Published on Friday, August 3, 2007 by The Austin Statesman (Texas)

Cheney Overstepped The Bounds of His Office
by Walter Mondale

The Washington Post’s recent series on Dick Cheney’s vice presidency certainly got my attention. Having held that office myself over a quarter-century ago, I have more than a passing interest in its evolution from the backwater of American politics to the second most powerful position in our government. Almost all of that evolution, under presidents and vice presidents of both parties, has been positive - until now. Under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it has gone seriously off track.

The Founders created the vice presidency as a constitutional afterthought, solely to provide a president-in-reserve should the need arise. The only duty they specified was that the vice president should preside over the Senate. The office languished in obscurity and irrelevance for more than 150 years until Richard Nixon saw it as a platform from which to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 1960. That worked, and the office has become an effective launching pad for aspiring candidates.

Read the rest of it here:
www.commondreams.org/archive...03/2952/

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Published on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

What is Habeas Corpus?
by Larry Beinhart

What is Habeas Corpus? Is it some obscure Latin legalism? One of the tricky clauses the ACLU uses to get evildoers out of jail? Does it mean the prosecution has to show a body in a murder case? Or is it the basis of your protection from tyranny?

It is the right to be brought into court.

It is fundamental to - and a sort of shorthand for - the right to be in a legal system, with laws and judges, evidence and a defense.

“Hi, there John Doe,” says the policeman at the door. “We’ve come to take you away.”

“But I’m Jane Roe, not John Doe,” you say, which is true, and you have the body parts that support such a distinction, as well as some paperwork. “And why are you taking me away?”

Read the rest of the article:
www.commondreams.org/views07/0131-22.htm

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New York Times editorial published June 27, 2007
Gitmos Across America

Toughness is the watchword in immigration policy these days. When you combine the new toughness with same-old bureaucratic indolence and ineptitude, you get a situation like that described by Nina Bernstein in The Times yesterday [www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26...tain.html].
She wrote about how the boom in immigration detention — the nation’s fastest-growing form of incarceration — ensnares people for dubious reasons, denies them access to medicine and lawyers and sometimes holds them until they die.

Read the rest of it here:
www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27...7weds1.html

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Posted by Bill Moyers Journal on June 29, 2007
Moyers on Murdoch

If Rupert Murdoch were the Angel Gabriel, you still wouldn’t want him owning the sun, the moon, and the stars. That’s too much prime real estate for even the pure in heart.

But Rupert Murdoch is no saint; he is to propriety what the Marquis de Sade was to chastity. When it comes to money and power he’s carnivorous: all appetite and no taste. He’ll eat anything in his path. Politicians become little clay pigeons to be picked off with flattering headlines, generous air time, a book contract or the old-fashioned black jack that never misses: campaign cash. He hires lobbyists the way Imelda Marcos bought shoes, and stacks them in his cavernous closet, along with his conscience; this is the man, remember, who famously kowtowed to the Communist overlords of China, oppressors of their own people, to protect his investments there.

Read the rest of it here:
www.pbs.org/moyers/journ..._murdoch.html

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Please speak out.

Whatever your opinion is with regard to our current administration,
Nancy Pelosi needs to hear from you:
speaker.house.gov/contact/
or
Office of the Speaker, H-232, US Capitol, Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-0100

Impeachment does not remove someone from office. It's an investigative process and the only tool the people have to find the truth.
If you believe that impeachment needs to be put on the table for Bush, Cheney, or both, then please give the House Judiciary Committee your opinion on the subject:
judiciary.house.gov/contact.aspx
or
2138 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-3951

Let your legislators know how you feel:
www.house.gov/
www.senate.gov/

Note: Please be kind when you call or write to these individuals. They will be more receptive if your thoughts are clear and concise. Sum up your opinions with a clear statement of what it is you would like them to do or questions you want answered.


Thanks, nomad