Be sure to watch for re-runs of the Iraq-invasion 5th-anniversary Frontline presentation of Bush’s War for the whole story of the Bush/Cheney constitutional and political abuse, which originally aired Monday, March 24 on PBS stations.  Then, contact your congressional representatives and DEMAND the ONLY recourse that can forever separate America from the criminal actions and immoral legacy of this administration:  the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

Thesis Statement | Academic Argument | Central Idea

The Bush-Cheney administration is a corrupt, criminal, and treasonist facilitator for the capitalist extreme that has not only used people as parts of the machinery of profit, but also the national heritage, lifeblood, and future.

What follows is not, in the strict sense, structured to comply with the norms of academia.  It is best categorized as “editorial journalism,” wherein facts are checked, fiction avoided, sources usually provided in some form, and wherein, through the Bush first term, as exposed in Spring of the Dying Roses, to the here and now, the abuse and utter waste of the Bush-Cheney Republican governance is called into question and condemnation, and to account, with apologies to McCarthy, as the greatest plague ever to shroud the light of freedom and democracy in America.

The Bush library should be built on a barge with a framework of Twin Towers steel, the smoke from which obscured the Bush-Cheney subterfuge of the Iraq invasion and occupation, towed to deep water and dumped to sink into the abyss and lie there among the ruin they desecrated, where they and their Republican Congress dedicated themselves to anchor America.

But there may be hope that there will be no Bush library, because finally, only a few days after former press secretary Scott McClellan’s book was released, confirming numerous Bush-administration transgressions from an insider perspective, Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-OH) 35-count impeachment resolution was read into the record of the House of Representatives, by numerous clerks, over a near five-hour period, and later voted to be referred to the judiciary committee.  In the face of the facts outlined in the 35 counts, and the baseless charges under which President Clinton’s impeachment charges were voted to trial in the Senate, it is difficult to imagine that Democratic leaders, particularly House Speaker Pelosi, could continue to justify stonewalling impeachment proceedings on the basis of a fear to rock the boat and derail whatever Republican support for Democratic programs may remain after the next election, because as a metaphor for the Ship of State or a train, under Bush, Cheney, and their rubberstamp, Republican majority in Congress, the ship has already sunk and the train is already off the tracks.  Impeachment of the pair would accomplish the important and necessary task of forever separating America from sanction of their abuses and crimes.

McCain’s fear-mongering, false visions, promises
and truths—seeks to justify a bad end built on lies.

Presidential candidate Senator Obama and others who said the “surge” would not work were not wrong.  McCain, rather, is wrong to say it has worked.  That is a deception.  Deaths of U.S. soldiers have yet to drop lower than any point after the invasion (see chart below), and the insurgents and Iraqi factions are simply saving themselves in anticipation of a post-election draw-down and eventual removal of occupation troops, ending a costly, damaging travesty that should have never been permitted to happen, a crime that will only be made right by ending it, once and for all.  The soldiers and funds being wasted in Iraq have far better and more justified uses elsewhere.

If American voters are ignorant enough to elect yet another Republican, industrialist front into the White House, with McCain at the helm, then the conflict in Iraq will escalate to a level of violence yet to be seen, and the death toll of U.S. soldiers will reach new and extended highs as the factions opposed to the U.S. occupation, with nothing to gain and everything to lose, will put their all into inflicting as much punishment and interference as possible, on an extended basis.  It, along with the election of McCain, will mark the beginning of the darkest chapter in the ongoing Iraq nightmare, set upon Americans by the Bush-Cheney, McCain-Lieberman Republicans.  And, yes, Lieberman should be perceived as a Republican, and it would be no surprise if he winds up as McCain’s running mate, as the Republicans try to suck in Obama-disaffected Independent and Democratic voters.

Saturn 5 / Apollo on the pad.

The desperation and frustration over the lack of solutions for the jump-start rise in oil prices to stratospheric levels has prompted many pundits, newscasters, and moderators to raise the parallel of President John Kennedy’s beyond-stratospheric, 1961 mandate, “to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the decade,” as the kind of commitment that would provide a like-successful result if only leaders would pick up that kind of deadline with regard to solving the energy problem.  The kink, of course, of which none who pose the question address or seem aware, is that Kennedy had a big advantage backing up his bold mandate:  he had a plan, a program, and an apparatus in place (NASA) to carry it out.  The same kind of bold mandate for energy is not possible, except as political window dressing, where there is no plan, no program, and no apparatus capable of achieving the end-game, as is the case when McCain claims he will solve the problem by simply naming the needed components, without having any way to create them.  Here, then, is the challenge for Senator Obama after he becomes president:  to set the goal, put the minds and industries together to develop the plan, design the program, and build the apparatus to take on the mission to carry out that plan to a successful conclusion.  How to do this is the only realistic campaign promise that can be made with respect to the energy crisis.

And yes, America must take control of its own energy future, as McCain says, and as Obama agrees, but not at the cost of radiated cities and counties, ruined shorelines and damaged fisheries, as Bush and McCain would have it, with the electric and oil companies quickly let loose to repeat their past disasters.  Could it be that the sudden and steep rise of oil prices, coinciding with the end of the oil-men Bush/Cheney White House term, is a manipulated backdrop to the Bush push, as a last gift to his favorite industrial constituency, for Congress to drop the offshore-drilling ban?  Could that have been the purpose of the visit Bush recently made to his hand-holding, cheek-kissing Saudi family, rather than to push for lower prices and increased production?  It is highly advantageous for the Saudis and other oil producers to have the price precipitously rise before small output increases are made, as has just been announced, since the producers can keep the new, higher prices in place no matter if America taps its reserves to drastically reduce imported demand, because the Saudis know their reserves are not endless and would prefer that the export pressure ease at the higher prices so the return on the reserves, at the higher prices, will be extended.  But, regardless, before nuclear power and domestic oil reserves can be tapped, which would not significantly impact fuel prices (eliminate speculative trading for that), there must be in place strict controls, oversight, and adequate funding and preparations to prevent and then contain and clean-up the disasters that will come, regardless of how comprehensive and broad the protections put in place, to include community reparations—a good purpose for energy windfall-profit taxes.  Obama will see to it that the table is set before the repast the energy companies crave is served, and that is what this election is all about, reining in the public-interest stomping profit-stampede of the Bush/McCain-Republican special interests and replacing it with the people’s welfare and interests first.  Only then, with the people in control, is it possible for America to be the master of its own fate.

Aside from the discarded constitutional imperatives and historical guidance which are at the core of such a wrong move, as Iraq, and the wrong motives for invading, No End in Sight documents how, after all the basic wrongs, the wrong deed is also wrongly executed by America’s wrong choice for a Republican president.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.  The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.  It thus becomes vitally important for the state to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the [authoritarian] state.

— Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler’s Chief of Propaganda

Scott McClellan, former Bush “Propaganda Chief” stonewalling the press.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s labeling, in his new book memoir, What Happened:  Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, of the Bush justification for invading Iraq as “propaganda and deception,” is a kindly version of a darker truth, for which there is no defense McClellan or the Bush administration (or the press) can mount, and McClellan should donate every cent he nets on his book to the immediate families of soldiers killed in Iraq, where government insurance is unconscionably inadequate.  Secretary of State Rice is nearly equally complicit with Bush and Cheney in the Iraq deception and so can do nothing except try to condemn McClellan’s attempt to rectify his contribution to the lie.  By calling the war and occupation in Iraq “necessary,” she is also defending herself against the indefensible wasting of more than 4,100 American lives and so much more death, injury, and anguish, for which the rest of her days spent in the darkened, basement-janitor’s closet of her favorite department store would not begin to atone.

Click to join the petition to end the Bush colonial occupation of Iraq.

Click to send a free card of thanks to the troops.

Meet the Bastards
The abusive Burmese military junta (above left) and its boss, Senior Gen. Than Shwe (above right).

Burma’s military “government” is committing nature-assisted genocide on its country’s people.  The military generals of that abusive regime sit in isolated splendor and refuse post-typhoon aid at what will be the cost of thousands of additional lost lives, contorting a natural disaster into a man-made affront to humanity.  No ruling structure such as theirs should be permitted to exist anywhere in the world.

