Impeach
From Bwtm
There are four specific impeachable acts which should be investigated:
- Lying about Saddam's efforts to buy uranium.
- Leaking the identity of a CIA agent.
- Illegal use of torture in violation of US Law and the Geneva Convention.
- Illegal spying on US Citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_to_impeach_George_W._Bush
breaking news
Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott has signed on to the resolution seeking to impeach President Bush. McDermott said in a speech Tuesday on the House floor that "America cannot regain its moral leadership in the world if America cannot hold its leaders accountable." "There is no decision that one makes as a congressman that is so important, beyond going to war, than the decision to impeach the president or call for an impeachment," McDermott told KIRO Radio Wednesday morning. McDermott said it's not too late to impeach President Bush. "The Constitution doesn't say you can only impeach somebody when they're in office. It leaves open the possibility for impeachment after they leave office." http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=86963#
Kucinich shifts his impeachment focus to the economy. “Impeachment is part of a larger issue,” explained Kucinich spokesman Nathan White. “Impeachment is another way of saying accountability.” http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/kucinich-shifts-his-impeachment-focus-to-the-economy-2008-09-10.html
The Why-Haven’t-You Impeached-the-President Tour. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set out to promote her new motivational book this month, she simultaneously touched off her national why-haven't-you-impeached-the-president tour. As she made the coast-to-coast rounds of lectures, television interviews and radio chats the past two weeks, Ms. Pelosi found herself under siege by people unhappy that she has not been motivated to try to throw President Bush out of office – even if only a few months remain before he leaves voluntarily. In Manhattan and Los Angeles, at stops in between, on network television and on her home turf of Northern California, Ms. Pelosi has been forced to defend her pronouncement before the 2006 mid-term elections that impeachment over the administration’s push for war in Iraq was off the table. Pressed on ABC’s “The View” about whether she had unilaterally disarmed, the author of “Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters” said she believed the proceedings would be too divisive and be a distraction from advancing the policy agenda of the new Democratic majority. Then she added this qualifier: “If somebody had a crime that the president had committed, that would be a different story.” That assertion only threw fuel on the impeachment fire as advocates of removing Mr. Bush cited the 35 articles of impeachment compiled by Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, as well as accusations in a new book by author Ron Suskind of White House orders to falsify intelligence, an accusation that has been denied. Is Nancy Pelosi on drugs? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/us/politics/15web-hulse.html?_r=2&em&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
George Bush White House President Implicated in: Coercive interrogation, CIA tapes, and wiretapping President Bush was responsible for the decision in February 2002 to suspend the Geneva Conventions for detainees in the war on terror. That decision led directly to changes in interrogation policy and to a lack of direction for interrogators beyond a vague warning to treat detainees "humanely." Bush also admitted in April to ABC News that he knew his top national-security advisers had discussed and approved specific torture techniques to be used on high-value al-Qaida suspects. He stated that "yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved." In addition, shortly after 9/11, President Bush secretly ordered the NSA to conduct surveillance of telephone calls without obtaining a warrant. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 required a warrant or an application to the special FISA court. The president has claimed authority to bypass FISA under the Authorization for Use of Military Force that Congress passed in 2002 before the war in Iraq and his war powers as president. Last month, a federal judge ruled the president did not have the constitutional authority to sidestep FISA (which Congress recently changed). The president has refused to turn over documents related to the eavesdropping, including 43 separate authorizations for the program. Case for prosecution: The president, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the military, is responsible for the actions of his subordinates who broke the laws Case against prosecution: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won't even talk about impeachment. http://www.slate.com/id/2195892/sidebar/2195972/
Rep. Nadler: “I had the misfortune to be here during the investigation and impeachment of President Clinton, who at worst lied about an affair. It had to be one of the most demeaning and prurient circuses too which I have ever been subjected. In this case, we are involved with far more serious allegations, allegations including violation of the anti-torture laws of the country, violations of the FISA laws and criminal prohibition agagainst warrantless wiretapping, illegal detentions, political interference with prosecutions, and a host of other serious illegal and possibly criminal acts, which by many definitions would be classified as high crimes and misdemeanors. I think it is vital that we look into these questions…” http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1456
Is hearing to impeach Bush merely 'anger management'? They lined up by the hundreds to be a witness to history at the Judiciary Committee's unofficial impeachment hearings of George W. Bush today. It wasn't called that of course. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-S.F.) had balked at a real impeachment hearing. Something about fearing a voter backlash from the public, already in a bad mood about Congress' inaction on core issues. But today's hearing by the House Judiciary Committee -- billed as an inquiry to the Bush administration's use of executive power -- was ripe with opportunity for those who want to evict the president from office. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/07/impeach-bush-2.html
Bush critics get an unimpeachable forum. The committee also reminded lawmakers and those testifying that House rules prohibit "personal abuse, innuendo or ridicule of the president." The House Rules and Manual points out that suggestions of mendacity, or accusations of hypocrisy, demagoguery or deception were out of order. "The rules of the House prevent me or any witness from utilizing familiar terms," Kucinich said. "But we can put two and two together in our minds." Former Los Angeles County Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, known for his prosecution of Charles Manson in 1970, acknowledged that "I am forbidden from accusing him of a crime, or even any dishonorable conduct" under House rules. But he could still encourage people to read his book, "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder." Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., was less circumspect in asserting that Bush was "the worst president that our nation has ever suffered." Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., concluded that "this is the most impeachable administration in the history of America because of the way that it has clearly violated the law." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080725/ap_on_go_co/kucinich_impeachment_2
Conyers to hold hearings on Bush presidency. Rep. John Conyers announced Thursday he will hold Judiciary Committee hearings next week on the "imperial" Bush presidency -- a step the Detroit Democrat's allies on the political left quickly trumpeted as "impeachment begins." Conyers, however, was careful in his news releases not to use the word "impeachment," which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House leaders have repeatedly said is off the table. Instead, Conyers said the hearing next Friday will look at "credible allegations of serious misconduct" by Bush administration officials and "what many would describe as a radical view" of power. "As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, I believe it is imperative that we pursue a comprehensive review commensurate to this constitutionally dangerous combination of circumstances. Next Friday's hearings will be an important part of that ongoing effort," Conyers said. The White House did not return a call about the hearing. But Pelosi's spokeman said she supports Conyers. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/METRO/807170477/1020/NATION
McCain's position and the response to it demonstrate how much the Bush administration has damaged public understanding of the system of checks and balances that lies at the heart of our democracy. The framers believed that unchecked power, including unchecked executive power, was the greatest threat to our liberties, but too many citizens today perceive that danger as unreal. That is why Congress should initiate impeachment proceedings now. Impeachment is one of the few ways Congress can draw limits around presidential power and educate the country about those limits. And without the people's support for those limits, they will be breached again and again by future presidents. The proposed revisions of FISA that recently passed the House give added urgency to the impeachment argument. Some Democrats have announced support for the bill because they believe it will restrain this and future presidents. The bill provides that FISA is the exclusive means by which a president may authorize wiretapping. But the original FISA bill had a similar provision, and it did not stop Bush from repeatedly claiming that as commander in chief he has the authority to ignore FISA. Impeachment is the only way to force a president who steadfastly refuses to obey the law to do so. And it sends an indelible message to future presidents as well. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/369880_holtzman08.html
More on Kucinich and impeachment. Last week, the House of Representatives voted 251-166 to send an impeachment resolution against President Bush offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, to the House Judiciary Committee. Barring any major surprises, this move effectively means that the resolution will languish until it dies. http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/?last_story=/politics/war_room/2008/06/16/kucinich/
Impeach Bush now? Congressional proceedings would help prevent another mistaken war. United States Rep. John Conyers, the Detroit Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has a rendezvous with destiny. He is uniquely placed to thrust a rod through the wheels of a White House juggernaut to war with Iran by commencing impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush. A move to impeach would bolster the resistance to Bush among our senior military leaders who know that attacking Iran at this time would be the strategic equivalent of the marches into Russia by Napoleon and Hitler. Since Conyers took the helm of Judiciary in January 2007, the train of abuses and usurpations by the Bush administration has gotten even longer. But oddly, Conyers has lost his earlier appetite for impeachment and begun offering all manner of transparent excuses not to proceed. On July 23, 2007, for example, Conyers told Cindy Sheehan, the Rev. Lennox Yearwood and me that he would need 218 votes in the House, and vociferously claimed the votes were not there. Well, they are now. Last week, 251 members of the House voted to refer to Conyers' committee the 35 Articles of Impeachment offered by U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. Conyers should take them up. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080619/OPINION02/806190359
It’s Conyers’s Time to Act on Impeachment
By Matthew Rothschild, June 13, 2008
Now.
