V A Approves Use of Wiccan Symbol

A HUGE step in the right direction towards religions tolerance and understanding...
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WASHINGTON— To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.

The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced on Monday by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case.
Though it has many forms, Wicca is a type of pre-Christian belief that reveres nature and its cycles. Its symbol is the pentacle, a five-pointed star, inside a circle...

Until now, the Veterans Affairs department had approved 38 symbols to indicate the faith of deceased service members on memorials. It normally takes a few months for a petition by a faith group to win the department’s approval, but the effort on behalf of the Wiccan symbol took about 10 years and a lawsuit, said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United.

The group attributed the delay to religious discrimination. Many Americans do not consider Wicca a religion, or hold the mistaken belief that Wiccans are devil worshipers.

“The Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special treatment,” the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said at a news conference Monday. “They wanted precisely the same treatment that dozens of other religions already had received from the department, an acknowledgment that their spiritual beliefs were on par with those of everyone else.”

A Veterans Affairs spokesman, Matt Burns, confirmed that the “V.A. will be adding the pentacle to its list of approved emblems of belief that will be engraved on government-provided markers.”

“The government acted to settle in the interest of the families concerned,” Mr. Burns added, “and to spare taxpayers the expense of further litigation.”

There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags.

At least 11 families will be immediately affected by the V.A.’s decision, said the Rev. Selena Fox, senior minister of Circle Sanctuary, a Wiccan church in Wisconsin.

In reviewing 30,000 pages of documents from Veterans Affairs, Americans United said, it found e-mail and memorandums referring to negative comments President Bush made about Wicca in an interview with “Good Morning America” in 1999, when he was governor of Texas. The interview had to do with a controversy at the time about Wiccan soldiers’ being allowed to worship at Fort Hood, Tex.

“I don’t think witchcraft is a religion,” Mr. Bush said at the time, according to a transcript. “I would hope the military officials would take a second look at the decision they made.”
Americans United did not assert that the White House influenced the Veterans Affairs Department. Under the settlement, Americans United had to return the documents and could not copy them, though it could make limited comments about their contents, Mr. Katskee said.
Americans United filed the lawsuit last November on behalf of several Wiccan military families. Among the plaintiffs was Roberta Stewart, whose husband, Sgt. Patrick Stewart, was killed in September 2005 in Afghanistan.

Ms. Stewart said she had tried various avenues to get the pentacle approved. Late last year, Gov. Kenny Guinn of Nevada, her home state, approved the placing of a marker with a pentacle in a Veterans Affairs cemetery in Fernley, east of Reno. But Ms. Stewart said she had continued to pursue the lawsuit because she wanted the federal government to approve the markers.
Other religious groups that have often opposed Americans United supported the effort to have the government approve the pentacle.

“I was just aghast that someone who would fight for their country and die for their country would not get the symbol he wanted on his gravestone,” said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which litigates many First Amendment cases. “It’s just overt religious discrimination.”

Are You Kidding Me?

Laura Bush on The Today Show April 25, 2007:

ANN CURRY: Do you know the American people are suffering… watching [Iraq]?

LAURA BUSH: Oh, I know that very much, and, believe me, no suffers morethan their president and I do when we watch this. And certainly the commander-in-chief who has asked our military to go into harm's way.

AC: What do you think the American people need to know…

LB: Well, I hope they do know the burden of worry that's on his shoulders every single day for our troops. And I think they do. I think if they don't, they're not seeing what the real responsibilities of our president are.

AC: It must be hard for you to watch him in this.

LB: It's hard. Of course, it's absolutely hard.

Believe me, Laura, there are many others who suffer more than you and your husband when they watch on TV the horrors of Iraq. I can name several people that I know personally, myself included, who have suffered much more than you because of this war. You only have to watch it on TV when you chose to. You can turn it off and on at will and walk away from it. Thousands upon thousands of others, however, cannot.

Have you stayed up all night, walking the floors of your home, wondering about the last moments of your child’s life? Have you had to sit back and watch as your daughters mourned their big brother, their only brother, who is now dead? Have you held and comforted your husband whose heart has broken? Just tell me, how have you and the President suffered in all of this, tucked away safe and sound in your Ivory Tower?

What about the military families who send their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, moms and dads into battle over and over again? Have you suffered the way they have? Have you lost your job, your family? Have you or any member of your family come home maimed for life from the loss of limbs? Has any member of your family suffered from PTSD or suicidal thoughts? Have you sat up all night wondering if you will ever hear from your loved one again because you know they are in harm’s way?

Let’s talk about the soldiers who are not getting the supplies and equipment they need but are doing their best every single day to do their jobs in an impossible situation – because your husband sent them to an ill-begotten, immoral and unjust war against a country and a people who did not attack us. They miss their homes, their families, their lives. And their lives will never be the same if they do come home unharmed. The men and women of our military have suffered much more than you and George.

Most of all, have you even given one ounce of thought to the people of Iraq? What about their suffering? How many tens of thousands of deaths have they suffered? How many of their homes have been destroyed? How many whole families have been killed?

I promise you, Laura, there is absolutely no way you and George have suffered even close to the suffering of the military families, the soldiers, the people of Iraq have suffered. You could not unless you sent one of your beloved children or other family members into the war. You are so far removed from it that I don’t think you have the capacity for understanding what the true suffering of the war in Iraq is. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that you, as a woman and a mother, probably do have some empathy for the suffering. But you do not understand. Not even close.

Please do not insult our intelligence and the sacrifice of the soldiers and their families or the people of Iraq with such comments again.

Amy Branham
Gold Star Mom
Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith U.S. Army Reserves
Nov. 1981 – Feb. 2004
Houston, TX
abranham@houston.rr.com

George Gets a Purple Heart

Friends, stuff like this just turns my stomach. What an insult to all of those soldiers who actually served this country and earned their Purple Heart...

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Kerry didn't "earn" his, but George accepts one for his "emotional wounds and scars."

From http://www.crooksandliars.com/ (in case you want to follow the links):

Decorated Texas Vet Presents G-Dub With A Purple Heart
By: Mike Finnigan @ 10:02 AM - PDT

The Cove Herald:
WASHINGTON – Bill and Georgia Thomas reported they were elated Monday when they met in the Oval Office with President George W. Bush to present him with a Purple Heart.
"We were just absolutely bowled over. Without reservation, it was one of the highlights of our life. He was such a gracious host," Thomas said. "It was just an incredible, incredible experience."

The couple was able to meet with President Bush for about 20 minutes to present him with one of three Purple Hearts that Bill Thomas received during his service in Vietnam.

"He said he didn't feel like he had earned it," Thomas said, noting the president looked thinner in person than on television.

Thomas said he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chief has withstood during his time in office.

"We feel like emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds," Thomas said.
This story is jaw-dropping on all kinds of levels. Consider: Then-Congressman George H. W. Bush used his considerable political power to jump Junior to the top of a list of over 500 applicants for his Texas Air National Guard position as a pilot, despite his receiving the minimum passing score on the pilot entrance aptitude test, and listing no other qualifications. In a 1994 interview, Bush stated that he joined the Guard because "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes." After the American taxpayers paid $1 million to train the young aviator, he went AWOL.

The record of how the president and his Republican cohorts "support the troops" is damning. We could fill pages of this blog with outrages, but just look here, here, here, here, and here. Remember the Walter Reed hospital scandal? Then there is the spoiled food, the contaminated water, and the extended tours.

Apparently, Mr. Thomas has failed to notice how the president and his henchmen treat decorated veterans. John Kerry isn't the only military hero victimized by BUSHCO's vicious smears. John Murtha, John McCain, and Max Cleland are other notable cases. Mr. Thomas has a right to do whatever he wishes with his medals, but George Bush, a man who likes to dress up like a soldier but didn't want to be one, a man who still hasn't attended a single fallen soldiers' burial, had no right to participate in this grotesque sham.

Thoughts On a Thursday Morning

These past few weeks I've been feeling pretty down, depressed, under the weather -- whatever you want to call it. I look around me, listen to the news, read news articles and stories on the internet and feel depressed.

So many things to take up our time and attention, so many things going on. What to do? Where to start? Which issue(s) are the most important? Where do I put my time and limited energy? And just exactly where do I fit in all of this? I don't know. So, I'm in the process of narrowing down where to focus my time and my energy, my place in all of this and what I can do to make some kind of difference in the world.

When I was somewhat younger than I am now, let's say a teenager, I had my head in the clouds and thought I had everything figured out. I knew that I wanted my life to count for something, somehow, and to leave the world a better place at the end of my time here. I wanted to make a difference in the world. As time went on, I got married, had three children and began living the life of a harried, busy mom and wife with very little time for anything else.

Now my kids are all grown up, gone from home, living their own lives -- except for my son whose life was cut short and we had to bury him. I have divorced and remarried, become a grandmother, stepmom, peace activist and a writer. Jeremy's death gave me the opportunity to find my voice and to find a way to make some kind of difference in the world, the chance to do what I had hoped and wanted to do when I was younger. What a terrible way for this to happen, but it happened and I cannot change it.

So, back to figuring out where my priorities are and my thoughts about those priorities, why I feel so tired, so downhearted these days.

For the past two years I have been working to raise public awareness about the war in Iraq and to change the course of the war -- by ending it. I do this mostly by writing articles now and then and also by talking to people I meet, to groups of people, and by writing letters to newspapers, elected Representatives and by my blog. Mostly I do not travel much to protests and actions. While I believe protests and actions are effective and have their place, I also believe that the best way to reach the people we need to reach out to is through the internet and personal correspondence. And I have had success in this.

Ending the war in Iraq and, now, preventing attacks on Iran, further escalating the furor of the people of the Middle East towards our country and destabilizing that part of the world, is top on my list of priorities.

But also, now, we need to consider Global Warming and its threat to human beings. We have not taken care of our planet and She is threatening to take things into Her own hands and set them right if we don't do it ourselves. It's a scary thing to comprehend because if we don't make the drastic changes that need to be made, and do them NOW, human beings and most other life on this planet will cease to exist. Life as we know it, at the very least, will be gone.

Sometimes I stay awake at night and ponder these issues and wonder how in the world I can make a difference. And I wonder why I even try. I know the part I have to play in all of this is very small, miniscule, in fact. I want to scream as loud as I possibly can to the world and ask them, "Why aren't you doing something??" I want to scream at the people who run this country and who ignore We, The People, "Why aren't you listening to us?" And I want to scream at the people of my country who still support the war or those who remain complacent and ignorant of what is going on, to those who will not do anything "Why won't you wake up and smell the coffee?"

There are a great many people who have awakened and smelled the coffee, who are doing what they can to try and change the course of the war, to end it, and to curb Global Warming. A lot of people. But not enough people. This is going to take every single one of us to do. It can't be left to a few people to make the changes necessary to make a difference on the scale that it needs. We all have to be involved.

I wonder.... If we do nothing about the things we see happening in the world and around us, do we deserve what we get?

I don't know. I just don't know.

Here is what I do know for sure... I am not ready to give up on humanity. I am not ready to give up on the innate goodness that I believe exists in every human being. I'm just not ready.

So I'll keep doing what I do best. And in the meantime, I'm recycling, turning down my thermostat and looking for bees in my gardens.

