The Case Of Bush And Cheney Is Not Over Until There Has Been A Prosecution Here Or At The Hague!
IT'S A DEPRESSION | BY HELEN THOMAS
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MoveOn's shocking retreat from the battlefield | BuzzFlash.org
I'm not a joiner. I'd like to think that's because of an Emersonian rather than Groucho Marxian impulse: it's true I'd want nothing to do with any group that would have me as a member, but on the other hand, groups, by definition, have a disagreeable tendency toward Group Think.
The results of their herd mentality are also horrifically predictable. Usually. But on occasion they do surprise, and that is precisely what MoveOn's membership did last week.
As the Politico reports, it was then that "the group’s members chose their top four priorities for the organization, winnowed down from a top-10 list culled from 50,000 suggestions." And here is what they chose:
"Universal health care; economic recovery and job creation; building a green economy/stopping climate change; and end[ing] the war in Iraq."
All perfectly sensible targets, for sure. It is, however, that which failed to make the final cut that surprised me to the point of shock: "holding the Bush administration accountable."
Let me back up just a bit. I was shocked for only the briefest of time, for I quickly remembered that this was a group making these selections -- collectively arrived-at common denominators of idealistic baubles, bangles and beads. And what was so shiny yesterday is already a tarnished toy: accountability.
MoveOn's executive director, Eli Pariser, framed the democratic outcome in this way: He "says that this happy alignment with Barack Obama’s agenda -- and fortuitous absence of conflict with same -- comes in part because 'the people he’s listening to and the people we’re listening to are the same people.'"
The Politico framed it in another way: The Final Four of priorities "may be a sign that MoveOn’s members want to move ahead -- and that they’re willing to make some ideological sacrifices in exchange for real progress."
OK, somebody is fudging here, big time.
Group think -- the institutional disease which for years MoveOn spent considerable resources properly assailing -- is now a democratic virtue, according to, yep, MoveOn; and according to the Politico, sweeping aside, or under the rug, years of immensely impeachable, extraordinarily indictable high crimes and misdemeanors is little more than an "ideological sacrifice."
WHAT? Read on…
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The Legal Year In Review | Sub Title: Things We Didn’t Do!
CBS News - New York,NY,USA
It was the year in which a sitting vice president, Dick Cheney, admitted to authorizing the crime of torture (in the form of water-boarding). ...
(CBS) Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com.
Unless you discovered that the feds were monitoring your domestic email and phone calls without a warrant, or you were swindled out of millions by a con man so smooth he had a waiting list of victims, or you were a same-sex couple valiantly trying to get married, chances are you didn’t pay very much attention to the world of the law in 2008. If you tuned out the legal scene this year consider yourself blessed: you didn’t miss very much.
While the nation’s attention was riveted by the transcendental presidential campaign and then the fierce economic crisis the law crept quietly along. Ten years removed from the Starr Report and the start of the Clinton impeachment proceedings, we have just endured (or enjoyed, depending upon your point of view) one of the least demagogic in the law since O.J. Simpson got into his white Ford Bronco and forever changed the way we absorb news from the courts. No mountains moved. No seas changed. Only a few tides turned.
But lest my wonderful bosses at CBS News think my beat is all wrapped up and doesn’t need any further analysis or perspective let me quickly add this: even a relatively boring year in the law still offers a righteous blend of mischief and karma, incompetence and evil. And the lull of the legal year gone by may be gone by January 20, 2009, the day a new administration takes over America’s legal war on terrorism. That’s a development that promises not just significant policy changes but also new information and insight about how the Bush Administration got us from September 11, 2001 to where we are today. …
Yes We Can UnPardon War Criminals
OpEdNews - Newtown,PA,USA
Those laws bind you to prosecute violations, including torture and other war crimes of which Bush,Cheney, and their subordinates are guilty and which Bush ...See all stories on this topic
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In Israel, it is time to be tough. Not because being tough will stop rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, but because being tough will get you elected. With elections upcoming, the incumbents have a direct advantage over the challengers because they are in the position to create, and act upon, issues of national security to prove their ability to handle these challenges. This of course proves very useful when Benjamin Netanyahu, the front-runner for prime minister, has been campaigning on a platform of security and attacking the incumbents as too soft.
The situation we see in Gaza today is one that was escalated by Israel and particularly the decision-makers in government. We have a very short-term memory when it comes to daily reports of rocket attacks so we often forget important events in sequence that brought us to this point.
Israel and Hamas were at their most peaceful state in the history of their coexistence for five months this year. During the Egyptian-brokered truce, aggressive attacks plummeted and for the first time in years, the alarm sirens indicating incoming rocket attacks had largely fallen silent.
All of this changed, however, on Nov. 4. While the world was in awe at an American election, Israel launched an aerial strike killing four people in Gaza it claimed were digging a tunnel to smuggle weapons. Yet this, the largest violation of the truce, was swept under the rug by a tsunami of U.S. election coverage. Hamas responded with rockets, and then Israel quickly reapplied a tight blockade, bringing us back to the cycle of violence.
While the world was busy with Barack Obama's historic victory, those in charge in Israel were laying the foundation of a pre-election opportunity to flex their muscles before their electorate. This is not new in Israel; in fact, it is standard practice in a country where security is such an important concern. We may remember Ariel Sharon's visit to the sacred Temple Mount, in a swarm of armed guards, right before the election in 2001. The intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which ensued, led the Israeli electorate to choose a right-wing hard-liner like Sharon over Ehud Barak.
