John Nichols: "Tom Jefferson argued that the rebellion against King George III was unfinished business. (He) went so far as to suggest that the tree of liberty would need to be watered every 20 years or so with the blood of patriots. When another King George brought his royal tour to southwestern Wisconsin Tuesday, high school students in Richland Center got a powerful lesson regarding the difficulty of stamping out the regal impulse in the lesser leaders of our age. The Bush campaign rented the local high school and applied the divine right of kings - or at least one ill-prepared and inarticulate boy king - to a public school. Richland Center students were informed that they could attend the audience with His Highness only if they donned a Bush for President T-shirt or so-called 'neutral clothing.' What they could not wear was any clothing that promoted the cause of any dissenter to the rule of King George. If they showed up dressed inappropriately they would be removed..."

Bend.com: "Bush taught three Oregon schoolteachers a new lesson in irony - or tragedy - Thursday night when his campaign removed them from a Bush speech and threatened them with arrest simply for wearing t-shirts that said 'Protect Our Civil Liberties,' the Democratic Party of Oregon reported. The women were ticketed to the event, admitted into the event, and were then approached by event officials before the president's speech. They were asked to leave and to turn over their tickets - two of the three tickets were seized, but the third was saved when one of the teachers put it underneath an article of clothing. "The U.S. Constitution was not available on site for comment, but expressed in a written statement support for 'the freedom of speech' and 'of the press' among other civil liberties," a Democratic news release said."

Here's one of the best tributes to Kerry and most revealing negative indicators about Bush we've seen! A new survey shows that while the people of China, who have been pushing for a more democratic government, favor John Kerry overwhelmingly, the repressive Communist dictators who rule China are solidly behind Bush. N'uff said!

The Bush administration now "owns" the mainstream media - the arrogance of Sinclair Broadcasting is just the latest evidence of this stranglehold. The one avenue of non-Repug-controlled media that has been open to dissenters is the Internet. Now Bush wants to shut down that avenue, too! By abusing a treaty intended to fight terrorism, Bush last week succeeded in completely shutting down 20 indymedia sites. Now, in the guise of "regulating campaign finance" the FEC is setting its sites on other online sites. While the Repugs online sites are largely funded by corporate money, the majority of liberal sites are labors of love funded largely by individual small donations. So guess who will get "regulated out" of business? Not the corporate-funded sites, but the grassroots sites. Get a load of how the Bushies quoted in the article try to spin off this latest scheme!

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the timing of the FBI's shut down of 20 important indymedia sites - less than one month before the Nov 2 election - ain't a coincidence! These were among the most outspoken anti-Bush sites. Now the FBI is claiming that well, ya see, even though they were the ones who shut the sites down, it was REALLY 'cause of an order by the Italian gov (ie Bush's pal Berlusconi) and Swiss gov (ie. Berlusconi pals). Worse, the shut down was achieved by abusing the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which was designed NOT to silence political dissent, but to enable countries to assist each other in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering. This is no different from Tom Delay's subversion of Homeland Security resourcesd last year to harass dissenting Texas Democrats.

Investigative journalist Greg Palast is touring America to support his hard hitting, no holds barred, well researched attack on the Bush dynasty and everything that is despicable and corrupt about it called Bush Family Fortunes. The film was originally shown in the UK on BBC Television last year and was a massive hit, but American media refused to show it. We now need it to be a hit in the U.S. This hour long documentary follows the award-winning reporter-sleuth Greg Palast on the trail of the Bush family, from Florida election finagling, to the Saudi connection, to the Bush team's spiking the FBI investigation of the bin Laden family and the secret State Department plans for post-war Iraq. These are the hard-hitting reports that have been seen in films like Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, broadcast internationally on BBC Newsnight Television, and are found in Palast's international bestselling book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Buy the DVD, see Greg if you can.

Molly Ivins writes: "We all had our debate moments, but the one that stunned me was, 'It's (Iraq is) hard work. I see it on the TV screens.' Watching it on TV -- boy, that is tough work all right...I also came to a full stop after the one about sending troops to die. 'I never -- when I was running -- when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I'd be doing that.' He never dreamt it? It never occurred to him? Was this man prepared for the job? Help! I lean to the 'bubble president' theory of Bush's peevish, petulant performance in debate. They've kept him surrounded by people who keep telling him he's great. He never has liked being questioned about anything..." And he sure didn't like having to face the music in a live debate! In fact, tonight Bubble Boy is holding court the way he likes it: A scripted speech before a hand-picked gathering, with the media on a short leash.

Go Asia Pacific: "New Zealand member of parliament Keith Locke has criticised the United States' policy of fingerprinting and photographing airport arrivals, after he was subjected to the procedure during a two-hour stopover. Mr Locke says he's outraged that his fingerprints and photograph were taken, even though he was in a secure lounge and did not technically enter the country.The U.S. has introduced fingerprinting and photographs for the nationals of 27 countries - including New Zealanders - who are able to visit without a visa.The move follows longstanding arrangements for nationals of other countries. Mr. Locke was on an Air New Zealand flight from London to Auckland when the plane stopped in Los Angeles for two hours. The Greens' MP says fingerprinting is for people accused of a crime, not law-abiding citizens.

Rediff.com: "The Bush administration has been forced to scale back a plan proposing a covert CIA operation to aid candidates favoured by Washington in the Iraq elections after lawmakers raised questions about the idea when it was sent to Capitol Hill. The plan, written several months ago, wanted to help such candidates 'whose opponents might be receiving covert backing from other countries, like Iran' but not necessarily to go so far as to rig the elections [yeah, right!], US media reports said. But lawmakers, from both parties, raised questions about the idea when it was sent to Capitol Hill. In particular, house minority leader Nancy Pelosi 'came unglued' [says who? yet another 'anonymous source'?] when she learned about what a source described as a plan for 'the CIA to put an operation in place to affect the outcome of the elections.' "

Common Dreams: "The United States plans to sell Israel $319 million worth of air-launched bombs, including 500 "bunker busters" able to penetrate Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Israeli security sources said. The U.S. embassy in Israel had no comment, referring queries to Washington. Israel's Defense Ministry also declined comment. But a senior Israeli security source who confirmed the Haaretz story told Reuters: "This is not the sort of ordnance needed for the Palestinian front. Bunker busters could serve Israel against Iran, or possibly Syria." " How very convenient for Bush! It's his pattern: let someone else do your dirty work while you weasel out: from letting someone else go to Vietnam, to letting others slime political opponents, this man is an unbelievably cowardly sneak!

Vladimir Putin, Bush's 'soul mate,' has demanded that other nations - the US included - provide him lists of their terror suspects. Selected :"suspects" could then be extradited to Russia where torture uner dictator Putin is much easier and the death penalty legal and swift. But look at who has shown up on "terror lists" - if being on a "no fly" ban list is any indication: Ted Kennedy, Cat Stevens, people with environmental groups. In short, "terror suspects" could include anyone from Al Qaeda operatives to Bush's political enemies! And once these people are seized, as we now know, the US legal system does not have to contact anyone or charge them with anything. Will it then be off to Russias for Putin-style "processing?" The only nation to sign onto Putin's deal so far is human rights-trampling China.

Robert Parry writes: "Indeed, the younger George Bush -- with his thin appreciation for the value of free-and-open debate -- may be the perfect vessel for transforming the U.S. political process into a more authoritarian system envisioned by some hard-line conservatives. After Election 2000, Bush joked that 'If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier -- so long as I'm the dictator.' While the United States is not headed toward a traditional dictatorship nor even a tightly controlled 'democracy' on the model of Vladimir Putin's Russia, Republicans do envision the nation undergoing a transformation into a new political model that would ensure their party's control of all levers of American power for a generation or more. In effect, the transformation would mean that any candidate without the blessings of the powerful conservative echo chamber will have about as much chance of winning as the Washington Generals do against the Harlem Globetrotters."

This week, as Bush's numbers drift down again and the Democrats came back out swinging after an inconscionable media-White House assault on Kerry, it was announced that the Pentagon has set up a new "headquarters" in Washington DC, purportedly to "to assist civil authorities in responding to a terrorist attack here." Called The Joint Forces Headquarters for the National Capital Region, the reason for the "fort's" being is vague, to say the least. When asked, Army Maj. Gen. Galen B. Jackman refused to be more specific than:. "There are vulnerabilities in the nation's capital." Yeah, right - with the chief "vulnerability" being that Bush may lose the election and a new administration may come in. What is the Pentagon going to do? Declare the arrival of the incoming Kerry administration in the capitol as "a terrorist invasion?"

How predictable can ya get? The UK Sun reports (the White House wants to see how their scam plays in England first, no doubt!) : "Terrorists are said to be plotting a "spectacular" attack on the US to coincide with the presidential elections. Risks of an outrage will peak around the November 2 election and the inauguration ceremony on January 20, according to intelligence reports. Intelligence sources [yeah - Karl Rove and Dick Cheney] talking to the Washington "Moonie" Times believe al-Qaeda chiefs are planning a strike that will be even bigger and deadlier than the September 11 attacks of 2001. Possible targets in the US include the White House, Pentagon and Washington, as well as landmarks and business sites in New York." The only "spectacular attack" on America likely to happen on Nov. 2 is the attempted theft of the White House by G. W. Bush.

Still think there won't be a draft if Bush is reelected? Think again. Despite mounting evidence that the war in Iraq and the situation in Afghanistan have deteriorated into chaos, Bush refuses to change course. He calls clinging to a doomed path "being decisive." "Senators from both parties urged the Bush administration on Sunday to make a realistic assessment of the situation in Iraq and adjust its policies aimed at pacifying the country. But Bush readied a firm defense of his Iraq policy. 'The fact is a crisp, sharp analysis of our policies is required. We didn't do that in Vietnam, and we saw 11 years of casualties mount to the point where we finally lost,' said Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran."

Broadcsting & Cable: "According to the reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the trend toward limiting journalists' access to information in the wake, and under the invocation, of 9/11 continues to grow. 'Citizens seem to not realize how drastically their right to know has been limited in the last three years,' said Lucy Dalglish, RCFP director, in a statement on the release of its annual update, 'Hoefront Confidential. 'Even journalists will be astonished at the lengthy list of actions taken by public officials to turn basic government information into state secrets." Referring to the Patriot Act, the report concludes: " [T]he Justice Department has shown its willingness to use its powers aggressively, even making clear that a law barring newsroom searches is trumped by the [Act} when it comes to terrorism investigations."

CSM: "Vladimir Putin's announced changes to better secure Russia in the wake of the Beslan hostage tragedy work more to secure his own power than his country. How changing the country's electoral process can fortify Russia against more terrorist attacks is a head-scratching mystery. The only reasonable explanation for President Putin's plans to deprive voters of their right to directly elect regional governors and representatives in the national parliament lies in his pattern of power consolidation.Since Putin became president in 2000, he has muzzled the independent media, shown the business oligarchs who is boss, reduced the powers of the regional governors, and marginalized his political opposition." My, my! Doesn't this sound familiar?? Bush and Putin's plans are essentially the same: a push toward dictatorship.

From the ACLU: "By requiring non-profit charities to check their employees against a 'black list' [one prepared by the Bush administration] in order to receive donations from the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), John Ashcroft and this administration have created a climate of fear and intimidation that undermines the health and well-being of this nation. Organizations that enhance and promote America's health and education, the arts and the environment, children's services and religious life are threatened by the web of fear that emanates from the Patriot Act and the war on terror, and that is wrong." What is terrifying is that the blacklist will clearly FAVOR all organizations that favor the Bush regime, while ripping out funding from organizations that represent democracy, freedom, and self-expression.

NZ Herald: "A study of thousands of federal court cases has found that judges appointed by President George W. Bush are the most conservative on record in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties. The study's authors say the re-election of Bush would give US courts a strong rightward tilt that could last for years. Meanwhile, Democrat John Kerry said Bush had 'walked right by' Americans in need. He told the National Baptist Convention that Bush 'traffics in the politics of division' and likened him to the two men in the Biblical story of the Good Samaritan who passed by a robbed and beaten man. The remarks came as a CBS News poll showed Bush with a 7 percentage point lead two months before the election."

Common Dreams: "Government data confirm what many have suspected: secrecy has increased dramatically in recent years under policies of the current administration. For every $1 the federal government spent last year releasing old secrets, it spent an extraordinary $120 maintaining the secrets already on the books, according to an analysis by OpenTheGovernment.org. 'Excessive government secrecy hides problems that the public needs to know, and information embarrassing to officials,' said Rick Blum of OMB Watch. The government spent $6.5 billion last year creating 14 million new classified documents and securing accumulated secrets -- more than it has for at least the past decade. said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. 'While it may be necessary to close access to some extremely sensitive data in response to terrorism, there is no evidence to suggest that the public will only be safe if it is kept ignorant of government activity.' "

Senator Ted Kennedy, one of Bush's most outspoken and powerful critics found himself detained at an airport when his name turned up on a no fly list. Homeland Security claims this was an "accident." Yeah, right. A world-famous US senator's name "accidentally" ends up on a federal no fly list. At the very least this is a sick joke played by someone in the Bush admin. At the worst, an over-the-top form of intimidation of political "enemies."

"Before attending a rally to hear Dick Cheney, citizens in New Mexico were required to sign a political loyalty oath approved by the Republican National Committee. 'I, (full name) ... do herby (sic) endorse George W. Bush for reelection of the United States.' The form noted: 'In signing the above endorsement you are consenting to use and release of your name by Bush-Cheney as an endorser of resident Bush.' Around the country, Bush is campaigning at events billed as 'Ask President Bush.' Only supporters are allowed entrance. Talking points are distributed to questioners. In Traverse City, Mich., a 55-year-old social studies teacher who wore a small Kerry sticker on her blouse had her ticket torn up at the door. 'How can anyone in the United States deny someone entry?' she asked. 'Isn't this a democracy?'... At Bush's rallies he is the packaged president as pseudo-populist. But these controlled environments reflect his deeper view of the presidency as sovereign, preempting democracy."

The FBI "has been questioning political demonstrators across the country...even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York. FBI officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political events... The unusual initiative comes after the Justice Department, in a previously undisclosed legal opinion, gave its blessing to controversial tactics used last year by the FBI in urging local police departments to report suspicious activity at political and antiwar demonstrations to counterterrorism squads...everything from violent resistance to Internet fund-raising and recruitment... FBI counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their friends and family members... "

Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern writes: "Appointing Goss would administer the coup de grace to intelligence analysts trying to survive while still speaking truth without fear or favor. The only saving grace for them would be the likelihood that they would be spared 'multiple visits' by Cheney to the inner sanctum where it used to be possible to produce unvarnished analysis without vice presidents and other policy makers looking over their shoulders to ensure they 'had thought of everything.' Goss, who has a long history of subservience to Cheney, could be counted upon to play the Cheney/Gingrich/et al. role himself. Goss would be more discreet in showing his hand, but his appointment as director would be the ultimate in politicization. He has long shown himself to be under the spell of Vice President Dick Cheney, and would likely report primarily to him and to White House political adviser Karl Rove rather than to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice."

Here's an appeal to citizens from someone who knows more about Porter Goss than most: Senator Bill Nelson, a fellow Floridian (Goss is a FLA Rep.)."Please oppose Porter Goss for CIA director. I live in his district. I live in Naples and he has without exception voted the Republican party line in congress. He attacked Senator Kerry's candidacy. He's been an extreme right-wing republican who's played politics every chance he could. He voted FOR a constitutional amendment to make flag burning illegal and he's voted the far right-wing Republican position every single chance he's had. I believe the CIA director should be as unpolitical as possible and Goss does not fit that criterion." Can you imagine having as America's top intelligence official a man who supports the Ashcroft-Bush vision, who believes that burning the flag in protest is an act of terrorism?! SCARY!

"Campaign workers removed the Millers -- Marvin, Barbara and Theresa -- from Wendler Arena on Thursday minutes before the resident's motorcade rolled up [because] Barbara Miller, a 50-year-old chemist for Dow Chemical Co., had carried in a rolled-up T-shirt emblazoned with a pro-choice slogan. 'I thought I might be cold,' she said of the NARAL Pro-Choice America message.... 'I use it for running. I never even thought about the message. I just wanted to see my president.' Jennifer Millerwise, a Bush spokeswoman, defended the campaign's right to kick out attendees suspected of aiming to spoil an event.... The young man [working for Bush] accused them of 'smuggling in T-shirts.' The guard then grabbed their three tickets from Barbara Miller's hand, ripped them up 'violently' and told her, 'They're no good anymore,' she said. 'This is democracy under Bush ... I was probably voting for Kerry before. Now I'm 100% sure. Maybe I'll start campaigning for him. Maybe I'll start fund-raising.'"

This sounds a lot like a job loss threat, folks, so remember it for later: "The State Department has warned its employee Margaret 'Peggy' Kerry, sister of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry about her public activities in support of her brother's campaign" after Peggy gave a speech in which she promoted Kerry and disparaged Bush policy." State Dept. Spokesperson Darla Jordan said the department understood that Kerry had been "speaking in her private capacity and was not on official duty at the time" of the speech. "Jordan noted that US law bars career government employees from taking active part in partisan political campaigns while they are on duty and that Kerry had asked for and received guidance on the matter in February."

Newsday: "A government scientist...was arrested, handcuffed and detained for three hours by transit police" in DC for eating a candy bar. Stephanie Willett said she was eating a PayDay bar on an escalator descending into a station July 16 when an officer warned her to finish it before entering the station. Both Willett and police agree that she nodded and put the last bit into her mouth before throwing the wrapper into a trash can. Willett, a 45-year-old EPA scientist, told radio station WTOP the officer then followed her into the station. 'Don't you have some other crimes you have to take care of?' Willett said she told the officer. The transit police officer asked for Willett's identification, but Willett kept walking. She said she was then frisked and handcuffed." Of course, we can't help but wonder if scientist Willett was singled out ahead of time because she crossed the Bushies in the EPA somehow. Watch out! dissent and you'll be followed and arrested for eating candy!

Mark Medish writes, "What Orwell perceived was that the three dark mottoes go together. External conflict, internal ignorance, and the self-enslavement of buying manipulative media reinforce and need each other... Can we change in time? There are signs of a turning-point. The Supreme Court, which may now regret the unprecedented role it played in putting the president in office, seemed to send a clear message in the detention cases that due process still matters and that extra-judicial incarceration is un-American. (Hint: so is torture)... The key challenge for John Kerry and John Edwards is to build on this rising tide of dissent, break the grip of the military-industrial complex, and help shake America free of Bush-Cheney doublethink. The stakes in this year of decision could not be higher. Give Big Brother four more years and indeed, war might become our peace, ignorance our strength, and slavery our freedom."

"MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you another excerpt from the book: 'Bush's power has been wielded with arrogance, calculation, and disdain for dissenting views. The Constitution's careful separation of powers has been breached, and its checks and balances circumvented. Behind closed doors, schemes have been hatched, with information denied to the legislative branch and policy makers shielded from informing the people or Congress. In fact, there appears to be little respect for the role of Congress. There is virtually no attempt to build consensus through the hard work of reaching across the aisle to find common ground. Real consultation does not exist.' You've worked with 11 presidents. Is that any different than with the previous 10? SEN. BYRD: It's very different. I have never seen such secrecy. I have never experienced such a feeling of disdain for the Congress by this administration. And this is what I've been talking about." Buy Byrd's new book "Losing America" at Democrats.com/books

A prominent federal judge told a conference of liberal lawyers that Bush'ss rise to power was similar to the accession of dictators Mussolini and Hitler. "In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States", somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power. That is what the Supreme Court did... It put somebody in power," said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals... "The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy.. The king had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election. That is [also] what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in." The 71-year-old judge declared that members of the public should, without regard to their political views, expel Mr. Bush from office in order to cleanse the democratic system."

