening ... If the United States goes to war with Iran, it will be because the White House really wants a war with Iran.".

Bush Soooo Sorry ... So Now What?
"Bush has now admitted what the progressive blog community has said all along: Bush's tough talk was wrongheaded and cost lives ... America must now ask what this admission means. Does Bush take responsibility for the deaths generated by his admitted mistake? Does he accept the logical conclusion that his bluster resulted in the killing and maiming of hundreds if not thousands of US troops?  Don't wait for the media to acknowledge the gravity of this admission. Watch it slip by. It's too frightening a thought for them that Bush was dead wrong ..."

Fitzgerald Closes In On Cheney:
"The latest filing by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in the CIA leak investigation indicates the prosecutor possesses "evidence" about communication between Vice President Dick Cheney and his former chief of staff who was indicted in connection with the ongoing investigation into the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson ..."

Bush Helps Phone Companies Hide Evidence Of Spying On Customers:
"... the Government may help the phone companies defend the lawsuits brought over contracts to turn over customer records ... legal experts expect the Bush administration to assert the "state secrets" privilege in the 20 or more lawsuits filed by privacy advocates in recent weeks. If judges accept the claim ... the suits will dissolve."

Dems Question Bush Shutdown Of Investigation Into NSA Wiretapping:
"The Bush administration cannot get away with designing a secret, illegal spy program and then shutting down an investigation into its creation and implementation. Since the Attorney General and others have refused to be forthcoming in a genuine way on their own, this resolution of inquiry will force them to pull back the curtain of secrecy ..."

NSA Wiretappling Only The Tip Of Bush Spying Iceberg:
"The National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretaps and its logs of Americans’ phone calls are the most controversial, but by no means the only, surveillance initiative underway that has chilling implications for all Americans ... Pentagon’s “Talon” program ... has collected data on antiwar individuals and groups, and then failed to purge the information from its files. The FBI has monitored mosques ... The Justice Department has engaged in runaway prosecutions of trumped-up terrorism charges ... Local police forces—and the FBI, again—have infiltrated meetings, taken pictures of protests and asked employers about individuals expressing political views ..."

Coming To Your Neighborhood This Summer:
"Events promoting impeachment will be organized by numerous groups all over the country this summer and fall. The issue will not go away. But the only way Republicans will be able to capitalize on it will be if Democrats run from it ..."

Recap Of Bush Connection To Convicted Felon Ken Lay:
"George W. Bush is trying to rewrite the history of his and his family’s relationship with Enron Corp.’s disgraced former Chairman Kenneth Lay. So far, Bush has enjoyed fairly good success as the U.S. news media has largely accepted the White House spin.  But the reality, as established by a wealth of historical record and recent disclosures, is that Lay and Enron were instrumental in Bush’s rise to power – and Bush played an important behind-the-scenes role in advancing Enron’s aggressive deregulation agenda ..."
     (Hat tip to Digby)

Rove-Novak Plame Plot Thickens:
"... three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation ... Ashcroft received a special briefing on the highly sensitive issue of the September 29 conversation between Novak and Rove because of the concerns of federal investigators that a well-known journalist might have been involved in an effort to not only protect a source but also work in tandem with the president's chief political adviser to stymie the FBI ..."

Is John Conyers The Most Terrifying Man In The Country?
"As amusing as the GOP's fear of impeachment is, the truth is that this ... is the least of their worries. Conyers does not have to impeach George W. Bush ... All he has to do, along with Waxman and the other chairs, is investigate with subpoena power. Tell the truth in public hearings with the principals under oath. Let the facts come to light in a way we have not seen for many years. The result of this would be an even greater Democratic Congressional victory in 2008, and an incredible series of obstacles for any Republican presidential nominee to overcome."

GOP Policy Decisions Finally Explained!
"Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz(D-FL) has reached the conclusion that Republicans don't have the joints that they need on the side of their neck to say no. Apparently they only know how to say, yes, Mr. Speaker, yes, Mr. President, yes, CEO of oil company, I'm happy to do your bidding and whatever it is that you like..."

