Letters To Congress through 2006

Iran Study Group. Iraq an Unmitigated Disaster
A Letter to Senator Lugar, Senator Bayh, and Rep. Elect Hill
Posted December 6, 2006
    The hardest part to believe in this six year nightmare is that at every stage from inception to debacle at least half of the American people saw through the lies. We were writing and calling Congress. We told them before the invasion there were no WMDs. We told them Al Qaeda was not in Iraq. We gold them what would happen if we invaded Iraq, and everything we predicted has happened.
    Yet it continues today.
    Bush is not only in total denial of reality regarding Iraq, he and Cheney are planning to bomb, perhaps even nuke Iran, even as we read the output of the ISG. There have been credible reports for the past two months that task forces are being moved into position. This week, among those with military family connections, rumors are flying like wildfire of deep dipping callups of people for purposes as yet unnamed.
    My only question is, will Congress stand by, impotent and fearful cowards, denying truth and reality, and once more letting these madmen who have usurped control of the military and the power to make war lead us further down this path of madness? Or will Congress do what it obviously must do now to save this nation, and in fact the world, from their insanity?
    What Congress must do is reel them in, now, within the next few weeks or months, and if this means impeachment and removal from office as the only cure, then let's get started. I personally believe that the number of crimes these men and women are guilty of are so manifest, manifold, and many, that it is a violation of every member of Congress oath of office if they do NOT uphold their oath to defend the Constitution, and they do NOT remove these criminals from office. And I mean Bush and Cheney, simultaneously.
    At this point, the few sane Republicans left who believe in America and not their Beloved Leader the Moron in Chief need to meet with the Democratic leadership. They need to form a committee, and ask both to resign.
       ISG: Try Diplomacy, then Leave.
    

U.S. Government Rates Americans as Terrorist Based on What They Eat
A Letter to Senator Lugar, Senator Bayh, and Rep. Elect Hill
Posted December 2, 2006
    When will Congress wake up and defend the Constitution and the rule of law, and stop this mad rush to a fascist police state that the criminal Bush and Cheney regime have instituted?
    We are absolutely, unequivocally disgusted and appalled to learn, along with the rest of America, that this administration has been profiling Americans traveling abroad and classifying them as possible terrorists based on what they eat, what they wear, which seats they choose on an airplane. This data will be kept for 40 years, according to published reports.
    If this is not the earmark and very defining characteristic of a police state, then what is? The argument that the government must destroy all liberties in order to save them is wearing a little thin and begins to reveal the absurd excesses of this, the worst executive administration in the history of this nation.
    This is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable. Any Senator or Representative who continues to support these absolutely unconstitutional and outrageous acts should resign, for they have failed to uphold their oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of these United States. They should resign in disgrace.
       U.S. gov't terror ratings draw outrage, as reported on Yahoo news.
    

Neo-Con Revisionists and Dangerous Dick Cheney
A Letter to Senator Lugar, Senator Bayh, and Rep. Elect Hill
Posted November 22, 2006
    There is little more repulsive than the neo-con chickenhawks who goose-stepped us in to the debacle of the invasion of Iraq now trying to lie and spin their way out of responsibility, as in the Washington Post Op-Ed crap dissected below by Glenn Greenwald.
    When will members of Congress recall they took an oath to defend the Constitution, and get us OUT OF IRAQ immediately. We are an invading force, against the will of the people of Iraq. They are not going to dance in the street and eat McDonald's hamburgers and swoon at American Idol on TV. Poll after poll in Iraq shows 80 - 90% want us out NOW, and 60% support attacks on our troops.
    There is no putting this broken mess back together in any way that would resemble the insane dremas of PNAC neo-cons of hegemony in the area and control of cheap oil. This is a failed episode in our history, one which will hurt and haunt us for decades.
    Stop the building of American Permanent bases. Start withdrawing all American troops now. Cancel the enabling act that Bush and Cheney think gives them permission to perpetually wage new war without consulting Congress. Congress is supposed to declare war and control the executive. Congress has failed its Consitutional duty, miserably, abhorrently.
    And most important, remove Dick Cheney from office NOW. This evil man has said publicly he will see to it we invade Iran, he does not care what Congress says. This is on the record, straight from his treasonous mouth.
       Whitewashing Iraq on the Washington Post Op-Ed Page
    

