I propose that the U.S. Congress take a totally different approach with the Current Occupant in this battle over the war in Iraq and many other issues and scandals.

Here's my modest proposal: The Congress should set BENCHMARKS WITH TEETH FOR DUBYA.

The benchmarks can be a variety of things -- full cooperation in Congressional probes of US Attorney firings and of the lead-up to war in Iraq, and determination to set firm withdrawal dates if specific milestones are NOT achieved in Iraq or by the Iraqi government. All of these areas (and more) can have firm dates set, by which time the administration must cooperate and allow full, truthful testimony, or legislation must be signed into law affirming an exit date, or the Iraqi government is informed that they MUST achieve certain benchmarks or else. (Suggestions for other issues are certainly welcome.)

If this administration continues to resist the will of the people and the rule of law, then an inexorable process down the road to impeachment and removal from office should begin. Hearing dates in the House of Representatives should be laid out, moving to each next step as required in response to Dubya's foot-dragging. In a similar manner, the Senate can dust off the impeachment trial procedures and pencil in dates for such trial(s).

Come on, Congress -- the U.S. Constitution provides every tool needed to rein in an out-of-control Presidency. Republicans had no hesitation to use these tools to hamper Bill Clinton and his administration. Why NOT use these same tools when they ARE needed? When they're apparently the last, best hope to force this Worst President Ever off the incredibly wrong course onto which he's steered this country?

For the sobering facts, they come with a required melancholy, a sense of loss that is a call to action, something we should all be feeling regardless of our political bent.

I got the same feeling watching Fast Food Nation last night, which illuminates an equally gross, and sobering set of realities, though nothing in that film was surprising.

How can I help? This is the question, and I think the answer is first to make peace with these difficult events/circumstances, not to accept them as a future we will allow, but to first find resolve, so the solutions we create will not be another set of reactions that lead us deeper into the dis-eased aspects of our current reality.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -Einstein

Here is my take on the anniversary:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charcoalheather/476870929/

To quote from a bumper sticker... "Would somebody give this guy a blow job so we can impeach him." It seems nothing else is sufficient grounds in these strange, surreal days- so many dead on every side in a conflict which will continue in much the same fasion until we leave. Only when we leave will any kind of stability in Iraq be achieved, but first the culture of revenge reflected is some sections of the Judeo/Christian Old Testament, which goes far beyond "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," will take over and the Shiites and Sunnis will kill each other as they have been doing in Iraq, in violation of the Prophet's words since the first generation after his departure. Yes it will be a bloodbath, AS IT ALREADY IS, but it can't end until we get out of the way so it can truly begin. The sooner we leave, the sooner peace arrives in Iraq, but it will be a bloody mess for awhile until the Shiites and Sunnis get sick of killing each other. There will NEVER be peace as long as we stay. Finally - let's face the truth: the only way to win the war in Iraq would have been not to invade in the first place. Every credible expert, civilian or military, advised against it. The Bushies, for about six different sets of reasons, depending on which branch of the Republican coalition you talk to, decided that they knew better than the experts, fired or slimed anyone who disagreed with them and went in any way, but somehow, that's all OK? Let me repeat - "Would somebody give this guy a blow job so we can impeach him?"

But we're makin progress.

Salon will continue to report that the U.S. is the bad guy as they have since before the Iraq war ever came about.

Tiberius wrote that Salon reported that the U.S. was the bad guy so I went back and read it again.

False alarm people!

The best and most scientific study of increased death in Iraq since the invasion was published in the English medical journal The Lancet about a year ago. Most people try to ignore it because they don't like the result. Yet this report has a sold scientic basis far superior to haphazard numbers gathered from news reports or US army blurbs, etc.

It's 600,000 plus violent deaths in Iraq since the invasion began. What do you think happens when a bomb hits a house? The US is dropping a lot of bombs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html

Also on May 1st, the guantanamo attorneys have headed to Congress to ask that habeas corpus be restored and guantanamo be closed. Support us by calling your senators and representative today.

http://gtmoblog.blogspot.com/

You are truly pathetic. When is a simple statement of facts an attack on the United States? You are truly a loser.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, approximately 40,000 people die each year in vehicle crashes in the United States. What if we spent 550 billion to prevent THAT instead?

May 1, 2007 - President Eisenhower, Five Star General and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces of Europe, still rolling over in his grave over G.W. wearing a uniform while serving as Commander in Chief and the whole military industrial complex giant that had been and is growing out of control.