Monday, July 09, 2007
Morning News: Impeachment and DHS
Demands for impeachment -- of Bush and Cheney -- have gained traction in recent days and Cindy Sheehan is doing her bit.
- CRAWFORD, Tex., July 8 -- Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan said Sunday that she plans to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) unless Pelosi introduces articles of impeachment against President Bush in the next two weeks.
- Sheehan's deadline, July 23, is the same day she and her supporters are to arrive in Washington after a 13-day caravan and walking tour departing from the group's war protest site near Bush's Crawford ranch.
Do I support her? Yes. Do I think that Bush and Cheney will be impeached? No, not as things stand today.However, the fact that more and more Americans are joining the call for impeachment is cause for rejoicing.
The same people responsible for botched up handling of relief work after Katrina are back in the news.
- The Bush administration has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a "gaping hole" in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat, according to a congressional report to be released today.
- As of May 1, Homeland Security had 138 vacancies among its top 575 positions, with the greatest voids reported in its policy, legal and intelligence sections, as well as in immigration agencies, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard. The vacant slots include presidential, senior executive and other high-level appointments, according to the report by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Another issue for Democratic legislators to run with but the outcome is predictable. The president will speak highly of its work and DHS will continue as it has done in the past.
The report about DHS reminded me of a poem by Marvin Bell that appeared in The New Yorker, June 4th issue. Knew that I had put it aside; I found it. Worth reading and thinking about.
The report about DHS reminded me of a poem by Marvin Bell that appeared in The New Yorker, June 4th issue. Knew that I had put it aside; I found it. Worth reading and thinking about.
HOMELAND SECURITY
Two owls have perched at the property line,
and a scraping on the porch means the postman
is wiping his shoes before continuing
across the yards, three homes worth' worth of catalogues
and ads, and the occasional letter, all cradled
in the crook of one elbow. I'll be getting an offer
of money, a map to riches, a new future
that has come out of the blue. Today I finger
each envelope before opening, and I admit
I feel for wires and beads of plastic explosive
amid the saliva. The daily rags speak
of a dirty bomb. The government tells me live
in a wooden house with a hurricane lamp,
a gas mask, and flares, while it arms
an impervious underground temple from which
it can map the surface, choose a site
anywhere on the globe, and call down the rain."
-- Marvin Bell
Poets.Org Re: Marvin Bell - "He is a long time member of the faculty of the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he is the Flannery O'Connor Professor of Letters. In March 2000 he was selected to be Iowa's first Poet Laureate."
