"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just as long as I'm the dictator."It's clear that Bush violated the law by ordering the National Security Agency to engage in warrantless domestic spying on U.S. citizens. So, once again, I have a question for those who, perhaps somewhat reluctantly, voted for George Bush: NOW do you get it?
George W. Bush, December 18, 2000
(during his first trip to Washington
as President-Elect)
I posed that same question several months ago, in the wake of the stupendous Bush Administration incompetency that left thousands dead and homeless after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Now more and more facts are being revealed (about spying, torturing, lying) that should make it obvious that those residing in the White House are not only bunglers on a grand scale but dangerous to the current and future health of our democratic republic. They should be impeached and removed ASAP before they take us all down with them.
We already knew how they lied and deceived the citizenry into supporting a war against a country that was weak, contained, posing little or no imminent threat to any of its neighbors, and certainly not to the United States. (Recent polls indicate that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the war was a mistake and the figures are steadily rising for those who think the troops should be brought home as soon as possible.) We already knew how the Bush Administration had effectively turned over environmental and public-health regulation to the polluting industries and drug companies.
But these new revelations about secretly ordering warrantless domestic spying is, as one senator said, an "astounding" violation of how America works as a country of laws.
How could this have happened in a free society? The reasons are many and varied, including a corporate-owned mass media that knew a lot more than it was telling the public. But before we get to the spying and torture scandals -- and the twisted legal reasoning that Bush&Co. use to justify their violating laws whenever they feel like it -- here's my abbreviated chronological take on how we got to this awful place:
