Democrats, end this war and this regime. NOW.

The first portion of this entry is for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the chairs of the Congressional Committees in both houses.

It looks as if you've learned nothing from the last time the Bush regime lied us into war. All the signs are there that the Shrub is using the same lies against Iran that he and his regime used on Iraq. The military is being moved into position to launch an attack. The changes at Central Command (CentCom) add further proof of this.

Craig Unger, who wrote about the ties between the Bush crime family and the Saudis in his book, House of Bush/House of Saud, lays out the case for how the same deceptions that were used on Iraq are now being used to justify war with Iran. He also lays out the case for why such a war is doomed to failure.

Yet you're too paralyzed by fear to stop these maniacs from getting the U.S. involved in a war against Iran that it will surely lose -- just as it has lost the war in Iraq. More people are going to die that shouldn't, and you're too scared of jeopardizing your chances of winning the White House next year to do anything about it.

What good are you people? Why did we voters hand you control of Congress, if you're just going to piss away the power we gave you? What good did electing you to power do, if you refuse to do what We the People want you to do -- namely, hold the regime accountable for its crimes?

Time is running out. You have the power to end Bush and Cheney's wars in the Middle East. You have the power to bring them to justice for their multitude of crimes. You have the power to stop them in their tracks and put the fear of God into them, for once in their soulless lives.

But you're going to let them get away with their shit, because God forbid you should put the American public ahead of your party's ambitions. You don't realize the consequences, and it looks increasingly as if you simply wouldn't care, even if you did.

Think about what happened to Gerald Ford when he pardoned Nixon. Voters wanted, after the reaming Tricky Dick's abuses of executive power gave them, to see the bastard go to prison for his crimes. Your colleagues in that era's Congress knew the genius inherent in the gift of impeachment given us by the Founders of this once-great nation. Nixon resigned not because he knew he'd fucked up royally; that would've required a conscience, and he didn't have one. No, Nixon resigned because he was about to be impeached for high crimes. And Ford let him off the hook.

Voters were rightly outraged by this selfish act, and they punished him by handing the White House to Jimmy Carter. I want you to think about this really hard. Ford was voted out of power, because he let a criminal executive get away with committing high crimes against the United States. He had the power to truly heal this nation, but instead chose to let the wounds inflicted by Nixon fester. All because he selfishly wanted to preserve his party's chances of regaining the power it had abused. Gerald Ford was too big a coward to allow Nixon to be punished for his crimes. And voters, in turn, held him accountable.

Now, more than thirty years later, we have an executive so drunk with power, who has committed crimes that make Nixon's look like a walk in the park by comparison, that he is prepared to sacrifice thousands more in his failed and delusional quest to set up a global empire. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their regime have done things that require impeachment, removal from office and imprisonment.

They have:

Stolen not one but two presidential elections;
Failed, perhaps deliberately so, to stop an attack on U.S. soil by al-Qaeda;
Made only a half-hearted attempt to go after Osama bin Laden, finally abandoning the effort to go to war in Iraq;
Lied us into a war in Iraq;
Gutted the Constitution;
Illegally spied on American citizens;
Tortured prisoners;
Denied us the right to trial by eliminating habeas corpus;
Bankrupted our treasury;
Dismantled our emergency infrastructure, culminating in the tragic deaths in the wake of Hurricane Katrina;
Slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people;
Are now preparing to do the same with Iran.

They have committed these crimes and many more, too many to list in their entirety. They did all this with the help of a corrupt and complacent Republican Congress, which abdicated its Constitutional duties to act as a check on the executive branch. Because the GOP failed in its duties to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for their crimes, voters gave you Democrats control of Congress. You now have the power to stop those maniacs from ushering in yet another war America cannot win, and that will result in mass death and destruction. But you won't do it, because you're afraid to risk losing your shot at the White House.

Gerald Ford played it safe, and look what it got him -- and the rest of America. Will Democrats, newly empowered but like an abused spouse that doesn't yet realize she is free and in a position to do serious hurt to her abuser, fail to learn the lesson Ford's cowardice taught? It looks as if you will.

Well, I've got news for you. We don't have to wait until the next election cycle to remove you from power. We can launch efforts to remove you now.

This last part is for concerned citizens, who want an end to this war and this regime but have been frustrated by the cowardice of Democrats in Congress.

I am calling upon concerned Democrats and Independents in the districts of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the Democratic Committee Chairs, to mount recall efforts against anyone who refuses to initiate impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney. I am calling on you to launch recall efforts against anyone in a position to end this war, but won't on account of cowardice. I am calling upon you to do this, to show that We the People are--as the late Molly Ivins so eloquently informed us--are the deciders in this country.

I do not harbor any illusions about whether such efforts will succeed, and neither should you. But we need to try, because it is important that we send a message to those in Congress who have the power to stop Bush and Cheney, but won't. That message is this: "if you will not follow orders, if you refuse to do the duty we elected you to perform, then you won't even have to wait until next year to be voted out." It doesn't matter if recall efforts fail. The attention such efforts get in the media will be enough to perhaps light the fire under the butts of Congressional Democrats. And maybe then, they will do something.

Don't be dissuaded by cynicism. That's what the assholes in power are counting on; they want you to give up, and let them continue doing what they're doing. Don't let them have that power. You took some of it back last November, and you can take back more. Why settle for crumbs when you can have the whole loaf? The Founders of this nation set it up so that the citizenry would have the power by staying informed and, above all, involved in the workings of our government--which is paid for with our tax dollars.

So get those recall petitions filled, and ready to turn in. Hillary Clinton is running for president on the promise that if she wins, and we are still in Iraq by the time she takes office, she will end the war. But she, and the rest of the Democrats in Congress, have the ability to end this war now. They can cut off funds, and use the power of their Committee chairmanships to block funding for the war. They can block funding for Bush's war plans against Iran. They can do this, but won't because they're too scared of being beaten up for it by the right-wing press. They're too scared to take the risk. Make them more scared of not taking the risk.

We the People can end this war and this regime now, if Congress won't. We only need the will.