Waterboarding Torture

Just so we are all clear, and so there is no confusion, it is "waterboarding torture," not "waterboarding."

The Bush administration has committed the illegal act of waterboarding torture.

Impeachment is the only correct response.

U.S.A. Guilty of Torture

I have not written a post for this blog in quite some time. Partly, this was because of being busy or lazy or both, but mostly, it was because of the tremendous amount of disappointment and hopelessness that I felt due to the lack of action by the now Democratic-controlled Congress to hold the Bush administration accountable for their crimes.

Where is the IMPEACHMENT?!

The people, this country, our Constitution require impeachment if we are to retain our freedom, our democracy, our ideals.

And now this:

U.S. Acknowledges Use of Waterboarding

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats demanded a criminal investigation into waterboarding by government interrogators Tuesday after the Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that the tactic was used on three terror suspects.

In congressional testimony Tuesday, CIA Director Michael Hayden became the first administration official to publicly acknowledge the agency used waterboarding on detainees following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

[...]Hayden said Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003. Hayden banned the technique in 2006, but National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell told senators during the same hearing Tuesday that waterboarding remains in the CIA arsenal — so long as it as the specific consent of the president and legal approval of the attorney general.

Congress, there is NO excuse for not beginning impeachment hearings.

I want my country back.

I want my country to be one that does not torture. Impeachment is the only way to bring that about.

If Congress fails to begin impeachment hearings IMMEDIATELY, every member of Congress is violating their oath to defend the Constitution and they are guilty of supporting these vile acts of torture.

I'm waiting, Pelosi. I'm waiting, Reid. I'm waiting, Obama. I'm waiting, Clinton. I'm waiting for you to lead. I'm waiting for you to do what you were elected to do.

Bush Administration Endorses Torture

This comes as no surprise to those of us in the reality-based community, but it still infuriates me:

Bush’s Justice Department secretly endorsed torture

Posted October 4th, 2007 at 8:10 am

In December 2004, Bush’s Justice Department issued a statement insisting that “torture is abhorrent.” It was an encouraging step from administration officials who were willing to concede that there were limits to presidential authority when it came to brutal interrogations.

But it was a lie — shortly thereafter, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed off on a secret legal opinion, which, as the New York Times reported today, endorsed “the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.”

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

And here we are. Given their conduct and contempt for the rule of law, administration officials are apparently well beyond the capacity for shame, but if they’re capable of embarrassment, now would be a good time for it. Indeed, now might be an equally good time to wonder whether criminal charges should be brought against several high-ranking officials in the Bush administration.

Every time Bush was asked about this, he merely replied, "We don't torture." And he was lying.

He and his administration have betrayed this country. They are traitors to the ideals of this country. We have always held ourselves up to a higher standard, and because of Bush, we can no longer do that.

Such a traitor to our country should not be president. Such traitors do not belong in our government. Such traitors should be impeached and punished for their crimes. They have committed crimes against our country, our people, our humanity.

After all the war crimes, the illegal spying, the torture, it is abundantly clear that they have broken the law and their oaths of their offices. They do not deserve to be in power. They should be in prison.

And the insane 30% of this country that still approves of this traitor and his criminal administration need to wake up and know the truth that is so hard for them to hear: Bush is a liar, and a criminal, and a torturer, and he doesn't deserve to be our president.

Bush Knew Iraq Had No WMDs And Lied To Go To War

This news is huge, but I won't hold my breath while I wait for the traditional media to report on it.

Of course, it isn't really news to those of us on the left who have been saying this all along, but this reinforces our stance that Bush lied us into the war in Iraq. If he had any decency, Bush would resign for this, but since he doesn't, we should impeach him and prosecute him for the war criminal he is.

A diary by Chomskyface called "Bush Knew There Were No WMDs BEFORE Iraq War - New Salon Piece" on DailyKos.com first made me aware of this article on Salon.com:

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

Salon exclusive: Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

By Sidney Blumenthal

Sept. 6, 2007 | On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

Read the whole article, and tell your friends and family about it. If they aren't outraged, then they aren't paying attention.

Gonzales Lies Again

No shock or awe from this story, but still it is good to know the Bushies don't get away with all their lies:

Report: Gonzales Knew of FBI Violations

The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 10, 2007; 2:37 AM


WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales received reports detailing legal or procedural violations by FBI agents in the months before he told senators that no such abuses had occurred, The Washington post reported Tuesday.