Justice Dept. Lying About Hastert Investigation?
"Despite flat and repeated denials from the Department of Justice, federal law enforcement officials…describe the 64-year-old Illinois Republican [Hastert] as ‘very much in the mix’ of the corruption investigation ..."

Bush Peddles More Iraq Lies For Political Gain:
"In his speech on Monday referring to another 'turning point,' President Bush twice spoke of 'victory.' 'Victory' is the constant theme he has adopted since last summer, when he hired public opinion specialist Peter Feaver for the National Security Council.  Feaver's research claims that the public will sustain military casualties so long as it is persuaded that they will lead to 'victory.' Bush clings to this P.R. formula to explain, at least to himself, the decline of his political fortunes."

In A Tail-Spin ... Eject The Pilot:
"Bush has not heeded the warnings and counsel of many and has led the nation into circumstances that are prompting allies to worry about our capabilities and prompting foes to move their national agendas as quickly as possible. Iran did not put us in our current circumstance. Nor did China. Nor did Russia, or Afaghanistan, or Pakistan, or the French.  America's actions -- more than any other nation -- have yielded the international environment we find ourselves in today, and we must get real about this -- and pull out of the tail-spin Bush has us in."

Fitzorial Day Weekend ... Throw Some Libby On The Barbie:
"Fitzgerald is clearly gung-ho to introduce Cheney's hand-annotated copy of Wilson's column into evidence at trial. Cheney had written on the article:  'Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?'  Fitz believes this blows a big hole in Libby's testimony ..."

Unimpeachable Case For Impeachment:
"The Founders envisioned a tripartite government in which Congress, elected directly by the people, legislates, and the President implements. This president has decided that he can assume the power to legislate, too, by deciding which laws, or portions of laws, passed by Congress, he will implement.  No nation where a leader claims and is allowed to exercise that kind of power can call itself democratic.  No party that allows such a usurpation to go unchallenged can call itself an opposition."

Convicted Felon Leading GOP Campaign School:
"If it weren't for Chuck McGee, there never would have been a New Hampshire phone jamming ... That's just the sort of original thinking that the next generation of conservative strategists needs. So no doubt they'll benefit when they show up for the 'GOP Campaign School' ... According to a flier ... the school is a two-day seminar, 'a nuts and bolts boot camp.' Most ominously, it promises to give students 'all the tools you need to win.'"

Tim Ryan Smackdown on GOP - Unable To Govern:
"You can't consistently run down government and then expect it to work."

FBI Shifts Resources To Handle GOP Corruption:
"In the past year and a half, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reassigned nearly 200 agents to the problem of public corruption ... It is a sad day for America when corruption is so rampant that the FBI must reassign agents -- perhaps from activities as essential as homeland security and the war on drugs -- to investigate politicians' abuse of office ... Americans don't want the FBI to resort to tactics normally reserved for gang lords and mafiosos when dealing with members of Congress, yet this is exactly what the Bureau has had to do during this 109th Congress -- a Republican Congress."

The Expanding Dictatorship:
"All dictators like to scare their people with stories of enemies and terror ... By fostering a perpetual state of crisis and emergency, Bush is able to exercise greater control. It gives him an excuse to operate like a dictator and abridge our rights.  Every day Bush/Cheney build their foundation for an expanding dictatorship. They may call it the power of the "unitary executive." Others have called it the "imperial presidency." But the proper word for it is dictatorship.  It's a dictatorship that springs, like all dictatorships, from a position of ideological purity — a position so blindly fixed that it executes with massive incompetence."

Maine Impeachment Voter Speaks Out:
"This isn't about politics.  What it is about is the accumulation of substantial evidence that this administration has broken its pledge to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States on many issues. A thorough investigation is warranted and past due ... Congress is doing an embarrassing job of protecting what may be the most corrupt and secretive executive branch to ever occupy the White House. If Congress refuses to accept its responsibility to assert and exercise its powers, then action must come from the citizens."

