House Has Not Yet Killed Impeachment of Grand Emperor (VP) The Dick Cheney

While the Dem leadership seemed about as eager as most Repugs to kill it - and why they're so bashful about high crimes and misdemeanors when we're talking about treason committed in some of the most fundamental aspects of our society completely eludes me - it was Repugs who, thinking it might give Bush a "sympathy factor", who decided to let it hang around. (Somehow, I suspect only his parents give Bush much sympathy these days.)

Now others are pushing harder for the matter to go before the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by none other than John Conyers, a Dem who has shown he does not always buckle to popular pressure. Keep hope alive.

Hallelujah and Thank You, CREW!

Buzzflash reports that CREW is launching a much-needed online site specifically to help us research government documents: Governmentdocs.org.

Just Who Is The Terrorist?

Since last week's vote on Capitol Hill pronouncing Iran's military as a terrorist organization (trust me, I have no love lost for most of the last however many leaders of Iran but, as the Christian Science Monitor opined shortly after September 11th, 2001, "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter") adding more and more drums toward the steady Bush-Cheney beat toward a full blown war with THAT country as well, I can just about imagine how well it would play if other countries labeled Bush and "our" Pentagon as terrorist organizations.

Certainly, I think that even within our own nation, there is widespread concensus that Bush-Cheney and all their evil elves have functioned as not just enemies of "the state" we hold dear (as in free speech, democracy, their war on the middle/working class, non-stop lies to engage in more dirty tricks and torture and war, to name a scant few. Yet can you imagine the outrage and the "right"eously angry shaking jowls of the likes of a Fred Thompson, a Trent Lott, and a Dick Cheney if another country labeled them as terrorists?

The longer we allow this evil empire to continue making misery and mayhem wherever it goes (some of which "grow" right here at home), the more we in effect empower our terrorists to wreak havoc on others. Nor am I sure that it is in anyway prudent to allow Bush and Cheney to sit there, orchestrating global oppression for the 450-460 days left to run of their term.

In other words, there is really not much we can - or even should - do about Iran and its military. Yet, here at home, we have a huge obligation to stop this continuing seven year nightmare and eliminate our own homegrown terrorists like Dubya, The Dick, the Blackwater honchos. Time we acted, too.

"I Cannot Answer Your Question Because To Do So Might Require The Truth; We Can't Have That"

And, as we all know too well, the truth (and accountability, and responsibility, and words with more than one syllable) is the worst and scariest form of terror to the Bush Administration.

If you missed the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing this morning where Karl Rove was supposed to appear, yet did not (big surprise, eh?), but where his deputy (J. Scott Jennings) did show up just to say, "Screw you!", here's a Recap for Dummies:

Chairman Patrick Leahy: What is your name?

Rove's ASSistant: I respectfully (chortle) decline to tell you this because it might endanger national security, cause terrorists to stop fighting us over there and come fight us over here, AND possibly make the president mess his pants (again) at a time when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is not available to change his ultra-small Pampers.

Leahy: You're trying to tell us you can't even state your name for the record?

ASSistant: No, I'm stating I won't. I mean, who the fuck elected you and gave you any constitional right to question the authority of the Absolute Monarch, God's boss and mine, George Bush?

Leahy: Moving on, please state your job title and your specific responsibilities.

ASSistant: I can't tell you that.

Leahy: Why?

ASSistant: Because I don't like you. Nobody likes you. Remember when Vice President Cheney, the only man who can tell God to take a freaking hike, told you to go fuck yourself? Just as promised, sir, the Bush Administration restored much needed maturity, accountability, and leadership - not to mention a colorful disregard for just about everything without a billion dollar check attached - to Washington.

Leahy: I see. So your job is to stonewall?

ASSistant: Did I mention that in the latest revision of the Patriot Act, we plan to place all Democrats and just about anyone who earns less than a cool three million a year on a list of terrorists to be denied jobs, services, constitutional protections, AND breathing privileges? Now, if you'll excuse me (and it's not like you've got a fucking choice, you old shit), I need to go so I can get Karl's Starbucks and his daily 50 lb bag of Skittles. It's a tough job subverting democracy and making a mockery of all America claims to hold dear, but Karl and Cheney are damned good at it!

Oh, one more thing: Impeach this! [holding crotch, jiggling it]

Wanted: Habeas Corpus' Return - LOTS of Questions Asked (Like, How Could We Give It Up?)

