It's all well and good to sit back and say that we (the Democrats) have to take back control of the House and Senate this November before we can seriously consider impeachment but with all the gerrymandering that's taken place, how likely is it that that's going to happen? Sure as I'm sitting here typing this, by November every red state in America will have some "hot button" issue on the ballot that will guarantee a huge Republican turnout. Here in Ohio in 2004 we had an amendment to our state constitution outlawing gay marriage on the ballot. (Thanks to a big turnout, it passed easily.) We also had a Republican Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell (now running for governor) who made damn sure that precincts that are heavily Democratic didn't have enough voting machines ... end result: many Democrats had to stand in line for hours, others simply turned around and went home. In 2005 things went from bad to worse ... to quote a headline from bradblog, 11/14/2005: "The Staggeringly Impossible Results of Ohio's '05 Election ... As Half of Ohio's Counties Fired Up Blackwell's New Diebold Electronic Diebold Voting Machines".

This year, thanks to Federal legislation, ALL of Ohio will have Diebold voting machines in place. Diebold voting machines that don't just have memory cards that are ridiculously easy to "hack" but they also have an infrared port, a new addition for which there's NO logical explanation. If you live in a red state and you think manipulating your state's voting equipment is just too far out to even have to worry about, take a look at our Congress! These elected officials have looked the other way while George Bush has committed one atrocity after another and they've passed one piece of legislation after another that is blatantly in the best interests of corporations and special interest groups instead of the people they're supposed to be representing. The only explanation I can come up with is that these people clearly believe that there'll be no accountablility for their actions come November. In the past the big bad Republican "machine" has included lots of money for running lots of negative ads and "swift-boating" and hot-button issues to get the votes out and gerrymandered districts to make it all but impossible to unseat their incumbents. (The Texas redistricting case going before SCOTUS today is a perfect example.) Who's to say these people and their minions wouldn't stoop to a little tweak here and there to a few voting machines to make sure their people get sent back to Washington?

Mr. Keillor is right -- impeachment is our only answer and the sooner the better!

Don't tell me, let me guess ... anyone who criticizes the president for his poor response to the Katrina disaster will be accused of aiding and abetting hurricanes.

America has George Bush's "signing statement" that made it clear that he could authorize torture whenever and wherever he wanted and America has a Congress that passed legislation that denies Gitmo's prisoners any recourse if they're tortured. Is it any wonder that the free world looks at America with contempt?

This administration swept up God knows how many "prisoners of war" and I've read one report after another that speculates that most of these people aren't guilty of ANYTHING. Now Bush has put himself in a position where he can't very well release them without making himself look like the despot that he's become so he has been and will continue to do everything he can to make sure that none of these people will ever be able to tell their stories and prove their innocence. Unlike most prison hunger strikes, I don't even think the Gitmo hunger strikes are being carried out to improve conditions there ... horrifyingly, I think the 131 prisoners that initially participated had lost all hope of ever going home and they just wanted to die. And, what a surprise, they weren't even allowed to do that. (No sirree, this administration wasn't about to risk someone leaking the fact that hunger strikers were dying in Guantanamo. I mean, how many scandals can this man handle at one time?)

And what about that true champion of POW rights, Senator John McCain? Well, he voted for the legislation that gives these prisoners no recourse, he knows perfectly well that George Bush exempted himself from complying with the no-torture ban, he knows the Army field manuals were just modified to narrow the definition of torture and, interestingly, so far at least, his office has refused to respond to questions about the outrageous situation at Guantanamo. Anyone who thinks John McCain isn't more interested in being president than he is in human rights needs to think again. And anyone who thinks George Bush has even an ounce of compassion should also think again. As for the rest of America, please join me in feeling profoundly ashamed of our country and our elected representatives.