In April 2005, while seeking renewal of the broad powers granted law enforcement under the USA Patriot Act, Gonzales said, "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" from the law enacted after the 9/11 terror attacks.

According to the Post, Gonzales had received a least half a dozen reports describing such violations in the three months before he made that statement. The newspaper obtained the internal FBI documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

We really need to impeach Gonzales.

26%!

I do not regularly write posts about the polls, but I pay very close attention to them by visiting PollingReport.com almost daily. Often, I will look at the job approval ratings for George W Bush and find the average of the five most recent ratings.

Yesterday, I was excited to see a post on DailyKos.com that had a 26% job approval rating for Bush, a new record low for Bush (at least, out of all of the polls that I have seen). Today, I saw that PollingReport.com reported the same Newsweek poll Bush job approval rating of 26% and the disapproval rating of 65%, which is one point away from the record disapproval rationg of 66% from a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from last week.

That NBC/WSJ poll and a Quinnipiac poll had the Bush approval ratings of 29% and 28% respectively. Before those two polls came out, my five poll average had never been below 32%, but after those polls, the average hit a new record low of 31.4%.

Now with the new 26% approval rating, a new record low average has broken the last record in only one week. The new record low Bush job approval rating is (drumroll, please): 29.8%!

This marks the first time that my five poll average of Bush job approval ratings has gone below 30%. That is quite a significant milestone. Similarly, the five poll average for Bush job disapproval ratings has reached a new record high of 64.6%.

With numbers like these and all the news that has been coming out about the Bush administration's illegal activities and unethical behavior, impeachment cannot be far behind. Happy days are here again.

Bush's Assault On The Constitution And The Law

Bush does not seem to understand what every fifth grader is taught regarding the three branches of government and the checks and balances between them:

'Signing Statements' Study Finds Administration Has Ignored Laws

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; Page A04

President Bush has asserted that he is not necessarily bound by the bills he signs into law, and yesterday a congressional study found multiple examples in which the administration has not complied with the requirements of the new statutes.

Bush has been criticized for his use of "signing statements," in which he invokes presidential authority to challenge provisions of legislation passed by Congress. The president has challenged a federal ban on torture, a request for data on the administration of the USA Patriot Act and numerous other assertions of congressional power. As recently as December, Bush asserted the authority to open U.S. mail without judicial warrants in a signing statement attached to a postal reform bill.

[...]The instances of noncompliance were not as dramatic as some of the signing statements that have caused the most stir, such as Bush's suggestion that he was not bound by a ban on torture in U.S. military detention facilities. But congressional aides said they were significant.

Bush is essentially rewriting laws in violation of our U.S. Constitution. Bush should be impeached, convicted, and imprisoned for this.

Bush's Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds

If there was an Olympic gold medal for hypocrisy, Bush would win it by an exponential lead:

Bush Threatens To Veto Bill To Allow More Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Washington, D.C. (AHN)- President Bush plans to veto legislation that would have relaxed the ban on federally funded stem cell research.

[...]President Bush has criticized the Democrat-led Congress of recycling a measure he already vetoed, which passed in a Republican-controlled Congress. He said that the bill would mean that taxpayers would be deliberately funding the destruction of human life.

The man has ZERO intelligence if he does not comprehend the incredible, dumbfounding hypocrisy of that statement.

ATTENTION, GEORGE W BUSH: Taxpayers ARE deliberately funding the destruction of human life on DAILY BASIS in IRAQ! Your hypocrisy disgusts me, as it should disgust any human being with at least an ounce of gray matter! You are the worst president ever, and even if you had not broken the law with your warrant-less wiretapping, unconstitutional signing statements, and violations of the Hatch Act, you should still be impeached for your horrific job performance! If you want to value incinerator-bound embryos more than the lives of American troops in your personal life, that's fine, but don't force the rest of us to endure the consequences of your primitive, illogical, and hypocritical ideology!

More White House Crimes

Add this to the list of crimes committed by the Bush administration:

Bush aides may have illegally lost e-mail, Dems say

By Andy Sullivan
Reuters
Monday, June 18, 2007; 4:34 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Karl Rove and dozens of other White House staffers appear to have illegally routed official e-mails through a Republican group that subsequently deleted them, a congressional report said on Monday.

