[audio post]

The argument that George Bush's puppet Alberto Gonzales uses to defend illegal wiretapping to the United States Senate boils down to the outrageous assertion that neither the Congress nor the courts have any authority to place limits on whatever the president decides the Constitution means or an act of Congress means. Gonzales and his master have made it as plain as day that they do not consider themselves restrained by anybody's version of the law other than their own. As far as they are concerned, there are no checks and balances, and they are the law. This is a trait of dictatorship, not democracy.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights belong to Texans just as much as to any other Americans. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott took an oath to uphold the Constitution when he accepted the office. Where is his voice in this crisis? Why has he not spoken up on behalf of the Constitutional rights of his clients, the people of Texas? He sure can't say that he has no authority to intervene, when he is intervening in Georgia federal court right now on behalf of inserting creationist doctrine in place of science in Georgia school textbooks. Fellow Texans, there is a simple reason why Greg Abbott follows the Bushites' power-grabbing ultra-right wing party line to the hilt. He is one of them.

Fellow Texans, are you familiar with the name John Colyandro? You may know that Colyandro was a central figure in the Tom DeLay-Republican Party money-laundering plan that placed huge sums of illegal corporate dollars in the hands of Texas Republican candidates in the general election of 2002. But did you know that during that same 2002 general election campaign Colyandro was a senior staff member in Greg Abbott's campaign for Attorney General?

And are you familiar with the name Bob Perry of Perry Homebuilders? You may know that Bob Perry is one of the biggest financial contributors to Rick Perry and to various ultra-right wing campaigns. You may know that Bob Perry was the primary financier for the lying insults the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans" hurled at the honorable John Kerry. But did you know that Greg Abbott is one of Bob Perry's favorite candidates? Since 2001 Bob Perry and his wife have contributed over $570,000 to Abbott's campaign accounts. In the month of December 2005 alone, Perry gave Abbott $50,000 in a single payment.

Bush and his puppet attorney general Gonzales will probably still be defying the Constitution and the rule of law and spying on American citizens in January 2007 when I take office as Texas Attorney General. As your new Attorney General, I will file the lawsuits against the federal government and federal officials, including the president and attorney general, which individual Texans do not have the means to file on their own to stop this headlong rush to trash our Constitution. And today, I challenge Greg Abbott to fulfill his oath of office to the people of Texas and file those lawsuits now. The people will be waiting.