TOP EDITORIALS
The following editorial summaries are listed chronologically
with the most recent posted editorials on the top of this page.
Each editorial heading is a link to the editorial itself. Most of
these editorials can also be found under the page heading
"Editorials".
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'Feingold, Kerry & the 'Strategists''
Posted on Wednesday, March 15 @ 10:06:50 EST
Years before Sen. John Kerry fell under the spell of national Democratic "strategists,"he believed that a Democrat's best hope for winning the White House was to run as an
insurgent. To overcome built-in Republican advantages, Kerry felt a Democrat had to
show principle and challenge the status quo.
But Kerry had that thinking beat out of him. In the late 1980s, he got pummeled by themainstream news media and the political establishment for exposing cocaine trafficking
by Nicaraguan contra rebels and for embarrassing their Reagan-Bush patrons. Respectable
Washington didn't want to believe the ugly reality.
Mocked by the big newspapers and branded a "randy conspiracy buff" by Newsweek,Kerry was persuaded by party insiders that his political future required him to trim his
sails and dump his rebelliousness overboard. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Kerry's Contra-Cocaine Chapter."]
So, by the time he ran for president in 2004, Kerry was silent about his heroic investigationsof the 1980s. He presented himself instead as a careful politician who spoke in a fog of
nuance. Whenever he seemed poised to crush the bumbling George W. Bush, Kerry
retreated into poll-tested platitudes.
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Conservatives Are Jumping Ship: Bush Is Going Down
Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor, The Crisis Papers
I'm more and more convinced that it will be Republicans, many of them of the true
conservative and realist kind, who effectively will do in the Bush Administration.
In this, I am reminded of the behavior of Richard Nixon when he realized that he wasfast losing his middle-class, bourgeois base: He called it quits on the Vietnam War, and
likewise on his presidency after his crimes were exposed.
But unlike Nixon's crew, Bush&Co. seem willing to take the country down with them,so desperate are they to hold onto power, deplete the treasury, pay off their corporate
friends, carry out their ideological revolution -- and keep themselves out of the federal slammer.
The crimes of the Bush Administration are so many and varied that none of us should besurprised by anything that might happen in the coming weeks and months: Bin Laden
captured or reported killed, a U.S.-Israeli air assault on Iran's nuclear facilities, a major
terrorist attack inside the U.S. to be followed by martial law, the announcement of a bird-flu
outbreak with the military placed in charge. I'm pretty level-headed and don't usually think in
these dire terms, but these guys have backed themselves into a tight political corner and are
desperate -- and dangerous.
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Republican Congressman Predicts Bush Impeachment
Says US close to dictatorshipPaul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | March 3 2006
Republican Congressman Ron Paul has gone on record with his prediction that the
impeachment of George W. Bush is right around the corner but warned that in the
meantime the US was slipping perilously close to a dictatorship.
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show and addressing the port sell-out, Paul stated that,
"it probably will contribute to the Republican's failure in the next election."
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It's about to Hit the Fan...
Source: Moscow Times
The kindling has been piled high, stuffed with tinder and doused with gasoline.
The match has been lit. All it will take is the slightest flick of the wrist to set off the
conflagration. We are now living in the interval, the few heartbeats left before the great
flame ignites.
The heap of kindling has been a long time building, but in recent weeks, the work hasintensified to a fever pitch. With relentless urgency, the American people are being
habituated to the prospect of several interrelated upheavals -- new war, new terror
attacks -- and the predetermined result of these events: the final, open establishment
of presidential tyranny, a militarized "commander state" where executive power is
beyond the law, and endless war endlessly prolongs the "emergency measures" of the
authoritarian regime.
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Bill Gallagher: 'Bush's House of Cards Collapsing'
Posted on Tuesday, February 14 @ 10:10:27 EST
DETROIT -- The frauds and deceptions are unraveling every day and cascading truthsare forcing the Busheviks to do more of what they do best: lie. We now have the first
eyewitness account from a CIA officer confirming what the reality-based community has
long known -- that President George W. Bush and company cherry-picked and distorted
intelligence to make their phony case for war in Iraq.
