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House Narrowly Avoids Having to Debate Impeachment of Cheney
An anonymous reader writes "Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) yesterday successfully moved articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney to the House Judiciary committee. 'Today's resolution from Kucinich (D-Ohio) was essentially the same as the legislation he introduced earlier this year, which included three articles of impeachment against Cheney based largely on allegations that he manipulated intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. The last article accuses Cheney of threatening "aggression" against Iran "absent any real threat."'"
The summary here is misleading (On /. Imagine That!). Sending something to committee is like calling your trashcan the inbox. He introduced something that didn't have enough support so it got referred to committee where it can be squashed into oblivion. Only if he could have gotten an open house vote on it would it have been a "success", now it will die quietly as have his other attempts to impeach Cheney.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
An even bigger landslide victory for the Democrats?
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
251-162 to even debate impeachment, and then rather than holding the debate that was voted for, it was decided to move it forward, failing 218-194.
sounds weird and not all that narrow. its split down the middle (more or less), just like the parties (more or less). is anyone suprised??
and how many abstained from voting or just didnt show up?
3-4 is narrow, 24 (four less than the difference in parties) is not.
Yes but the maximum length that a person can be president for is 10 years. From the 22nd Amendment:
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
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The original generic sig.
Article I: Cheney lied about intelligence regarding banned weapon programs
Whether the result of lies, a lack of willingness to believe contrary viewpoints, or maybe even idiocy (I think he's too smart for that, evil or not), the accusations carry no mention of where he made statements under oath. Statements included are from two press interactions, five interviews, and a speech. While in some cases very public, there are no cases there where he was speaking under oath.
Article II: Cheney lied about connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda
Again, there was no oath taken for the occasions mentioned. Four speeches and five interviews are mentioned, but again, at no time during these was he under oath.
Article III: Cheney has threatened use of force against Iran
Three cases where he said that no options are off the table and one where he explained the placement of an extra carrier in the Persian Gulf are used as evidence here. Every president for the last few decades has used carriers to send messages to other countries, and saying that no options are off the table is application of diplomatic pressure. He never said that if Iran doesn't stop, the US will flatten it.
Impeachment is for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." He has not committed treason as defined in the Constitution ("levying War against [the Untied States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort"); he is not accused of taking bribes; and it's unlikely that misdirection of the sort listed would come under a "high Crime" or "Misdemeanor," or else every person subject to impeachment could probably be pulled from office for making a political statement that someone on the opposing party doesn't like.
I wasn't especially fond of the idea of Clinton's impeachment, and I don't think Cheney warrants it here. This is a waste of time given that a) it's unlikely to garner enough House votes to continue even if it does get past committee, and b) it's essentially impossible for it to get a conviction in the Senate.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Here it is straight from Youtube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJYbgouqlMw
What do you mean?
The original generic sig.
PBS recently had a one hour episode of Frontline about Dick Cheney on October 16, 2007. It well researched and went into great detail about Dick Cheney and David Addington's quest to expand presidential power in ways that were both legally and constitutionally questionable. Expanding presidential power was a major part of their efforts to perform domestic spying and to be allowed to use torture on suspected terrorists.
If I remember correctly, that episode of Frontline did not say very much, about the alleged manipulating of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. Most of its criticisms of Dick Cheney were for different reasons than what were mentioned in the Washington Post article.
The head of the CIA has testified they can reach the US, so we at least ostensibly believe they do.
Just to put things in perspective:
Bush just this week set a new record in Presidential approval ratings: his approval rating is the lowest Presidential approval rating in Gallup's history, lower even than Nixon's during the Watergate scandal. 50% "strongly disapprove" of President Bush. Only 31% approve.
In two separate articles, I've seen Cheney's approval rating mentioned as 9% and 11%. I could not find a good recent article citing it, surprisingly.
Congress has an approval rating of 23%. It is important to note though, that historically Congress's approval rating is usually between 20-40%.
I agree, though, that we should throw out both those who have abused their positions, as well as those that stood by and let it happen.
Congress has yet to successfully pass an appropriations bill this year, and it's already November. The continuing resolution that was passed at the end of September to prevent the government from shutting down expires at the end of next week. Nevertheless, Congress has focused on waging battles on political hotbutton topics like SCHIP instead of fulfilling their annual responsibilities. Miring the Senate down in impeachment proceedings is the last thing the Democrats need, and they know it - otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about the supposed "success" of burying the impeachment resolution in committee, because Cheney would be sitting in front of a bunch of Senators right now.
The Republicans decided that their best strategy would be to call the Democrats' bluff, by forcing the issue into debate and recorded votes. Personally, I disagree with this strategy - the vote to table the resolution was good enough affirmation to me that Cheney doesn't actually merit impeachment, the slightly-more-marginalized MoveOn.org's cries of anguish notwithstanding. But it did move Kucinich's circus into a more prominent position in the national media, and what with the media's feeding frenzy over his UFO comments, the timing was uncanny.
