Lisa Sorg of Uruknet writes: The argument for impeaching Bush isn’t based on disagreements over philosophy or policy, but on the Constitution. As detailed in a 3,900-word article in January 30 issue of The Nation, impeachable offenses include presidential abuses of power that endanger the constitutional system.Elizabeth Holtzman of The Nation: Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush ... 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.Ronnie Dugger of the Texas Observer: 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.Jim Puzzanghera of Knight Ridder Washington Bureau: The word "impeachment" is popping up increasingly these days and not just off the lips of liberal activists spouting predictable bumper-sticker slogans. After the unfounded claims about [WMD's] and recent news of domestic spying without warrants, mainstream politicians and ordinary voters are talking openly about the possibility that President Bush could be impeached.Detroit Free Press: A Democratic congressman, a prominent legal scholar and a self-described target of government surveillance urged Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Friday to consider impeaching President George W. Bush for his domestic surveillance program.
Doug Thompson of Capitol Hill Blue writes: Bush has signed executive orders giving him sole authority to impose martial law, suspend habeas corpus and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act...
This would give him absolute dictatorial power over the government with no checks and balances.Bush discussed imposing martial law on American streets in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by activating “national security initiatives” put in place by Ronald Reagan during the 1980s.
From CBS: North Korean three-star General Ri Chan Bok tells correspondent Dan Rather that if the U.S. invades his country, he will use nuclear weapons to defend it.“Tell the American people that you met the general. If the United States invades our country and starts a war, the People’s Army will fight to the death and defend ourselves, taking appropriate revenge,” says Gen. Bok.
Tom Engelhardt writes:
2006 is sure to be the year of living dangerously -- for the Bush administration and for the rest of us. In the wake of revelations of warrantless spying by the NSA, we have already embarked on what looks distinctly like a constitutional crisis... In the meantime, the President, Vice President, Secretaries of Defense and State, various lesser officials, crony appointees, acolytes, legal advisors, leftover neocons, spy-masters, strategists, spin doctors, ideologues, lobbyists, Republican Party officials, and congressional backers are intent on packing the Supreme Court with supporters of an "obscure philosophy" of unfettered Presidential power called "the unitary executive theory" and then foisting a virtual cult of the imperial presidency on the country.
Steve Watson of Infowars writes:
The implementation of such technology represents a giant leap into a total surveillance Big Brother society. People are faced with walking into booths raising their hands above their heads like they're a criminal and being electronically scanned... The general public will accept any level of intrusiveness so long as it gives the IMPRESSION that they are safer, in reality it doesn't make anyone safer it just eliminates your liberty.
Saree Makdisi for the Los Angeles Times writes: From the beginning to the end of his career, Sharon was a man of ruthless and often gratuitous violence. The waypoints of his career are all drenched in blood, from the massacre he directed at the village of Qibya in 1953, in which his men destroyed whole houses with their occupants — men, women and children — still inside, to the ruinous invasion of Lebanon in 1982, in which his army laid siege to Beirut, cut off water, electricity and food supplies and subjected the city's hapless residents to weeks of indiscriminate bombardment by land, sea and air.
Ian James of AP writes:
The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" on Sunday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
Propaganda Matrix writes:
Ask yourself, why is Bush flashing a Texas football sign at an Economic Club gathering in Chicago?
Aversion says: Morrissey has no love for Los Angeles' police force. In an online interview conducted by True-to-You, Morrissey... revealed that, although he’s made Los Angeles his surrogate home in the States, he’s a little uneasy around the town’s police force. “As stunningly beautiful as Los Angeles is, it is also essentially a police state,” he said.
Read full text
here.
Chris Floyd writes: "What a difference a year makes -- or is it an election? Back in 2004, George W. Bush was caught on camera explaining very carefully that the government always requires a court order when "chasing down terrorists." Trying to sell the Patriot Act -- which he wanted renewed but which was coming under increasing fire from all sides of the political spectrum -- Bush was very clear that "a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way." By that, he meant thatneither the Patriot Act nor its ostensible cause -- the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- changed the absolute legal requirement for the government to get a court order before ordering wiretaps against suspected terrorists."
from capital hill blue:
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the [Patriot] act could further alienate conservatives...
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.
Jarrett Murphy of the Village Voice writes:1. Where was the "National Command Authority"?
2. Who gave the order to try to shoot the planes down?
3. What exactly were all those firefighters doing in the towers?
4. Did anyone think the towers would collapse?
5. Why was Giuliani's command bunker at ground zero?
6. Why did 7 WTC fall?
7. How did the twin towers fall?
8. How dangerous was—and is—the air at ground zero?
9. What exactly did Zacarias Moussaoui plan to do?
10. What's on those blanked-out pages?
Eric Alterman, author of "When Presidents Lie," writes: We know now...that after the famed Gulf of Tonkin "incident" on Aug. 4, 1964 - in which North Vietnam allegedly attacked two American destroyers - NSC officials doctored the evidence to support President Lyndon Johnson's false charge in a speech to the nation that night of "open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America." In fact, no real evidence for those attacks has ever been found.Here is
60 Minutes Producer Don Hewitt discussing the fake
Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Jack Kuenzie of WISTV writes: Buy Nothing Day began more than a decade ago, and was the work of Adbusters , an anti- consumerism group. The organization wants shoppers on the Friday after Thanksgiving to step back and make a small choice not to shop..."It's symbolic. It's meant to focus Americans more on what we should be focused on...We always talk a good game about values, but we don't put them into practice."
Will Knight of NewScientist.com writes:
The US government has unveiled a "non-lethal" laser rifle designed to dazzle enemy personnel without causing them permanent harm...the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHASR) rifle was developed at the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico, US, and two prototypes have been delivered to military bases in Texas and Virginia for further testing.
Lisa Sorg of Uruknet writes: The argument for impeaching Bush isn’t based on disagreements over philosophy or policy, but on the Constitution. As detailed in a 3,900-word article in January 30 issue of The Nation, impeachable offenses include presidential abuses of power that endanger the constitutional system.