Peace,
Amy

Step It Up for Peace and Planet

Step it Up for Peace and Planet
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/21140
By David Swanson

The Cheney energy meeting, the Iraq Study Group, the Supplemental spending bill, the choice of which buildings to defend after Shock and Awe, Iraq's proposed new hydrocarbon law, the threat of an attack on Iran, and the sudden recognition of reality that comes from throwing away your television, all suggest that we've just wasted four years, hundreds of thousands of lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars, for oil. That ought to be sufficient reason to kick the oil habit. But we live in an age when sufficient reasons are never good enough and never all we get. In fact, it's much worse than we thought.

As journalist Dave Lindorff points out, we need to face up, not to an inconvenient truth about climate change, but to a terrifying truth, one that demands radical changes in how we behave, as a society and as individuals: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/21108

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that humans are causing global climate chaos and that the effects are going to be… Well, let's just say that only John McCain will find them pleasant. To quote the Associated Press:

"Rising global temperatures could melt Latin America's glaciers within 15 years, cause food shortages affecting 130 million people across Asia by 2050 and wipe out Africa's wheat crop….[G]lobal warming could cost the Brazilian rain forest up to 30 percent of its species and turn large swaths into savannah….[O]cean levels are projected to rise 4.3 feet by 2080 and flood low-lying cities including Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Polar ice caps are likely to melt, opening a waterway at the North Pole and threatening to make the Panama Canal obsolete….Warmer waters will spawn bigger and more dangerous hurricanes that will threaten coastlines not traditionally affected by them. Many Latin American farmers will have to abandon traditional crops such as corn, rice, wheat and sugar as their soil becomes increasingly saline, and ranchers will have to find new ways to feed their livestock….Africa is most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The fallout from a swiftly warming planet -- extreme weather, flooding, outbreaks of disease -- will only exacerbate troubles in the world's poorest continent…"

This sounds serious, more serious than the recommendations of the scientists reporting the dangers, which include "demanding that governments ensure that global greenhouse gas emissions start falling within 15 years." (START in 15 years???)

This Saturday, April 14th, people all over the United States will be taking on this issue with a wide variety of events. In fact, there's a website set up with the best events system I've ever seen, currently showing 1,347 events planned in 50 states, displayed on a map, and locatable by zip code. The effort is called "Step it up" and the website is http://stepitup2007.org You can almost certainly find an event there that's near you. And you might want to seriously consider taking part. Again, this is serious.

The crisis may even be more serious than the solution called for by "Step it up," whose message is: "Step it up, Congress! Cut Carbon 80% by 2050."

By 2050? Well, it's a more serious proposal than we're hearing from our politicians, and more long-term. But how will we get there? What percentage will we cut by 2010? How will we make it happen? And will it be enough to avoid climate catastrophe?

If you can't find a Step It Up event near you, I recommend that you do this: 1. create and host an event yourself, posting it on the website, and 2. get some copies of "Solartopia" to read and discuss with anyone you can gather together. http://www.solartopia.org

"Solartopia" is Harvey Wasserman's brilliant vision of a green-powered Earth in the year 2030, having just barely survived climate weirdness and gone on to reach a zero-waste economy through the development of energy technologies that did not require tradeoffs with wealth or well-being, but rather generated jobs and cash along with clean air and water. In Solartopia, the people of the world have banished the power of King CONG for good. CONG stands for Coal, Oil, Nuclear, and Gas. And they've done so, not through magic, and not through war, but through the sort of decisions and actions we are going to have to reproduce in reality very, very soon.

In Solartopia, there are no more suburbs and no more lawns. Lawns have become vegetable gardens. The land is used, not poisoned. The food is grown locally, not shipped in. While Wasserman does not discuss this at any length, there may be additional benefits to such a change, related not just to community-building but also to the pleasures of hands-on work on a small farming project with family and friends. In fact, I spoke recently with a psychotherapist named Robert Bornt who said that he has seen trouble young men and boys benefit tremendously from a program that involves farming, and building relationships and learning to handle emotions on a farm.

