The Next Step in Losing Our Freedoms

From Digital Journal comes a dark and dire warning that freedom loving Americans cannot afford to ignore.

The very freedoms that have been granted by our Bill of Rights are slowly slipping away from us. We will not lose our freedoms in one fell swoop at the passage of a law. We will not relinquish democracy at the end of a gun barrel. Our freedoms will only disappear if we freely give them away.

Currently, our own Homeland Security, and its Machiavellian policies, under the guise of protecting us against terrorism, is the agent of the demise of our freedoms and we are blissfully going along with it. The heavy-handed treatment by the Transportation Security Administration towards law-abiding citizens is in deference to political correctness. We have given up our dignity for fear of offending an ethnic group who has overwhelmingly been behind every terrorist threat against America.

So far, the invasive body scans and pat-downs only take place at U.S. airports, but rest assured, we will soon suffer this indignity at seaports, train and bus stations, and border crossings, and before you know it road blocks are going to be set up outside major cities.

Janet Napolitano has announced a despicable program by which U.S. citizens will be asked to spy on one another and rat them out to law enforcement. The act of having Americans turn on each other is another in a series of steps to allow an out of control government to crack down on our freedoms.

We are already painfully aware of how the arrogance of our political leadership has demonstrated their willingness to override what the public wants beginning with George W. Bush’s illegal declaration of war against a sovereign nation. Even though information backing his decision was found to be a fabrication we still send our fighting men and women into harms way. We have but to follow the money trail to see why this illegal war continues.

For the first time in America’s history, our leadership has denigrated itself by allowing the use of and participating in the barbaric act of torture. And still those individuals responsible have not been punished nor have any charges been brought against them. What more proof do we need that the phrase ‘human rights’ is nothing more than an empty banner to be brought out and dusted off whenever it suits us?

When a nation can so callously override civil rights and freedoms by pretending to ‘protect’ us, when a nation can so blatantly lie to the voting public without fear of punishment, that nation is on its way down the slippery slope of abandoning democracy.

The sad truth is that this new program will find eager ‘citizens’ who will gladly turn on their fellow man out of a misguided sense of patriotism. Thinking they know what’s best for this country by denying freedoms to another person is an abomination of our rights and it allows law enforcement to begin accusing citizens of crimes they may not have committed.

Once this nation begins turning on itself the descent into paranoia will lead big brother to decide that, for the good of the country, martial law needs to be imposed, curfews implemented, and citizens rounded up and placed in detention camps for an indefinite period. This has already been done during the last two presidential elections.

It is now only a matter of time before we are living under dictatorial rule, something that the Founding Fathers would have found as repulsive as it is oppressive.

If Obama Cedes Ground to Cheney, We’ll All Pay a Heavy Price

clipped from www.commondreams.org 'Every government ­assumes deeds and ­misdeeds of the past," writes Hannah Arendt in Eichmann and the Holocaust. "It means hardly more, generally speaking, than that every generation, by virtue of being born into a historical continuum, is burdened by the sins of the fathers as it is blessed with the deeds of the ancestors." For Barack Obama this cuts both ways. Talented as he is, he looks much more so when compared with the man who preceded him he has inherited the scarred landscape of his predecessor's tenure. Bush's wars, banks, car companies, secret prisons and untried prisoners are now his Soaring ­rhetoric, however hopeful about the future, cannot erase the past, which has a habit of remaining with us The Obama administration's desire to concentrate on the future is understandable. But the past has a legacy and the present has consequences. By ceding the principle to Cheney now we will all pay for it later.

Excellent commentary by Gary Younge on why we need moral leadership.

Americans are sorely lacking in moral leadership.

For fear of being labeled unpatriotic, congress allowed an illegal war in Iraq.

For fear of being labeled unpatriotic congress is allowing torture, an affront to America’s core values, to go unpunished.

For fear of being labeled unpatriotic Americans are being forced to accept that patriotism is taking on a new face.

It has now become patriotic to follow our leadership into an immoral abyss.

It is now official: we rule out of fear rather than principle. If our founding fathers were alive today, this would kill them.

Do we have the choice to turn this situation around? Yes. Do we have what it takes to pull it off? I fear the answer is no, but I hold hope that someone will find the ability to make it happen.

Where do we draw the line on torture?

Michael Vick served 19 months for torturing dogs while Dick Cheney is walking around free. Anyone care to venture a guess as to why this is business as usual?