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Bombing Iran Will Result in Destruction of U.S.
by Daniel F., Feb. 8, 2006
I believe that President Ahmadinejad of Iran is goading the U.S. and Israel intoattacking him. He knows he does not have sufficient military assets to attack Israel
let alone America, but he knows he can win a defensive war and bring down the
American empire. When America can no longer subsidize Israel, Zionism will be
put to rest. I would like to make a few points about the insanity of attacking Iran.
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Posted on Thursday, February 09 @ 10:02:00 EST
After three years of war in Iraq, reporting and debate continue to ignore thekey fact: The U.S. invasion was a mistake.
President Bush himself acknowledges this. He says the war was based on intelligenceand the intelligence was wrong. So, then, what is right about the war? If we believe
Bush, he would not have taken America and Iraq to war if he had been given correct,
instead of incorrect, intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and connections
to al-Qaeda.
In view of this, why is Bush intent on continuing the war? Why is it important to wina war that should not have happened and only happened because U.S. intelligence was
mistaken?
The war is extremely expensive. It has cost thousands of dead and maimed Americansand tens of thousands of dead and maimed Iraqis. The war has already cost $200-$300
billion and is being financed by foreign borrowing. Distinguished economists put the long
term cost of the war to the U.S. in the $1-2 trillion range.
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'President's Frightening Lesson Plan'
Posted on Tuesday, February 07
"My job's as much educator in chief as it is commander in chief."
-- President George W. Bush speaking at the Grand Ole Opry House, Feb.1, 2006.DETROIT -- He admits to acting on what "my gut tells me." He's all visceral, no cerebral.
But our president with the negative learning curve has bestowed upon himself a new title.He's now on a pedantic crusade to teach the ignorant American people, explaining to us his
"path to victory" in Iraq. Pay attention, folks, and take notes.
First, understand that facts and reality don't matter. The world of President GeorgeW. Bush is all about illusions, delusions, deceptions and lies wrapped in his repetitive
talking points, which are then dutifully propagated by the complicit corporate media.
Speaking to the crowd at the Grand Ole Opry, Bush sounded like Minnie Pearl -- minus thehumor -- talking about her Uncle Nabob and her dim-witted brother. With condescending
paternalism and that Alfred E. Neuman "What me worry?" look on his face, Bush
added worrier in chief to his growing list of titles.
"I clearly see the threats to America," Bush assured folks. "My job is worrying aboutthose threats. That's not your job. We've got a lot of people in government worrying
about those threats so you can go on with your life."
This is the man who did nothing -- not one damn thing -- when he got a intelligencereport one month before Sept. 11 titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the
United States." While detailed reports prepared by his own administration warned
that New Orleans was vulnerable to catastrophic flooding in a major hurricane,
"Bubble Boy" Bush gushed, "I don't think anyone anticipated a break in the levees."
Is there a sane soul in our nation who wants this guy doing the worrying for us?
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Posted on Tuesday, February 07My Epiphany
We have reached a point where the Bush administration is determined to
totally eclipse the people. Bewitched by neoconservatives and lustful for
power, the Bush administration and the Republican Party are aligning
themselves firmly against the American people. Their first victims, of
course, were the true conservatives. Having eliminated internal opposition,
the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal
spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.
Before flinching at my assertion of blackmail, ask yourself why PresidentBush refuses to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose
of the FISA court is to ensure that administrations do not spy for partisan
political reasons. The warrant requirement is to ensure that a panel of
independent federal judges hears a legitimate reason for the spying, thus
protecting a president from the temptation to abuse the powers of government.
The only reason for the Bush administration to evade the court is that the Bush
administration had no legitimate reasons for its spying. This should be obvious
even to a naif.
The United States is undergoing a coup against the Constitution, the Bill ofRights, civil liberties, and democracy itself. The "liberal press" has been co-opted.
