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Travel

01.13 Hawaii, the Unique State

Books, Films, Arts & Education

01.24 Can Apple “Rescue” US Education? (Graphics)

01.23 What You (Really) Need to Know

01.22 How to Forecast Weather Infographic w/Simple Explanations

Letters

Ref. : Letters to the editor

Health Care & Environment

02.10 LET’S REMAKE THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS

02.09 Obama shouldn’t compromise on birth control with GOP, religious leaders or an unpopular Congress - video

02.09 Cancer rates triple among New York police officers who responded to 9/11

02.08 The seed emergency: The threat to food and democracy

02.07 Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering

02.04 Your Day at the Beach Could Soon Lead to a Night at the Hospital

02.03 Obama Won't Touch Climate With a 10-Foot Pole

02.03 Komen reverses decision to cut Planned Parenthood funding

02.03 Reforming EU Deep-Sea Fisheries Management

02.02 Obama’s Support for Natural Gas Drilling "A Painful Moment" for Communities Exposed to Fracking- video

02.02 By defunding Planned Parenthood, the Susan G Komen Foundation betrays women

02.02 Ohio Tries to Escape Fate as a Dumping Ground for Fracking Fluid

01.31 Eleanor Smeal dissects Obama vs. Catholic Church controversy over birth control coverage - video

01.30 Report: Small planes still pour lead into skies

01.30 Scientists Call on Obama Administration to Use Science as Guide for Arctic

01.28 Universal health care proposal stalls in California Senate

01.27 Apple, Electronics and Environmental Ills

01.25 Solar Cheaper Than Diesel Making India’s Mittal Believer: Energy

01.24 Sounding an Alarm on Birds and Mercury

01.24 Why Don’t We Have Abundant Solar Power? Blame Financing, and Industry, not Science

01.22 The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care

01.22 Looking Inside the Twinkie

Ref. Dollars for Doctors - How Industry Money Reaches Physicians

Ref. 2010 Comparative Price Report Medical and Hospital Fees by Country - Graphics

Ref. Health at a Glance 2011 - OECD Indicators

Ref. : Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA (Part 2) [Graphics] (Part 1 is here)

Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries

“News” Media

02.07 Did Obama make the economy worse? Not according to most statistics

02.03 Media Watch: CNN's Erin Burnett regurgitates right-wing talking points to scare retired people - video

02.02 ABC's Iran Propaganda

02.02 The Ongoing “Foxification” of the Wall Street Journal

01.30 While temperatures rise, denialists reach lower

01.29 Fox News psychiatrist: Newt Gingrich's affairs 'mean he might make a strong president'

01.22 ‘Shocking victory’: With SOPA shelved, Markos Moulitsas on a way forward for Internet policy - video

Daily The Daily Howler

Justice Matters

02.05 Why the AGs Must Not Settle: Robo-signing Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

02.04 THE CAGING OF AMERICA

02.03 Senate Votes To Ban Its Members From Insider Trading... Kind Of

01.31 Senate clears way for vote on insider-trading ban

01.25 Why all the robo-signing? Shedding light on the shadow banking system

01.25 In Iraq, Haditha case is reminder of justice denied

01.22 Still Not Clear on SOPA & PIPA? Infographic w/Simple Explanations

US Politics, Policy & Culture

02.10 The Cancer in Occupy

02.10 How Opus Dei Influenced Rick Santorum

02.10 People Are Not Leaving the Labor Force

02.09 Obama, Explained

02.09 OPED: The White Underclass

02.09 EDITORIAL: A Terrible Transportation Bill

02.09 THE OBAMA MEMOS

02.06 Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?

