Terminating Arnold: A Cat’s Eye View of California Politics
I channel my cats. I really do. I know what they’re thinking and I simply translate these impressions into humanese. My three-year-old tabby, Atticus Bach, likes to watch television with me, suffers through my morbid CNN addiction, and forms his own opinions.
Censure and Impeachment
Congressman John Conyers has introduced a bill to censure Bush, another to censure Cheney, and a third to create a select committee to investigate and make recommendations on grounds for possible impeachment. The reaction I'm hearing seems to be three-quarters enthusiasm and one-quarter concern that censuring Bush and Cheney will hurt the chances of impeaching them.
The Pentagon is Spying on You; Don't Worry It's for Your Own Good
This past week, Bush admitted to giving a 2002 order to the National Security Agency (NSA), a super-secret, subsidiary of the Pentagon believed to be even larger than the CIA, to spy on Americans by wiretapping international phone calls and reading e-mails without warrants.
Spying On Us: Bush's Drive to a Police State
ow it is common knowledge that there are secret courts, detention programs, searches, seizures and wiretappings of U.S. citizens without warrant based on what are essentially secret determinations of probable cause, meaning that evidence about their connection to terrorism or their involvement with any group deemed an 'aid international terrorism' is kept secret.
What Is It That Lies Beneath the Lion’s Balls?
On an unusually warm day in late October, I found myself lying face-up, on a comfortable stretch of grass, between two old, flaking tombstones, in Halifax’s oldest graveyard, St. Paul’s Cemetery.
Bush’s Monty Python View of History
It's one thing to say the emperor has no clothes. It is another thing to say that the emperor has no mind or thinks that we have no mind. George Bush is on the hustings defending the occupation of Iraq. And George Bush is determined to prove that George Santayana was wrong when he said (a paraphrase) that those who learn nothing from history are condemned to repeat it.
Do Not Execute Stanley Williams!
Clearly Stanley Williams is not an appropriate candidate for the death penalty. His trial was riddled with extraordinary constitutional violations. Additionally Williams has reformed in prison and can serve as an asset to society while serving a term of life in prison without possibility of parole.
Open Letter: No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame
Dear Mrs. Bush: I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the breakfast at the White House.
Progressive Primary Challenge to Hilary Launched
On Tuesday in New York, Jonathan Tasini will announce the launch of his campaign for United States Senate, challenging Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primary.
The Shameful Blasphemy of the Religious Right
In the 1930's, when I was but a child, my aunt was married to a travelling evangelist who presided over camp meetings and she was very proud of his work. She loved telling me of his 'miracles' of healing, saving souls, and casting out demons.