News24: "The United States is holding suspects in the war on terrorism in more than two dozen detention centres around the world, at least half of which operate in total secrecy, a human rights group charged on Thursday. Human Rights First said that secrecy surrounding the detention centres makes 'inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely, but inevitable'. 'The United States government is holding prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability, or law,' said Deborah Pearlstein, a director of the rights group. The report listed 17 detention centres that have been officially disclosed by the government, including two in Afghanistan, 13 in Iraq, one at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and one in Charleston, South Carolina. The report labelled as 'suspected' 13 other detention centres around the world that are not acknowledged officially but whose existence it said had been reported by multiple sources."

Nat Parry writes: "George W. Bush is asserting presidential authority that in theory covers the lives and liberties of everyone, everywhere, U.S. citizens and foreigners alike, a claim of power so sweeping that it permits him to imprison, torture and kill at his choice without legal constraint anywhere in the world... It's not so much that Bush is saying that he is above the law or even that he - regally - is the law. He is claiming that no law can infringe on his inherent power to do whatever he wishes as commander in chief. It is a declaration of personal authority unprecedented in scope and contemptuous of American constitutional checks and balances. Ultimately, this Bush Doctrine of Presidential Power is what's at stake in the Nov. 2 elections."

Recently, Bush's Joint Terrorism Task force threw the book at a group of CA artists for displaying artwork depicting bioterrorism. Now in NY state, Bush's Brown Shirts are persecuting more artists. "Computers, test tubes, laboratory instruments and other supplies not on view were intended for an installation titled "Free Range Grains," part of the exhibition "The Interventionists" at MASS MoCA [were confiscated]. The installation was designed to draw attention to genetic modifications in food. The equipment was to have been used at MASS MoCA to conduct simple experiments on food products to determine if they contained GMOs. Even though the Erie County health officials tested Kurtz's stuff and found nothing wrong, the FBI referred the case to U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr., chief of the anti-terrorism unit in western New York. This is getting more like Nazi Germany in the 30s every week!

Teresa Hampton & Doug Thompson write, "Welcome to America, 2004, where the actions of more than 150 million citizens are monitored 24/7 by the TIA, the Terrorist Information Awareness (originally called Total Information Awareness) program of DARPA, DHS and the Department of Justice. Although Congress cut off funding for TIA last year, the Bush Administration ordered the program moved into the Pentagon's 'black bag' budget, which is neither authorized nor reviewed by the Hill. DARPA also increased the use of private contractors to get around privacy laws that would restrict activities by federal employees. Six months of interviews with security consultants, former DARPA employees, privacy experts and contractors who worked on the TIA facility at 3701 Fairfax Drive in Arlington reveal a massive snooping operation that is capable of gathering vast amounts of information on the day to day activities of ordinary Americans." Read this chilling article - and start fighting for your freedom.

Bernard Weiner writes: "There's only one issue to discuss right now: the extra-constitutional rules and philosophy of the Bush Administration, as revealed in the legal briefs and memos drafted for Rumsfeld and Ashcroft and Bush on the torture question....Friends (and any Democratic office-holders reading this), we either stop this pack of wolves here -- by impeaching them now, or in November throwing them out of the offices they've disgraced -- or we wind up living in a police-state at home, and carrying out more disastrous imperial wars abroad. Is this the country so many veterans have fought and died for? Is this the kind of government you want your kids raised under? Is this, finally, what we've come to in America because we didn't pay enough attention to what was really happening under our noses, and permitted ourselves to be snowed and manipulated so easily?"

"The legal memo, written 3/26/03 for the Defense Department and disclosed this week, did not speak for President Bush, but it claimed an extraordinary power for him. It said that as the commander in chief, he had a 'constitutionally superior position' to Congress and an 'inherent authority' to prosecute the war, even if it meant defying the will of Congress. Congress adopted an anti-torture law in 1994 that barred Americans abroad acting under U.S. authority from inflicting 'severe physical or mental pain.' But the 56-page memo on 'Detainee Interrogation in the Global War on Terrorism' maintains that the president and his military commander cannot be restrained in this way. 'Congress lacks authority to set the terms and conditions under which the president may exercise his authority as commander in chief to control the conduct of operations during a war,' the memo asserts... But according to several mainstream legal scholars, this turns the Constitution on its head."

South Africa's Mail and Guardian: "The Bush administration routinely bypassed or overruled Pentagon experts on international law and the Geneva convention to construct a sweeping legal justification for harsh tactics in the war on terror. Bush's military order of November 13 2001, which denies prisoner-of-war status to captives from Afghanistan and allows their detention without charge or access to a lawyer at Guantanamo, was issued without any consultations with Pentagon lawyers. The military order was the first such directive since the second world war, and the administration's failure to seek the Pentagon's advice on what would emerge as the entire system of detention at Guantanamo surprised Pentagon officials. 'That came like a bolt from the blue,' the official said. 'Neither I nor anyone I knew had any insight, any advance knowledge, or any opportunity to comment on the president's military order.' "

ABC News: "The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that the Bush administration can skip a lengthy environmental study and open U.S. roadways to Mexican trucks as soon as it wishes. The high court ruled against labor and environmental organizations that have long fought expansion of Mexican trucking within the borders of the United States despite a guarantee this country made when it signed the North American Free Trade Agreement more than a decade ago. Ruling on narrow procedural issues, the Supreme Court said the president has authority to open the border, and a federal agency responsible for truck safety has no say in the matter. Thus, the agency was under no obligation to study environmental effects from opening the border, as a lower federal court had ordered."

Scoop: "Bush's real peers are not US presidents but Third World dictators, like Pinochet, many of whom his father put in office. Their coda is clear: 1. Use of "terror" as an excuse for totalitarian control; 2. Official secrecy for its own sake; 3. Seizure of power in contempt of free elections; 4. Totalitarian militarism; 5. Abuse of human rights and liberties; 6. Love of the death penalty; 7. Hatred of a free press; 8. Imprisonment without legal recourse; 9. Widespread torture; 10. Brazen theft of public billions;11. "Free market" smokescreens for corporate domination; 12. Taxing the poor to benefit the rich; 13. Hatred of labor unions; 14. Decimation of the natural environment; 15. Assaulting elected leaders anywhere, anytime; 16. Contempt for international treaties; 17. Reactionary alliance with right wing church groups; 18. Contempt for women's rights; 19. Manipulating divisions of race and class." Sounds like a match to us! .

Dan Mikalski writes in 2000: "For Texans, however, the results of five years of George Bush's "reforms" of the justice system are becoming painfully clear. Texas incarcerates more of its residents per capita, about 7.2 per 1,000, than any other state. Prisoners are younger and more violent, and because they serve longer sentences-- parole has been essentially eliminated since Bush took office--they have no incentive for good behavior and a nothing-to-lose attitude. While the Texas prison population has roughly tripled over the past decade, violent attacks have increased tenfold. Inmate gangs, in the face of a thinning corps of underpaid, undertrained guards, now run amok, enforcing their own system of prison discipline with beatings, stabbings, and rapes. Those who have spent time inside Texas warn that the Bush administration has turned the TDCJ into a factory of violence that is literally bursting at the seams."

Under Gov. Bush, the rate of imprisonment of Texas citizens skyrocketed until 1 in every 20 adults was under the justice system. Says Vincent Schiraldi, director of the Justice Policy, "The sheer numbers of people in prison and jail in Texas are signs of system fixated on punishment, and devoid of compassion." The growth of Texas' prison population during the 1990s was not only the highest in the nation, but, had Texas been a country, it would have the highest incarceration rate in the world, easily surpassing the US and Russia, and even China! Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at seven times the rate of whites; nearly 1 in 3 young African American men in Texas is under some form of criminal justice control. The incarceration rate for Blacks in Texas is 63% higher than the national incarceration rate for blacks

Tim Grieve writes, "The question is, what did [Deputy Solicitor General Paul] Clement know when he climbed the steps of the Supreme Court building on the morning of April 28? Did he know what his client knew -- that the Department of Defense was investigating grave abuses at Abu Ghraib? Did he know what his client's staff knew -- that Joint Chiefs chairman Myers had been working to keep CBS from broadcasting photographs of the abuse? Or did he know what the NY Times says some of his colleagues at the Justice Department knew -- that the Bush administration, with the approval of the Justice Department, had instituted policies allowing the CIA to use 'severe' interrogation techniques on detainees suspected of being high-level al-Qaida members? The Justice Department won't say... [Lawyers want a] congressional inquiry into whether Clement made a 'knowingly or recklessly false assertion to the Supreme Court in order to bolster the government's legal position' in the enemy combatant cases."

"Like the more numerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the high-level Qaeda prisoners have also been defined as unlawful combatants, not as prisoners of war. Those prisoners have no standing in American civilian or military courts.... After the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency began to search for remote sites in friendly countries around the world where Qaeda operatives could be kept quietly and securely. 'There was a debate after 9/11 about how to make people DISAPPEAR,' a former intelligence official said. The result was a series of secret agreements allowing the C.I.A. to use sites overseas without outside scrutiny... Counterterrorism officials have complained about the Bush administration's failure to have an 'endgame' for these detainees. One official said they could also be imprisoned indefinitely at a new long-term prison being built at Guantanamo." In South America, the "disappeared" were simply thrown into the ocean. Is that Dictator Bush's plan for America? Impeach Bush Now!

The AP reports: "Denouncing increased official secrecy, Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley unveiled a plan Friday for a media advocacy center to lobby in Washington for open government. 'The powerful have to be watched, and we are the watchers,' Curley said, 'and you don't need to have your notebook snatched by a policeman to know that keeping an eye on government activities has lately gotten a lot harder.' At every level of government, records are being sealed and requests for information denied, and courts are imposing gag orders and sealing documents, Curley said, speaking in the Hays Press-Enterprise Lecture series.... 'The government is pushing hard for secrecy,; he said. ;We must push back equally hard for openness. I think it's time to consider establishment of a focused lobbying effort in Washington.' "

Guardian: "Bush has created what is in effect a gulag. It stretches from prisons in Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guantanamo to secret CIA prisons around the world. There are perhaps 10,000 people being held in Iraq, 1,000 in Afghanistan and almost 700 in Guantanamo, but no one knows the exact numbers. The law as it applies to them is whatever the executive deems necessary. There has been nothing like this system since the fall of the Soviet Union. The US military embraced the Geneva conventions after the second world war, because applying them to prisoners of war protects American soldiers. But the Bush administration, in an internal fight, trumped its argument by designating those at Guantanamo 'enemy combatants'. Rumsfeld extended this system - 'a legal black hole', according to Human Rights Watch - to Afghanistan and then Iraq, openly rejecting the conventions."

"Mr. Padilla's detention confounds traditional notions of the way justice works in America. His case, which goes before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, is shrouded in secrecy. No charges have been filed against him. And the government has offered just a hint of any evidence it has, asking the courts to defer to its judgment that, as Mr. Bush proclaimed, 'this guy Padilla's a bad guy.'.. The Bush administration says that the norms of criminal justice do not apply here, that the government has moved from a peacetime to a wartime footing. It is within the wartime authority of the president as commander in chief, to detain Mr. Padilla indefinitely in order to interrogate him and prevent him from engaging in terrorism...If the government is upheld than the President can hold anyone one of us as an enemy combatant indefinitely just on his say so."

Tom Raum reports: "Across the world, it seems that U.S. diplomacy is breaking down. America's ties with Europe and the United Nations are frayed. The Arab world is furious over U.S. support for Israel on West Bank settlements. Pleas for help in stabilizing Iraq have found few takers. Troops from Spain, Honduras and the Dominican Republic are leaving. And coalition leaders still standing with President Bush face rising political dissent at home. In the other hand, relations are clearly improving with China and Libya. The U.S. overtures to these old totalitarian foes might have startled administration foreign policy hawks just a few years ago, but the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have produced some seismic shifts in global dynamics." Yep, the Bush regime has shifted from democracies to dictatorships in its desperate quest for friends.

Joshua Rozenberg writes for the UK Telegraph: "Is President George W Bush above the law? That is the nub of the question currently preoccupying the nine justices of the US Supreme Court. The judges, who heard oral arguments on Tuesday, already seem likely to split down party lines when they hand down a ruling in the summer. They have been asked to decide 'whether United States courts lack jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of the detention of foreign nationals captured abroad in connection with hostilities and incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba'... But how can an American court decline jurisdiction to hear a claim that a person has been unlawfully detained by the US administration?... Legal opinion in Britain, however, is that these arguments do not stand up to a moment's scrutiny - let alone the two years and more that the detainees have been held without charge, access to counsel or recourse to the courts."

Bush's "initial refusal... to let his national-security adviser appear under oath before the 9/11 Commission might have been in keeping with a principle followed by other presidents -- the principle being, according to Bush, that calling his advisers to testify under oath is a congressional encroachment on the executive branch's turf. (Never mind that this commission is not a congressional body, but one he created and whose members he handpicked.) But standing on that principle has proved to be politically damaging, in part because this administration -- the most secretive since Richard Nixon's -- already suffers from a deepening credibility problem. It all brings to mind something I've wondered about for some time: Are secrecy and credibility natural enemies? When you stop to think about it, you keep secrets from people when you don't want them to know the truth. Secrets, even when legitimate and necessary, as in genuine national-security cases, are what you might call passive lies."

Joint statement from top Bush toadies Frist and Hastert (Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber) "We applaud the decision of the President to allow the National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, to testify before the 9/11 Commission. This is a unique event given the extraordinary nature of Sept. 11, 2001. We do not believe Dr. Rice's testimony, before an independent commission, should be seen as setting any precedent, and it should not be cited as setting precedent for future requests for a National Security Advisor or any other White House official to testify before a legislative body." In short: "America, we threw you a bone, now buzz off and let us lie and manipulate in peace!"

"From the day it took office, U.S. News & World Report wrote a few months ago, the Bush administration 'dropped a shroud of secrecy' over the federal government. After 9/11, the administration's secretiveness knew no limits -- Americans, Ari Fleischer ominously warned, 'need to watch what they say, watch what they do.' Patriotic citizens were supposed to accept the administration's version of events, not ask awkward questions. But something remarkable has been happening lately: more and more insiders are finding the courage to reveal the truth on issues ranging from mercury pollution -- yes, Virginia, polluters do write the regulations these days, and never mind the science -- to the war on terror. It's important, when you read the inevitable attempts to impugn the character of the latest whistle-blower, to realize just how risky it is to reveal awkward truths about the Bush administration."

Medicare Actuary Threatened with Firing if He Told Truth to Congress

Fmr. Treasury Secretary Threatened with Investigation after Telling Truth

Lindsey Fired for Telling the Truth about Costs

Those are just three of the headlines in this report by the Center for American Progress.

This is perhaps the most colossal outrage against the principles of American free speech that Bush has yet perpetrated. He is now trying to twist the nation's laws into a pretzel to silence anyone who has the power to speak out forcibly against him. He is calling for an investigation of MoveOn - an honest-to-God citizen's grass roots movement that started with just seven people and received a huge outwelling of support because of the widespread anger against Bush nationally. Moveon is NOT part of the Democratic party, yet Bush claims their funds are "soft money." So what's next? Declaring all funds donated to Sierra Club, Public Citizen, the ACLU or any other group with a progressive point of view "soft money"? Meanwhile, the RNC funnels money from so many different fronts, including Fannie Mae and funds intended for poor children that an investigation there REALLY WOULD hit pay dirt!

Pessimist writes at the Left Coaster: "One of the defining characteristics of the Bush (mis)Administration... is that they are absolutely relentless in their continuing grab for absolute power. Their scorched-earth policies are designed to weaken the resolve of those who would otherwise oppose them by generating fear that more will be lost. [This is total political war. No holds] will be barred by the right, so none should be barred by the left. This is gutter political warfare of the worst kind, a remorseless war, with no quarter asked or given. Any weapon that can be brought to bear will be. The Democrats have to be willing and able to fight such a war -- [for if they don't, the] American Experiment will have ended, and the forces of darkness will have won. We won't have a Bilbo Baggins around to destroy the source of that power and rescue us -- such things only happen in adventure fantasies. This is reality."

AP: "Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a 'terrorist organization' Monday, taking on the 2.7-million-member National Education Association early in the presidential election year. Paige's comments, made to the nation's governors at a private White House meeting, were denounced by union president Reg Weaver as well as prominent Democrats. Paige said he was sorry, and the White House said he was right to say so. The education secretary's words were 'pathetic and they are not a laughing matter,' said Weaver, whose union has said it plans to sue the Bush administration over lack of funding for demands included in the 'No Child Left Behind' schools law. Paige said later in an Associated Press interview that his comment was 'a bad joke; it was an inappropriate choice of words.'"

During a meeting with governors at the White House, Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization". The governors who heard that outrageous statement dismissed it as a joke in poor taste. This could be a prelude to declaring that NEA members can be detained indefinitely, without charges and without access to legal counsel, if they criticize No Child Left Behind. Let's hope that's just a joke...

George Soros writes in the Guardian: "The Bush administration has deliberately exploited September 11 to pursue policies that the American public would not have otherwise tolerated. At present the country is in the process of committing such mistakes because it is in the hands of a group of extremists whose strong sense of mission is matched only by their false sense of certitude. This distorted view postulates that because we are stronger than others, we must know better and we must have right on our side. That is where religious fundamentalism comes together with market fundamentalism to form the ideology of American supremacy. Wittingly or unwittingly, President Bush deceived the American public and Congress and rode roughshod over our allies' opinions. The gap between the administration's expectations and the actual state of affairs could not be wider. We have put at risk not only our soldiers' lives but the combat readiness of our armed forces."

St. Louis Post Dispatch: "Under a new proposal, the White House would decide what and when the public would be told about an outbreak of mad cow disease, an anthrax release, a nuclear plant accident or any other crisis [such as a terrorist attack that destroys a building, so that it spews toxic substances into the surrounding environment]. The White House Office of Management and Budget is trying to gain final control over release of emergency declarations from the federal agencies responsible for public health, safety and the environment." Hey, wait a second! The Bush White House pressured the EPA to lie to New Yorkers about how it was safe to return to work after 9/11 -- so that the Stock Market would open ASAP. They made the EPA mislead the public with statements that the air quality met OSHA standards, and to also suppress cleanup guidelines. Given these Bush lies about Ground Zero, it is clearly dangerous to the health of Americans to invest the Bush White House with this power!

"The Bush administration is using cases of people dragooned during its so-called 'war on terror' to establish broad legal precedents supporting unlimited presidential power to imprison people without charges and then to hide its operations from public scrutiny. Having already upheld the Bush administration in one such case, the same Supreme Court which intervened in the 2000 elections to halt the counting of Florida ballots and steal the election for George Bush will be deciding at least four more 'war on terror' cases before its term ends in late June."

John Dean writes: "Can the President of the United States arrest any American he suspects of being a terrorist and toss him in a military brig, deny him a lawyer, omit to bring any charges against him -- yet indefinitely keep him imprisoned nonetheless? Can the President kidnap foreigners charged with violating federal law, and bring them to the United States to stand trial? How about Osama bin Laden, for starters? These are only a few of the issues raised by cases now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that will examine the limits of presidential powers. As David Savage, the legal writer for the Los Angeles Times, has noted, this is a remarkable collection of cases."