The Law is Our Only Refuge from the Terror of the State
A Letter to Senator Lugar, Senator Bayh, and Rep. Sodrel
Posted October 15, 2006
    I thought I would share with you a letter a just wrote to a lifelong friend who has supported the election of Bush for the past two elections.
    This is what it comes down to.
    The Bush cabal have no respect for the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or the rule of law. They are a threat, a clear and present danger, to the continued existence of the United States as a functioning democracy with a functioning judicial system.
    Not content with the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act, they have now rammed through the "Rape and Torture and Suspension of Habeas Corpus" act of 2006, trying to cover their acts to date. Ultimately, unless we collapse totally into tyranny and police state rule, these laws will be expunged from the books, and history will rank them right up there with the Alien and Sedition acts.
    But for now, read the facts about the treatment of Padilla, and be aware that Kellog and Brown are right now building secret internment camps, approved by the Republican congress, and that the recent act suspending habeas corpus and glorifying torture also clearly makes it impossible to distinguish between foreign combatants and American citizens. In other words, when they come for you, after taking all those whose taking was met with turning and looking the other way, remember there will by then be no one to speak out for you.
    I never thought I could see this nation sink this low morally, ethically, and legally, but here we are. We are bottoming out. We are an international pariah. Our armed forces have been misused and abused to the point of collapse. We have been lied to again, and again, and again. Just this week Bush revises his reasons for invading Iraq yet again, and finally admits the truth: we can't allow a ragheaded terrorist nation to sit on all that oil. Of course the terrorists moved in thanks to our invasion. We have printed metaphorical recruiting posters for Al Qaeda and distributed them throughout the region. We have engendered justified hatred of America that will not be extinguished or overcome in our lifetimes.
    And now, in addition to being in the middle of a war we can never win, and that is on the verge of bankrupting us as the national debt blasts towards 10 trillion dollars, we have contributed to the deaths of way over 1/2 million people who would not have died if we had not destroyed Iraq. The government hides the returning bodies of dead American soldiers, and the number of disabled and maimed veterans rises past 20,000 and counting. And now even the Bush cabal is preparing a cut and run strategy which strangely enough matches exactly what that swiftboated traitor Murtha and the Democrats proposed last year.
    Am I angry? You're damned straight I am angry. I am angry that a majority of the American people blinded themselves to this criminal conspiracy of a government for so long, and that has brought us to this pass.
       Padilla Update: Bush has been Torturing American Citizens since 2002
    

Congress Must Repeal Authorization Act and Stop Attack on Iran
A Letter to Senator Lugar, Senator Bayh, and Rep. Sodrel
Posted October 14, 2006
    Email copied to Sen. Lugar and to my friends and fellow citizens of what is left of the United States:
    Please consider signing this petition now. The Bush administration has been assembling the Eisenhower group and other fleet elements for weeks now, obviously positioning them to launch an attack on Iran. There has been practically no one, Republican or Democrat, in Congress who has had the courage to address this issue.
    It is imperative that Congress reassert its war making powers, and stop this madness, before this administration manages to start WWIII, and plunge the world into war, and America into darkness and utter disaster. The enabling act that resulted in our disastrous invasion of Iraq should be repealed immediately, as the Bush administration obviously believe they have been handed a blank check to wage war anywhere, anytime.
    Enough blood has been shed based on the blatant lies of the Bush administration. Enough is enough. Stop this madness now.
       http://www.dontattackiran.org
    

Will the Congressional calender preserve some basic liberties (at least until January?)
A Letter to Senator Evan Bayh
Posted Sept 27, 2006
    If Senator Bayh expects to run for president, he should think twice before voting for pending legislation aimed at legitimizing dropping requirements of habeas corpus and permitting torure. He should think twice before voting for legislation that retroactively and into the future legitimizes warrantless spying and wiretapping.
    Sen. Bayh, if he wants to be president, should go back and review the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the concept of the rule of law and balance of powers among the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary, and decide just whose side he is on: the blind pursuit of power and enabling of the destruction of American rule of law and moral and ethical principles? those who have decided they no longer apply, and are turning America into a police state, where even American citizens are threatened with arrest and internment just for criticizing their government, having an anti-Bush bumper sticker, writing a letter to the editor? These and more are events that have happened in the past couple of years.
    We stand on the brink of a dark abyss, and Sen. Bayh should think twice before casting yet another vote that enables this nation being pushed off the precipice into that abyss.
    Following is commentary from Glenn Greenwald. The Senator should read this. Carefully.
       Commentary: Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald.
    

