Rep. Wexler Delivers Cheney Impeachment Petition to Congress

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) writes:

Last night, I took to the floor of the House of Representatives and outlined our case as to why this Congress must hold immediate hearings on Rep. Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment.

I didn’t do it alone: I was armed with nearly 200,000 signatures of support from you and so many others. Please watch the video of this speech and forward it to as many people as possible. I’ve posted it on the front page of www.WexlerWantsHearings.com

This morning, I delivered letters to all of my colleagues in the House of Representatives, urging them to support Cheney Impeachment Hearings. You can read a copy of both the letter to my colleagues as well as the letter to Chairman Conyers I am asking them to sign [here].

Additionally, I have delivered to my colleagues in the Judiciary Committee a list of names who have signed up at www.WexlerWantsHearings.com. We now have almost 200,000 patriotic Americans dedicated to this cause.

We are beginning to make some progress. I have urged the Democratic Leadership to enforce the subpoenas being ignored by Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten by holding them in contempt of Congress.

This fight is not over. You must continue the pressure on your representatives and the media, or Congress will take no notice. That would be a historic mistake – one we must prevent Congress from making.

We stand at a critical juncture in our efforts. Forget all of those arguments that it is too late or that we have run out of time. You can’t run the clock out on our Constitution. Those of us dedicated to this fight – Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the online community, and millions of patriotic Americans – will keep the pressure on.

I will be furiously lobbying my fellow members of Congress to get behind these efforts and sign onto my letter to Chairman Conyers.

Please continue to spread the word and help deliver accountability to the corrupt Bush-Cheney administration.

With great respect,

Congressman Robert Wexler

Bush Admits ‘Majority’ of 9/11 Hijackers Were Saudis

Six years too late, George W. Bush has finally acknowledged that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were citizens of the U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia:

From 2003 to 2007, the number of people who believed Bush’s lie dropped from 70 percent to 33 percent. Bush will never recover from the anger felt by the 37 percent of Americans who came to the realization that they had been lied to by their president.

“There’s a lot of really good people here [in Saudi Arabia]. Look, you can’t deny the fact that some, a majority, of the terrorists came from Saudi, but you should not condemn an entire society based upon the actions of a handful of killers.”

It would have been nice if the interviewer, ABC’s Terry Moran, had gotten Bush on the record about the Middle Eastern nation whose citizens were not represented among these 19 mass murderers.

The breakdown was 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and two from the Union of Arab Emirates (UAE).

None were from Iraq.

Despite this fact — and the fact that Saddam Hussein was a secular despot who was despised by Osama bin Laden, a right-wing religious fanatic — a poll two years after the attacks, and six months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 70 percent of Americans believed Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

The fact that a solid majority of the public was misinformed was not an accident. It was a result of a propaganda campaign deployed from the Bush White House:

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Poll: Worst Ever Numbers for Bush in ABC Survey – Still Amazingly High for Worst President Ever

More evidence that approximately one-third of Americans are either feeble-minded, delusional or both:

Just 32 percent of Americans now approve of the way Bush is handling his job, while 66 percent disapprove. Bush’s work on the economy has likewise reached a new low. And he shows no gain on Iraq; despite reduced violence there, 64 percent say the war was not worth fighting, 2 points from its high.

Quote du Jour

But to manipulate men, to propel them towards goals which you — the social reformers — see, but they may not, is to deny them their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.

— Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) political philosopher and historian of ideas

Huckabee Says Amend Constitution to Meet ‘God’s Standards’ – Outlaw Adultery, Leftovers, Women’s Pants Too?


If you need proof that the evangelical agenda is to impose theocracy on the United States, listen to what their standard-bearer, Rev. Mike Huckabee said yesterday:

“I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards.”
–Huckabee

“[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards,” Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Huckabee often refers to the need to amend the Constitution on these grounds, but he has never so specifically called for the Constitution to be brought within “God’s standards,” which are themselves debated amongst religious scholars.

If we’re going to start basing our civil laws on biblical edicts — the way they do in, say, Moslem countries — then we need to do it across the board. Let’s take adultery, for example. Unlike the biblical prohibitions against gay sex, which are buried in lists of abominations in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the warning against adultery is in the Ten Commandments, right up there with murder and lying.

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Bush Legacy: Presidents Can Be Impeached After They Leave Office

The Chaco of Paraguay - Wish Bush Was There

If Alberto Gonzalez gets punk’d at speaking engagements, and Donald Rumsfeld has to be whisked out of France to avoid a war crimes indictment. what does the future hold for George W. Bush after he leaves office one year and six days from now?

Just as hindsight shows that Americans 30 years ago could have prevented the abuses of Bush and Cheney by prosecuting and imprisoning Nixon in 1974, we owe it to future generations of Americans to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for their crimes and incompetence today.