Bornt has teamed up with gold star mother and peace activist Cindy Sheehan for a project that may soon do a lot of people a world of good while making a highly symbolic point. They are going to turn Cindy's five-acre Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, into a farm for therapy and recovery for war veterans. To do this in the town of our oil-baron war maker, a man who thinks he can discard the earth the way he discards used soldiers and marines, is a powerful statement. It may even become a model for a future sustainable ecology: http://www.campcaseyblog.org

Where are the bees?

Mysterious disappearance of US bees creating a buzz
by Jean-Louis SantiniFri Apr 6, 10:53 PM ET

US beekeepers have been stung in recent months by the mysterious disappearance of millions of bees threatening honey supplies as well as crops which depend on the insects for pollination.
Bee numbers on parts of the east coast and in Texas have fallen by more than 70 percent, while California has seen colonies drop by 30 to 60 percent.

According to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture, bees are vanishing across a total of 22 states, and for the time being no one really knows why.

"Approximately 40 percent of my 2,000 colonies are currently dead and this is the greatest winter colony mortality I have ever experienced in my 30 years of beekeeping," apiarist Gene Brandi, from the California State Beekeepers Association, told Congress recently.

It is normal for hives to see populations fall by some 20 percent during the winter, but the sharp loss of bees is causing concern, especially as domestic US bee colonies have been steadily decreasing since 1980.

There are some 2.4 million professional hives in the country, according to the Agriculture Department, 25 percent fewer than at the start of the 1980s.

And the number of beekeepers has halved.

The situation is so bad, that beekeepers are now calling for some kind of government intervention, warning the flight of the bees could be catastrophic for crop growers.
Domestic bees are essential for pollinating some 90 varieties of vegetables and fruits, such as apples, avocados, and blueberries and cherries.

"The pollination work of honey bees increases the yield and quality of United States crops by approximately 15 billion dollars annually including six billion in California," Brandi said.
California's almond industry alone contributes two billion dollars to the local economy, and depends on 1.4 million bees which are brought from around the US every year to help pollinate the trees, he added.

The phenomenon now being witnessed across the United States has been dubbed "colony collapse disorder," or CCD, by scientists as they seek to explain what is causing the bees to literally disappear in droves.

The usual suspects to which bees are known to be vulnerable such as the varroa mite, an external parasite which attacks honey bees and which can wipe out a hive, appear not to be the main cause.

"CCD is associated with unique symptoms, not seen in normal collapses associated with varroa mites and honey bee viruses or in colony deaths due to winter kill," entomologist Diana Cox-Foster told the Congress committee.

In cases of colony collapse disorder, flourishing hives are suddenly depopulated leaving few, if any, surviving bees behind.

The queen bee, which is the only one in the hive allowed to reproduce, is found with just a handful of young worker bees and a reserve of food.

Curiously though no dead bees are found either inside or outside the hive.

The fact that other bees or parasites seem to shun the emptied hives raises suspicions that some kind of toxin or chemical is keeping the insects away, Cox-Foster said.

Those bees found in such devastated colonies also all seem to be infected with multiple micro-organisms, many of which are known to be behind stress-related illness in bees.
Scientists working to unravel the mysteries behind CCD believe a new pathogen may be the cause, or a new kind of chemical product which could be weakening the insects' immune systems.

The finger of suspicion is being pointed at agriculture pesticides such as the widely-used neonicotinoides, which are already known to be poisonous to bees.

France saw a huge fall in its bee population in the 1990s, blamed on the insecticide Gaucho which has now been banned in the country.

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.

Silencing Protesters to Keep Traffic Flowing

Silencing protestors to keep traffic flowing
03:40 PM CDT on Tuesday, April 3, 2007
By Doug Miller / 11 News

Protestors gather every week on bridges over the Southwest Freeway.