Not to delay.
Not to cower.
Not to bend to the will of Nancy Pelosi.
But to stand up tall for the Constitution as head of the House Judiciary Committee.
By introducing 35 thoughtful and detailed articles of impeachment against President Bush on June 9, Dennis Kucinich has put Conyers on the spot.
It’s “to be, or not to be” time.
And Conyers knows what’s right. He himself introduced a bill to explore grounds for impeaching Bush—but that was in 2005, before the Democrats came to power.
Lewis Lapham of Harper’s interviewed Conyers and wrote about his brave and quixotic stance back then. Why was Conyers for impeachment then? “ ‘To take away the excuse,’ he said, ‘that we didn't know.’ So that two or four or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, ‘Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?’ when the Bush Administration declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity, can say that ‘somehow it escaped our notice’ that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law.”
So why is Conyers doing nothing now, when, as the Supreme Court ruled again this week, the President has essentially set himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law?
Because Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, the cowardly leaders of the Democratic Party in the House, have told him to. They claim, in public, that it would be a waste of time, since Bush’s term is running out, or that they have more important things to do. But privately I’m sure they are saying it might not be good for the party in November. I believe they are wrong about that, since Bush is extremely unpopular, and impeachment would galvanize the progressive base. But even if they’re right, they’re putting petty party politics above the Constitution.
Jack Cafferty of CNN made a similar point in a great commentary on CNN.
And Jonathan Turley and Keith Olbermann have been going over the grounds of impeachment on MSNBC.
The Washington Post covered it.
The AP ran a story. So did the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
And Rochelle Riley of the Detroit Free Press wrote an impressive column praising Kucinich.
But The New York Times didn’t do its own story, taking only a handful of words from the AP. And impeachment did not exactly lead the nightly network news programs.
I also wonder why more members of the House haven’t endorsed Kucinich’s resolution.
At this moment, there are only three: Lynn Woolsey and Barbara Lee of California, and Robert Wexler of Florida.
“A decision by Congress to pursue impeachment is not an option, it is a sworn duty,” Wexler said. “It is time for Congress to stand up and defend the Constitution against blatant violations and illegalities of this Administration.”
Woolsey focused on the crime of the Iraq War. “More than 4,000 brave men and omen have paid for President Bush’s mistake with their lives,” said Woolsey. “And tens of thousands of others will forever bear the physical and mental wounds of war. As a coequal branch of government, the Congress owes it to each one of them, and their families, to hold those who led us to war under false pretenses accountable.”
For her part, Lee, too, cited “the President's abuse of the public trust in his fateful and calamitous decision to launch an unnecessary war in Iraq.” But she also remarked upon Bush’s “campaign of fear mongering and demagoguery to curtail the civil liberties of Americans at home in the name of fighting the so-called War on Terror. Congressman Kucinich has performed a valuable service to our nation by documenting for the record this tragic history.”
Lee, Woolsey, and Wexler are showing the kind of principle that should be commonplace but alas is not in Congress. Where are the other decent Democratic members of the House? What are they hiding from? Where is their spine?
Despite the lack of coverage and support, Kucinich trudges on in his lonely battle in defense of our Constitutional government.
If the Judiciary Committee fails to hold hearings within the month, Kucinich says he’ll reintroduce his bill.
“We must not only create an historical record of the misconduct of the Bush Administration,” he said, “but we must make sure that any future Administration is forewarned about the Constitutionally proscribed limits of executive authority and exercise of power contravening the Constitution.”
John Conyers, are you out there?
Are you listening?
Dennis Kucinich is saying exactly what you were saying before you became chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Now you have the power. Use it.
To hell with Pelosi and Hoyer.
This is your moment for courage.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx0613b08?refresh=1
Gore Vidal’s Article of Impeachment
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080612_taking_back_the_republic/
Posted on Jun 11, 2008
By Gore Vidal
On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberties and the Constitution itself.
I wish to draw the attention of the blog world to Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment presented to the House in order that two faithless public servants be removed from office for crimes against the American people. As I listened to Rep. Kucinich invoke the great engine of impeachment—he listed some 35 crimes by these two faithless officials—we heard, like great bells tolling, the voice of the Constitution itself speak out ringingly against those who had tried to destroy it.
Although this is the most important motion made in Congress in the 21st century, it was also the most significant plea for a restoration of the republic, which had been swept to one side by the mad antics of a president bent on great crime. And as I listened with awe to Kucinich, I realized that no newspaper in the U.S., no broadcast or cable network, would pay much notice to the fact that a highly respected member of Congress was asking for the president and vice president to be tried for crimes which were carefully listed by Kucinich in his articles requesting impeachment.
But then I have known for a long time that the media of the U.S. and too many of its elected officials give not a flying fuck for the welfare of this republic, and so I turned, as I often do, to the foreign press for a clear report of what has been going on in Congress. We all know how the self-described “war hero,” Mr. John McCain, likes to snigger at France, while the notion that he is a hero of any kind is what we should be sniggering at. It is Le Monde, a French newspaper, that told a story the next day hardly touched by The New York Times or The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal or, in fact, any other major American media outlet.
As for TV? Well, there wasn’t much—you see, we dare not be divisive because it upsets our masters who know that this is a perfect country, and the fact that so many in it don’t like it means that they have been terribly spoiled by the greatest health service on Earth, the greatest justice system, the greatest number of occupied prisons—two and a half million Americans are prisoners—what a great tribute to our penal passions!
Naturally, I do not want to sound hard, but let me point out that even a banana Republican would be distressed to discover how much of our nation’s treasury has been siphoned off by our vice president in the interest of his Cosa Nostra company, Halliburton, the lawless gang of mercenaries set loose by this administration in the Middle East.
But there it was on the first page of Le Monde. The House of Representatives, which was intended to be the democratic chamber, at last was alert to its function, and the bravest of its members set in motion the articles of impeachment of the most dangerous president in our history. Rep Kucinich listed some 30-odd articles describing impeachable offenses committed by the president and vice president, neither of whom had ever been the clear choice of our sleeping polity for any office.
Some months ago, Kucinich had made the case against Dick Cheney. Now he had the principal malefactor in his view under the title “Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush”! “Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate.” The purpose of the resolve is that he be duly tried by the Senate, and if found guilty, be removed from office. At this point, Rep. Kucinich presented his 35 articles detailing various high crimes and misdemeanors for which removal from office was demanded by the framers of the Constitution.
Update: On Wednesday, the House voted by 251 to 166 to send Rep. Kucinich’s articles of impeachment to a committee which probably won’t get to the matter before Bush leaves office, a strategy that is “often used to kill legislation,” as the Associated Press noted later that day. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gDmwu-i_p3n52983ZRfSv9uJXoFAD9182T4O1
Kucinich Introduces Impeachment Articles Against Bush
http://kucinich.house.gov/NEWS/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=93581
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush late on Monday during a speech on the House floor.
http://chun.afterdowningstreet.org/amomentoftruth.pdf
Kucinich, a former contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, pointed to "high crimes and misdemeanors" committed by the Bush administration, including misrepresenting intelligence in the lead-up to the war, violating domestic and international laws against torture, illegally spying on American citizens, obstructing justice and governmental oversight, and dozens of other violations.
The impeachment resolution came four days after a June 5 Senate Select Intelligence Committee report that vigorously challenged statements made by the Bush administration regarding military intelligence in the runup to the invasion of Iraq. Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee John D. Rockefeller said in a press release, "Before taking the country to war, this Administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the Administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence."
"It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa'ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein," Rockefeller noted.
While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and other members of the Democratic leadership maintain that such a resolution is "off the table," Kucinich, along with a group of his colleagues, has consistently pressed for a more urgent and direct response to the often unilateral and controversial actions of the Bush administration.
Despite the unlikeliness of impeachment gaining much traction in Congress, advocates of such a resolution continue to demand greater accountability of the executive branch.
As Kucinich began to issue his remarks, shuffling and talking could be heard in the background of the House chamber. Responding to the disarray, Kucinich objected to the Speaker, "The House is not in order." After several strikes of Pelosi's gavel, Kucinich started reading his articles into the record.
"In violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of president ..." Kucinich stated, "George W. Bush ... both personally and through his subordinates ... illegally spent public dollars on a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false cause for war against Iraq."
Kucinich started his speech by referencing a variety of news and intelligence reports regarding White House communications, specifically the White House Iraq Group, which was composed of senior officials (then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, then-Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes, former chief of staff Andrew Card, then-chief of staff to the Vice President I. Lewis Libby, then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan and others) who "produced white papers detailing so-called intelligence of Iraq's nuclear threat that later proved to be false." These papers included later-debunked claims that Iraq sought uranium and specialized centrifuges for enrichment.
These claims, which were central to the administration's rationale for preemptive action against Iraq, were used, according to Kucinich, to "market an invasion of Iraq to the American people."
Kucinich also noted that the White House Iraq Group papers "were written at same time and by the same people as speeches and talking points prepared for President Bush and for some of his top officials."
Congressman Kucinich went on to challenge the administration's policies toward Iran, as well as its conduct regarding military interrogations.
The resolution comes days after a sharply written letter by 56 Congress members requesting that Attorney General Michael Mukasey investigate potential crimes committed by the Bush administration during the course of its interrogation program. The letter, signed by House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Barney Frank, Jan Schakowsky, Dennis Kucinich and other House Democrats, urged that the seriousness of the evidence on the program warrants a thorough investigation by a special counsel.
Revelations about the Bush administration's interrogations policies, along with its systematic practice of controlling information provided to the media and the American people, led Kucinich to conclude that the president has "misled the Congress and the citizens of the United States" and should be held accountable for violating his oaths of office to "faithfully execute the office of the president" and "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution."
http://www.truthout.org/article/kucinich-introduces-impeachment-articles-against-bush?print
Our nation's self-respect demands impeachment
I wept to see Sami al Haj embrace his young son for the first time after six years in Guantanamo prison. Sami al Haj, a Sudanese news cameraman, was seized in Pakistan while working for al Jazeera News. He was imprisoned, tortured and brutalized by Americans while there. Like most prisoners held at Guantanamo, al Haj was never tried or charged.
After his release, Sami al Haj arrived in Sudan and was immediately rushed to a hospital by ambulance, weakened by his 438-day hunger strike in Guantanamo. His message to our government: "Torture does not stop terrorism, torture is terrorism."
The U.S. government evidence against him says, "He was trained in the use of cameras by al Jazeera News."
The American people have a choice ahead of them. They can continue to be shamed as a nation of torturers, or they can put a stop to this administration's ongoing crimes against humanity.
Abusing and terrorizing innocent people doesn't make us safer. Imprisoning people without due process doesn't make us safer. Violating our laws, treaties and values doesn't make us safer.
U.S. military and FBI interrogation experts affirm that testimony obtained under torture is inaccurate and unreliable. In May, the FBI issued a scathing 371-page report on torture and war crimes compiled from observations at Guantanamo. Even the CIA concluded in a 1963 study that coercion is "not very helpful outside the context of producing false propaganda."
George W. Bush said, "We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture."
Recently, Bush admitted that he knew top administration officials met repeatedly in the White House to discuss coercive interrogation techniques, including torture, and that he "approved them."
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top administration officials have in fact condoned torture, and violated domestic and international laws that ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of human beings.
These laws include the Geneva Conventions, the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture and the U.S. Constitution. These laws are not invalidated, as the Bush team alleges, if prisoners are not on U.S. soil.
Torture laws are jus cogens, meaning "compelling law," said constitutional law Professor Marjorie Cohn, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. "There can be no immunity from criminal liability for violation of a jus cogens prohibition."
Being a rogue nation is not in our best interest and exposes our soldiers and citizens to grave danger. Why hasn't Congress stopped torture?
It is unconscionable to simply wait for the torture team to leave office while hapless individuals are imprisoned without due process and tortured. Sami al Haj spoke of the many prisoners languishing in Guantanamo. In despair, many have tried to commit suicide.
Taking impeachment off the table means there is no limit to the Bush team's depravity, and that torture will continue in our name.
The administration is already expanding prisons around the world, where the abuse of human rights will continue. A new 40-acre prison is under construction in Afghanistan.
While Guantanamo's prison population is shrinking, prisoners from around the world are being redirected to U.S. prisons in Iraq, where they'll be more hidden from the public eye. Particularly disturbing are reports of children imprisoned by the U.S. in the Middle East and Guantanamo.
Eventually, some of our highest officials will be tried for war crimes in a court of international law.
Already, charges of condoning torture are advancing against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in France. Author Philippe Sands quotes a judge with experience in international criminal cases who says "It's a matter of time" before members of the Bush administration are arrested for war crimes while traveling abroad.
Why bother with impeachment if charges for war crimes will eventually catch up with the torture team?
Criminal charges can punish individuals for their crimes, but impeachment has the power to restore the rule of law, and redeem the office of the executive. Impeachment hearings will put the truth on the congressional record. Unlike other subpoenas, impeachment subpoenas cannot be denied.
Impeachment establishes legal precedent, so that future public officials will not be able to abuse power in the same way. The American people can signal to the world that they have taken responsibility for their own government, and ensure that torture will never again be this nation's policy.
We must demand that Congress make ending torture the top priority. They know about torture, and their silence makes them complicit.
The eyes of the world are upon us. There's plenty of time to impeach. Our self-respect as a nation demands it.
Linda Boyd is director of Washington for impeachment; washingtonforimpeachment.org
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/365233_boyd01.html
Why I Believe Bush Must Go
Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.
By George McGovern, Sunday, January 6, 2008; Page B01
As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.
After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.
Today I have made a different choice.
Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising.
But what are the facts?
Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.
From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.
In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.
All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.
I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?
How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness?
It happened in part because the Bush-Cheney team repeatedly deceived Congress, the press and the public into believing that Saddam Hussein had nuclear arms and other horrifying banned weapons that were an "imminent threat" to the United States. The administration also led the public to believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks -- another blatant falsehood. Many times in recent years, I have recalled Jefferson's observation: "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
The basic strategy of the administration has been to encourage a climate of fear, letting it exploit the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks not only to justify the invasion of Iraq but also to excuse such dangerous misbehavior as the illegal tapping of our telephones by government agents. The same fear-mongering has led government spokesmen and cooperative members of the press to imply that we are at war with the entire Arab and Muslim world -- more than a billion people.
Another shocking perversion has been the shipping of prisoners scooped off the streets of Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other countries without benefit of our time-tested laws of habeas corpus.
Although the president was advised by the intelligence agencies last August that Iran had no program to develop nuclear weapons, he continued to lie to the country and the world. This is the same strategy of deception that brought us into war in the Arabian Desert and could lead us into an unjustified invasion of Iran. I can say with some professional knowledge and experience that if Bush invades yet another Muslim oil state, it would mark the end of U.S. influence in the crucial Middle East for decades.
Ironically, while Bush and Cheney made counterterrorism the battle cry of their administration, their policies -- especially the war in Iraq -- have increased the terrorist threat and reduced the security of the United States. Consider the difference between the policies of the first President Bush and those of his son. When the Iraqi army marched into Kuwait in August 1990, President George H.W. Bush gathered the support of the entire world, including the United Nations, the European Union and most of the Arab League, to quickly expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The Saudis and Japanese paid most of the cost. Instead of getting bogged down in a costly occupation, the administration established a policy of containing the Baathist regime with international arms inspectors, no-fly zones and economic sanctions. Iraq was left as a stable country with little or no capacity to threaten others.
Today, after five years of clumsy, mistaken policies and U.S. military occupation, Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism and bloody civil strife. It is no secret that former president Bush, his secretary of state, James A. Baker III, and his national security adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, all opposed the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In addition to the shocking breakdown of presidential legal and moral responsibility, there is the scandalous neglect and mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. The veteran CNN commentator Jack Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans." Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.
As former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the Nixon impeachment proceedings, wrote two years ago, "it wasn't until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws -- that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. . . . A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law -- and repeatedly violates the law -- thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors."
I believe we have a chance to heal the wounds the nation has suffered in the opening decade of the 21st century. This recovery may take a generation and will depend on the election of a series of rational presidents and Congresses. At age 85, I won't be around to witness the completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country, but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.
There has never been a day in my adult life when I would not have sacrificed that life to save the United States from genuine danger, such as the ones we faced when I served as a bomber pilot in World War II. We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010404308.html?sub=AR
npr interview: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17964053
11 reasons to IMPEACH BUSH
There are about 11 specific areas where BUSH violated the law and these should be investigated (impeachment):
- lied about weapons of mass destruction to start war.
- authorized torture.
- violating the Constitution detaining without due process.
- violating the Geneva Conventions.
- spying on Americans without a warrant.
- signing statements.
- election fraud.
- exposing the identity of CIA agent.
- violating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
- gross negligence after Hurricane Katrina.
- littering, he trashed the Constitution.
The investigation will undoubtedly bring indictments against not only Bush but also CHENEY, ROVE, RUMSFIELD, GONZALES and many others.
These are the justification for impeachment. But WHY should BUSH be impeached?
Because nobody is above the law! Especially the President and his cabinet members and staff. The leader of the United States should be an example of honesty, decency and high moral values. The use of torture alone removes BUSH from the company of honest, decent men. BUSH and his White House staff have committed crimes both heinous and petty.
BUSH should be indicted, tried, convicted and punished as a deterrent to people like Alberto Gonzales. Political appointees and bureaucrats must learn that they are not above the law.
http://www.nlg.org/members/2003resolutions/Impeachment.pdf
exposing the identity of CIA agent
“Clearly,” McClellan says, sounding like the breast-heaving heroine of a Victorian romance, “I had allowed myself to be deceived.” He felt “something fall out of me into the abyss.” And that was even before “the breaking point,” when he learned the worst about his idol — that the president who had denounced leaks about his warrantless surveillance program, who had promised to fire anyone leaking classified information about Plame, was himself the one who authorized Dick Cheney to let Scooter leak part of the top-secret National Intelligence Estimate. “Yeah, I did,” Mr. Bush told his sap of a press secretary on Air Force One. His tone, the stunned McClellan said, was “as if discussing something no more important than a baseball score.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212465600&en=741f7cebc82f23e5&ei=5087%0A
get back on the right track
It's hard to pick the event which started the slide to where we are today. The war in Vietnam and the way LBJ handled it is one.
Nixon was a crook. Ford's pardon of Nixon was justice denied. Reagan's backstabbing of Ford was the birth of hate campaigning.
Reagan created a cultre of stupidity and lazyness. He took napping and made it a virture.
BUSH created a culture of stupidity and stubborness. The bureacrts follow his lead. Supertision replaces reason, reliance on facts is replaced by belief in the supernatural. God talks to them and tells them what to do.
Impeachmnet is vital to get the country back on track. BUSH took stubbornness to criminal levels. His acts must be investigated, prosecuted and he must be punished to teach a lesson to those who would seek to follow him, people like Alberto Gonzolas,John Bolton, C Rice.
The bureaucrats need to see that BUSH broke the law and was punished for it.
here are two some examples of bureaucracy gone bad:
- Rail representatives rip DHS grants bureaucracy
- William Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association, told members of House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittees that DHS has created "an incredible bureaucratic process" for grant applicants. He described thickly layered application and approval procedures, and said in some instances, the challenges continue even after grants are awarded on paper, because the money never reaches its destination.
- VA official: Plan to fix bureaucracy shelved
- A program to fix bureaucratic breakdowns between the Defense and Veterans Affairs Departments was shelved soon after VA Secretary Jim Nicholson took office, according to a former VA official. Paul Sullivan, a former VA project manager, also told a House panel looking into problems with veterans care that in August 2005, he warned officials there would be a surge in claims as veterans returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. “I made those warnings on several occasions,” he said, but never received a response.
- the White House has encouraged a new surliness and restrictiveness
- Even before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush administration displayed an enthusiasm for government secrecy without recent precedent. Since Sept. 11, the White House has encouraged a new surliness and restrictiveness in providing public documents – and not just on national security issues. The public's right to know often seems trumped by whether a bureaucrat thinks the public needs to know.
Impeachment Is Not a Partisan Issue; It's a Democracy Issue
Saturday 09 December 2006 As we look toward January 3, 2007, the day that the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, one of the issues that must be addressed is whether or not the impeachment of President George W. Bush and others in the Bush administration should take place. Regarding the invasion of Iraq and the manner in which information was presented to the American people, did the president and/or members of his administration commit treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors?
Many see this as a partisan issue. Most if not all Republicans are against the idea. Some Democrats support impeachment. All Americans who believe in democracy should support it. Impeachment, in this instance, is not a partisan issue; it's a democracy issue.
First, a quick definition of what it means to "impeach." Article III, Section 4 of the US Constitution states the following: "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." It is important to understand that impeachment is not removal from office. It is charging (a public official) with misconduct in office before a competent tribunal. After the individual is charged, a trial takes place and, if convicted, the individual is removed.
If America is a nation of laws and not of men, the US Constitution calls for, at minimum, a full investigation of possible negligent and criminal activities of President Bush and others in the Bush administration. Were the American people deceived by the Bush administration into believing that an invasion of Iraq was necessary? Why was the Office of Special Plans (OSP) set up in the Pentagon by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and run by Douglas Feith? Did the administration use the OSP to manipulate intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam Hussein? Were thousands of Americans sent to their deaths and many more thousands wounded, based on lies and deceit? Have hundreds of billions of dollars been spent to support an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation?
I believe these are valid questions that have yet to be honestly investigated and analyzed by an impartial investigatory body with subpoena powers. These questions and many others are not partisan in any way, shape, or form. These questions get to the crux of the issue: Did the president and other members of his administration "cook the books?" Also, has the Iranian directorate, which was established in 2006, been set up to replay in Iran what was done in Iraq?
Some may say, "Well, the mistakes were unintentional." First, evidence indicates that these were not mistakes; second, even if they were, Americans hold their elected officials to a higher standard, especially when invading sovereign nations and when the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians are concerned. Their negligence should be no defense.
Start your own investigation! Do your own research!
Read Congressman Henry Waxman's report, "Iraq on the Record." This report chronicles 237 statements made by the five administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. All of the statements included in the report were drawn from public statements, speeches, press conferences and briefings, interviews, written statements, and testimony by the five officials.
After reading "Iraq on the Record," read Congressman John Conyers's report, "George W. Bush vs. The Constitution: The Constitution in Crisis." This book is replete with evidence that the run-up to the Iraq War was laced with administration lies and distortions to make it appear that the US was threatened.
Even though Waxman and Conyers are Democrats, their research is of the highest caliber. They are public servants who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. That's exactly what they have done. Read the documents for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Information is power, but it's what you do with the information that makes you powerful!
It is the epitome of hypocrisy for the United States to invade a sovereign country in order to bring about democracy, and turn its back on democracy at home. Some will say America will be distracted from the so-called war if it pursues impeachment. Trust me; Americans can walk and chew gum at the same time.
These are not partisan questions, issues, or reports. In a representative democracy, it is imperative that the individuals that you elect to represent you and your interests actually do so. Impeachment is not a witch hunt and it's not retribution. It's called oversight; it's called accountability; it's called Democracy in Action!
I can understand Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi working toward cooperation and bipartisanship with her political adversaries - but not at the expense of accountability. Holding your elected officials accountable is the cornerstone of democracy! Impeachment is not a partisan issue; it's a democracy issue!
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120906C.shtml
The United States v. George Bush
What would the case against George Bush for intelligence fraud in the leadup to the war in Iraq look like? A former federal prosecutor lays out her case to an imaginary grand jury, and all she needs is the evidence available in the public record to make her case.
Following is an excerpt from Elizabeth de la Vega's new book, United States v. George W. Bush et al. (Seven Stories Press and Tomdispatch.com, 2006).
"Elizabeth de la Vega, appearing on behalf of the United States." That is a phrase I've uttered hundreds of times in twenty years as a federal prosecutor. I retired two years ago. So, obviously, I do not now speak for any U.S. Attorney's Office, nor do I represent the federal government. This should be apparent from the fact that I am proposing a hypothetical indictment of the President and his senior advisers -- not a smart move for any federal employee who wishes to remain employed. Lest anyone miss the import of this paragraph, let me emphasize that it is a disclaimer: I am writing as a private citizen.
Obviously, as a private citizen, I cannot simply draft and file an indictment. Nor can I convene a grand jury. Instead, in the following pages I intend to present a hypothetical indictment to a hypothetical grand jury. The defendants are President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The crime is tricking the nation into war -- in legal terms, conspiracy to defraud the United States. And all of you are invited to join the grand jury.
We will meet for seven days. On day one, I'll present the indictment in the morning and in the afternoon I will explain the applicable law. On days two through seven, we'll have witness testimony, presented in transcript form, with exhibits.
As is the practice in most grand jury presentations, the evidence will be presented in summary form, by federal agents -- except that these agents are hypothetical. (Any relationship to actual federal agents, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.)
On day seven, when the testimony is complete, I'll leave the room to allow the grand jury to vote.
If the indictment and grand jury are hypothetical, the evidence is not. I've prepared for this case, just as I would have done for any other case in my years as a prosecutor, by reviewing all of the available relevant information. In this case, such information consists of witness accounts, the defendants' speeches, public remarks, White House press briefings, interviews, congressional testimony, official documents, all public intelligence reports, and various summaries of intelligence, such as in the reports of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the 9/11 Commission. I've discarded any evidence, however compelling, that is uncorroborated.
Then, using a sophisticated system of documents piled on every surface in my dining room, I've organized and analyzed the reliable information chronologically, by topic, and by defendant. I've compared what the President and his advisers have said publicly to what they knew and said behind the scenes. Finally, I've presented the case through testimony that will, I hope, make sense and keep everybody awake.
After analyzing this evidence in light of the applicable law, I've determined that we already have more than enough information to allow a reasonable person to conclude that the President conducted a wide-ranging effort to deceive the American people and Congress into supporting a war against Iraq. In other words, in legal terms, there is probable cause to believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Powell violated Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, which prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States. Probable cause is the standard of proof required for a grand jury to return an indictment. Consequently, we have more than sufficient evidence to warrant indictment of the President and his advisers.
Do I expect someone to promptly indict the President and his aides? No. I am aware of the political impediments and constitutional issues relating to the indictment of a sitting president. Do those impediments make this merely an empty exercise? Absolutely not.
I believe this presentation adds a singular perspective to the debate about the President's use of prewar intelligence: that of an experienced federal prosecutor. Certainly, scholars and experts such as Barbara Olshansky, David Lindorff, Michael Ratner, John Dean, and Elizabeth Holtzman have written brilliantly about the legal grounds for impeachment that arise from the President's misrepresentations about the grounds for an unprovoked invasion of Iraq. But for most Americans, the debate about White House officials' responsibility for false preinvasion statements remains fixed on, and polarized around, the wrong question: Did the President and his team lie about the grounds for war? For many, the suggestion that the President lied is heresy, more shocking than a Baptist minister announcing during vespers that he's a cross-dresser. For many others -- indeed, now the majority of Americans -- that the President lied to get his war is a given, although no less shocking.
So my goals are threefold. First, I want to explain that under the law that governs charges of conspiracy to defraud, the legal question is not whether the President lied. The question is not whether the President subjectively believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The legal question that must be answered is far more comprehensive: Did the President and his team defraud the country? After swearing to uphold the law of the land, did our highest government officials employ the universal techniques of fraudsters -- deliberate concealment, misrepresentations, false pretenses, half-truths -- to deceive Congress and the American people?