How did anyone get this idea that Slashdot is not supposed to post political or non-technology stories? For one, the slogan of the site is "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Second, there is a Politics main section on Slashdot, and the slogan for it (look at the very top of this page) is "Politics for Nerds. Your vote matters." Third, this story came from the Firehose, so it was likely voted up by Slashdot readers themselves.
To me, all this indicates that Slashdot posts and promotes stories that intelligent people might be interested in reading and discussing.
Besides all that, Slashdot gives you the ability to filter out from the front page stories from any section that you don't like, right here: Customize Slashdot's Display
Hey, at least it isn't like Digg.
Nixon? I'm not here to defend the guy, but he was never impeached. He resigned in the face of a likely impeachment proceeding.
You may have Nixon confused with Andrew Johnson the 17th president who was impeached. In fact impeachment proceedings failed to make it out of committee in 1867 and then impeachment was successful in 1868. Johnson was acquitted by one vote in the Senate by
Edmund G. Ross of Kansas.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over again expecting a different result."
All the people on this thread are missing the point that the Republicans voted to debate the issue on the floor and the Democrats moved the debate into the Judiciary Committee. The Democrats didn't want the debate in public and wanted it buried. Regardless of a person's political views, this is not a victory for people that want to impeach Bush/Cheney. Far from it... The Republicans want a public debate because the people that want to impeach are significantly in the minority, but the statements the fringe make will be used against every Democrat in a general election. It's easy for people that are antiwar to assume that dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war is support for never fighting the war.
It's debatable if someone who had served ten years could even be sworn into office as vice president, but even if possible, and the role of the president became vacant, the vice president would be passed over in favor of the Speaker of the House, as anyone who is sworn in must be eligible under the Constitution to serve.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Yes it does if you have served for more than 6 years as president you can not serve as vice president.
No, but removing the right of habeas corpus is.
So is knowingly revealing the identity of a covert intelligence officer.
So is spying on US citizens without a warrant.
So is torture.
So is holding US citizens indefinitely without trial.
Need I go on?
[1] Rememeber that the Democratic Party is the home of instituitional racism. Jim Crow? Democrat. Those guys with the firehoses back in the civil rights movement? Lifelong Democrats all. Only KKK member serving in Washington? Lifelong Democrat and former Kleagle of the KKK: The Honorable Senator Robert C. Byrd. Who was anklebiting Lincoln at every turn and attempting to sabotage that war effort? The Democratic Party. Just because they have some tame colored folks (Jesse Jackson & ilk come to mind) who keep the 'urban' vote solidly showing up on election day in exchange for largesse from the Treasury doesn't mean the average Democrat isn't a condescending bigot.
Damn, I love tired old horseshit day on Slashdot...every day.
You do understand that everything in that paragraph you wrote is true, up until 50 years ago, right? Most of the "democrats" you describe were southerners and switched to the GOP in the 60s.
Granted, I don't understand why somebody like Byrd is even drawing breath, but the R and D parties you describe don't exist anymore and have almost zero relevance on today's politics.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Yep, it's almost as if the grandparent had never heard of Dixiecrats. Southern Democrats. They all turned republican after the Civil rights movement happened, and blacks got to share water fountains with whites. LBJ said after signing the act "Well, we've lost the south for a generation". He was right.
GP can GTFO.
sig?
Incorrect; Bush won by 3 million votes.
While the national party flipped in the 1960s, the segregationists controlled state Democratic parties in many southern states at least through the 1970s. Take a look at Alabama: George Wallace ran and won the 1970s Democratic primary against an incumbent governor on an explicitly racist message, attacking Albert Brewer for reaching out to blacks. Wallace remained governor through 1979, and served as governor again 1983-87, though he claimed to no longer be a racist during his last term. I mean it's still mind-boggling to me that the Democratic Party didn't dump George Fucking Wallace until 1987. And things are worse if you look at the Democratic machines in rural areas---the clean-up there is going far slower than at the state level.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Not going to address the rest of your post, but the phrase "Wilsonian realpolitik" is so wrong. Realpolitik is the essence of Realist politics, encompassing guys like Metternich, Bismarck, Clausewitz, and, more recently, Hans Morgenthau. Wilson was firmly of the idealistic political school, which is the complete opposite of political realism and realpolitik.
:)
Also, I have one other point of contention. We did not "give Land we didn't own to the Jews." The British owned Palestine in every way that mattered after the downfall of the Ottoman Empire (vide: The Sykes-Picot Agreement, The Treaty of Sevres, The League of Nations Mandate For Palestine), and it was the British who went about creating the Israeli state under the auspices of the United Nations Partition Plan, which owed its ideological roots to a British internal policy memo from 30 years before known as The Balfour Declaration. When the Partition Plan fell apart due to squabbling between Arabs and Jews, the Brits pulled out. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq declared war on the Israelis and proceeded to invade them. The Israelis fought like hell using surplus World War II weaponry, and took their country for themselves. The United States didn't give them anything, although individual sympathizers within the country contributed money.
Hope this clears up a few points of, er, factual weakness.
--Obyron
What you said would be interesting if only it was true. "The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map." http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961353170&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull