How to know when you're living in a police state: telling the truth becomes a crime!

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says he may start prosecuting journalists for telling the truth. He may call it espionage. I call it paranoia. I say it is a defining characteristic of a police state.

There are some statutes on the books which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility. That's a policy judgement by the Congress in passing that kind of legislation. We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected.

—Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

But, Alberto, the case has not been made by the Bush administration that any journalist has in any way compromised national security. There is, however, a compelling case that Bush's administration —by its lies, fraud, and incompetence —has compromised national security to a far greater extent than any reporter or leaker could possibly have done.

The word treason is hard to avoid when one talks about hoaxing an entire nation in order to wage a war of naked aggression. Now —that has most certainly compromised national security in various ways:

• It has turned friends into enemies;
• It has exposed our military weaknesses to potential enemies;
• It has subverted our credibility among allies.

So —it is Bush who should be investigated and prosectuted. Not working journalists.

Most real news is done by way of leaks. Significantly, leaks are only problematic for criminal regimes like that of George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, or Ronald Reagan. Leaks are only problematic when the executive tries to hide what it's been up to from the people. Leaks are only problematic when an administration insists upon complete secrecy —even as it denies you your right of privacy or due process of law. Leaks are only problematic when the incumbent administration is breaking the law, subverting the constitution or denying you your rights under law.

That crimes are what Bush says they are is absurd. That backward thinking accomplishes what Bush wants it to accomplish, that is, it puts Bush above the law. Crimes are what he says they are. Terrorists are what he says they are. National security is breached when he says it is breached. Bush not only makes the rules, he changes them as he goes along. But this Bush's bizzaro world in which Bush hears only what he wants to hear and defines the law upon a "decree", or in GOPSPEAK: a "signing statement".

Bushco will try to justify this draconian, anti-American measure by claiming that we are at war. That doesn't wash. The war was begun upon a pack of demonmstrable lies, the perpetration of a fraud. Even in the retail trade, fraud nullifies the contract. Sorry, Bush! No sale!

Never fear. The Bush administration has never failed in one important respect. It has never failed to come up with a bogus rationale —ex post facto —whenever there is a danger of truth breaking out. Bush and Gonzales will come through yet again.

A prediction: Bush and/or Gonzales will lie to the American people again —and they will do it sooner than you think. I will put money on this. Any takers?

Bertolt Brecht said: "A man who does not know the truth is just an idiot but a man who knows the truth and calls it a lie is a crook." Which one is Bush?

Brecht must have had the GOP in mind. However, Bush is something else again. He doesn't know and doesn't want to know —and he doesn't want you to know either.

Even if Bush and Cheney are impeached while Rove and Libby are imprisoned, a new National Convention will have to be convened to repair the damage done to our nation by the three stooges of would-be empire: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld!

Some updates.

FOX Wants Dems to Promise Not to Impeach Bush After Win

FOX News has commandeered a former Democrat Congressman and frequent FOX News commentator to beseech Dem winners in Nov. not to impeach Bush.

These FOX News guys are getting a little panicked!! They are beginning to see the party might be ending…AND what nerve to ask that Bush [or any other jackleg Neocon Chickenhawk GOP SOB] not be brought to justice! I think we ought to turn the wall Congress wants to build on the border into one big, long GOP max-security prison and hire former GITMO prisoners to guard the beleaguered liars.

Step one would be for the Democratic leadership to definitively put to rest any loose talk of impeaching President Bush. They should say in one and two syllable words that impeachment will not happen once they are in the majority and thus take away a potential rallying cry for the beleaguered Republicans….

Democrats Must End Talk of Bush Impeachment

Following is an excerpt from one of Buzzflash's very best editorials.

George W. Bush and his right wing religious zealots have turned their back on the fruits and accomplishments of our academic system, shunned the university world as if it is some sort of plague upon religious belief. Bush is anti-reality, anti-reason and anti-science. His denial of the catastrophic effects of global warming is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Throughout this administration, people have been appointed to the highest positions who simply discard science and reason as a plight upon their absolute faith in literal Christian scripture.

As surely as the Taliban destroyed, a few years back, an internationally centuries-old image of Buddha sculpted into a mountain because it "defiled" Islam, the Busheviks blast away the Age of Enlightenment and Reason as exemplified by our incomparable college system.

—The Taliban Blew Up Centuries-Old Buddhas; Bush Blows Up the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, A Buzzflash Editorial

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'Toons by Dante Lee; use only with permission
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