My second goal is to supplement the scholarly analyses already written, by moving beyond exposition, beyond theory, to the inside of the courtroom, or more precisely, the grand jury room. By presenting the President's conspiracy to defraud just as a prosecutor would present any fraud conspiracy, I hope to enable readers to consider the case in an uncharged atmosphere, applying criminal law to the evidence that they believe has been proved to the standard of probable cause, just as grand jurors would in any other case.
Why is it important to do this? Because whether the President and his senior officials conspired to defraud the United States about the grounds for war is, at least on one level, a legal question, but, without a shift in political will, there will never be any reasoned consideration of it as such. The President will not be held accountable for misrepresenting the prewar intelligence unless and until Congress conducts hearings similar to the Watergate hearings. As yet, however, we seem painfully incapable of reaching that point. We are like inept tennis partners, collectively letting the ball slip by in the no-man's-land between the service line and the baseline, or in this case, between the legal and the political.
Perhaps more important, however, is that, although the evidence of wrongdoing is overwhelming, the facts are so complicated -- far more so than those that prompted the Watergate hearings--that it's impossible to have a productive debate about them in the political sphere. Indeed, modern-day spin has vanquished substance so thoroughly that even the most well-grounded charge of deliberate deception is often considered more despicable than the deception itself.
One forum where that's not true is the courtroom. The court system is far from perfect, but there we at least expect that people will not substitute personal attacks for argument. We expect a reasoned exploration of fact versus fiction, honest mistake versus deliberate fraud. We also expect, and the law requires, that people hear all the evidence before deciding, thereby avoiding the rapid volley of sound bites that so regularly masquerades for debate on television. Hence, this hypothetical grand jury presentation: it is a vehicle to deliver a message.
My third goal is to send the message home -- to whomever will listen. And this is it:
The President has committed fraud.
It is a crime in the legal, not merely the colloquial, sense.
It is far worse than Enron.
It is not a victimless crime.
We cannot shrug our shoulders and walk away.
Why? Because We Are All Kitty Genovese's Neighbors
As an Assistant U. S. Attorney in Minneapolis, a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force in San Jose, and Chief of the San Jose Branch U.S. Attorney's Office, I prosecuted all manner of criminal cases. There were bank embezzlements, government frauds, violent takeover robberies, piloting a commercial passenger flight while under the influence -- the pilot had had twenty rum and (diet) Cokes and four hours' sleep before takeoff--and investment frauds, to name a few. Most were interesting; some downright loopy. One hapless fellow, for example, stole a truck filled with frozen turkeys and drove it across state lines to Wisconsin, thereby landing himself in federal prison rather than in county jail. For good measure, the following week -- before he'd been apprehended for the frozen-turkey heist -- he stole a truck filled with packaged frozen broccoli and drove it to Iowa.
Unquestionably, though, the most compelling cases were those that involved victims -- of violent crimes, robberies, or fraud. So I was not surprised to hear the lead Enron prosecutor's comment after the jury convicted former Enron CEOs Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling: "What inspired me," John Hueston said, "was just that, that I had spoken to so many employees, so many victims who lost their savings, people who pleaded with me and the other prosecutors to see justice done."
Thanks to Hueston and his team, the victims of the Enron fraud -- a $68 billion dollar crime that left 20,000 people without jobs, pensions, and life's savings -- have obtained some measure of justice. They will never be made whole, but at least the CEOs who orchestrated the fraud have been held accountable. In the case of the largest corporate fraud ever prosecuted in the United States, the system has worked, albeit imperfectly.
Thus far, however, in the case of the vastly broader and more devastating Iraq war fraud orchestrated by the CEO of the United States and his management team, the system has failed. And we are all victims of this fraud. George W. Bush exploited the vulnerability of an entire populace reeling from the September 11, 2001, attacks to manipulate them into supporting a war based on false pretenses. If the financial cost of the President's fraud is astronomical -- $340 billion in direct war costs alone as of August 2006 -- the human cost is incalculable, and far more profound: over 2,500 American soldiers killed and 19,000 wounded; possibly many more than 50,000 Iraqis killed; untold numbers of grieving Iraqi and American family members; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis homeless; and a million soldiers who have been sent to this war and will never be the same.
While we are all victims of the President's crime, we are also all bystanders. The crime is ongoing, happening right before our eyes, and we are all onlookers; we are all, in a sense, Kitty Genovese's neighbors.
As Malcolm Gladwell recounts in his book The Tipping Point, Kitty Genovese was viciously assaulted, stabbed three times, and finally killed, on the way to her Queens, New York, home one night in 1964. Thirty-eight neighbors heard or watched her ordeal, but no one called the police until the attack was essentially over. The murder was universally seen as a horrifying example of modern-day indifference to the plight of others. But, Gladwell explains, psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley conducted experiments that led to a far different explanation: "When people are in a group ... responsibility for acting is diffused. They assume that someone else will make the call, or they assume that because no one else is acting, the apparent problem ... is not really a problem." Ironically, then, it was not that no one called to help Kitty Genovese "despite the fact that thirty-eight people heard her scream; it's that no one called because thirty-eight people heard her scream."
For over a year now, polls have shown that the majority of Americans believe President Bush deliberately misrepresented prewar intelligence. Executive branch officials who deliberately mislead Congress and the public intending to influence congressional action have committed a federal crime. That means that roughly 100 million Americans believe Bush has committed a crime, yet most, like Kitty Genovese's neighbors, are just passive bystanders--although not, I believe, due to indifference.
Indeed, many of us are just watching it happen because we feel powerless to stop it. Hundreds of thousands of people have, in effect, called 911, but not even Democrats in Congress have been willing to answer the phone. It is not that they don't have enough information; it is, our Democratic representatives say, because it is not good political strategy.
The proposition that it is not good political strategy to insist that government officials obey the law is highly debatable. More important, strategizing in the face of an ongoing crime is wrong. Ask any legislator whether he would strategize about possible political fallout before intervening to stop a crime that was occurring in front of his eyes and the response would be, "Of course not." But that is exactly what's happening right now.
So, consider this my 911 call. I'm calling on Democrats and Republicans to do the right thing. And I'm calling on everyone else to do whatever you can to convince Congress to do the right thing. I am not talking about bringing people to justice in the vengeful sense that President Bush employs. I am talking about effecting justice. I am talking, finally, about holding our highest government officials accountable for a complex and calculated program of false pretense, misleading statements, and material omissions -- a criminal betrayal of trust that is strikingly similar to, yet far worse than, the fraud committed by Enron's top officials.
Enron: Misleading Statements and Material Omissions
In July of 2002, President Bush stood before a snappy blue-and-white banner marked "Corporate Responsibility" and announced that he was opposed to fraud. With the enactment of the new Corporate Corruption Act, the President declared, there would "not be a different ethical standard for corporate America than the standard that applies to everyone else. The honesty you expect in your small businesses, or in your workplace ... will be expected and enforced in every corporate suite in this country." CEOs would now have to personally vouch for the truth of their public statements.
Bush's speech announcing a higher standard for CEOs was itself misleading. Hearing it, one might easily conclude that if the President hadn't pushed for this new law, corporate officers would be legally entitled to lie, cheat, and steal. Not true, of course. The new law, also called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, did not suddenly, for the first time in United States history, require corporate officials to be truthful, forthright, and fair with the public. Such obligations have been inherent in criminal fraud and other statutes for years.
