Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights

As a bit of a latecomer to Molly Ivins, I'm sure that I'm just discovering what others have known for some time. Molly Ivins was fabulous. Three pages into the introduction, I was exclaiming out loud that everyone should read this book.

Witty, compelling and with no fear of skillfully using profanity to make their point, Ivins and Dubose shine a light on the crimes of the Bush administration against the constitution, American citizens and people of the world.

They present a picture that is at times triumphal and at times frustrating but is always appalling.

They also provide a vision of hope in the courage and strength of everyday Americans willing to stand up to the abuses of a rogue administration.

Growing up in a relatively conservative show more environment, I used to be frustrated by the ACLU's interventionalism in various matters which I saw as ridiculous meddling. After reading this book, I say, thank god for the ACLU. show less

"Throughout her long career of 'afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted,' the cause closest to Molly Ivins heart was working to protect the freedoms we all value. Sadly, today we're living in a time when dissent is equated with giving aid to terrorists, when any of us can be held in prison without even knowing the charges against us, and when our constitutional rights are being interpreted by a president who calls himself 'The Decider.'

"Ivins got the idea for Bill of Wrongs while touring America to honor her promise to speak out, gratis, at least once a month in defense of free speech. In her travels Ivins met ordinary people going to extraordinary measures to safeguard our most precious liberties, and when she first show more started writing this book she intended it to be a joyous celebration of those heroes. But during the Bush years, the project's focus changed. Ivins became concerned about threats to our cherished freedoms -- the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus -- and she observed with anger how dissent in the defense of liberties was being characterized as treason by the Bush administration and its enablers.

"From illegal wiretaps, the unlawful imprisonment of American citizens, and the undermining of freedom of the press to the creeping influence of religious extremism on our national agenda and the erosion of the checks and balances that prevent a president from seizing unitary powers, Ivins and her long-time collaborator, Lou Dubose, co-author of Shrub and Bushwhacked, describe the attacks on America's vital constitutional guarantees. With devastating humor and keen eyes for deceit and hypocrisy, they show just how severe these incursions have become, and they ask us all to take an active role in protecting the Bill of Rights.

"In life and on the printed page, Molly Ivins was too cool to offer a poshumous valedictory (or even take a victory lap for her many triumphs over inane, vainglorious, and addlepated politicos). But in Bill of Wrongs, her final and perhaps greatest book, the irrepressible Molly Ivins really does have the last word."
~~front flap

This book was harder to read than some of her others were. Her wickedly devastating sense of humor isn't as prevalent as it usually was. Which was probably a wise decision -- these accounts of people caught up in the flagrant abuses of power by the Bush Administration after 9/11 are chilling, and should be a wake-up call, and a call to action, for every American citizen. Humor might have detracted from the severity and urgency of these message, or distracted from the message itself. Laughter, especially a good belly laugh, and make you forget what you were doing before it hit. And this is very serious stuff -- so serious that Molly spent her last months on this earth working on this book.

Although there's a temptation to relegate this book to the unimportant history shelf, since the Bush Administration is done now, we should resist the temptation. The policies and mindsets put in place during that era didn't disappear just because Bush retired to Crawford. There are echoes and direct descendents with us today, and in many ways "they" are still trying to take away our freedoms.

But enough political rant. The book is well researched, well written and critically important. As all of Molly's books are. show less

Molly Ivins' last book, her third about GW Bush written with Lou Dubose, has all the Ivins trademarks, such as her keen observations, her sense of outrage and disbelief, coupled with her Texas sense of humor. In "Shrub" and "Bushwhacked" the two authors did their best to warn America about Bush and his cronies. In this third outing, it's clear things are going terribly wrong in America and our very system of government is undergoing a radical change. The things Ivins and Dubose write about in this book should not be happening in America, but they are.

In several of the cases presented here, there's a common thread: the victims of harrassment by the Bushies are Muslim. It appears that the Muslims are well on their way to becoming for show more America what the Jews were to Germany after Hitler took power. And things aren't looking too good for others unwilling to toe the Bush party line either.

This book is powerful. I had to read it a bit at a time so I could give it some thought between sections. We should all thank Lou Dubose and the publishers for continuing with this project and bringing the book to the public. show less

Many years ago, Molly Ivins promised a friend that she would give a speech per month, for free, in some small town in America, in defense of free speech. This book, which turned out to be her last book, was going to celebrate those common people who decided to stand up and be counted. Watching what has happened to the Bill of Rights, America’s Supreme Law of the Land, due to the “War on Terror,” the book’s focus changed.

Jeff and Nicole Rank (she works for FEMA) were arrested on the grounds of the West Virginia state capital and thrown in jail, while local, state and capital police discussed who had jurisdiction over them. They were released, and just before their trial was to start, the city of Charleston dropped all charges. show more Their crime was to wear anti-Bush t-shirts to a Bush campaign rally to which they had gotten legitimate tickets.

Vice President Cheney was working a crowd in a Colorado shopping mall. Steve Howards walked up to him, told Cheney that he thought Cheney’s Iraq policy was reprehensible, and walked away. For that, he was handcuffed in front of his young son, and charged with assaulting Cheney. The charges were later dropped.

The authors also look inside the Dover, Pennsylvania school board, where religious fundamentalists attempted to introduce “intelligent design” into the biology curriculum. After a long trial, and a judicial ruling strongly in favor of evolution, the fundamentalists were voted out of office in the next election. Also included is the story of the four librarians from Connecticut, who refused to comply with a National Security letter, demanding records on use of a public library computer on a certain day.

This is a gem of a book. It does a fine job showing the size of the holes that the "war on terror" has put in the Bill of Rights, and it is also a very easy read. It is very highly recommended. show less

This book is subtitled "The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights", and to my sorrow, is Molly Ivins' final farewell; she died of breast cancer in January of this year. The book, written with Lou Dubose (I suspect most of the legwork was his; most of the writing has Ivins' humorously ironic twang) details concrete examples of how the current regime and its followers have subverted the fundamental freedoms that differentiate the country they profess to be protecting. Most people think this assault was brought about by an overreaction to 9/11, and there is certainly that. But this book makes clear that Shrub (love her Bush nickname) and company started it as soon as they took office, and used 9/11 as useful show more boilerplate for excusing their later excesses. I think the chapter that stirred me the most was chapter 4, "Darwin on Trial", being a former science teacher and all. But this whole book is a truly scary wake-up call, and I wish I were articulate enough to condense it down into a few short sentences that would shut up a co-worker of mine who says that those people who don't have anything to hide shouldn't worry about being spied on. I have a hard time thinking clearly when my throat closes up and the veins in my neck pulse like a spring peeper's throat. Goodbye, Molly. You fought the good fight for a long time, and now the ranks of the loyal opposition are a little thinner. Maybe Jim Hightower could step up to the plate. show less

As usual, Molly Ivins is informative and funny.

I received this as a Christmas gift. While it certainly provided some good information, written in Molly Ivin's signature hilarious prose, I just don't really get the idea of a book about current events. It just seems more suited to newspaper articles and magazine essays.