5/26/2006:   The following three legislatures have resolutions pending that would force the federal government to consider articles of impeachment against the Bush administration:

• Illinois State Legislature
• California State Legislature
• Vermont State Legislature

5/26/2006:   Many folks have questioned what Bush, Rove, Cheney, and Rumsfeld might do to retain power if faced with a NeoCon defeat, whether in 2006 or 2008. Many have speculated on what is coming to be known as, "The October Suprise." It all boils down to either grabbing power or creating a situation that convinces the American public to allow them to retain power. These are the leading theories.

Terrorist attack. The administration leaves the border open and either allows or encourages a terrorist attack. Bin Laden has prospered under the Bush Administration and his 9/11 attack was more successful than he could have ever dreamed thanks to the Bush administration's efforts to tear down our Consitutional rights, so it stands to reason he'd want Bush to stay in office. Bush can count on Bin Laden's complicity in orchestrating an attack that would scare the bejesus out of America. Bush would fearmonger, the public would rally behind him, and the NeoCons would laugh hysterically all the way to the polls.

Economic fraud. Bush would appear to dramatically slap the oil companies back into line. Prices would drop like a stone, the people would cheer, and he would paint himself as decisive, strong, and able. He could trot out any plan that sounded good for getting out of Iraq, with absolutely no real intention of carrying through, and the people would buy it. Two months after the election, prices would start to creep back up as Bush compensated for "overreacting".

Impending war. Bush picks a fight with Iran or Korea and proclaims that he's considering the "nukular option." Nationalistic fever grips the country and people rally behind their "War President." On the other hand, actually pushing the button would cause him some serious grief, so immediately after the election, everything simmers down because we don't have the manpower to fight another war, all our resources having been expended on the illegal war in Iraq.

And then there's the possibility of the Bush throwing out the 2008 election results and declaring martial law. Don't think he would? Cheney and Rumseld go way back, and they've always been about power, as much as they can get and hang onto. And they, along with Rove, pull Bush's strings. To have finally attained the greatest power only to lose it again would be the single greatest affront to them imaginable. It would not surprise me at all if that's how things played out. I'd be shocked, angry, and ready to fight, but surprised? Not with these guys, not even a little bit.

5/26/2006:   As graduation approaches, this has become a hot button topic. Historically, a diploma was not proof of preparedness to meet the world, it simply indicated that you'd completed the course work to get to graduation. A vocational certificate or a college degree showed preparedness, but a high school diploma meant you probably knew the basics of language and math, nothing more. The exit exams change that premise. In order to get your diploma, you must pass the exit exam. Now, rather than a diploma meaning that you satisfactorily completed all the course work, now it means that you were able to pass the course work and retained enough information to pass the exit exam. It raises the bar.

So is this a good thing, or have we changed the rules in mid-game on thousands of students? Have we not guaranteed that there will be hundreds of kids ending their senior with no diploma -- and therefore the equivalent of having dropped out -- or faced with the prospect of attending some kind of prep class to bring their skills up to test level? How many of them will simply enter the work force with no diploma or with a GED? I would argue that we have forced the expansion of the number of those recognized as members of the undereducated social class.

On the other hand, it could also be argued that these kids probably would have done very little with their lives anyway. If they scraped by in high school, would they have gone on to a college career? Doubtful. I would like to point out that this exit exam doesn't screen out kids with minimal grades, just kids that didn't learn. In other words, those kids that are extremely bright but for whom good grades weren't a priority would probably ace the test. Kids who somehow got good grades even though they didn't deserve them would get caught in the net. So there would be no more pampered jocks with diplomas they can't read.

Some argue that language barriers may present a problem. I can't imagine why. You live America. If you can't understand English, then you're not ready for the high school exit exam. I don't have a problem with that either.

Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I think those whiney kids in Southern California petitioning the courts to suspend the exit exams for this year should just get over it. Either you're ready or you're not, and when you finally get that high school diploma in your hand, it will actually have meaning. Yes, we've raised the bar, but we've raised it back to where it ought to be. Didn't qualify? Didn't get to walk with your class? Well, boo-hoo. The walk of honor, caps and gowns, and applause are reserved for those that have achieved something through hard work and tenacity. It's a reward. Rewards are earned. And that's life.

5/26/2006:   In Money, Nebraska, a judge decided that Richard Thompson, convicted of sexually molesting a child, wouldn't survive in prison because he's too short (5' 1"), so he just gave him 10 years probation.

You have got to be kidding. No castration? No chains? No electric shock therapy? Just give him a free pass and tell him that his safety is more important than the safety of the kids he may harm? Are you serious?

Fortunately, the Nebraska attorney general, a man with a little common sense, has decried the sentence as "far too lenient" and plans to appeal.

5/25/2006:   The House bill on immigration would spend $1.9 billion on beefing up security at all our border entry points. Sounds like money well spent to me.

The Senate bill would request $54 billion to give illegal immigrants amnesty and beef up the social net programs they would require. And that's just STUPID!! OH MY GOD!!! YOU MORONS!

Do NOT spend my money on such complete crap! They broke the law with impunity -- don't reward such behaviour! You can go easy on them and, rather than throwing them in a cold, dark, prison cell, just deport them in air conditioned trucks and planes back across the border, but don't just hand them a U.S. ID card and directions for applying to Medicare, Welfare, and Social Security for benefits!

Geez, louise, what the hell are these people thinking?! You'd think they wanted to be voted out of office!

5/25/2006:   Am I the only one that hears about illegal immigrants having rights in this country and thinks, "Um... No.... They would have to be citizens to have rights, and not only are they not citizens, but they have broken our laws in crossing our borders without authorization."

Y'know what we need? An "Illegal Immigrants Bill Of Rights." And they need to be drawn up such that illegal immigrants have no rights to anything except safe passage back out of this country. Period.

And then, if they want to apply to come in legally, great! When you get your green card, visa, whatever, well then Welcome Back! Just make sure we had a chance to screen you first to ensure that you're not a terrorist.

But my point is, they should not feel they will be afforded the same rights as a citizen of this country or a legal guest of this country. How about this:

The Illegal Immigrant's Bill Of Rights

• Absolutely no First Amendment rights. No free speech, no freedom of religion, no freedom of the press, no right to assemble, no right to petition the Government for redress of grievances. It's not their government and they don't belong here.
• Absolutely no Second Amendment rights (which we all know means they can't form a militia and so they can't arm it -- any intelligent individual can see it doesn't have anything to do with arming civilians).
• Third Amendment: yeah, ok, we won't quarter soldiers in their homes.
• Fourth Amendment: And we'll use warrants, not to protect their rights, which they don't have, but to protect the sanctity of law enforcement investigative procedures.
• Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments: We'll give them these, too. These have to do with protecting the human rights of the single, near powerless individual when faced with the incredibly powerful institution of the judiciary.
• They will NOT have the right to vote on matters federal, state, county/parish, city, or within or pertaining to government run, controlled, and/or funded institutions, such as voting for members of the school board.
• They do not have the right to an education and are not eligible for scholarships or other educational funding and assistance.
• No more anchor babies. If you're here illegally, your baby is not a citizen. Too bad. On the other hand, if you're here legally and you have a baby... Others may feel differently, but personally, I would be comfortable with the baby having citizenship.