If Bush had stopped, in Iraq, at the removal of Saddam, instead of pursuing his special-interest, nation-building agenda, a simple warning to the Burmese ruling criminals would likely have been sufficient to force an alteration of their pattern of greed and corrupted power toward their people.  Bush and Cheney, in throwing out the “might for right” mantle that was in America’s grasp after 9/11, by their abuse of power in Iraq, are also responsible for the lives lost at the hand of the Burmese junta, which they otherwise may have stayed.  The isolated Burmese regime’s compound should be invaded, the rulers who are not killed should be extradited for trial by the World Court to answer for the dead they have caused, and a more humanely-oriented military officer, with approval of the remaining echelon of the military command, should be designated to lead the country, with notice that if the relationship of the government to its people and the world remains unchanged, that the new leadership will also be removed.  And so would end another abomination in the life of the world.

Bush, at the 2008 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, conducting
what can only be a dirge mourning the dead masses and a tattered Constitution.

The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, in the Bush-Cheney administration, has become a beacon upon the failure of the press to meet its obligation to democracy.  Why would the association hold a dinner and invite Bush and Cheney to attend in their final term?  A “do not attend” notice is what should have been delivered to the pair, and if that would be too blunt for the social sensibilities of a press corp that has been treated as so much sticky stuff on the soles of administration shoes, then the event should have simply been cancelled, which would have sent an even more powerful message.  It is, after all, Bush and Cheney who have used and abused the press through two terms in office, who have embarrassed the press through the sheer magnitude of propagandized dung they have dropped as they walked all over the press as though it was a carpet of straw in the Bush ranch stable.  The New York Times recognized this when they questioned attending the event in 2007 and withdrew for the final Bush-Cheney-attended trough-fest.

If the Congress refuses to impeach the pair for their multiple crimes in office, then at least, Americans (journalists and celebrities) of conscience (where the hundreds of thousands who will never be seen again are more important than a chance to be seen) should have followed the NY Times’ lead and impeached them by withdrawing their participation in the event which, with the attendance of the criminals, overlooks the torture, the illegal wiretaps, the lies, the tilt of the system against the most needy, the more than 4,100 dead soldiers in an illicit war, and which by attending, lends to the criminals an impression that what they have done to America and the dead and maimed is acceptable.  Honorees should refuse to accept presentations from the pair, coverage of the event should have been shunned, though the comedic host, Craig Ferguson (who properly managed to visit a few uncomfortable moments upon the criminals there, and the pliant press), reminds that coverage was practically shunned by TV, and those who did attend should question their priorities and the message they sent by showing up without a protest sign, the message that they send by attending any such event that appears to sanction or turn a blind eye to the devastation wrought by the two White House criminals and their accomplices.

A conscience is a terrible thing to lose, and there was no conscience in sharing a press event with the perpetrators of the most horrific and unconscionable American acts the hosts have ever been better used to effect a failure of bringing to account.

The Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. is not anti-American.  He speaks for the American conscience, from the perspective of the whole of America’s history, the good and the bad of it.  His seeming repetitive remarks, “God damn America,” were not the angry and vindictive words of a violent spirit, as those who isolated those words from their context intended they be so perceived.  Rather, they were an explanation for a real part of the reasons America now faces real anger and violence, a partial answer to the question, “why?”  And it is not an answer that is easy to accept when the American myth is put behind the whole and sometimes-ugly truth of America’s history and growth.

Wright has been criticized, not only wrongly for the false images his words paint, taken out of context, but, perhaps, rightly, because of the severity with which he presents his arguments and the hard truths.  But the fact is that the issues of which he spoke, when he tagged each with the repeated phrase, “God damn America,” are severe, each and every one he cited, from the mass murder and displacement of the Native American nations, “God damn America,” to the kidnapping and enslavement of African American forebearers, “God damn America,” to the bombing of civilians in Granada, Panama, Libya, and Africa, “God damn America,” to the internment of Japanese Americans, and more, “God damn America.”  Perhaps, on the other hand, he is right to try, through his angry rhetoric, to evoke the emotional level of feeling those acts of brutality and, as he also put it, “terror” demand, so that they will be better perceived and understood, and to have Americans look at America through the eyes of the people of the rest of the world, and true history, where, spin aside, there are consequences and America is also guilty of that which it disdains.  Yet, even so, he was not calling for anyone to damn America with his words, but, instead, as was clear when the whole context of his sermon is heard, he was saying that God is supreme, not nations, which disappoint and do wrong, and he was speaking of that which God sanctions, and that which God does not, and that for those acts of fear, hatred, and violence he cited against America’s governments, God would not bless America.  And there are numerous other instances of American offense against other cultures and nations he could have cited, like the taking of the Texas territories from Mexico, Blackwater mercenary murders, the imposition of cultural mores viewed as immoral upon other societies, exploitation of foreign resources without consideration of the impacted local needs or economies, all of which are also a part of what Wright described as a metaphor for 911, where [along with illegal immigration by Mexico] “the chickens have come home to roost.”

Wright has also been criticized for supporting Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, but again, when he defines his statements, he says that he supports the good works that Farrakhan has done for the people of his church, in helping to provide relief, and that the good works on the ground are what matter more than what Farrakhan says.

Ronald Kessler, writing for NewsMax, twists a Wright background of good schools and a good home with working parents, as the basis for calling Obama’s defense of some of Wrights’s positions, based on first-hand experience of the hardships of the early years of the black-rights movement, as a lie.  By Kessler’s reasoning, because one doesn’t personally live in the gutter, one can’t be strongly moved, sympathetic, and supportive of those who do. Where would that place Kennedy, Johnson, Kerry, or any of a host of millionaires who, in government and industry, have helped to bring about greater equality for blacks?  This false claim of an Obama lie places Kessler’s “journalism” in the gutter where it should receive no sympathy, and it also reveals Kessler to be biased and highly motivated to stain Obama in any way possible.  Perhaps a mirror would be an appropriate night-stand accessory when Kessler reads of Wright’s recounting of the wrongs of the white man?

Wright condemns the WWII dropping of the atomic bombs, weapons of mass destruction, on Japanese cities, not because he would wish, instead, to see thousands more soldiers die in the taking of the main island, but because one of the bombs could just as easily have been dropped down the crater of Mt. Fuji to demonstrate the destruction further resistance would incur, saving at least one city and its population from the terror that was inflicted.  Or, a remnant Japanese fleet could have been made to completely vanish in a single stroke.  The justification that the entire Japanese populace were soldiers just doesn’t wash, and the point is that there were other options that could have been taken instead of the outright destruction of two cities and a resultant quarter-million civilian casualties—men, women, and children.  And there is, in any case, significant opinion that the government wanted to obtain evidence of the effect of the new weapon upon a city and its population.  These were acts precipitated by white men upon what was, then, openly referred to as an inferior race, much as were the black slaves perceived, as blacks still are, in a society where such opinion is, for the most part, driven underground, not that, had there been black equality and qualified blacks in place, they, too, would not have been party to the developments and decisions made.  Just as there are monsters, hidden within each soul in every nation’s populace, they so exist and exert their will in governments, which is more to Wright’s point.  The current evidence of such monstrous motivation is written in the blood, despair, ash, and smoke of Iraq, and within the darkened homes of its victim’s families.

As to the exaggerations about Wright’s claim the U.S. infected blacks with AIDS, it is ludicrous, and it is not what Wright said.  Wright said that he believes the government... the government, which is not the American people, and which is not God, which does do wrong, which has done great wrongs, which invaded Iraq, where the killing in uncountable, that he believes that government could do anything, including introducing HIV, not that it did, and he said that based on Tuskegee, and based on the revelations of other government activities in Leonard Horowitz’s book Emerging Viruses: AIDS And Ebola : Nature, Accident or Intentional? and Harriet Washington’s Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present.  Is there really any reason to assume that there is a limit to what governments, unchecked and unbalanced will do, today vs. the past?  All protections have failed with Bush/Cheney.  The expected benefit gained for the blooded names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall, an end to unjustified wars, has vanished as a lesson never learned, with no enforcement of constitutional restraints to prevent the continued terror that is Iraq.

Rev. Wright has also been attributed with anti-Semite remarks, but how would that claim stand against his constant support of the right of Israel to exist, or what he has said is his core belief, that the prophetic tradition of the black church goes back to the Hebrews?

