Two Heartening News Stories Republican bullies are having to rethink their positions because of public outcry. 1) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer assumed that since he’s a Republican, he could announce he planned to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and it was a fait accompli. Not so fast, Guv. Last night the New York Times issued a breaking news aviso: “Gov. Eliot Spitzer is abandoning his plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, saying that opposition is just too overwhelming to move forward with such a policy.” 2) And this morning, the New York Times reported, “Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case.” The Bush administration decided to use as many guns-for-hire thugs as bonafide soldiers in Iraq in order to pretend the US has a military, but that’s not working out. Blackwater mercenaries are unprincipled shoot-and-ask-questions-later trigger-happy snotnose hoodlums who have been trained by religious fanatic Erik Prince and his mob in North Carolina. Once again, a bunch of Republican bullies made decisions the way fascist governments make decisions—unilaterally and secretly. The NYT says, “Some officials have expressed pessimism that adequate criminal laws exist to enable them to charge any Blackwater employee with criminal wrongdoing. Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the F.B.I. declined to discuss the matter.” New Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey is sitting on a powder keg on this one. As the NYT says, “The case could be one of the first thorny issues to be decided by Michael B. Mukasey, who was sworn in as attorney general last week. He may be faced with a decision to turn down a prosecution on legal grounds at a time when a furor has erupted in Congress about the administration’s failure to hold security contractors accountable for their misdeeds.” North Carolina Democrat David Price has put forth legislation to extend American criminal law to contractors serving overseas. Price says the Justice Department has to hold someone accountable for the shootings. “Just because there are deficiencies in the law, and there certainly are, that can’t serve as an excuse for criminal actions like this to be unpunished. I hope the new attorney general makes this case a top priority. He needs to announce to the American people and the world that we uphold the rule of law and we intend to pursue this,” Price said. As much fun as it must have been to run the United States as though it were the Third Reich, Repubs are now like Wile E. Coyote realizing he’s not riding a magic carpet but sitting on an anvil hurtling to earth. YIKES!