Indeed, the Enron prosecution did not involve the Sarbanes-Oxley Act at all. The main charge was conspiracy to defraud: that is, conspiring to deceive investors by manipulating financial data, making false and misleading statements, and deliberately omitting important facts, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.
Manipulation of data, false and misleading statements, and material omissions -- sound familiar?
At trial, former Enron CEOs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling claimed they were not responsible for the deception because they had no idea what their underlings were doing. As the jury was instructed, however, anyone who makes representations intending that the public will rely on them, has an affirmative obligation to make sure that they are true and accurate. Representations made with reckless indifference to their truth are as false as outright lies.
After four months of complex testimony, the jury reached a simple conclusion: Lay and Skilling were responsible for what went on their company. As school principal Freddie Delgado put it: "I can't say that I don't know what my teachers were doing in the classroom. I am still responsible if a child gets lost."
In other words, the Enron jurors concluded that, legally, the desks of CEOs Lay and Skilling were the final repositories of the proverbial buck. Those jurors were average Americans -- office workers, educators, engineers, a nurse -- and they knew, even without the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, that CEOs should be held to the same standards of honesty and accountability that they would apply to themselves in their own lives. Faced with evidence that Lay and Skilling had repeatedly made public statements that were seriously undermined, if not flatly contradicted, by information and warnings they had received behind the scenes, the jury refused to allow them to avoid responsibility by blaming their subordinates.
Iraq: Misleading Statements and Material Omissions
The techniques of deception used by George W. Bush and his aides are identical to those used by Lay and Skilling. In his July 2002 speech announcing the signing of the Corporate Corruption Bill, the President said, "The only fair risks are [those] based on honest information." The President and his top advisers were acutely aware of the solemn risks posed by an invasion of Iraq, but instead of debating those risks honestly, they developed slogans, including the familiar "risks of inaction are greater than the risks of action" that simultaneously usurped and deflected counterarguments while providing no information whatsoever, honest or otherwise.
Such propaganda, cynical and craven as it is, might not qualify as criminal fraud, but the propaganda alone was insufficient to convince Congress and the American people to invest in the plan for war. To remedy this deficiency and close the deal, the President and his top aides made hundreds of representations, both general and specific, that were carefully crafted to manipulate public opinion. As we now know, many of those assertions were false and misleading. More important, we also now know that President Bush and his advisers had notice and direct knowledge that their representations were seriously undermined and in some key instances, disproved by information that was available to them. Consistently, the President and his aides knowingly conveyed false impressions, concealed important information, made deliberate misrepresentations, and professed certainty about facts that were speculative at best. Such is the definition of criminal fraud -- whether committed by the President of the United States or the CEO of a major corporation.
The only difference between the fraud committed by the Enron officers and the fraud committed by the President is that the latter was far more comprehensive and far more calculated. Even as President Bush stood center stage endorsing honesty that July four years ago, he and his company were setting the stage for another show. If the "only fair risks" speech was a perky Frank Capra clip, the White House's next production would be twenty-first-century H.G. Wells.
As of July 30, 2002, Bush had directed the creation of the White House Iraq Group, a public-relations operation whose sole purpose was to market the war. This team, collectively called WHIG, was co-chaired by the President's closest aides and long-term political consultants, Senior Adviser Karl Rove -- whom Bush has described as "the architect" of his 2004 reelection campaign -- and former Counselor to the President Karen Hughes.
By July 30, 2002, the White House Iraq Group had already begun fabricating an ominous scenario that blurred together the September 11 tragedy, mushroom clouds rising over American cities, and terrorists releasing strains of smallpox, interspersed with the shadowy face of a mad Iraqi dictator spring-loaded to attack the United States. They were collecting props -- anthrax vials and undated photos showing centrifuge components and unidentifiable buildings where something ominous might be happening, but we can't afford to wait to find out. They were writing the script: power phrases like "Grave and gathering danger" and "We can't afford to let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud," designed less to inform than to inflame. And, finally, Rove, Hughes, and company were scheduling appearances for the President's War Council members that would begin just a month later, in early September 2002.
It was to be a bravura performance by the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the National Security Adviser, and many supporting cast members. The production was so well done, in fact, that, like the radio audience terrified into hysteria by the infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast of 1938, most of us were fooled. Admittedly, we resisted buying the duct tape and plastic sheeting; we may not have wrapped our heads in wet towels to ward off Martian gas like the 1938 radio audience. What happened, however, was much worse: because of Bush's fiction, we agreed to bomb people 8,000 miles away whose only "crime" was that they were oppressed by a violent and cruel dictator.
Undoubtedly, Americans were panicked by H. G. Wells's radio play in part because they were exhausted and nervous in those tough Depression years. But Orson Welles' breathless report of a Martian invasion was never intended to cause panic, nor was it ultimately harmful.
The President's elaborate production was, and still remains, an entirely different story. It was a deliberate effort to create a permanent state of fear in America. And to say it was harmful is like saying that it hurts to get hit by a Mack truck.
Federal sentencing guidelines recognize that one who defrauds a vulnerable victim, such as a salesman who falsely represents the curative benefits of an elixir to a cancer patient, has committed an even more serious crime than one who defrauds a person who is not so "particularly susceptible." The President knew that Americans were "particularly susceptible" in 2002. We were exhausted, and justifiably terrified, not only because of September 11 but also because of the anthrax murders and the random Washington, DC, sniper killings that coincided with the Bush-Cheney administration's push for war.
President Bush and his White House Iraq Group did not merely exploit this fear; they magnified it. Worse yet, the President was the very person upon whom the public relied to protect it from danger and, one would hope, from omnipresent fear itself. Having used the authority of the Oval Office to make people more afraid, having created an even darker backdrop of fear, our highest officials exploited that reliance and the trust they enjoyed by virtue of their positions to sell something they knew the American public would not otherwise have bought. It was as if the cancer victim's trusted personal physician had convinced him that his disease was more advanced than it really was, and then used the same fraudulently heightened fear to manipulate him into buying a bogus cure-all.
In the language of criminal law, the President and his senior advisers have abused a position of trust to defraud the most vulnerable of victims. How would such a case be presented for prosecution? I invite you into the grand jury room to observe:
Ladies and Gentlemen, tomorrow begins our presentation in the case of United States v. George W. Bush et al. Please remember that you must decide the case based solely on the evidence that's presented and the applicable law, without regard to prejudice or sympathy. In other words, your politics, and any personal feelings you have toward the defendants -- positive or negative -- should have no bearing on your deliberations.
Excerpted from United States v. George W. Bush et al. by Elizabeth de la Vega, published December 1, 2006 by Seven Stories Press and Tomdispatch.com. Copyright 2006 Elizabeth de la Vega.
Elizabeth de la Vega is a former federal prosecutor with more than 20 years of experience. During her tenure, she was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Chief of the San Jose Branch of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. She may be contacted at ElizabethdelaVega@Verizon.net.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/44815/
So You Think You Want to Impeach?
There's little doubt that, both legally and morally, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have earned an early retirement. But impeachment isn't a practical option.
And perhaps, then, we as Americans would demand ultimate accountability. For if lying under oath about a sexual dalliance with a Botero-esque intern is an impeachable offense, so certainly would be administration complicity in the effort to (as one Enron trader put it so coarsely) "jam Grandma Millie...right up her asshole for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."