“I take and trace the theology of the black church back to the prophets in the Hebrew bible and to its last prophet, in my tradition, the one we call Jesus of Nazareth.  The prophetic tradition of the black church has its roots in Isaiah, the 61st chapter, where God says the prophet is to preach the gospel to the poor and to set at liberty those who are held captive.  The prophetic theology of the black church is not only a theology of liberation; it is also a theology of transformation, which is also rooted in Isaiah 61, the text from which Jesus preached in his inaugural message as recorded by Luke.  When you read the entire passage from either Isaiah 61 or Luke 4... what you see is God’s desire for a radical change in a social order that has gone sour.  God’s desire is for transformation, changed lives, changed minds, changed laws, changed social orders and changed hearts in a changed world.

“These two foci of liberation and transformation have been at the very core of the United Church of Christ since its predecessor denomination, the Congregational Church of New England came to the moral defense and paid for the legal defense of the Mende people aboard the slave ship Amistad... [and] as it has fought against racism in the United States of America ever since the union which formed the United Church of Christ in 1957.”

With a self-image of one who is historically ordained to throw off the shackles of repressive authority and reform the status quo, it is no surprise that his rhetoric is scathing, forceful, and unforgiving of past atrocities.  But look beyond the segregated media clips and the at-arms vindicta angelus persona of the pulpit, and the Rev. Wright will be found to be intelligent, soft-spoken, and motivated by the same values and aspirations as any other American religious leader, teaching the same path of peace and love that any American church aspires for its congregations and the lives of people throughout the world.  It is quite a departure from the picture of a black radical, preaching violence against white America that the media clips, pushed for political gain by Sen. Clinton (“you pick your church”), by racists, Republican neo-cons and religious-rightists, and facilitated by the corporate-establishment media, would have you believe.

Sen. Obama chose to avoid the minefield of trying to defend Wright’s isolated words within the context they were spoken, and it seems unlikely Obama would ever turn his back on such a man of teaching and peaceful intent.  Instead, Obama chose to speak through a political megaphone and simply condemn the words, as they were hurled at him, apart from their true intent, and not the man, until more misunderstood rhetoric from Wright’s self-defense made less-stringent replies impossible, because no candidate can campaign as an educator and interpreter of any faith, particularly one so aggresively flamboyant, and because an expanded condemnation would be the most immediate, and the most understood path of response to Wright for those multitudes who understand the least.  The media lynching of Rev. Wright, and by association, Sen. Obama, using a frayed and fragmented rope of Wright’s words, suspended from a sensationalist limb of the tree of consolidated media, is nothing more than a fabrication, spun by multiple factions in an attempt to fear-monger votes away from America’s first presidential candidate of Black heritage, and it will not stand up to the basest form of scrutiny.

Wishful remembrance vs. the ABC Presidential “tent-revival” debate (?)

Thanks to the lying, murdering, tobacco-industry executives, who feed their greed with the lives of those who matter so much to so many, as the moderators of the April 16, 2008, ABC circus (or tent revival) debate(? — one of the most abused words on TV news), there were George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson, who are NOT real journalists, who do not know what it means to represent the people when confronting authority or would-be authority, and so there was little hope of anything except a vent on trivial, late-night-talk-show minutia which, combined with the ad-revenue, bottom-line priority of ABC, left only a commercial-ridden, ineptly conceived and executed waste of time and opportunity, squandered by a production in service to the glib interests of a self-interested, establishment media, which it would be safe to say caused Peter Jennings (and the Founders) to turn in their graves to another channel, and a presentation which seems to have been in line with the interests and realizations of the masses who elected George Bush, Tricky-Dick Cheney, and a gang of Republican congressional rubber-stampers to repeated terms in office.

The religious right, on the other hand, are no doubt delighted at the level to which constitutional, religious autonomy and equality were gang-raped and mutilated during the proceeding.

Thanks to the likes of Republicans (above) Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Steve Chabot, and Sen. George Voinovich
Columbia astronauts’ deaths are turned into a big payday for wealthy landowners.

An Exposé report on the PBS broadcast of Bill Moyers Journal, Cash Cows and Cowboy Starter Kits exposed how well-organized agro-business lobbies have bought Congress and its agriculture-committee members with $80 million in lobbying.  The result is manipulative farm subsidies that pay from tens of thousands to ten-million dollars to each of the organized, wealthy landowners who have gross incomes, separate from subsidies, of from $125,000 to several $million, living in mansions, on farm land where no crops are grown, just because their counties have been declared a disaster area for some reason, including for recovery of destroyed space-shuttle parts, despite that they, the privileged beneficiaries of America’s widening wealthy-poor economic gap, suffered no losses.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has towed the Bush corporate-wealthy line throughout his Senate career, who was elected by and is supposed to represent citizens in one of the nation’s poorest states, leads the placement and support for this kind of immoral abuse in a farm-subsidy system that pays wealthy land owners instead of helping poor farmers who really need the help.  And into the current farm bill, which contains further unwarranted increases, and which is now being debated for passage, this term, with no consideration by leaders on either side for reductions in wasteful abuse, McConnell has extended his taxpayer handouts to the wealthy with his subsidized steeple chase, which will benefit the owners of race horses.  The Republican government of Bush-Cheney, in concert with rubber-stamp, elected officials like McConnell, the Ohio delegation’s Republican Senator Voinovich and Republican Representative Steve Chabot, have converted the deaths of the seven Columbia astronauts into a Livestock-Compensation-Program-payment windfall of $5 million to their wealthy contributors, through their facilitation, since 2001, of more than $15 billion in abusive, unwarranted farm-subsidy payments, one-sixth of the national farm-subsidy total during that period.  And there will be no chance for honest, representative government, free of greed-based, blood-sucking influence peddling until they and their ilk are thrown out office for good.

A critical mass of Bush-Cheney “defining moments.”

The surge-shaking offensive, described by Bush as “one of many defining moments,” that has been launched against Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehidi militia is all about the writing on the wall.  If it is to be believed that the Bush-Cheney gang did not authorize it or know of it, then it is Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who is reading the wall, where it is written that he will not be able to count on the presence of U.S. troops to keep him in power after the elections, and that he had best use American blood now, while he can, to ensure the elimination of his greatest adversary’s means to challenge his authority.  For al-Maliki to strike out against al-Sadr, making himself a larger target, seems a more courageous act than he has previously demonstrated the metal to initiate, and to do it without the consult or approval of his Bush-administration supporters seems even more against his grain.

Aggressive acts are, on the other hand, commonplace for the Bush administration:  aggression against other nations, aggression against the concept of co-equal branches of his own government, i.e. aggression against the Constitution, and aggression against the courts and the people.  The transgressions of the Bush-Cheney administration have left their marks upon all of these, and upon the families of more than 4,100 dead American soldiers, and rising, and untold hundreds of thousands of others.  So it is much easier to believe that Bush and Cheney are reading the writing and planned the offensive in hopes of eliminating, before elections, the greatest threat to their planted Iraqi government’s survival, thereby providing a chance that the commercial foothold established for their industrial base will have a chance to survive beyond the end of their term.  And it is far easier to believe that Bush pressured al-Maliki to begin the offensive, guaranteeing him the lives of as many American solders as it would take for him to succeed.  And according to reports, the bottom line on the strife, and on the lost American lives that will be claimed, will be to settle an Iraqi squabble over control of oil and electrical resources.

In any case, the Shia-on-Shia offensive, regardless of who started it and why, has proven that the alleged “success” of the surge is just another euphemism for an ephemeral spin device which is out of U.S. control and, from the Bush perspective on judgement, is what passes to the nation as the dire truth upon which all “defining moments” are constructed and acted upon.

The answer to southwest and western states providing college-educational assistance to mostly Mexican illegal immigrants, or for any state, or to any nationality, especially if they are exceptional academicians, is to send them back to Mexico, or to whatever nation they belong, because their countries and the futures of their countries need them more than America, which cannot afford them and has more demand from citizen students than can be addressed.  The only acceptable solution, other than deportation, is for their countries to pay for their educations, where enrollments are available without denying citizen applicants, on the assurance that after graduating in America the students will return to their countries to work and help them become better places for all of their citizens.  These outstanding illegal-immigrant students are leaders who can help improve conditions in their countries, reducing the trend to immigrate illegally, but who, if they remain, only diminish opportunity for American students and graduates, and it is both as wrong and as much a disservice to both America and their home nations for American states to fund them or to allow employers to exploit their post-education talents as it is to diminish citizen-student opportunity to educate them in competition against citizens in a climate of increasing cost and diminishing college-application acceptances.

Sen. Barack Obama and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden

It was published here first.  But would Biden take the heartbeat slot?

Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and Barack Obama would be a perfect match, with Biden filling in and rounding out the ticket with maturity, undisputed top-level foreign-relations skills and contacts, and with the wide respect of national officials on both sides of the aisle and of international leaders, he would be an impossible target for baseless Republican attacks.  He is informed on science and environmental issues, is an expert and professor on constitutional law, all of which will be important aspects of the next president’s term, and the usual duties of the vice president, from presiding over the Senate, to executive stand-in and emissary, to national ambassador, all are uniquely matched to Biden’s strengths.  Both men will compliment one another, will play well off of each other, and Biden will appeal to most Americans and all who are concerned about experience.

Nebulous warnings of impending homeland terrorist attacks are, coincidentally, increasing from various quarters of the Bush administration since Bush’s endorsement of John McCain as the candidate for the nation’s next Republican war lord and Constitution shredder.  In line with all past efforts to achieve their expansionist aims, be it expanding Republican presence in office or administration nation/empire-building goals in Iraq, Bush and the Republicans continue to stress what they allege to be the greater Republican security capability by use of fear mongering, which began the newest phase with Bush’s endorsement speech, which was loaded with more threats of violence than have been heard from Bush and Cheney’s al Qaeda opposites all year.  The sun was shining on the White House back patio for the endorsement press announcement, but the sight of the two Republicans trying to secure a grip on prospective voters was clouded by the ugliness of spewing fear and lies which have become as predictable from this gang as Old Faithful’s beautiful-but-foul sulfur discharges.

FEAR-MONGERING ALERT
Terrorist level still at permanent ORANGE since they’re ALWAYS trying to get us (from both sides).

At least all the Bush-Cheney fear mongering over the years has made American’s near deaf to the threat of violence, which is real, but which will remain no more or less so until the Wizard of Katrina Response is finally replaced, at which point, the Department of Homeland Security can only improve from the pitiful state (for which it has been stringently criticized by the OMB and others) in which Bush and its secretary, Michael Chertoff have constructed and operated it.  The Republican departure will afford America almost immediate increased safety from that avenue alone.  But as long as the Taliban, the system of tribal authorities and drug financing that dominate that region, and as long as the U.S. maintains a military presence with goals in economic self- or special-interest rather than defense-interest, and as long as the U.S. supports oligarchies and kingdoms with the foul politics of the past, there will be the war against the radical Muslims and their criminal allies.  The consequence will, inevitably, be a successful attack initiated by some U.S. based or infiltrated group, and eventually a serious one.  No party, no president can prevent it, and the chances increase as time goes by, leaving no administration open to claim success or failure.  And the threat will remain until the conditions that have been permitted to exist and expand, facilitated by U.S. influence, ignorance, and unbalanced self-interest, are ended.  Even a total withdrawal from Iraq followed with a like focus of offensive attention on the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan will not secure a victory, unless the U.S. is willing to do the job on its own, utilizing the powerful “with us or against us” resolve to eliminate the source of mass attack on the U.S., resolve that the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq made into impotent, empty words and squandered.  Only that kind of resolve, to face down non-cooperative leaders in Pakistan and elsewhere, resolve to bring an end to the tribal system and the poppy fields by direct force of U.S. arms, not by deals with groups and alliances with sects that cannot be trusted and that will not form the basis of a new, more progressive order when the means and will to resist are decimated.  Without this kind of rekindled initiative, America will simply be trading two interminable wars for one, and the orange terror level will remain permanently lit, with occasional upgrades to red that will run into the streets.

Bush and Cheney have created and left for the next president and the American people as difficult a world and domestic stage to navigate as has ever confronted any new administration in America’s relatively short history, and the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress, who to this day continue to shirk their constitutional oversight responsibilities, will remain wholly responsible for every failure and consequence of tragedy that is traced to be a repercussion of their tainted regime.  Those repercussions could domino for decades, or longer, and whomever the Democratic president is, there will be cause for the finger pointed to the past, for which the sign over the door to any Bush library should remind:

The blame stops here.

Democratic presidential candidates overshadow Republicans
McCain’s fear-mongering, false vision, promises—more of the same, good for the few and bad for the rest.

“The American century is over,” is the phrase of a TV advertisement that recently played; its opposition:  the Obama conjecture of hope.  That ad concludes that the instrument of glorious enlightenment the Founders set upon the world when they cast off their shackles and lit the torch of freedom in the New World has been darkly turned upon itself in near-null accomplishment after more than two centuries of blood, sweat, and hope.  And, in fact, government and the election process has been bought by influence peddlers and turned against the people, not only because Republicans, acting in the interest of their greed-based, corporate/industrial and world-shaping theologies, gave away the American market, but because they also gave away the nuts and bolts holding together the engine driving that market.

Republican front-runner McCain, being confronted on his close involvement with lobbyists, defends them and refuses to further discuss his ties, saying that he will only address issues important to the nation and the people.  Among the Democrats, Clinton has also defended the system and is more entrenched into its machinery than Obama, in fact, only distancing herself in response to Obama’s continuing string of primary victories, casting doubt as to whether her words would translate into action if she were elected.  What McCain, Clinton, and all politicians who feed and are fed by the election and influence machines fail to grasp is that Americans are sick of their government being bartered and their interests residing in the darkened pockets of the powerful, through their lobbyists and contributions, and their grasp upon their elected officials.  These politicians, influence peddlers, and wealthy vote buyers, not China, N. Korea, Iran, or al Qaeda, are the greatest threat confronting democratic government and the American people.

Fearful, self-serving, herding voters, along with conspiring and rubber-stamp legislators let the politicians and influence peddlers rape them, again and again.  These Republicans, in the last seven years particularly, but also through the previous Bush and Reagan years, have, through their corrupted, special-interest-aimed goals and policies, closed the door on democratic principle because they found, with unrecognized shortsightedness, that it greased their bottom line to act with greater allegiance to the dollar and their new-world, market vision than to their nation and its heritage.  They have sewn such seed of discriminate growth that the fruit has waned for all but themselves, and yet, with callous regard for truth and need, they still spill forth lies to starving children, promises of milk, long soured, in desperate hope of grasping yet another turn at the table, their closed hands tight upon the jar of sweet, golden honey they have so stingily, wastefully harvested.

Mitt Romney’s promise of jobs in Michigan was one such case, which would only happen if the direction of revolution Republicans have set upon the world reverses its spin.  John McCain’s promise of victory in an immoral, criminal, unconstitutional war is another, that would only happen if all disaffected Muslims decided to answer their hatred and affront with resignation instead of determined confrontation and aggression.  Even if American families would give up their children in McCain’s 100-year search for the Republican Middle-East obsession, that day will not come to pass.  His most recent claim, initiated last month, is the comforting, flip-side of his and the Bush-Cheney al Qaeda fear-mongering coin, that (despite his 100-year affirmation) the occupation in Iraq is close to being over.  That is nothing more than a dreamy but ludicrous election sound byte intended to diminish the greatest obstacle he faces in attracting voters, designed and coordinated to be played in tandem with Iraqi PM al Maliki’s claim that Iraq is now stable, despite that hundreds of Iraqis continue to die every month; stable, despite that ethnic cleansing has moved major populations out of Baghdad and the country, the greatest factor in reduced capital violence, and Republicans still paint their rosy picture, tinted with blood, as the unending climb in the toll of American dead and wounded continues, unabated, and despite that al Qaeda in Iraq will remain as long as Americans are occupiers and nation builders there—a fact McCain tried to use against Obama while shrugging off responsibility for the Iraq-al Qaeda tragedy simply as a “that was then” triviality.

Both Obama and Clinton responded to a loaded hypothetical question posed by MSNBC’s Tim Russert during the 2008 Cleveland debate.  Russert asked if the candidates would send troops back into Iraq after removing them, if after troops were gone, al Qaeda set up a base there.  It was a loaded question because, for Clinton, a woman, her positive answer was necessary to show strength and willingness to use the military.  For Obama, the positive answer was necessary because of racist-based rumors and lies that have been spread regarding his political and religious background and upbringing, requiring him to demonstrate that he has no consideration for the Muslim extreme and would not hesitate to move against them.  The fact is that both Clinton and Obama gave the wrong answer to the question, and it is troubling, because the question opened the door for the candidates to address a legal issue and an abuse of power that has put America in its present quagmire.  The correct answer would have been something like this:

“Tim, if my top cabinet and military advisers and I agreed that there was such a presence, and that it posed a threat to the security of the United States, or to allies with whom we have defense treaties in place, then I would use all avenues available to convince Congress of the threat and the need to address it.  And if that threat was real, I’m sure Congress would be persuaded to also recognize it and then give the authority needed for me, as Commander in Chief, to order the military against that threat in Iraq, in conformity with the goals and limits, if any, they specify in their authorization.”