Alexander Hamilton on President Bush.
A Letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh, and Rep. Sodrel
Posted Sept 18, 2006
    In the past two weeks, we have seen finally admissions by President Bush that his administration has been guilty of torture, and of running foreign prisons in which as many as 14,000 people have been held without warrant, due process, or anything resembling the legal proceedings and framework which America stands for.
    In addition, the Bush administration has now completely admitted to the vast and seemingly limitless warrantless electronic eavesdropping it has been committing for years in open violation of FISA law and Constitutional protections.
    This Bush administration has become nothing but a lawless group of criminals, to whom the rule of law means nothing. They practice a philosophy which posits supreme power in the unitary executive, and they act on the belief that the President and the office of the executive are immune to the law, and can ignore it at will.
    The reaction of the Bush administration to these revelations? introduce legislation on both issues that would legitimatize their criminal actions.
    American citizens should be outraged at this travesty, for it is nothing less than a rejection of the very framework of a legal society governed by three equal branches of government. It is a repudiation of everything this country has stood for. It is a rejection of what our nation has been acknowledged by the rest of the world as great and admirable for, namely, being a land where laws rooted in a fundamental Constitutional Framework are the ultimate arbitor of power, where citizens sleep peacefully because they do not fear warrantless search and seizure, suspension of habeus corpus, imprisonment with out due process, or torture and murder by the very representatives of their government.
    In what appears to be a shock to Bush and his cabal of criminals, a handful of senior Republicans, among them McCain, Graham, and Warner, and his former Secretary of State Colin Powell, all spoke out clearly and loudly against the legislation supported in the Senate by the Bush administration.
    Alexander Hamilton was writing about tyrants such as Bush in "The Federalist #84":
    The observations of the judicious Blackstone, in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital: "To bereave a man of life, [says he] or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.
    Alexander Hamilton was writing about tyrants such as Bush in "The Federalist #78":
    The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing. . . .
    The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.
    Congress must reject this move to legitimize lawlessness, torture, and spying by this administration. Congress must reign in the outrages and misconduct of the Bush administration now, before it is to late, while there is still time to return to the rule of law, and save this nation from destruction at the hands of this criminal administration.
    It is a shame that Sen. Lugar of Indiana, who has over the years built a reputation as one of the nation's finest senators, was not standing at the side of McCain, Warner, and Graham when they stood up and spoke out against this outrage to our nation this past week.
    
    
    
Keith Olberman to Bush: May this country forgive you.
A Letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh, and Rep. Sodrel
Posted Sept 13, 2006
    Keith Olberman may ask this country to forgive George W. Bush in his commentary of 9/11/2006, quoted in full below.
    We cannot and will not. He should be impeached.
    His entire presidency will be recorded for what it has become: a threat to our basic civil liberties, a threat to the rule of the law, and the corruption of our values by waging an unjustified war based on lies, deceit, and consciusly twisted intelligence to launch a war that was planned by Bush's supporters years before he took office. There were no weapons of mass destruction. They knew it. There was no Al Qaeda connection. They knew it. Yet this past weekend both Cheney and Rice are on television, lying through their teeth, still making the claim, even when confronted with the Senate report issued last week that declares once and for all these conditions claimed to justify the war did not exist.
    We stand on the brink of a police state, one in which war profiteering by coorporations supporting Bush and Cheney are draining our treasury, and private police and security organizations outside government control proliferate both in Iraq and here at home. This administration is a clear and present danger to America.
    For exercising our right as citizens to question the actions of our government we are labled fascist and nazi sympathizers, communists, Leninists, and whatever other vile labels these criminals in Washington can devise to attack and try to instill fear in the American electorate in a desparate bid to stay in power.
    Bush and Cheney should both be impeached and removed from office. Their crimes against the Constitution are so many it is hard to keep count anymore. Rumsfeld should be imprisoned for criminal negligence for his actions in directory the Iraq invasion and occupation.
       "This Hole in the Ground." Keith Olberman. MSNBC
    