Possible lessons learned:
1 - torturing people is okay, torturing animals is punishable.

2 - The GOP is the TORTURE-PROMOTING party!

3 – People love dogs more than their fellow humans

4 – It is more acceptable to torture Arabs than dogs?

Decide for yourself.

Cheney’s justification of torture is a house of cards

Former Vice President Dick Cheney continued his crusade to defend his position on the use of torture by speaking at the conservative American Enterprise Institute by saying: "After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked or scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed."

Basing his arguments on the lack of anther attack is flawed logic. There is no proof that another attack was planned. He is being dishonest by stating that his methods prevented another attack.

The inherent effectiveness of terrorism is that they only have to commit one heinous, murderous act to instill the fear they require as proof of their commitment to their cause. Committing this one act puts the world on notice that they are capable and willing to carry out their threats.

This resulting fear that they can do it again causes very great distress among their targeted people. But it did not have to bring about a deterioration of our core principles. That action required a paranoid, mean-spirited and short-sighted leader willing to sacrifice over 200 years of principled jurisprudence and to rip apart our core moral values. That brand of ‘leadership’ was found in the union of George W Bush and Dick Cheney.

And now to satisfy his colossal ego he continues his campaign to convince the American people, and indeed the world, that he was correct. Or is he trying to convince himself?

Why the Caged Bird Sings

What is he up to?
1) he truly believes that torture actually works and that using it doesn’t dehumanize the user
2) he is defending the legacy of an administration he ran single-handedly for eight years
3) since he is no longer in the WH he can now speak as freely as he wants

So he is either 1) selling himself to the GOP because, you know, once you have tasted power you don’t want to give it up. Or, 2) as the author states, he is scared of the public damnation that will come out against him if the public learns the extent of the barbarism that took place at Abu Ghraib.

So, from his point of view, waterboarding is very minor in comparison to what he ordered take place there. Which means Obama has now allowed himself to become a party to the disgrace that has been brought upon the U.S. by simply refusing to prosecute.

clipped from www.truthout.org Dick Cheney has been doing a lot of talking lately. From his most recent barrage of public statements, we have gleaned that he loves Rush Limbaugh, doesn't much care for Colin Powell, believes President Obama is about to sell the Sixth Fleet to the Taliban for pennies on the dollar and thinks torture is a nifty and effective tool that saves lives and defends freedom Really, this isn't anything we haven't heard before from our growly, snarly, face-blasting former vice president. But it does beg the question: What the hell is he up to?

Yes, We Did Execute Japanese for Waterboarding

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com Our country executed Japanese soldiers who waterboarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime we are now committing ourselves It's kind of awkward to argue that waterboarding is not a crime when you hanged someone for doing it to our troops On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding." Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times' truth-testing project (which this week was awarded a Pulitzer Prize), scrutinized Sen. McCain's statement and found it to be true.

The times they are a changing, and not for the better.

Americans know the difference between right and wrong but it seems our politicians have changed the criteria for when right and wrong is important.

Fossil Fuel Profits vs Human Rights

On November 4, 2007, a Buddhist monk, writing under the name U Gambira, published an op-ed in The Washington Post advocating democracy for his Southeast Asian nation of Burma.

U Gambira wrote: "It matters little if my life or the lives of colleagues should be sacrificed on this journey. Others will fill our sandals, and more will join and follow."

As U Gambria wrote, the regime already had arrested his father and brother, holding them as hostages to flush him out. It found and arrested him on the same day that his article appeared.

Since then, U Gambira has been forcibly deprived of his monastic robes and tortured in Burma’s notorious Insein Prison. A half-dozen other members of his family have been arrested or forced into internal exile. At age 29, he has been charged with “crimes” that could bring years in prison.

What are those “crimes”? Leading a non-violent demonstration protesting the oppressive rule of Burma’s military leadership and asking for something we in America take for granted: Democracy and basic human rights.

On Tuesday Nov 4, we in America exercised one of our most cherished rights, to vote a change in leadership. The people of Burma don’t have this right. If they did General Than Shwe and his band of murderous, thieving, oppressors would be ousted and the Burmese people would once again enjoy the enlightened lifestyle of a free democratic society.