By using Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business, senior White House aides may have broken a law requiring them to preserve presidential records, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said in an interim report.

Seriously, how many more crimes can they commit before the American public demands impeachment?

Republican Track Record

I usually write for my blog whenever something inspires me, but sometimes I get inspired to write yet find myself speechless. Fortunately, when that happens, I usually come across another writer's words that say exactly what I would write if I was not stumped.

This time Hunter on DailyKos beautifully articulates my feelings about Rudy Giuliani's recent suggestion that if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, then we will be more susceptible to more attacks like 9/11:

Not Breaking: Rudy Giuliani Is A Fearmongering Jackass

[...]Yes. If a Republican is elected, they can "anticipate" terrorist attacks. You know, perhaps because staff members with their "hair on fire" are warning them of the high risk of terrorist attacks. Perhaps because staff members are trying to educate them in vain about a recent ongoing history of terrorist attacks. Perhaps because somebody practically staples a memo to the Republican President's forehead dramatically entitled, in a large and bolded font, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S." MAYBE SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

[...]I was pondering over this last night, as a matter of fact, so let's think about this for a minute. Under six years of President Bush, there have been major terrorist attacks on two American cities, public-safety-threatening electricity blackouts artificially created by major energy corporations in an effort to extort the recipients of that electricity, deficits that have reached crisis proportions, criminal indictments of Republican congressmen nationwide and even of Republican White House staffers, one of Americas "crown jewel" cities was in large part destroyed and its population turned into refugees battling a national government response that ranged from incompetent to absent, the defacto suspensions of habeas and other Constitutional rights, the international diplomatic isolation of America, and there have been two major wars, both ongoing.

I recommend reading the whole post.

I honestly do not understand how the numbers between potential presidential candidates in polls are even close between the opposing political parties. I look at everything... EVERYTHING that has happened during Bush's terms, and I cannot fathom how anyone could even consider voting for another four years of a Republican presidency. (Then again, I cannot fathom how anyone voted for Bush in 2004 after they had four years to experience his incompetence.)

Some moderates may claim, "Oh, all politicians are the same." They are wrong. That might have been true twenty or fifteen years ago, but it just is not true anymore.

I used to be a moderate and an independent before George W Bush became president. From the moment the Supreme Court installed him as president over the will of the majority of the American people, I knew his presidency would be terrible. Even before his inadequacies as a leader became so blatantly obvious, before he even took the oath of office (which he has broken countless times since), I never imagined he could ever be re-elected. Then he not only proved to be the very definition of incompetent but also proved to essentially be an evil dictator.

Because of Bush:

we were attacked on 9/11

we invaded Iraq because of lies.

we did not finish our job in Afghanistan.

we did not capture Osama bin Laden.

we are still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

we have not properly aided the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

we have record deficits and a record national debt.

we have a shrinking middle class.

we have prolonged the fight against global warming.

we have an increase in terrorism worldwide.

we are viewed negatively by the rest of the world.

we are responsible for Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and other examples of torture and abuses of human rights.

we have the Jack Abramoff scandal.

we the fired US Attorneys scandal.

we have the Valerie Plame scandal.

we had the Enron scandal.

we have evil men like Cheney and Rove in positions of power.

we have incompetent men like Gonzales in power.

we have corporation advocates overseeing their own industries.

we have had corporations writing the laws that affect them.

we have our troops held hostage by a President who ignores the public which he is supposed to work for.

we have an White House that ignores reality and the rule of law.

we have seen an increase in poverty.

we have seen an increase in job-killing Free Trade Agreements.

we have seen an increase in CEO pay benefits and an decrease in pay and benefits for everyone else.

we have an extreme right-wing Supreme Court.

we have a Supreme Court who has begun to dismantle Roe v. Wade at the expense of women's health.

we have had illegal wiretapping of Americans.

we have had illegal searches of our phone records.

we have had the Geneva Conventions violated by the White House.

we have had our Constitution violated by the White House.

we have had the right to habeas corpus violated by the White House.

we have had the breakdown of our system of checks and balances.

we have the most criminal and unethical White House in our nation's history.