ABC and Disney Must Not Promote Lies Posing as History. Stop Pre-9/11 Broadcast.
A Letter to Disney, ABC, Scholastic, Senators Lugar and Bayh, and Rep. Sodrel
Posted Sept. 7, 2006
    It is obvious from reports by those who have seen advance copies that the upcoming ABC documentary on pre-9/11 is filled with not just inaccuracies, but what are clearly consciously fabricated events WHICH NEVER HAPPENED designed to denigrate and blame Bill Clinton, while whitewashing the role of the Bush administration in the period leading up to 9/11.
    This show was clearly produced to be broadcast during the final weeks leading up to a critical mid-term election in order to try and influence the outcome of that election by the use of falsehood and lies and misrepresented historical events, and the portrayal of key events that NEVER HAPPENED.
    This has been verified by members of the 9/11 Commission, including Richard Ben Veniste. It has been stated by former security advisor Richard Clark, who was there during the events portrayed. It has been verified even by conservative critics such as Richard Miniter, who singled out a key scene in the film involving former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger as having "zero factual basis".
    This production was funded and written by rightwing ideologues, and ABC gave advance copies freely to rightwing, conservative groups and blogs, while REFUSING to provide advance copies to progressive groups. No more evidence than this is needed to prove the actual intent of this production.
    In fact, ABC would not even give Bill Clinton an advance copy! As a result, Bill Clinton's lawyer, Bruce R. Lindsey, has written a strongly worded letter to ABC demanding that the inaccuracies and false representations of actions by Bill Clinton be amended or the production not broadcast.
    On September 7th, the entire Democratic leadership of the senate signed a strongly worded letter to Robert Iger of Disney, asking reconsideration of whether ABC is fulfilling its trustee role under the law and FCC regulations by broadcasting such blatantly slanted and falsified information while portraying it as a representation of history.
    Scholastic Magazine has pulled the materials they had originally prepared to be used in conjunction with this show after vigorous protest of the inaccuracies. Hopefully they will stay pulled, but even there it appears Scholastic will offer materials as a "chance to teach critical thinking skills." This is not enough, if what you are observing is a fabric of lies presented as truth, and you are a child without access to or knowledge of this fact, because the mainstream media continue to refuse to divulge the fabric of lies for what it is.
    James Bamford, an author and journalist who has written about security issues, appeared on MSNBC to discuss "The Path to 9/11." Bamford revealed that an FBI agent who worked as a consultant to the film quit halfway through production of the mini-series because he believed the writers and producers were "making things up."
    One could go on and on listing what is wrong with this production. A few years ago, another major network planned a "documentary' on Ronald Reagan which was reported to have suffered from the same flaws, scenes so clearly falsified for the sake of drama that they misrepresented history and truth. That network had the decency after protests to simply pull that show and not broadcast it. It is hypocritical in the extreme that those on the right who supported that action are either silent or now take the opposite position and support this broadcast.
    ABC and Disney owe it to the American people and to simple honest, ethics, and decency to cancel the broadcast of this outrageous mocumentary on pre-9/11
    The following web site is now up and documenting step by step and fact by fact the actual truth surrounding the development of this production, and all of the critical points raised in this letter:
       http://openlettertoabc.blogspot.com/
    As the banner statement on that site points out, "September 11 is a national tragedy, it should not be a subject for dishonest political propaganda."

