35 Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against Bush 1657
vsync64 writes "Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) spent 4 hours reading into the Congressional Record 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Interestingly, those articles (63-page PDF via Coral CDN) include not just complaints about signing statements and the war in Iraq, but also charges that the President "Sp[ied] on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment,' 'Direct[ed] Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens,' and 'Tamper[ed] with Free and Fair Elections.' These are issues near and dear to the hearts of many here, so it's worth discussing. What little mainstream media coverage there is tends to be brief (USA Today, CBS News, UPI, AP, Reuters)." The (Democratic) House leadership has said that the idea of impeachment is "off the table." The Judiciary Committee has not acted on articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney introduced by Kucinich a year ago.
History will do more to condemn Bush (Score:5, Interesting)
Plus, the Democrats are looking to rout the Republicans in November at least in the Senate and House(President is still a bit up in the air), doing something showboating like this can only benefit the Republicans.
Re:History will do more to condemn Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately it will likely hinge on one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
A quote from a Bond film (which may have been somewhere else first but that's where I heard it) is "The line between genius and insanity is measured only by success." Well, there's some truth to that. Something that is "An insane stunt," when it fails can then become "A brilliant feat," when it succeeds. Success or failure often clouds how we evaluate the situation that lead to something.
Thus it will most likely be for Bush. The Iraq war has been the major thing of his presidency, so it's outcome will likely shape how he is judged. Doesn't matter if it's outcome really has nothing to do with his actions, or is even in spite of his actions. If it comes out good, he'll likely be held up as a great president, if it comes out poorly he'll be held as one of the worst.
Re:History will do more to condemn Bush (Score:5, Insightful)
"Worst" in the sense of damaging the country more than helping it, and generally failing to uphold his responsibilities as well as failing to meet anything close to his stated goals in his largest presidential decision. But yes, he was certainly an effective leader, and he accomplished a great many things for his party, as well as running a very tight ship in terms of controlling Congress and the media. or, as Scott McClellan would put it, he was in perpetual campaign mode, and at that he was very successful. But perpetual campaign mode is not about success in substance, it's about success in contemporary perception.
Substance is what history will judge his term on, and barring any major changes in the Middle East, it's unlikely to be kind.
Sex vs. Violence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sex vs. Violence (Score:5, Informative)
Correction. "Impeached a president because a lying about a BJ". Yes, Bill was impeached. Look it up.
The very best thing about this story... (Score:5, Funny)
Kucinich... (Score:5, Funny)
nobody in congress seriously wants to impeach (Score:5, Interesting)
BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions (Score:5, Informative)
On a related note...
A BBC investigation estimates [bbc.co.uk] that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC's Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
(more [bbc.co.uk])
Here's why I'm done with politics: (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are they doing it now, when Bush has only seven months left in office rather than a year and a half ago? Election year theater.
And that's why I cringe when people say "We really need to get the Democrats the White House and majorities Congress in 2008" or something to that effect. They have no interest in you, the country, or anything but power and money.
Kucinich is an exception among them. We need more like him, but he is an anomaly.
That's not a reason to be done with politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Get Cheney at the same time (Score:5, Funny)
Remember: no bush, no dick.
(damn I was all set for +5 insightful and had to spoil it down to +5 funny with that last line ...)
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Interesting)
Now there needs just needs to be a Constitutional Amendment which requires the ENTIRE US TAX CODE to be read into the Congressional Record every single year for it to be legally binding! Of course, that would either require CSPAN to get another satellite or for the tax code to be shortened into the flat tax...
Then again, I was under the impression that "earmarks" were not required to be read into the record either? Whoops... confusing the Congressional Record's purpose with that of Official Congressional Business as Usual...
What? What was its purpose again?
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Informative)
First, to be "outed", Valerie Plame would have had to be a covert operative. She wasn't at that time. You can check the Congressional Record to read the testimony of the author of the governing regulations.
Second, the ultimate classification authority is the President. This has a long history of precedent. If the President wishes to reveal something which is classified, that's his prerogative. The Soviet nuke missile sites in Cuba were classified information and JFK didn't need anyone's permission to reveal that.
Third, it was Richard Armitage who revealed the information about Valerie Plame. Even the special prosecutor knew that before investigating.