As everyone must know by now, the New York Times has totally failed its First
Amendment obligations, allowing Judith Miller to make war propaganda for
the Bush administration, suppressing for an entire year the news that the Bush
administration was illegally spying on American citizens, and denying coverage
to Al Gore's speech that challenged the criminal deeds of the Bush administration.
The TV networks mimic Fox News' faux patriotism. Anyone who depends on print,TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration
has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda.
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Posted on Sunday, February 05 @ 09:34:46 EST
Remarks prepared for World Can't Wait rally at White House, February 4, 2006.
There are protests outside at least two houses today, the White House and Bush's luxuryestate near Crawford, Texas. Bush can run, but he cannot hide.
He tries to hide behind fear, our fear. The only tool in his bag is making us afraid. Wehave to resist becoming afraid, but we have to be able to talk about the fact that Bush
and Cheney have made us much less safe. They have turned world opinion against us.
They have turned Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorists. They have turned Afghanistan
into a drug production kingdom. Terrorist incidents are up so dramatically that the Bush
Administration no longer publishes those statistics.
The danger these criminals have put us in with their illegal war and their bellicose rhetoricis a reason to oppose them, not a reason to cower behind them like children. Their own
strategists see few ways that they can regain any credibility or popularity other than another
terrorist incident in this country. But if the American people have learned anything, it is that
another such incident - should it occur - should only erode what's left of Bush and Cheney's
pretense to leadership.
Let's not wait for that. Let's remove them from office before we suffer another 9-11, anotherKatrina, another war like Iraq.
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Why Democrats Lose: Ten lessons learned from the Alito fight
Posted on Friday, February 03 @ 10:02:35 EST
1. There is no organization on the left side of the political spectrum. None. If theDemocratic politicians, the old established DC groups and the liberal media (blogs and
radio shows) don't come together, they will continue to lose every single fight.
....
________________________________________________________________________The True State of the Union
More Deception from the Bush White House
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Gentle reader, if you prefer comforting lies to harsh truths,
don't read this column.
The state of the union is disastrous. By its naked aggression,
bullying, illegal spying on Americans, and illegal torture and
detentions, the Bush administration has demonstrated American
contempt for the Geneva Convention, for human life and dignity,
and for the civil liberties of its own citizens. Increasingly,
the US is isolated in the world, having to resort to bribery and
threats to impose its diktats. No country any longer looks to
America for moral leadership. The US has become a rogue nation.
Least of all did President Bush tell any truth about the economy.
He talked about economic growth rates without acknowledging that
they result from eating the seed corn and do not produce jobs
with a living wage for Americans. He touted a low rate of
unemployment and did not admit that the figure is false because
it does not count millions of discouraged workers who have
dropped out of the work force._________________________________________________
Jesse Jackson, Jr: Bush State of the Union 'State of Deception'
01/31/2006 @ 7:43 pm
Filed by RAW STORY
Rep. Jesse Jackson (D-IL) will declare tonight that President Bush's State of the
Union Address was a "State of Deception" address, according to a prepared copy
of the speech, RAW STORY has learned. Excerpts follow.
"President Bush's State of the Union address was, in reality, more like a State of
Deception address. This is a President who has consistently not allowed the facts
to get in the way of a good story, or reality to interfere with good spin."
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Treasonous Bush Fostering Fascism
Posted on Tuesday, January 31 @ 09:51:17 EST
DETROIT -- We, the suffering American people, are now in the sixth winter ofour national discontent, thoroughly numbed by President George W. Bush's radical
agenda, wild misjudgments and wholesale lies. He sells fear to win support, when it
is he we must fear most.
The nation and world brace to endure more of Bush's obsessions, miscalculations,greed and sheer incompetence. We are in the seventh hell of an administration that
claims all power and denies all responsibility. The state of our union is frightening.
These are very dangerous times. Nothing in our national experience has prepared usfor the chilling consequences of the double dose of foreign and domestic irresponsibility
and recklessness Bush has wrought.