Rumsfeld Must Go. Americans are Not Traitors and Nazi Sympathizers
A Letter Senators Lugar and Bayh, and Rep. Sodrel
Posted August 31, 2006
    Last night on MSNBC Keith Olbermann commented on Rumsfeld's speech a couple of days ago, a speech in which Rumsfeld accused the majority of Americans of being traitors and Nazi sympathizers for opposing the invasion of Iraq and wanting our troops withdrawn as soon as possible.
    Rumsfeld, as Olbermann so brilliantly, accurately, and patrioticly points out, does not seem to understand that, despite the best efforts of the Bush administration to change the fact, this is still a Democracy in which the people have the right to state their opinions openly.
    Aside from that, the Iraqi war was waged illegally, without just cause, based on lies and cooked intelligence, and Rumsfeld was at the head of the pack led by Dick Cheney in that process.
    Rumsfeld should be fired immediately. Cheney and Bush should both resign or be impeached.
    While we still HAVE a democracy, a Constitution, and a Bill of Rights. For those things are trampled daily under their feet.
Pres. Bush Shows His Utter Contempt for the Law on Domestic Spying Ruling
Posted August 19, 2006
    Bush's statement today on the judge's ruling on warrantless wiretapping and spying reveals what is wrong with him and his entire administration.
    They have absolutely no concept of the rule of law under a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, the fundamental design of our government, operating under a balance of powers among three branches of government.
    The founding fathers knew damned well what they were doing when they created this structure. It has endured for over 200 years. And the criminal Bush regime is the greatest threat to its continuing existence in this nation's history.
    Lincoln fought a Civil War and strengthened the Union.
    Wilson fought WWI and we survived.
    Roosevelt led us through WWII with our liberties and legal framework intact.
    But Bush? Bush claims that because a few ragheaded barbarians threaten us like dogs nipping at the heels of a giant that any pretext of following the law or heeding his oath of office to uphold the Constitution must be thrown to the winds.
    Congress and the Judiciary must now play their roles as ordained by the founding fathers, step in, and put the brakes on Bush and his cohorts, and return this nation to a rule under law.
    Note that Arlen Specter's laughable bill is nothing but a sugarcoated excuse to allow the very activity the court has now twice ruled against. Any senator who votes for this post-facto legitimizing of ignoring the Constitution and existing law should resign, for they too have failed to uphold the oath they took to uphold the Constitution.
       Excellent Analysis by Glenn Greenwald.
Thanks to Sen. Bayh for NO Voting on Poison Pill Estate Tax
Posted August 4, 2006
    Thanks to Sen. Bayh for having the courage to stand up to the charade put forward by the Republicans, namely the poison pill estate tax repeal in the minimum wage bill.
    It is obscene they continue to push a package that would affect the absolute richest miniscule fraction of Americans, only a few thousand people, and then on estates after 4 - 8 million dollars untouched, with a tax cut that is estimated will produce an additional trillion dollars in shortfall of government revenue over 10+ years.
    This nation is being run by a the greediest cabal of liers and thieves in our history. Teapot dome looks like a tea party in comparison to the rampant corruption and greed.
The Neocons' Next War
A Letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh, Representative Sodrel
Posted Aug 3, 2006
    Commentary by Sidney Blumenthal, whose past analysis of the mad rush to war in Iraq has proven to have been correct, where every prediction of the Bush administration has been disastrously wrong.
    It is imperative that Congress act to put the brakes on an executive branch that has lost control of our foreign relations, has almost destroyed our army, and is now still under the spell of the architects of the failed invasion of Iraq and lobbying for total war in the Middle East.
    Troops must be pulled out of Iraq NOW. Immediately start a drawdown and redeployment,
    Congress must reassert its Consitutional authority and stop the Bush administration's mad rush to war and more war, before it is too late.
    Hezbollah may be utterly evil, but the Israeli onslaught on Lebanon, in which hundreds of innocent men, women, and children have died, and in which the country's infrastructure is being decimated, is absolutely unconscionable. Not only will it fail, it is turning world opinion against the U.S. more and more each day.
       Sidney Blumenthal, The Neocons' Next War.
Sen. Chuck Hagel: Iraq as Reply of Vietnam
A Letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh, Representative Sodrel
Posted July 31, 2006
    The American people continue to be betrayed by an administration that has lost all touch with reality regarding the tragedy they have created in Iraq and the Middle East. The country is reeling into anarchy, chaos, and civil war. We have strengthened the radical militants in Islamic countries throughout the region by our illegal invasion on trumped up and false reasons.
