I already started a thread on that topic...and it doesnt seem like anyone is interested enough to keep it going.
here
I did notice your last post, and i agree with you. I think its taking a low profile now, because again, like on the dub-bye issue, the republicans are fearing the democrats being to the 'right' of them.
I refreshed that thread, and am willing to discuss the issues there, but id like to keep this thread about the illeagle ,incompetent, spying activities of the current administration.

 

Yesterdays news, but even msnbc is discussing the 'i' word.


Impeachment Talk Reaches the Mainstream
By William Goodman
AlterNet

Tuesday 14 March 2006

From the Wall Street Journal to MSNBC, talk of impeachment is no longer on the fringe.

The groundswell for President Bush's impeachment is growing, and last week the establishment media finally took notice.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story analyzing how a planned impeachment of President Bush will play out as an "election issue," including a helpful pie chart showing 51 percent of Americans support Congress in considering Bush's impeachment if he "didn't tell the truth about the reasons for the Iraq war."

The Washington Post published a commentary acknowledging that support for impeachment is now "reaching beyond the usual suspects," and the Associated Press covered the spike in pro-impeachment resolutions from local officials across the country. Resolutions recently passed in Vermont and California, and this weekend Democratic Party officials in Michigan voted to urge local officials to pass another. Meanwhile, 14 Democratic candidates for Congress have announced their support for impeachment.

These local efforts are beginning to advance impeachment at the national level. The resolution by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to investigate impeachment is slowly but steadily gaining co-sponsors, including three this month. It now has 29 co-sponsors - roughly one out of every seven Democrats in the U.S. House - a promising start that ensures that the legislation attracts more votes when it reaches the floor.

These activist and legislative efforts helped finally push the "i-word" on to the notoriously conservative cable news last week. On Wednesday, Joe Scarborough aired an impeachment debate on MSNBC - one of the first times the subject has been debated this year on cable. Scarborough's producers invited me to make the case for impeachment after learning of the new book I co-authored, "Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush."

Since impeachment rarely receives any consideration on television, I took the opportunity to explain our case, even if it meant going on Joe Scarborough's turf. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who opposes impeaching President Bush, said during the show that he was "fascinated" by some arguments for impeachment. He accurately described the groundswell:

There's a movement out there right now calling for George W. Bush to be impeached. Just take a look at how many cities and towns across America have either drafted resolutions calling for the president's impeachment or are considering doing so. Not only that, but 11 candidates for the House of Representatives and three for the U.S. Senate are all running on the impeachment platform. Why do they want the president gone? Well, here are the common reasons cited. The war in Iraq, which they say Bush lied to get us into; warrantless eavesdropping, authorized by the president; the torturing of prisoners; and the president`s response to Hurricane Katrina.

It is significant that impeachment activists have received Scarborough's attention. When we debated the topic, Scarborough even conceded that the arguments for impeachment in our book were "intellectually honest." That's because it's easy to make an intellectually honest case for impeachment: President Bush has publicly admitted to breaking the law. Here is how I explained the clearest example of the president's multifaceted illegal conduct - spying on Americans:

The fact is that the law provides a clear-cut way that the president has to do these things. He has to go to the FISA court. He knowingly violated that law. And the law says - there are two laws, in fact, that say that when you do that, you are guilty of a crime. There it is. That is one of the high crimes and misdemeanors.

Pat Buchanan was quick to argue that even Senate Democrats weren't supporting impeachment. While many Washington Democrats appear to be spineless these days, a growing number of House Democrats are supporting a resolution to investigate impeachment. This debate is the start of many to come. Impeachment is finally out of the bottle, and it is not going away. C-SPAN plans to televise a discussion of our impeachment book, moderated by Amy Goodman in New York on March 28, and our attorneys are receiving more requests to explain the legal case for impeachment from grassroots groups and reporters.

This week the Senate will also consider censuring President Bush for illegal wiretapping, a rare move that shows even the conservative upper house may be realizing that President Bush is out of control. But we must remember that a censure resolution won't remove a single wiretap from Americans' phones. Congress and the American people must take real action to address President Bush's illegal policies in wiretapping, Iraq, torture and undermining the constitutional principle of separation of powers.

President Bush has repeatedly broken the law and brazenly promised to continue to betray his oath of office and our Constitution - clear impeachable offenses. We must grow the impeachment movement across the country and in the halls of Congress to catalyze a substantive debate over illegal conduct, not politics.

 

I am attempting to convince several national politicians, the forest service itself, and some local politicians to seriously address the economic and legal issues involved with many of the issues you have posted and also the issues surrounding the sale of the public ground..............It seems to work like this though, if you stick to your denial of any wrongdoing then you become safe............If you simply turn your back and ignore the situation, then it did not happen.........................If you can find someone else to blame then you become the hero.............. I would only guess that an investigation into the ideas put forward in this ongoing post would reveal that behind the scenes individuals are practicing what I have mentioned above and by denying any wrongdoing, turning their collective backs and blaming the highest public official that can be found (the Pres?) they then will be viewed as the whistleblowers and the hero's...............Sad, sad, sad...............
To this point I have attempted communication with the parties and agencies actually involved with some of the mess.............I am now the bad guy...............My next attempt will involve the press and a very good investigative reporter I know...............I will provide them with what I have and let them fly with it.............I hate that tactic as good guys often go out with the bad but perhaps it is time...................Power is supposed to belong to the people, not the politicians and spindoctors............Tass

 

Well it looks like things have not changed much in this little thread [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I have to admit if you miss a few days its a lot of reading to catch up, and since I didnt have the time to really read thru everything in detail I appologize if I remember anything different than it was actually posted.

There have been some interesting twists to the whole big picture over the last few days. Feingold has made his intentions known (honorable for his kind) and put things to the floor for debate (and then hi tailed it out of town lol) but no matter the outcome or in who's favor its been done, and it will be interesting to see how it all progresses.

There has been discussion around the talk show circuits that our so called friends (does this prove or dis prove you cant buy your friends?) UAE have discussed or threatened to switch over to the euro themselves as a thank you for the opposition to their port deal. Although most seemed to think this was wrong, and most all also discussed the various connections with any terror group etc all seemed to miss the potential disaster for the US from too many of the oil producing countries making the change, or the potential for the various contries moving away from the dollar being the driving factor in US operations in the ME as we have discussed in some detail here.

On a personal level I had made a couple calls and was suprized to find that not many people in the petroleum industry were all that knowing about the petro dollar issue. Those who were seemed to have a similar opinion as that of georged (one that I am finding I agree with more every time I think about it) though not all shared the immediate disaster concerns.

Now I know the purpose of this thread initially was to discuss the potential loss of freedoms thru the NSA intel, and even the Patriot Act(my personal favorite, sarcasm) but I also still believe this all plays into the big picture or as its been said earlier "using scare tactics to get their way" since if the US was not at war, and the public was not talked into believing there is a constant and immenant danger etc pretty much no one would accept these things no matter to their legal situation etc.

I will even go as far as saying even if there were not any civil liberties compromised by the NSA intel, and the only monitoring was that of known or suspected terror suporters in the US and known terrorists outside the US etc (aka no illegal activities) that I believe there are still issues here that in one way or another effect both our liberties and national security (even if mostly from economic concerns).

Like georged keeps reminding us "follow the money" and find the real causes etc just makes sense, and continues to prove to be invaluable the more you look into the issues. The more I research the more I find my original beliefs to be more than possible, that there were people in the US that knew of the 9/11 attacks before they happened, that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with WMD's or any refusal to do anything by Saddam etc, and had everything to do with the almightlyl dollar. Sure I may not have considered all the motivations like the change to the euro originally, but I knew in my heart that the US was not there to steal oil, and that there were other stronger motivations. Some may believe in the old school thinking that a war can be used to stimulate an economy, and that may be true, but true or not this war isnt going to turn our dismal manufacturing sector around and its too obvious that our leaders would not know it.

The more you consider the euro v dollar issue and all its potential repurcussions, and then look at the serious problem of selling off america and american business that has happened for the last 20 years or so it just seems like all the pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place.

I dont care your preffered political party because they are all equally guilty if this is anyware near the truth, and to call it fiscal irresponsibility seems rather kind since its really the results of continued greed and the raping of america and the american citizen.

Also I hate to admit it but I gave the moral part of this a lot of thinking as well, and even though anyone would be hard pressed to admit to accepting the various casualties of war in order to save ones **** or even the political futures of either party I think its extremely diffilcult to accept the same only in order to prevent the change of currency standards as to avoid the obvious termoil and destruction to the US economy that would come from such changes.

Can you openly agree to having a war only for the purpose of saving an economy that has been totaly abused by our leaders for so many years? Would the 200 million starving in the streets mentioned earlier effect your thinking? Should American citizens have to chose between a war and personally paying the debt created by our leaders from both parties for little more than having their way with everything at the cost of our entire country?

I personally believe I am strong enough to understand and accept these diffilcut issues, and thankfully my faith helps me to deal with the stress of seeing how horrible things may end up, but not everyone can say this truthfully, and I believe many will avoid believing the obvious and continue to debate the more acceptable issues in order to provide a comfort level they can deal with better, and this is fine and understandable, but just consider for a moment just what those who can accept and even clearly see the reality between all the smoke screens are going thru and thinking while our leaders (both parties) and their followers continue to pile on the BS.

With the loss of the ability to rape our economy and continue to pile up the deficit for use in foreign policy being very close to becoming reality our govt will have little choice but to use true diplomacy (something they have not done in a very long time) and only have military power to fall back to when that doesnt work. Problem is that with a shrinking or failing economy, the ever increasing trade defict, reductions in the GDP, and basically a much larger portion of govt paid or driven growth in both manufacturing and service industries just how will any large scale military operation be funded long term, and especially when those countries who are supporting our debt in one way or another are potential adversaries??

Maybe just maybe if enough of the "general public" smartens up and makes a stand to end the nonsense and create and work on a solid solution there will be a chance to see a civil way out of it all, but its not looking good for sucess since most wouldnt give up a day from their job no matter how horrible, or their weekend ride in their SUV to even save their own ****, but then how can you blame them when they would rather continue believing all the smoke and mirrors they have been seeing for so long and just ignore the reality of it all.

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

This is one of the most in-depth articles I've found on the Iran/US/nukes/Petrodollar/Euros situation. Too lengthy to cut/paste, but worthwhile reading. In web searches on that subject, it's almost as if there's a top secret US national security ban against US media reporting on that subject. Not that it would surprise me.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0602/S00157.htm

 

And heres an article worth reading, about our history of lying to the public, by our government.


America’s Blinders
By Howard Zinn


Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?

The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.
A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare. The New York Times was breathless with admiration. The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived.

One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.

If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. I am not speaking of the history we learned in school, a history subservient to our political leaders, from the much-admired Founding Fathers to the Presidents of recent years. I mean a history which is honest about the past. If we don’t know that history, then any President can stand up to the battery of microphones, declare that we must go to war, and we will have no basis for challenging him. He will say that the nation is in danger, that democracy and liberty are at stake, and that we must therefore send ships and planes to destroy our new enemy, and we will have no reason to disbelieve him.

But if we know some history, if we know how many times Presidents have made similar declarations to the country, and how they turned out to be lies, we will not be fooled. Although some of us may pride ourselves that we were never fooled, we still might accept as our civic duty the responsibility to buttress our fellow citizens against the mendacity of our high officials.

We would remind whoever we can that President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn’t that Mexico “shed American blood upon the American soil,” but that Polk, and the slave-owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico.

We would point out that President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba, saying we wanted to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control, but the truth is that we really wanted Spain out of Cuba so that the island could be open to United Fruit and other American corporations. He also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to “civilize” the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.

President Woodrow Wilson—so often characterized in our history books as an “idealist”—lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to “make the world safe for democracy,” when it was really a war to make the world safe for the Western imperial powers.

Harry Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was “a military target.”

Everyone lied about Vietnam—Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia, all of them claiming it was to keep South Vietnam free of communism, but really wanting to keep South Vietnam as an American outpost at the edge of the Asian continent.

Reagan lied about the invasion of Grenada, claiming falsely that it was a threat to the United States.

The elder Bush lied about the invasion of Panama, leading to the death of thousands of ordinary citizens in that country.

And he lied again about the reason for attacking Iraq in 1991—hardly to defend the integrity of Kuwait (can one imagine Bush heartstricken over Iraq’s taking of Kuwait?), rather to assert U.S. power in the oil-rich Middle East.

Given the overwhelming record of lies told to justify wars, how could anyone listening to the younger Bush believe him as he laid out the reasons for invading Iraq? Would we not instinctively rebel against the sacrifice of lives for oil?

A careful reading of history might give us another safeguard against being deceived. It would make clear that there has always been, and is today, a profound conflict of interest between the government and the people of the United States. This thought startles most people, because it goes against everything we have been taught.

We have been led to believe that, from the beginning, as our Founding Fathers put it in the Preamble to the Constitution, it was “we the people” who established the new government after the Revolution. When the eminent historian Charles Beard suggested, a hundred years ago, that the Constitution represented not the working people, not the slaves, but the slaveholders, the merchants, the bondholders, he became the object of an indignant editorial in The New York Times.

Our culture demands, in its very language, that we accept a commonality of interest binding all of us to one another. We mustn’t talk about classes. Only Marxists do that, although James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” said, thirty years before Marx was born that there was an inevitable conflict in society between those who had property and those who did not.

