According to Bill Press on "progressive" morning talk radio this morning, the New York Times will be publishing yet another "spy story", this time on how the FBI has been spying on poverty, animal welfare and environmental groups. Among the groups Press mentioned were the Catholic Relief League, Greenpeace and PETA. (Undoubtedly Bush is convinced that our "war on terror" might be sidetracked if/when PETA starts protesting that our efforts have put al-Qaida members' pets at risk!)

Given how Bush reacts to ANY criticism of him, his cronies or his policies, anyone who thinks he hasn't been spying on those critics is either stupid or incredibly naive. The only surprise may be what flimsy excuse he comes up with for justifiying these activities.

Following is an excerpt from remarks made by George Bush on April 20, 2004 at Kleinhan's Music Hall in Buffalo, NY in a "Conversation on the USA Patriot Act":

So the first thing I want you to think about is, when you hear Patriot Act, is that we changed the law and the bureaucratic mind-set to allow for the sharing of information. It's vital. And others will describe what that means.

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

I don't know if there's a video record of Bush's Buffalo appearance (wouldn't it be great if there was) but the full text of his remarks is readily available by way of the White House's Office of the Press Secretary.

Let's see, by April 2004 hadn't Bush already renewed his authorization of wiretaps without warrants countless times? Wouldn't that mean that our president is a consummate liar? What a shock. A bigger shock, I suppose, would be to see or hear any mention of his April remarks in the MSM. And the biggest shock of all would be to see both sides of the aisle throw George Bush's words right back in his face every time he starts pissing and moaning about how there's no need to add any civil liberties verbage to the Patriot Act. (Okay, the biggest shock would really be if Congress were to live up to its Constitutional reponsibility and impeach Mr. Above-the-Law Bush!)

"In other news today, the White House announced that it has increased the "agility" of the federal regulatory system by transferring the jurisdiction of the FCC to a radio talk show host in Sacramento, Calif., and that it has authorized individual FBI agents to decide the guilt or innocent of criminal defendants when jury trials would "take too long.""

I just heard that the White House will also be announcing that the FDA is about to permanently ban the "morning-after" (Plan B) pill, that it will now be mandatory instead of optional for a pharmacist to refuse to fill contraception prescriptions, that Fox News will be taking over C-SPAN, that Kenneth Tomlinson will be taking over the FCC, that all schools must include "Intelligent Design" in their science curricula or they'll lose their No Child Left Behind funding and, last but not least, that the Department of Defense has just upgraded their Holiday Cannon so that any store who doesn't use the word "Christmas" every chance it gets will now be leveled by gigantic lumps of coal.

Ho ho ho

Is there really no hope of impeaching Bush unless or until the Democrats win a majority in 2006? It's precisely BECAUSE the Democrats may very well win big in 2006 that I think impeachment might very well start looking pretty darned attractive to a lot of Republicans who are hoping to get re-elected next year. How many of them think they could very well lose their seat because of their staunch support of all things Bush and how many might conclude that the only way they're going to have any hope of being re-elected is to start hopping onto the impeachment bandwagon?

Here's hoping!

Yet another shining example of the supreme arrogance of George Bush and his administration. Either he thought that the 4th Circuit judges were a bunch of complete idiots (unlikely) or he assumed that the 4th Circuit would look the other way while the government once again played fast and loose with Jose Padilla. How refreshing to see a conservative court not only rebuff Bush's thinly-veiled attempt to avoid another slap from the Supreme Court, but also make it clear that Bush's credibility in future cases is going to suffer as a result of these machinations. Undoubtedly Judge Luttig won't be sitting on the Supreme Court any time soon, if ever, which is probably a good thing, but I find myself admiring the man since he apparently has a conscience and the courage of his convictions. (Of course I suppose it's possible that he's just pissed off because Alito got nominated instead of him or, worse yet, maybe he's one of those gol' darned activist judges that keep getting in King George's way.)