5/25/2006:   Here's the Republican playbook for the 2006 elections:

• Homophobia. Bill Frist wants to tell people how to live their lives, starting with punishing homosexuals for loving one other so much they wish to commit their lives to each other and wanting that union legally recognized.
• Chipping away at the First Amendment.
Nothing pisses off an American like seeing the flag being burned, but to date it's been a protected form of expression under the First Amendment. The Founding Fathers didn't speak lightly when they wrote, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech..." They didn't say, "unless it hurts someone's feelings," or, "unless it seems disrespectful of the government." They wanted to protect exactly the kind of speech that offends and is disrespectful! And flag burning is and should be protected. Just don't do it where I can reach you or I might express my dissatisfaction with your views...
• Tearing down science. Whether it's forcing "intelligent design" on our students, hampering medical progress by outlawing stem cell research, throwing out controls on industry that reduce green house gas emission, or allowing entire species to be wiped out so we can pump oil out of our wildlife preserves, make sure science -- knowledge gained through research and peer review -- is ignored as just so much hogwash.
• Legislate away women's rights. Remove a woman's right to privacy and her ability to control her medical decisions. After all, who better to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her own body than 500+ Congressmen?

Here's the funny part: according to Gallup Poll, the most trusted polling service yet the service that always skews political polls between 4 and 8 points in favor of the Republican party, reported that the Republican Party playbook is not playing well, even to Christian fundies.

Oh, whatever will they do? Wherever will they go? Oh my!

5/24/2006:   It's late, I'm tired, and I have to be up early tomorrow, but I couldn't stop until I took a moment to commend the Dixie Chicks and their bravery. Real Americans think for themselves and stand by their decisions, and the Dixie Chicks gave Bush hell, didn't back down, and they're still not backing down. Those are three tough, smart women. Don't mess with them Texans.

Thank you, ladies.

5/24/2006:   Hey, did you hear? The Taliban is back in Afghanistand and doing its level best to kill as many of our serviceman as possible. Know why? Because our troops are being wasted in Iraq! Bin Laden is releasing tapes commenting on our political and judicial system, and the Taliban, who fled into Pakistan to lick their wounds, are back and busy retaking Afghanistan. We are busy losing a war we thought we'd won because we never completed the mission. We didn't continue chasing the Taliban, we never caught Bin Laden, and now we look like morons because we reelected the "president" that failed us so miserably and lied to us and cheated us and sold our jobs and auctioned off our environment and destroyed our diplomatic standing with the world and.....

Sorry, I kinda got carried away there for a moment....

I wonder how the families of the people killed in the WTC attack feel about seeing the Taliban coming back strong and seeing Bin Laden's latest tape played on television? Do you think they feel supportive of our "president?" I doubt it.

5/24/2006:   In an abuse of power that smacks of everything wrong with Congress today, Rep. William Jefferson, D-Louisiana, accepted bribes, ignored subpoenas from the FBI while they were investigating him for said bribes, attempted to hide the subpoenaed documents in his office, and then squealed like a pig when the FBI raided that office for the subpoenaed documents. And what makes it all the more unsavory is that Congress, almost as a body, has protested the search of Mr. Jefferson's office.

Why?

Why should a man's office be off-limits to federal law enforcement officials? I realize that there is supposed to be a separation between the three branches of government, but it stands to reason that if the FBI has a warrant to search the office based on probable cause, then that means two branches of the government, the executive and the judicial, agree that a search is in order subsequent to the belief that a crime has been committed and evidence crucial to the investigation of the crime is contained in that office.

What other profession can say that their office is off-limits to the FBI? And why should Congressional members enjoy such an exemption? It boggles the mind.

Aside from that, I applaud the Democrats nearly unified move to pressure Jefferson into resigning his seat on the Ways And Means Committee. They've been quite vocal about preserving the dignity of the office, unlike the Republican stand behind Tom DeLay, in which they made efforts to change the House Rules to protect DeLay. So what I'm saying is, in case the point isn't sharp enough yet, is that Democrats have the ethical and moral foundation to stand up to their own members on principle, and the Republicans currently sitting in Congress don't, whether we're talking about another member of Congress or the President and his cabinet.

That sound you just heard was a great, big, slap in the back of the head applied to the Republican Party. Nicely done, Dems.

5/24/2006:   Vicente Fox, introduced as "His Excellency", actually had the gall to stand in front of a U.S. audience and say, "We need to continue strengthening the economic, educational, and cultural ties between ourselves."