Valerie Plame, Paul O'Neill, and others have suffered the wrath of the vindictive Bush Regime. Now it is using Michael Powell and the FCC to go after Bono, who helped make O'Neill a well-liked public figure. Powell has PERSONALLY asked fellow FCC commissioners to overturn a decision that an expletive uttered by the musician Bono on a network program last year on the Golden Globes show was not obscene. In his excitement, Bono had exclaimed, " this is really, really, f------ brilliant." Talk about abuse of power! OVERTURNING old decisions to "get at" Bush enemies.

Pat Buchanan's right-wing rag writes, "In a May 2003 terrorist advisory, the Homeland Security Department warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who 'expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government.' ... On May 30, 2002, Ashcroft effectively abolished restrictions on FBI surveillance of Americans' everyday lives first imposed in 1976. One FBI internal newsletter encouraged FBI agents to conduct more interviews with antiwar activists 'for plenty of reasons, chief of which it will enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles and will further service to get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox.' The FBI took a shotgun approach towards protesters partly because of the FBI's 'belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps towards the possible ultimate commission of act which might be criminal,' according to a Senate report."

Acting on Bush's approval, the DOD ordered nearly $30 million worth of anthrax vaccine - right after a federal judge ruled mandatory vaccines illegal. Now BushDaddy's friends at BioPort can continue to make millions off their own private pool of guinea pigs: our troops. "Privately held BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Michigan, was awarded the Army order Wednesday as part of a $245.6 million contract, " Forbes reports. "The move demonstrates confidence 'we will resume the anthrax vaccination program as it existed before the judge's order,' said a Defense Department spokesman." What more proof do we need of Bush's Arrogance of Power?

Edward Wenk cites 10 threats to Democracy. 1. The Electoral College created by the Constitution has proven obsolete. 2. Machines now being acquired are highly vulnerable to fraud. 3. The concentration of media also threatens democracy because citizens can be swamped with biased news or blocked from any. 4. Reforms in campaign funding do not diminish the imperative to raise funds for TV ads. 5. The military-industrial-congressional complex controls half the national budget and subverts priorities preferred by the electorate. 6. The White House blocks freedom of information and keeps secret names of campaign contributors seeking access to power as major policies are drafted. 7. The White House lacks tolerance for healthy dissent. 8. Redistricting has been pathologically distorted by gerrymandering so that incumbent Republicans are virtually guaranteed re-election. 9. Education of children neglects the beauty of democracy. 10. Bush shrinks democracy and even the appetite for freedom.

Gore Vidal: "We are talking about despotism. I have read not only the first PATRIOT Act but also the second one, which has not yet been totally made public nor approved by Congress and to which there is already great resistance. An American citizen can be fingered as a terrorist, and with what proof? No proof. All you need is the word of the AG or maybe the president himself. You can then be locked up without access to a lawyer, and then tried by military tribunal and even executed. Or, in a brand-new wrinkle, you can be exiled, stripped of your citizenship and packed off to another place not even organized as a country - like Tierra del Fuego... The Founding Fathers would have found this to be despotism in spades. And they would have hanged anybody who tried to get this through the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hanged... I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open. We have a deranged president. We have despotism."

PentaPost reports, "To the Pentagon, stop-loss orders are a finger in the dike -- a tool to halt the hemorrhage of personnel, and maximize cohesion and experience, for units in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Through a series of stop-loss orders, the Army alone has blocked the possible retirements and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and reserve members who were eligible to leave the service this year... Some [soldiers] are resigned to fulfilling what they consider their patriotic duty. Others are livid, insisting they have fallen victim to a policy that amounts to an unannounced, unheralded draft. 'I'm furious. I'm aggravated. I feel violated. I feel used,' said Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Eagle, 42... Other soldiers retained by the Army under stop-loss are more resigned than irate, but no less demoralized by what some have come to regard as their involuntary servitude." Bush treats soldiers as slaves - Impeach Bush Now!

James Ridgeway writes: "An internal Justice Department probe, based on surveillance videos made by the government inside federal detention facilities, shows that the U.S. harassed, beat, and kept in solitary confinement without access to family or lawyers men it picked up off the streets of New York after 9-11... And this doesn't even scratch the surface of what's been going on. Lawyers were not told the numbers of courtrooms to where their clients were being shuttled because the room locations were secret. Members of Congress, government, the press, and the judiciary knew from the very get-go that any FBI agent, acting on his or her own, could make an affidavit asserting that any individual was a suspected terrorist. Every day, Ashcroft and Bush work the country toward something like martial law, though the administration has suffered setbacks, like last week's rulings by two federal appellate courts in Padilla v. Rumsfeld and Gherebi v. Bush."

Tom Engelhardt writes, "James Risen and Thom Shanker began their report, Hussein Enters Post-9/11 Web of U.S. Prisons, this way: 'Saddam Hussein is now prisoner No. 1 in what has developed into a global detention system run by the Pentagon and the CIA. It is a secretive universe, they said, made up of large and small facilities throughout the world that have sprouted up to handle the hundreds of suspected terrorists of Al Qaeda, Taliban warlords and former officials of the Iraqi government. ' This secret world extends from Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan, to Baghdad International Airport to our Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. [Actually,] we don't have a single semi-secret international prison system but two overlapping ones - and although Risen and Shanker speak of its inmates as 'arrested,' such arrests lead not to courts in any country on earth, but directly to a universe of 'interrogators.' The arrestees to a man are, at present, beyond the oversight of any court on earth."

W. David Jenkins III writes: "The very people who call those questioning our leaders' motives and secrecy 'paranoid' are the same people who stocked up on duct tape and plastic sheeting months ago. Those who call themselves 'patriots' see nothing wrong with more than 400 flag-draped coffins being flown home in the dark of night, thus depriving our brave warriors of receiving well-earned public display of honor and respect. The military has stated that it suffers from not only insufficient armor, but the armor it does have is inadequate to protect the soldiers. Those of us who point this out to the self-proclaimed patriots are immediately branded as un-American or against the troops."

Bill Moyers, host of the weekly PBS news program "Now with Bill Moyers," recently gave a keynote address before 2,000 people at the first-ever National Conference on Media Reform. He warned, "What we're talking about is nothing less than rescuing a democracy that is so polarized, it is in danger of being paralyzed and pulverized. Alarming words, I know. But the realities we face should trigger alarms. Free and responsible government by popular consent just can't exist without an informed public."

"Former Vice President Al Gore told college students Tuesday night that the Bush administration is 'using fear as a political tool' unworthy of the presidency. 'For the president of the United States to claim in a television ad that those who disagreed with the decision to go to war with Iraq are against attacking terrorists is a disgrace,' said Gore, who lost the 2000 election to President Bush. 'It is a cheap and petty political tactic not worthy of the presidency. It is something you would find in a down-and-dirty sleazy campaign for city council,' Gore added, drawing laughs from the partisan crowd at Middle Tennessee State University. He said Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt did not inspire fear but called for courage in urging support of World War II. 'I'm concerned (Bush) is turning out to be a divider, not a uniter,' Gore said."

Mike Littwin writes: "Before the press was herded into the giant hangar in advance of George W. Bush's pep rally/photo op with the Fort Carson troops, we were given the rules. No talking to the troops before the rally. No talking to the troops during the rally. No talking to the troops after the rally. In other words, if I've done the math right, that means no conversation at all - at least, while on base - with any soldiers. After all, who knows where that kind of thing could lead? Just as an example: It could lead to a discussion about why the president has time to get to so many fund-raisers and no time to attend a single funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq."

"'Last week, the fundamental rights of thousands of Americans were blatantly violated, sometimes violently, by the Miami police, who systematically repressed our Constitutional right to free assembly with massive force, riot gear and armaments,' said Leo W. Gerard, USWA international president... 'It is doubly condemnable that $9 million of federal funds designated for the reconstruction of Iraq were used toward this despicable purpose. How can we hope to build democracy in Iraq while using massive force to dismantle it here at home?' Citing 'countless instances of humiliating repression in which the Miami police force disgraced itself,' Gerard said that Miami police chief John Timoney should be fired, all charges against peaceful demonstrators should be dropped, and a Congressional investigation into the Miami police department's systematic repression should immediately be launched. 'To do less would be to endorse homeland repression in the guise of homeland security.'"

First (in same interview) Tommy Franks warns that if the US is hit with a WMD that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution is likely to be scrapped (by Bush, of course). In the same interview, he sucks up to Bush like a groupie at a stage door (he'll be remembered as a "hero," etc [gag]). So what is going on? Has Franks, witnessing the plight of troops HE led into disaster, grown a conscience? And, knowing the Bush Junta has something horrible up their sleeve as a way to seize ultimate power, could he be trying to warn us, while deflecting Bush suspicion by also kissing ass? Or is Franks simply a complete Fascist, casually remarking on the good ole days of totalitarianism to come? Either way, his message is clear: Bush will stop at NOTHING. Absolutely nothing.

Here is a list of the outrageous demands Bush made on the British government in preparation for his visit: Closure of all London subway lines, widespread blocking of London streets, the patrolling of London skies by fighter jets and Black Hawk helicopters, a shoot-to-kill protestors order for American special agents and snipers WITH immunity against prosecution if they kill anyone, and the shipping in of battlefield weaponry to use on PROTESTORS. Even Hitler was not this paranoid! Bush has become a Caligula! Thank God the UK has refused all of these demands, aside from selected road closures. It proves there is some sanity left in an English-speaking government. New York City, be forewarned - the GOP convention next August will be a Bush war zone.

"George Soros, one of the world's richest men, has given away nearly $5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa and Asia. Now he has a new project: defeating President Bush. 'It is the central focus of my life,' Soros said, his blue eyes settled on an unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an interview, is 'a matter of life and death.'... 'America, under Bush, is a danger to the world,' Soros said. Then he smiled: 'And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.' Soros believes that a 'supremacist ideology' guides this White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. 'When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans.' It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit ('The enemy is listening'). 'My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me,' he said in a soft Hungarian accent." You GO, George!

"White House security demands covering... George Bush's controversial state visit to Britain have provoked a serious row with Scotland Yard. American officials want a virtual three-day shutdown of central London in a bid to foil disruption of the visit by anti-war protestors. They are demanding that police ban all marches and seal off the city centre. But senior Yard officers say the powers requested by US security chiefs would be unprecedented on British soil. While the Met wants to prevent violence, it is sensitive to accusations of trying to curtail legitimate protest. Met officers came in for heavy criticism when banners were torn down and demonstrators prevented from coming within sight of Chinese President Jiang Zemin during his visit in 1999. But with tens of thousands of protestors from around the UK set to join blockades and marches during the Bush trip, US officials are reportedly insisting on an 'exclusion zone'."

Brett Bursey "subpoenaed U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Bush political adviser Karl Rove to testify at his trial next week. Activist Brett Bursey, 55, said the men's testimony would show that the Bush administration tries to 'sanitize' areas of dissent around the p-resident during visits across the country... The trial is set for Wednesday. Bursey originally was charged by local authorities with trespassing when he refused to move to a 'free-speech zone' at the Columbia airport. That charge was dropped, but the Justice Department decided to prosecute Bursey five months later under a statute that allows the U.S. Secret Service to restrict access to areas during the p-resident's travels. He faces up to six months in prison and a $5,000 fine if convicted... Bursey has said he was arrested because he was carrying a sign that read 'No War for Oil' and contends others with pro-Bush placards were allowed to stay in the area." You GO, Brett!!!

WashPost: "The Bush White House, irritated by pesky questions from congressional Democrats about how the administration is using taxpayer money, has developed an efficient solution: It will not entertain any more questions from opposition lawmakers. The decision was announced in an e-mail sent Wednesday to the staff of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. House committee Dems had just asked for info about how much the White House spent making and installing the 'Mission Accomplished' banner for Resident Bush's May 1 speech... 'It's saying we're not going to allow the opposition party to ask questions about the way we use tax money,' said [one Dem staffer]. 'As far as I know, this is without modern precedent.' Norman Ornstein, [of] the American Enterprise Institute, agreed. 'I have not heard of anything like that happening before,' he said. 'This is obviously an excuse to avoid providing information about some of the things the Democrats are asking for.'" IMPEACH BUSH NOW!

The Echo Times writes: "Jamie Deneris has one question: How did the FBI obtain a roster of her students without going through official channels? Deneris, a College of Marin biology professor who has been under FBI investigation for discussing smallpox in her class two years ago, said her students have also been contacted and questioned by the FBI. Student information cannot legally be released without the student's signature, a court order, or a subpoena, as stated in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. 'Censorship has an element of fear in it,' said Paul da Silva, a biology professor at College of Marin. 'If people become fearful to say what is true, that is very harmful, and our society will suffer.'" Have you seen a pattern yet? Free speech no longer exists, thus the America as we know and love it, is gone. Vote Dems 2004 to take it back!

Russell Baker writes, Paul "Krugman sees Bush as a stealth revolutionary, a Robespierre in George Bush clothing, relentlessly pushing a revolutionary right-wing agenda, a true radical bent on dismantling America's ancien regime and replacing it with one that is even more ancien- perhaps the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover model which was scrapped by the New Deal, possibly even the Mark Hanna model. Many a Republican alive today has still not forgiven Teddy Roosevelt for trading in McKinley's good old Hanna for the twentieth century's 'progressive' styling. In Kissinger's formulation the revolutionaries confounded the incredulous defenders of the status quo by the force of their determination to 'smash the existing framework' and carry their principles to 'their ultimate conclusion.' The established powers, lulled by a long age of stability and old habits of political thought, were baffled when the revolutionaries turned out to be revolutionary."

"Sherman Austin was arrested over 18 months ago. Federal officials charged that Austin had illegally distributed information about how to build Molotov cocktails and 'Drano bombs' on his web site. 'I think this is more about just shutting down an effective website,' Austin told Democracy Now! just hours before beginning his 1-year federal prison sentence. '[The government] is going after someone who is basically standing up and effectively making a voice for himself and other people over the Internet and using the Internet as a resource and a tool to get a message out.' Austin describes his raisethefist.com site as an anarchist web page. It contains critiques of US foreign and domestic policies and encourages readers to post their own views, news and activist strategies. The material on the site that allegedly led to his arrest was part of an Internet tract called the 'Reclaim Guide' that Austin didn't even author-but for which he had offered free hosting on his site."

The Oregonian: "An emerging whodunit in Central Oregon hovers amid the smoke draping the east side of the Cascade Range. Can it be pure coincidence, locals are asking, that two wildfires sprang up in view of the spot where Resident Bush planned to promote his plan to thin forests for wildfire prevention? And that they both appeared just as his plans emerged? 'I think everyone in the community here is wondering that,' said Judy Wattier, who works at the KOA Campground just east of Sisters, where business is in the doldrums because of the blazes that have covered almost 40,000 acres in the nearby Deschutes National Forest. 'Everyone I've mentioned it to can talk about it for hours.' 'Typically the Secret Service does all kinds of aerial surveillance before the resident comes in,' said Don Ferguson, an information officer for what have become known as the B&B complex fires. 'They pretty much know the location of every tree.'" Stranger than Enron conspiring to create a phony energy crisis?

Renana Brooks writes, "To create a dependency dynamic between him and the electorate, Bush describes the nation as being in a perpetual state of crisis and then attempts to convince the electorate that it is powerless and that he is the only one with the strength to deal with it. He attempts to persuade people they must transfer power to him, thus crushing the power of the citizen, the Congress, the Democratic Party, even constitutional liberties, to concentrate all power in the imperial presidency and the Republican Party. Bush's political opponents are caught in a fantasy that they can win against him simply by proving the superiority of their ideas. People do not support Bush for the power of his ideas, but out of the despair and desperation... Whenever people are in the grip of a desperate dependency, they won't respond to rational criticisms of the people they are dependent on... Bush's opponents must combat his dark imagery with hope and restore American vigor and optimism."

Doreen Miller writes: "Today, Americans are slowly waking up to some very unpleasant facts: secret, very undemocratic departments unaccountable to public scrutiny are being created by this administration. First, there was the unelected shadow government that had been set up by Bush shortly after September 11 allegedly in the event that Washington was ever destroyed in a terrorist attack. Now, word is slowly beginning to seep out about the fairly recently created Office of Special Plans whose fingerprints appear to be all over Bush's State of the Union lie concerning Iraq's supposed massive stash of weapons of mass destruction... Then, of course, there's the untidy problem of the many detainees in Guantanamo Bay, most of whom have never been linked to terrorism or officially charged with any crime."

Bernard Weiner writes: "Last year, close to the time of the first anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks, I wrote 'Twenty Things We've Learned One Year After 9/11.' Now we're approaching the second anniversary, and it' s time for an update. Things we could only speculate about a year ago have taken place -- to name just three: an invasion and occupation of Iraq (based on misleading intelligence and outright lies), an administration that may have committed the treasonous act of deliberately revealing the identity of a CIA agent, and shocking revelations about the computer-screen voting system now being put into place around the country for the 2004 election. The abbreviated list below can be used both as a reminder to all of us why we're fighting this good, oppositional battle, and as a place to start from when organizing and talking to others about why you will be voting for someone other than George W. Bush in the presidential vote next year."

Susan Page writes, "Sen. Bob Graham, a presidential hopeful and former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, says he would love to convene hearings into the 'misleading statements' by Bush and others about whether there was credible evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Niger that could be used in a nuclear weapon. 'Were they the result of intelligence agency failures? Or were the agencies acting appropriately but the information they provided was manipulated?' he asks. 'I would want to hold a hearing on that.' Democrats also want to explore: * The administration's refusal to declassify a section of the congressional report on the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The 28 pages reportedly detail possible Saudi involvement. * The help that the Federal Aviation Administration gave in May to Texas Republicans who were trying to track down Democratic state legislators. The Democrats had flown to Oklahoma to avoid a special session on redistricting." Defeat ALL Republicans!

MSNBC reports: "The Transportation Security Administration is conducting a 'witch hunt' to ferret out and discipline employees in the federal air marshal program who have talked to the media, several sources within the program told MSNBC.com. Some air marshals are even being threatened with having the USA Patriot Act, a law enacted to help fight terrorism, used against them. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, denies that any such investigation is taking place. However, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman did acknowledge that an investigation is under way surrounding the circumstances involving a decision to pull air marshals from high risk flights in an attempt to save money at the cash strapped TSA, a story first reported in late July on MSNBC.com... By law, however, the TSA isn't allowed to invoke the Patriot Act... Threatening to use the Patriot Act 'is not an act of law, it's an act of intimidation,' said [FAS's] Steven Aftergood."

Sam Dash, former chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee writes, "Thirty years ago the Senate of the United States prevented President Richard Nixon from destroying constitutional democracy in our country. Watergate was a wrenching turning point in our history and its lessons must be learned and re-learned. Now our lives as a free people are also being threatened by an administration bent on grabbing unprecedented power, a timid Congress and an uninformed electorate. That is why the Watergate experience remains so relevant... An alert Congress would check the administration's grab for greater power than the Constitution permits. It would hold hearings and inform the people of the dangers they faced. Unfortunately, Congress today is shirking its constitutional responsibilities. There are no Sam Ervins in the Senate now. Instead of offering leadership, our congressional representatives defer to the White House in an attempt to show they are as patriotic as the resident."

