The News

Too much has happened recently to do individual posts on everything, so I am going to do one post to sum up what I think is important to pay attention to in recent events.

1. Bush continues to violate the Constitution. It is WAY past the point of Impeachment. Right now, Impeachment is the LEAST we should do. He should have been Impeached many times over by now.

The President goes postal

In his latest attempt to reinterpret the law, not to mention subvert the Constitution, Mr. Bush said in a statement attached to a postal reform bill he signed Dec. 20 that the administration may open domestic mail in the case of "exigent circumstances" - emergencies - and in foreign intelligence cases.

The problem, as we have pointed out before, is that nothing in the Constitution gives the President such broad power, which he has expressed in regard to a variety of measures passed by Congress.

Presidential Powers: Give it a rest

President Bush works very hard when it comes to eroding Americans' constitutional protections; he seems to lack the ability to give it a rest. That's a serious matter for the new Congress.

In one of his statements attached to legislation he dislikes but never vetoes, Bush suggested last month that he has the power to open the U.S. mail without obtaining a court warrant. The statement says officials will comply with warrant requirements "in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials."

First wiretapping, now letter-opening?

THE BUSH administration seems determined to raise the specter of surveillance over every means of communication within the United States. Not content to monitor selected phone calls and e-mails in secret, it recently hinted that letters and packages may be opened without a search warrant too.

The disclosure came in yet another presidential "signing statement," in which President Bush gives his opinion about the legislation on his desk. This one accompanied the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act — a bill to modernize how the Postal Service sets rates, promotes competition with private carriers and shores up funding for its employee retirement benefits.

In his statement, Bush seemed to assert a broader right to do warrantless mail searches than postal regulations allow.

Miami Herald: Congress Must Hold Hearings on Signing Statements

Well, well, well......another major newspaper stopping just sort of the word impeachment.

This time The Miami Herald agrees that the President has gone too far when he declared authority to open our mail at will.

2. Bush's hired liar is a bad liar.

Snow Falsely Claims That Bush Said ‘Just The Opposite’ Of ‘Mission Accomplished’

In today’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow tried to distance President Bush from his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech, claiming that Bush said “just the opposite” of “Mission Accomplished”:

I think the public ought to just listen to what the president has to say. You know that the mission accomplished banner was put up by members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the president, on that very speech, said just the opposite, didn’t he?

For that May 1, 2003, Bush stood in front of a large banner that read, “Mission Accomplished.” In the opening of his speech, he declared, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” He called the “battle of Iraq” a “victory.” In his radio address shortly after the speech, he boasted, “I delivered good news to the men and women who fought in the cause of freedom: their mission is complete and major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

3. The European Commission is getting smart. Bush is still dumb.

EU seeks drastic cut in emissions

The European Commission also said Wednesday that the EU must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to limit global warming and prevent serious damage caused by climate change.

Europe must embrace a "low-carbon economy," EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Wednesday.

Surging world demand for limited stocks of oil and gas is likely to send prices -- and the EU's energy import costs -- spiraling in future decades. To avoid future energy crunches, the head of the EU's executive arm said Europe must look at available alternatives, using more renewable energy.

"Europe must lead the world into a new ... postindustrial revolution, the development of a low-carbon economy," he said. "We need new policies to face a new reality," he said.

4. Bush is still in denial about the war in Iraq and the American public's desire to pull out. How stupid do you have to be to still want not only to continue this illegal war but to escalate it as well?

Bush Set to Announce Troop Buildup Plans

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will tell the nation Wednesday night he will send more than 20,000 additional American forces to Iraq, acknowledging that it had been a mistake earlier not to have more American and Iraqi troops fighting the war, a senior administration official said.

5. More horrific news on how badly this illegal-in-the-first-place war is being conducted. This is just so disgusting that I can not find the words to express my outrage.

Soldier was ruled a threat

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- An Army private charged with the slaughter of an Iraqi family was diagnosed as a homicidal threat by a military mental health team three months before the attack.

Pfc. Steven D. Green was found to have "homicidal ideations" after seeking help from an Army Combat Stress Team in Iraq on Dec. 21, 2005. Green said he was angry about the war, desperate to avenge the deaths of comrades and driven to kill Iraqi citizens, according to an investigation by The Associated Press.

6. First, I was boycotting CNN because of Glenn Beck, and now I have to boycott ABC for the same reason. Of course, I was already boycotting ABC for their disgraceful piece of propaganda The Path to 9/11. I will just have to boycott them twice as hard.

Why Oh Why?

Clearly, ABC feels that the average TV viewer cannot figure out that they are a right-wing, factually-challenged network devoted to hackery. That is the only conclusion to which I can come by the choice to hire Glenn Beck as a contributer.

7. And in the same post another reason to boycott ABC. This makes it a ABC boycott times 3 for me. I do not think that is semantically possible, but ABC won't care. It does not seem like they care about anything except greed and power.

ABC shut down blogger who criticized violent rhetoric on one of its radio stations

Summary: The mainstream media have yet to report on the story of a blogger whose website was shut down after he began spotlighting inflammatory rhetoric common to several talk radio hosts on KSFO, an ABC Radio-owned station in San Francisco.

8. Lastly, Sen. Kennedy calls the Iraq War what it is. I would add that the Iraq war is illegal and therefore worse than Vietnam.

Senator Kennedy: “Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam”

In a speech this afternoon at the National Press Club, Senator Kennedy pre-empted President Bush's address to the nation tomorrow by outlining a bill he's introducing that requires congressional approval for any troop surge in Iraq. Kennedy drew striking parallels between Vietnam and the current conflict, going so far as to say that "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."