But why limit ourselves to speculation about misdemeanors when the administration's high crimes are hiding in plain sight:
- Whereas the administration "fixed" intelligence to embark on a war of choice, unsanctioned by international law.
Whereas a criminally incompetent lack of planning has caused that conflict to drag on longer than U.S. involvement in World War II, while spurring the nuclear ambitions of the mullahs in Tehran.
- Whereas the president authorized the National Security Administration to engage in warrantless wiretaps of American citizens in violation of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the doctrine of separation of powers, and the express will of Congress in establishing the fisa courts.
- Whereas the president has authorized the use of torture in contravention of military law and Article Three of the Geneva Convention, violations of which, as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy pointedly observed in the Hamdan decision, "are considered 'war crimes,' punishable as federal offenses."
- Whereas the president has subjected "enemy combatants" to unconstitutional trial by military tribunal, and held American citizens in indefinite detention without access to lawyers or criminal courts.
- Whereas the administration's homicidal dithering left more than a thousand of our most vulnerable countrymen to perish, needlessly, under the waters churned by Hurricane Katrina.
Back in the real world, there's little doubt that, both legally and morally, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have earned an early retirement. Hell, the administration has even lost the father of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr., who said of Bush in late July: "If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced, it would be expected that he would retire or resign."
But we don't live in Italy, and our Founding Fathers certainly never dreamed of the kind of Total Recall we saw in 2003. So we're stuck with Bush ... or with impeachment -- a truly confounding choice that none of these authors thinks through to its logical conclusion. For it to succeed -- and not just morally as Nichols suggests but in actually dethroning Bush -- articles of impeachment passed in the lower chamber would have to be approved by two-thirds of the upper, meaning more than a dozen Republican senators would have to break faith with the administration.
Impeaching Bush alone, of course, would be of no use -- for Cheney, equally if not more culpable, is but another head of the same abominable Hydra. And there's the rub. Take away Bush, take away Cheney, and the line of succession would point to... President Nancy Pelosi. In order to replace a president who (for his many grievous sins) was popularly elected in a national election after the fiercest campaign in memory, we'd anoint a politician who hasn't faced serious opposition in two decades and was last elected by 225,000 true blue citizens... of San Francisco.
No, I'm confident the American people would far prefer a porn star or a midget, fairly elected -- or, for that matter, two more years of the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush -- than to see the White House change hands in what could only be described as an administrative coup.
http://www.alternet.org/story/44252/
Open Letters to Reps Pelosi and Conyers
Nancy Pelosi and Impeachment
December 3, 2006 This coming Tuesday, in San Francisco, the official canvass of the results of the November 7 election must be completed and those results will be certified.
On that day, this will be formal confirmation of the intentions of the voters of San Francisco.
Two of those intentions will be of particular, if conflicting, significance.
First, the voters will have reelected their representative to the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who in January will become the Speaker of the House.
Second, the voters will have joined the citizens of several dozen other communities across the country in formally requesting that their congressional representatives take the necessary steps to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
"We call upon the United States House of Representatives to initiate an investigation into High Crimes and Misdemeanors committed by President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney and to submit Articles of Impeachment to the United States Senate," declares Proposition J, a measure that was endorsed by almost 6O percent of the city's electorate.
With the certification of the results, it becomes the policy of San Francisco that its congressional representatives should "immediately invoke every available legal mechanism to effect the impeachment and removal from office of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney for High Crimes and Misdemeanors under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States of America."
Pelosi is not taking the hint. In fact, she contintues to say, when asked, that "impeachment is off the table."
It is of course, Pelosi's right to refuse to implement the official policy of the city that elects her. No law, nor pattern of practice, requires members of Congress to actually represent the views of their constituents.
But in coming days, as activists across the country raise the issue of impeachment at rallies and forums nationwide, Pelosi may want to take a few minutes to review the official position of the community that has sent her to Congress.
That position states:
It is the Policy of the people of the City and County of San Francisco to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney for violating the public trust and for knowingly harming the United States of America, the State of California, and the City and County of San Francisco.
On November 2, 2004, the people of San Francisco passed Proposition N, asking the Federal government to "take immediate steps to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and bring our troops safely home now," citing President Bush's lies to the American people in making the case for war in Iraq.
President George W. Bush abused his power by authorizing the National Security Agency and various other agencies within the intelligence community to conduct electronic surveillance outside of the statutes Congress prescribed as the exclusive means for such surveillance and concealed the existence of this unlawful program from Congress, the press, and the public.
President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney abused their power by arbitrarily detaining citizens and non-citizens indefinitely inside and outside of the United States, without due process, without charges and with limited - if any - access to counsel or courts. They have failed to faithfully execute the laws of the United States by allowing torture and failing to investigate and prosecute high-level officials responsible for torture.
President George W. Bush disregarded his Presidential duty when he and his appointed head of Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to quickly and adequately respond to a major disaster on United States soil, Hurricane Katrina, which killed at least 1,383 people in the Gulf Coast Region and left over 78,000 people homeless, and is guilty of gross incompetence or reckless indifference to his obligation to execute the laws faithfully.
President George W. Bush arrogated excessive power to the executive branch in violation of the basic constitutional principle of the separation of powers.
On February 28, 2006, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution calling for a "full investigation, impeachment or resignation of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney."
We call upon the United States House of Representatives to initiate an investigation into High Crimes and Misdemeanors committed by President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney and to submit Articles of Impeachment to the United States Senate.
We call on the United States Senate, after trying any Impeachment, to remove President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney from office.
We call upon the Legislature of the State of California to transmit charges supporting impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney to the United States House of Representatives.
We generally call on our elected federal and state representatives to immediately invoke every available legal mechanism to effect the impeachment and removal from office of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney for High Crimes and Misdemeanors under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States of America.
John Nichols' new book, THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism has been hailed by authors and historians Gore Vidal, Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn for its meticulous research into the intentions of the founders and embraced by activists for its groundbreaking arguments on behalf of presidential accountability. After reviewing recent books on impeachment, Rolling Stone political writer Tim Dickinson, writes in the latest issue of Mother Jones, "John Nichols' nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic, The Genius of Impeachment, stands apart. It concerns itself far less with the particulars of the legal case against Bush and Cheney, and instead combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the "heroic medicine" that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15
Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney
I support the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the following reasons:
- Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal "War of Aggression" against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, and misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization.
- Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
- Violating the Constituton by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.
- Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.
- Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.
- Violating the Constitution by using "signing statements" to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.
- Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
- Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.
- Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
- Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.
sign the petition
Dear Mr. Hunter,
Please work with us to correct serious errors. Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney may have committed crimes which threaten the safety and security and future of our country. These are serious allegations and not to investigate them would compound the errors.
If you fail to support us and the allegations are proven true you will be held responsible.
sincerely,
Peter L
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork
Clinton Impeachment
Happy Birthday, Monicagate!
AN ANNIVERSARY WE'D ALL RATHER FORGET. http://www.slate.com/id/2182345/nav/tap3/
links
Impeachment fizzle: Boulder lacks votes to take on Bush. http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/feb/15/impeachment-fizzle/
http://lofgren.house.gov/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1878
http://lofgren.house.gov/Media/File/PDFs/Conyers%20Impeachment%20Letter.pdf
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/
Progressive Democrats of America
Code Pink
