Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales Indicted!

Could it be, the moment many are waiting for is beginning. It is happening in Texas. Read the story here.

Is this a beginning?  When will Bush get his turn?

Let’s hope that the rule of law is returned and transparency in government begins.

Rep. Baldwin Introduces Bill to Undo and Prosecute Bush-Cheney

Prosecution Is on the Table in Congress:
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin has just introduced the Executive Branch Accountability Act of 2008, which calls on the next President of the United States to

* Fully investigate Bush/Cheney administration officials 2019 alleged crimes and hold them accountable for any illegal acts.

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Sign to Impeach – Being Delivered to Pelosi this week

This is an important week.  We need everyone to add their name to the impeachment petition.

Go to Dennis Kucinich’s online petition to add your name by Wednesday, September 9th, 2008

Susan Eisenhower leaves Republican party

“I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama. I had always intended to go back to party ranks after the election and work with my many dedicated friends and colleagues to help reshape the GOP, especially in the foreign-policy arena. But I now know I will be more effective focusing on our national and international problems than I will be in trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate “seed corn.” And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks”…read more

Free Speech provided by the US Military

very sad video of this whole mess:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frR0qklU1_o

Halliburton – KBR and their no-bid cost-plus contracts

The Rip Off report From The Sun Herald:

A Pentagon investigative report alleges the firm KBR Inc. held an illegal contract, overcharged millions to the Navy and produced shoddy workmanship on its South Mississippi jobs after Katrina.

A report released by the Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General says KBR worked on Navy facilities in Gulfport, Pascagoula, at Stennis Space Center and in Pensacola, among other Gulf Coast sites after hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. The group holds a $500 million disaster-recovery contract with the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic based in Norfolk, Va., which was struck in 2004.

KBR received the deal from the federal government while it was a subsidiary of Haliburton, for which Vice President Dick Cheney is a former chairman of the board and chief executive officer. Cheney resigned from his Haliburton post to be President Bush’s running mate in 2000.

According to the Inspector General’s probe, the company was hired to set up trailer parks for displaced Navy personnel, make roof repairs on the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport and remove debris, among other jobs.

The Houston-based firm allegedly used a type of contract for some of the jobs known as “cost plus percentage of cost,” which the report says is a violation of federal law. Its premise is the higher the costs, the more profit the contractor turns, and the deal actually rewards wastefulness and inefficiency, inspectors concluded.

KBR Corporate Communications Director Heather Browne said Wednesday in a statement to the Sun Herald the company takes exception to the findings.

“KBR does not agree with many of the conclusions contained in the report,” Browne said. “We fully cooperated with the Inspector General in its review and provided our comments, including exceptions, to the Inspector General. We will continue to work with the Navy to resolve any items associated with the CONCAP contract that are unresolved.”

In one instance, the company failed to get competitive bids for subcontracts and it could have actually cost taxpayers $2 million more than it should have, the report said.

The company also allegedly charged representatives twice in some cases for work on the trailers, as shoddy workmanship had to be completely replaced. One laundry facility was unusable, and structures were wired with plugs that had only about half of the power-handling capacity they needed. The plugs had to be replaced.

The work at the trailer parks drew the suspicions of one technical evaluator. read more

Read the inspector general’s report

McClellan testifies before the House Judiciary Committee

From Salon:

Scott McClellan found himself in an unfamiliar position on Friday. There were reporters hanging on his words, and lights and cameras focused on him, but he was criticizing the Bush administration, not defending it.

McClellan, the former White House press secretary, came back to national attention recently when the contents of his tell-all book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” leaked, showing he’d become a strong critic of the Bush administration since he left it in 2006. And because of those criticisms, the House Judiciary Committee called him to testify to see if he could shed any light on certain subjects, especially the leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. read more

McClellan before the House Judiciary Committee:

Bruce Fein discusses the implications on The Real News:

Big Oil Companies Gain No Bid Contracts in Iraq

Kucinich’s impeachment case against George Bush

From Elizabeth Holtzman on the Huffington Post:

Some will want to dismiss Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s introduction of articles of impeachment against President Bush as quixotic, but it’s not. Twenty House Republicans joined nearly all House Democrats in voting to send the articles to the Judiciary Committee. This comes on the heels of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 107-page report confirming, with the vote of two Republican Senators, that President Bush abused his office by deceiving Congress and the American people into the Iraq war. Although Kucinich’s articles included other impeachment grounds as well, deception about the war is arguably the most serious one.

We have long known that the reasons President Bush and his team gave for going to war in Iraq were false. Many have contended that the president deliberately misled the nation into war. Scott McClellan, for example, with his insider’s perspective, says in his new book that the president used exaggerations and misleading statements to win public and Congressional support for going to war in Iraq. Now we have important corroboration of such claims: the Senate Intelligence Report has made it official in a way that Congress will find hard to ignore.

The report describes a drum roll of groundless statements by the president, the vice president and other top officials. While it does not use the word “lie,” it offers plenty of evidence that we were “led to war based on false pretences,” to quote Committee chair Senator Rockefeller. The report shows there was no intelligence to back up the President’s contention that Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were in cahoots, or his claim that Saddam would give WMD to terrorists, much less the Vice President’s fantasy that American soldiers would be welcomed as liberators.

