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35 Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against Bush
vsync64 writes "Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) spent 4 hours reading into the Congressional Record 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Interestingly, those articles (63-page PDF via Coral CDN) include not just complaints about signing statements and the war in Iraq, but also charges that the President "Sp[ied] on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment,' 'Direct[ed] Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens,' and 'Tamper[ed] with Free and Fair Elections.' These are issues near and dear to the hearts of many here, so it's worth discussing. What little mainstream media coverage there is tends to be brief (USA Today, CBS News, UPI, AP, Reuters)." The (Democratic) House leadership has said that the idea of impeachment is "off the table." The Judiciary Committee has not acted on articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney introduced by Kucinich a year ago.
Wow! That speaks volumes of our government's efficient use of Congressional time! ...I mean email an MP3 instead...
...Brought to you by Carl's Jr.
So, He literally READ (verbally) it for 4 straight hours into the Congressional record? Geez.
-Someone should tell him about this new fangled-contraption called "text to speech": http://www.google.com/search?q=text+to+speech
-What about just sending a tape recording of him reading it? No, no
-Better yet!, Could he not have just emailed the *actual speech text* to the Congressional Records Office?
-What about sending the *actual speech text* in letter form via snail mail (with the Congressman's notarized signature and seal) to the Congressional Records Office??
Great! Another fine waste of our precious taxpayer dollars...
Impeaching him would have been a better idea 7 years ago. Right now, it would have no real benefit.
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Everyone knows this won't pass. Everyone knows that this will get tabled at the first opportunity. Everyone knows Bush will be gone in seven months. What's the point?
Most likely, in February there will be a Democratic president and a more heavily Democratic congress. That's the time to open up investigations, because that's the time when investigations will actually have teeth.
This is just pointless grandstanding.
The cake is a pie
Kucinich needs to be sedated.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Hahaha Dennis Kucinich ... he must be having campaign withdrawal. Nobody is giving him enough attention anymore. Of course, nobody paid attention to him when he was running for president either.
This kind of thing was stupid when Clinton was impeached, and it is stupid today. I hate GWB's assault on the Constitution as much as anyone (I'm a card carrying member of the ACLU). But this impeachment attempt is just makes my side look stupid.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
First Post by myspace.com/fortress91
too bad it won't get mainstream press coverage or any hope of coming through.
"I am a shaman, magician. The sun is purple. 3-D dimensions, I am for mental extensions."
Well at least we know what future presidents will be allowed to get away with if we don't impeach the current one.
than Kucinich ever could. Many historians consider Bush to be one of the worst presidents in US history. And the funny thing is that Bush still believes that history will prove him RIGHT.....
Plus, the Democrats are looking to rout the Republicans in November at least in the Senate and House(President is still a bit up in the air), doing something showboating like this can only benefit the Republicans.
Monstar L
Kucinich just wants to look like he gives a shit. If he had the balls to actually do this, he'd have done it years ago.
Oh yeah, as if the President has time to personally spy on anyone is pretty laughable as well.
Some points are intruiging for me, such as: Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter As the UN is not particularly an US insitution, can you charge the US president for impeachment for not following the UN charter ?
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
Shouldn't count for much, as I'm not american, but impeaching this president might set a precedent and send a warning to newer presidents to tread lightly or be out of a job.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
It seems like everyone is just dicking around with the election by pulling stunts such as this. There's no way this will go through.
.-.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich read off all thirty-five articles of impeachment, each one accompanied by a great deal of supporting evidence, so that the other Congress Critters couldn't avoid hearing about it, and that at least people watching C-SPAN could witness it for themselves (as he probably knew it would get ignored by the traditional media). The vile actions of this administration need to rest on the consciences of all our representatives, whether complicit or just complacent.
:)
If you want to complain about wasting time in Congress, look up which party has done more filibustering in recent years.