In other words, Vicente wants to continue shipping his poor, in the form of illegal immigrants, to our country to give them jobs, leech onto our economic system, and dilute our culture.

The most appalling thing is that Congress seems ready to give him exactly that, granting amnesty to 20 million+ illegal immigrants in this country, absolving them of all crimes which, in some cases, the least of which would be the violation of our immigration laws. Look, I realize we've got a de facto working welfare program going to support Mexico and prevent its complete destabilization, but someone needs to slap Vicente in public with the truth. He's not a leader, he's a joke. He has no economic, education, or cultural support plans for this nation except to glom onto the U.S. like a drowning man.

And while I'm using the analogy of a drowning man, let me give Congress a little advice: when saving a drowning man, you do NOT allow him to simply grab onto you. Your first concern is that the drowning man not take you down with him. You either maintain distance by using towing him using some object, or you turn him around, grab control of him such that he can't climb onto you, and you pull him as you swim to safety. This country is allowing Mexico to climb on top of it, push it beneath the waves, and millions of our own citizens and legal immigrants are drowning economically, educationally, and culturally as a result.

5/18/2006:   My reply to a post from Ann Coulter on alt.politics.republican:

> On the bright side, if President Bush's amnesty proposal for illegal immigrants ends up hurting Republicans and we lose Congress this November, maybe the Democrats will impeach him and we'll get Cheney as president.

Y'know, when a foaming at the mouth, rabid, no-brains-idiot, vote-for-the-team-regardless-of-the-quarter-back NeoCon Republican like Coulter turns on Bush, things must be bad. Or his ratings are down and she doesn't want hers affected by his. Whatever. As if Cheney is somehow *less* evil... Yeah, sure....

> For the record, I'll volunteer right now to clean other people's apartments if I don't have to pay taxes on what I earn.

Ann, come on down. I'll put your stupid, sorry ass to work cleaning up my house -- clearly a better use of your limited resources than what you're doing now -- so long as you don't pilfer my valuables.

On second thought, I don't trust you that much.

> Also, someone must have finally told Bush that the point about America being a "nation of immigrants" is moronic. All nations are "nations of immigrants" — as Peter Brimelow pointed out brilliantly in his 1992 article in National Review on immigration, which left nothing for anyone else to say (Time to Rethink Immigration? ).

And which I point out on my website with regularity, at http://www.tgrigsby.com/views. I think the only people that think this is a brilliant revelation are dimwits like Ann here.

> Instead of a moratorium on new immigration, I'd settle for a moratorium on the use of the expression "We're a nation of immigrants." Throw in a ban on "Diversity is our strength" and you've got my vote for life.

Is that all he gets? Is that all it takes? Wow. You're easy.

> Bush has also apparently learned that the word "amnesty" does not poll well. On Monday night, he angrily denounced the idea of amnesty just before proposing his own amnesty program. The difference between Bush's amnesty program and "amnesty" is: He'd give amnesty only to people who have been breaking our laws for many years — not just a few months. (It's the same program that allows Ted Kennedy to stay in the Senate.)

And allowed your Bushie to get into office in the first place.

> Bush calls this the "rational middle ground" because it recognizes the difference between "an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years." Yes, the difference is: One of them has been breaking the law longer. If our criminal justice system used that logic, a single murder would get you the death penalty, while serial killers would get probation.

And people who defrauded the voting system could stay in office and even run for reelection.

> Bush claimed the only other alternative — I assume this is the "irrational extreme" — is "a program of mass deportation." Really? Is the only alternative to legalizing tax cheats "a program of mass arrest of tax cheats"?

I'll bet most Republican officials get chills when you talk like that.

> This is the logic of the pro-abortion zealots (aka "the Democratic Party"):

That's cute. According to the polls, there are almost as many pro-choice advocates on the Repub side as the Dem. Shall we throw rocks back and forth on that for a while? It's an issue that crosses every line, and political parties are no delineator for people's personal views on this topic.