The brutal and oppressive military leadership of General Than Shwe and his policies have looted and destroyed sacred monasteries in his efforts to round up political and religious leaders. He has brought Burma’s economy to its knees. They have emptied what was once considered the breadbasket of Asia to the point that it cannot feed its own people. Burma, once known as a light for education and literacy now has closed its schools and universities.

Last September, the Burmese people spoke up against General Shwe’s rule and many were imprisoned, tortured and slaughtered for it. That bloodbath brought the world’s attention to Burmese plight but very little has changed. General Than Shwe has since sought to portray this uprising as a singular event, now over. A veneer of quiet has replaced the sounds of gunfire on city streets. Unfortunately, many in the international community buy in and actively support this propaganda.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his special adviser, Ibrahim Gambari, have taken steps to open a dialogue with Burma's generals but little progress is being made.

China and Russia continue to block the UN Security Council from facilitating a dialogue between democratic forces and the regime.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations have condemned the regime's actions but have done little else.

The world's largest democracy, India, continues to provide military assistance and trade deals that help finance the regime's war on its people.

The U.S. claims to be a stalwart of human rights and yet allows human rights atrocities to continue in Burma, Zimbabwe, Tibet, etc. and even writes its laws to allow a U.S.-based corporation to profit from it.

Chevron, based in California, has been making huge profits in Burma as part owner of a natural gas project and is therefore complicit in the human rights abuses through its investment. U.S. sanctions prevent most U.S. companies from working in Burma, but Chevron's investment there existed before the sanctions were imposed and continues under a grandfather clause. The message being sent around the world is “Profit trumps human rights”.

Chevron’s answer to the many letters of protest they have received over their part in Burma is to remove all references to Burma from their webpage.

U Gambira, and many others like him, is willing to die to gain freedom for his fellow countrymen. Chevron and the U.S. is willing to let him die at the hands of a tortuous dictatorial regime in order to make a profit. Now jump to Iraq where Bush’s lies led to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians to lose their lives in a scheme to enrich his buddies in the oil and gas industry. The main difference between Bush and Shwe is the U.S. Constitution.

Is profiting from fossil fuel worth more than human lives? Those of us who live under ethical and moral standards would say "of course not". But, ask Bush and the CEO of Chevron and we get a much different answer.

Bush feigned moral outrage over Saddam Hussein’s torture of his own people and so therefore felt a "moral obligation" to "save" Iraq from Saddam’s madness. Where is that outrage now against what the Burmese are suffering from? The only difference between Iraq and Burma is that Iraq has more oil reserves.

We owe it to our own conscience to stop supporting Chevron and any other company that makes a profit on the misery of any person.

It is easy to simply buy Chevron gas with our credit card ignoring the fact that in doing so we are aiding Chevron in their complicity in the suffering that the Burmese people endure every day. It is more difficult to think about our actions, tear up that credit card, drive past every Chevron gas pump and not aid and abet in their profiting from human suffering. But really, how difficult is all of that when compared to U Gambira being tortured in a jail cell for standing up for his right to be free?

Further reading:
Words of Power
San Francisco Chronicle

More Evidence of Sanctified Civil Liberty Violations

Border Agents are now allowed to search you and your car and belongings without evidence or suspicion of wrong doing. They can make copies of anything you have in your possession including laptops, cell phones, personal papers, diaries, date books, etc. This collected personal information ends up on government databases to be added to your very own file which, of course, you cannot access but every law enforcement agency across the country can, with or without a valid reason.

If citizens were not aware that there are unethical individuals in law enforcement and scattered throughout the government who can access these files, and if we did not know that files get ‘lost’, and if we were not aware that computer files get hacked into, why would we worry? But these things have all become reality and pervasive.

First Amendment rights are one of the last protections we Americans have against this government becoming a Fascist state. And since George W Bush was first elected, his gang of neo conservatives have been relentlessly hacking away at these protections at an alarming rate.

These recent policy changes that were quietly put into effect without proper guidelines or oversight are strong reminders that freedom from government intrusion into our private lives can no longer be taken for granted.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said the updating of policies reflects an effort to be more transparent. If they are attempting to be more ‘transparent’ then why did it take a lawsuit brought against them by Asian Law Caucus and Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act to get DHS to disclose these changes? Why were these changes put into effect 'quietly' without public input or review? More double-speak from Big Brother.

