How much longer are our senators and representatives going to wait before calling President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld on their totalitarian consolidation of power?

The Pentagon will soon control everything, and the Congress will continue to be a rubber stamp for faits accomplis, signing on to Patriot acts that they have not even had time to read, and wars whose justifications are false (Iraq and WMDs). Abu Ghraib is top-down and systemic, not the work of a few bad apples. Guantanamo defies international law. Our voting system is in shambles with electronic machines that have no immediately verifiable paper trails.

In the proud tradition of Margaret Chase Smith, our congresspeople need to stand up. I am a child of 1939. Fascism creeps up on you, and suddenly it is too late. Hitler was voted into power. This is not alarmist fantasy, unfortunately.

The war in Iraq has maimed thousands of our soldiers, psychologically and physically, as well as thousands of Iraqi civilians, with no exit strategy and a shortage of troops and safety equipment. And I believe Bush is planning to go into Iran.

It’s congressional inquiry time, and then impeachment time. Remember where the lies of President Nixon brought him. It can and must be done.

Joan Braun, Weld