But now Houston Councilmember Michael Berry wants to shut the demonstrations down. “Well, you don’t have a right to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. And you don’t have a right to stand on a freeway and create gridlock. And when somebody gets killed on that freeway, that’s going to be well beyond their first amendment rights. We have a public safety right and a responsibility and a duty to stop them from distracting traffic and creating gridlock. And we’re not going to let them continue to do it.”
KHOU - TV

Demonstrators like Bob Carter believe they’re catching heat not because of their medium, but their sometimes politically unpopular messages. “He thinks that we might be causing a traffic problem. That is simply not true, because you can go out there any day of the week at 5:00 to about 6:30 and sometimes later, even at 5:00, it’s like a parking lot out there. So we are not causing a traffic problem.”

Still, constitutional law experts like Gerald Treece say city governments can and do declare some places off limits for exercises of free speech. “Here’s the catch, though. They’ve got to be really serious about it. They can’t ban one type of speech and then permit signs saying, ‘Go Texans’ or ‘Go Astros.’ They have to be totally viewpoint and content neutral.”

That’s part of the reason our legal expert believes the city government would have a tough time chasing the protesters away from the Southwest Freeway.

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou070403_jj_freewayprotest.2bee8d33.html

Impeachment Resolution in Texas -- HCR No. 154

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/80R/billtext/html/HC00154I.htm
By: Burnam
H.C.R. No. 154