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Impeach or Indict Bush and Cheney
by Ronnie Dugger - Texas Observer
Jan. 27, 2006
The year 2006 will be historic for the nation, and probably for humanity. Texans
Bush and Rove and their conspirators in the second Bush presidency have disgraced
American democracy at home and in the world with debasements of our nation
and our values that have now entered their climactic phase. What part will the
rest of us Texans play in this decisive year?
As I have written in a review-essay that appears in the tenth-anniversary spring issue of
Yes!, the quarterly of new solutions published in Washington state by David and Frances
Korten (YesMagazine.org), we are living and working in the very days and nights of
the American Emergency, the climactic American Crisis. Our elections are bought,
and our government is run by and for the major transnational corporations. Bush
announced in 2002 his illegal presidential policy that the United States can and will
attack other nations first, waging war on them, when he so decides. He is now waging,
as if he were doing it in our names, a bloody war of aggression against Iraq, which on
the face of it is a crime against humanity under the Nuremberg principles that we and
our allies established and enforced with hangings after World War II.
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What They Won't Tell You Corruption Is Really All About
If you read the headlines these days, you are led to believe that the most serious
consequences of our corrupt political system are the nefarious schemes of individuals
like Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. And while the scandals
surrounding these guys are all outrageous, the narrow focus on them masks the
much more severe consequences of corruption that no one in the media/political
Establishment really wants to talk about - the consequences that are at the heart
of my upcoming book Hostile Takeover due out in the Spring. Beyond the brazen
vote-buying/bribery that our money-drenched political process periodically is
afflicted with is the far more systematic way America's entire political debate is
artificially limited to ensure an outcome favorable to Big Money interests.
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Impeach or Indict Bush and Cheney
by Ronnie Dugger - Texas Observer
Jan. 27, 2006
The year 2006 will be historic for the nation, and probably for humanity.
Texans Bush and Rove and their conspirators in the second Bush presidency
have disgraced American democracy at home and in the world with debasements
of our nation and our values that have now entered their climactic phase.
What part will the rest of us Texans play in this decisive year?
As I have written in a review-essay that appears in the tenth-anniversary spring
issue of Yes!, the quarterly of new solutions published in Washington state by David
and Frances Korten (YesMagazine.org), we are living and working in the very
days and nights of the American Emergency, the climactic American Crisis.
Our elections are bought, and our government is run by and for the major
transnational corporations. Bush announced in 2002 his illegal presidential
policy that the United States can and will attack other nations first, waging
war on them, when he so decides. He is now waging, as if he were doing it in
our names, a bloody war of aggression against Iraq, which on the face of it is
a crime against humanity under the Nuremberg principles that we and our allies
established and enforced with hangings after World War II.
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No pendulum Swing in Public Opinion Can Stop this
Regime
Date: Thursday, January 19 @ 09:50:12 EST
Topic: The Bush Administration
As many public revelations pile up against this regime, further exposing theircriminal and despotic nature, they are arrogantly going forward with their claimed
'mandate' with little consideration of these impacts.
This assertion that a pendulum swing in public opinion away from their agenda
won't stop them seems contrary to historical experience, as we have seen the rise
and fall of other ideologies and regimes in history, as well as cyclical shifts in our
political parties' fortunes.
One fundamental new reality we must embrace is the total control they now
have over our election machinery, and therefore all election results at the
national level in America.
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'Is Bush Stupid — or is America?'
Posted on Wednesday, January 18 @ 10:32:47 EST
Robert Parry, Consortium News
Many Americans believe George W. Bush is uninformed, simpleminded and, ina single word, stupid. But there is a different way to look at the evidence and
conclude that while Bush may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, it is he who
thinks the American people are the real dullards.
After all, Bush is the one who explains the "facts" about current events as if he'sspeaking to people with the mental capacity of a five-year-old. He also assumes -
with some justification - that his listeners don't mind being misled and lied to, as
long as he gives them some bromides that make them feel good.