02.04 Soaking the Poor, State by State

02.04 Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian's Rosy Outlook On The Future of Politics

02.03 SUPERBOWL XLVI: Are You Ready for Some Football???

02.03 Buffett rules: Sheldon Whitehouse introduces the Paying a Fair Share Act - video

02.02 Secrecy Shrouds ‘Super PAC’ Funds in Latest Filings

02.02 Steve Israel condemns GOP Keystone XL ‘stunt,’ cheers Democratic Drive to 25 to reclaim the House - video

02.01 Rich Patrons Are Major Source of Romney’s Cash

01.31 How Newt Gingrich Crippled Congress

01.30 The Truth About the Conservative Mind: Why Reactionaries from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin Have Fought Real Liberty

01.30 Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable

01.30 Clashes in Oakland: 400 Arrests, Tear Gas, Flash-Bang Grenades

01.30 A European look at the US primaries - video

01.29 Obama’s Faux Populism Sounds Like Bill Clinton

01.25 Inside Romney’s Tax Returns: A Reading Guide

01.24 ILLUSIONS: Being Led Down the Primrose Path...???

01.24 Science Bulletins: Whales Give Dolphins a Lift - video

01.24 Buffett On Why Romney Should Pay Higher Taxes: He’s Just ‘Shoving Around Money,’ Not ‘Straining His Back’

01.24 THE OBAMA MEMOS

01.22 Three Takeaways From South Carolina

01.21 Why Is There So Much God in Our Politics? The Religious Right's Theocratic Plan for the 2012 Election

High Crimes?

Economics, Gov't. & Business

02.10 This is no bailout for Main Street America

02.10 Why the Foreclosure Deal May Not Be So Hot After All

02.10 Matt Taibbi assesses the $26 billion settlement designed to aid victims of foreclosure fraud - video

02.10 Foreclosure Deal to Spur U.S. Home Seizures

02.08 Banks Paying Homeowners to Avoid Foreclosures

02.07 App Stores Create 500,000 U.S. Jobs

02.07 The Payroll Tax Fight

02.07 Obama super PAC decision: President blesses fundraising for Priorities USA Action

02.06 How Privatizing Government Shovels Cash to Parasitic Corporations and Undermines Democracy

02.05 We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income

02.03 PRIVATE INEQUITY

02.02 The New American Divide

02.02 American Airlines proposes to end all four pension plans

02.01 Economics 101

01.30 New Strategy, Old Pentagon Budget

01.30 Where Did All the Workers Go? 60 Years of Economic Change in 1 Graph

01.29 The Apple Boycott: People Are Spouting Nonsense about Chinese Manufacturing

01.29 Made in the World

01.28 Matt Taibbi ponders whether Obama’s embrace of populist rhetoric is already impacting Wall Street - video

01.28 Sugar daddy Adelson could save $500 million in taxes if his boy Gingrich wins - video

01.28 How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’

01.27 Unemployment in Spain Rises to 22.9%

01.27 Chinese Company Continues Plan To Replace Workforce With 500,000 Robots

01.27 Details Emerge of New Financial Fraud Unit

01.27 Not all jobs are equal

01.27 The Shift from Manufacturing to Service Economy - Graphic

01.25 Billionaires Occupy Davos as 0.01% Bemoan Inequality

01.24 Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted

01.23 State Capitalism: The visible hand

01.22 How Big Money Bought Our Democracy, Corrupted Both Parties, and Set Us Up for Another Financial Crisis - video

01.22 How U.S. lost out on Apple's iPhone work

International

02.03 What the Occupy movement must learn from Sundance

02.02 US plans to halt Afghan combat role early surprise Kabul

01.31 TABLE TALK

01.30 With its deadly drones, the US is fighting a coward's war

01.30 UN panel aims for 'a future worth choosing'

01.26 Iran is ready to return to nuclear talks

01.24 Reagan’s Hand in Guatemala’s Genocide

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On Constitution Day: Talk of Impeachment and Rumors of War

STRONG COMMENTARY:

On Constitution Day: Talk of Impeachment and Rumors of War

by DAVE LINDORFF

The threat of presidential abuse of power is back, including the same crime of illegal spying that Nixon was impeached for--this time more seriously than before.

The talk on the the weekend of Sept. 16-17 at Camp Democracy in the shadow of the Washington Monument on the National Mall was of impeaching the president--and of looming war with Iran.

I spoke on the morning of Sept. 17, along with John Nichols of the Nation, David Green of Hofstra, former federal prosecutor and author Elizabeth de la Vega, and long time anti-war activist Marcus Raskin. Later, in the afternoon, a second group of people spoke on the same topic, including veteran former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, Jennifer van Bergen (who first exposed Bush's secret "signing statements"), Michael Avery, president of the National Lawyers Guild, and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY).

It was Holtzman who stole the show, with the former member of the House impeachment panel that drew up impeachment articles against Richard Nixon noting that one of those three articles was for spying on American citizens. Holtzman, who has a new book out on impeachment herself (The Impeachment of George W. Bush,), said that when she and the other's on that committee--Democrats and Republicans alike--unanimously voted out those articles, which led to Nixon's resignation from office, "I thought we had protected the Constitution for generations to come."

And yet, scarcely one generation later, the threat of presidential abuse of power is back, including the same crime of illegal spying--this time more seriously than before.

Holtzmen observed that when Nixon was ordered by the Supreme Court to produce the tape recordings that the government had learned had been made in the Oval Office, after some hesitation, he agreed, and his fate was sealed. This time, she suggested ominously, Bush and his gang might decide to ignore orders from the Supreme Court.

Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzmen (D, NY) suggested ominously, Bush and his gang might decide to ignore orders from the Supreme Court. That, everyone agrees, would be the moment when tyranny would be upon us.

That, everyone agrees, would be the moment when tyranny--the very thing that the Founding Fathers feared most, and that was their motive in including an impeachment clause in the Constitution--would be upon us.

As the NLG's Mike Avery noted, at that point, the only remaining recourses for the American People would be impeachment, or Thomas Jefferson's other remedy: "revolution."

Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern announced at the session the electrifying news that secret orders had gone out for a Naval battle group to set sail immediately for the Persian Gulf, with a planned ETA off the coast of Iran of Oct. 21--less than three weeks before Election Day.

Speaking of arms, Ray McGovern announced at the session the electrifying, if not wholly unexpected news that Naval officers had notified his organization of former intelligence officers about secret orders that had gone out for a Naval battle group to set sail immediately for the Persian Gulf, with a planned ETA off the coast of Iran of Oct. 21--less than three weeks before Election Day. (McGovern, before he resigned in disgust during the Bush first term of office, had been in charge of threat assessment at the CIA.)

"It would appear," one well-connected Washington source informed me after hearing about the Naval maneuvers, "that the Bush administration's internal polling is telling them that they are in serious trouble in November and that they are getting desperate."

If Bush and his gang cannot get all their crimes retroactively approved by the current compliant Republican Congress, he and Cheney, fearing impeachment and war crimes prosecution, may have decided to go with a "Hail Mary" strategy--an aerial bombardment of Iran's nuclear facilities just before Election Day designed to rally Americans once more around the already abased and abused Flag.

Maybe so. If Bush and his gang cannot get all their crimes retroactively approved by the current compliant Republican Congress, he and Cheney, fearing impeachment and war crimes prosecution, may have decided to go with a "Hail Mary" strategy--an aerial bombardment of Iran's nuclear facilities just before Election Day designed to rally Americans once more around the already abased and abused Flag.

This time, though, such a desperate, jingoistic strategy may not work. In fact, if such an act of unprovoked war leads Iran to unleash Shi'ia militias in Iraq against American forces, it will lead to an exponential increase in American casualties at a time that Americans are massively turning against that war.

The potential for an attack on Iran to become a new Tet is probably as great or greater than the likelihood of its rallying the public around an already widely discredited president and war.

The potential for an attack on Iran to become a new Tet is probably as great or greater than the likelihood of its rallying the public around an already widely discredited president and war.

Crucial in determining which way things would go is how Democrats respond to news of a new war in the offing. If they run true to form and start cheering for more war, they will have nailed the coffin shut on the Democratic Party as a functioning political organization. If they finally stand up against this abuse of American power and say no to yet another Bush war, the end to this nightmare could be in sight.

And which way the Democrats react will depend on what the American people do between now and any new Bush war.

As McGovern said darkly, "We have only seven weeks to act to stop this from happening."

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch columns, titled This Can't be Happening!, is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's latest book is The Case for Impeachment, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky. Visit his website for more information. Lindorff may be reached at dlindorff@yahoo.com. This story is published in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.

Copyright © 2006 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved.

Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.

This story was published on September 18, 2006.

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