Jim Lobe reports: "'The Office of Special Plans(OSP), which worked alongside the Near East and South Asia(NESA) bureau in Douglas Feith's domain, was originally created by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to review raw information collected by the official U.S. intelligence agencies for connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Retired intelligence officials from the State Department, the DIA, and the CIA have long charged that the two offices exaggerated and manipulated intelligence about Iraq before passing it along to the White House...But key personnel who worked in both NESA and OSP were part of a broader network of neo-conservative ideologues and activists who worked with other Bush political appointees scattered around the national-security bureaucracy to move the country to war, according to retired Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski."

From Toronto Star: "After 39 years in the Marines, including commands in Somalia and Iraq, Gen. Anthony Zinni never imagined he would be tagged 'turncoat.' The epithets are not from the uniforms but the suits, 'senior officers at the Pentagon,' the now-retired general says from his home in Williamsburg, Va. 'They want to question my patriotism?' he demands testily...After Zinni challenged the administration's rationale for the Iraq war last fall, he lost his job as Bush's Middle East peace envoy after 18 months. 'I've been told I will never be used by the White House again.' Across the United States, hundreds of Americans have been arrested for protesting the war. The American Civil Liberties Union has documented more than 300 allegations of wrongful arrest and police brutality from demonstrators at anti-war rallies in Washington and New York."

Chisun Lee writes: "'If you disagree with the administration on ideological grounds, they're going to come down with a hammer. This has huge implications for the free flow of speech in this country,' says Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, itself a nonprofit... As dramatic as that assessment sounds, the assault has been nearly invisible to the public. The Bush administration and its allies have hit progressives under the radar, maneuvering in the realm of nonprofit oversight. The idea of a right-wing conspiracy to audit nonprofits is more likely to set off yawns than outrage...[but] since nonprofits operate on a tax-exempt basis and often receive government funding, they have always been subject to federal oversight... Under Bush, however, oversight has quietly morphed into ideologically motivated intimidation and censorship, according to OMB Watch's review of some dozen specific conflicts." Read the report -http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1706/1/41/

Boston Globe reports: "In 19 years of using his security clearance to sweep floors at a plant owned by defense contractor Lockheed Martin, janitor Michael Lynch has done nothing to arouse suspicion. Co-workers and bosses speak glowingly of Lynch, a brain-tumor survivor who's active in his church, building homes for poor people in Maine and West Virginia. Yet because he and his family have struggled financially, the government now sees him as a possible threat to national security. Defense Department officials say the janitor may be tempted to sell government secrets to get out of debt. Last month, they asked a judge to revoke Lynch's security clearance."

Nat Hentoff writes, "Some of the most glorious illuminations of the Bill of Rights in American history have been contained in Supreme Court dissents by, among others, Louis Brandeis, William Brennan, Hugo Black, and Thurgood Marshall. Equal to those was the stinging dissent by judge Diana Gribbon Motz when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (8 to 4) gave George W. Bush a fearsome power that can be found nowhere in the Constitution-the sole authority to imprison an American citizen indefinitely without charges or access to a lawyer. This case is now on appeal to the Supreme Court, which will determine whether this president-or his successors until the end of the war on terrorism-can subvert the Bill of Rights to the peril of all of us... The full Fourth Circuit bench has handed George W. Bush the crown that George Washington disdained. What if the Supreme Court agrees? Bush will be King George IV."

AP reports, "The ban on assassinations, spelled out in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 and reinforced by Presidents Carter and Reagan, made no distinction between wartime and peacetime. There are no loop holes; no matter how awful the leader, he could not be a U.S. target either directly or by a hired hand. The advantages of using assassination as a political tool seemed less obvious a generation ago than they are today. Ford's executive order was in response to the general revulsion over disclosures by a Senate committee about a series of overseas U.S. assassination attempts - some successful, some not - over many years. The committee found eight attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro. Other targets included Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, both in 1961; and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963. Lumumba and Diem were both assassinated, although the degree of U.S. involvement has never been clear."

When our country was still working off of the success of the Clinton/Gore team, Bush boasted "I am going to change the tone in Washington". Well George, you certainly did that. Never before did lawmakers have police use federal funds and offices to track legally flying airplanes for political purposes to have the Amazing Texas Dems arrested for no other reason other than intimidation. And never before did lawmakers call the police during a debate about legislation. This is MADNESS! (and why hasn't this story been on CNN/Fox/MSNBC?) Needless to say, Bush is trying to change the democratic process to one of a dictatorship, where opposition and debate are prohibited. And never before did our President lie to the American people about an imminent threat by another country, to start a war that has killed many US soldiers, with the only real purpose was filling up the politicians own bank accounts. When will the madness of King George Stop!!!

"Do you want to send an e-mail message to the White House?" asks NY Times John Markoff, "Good luck. In the past, to tell Bush - or at least those assigned to read his mail - what was on your mind it was necessary only to ... dash off a note to president@whitehouse.gov. But this week, Tom Matzzie, an online organizer with the A.F.L.-C.I.O., discovered that communicating with the White House had become a bit more daunting. When Mr. Matzzie sent an e-mail protest against a Bush administration policy, the message was bounced back with an automated reply, saying he had to send it again in a new way. Under a system deployed on the White House Web site for the first time last week, those who want to send a message to President Bush must now navigate as many as nine Web pages and fill out a detailed form that starts by asking whether the message sender supports White House policy or differs with it." If you "differ", how quickly will you get a knock on the door?

AFP reports: "Armed police backed by bulldozers tore down illegally built homes and shops in the Nigerian capital Abuja today ahead of a visit by US Resident George W Bush. The operation began yesterday after an order from President Olusegun Obasanjo to clean up the city ahead of his American counterpart's arrival, officials said. In one residential quarter of the city reporter saw around 60 buildings - ranging from brick-built structures to makeshift wooden shanties - ploughed down as hundreds of residents looked on in despair. 'They didn't give us any warning,' wailed tailor John Emeka, who saved his sewing machine but lost much of his stock when a joint taskforce of police and environmental protection agents pulled down his business." Imagine if this had been done for Bill Clinton? We would have heard no end of this by the 'liberal' media.

Kenneth G. Follett and Brent P. Cabrera write in a Buzzflash reader commentary: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these States; And such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former System of Government. The history of the present President of the United States, George W. Bush, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world."

From a Democracy Now interview: "GORE VIDAL: Well isn't it pretty clear that the dictatorship is in place. We're not supposed to know certain things and we're not going to know them. They're doing everything to remove our history, to damage the Freedom of Information Act. Bush managed to have a number of Presidential papers, including those of his father, put out of the reach of historians, or anybody for a great length of time, during which they will probably be shredded, so they will never be available. AMY GOODMAN: How has George Bush accrued so much power? GORE VIDAL: Well, the election of 2000 was the end of the republic... This is major corruption. This is corporate America, as one, putting in place a president who was not elected."

Meria Heller writes: "We hear a lot about democracy and liberation in the news today. We are misinformed or hook-winked to believe both actually exist and are in play, but we don't realize that neither is real. While the U.S. says it is bringing 'democracy' to Iraq, the story on the ground tells an entirely different account. Children with radiation sickness, body parts blown off and children forced to pick up weapons to defend themselves. Protesters being shot at by our troops for exercising what should be their rights under 'democracy.' The people are starving, no jobs, still many without basic necessities, yet most Americans believe we have 'liberated' the Iraqi people."

From Seattle University's Spectator:"Hail to the Thief, a reference to George W. Bush's non-military coup of the White House, will strike a chord in those who pay attention to the message. Going beyond simple Bush bashing, lead singer Thom Yorke brings his haunting voice and lyrics to an album that references George Orwell's 1984 throughout, beginning with the very first track, '2+2=5'. As drawing comparisons between the Bush administration and Big Brother become easier and easier, Yorke and the boys are adding a suitably daunting and ominous soundtrack... Many of the tracks on Hail to the Thief are guitar-based, but most of the album has a wide mix of synthesizers, piano, guitar, computer programs, and other odd instruments. Each one adds a new level of interest to every eerie track... But the entire concept and theme of Big Brother (or George W. Bush) is punctuated by special effects or synthesizers, compelling you to watch your back and wonder if he really is watching."

"Every president for nearly a century has had political operatives in the White House to advise him on how his decisions would play with the public and tell him what the ramifications of policy would be on his reelection prospects. But few Americans are cynical enough to believe that this political gamesmanship is anything other than a means to an end, the end being to effectuate policy... And so it has always been -- until now. From the moment of his disputed election in 2000, President [sic] Bush has been dramatically reversing the traditional relationship between politics and policy. In his administration, politics seem less a means to policy than policy is a means to politics. Its goal is not to further the conservative revolution as advertised. The p-residency's real goal is to disable the Democratic opposition, once and for all."

Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley nails it: "Bush is traversing the country and the world, soothing fears and offering assurances that he knows what he's doing. He is recreating the globe in his image, or the one he sees in his head. He is taking advantage of an atmosphere of fear to win his first presidency [sic] and the hearts of those who didn't vote for him. And as long as we've been afraid, it has been working. The problem is, for almost as long as Bush has been president [sic], we've forgotten what America means. George W. Bush has never stopped campaigning, not since 2000. If we let him continue to campaign on terrorism and stay too afraid of terrorists (thanks to those orchestrated alerts) to question, then he can just be crowned president-for-life, without debate."

"This anonymous compilation details 27 'Reasons Why Bush Should Not Be Elected in 2004'. It discusses the Iraq war, the PNAC, the economy, the Patriot Act, the U.S. Constitution, 9/11, the 2000 election, the environment, education, morality, violations of international law, the Bush tax cut, the media, and more. It is persuasively scary to see all the reasons listed right there together. If you read through this list and can't think of one or more compelling reasons why George Bush should not be elected in 2004, you must be a George W. Bush clone. Bet you can think of a few more reasons. Add yours to the list & pass them around."

The Palm Beach Post reports: "One part of Reno's speech, which touched upon issues such as classroom sizes, health care and the criminal justice system, seemed to speak directly to Goldfarb. Reno spoke about visiting the Dachau concentration camp in Germany as a child and learning what had happened. 'I went back and asked my adult German friends, 'How could you let that happen?' ' Reno said. 'They said, 'We just stood by.' She looked right into the audience and told them that's why she was there. She had no intention of just standing by. 'And don't you just stand by,' Reno said."

"National Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe accused President [sic] Bush on Saturday of unleashing a 'new McCarthyism' by vilifying people who oppose his policies. McAuliffe, keynote speaker at the annual Ohio Democratic Party dinner, also defended that state's Republican senator, George Voinovich, who wavered in his support for the resident's tax-cut package... After Voinovich criticized the plan, a pro-tax cut group ran television ads criticizing his position, and Bush visited Ohio to promote the tax cuts, a trip that many interpreted as an attempt to pressure the senator. Bush administration spokesmen said nothing about the ads, which characterized 'so-called allies' in Congress as 'Franco-Republicans'... 'George Bush has unleashed a new McCarthyism that, under the cloak of a time of crisis and peril, has vilified and questioned the patriotism of those who have policy and political differences with him and his administration.'"

Nina Khrushcheva writes: "Many Russians who fled Brezhnev's USSR because they could not speak freely are in a state of shock in today's America. One is Roman Kaplan, an intellectual from Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and the owner of the 'Russian Samovar,' a famous New York City restaurant for Russians and East Europeans (visitors and immigrants alike), which he opened in 1986 together with two icons of the Soviet immigration, the late poet Joseph Brodsky and the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. 'America was our dreamland, the last frontier of freedom,' Kaplan said. 'Where do we go now? I can't believe I left the Soviets thirty years ago to end up in Brezhnevland here!'"

Station KRON in Oakland, California, reports: "It happened at Oakland High. The discussion was about the war in Iraq. That's when two students made comments about the President [sic] of the United States. While the exact wording is up for debate, the teacher didn't consider it mere criticism, but a direct threat and she called the Secret Service." The students were interrogated without a lawyer being present or their parents even being informed. "When one of the students asked, 'do we have to talk now? Can we be silent? Can we get legal council?' they were told, 'we own you, you don't have any legal rights.'" Living in fear that if you say the wrong thing, some informer will report you to the secret police -- is this the United States or Stalinist Russia?

Erin Ferdinand writes for Utne.com: "The first annual Loyalty [Oath] Day has come and gone without so much as a yawn from the mainstream media... Perhaps we were too busy operating under the assumption that every day is Loyalty [Oath] Day. In case you didn't receive the memo, here's Bush's original declaration, plus our own set of liner notes: Loyalty Day, 2003 By the President of the United States of America; A Proclamation: To be an American is not a matter of blood or birth [as these are qualifications reserved exclusively for the presidency]. Our citizens [of non-Arabic descent] are bound by ideals [fallacies] that represent the hope [greed] of all mankind: that all men are created equal [unless protected by Affirmative Action or Title IX] endowed with unalienable rights to life, [as a fetus, but not a felon] liberty [unless you're an 'enemy combatant' or a 'material witness'] and the pursuit of happiness [shopping and investing in the NASDQ]."

Jonathan Turley writes: "Last week, the United States confirmed it is holding children under the age of 16 at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In keeping with the other shadowy facts about this camp, it is not clear how large the children's wing at Camp Delta has become. Before the Marine guards launch a Toys for Terrorist Tots campaign, it is time to get some answers about our government's plans for the growing number of detainees, including children, held in Cuba. The camp's children are among 664 detainees from 42 countries. Some were captured in Afghanistan; others were rounded up elsewhere. Many have been held without trial for more than two years."

Fredric Alan Maxwell writes: "The whole strange thing began nearly two years ago, when an acquaintance e-mailed me, wondering why the Secret Service had contacted him to ask if he thought I was a threat to George W. Bush. Me? A pretzel is more of a threat to Bush than I am. At the time, I was writing an unauthorized biography of Microsoft's C.E.O., Steve Ballmer... After a couple of pat-down searches, I sat in a small room with the good cop, Steve, and the bad cop, whom I'll call Cruella. Steve said they had received a report that, on Oct. 12, 2000, I was overheard in a D.C. bar saying, 'I have friends in the C.I.A. who will make sure Bush doesn't enter the White House.' I responded that except for the facts that I don't have any friends in the C.I.A. (that I know of) and that I've never thought, let alone said, something like that, I was in Philadelphia that day. Unfazed, Cruella opened an inch-thick file. Everything I've ever done wrong in my life flashed before me."

The Right Wing "movement's grand ambition--one can no longer say grandiose--is to roll back the twentieth century, quite literally. [i.e., to reduce the federal government's scale and power to a level well below what it was before the New Deal. With that accomplished, movement conservatives envision a restored society in which the prevailing values and power relationships resemble the America that existed around 1900. Governing authority and resources will be returned] to individuals and private institutions, most notably corporations and religious organizations. The primacy of private property rights is re-established over the shared public priorities expressed in government regulation. Above all, private wealth--both enterprises and individuals with higher incomes--are permanently insulated from the progressive claims of the graduated income tax."

"After beating up on Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush regime is increasingly frightened by the American people. George W. Bush, 'Emperor of the World' as the Europeans like to call him, may be swaggering around this week after his forces demolished the poor country of Iraq, but he fears his legitimacy among the American people. As Bush builds his fundamentalist global empire, there are increasing signs that he distrusts the American people, most of whom never voted for him in 2000. These signs are more evident than ever with a new fence that has gone up around the White House compound. Actually, the White House has now completely fenced off Lafayette Park, a public park across from the White House where hundreds of thousands of Americans have protested over the years. The regime may have an arsenal of precision-guided bombs and weapons of mass destruction, but it still relies on high fences to keep out the American people who are interested in democracy, not empire-building."

In a pair of press briefings on April 17 and 18, deputy White House press secretary gave "none of your business" responses to a grand total of 75 questions. By refusing to provide any information whatever about what the government is doing, the White House is making it clear that Bush has granted his own wish: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

This moving first-person account of a peaceful protestor's experience on April 7 when she and about 100 other activists gathered outside the Carylyle Group's HQ strongly suggests that the Bush regime may be using illegal arrest and processing of protestors as a systematic form of intimidation. Once protestors are arrested, they are subjected to humiliating and heavy-handed treatment "downtown" at taxpayer expense, we might add, that most criminals never receive. Who is behind it? Considering the Storm Troopers were called out in force for a weapons peddling corporation employing Bush's daddy, it doesn't take a genius to make that deduction.

Roger Morris writes, "Today's imperial presidency looms over political parties and a Congress very different from those of the recent past. President Johnson faced formidable critics from his own party... Mr. Nixon fought to the end a Democratic-ruled Senate and House, and the resistance of many influential Republican moderates. Bush, on the other hand, will deliver his Iraqi war victory speech to houses of Congress dominated by conservative Republicans, with GOP moderates a rarity and rebels extinct. Their religious fundamentalist leaders, as well as the rank and file, not only back the Resident's new reach with domestic repression and foreign retribution, but also share the larger geo-strategic urge to American hegemony behind the war on Iraq. In their all but silent minority, today's congressional Democrats are similarly to the political right of their predecessors, and bow no less to enlarged presidential power at home and abroad -- if not to Mr. Bush benefiting from it."

Michael Lind writes, Bush's "neoconservative defence intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti- communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party's tactics, including preventive warfare such Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for 'democracy'. They call their revolutionary ideology 'Wilsonianism' (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. [They] are at the centre of a metaphorical 'pentagon' of the Israel lobby and the religious right, plus conservative think- tanks, foundations and media empires."

David Jenkins writes: "And those who use the tragedy of 9/11 as the excuse for supporting Bush and his war are grave-spitters. They are nothing more than victims of knee-jerk patriotism who either refuse to see -- or are incapable of seeing -- just how complicated and reckless Bush's war policy truly is. And what's worse is that they don't care that they don't know. As weak as Bush's reasons are to go to war with -- I mean invade -- Iraq, think of how much weaker they would be without his prostituting 9/11? And with a lack of understanding by the general public as to the events leading up to 9/11 and a lack of any in-depth independent investigation into the day that changed America, it's no wonder that so many people are under the misconception that Iraq had something to do with it all... It's because of this mentality that many cannot distinguish 'anti-war' from 'pro-Saddam.'"

Harold Meyerson writes: "I miss Ronald Reagan. I know, I know: Reagan was our first president to proclaim government the problem, to cut taxes massively on the rich, to deliberately create a deficit so immense that the government's impoverishment did indeed become a problem. He waged a war of dubious merit and clear illegality in Central America; he pandered to the most bigoted elements in American society. The United States would be a far better place had he not been elected. But politics deals in comparatives, not absolutes. And when I compare Reagan with his ideological heir currently occupying the White House, I'll take the Gipper, hands down. George W. Bush is much the meaner p-resident (and man). He is far more factional than Reagan was. And he is incomparably more dangerous than Reagan or any other p-resident in this nation's history."

Dan Brown writes: "Lately, thoughts crowd into my mind unannounced, urging recognition of the similarities between our current local U.S. world leader and a certain 20th-Century leader from a darker and more desperate time. I actually had the temerity to point out a few of these supposed similarities to a few friends and was promptly scolded that I was being 'intemperate' and sternly warned that the words I had spoken were 'so far over the top as to be unworthy of comment.' Maybe you can help me with my problem. I'll try to be temperate. Here's my quandary. A phrase rings in my head about WWII. That phrase is 'never again.' We were supposed to have learned from all that stuff that happened back then that we'd make sure it never happened again. We had been forged through anguish to become ever vigilant, morally inoculated, aware and alert, that sort of stuff."