    Leaving our troops in Iraq will not and cannot put an end to this chaos. It only exacerbates it, continues to turn the entire Arab world against us, and serves to continually motivate recruits to the worst of militant Islamist groups.
    Chuck Hagel, not exactly a raving leftwing moonbat, reaches these conclusions as quoted below.
    Congress must do its duty, standup to the instanity of the Bush administration, and pass legislation to start an immediate standdown and withdrawal from Iraq, based on a rational plan such as that put forward by Rep. Murtha.
    Every day that passes will only mean more American troops will die, more Iraqi civilians will die, and militant Islam will grow stonger, because of this administration's mistaken and insane belief that by invading not just Iraq, but Iran and Syria and well, they can conquer and control the region.
    This madness and waste of American blood, money, principle, and goodwill MUST STOP NOW.
       Sen. Hagel quoted in Omaha World-Herald.
    Calling conditions in Iraq "an absolute replay of Vietnam," Sen. Chuck Hagel said Friday that the Pentagon is making a mistake by beefing up American forces in Iraq. U.S. soldiers have become "easy targets" in a country that has descended into "absolute anarchy," the Nebraska Republican and Vietnam combat veteran said in an interview with The World-Herald. Hagel previously has likened the war in Iraq to Vietnam, but Friday's comments drew a stronger connection. They followed a speech on the Middle East that Hagel delivered at the Brookings Institution.
Stop the Bush Administration Mad Rush to War
A Letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh, Representative Sodrel
Posted July 24, 2006
    Even Britain is backing away from wholesale support of the massive military attack on Lebanon by Israel, leaving only Israel and the United States beating the drums for war, war, and more war.
    It has become crystal clear that the Bush administration, driven by Cheney and Rumsfeld and the war-hungry neo-cons of PNAC, are pushing this war, pushing for any thread of an excuse to widen conflict in the Middle East by invading not only Iran by Syria.
    Even William Buckley wrote on this disaster this past weekend, stating that in any sane government in Europe Bush and crew would have been long ago thrown out on a vote of no confidence.
    This administration is a total, unmitigated diaster. Our foreign policy is a shambles. Our military is exhausted. The cost in dollars to our nation is now staggering, but the American people continue to be lied to because everything is done as a supplement and thus kept off the budget. The administration keeps pushing red meat issues like flag burning and anti-stem cell measures, utterly ignoring the serious issues threatening us. All they know is lie and distract, and attack attack attack with viscious rhetoric and spin and lies.
    In this current Israeli trashing of Lebanon, the Bush adminstration is even going around Congress and shipping more bombs to Israel on the sly. Once again Congress wimpers and ignores their actions. The United States should be leading the way in trying to negotiate a ceasefire, and then an accomodation that can find a way for the parties to live together. Instead, this administration has totally neglected the Israeli Palestinian conflict, not only allowing it to fester to the boiling point, but in fact fostering it in order to find a pretext for widening war. This administration does not want peace. Like characters from George Orwell's 1984, they have become Big Brother, preaching and fostering unending war and fear to keep the people at home in line. They have become a national nightmare, worse than the fiction they emulate.
    When will Congress stop this mad march to total Executive power, while abandoning its Constitutional duty? ONLY CONGRESS IS SUPPOSED TO DECLARE WAR. Congress is supposed to review the budget and insure the faithful adherence to law and treaties. But instead, enablers of this Bush administration, the most disastrous, incompetent, and law-breaking in our history, has been allowed to run roughshod to the point that we, the United States, whose soldiers would have once been welcomed as heros, are now an International pariah, shunned by everyone. While the true enemy, nests of militant Islamic terrorists, run free, the CIA unit to track Bin Laden disbanded, Afghanistan collapsing again into anarchy and Taliban rule, and now an Iraqi minister in London yesterday telling Blair that the Civil War is ripping Iraq apart, there is no way to stop it, and Iraq is going to split into three pieces. Meanwhile the daily death toll of men, women, and children in Iraq mounts into the dozens every day. The blood of tens of thousands is on this administration's hands.
    This administration will be brought to justice by history for what it has done to America and the world. And history will judge it harshly. It may take time. But it will happen.
    But for now, Congress must do its duty, and throw these madmen out of office before they destroy us completely.