Hastert & Expanding GOP-Abramoff Scandal:
"In previous years this kind of thing would have been business as usual ... But as Jeffrey Birnbaum reports in our cover story this month, the Justice Department has taken an unusual approach to the Jack Abramoff scandals ... Hastert might be one of "six other lawmakers" named here, and it's possible that he could be in serious trouble even if he fully reported the Abramoff contributions. The rules of the game may be changing."

Cheney Role In Plame Leak Deepens:
"Vice President Cheney was personally angered by a former U.S. ambassador's newspaper column attacking a key rationale for the war in Iraq and repeatedly directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then his chief of staff, to "get all the facts out" related to the critique ...  Cheney raised as an issue that the former ambassador's wife worked at the CIA ...  possibility that Cheney will be called as a witness at Libby's trial ..."

Rove Still Very Much On The Hook:
"Shuster went to two former US Attorneys for some information and opinion/analysis.  And the word from both former USAttys wasn’t good for Rove.  In their opinion, at least, the fact that Rove has not yet been cleared, even after his unusual fifth appearance for testimony before the grand jury, is a sign that Fitzgerald is seriously considering indictment ... Had Fitzgerald been swayed by Karl’s last minute attempt as ass-saving maneuvers, he would have already let him off the hook.  But that hasn’t happened."

Too Good To Be True? (Yeah, I'm Not Afraid To Admit My Schadenfreude)
ABC News reporting GOP House Speaker Denny Hastert under investigation for corruption charges stemming from Abramoff case.  Justice dept. denying.  Developing ...

Hightower Lowdown On Bush's Un-American Activities:
"There are a thousand other cuts that the Bushites are making to America's Bill of Rights, the rule of law and separation of powers. Theirs has become, for example, the most secret government in our history, spending billions of tax dollars a year to classify millions of even mundane documents, issuing executive fiats to deny "We The People" access to crucial public information under right-to-know laws, and trying to make it a federal crime not only to leak internal executive information (unless, of course, the White House does the leaking), but also to receive any leaked info."

   

Note To Formerly Free Press: Gonzales Gonna Git You:
"On Sunday, Alberto Gonzales told ABC's "This Week" that he would consider prosecuting reporters who ... break news about President Bush's terrorist surveillance program ... Now, we have the FBI trying to get the papers of the late columnist Jack Anderson ... Gonzales's comment, combined with the past, make you wonder when we are going to hear about a Nixonian enemies list ... Watergate masterminds actually thought about killing Anderson with LSD, and Attorney General John Mitchell threatened Katharine Graham, the late Washington Post publisher, by saying she would have her breast caught in a wringer."

Bush Delivers For Corporate Paymasters:
"President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority ... to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations ... Administration officials told BusinessWeek that they believe this is the first time a President has ever delegated the authority to someone outside the Oval Office."

Is "Cultivating Competition" Making Us Safer?
"Negroponte will use Hayden to gore Rumsfeld, Stephen Cambone, and William Boykin.  And some in the White House -- a bit frustrated that Rumsfeld is not "removable" at this time, as one staffer told me -- do not mind cultivating a bit of competition among the President's intel rivals. This helps give the President some latitude beyond Rumsfeld and is, in general, a smart move that also may be good for the country."

Save Us From This Madman!
"President George Bush's tactics ... have made the United States comparable to Augusto Pinochet's Chile and Hafez Assad's Syria in its acceptance of torture and disregard of legal restraints ... Outsourcing unsavory jobs to largely untrained contractors, without contractual restrictions or legal restraints ... has helped create virtually a rule-free zones sanctioned with the American flag and fire power ... US included alongside China, Russia, Columbia, Uzbekistan and others as states that claim anti-terrorism to justify gross violations ..."

Studs "Tell The President To Bugger Off!" Terkel:
"Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans."
     (n.b. - see Studs' Daily Show appearance here.)