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Why is McCain So Supportive of Bush
January 16, 2006 -- Why is John McCain so supportive of Bush and Cheney
after being so viciously attacked by them in the 2000 campaign? The answer to
this question may partially rest in Navy records detailing the events that took
place on the USS Forrestal in "Yankee Station" in the Gulf of Tonkin at the
end of July 1967. The neo-cons, who have had five years to examine every file
within the Department of Defense, have likely accessed documents that could
prove embarrassing to McCain, who was on board the USS Forrestal on
July 29, 1967, and whose A-4 Skyhawk was struck by an air-to-ground Zuni
missile that had misfired from an F-4 Phantom.
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The Problem with Presidential Signing Statements:
Their Use and Misuse by the Bush Administration'
John W. Dean, FindLaw
By Cooper's count, George W. Bush issued 23 signing statements in 2001; 34 statementsin 2002, raising 168 constitutional objections; 27 statements in 2003, raising 142 constitutional
challenges, and 23 statements in 2004, raising 175 constitutional criticisms. In total, during
his first term Bush raised a remarkable 505 constitutional challenges to various provisions
of legislation that became law.
That number may be approaching 600 challenges by now. Yet Bush has not vetoeda single bill, notwithstanding all these claims, in his own signing statements, that they
are unconstitutional insofar as they relate to him.
Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements toeffectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch. These statements, for
him, function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how
they are to implement the relevant law.
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The Impeachment of George W. Bush
By Elizabeth Holtzman, The Nation
Posted on January 12, 2006, Printed on January 12, 2006
Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush
-- not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations
and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary
Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe
they are right to do so.
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How Bush's Sick Joke Became Public Policy
A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.?
So declared George W. Bush in July 2001, just weeks prior to 9/11. This was
at least the third occasion on which Mr. Bush spoke wistfully, in public and on
the record, about exercising dictatorial powers.
Once would be a lame joke; twice, a symptom of a seriously impaired sense of
humor. Three times, however, is suggestive of seriously malevolent intentions.
In our system of government, which remains in form ? if not in practice ? a
constitutional republic, chief executives simply do not joke about dictatorial ambitions.
Here's a useful parallel. It is a serious federal offense even to joke about wanting
to kill the President of the United States. Doing so even one time is sufficient to
provoke a visit from the Secret Service. Were someone to do so three times, he
would almost certainly face prosecution, as well as an invasive psychological evaluation.
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AT LAST - DEMOCRATS STAND AND FIGHT
It's been 5 long years since George Bush stole the White House, 4 years
since he failed to prevent 9/11 and then seized dictatorial powers through
the USA Patriot Act, and 3 years since he started selling the invasion of Iraq
on the basis of pure lies.
For 5 long years, we've been urging Democrats in Congress to fight back.
Democrats forced the Senate into an unusual closed session to discuss the
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair's refusal to conduct the "phase 2"
investigation into White House war lies that his committee agreed in February
2004 to conduct. Republicans howled in outrage at being outmaneuvered by
the Democrats, but ultimately they capitulated and agreed to issue the long-promised
report by November 14.
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August 23, 2005
By Ernest Partridge
By all outward appearances, the Busheviks and the Republicans have it
made. They are, as the late Red Barber used to say, "sitting in the catbird seat."
They own the White House, the Congress, and soon the Federal Judiciary.
The mainstream media are safely corralled, with just enough dissenting voices
(such as Krugman, Rich, Dionne and Oliphant) to give credence to the
absurd right-wing complaint of liberal media bias. Potentially devastating
news developments and issues, such as election fraud, the Downing Street Memos,
Plamegate, political corruption, growing domestic dissent and international hostility
are not refuted in the media as much as they are ignored – crowded out with trivial
reports of runaway brides, disappearing teenagers, celebrity trials and romances, etc.