Carla Binion writes, "During election 2000, Bush paid campaign operatives posing as ordinary voters shoved people and banged on doors at the Miami-Dade canvassing offices in an effort to stop the Florida vote recount. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said he detected 'a whiff of fascism' in their tactics. Some people criticized Nadler for drawing the comparison, but, of course, not all forms of fascism have to equate precisely to the classic form represented by Hitler or Mussolini. Fascism doesn't have to involve mass genocidal slaughter, nor does it have to be equal in degree to the fascism practiced by members of the Axis powers. Traits of classic fascism include: strong nationalism, expansionism, belligerent militarism, meshing of big business and government with a corporate/government oligarchy, subversion of democracy and human rights, disinformation spread by constant propaganda and tight control of the press. Today all of those conditions exist in our country to a degree. "

Daniel Welch writes: "But I still haven't addressed the people. The consolidation of the media in the last twenty years--and its control by corporations who more often than not are allied with right wing political forces--has also helped in the creation of this special historical moment. An economy based almost completely on consumption has dumbed down the people perhaps more than any other influence. But this of course doesn't win sympathy for what I call a criminal, 'voluntary stupidity.' According to statistics, over 70% of U.S. households have access to the internet at home. From this figure alone we can conclude that this ignorance is more or less a problem of volition--but also one complicated by a culture of political alienation and a complete lack of a culture of analysis and critical thought. The people simply no longer 'know how' to think."

George Kennan is widely respected as the architect of America's successful Cold War containment policy towards the Soviet Union. He now writes: "I am extremely concerned about the shameful, almost total passivity of Congress during the period of preparations for our military attack on Iraq. (I recognize as exceptions Sen. Robert C. Byrd's noble statement in the Senate and the belated but vigorous statements of Sen. Thomas A. Daschle.) Congress's inaction is a dangerous precedent in executive-legislative relations. In light of this precedent future presidents will be tempted to seize virtually dictatorial powers under the title of commander in chief, and nothing in our history rules out the possibility of their yielding to that temptation. This seems to be the meaning of the recent crisis."

"On Thursday, March 20, 2003, our friend and colleague Maher (Mike) Hawash was arrested ('detained') as a 'material witness' by the FBI in the parking lot of Intel Corp's Hawthorne Farms parking lot. Simultaneously, FBI agents in bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles awoke Mike's wife Lisa and their three children in the home, which they proceeded to search. Since then, Mike has been held in the Federal Prison at Sheridan, OR. Mike Hawash is a U.S. citizen, and is being held without being charged with any crime; Mike is being held in a high-security federal prison; Mike is being held as a material witness, but is not charged with any crime. In similar cases, Arab-Americans have been held for weeks or months as material witnesses before being released without even being questioned; Mike has been a U.S. citizen and resident for 14 years. He is an Arab-American; The warrants and subpoenas in Mike's case are all secret, sealed by the court at the U.S. government's request."

Wayne Madsen writes: "By forcing so many Americans to leave their country, the Bush regime may actually be helping to establish a potent force that could eventually seal its own fate. Americans abroad, living in political exile, will be a vocal voice against the US regime. When exiled Americans begin to flex their muscles with the support of supportive governments in France, Germany, Canada, New Zealand, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and soon, post-Blair Britain, post-Aznar Spain, and post-Berlusconi Italy, the Bush regime will be forced to explain to the United Nations and the court of world opinion why there are American political refugees. Just as Iraqi exiles will soon form the new government of Iraq, one day American exiles may come back to de-Republicanize the United States and return the nation back to operating under its original set of democratic ideals."

Jonathan Schell says Bush's War "marks a culmination in the rise within the US of an immense concentration of unaccountable power that poses the greatest threat to the American constitutional system since the Watergate crisis... The location of the new power is of course the presidency. Its sinews are the awesome might of the American military machine, which... has passed wholly into the President's hands. Its main political instrument is the Republican Party. Its financial wherewithal is the corporate money that inundates the political realm. Its strategy at home is restriction of civil liberties, deep secrecy, a makeover in its image of the judiciary, subservience to corporate interests across the board and transfer of personal wealth on a colossal scale from the average person to its wealthy supporters... Its overriding goal... is the accumulation of ever more power, whose supreme expression is its naked ambition to establish hegemony over the earth."

PentaPost reports, "GOP lawmakers and lobbyists say the tactics the Bush administration uses on friends and allies have been uniquely fierce and vindictive. Just as the administration used unbending tactics before the U.N. Security Council with normally allied countries such as Mexico, Germany and France, the Bush White House has calculated that it can overcome domestic adversaries if it tolerates no dissent from its friends... The forms of pressure: exclusions from White House guest lists, a loss of access to key Bush aides, calls to dissenters' superiors, veiled threats saying the White House has noted the transgression or even shouted accusations... 'I think this monomaniacal call for loyalty is unhealthy,' [Club for Growth's Stephen] Moore said. 'It's dangerous to declare anybody who crosses you an enemy for life.'" Hey guys - stand up to Bully Bush and join the Democrats!

Paul Krugman darkly writes, "What scares me most, however, is the home front. Look at how this war happened... We got assertions about a nuclear program that turned out to be based on flawed or faked evidence; we got assertions about a link to Al Qaeda that people inside the intelligence services regard as nonsense. Yet those serial embarrassments went almost unreported by our news media. So most Americans have no idea why the rest of the world doesn't trust the Bush administration's motives. And once the shooting starts, the already loud chorus that denounces any criticism as unpatriotic will become deafening. So now the administration knows that it can make unsubstantiated claims, without paying a price when those claims prove false, and that saber rattling gains it votes and silences opposition... I can't help worrying that in domestic politics, as in foreign policy, this war will turn out to have been the shape of things to come."

Harvey Wasserman writes: "Bush says he wants to attack Iraq to install democracy. But as he explained on December 18, 2002: 'If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.' Under Bush the Constitutional guarantees that have made America a beacon to the world for two centuries have been shredded in two short years. In terms of basic legal rights and sanctuary from government spying, Americans may be less free under George W. Bush than as British subjects under George III in 1776. Though the trappings of free speech remain on the surface of American society, the Homeland Security Act, Patriot I, Patriot II and other massively repressive legislation, plus Republican control of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, plus GOP dominance of the mass media, have laid the legal and political framework for a totalitarian infrastructure which, when combined with the capabilities of modern computer technology, may be unsurpassed."

Daily Herald (IL) reports, "Bush recently told Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) he would order the assassination of Saddam Hussein 'if we had intelligence on where he was now and we had a clear shot,' the Illinois senator said Monday. Such an order would represent a major shift away from a nearly 30-year U.S. ban on assassinating foreign leaders. That ban was put into place during the Ford administration in response to criticism of CIA-backed plots in the 1960s and 1970s... Asked later to clarify whether Bush had told him he would authorize changing U.S. policy to kill Hussein, the Inverness Republican said: 'Yes, yes. Now, he told me that aboard Air Force One.'" - probably on 1-7-03. If Bush orders the assassination of Saddam, why wouldn't Saddam order the assassination of Bush - or Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hastert, Frist, or anyone else? Impeach Bush Now!

When the New York City government refused a permit for an anti-war march near the United Nations headquarters, John Ashcroft's DOJ filed an amicus brief supporting the city's violation of the First Amendment. The brief claims that banning the march was required by "treaty obligations to ensure the continued security and accessibility of the United Nations". The hypocrisy of that claim, considering how often the Busheviks have insulted the U.N. and attempted to prevent it from doing its job, is exceeded only by the dishonesty of claiming that an anti-war march would threaten the diplomats' security. [The brief requires Acrobat Reader to view.]

From GenderGappers: "Blazing brightly in the Eastern sky, the planet Mars beams down rays of approval for the Earthly zeitgeist -- the spirit of our age or times: WAR... so very similar to 1933 when Germany, following a terrorist attack, combined its law enforcement agencies into one anti-terrorism monolith, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, the dreaded SS. Undoubtedly, the single most powerful device used to bring about the SS and its political master was RADIO. A media in service to the government, dedicated to feeding propaganda to the masses. Today, we call it SPIN. Masters of spin force-feed our country's ego and fear by manipulating the truth. Taking direction from Karl Rove, the country is bombarded with misinformation, lies and secrecy - just like pre-WW 2 Germany. Dissent is not to be found in the 'free' press. The goal ultimately is to bring the United States to the position of not just world leader, but to the domination of it."

"The AOL welcome screen [on Saturday, February 15, showed] former Governor G. Bush, dressed in a fancy flight jacket, squinting manfully (a real stretch). The caption is 'Big Brother standing guard'. Very Orwellian." We have been warned...

Wayne Madsen writes: "It is now time for the US military to act against a dangerous regime that is in material breach of the US Constitution. And it is not the regimes of Saddam, Kim Jong Il, or Castro who threaten the Constitution. Bush, Cheney, and every Cabinet member swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But what happens when the domestic threat is from the very people who swore to defend the Constitution? The US military, including a large number of Reserves and National Guard, are being deployed to the desert sands of Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and other countries. Their absence from the United States permits the Bush regime to seize more and more constitutional rights of the American people without the possibility of substantial resistance. Today, the only people who are currently defenseless in the world are the American people - they are vulnerable to the machinations of their own illegal regime."

Wired.com writes, "The legislation, nicknamed Patriot II, would broadly expand the government's surveillance and detention powers... The act allows the government to: Conduct domestic wiretapping without court order for 15 days following a congressional authorization of use of force or an attack on the United States; Secretly detain citizens; Access a citizen's credit reports without a subpoena; Abolish federal court 'consent decrees' that limit police surveillance of non-criminal organizations and public events; Extend authorization periods for secret wiretaps and Internet surveillance" Not to mention a whole list of other constitutional violations. By the way, this memo was written to Cheney and Hastert, though they denied receiving it. Where is the outrage from Congress? Why isn't the media reporting on this?

Robert Higgs writes: "Although the resident has yet to announce formally that his foreign policy also relies heavily on faith, this reality has become increasingly clear as his term in office has unfolded. When the administration released its 'National Security Strategy' to Congress last summer, the grandiosity of the intentions expressed in the document stunned many observers -- as Mises Institute historian Joseph Stromberg noted, 'it must be read to be believed.' The strategy amounts to an enormously presumptuous agenda for domination of the entire world, not only overweening in the vast scope of the specific ambitions enumerated but also brazen in the implicit assumption that the resident of the United States and his lieutenants are morally entitled to run the planet. It takes a lot of faith in one's own rectitude to declare, among other things, that 'our best defense is a good offense' (I am not making this up; it's in the document)."

Democrats.com has long emphasized that the Bush gang are acting dangerously like fascists - think USA Patriot Act, TIPS, Total Information Awareness and 'enemy combatants.' So we say three cheers to 'Agency' star and anti-war activist David Clennon for courageously declaring on Sean Hannity's radio show, "The moral climate within the ruling class in this country is not that different from the moral climate within the ruling class of Hitler's Germany... I'm not comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler - because George Bush, for one thing, is not as smart as Adolf Hitler. And secondly George Bush has much more power than Adolf Hitler ever had." Now there is a poll to vote for - or against - Clennon being fired. Go to Vote.com and vote "No" to firing Clennon - not just because he has the right to speak his mind, but because HE IS RIGHT! After all, Prescott Bush financed the Nazis, and the CIA Bushes have cavorted with old Nazis, even in the Bush '88 campaign (Enter 'nazi' in our search engine).

From New Zealand, columnist Diana Wichtel writes, "Emboldened by getting away with sounding increasingly like an Old Testament prophet rather than a 21st century world leader, Bush continues to blur the lines, not just between church and state but between the will of God and the will of George W. Bush.... He is talking about things like freedom and mother love, apparently. But he's also setting up the outrageous notion that if and when America goes to war it will be about upholding Divine law. Nothing to do with American foreign policy.... To invoke God in the way he does is to cut the moral ground out from under anyone who disagrees with you. By the time he's finished, to be against America's policies is to be against God. It would be quite clever if it wasn't so scary." It is indeed scary that Bush so openly declares that everything he does is God's will. Normally, when someone claims he has a mission direct from God, he ends up in a rubber room, not an Oval Office.

"BILL MOYERS: When someone inside government, inside the Justice Department, presumably, gives you a confidential document marked, 'Not For Distribution,' The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, knowing that this administration has been cracking down on watchdogs and leaks from inside government, do you consider this person a patriot? CHARLES LEWIS: I really do. I think it takes incredible guts to take something that bothers someone, and for whatever reason, they feel they must give it out. And they know they're gonna be polygraphed, they're gonna be questioned. There's gonna be a clampdown found, there's gonna be a witch-hunt after this occurs. They could very likely not only lose their job but-- maybe worse. MOYERS: Be sued by the government? LEWIS: Be sued by the government and otherwise ruined professionally. That is the most incredible kind of courage. And I have an incredible respect for anyone who does that." Read the full transcript!

"The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed in the wake of September 11, 2001, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information. The Center for Public Integrity has obtained a draft, dated January 9, 2003, of this previously undisclosed legislation and is making it available in full text (12 MB)... [According to Georgetown University Law professor David Cole], this proposed law 'would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive 'suspicion,' create new death penalties, and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups.'"

"NOW with Bill Moyers will provide details of a Justice Department draft of a bill designed to extend the powers of the Patriot Act. The draft bill was provided exclusively to NOW by the Center for Public Integrity, which obtained it from a confidential government source. The document, entitled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, outlines significant broadening of law enforcement powers, including domestic intelligence gathering, surveillance, and law enforcement prerogatives, while decreasing public access to information and judicial review authority. Dr. David Cole [said]. 'I think this is a quite radical proposal. It authorizes secret arrests. It would give the Attorney General essentially unchecked authority to deport anyone who he thought was a danger to our economic interests. It would strip citizenship from people for lawful political associations,' he told NOW's Roberta Baskin. 'And...it has not been put on the table so there can be a discussion about it.'"

Pat M. Holt writes, "It is time for Congress or the courts to blow the whistle on the Bush administration's excessive secrecy. The secrecy is especially pernicious when set in the context of the administration's proclivity to spin. 'Spin' is the fashionable word. 'Twist,' 'distort,' 'deceive,' or 'cover up' would be more forthright. Consider these examples: The White House tried to obstruct the appointment of an independent commission to investigate the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, implying it doesn't want Congress to know what it knows... Attorney General Ashcroft insists on closing court proceedings that are ordinarily open, including some the Constitution requires to be open... The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Health and Human Services have been given the authority to classify documents as 'secret.'" Impeach Bush Now!

Richard Reeves writes: "Ejaz Haider, was stopped by two armed men in plainclothes as he walked into the Brookings building...The men identified themselves as agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and took Haider away to jail...Haider could have disappeared in the American prisons and prison camps that are hidden in the small print of the great war against terrorism. Or he could have been executed without trial or mention. Oh, you don't think that happens here? Americans don't do such things? If so, then you were not watching and listening carefully to the resident last Tuesday night. I literally leaped out of my seat when Bush said this: 'To date we have arrested, or otherwise dealt with, many key commanders of al-Qaida. ... All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way, they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.'"

"As we approach the three-month mark following the midterm election, here are a handful of things that have come into focus much more clearly. Let's cut to the chase first, and then elaborate below. Finger #1. Bush&Co. are going to attack Iraq. There will be no Declaration of War by the Congress (as required by the U.S. Constitution), and no authorization by the United Nations. Finger #2. The nearly 100-per cent focus on Iraq means that the Bush Administration has free rein to do what it wants to do in virtually all other areas of policy, since hardly anybody is paying attention." Bernard Weiner elaborates on these and other fingers aimed at the Bush Administration and its policies.

John Pilger writes, "Unelected in 2000, the... regime of George W Bush is now totalitarian, captured by a clique whose fanaticism and ambitions of 'endless war' and 'full spectrum dominance' are a matter of record... Bush's State of the Union speech last night was reminiscent of that other great moment in 1938 when Hitler called his generals together and told them: 'I must have war.' He then had it. [Tony Blair] is the embodiment of the most dangerous appeasement humanity has known since the 1930s. The current American elite is the Third Reich of our times... When you next hear Blair or Straw or Bush talk about 'bringing democracy to the people of Iraq', remember that it was the CIA that installed the Ba'ath Party in Baghdad from which emerged Saddam Hussein."

Don Schiffler writes, "I am convinced as are many, that there will be an accelerated power grab unprecedented in American history. The 'NWO' will orchestrate yet another major terrorist attack, and led by Bush with the aid of Ashcroft will suspend habeas corpus, Martial Law will be declared, the people will be asked to 'temporarily' give up the remainder of their rights and freedoms, once again for patriotism and National Security. The now dormant internment camps will be re-activated and the 'unpatriotic' will disappear unannounced. The cries of the loved ones will go unheard. We know the next attack is coming. Bush, Rumsfeld, Ridge, the FBI and the CIA have already told us this daily. Every day, every night the 'Propaganda Matrix' tells us to be alert, another attack is imminent, the threats are constant. When will it happen? We're not sure. Where will it happen? We're not sure. What will happen? We're not sure. But happen it will, it must, it is the agenda, we have been warned."

From the very beginning, Bush has done everything he could to prevent the American people from finding out what the White House is doing, from issuing an executive order that overrides the 1978 Presidential Papers Act through hiding the records of his two terms as Texas governor in his daddy's presidential library, to deleting information wholesale from government web sites. Department heads have issued gag orders for staff members and have told them to avoid honoring Freedom of Information Act requests. Bush thinks that all the government belongs to him, not to the American people. When will he issue the executive order changing his title from President to King?

"The Joint Chiefs of Staff are split over plans to invade Iraq in the coming weeks...An angry Rumsfeld...is said to have told the Joint Chiefs to get in line or find other jobs. Bush is also said to be 'extremely angry' at what he perceives as growing Pentagon opposition to his role as Commander in Chief. 'The President considers this nation to be at war,' a White House source says, 'and, as such, considers any opposition to his policies to be no less than an act of treason.'" Hey Bush, what about your grandfather Prescott Bush, who had his companies' assets seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act for financing the Nazis? What about your CIA Daddy, who was the main man behind the illegal arming of Saddam Hussein, as well as being in the middle of the Iran-Contra treason? What about you? You deserted your National Guard post for up to two years! (For articles, enter keywords in our search engine, for each search: "nazi", "iraq", "iran-contra","awol")

Heather Wokusch writes: "Here's the situation: The nation's leadership is taken over by a secretive group of elitists who profess democracy while dragging the country into a totalitarian nightmare. Confusion and fear take hold, civil rights are eroded in the name of fighting a terror war, and impersonal governmental bodies with names like 'Committee of General Security' start labeling dissenters as enemies of the state. Secretive courts with limited accountability punish civilians who object. Tightening its grip on power, the government creates public crises it can later be seen as solving, and military service is made mandatory for young men. The ongoing terror war drains the country's resources, foreign relations hit rock bottom, and the economy slides even further. But since fear is the government's most effective weapon against its own population, the terror war is expanded. Sound familiar?"

Bush says the US is justified in conquering Iraq because HE says Saddam is in technical non-compliance with UN Resolutions. But when a UN Resolution requires Bush to do something HE doesn't want to do, Bush just throws a tantrum and demands that the rules be changed. The issue here is UN Resolution 1284, which requires UN inspectors to report back every 60 days. Bush doesn't WANT a report in 60 days, because that undercuts his demand for immediate W-ar. We call upon the UN to conquer the White House to rid us of this lawless and dangerous man, who defies UN Resolutions at will, and tears up signed treaties like toilet paper!

Richard Nixon's White House counsel John Dean writes, "Not since Richard Nixon's presidency have the powers of Congress been in greater jeopardy. Not only is the Bush White House seeking to expand presidential powers at the expense of Congress, but the conservative gang of five on the U.S. Supreme Court are busy trimming congressional powers directly. The Bush-Cheney efforts, along with those of the Rehnquist-Scalia-Thomas-O'Connor-Kennedy bloc, are raw power politics and an example of short-sighted decisionmaking. These moves to curb congressional authority also raise the question why. In Part One of this two part-series, I will look at the threat to congressional power posed by the Bush White House; then, in Part Two, I will turn to the threat posed by the Supreme Court."