This is a country of laws, It's the usA, not the usSR.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, I was barely paying attention to this thread, but couldn't help noticing this bit of misinformation.
Plame was covert agent at time of name leak [msn.com] --MSNBC
Yes, Valerie Plame Was Covert [cbsnews.com] --CBSNews
Leak Prosecutor says Plame was Covert [nytimes.com] --NYTimes
Video: Valerie Plame confirms her covert status [thinkprogress.org] --thinkprogress.org
etc.
You may be confused because of the following misinformation campaign:
Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert [salon.com] --Salon
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's very naive to think ANYONE a person who was supposedly an undercover agent 15 years prior has dealt with is "potentially exposed." Semantically, your statement is correct but it's not realistic. Everyone, you included, interacts with thousands of people over 15 years. You may have heard of the concept of six degrees of separation. Apply that and it's quickly apprent the words you used, while semantically correct, yield an impossibly large number of contacts when seen from the "outside." It's common for people who have never been in these types of environments to think that type of thing. As I said, read the Congressional Record. The sworn testimony during a Congressional investigation is more accurate than projections.
No, my "argument" does not rest on "the fact that Bush OK'd the leak." By definition, the President can't "leak" anything because "leaking" would involve unauthorized disclosure which, by definition, the President cannot do. It is impossible for the pre-requisite to exist. The President has the authority to declassify, at will, either explicitly or implicitly.
"Abuse of power" is a phrase with no legal definition. The Executive Officer is not subservient to the Representitive Brach of the Federal Government. The CIA is in the Executive Branch, under the authority of the Executive Officer. Again, the President cannot be guilty of violating classification. It really is that simple.
As as aside, the legal basis for action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq was laid years ago. The first Gulf War was never officially ended according to the U.N. conditions and Saddam's troops kept violating the cease fire agreement. An existing war cannot be "started" again, it can only be in stasis, continue or end. (The Korean War never ended, either. It's in the same situation, a cease fire agreement.) Saddam's troops violated the cease fire repeatedly during Bill Clinton's terms in office. History didn't start in February of 2001.
WRT "a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible", it was Valerie Plame and her husband in conjunction with Vanity Fair and the traditional news media who were proclaiming a "secret" had been revealed. Those are not Federal Branch entities and, most certainly, not controlled by a Republican administration. The President didn't force all the "reporting" and speculating in the press. He didn't put a scarf and sunglasses on Valerie Plame, sit her in a convertible next to her husband, take a photo, write an article and publish them. Valerie, most certainly, wasn't trying to "hide" and wasn't concerned about any past contact who might have been "potentially exposed." If she was, she wouldn't have taken those actions. You can dig through archives such as Lexis-Nexus or even the recorded press briefings on C-Span's website if you wish. What you'll find is the Executive Branch overwhelmingly said there wasn't any "there" there.
Joe Wilson was a paid staffer for John Kerry's Presidential campaign before he wrote the article in which he claimed the VP sent him on a secret mission to gather intel in Niger. Curiously, there was no record of such a meeting, Joe's story changed significantly over time and even he said there was no written record. Additionally, he did state that Iraq was seeking to build increase imports from Niger whose primary exports are livestock products, onions and Uranium ore. Look at a map. Iraq wouldn't get importing onions across Libya then onto ships when they could come from much closer areas. Liby's public renouncement of NBC porograms wasn't an isolated occurrence. It's all in the Congressional Report.
What you are promoting fits the structure of a halfway decent conspiracy theory but only with "a willing suspension of disbelief" given the facts.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Funny)
Congress shall make no law exceeding in length this Constitution.
(Let's make them earn their pay by holding a separate vote on every pork-laden amendment.)
fbi n cia can spy on ppl. dnt need to ask cngress only prez. prez can amend ptriot act with exec order. prez is root. sudo ptriot act.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Informative)
Ahem, I'd like to begin with a reading of the Articles of Impeachment. Here goes.
(You know, some of these are actually plausible. It will be interesting to see where this goes.)
Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.
Article II. Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.
Article III. Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.
Article IV. Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.
Article V. Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.
Article VI. Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.
Article VII. Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.
Article VIII. Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.