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
I'm not familiar with that allegation. I think he would have been better served to have limited the charges to a core set that are clear cut. Its perhaps a good idea to have the charges entered into the congressional record, but I don't think its going to go much farther than that. I don't think most democrats want to go to that extreme with so little time left. In general I think we should reserve impeachment for when the normal term limit end isn't soon enough. I believe any crimes can still be prosecuted after officials leave office, which also diminishes the possibility of pardons.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Most of the articles are stupid stuff that does not involve breaking the law.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
How interesting is it that attempting to impeach a president because he got a BJ and lied about it gets so much more publicity than one who kills thousands in an unjust war, breaks the constitution, and effectively turns a "free" country into a police-state. /me weeps for the future
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
here goes the anti bush slashdot band wagon again, bush screwed up, we all know that, impeachable? no, Kucinich is just a nut trying to get PR and thats why the major media outlets are not giving it more then a brief mention with a laugh at the end. Seriously this has little to nothing to do with tech, leave it for the smear sites and put your political beliefs on the back burner when you are posting stories for slashdot.
As a practical matter, impeachment is impossible. Whether Bush's actions were or weren't illegal is beside the point. Impeachment is an inherently political process, not a strictly legal one. A conviction requires a 2/3 majority in the Senate. The Democrats would have a hard time getting enough Republican votes for conviction if Bush murdered a decorated war hero on national television, and there's no chance at all with what he's actually done. The best they can hope for is to shine enough light onto what he's done that anyone associated with his crimes becomes a political pariah.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Despite the howls from the far left, Bush didn't actually "lie and people died". Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, own report proves that. For example,
The list goes on, and Rockfeller's committee could only say, over and over, "Generally substantiated by intelligence information," though there was some exaggeration (which isn't the same as a lie).
HOWEVER! Spying on citizens, arresting and holding without probable cause or a trial, wiretapping -- basically using our Constitution to wipe his ass -- now that's a good enough reason to impeach him and the majority of assholes sitting on their fat asses in Washington DC (both Democrats and Republicans).
-- Will program for bandwidth
There's no reason for the Democrats to impeach Bush, since Bush makes the Republicans look bad. If Bush suddenly manages to make himself look good, the Democrats can drag out the impeachment stick and drag him forcibly through the mud.
The presidential race is already tight enough, so any Republicans with a conscience won't bring up impeachment, since they would risk jeopardizing their own re-election bids.
Most importantly, if Bush and Cheney were impeached, then Pelosi, a Democrat, would take over and inherit a huge mess of unsolvable problems. Which would make the Democrats look bad before the election. Better to let a Republican president stew in a bad economy and an unpopular war.
I hope I'm not the only one who heard Homer Simpson in my head when I read "Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)".
It's concerning that so many are so quick to dismiss these as a political stunt by a talented, albeit annoying, senator. I see no problem with holding people accountable, regardless the amount of time that's elapsed since a serious crimes were committed. If the Congress would grow some teeth and start investigating the DOJ for corruption, I think the DOJ would stop pussyfooting around and hold Bush's feet to the fire. It has been proven time and again - those world leaders that are royal screw-ups usually are held accountable after they leave office. I wouldn't be surprised that once a new Attorney General is at the helm, there will be plenty of investigations launched into the various violations of Constitutional and legal principles committed by the current administration. GWB only has 7 months left in office. Once he's gone, it will be interesting to see which civil rights group will step up and begin to personally deconstruct the last administration through legal battles that will continue long after our generation is gone. If Bush is no longer president, he no longer holds the strings that control the prosecutorial branch of our government - and a new president is, of course, allowed to declassify any document(s) he or she sees fit, even if they would send Bush to prison to do some hard time. I don't think it will happen (too much politics involved)... but it's nice to dream.
So what if he's impeached? Will that solve anything? Will the other entire government then turn around and impeach itself? Will voters stop trying to rob each other via the ballot box, and vote for Constitutional candidates? No. Have fun with this while not actually doing anything about the underlying issue...
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
>Everyone knows Bush will be gone in seven months. What's the point?