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George Bush is going to go down in history as the
President Who Destroyed America
Oh sure, there were problems before he ever took office. Every
nation has problems. But in the year 2000, the USA was
at a fairly high point. The economy was growing. Science was
moving forward. International relations were fairly good. The future
looked bright. And then, an election was rigged, and a "President"
who was never properly elected took office.
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'Bush — the man with a snafu plan'
Contributed by Sheep on Friday, September 09 @ 10:07:28 EDT
By Sheila Samples
"A government that terrorizes its own people can never stop.
If such a government ever lets the fear subside and rational
thought return to the populace, that government is finished."
-- Michael Rivero
It's a good thing President George Bush doesn't read newspapers
or watch TV. If he did, even he could see that people from one end
of this nation to the other are rapidly reaching zero tolerance with his
bumbling ineptitude each time he is faced with a crisis. Those who
watched in amazement as Bush sat paralyzed in a Florida elementary
school on the morning of September 11, 2001 as planes were ramming
into the World Trade Center and Pentagon -- who watched in dismay
as he zigzagged across the country from one hidey hole to another
throughout the day -- were not surprised that he dropped the ball when
Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast on August 29.
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Washing Away the Conservative Movement
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 06 September 2005
The responsibility of ministers for the public safety is absolute,
and requires no mandate. It is in fact the prime object for which
governments come into existence.
-- Winston Churchill
Somewhere, at this moment, a neoconservative is seething.
It isn't fair, he rages within. We had it wired. The House is ours,
the Senate is ours, the Supreme Court is ours, the Justice Department
is ours, the television news media is bought and paid for. We could act
with impunity, say whatever we needed to say to get what we want, do
whatever wanted, and no one could touch us. We could refashion the
nation as we saw fit, whether people wanted to come along with us or
not, because we know better.
We followed Leo Strauss's edicts to the letter, growls the seething
neoconservative. Strauss, our neoconservative godfather, told us that
this nation is best run by an elite that does not have to bother with the
will or desires of the populace. Strauss told us we didn't even have to
bother with the truth while pursuing our agenda. We are the elite, and
we know best.
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Chris Floyd: 'No direction home'
By Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque
"How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home...."
-- Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone"
Let's be clear about one thing. Nothing that has happened in the past week --
the mass destruction in the Mississippi Delta, the obliteration of the city of
New Orleans , the murderous abandonment of thousands of people to death,
chaos and disease -- will change the Bush Administration or American politics
at all. Not one whit. The Bush Administration will not reverse its brutal policies;
its Congressional rubber-stamps will not revolt against the White House; the
national Democrats will not suddenly grow a spine. There will be no real change,
and the bitter corrosion of injustice, indifference and inhumanity that is consuming
American society will go on as before.
_______________________________________________________________________________
I realize it is hard to focus on something other than the figurehead of
George Bush, and he certainly deserves the criticism directed at him.
But there is something that is much more important. The disaster in
New Orleans is the product of a political and economic philosophy.
George Bush is NOT solely responsible. Directing anger and blame at
George Bush is not productive.
Trickle Down Conservative Compassion is responsible for the
disaster in New Orleans !
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A message from Ramsey Clark:
IMPEACHMENT MORE URGENT THAN EVER
We are urging all of those who are part of the impeachment movement to participate
and bring the message of impeachment with signs and banners to the hundreds of
local demonstrations that will be taking place on March 19/20, the second
anniversary of the beginning of the criminal war against Iraq.
________________________________________________________________________
'Jose Padilla and the death of personal liberty'
Date: Monday, September 12 @ 09:47:39 EDT
Topic: The Constitution & Civil Liberties
By Mike Whitney
"The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated
powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive."
-- Judge Antonin Scalia
I had to sit down when I heard the Padilla case had been settled. I literally felt
sick to my stomach, like I was gasping for air. The case of Jose Padilla is quite
simply the most important case in the history of the American judicial system.
Hanging in the balance are all the fundamental principles of American jurisprudence
including habeas corpus, due process and "the presumption of innocence".
All of those basic concepts were summarily revoked by the 3 judge panel of
the 4th Circuit Court.
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