The list just goes on and on, and after all that has happened in the last several years, how anyone could even think of voting for another Republican president is beyond insanity.

Giuliani and the other Republican presidential candidates cannot offer any positive change or reform because they agree with almost everything the Bush administration has done.

I cannot take another Republican presidency after Bush. Our country cannot take... cannot afford another Republican presidency after Bush.

We need to restore our country to what it once was, and no current Republican candidate is willing to do that.

All politicians are not the same, not anymore. Things are so unbalanced these days that I do not recognize my country anymore.

Could you imagine if a Republican was arguing against habeas corpus and for torture twenty years ago? They would not be in politics anymore if they did that twenty years ago, but today they can be Attorney General or Vice President.

Everything has been so unbalanced these last several years. I would expect the current political climate from an episode of the Twilight Zone or some Orwellian story, but not in reality in America in the 21st century.

I want my country back.

(I guess I was not so speechless afterall.)

Update: Olbermann did one of his impressive Special Comments on this topic and CrooksandLiars.com has the video. Watch it.

Everyone Wants Us Out Of Iraq Except Bush And The Bushies

Americans want to get out of Iraq. Iraqis want us out of Iraq. The rest of the world wants us out of Iraq. Only Bush and his like-minded band of reality-deniers want us to stay.

The sky is blue, but Bush says it is orange, and his followers must agree that the sky is orange or else every argument they have ever made crumbles like the sand upon which they are built. It does not matter how wrong the argument is. The Bush chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so every delusional statement Bush makes must be held as absolute truth or else the chain breaks.

The situation Iraq is getting worse, but Bush says things are getting better in Iraq, so Bushies must believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Iraqis want us out of Iraq, but Bush says Iraqis want us to stay, so Bushies have to accept that Iraqis want us to stay. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Our presence in Iraq is an occupation, not a war, but Bush says our presence in Iraq is part of the Global War on Terror, so Bushies have to believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Iraq is in a civil war, but Bush says it is not in a civil war, so Bushies must believe that Iraq is not in a civil war. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Bush has ruined Iraq for oil and greed, but Bush says we are there for freedom and protection, so Bushies must believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Our troops are dying for Bush's lies and so that he can save face, but Bush illogically says we are fighting terrorists who would "follow us home" if we left Iraq, so Bushies must believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

The best thing for us to do is leave Iraq, but Bush says we must stay, so Bushies must believe that we must stay. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

We should not have invaded in Iraq in the first place, but Bush says we were right to invade Iraq, so Bushies must believe that. Otherwise, they would have to accept that:

Hussein was not an immediate threat to us, didn't have WMDs, wasn't building nuclear weapons, and wasn't connected to 9/11, but Bushies have a hard time accepting all of that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush had no reason for failing to get Osama bin Laden, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush is doing a poor job at fighting terrorism, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush is violating human rights and torturing detainess, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush is breaking the law and lying about it, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush is lying about Global Warming, outing a CIA agent, warrantless wiretapping, firing US attorneys, Jack Abramoff, abstinence-only education, voter fraud, Iran, engergy independence, Halliburton, propaganda leaks, manipulation of pre-Iraq War intelligence, tax cuts for the rich, the national debt, the economy, privatization, healthcare, Medicare Part-D, immigration, free trade agreements, trading deficits, the cost of the war, no-bid contracts, the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, corporate welfare, tax cuts for rich oil companies with record-breaking profits, Walter Reed, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and pretty much everything the Bush administration has ever been involved in, but Bushies cannot believe that because then they would have to accept that:

Bush should not be president and should be impeached and removed from office.

That is why Bush and the Bushies refuse to back down on Iraq. Their house of cards would come crashing down.

Well, it is long past time for the cards to fall because the sky is blue, not orange, and the situation in Iraq is getting worse:

Baghdad a ‘deadlier battleground.’

For American troops, Baghdad has become a “deadlier battleground” since President Bush implemented his escalation plan. “The rate of American deaths in the city over the first seven weeks of the security plan has nearly doubled from the previous period.” According to the Iraq Coaltion Casualty Monitor, U.S. casualties since the beginning of the escalation have been “running at 3.14/day, which is the highest of any period since the end of major combat.”

