By David Van Os - Thursday, November 8, 2007

I'm a lifelong active Democrat. For most of my adult voting life, equating to most of the last 35 years, I routinely supported and defended the political and voting behavior of Democrats in public life, including many a time when retrospect proved their votes to have been wrong.
My friends, if you are also lifelong Democrats, and if you also have routinely supported and defended the voting behavior of elected representatives simply because they were Democrats even though they might be wrong, I urge you not to do this any more.

The votes of Senators Feinstein and Schumer in approving Michael Mukasey to be the next Attorney General of the United States are not excusable or defensible. After all the lying, the arrogance, the deceitfulness, the anti-Constitutionalism, the imperial and dictatorial executive conceit, the blatant criminality of the Bushite regime, it is inexcusable and indefensible to let the Bush-Cheney ongoing criminal conspiracy have its way with a U.S. Attorney General nominee who refuses to concede that torture is torture.

I never supported with my voice or my party loyalty any of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted in lockstep to approve Mukasey. So I don't have much standing with them and don't expect them to be anything other than lemmings in lockstep for the Bushite neofascist political apparatus. But through my previous participation in Democratic Party activism, I did at least indirectly support Feinstein and Schumer with my faithful Democratic voice and political allegiance.

Similarly, I did at least indirectly support the Democratic Senators and House Members who two months ago gave Bush-Cheney the statutory permission to wiretap American telephones without judicial warrants. Similarly, I did at least indirectly support the Democratic Senators and House Members who over the past 10 months have continued to give tax moneys to Bush-Cheney for the Iraq Occupation. Thus I have earned the right to say NO MORE and to ask my fellow Democrats likewise to say NO MORE.

Most of you who are on my email list and are reading this are Democrats. I implore you, join me in saying NO MORE. Join me in saying we cannot and will not defend the indefensible or excuse the inexcusable.

Torture in the name of and with the tax moneys of we the people of the United States of America is against our laws. It is indefensible and inexcusable to vote to confirm an Attorney General nominee who cannot bring himself to acknowledge that a well-known and scurrilous form of torture is torture.

Our Constitution requires warrants based on probable cause to eavesdrop on private communications. Voting to authorize the Bush-Cheney continuing criminal enterprise to continue trampling on the Bill of Rights is indefensible and inexcusable.

It is thoroughly proven that Bush-Cheney took the country into war in Iraq on lies, lies, and more lies. It is now obvious to all but the most die-hard Bush-Cheney cultists that the Iraq War and Occupation are disasters for the United States of America. To continue to appropriate our public tax dollars for the neo-cons' deadly pack of lies upon lies upon lies upon lies upon lies is indefensible and inexcusable.

I'm a lifelong Democrat and nobody can take my honest loyalty to the history and vision of what my political party is supposed to be away from me. But as for those who sit in the halls of the United States Congress, use my party's name, and besmirch its legacy by their continued support of the insupportable and their continued refusal to take a stand for the people of the United States and our Constitution - they have exploited their positions and lived off the plush comforts of Washington, D.C. for way, way too long.

The people gave them a golden opportunity to lead and they proved incapable of it. They need to all resign their seats and get the hell out of the way so we the people of the United States, united and together, can reclaim our democracy, our republic, our government and our history.

David Van Os

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Through 31 years of law practice, David Van Os has concentrated his priorities in the defense of Constitutional rights and liberties through the courts, the protection of working people through labor law and union contracts, and the promotion of human rights.

He has been listed in the prestigious reference book Best Lawyers in America by peer review for over 20 consecutive years. In 2005 the Backbone Campaign honored David with its Spine Award.

David is considered a co-founder in 2002 of the Texas Democratic Progressive Populist Caucus, and continues as an ex officio member of the steering committee. In 2007 he was named chairman of the board of the Inter-American Education Consortium and its hallmark project, the Liberty and Democracy Alliance.

For more information contact Rachel Barrios-Van Os 210-332-7080 or visit http://vanosfortexasag.com.