Our present leaders are not so candid. They bombard us with phrases like “national interest,” “national security,” and “national defense” as if all of these concepts applied equally to all of us, colored or white, rich or poor, as if General Motors and Halliburton have the same interests as the rest of us, as if George Bush has the same interest as the young man or woman he sends to war.

Surely, in the history of lies told to the population, this is the biggest lie. In the history of secrets, withheld from the American people, this is the biggest secret: that there are classes with different interests in this country. To ignore that—not to know that the history of our country is a history of slaveowner against slave, landlord against tenant, corporation against worker, rich against poor—is to render us helpless before all the lesser lies told to us by people in power.

If we as citizens start out with an understanding that these people up there—the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, all those institutions pretending to be “checks and balances”—do not have our interests at heart, we are on a course towards the truth. Not to know that is to make us helpless before determined liars.

The deeply ingrained belief—no, not from birth but from the educational system and from our culture in general—that the United States is an especially virtuous nation makes us especially vulnerable to government deception. It starts early, in the first grade, when we are compelled to “pledge allegiance” (before we even know what that means), forced to proclaim that we are a nation with “liberty and justice for all.”

And then come the countless ceremonies, whether at the ballpark or elsewhere, where we are expected to stand and bow our heads during the singing of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” announcing that we are “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” There is also the unofficial national anthem “God Bless America,” and you are looked on with suspicion if you ask why we would expect God to single out this one nation—just 5 percent of the world’s population—for his or her blessing.
If your starting point for evaluating the world around you is the firm belief that this nation is somehow endowed by Providence with unique qualities that make it morally superior to every other nation on Earth, then you are not likely to question the President when he says we are sending our troops here or there, or bombing this or that, in order to spread our values—democracy, liberty, and let’s not forget free enterprise—to some God-forsaken (literally) place in the world.
It becomes necessary then, if we are going to protect ourselves and our fellow citizens against policies that will be disastrous not only for other people but for Americans too, that we face some facts that disturb the idea of a uniquely virtuous nation.

These facts are embarrassing, but must be faced if we are to be honest. We must face our long history of ethnic cleansing, in which millions of Indians were driven off their land by means of massacres and forced evacuations. And our long history, still not behind us, of slavery, segregation, and racism. We must face our record of imperial conquest, in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, our shameful wars against small countries a tenth our size: Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq. And the lingering memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is not a history of which we can be proud.

Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted that belief in the minds of many people, that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world. At the end of World War II, Henry Luce, with an arrogance appropriate to the owner of Time, Life, and Fortune, pronounced this “the American century,” saying that victory in the war gave the United States the right “to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.”

Both the Republican and Democratic parties have embraced this notion. George Bush, in his Inaugural Address on January 20, 2005, said that spreading liberty around the world was “the calling of our time.” Years before that, in 1993, President Bill Clinton, speaking at a West Point commencement, declared: “The values you learned here . . . will be able to spread throughout this country and throughout the world and give other people the opportunity to live as you have lived, to fulfill your God-given capacities.”

What is the idea of our moral superiority based on? Surely not on our behavior toward people in other parts of the world. Is it based on how well people in the United States live? The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked countries in terms of overall health performance, and the United States was thirty-seventh on the list, though it spends more per capita for health care than any other nation. One of five children in this, the richest country in the world, is born in poverty. There are more than forty countries that have better records on infant mortality. Cuba does better. And there is a sure sign of sickness in society when we lead the world in the number of people in prison—more than two million.

A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world. It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars and killers who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join the rest of the human race in the common cause of peace and justice.

 

The whole piece was an interesting read, but I found the two above to stand out.

Though I dont completely agree with the author I do understand many of his points, and believe they are good ones also. Consider the idea that this administration has done nothing unusual when compared to all those before them, and no matter right or wrong they are just one small piece of the puzzle that is the big picture or problem.

The issue of class and have's and have not's would be a good discussion on its own, and is an interesting subject that I believe does play into much of our discussion here.

The major meaning I get from this is similar to what I had posted earlier about conditioning, keeping the public confused thru smoke and mirrors, and the fact of many just chose the safety of denial.

Still I go back to my recent post on just how would you decide given the current conditions (assumeing the info in the link from georged is accurate etc, which I believe it to be) or even some of the past decisions etc, and ultimately just how would you go about alerting the world to your purpose?

I dont like it, not one bit, but am also not finding a complete solution either.

 

C'mon now george you cant tell us you dont expect this type of report to be somehow missing from the general media [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I mean this one could actually be an honest threat to national security (even if from within) if enough were to believe it, and I mean really believe it.

Thanks for posting the link because I really enjoy reading what others outside the US are saying and thinking, and the scoop seems to be a site that has some good info (not claiming its all right or wrong etc).