And Iraqis want us out of Iraq:

Iraqis protest to mark Baghdad's fall

BAGHDAD --Tens of thousands draped themselves in Iraqi flags and marched peacefully through the streets of two Shiite holy cities Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall. Demonstrators were flanked by two cordons of police as they called for U.S. forces to leave, shouting "Get out, get out occupier!"

Security was tight across Iraq, with a 24-hour ban on all vehicles in Baghdad starting from 5 a.m. Monday. The government quickly reinstated the day as a holiday, rescinding its weekend order that had decreed that April 9 no longer would be a day off.

The Najaf rally was ordered by Muqtada al-Sadr, the powerful Shiite cleric who a day earlier issued a statement ordering his militiamen to redouble their battle to oust American forces, and argued that Iraq's army and police should join him in defeating "your archenemy."

There go the first two of Bush's arguments that I listed. The rest are being disproven on a daily basis in old media (newspapers, networks) and new media (political websites, blogs). The Bushies are losing the foundation for their ignorance and stubborness. Soon, they will have to accept that the sky is blue.

Bush's Press Conference Beatdown

I heard Bush's press conference on NPR yesterday. He really sounded like he was on the ropes and he only had weak lies to fight back with.

For the most part, Bush sounded like he was answering different questions then the ones the reporters asked. It was typical, but still disappointing.

Bush conflated lack of support for his war with lack of support for the troops. It is such a blatant misrepresentation of the debate that I don't understand why the press doesn't burst out into laughter when we does this. Which of these options shows support for the troops: continuing to send troops to die for a pack of lies, or bringing our troops home to their families? Democrats, liberals, and progressives support the troops, but that doesn't mean we have to support Bush or his war based on lies.

Bush kept telling us to give the surge escalation a chance to work. Meanwhile, things have gotten only gotten worse since the escalation began. How bad are things going to be when the escalation reaches its pinacle?

David Gregory asked a good question about Congress doing what the voters voted them into power to do, get out of Iraq. Bush claimed that the American people don't want to pull out of Iraq, and only some Americans are against the war. Could he be any more in denial? The polls have been showing for some time that the majority of Americans don't want Bush's surge escalation and they don't want the war occupation to continue. Bush is lying about this, ignorant of this, or both. In any case, it is just one more thing to add to the already astoundingly huge list of things that Bush is wrong about.

Bush said Congress should not tell generals how to conduct the war. Please! The only reasons we have the generals we have now is because Bush fired the ones who disagreed with him. How is firing generals until you get only generals who agree with you different from "telling" generals how to conduct the war? Bush's logic is also flawed in that our Constitution was set up so that the government is in charge of the military, not the other way around. And thrice Bush's logic is flawed in that Congress is not telling generals how to conduct the war, they are trying to end the war PERIOD. Ending the war does not tell the generals how to conduct it. If Congress ends the war, there is no war for the generals to conduct.

Bush brought up the tired and stupid talking point that if we leave Iraq, the terrorists will attack us at home. There are so many things wrong with that talking point that it basically amounts to a lie. Terrorists have already tried to attack us at home, so Bush's argument that fighting them "over there" means that we don't have to fight them "over here" is inherently and ridiculously false. Additionally, American troops are being killed by insurgents in Iraq who just want us out. I don't agree with the insurgents' methods, but if we leave Iraq, we remove their reason for killing American troops. There is no reason that the insurgents would attack us at home. The terrorists will try to attack us whether we are "over there" or at home. If we end their ability to attack us "over there", we will save American lives, and we can protect ourselves better at home.

He also stated that terrorists already attacked us on 9/11 so that he could deviously conflate Iraq with 9/11. First of all, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush has admitted that, but he still lies via conflation by always using 9/11 to defend his decision to invade Iraq and stay in Iraq. Second, the terrorists were able to attack us successfully on 9/11 because of Bush's incompetence and inaction. The August 6, 2001 PDB proves this. Bush should have been "fighting the terrorists over here" all along to prevent 9/11. Bush failed to fight the terrorists "over here" in 2001 because he wasn't focused on that, and now, he still isn't focused on that. He is focused on Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 and had no ability to attack us at home. Bin Laden and al-Qaeda on the other hand had both, and they are still running free.