NYTimes reports, "A federal appeals court handed the Bush administration a major legal victory today in ruling that a wartime president can indefinitely detain a United States citizen captured as an enemy combatant on the battlefield and deny that person access to a lawyer. The case, which set up a stark clash between the nation's security interests and its citizens' civil liberties, may have expanded the power of the presidency as the three-judge panel ruled unanimously that Bush was due great deference in conducting the war on terrorism. The judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., said it was improper for the federal courts to probe too deeply into the detention of Yasser Esam Hamdi, a 22-year-old American-born Saudi who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and is now imprisoned in a military brig in Norfolk, Va." If you want to have any Constitutional rights at all - Impeach Bush Now!

Bernard Weiner writes: "And you're suggesting that because the population didn't rise up in 2002 to protest the shredding of Constitutional guarantees of due process, that 2003 will see the Bush Administration going after domestic political 'enemies' and locking them away? A. You got it on the first try. Look, there's a war about to begin -- probably sometime in the next two months -- and those who are effective in opposing that war, and those being too vocal and effective in opposing Ashcroft's police-state tactics, must be dealt with, lest the foundational base of power be weakened. Would-be strong Democratic candidates against Bush will be trashed and smeared early. Anti-war leaders will continue to be harassed and kept off commercial airplanes -- this began to happen in 2002 -- and the peace movement will be compromised by violence initiated by undercover agents inside the organizations."

Adam Clymer writes: "The Bush administration has put a much tighter lid than recent presidents on government proceedings and the public release of information, exhibiting a penchant for secrecy that has been striking to historians, legal experts and lawmakers of both parties. Some of the Bush policies, like closing previously public court proceedings, were prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and are part of the administration's drive for greater domestic security. Others, like Vice President Dick Cheney's battle to keep records of his energy task force secret, reflect an administration that arrived in Washington determined to strengthen the authority of the executive branch, senior administration officials say."

In the name of "national security" (translated = "Bush's political security), the Bush Reich has released its scheme to begin a massive surveillance of the Internet - the last bastion of free speech left untouched by his dictatorship. The scheme, which. like all of Bush's most evil schemes, has a grandiose title: the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace .When first proposed last year, it was pawned off as merely an effort to protect the Net from malicious hackers. Now, the real plan is revealed - total surveillance. One anonymous offical compared the system to Carnivore, the Internet wiretap system used by the F.B.I., saying: "Am I analogizing this to Carnivore? Absolutely. But in fact, it's 10 times worse. Carnivore was working on much smaller feeds and could not scale. This is looking at the whole Internet." Heil Bush!

Back in October, D. C. immigration attorney Gus Shihab said his Middle Eastern clients were concerned by a new atmosphere of intimidation and mistreatment in the U.S. People were upset that while other nations require registration of aliens, only the U.S. has singled out an ethnic group. Worse, there were fears that the list of nations the Bush regime declared to be of "similar ethnicity" would grow - which it has.

"Shocked and frustrated Islamic and immigrant groups estimate that more than 500 people have been arrested in Los Angeles, neighboring Orange County and San Diego in the past three days under a new nationwide anti-terrorism program. Some unconfirmed reports put the figure as high as 1,000. A spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service said no numbers of people arrested would be made public. A Justice Department spokesman could not be reached for comment. The head of the southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union compared the arrests to the internment of Japanese Americans in camps during the Second World War." With overnight roundups, secrecy, and arrests sans charges, we'd say it's more reminiscent of Stalinist Russia.

Bush has not only forced the UN to hand over the only complete copy of the Iraq arms report - he's deciding who else gets it and who doesn't. "The action violates Paragraph 3 of the UNSC Resolution 1441/2002, which was drafted by the United States and imposed on the council," the Iraqis complain. "Such US behaviour aims at tampering with the UN documents to provide covers for the aggression against Iraq, especially after the facts about the US allegations that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction became known to the whole world. A single country, that is the United States, should not override the role of UNMOVIC and the IAEA and the authority of the UNSC president and the council's other four permanent members, which were forced to wait to be supplied by it [the United States] with copies of the Iraqi declaration after the United States studied its contents first. There is a possibility that it may distort whatever it wants in this declaration."

From internment camps to martial law - a historical timeline of the creeping fascist police state the Bush Administration is bringing to culmination. Only now it's no longer creeping, it's running.

Joe Conason writes: "By the close of business on Monday, Dec. 2, there seemed almost perfect agreement between White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and John DiIulio, the former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Both were advising everyone, in almost identical wording, to pay no attention to the troubling tales about the Bush administration that Mr. DiIulio had told writer Ron Suskind for the January issue of Esquire. The sequence of events during that day gave off an extraordinary Orwellian odor, as if the loquacious Mr. DiIulio had been subjected to a swift but thorough course of Republican thought-reform. The news cycle began with a story in The New York Times previewing Mr. Suskind's long, engrossing investigation of how Karl Rove and his minions grind out policy sausage in the West Wing."

ABC reports: "American citizens working for al-Qaida overseas can legally be targeted and killed by the CIA under Bush's rules for the war on terrorism, U.S. officials say. The authority to kill U.S. citizens is granted under a secret finding signed by Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks that directs the CIA to covertly attack al-Qaida anywhere in the world." Add to this the power given Bush by the Homeland Security bill to personally determine who is a "suspect," and you have a set up where any political enemy of G.W. Bush can be declared an Al-Qaida suspect - no proof required - and murdered "legally" by the CIA. Are you scared yet? You should be!

"A MILLION Americans will be given smallpox vaccinations under the first wave of a mass inoculation order being prepared by [Mr.] Bush. The initial stage of the decision would see 500,000 military personnel and 510,000 civilian medical workers receive the jab. A second step would involve up to TEN MILLION frontline workers such as police, the emergency services, and other healthcare staff who would be the first to respond to a bioterrorism attack. The smallpox vaccine would then be made available to any member of the public who wanted one, although it would be accompanied with warnings of the health risks involved and would not be recommended by the authorities."So reports theTimes Online.

"The evidence is rolling in, and it is unmistakable: the Bush people are assembling purely political lists of individuals and groups to be targeted during some future crisis, real or manufactured. The list makers probably do not yet know what they plan to do to the people on their enemies lists, which are still fragmented among various agencies. However, once such lists are compiled, eventual government action becomes all but inevitable. It is already clear that the list will be a very long one, reaching into broad categories of what the current rulers consider to be dangerous dissenters. Civil rights lawyers, Green Party activists and even the Catholic advocacy group Peace Action are on the lists, as are, it appears, Amnesty International and various environmental activist organizations." So reports the Black Commentator.

"What we are witnessing is the mutation of a democratic republic into a military autocracy: Bush bases his claim of arbitrary power on the president's constitutional role as commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces. Although there is nothing in the constitution that warrants the extension of military command to cover arbitrary rule over the entire citizenry, and certainly nothing that countenances the abrogation of basic rights and liberties on the unchallengeable say-so of an all-powerful leader, the 'commander-in-chief' argument nevertheless serves a useful purpose for the autocrat, creating the illusion of a limited and temporary suspension of liberties -- a drastic but necessary 'wartime' measure." So writes Chris Lloyd.

A report by The Century Foundation, "The Enemy Within: Intelligence Gathering, Law Enforcement, and Civil Liberties in the Wake of September 11," by NYU Law Professor Stephen J. Schulhofer raises questions about new executive powers instituted as part of the war on terrorism and their effect on both individual freedoms and national security. This press release summarizes the author's concerns about allowing the executive branch to detain citizens without charges, restrict public hearings and access to counsel, conduct secret searches, spy electronically, and obtain access to previously confidential files - all without the customary judicial or congressional oversight - and his conclusion that such actions may actually hurt rather than help our antiterrorist efforts. Although written prior to the recent passage of the Homeland Security Act, that legislation makes this analysis even more pertinent, since many of the powers detailed in the report will be used by the new agency.

Jonathan Turley writes, "Over the last year, the public has yielded large tracts of constitutional territory that had been jealously guarded for generations... For more than 200 years, our liberties have been protected primarily by practical barriers rather than constitutional barriers to government abuse. Because of the sheer size of the nation and its population, the government could not practically abuse a great number of citizens at any given time. In the last decade, however, these practical barriers have fallen to technology. A government's desire for 'Total Information Awareness' of its citizens is nothing new. Our founders understood that the quality of government is determined not by the powers given but by those denied to it. A free society cannot be maintained under the continual surveillance of its government. DARPA has finally brought us to a constitutional Rubicon. Yet all that is required is for citizens to do nothing. DARPA will do the rest."

Eric Arrow writes: "Most people think America is a democracy, but the evidence is readily available that shows fascist elements in the highest levels of corporate and government offices are determined to overthrow the Constitution and our precious democracy....The USA PATRIOT Act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is the basis for mass arrests, and secret detentions and trials, with the power of life and death wielded by former Texas Governor Bush, who was responsible for more executions during his term than in any governor in the state's history. Bush Jr. has stated on three occasions that things would be easier if the USA were a dictatorship and he were the dictator. This time, the coup has happened yet who will stop the perpetrators?"

Matt Drudge published some early excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book, "Bush at War." Here's a particularly frightening one: Bush "emerged wearing a New York Fire Department windbreaker. He raised his arm and gave a thumbs-up to the crowd on the third base side of the field. Probably 15,000 fans threw their arms in the air imitating the motion. He then threw a strike from the rubber, and the stadium erupted. Watching from owner George Steinbrenner's box, Karl Rove thought, It's like being at a Nazi rally."

Duke University Biblical divinity scholar Stephen Chapman believes Bush's religious delusions are getting out of hand. Chapman says Bush's religious rhetoric has been destructive, as has his declaration of what constitutes good and evil: "The great danger of such speech is that it 'demonizes' political opponents and rules out by definition any attempts at compromise," says Chapman. Worse yet in Chapman's eyes was Bush's speech on the anniversary of 9/11 when he closed his speech from Ellis Island with a quote from the first chapter of the Gospel of John that related America's role in the world to the life and work of Jesus Christ. "Bush considers himself an evangelical Christian, yet he speaks of the state in ways that Christianity reserves to Christ alone," Chapman said. "From the standpoint of Christian theology and responsible biblical interpretation, when the state acquires messianic significance in the mouths of its rulers, it becomes demonic and deserving of civil disobedience."

Besides giving any president money without the proper appropriations, giving Bush a blank check for (w)ar is now looking like an incredibly bad thing. The Thief-in-Chief now has unlimited funds to give to any company that he considers a defense company to fight his war. When are the Democrats going to realize that this was nothing more than buying votes and support for the Carlyle Group and other similar companies that the Bushes have a stake in? Bush will give them a large defense contract, and in return, they will give the GOP tons of campaign money. Yes, the taxpayers will now be funding the GOP campaigns for years to come. Taxpayers have the right to know where their money is being sent, and the Dems in Congress better demand that this information is made public!

While the Dictator-and-Thief was speaking for Jeb in Florida, once again there were many arrests, as well as people not being permitted to attend a free rally, just because they had Bill McBride buttons. At least six volunteers for the McBride campaign said they obtained tickets to the Bush rally because they wanted to hear the president speak. However, they said, GOP organizers confiscated their tickets and turned them away at an entrance gate because of the McBride buttons they were wearing. "I'm a USF student. That's a public university. I don't see how they can deny us entrance when the tickets were free," said John Dutty, 37, of Tampa.... signs read, ''Why do you let these crooks fool you?" and ''War is good business. Invest your sons." Other people were arrested for standing outside the "First Amendment Zones," the clearly illegal holding areas for people that do not agree with the (P)resident. Cluephone - the Constitution makes the whole country a First Amendment Zone!

According to the New York Times, on the day of John Muhammad's arrest state and federal investigators were making real progress in an interrogation of the accused sniper. A local law enforcement official is quoted as saying "it looked like Muhammad was ready to share everything, and these guys were going to get a confession." Those investigators later expressed outrage to reporters when the interrogation was halted by Thomas M DiBagio the United States attorney for Maryland. Two Maryland state officials and two federal officials said that in a conference call with police officials and prosecutors Mr. DiBiagio stated he was "on orders from the Justice Department and the White House" to take the suspects into custody.

Hady Hassan Omar is just one of the many people "indefinitely detained" on the authority of Attorney Generalissimo John Ashcroft. He was kept in solitary confinement, with cameras trained on him at all times, for 73 days, then released with no more explanation than when he was taken prisoner. How many other men, as innocent as Omar, are still enduring the torture of loneliness and hopelessness? "No one knows exactly how many young Muslim men were rounded up in the aftermath of 9/11. As of (last) November...when...authorities stopped issuing information on the subject, the tally was 1,147. What is known is that thus far, of those initial 1,147 arrests, only 3 have resulted in terrorism-related indictments, and more than 400 people have been deported following lengthy internment periods and closed hearings....David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor, argues that 'the policy of keeping people in jail until the F.B.I. clears them is essentially 'guilty until proven innocent.'"

Paul Krugman's column "Dead Parrot Society" encourages Washington reporters to stop being so timid and call Bush a LIAR. But after documenting Bush's many lies - Social Security privatization, tax cuts for the richest 1%, stem cell lines, carbon dioxide limits - Krugman then turns to Bush's desire to rule as a dictator. "The administration's inner circle must think that full control of the government can be used to lock in a permanent political advantage, even though the more the public learns about their policies, the less it likes them. The big question is whether the press, which is beginning to find its voice, will lose it again in the face of one-party government." Hey Paul, that's the most oblique prose you've ever written. Just come out and say it - Bush wants to be a DICTATOR! Write krugman@nytimes.com

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen writes, "The smug spirit of Enron pervades the Bush administration. When it learned that North Korea had a secret nuclear arms program, it moved the disclosure off the books lest it complicate the confrontation with Iraq. The information that Congress needed as it held another one of its self-proclaimed 'historic' debates was withheld -- a footnote known to only a few key members who, as with Enron's board, passively kept their mouths shut." He adds that this is by no means the only instance of self-serving, unjustifiable secrecy. Cohen concludes that the Busheviks think they, and not the American people, own the country. What took him so long to figure this out?

Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times writes, "Just like the frog in a pot of water that doesn't realize it's being boiled to death because the temperature is raised so gradually, so too can a populace fail to appreciate the erosion of its freedom. Polls show, distressingly, that most Americans would willingly give away civil liberties in pursuit of security. But while Americans believe giving up freedom means added inconvenience at the airport, the Bush administration has used this moment to obliterate the checks and balances that keep the executive branch operating within legal constraints." The list of the Bush regime's offenses against the Constitution is long and outrageous -- it's time for the American people to be outraged, and oppose the Bush agenda of devolving our democracy into a theocratic plutocracy.

John Perry Barlow writes, "I believe that the American Republic died in the U.S. Senate last Thursday morning and was buried yesterday morning in the East Room of the White House. Despite a deluge of calls, letters, and e-mails, which Capital Hill staffers admitted ran overwhelmingly against the ludicrously-named "Resolution Authorizing the President to Use Force, if Necessary, to End the Threat to World Peace from Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction," Congress extended to George II the authority to make unlimited and preemptive war against another nation that has neither attacked us nor shown the ability or inclination to do so....And now we have a King, George II, where presidents have always stood. It is not simply that we have made a Caesar of Bush, we have, in effect, assented to allowing him the entire world as his Empire."

On Sunday, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) declared: "This president is trying to bring to himself all the power to become an emperor - to create Empire America." He said Bush is trying to "submarine" efforts to restart weapons inspections in Iraq to give him a pretext for starting a war ... in part to bolster U.S. oil interests. "And what we are dealing with right now in this country is whether we are having a kind of bloodless, silent coup or not," he said... McDermott's comments went much further than his television interviews from Iraq, in which he said Bush would mislead Americans in order to build support for a war.... McDermott talked about what oil companies could gain from a war and said, "I'm not going to connect the dots exactly, but I think a dotted line certainly seems within the realm of possibility. "Oil is certainly a part of it but I don't think it's the underlying issue." The underlying issue, he said repeatedly, is a fight over the Constitutional power to declare war."

In keeping with Bush's new Police State policy, protestors in D.C. were "preemptively" arrested by the hundreds. In addition, despite the mainstream media's failure to mention the fact, the military was out in force to keep the "terrorist threat" of free speech from becoming too "dangerous." Check out these photos and you will ask yourself: Is this America, or Bosnia under Milosevic?

My former colleagues in the House of Representatives are grappling with Bush's request for congressional authority to use "all means necessary" including "force" against Iraq, and "to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism."

It appears that Barb Bush failed to teach her belligerent little boy the meaning of the word "No." And, like any spoiled child with psychopathic tendencies, now that Bush has been told "No!" by the UN, he is throwing a very ugly, very embarrassing tantrum for all the world to see. Like any psychopathic charmer, Bush pulled off his cajoling speech to the UN last week, and his earlier claim to the press that he would take his lead from the UN. But that was only because he was sure he'd get his way. Now that he hasn't, the real Bush comes out - a self-absorbed thug and con-artist with the emotional development of an overindulged six-year-old. The only time he appears to be a "leader" (to the gullible, anyway) is when a team of spin doctors are writing the script and there is some immediate gain for Bush in putting on the act. We are humiliated to have our great nation represented by such a travesty of leadership.

From Democratic Underground: "Though much of the world is convinced the 2000 election was a coup d'etat, and many believe we're being lied to regarding 9/11, we Americans are unaware of how numb we seem. Not only are we being coerced into World War III, but at this very moment, unnamed souls are secretly locked away, the Army's drafted plans for civilian detention camps and there's a shadow government buzzing beneath our streets...If you overhear anyone making the following statements, assume they've been brainwashed : 1) 'George Bush is a decent man.' 2) 'I have faith in our system of checks and balances.' 3) 'We have to defend ourselves, and the war on terrorism is the only way to do that.' 4) 'Since September 11, George Bush has shown strong leadership skills'... 7) 'George Bush is doing an excellent job in the war on terror.' 8) 'People who say the Bush administration 'let 9/11 happen' are conspiracy nuts.' 9) 'The media is liberal.' 10) 'Saddam has weapons of mass destruction!'

Polly Toynbee writes, "The louder Bush and Blair call for an end to [Saddam Hussein], the less convincing it sounds. Why now? That remains the perplexing question. Containment works well: few observers think Saddam can launch anything under present no-fly, daily bombing pressure. What is Bush's obsession? It remains a mystery. It is not a vote-winner in the US where the danger looks not clear and present, but cloudy and distant... No, it appears to spring from a new ideology, a neo-conservative dream which Charles Krauthammer, guru of the right, calls the US's 'uniquely benign imperium'. Hyperpower is not enough unless it is exerted so forcefully that no state ever again challenges benign US authority. One thing was made crystal clear yesterday - there is no other source of authority but America, and that means there is no other law but US law. What the US wants, the UN had better solemnise with a suitable resolution - very like the Roman senate and one of its lesser god-emperors."

Bridget Gibson writes, "A few years ago there was quite a stink about a Clinton policy that basically said "we won't ask and you won't have to tell" about your personal life. With all of the fuss surrounding this policy, it was amazing that the sky just did not cave in. Today we have an administration that has a similar policy with much more far reaching effects. It's called "Don't Ask Because We Tell Nothing." If you have the audacity to ask, you will be labeled as unpatriotic and they don't have to tell anything about any subject because they have their magic shield of "executive privilege." This privilege applies to any communication that has ever been had from the cradle to current regarding any and all subjects that may be of particular interest to anyone with a brain."