There's a value beyond the symbolic one. Article I, Section 3 allows the outcome of impeachment and conviction to include "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States". We've had convicted felons re-hired into the Executive branch before. Impeachment and conviction could remove the risk of something like that happening.
Kiss my redneck ass. Flame away.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to think "profiling is worse than the slaughter of innocent people..."
Is that I finally have a good reason to use the phrase "Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D'OH!)" in casual conversation.
Part of being the group leader is taking the blame, even if its not your fault. Basically the masses don't care if its personally Bush's fault, just as long as somebody takes the blame. Sure it would be better if the right individual people were judged, but its just easier for people to sit back and take it out on one person.
I don't apply this to just Bush, but everything else too.
See now, I did learn something from Final Fantasy 8...
Then why did he say "The House is not in order"? Who banged the gavel? Your post had no resemblance to fact whatsoever. :p
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
... is awesome. He's the only candidate I would have bothered driving to the polls for, despite the fact that when I got there diebold would have just erased my vote.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
How to get attention:
1: Marry hot wife.
2: Run for Presisent
3: Look for UFO's
4: Constantly throw in use legislation that no one is interested in.
Really, there are more intersting things to be politcal about....
I sure hope he realizes he can't impeach the President for going to war, since Congress votes to go to war. I would assume someone in Congress would realize this.
If the article is based on lying, you'd have to prove the person knowingly lied. And lying isn't against the law, unless you're talking perjury. And I though Democrats didn't think perjury was impeachable.
That being said, I'm not a Bush lover by any means, and I find it fairly interesting that he is being brought up on charges of spying on citizens. Whether or not that is illegal is debatable, even if it is reprehensible, and again, we're talking about bills that have been passed repeatedly by a bipartisan Congress. In Bush is guilty, again, so is everyone who voted on those measures.
Thusly, the impeachment isn't going anywhere.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=93581
My sig of choice is Marlboro
While I applaud Dennis Kucinich for introducing his articles of impeachment in the House, I also realize that there's zero chance that the House will do anything but sit on them. The current Congress is filled with chickenshit liars and cowards. These are mostly the same spineless toadies who voted for Bush's fascist Patriot Act and his bogus Iraq War. There's no way they're going to impeach him. If they did, they'd only be implicating themselves. After all, they colluded with Bush to make it all happen. They rubber stamped his belligerence at almost every turn, most Democrats included. And to the ones who said they didn't know that Bush was lying to them when they voted for the Iraq war, I say BULLSHIT. The rest of us knew. The rest of us sat in disbelief in front on our TVs every night while the Big Lie was played out for us. A few of us protested against the inevitable nightmare. The Congress and the corporate media ignored us. And only now, when it's popular and risk-free to do so, do they cry foul.
If the President is going to be routinely impeached, arrested, and jailed during or after his term, why should any President ever allow another election? Wouldn't it be suicidal for him to do that?
This type of thing is a recipe for civil war. Consider whether you want that.
Speaker Pelosi said so
Dennis Kucinich is such a joke and a waste of time with is posturing. Bush isn't going to get impeached any more than Clinton was ever impeached - and for precisely the same reason. The president's own political party in each case will block it in the Senate, provided it ever gets there to start with. Kucinich is a fool, and has just demonstrated it to the world!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
There are some potentially serious charges that might warrant impeachment; domestic spying, for instance.
But it's a shame that those are mixed in with whackjob conspiracy accusations like fixing elections.
As Lincoln said "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me."
Between the Civil War and Western Expansion Lincoln committed many of the same illegal acts attributed to Bush, same with FDR during WWII.
So, I'm curious, how do propose to impeach a president who is already out of office?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Does this really matter?
Now as I remember, people have been calling for Bush to be impeached since his first 6 months of office. It died down for a little bit during the "we are one" period after 9/11, but then came back.
Now to impeach him then would have meant something. Doing it in '04 would have meant something. Doing it in '06 would have meant something.