Colbert To Delay's Rescue:
"A good sign that Tom DeLay doesn’t have the facts on his side: the top source for his latest defense against his critics is Stephen Colbert ... DeLay’s legal defense fund sent out a mass email criticizing the movie “The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress,” by “Outfoxed” creator Robert Greenwald.  The email features a “one-pager on the truth behind Liberal Hollywood’s the Big Buy,” and the lead item is Colbert’s interview with Greenwald on Comedy Central."

Bush Concealing Data On WH Visits By Criminals and Prostitutes:
"We may never know how many times Abramoff really visited the White House... or who Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, the male prostitute and White House correspondent, met with there. The White House has records that would show all that. But in a departure from the policy of the Clinton White House, the Bush administration seems determined to keep them forever out of public view ... the White House is witholding the WAVES records just because they can - and it's in their political interest. There are no pressing national security concerns involved."

Breathtaking Lack Of Basic Policy Knowledge:
"Pundits keep trying to figure out just what it is that makes Bush so different from other presidents, but most of them start by trying to figure out what he values ... The fact is, all presidents rely for their decisions on a complex stew of ideology, interest group pandering, and political calculation. So what is it that makes Bush so different? Just this: until Bush they also all cared about serious policy analysis. ... But not Bush ... what truly makes him unique is what's missing: a respect for policy analysis ...  Of course, that also means that President Bush's initiatives fail at a truly spectacular rate. After all, policy is all about figuring out how to implement ideas so that they actually work."

Time To Stop Sulking And Talk To Iran:
"... the Iranian government wants to engage in talks about the various US-Iranian issues, including Teheran's nuclear program. If you're concerned with things like America's interests, not getting lots of people killed, and preventing Iran from going nuclear you'd take them up on the offer ... Nevertheless ... there's been a fairly concerted effort in the American press to ratchet things up. The folks doing the ratcheting have, it's clear, some friends and some influence inside the administration ... This is a group of people primarily concerned ... with continuing and intensifying US-Iranian conflict."

CA GOP Reps Suck At Traitor Cheney's Teat:
"His former top aide is under indictment in the CIA leak probe. His poll ratings fall somewhere between bad and atrocious. Still, Dick Cheney can pack in the faithful like few others in the Republican Party.  And so the vice president came to California on Monday and Tuesday for a series of fundraisers aimed at bucking up three GOP House candidates facing unexpectedly tough fights in this political season of scandal ... Cheney's visit brought in well more than $800,000."

Three Down, One To Go ... Fascist Dictatorship, Here We Come:
"We now have a government that has virtually no oversight functioning against the White House. The Congress has gone into a virtual comatose state. The Fourth Estate--the journalists -- are carrying now the entirety of that check and balance. (Bush's efforts to prosecute journalists) will eliminate that and it would create, in my view, a very dangerous instability at a very dangerous time, and people have got to look at this quite seriously."

Bush Appointee at FCC Refuses To Investigate NSA Domestic Spying:
"The Federal Communications Commission has told a Democratic congressman that they cannot investigate the National Security Agency's domestic data mining program because it is classified ..."

Verizon Collaborating With Bush On State Secrets Privilege?
"Telecom giant Verizon is refusing to confirm or deny participation in the illegal National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping program ... The company further claimed such information is protected by the 'state-secrets privilege' ... surprised to see Verizon make the state-secrets argument because only the government, not private entities, can assert that privilege ... Use of the state-secrets argument indicates that Verizon lawyers may have worked closely with federal government lawyers in drafting a response to the commission ..."

Bush Stirs Up Middle East Crisis For Political Gain:
"...the Bush regime is desperate to widen the war in the Middle East ... Not a day passes without new threats and lies issuing from Dick Cheney, Bonkers Bolton, and Condi Rice, and no one holds them accountable ... A solution in the Middle East requires diplomacy and good will, not threats and aggression. Yet, the Bush regime refuses to even meet with Iranian leaders."