Article IX. Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor
Article X. Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes
Article XI. Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq
Article XII. Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural Resources
Article XIIII. Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries
Article XIV. Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency
Article XV. Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq
Article XVI. Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors
Article XVII. Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives
Article XVIII. Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy
Article XIX. Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to "Black Sites" Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture
Article XX. Imprisoning Children
Article XXI. Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government
Article XXII. Creating Secret Laws
Article XXIII. Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act
Article XXIV. Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment
Article XXV. Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens
Article XXVI. Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements
Article XXVII. Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply
Article XXVIII. Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice
Article XXIX. Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Article XXX. Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare
Article XXXI. Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency
Article XXXII. Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change
Article XXXIII. Repe
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
No wonder Kucinich was able to snag such a young, sprightly and attractive wife. The man has the biggest balls in Congress.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
The most dangerous people in the world are those who believe that violating human rights for any reason is worse than not doing so. These people realize that peace can become viral, and if they are charismatic enough, they can start persuading people to give up force as a form of politics. Those who rely on force fear these people more than anyone else. Ghandi was such a person, as was MLK. Look what happened to them.
In fact, this is the central story in Western culture. A guy suggests (just suggests... doesn't start a revolt or hit people or act like a bigot) that we abandon violence and hate as a means of life and promptly gets nailed to a piece of wood for his trouble. I'm not a believer, but the essence of the story is spot on.
That's my dose of idealism for the day.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
Kittens and bunnies were not mentioned I believe.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Interesting)
-Em
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nonsense. The Legislative Branch should not be responding to emergencies. That's the Executive Branch's job.
The quintissential case is a Pearl Harbor style scenario, where America is under attack and we need a declaration of war. I'd argue that, in this day and age, we could have a provision stating that the President is free to deploy the troops for up to 90 days, but, following that grace period, he must get a declaration of war from Congress (not a resolution, or an authorization, but a formal declaration of war), otherwise he has to bring the troops home. This would allow ample time for the president to respond to short term emergencies, while still leaving leeway for the US to respond credibly to unprovoked attacks.
Re:...Brought to you by Carl's Jr. (Score:5, Informative)
You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to complain about wasting time in Congress, look up which party has done more filibustering in recent years.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whichever party is in the minority. Right now that would be the Republicans; a few years ago it was the Democrats. The majority party doesn't filibuster; they simply don't let legislation they want to die get out of committee.
Not sure exactly what your point is though; many people would argue that filibustering is an important tactic to prevent a very narrowly divided Senate from railroading the minority party. I'd hardly call that a waste of time.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't work that way. International war crime laws apply to the rulers of all nations no matter if they sign up or not. Otherwise, every two-bit dictator could just declare that their country is immune and do whatever they want. Assuming the next President doesn't decide to throw Bush to the wolves by shipping him out, Bush will probably have to stay within US boarders lest he get picked up.
Not that this will be a big change, since Bush hardly ever left Texas before he was elected.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
If we were to allow Congressman Kucinich ten minutes of airtime for every legally questionable act by the Bush administration, he would still have many hours of airtime left today. Or how about we do it one to one? One minute of airtime for every minute used up in White House press briefings by their fake journalist [wikipedia.org]?
Four hours is a drop in the bucket. My only regret is that Dubya didn't have to stand in a stress position and listen to all of it and then recite it back.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
That 4-hour rant would be much more interesting if it described the seedy underbelly of the regime as a whole, to include Cheney, Rove, big Oil's insane profits, the conflict-of-interest contracts involving retired-military execs now working for the military industrial complex, the 9/11 snafu, the FBI/NSA/CIA/etc's blatantly illegal honeymoons with the major telecoms, and finally, a special thanks to Diebold for making it happen.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Bush does not own Haliburton stock, but Cheney does, guess which one of them got rich over Iraq? It was Cheney, so you have more evidence against Cheney than Bush.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4542853/ [msn.com]
But even at peak production, the EIA analysis said, the United States would still have to import two-thirds of its oil, as opposed to an expected 70 percent if the refuge's oil remained off the market.
Don't like the price of oil? Ask your representative to push renewable technologies. Otherwise, don't wine about the price of oil. It's not our right as American's to cheap oil, so we better get over it now, before China and India are consuming more than us.
Re:Drill Everywhere, Drill Now (Score:5, Insightful)
$5 a gallon? That's nothing. That's cheap. You ain't seen nothing yet.