Also I have been wondering what relationship there may be between the info we are getting on the news and in the paper etc, and the change in the media ownership laws that alllowed large coporate ownership of anything and everything in any market (previous to the change a corp was only allowed certain amounts of media ownership outlets in a given market). I do know it has had proven effects locally (gannett has a lock on most all of the southern half of my state including small mailed papers).

 

440, speaking of censorship, thats right...here in the good old usa, we have censorship. The last place for free speach, is the internet, and now that is under attack by the same politicians and their corporate masters, that have taken over the newsprint and television. Funny how things like this wont get reported in the main stream press, which again makes me wonder how anyone can claim its a liberal press.


H.R. 1606: Time to ACT
by Adam B
Wed Mar 15, 2006 at 10:49:48 AM PDT

Moments ago, the FEC announced that it will delay its vote on the Internet rulemaking (from tomorrow, 3/16, until 3/23) so that the Commission can see what the House of Representatives does on the issue tomorrow. It's up to you to convince Congress to stand up for H.R. 1606, which is scheduled for a vote tomorrow, and prevent the FEC from voting on new regulations which may change Internet political activity forever.

Everyone here -- everyone -- needs to to pick up the phone and make a call to protect free speech online. Our opponents are ruthless, and we need to tell both Democrats and Republicans to stand up to the "reformers" and stand up for H.R. 1606.

In calling your representative and Democratic leaders to support H.R. 1606, here are some key points you might want to make:

* HR 1606 is a simple bill that just codifies the status quo. This is the system which operated for the 2004 elections, and did not lead to soft money corruption. It creates no new loopholes.
* HR 1606 would help head off an invasive FEC regulatory process which is scheduled for a vote tomorrow on draft regulations no one has seen.
* HR 1606 has the support of leading Democrats including Rep. Steny Hoyer (whip), Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Sherrod Brown, Rep. Jack Murtha, Rep. Maxine Waters and Sen. Harry Reid
* HR 4900 (the CDT proposal) is not now an acceptable alternative to HR 1606. It hasn't been through committee yet and no one is sure of its implications -- for example, its proponents are unwilling to say whether it even protects DailyKos. And given that its proponents have made it clear in the past that they don't want sites like this to operate freely, no politician who claims to be a "friend of the netroots" should want to clear the path for this site's regulation.
* Moreover, HR 4900 accepts as a given that the political activity on the Internet ought to be regulated, and it's just a question of how. Given how well this speech market has policed itself over the years, why disrupt anything?

After you call your Congressman, please give key Democratic House leaders a call. Back in November, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Henry Waxman visited here to explain their then-opposition to H.R. 1606, but they still wanted to "assure the blogging community that we are fully committed to freedom of speech on the Internet and do not support any attempt to subject every day bloggers to FEC regulations or silence the rights of Americans to go online and voice their opinion."

It's time to hold them to it. While my understanding is that they are opposed for the moment to HR 1606, they haven't heard from you yet. So after you dial the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your Congressman, give Reps. Pelosi and Waxman a call, and ask them why they'd support a bill that could be used to regulate this site into silence:

Rep. Pelosi: (202) 225-0100
Rep. Waxman: (202) 225-3976

 

At least we have one senator wholl stand with fiengold on censure.

Tom Harkin: Why I Fully Support Bush Censure

We have a President who likes to break things. He has broken the federal budget, running up $3 trillion in new debt. He has broken the Geneva Conventions, giving the green light to torture. He has repeatedly broken promises – and broken faith – with the American people. And now, worst of all, he has broken the law.

In brazen violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. And, despite getting caught red-handed, he refuses to stop.

Let's be clear: No American – and that must include the President – is above the law. And if we fail to hold Bush to account, then he will be confirmed in his conviction that he can pick and choose among the laws he wants to obey. This is profoundly dangerous to our democracy.

So it is time for Congress to stand up and say enough! That's why, this week, Senator Russ Feingold proposed a resolution to censure George W. Bush for breaking the FISA law. And that's why I fully support this resolution of censure.

Nothing is more important to me than the security of our country. Of course, we need to be listening to the terrorists' conversations. And sometimes there is not time to get a warrant. That's why the FISA law allows the President, when necessary, to wiretap first, and obtain a warrant afterward. But that's not acceptable to this above-the-law President. He rejects the idea that he should have to obtain a warrant before or after wiretapping.

We have an out-of-control President whose arrogant and, now, illegal behavior is running our country into the ditch. It's time to rein him in. And a fine place to start is by passing this resolution of censure. I hope that Senator Feingold's measure will be brought to the floor. And when it is, I will proudly vote yes.