Of course, John McCain would never think to say anything like this, because he, like Bush and Cheney, believes that the president has the power of a Hitler, Stalin, or George III (who was in the minds of the Founders when they denied war power to the executive) when it comes to exercising military power, when in fact, despite McCain’s claim to the contrary, the Constitution provides the executive almost no authority at all in terms of initiating any kind of military action, reserving all war powers, save one, to Congress.  Most presidents, either party, are reluctant to concede anything that diminishes their authority or options, and the Founders understood that unfortunate inclination of those in power and determined to eliminate it in their new democratic government.  In their day, and still, by the word of the Constitution, it would not be possible for George Bush to thumb his nose at the people and Congress and declare himself to be the great decider of whether or not to end the bloodshed in Iraq.  It is only possible today because Congress allows it, with silence and 60-vote rules that dilute the Constitutional authority of the majority in Congress.

Obama’s campaign has hinged on change, and Clinton’s has picked up the word as she has been forced to run in the dust of its track through the race.  It would have been nice if either of them had given the correct answer to the question, because the abuse of war power, not only through use of the military, but also by the creation of quasi-military forces (Blackwater) to skirt Constitutional requirements for congressional funding and authority, are one of the old ways that needs most to be changed.

The military abuses of a Republican president and Republican-controlled Congress are the most severe of many that have clouded the sun from America’s future vision.  But, despite Republican promises, the sun will not begin to rise in the west, and the lion will neither starve nor lie with the lamb, except to dine upon it.  Both Republican candidates have been made irrelevant by the starkly tragic and costly era of arrogant, unenlightened, self-interested, and incompetent Republican governance they seek to extend.  Like failed Bush appointees left in the wake of resignation departures (the latest being over more Republican corruption with HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson), culpable Republicans and the thinning field of their supporters, still astray, do not see and will never acknowledge their failure.

Now Mitt Romney is where he was always headed, and where Huckabee and McCain will respectively follow:  out.  But Romney’s delusional, self-aggrandizing departure statement, that continuing his campaign would be “contributing to the surrender to terror,” is like Bill Clinton saying that his unbridled activism in his wife’s campaign can only land her in the Oval office.  Romney has revealed the character flaws of inability to admit failure or to talk straight, which he shares with McCain, and America has already endured two terms too many where those traits have dominated White House actions and inaction.  Goodbye, Mitt, and good riddance.    Next?

It’s not an easy choice, which Democratic candidate to choose.  They have grown closer and closer in their ideological divides and tone of promises as the campaign has moved from state to state.  But where will be the concrete action?  Obama does say he will not support tax breaks for companies that take jobs from Americans to give them to out-source foreigners, but that isn’t enough, and it doesn’t address illegals or green-card limits, a subject both he and Clinton wish to avoid because they pander to the Hispanic vote.  Obama says the illegals here should be allowed to stay after paying fines, learning English, and then going to the back of the line.  But, to the back of the line for what?  Citizenship?  Illegals should never have a path to citizenship and the vote.  That denial should be a part of the cost for choosing the advantage of any amnesty that allows them to remain.  Clinton’s position on illegal immigration is horrific, promoting bi-polar culture, saying “it wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” and that Americans should know two languages!  Whether they should or not, an illegally imposed culture is not an acceptable avenue for linguistic expansion, not even for those with the time to persue it.

With outsourced jobs, dictating who companies legally employ or where they produce is not the American way.  But employers must be made to confront a choice, employ citizens or pay a proportional penalty, manufacture in the States or pay duties on their imports, based not only upon value, comparative to other international products, but compounded by a factor to account for the national-citizen loss the foreign production represents.  Republicans have thrown the American worker and standard of living to the wolves by dropping all barriers that protected them.  They say it was done because the global economy is good for America.  What they mean is that it’s good for the owners, CEO’s, board members, and wealthy investors with large stakes in companies with international reach and scale.  The rest can be absorbed or die, along with the middle class and the American dream.  The Republican economics of scale favor the big, the wealthy, and the dollar above the people, the nation, and the common future.  This industrial-corporate-values base and goal set is why Republicans should not be in control of democratic government.  “Democratic” is not in the corporate manual.

The burning issues aside, Obama is at least as well suited as anyone on either side.  Experience doesn't matter.  Washington and Eisenhower had no political roots (and make no mistake, the Republican party of Lincoln and Eisenhower was not the Republican party of Nixon-Cheney, Reagan, Bush, or Bush-Cheney), Washington, along with Jefferson and others of the critical founding presidents had no experience or history to guide them.  McCain, at least, it can be said knows neither history or the Constitution, believing the president has unbridled war power, when in fact, the Constitution affords the executive almost none.  Military experience and the 3:00 call to arms don’t matter either, except in defense against an attack in progress, because the direction of the military is supposed to be within restraints and goals authorized by Congress, trusting the advice of men who do have experience and who are professionals to apply the resources available in the most effective manner to meet those goals.  Age doesn't matter, the constitutional requirements take that into account.  A pure heart, love of country, and the desire to make a better nation in trust of your family, neighbors, and your local and national community have no age constraints, or experience, and in this, all candidates are qualified in intent, though the means of all would not bring that outcome.  Middle school children have created trusts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to do good works for others to whom they have no tie other than nationality and for which they had no training or experience, but only the desire to help.  Obama’s career history points to motivations far more esoterically appreciated than fame and fortune because he has spent his developmental, post educational life in the muck and dirt trying to help others to whom he owed nothing and for which, until now, he received nearly the same.  Clinton did the same, though she didn’t wade quite as deeply or have nearly as far to rise.  Obama gained the trust and respect of his peers and superiors in education and law, and then in the Senate, through extended and close association, long before he was nationally known as an orator.  These sources are to be trusted or none can ever be, and Clinton has done much the same in her Senate term.

Either Democrat will be more than a match for the Republican, McCain, who attacks Obama’s rallies as “eloquent calls for change that promises nothing more than a vacation from history.”  After two terms of George Bush, a vacation from history is only scratching the surface of what’s needed to remove the memory of its stain.  And who can really believe McCain’s promises, which, the 100 years at war in Iraq aside, would amount to a Republican about-face?  A topsy-turvy realignment of Republican ideals and priorities?  None of it is believable.  Republicans call the alleged McCain plans “liberalism,” but they are really what McCain charges of Obama:  words, designed only to garner votes.  McCain’s record and the record of his Republican party speak the only truth of what can be expected if he and the Republicans are returned to office by the same gullible voters who put Bush back into the White House for another four years of social, economic, political, and human carnage.

On the face of the values and facts at hand, Obama’s relative lack of ties to influence groups, lobbyists, and the old machine ways of politics, and his promise to remove their grip on government, a stronger promise than made by any other, is a prescription that best meets what ails America after more than two decades of mostly Republican rule, and from the look of the primary record, it seems that many Americans have their glass of water rightly set to accompany the Obama script.

As was expected at the onset of the Bush administration’s announcement of the “surge,” as a facilitator of “clear, hold, and build,” it has unfolded to be an undeniable failure, pushing violence to new areas and inducing a selective pause by al Qaeda and insurgents that can outwait any plan, still with no end in sight at its evaluative state, at the end of August and September 2007, or at any subsequent date, and today, no victory, with casualties still level with the lowest ever before the surge, only serving to extend the nation-building plans of an insatiable president, with the sole return being that of escalated casualties, the blood of whom all will spill upon the Bush administration’s lies and demented objectives, pursued in blind and unknowing defiance of the best advice and warnings of America’s Founders.  Congress will owe the fallen and maimed patriots, the principal administration victims, unassuageable apology for its apathetic opposition to a criminal regime, for failing, despite its election to the majority, and consequently, for being as onerous in its vision and performance against the national interest as the administration it was tasked to rein in.

The sacrifice of soldiers and their families in Afghanistan is not forgotten, at least, not from this quarter, despite that the commitment of the volunteer military is more separated from that of the rest of the nation than any other global war in America’s history, a circumstance which speaks volumes between the lines.  Nonetheless, that front is the regrettable but necessary consequence of a just prosecution of America’s enemies:  those who repeatedly attacked the U.S., and those who aided and abetted the attacks, cumulating with the fall of the WTC towers.  But, even these deaths would have been reduced, had Bush put the resources and resolve into destroying the Islamic militancy that attacked the U.S., there, instead of into his special-interest war and occupation in Iraq.

