Pardon My Politics

Since 9/11, the Bush administration and their legal sycophants in the Justice Department and right-wing think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society, have claimed that the criminal regime in Washington has the legal right to employ any tactic to pursue its sordid agenda.

Americans should heed the urgings of Mark Sanford (R) a former House member and current governor of Georgia, who is urging Americans to prod their lawmakers into debating REAL ID, pointing out that the revolutionary, Constitution-defying legislation passed as an amendment to a major bill without hearings or debate. REAL ID "never saw committee debate in the House and Senate, and passed as nothing more than a rider, an attachment to a bill devoted to tsunami relief and military personnel fighting in the Middle East," Sanford wrote in a Washington Times commentary.

Five former secretaries of state met in Athens, Ga. recently to formulate bipartisan foreign policy suggestions for the next president. All five former secretaries (Powell, Kissinger, Albright, Baker and Christopher) agreed on two important recommendations: The U.S. should open a dialogue with Iran, and the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay should be closed. The first recommendation is a no-brainer, but it will have to wait for a new president because the only kind of diplomacy the Bush Administration understands is gunboat diplomacy. The second recommendation (closing the prison camp at Gitmo), should begin immediately. Guantanamo prison, and what has transpired there during George Bush’s war of terror, is an embarrassment to America.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have criticized the Department of Homeland Security for pressuring balky states to adopt new federally approved drivers licenses, with one accusing Secretary Michael Chertoff of “bullying” the states into compliance under a threat of blocking citizens’ travel. “We ought to engage in a fairer, more ...

A Pennsylvania legislative committee’s hearing on March 13 about the so-called Real ID Act was packed with people—most of whom oppose this federal legislation to create a national identification system by nationalizing a new form of state-issued drivers licenses and loading them with sensitive personal information. Only two members of the 29-member Intergovernmental Affairs Committee showed up to hear the public, even though many citizens went to much expense to be there. The regular media also were absent.