> Either lift every single restriction on abortion or ... every woman in America will be impregnated by her father and die in a back-alley abortion!

Don't be an ass. Oh wait... I forgot who I'm replying to..... nevermind...

Any abortion legislation must offer protection for the pregnant mother. It's a litmus test I would wager no bill will be able to ignore and still succeed: is the child the product of a rape or incest, or can the mother bring the child to term without risking her life? And even then, abortion legislation is reflective of the author's religious beliefs, and the more extreme the bill, the greater the percentage of the public that is going to feel that someone else's religious beliefs are being shoved down their throat.

> How about the proposal made on Brimelow's Web site, Vdare.com, that illegal immigrants be told they have two months to leave the country voluntarily and not have their breaking of our immigration laws held against them when they apply for citizenship from their home countries — or not leave and be banned from U.S. citizenship forever?

No problems there.

> Instead of choosing immigrants based on the longevity of their lawbreaking, another idea is to choose the immigrants we want, for example, those who speak English or have special skills. (And by "special skills" I don't mean giving birth to an anchor baby in a border-town emergency room.)

All proposals like this ignore one fact: current immigration practice is essentially a welfare system for the Mexican nation. Not law: the law is clear enough that illegal immigrants are, surprisingly enough, here *illegally*. But the practice is to keep border control weak and to turn a blind eye to illegal aliens working various low-end jobs. These people send money back to Mexico, thus shoring up a failed government's economy. Vicente Fox has done everything he can to drive the U.S. to not only leave our border security down, but to extend the welcome mat for people crossing the border illegally. In essence, to remove the border and do everything short of declaring Mexico the 51st state.

If we close the borders without a guest worker program, we will have gained security while completely destabilizing the country of Mexico. We would need complete militarization to protect ourselves once the disenfranchised remains of Mexico was taken into the bosom of countries like Venezuela and Cuba and joined the ranks of the South American anti-United States club. What we need is control of the border, while still giving aid to Mexico, if not entirely for humanitarian reasons, then for diplomatic and security reasons.

> Why not use immigration the way sports teams use the draft — to upgrade our roster? We could take our pick of the world's engineers, doctors, scientists, uh ... smoking-hot Latin guys who stand around not wearing shirts between workouts. Or, you know, whatever ...

Thanks, Ann. Yeah. Whatever.

> As Peter Brimelow says in his book Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, why not choose immigrants who are better than us?

In your case, Ann, that wouldn't be a stretch.

> Bush thinks it's not fair to favor people with special skills — a policy evidenced by his Harriet Miers pick.

No arguments there.

> How about this: It's not fair to want to go out with someone just because that person is attractive and has a good personality because it discriminates against people who are ugly with bad social skills! That's our immigration policy.

Typically shallow, Ann.

5/18/2006:   Some complete, rabid, lunatic on alt.politics.republican tried to blame 9/11 on gun control laws. I couldn't control myself...

Ms Libertarian wrote:
From Don [name & addr snipped]

> This scenario alone is a clear statement that the United
> 93 passengers were killed by GUN CONTROL LAWS.
> Because it was the gun control laws which made sure
> the passengers were unarmed and therefore unable to
> fight back.

You, sir, are a moron. I don't give a rats ass about your ability to protect yourself individually on a plane. Can you imagine some of the drunken or unstable nutcases that show up occasionally on planes suddenly enhanced with a light sprinkling of semi-automatic weapons? How many bullet holes does it take to depressurize a cabin? How about to destabilize the structure of the plane? How many tightly packed people are in the way when a gunfight ensues? How many stray bullets would it take to kill the pilot?

Yeah, ok, let's do that. Let's let people get on planes with guns. But I'm going to want full body bullet-proof armor, a parachute, a personal, strap-on oxygen system, free full-coverage, no-deductible insurance on my luggage, and a guarantee of a replacement flight, all provided by the airline that allows those guns onto the plane. Heck, that might even be fun the first few times. Flight gets boring? Slap some no-neck goon on the back of the head and watch the fun ensue. Yeehaw!