Thomas Ellis, writes: "Most... today are blithely unaware, because they never hear of it on television, that our nation is in the midst of the worst constitutional crisis in our history. (It) began on December 12, 2000, when an arbitrary Supreme Court decision aborted the electoral process in Florida and enabled a corporate-controlled Bush regime to hijack the presidency, against the public will.... But beyond the fundamental constitutional crisis posed by an illegitimate regime and an un-elected president, the actions of this usurper (caused) at least two other equally grave constitutional crises... So there we have our unprecedented constitutional crisis in a nutshell: an un-elected president using a catastrophic terrorist attack to rationalize the dismantling of our constitutional rights, a massive military buildup from which he will profit directly, and an unprovoked war of aggression on a sovereign foreign power. We need a regime change, all right, right here in the USA."

Richard Sauder writes: "What I find so CURIOUS about the George Bush & Co. coup d'etat and ensuing dictatorial power plays and ploys is that so many of the Republican Right (this would include many fundamentalist Christians and camo-dude militia-types) who spent the 90s whining about how Clinton & Gore were going to use FEMA and the Arkansas Mafia to seize power and declare a dictorship (or something like that) have now gone weak in the knees and soft in the brain over Bush. Bush has done EXACTLY what they warned Clinton would do (and didn't), but because Bush is a Republican they say little, and do even less, about America's swift plunge to the neo-FASCIST hard right, proving themselves to be not American democrats (with a little "d"), but simply highly dangerous, propagandized, party ideologues, and nothing more... Might the REPUBLICAN Party be remembered in future years by civilized people in the same dread terms that the NAZI and COMMUNIST Parties are remembered today?"

President John F. Kennedy said: "I have... chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived - yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace. What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace for all time... The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war."

TomPaine.com writes: "As… Bush wages his war against terrorism and moves to create a huge homeland security apparatus, he appears to be borrowing heavily, if not ripping off ideas outright, from George Orwell's 1984, the prophetic novel about a government that controls the masses by spreading propaganda, cracking down on subversive thought and altering history to suit its needs. 1984 was intended as a warning about the evils of totalitarianism -- not a how-to manual... In 1984, the state was perpetually at war against a vague and ever-changing enemy -- a convenient way to fuel hatred, nurture fear and justify the regime's autocratic practices... In 1984, an omnipresent and all-powerful leader, Big Brother, commanded the unquestioning support of the people... In 1984, Big Brother's ever-watchful eye kept tabs on the citizens of Orwell's totalitarian state." Look for this op-ed page ad in major newspapers!

James Bamford writes, "With increasing speed, the Justice Department of Attorney General John Ashcroft is starting to resemble the 'always vengeful bureaucracy' that crushed Josef K [in Kafka's 'The Trial']. Recently, [Ashcroft] argued that it is within the [faux]president's inherent power to indefinitely detain, without any charges, any person, including any US citizen, whom the [usurper] designates an 'enemy combatant.' Further, the person can be locked away, held incommunicado and denied counsel. Finally, Mr. Ashcroft argues that such a decision is not subject to review by federal or state courts. This situation is beyond even Kafka, who in his parable of punishment and paranoia at least supplied Josef K. with an attorney... Given the secret power of the F.I.S.A. court, the fact that federal agents regularly misled it and Ashcroft's worrisome proposals to expand the number and range of requests, Congress must begin holding hearings, some of them public, on how to fix the system."

Harley Sorensen writes: "Historically, America's saving grace has been its flexibility. We've gone down a lot of wrong paths, but sooner or later we always seem to get it right. Or less wrong. It's clear to anyone not wearing blinders that we're going down many wrong paths now. My hope is that we find our way again -- that we become the people we say we are -- before we fall into the abyss. [Now that Dick Armey is retiring, he's suddenly shown a characteristic he's kept hidden: decency. If] a chronic obstructer of the well-being of the American people can suddenly start working for the people, there might be hope for us. In the meantime, it's a good idea to remember the words of the Nazi, [Hermann Goering: 'To get people to accept war,] all you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.'"

Ted Rall writes, "George W Bush may not have read Gibbon but he possesses the morals and cunning of a gangster; in a country still stunned by last fall's attacks, that seems to be enough... Not even Americans are safe from Bush's anti-constitutional assaults on law and basic decency. Remember Jose Padilla?... Now government officials admit that they've got zero evidence and that Padilla is at best a 'small fish.' Nevertheless, they plan to detain this American citizen indefinitely, without trial... There are few more sickening sights than George W Bush wearing a lapel pin bearing an image of the American flag. Bush and his creepy henchmen can wrap themselves in nationalistic symbolism all they want, but these right-wing thugs aren't patriots. They may pledge allegiance to the flag, but they despise the republic for which it stands."

The Guardian UK writes Donald Rumsfeld said the US could not afford to wait for proof "before it attacked Iraq, and he equated the reluctance of America's allies to get involved with the appeasement of Nazi Germany. [His outspoken remarks on Iraq appear to be a deliberate move] to ratchet up the anti-Saddam rhetoric in the face of scepticism both at home and abroad. Speaking of Nazi Germany, [Rumsfeld said]: 'Think of all the countries that said, well, we don't have enough evidence. I mean Mein Kampf had been written. Hitler had indicated what he intended to do'... [General Wesley Clark joined the growing ranks of US elder statesmen] in urging caution on Iraq." Bush should know about Mein Kampf -- his Family subsidized Hitler while he wrote it! (Enter "nazi in our search engine to learn about Nazi financiers Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker. The assets of Prescott's Nazi front companies were seized in 1942, three weeks before our troops fought Germans in North Africa.)

For the first time, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) called Bush what he is - a Dictator. After Bush stood before Mount Rushmore to demand total power over the proposed Homeland Security Agency, Daschle told reporters that Senate Democrats did not want to "give this pResident or any president the dictatorial powers that I think compromise the checks and balances that our founding fathers recognized." Asked what he meant, Daschle replied: "The ability to fire an employee on the spot. The ability to move resources without any congressional approval from one agency or another. Those are powers that no president has had and we don't think this one [faker] should have them either." Way to go, Tom! Now go after Bush's dictatorial decisions to invade Iraq without a declaration of war ... to deny US citizens their right to a lawyer and a speedy trial ... to spy on our phone calls, e-mails, and library book rentals ... etc etc etc! Send thanks to tom_daschle@daschle.senate.gov

AP writes: "CRAW-FERD, TEXAS,...Bush will be 'furious' if baseball players carry out their threat to strike, sternly urging players and owners to resolve their differences. 'They need to keep working' Bush said Friday after the union's executive board set an Aug. 30 deadline for a walkout. The players' association distrusts him because he is a former owner [and stole money from Texans to pay for the team, and seized land as well for the stadium]. Relations between Bush and baseball commissioner Bud Selig are not warm. Bush wanted to be commissioner before he ran for governor of Texas; Selig repeatedly said he wouldn't stand in Bush's way, but then took the job for himself."

Gene Lyons writes: "Making a federal criminal case out of press leaks smacks of police state tactics. It'd be one thing if a critical secret like President Junior's nap schedule had fallen into enemy hands. The leak in question, however, endangered only Bush's increasingly shaky political standing... Junior's handlers needed damage control. So first they announced a new Homeland Security plan Bush had long resisted, pretending he'd crafted it in secret meetings that likely never happened. [Dick Cheney phoned the committee chairmen, who rolled on their backs] and asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to help. A competent attorney general would have recognized the constitutional problem. Not Ashcroft... But before you dismiss the Great Leak Hunt as harmless play-acting, read TIME's devastating report on the Bush Admistration's pre-9/11 refusal to take al-Qaeda seriously."

Alexander Bolton writes "The Bush administration's refusal to cooperate with even the most routine and basic congressional requests for information is infuriating members of Congress and violating congressional rights and responsibilities, members charge. From Democratic liberals like Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), who calls getting a response from the White House 'a nightmare,' to Republican conservatives like Rep. Dan Burton (Ind.), who said he had to use 'strong-arm tactics' to get what he needed, there has been a rising tide of congressional complaints in both the House and Senate. Furthermore, the administration is exacerbating the frustration among lawmakers by failing to acknowledge requests for information - even as a courtesy. A number of lawmakers are threatening to subpoena the administration - an extreme step reserved by lawmakers as a last resort to elicit cooperation on mundane inquiries."

Wherever he goes, Emperor Bush prohibits any visible protests. The Greensboro NC News & Record denounced Bush's suppression tactics: "On the same day police had contained a group of anti-war protesters nearly a mile away, George W. Bush told an audience at Grandover Resort that the nation's terrorist enemies 'cannot stand the fact that we have open debate in our society.' The protesters, who were members of the Greensboro Peace Coalition, had notified police of their plans a week in advance. They were complying with city regulations. Yet they were denied the opportunity to join 'open debate' by standing quietly where [Bush] might see signs reflecting their opinions during a July 25 visit to Greensboro. Something is wrong with this picture." Yes indeed!

Donald Rumsfeld is drunk with power. Overseas, he wants to conquer foreign nations at will, without any questioning by American citizens. At home, Rumsfeld is moving towards a military takeover of civilian government - in other words, a military coup d'etat. Recently the Pentagon announced plans to use soldiers for civilian law enforcement by repealing the Posse Comitatus Act. While Bush's still-active Secret Government plan is a secret, it would be no surprise to learn that the Pentagon runs the show. Rumsfeld's latest power-grab is an attempt to take control of the CIA, which - since its creation after WW II - has been headed by a civilian who reports directly to the President. Step by step, Rumsfeld is destroying the Constitution and creating a military dictatorship. Impeach Bush Now!

We have seen that Cheney only comes out for fundraising events, we know that the press never is allowed to ask tough questions, and now we have seen the press is herded up, intimidated, and prevented from asking questions when Cheney speaks. Here is the proof: SFGate.com writes, "When the vice president spoke at a GOP fund-raiser in Iowa last week, reporters were told to arrive at a holding area two hours before he began speaking. Reporters who had to go to the bathroom required an escort so that they would not be in a position to question Cheney about Halliburton, according to the Associated Press account." In other words, reporters were detained - like Taliban fighters - so no questions could be asked. In fact, no questions have been asked of Cheney in the last 77 days in the press, and his last interview was in March. Hey Dick, we don't fear you and your media intimidation techniques!

Daniel Kurtzman writes, "As Bush wages his war against terrorism and moves to create a huge homeland security apparatus, he appears to be borrowing heavily, if not ripping off ideas outright, from George Orwell['s] '1984', the prophetic novel about a government that controls the masses by spreading propaganda, cracking down on subversive thought and altering history to suit its needs. It was intended to be read as a warning about the evils of totalitarianism -- not a how-to manual [but] some of the similarities are starting to get a bit eerie." He documents the parallels: Permanent War, Ministry of Truth, Infallible Leader, Big Brother is Watching, and Thought Police. He asks, "What would it take to turn America into the kind of society that Orwell warned about, a society that envisions war as peace, freedom as slavery and ignorance as strength?" Just a Stolen Election, a Republican Supreme Court, a Republican media - and a Republican Congress. Stop Dictatorship - Vote Democratic!

"Billed as one of the nation's first 'homeland security training summer camps for teenagers,' a program called Secure Corps in Bucks County is drilling 92 young men and women in essential skills for this new, uncertain era. And those skills include math: 'If I have 40 acres of forest,' runs a typical problem, 'how many search dogs will I need to find a fugitive?'… When the eight-week program ends Aug. 23, graduates will be certified in first aid, CPR (both human and animal), and what organizers call 'terrorism response'…There is no tuition, and the campers, mostly 11th and 12th graders, are paid minimum wage so that they can spend these hours learning instead of flipping burgers. The entire program is designed for teens who may be teenage parents, juvenile delinquents, low income, or coping with a learning or other disability. Eighty percent are male, and 30 percent live in group foster homes." Is this the next step in the Bush clampdown -- USA Patriot Act, TIPS (citizen spy program)?

"The four-star general in charge of defending the United States against attack said he would favor changes in existing law to give greater domestic powers to the military to protect the country against terrorist strikes. The Bush administration has directed lawyers in the Departments of Justice and Defense to review the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and any other laws that sharply restrict the military's ability to participate in domestic law enforcement. Any changes would be subject to Congressional approval." Let's see, Bush has brought us the Constitution-shredding USA Patriot Act, Military Tribunals, a US Citizen held as an 'enemy combatant' against his rights until the 'end' of the War on Terrorism (whenever that will be), the TIPS programming to get Americans spying on their neighbors, the Office of Fatherland...er...Homeland Security, harassment and imprisonment of protestors for exercising their First Amendment rights. Concentration Camps in Guatanamo and Afghanistan...

What's the one picture that comes to mind when you think of Stalinist Russia, East Germany, or China during the "Cultural" Revolution? I think of a cold stairwell, and neighbors passing, afraid to speak because for all you know, your neighbor might be an informer. Well, Ashcroft seems to have an affinity for cold stairwells. He's got a pilot program planned, which will enlist ONE MILLION Americans in 10 major cities as volunteer informants. It's called The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS. Isn't that cute? As reported by the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, TIPS will have a higher percentage of citizen informants, reporting "suspicious activity," than the former East Germany did with its infamous Stasi secret police. Volunteers are being recruited among people whose works provides access to homes, businesses or transport systems, such as mailmen and truck drivers. Do they really want to turn this country into a police state? Click on TIPS at www.citizencorps.gov

On America's birthday, there was another "whiff of fascism in the air" in George Bush's speech in Ripley, WV. "After Bush entered, the crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance, shouting out the words 'under God' in defiance of the unpopular ruling by an appellate court panel last week that such words in the pledge are unconstitutional. Bush alluded to the decision, which was suspended pending a full court ruling. 'No authority of government can ever prevent an American from pledging allegiance to this one nation under God,'" Bush said. Bush followed "a fiery invocation by the Rev. Jack Miller of West Ripley Baptist Church. 'We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word in the name of multiculturalism. We have been forced to honor sexual deviance in the name of freedom of expression… We have killed our unborn children in the name of choice.'" Meanwhile, "snipers and spotters with binoculars stood on the courthouse above Bush [while] police helicopters hovered." Are you scared yet?

"21st century America and 1930's Germany share a form of apathy even though its root is of different sources. Germany's apathy stemmed from the population so content with its new found prosperity that it trusted its leaders overall in their endeavors. Today's American apathy is based upon their being manipulated by their leaders and the media in a time of national grief and xenophobia. Both populations were and are being played like marionettes and their apathy and paranoia allowed and allows them to be blind to the blatant evil of their leaders. Two weeks ago in the wake of the 'What did they know' reports, Cheney, Mueller and Rumsfeld took a chapter from the Hermann Goering book of mass manipulation. They use this rule of Hitler's Third Reich every time things get a little too warm for them." So write W. David Jenkins III and Sara DeHart in America Held Hostile.

"A propagandized media has to have a director and sub-directors. In 1930 Germany it was Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Is this the role that Karl Rove holds? Are there others now that Karen Hughes is slated to leave the White House? Is Michael Powell's role as Chair of the Federal Communications Commission to facilitate mergers so that a single-voiced media is fully operational by 2004? It is hard to come by accurate news in this administration, but certain facts are indisputable. Secrecy is the tool of the day. 'Secrecy is a tool the leadership uses to maintain power and control over issues of controversy' (Sr. Nancy Sylvester, 5/2/02). The good sister was not speaking about either Nazi Germany's leadership in 1933 or Mr. Bush's administration in 2002. She refers to the way the Catholic Church is handling its current controversy of pedophilia amongst its priests. The quote is striking though because it reflects the way that both Hitler and Bush II seized and used power."

"And then came September 11, 2001, with the direct attack on America followed by the counter-attack on Afghanistan. This unleashed a whole new level of Far Reich control over the American people and the agenda. To keep a population in line, both Hitler and Bush declared perpetual war. Or in Hitler's words: 'Another weapon I discovered early was the power of the printed word to sway souls to me. The newspaper was soon my gun, my flag-a thing with a soul that could mirror my own.' But in this case technology has moved light years ahead of Hitler's time and Bush's Far Reich uses the power of television, controlled by a few corporate heads, to control and sway. Following 911 the patriotism of the American people was twisted to suit the purposes of the Far Reich Agenda just as patriotism of the German people was twisted following the Reichstag fire to suit the purposes of the Third Reich." So write W. David Jenkins III and Sara DeHart for America Held Hostile.

The presidency is going to George Bush's head. He "is jumping up and saying truly extraordinary things, some of them preposterous, some stupid, some terrifying... We define morality now. We decide who's naughty and who's nice... If the president [sic] says it, it must be true. Whether you agree with his pronouncements or not, you are supposed to keep your mouth shut in the name of patriotism and solidarity. Among other things, you have to pretend we actually have the capability to do what we say we're going to do to the axis of evil or anyone else, including corporate America, who gets bad numbers in Republicans' polls. [Bush is making ridiculous threats and promises he cannot deliver on. The truth is, most countries are not with us. They are -- surprise -- for themselves. Bush is talking nonsense most] of the time, dangerous nonsense if he means it, and it is past time to talk openly about that."

William F. Buckley's National Review writes, "Without either constitutional or statutory authority, the administration has decided that it will set the rules, prosecute infractions, determine guilt or innocence, then review the results of its own actions. That's too much unchecked power in the hands of the executive branch — making a mockery of the doctrine of separation of powers... Even persons convinced that President [sic] Bush cherishes civil liberties and understands that the Constitution is not mere scrap paper [ROTFL], must be unsettled by the prospect that an unknown and less honorable successor could exploit some of the dangerous precedents that the Bush administration has put in place. In a nutshell, we cannot permit the executive branch to declare unilaterally that a U.S. citizen may be characterized as an enemy combatant, whisked away, detained indefinitely without charges, denied legal counsel, and prevented from arguing to a judge that he is wholly innocent."

Every July 4th, the NY Times devotes a full page to reprinting the Declaration of Independence. This year, we urge the Times to print the Constitution. In Article I, Section 8, they will find this: "The Congress shall have Power... To declare War." That's CONGRESS, not the PRESIDENT. Just because our $30 billion intelligence agencies failed to stop 19 terrorists with boxcutters, that is no excuse for the President to declare himself Emperor. Before we trash the Constitution, let's hold accountable the top officials who let the terrorists attack America!

Bush now asserts: "(a) citizens can be taken into custody as enemy combatants; (b) that... citizens can also be taken off the streets of any American town; and (c) that civilian courts cannot intervene to inquire into the legality of such arrests and detentions... The bottom line is that President [sic] Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft are attempting to suspend the 'Great Writ' of habeas corpus, which allows Americans to get into a court of law to challenge the legality of their arrest and to have their liberty restored... Without judicial review, the police can arrest people without warrants and jail people without trials. The controversial 'military order' that Bush issued last November has, in effect, now been extended to American citizens--and the writ of habeas corpus is now under assault. [Bush believes] that his commander-in-chief power gives him the authority to ignore... the Constitution when he deems it necessary." A few weeks ago, Cato had condoned the FBI expansion.