Inconvenient Questions:
"... what was this Administration, and in particular Scooter Libby and Karl Rove and who knows who else, doing playing so fast and loose with secrets for which they had no valid "need to know" basis?  And why is it again that Karl Rove maintains his job with a full security clearance to this day?  Any other person on the planet would have already had it yanked months and months ago.  Now there’s a question for Tony Snow today.  Any takers?"

Bush And GOP Want MORE Private Data:
"The Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security spend millions annually to buy commercial databases that track Americans' finances, phone numbers, and biographical information ... Buying commercially collected data allows the government to dodge certain privacy rules ... (Republicans) on Capitol Hill are pushing for more government data collection. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) is drafting legislation to require ISPs to amass information about users' Web-surfing habits ..."

   

Bush Duplicity Undermines War on Terror:
"Doublespeak by nations like the United States and Britain has undermined their own war on terrorism and increased human rights violations ... Duplicity and doublespeak have become the hallmark of the war on terror ... There is evidence of widespread torture in U.S. detention centers ... Powerful governments are playing a dangerous game with human rights ... nothing can justify torture or ill-treatment ... You cannot extinguish a fire with petrol."

Bush Abusing State Secrets Claim To Hide His Crimes:
"... the most disturbing aspect of the Bush administration's expansion of the state secrets privilege may well be this: More and more, it is invoked not in response to run-of-the-mill government negligence cases but in response to allegations of criminal conduct on the part of the government ... The Bush administration has fought at every turn to limit scrutiny of its conduct since Sept. 11. And, unless courts start to reject its assertion, the administration may have found in the state secrets privilege the ultimate tool for making its actions invisible."



GOP Lawmakers Get New Religion About Separation Of Powers:
"House and Senate leaders challenged the constitutionality of an FBI raid on a lawmaker's office, saying it broke a 219-year precedent and raised concerns about the separation of power between the administration and Congress ... The Jefferson case is one of several continuing criminal probes of lawmakers.  Former Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, is in prison after admitting accepting $2.4 million in bribes. Representative Robert Ney, an Ohio Republican, has relinquished a committee chairmanship because of a federal investigation into his dealings with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, will leave office next month after being indicted in a state fund-raising case."

Anybody Got A Razor? Occam?  Occam ...?
"We know that al Qaeda sought to provoke the United States into a broad military response that would engulf the whole world. We know that the main power players in the Bush Administration were actively, publicly looking for a provocation that would justify a worldwide campaign of military expansion. We know that the U.S. intelligence community was "blinking red" with warnings and intimations "off the scale" of an impending terrorist attack, most likely on U.S. soil, all through the summer of 2001. We know from its own admission that the Bush Administration took no extraordinary action to meet this extraordinary threat."

Bush Aims For The Intel He Wants - But What About The Intel He Needs?:
"As head of the National Security Agency, (Hayden) walked in lockstep with his commander in chief, George W. Bush. Hayden helped designed the illegal program of spying on our telephone calls and emails and then repeatedly defended it when interrogated by the senators at his hearing, citing "legal" opinions of Bush's hired guns in the Justice Department.  Rather than providing the White House with a neutral assessment of Iran's nuclear capabilities, we can expect Hayden to give Bush the "intelligence" the president seeks to justify his war on Iran. Things did not run as smoothly as Bush would have wished under the last two CIA directors. He had to dispatch Dick Cheney to the CIA several times to furnish the "intelligence" he needed to rationalize his war on Iraq ..."

The GOP War On Health:
"It isn’t exactly rocket surgery to figure out that under Republican control of all three branches of government, the bottom has rapidly begun to fall out of public health ... the number of Americans without health insurance increased by 1.4 million last year and 5 million since the Bush-Cheney administration came to power, reaching a total of 45 million-the largest number of uninsured Americans ever recorded."

Quite A Few Inconvenient Truths:
"With all the needless death from a ill-conceived war, the wasteful corruption of sweetheart contracts in Iraq and New Orleans, debt and deficits as far as the eye can see, gas prices through the roof with no energy policy in sight, and with a president who delegates to incompetents and cronies, I'm ready to give the class nerd his due and raise a glass to a serious man. Here's to you, Al and a huge box-office gross."