This site emphasizes the unnecessary deaths of 4,100 Iraq-deployed, duty-bound soldiers, deaths no less honorable than any others, the misery of their families and families of the thousands of wounded, and the death and maiming of untold tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi, including women, children, and the elderly.  These are the sole consequence of a greed-based, premeditated, Bush-administration grab for resources and positioning to gain resources for necessary infrastructure services and provisions, worth billions upon billions of dollars, if not trillions, to the industries that hold the Bush administration’s first loyalty and interest, all the while, putting the war against the real U.S. embassy/Cole/WTC Islamic-radical perpetrators in Afghanistan, where there are no corporate-industrial riches to raid, on the back burner.

“Al Qaeda will fight us wherever we are,” was the only truth within the propaganda and speaking points Bush spread over the spring, 2007, grass of the White House lawn.  And that’s why a small part of the opposition in Iraq is al Qaeda:  because Bush is occupying Iraq to nation build.  If Congress pulls troops out of the cities in Iraq to secure, isolated, unapproachable, border staging areas, al Qaeda will then concentrate on Afghanistan and wherever else the West goes to fight against them and their supporting regimes.  Al Qaeda should not, nor should any other organization be exaggerated or fear-mongered into a cause that justifies and facilitates aggression, death, maiming, destruction, and exploitation on a grand scale, at the expense of an end to progressive social growth, in all of its many areas of need, in the most advanced nation in the world.  In addition, such abusive focus, and its cost, hampers confronting the changing climate, reduces the capability to be prepared for and recover from inevitable natural disasters, or benefit others in need of assistance, and it diverts from ending the outrages of dictatorships and oligarchical regimes that deal in death and foster crimes of genocide, rape, slavery, and terror, which, to bring to an end, are goals worthy of what, in Iraq, is an unwarranted and unwanted intrusion into violence and mayhem, which is only prolonged by the Bush policy of exploitation and control, and its inherent prerequisite for long-term occupation, with no assurance of an end.

Iraq is not, as Bush would have you believe, the lynchpin in the struggle of the 21st century, because if it were, a full commitment would have been made with wide public, legislative, military, and international concurrence, which, like the struggle against fascism in WWII, would not have diminished until, at any cost, the threat was put down.  And if Bush really had the advantage of righteous vision or support, Iraq would not now be a four-plus-year-long bloodbath.  If anything, Iraq is the latest in that long string of wars, recorded in every century of mankind’s history, that are justified, motivated, and/or prolonged by a religious argument.  The significant struggle of the 21st century, on a par with environmental preservation, is overcoming abusive and criminal administration of democratic government, not scrapping society’s resources on a tunnel-visioned, fear-mongered, false-fronted war against a drug-financed, cell-phone-and-internet-connected group of radical, religious revolutionaries who can best be dealt with using effective, cooperative law enforcement and intelligence, reserving the military to remove aiding-and-abetting governmental regimes, not to remain as police for occupation and corporate/industrial-motivated nation building.

Senator John Warner (R-VA) has proposed to attach appropriation penalties for construction funds as a consequence of a failure by the Iraqi regime to meet benchmarks, which would be attached to the war-funding bill.  This proposal, from a leader in the Senate Armed Services Committee, is a particularly harsh slap across the face of soldiers.  While Bush refuses a small pay increase for soldiers, Warner’s proposal, instead of ending or even reducing the exposure and risk of troops, places a lowly price on their lives by withholding what would be corruptly managed and ineffectual Iraqi aid dollars, for a failure that, with Bush’s lock-vision arrogance, and Warner’s proposal, would only extend their presence, the danger to which they are exposed, and their toll of dead and wounded, as increasingly more of them are deployed there, no matter what the Iraqi regime does or how it fails.

Bush has been allowed to define the attacks of an organized band of religious radicals into a global struggle of national life or death, where he is the knight, on horseback, in the center of the battle, with gleaming sword held high, leading the righteous nations of the world with deific blessing and unity, when, in fact, even without that charade, the same imperatives remain:  to develop and maintain comprehensive, coordinated, national and international law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, to not allow nuclear proliferation or commerce in weapons or delivery systems of mass destruction, or production and trafficking of drugs, or borders of unchecked transgress.  All of these need solutions and assured control, and in some specific, limited aspects, troops, regardless of whether there is an al Qaeda or not.

The surge, and the waste of $billions in non-military dollars continue, in a vain attempt to secure the special-interest goals of the Bush administration.  This outrage continues in defiance of the will of the people and a majority of their military professionals and elected representatives, in an occupation with no constitutional sanction, and which had no bearing on U.S. security when the invasion was deceptively justified and ordered, and which has swelled into a draining and deadly occupation which still has no such consequences, after more time than was sacrificed by solders who fought in the Second World War, and more than 4,100 deaths, with, from the objective of an opaque, congressional telescope, no end in sight until, and if, the Republicans are thrown out of office in January 2009.

A shameful, deeply-sorrowing, and increasing number of soldiers will not have to wait that long, and their passing will be on the national conscience and the heads of the administration and congressional Republicans for the life of this generation.

From the beginning, the intent of the Bush administration has been to keep the lid on as low a profile a can-of-worms, special-interest war as possible, which has meant concealing, downplaying, or distorting every adverse fact, separating the rest of the nation from the commitment of the volunteer military, using the fewest troops possible, hiding the caskets, the whole nine yards, because Bush, Cheney et al know Iraq is of monumental significance only to the industrial interests that have been the only entities to profit from the adventure, with far-more $billions to pocket if they are successful, and that is what the “surge” is all about:  the last-ditch effort to gobble up their worms now that time is running out and, for the majority of citizens and legislators, the bullet-riddled lid is finally off their dirty, I.E.D.-dented and blood-stained can.

Fragile liberty, vulnerable to apathy, fear, corruption, greed.

Using the right of personal privilege, Democratic presidential candidate, Representative Dennis Kucinich, introduced a resolution into the record of the House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney, charging deception leading into the failed war with Iraq.  In a political move that backfired, Republicans defeated a motion to table the resolution, which would have killed it, but now it has a real chance of succeeding and has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.  This is a constitutional imperative for the House, as well as their electoral mandate, one which Speaker Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have avoided, which may point to one reason the new Democratic majority has amounted to a failed Congress.  But the crimes of Bush and Cheney go far beyond just the deception that launched their special-interest war in Iraq and which is again at work with intelligence estimates for Iran.

George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney are not leaders.  They are facilitators and manipulators for special interests, whose goals are traded against the national interest from behind closed doors, in secret meetings, where the ways and means of political and governmental abuse are plotted and directed, as the People and Congress are excluded and, along with truth, kept in the dark.

Consider only half of what is known of the acts of these men, of this administration, and the attendant consequences, and compare that against those of any others to hold their high offices who faced impeachment, and it is immediately apparent that impeachment for them becomes mandatory if historical precedent, the rule of law, and the principle of Democracy are to be retained as American ethics and standards.  Impeachment will challenge and charge the men who were contentiously entrusted with the power and prerogatives of the offices of President and Vice President of the United States, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney, who, in collusion and contrary to their oaths to uphold and defend that Constitution, side-stepped it and diluted it by authorizing torture, kidnapping, political corruption of Justice, treasonous war, by support of dictators destroying other democracies (Pakistan) contrary to the national interest, by failure to fully prosecute America’s attackers, by conducting operations against the people (illegal wiretaps), programs set above the law and the constitution, by the creation of a criminal, murderous, unaccountable mercenary army, all acts of impunity and arrogance, subordinating the national interest and the welfare of the people for special-interest goals and profit, and further, diminishing and besmirching the authority of the courts, usurping the lawful bills of Congress (unconstitutional signing statements; refusing to recognize constitutional, congressional war-power directives); failing to uphold the laws of federal jurisdiction (illegal immigration/employment practices; drug trafficking; human smuggling/slavery), leaving the states open, unaided victims to an onslaught of crime; and by twisting the vesting of government authority to be incarnate, and the actions of the People’s government, administered by them, to be solely according to their will and the religious belief and vision of George Bush, regardless of and contrary to the will of the People and their collective voice, expressed through constitutional vote and their elected, legislative representatives, the consequences of which have been the unwarranted death of near 4,100 U.S. soldiers and the maiming of tens of thousands more, lives not lost and damaged in the interest of national security, and compounded by the deaths and maiming of tens upon tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of innocent foreign nationals, not guilty of harm or threat against the national-security interests of the United States, further eroding national security through incitement of foreign nationals to act against the U.S., and diminishing of the military state of readiness, including the destruction of government property, and world-wide erosion of U.S. national integrity.

