Look to Brattleboro for some balls

Finally, some common sense and a bit of spunk.

Brattleboro, Vt., may consider a petition for the town to make President Bush and Veep Cheney subject to arrest and indictment for "crimes against our Constitution" if they step foot in town, which Bush never has as president, anyway.

"This petition is as radical as the Declaration of Independence, and it draws on that tradition in claiming a universal jurisdiction when governments fail to do what they're supposed to do," said Kurt Daims, 54, a retired machinist leading the drive.

... Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell, a Democrat whose office has repeatedly sued the Bush administration over environmental issues, called the move "of very dubious legality."

"Dubious legality"?

The Boston tea party and the Declaration of Independence were of "dubious legality."

The fundamental promise of the Declaration of Independence is the right of the people to redress grievances. The U.S. Constitution lays the groundwork for redress. Nothing in it prohibits radical avenues to achieve the promise when the Constitution fails.

The very point of the measure is the Constitution has been perverted and is failing to serve its purpose. Isn't it better a town uses judicial means to protect its people from virtual dictators rather than taking up arms, as the Second Amendment provides?

If that shocks anyone, consider changes in our "laws" under the Bush administration and Bush's extralegal adaptations of it allow him to pluck any or all Brattleboroans off the street and imprison them secretly, without allowing them to speak to anyone -- even a lawyer or their family, to tell loved ones where they are -- simply if he and he alone were to decide they are "enemy combatants." He and his corporate buddies can and do spy on their communications, "papers and property," without the warrant required by the Fourth Amendment.

And, so far, the offices of POTUS and VPOTUS are getting away with their perverted notions they don't have to explain what they do to anyone, ever. When challenged in the now-impotent federal judicial and legislative branches, they simply tell judges and Congress, "National security"; case closed. Or lose those public records in mysterious office fires and seven-layer computer wipes.

Radical times call for radical solutions.

(Flickr pictr by Professor Bop)

Government "of the people"?

The latest poll from Princeton-based Gallup and USA Today found two-thirds of Americans wanted George W. Bush to mind his own business in I. "Scooter" Libby's punishment for obstructing justice and perjury in the coverup of the White House leak of a highly classified undercover CIA spy. Then again, was it exactly Bush's business to help Libby hide from the public which of his bosses -- Dick Cheney or Bush -- ultimately ordered this traitorous crime?

Happy anniversary

It's party time!

We're commemorating the third anniversary of Dick Cheney telling Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, "Go fuck yourself," in Senate chambers after Leahy suggested it may be unseemly for Halliburton, where Cheney still draws an annual salary as "former" CEO, to be profiteering from the invasion of Iraq Cheney pitched like Chicken Little.

And that's when this vulger quote became (more) favored in the teen vernacular.

I must say, though, if I had my choice of threats, that one beat the mortal one Leahy and then-Senate President Tom Daschle received in fall 2001 with those envelopes of anthrax from some mysterious (or is it?) terrorist with access to that particular Ames strain grown in the CIA's chemical lab at Fort Detrick, Md.

Yep, that anthrax investigation is about as important to the Bush-Cheney administration as finding Osama bin Laden, who Bush "doesn't think about" despite the Saudi rich kid confessing he orchestrated Sept. 11, 2001, which somehow led us to invade Iraq.

Anyway, this anniversary is highlighted on the Blue Funk calendar. Perhaps the Washington Post looked at it when choosing today to publish a profile on Cheney, which has some interesting revelations:

Previous accounts have described Cheney's adrenaline-charged evacuation to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center that morning (Sept. 11, 2001), a Secret Service agent on each arm. They have not detailed his reaction, 22 minutes later, when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

"There was a groan in the room that I won't forget, ever," one witness said. "It seemed like one groan from everyone" -- among them Rice; her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley; economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey; counselor Matalin; Cheney's chief of staff, Libby; and the vice president's wife.