I love this from the ACLU. Link is here.

"Moment of Accountability" For Bush, Cheney, And Their Lies?

In this piece in the Washington Post, the analyst writer Peter Baker proclaims the Bushies are at a moment of accountability. But just calling it accountability means nothing unless some decisive action is taken, not just in light of the multiple Scooter Libby guilty verdicts in the PlameGate trial yesterday but the mountain of other lies and corrupt acts this administration has committed.

So let me turn away from the first Post piece and turn instead to Dan Froomkin's blog at WaPo which speaks more powerfully, yet will also probably be met with nothing but silence OR derision from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

It's time for President Bush and Vice President Cheney to come clean about their roles in the White House's outing of a CIA agent and the ensuing cover-up.

It's actually long past time. But with former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby's conviction on charges of perjury and obstruction yesterday, the stench of corruption has taken formal residence at the White House.

The president and vice president can pretend it's not there, and can continue to hide behind their weak and transparent excuse for not commenting on an "ongoing criminal investigation".

But the trial is over. The investigation is over. And the conviction of a liar in their midst has made it more imperative than ever that the leaders of this country fully address the American people's legitimate concerns that the lies in question were intended to hide from public view even deeper skullduggery at the highest levels of the administration.

As special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald noted in his closing arguments (see my Feb. 21 column, The Cloud Over Cheney) Libby's lies have left all sorts of issues unresolved.

Cheney was at the fevered center of the effort to discredit administration critic Joseph Wilson, which resulted in the exposure of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative. Indeed, Cheney was the first person to tell Libby about Plame. Cheney authored talking points that quite possibly encouraged Libby and others to mention Plame to reporters. Cheney was the only person to whom Libby confided his implausible cover story -- that he had first heard about Plame from NBC's Tim Russert. And at Cheney's request, Bush secretly declassified portions of a National Intelligence Reports so that Libby could leak them to Judith Miller of the New York Times.

The White House yesterday once again trotted out its "ongoing criminal matter" rationale. But that was never much of an excuse and at this point it is utterly pathetic. Any danger of influencing the investigation or the jury pool, to the extent that was ever a legitimate concern, is past. The chances of a retrial are almost nonexistent. In reviewing a conviction, an appellate court cannot look outside the trial record. Fitzgerald says he and his fellow prosecutors are going back to their day jobs.

And there is an enormous public-policy factor here -- something more important than the vague, theoretical possibility of influencing a fair trial. Just for example, no executive of any company would be allowed by his shareholders to remain mum on a top aide's indictment -- not to mention conviction. He'd be fired.

Why are Bush and his aides hiding behind such hollow excuses? Probably because they know that if they did talk, it might just make things worse. Arguably, they still don't think Libby did anything wrong, putting them in the awkward position of disagreeing with a federal jury's verdict. And in explaining what they say really happened, they might risk either exposing more unseemly facts or being caught in a lie.

But the main reason they are hiding behind these excuses is that they can. There's been no public cost to them from not talking.

"And We Have Walked Ten Thousand Miles... er... Posts"

And so, here we are, at the official #10,000 on the blog post meter, reached in barely more than three years (and probably reached back in December, based on how many posts Blogger can eat on a hungry day).

Let me suggest to each of you a plan:

Practice random acts:

• of leadership
• of questioning authority
• of speaking up and out and over the top of those who would silence you
• of refusing to believe when someone tells you that you cannot do something
• of holding your elected representatives responsible for their votes that are not just against your best interests but the best interests of the globe
• of holding yourself accountable
• of demanding more and NOT accepting less
• of patriotism since American patriotism was NEVER (before Bush arrived) about sitting back, shutting up, and taking it like a peon

And, should you decide you happen to like the results you get (and trust me, I say from experience that you won't always), then practice one or more or ALL of these acts without randomness.

These were the tenets I made myself agree to when I decided to start this blog right after Christmas 2003, recovering from a serious illness that really should have killed me, and when I decided that, since I remained alive, I had to stop being such a scaredy cat.

Yes, I have suffered for my outspokenness. But - as much as I sometimes wish I could turn back the clock and NOT take this path - this is what I feel I must do for myself, my family, my community, my country, and my world. And, somehow, here I still am. Bruised but not exactly broken.

Good luck, my friends. It's worth it.