In an e-mail she wrote

"to change some of the standards in its old policies reflects the realities of the post-9/11 environment, the agency's expanded mission and legal authorities, and developments in the law, including the Homeland Security Act of 2003. Although certain aspects of the policies have changed, the policies have always reflected the notion that officers have the constitutional authority to inspect information presented at the border"

Referring to the previous policy as ‘old’ connotes an outdated and therefore ineffective policy that must be updated. This old policy reflected a higher standard by Federal agents to be governed by probable cause before viewing a traveler as a suspect without probable cause. This higher standard was reflective of the population at large who used to believe that an individual was innocent until proven guilty. This notion has now been tossed aside and relegated to nostalgia along with elders are wiser and deserve to be listened to and respected.

Declaring that information is ‘presented’ at a border crossing intimates that the information is given freely by the traveler. This cannot be further from the truth. Any personal item brought to the border remains personal, and as such requires permission by the owner to be viewed by anyone else, including government agents, and is not ‘presented’ at all. Identification of the individual is ’presented’ at the officers request (demand), and everything else should remain off limits unless freely ‘presented’ by the owner.

She speaks of constitutional authority without mentioning the constitutional rights concerning privacy. This is government speak for we have the right to do and take whatever we want from anyone at anytime.

The 1986 policy, which is referred to as old, was issued after a lawsuit was filed by a group of activists returning from Nicaragua who had their diaries, datebooks and other personal papers seized and photocopied by customs officers and shared with the FBI. The government argued that the customs agency had the right to enforce a law against importing subversive literature. Their subversive literature was an attempt to inform the American public of the illegal war in Nicaragua perpetrated by our government to overthrow a freely and fairly elected Nicaraguan government.

David D. Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who was then a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, representing the activists suing the government in Heidy v. U.S. Customs Service, said

"Essentially they were using that as a pretext to do intelligence gathering on critics of our policies on Nicaragua".

As a result of that trial, U.S. Customs officials enacted guidelines to its border agents that its officers "should not read personal correspondence." With reasonable suspicion of a violation, they could detain the material. With probable cause of a violation, they could seize and copy it. These recent changes have lowered the legal standards under which agents can exercise their powers. Probable cause is no longer a hindrance to their ‘gut’ instinct.

I appreciate the task with which Homeland Security is steeling themselves for, that being to prevent another terrorist attack on American soil, but their zeal in this endeavor is treating U.S. citizens like criminals. Is there any clear evidence that they have prevented another terrorist attack? Their mindset is such that if they have not yet found evidence of an attack then they are not looking closely enough, therefore they need to step up their efforts. In the meantime, the FBI is getting closer to realizing its dream of having a dossier on every U.S. citizen.

The tenor of the way in which our elected officials view the American people has changed. No longer do government officials feel they represent us or work for us, they now view the general population as obstacles that must be overcome in order to attain their goal of a one world government. George W was elected by a right-leaning supreme court, not by popular vote. Will it happen again this election cycle? A precedence has already been set.

In light of these policy changes and the way in which Bush’s cronies have hacked away at our civil rights, the systematic shifting of powers from Congress to the Executive branch, the suspension of habeas corpus and declaration of certain prisoners as “enemies of the state”, the use of torture, the illegal warrantless spying on American citizens, the unwarranted ability to seize personal items at the borders, the selling off of America to private interests, and the recent government buyout of Wall Street, is it really any great stretch to see Fascism just on the horizon?

Nothing makes good neighbors like Waterboarding

“The U.S. does not torture prisoners!” Yeah right. Our illustrious, benevolent leader, in mustering all of his stupefying logic just vetoed a bill that would ban waterboarding.

President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks. So in his wisdom, the ends justify the means, whether it is illegal or immoral.

“The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said. The bill he rejected provides guidelines for intelligence activities and has the interrogation requirement as one provision. It cleared the House in December and the Senate last month.

How about we just allow the outright killing of any suspected terrorist? Will that make certain that we got them all? Why not just allow this stellar form of terrorist eradication, Mr. President? I’m waiting for your answer.

This guy’s lunacy continues to amaze me. He admonishes Congress for outlawing “practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe”. How dare he use “keeping America safe” as reasoning for resorting to illegal and immoral interrogation techniques? Oh, yeah, he lied to get us into this illegal war which increased terrorist activities against us which in turn prompted him to ask for more funding to fight his “war on terror” which further increases terrorist activity against us. So, yes, I see where the precedent has indeed been set.

