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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (3308)	7/12/2003 4:40:29 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

Message 19104925

To: American Spirit who wrote (3308)	7/12/2003 6:40:32 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

siliconinvestor.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (3308)	7/13/2003 3:45:40 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

Our President is a Criminal ________________________________ By Daniel Patrick Welch informationclearinghouse.info 07/12/03: It's well past time to say it. Despite the weaseling and finger-pointing--in fact, because of it--the Forged Niger letter is indeed the smoking gun, and the chips have yet to stop falling. Who wrote the damn thing, and on whose orders? Who cares whether Tenet, his job on the line, acquiesced to including a literal truth that actually amounts to one of the great frauds of the century? The sheer audacity and cynicism of this coterie of hacks and hustlers is simply astounding. As a teacher, I won't let six-year-olds get away with such transparent sophistry. The bottom line is that Bush knew the information was bogus, and used it anyway to convince millions to go along with his phony war. For that alone, for the memory of the thousands of dead Iraqis and Americans, he deserves the il Duce treatment (figuratively speaking, Mr. Ashcroft-no need to start tapping my phone or putting me on no-fly lists). The criminal enterprise called the Bush administration is (Helen Thomas was right) the worst ever. Their campaign in furtherance of the conspiracy to defraud the public into buying the Iraq war is one of the the most cynical abuses of power in U.S. history. It deserves to be treated as such. Alarmist? You bet. This guy already thinks (and occasionally tells foreign leaders) that he gets his orders from God. If these radical extremists can get away with this, then the dumbing down of America will be complete, and the stage will be set for the next wave of the nascent fascism. La Cosa Bush (apologies to the mafia) is, like all crime families, violent, arrogant, and beyond the reach of the law--so far. Bush's handlers no longer even have the decency, courage or self-restraint to prevent his criminally stupid comments from wreaking havoc around the globe. Was last week's pseudo-macho invitation to "Bring 'em on" even a mistake? Or was it another calculated ploy to make him look "tough" to the American people, playing to the ugliest side of the American psyche while once again enraging thinking people the world over. No matter--he must be stopped. This cabal has been lying, cheating, and manipulating national tragedy to force their right wing agenda down our throats long enough. And half-measures won't do any more. None of this vague safe rhetoric about "misleading" or cautious calls for those who "know who they are" to step down. WE know who they are, the junta that has hijacked our government and our national agenda. The cartel must go: Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle should all resign, be fired or impeached immediately, before their conspiracy of lies and their mutual pact of self-protection is allowed to further endanger the country and the world. Cornered criminals, especially stupid ones, are a dangerous lot, and there is no telling to what lengths they will go to cover their own behinds. On a mission from God, installed by a viciously partisan Supreme Court, the skids are greased for a further slide into misadventure, bankruptcy and ruin. With the addition of Congress on their side, they are acting with particularly reckless abandon--and impeachment is not in the cards as long as the GOP circles the wagons. None will have the courage or integrity Goldwater showed when he told Nixon the jig was up. Power corrupts, and the Republicans are so drunk with it they won't turn on their Lord Fauntleroy until he robs a bank on camera in broad daylight. But that is no reason not to tell the truth: whatever their chances, some of the braver souls in congress should introduce impeachment legislation immediately: Conyers, Kucinich, Lee, Paul? The media has already shown they will not help; moneyed interests overwhelmingly favor the right. A campaign based on the old game of raising oodles of money and buying ads is a sure failure. The only thing that can save us now is a grassroots, velvet revolution, the principled, impassioned movement calling for these people's head on a spike. And maybe, just maybe, this one isn't an impeachable offense, but I'm just plain getting sick of Rumsfeld's smug, arrogant grin on the tube. What the hell is he smiling at all the time? Is it funny, somehow, that thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead after his "precision" bombing? It is ironic, admittedly, another fraud, to be sure-but hardly amusing. Maybe it's just part of what you do when you think you can get away with anything. Senate Intelligence Chair Pat Roberts foreshadowed just how twisted the logic is going to get when he said that what concerns him most "is what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the CIA in an effort to discredit the president," Yeah, right. The black bag set, whose penchant for secrecy and service verges on pathology, are the real problem here--not the curious fact that even some of them have finally decided that things are so bad that someone, somewhere has to speak out. It's time to close the curtain on this Bizarro World. Saddam loyalists--not nationalist resistance to occupation--are the real problem in Iraq. Protesters are terrorists, but we are fighting for our freedoms. Bush's popularity remains robust, yet huge shows of force and repressive rules on free speech are needed to keep the viewing public from seeing that he is dogged by prostest at every turn. War is peace, freedom is slavery, and some animals are more equal than others. The lies won't stop until we fire the liars. © 2003 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted. Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The Greenhouse School. He has appeared on radio [interview available here] Past articles, translations are available at danielpwelch.com. We would appreciate your linking to us. Copyright danielpwelch.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (3308)	7/13/2003 4:07:25 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Role Models, Now More Than Ever _____________________________ By David S. Broder Columnist The Washington Post Sunday, July 13, 2003 The House of Representatives, too often these days a cockpit of bitter partisanship, took an hour last week to remind itself and the country that it has been -- and could again be -- a much better place. At a ceremony in the Capitol's Statuary Hall, current members honored four House alumni with the first Congressional Distinguished Service Award. Two Republicans, John Rhodes of Arizona and Robert Michel of Illinois, both former minority leaders, and two Democrats, Lou Stokes of Ohio and Don Edwards of California, received the plaudits of their peers. Rhodes, who is battling cancer, was represented by his son, former representative Jay Rhodes, but the others were present to respond. Together the four honorees served 130 years, each with a House career of 30 years or more. Term-limits advocates would make such service impossible, and the country would be the poorer for it. Stokes was the first African American elected to Congress from Ohio. He grew up in Cleveland public housing with his brother Carl, who became the first black mayor of a major American city. Stokes served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the House ethics panel -- one measure of the trust in which he was held by his colleagues of both parties. Their mother, who "scrubbed floors and cleaned houses," now has a federal office building named for her. Edwards, a polished Stanford graduate, was -- as his successor, Zoe Lofgren, noted -- a onetime FBI agent who was willing to "go after misconduct in the FBI." Perhaps the House's most consistent advocate of civil rights and civil liberties, he is also the most modest of men, pointing out that on the "most glorious moment" of his career, the day the House passed the great Civil Rights Act of 1964, "the Republicans did better than the Democrats" in producing the needed votes, thanks in part to members such as John Rhodes. Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who along with former Democratic minority leader Dick Gephardt originated the awards, wanted to do more than honor some fondly remembered elders. The implicit message of the ceremony -- badly needed in the poisonous atmosphere of Capitol Hill -- is that Congress is at its best when its members focus on their shared responsibility to the nation, not their partisan power games. It came through most clearly in the words of Michel and his successor, Rep. Ray LaHood. LaHood, who served on Michel's staff for many years, recalled in introducing his old boss that "Bob taught us by his example that the House floor should be a forum for reasoned debate among colleagues equal in dignity. . . . He came to the House every day to do the work of the people, and not to engage in ideological melodramas or political vendettas." LaHood, whose own House career shows he learned the lesson well, let the implied rebuke to the bomb-throwers in both parties hang in the air. Michel, often near tears at the praise, recalled that he spent all "of my 38 years as a member of the minority party. Oh, those were frustrating years," he said to understanding laughter. "But . . . I never really felt I was out of the game or that I had no part to play. Under the rules of the House, the traditions of the House . . . there is a role to play for the minority. . . . We struck a deal, we made a bargain" and worked at "bringing dissonant factions together . . . to craft good legislation for the country -- that was the joy of it!" That is a joy few members of the current House -- where Republicans and Democrats caucus separately to plot each other's ruin -- have known. But in times of crisis, the large-minded spirit that all four of the honorees embodied is exactly what the nation needs. Rhodes is perhaps the best example. As the Republican leader of the House during impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, he faced enormous pressure from the White House and Nixon loyalists to make the Judiciary Committee hearings look as partisan as the comparable hearings on Bill Clinton were to become 24 years later. This he refused to do. Rhodes defended Nixon as long as he could but insisted that the committee be given the evidence on the White House tapes. When the White House enlisted other Republicans to propose a motion cutting short the investigation, Rhodes took the lead in killing it. And when the "smoking gun" tape was revealed, Rhodes announced at a televised news conference he would vote for impeachment. A day later, he was one of the three senior GOP lawmakers -- and the only one now living -- who went to the White House and told Nixon it was time to resign. Today's congressional leaders -- and members -- need such role models. Fortunately, they are still around. © 2003 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com