And do your really think that domestic drilling is going to keep oil prices low? Tell me how that works, then.
Those oil reserves have immense long-term strategic and economic value. What's your reason for tapping them now? To save a few cents for people who are wasting oil just to fill their SUV to go to the supermarket? What a total waste. Instead of just throwing it all away for frivious purposes today, why not wait until it is really needed, and use it in a more efficient manner?
It's not really a good idea wasting precious oil on fueling private cars. We can do transport without oil. But it's harder to replace when making things like plastics and petrochemicals. Sure, there are some substitutes emerging. But oil would be really useful in the case of a real national emergency where we need to manufacture or rebuild things quickly, or in the case of a real war.
I still can't get over the fact that you think current gas prices are expensive, and that's significant justification for tapping domestic supplies. That's fucking hilarious.
Re:You don't seem to understand the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Getting shit done without melodrama..." You mean like shoving the Patriot Act or DMCA down our throats with little debate and even less public comment? No, thank you, I'd rather have a Congress that sits on its collective ass and engages in melodrama, thank you.
If you want "efficient" government, move to a dictatorship.
Re:Silliness (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Silliness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people respect Dennis Kucinich (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Dennis Kucinich is the best politician in office today. I think he would make a far better president than anyone running. And I think he did the right thing by reading this into the record.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why he did it (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's why he did it. A permanent record.
Yes, the impeachment is going nowhere. Even if Pelosi did go forward with it, a split Senate [wikipedia.org] would never get the 2/3 majority to actually oust Bush.
But at least people in the future will be able to look at the record and know that we all weren't duped.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
They never would have been caught because no one would have CARED.
There would not be the initial scrutiny and there would not be the continued witch hunt and bullying of witnesses.
The "Law and Order" tactics would never have come up because
under normal circumstances NO ONE would view it as a useful
expenditure of the effort.
The "crime" would never have come to light to begin with.
Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Insightful)
Even that, as it turns out, is false. And there lies the crux of the failed impeachment against Clinton.
Clinton asked the judge to define sexual relations. He then responded according to that definition.
In no court in the land is that perjury.
Re:Mod parent up (Score:5, Informative)
No court except U.S. district courts [cnn.com], the U.S. Supreme Court [tvnz.co.nz], and the Arkansas Supreme Court [cnn.com], that is.
Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention anything of the millions of people of other nationalities (perhaps an order of magnitude higher) who have died, been irreversably wounded or displaced as a direct result of Bush's lies and mis-leading of the American public. A few Americans might have a problem with that, too.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clinton was asked if he had sexual relations with Lewinsky.
He asked the judge to define "sexual relations". The *judge* told him sexual relations means intercourse.
Now, you might have a different definition, but unless you are going to try to convince us that he had intercourse with Lewinsky, then you must admit that he did not commit perjury.
False swearing (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush took an oath to uphold the Constitution.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Funny)
When you can't see Cheney's right hand and his lips are moving.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real difference between Clinton and Bush is that Bush's people are too smart to let him get tripped up on the minutiae like Clinton did. I would say that Clinton certainly should have paid more for his perjury, but Bush needs to serve hard time for some of the stuff he's done.
your moral compass is a bit off (Score:5, Insightful)
Adultery is not a Democratic monopoly--during the impeachment both Delay and Gingrich were having affairs. During! Do Republicans care? No, which shows that the whole sordid thing was, after all, only about politics.
Which do you consider more morally wrong--Clinton's blowjob, or people being tortured at Abu Ghraib?
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course that's just my patriotic rhetoric. I believe that we stopped being a nation governed by law a looooong time ago. It's just now we have to live with it thrown into our faces on a daily basis, and there will be no consequences for these criminals except that a marginalized senator reads a bunch of accusations into the record.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Informative)
US produced 1.9 gigabarrels last year, and imported 4.9 gigabarrels. We got 0.9 gigabarrels from canada.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/gasoline/index.html [doe.gov]
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html [doe.gov]
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_a.htm [doe.gov]
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbbl_a.htm [doe.gov]
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Informative)
In all of that, not a single mention of the alternatives to oil. Not a single mention of nuclear power. Not a single mention of wind power. Not a single mention of solar power.
