It doesn't matter what bills go through.. if Der Chimpenführer doesn't want to adhere to it, all he has to do is scribble his name on a signing statement that declares it null and void at his whim.

Americans don't live in a democracy any longer.

Its past time for Republicans who love their Country more than their Party to stand up and say "enough". When the 2000 election was 'awarded' to Bush by the Supreme Court most people stood back with a "how bad can he be" attitude. Well, now we know and its only going to get worse. It might not be too late to recover from the harm this Administration has caused, but that may not be true in another two years. There really is a point of no return and we are way to close already. Choose now GOP...your Party or your Country.

Carol Duffy is absolutely correct, and as a Republican who has always cared more about his country than his party, I have been calling for the people of this nation to stand up now, not in another two years (when it may well be over the hill and gone) to exercise our mandate and responsibility to remove George W. Bush from office. Not now, not in two years, but YESTERDAY! As I have written here again and again (until I am certain many readers think they see it even when I haven't said it - a good thing, far as I'm concerned), the crew in the White House must go and they must go NOW!

Just how many blows to the head is this nation willing to accept as part of the "price" of freedom? How long are we willing to accept the humiliation, degradation and wholly un-American practices of this evil and insane administration? To quote the late, lamented genius Richard Pryor, "How long? How long? How long must this bullshit go on?"

From another unlikely source comes the timeworn-but-true-now-more-than-ever "If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem", from Eldridge Cleaver. Yes, it's those days all over again, only worse, much worse, if that is imaginable to those aging hippies among us, daydreaming about their glory days while patting their fat stomachs and crooning over their pension checks. This really may BE The Last Call.

Cleaver said some other things, too, which resonate with these times even more than when they were said. Here are a few which come to mind:

"I feel that I am a citizen of the American dream and that the revolutionary struggle of which I am a part is a struggle against the American nightmare."

"In prison, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all." (Word to the Gitmo interrogators).

And so long as I am using (as I so often do) guidance from seemingly unlikely sources, Albert Pike also spoke to this generation when he said:

"A war for a great principle ennobles a nation. A war for commercial supremacy, upon some shallow pretext, is despicable."

But enough of that. There is only one thing that needs to be said: ENOUGH!

Americans do not need to worry about America's position as "Leader of the free world." The nation retired in fact already some time ago, and is hardly a member of the club any longer, rapidly abolishing its liberty as it is.

Oh, yeah, being a World leader remains within reach, but a leader of what, that's the question. A leader of governments tired of the 20th century's attempted remedies after fascism, communism and world wars?

America under Clinton chose path, and Bush's regime has only made this much more obvious. As the U.S. approached Russia not in a supportive way, but predatory and imperial, and avoided using its crucial influence over Israel to achieve fairness for Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, America's net contribution to long term peace and stability became negative. The mood of the American society became more martial, expansionist and bellicose already in the 1990s, and the distance to other democratic nations grew.

America's flirtations with authoritorian and fascist dictators, teaching of torturers, and support of coups against democratic governments were during the Cold War explained as "necessary" in the fight against the Soviet Union. When this need disappeared, the undemocratic and anti-democratic practices did not.

Mass media didn't stop serve democracy in America when Bush became president - that was obvious long before. The corrupting lobbying system and the even more corrupting election campaign financing system, are no news and neither is the bad practices in voting booths and vote countings around America. Also in these respects the differences between America and other traditional democracies have grown rather than narrowed.

Cruel conditions in prisons, long-term loss of civic rights after served sentences, considerably higher proportions of convicts than in comparable countries, and a clearly racist slant, this is the base from which the Bush administration has continued attacks on rule of law, constitutionalism and human and civil rights.

The Democratic party and the national elites may advocate alternative policies to that of the Republican-dominated Congress, but seen from abroad the differences seem marginal.

The Republicans' and the Neo-Conservatives' standing in the world may be low, but it's hard to see that the Democrats' standing should be much higher - and there doesn't seem to be any visible opposition even outside of the two-party system.

For the Free world, that's scary and pretty alienating.

Dear Salon,

Writing this from the Middle East where the idea that there is a "free world" and where the US is perceived as morally bankrupt by anyone with an IQ in excess of their shoe size, why should we be surprised that the Geneva Convention is to be conveniently by passed? My suggestion as a citizen of your No 1 ally is that y'all stay home from now on - and hopefully we'll vote out our leader and get as far away from you as possible.

An excellent point is made in this article by General Kennedy about how captured American soldiers will be treated when they are trapped across enemy lines, as a result of the new American torture, I mean "interrogation," program. However, maybe America's hypocricy and tyrant behavior will be percieved as so disgusting and tainted by others that it will actually cause them to behave differently so as not to be like us.