> All gun control laws should be repealed, and the gun
> grabbers who disarmed the pilots and the passengers
> of United 93, should face the death penalty themselves
> for their perfidy.

Perfidy? By taking *reasonable* measures to ensure safety, United Airlines is guilty of treachery and deception? Like a said, Don, you're a moron.

5/16/2006:   Ok, for those of you wringing your hands and/or shaking your fists over "The Immigration Issue", let me make it simple for you:

Protecting the country from infiltration by terrorists is one issue affected by border security.

Illegal immigration is a related but separate issue, also affected by border security.

Giving aid to poor nations is a entirely unrelated issue, also affected, in the case of Mexico, by our border security policies.

We have people pouring into this nation with no controls. The Mexican President, Vicente Fox, is using our economy to remedy his country's economic problems by doing everything short of shipping immigrants in semi-truck containers across the border so they can work here and send money back to their families. The Mexican economy has become an officially sanctioned and supported leech on our economy because Vicente can't run his country properly. Which really isn't that big a deal, when you consider that, but allowing Mexican nationals to come here and work, we are, in a way, running a huge Welfare work program for an entire nation of people. Rather than just giving them money, they come over and work for a living, and we give them a free pass to do so. As a nation, we put up with the pains of having people steal across our borders, flaunting our laws, because, deep down, we know they need to work, and we respect that.

Well, ok, that's one theory....

...But anyway...

The problem is, riding that tide are people that aren't Mexican, that aren't coming here to escape economic, political, or religious oppression. These folks are terrorists. They hate us, and they're coming here to attempt to strike out at us. And to date, Bush has done NOTHING to stem that tide. He's far more interested in tapping U.S. citizens' phone calls for fun and profit and mining phone companies' records of journalists' contacts to catch whistle-blowers than actually doing something effective to plug the biggest hole in our security: our borders.

I would have put the National Guard on the borders immediately, and I would have called it militarization. By 9/12/2001, I would have shut us down tighter than Tupperware, and yes, I would have pulled up the huge plastic tab somewhere around Key West and burped out the extra air to seal in freshness.

I would not be using the National Guard to shore up my resources in Iraq because I never would have lied to the nation to get us into an unnecessary war.

And by 9/13/2001 I'd have had legislation in front of Congress pouring money into the border patrol and immigration services to make getting across the border legally as easy and quick as possible.

And the first time Vicente Fox got all red in the face and blustered at me about treating his poor country unfairly, I'd have slapped the moustache off his face on national television.

Lou Dobbs had a great writeup on Bush's immigration speeches, and I had more to say on this topic last month.

5/16/2006:   Donald Rumsfeld was quoted as saying that deployment of the National Guard along the U.S. border with Mexico would not stretch the National Guard resources too thin.

This from the same guy that's running the Iraq War.

If we have to go off his predictions alone, then that single statement should scare the mortal hell out of anyone thinking about joining the Guard.

5/16/2006:   Last month, I wrote a piece about the town of Black Jack, Missouri, and their discrimination against unmarried couples with children. That town's Planning and Zoning committee floated an amendment to the laws that allow them to EVICT people from their OWN HOMES if they don't meet their morality litmus test, an amendment that would have removed or modified the definition of a family as a requirement for obtaining an occupancy permit. But the city council, populated largely by Pilgrims armed with scarlet letters for sewing on the chests of immoral people, voted it down.

Mayor Norman McCourt declined to be interviewed (woosey boy) but said in a statement that those who do not meet the town's definition of family could soon face eviction.

Makes you shudder, doesn't it? How far does this town have left to go before it can be closely compared to a village in the Middle East living under Sharia law? How long before they start putting people in stocks in the town square for moral code violations? How long before the witching burnings commence? Do you suppose they still think the earth is round, or has the city council had the maps revised to show a flat earth with misty edges that read, "There be monsters here"?