Bush warns about what would happen if we left Iraq, but there is no reason to believe his warnings now when all his past warnings about Iraq proved to be lies. He warns that Iraq would fall into chaos. Iraq is already in chaos, but he is too deceitful to admit it or too stupid to realize it. He warns that Iraq would become a haven for terrorists. It already is, but it was not a haven for terrorists before we invaded. It was Bush who made Iraq a haven for terrorists through his incompetence. If he had let Iraqis rebuild Iraq instead of Halliburton, we would not have so many unemployed, disgruntled, and angry Iraqis to become insurgents and terrorists. Bush also warned that terrorists would follow us home, but, as I mentioned earlier in this post, the insurgents just want us out and the terrorists are already trying to attack us at home. Bush also warned that setting a date for withdrawal, we would embolden the terrorists. They are already emboldened. They attempt to attack us at home and abroad. If they are not emboldended now, then what are they? If anything our invasion of Iraq has emboldened and encouraged more people to become terrorists. Cheney claims that ending the war in Iraq would validate the terrorist stategy, but he has been wholly deceived. The terrorist strategy is to increase their numbers and power by igniting a war that would cause more people in the Middle East to sympathize with the terrorists and become terrorists themselves, and Cheney and Bush have done nothing put play into the terrorists' hands by giving them exactly what they want. The Bush administration are the ones who have been validating the terrorist strategy.

Honestly, how can Bush be so wrong about everything? How can he be so wrong about everything and still be president? I already think he should be impeached for actual crimes he has committed, but shouldn't we be able to impeach him for his uninterrupted WRONGNESS!

If Clinton had committed half the crimes and been wrong about half the things Bush has, I would have supported impeaching him. In fact, the Republicans impeached Clinton (who was acquitted) for way less than what Bush has done. Why aren't the same Republicans willing to impeach Bush? Why the hypocrisy? If anything, their unwillingness to impeach Bush is proof that the impeachment of Clinton was nothing more than an insidious, dishonest, politically-motivated partisan attack.

Bush has forgotten that he is not the "decider." The American people are the "decider." The Constitution starts off with "We the people" not "I Bush." The people are in charge of this government. We are in charge. We are the boss. Bush has chosen to ignore the people. Bush has chosen to ignore reality. It is long past time for "We the people" to exercise our control over our government and remove Bush from power.

Tillman Death And The Web Of Lies

Oh, what a tangled web Bush weaves.

Honestly, this may have no direct connection to Bush, but Bush has created and supported a system of deceit and lies. This merely follows along with the narrative of mendacity for the most dishonest White House since Nixon:

Officer probe demanded in Tillman case

Anger in Congress over possibility of cover-up in death

(03-28) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Members of Congress from both parties, angered by findings of an Army investigation into the 2004 friendly fire death of football star and Army ranger Pat Tillman, called on Tuesday for hearings to explore if top officers covered up the circumstances of his death.

The quick congressional reaction followed the release Monday of a Pentagon probe into Tillman's death and its aftermath that showed repeated bungling during initial military investigations and a pattern of keeping his family in the dark about how the 27-year-old Bay Area native died April 22, 2004, in Afghanistan at the hands of fellow American soldiers.

"I am disgusted, and that's the word I would use, that officers would try to cover up the truth,'' said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., a House Armed Services Committee member. "Anyone in a leadership position in the military who would cover up the truth should resign. I cannot imagine how the family would feel.''

Tillman was a true patriot, and he did not deserve this deceitful treatment by false patriots.

I do not care whether the Bush administration was directly involved in this or not because ultimately it was the Bush administration's policies of pathological lying, systematic propaganda, and covering-up the truth that set the stage for this and countless other scandals and disgraceful acts from the outing of a CIA operative to Abu Ghraib to Mark Foley to the political firings of US Attorneys.

I and many others have pointed out the many lies of the Bush administration many times, so I am not going to write another list right now. I think it is sufficient to mention that I would have a hard time coming up with a list of things that they have been right about or told the truth about.

Remember in 2000 when Bush said he was going to "clean up the White House". Well, when does he plan on starting that "clean up"? Because after spending all his time in office on making a mess out of... well, everything and bringing unprecedented digrace upon the White House (yes, even more disgrace than Monicagate), I imagine his "clean up" pledge is going to take a lot more time than he has left in his term. Or did he not mean for us to take "clean up the White House" figuratively?