Nat Parry writes in Consortium News, "In the nine months since Sept. 11, George W. Bush has put the United States on a course that is so bleak that few analysts have -- as the saying goes -- connected the dots. If they had, they would see an outline of a future that mixes constant war overseas with abridgment of constitutional freedoms at home, a picture drawn by a politician who once joked, 'If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier -- so long as I'm the dictator.' "

Bush & Co. are real operators - the late John Gotti ain't got nothin' on them. When the Coleen Rowley story broke, they sprang into action Mafioso-style and not only buried Ms. Rowley's allegations under a truckload of White House BS, but also used the revelations as an excuse to roll back what few Constitutional protections citizens had left insuring due process. Then, once the public outcry over this outrage started to build, the Bush cartel simply trumped up the Joseph Padilla story, leaving their toadies in the mainstream media to do the rest and clean up after them. Nice job - if you happen to LIKE living in a two-bit banana republic.

Ted Rall writes, "It can happen to you. The jackbooted thugs can arrest you without bothering to accuse you of a crime. They can deprive you of the right to make a phone call, to receive a visit from your family, or even to see a lawyer. It doesn't matter if you're innocent or not; our state-sanctioned terrorists can keep you locked up in prison for the rest of your life without ever granting you your day in court. But you're an American citizen, you protest. It makes no difference whatsoever-you have no rights. After cynically using the September 11th attacks as a pretext to eradicate one civil liberty after another, the Bush Administration has finally taken away the single most essential freedom of an American citizen: the right to due process before a jury of his peers."

BuzzFlash writes, "We have crossed over into the first stage of a dictatorship when American citizens can no longer exercise their First Amendment rights in the presence of an unelected president who, by his own admission, prefers dictatorships to democracies." Buzz cites Bush's suppression of graduation protests at Ohio State (which went completely unreported by the corporate media), as well as similar suppression of the Tampa 3. There are actually dozens of examples of Bush's suppression of First Amendment rights, and the equally important Fourth Amendment (warrantless searches, such as phone and Internet wiretapping), Fifth Amendment (requiring indictments), and Sixth Amendment (speedy and public trial). When will Democratic leaders stand and fight for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?

Writes Stephanie Donald: "In 1960, an author named William L. Shirer published a book called, 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.' It's considered the finest book on the subject of the phenomenon of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party's rise to power. By all appearances, the Republican Party is using Hitler's plan to seize world power and the worst part is that American Apathy is making it come true. George Santayana once pointed out that, 'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.' How right Mr. Santayana was because if one reads Mr. Shirer's historical accounts of the Third Reich and their seizure of the German people's freedoms and liberties and rights to self-rule -- one can only wonder at how blatantly the current American situation was taken from a blueprint of the worst chapter of human history."

Mike Allen and Karen DeYoung write in the Washington Post, "Bush told future Army officers today that the United States can no longer deter attacks from other nations by threatening massive retaliation, but instead must strike looming enemies first." That sounds like something Adolph Hitler would have said. Hey George - what on earth is a "looming enemy"? The Constitution does not give YOU the right to declare war because you look into somebody's "soul"!

Dian Hardison is a former NASA scientist who has been lauded as a "pioneering" woman of science. However, since going against the Bush Reich, Hardison's life has become a nightmare. First she was fired, now she has been arrested as a terrorist - for accidentally getting foot powder on her water bill! Her real crime - speaking out against Bush. Is Hardison the first of a mass roundup of dissenters under Ashcroft's "new guidelines?"

"In 2002, with the U.S. Supreme Court nothing more than a useful machination of the Bush regime, it seems likely that if Americans become subjected to a Bush declaration of martial law, any challenge to it would fail miserably... In 1992, Bush the Elder issued Executive Order 12804 in response to the Los Angeles riots... That event would expose the CIA's penchant for selling drugs to inner city youth to raise funds for U.S. government covert operations in Central and South America... [Bush's underling] Oliver North came up with a secret plan, along with the fascist-oriented FEMA (the key-masters for the doors to the bunkers), to declare martial law in the event of a 'national crisis,' including 'violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad.' Florida's provincial ruler Jeb Bush signed Executive Order 01-262 on September 11, 2001 declaring a State of Emergency in Florida." So write John Stanton and Wayne Madsen in a chilling analysis.

Jill Rachel Jacobs writes, "We can say this much about the White House: they certainly know how to respond to a real threat when the danger is assessing their job performance... Cheney resurfaces from his underground bunker to voice strong opposition to anything the public might want to know about the way the White House conducts business... The Bush crew obviously loves secrecy more than credibility. This is an administration that seems to relish doing business behind closed doors... If the Veep has his way, the White House would never have to respond to a critic through the end of W.'s second term... Perhaps these latest threats are new and legitimate. Maybe it's just a coincidence that they've surfaced at a time when the administration is feeling some political heat. It's my guess that Americans will be on alert for a long time, at least for another six years."

"When I read the transcript of Bush's speech on Cuba and Castro's totalitarian regime, (5/20), I couldn't believe my ears. I thought - does this man realize that he is describing HIMSELF and HIS GOVERNMENT? I decided to "edit" the speech and thereby turn it into one we all WISH, in our wildest fantasies, that we would hear. By just replacing a few words here and there, voila! It reads like a brutally honest assessment of G.W. by G.W.!" So writes Cheryl Seal.

In a desperate effort to keep the public from learning what this administration knew in advance about the September 11th attacks, Bush is now claiming publicly that the legislative branch should hold no power over the executive branch! According to a Detroit News article, Bush says the inherent powers of the presidency have eroded to an unsettling degree over the past 30 years and he is moving to reclaim the lost prerogatives of the nation's highest office. He has drawn a distinct line that he has suggested no one dare cross. "I have an obligation to make sure that the presidency remains robust and that the legislative branch doesn't end up running the executive branch," Bush said. This is an OUTRAGE! IMPEACH BUSH NOW!

While Bush and Cheney spin in whirlwind-like circles to justify the inescapable fact that they ALLOWED 9/11 to happen, to keep from getting dizzy, a single central fact should be kept in America's sights: Bush GAINED HUGE ADVANTAGES from the tragedy. In August, when Bush chose to ignore the very clear warnings coming in from all over the world (Mossad, Putin, the German BND, etc., as well as the CIA and FBI), his approval ratings were at their lowest. But he was not the first to use the destruction of a famous building to increase his power while eliminating much of everyone else's. Just remember - whoever ignores history is doomed to repeat it. Read the repressive laws enacted by the Nazis after the Reichstag Fire of 1933.

John Stanton and Wayne Madsen write in Online Journal, "Since [9/11] the Bush Regime, the US Congress and senior personnel in the U.S. military have been busy planning their escape routes from Washington, DC, and surrounding communities in the event that [we are] attacked by another 19 global insurgents possessing little more than wit, dedication, an unrepentant animosity towards America, and an ample dose of radioactive material... Corporate executives have ensured that they too will find a place in the bunker... These are America's leaders who -- through sheer arrogance and stunning stupidity -- ignored reports from tireless FBI field agents that involved suspicious flight school activities"... These leaders stood by and watched "the state of California get raped by Enron -- the Bush family's fund raising Ponzi scheme contrivance."

David Cogswell writes, "I often recall Winston Churchill's warning before the Battle of Britain, when he said that if Hitler could break them in Britain, then the fascists would take over the British navy and would succeed in Hitler's plan to dominate the world... Churchill said, 'If we can stand up to him [Hitler], all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the light of perverted science.'... I see Churchill's nightmare coming true. I see the dark abyss of fascist politics and culture settling in on America and the world."

"Every so often I face a dilemma. Although news is breaking out all over the place, I still sometimes get stuck. Even though Bush II is a gold mine of material, a fertile ground for well-earned insult not to mention a bleeding crook, sometimes you have to wonder if you're beating a horse that just won't die. How many different ways are there to say 'I hate that spoiled brat' or 'Somebody please lock him up before everything is gone.' And so I pace and wonder what do I say next that hasn't been said already? And then, out of nowhere..." So writes W. David Jenkins III.

So who is Undersecretary of State John Bolton? Ian Williams answers the question in Salon: "It depends on what you think of Sen. Jesse Helms' political legacy. The two men share the same contempt for the United Nations, and most of the rest of the world... And despite years of attacking the U.N. -- in 1994 he said, "There is no such thing as the United Nations" and "If the U.N. Secretariat building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference"... Nor did his contempt for the U.N. stop him from taking $30,000 from the Taiwanese to [help them become members]. Giving Bolton the title of undersecretary of state for disarmament had a seriously Orwellian feel: [Jesse Helms] endorsed his nomination with unintended irony: 'John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon.' [If Bolton has his way] Armageddon is closer than the rest of us would like."

Here we are at that famous national game show: the Bush Wheel of Fortune! Solve the puzzle and decide who he's gonna declare war on next. Is that first letter a "C"? Yes, it is! Can I buy a vowel now, Pat? OK, give me a "U"! Allright, Pat, I want to solve the puzzle now: is it....CUBA?! And the audience goes wild as Vanna reveals that the next country Bush plans to attack is indeed CUBA! All joking aside, the G.lobal W.reckingball and his corporate cronies are DETERMINED to plunge the U.S. into war ASAP - before his approval ratings scrape the floor and before Congressional election day 2002 arrives.

"Does it make sense to terrorize Afghanistan and to Talibanize the US in order to fight terrorism and the Taliban? Does the US have to act as viciously and violently as Osama bin Laden in an effort to vanquish him? Bush launched a crusade against a jihad, making war abroad to bring peace, abrogating freedoms at home to bolster democracy. Which part of this makes sense?… In the US, there is a different sort of threat. Bush's belief that 'there ought to be limits to freedom' and his simplistic, polarizing warning of September 20th that 'either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists' sets the harsh tone for the administration." So writes sociologist Dan Brooks in Commondreams.org.

"In an e-mail message sent last year while the Bush administration was formulating a national energy policy, a senior Energy Department official posed this question to a lobbyist for a major natural gas interest: 'If you were king, or Il Duce, what would you include in a national energy policy, especially with respect to natural gas issues?' The message was sent by Joseph Kelliher, who was a political appointee in the Energy Department. Last spring, Mr. Kelliher was a major contributor to VP Dick Cheney's energy task force. Mr. Kelliher's invitation for input was seized by the lobbyist, Dana Contratto, who responded with an array of pro-industry proposals. The e-mail exchange was released on Thursday night by the Energy Department in response to [FOIA] lawsuits brought by Judicial Watch and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Both groups had sued the Bush administration for records about White House energy policy." Where is the outrage from WWII veterans like Bob Dole???

Christopher Marquis from the New York Times writes, "Senior members of the Bush administration met several times in recent months with leaders of a coalition that ousted the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, for two days last weekend, and agreed with them that he should be removed from office, administration officials said today... But to some critics, it was the Bush administration that had displayed arrogance in initially bucking the tide of international condemnation of the action against Mr. Chavez, who was democratically elected in 1998." Bush aided and supported a military coup against a democratically elected president. Once again winning an election doesn't matter to Bush.

"Most people have long forgotten Richard Nixon's plans to reorganize the Executive Branch after the 1972 election. He planned to exercise the powers of the presidency more aggressively than any president ever had, and a cornerstone of his plan was cutting off Congressional oversight...Bush has structured the White House homeland security operation as if modeled on Nixon's old (and discredited) governing plans. All the... policymaking is being undertaken at the level of the White House staff - where it is immune from Congressional oversight. As a result, the government is being run in secrecy more typical of a big corporation than an open, democratic society. The White House Office of Homeland Security was [ostensibly] created to give Americans both real safety and reassurance. Yet its structure, characterized by secrecy, is actually reason for concern. Most troubling is its similarity to the Nixon model, which was designed to hide abuses of power." So writes John Dean.

"Anyone who dares contest the decisions made by those in positions of authority is immediately blacklisted and labeled 'unpatriotic,' a tactic presently being widely employed by the Bush administration. Anyone who opposes drilling for oil in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, challenges the need for a strategic defense system in outer space or a $400 billion military budget - greater than the combined total of the next 15 largest military budgets in the world, is accused of compromising the national security of the United States. Those who question the justification for war in Afghanistan and U.S. refusal to address and work towards eliminating the real, underlying causes of oppression, exploitation, and injustice that enflame hatred and breed acts of terrorism, are denounced as being overly naive, disloyal and traitorous. Freedom of speech - most notably differences of opinion - is held suddenly and immediately suspect within the paranoid psychosis of borderline mentality."

The Bush and Blair traveling snake oil show has once more come under fire for its cavalier treatment of human rights in an ever-growing list of sites around the world. In a new, hard-hitting report, Human Rights Watch says the U.S. and UK looked the other way and remained silent after more than 200 unarmed civilians were massacred by the Nigerian army. Why the silence? Because Bush and Blair view Nigeria as a "critical strategic partner" and could care less about their human rights offenses. The attack came just 6 weeks after 9/11 - during a period when Bush was trumpeting to the world how all terrorism must be condemned and the perpetrators brought to justice. But only when it's convenient and doesn't interfere with "strategic partnerships," eh Bush?

Bush's deployment of US troops all around the world, and his shredding of every important treaty, follows the plan for US global domination written in 1992 by top aides to Bush Sr.'s Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney. The secret document, known as the "Defense Policy Guidance," was written by Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy secretary of defense, and 'Scooter' Libby, now Cheney's powerful chief of staff. "In 1992, The New York Times was the first to obtain the draft Pentagon paper and break the story... setting off a storm of controversy in Washington... Indeed, under the new world order envisaged by Wolfowitz and Libby a decade ago, American military intervention around the world would come to be seen 'as a constant feature'... [Now] the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon seem to have provided the pretext for Wolfowitz, Libby, and like-minded officials to use a war against terror to reintroduce their 10-year-old ambitions." So writes Jim Lobe in TomPaine.com.

In a Truthout.com interview, progressive Congressman Dennis Kucinich, author of the eloquent "Prayer for America" discusses the overwhelmingly positive support he has received for his criticism of Shrub. Kucinich has spoken out on Bush's "war on terra", the "bunker mentality" of the Bush administration, and their dangerous policy shift on the use of nuclear weapons. Kucinich has established a website (spiritoffreedom.com) as a first step to help those of us get organized who want to take the country back from Bush's dangerously war-mongering and illegitimate cabal. Follow the link to his site from the interview.

Historian Thomas M. Spencer asks the key questions no one else is asking. "One should stop and consider this 'shadow government' proposal in a more philosophical way. What does it mean to serve in a public office? Are those who serve the public allowed to do so in private? Shouldn't public officials do their duties in public? Isn't it wrong for the Vice President to spend half his time out of the public's view in a bunker? By doing this, isn't he working as a federal employee rather than a public official? Part of the role of those who serve the public is to be visible to the public, accessible to the public and, at the very least, to BE public. Doesn't Cheney's participation in the shadow government shirk this public responsibility? Isn't part of serving as a public official to accept the inherent risks of being a public official?... Shouldn't these folks be up for Senate confirmation?... Shouldn't they be elected if they really would take over the functions of elected officials?"

"The nation doesn't need to keep Vice President Dick Cheney and a bunch of bureaucrat gnomes holed up in expensive caves to run things if a terrorist attack destroys Washington. When G.W. Jr. moved into the White House, a shadow government moved in with him. The National Rifle Association became the shadow Justice Department, Enron took over the Energy Department, Exxon and Shell pull the strings of the Department of Interior, International Paper became the director of the Forest Service, Lockheed Northrop took control of Defense Department procurement, and Microsoft became head of Anti-Trust. If a terrorist sneaks a bomb into Washington it won't make much difference. Our government is pretty much controlled by corporate executives scattered around the country." So writes John David Rose in Truthout.com.

Anthony Lewis writes, "The war against terrorism will go on indefinitely, President [sic] Bush has warned, seeking the enemy around the world. Already American forces are committed to the Philippines, Georgia and Yemen. Iraq may be next... War without end is likely to have - indeed is already having - profound consequences for the American constitutional system. It tends to produce the very thing that the framers of the Constitution most feared: concentrated, unaccountable political power. The framers ... divided power in the federal government, so that one branch could check another if it grew too mighty. They made government accountable to the people, who, in James Madison's words, had 'the censorial power ... over the government.' And, in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, they guaranteed specific rights like freedom of speech and due process of law. All three of those constitutional bulwarks against concentrated power are now threatened."

"President Bush dug a deeper impeachment hole for himself in the past few weeks. For four instances, all over secrecy. Especially, Bush did not inform members of Congress until pressured regarding his shadow government ostensibly designed to keep the wheels of government moving in case disaster strikes. Second, Bush refuses to turn over requested information on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy-policy meetings. Third, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and other members of Congress complained that Bush has not consulted them on plans for the war on terrorism. And Tuesday morning, The New York Times reported that the White House will not send Tom Ridge to testify before a Senate committee on Bush's call for $38 million in domestic security programs. This after two senators sent the homeland security director a bipartisan letter asking him to testify." So writes Bruce Ticker in the Bush Syndrome.

Bush "will launch a sustained public effort to raise interest in community and national service, selecting a model volunteer to showcase at each stop he makes across the country…The White House said the Web site for its new service initiative, www.usafreedomcorps.gov, received more than 6 million visits in the month it has been operating…The new Citizen Corps, volunteers to guard against terrorism, has signed up 18,719 people." Say, how many of those are Freepers? What didn't he just call it the 'Free Republic Corps?' 'Freedom Corps' also sounds eerily similar to the pre-Nazi Freikorps – a volunteer army that exercised oppression during the Weimar Republic. Let's see, Bush has created the Office of Fatherland…er…Homeland Security. He and Ashcroft have trashed our rights with the USA Patriot Act. They have a Shadow Government in place. Bush has said several times that a 'Dictatorship would be easier.' Will the Freedom Corps turn into an army of block captains? What's next? Bush Youth?

Robert Manis writes, "Let's get one thing straight: The Bush 'Continuity of Government' plan, less charitably known as the 'Shadow Government' was designed to keep Republicans alone alive. According to the AP, 'President [sic] Bush's spokesman disputed complaints from lawmakers who said they were not informed that the administration had established a 'shadow government' outside Washington in case nuclear-armed terrorists strike the nation's capital... Fleischer said 'the appropriate people' on Capitol Hill knew of the plan. 'I cannot speak to how Congress fully informs itself'... One thing is already clear though: The ranking Democrat, the Senate Majority leader, the second most important person in Congress was NOT informed. Who, if anyone, was? Apparently no Democrats. If there WERE Democrats who were told, who were they?... If a disaster struck, the government was to be run as a single party system, essentially a military dictatorship.'" Where is the outrage???

Southard is a laid-off tech industry project manager who describes himself as "a middle aged white guy who has been unable to sleep since the theft of the presidency." In a series of articles published on BushWatch, he observes that the U.S. political-media establishment dismisses as conspiracy theories what much of the rest of the world views as fact. In particular, the widely shared understanding that U.S. military and economic policy are designed to secure control of the Central Asian oil reserves for the American petroleum industry. No wonder the Administration is fighting so hard to keep the records of Cheney's Energy Task Force secret.

According to the Washington Post, Dictator "Bush has dispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans to ensure survival of federal rule after catastrophic attack on the nation's capital. Execution of the classified 'Continuity of Operations Plan' resulted not from the Cold War threat of intercontinental missiles, the scenario rehearsed for decades, but from heightened fears that the al Qaeda terrorist network might somehow obtain a portable nuclear weapon, according to three officials with first-hand knowledge. U.S. intelligence has no specific knowledge of such a weapon, they said, but the risk is thought great enough to justify the shadow government's disruption and expense. Deployed 'on the fly' in the first hours of turmoil on Sept. 11, one participant said, the shadow government has evolved into an indefinite precaution." Have you had enough of the Bush Dictatorship YET???