Keith reacts to the Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby, and in the process he covers a lot of ground on everything that is wrong with this administration:

The vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped.

By Bruce Fein
Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007, at 5:06 PM ET

Under Dick Cheney, the office of the vice president has been transformed from a tiny acorn into an unprecedented giant oak. In grasping and exercising presidential powers, Cheney has dulled political accountability and concocted theories for evading the law and Constitution that would have embarrassed King George III. The most recent invention we know of is the vice president's insistence that an executive order governing the handling of classified information in the executive branch does not reach his office because he also serves as president of the Senate. In other words, the vice president is a unique legislative-executive creature standing above and beyond the Constitution. The House judiciary committee should commence an impeachment inquiry. As Alexander Hamilton advised in the Federalist Papers, an impeachable offense is a political crime against the nation. Cheney's multiple crimes against the Constitution clearly qualify.

Take the vice president's preposterous theory that his office is outside the executive branch because it also exercises a legislative function. The same can be said of the president, who also exercises a legislative function in signing or vetoing bills passed by Congress. Under Cheney's bizarre reasoning, President Bush is not part of his own administration: The executive branch becomes acephalous. Today Cheney Chief of Staff David Addington refused to renounce that reasoning, instead laughably trying to diminish the importance of the legal question at issue.

The nation's first vice president, John Adams, bemoaned: "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet common fate." Vice President John Nance Garner, serving under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, lamented: "The vice presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." In modern times, vice presidents have generally been confined to attending state funerals or to distributing blankets after earthquakes.

Then President George W. Bush outsourced the lion's share of his presidency to Vice President Cheney, and Mr. Cheney has made the most of it. Since 9/11, he has proclaimed that all checks and balances and individual liberties are subservient to the president's commander in chief powers in confronting international terrorism. Let's review the record of his abuses and excesses:

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CNN.com
June 13, 2007

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Subpoenas are being issued to two former White House officials, the first to be subpoenaed in the fired U.S. attorneys investigation.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued a subpoena to Sara Taylor, former White House political director. About the same time, it was announced that the House Judiciary Committee will issue a subpoena in the same case to former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

Both committees say they will also subpoena documents from the White House, also a first in the investigation.

The committees have issued subpoenas for officials and documents from the Justice Department. The committees are investigating whether the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year were politically motivated and whether the White House was involved.

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'Disastrous Effects' of Global Warming Tipping Points Near, According to New Study

By BILL BLAKEMORE
ABC News
May 29, 2007

Even "moderate additional" greenhouse emissions are likely to push Earth past "critical tipping points" with "dangerous consequences for the planet," according to research conducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute.

With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."

The study appears in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Its lead author is James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

The forecast effects include "increasingly rapid sea-level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones," according to the NASA announcement.

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State's plan for '08 is paper ballots with scanner for counting

- Abby Goodnough, Christopher Drew, New York Times

Friday, February 2, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle

(02-02) 04:00 PST Delray Beach, Fla. -- Gov. Charlie Crist announced plans Thursday to abandon the touch-screen voting machines that many of Florida's largest counties installed after the disputed 2000 presidential election. The state will instead adopt a system of casting paper ballots counted by scanning machines in time for the 2008 presidential election.

Voting experts said Florida's move, coupled with new federal voting legislation expected this year, could be the death knell for the paperless electronic machines. If, as expected, the Florida Legislature approves the $32.5 million cost of the change, it would be the nation's biggest repudiation yet of touch-screen voting, which was widely embraced after the 2000 recount as a state-of-the-art means of restoring confidence that every vote would count.

Several counties around the country, including Cuyahoga in Ohio and Sarasota in Florida, are moving toward exchanging touch-screen machines for ones that provide a paper trail. But Florida could become the first state that invested heavily in the recent rush to touch screens to reject them so sweepingly.

"Florida is like a synonym for election problems. It's the Bermuda Triangle of elections," said Warren Stewart, policy director of VoteTrust USA, a nonprofit group that has advocated optical scanners as more reliable than touch screens. "For Florida to be clearly contemplating moving away from touch screens to the greatest extent possible is truly significant."

http://www.sfgate.com/..

February 1, 2007
christinejenningsforcongress.com

Thank you, Governor Crist

Today was a very important day in the fight to create safe, reliable, and accurate elections in Florida as Gov. Charlie Crist, joined by Congressman Robert Wexler, unveiled a proposal to ensure paper trails for all voting in Florida.

It’s time to remove the black eye that surrounds elections in Florida, and I applaud Governor Crist and Congressman Wexler for showing such leadership on this issue.

The fight to find out what went wrong in the District 13 election is about more than who won or lost an individual election - it’s about fixing a broken system. This is an important step in that process, and I am hopeful that Congress will soon pass paper trail legislation for the entire nation.

Contact your legislators today (http://www.flsenate.gov/..) - tell them to protect our democracy by supporting Gov. Crist's plan for a paper trail.

Thank you for your support,

Christine

(AP/New York) — Party politics played a role in decisions over whether to take federal control of Louisiana and other areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, former FEMA director Michael Brown said Friday.

Some in the White House suggested only Louisiana should be federalized because it was run by a Democrat, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Brown told a group of graduate students at a lecture on politics and emergency management at Metropolitan College of New York.

Brown said he had recommended to President Bush that all 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast affected by the hurricane be federalized, making the federal government in charge of all agencies responding to the disaster.

"Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking we had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor and we have a chance to rub her nose in it," he said.

full story at Time.com

By CARL HIAASEN
MiamiHerald.com
Sun, Dec. 17, 2006

The first time I tried a touch-screen voting machine was Nov. 7. It was not an experience that inspired confidence.

When I pressed a finger down to select my choice for governor, a mark appeared beside the name of a different candidate at the bottom of the list. A poll worker insisted that the device was working properly, and suggested that I'd accidentally touched it in the wrong place with my ``wrist.''

I'd done no such thing. The machine screwed up.

I hit another command to nullify the wrong vote, corrected it and moved on through the remainder of the ballot. After I finished, the machine allowed me to re-check all my selections to make sure they were right.

Whether or not the votes actually were recorded that way, I'll never know. No paper receipt was provided.

http://www.miami.com/..

Democratic candidate talks of insurance reform during Charlotte County visit

By KEVIN DALE / Sarasota Herald Trbune

PORT CHARLOTTE -- Tim Mahoney made his first campaign stop in Charlotte County on Wednesday since the Mark Foley scandal rewrote the race and made Mahoney the favorite in the 16th Congressional District.

Mahoney, a Palm Beach Gardens Democrat, tried to avoid the inevitable discussion about Foley's downfall and instead stick to an issues-oriented script.

"Actually, I am getting a little fatigued talking about it," said Mahoney, 50. "I wish the best for him, and I wish the best for the people that are involved."

story continued at heraldtribune.com