Now that these are official findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the question is, what do we do about it? Just wring our hands? Simply hope for change in the November elections? Or does the Constitution now require something more of us?

The Constitution’s framers envisioned the possibility that presidents and their minions might seriously abuse the power of their office, and “subvert the constitution.” Their remedy was impeachment: the removal of the offending official to protect our democracy. They understood that Executives historically wanted to take countries into unnecessary wars, so they empowered Congress act as a real check on unwarranted presidential warmaking. Since lying to Congress obstructs that function, it is a grave abuse of power that “subverts the Constitution” and meets the standard for impeachment.

The House should commence an impeachment inquiry forthwith. In fact, in a sense, it is already beginning. Rep. Kucinich introduced the articles, the House has referred them to the Judiciary Committee and the Senate Intelligence Report goes a long way toward furnishing the investigative work Congress needs to do in the course of impeachment, at least as regards the run-up to the war (Congress should also look at other serious abuses of power, including President Bush’s refusal to obey duly enacted laws, as evidenced by hundreds of signing statements, his violations of the laws on wiretapping and mistreatment of detainees).

The next step is to start asking, what did the president actually know and when did he know it? Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill has stated that President Bush seemed determined to overthrow Saddam Hussein at the beginning of his administration, well before 9/11. There was also the British “Downing Street” memo written in the summer of 2002 stating that President Bush was going to “fix” the intelligence to fit the policy of overthrow. It’s now incumbent on Congress to take these matters up in impeachment hearings.

Yes, even at the end of their terms, President Bush and Vice President Cheney can still be impeached and removed from office. There might just be sufficient time to finish impeachment before they leave office, and technically they could be impeached even after that. This administration can still be held accountable for the consequences of the unnecessary Iraq War and other grave abuses. The American people still have a chance to witness the Constitution in action as it appropriately limits the powers of this president, preventing further abuses by him (such as bombing Iran without approval of Congress) or by his successors.

This would be an important lesson in democracy. We last learned it 34 years ago during the Nixon impeachment process, which reminded Americans how the Constitution works. But our collective memory of those far-off events may have faded, especially after the past eight years of President Bush asserting extreme claims for presidential power, coupled with the failure of Congress to respond forcefully. As a result, as a nation we may have a diminished level of constitutional literacy compared to 1974. It’s time to reinvigorate that literacy. We need to understand once again that acquiescing in this president seriously deceiving us into war means ignoring what the Constitution says, and jeopardizing our democracy.

South Korea doesn’t want our beef – Europe doesn’t want our chemicals

This past week in South Korea saw tens of thousands of citizens protesting the government’s move to begin US beef imports. The Seattle Times reported:

President Lee Myung-bak suggested Tuesday that South Korea will seek to ban imports of U.S. beef from older cattle amid a public backlash against his government over fears of mad cow disease.

Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun said earlier Tuesday that Seoul had asked the U.S. to refrain from exporting any beef from cattle 30 months of age and older, considered at greater risk of the illness.

Presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said the president told a weekly Cabinet meeting that “it is natural not to bring in meat from cattle 30 months of age and older as long as the people do not want it.”

The spokesman also expressed hope that the United States would respect South Korea’s position following large-scale anti-government protests over the weekend.

U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said Washington saw no need to renegotiate an April agreement for South Korea to resume beef imports.

He said the deal is “based on international science and there is no scientific justification to postpone implementation.”

South Korea agreed in April to reopen its market to U.S. beef after it was blocked for most of the past four and a half years after the first case of the brain-wasting cattle disease was found in the U.S. in late 2003.

However, after tens of thousands of people rallied over the weekend and a request from the ruling party, the government said Monday it was delaying implementation of the agreement.

The government decided on the delay to “humbly accept the people’s will,” Chung said. read more

Now the European Union wants to block our products over chemical contents. They feel the chemicals cause cancer and other health problems. From the Washington Post:

Adamantly opposed by the U.S. chemical industry and the Bush administration, the E.U. laws will be phased in over the next decade. It is difficult to know exactly how the changes will affect products sold in the United States. But American manufacturers are already searching for safer alternatives to chemicals used to make thousands of consumer goods, from bike helmets to shower curtains.

From its crackdown on antitrust practices in the computer industry to its rigorous protection of consumer privacy, the European Union has adopted a regulatory philosophy that emphasizes the consumer. Its approach to managing chemical risks, which started with a trickle of individual bans and has swelled into a wave, is part of a European focus on caution when it comes to health and the environment.

“There’s a strong sense in Europe and the world at large that America is letting the market have a free ride,” said Sheila Jasanoff, professor of science and technology studies at Harvard University‘s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “The Europeans believe . . . that being a good global citizen in an era of sustainability means you don’t just charge ahead and destroy the planet without concern for what you’re doing.” read more

George Bush’s current trip to Europe is being marketed as his farewell tour. However I believe he’s on another begging mission. Judging by his previously failed mission to the Middle East begging for oil, he will again not be well received. While Bush’s strong support for corporate interests over consumers does not justify impeachable offenses, examining the world opinion of our nation at this point in time, as a reaction to standard Bush policies, should cause Congress to take another look at the impeachment issue. If they care about our economy, even our ability to export anything of value, they will need to address the administration of George Bush to restore our standing in the Global arena. Our economy depends on this.