How recent was it that he flatly denied even using waterboarding as a technique for interrogation? And now he proclaims our use of it as the most important technique to keep U.S. citizens safe. His audacity knows no bounds. He can’t even keep his lies straight so he can at least try to prevent them from coming back on him.

Please tell me how sinking to the level of these terrorists is going to make us any better.

He tries to make the distinction between “lawful combatants captured on the battlefield” and “hardened terrorists” as basis for using life-threatening procedures against a terrorists suspect and expects to get truthful responses. This means that if you wear a uniform in fighting against the U.S. then we will only declare you a prisoner of war and treat you better for it. If you don’t wear a uniform and fight against us then you will be tortured unmercifully until you tell us something that we still need to verify. If in doing so we cause more people to hate us and take up arms against us then so be it.

We have been through all of this before. Torture does not guarantee a truthful answer to the torturers questions. The person being tortures will say whatever is necessary to stop the torture.

The use of torture relegates us as hypocrites in that it undermines the U.S. when arguing overseas for human rights and other moral issues. It also places Americans at greater risk of being tortured when captured.

By vetoing Congress’s obvious condemnation of inhuman tactics, George W. Bush has single-handedly snubbed international and U.S. law, again. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 includes a provision barring cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for all detainees in U.S. custody, including CIA prisoners, which covers waterboarding.

Bush and his advisors have proven once again that they have no interest in seeking an end to hostilities with the world. In their use of animalistic and barbaric methods, by using military might and torture tactics instead of diplomacy, in order to force their policies onto the rest of the world, we are no better than the terrorists that Bush repeatedly insists is necessary for us to fight against.

The U.S. military specifically prohibited waterboarding in 2006. The CIA also prohibited the practice in 2006, and says it has not been used since three prisoners encountered it in 2003.

So, why did Bush veto practices that have already been abandoned? I think it is very possible that he is telling some other organization, that has not yet been exposed by the media, that it is okay to continue their use of it.

I hate the fact that this administrations past deviousness feeds my skepticism of anything this man does. I want to believe that we American’s are better than this. But I am constantly shown by this group of individuals that I am probably wrong.

I greatly detest George W. Bush’s vision of America. He must relish our rapid decline towards the bottom of the list of civilized nations. He has done so much to cement our position once we get there. We now grovel at ground level of what is considered acceptable human rights while demanding others ‘do as we say, not as we do’. Our only good quality is that we do not hesitate to send money to aid natural disaster victims. And even then we degrade ourselves through the mismanagement, greed and graft of the ‘helpers’ siphoning off as much money for themselves as they can.

The only way for me to understand this dichotomy of good American and low-life politician is to keep in mind that this immoral, poor excuse for a humanitarian does not represent me as an American.

Power to the People, not under this administration

After Benazir Bhutto was brutally murdered last week, the Pakistan People's Party was left without a leader.

She had named her husband Asif Ali Zardari to head the Pakistan People's Party in her will, which was read on Sunday, but he handed over the position to the couple's son, PPP official Makhdoom Amin Faheem said.

How can you ‘will’ political power to another person? And how can you just ‘hand it over’ to another person? This is not the way of true democracy.

Blood is not a deciding factor on the ability of a person to run a country. But, then again, neither is a democratically held election.

I suppose one could say that if the party accepts the person presented as the leader then democracy, in its truest sense, does exist.

This sense of true democracy is struggling in the U.S.

Bush and Cheney have created a stronger presidential office much to the detriment of democratic freedoms. Their own reasoning for their actions, of course, is to protect those same freedoms, but those freedoms are not in danger from anyone other than these two power hungry old men. This is a case of where their egos got in the way of doing what is right for this country. They have lost faith in Democracy and decided they know better than our forefathers on how to maintain and nurture democracy.

In their zeal to appear as if they were putting this nations’ security first, they grabbed a bunch of people of Arabic dissent without solid evidence of any clear terrorist ties and then held them for six years under the guise of guilt. Their guilt has never proven and habeas corpus suffered because these two old men refused to admit they could have made a mistake.

This administration has condoned torture. Sure it cannot be proven in a court of law because the very people we need as witnesses are all involved. But citizens of this country and of the world know the U.S. participated in it and perpetrated it.

