<b>Abuse of Civil rights and Procedures</b>
The lovely and always well-researched Ren has a really remarkable piece on the Nation website about the recent South Dakota Abortion Task Force, which was basically a front for a single State Rep's plan to challenge Roe v. Wade ASAP. The extended version of the piece is here, there's much more detail about the abuses of democracy and procedure. It reminds me a lot of my old student government, actually. And don't miss her take on the infamous Britney Statue.
By the way, one of the reasons a real abortion ban will never pass muster with the majority of Americans is because to make it enforceable, you can't have rape or incest provisions, which South Dakota did not. Apparently, emergency contraception will still be legal (really?), but then this offends the sensibilities of Catholics 1869-present (the Pre-Pre-Vatican II Church, if you will, believed that the life of the fetus begins at 16 and one-half-weeks instead of "at conception").
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<b>Listen to the Power, People</b>
It occurred to me that the nation has finally begun to turn the tide against the President in large numbers. Part of it is that there are finally going to be some trials and sentencings here, and it's high time it happened.
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With Straussians in the White House, you have to read the subtexts, the subtleties in the administration. Karl Rove is like a magician: the White House always trying to distract you with one hand while they pick your pocket with the other.
But that's just Bush's handlers. Consider the recent townhall meeting the President gave.
Bush was taken aback. "Hmm," he started.
"The answer is — I haven't really thought of it that way," he continued, to laughter from the audience. "Here's how I think of it. The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow."
He went on to discuss his oft-stated feelings about how the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made him realize that the United States was entering a global war on terror.
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I mention this because while Bush may be top banana, he doesn't write his own speeches or talking points. And that's what I wanted to talk about.
Murray Waas has a new article about Bush–Waas is one fo the best journalists on the beat, and is always coming up with breath-taking revelations about the administration. Now he writes about the careful policy used to insulate the president:
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Hadley was particularly concerned that the public might learn of a classified one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate, specifically written for Bush in October 2002. The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."
Three months after receiving that assessment, the president stated without qualification in his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."
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(HT: Kos)
Reading Bush's speeches are like listening to jazz. You have to listen for the notes he's <b>not</b> playing to really appreciate it. Notice how here the President interjects "suitable" into "aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons production." WAKE THE FUCK UP, AMERICAN ELECTORATE. It's how you know he's lying. And by the way, you need the straight, unadulterated junk here, people, not just that stuff his producers make him read, like State of the Union speeches. You need to listen to the things he says off the top of his smirking head. If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed this, but instead you didn't watch or read the speeches as carefully as they were crafted and instead were fed a steady diet of the stormier clips getting spun on Fox News or CNN.
Now, Bush is an executive, our first CEO president, as Peggy Noonan crooned pathetically. I always found that claim outrageous, by the way, if we call him our "CEO in Cheif" we better look at his record before recommending him for hire.
Bush is running the family business for a while, and he's got lots of people watching his ass, for a living.
Bush was warned and went ahead with a version he might be able to fall back on if he got in trouble. The administration's curious language is some time unequivocal from officially lower-level stooges, e.g., Cheney:
but with Bush, it's always something carefully designed to protect his liability towards, I dunno, impeachment?
<b>Chris Owens for Congressional 11th District</b>
This leads me to my next point: I'm gonna reregister as a Democrat for the sole reason of electing Chris Owens to Congress. I've lived in the 11th District for the vast majority of my life, and Chris is without a doubt the best candidate to represent me for a variety of reasons, but most importantly–IMPEACHMENT. If the Democrats want to win, we have to see candidates come out for impeachment the way Owens has. The Democrats have a problem with, say it with now, the perception of weakness. There is nothing the Democrats can lose, really, so we should go ahead and do it. With Bush's popularity nearing the freezing point, we need to put him in a cell block before he screws anything up any further. Now, I hear what you're saying–if we impeach Bush, we get Cheney. That's why we need to prosecute this like a federal corruption case: IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY. I bet he sings to get out of hard time, too. This would make the newly Democratic Speaker of the House the President, which would at least give the Democrats a chance to save us before we go over the brink of apocalypse, as our President suggest might be possible.
And, of course, <b>Tasini for Senate</b>.
