EXPECT MANY MANY MANY MISSING DOCUMENTS FROM BUSH CRIMINAL SYNDICATE

Many of my friends think that once we remove the fascists from office-- and with Bush's and the Republicans' approval ratings in free-fall, that does look like a reasonable proposition-- Justice will follow. Many think that if the Democrats win substantial congressional victories in 2006, impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney will commence within weeks. (Wow! President Nancy Pelosi!!) However, first is the not-so-little problem of them controlling the vote counting. Widespread vote count cheating in Florida and Ohio handed Bush, Inc two presidential elections. Are they willing to give up power? Why should they? But even if we put that colossal downer aside for the moment, does ANYONE think they'll ever find a shred of unshredded evidence against this nest of vipers?

Next week my friend Evan is going up to the Reagan Library to research the 40,000 documents just released involving John Roberts and Bush's attempt to get him ("steamroll" may be a better term) confirmed as the replacement for the "moderately" conservative Sandra Day O'Connor. Roberts is no "moderate" but is he enough of a raving fascist to get cowardly inclined-to-the-right Democrats like Feinstein, Biden, the Nelsons, et al to vote against him? Not likely. BUT we'll never know. We'll never know because the Bush Regime has already been doing some serious surgery on the evidence. The corporate-oriented Inside-the-Beltway Democrats (Hillary Clinton included) would have been happy to just rubber stamp him the day Bush nominated him. But polls-- not just among Democrats but among EVERYBODY-- showed massive majorities wanting to know more, MUCH more, about Roberts and his attitudes towards crucial issues (like Roe v Wade) before a confirmation vote. With a few progressive fighters like Leahy, Kennedy and Boxer in the lead, Democrats asked, politely, so see Roberts' relevant papers. This is pretty standard operating procedure for a Supreme Court nominee. Bush, reflexively, said no. And since then papers have been dribbling out-- all the non-controversial stuff no one is interested in.

Today, however, the Washington Post is reporting that a file full of papers pertaining to Roberts' anti-affirmative action work has "disappeared" after they were reviewed by 2 right-wing lawyers sent by the Bush Regime to make sure there would be nothing embarrassing falling into the "wrong" hands. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library archivists think that the 2 lawyers may have returned the file but that it went missing afterwards. No copies were made. One of the missing papers was a memo from Roberts recommended that the White House stonewall a complaint about Reagan's reactionary policies on affirmative action in the workplace. And that's only what they ADMIT they disappeared.

Yesterday the Texas branch of People For the American Way brought Bush some large empty packing boxes that they suggested he use to send all the relevant Roberts documents to the Senate. Leahy, who has kept an open mind on Roberts and has no comment until now, flipped out when he read the stuff that the Bush Regime allowed out-- so God only knows what kind of reaction would have ensued had they not destroyed the really hot evidence. Yesterday Leahy, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, said "Those papers that we have received paint a picture of John Roberts as an eager and aggressive advocate of policies that are deeply tinged with the ideology of the far right wing of his party then, and now. In influential White House and Department of Justice positions, John Roberts expressed views that were among the most radical being offered by a cadre intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, privacy, and access to justice."


Ralph Neas, the respected head of the non-partisan People for the American Way, and former Republican candidate for congress himself, as well as an aide to 2 GOP senators, noted that "there have been almost daily revelations from the Reagan Presidential Library" indicating that, as a young White House lawyer, Roberts "was a charter member of the Reagan-Bush legal policy team that had attempted to dismantle the civil rights remedies" embraced by previous GOP administrations. "I believe a significant number of progressive organizations will soon be coming out against the Roberts nomination."

According to the POST article, "the groups are now highlighting several items found in documents from Roberts's days as a lawyer in the Reagan White House and Justice Department. They include his calling a memorial service for aborted fetuses 'an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy,' and his reference to the legal underpinnings of the right to an abortion as the 'so-called "right to privacy."' The groups note that Roberts once wrote that a Supreme Court case on prohibiting silent prayer in public schools 'seems indefensible.' Roberts, they say, had also called a federal court decision that sought to guarantee women equal pay to men 'a radical redistributive concept.'"

Every gay person I know who is following the confirmation process mentions how Roberts once did some pro-bono work on a pro-gay case. The nation's most respected gay civil rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign, is unconvinced. "As we review more and more documents, I think we're finding more evidence that Roberts would vote with the far-right wing of the court and against civil rights protections," said Joe Solmonese, president of the HRC.