In the history of this nation, there have never been any to hold the offices more deserving of impeachment than Bush and Cheney, which would condemn them and their acts as wrong, not representative of America, and reinforce for future officials what they cannot do, and in so doing, impeachment will allow Americans to face the world again without shame and guilt, having made right a great, but nonetheless enduring wrong.  America’s world standing and historical legacy must be sharply delineated from that of Bush and Cheney’s, a paramount reason that impeachment is both necessary and justified.  Yet, impeachment is not sufficient recourse for justice in the face of such magnitude of crimes they have perpetrated upon the nation and the world, but impeachment can help to ensure there will never be the likes of Bush or Cheney to again darken, with their colluded, corrupting shadow, a flag that once flew proudly in the light of day and right, and which will not see that light again until their stain is finally removed from the People’s government.

Democracy For America “If the election were today” poll.

Above, is an interesting poll result, taken by Democracy for America (DFA), which ran for a few weeks, ending on November 5, garnering about 150,000 nationwide votes, and containing results not reported anywhere by any poll in the major news media.  It will be interesting to see if the early primaries reflect this poll or the mainstream versions.  The poll is unscientific, but did afford a measure of security, through cookies, against multiple votes.   The poll provided three squares for 1st - 3rd choice, and displayed pictures of all the Democratic candidates.  Voters could drag pictures to their 1st - 3rd-choice slot, designating a different candidate for each slot, or one for all three, or any combination desired.  Also note, importantly, Al Gore was NOT one of the pictures provided.  He was a write-in.  There was also a “write-in” square, which could also be dragged and dropped onto the slot/s to represent the vote, and a window would appear to allow you to enter the name of your write-in choice.  So, in light of considerations of ease of voting, and the result Al Gore attained, it could well be argued he was the winner.  Perhaps he will take note, because as it stands now, while most of the Democratic candidates are preferable to most any of the Republicans, Al Gore is certainly a legitimate, and people/nation-vs.-corporation/interest-group oriented option, who is more experienced and more than the equal in capability to anyone on either ticket.

        Blackwater USA President Gary Jackson    

Blackwater, indeed, reflecting the tug of power between occupation and government in Iraq.

In an alleged, Sunday, September 16, 2007, firefight on a Baghdad street, employees of the American private-security contractor, Blackwater USA (apropos name), fired assault weapons from diplomatic-convoy vehicles that the company claims had come under attack from small arms, contributing to the killing of at least 17 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of scores more.  Initially, Iraqi officials claimed nine deaths at the hands of Blackwater’s gunmen, and on the following Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki had upped the claim to 11 Iraqi civilians killed, and he said there was no bombing of the convoy.  The next week, the state minister for national security affairs, Shirwan al-Waili, said the Iraqi investigation was nearly complete and, “The shots fired on the Iraqis were unjustifiable.  It was harsh and horrible.”  The preliminary report of a tri-ministry joint investigation was severely worded, saying, “The murder of citizens in cold blood in the Nisour area by Blackwater is considered a terrorist action against civilians just like any other terrorist operation.”  The report also reiterated the statement of Interior Ministry spokesmen that those Blackwater employees charged would be “referred to the Iraqi court system.”  Iraqi officials also say they have received no information from American officials about their investigation.  These investigations did not interview several Kurdish witnesses to the slaughter with military backgrounds who later told news sources what they saw.  They are deemed credible because they are supportive of America and because they observed the incident from a rooftop out of the line of fire and its psychological, emotional effects.  They insist there was no opposing fire at all, and that the Blackwater mercenaries actually initiated a second unprovoked attack against a bus filled with women and children after the fatal firing into the crowds in the square had at first come to an end.

American officials claim they have no knowledge of Iraqi plans to prosecute Blackwater employees, and neither Blackwater nor U.S. officials conducting their own investigation have detailed exactly what happened in the Nisour incident.  Official spokespersons for Blackwater, of course, defend the actions of their mercenaries.  According to witnesses, Iraqi military personnel became involved in the firing, and more-indiscriminate fire was also coming from a pair of Blackwater helicopters shadowing the convoy, although a Blackwater spokesperson denied that the helicopters contributed to the carnage, or that anyone shot by their mercenaries were not armed, an impossible statement to believe, since the truth of who was behind all the deaths and wounded will likely not even be fully revealed by a planned forensic investigation.  An October 3, 2007 congressional hearing into this and previous incidents involving Blackwater operations, questioning Blackwater’s CEO and tight-lipped senior State Department officials, failed to shed any new light, beyond the disparate cost of private security vs. conventional military, while a Department of Justice F.B.I. investigation into possible crimes and charges continues.  Two days later, the House passed legislation, over the objection of the Bush administration that will bring all contractors in the Iraq war zone under U.S. criminal jurisdiction, with cases to be investigated by the F.B.I.  On November 14, 2007, the New York Times reported that the F.B.I.’s investigation into the September 16 shootings found that 14 of the 17 deaths Blackwater inflicted were not justifiable.  A Blackwater statement, in response, said, “If it is determined that one person was complicit (sic) in the wrongdoing, we would support accountability in that.”  This stated agreement to accept conditional accountability is an example of the arrogance by which these Republican-formed, quasi-armies operate, and it is a sign of how far-reaching corrective measures must be.  Fundamentally, the use of private armies are another Bush slap at the Constitution, to which Congress turns its cheek.  Private, military-type units, employed by the executive to carry out military objectives in America’s name are outlawed, and their use by Bush must be either halted or placed under strict congressional approval and oversight, because otherwise, they are just a loophole that the executive branch uses to avoid and sidestep the constitutional restriction that rightly places the creation and deployment of military war power solely within the authority of Congress.

The incident is continuing to increase the tension on the already strained relationship between the al-Maliki government and the Bush administration, and it is revealing more of the truth about how much governing power Iraq’s government really has under the terms of the occupation.  An Iraq Ministry of Interior spokesman said, early on, that the license for Blackwater had been canceled and that those who fired on the civilians would be prosecuted, and on the Saturday following the Nisour shootings, the spokesman added that ten murders in six previous Blackwater incidents are also under investigation.  But Iraqi prosecutions would be contrary to an immunity law that shields American contractors, issued by the U.S. governing authority in Iraq before supposed sovereignty was handed over.  And, according to State Department spokesmen, no action by Iraq on revoking the licenses had been taken by Tuesday; yet, by week’s end, American officials in Baghdad have remained restricted to the Green Zone (this century’s incarnation of Fort Apache) because the refusal of the Iraq government to permit further Blackwater operations is at least having a temporary hold while officials struggle with the issue in private.  There is undoubtedly great pressure upon the al-Maliki government to restrain from attempting to make such action permanent because of the inordinate dependence State Department and other U.S. personnel have upon the private-security contractors in order to carry out the occupation, particularly Blackwater, which is contracted to provide the security needs of the occupation’s highest-priority officials.  Because civilian authorities who would normally conduct the U.S. investigation are restricted by the halt of Blackwater operations, U.S. military units, who have their own security resources, have been reported to be conducting the investigation and carrying out interviews, which is attributed to slowing the investigation and the release of information obtained about the facts of the incident.  Blackwater is also reportedly being investigated by federal authorities for unrelated weapons-smuggling or theft charges.  Two former employees have already been convicted of federal weapons charges.

While al-Maliki and other government officials have political responsibility to act with outrage, as they have over the incident, it seems clear that the same Bush defiance, confronting all attempts by Congress to restrain his administration with respect to the occupation, will also eventually prevail over the Iraqi government’s posturing.  So much for Bush’s touted Iraqi freedom, and the integrity of the Iraqi government, and the lost American lives that have made it, and that will continue to be lost to make it as robustly independent as it so far seems it isn’t.  And so much for another handful of Iraqi innocents who, regardless of what happened, are victims of Bush’s occupation and America’s mercenaries.