But the part that gave you away, was the part about "China is drilling off the shore of Florida, that should be OUR OIL". Because, you have somehow taken the fact that the straights of florida are 90 miles wide, and HALF of them are legally within the territoy of Cuba. 45 miles is ours, and 45 miles is theirs. Cuba has leased out the dilling rights to a company from China. Whats the problem with that? If the world oil market global as you say it is, then it doesnt really matter who is drilling it, as it will be sold to the person who pays market value for it.
Its not OUR oil, its the oil of a sovereign country that happens to be within 90 miles of our own coastline. It makes me skeptical that you chose to not present that fact in your post.
I know you made a mistake in typing out the first can(t) in the following sentence, but the humor of saying "If he can handle an interview with Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly, then he can't handle being president!" was probably the most amusing Freudian slip Ive seen in a very long while.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) It will establish a precedent of impeaching presidents who are grossly incompetent and overstep the constitutional limits on their power. Future presidents will think twice before starting wars on false pretenses or torturing prisoners of war or illegally spying on citizens without warrants. Failing to impeach him would imply that these actions are acceptable, which WILL have an effect on future presidents' actions.
(2) It will show the world that America realizes that we made a huge mistake by electing Dubya twice. Right now, we're the laughing stock of the world (see any opinion poll taken after 2003). This decline in world opinion has real economic and political consequences that, for the most part, haven't been felt yet. Impeaching Bush would help to show the world that America always does the right thing, albeit after exhausting every alternative.
(3) It will remind Americans that impeachments can be used for something other than lying about blowjobs. Sometimes I cynically suspect that Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about his affair because they had the foresight to suspect that one of their own would be in this position today. (No, I don't actually believe this, but it's funny how convenient this sequence of events turned out to be for them...) It's a lot harder to push impeachment proceedings through Congress when the only impeachment anyone alive today remembers is one that centered around a trivial, non-job-performance related non-crime. Impeachments should be about high crimes and gross incompetence related to the duties of the office of the President, and impeaching Bush will help to restore some measure of seriousness to this procedure.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
no petty mass murderer has ever been responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Funny)
Bitches don't know about my Stalin.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not my support. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not my support. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What you mean we, white man? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/14/iraq.unitednations1 [guardian.co.uk]
please note that, to the best of my knowledge, no one in the Bush administration claimed Saddam was an imminent threat. that allegation started with Democrats.
9/18/2002: Donald Rumsfeld tells Congress, "Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam Hussein is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certainÂ--we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/ [motherjones.com] (warning: source is biased, but comprehensive)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
People that hate Bush 43 are going to have to choose: too stupid to tie his own shoes or the mastermind of the Iraq war for his oil buddies. I believe he is neither, but he can't be both.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
negligent ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
The buck stops with him, and it's HIS fault if he was to ignorant to think analytically about the bullsh*t that Cheney, Rove, and Rummy were spooning him.
Bush must be accountable for his decisions, whether or not they were his ideas or not...he's the 'decider' as he was fond of saying.
That said, I think he should be impeached, booted out of office in disgrace (along with Cheney), tried for many crimes, but I would stop short of saying he should be put in court for mass murder.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
False choice.
Bush intentionally lied the country into a war he intended to launch from before his 'election'. The motivation for this war included the enrichment of his political allies in the form of access to oil and government contracts, a legacy as a "War President" which was inspired by the bump his father got as part of the Gulf War as most of the most renowned Presidents have fought wars (Washington, Lincoln, FDR) and the political capitol he'd get from a successful war to implement the conservative social and economical changes he wanted by using the "political capital" he would later cite after his reelection.
The problem is, he is incompetent. His motives are bad AND he's bad at implementing them. There is nothing mutually exclusive about being an evil mediocre-mind, not even one who manages to gain power.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, Congress could force Bush to close Guantanamo any time they want. All they have to do is say that they war powers they gave him after 9-11 don't include the ability to invent a new category of prisoner, denied both the constitutional protections of the accused criminal and the treaty protections of the POW.
Congress is complicit in all of Dubya's excesses. That's the real reason they can't impeach him.