What happened to religous freedom? When did the nation's Constitution get perforated and stamped with a "Charmin" logo on the back? If it was me, I'd take this to the Supreme Court and I'd keep on it until the city council was slapped back so hard their mommas would feel it. MAN, this kind of government meddling crap gets me going....

5/16/2006:   In one breath, Iran says it just wants nuclear power, not nuclear weapons. In the same breath, it scorns offers of a light water reactor and declares that it will wipe Israel from the map.

Ok, this Ahmedinejad guy is a freak, and he needs to be dealt with.

Screw Russia and China, the countries that keep opposing U.N. sanctions against Iran. We need a nation-sized diplomatic slap back right now. Not tomorrow, not the next day. NOW.

...

Y'know, I wandered off for a moment and gave this some thought. If I were President, I'd hold a press conference in which I'd stand directly in front of Ahmedinejad. I'd tell him that while I want his country and my country to learn to respect each other and play nice with each other, that sometimes a family has to pull out the negative things and address them, stop ignoring them or dancing around them, in order to get past them. And in the spirit of just putting the primary issues on the table, I'd start by telling him to his face that he's lying. Telling the world that he wants a heavy water reactor and a plutonium productions facility, but that he doesn't want nuclear weapons, all while threatening to bury Israel, is just plain lying to the entire world, and doing it badly. I'd tell him that his goals and ambitions are clear, and that the U.N. will operate on his stated goals and not his U.N. reports. Then I would tell him tell him to his face that if Iran ever attacked the U.S. or its allies with nukes, I'd turn his whole patch of sand into black glass. I'd put it in those terms.

And then I'd tell him that, while I understand he's playing to the hardliners in his country, he needs to keep the future in mind, a future in which both of our countries work together for a better future, as part of a global family. In the spirit of guaranteeing the peaceful future of our descendants, I would invite him to stand with me, shake my hand, and promise to work towards peaceful solutions to his country's need for cheap, clean electricity, and towards peaceful relations will all his neighbors.

Would it work? Probably not entirely, at least not with him. He's a moron and a religious whack job, but I wouldn't pussy-foot around with him. This guy has talked himself into being a bully. Best approach with a bully is to meet him face to face and call his bluff. Better earlier than later.

5/16/2006:   On Wednesday, the White House will present details of a classified government wiretap program to full congressional committees. The intelligence committees of both the House and Senate will be briefed on the NSA's eavesdropping program.

Now, keep in mind, this is the same White House that briefed Congress on Iraq, using terms and phrases like "al Qaeda", "mushroom cloud", and "we know where the WMDs are".

Would you trust Bush to tell the truth about something that could land him in prison? I wouldn't. They lied to Congress before; they're old hands at it by now.

5/16/2006:   In Brazil, gangs fought back when Brazillian officials moved to relieve imprisoned gang leaders of their cell phones and then transfer them to separate, high security facilities to split them up. The gangs took over the prisons, and then began terrorizing the civilian population in the biggest, most organized movement of this type ever. The Brazillian government appears helpless to stop it.

And in Mexico, in April, suspected drug lords posted the heads of two police officers on a wall outside a government building where four drug traffickers died in a January 27th shootout with officers in the Pacific resort of Acapulco. A sign nearby read: "So that you learn to respect."

Amazing. So not only can Vicente not get a handle on his country's economy in any way, shape, or form, but the drug lords are telling him and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil, what to do and teaching them to respect the gangs above the law. And they have no effective response to that at all. I only bring Brazil into this because most of South America seems to be suffering from executive branch insanity as much as the United States is.w

And then Vicente comes over here telling our president how to run and secure this country.

Hm.

Well, I can honestly say I wouldn't be one to take Vicente Fox's advice on much of anything. Would you take your car to a mechanic that fixed it based on the advice of a ten year old kid whose only experience with cars was based on driving video games? Probably not, I would think. Then why would you trust Bush, who takes his cues on how to deal with immigration and national security from a man who not can't run his own country, but has a vested interest in using our economy to shore up his own?