It isn’t usually effective or accurate to draw simplistic, exaggerated parallels between Bush and Hitler, but the new facts on the September 16 killings reveal that Bush is leading an occupation in Iraq that is hardly less horrific in its acts (not scale) as Hitler’s in Poland during WW2.  But there can be no excuse for lack of scale to diminish the severity of the situation and its effects on the Iraqis and America’s world standing and historical legacy, which must be sharply delineated from that of Bush and Cheney’s, and which is a paramount reason that impeachment is both necessary and justified, and also because, like Hitler, there is no accounting from Bush with respect to this and the other “incidents” involving the shoot-first mercenaries profiting from the misery Bush has ignited and fans in Iraq.

Eric Prinz, Blackwater CEO and founder, tries to deflect the use of the term “mercenary,” by saying his employees are “Americans working for America,” not for a foreign power.  In fact, by the first definition of Webster, a “mercenary” is any person who is “hired into foreign service.”  Blackwater employees also meet the second definition of “one that serves merely for wages.”  So the use of the term is wholly correct and justified, and not subject to the tactic Prinz, like Bush, attempts to employ, of writing his own definitions and language to redefine the atrocities he tries to cover up on behalf of his employees and his company.

The American conscience and world view demands much more than the latest Senate effort of amendments to funding bills, creating commissions to look into contractors.  Despite rules left by departing pre-sovereign political appointees, there can be no license to kill with indiscretion inherent or implied in such political dictates, and if the military has jurisdiction over American citizens in war zones, the Department of Defense, or if not, Justice, must be compelled to bring the killers to the bench.  The Iraqis have called the killings “terrorist acts,” and America stands accused of facilitating and shielding “murder” and “massacre.”  If the Bush administration will not act, then it must surrender the shooters to the International Court.  The Bush administration cannot wash its hands of this, and it must be clearly held accountable for the deaths, since they have resulted from the same incompetent approach to the details of occupation that has cost lives in the past, and also here at home, in Katrina, and lessor incompetence and corruption that is reflected throughout the resignations (the latest being HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson) that mark Bush’s administration, each leaving some form of mayhem in its wake.  These acts of barbarism cannot be allowed to be swept under the rug and answered as “mistakes,” paid for with simple resignations or political explanations based in evasion and persuasion, as has, in fact, turned out to be the case, again, with the resignation of Ambassador Richard Griffin, who headed the operations of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, and who was criticized in a report on those operations subsequent to the massacre.  This resignation is totally inadequate to answer for the lives lost at America’s hand in this instance and previous contractor-initiated killings.  Secretary Rice should resign, as well, since this failing, for which she and Bush are finally responsible, has caused effects inverse of the State Department’s mission, devastating effects which cannot be reversed in the remainder of her term.  America cannot afford to shield its agents from acts so brutally inhuman and unwarranted.  Under the shroud of this unanswered bloodletting, America and freedom no longer seem so synonymous.

U.S. Hispanic population seven years ago. Source,
2000 census. Illegal immigrants are NOT included.

America stands at a critical crossroad of heritage and culture.

“Invade:”  1. to enter for conquest [residency, ownership, citizenship, the vote] or plunder [welfare, jobs]; 2. to intrude upon, infringe, encroach upon, violate; 3a. to spread over or into as if invading; 3b. to affect injuriously and progressively.

What do Syria and Jordan have in common with America?  How about an immigration problem, where the two Mid-East countries complain about the exodus of Iraqis through their borders, and the attendant strain upon their social services and change upon the face of their cultures and social landscapes.  What’s a difference separating Syria and Jordan from America?  America isn’t asking for aid from other nations in dealing with its overwhelming invasion of illegal Hispanic immigrants, not even from the home nations which spawn and encourage it.  It is fortunate that the Bush administration has turned the same deaf ear it has on children’s health to the Iraqi refugees, in their case, by restricting the number allowed to immigrate into the U.S., because another post-war-debacle influx of a foreign population is the last thing America needs, especially in this instance, when the immediate domestic invasion has yet to be confronted, and where, to compound America’s immigration woes, it would never be possible to identify or know the number of al Qaeda sleeper-cell members admitted by any such large admission of another separatist culture as the Muslim Iraqis.  Just look to the problems now plaguing England, France, and the Netherlands if you doubt the pitfalls.

But the Bush administration, in a reverse-psychology effort to ratchet-up Hispanic immigrant-group pressure on Congress and the states, has begun to take some immigration and enforcement measures, including a cut-off of state-matching funds for medical services that do not meet the strict definition of “emergency services,” a move that is drawing the anticipated response from not only the immigrant-support groups, but also from some states already entrenched by large numbers of the invaders, up to 500,000 or more, that are increasingly bending over to provide the services that unfailingly draw more illegals into the U.S.  Since free health services, especially pediatric, are a primary magnet for illegal immigrants, it is proper to deny funding for them, especially since growing their population into a majority is a primary objective of the illegals’ “invasion” plans, and it is working.  Without a change in immigration policy, to include removing the illegal-birth citizenship loophole, and enforcement to reverse the trend of influx, it is destined to transform all of America into an Hispanic nation.

Most articles on immigration costs and problems, and most speeches made by legislators on the senate and house floors, fail completely to address the Mexican government, whose illegals are the vast majority, and which is openly supporting the invasion through its foreign and domestic policies, and with numerous consulates spread throughout America, relieving themselves of social responsibility for millions of their citizens.  What would happen if the states and federal government billed Mexico and other nations for reimbursement of medical costs and other social costs for their citizens here illegally?  Why isn’t this on the trade-talks tables?  Why is Mexico not being told to close their multi-state, invasion-post consulates, except in Washington and, acceding to the invasion’s effects, one other, only, in Arizona, which would be more central to their population centers in California and Texas?  Though, even this is a reluctant concession, since those populations should be eliminated by deportations enforcing the law and a self-determined departure imposed by the removal of access to jobs and services.  Why isn’t anyone else asking or even trying to make Mexico and other nations accountable, let alone prevent them from assisting the invasion?

A growing trend in the nation, another “Hispanic Heritage” week, is nearly upon the Queen City, where, according to the promotions being run on Cincinnati Local 12 television, native, resident citizens are invited to take the initiative to “bridge the divide” Hispanics create when they immigrate illegally and do not try to assimilate.  Local 12 also encourages the invasion by maintaining a Spanish web site that not only serves the non-English-speaking Hispanics, but also reaches south, across the border into internet cafes to, in effect, say, “Look, here, even if you don’t speak English or belong here, Cincinnati will bend over backwards to make it easier for you to be welcome here, regardless, so come ahead, legally or otherwise.  Our schools, clinics and hospitals, welfare offices (and jails) are waiting for more of you, and our look-the-other-way employers appreciate that you do not require a living wage and will gladly defer employing our citizens to get you.  And you’ll really appreciate that our emergency services now require some employees be bilingual, so you won’t even need an incentive to speak our language to call 911.  Please, make your language our language.”

There are those who believe the invasion has already gone too far, that a Hispanic, dual-language, dual-culture, bi-polar America is inevitable.  Hillary Clinton says, “It wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” adding that it would be good for Americans to speak two languages, which indicates how fine a grip she has on the problems of households, she says she supports, making ends meet with multiple jobs, tight budgets, and all the time in the world to learn another language while competing for immigrant-displaced jobs and pushed-down wages.  If she is president, it seems the takeover would be inevitable, but otherwise, and with active public involvement, even with her in the Oval Office, this would not be the case, not if the same resolve to enforce the law, deport, and curtail services is employed as the apathy which prevailed to allow the Reagan and Bush Republican governments, and the Clinton administration, to ignore the border, the law, and encourage the invasion.  To be truly comprehensive, meaningful, effective, and acceptable, the next immigration bill must address many shortcomings.  Removing the social-benefits magnets combined with enforcement will alone quickly turn the tide.  It only takes the active resolve of citizens upon their local and federal elected officials (and TV stations) to begin, as was done with the initial, tentative step of defeating the amnesty bill presented by the 110th session of Congress.

Studies have shown that the cost of finding and deporting the illegal populations that do not leave on their own will be less than the medical, welfare, social-services, and law-enforcement costs of their growing presence, costs that fall upon the cities, counties, states, and the federal government.  It all comes from the pockets of citizens, and without enforcement, the costs citizens pay to surrender their country only increases.  The immigrant lobby used fear to forecast farm disaster if the law is enforced; yet, it has already been seen, since the amnesty bill failed and a partial, weak enforcement effort ensued, that enterprising farmers have successfully moved their seeds to fields south of