Re:Too little too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't even have to do that. All they had to do was say "no more money" and cut his appropriations to the bare minimum needed to provide the necessary services and no more. All of Bush's blustery posturing and wild legal theories don't change the fact that Congress could have shut him down in a heartbeat, but they've chosen not to do so.
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Result: civil war (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
As the American Freedom Campaign put it in an email to members this morning:
"The founders of our country feared more than anything else the prospect of an executive who put his own power and desires above the Constitution. Congress was given the power of impeachment so that it could remove any president who committed the high crime of violating the Constitution during his (or her) term in office.
A strong case can be made that no president in the history of this country is more deserving of impeachment than George W. Bush. If he is not impeached, the bar for impeachment will have been raised so high that it might as well no longer exist. Future presidents will know that they can violate the Constitution at will, confident in the fact that Congress does not have the courage as an institution to do anything about it.
We cannot allow this to happen."
That's about as simple as it gets. Even if Bush only have seven months left, Congress has to set an example and exert its authority.
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress will do nothing because it will expose their own complicity.
As someone above stated, perhaps next year with a more activist Congress and the Bushies out of power, then maybe some of the truth will start to trickle out. We will probably never know how bad things really got. Thanks for nothing, Congress.
Don't vote for any incumbents unless they spoke out when it was unpopular to do so.
Disqualification from office (Score:5, Informative)
There's a value beyond the symbolic one. Article I, Section 3 allows the outcome of impeachment and conviction to include "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States". We've had convicted felons re-hired into the Executive branch before. Impeachment and conviction could remove the risk of something like that happening.
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Informative)
They better not... their own rulebook [wikipedia.org] says about the like:
Unless they've got a darn good reason not to move along with this, they've got to deal with it...before anything else, it seems, but I'm not lawyer-shaped.
I'm just glad someone, anyone more like, finally pointed out the emperor has no clothes...and hasn't for a while...
Re:Pointless and stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For the readers from Europe ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For the readers from Europe ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For the readers from Europe ... (Score:5, Informative)
1.) One or more Congressmen in the House of Representatives present the Articles of Impeachment for consideration.
2.) The House considers the Articles and says "yea" or "nay"; A yes vote (a simple majority is required) acts like an official indictment against the President. This is the actual "Impeachment" that everyone talks about. A common misunderstanding is that Impeachment means removal from office. That takes place in step three.
3.) If impeached, the Senate acts as the jury in a trial presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. If convicted (this part requires a 2/3ds majority of Senators), the President is then removed from office.
Two Presidents have ever been impeached. Andrew Johnson (succeeded Lincoln after his assassination) and Bill Clinton. Johnson resigned before his Senate trial and Clinton was aquitted. Richard Nixon was never officially impeached, but he resigned after it became clear that not only would be be impeached, but that the Senate would remove him from office.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment#United_States [wikipedia.org] The Wikipedia entry has more info.
Re:Kucinich should know the law (Score:5, Informative)
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, requires approval from a judge for eavesdropping.
Even if the Attorney General could repeal laws, in this case the Justice Department had decided the program was illegal and Ashcroft refused to sign off on it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html [washingtonpost.com]
If *you* knew the law... (Score:5, Insightful)
Article VI
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I have mod points. But I want you to repeat for us your assertion that the Attorney General has the power to issue warrants. Alternately, you may explicitly state your belief that a law may override the Constitution.
Re:What a Joke (Score:5, Insightful)
And then your signature tells us the irony in your ad hominem for kucinich.
Re:Going to war (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically speaking, it is simply not factual to call this current military activity in Iraq a war. The president never asked congress to pass a declaration of war, congress has not made such a declaration - thus there is officially no war.
Why did the president not ask congress to officially declare war? Maybe because he knew they wouldn't do it, but probably because he didn't want to be on the hook for what an official declaration of war would mean. Instead he submitted requests for funding military action in the region - which the cowardly congress has passed.
So we have de facto war at a heavy price in terms of wasted lives, wealth and resources , with no clear victory conditions - without anyone actually being accountable for approving a war in terms of law.
I can understand how and why people would view such an action by our representatives as illegal and contrary to the spirit and principals upon the which U.S. and its government were supposed to be founded.
Scott McClellan's book (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/What-Happened-Washingtons-Culture-Deception/dp/1586485563 [amazon.com]