From Daily Kos, signed by all past and present Kos management, and a growing host of other blogs, including this one. Excerpts follow, read the whole thing. Daily Kos gets millions of hits and is probably the foremost liberal/leftie blog. Kos will take serious hits and attacks because of this. Let’s support him.

No on Gonzales. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. In this case, we, the undersigned bloggers, have decided to speak as one and collectively author a document of opposition. We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him.

As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales’s advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Convention, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales’s legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law’s undoing.

With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.

Gonzales is a thug. Public opinion has most definitely been turning leftward of late, with opposition to the war now mainstream. Bush’s Social Security theft, oh sorry “privatization” appears DOA, and Democratic senators led by Boxer are finally speaking out against the war and against the thugs. We may not stop Gonzales from getting the post, but we can make his tenure very difficult. The tide is turning our way. Keep the faith, keep organizing.

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Owen  and Mzee

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US Army failed to conduct full probe into Iraqi torture claims

Army closed many abuse cases early

Army personnel have admitted to beating or threatening to kill Iraqi detainees and stealing money from Iraqi civilians but have not been charged with criminal conduct, according to newly released Army documents.

Not even a slap on the wrist. Instead, a coverup. How very like Vietnam - a war the U.S. military lost. And they are losing this one too.

More torture in Iraq by US troops

Pentagon documents released Monday disclosed that Iraqi prisoners had lodged dozens of abuse complaints against U.S. and Iraqi personnel who guarded them at a little-known palace in Baghdad converted to a U.S. prison. Among the allegations was that guards had sodomized a disabled man and killed his brother, whose dying body was tossed into a cell, atop his sister.

Why do they hate us, oh why do they hate us? And when the alleged humans who did this return to the States, the rates of spousal abuse will soar.

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Global warming is approaching the point of no return, after which widespread drought, crop failure and rising sea levels will be irreversible.

“An ecological time bomb is ticking away,” said Stephen Byers, who was co-chairman of the task force with U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. “World leaders need to recognize that climate change is the single most important long-term issue that the planet faces.”

Republican Senators are now saying global warming is happening. But do the Bushies? Of course not. Convinced of their inerrancy, the neocons insist that short term corporate profits must come before anything else, including the survival of the planet and of themselves and their descendants.

They can be stopped. They will be stopped. The war and the economy will destroy them. Let’s keep the pressure on. Dissent has now gone mainstream, the populace now opposes the war. We are witnessing a phase shift in public opinion. Onward!

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Delivered on January 20, 2005 at Counter-Inaugural demonstration at 4th St. and Pennsylvania Ave in D.C
 
Let me warm you up for a minute by telling you about how cold it was on January the 20th of 1961, literally. The Potomac River was frozen over and I remember seeing a guy ride across it on a motorcycle. And my feet haven’t thawed out yet. I stood up for about 12 hours out here. There was over 20 inches of snow. And the best scene of the inauguration was when a buffalo with a rider came charging down Pennsylvania Avenue, reminded us that this country can be a beautiful place where the buffalo roam, but no more.
 
We’re the ones that are here really to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have to take the Constitution back. Back from Crimes Against Peace, from War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. You know the Nuremburg Tribunal called the War of Aggression the supreme international crime, and it is. And George W. Bush has waged a war of aggression against Iraq. He’s killed more than 100,000 people. Were their lives worth nothing? Can we have a moment of silence in memory of all the people who died in Iraq because of the criminal acts of George W. Bush in waging this war of aggression.

Every moment of their lives is fraught with danger right now because of us. The world is the most dangerous place it’s ever been now because of what our country has done and is doing. And we have to take it back. We can’t wait four more years.

There can’t be any more Fallujahs. Fallujah is the 21st century equivalent of Guernica. We just went in and destroyed that city. Drove the people out, killed them, thousands, we don’t know how many. They won’t even bother to count whose been killed or how many or estimate how many. They just keep killing. Almost every day we’re reading about another check point where some family got wiped out cause they didn’t do what they were supposed to do according to the military there.

Abu Ghraib is unbelievable in the innocent times of 1961, that we would torture people that way and on the instructions of the President of the United States and his highest legal advisors. Torture is okay, they said, go for it fellows. If we can’t renounce that and remove it from office then the Constitution doesn’t work anymore.

We’ve got to do more than take back the Constitution. There has to be accountability for what has happened. The Constitution says that the President, Vice President and other officials of the United States shall be removed from office upon impeachment for and conviction of high crimes and misdemeanors.

If you care about the Constitution you’d better start talking to your member of the House of Representatives and say impeachment now is essential to the integrity of the United States government and to the future of the United States. We’ve had more than 500,000 people sign on to ImpeachBush.org/VoteToImpeach.org. We need to get 5 million and we need to get 5 million on there quick.

And then the Congress will react. The Congress understands something when the people demand it. And the power is in the people. It always has been. The question is whether the people have the will to exercise it.

I think the imperative challenge of the American people now is to live up to the Constitution and demand the impeachment of George W. Bush and other officials of the government who are responsible for these crimes.

We encourage you to participate in the impeachment movement by voting online at ww.ImpeachBush.org.

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