Cheney made no sound. "I remember turning my head and looking at the vice president, and his expression never changed," said the witness, reading from a notebook of observations written that day. Cheney closed his eyes against the image for one long, slow blink.

Three people who were present, not all of them admirers, said they saw no sign then or later of the profound psychological transformation that has often been imputed to Cheney.

The electronic file on that story is titled Chapter 1. WaPo must be planning more.

Part 2 of 4

Creeeeepy!

Delilah Boyd takes apart CDD, a.k.a. Christian Domestic Discipline, the term radical Christians use so their S&M, sadism and masochism, doesn't sound like, well, S&M. Delilah found this website full of wife-spanking books and crotchless pantaloons (no kidding, pantaloons!) and acoutrements suitable for a sex slave. Don't hit that link if you're younger than 18 or squeamish. It's borderline porn.

Speaking of which, NSA-agent-turned-reporter Wayne Madsen dishes details: He says a phone number from D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey's list of johns in the 1990s is the extension to then-Halliburton President/CEO Dick Cheney's headquarters on Anderson Road, McLean, Va.

That wouldn't necessarily mean the Vice made the call to the madam. But the coincidences mount. The same extension was used in November and December 2000 by the Bush-Cheney Transition Team, Madsen says. The building is owned by the West Group, where Alice M. Starr, wife of Monicagate independent (lol) prosecutor Kenneth Starr, has been a vice president. Another number on the list, Madsen says, may track to Cheney's old house on Madison of McLean Drive in Ballantrae, Va. Madsen's website is subscription-only access. The phone number and full street addresses are there.

Cheney's delusions

The Los Angeles Times yesterday had a good editorial, George McGovern: Cheney is wrong about me, wrong about war.

Former presidential candidate and longtime Sen. George McGovern, among other astute observations, asks about Vice President Dick Cheney:

Does he remember that the Democratic Party, with me in the lead, reformed the presidential nomination process to ensure that women, young people and minorities would be represented fairly?

Sure, "Dead-eye" Dick remembers. That's exactly why he's on the attack. He doesn't count any of us nonaristocrat, nonwhite, nonmales as being part of the American constituency, except as servitude, and he doesn't want anyone else to count us, either, especially come election time.

Impeach Cheney, then Bush, in short order. They've committed more than enough crimes for too many years. Besides, I like the sound of a President Pelosi.

Handy primer

Marcy Wheeler of The Next Hurrah blog has just published a book, "Anatomy of Deceit," that is said to make all clear what's what in the Treasongate case culminating now in VP Dick Cheney top aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's trial.

Libby's defense lawyers are claiming he's being made a scapegoat for Karl Rove, President Bush's aide. Cheney's September 2003 handwritten notes, produced in testimony Jan. 30, about who told whom to out Valerie Plame's undercover CIA identity said, "not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy this prez asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others."

The publisher, Vaster Books, is a new company formed by DailyKos and Fire Dog Lake blogs. Fire Dog, along with Hurrah, have been leading the way in Treasongate coverage.

The nexis becoming clearer

The Chicago Tribune has published a thorough two-parter on the history of the nuclear industry. It's a fabulous backgrounder for anyone interested in Oyster Creek to file to Favorites.

As Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and nominally his boss, are now on trial for outing, nominally, CIA NOC Valerie Plame, it's a worth remembering that a week after Robert Novak's first story outing Plame, he wrote a second one specifically outing the CIA cover company she worked for: Brewster Jennings. Reports I've seen say Brewster-Jennings was tracking those lose nukes America gave to three dozen countries.

Isn't it handy now that Dick Cheney and George Bush have sent two battleships to Iran's coast and prepares to send a third, Brewster Jennings is in no position to dispute their claims that one crazed Iranian leader (democratically elected) wants to use the uranium we, presumably, gave him to build bombs?

As this story well describes, if Iran has nuclear bomb dreams, it wouldn't be the first. And others' plans were diffused without battleships.