True Then, And True Now:
"The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government." (emphasis added)

Good Question - Now How 'Bout Some Follow-Up?
"How come nobody seems to know who this crime...this, this mistake was committed.  How come everybody -- and maybe it'll look like a crime at some point because we were chasing bin Laden, we still haven't caught him ... The top people in al-Qaeda are out there somewhere in Pakistan and yet we're stuck in Iraq with a course that had nothing to do with the people who attacked us on 9/11, right?"

Rove In Hot Seat ... Still ... Again ...
"Karl Rove's legal team expects Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to announce a decision "at any time" in the ongoing CIA leak investigation ... new documents put Cheney's former chief of staff in the hot seat."

Digby Winds Up:
"This is not an act of God. There's a tsunami of corruption and epic failure crashing over their heads --- and it's one of their own making. As for their "fatigue" maybe they should try being being on 24/7 defense for eight long years as Clinton was and then complain, the WATB chickenshits ..."

Jeebus!  Can They Be Trusted With ANYTHING????
"Personal data on about 26.5 million U.S. military veterans was stolen from the residence of a Department of Veterans Affairs data analyst who improperly took the material home, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said on Monday.  The data included names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth for the veterans ..."

Whistleblower's Docs on NSA/AT&T Domestic Spying:
"In a public statement Klein issued last month, he described the NSA's visit to an AT&T office. In a ... statement recently acquired by Wired News, Klein goes into additional details of his discovery of an alleged surveillance operation in an AT&T building in San Francisco..."

Bush's DHS YEARS Late on 100+ Domestic Transportation Security Plans:
"Two key Democrats on the House committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security criticized the agency last week for not releasing to Congress reports on 118 security plans for mass transit, rail, aviation, ports and borders. Many of the reports were due in 2003.  'The American people deserve more from the Department of Homeland Security than missed deadlines, especially when our nation's security is at risk ...'"

Bush Dishonor Weakens American Way Of Life:
"... the Bush Constitutional record ... is, overwhelmingly, one of contempt for constitutional limits. In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad ... It is a vision, in short, unimagined by our Constitution's Framers ... the oath of office ... was a solemn pledge, designed to bind the office holder to the country and the Constitution he serves.  Throughout his tenure, President Bush has repeatedly dishonored that pledge."

What Could Be Too Secret To Share?
"Tell us how you’ve located Osama bin Laden.  It’s been over four and a half years. Unlimited budget. Unlimited military might. No visible moral constraints ... We see the horseshit. Show us the ponies.  Or admit that you have failed. Admit that all this effort and show and money, has bought us nought. Let us count the terrorists caught or interdicted. Let us see that it was only through your less than legal programs that we got them.  It can’t be that your success is just too secret to share. I expect that it’s your failures that hide behind the coy veil of national security."

Who's Afraid Of The Isolated, Vindictive Idealogues?
"... Bush, who has chosen war as a policy tool, may be the American president most isolated from sound military advice ... At least six retired combat commanders have now gone public with the ... criticism I've heard for years in private conversations with our generals. None of the critics has anything to gain personally. Indeed, each has much to lose by speaking out against any aspect of the most vindictive presidential administration since the Nixon era ... When a presidential administration will not tolerate honorable, legal criticism from those who dedicated their lives to uniformed service, we should be far more worried about ideologues in power than about a few retired infantrymen on pensions."

The People's Impeachment Movement:
"What the people in the Los Angeles area can know, and soon the rest of the entire country, is that the move for impeachment is not just an isolated phenomenon, but that there is broad sentiment to finally challenge and confront George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for their repeated and egregious abuses of power. And there are candidates in multiple districts now working together who are all demonstrating the leadership that will be required ..."