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The elemental source for initiating congressional
impeachment proceedings is found in The Constitution, Jefferson's
Manual, and Rules of the United States House of Representatives;
Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice
authorizes federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint
resolution of a state or territorial legislature as a matter of
privilege; and
WHEREAS, Precedent for employing this authority is
well-established and documented in Hinds' Precedents of the House
of Representatives of the United States; one such entry relates to a
1903 joint resolution passed by the Florida state legislature
requesting that the U.S. Congress impeach U.S. District Judge
Charles Swayne that resulted in a senate trial; and
WHEREAS, Invoking this authority, the people of the state of
Texas charge that President George W. Bush has violated the United
States Constitution and other federal law and abused the power of
his office to the extreme detriment of the country and the interests
of its citizens, actions that constitute high crimes and
misdemeanors; and
WHEREAS, President Bush conspired with others to defraud the
United States of America by intentionally misleading the congress
and the nation regarding an Iraqi threat to the American people to
justify a war in direct defiance of the United Nations Security
Council and in violation of Section 371, Title 18, United States
Code; in so doing, President Bush and members of his
administration: 1) overstated the offensive capabilities of Iraq,
including that country's supposed possession of weapons of mass
destruction, and manipulated and distorted intelligence relating
to Iraq's weapons program during a plenary session of the United
Nations and in direct contradiction to evidence gathered by
international weapons inspectors; 2) manipulated public opinion by
repeatedly and erroneously linking Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi
government with the terrorist organization responsible for the
attacks of September 11, 2001, al Qaeda; and 3) manipulated public
opinion by stating in the State of the Union Address that Saddam
Hussein had sought "significant quantities of uranium from Africa,"
despite confirmation from the Central Intelligence Agency and
officials from foreign governments that the documents supporting
these claims were forged; and
WHEREAS, The Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq in
2003 was an unnecessarily reckless endeavor; while Saddam Hussein
was a despotic leader who had used chemical weapons against Iran, as
well as the Kurdish and Shia people, and required prudent and
efficacious attention by the United States and the international
community in order to maintain peace and stability in the Middle
East, the invasion of Iraq, in fact, necessitated the removal of
United Nations weapons inspectors who were on the ground in Iraq and
uninhibited from performing their job of monitoring Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction capabilities; in fact, during the 11 years
before the invasion, the United States enforced a no-fly zone over
60 percent of Iraq's airspace, significantly restricting the
country's military movement and activity throughout its territory;
and
WHEREAS, Indeed, Iraq posed no threat to the territory or
people of the United States, yet the 2003 invasion of Iraq has
resulted in the deaths of more than 3,200 American soldiers and a
reported 59,000 Iraqi civilians, over 23,000 wounded American
soldiers, and severely diminished American military readiness; the
fiscal cost of the war will reach $500 billion by the end of 2007;
and
WHEREAS, In addition, to meet the needed manpower to execute
the invasion, President Bush has federalized and deployed members
of the Texas National Guard overseas, thereby subverting the power
granted to congress under Section 8, Article 1, United States
Constitution, to call "forth the militia to execute the laws of the
Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions"; regrettably,
the illegal deployment of the Texas National Guard deprives the
state of its primary mechanism for defense and emergency response,
needlessly jeopardizing the safety of Texans; and
WHEREAS, Under the guise of the war on terror, the Bush
Administration has held American citizens and citizens of other
sovereign nations without charge or trial; despite these secretive
detentions, the United States has been embarrassed by revelations
of torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and evidence
suggests that President Bush has authorized the use of similar acts
of torture in the interrogation of detainees in American facilities
around the world; and
WHEREAS, These detentions are clear violations of
international and federal law; as a signatory to the Geneva
Conventions, the United States is bound to provisions of Article 13
requiring that "Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely
treated . . ." and Article 17 stating that "no physical or mental
torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on
prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind
whatever"; and
WHEREAS, Furthermore, the War Crimes Act of 1996 provides
that a person who acts in breach of the Geneva Conventions has
committed a war crime and is subject to punishment under federal
law; similarly, Article VI of the United States Constitution
provides that ". . . all treaties made, or which shall be made,
under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law
of the land . . . ."; and
WHEREAS, The Bush Administration's defiance of the Geneva
Conventions has potentially threatened the lives and well-being of
American soldiers captured as prisoners of war in future conflicts;
likewise, the Bush Administration's defiance of international law
has tarnished the United States' reputation as a country founded on
principles of human rights and diminished America's integrity and
influence in the international community; and
WHEREAS, In an effort to further manipulate public opinion
relating to the justification for the Iraq war, the Bush
Administration leaked classified information, knowingly revealing
the identities of covert U.S. intelligence agents and exposing them
to potential harm and retribution; and
WHEREAS, The Bush Administration's breaches of law are not
limited to international affairs, having similarly violated the
public trust by suppressing scientific information and altering
government documents relating to the causes and effects of global
warming with the intention of deceiving the American public; and
WHEREAS, President Bush's illegal actions have also
undermined the balance of power between the branches of government;
in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, President Bush has
publicly admitted to ordering the National Security Agency to
contravene provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
of 1978, specifically authorizing the agency to spy on American
citizens without securing a search warrant; and
WHEREAS, President Bush has also subverted congressional
authority with regard to domestic policy by filing hundreds of
signing statements that declare the administration's official
legal interpretation of legislation passed by congress; in more
than 750 instances, the president has asserted an authority to
ignore numerous sections of the bills he has signed into law,
including legislation relating to military rules and regulations,
affirmative-action provisions, requirements that congress be told
about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections
for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political
interference in federally funded research; and
WHEREAS, Moreover, President Bush has overtly undermined the
authority of congress; the Bush Administration has undermined
specific provisions of the Clean Air Act by changing Environmental
Protection Agency rules to allow older power plants, refineries,
and factories to upgrade their facilities without installing newer,
more advanced pollution control technologies, thereby increasing
the amount of pollution and threatening the health of all
Americans; and
WHEREAS, In order to secure passage of the Medicare
Prescription Drug, Modernization, and Improvement Act of 2003, the
Bush Administration knowingly misled congress regarding the cost of
the bill by providing a $400 billion cost estimate to lawmakers
while government documents revealed the true cost was calculated by
administration officials to exceed $500 billion; be it
RESOLVED, That the 80th Legislature of the State of Texas
submit the charges contained herein to the United States House of
Representatives under the authority of Section 603 of The
Constitution, Jefferson's Manual, and Rules of the United States
House of Representatives; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the charges contained herein constitute proof
that the president of the United States has wilfully violated his
oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of
the United States; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That George W. Bush, if found guilty of the charges
contained herein, should be removed from office and disqualified to
hold any other office in the United States.