Just when I thought my list itemizing the rationale for impeachment was complete and up-to-date, I discovered this new presidential incursion into our privacy:

Washington - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.

Paperless, anyone? 

Best, Ticia

Impeachment Watch Blogroll, updated 1-4-07 can be found here.

The American people elected a Democratic majority to restore checks and balances, the rule of law, and our reputation as a law-abiding country in the world community. These cannot be accomplished unless President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are impeached. Their impeachable offenses dwarf those that led to proceedings against President Clinton and President Andrew Johnson, and the threatened proceeding against President Richard Nixon combined. The offenses below are already supported with evidence in the public record, including admissions of guilt. It is likely that investigations prior to impeachment would turn up even more.

IMPEACH BUSH & CHENEY FOR:

 • Lying to the American people, Congress, and the world about the threat from Iraq and the need for war.

 • War of aggression against Iraq, which posed no threat to US.

 • Death of over 600,000 Iraqis and 3,000 US troops in unnecessary war.

 • Exploiting 9/11 for political gain and for war to benefit oil companies and other cronies.

 • Cancelling Iraq’s oil contracts with foreign companies and giving them to American corporations and restructuring Iraq’s oil industry to their specification in violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions.

 • Awarding no-bid contracts to cronies for rebuilding and oil exploitation in Iraq.

 • Inciting animosity toward the US by attacking Iraq and falsely claiming it was part of “War on Terror.”

 • Authorizing the use of torture in violation of the Geneva Convention and US law and against the advice of the uniformed military.

 • Participating in the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Haiti and attempting to do so in Venezuela.

 • Failure to fully cooperate with 9/11 Commission and joint congressional inquiry, and refusal to comply with Freedom of Information Act in other areas as well.

 • Warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens.

 • Issuing signing statements that contradict the plain meaning of legislation, including issues of torture, and, the president’s use of 136 signing statements since he took office to exempt himself from the rule of more than 1,000 federal laws.

 • Denying Americans and others habeas corpus rights even after Supreme Court ruled against it.

 • Coercing government employees to lie to Congress and the American people about the cost of Medicare drug benefit, global warning, and toxic hazard of NYC after 9/11.

 • Failure to provide timely aid to Hurricane Katrina victims and appointing someone with no experience to run FEMA.

 • Barring Americans who disagree with the president from public events paid for with taxpayer money, and forcibly removing some with private security posing as Secret Service agents.

Listen to the American people so that we may become again confident that our democracy has been restored.

Sincerely, American Citizen

Impeachment Watch updated 1/1/07 appears here.

In Harper's Magazine for January, 2007, Lewis Lapham targets  Nancy Pelosi’s "impeachment is off the table."  He also chastens Robert Reich's "it would be far better if Democrats used their newfound power to lay out a new agenda for America. There’s no point digging up more dirt." Hear Lapham:

Democracy is born in dirt, nourished by the digging up and turning over of as much of it as can be brought within reach of a television camera or a subpoena. We can’t "lay out a new agenda for America" unless we know which America we’re talking about, the one that embodies the freedoms of a sovereign people or the one made to fit the requirements of a totalitarian state.... Like it or not, and no matter how unpleasant or impolitic the proceedings, the spirit of the law doesn’t allow the luxury of fastidious silence or discreet abstention.... The Constitution doesn’t serve at the pleasure of Representative Pelosi any more than it answers to the whim of President Bush, and by taking "off the table" the mess of an impeachment proceeding, the lady from California joins the president in his distaste for such an unclean thing as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Rightly understood, democracy is an uproar, the argument meant to be blunt, vigilant, and fierce, not, as the purveyors of our respectable opinion would have it, a matter of liveried civil servants passing one another polite synonyms on silver trays.

Describing the Bush Administration as "a predatory government...stealing from a free but inattentive people their lives, liberties, fortunes, good name, and sacred honor," Lapham considers impeaching Bush to be a form of public education, a civic lesson that might "unearth American democracy."

How much longer do we wish to pretend that nothing really happened, or that nothing really valuable is lost;  that the crime is the losing of the Iraq war, not the making of it?  That in place of the constitutional questions asking why, to what end, and whose interest, we can afford to substitute the questions of logistics – how many troops to dispatch or withdraw over a period of how many days or months... what deals to cut with Syria and Iran.

With thanks to yburti at Daily Kos.

Impeachment Watch Blogroll, updated 1/4/07, appears here.

In the most significant movement of dissident soldiers since Vietnam, nearly 1,000 active-duty officers and enlisted personnel have petitioned the government to withdraw from Iraq.
 

As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.

Full story, About Face: Soldiers call for Iraq Withdrawal, appears here.  Impeachment Watch updated 1/1/07 appears here.

Here is an old Scots version of Auld Lang Syne:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

 Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And days of auld lang syne?

Chorus (repeated between stanzas):

For auld lang syne, my dear,

 For auld lang syne

We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet

For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint stoop

And surely I'll be mine

And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet

 For auld lang syne.

 We twa hae run about the braes

 And pou'd the gowans fine

 But we've wander'd mony a weary foot

 Sin' auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl'd i' the burn

Frae mornin' sun till dine

But seas between us braid hae roared

 Sin' auld lang syne.

And here's a hand, my trusty fiere

And gi'e's a hand o' thine

And we'll tak a right good willy waught

For auld lang syne.

Auld Lang Syne means ``old long since'' and is adapted from a traditional Scottish folk tune. The basic words date to at least 1711, though some scholars say it was mentioned as early as 1677. Scottish poet Robert Burns is credited with first publishing it, in the mid-1790s, and, researchers say, smoothing out some of the verses and changing the melody.

The song recalls the days gone by and says we will always remember them. ``Should auld acquaintance be forgot?'' it asks. No, the chorus replies: ``For auld lang syne (for times gone by), we'll tak (drink) a cup o' kindness yet.'' As for the other lyrics, Verse 2 refers to friends at separate places (or pubs), drinking to each other. Verses 3 and 4 talk about a long journey to find that friend, running ``about the braes'' (hillsides), and ``pou'd the gowans fine'' (pulled the pretty daisies), and getting tired doing so (``wander'd mony a weary fit,'' or ``a weary foot'' depending on the version). It continues with wading streams (``paidl'd in the burn''), from dusk until dinnertime, but even then, broad (``braid'') seas roar between them. But finally, in the last verse, the friends find each other. And they ``tak a right guid-willie waught'' (``drink a goodwill drink'') for times gone by.

It wasn't Burns, however, who turned this misty-eyed tune into a New Year's tradition. That would be Guy Lombardo, who first heard the song in his youth from Scottish immigrants in his hometown of London, Ontario. Mr. Traher, who organizes the Royal Canadian Big Band Music Festival and tribute to Lombardo every year in London, says the song stuck in the musician's head.

When Lombardo formed an orchestra with his brother in 1919, they arranged the piece and made it part of their repetoire. ``It seemed appropriate for New Year's -- a time to look back,'' Mr. Traher says. So when the Lombardo brothers got the chance to headline a New Year's Eve party in New York in 1929, they played Auld Lang Syne near midnight, then counted down. For nearly 50 years after that, Guy Lombardo and his orchestra played New Year's Eve radio, and later, television specials from the Waldorf Astoria.