The Truth Will Out ... Soon Enough:
"Further - and again this is 'What We Believe' - Rove may be turning state's evidence. We suspect that the scope of Fitzgerald's investigation may have broadened - clearly to Cheney - and according to one 'off the record source' to individuals and events not directly related to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. We believe that the indictment which does exist against Karl Rove is sealed...."

Incompetent Lunatic Action, Or (Prudent) Inaction ... Your Choice:
"War with Iran would be very bad. All people who have what they believe are genuine concerns about Iran's nuclear program need to remember that right now we live in George Bush's world. The options are not your personal fantasy program of carrot and stick diplomacy backed by a credible threat of military force and agreed to and enforced by our allies or do nothing. The options are whatever the incompetent lunatics who run our country have in mind or do nothing."

Free Press?  Not So Fast ...
"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday he believes journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, citing an obligation to national security.  The nation's top law enforcer also said the government will not hesitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal leak investigation ... Gonzales said he would not comment specifically on whether The New York Times should be prosecuted for disclosing the NSA program last year based on classified information."

Innocent Until Proven Guilty?  I Don't Think So ...
"Prisons and jails added more than 1,000 inmates each week for a year, putting almost 2.2 million people, or one in every 136 U.S. residents, behind bars by last summer ... The report by the Justice Department agency found that 62 percent of people in jails have not been convicted, meaning many of them are awaiting trial ... Sixty-two percent unconvicted and in jail. Jesus wept. This is what national shame looks like."

Much Better Than 1000 Words:

And This Is What Their FRIENDS Are Saying:
"White House and congressional Republicans seem to have adopted a one-word strategy: bribery. Buy off seniors with a prescription drug benefit. Buy off the steel industry with tariffs. Buy off agribusiness with subsidies. The cost of illegal bribery (see the case of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham) pales next to that of legal bribery such as congressional earmarks."

Oh-So-Much-Worse Than Watergate:
"... Nobody died as a result of the so-called abuses of power during Nixon's Presidency ... You look at Bush's abuses, and Cheney's ... and today, people are dying as a result of abuse of power. That's much more serious ... Impeachment is the big cannon. As long as the same party that controls Congress controls the White House it just isn't going to happen. I'm not sure that even if a President murdered his wife, they would impeach him. But those who are focusing on this issue are raising important questions."

Security PLUS Privacy:
"Too many wrongly characterize the debate as 'security versus privacy.' The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide."

Decoding Rove's Scam of Religious Right:
"Politicians ... in the Karl Rove camp, seem to believe that voters of 'faith' are suckers who can be lured into the big tent and then abandoned once their votes and campaign cash have been pocketed by the party for secular profit ... Like the Bush era, the cynical Rove strategy of exploiting faith-based voters may be nearing its end."

More (CLASSIFIED) Bush F**k-ups In Iraq:
"... the Bush administration's Keystone Kops approach to training police in Iraq might as well be an encyclopedia entry for 'FUBAR.' Three different groups wrote plans that nobody on the ground ever heard of; the number of trainers was laughably minuscule to start with and got even more laughable over time; and nobody really seemed to care much because they didn't figure we'd be staying around for long anyway. It's the usual story with this gang."

Criminal Neglect By GOP Congress Kills 5 More Miners:
"An explosion at an eastern Kentucky coal mine killed five miners Saturday ... eaths bring the grim toll of coal miners killed on the job this year to 31 ... it would be criminal neglect for the U.S. Congress to continue to fail to pass mine safety reform legislation. The foot-dragging has got to stop."

Russert For Deputy Press Secretary?
"Meet the Press hosts Sec/State Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA). Where are the Democrats? No Dems for a second week in a row ..."

Bush Hikes Tax On College Savings By $2.2 Billion:
"The Bush administration and the Do Nothing Republican Congress might believe that the American people will put up with their corporatist shenanigans, but they are wrong. The damage of this bill has been done -- Americans will soon see that the Beltway Republicans will do anything to appease their extremely wealthy donors, including trampling on teenagers saving for college ... and soon the GOP is going to have to account for its backward policies."