More Typical Republican Sham Legislation
A Letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh, Representative Sodrel
Posted July 31, 2006
    Are there no ethics left in Congress? See editorial below from New York Times describing the despicable, but typical, use of poison pills in legislation. The Republicans will pull any and every underhanded trick they can to continue fooling the American voters, who have so far proven gullible enought to fall for every hook, line, and sinker.
    Vote no on minimum wage increase if the Republican added poison pill with a tax break for only 8,000 of the richest Americans is on the bill.
    Disgusting.
       New York Times: Fooling the Voters
    The Senate has one week before its summer recess. As the senators struggle to produce decent legislation from the House's sham bills, Americans will see the truth: their representatives in the House went on vacation without doing their job.

The Serial Lies of the Bush/Cheney Regime
A Letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh, Representative Sodrel
Posted April 12, 2006
    Not a day passes but another blatant lie by this corrupt Bush/Cheney administration is revealed. Lies that made a case that Bush/Cheney KNEW was false to launch a preemptive, unjustified, illegal war against Iraq. Now it is revealed they KNEW they were lying when they claimed the bio-trailers were evidence of WMD in Iraq.
    Anyone who continues to support this, the most corrupt, reprehensible administration in the history of this nation, makes themselves now party to that stain. There is no excuse, there is no amount of spin that will wash the sins of this administration clean. The blood of innocent American soldiers and Iraqi citizens is on their hands. And the Constitution and Bill of Rights, according to Mr. Bush in a reported remark, is "just a God-damned piece of paper" while the Bush/Cheney police state apparatus spies on the activities of law-abiding American citizens, even Quakers spies on the activities of law-abiding American citizens, even Quakers feeding the poor, and police write tickets for American citizens who dare display bumper stickers that oppose the Bush regime (true, reported examples from recent news).
    How bad must it get before Congress and the American people act? Will you wait until this regime declares martial law? Until they suspend the Constitution? They already have, every bill Bush signs is immediately followed by a 'signing statement' claiming Bush is not bound by the law.
    This is a lawless regime, without conscience or ethics. They must be removed from office, and only Congress can do that right now.
    Which side are you on?See Doug Thompson's take (rant) on this today in article quoted below.
    
       Lies, damn lies and George W. Bush. April 12, 2006.
    
Adminstration: The Spoils of Power, Profits, and Profiteering
A Letter to Senators Lugar and Bayh, Representative Sodrel
Posted September 17, 2005
    It has been clear for some time to anyone willing to investigate the facts that the war in Iraq has been a nothing but opportunities for profiteering by corporate America and supporters of the Bush administration. This is clear from the un-bid contracts to Halliburton and evidence of payments through multiple fake subsidiaries to increase profits. This administration has supported the privatization of policing, security, and interrogation, allowing the use of paid mercenaries of the rankest and most despicable sort, trained killers representing America. Congress has stood impotently by and ignored manifold reports of overcharging, fraud, even missing millions of dollars in cash lost by our representatives in Iraq.
    Now Bush outlines his plan for rebuilding the Gulf coast, and what do we have? Just more of the same. Drop dead assurance that what we will see is not action by a visionary like FDR, who leveraged legitimate and efficient government power to heal a nation and take steps to insure social justice, but a mad race by corrupt politicians, unqualified political appointees, inefficient and demoralized government agencies, and heedless corporations, all seeing the Gulf catastrophe, unparalleled in American history, as just another opportunity for the same selfish profit-oriented profiteering and further concentration of wealth among the wealthiest, a trend accelerated by the tax cuts for the wealthy this administration has put in place while continuing to create a ballooning debt that threatens to bankrupt this nation.
    There is no plan to address the issues of the destruction of the delta and its impact on the consequences of major storms. There is no plan to scientifically study whether it is really wise to fully rebuild New Orleans only to insure a future disaster because mother nature is inexorable, and a future storm like Katrina and the Mississippi will have their way if ignore nature and science. There is no direct addressing the fact that America has allowed the creation and maintenance of a poverty stricken underclass that spends its days in grinding poverty at minimum wage or less, barely scraping from day to day, with no savings, no future, and now, as we know, no one in government who can take action to save them from nightmares like what happened in the dome in New Orleans. The fact is, Bush plans to use this opportunity to suspend what little wage protections for the lowest elements of the working class exist, to further enhance the chances for profit for his cronies in the midst of crisis. What is even more frightening is that he will use this as one more excuse to lobby for repeal of the posse comitatus laws, and move this nation one more step in the direction of a military police state. We are resolutely opposed to the repeal or weakening of the posse comitatus laws, as we such steps as a threat to the fabric of our civilian controlled constitutional government.
    We are including with this letter two recent articles. On is by Peter Dreier, Professor of Politics and director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College, which well addresses these issues. The second appeared in the New York Times, authored by Frank Rich, September 18, 2005. It, too, addresses these serious concerns.
      Alternet.org. Bush Helps Profiteers. September 17, 2005.
      Bush Unmasked. "Message: I Care About the Black Folks"
    It is time for the American people and Congress to put a stop to this madness. Our troops should be brought back from Iraq immediately. Congress must resume ownership of its sole responsibility under the Constitution for waging war, and denounce preemptive war and insist it never be committed by this nation again. Current leadership at FEMA should all be fired immediately, and replaced with competent administrators, most of whom have fled the madness of a Bush administration that has put political cronyism and rewarding neo-con ideologists ahead of the welfare, safety, and interests of the American people.
     Alternet.org. Bush Helps Profiteers. September 17, 2005.