In a move that is unprecedented in presidential history, President Bush has secretly challenged over 750 laws enacted since he took office, claiming his has the authority to disobey Congress if it conflicts with his own views of the Constitution.

This is a complete disregard for our checks and balances system of government, and the revelation of this challenge by President Bush (and by challenge, I really mean just outright breaking the law) will only drive the President's approval ratings lower and lower. His base voters are even starting to turn their backs on the him, and he could find that many of his greatest supporters in Congress are toppled come November. That would be really bad news for a really bad president, because Congress does have the power to put his authority in check. They have been reluctant to do so thus far, because Congress is dominated by Republicans. With this country crumbling before our very eyes, that's likely to change in November.
Bush challenges hundreds of laws - The Boston Globe

White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove could be indicted next week on charges of perjury and/or witness tampering. There is strong evidence to suggest he coordinated testimony with Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Scooter Libby to avoid conflicting stories regarding their intentional leak of classified information.

The White House now admits that it leaked the information regarding a CIA agent as an apparent attempt to get back at her husband for criticizing the motives for going to war in Iraq, but contends that it is not illegal for the President to leak classified information, because he has the power to de-classify it. This creates a bit of a legal mess for the White House, because it is not clear whether the information was really ever de-classified. If the President of the United States leaks classified information, or tells others to do so, does that mean that the information is formally de-classified?

With the White House back-tracking on statements made over the past couple of years and conceding that they intentionally exposed a CIA agent to get back at her husband, the real legal dilemna is whether any White House officials testified under oath that they never leaked and never knew of a leak. If they did, they will probably be facing charges of perjury, something we all know no one, not even the president, is allowed to do.

The tangled web the current administration has weaved takes me back to the days of Nixon, except this is much more serious. Remember, Nixon was just guilty of petty theft, not treason and perjury. Even ignoring the disgusting crimes of this White House, it is saddening to look at the complete lack of any good that has come out of this presidency. Even Nixon established relations with China and opened up trade, which helped the United States economy in the coming decades. GW Bush has managed to destroy nearly everything except oil company profits. The irony is not lost on many that Al Gore has managed to accomplish a lot more good for the United States since 2000 than our current president.
The Raw Story | MSNBC: No decision on Rove for at least a week; 'Did Rove coordinate testimony with Libby?'

Just a third of the country approves of the job George W. Bush has done as president. That puts him in record territory, with a mark lower than Nixon during Watergate, Ronald Reagan after curb-stomping a crippled boys' puppy, or Thomas Jefferson after he fathered an entire generation of plantation slaves. The only poll numbers worse than Bush's are those of the GOP-led Congress, which are at about 30%.

These poll numbers, which have been falling for 8-months, are no knee-jerk reaction to one scandal. The public mind doesn't work that way. People forget that Clinton's approval rating actually went up during Monicagate. That's because he was still doing an amazing job running the country. And to think, many chose not to vote for his protege, Al Gore, because they thought he was boring. I hope you like the entertainment you get from the Bush administration, because I think it's sickening.
Bush's approval ratings lowest ever: poll

William Bennett, the lobotamized brain behind the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, has come out and called some of this year's Pulitzer Prize winners "worthy of jail" for exposing secret government and military programs.

Although I agree that journalists should not disclose information that will seriously undermine an intelligence campaign, I don't think any of this year's Pulitzer Prize winners are guilty of that. They simply exposed programs that were against everything this country stands for. One military program involved secret prisons, where possible terrorists were taken and beaten by CIA agents. It has been revealed that very few of the men taken to the secret prisons were guilty of anything other than having a name or face similar to that of a suspected terrorist. The other so-called treasonous journalism involved the NSA wiretapping program, which is clearly illegal to everyone but White House lawyers and GOP pundits.
Bennett: Pulitzer Winners Risen, Lichtblau, Priest 'Worthy of Jail'

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who is also the chairman of the board of idiots, is taking it from all ends these days. Not only are liberals and moderates against his ill-conceived war, but even many of those in the US military are turning on their boss. I'm not talking about 20-year-old kids who enlisted out of college, I mean career military men, including very powerful generals.