Hanging in the balance of this election strategy are the lives of 1.5 million people in Gaza, already desperate for a normal life, and thousands more on the Israeli side who are tired of rocket attacks.
Though few are talking about it, this may be the most significant series of events in the history of the conflict. The two-state solution is on the line in the next several years because of ever-changing realities on the ground.
If President-elect Barack Obama does not take quick control of mediating the peace process after he assumes office, peace will not come during his administration and the two-state solution may effectively be dead.
Now, in this critical point in transition the players involved must align in favor of reaching an agreement and this can only happen with a unified Palestinian partner.
If peace talks fail to get off the ground during an Obama administration, we will look back at this point in time, and this important sequence of events, and realize how things could have been different. There has never been a more important time than now for American intervention in this conflict.
There is no doubt Israelis should have the right to security, just as Palestinians should have the right to security, but the current situation is leading to a lack of security for both peoples long into the future.
What Israel learned from the 33-day war with Hezbollah in 2006 was that the quickest and most efficient way to end rocket fire was armistice. Israel had that with a cease-fire with Hamas, and this can be achieved again but it will take quick and direct American involvement.
The recipe to cease-fire is simple: All cross-border attacks must cease and all blockades must end. Perhaps several months ago the Egyptians had the leverage to broker an agreement, but the situation has escalated beyond that now. It's time for the United States to step in because the long-term stakes are much greater than the short-term goals of politicians in Israel or Hamas.
Yousef Munayyer is a policy analyst for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Ron Paul: No Such Thing as an Independent Israel
Blagojevich In The News | Blagojevich: I'm On The "Wrong Planet" If What I Did Is An Impeachable Offense | Well Rod; you had best check your celestial map!
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Docudharma:: Pardon Me, Mr. Bush?
Those laws bind you to prosecute violations, including torture and other war crimes of which Bush,Cheney, and their subordinates are guilty and which Bush is likely to try to pardon. Edger :: Pardon Me, Mr. Bush? ...
Docudharma - Recommended Diaries - http://www.docudharma.com/
Group Urges Americans to Speak Out Against Planned Bush Blanket ...
Salem-News.Com, OR -
The group says it is extremely important to block the pardons before they can happen. (SALEM, Ore.) - A group called The People's Email Network, ...
DON'T LET BUSH PARDON CRONIES!!!
OpEdNews - Newtown,PA,USA
Work to pass HR 1531, which would not allow Bush to pardon Cheney (and others) who recently have admitted to condoning and mandating torture, to illegally ...
Conservative Revolutionary American Party III: Cheney Admits To ...
By T. Scott Brineman
Obama Unveils His National Security Team · Monday 01 December 2008 by: Dean Baker, t r u t h... The Impeachment Holiday Gift Pack, Because Bush Is... Can You Afford to Pay Attention? It's Not Hillary, It's The Policy Stupid! Beyond the Bailout State · The Zero Decade: · Getting Real on Climate Change · Obama Pledge on Treaties a Complex Undertaking ... Cheney Admits To War Crimes Because His Pardon Is Already In His Christmas Stocking. Please Speak Out For Lumps Of Coal. ...
Conservative Revolutionary American... - http://crap713three.blogspot.com/
Pardon Us, Mr. President!
American Chronicle - Beverly Hills,CA,USA
(Apparently we now reserve impeachment only for misdemeanor sexual misconduct, not for actual high crimes.) And while we´re about all this fact-finding, ...
Poll: 75% Say Good Riddance to Bush | Drudge Retort
That goes triple fer Dickless Cheney. Oh yeah... and THIS. Bush did not endure 8 years of hostile press coverage. After 9/11, the press was pretty much asleep at the wheel when it came to coveringBush and Co. It was only after Katrina ...
1: User Blogs - http://www.drudge.com/
Independent candidate Herbert Hoffman: ‘Impeachment - there is ...
Independent Political Report - Saginaw,MI,USA
I am referring to your joining as a co-sponsor of an impeachment resolution [Bush and Cheney] or filing your own resolution. There is ample time to initiate ...
Rove Claims History Will Be Kind to Bush | Video Cafe
20th with the crimes and human suffering Bush/Cheney have caused around the World it will be worse then Nixon. Murder, stealing, threats, torture, rape and so much more has been done over the 8 years that will not ... look at bush fondly. history will not be told by rush, hannity or fox, it will be told by scholars who will judge this admin and bush and rove and cheney for the scurrilous crooks that they are. oh that impeachment were still on the table. ...Crooks and Liars - http://crooksandliars.com/
One Leg Raised on the Bush-Cheney Legacy: Deconstructing the Spin ...
Would that be the liberal media that for years failed to question just about anything the Bush–CheneyAdministration said? The media that stood silent as one constitutional amendment after another was stomped on by the Bush–Cheney ...
Thomas Paine's Corner - http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/
OpEdNews » Will 'Tough Guy' Dick Cheney Cop Out as Usual and Take ...
His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). His writing is available at ...OpEdNews - OpEdNews.Com Progressive,... - http://www.opednews.com/
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