Express Yourself!

<p>So, George W. is spying on us without court oversight, and he claims that he's done nothing wrong.  And despite media criticism of his illegal activities, Bush has <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/19/bush/">no intention of ceasing these warrantless wiretaps</a>.  Historically, courts deny very few wiretaps, so what is W's excuse for by-passing the court system, whose role is simply to ensure that the executive branch does not engage in spying excesses?  Who could object to that?  No one is saying that Bush cannot root-out <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda">Al Qaeda</a> operatives.  Just keep the courts in the loop! </p><p>In addition to the spying, Bush feels that the ban on torture introduced into the defense appropriations bill by Vietnam veteran Senator <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain">John McCain</a> does not apply to him, despite signing the legislation.  According to the Boston Globe article from January 4, 2006, &quot;Bush issued a &quot;signing statement&quot;, declaring that he will view the interrogation limits  in the context of his broader powers to protect national security.&quot;  I shudder to think what this might mean for US citizens in the hands of hostile forces!  </p><p>It seems W. feels that he's above all laws! Is somebody feeling a little superior?</p>

<p align="left">For a long time I was torn between Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, as to who was the sleaziest.  Dick Cheney had a slight lead with his clear conflict of interest through Halliburton that this country engages in war.  But watching Donald Rumsfeld on the yesterday's evening news made an open-and-shut case for him.  Donald Rumsfeld was clearly suppressing laughter while characterizing the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/21/144252">hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay</a> detention facility as being on a diet.  Given our human rights abuses, I am so in fear for our troupes!  Please, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld stop chuckling at our human rights abuses.  If we do not treat others humanely, how can we expect others to treat our citizens humanely?</p>

<font size="2"><p>A recent <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9280375/site/newsweek/">Newsweek poll shows</a> that 55% of the American people think Bush is doing a poor job and only 28% think that he is doing a good job. Hooray to the American people! We finally understand that, yes, George W. Bush has never accomplished anything productive in his life, other than take advantage of his family name, and create business (or job) opportunities for his political contributors, like Michael Brown.  <font size="2">Finally an opportunity presents itself for George W. to lead, and what happens?  Disaster!  The outrage that is directed at Michael Brown should be redirected to the real culprit, George W. Bush.  Michael Brown clearly has no qualifications to lead FEMA, other than agreeing to sit by and watch silently while FEMA is gutted.  Hearing Brown recently whine about FEMA's lack of funding was nothing short of sickening.</font></p><p>In stark contrast to the lack of food and water that thousands of Katrina survivors experienced in the Super Dome, <font size="2">I was struck by the Herculean efforts that are being made to rescue individual houses that are threatened by California wildfires. <font size="2">I watched in amazement while plane after plane dropped fire retardant or water in the vicinity of a single home.  All this is happening for individual multimillion dollar homes, while over 100,000 Katrina victims still live in shelters and almost 1/2 million live in hotels.  Given the racial disparities in wealth, the racism occurred when FEMA was dismantled, because the wealthy do not depend on such agencies.</font></font></p></font>

<p>At <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050525/news_1n25stem.html">George W's recent press conference</a> in which he held fast in his opposition to using human embryos for advancing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell">stem cell</a> research, I couldn't help but notice that the all of the &quot;snowflake&quot; babies where white as snow.  Isn't that interesting!  The snowflake babies/children were created from donated embryos left over from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IVF">in vitro fertilization</a> (IVF).  The inherent hypocrisy stems (pardon the pun) from the fact that IVF wastes many embryos because many IVF attempts do not implant successfully and die/are wasted depending on your perspective.  Additionally, once a women is successfully implanted (becomes pregnant), her left over embryos are discarded.  It seems those who are crying foul on stem cell research, should also be protesting IVF.  Wouldn't you think?</p>