The site I've linked to has a collection of anti-Rumsfeld comments from retired generals, who are no longer under the shroud of secrecy enforced by the US military.

About a month ago I reported that Ann Coulter was under investigation for voter fraud because she lied about her place of residence on her registration form. It seems that was not the only detail she overlooked. She failed to select male or female, perhaps because she's trying to hide something her critics have known for a long time: she has both types of thingys... or neither.
PageOneQ | Ann Coulter registration form

I've really been falling behind on this blog recently - a result of my new job - but there has been a lot going on in Washington this week. There was an uproar after Cynthia McKinney struck a capitol building police officer and blamed the incident on racism, and there should be. Nobody has the right to strike an officer who just wants to stop a person who was going around a security check. Sure, elected members of congress are allowed to skip by the checks, but the officers still need to identify who is going around them. McKinney is hard to recognize, not because of her race, as she asserts, but because she has a new wacky hairstyle every week. On the day of the attack, she was sporting a Pebbles from The Flintstones look.

Tom DeLay announced he would be stepping down in an effort to preserve his seat for Republicans. His district is a GOP stronghold, but polls showed he would have been running about dead-even with hypothetical Democratic opponents in November. A Democratic win in that district would have devastated Republican morale. It would be like the Bronx electing a member of the Klan as their representative.

After announcing that he was stepping down, DeLay filed an ethics complaint against Cynthia McKinney. Although Tom DeLay is not the person who should be filing ethics complaints, I think the complaint needed to be made. Later in the day, it was revealed that DeLay had sent out an email to his closest followers, organizing an attack on a press conference being held by a political opponent, Nick Lampson. Here's the remarks of one woman who was at the conference, 70-year-old retiree Marsha Rovai:

"I can't believe my Congressman, Tom DeLay, would organize this type of assault," Rovai said. "I was assaulted by two different people. One of the men hit me and another shoved his sign into my face, and then when I pushed his sign away he violently pulled my hat down over my eyes and pushed me. I'm considering filing an assault charge. This is just very upsetting and I'm so disappointed in Tom Delay for organizing this attack."

A very classy move from Tom DeLay, a man who claims there is a "War on Christians" in this country. I wonder what J.C. would think of someone like Tom DeLay.
Daily Kos: Shameless

An AT&T employee has come forward with some inside information on the NSA wiretapping situation. President Bush has claimed that the program was set up to protect Americans. He said the NSA only wiretapped known terrorists phones without a warrant. He lied. The AT&T employee says that the NSA paid a visit to a vital switch center, and the company agreed to let the NSA install data-mining (recording) equipment which siphoned all long distance calls and internet traffic through the NSA.

If you are a resident of the United States and use a phone or the internet, the NSA has recorded and stored at least some of your calls and your internet usage. So for those of you claiming Bush has not lied about the NSA scandal, I have one question: Are you a terrorist?
Wired News: Whistle-Blower Outs NSA Spy Room

What a difference two years makes. During the heat of his re-election campaign, there was a leak from within the White House as part of a plot to undermine those in the intelligence community who were gathering evidence suggesting there was no real reason to go to war with Iraq. Bush came out and said he was not part of the leak, and any leakers of classified information would be prosecuted. His followers, ever the blind sheep, rallied behind their man and got him another four years.

Now it has come to light that the leak was authorized by President Bush himself. His defense is no longer that he didn't leak, but that it was legal for him to leak. That's quite a turn-around, and a part of the reason why his approval ratings have fallen to record lows (36% this week). He may think that the president is above the law - I'm reminded of the old Nixon idiom, "If the president does it, it can't be illegal" - but come November he is going to experience one of the fiercest backlashes in US political history. The GOP is going to pay the price for Bush's many mistakes, and maybe they'll think twice before backing another boy-president.
President Bush's Comments on Leaks - Forbes.com

Rep. Curt Weldon (R - Pennsylvania) is using an odd strategy against Democratic challenger Joe Sestak. Sestak's 4-year-old daughter has a malignant brain tumor, and she's having it treated in Washington D.C. instead of in Pennsylvania.