George Bush needs to go and the faster the better. Call your local Congressmember. In the 24th district California, that individual is Elton Gallegly.

MSNBC Impeachment Poll – See the results

Really we should impeach Dick Cheney first.

Live Vote

	Do you believe President Bush’s actions justify impeachment? * 696428 responses
	Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial. 89%
	No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors.” 4.2%
	No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching. 4.5%
	I don’t know. 2%
Not a scientific survey. Click to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

What We Know About Iraq From the People Who Launched the War

Now that Scott McClellan – a member of the Bush inner circle dating back to Texas days – has come out of the closet, it becomes increasingly unimaginable how any of the true-believers can continue to truly believe. But they do.

One wonders what it would take to dissuade these folks from their faith-based politics and the belief that the war in Iraq was justified. Will they need Laura Bush to actually turn on her husband? What if George’s pastor came out and divulged that the president had broken down and confessed all, begging the lord’s forgiveness?

It’s unlikely even those would be sufficient. And anyhow, the White House would go into its standard defensive posture that it employs whenever this happens, describing the truth-teller as “sad”, lamenting his obvious psychological pathology without of course coming out and saying quite that, wondering aloud why he’s never spoken out before. Indeed, it’s a wonder that McClellan wasn’t better prepared for this completely scripted response to his revelations, especially as he had used it himself against Richard Clarke, Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame.

Anyhow, all the true believers watching Fox will continue to truly believe. As the mayhem of the Bush years dwindles into numbed, robotic destruction and the tragedy of once noble national aspirations not only ruined but now also forgotten, it becomes ever more painfully obvious why these folks cannot let go, no matter how compelling nor how broad the growing mountain of evidence.

They are simply frightened to death. Frightened of bad people, frightened of brown people, frightened of terrorist threats blown ridiculously out of proportion, frightened of existential meaningless, frightened of cosmic insignificance. And now, to that weighty pile, must be added this: They are so frightened of their own complicity in bringing death, disaster, destruction and ungodly sorrow to Iraq that they can now only resort to astonishing levels of self-delusion to maintain their sanity. At this point, I almost don’t blame them anymore. They were so lazy, so stupid, so callow, so mean-spirited, so prejudiced that they bought into a crime of epic (and epochal) proportions and can no longer imaginably bear taking responsibility for the damage they’ve produced. And yet, people continue to suffer and die. Every day spent still supporting the war out of fear or laziness or stupidity or any of the rest is another day’s additional responsibility, another oil tanker of blood poured on hands long ago soaked to the bone.

And that responsibility is grave indeed. We don’t know (because the White House doesn’t want us to know) how many Iraqis have perished for Mr. Bush’s Folly, but the best estimates are over one million. We know that almost five million have been turned into refugees. Combined, that is over one-fifth of this country’s population. We know that over 4,000 Americans have been sacrificed, with tens of thousands gravely wounded and uncounted more tens of thousands psychologically traumatized. We know that our country’s reputation has been shattered, and that we’ve spent our children’s future livelihoods to pay for it by borrowing from them, without even asking for the money. That is a very large load to bear, so now people are compounding their original sin with additional ones, because they are so frightened of what they’ve caused that they’d rather continue causing more of the same than confront their responsibility, even when a Scott McClellan comes along and sticks it in their face.

The truth is, though, we never needed McClellan’s revelations to begin with. Just a bit of simple logic, combined with even a small, half-filled pail of basic factual information would have rendered the war rationale absurd from the beginning, well before an invasion morphed into an occupation, which morphed then into a debacle. Saddam’s Iraq was no threat to anybody in 2003. I mean, how threatening can a guy be who has already lost control of two-thirds of his own airspace, while his citizens are dying of malnutrition by the hundreds of thousands from internationally-imposed sanctions? How scary can a country be, when it has neither attacked yours, nor threatened to? Whatever happened to the logic of deterrence, a mechanism that prevented an infinitely more powerful Soviet Union from attacking the US through forty years of cold war? Why was Saddam bad when he attacked his neighbors in Kuwait, but not when he did the same thing to Iran, with American support and encouragement? Why was he considered evil for using chemical weapons when we wanted to go to war against him, but not when he actually was doing it, during which time the very same people in the US government protected him from international rebuke? If we knew where the WMD were, why didn’t we just tell the inspectors where to look? Why was Iraq such a threat that the inspectors couldn’t be allowed to finish their work, which would have required only a month or two more time? If Saddam was already so threatening, wouldn’t invading his country be just the thing to trigger an attack by him, using his WMD? Weren’t we supposed to be fighting the people who did 9/11, not a country that had nothing whatever to do with that? Why was Iraq all of a sudden such an immediate and urgent threat in March of 2003, when it hadn’t been less than a year earlier? Why did nearly the whole rest of the world condemn this war of choice?

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