Now we know that Bush effectively kept the NY Times quiet on his spying for a year and then tried again, Jonathan Alter, in Newsweek, reports, "in a meeting on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story.

Then, yesterday, he came out, brazenly calling people who reported his infamy shameful. He had his short-leashed attack poodle, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez explain that it was legal. And too many of the mainstream media jmust stood there nodding their journalistically impotent bobble heads, listening, just passing on his imperious spin.

Sorry George. You've had it. Not only are you on the way out, along with the traitor congressional members who conspired with you, but the way the mainstream media tell this story will define them as worthless propagandists or real media worthy of retaining their access to the licenses to the airwaves. The New York Times will never be the same for me. Yes, they published the report, finally, but they should NEVER have met with you on December sixth and they certainly should never have waited a year to report it. I won't be buying their paper any more. Matter of fact, their failure suggests an opening for a real daily newspaper. I've been writing, for almost three years, that we need a tough, progressive th ink-tank-like advocacy organization. Maybe the best approach would be to have it be a for profit operation that produces a daily newspaper and maybe even a TV network. Put it in New York and let it replace the limp spined, NY Times.

But currently, we find ourselves with a disappointing situation, not even having, fromt he "fourth estate" the daily newspaper we thought we had fighting hard for the truth. We have Attorney General ALberto Gonzalez acting not as law-keeper but as apologist. We have the leaders of the congress as co-conspirators, the White House as criminal perpetrators. The congress has been taking the law into its own hands too-- changing the rules on minimum times legislators are allowed to evaluate new bills, extending deadlines. THis is lawlessness, or worse, corruption of rules.

That leaves the Supreme court... and the coming hearing for Samuel Alito. Anyone want to predict whether Alito will enable a fair hearing, if it comes to him, on any Bush improprieties. I'm sorry. But he's bad news-- a sure get-out-of-jail card for Bush and his henchmen.

It's time we start asking who knew Bush was breaking the law and when they knew. Because they should be charged with aiding and abetting the crime. The corruption among Republicans has become more than a malodour. It is a permeating, unrelenting, seemingly ubiquitous stench that is choking democracy, poisoning America's future.

So I check what CNN and MSNBC are reporting- CNN is talking about workers fired for being smokers. MSNBC is showing conveyor belts with CHristmas presents. If this was a flood or police car chase, they'd be on it like flies on Bush, or corporations on shit, or is that vice versa? This story should be screaming out of the headlines. It should be having editors and newsroom producers sending reporters running in all directions digging up further info on this story. They should be showing the Bush apologists hanging themselves and they should be giving the Democrats air time to work up the agitation so they start talking about impeachment-- nonstop.

Because it's gonna come. It may take a day or it may take a month but this dictatorial abuse of power will not stand. The right wing's hubris has reached a point that will not go unfought. There are only two possibilities-- BUsh and his co-conspirators will go DOWN, or the USA will go down and, in the eyes of the world, in the face of demcracy, never be the same again as it descends into third world statehood, both governmentally and, as China ascends, with the help of Walmart, economically.

And let's not forget the election/vote system. As each corrupt, criminal act of this administration and the republicans comes to our awareness, it makes the need to fix the vote counting system all the more urgent. There should never be another election again in this nation that allows any vote that cannot be verified and recounted with fully trustworthy paper ballots.