I present this question to the world: which is worse, Saddam Hussein, who we all despised for his use of torture to control his citizens and ensure his reign of power, or a democratically elected president, by the way that election was disputed and not decided by the public, who looks the other way as long as torture is used for our purposes?

If any other country took American citizens and held them in prison as “enemy combatants” without proof, without any clear date set for prosecution, and used torture to extract information from them, would the American government sit back and not do anything?

This president and vice president have seen fit to set up an illegal spy network on its own citizens that reflects the FBI era of J. Edgar Hoover. This was done in the name of ‘protecting’ our freedom. As U.S. citizens learned they had their privacy invaded by this illegal network and wiretapping practice, lawsuits were filed against the communications companies that this administration used to realize their plan. The response from the administration is to change legislation to protect the communications companies! Unbelievable, but typical, Bush/Cheney tactics.

If we extend the Bush/Cheney ‘reasoning’ for warrantless wiretapping to every law enforcement entity in this country there would be spying taking place on every U.S. citizen based on whatever reason law enforcement would choose. A giant leap towards George Orwell’s 1984.

People who believe in the ‘freedom’ that our forefathers granted us should be outraged that these practices are taking place and even more outraged that they are not being stopped.

The expectation of freedom in this country has diminished greatly since these two took office.

The main danger with granting power to someone is that they don’t want to give it up. The main danger of granting power to egotistical, delusional madmen increases the danger of us losing even more of those freedoms that we have cherished for so long.

Given the general trend that this country seems to be following, that being that people are becoming more unethical, more immoral and more willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want and to hell with everyone else, will only solidify the bleak Orwellian prediction and may very well place George Orwell as a greater prophet than Nostradamus.

Administration guard dog: Mukasey

It has already started. Recently appointed lapdog replaces old lapdog. U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey rejected a congressional request for information about a Justice Department probe into the CIA's destruction of videotapes of harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists.

This congress is supposed to work together to get at the truth of any suspicious activity. When someone holds back information it can only mean one thing, damning information for someone. Now who could the U.S. Attorney General possibly be protecting?

The Democratic-led Congress has begun its own investigations of last week's disclosure that the CIA destroyed some tapes in 2005, with critics charging a possible cover-up of illegal torture.

The word transparency has been knocked about lately. Evidently the term has not yet reached the Attorney Generals office. But then, transparency has never been one of this administrations strong points.

In refusing to release information that federal investigators have dug up so far, Mukasey wrote: "The department has a long-standing policy of declining to provide non-public information about pending matters." So, it seems, tradition dictates that the U.S. Attorney General's office not cooperate with any other investigations. This department is contributing to duplication of effort forcing Congress to take up time that can be used for other endeavors.

"This policy is based in part on our interest in avoiding any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence," Mukasey added in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, and Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel's ranking Republican. Actually, sir, this policy only muddies the waters about who you are protecting, a very clear perception of political influence. It is a very common term, namely ‘Covering Your Ass’. It is also called obstruction of justice. This is another of those well-practiced double standards that you like to hang onto.

The president who cried wolf!

Here we go again. Stop the world presses! George W. Bush claims that the very security of the U.S. depends on another one of his ‘yes men’ being nominated to high office. Enough of this crap George! Judge Mukasey is no more ‘crucial’ to the security of this country than I am. I at least know that waterboarding is torture and am not afraid to say so. And the fact that you call him a good man raises nothing but serious doubt on whether we can trust him.

Bush continually over-uses national security to bully his way into getting what he wants. I can’t wait for this petulant old man to be booted out of office at the next presidential election. It is my intense desire to see this little man and his embarrassing cohorts put out of office before that if Congress would only scrape together enough guts and integrity to do so.

Please spare us from having to listen to this delusional chicken little spouting off his paranoid crap about how the world will fall apart if we don’t accept his nominee or if his intelligence legislation isn’t passed or if we don’t throw more wasted billions of dollars at his dirty little illegal war.

Bush has the audacity to say that “Congress should not go home for the holidays while our men and women in uniform are waiting the funds they need.” This coming from a man who has taken more time off from his duties than any other president in U.S. history.

I pray to God that the next president knows how to righteously use diplomacy with the rest of world so that we don’t have to suffer the indignities of being viewed as thinking we are better than everyone else. This man knows nothing of how to get along with the world except through use of threat. I am embarrassed, as an American citizen, every day he and Cheney remains in the White House.