According to Weldon's twisted logic, that means Sestak is not loyal to his home state. He's also questioned why Sestak only rents his home. Sestak, who is a Pennsylvania native, says he and his wife are looking to buy a home in the Philadelphia area after spending much of his adult life in the military. He is a Harvard graduate who has been in command of carriers during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

Senator John McCain was in Pennsylvania recently to help Representative Weldon in his re-election campaign. Why won't he support a fellow veteran defeat scum like Curt Weldon? The Republicans must be in very bad shape in these mid-term elections if they have to resort to attacking their opponents decision to have their daughter's brain tumor treated at an out-of-state facility that is better suited for that type of treatment. If you had a daughter with a brain tumor, would you want her treated at the best hospital possible, or would you take the advice of some cold-hearted Republican and just stick her in the local hospital?
Medical treatment an issue in Pa. race - Boston.com

Tom DeLay, the representative from Texas who is infestated with scandal and corruption, has decided not to seek another term in office. He was facing stiff competition from any Democratic challenger who wished to face him, as many of his dirty tricks were revealed during his most recent term. They include accepting cash and paid vacations from lobbyists, actively accepting money in exchange for political support in Congress, and funneling money that could not legally be donated to campaigns through an intermediary and eventually into those campaigns.

Tom DeLay is a threat to American democracy, and the country will be better off without him in office. I've got a good feeling he won't be retiring, he's just leaving the public sector, where many of his actions are watched and sometimes reported to the proper authorities. He'll probably be back as a high-profile lobbyist in a year or so, stuffing millions into Republican coffers and receiving big favors in return from the corporations he'll be working for.

In a perfect world, Tom DeLay would have been thrown to the snakes a long time ago. At the very least he should be in prison. It's important not to forget his evil deeds, as many of us forgot the evil deeds of LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan; and many still forget the awful things that Kissinger dreamed up and converted into real, horrible actions.

Good-bye Tom DeLay, but do us all a favor and move to some tropical island and live out the rest of your pitiful life there. You can even live alongside a nice golf course and be a member at an elite country club, I don't really care. Just stay the hell out of America's affairs. This country didn't deserve the things you did to it.
Tom DeLay

Jack Abramoff's power within the US government is more far-reaching than anyone could have imagined. It was recently revealed that 3 out of 4 governors of the island territory of Guam were helped in their election bids by the convicted lobbyist.

With Abramoff connections completely infesting the conservative sector of our government, how will it ever be possible for any Abramoff-connected cronies to be brought to justice?
guampdn - www.guampdn.com - Hagatna, GU

Crawford, Texas may no longer be the place where President Bush goes to get away with from it all. His ranch used to be the place where he would retreat to anytime things got rough in Washington, such as when he was slammed for botching intelligence before 9/11, or when he was questioned about lying to the nation about Iraq before sending our troops there. He was also on vacation in Crawford when Hurrican Katrina devastated New Orleans last year. He chose not to postpone his vacation to visit the city or return to the capital, even though it was one of the worst natural disasters the country has ever faced. When the press converged to question the president for this decision... that's right, he retreated to Crawford.

Demonstrators near his ranch have really made Crawford a hassle rather than a slice of paradise for the president. He can no longer run back to the ranch to avoid the hard questions and the tough issues, because the people have found him. Crawford no longer supports the president, as it showed when it elected an anti-Bush mayor last November. Expect Bush to start making more retreats to Kennebunkport, where his family has a massive estate. That is, if he's still welcome there.
Is Crawford still Bush's getaway?