Day: March 19, 2006

Getting Smarter on Impeachment

Trish

Much as my fellow Pensito Reviewers will probably disagree with me, I have to pitch in with those who say Democrats are overreaching on this censuring and impeaching stuff. The plain, simple reality is that Republicans control both houses, and cows will climb trees before they go along with such moves.

Our best bet is to retake the Senate and House this year. When we’re in the catbird seat, look out Bush. Until then, we’re just venting, and venting is what the weak and powerless do. Don’t waste energy going after Bush. I’m not saying to give Bush a free pass, but that we should use his every misdeed as evidence to convince our fellow voters to throw the bums out. After we do that, we can have a little talk with the Boy King.

Bush Okayed Warrantless Searches – Oregon Lawyer Says His Office Was Illegally Searched

Jon Ponder

NSA Is Being Sued for Alleged Illegal Surveillance

US News says President Bush’s authorization of warrantless domestic spying went beyond wiretapping to include physical searches of businesses and residences inside the United States — an apparent violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits “unreasonable” searches and seizures by the government.

Call me suspicious, but knowing the high fivin’ frat boys at the White House, it’s hard to imagine they haven’t used this powerful tool to gather intelligence on their political enemies as well.

The decision to authorize so-called “black bag jobs” was made by President Bush’s lawyers in the months after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks — at the same time the president authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to wiretap phones of American citizens without obtaining warrants.

An attorney in Oregon told the magazine that he believes someone, probably the FBI, has conducted multiple warrantless searches of his law offices and possibly his home:

At least one defense attorney representing a subject of a terrorism investigation believes he was the target of warrantless clandestine searches. On Sept. 23, 2005–nearly three months before the Times broke the NSA story–Thomas Nelson wrote to U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut in Oregon that in the previous nine months, “I and others have seen strong indications that my office and my home have been the target of clandestine searches.” In an interview, Nelson said he believes that the searches resulted from the fact that FBI agents accidentally gave his client classified documents and were trying to retrieve them…. Nelson’s wife and son, meanwhile, repeatedly called their home security company asking why their alarm system seemed to keep malfunctioning. The company could find no fault with the system.

Nelson said the classified documents appear to show that his client was the subject of warrantless eavesdropping by the NSA. He filed a lawsuit against the NSA on March 2 in Portland:

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BuzzFlash Agrees: A Cult of Bush Worshippers Has Commandeered the U.S.

Jon Ponder

In an editorial up this morning headlined,”BuzzFlash Now Officially Declares Bushevism a Cult,” the editors of one of the most widely read liberal websites write:

Let’s face it, there are only three segments left to the much-vaunted GOP Base: the corporate profiteers who wouldn’t care if Satan was president, as long as they got their pockets lined with taxpayer funded no-bid contracts; the Stepford Evangelicals; and the Bush cultists…

After all, what is a cult? It’s a movement that is comprised of people who believe in a leader contrary to reality and the harm that the person does them.

That sounds like people who support Bush alright, except for the corporate profiteers (who will always be hanging around for the money, no matter who is in power.)

Last December, I had the same thought. It came to me while watching a glassy-eyed Ken Mehlman, the closeted gay chairman of the Republican Party, reciting GOP talking points on television. He reminded me of glassy-eyed defenders of the Unification Church back in the day when they were called “Moonies” — before they began publishing the rightwing Washington Times newspaper.

In Is Bush Worship a Cult, I posted a list of the traits that experts use to define a cult. Here it is again:

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