Chris Hedges probably has it right:

Bush will soon be reduced to the cipher he once was, left to spend the rest of his life trying to salvage a legacy of shame and deceit. In a just world he would be put on trial, if not by the International Criminal Court of Justice then by the U.S. Congress. He would be forced to face up to his lies and wars of aggression. But the moral rot that infects the nation has seeped into the bowels of the legislative as well as the executive branch.

There are many organizations and efforts dedicated to the impeachment of George Bush. And Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) is leading a drive to impeach Dick Cheney — if you haven’t signed his online petition, do it now. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced articles of impeachment against the vice president last spring.

But there is one insurmountable obstacle to impeachment this year, and it is not Speaker Pelosi — it’s the continued support for Bush by Republicans in Congress. Unless and until it is expedient for them to get rid of Bush and Cheney, the congressional Republicans have shown that they will block any move to hold them accountable.

So while it looks likely that the millions of Americans who believe the Bush-Cheney regime has committed impeachable acts — taking the country to war based on lies, betraying a secret operation that tracked the WMD black market, spying on Americans without warrants, torturing prisoners and firing U.S. attorneys without cause, to name a few — will have to settle for the cold comfort of watching Bush and Cheney grow old in disgrace, there is another option for bringing them to justice:

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A Lunar New Year Public Service Notice for Our Readers

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sent out the following cheery message to warn those of us who might be going to Asia to celebrate the new year with firecrackers and dragon dances and stuff:

Keeping Yourself Safe from Bird Flu: An Important Message for People Traveling to Asia To Celebrate the Lunar New Year (February 7, 2008)

There are several health issues that travelers to Asia should know about. Mosquito-borne illnesses, such as malaria, dengue fever, and Japanese encephalitis, are common throughout Asia. In addition, eating contaminated food and drinking contaminated water can cause illnesses such as travelers’ diarrhea.

Influenza (also called the flu or seasonal flu) is a common cause of illness among travelers and can be prevented through influenza vaccination. In addition, a different type of flu called H5N1 (“bird flu”) has been found in poultry and wild birds in Asia, Europe and Africa. While rare, human infection and death from H5N1 infection have been reported. Most reported cases of human infection with H5N1 viruses have occurred after contact with H5N1-infected poultry or birds, but a small number of cases may have occurred following close and prolonged contact with another person who is visibly ill from H5N1 infection.

If you’re planning to celebrate the Lunar New Year in Asia, beware the germs in:

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Poll: California Is Still Clinton Country, Rudy Falls to Third Behind McCain in Statistical Tie with Huckabee

Clinton Leads Obama By 31 Points in Bay Area, the State’s Democratic Stronghold — And By 21 Points in Vote-Rich L.A.

The Clintons have always been popular in California and, according to a new poll from the Los Angeles Times, Politico.com and CNN, that is as true now, with three weeks to go before the Feb. 5 primary, as it has ever been:

Clinton led Obama 47 percent-31 percent among voters judged likely to cast ballots in California. As she did in New Hampshire, where she eked out a win over Obama last Tuesday, Clinton held onto a sturdy margin among Democrats, 47 percent-32 percent. But the New York senator also opened a strong lead — 52 percent-29 percent — among independents, who will be allowed to vote in the Democratic primary … Women supported her over Illinois Sen. Obama by 50 percent-30 percent; men by a slightly smaller 46 percent-32 percent.

In the Bay Area, the most concentrated Democratic area in the state, Clinton led by a 31-point margin, which narrowed to 22 points in the state’s second Democratic bulwark, the Los Angeles area.

On the GOP side, Rudolph Giuliani, the most liberal of the Republican candidates, appears to have lost the comfortable lead he enjoyed for most of the past year:

The Republican race is, at this stage, far more uncertain. Among likely voters, Arizona Sen. McCain was ahead at 20 percent, with Mitt Romney at 16 percent, Rudolph W. Giuliani at 14 percent and Mike Huckabee at 13 percent. The results for all four were within the poll’s margin of error.

Republican voters remain a bit squishy: Six in ten said they might change their mind over the next few weeks. Among Democrats, the number was four in ten.

Daytona Ballot Misspells Obama’s Name

Nobody said they could spell

Daytona, Fla. is known for several things: spring break, bike week, and NASCAR, to name a few. But no world-championship spelling bees have ever taken place there among the topless and the leather-clad. It should therefore come as no surprise that the supervisor of elections of Volusia County can’t spell “Barack.”

The office sent out more than 2,000 Volusia County absentee ballots with a presidential candidate’s name misspelled. Their ballots read “Barak Obama.”

…Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall announced the discovery of the misspelled name last week and said all future ballots will spell the name correctly. She also said that voting equipment will still be able to read the ballots, and that votes for “Barak Obama” will count toward Barack Obama.

Oh well. At least they didn’t pull a Mitt Romney, who stopped a hair shy of calling the senator “Obama bin Laden.”