It's July '08. It's too late. You can't impeach him and have something useful happen.
Let's just assume that you could get the impeachment passed in under a month. That's impossible thanks to the grandstanding that will happen in this election year. Having both major candidates be Senators won't help. They'll stretch it on as long as they can. Then there is the impeachment trial. That will last months and months and months.
By the time the whole thing is over (assuming he is impeached and convicted) he will have been out of office for... months. Congratulations, you've accomplished nothing.
This is pure theater. Whenever some of the Dems want an anti-republican issue they bring this one up. The hard-core left pipes up about it for a while and gets a little air time. The fact that the leadership doesn't even support it shows how far it's going to go in reality.
A quick look at Wikipedia seems to show that he isn't running again. He has nothing to lose, he can grandstand like this with no repercussions in the next election.
Congress did (next to) nothing to control Bush (both sides). They had plenty of chances. Congress changed hands with a bunch of people coming in or being reelected on promises of changing things, and we all know what happened then: nothing. It is up to history at this point to judge Bush. Whether some of his policies turn out for the best, he is the worst president in history, or just a footnote as "the guy who got us in Iraq." Various policies may be changed by the next administration to undo/fix things Bush has done "wrong", but it's too late now to kick him out. He's already gone, and has been out of political capital for at least months.
So, does all this matter that much? It's too late to change things.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
- an elected member of US Congress, and
- in possession of relevant facts, and
- willing to step-up and present the facts, to
present a case that an employee of US Taxpayers is violating his oath to uphold the US Constitution.Further, Article II, Section 4 demands it.
Article VI
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I have mod points. But I want you to repeat for us your assertion that the Attorney General has the power to issue warrants. Alternately, you may explicitly state your belief that a law may override the Constitution.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
The Bush administration has played havoc with our infrastructure, with our laws, with our educational system, with our resource pools, with the cost of those resources, with the effectiveness of academic research, and with our ability to do business. If you don't understand that these things all are crucial to tech then maybe you should go back to your Visual Basic tutorial and leave the discussion to those of us who know better.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Kucinich is an idiot; He hurts the Democrats chances in 2008 elections. Having Bush around is the most powerful electoral advantage that Democrats have. Trying to get rid of him is such a distraction. What will Obama do for his "Bush-McCain policies" sloganeering? Bush may be bad for U.S. But he has done a lot of good to rest of the world unknowingly.
This has no chance of going anywhere. Why is this on the front page? Kucinich is perceived as a nutjob by the vast majority of the United States. Why should we care what he thinks or introduces in the House?
That sounds like a good enough reason to me.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
And do you really think Bush will be tried of any of the indictments? As head of state, he'll be found innocent thank you very much indeed.
My web domain.
Very smart! You want Dick Cheney to President?!
This was put together during the Clinton impeachment proceedings: it's a long and fascinating account of what the authors of the Constitution had in mind as grounds for impeachment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/watergatedoc_3.htm
So, in your opinion, what is "the underlying issue"? I'm not just being snarky; I'm genuinely curious. What do you think the "real problem" is and what are you doing about it?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
If you impeach Bush and successfully remove him from office, then you get Cheney.
But, maybe if they SIMULTANEOUSLY impeached Bush and Cheney on the same charges, then Pelosi could be President.
paintball
On a related note...
A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.
For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC's Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources.
A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.
The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.
(more)
...someone please tell me what a President has to do to deserve it. Seriously, if this shitwit isn't removed from office, what will a President have to do to have that happen?
All's true that is mistrusted
* On weapons of mass destruction overall? "Generally substantiated by FALSE intelligence information.".
(fixed that for you)
There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD. Available evidence leaves open the possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq although not of a militarily significant capability.
They made up lies and based a case for war on them. they lost that case and went to war anyway. substantiated by intelligence? can it even be called intelligence, when it's wrong, deliberately? why don't we call it what it is, stupidity, bald faced lying, and greed.
then bush can change his opening remarks at the impeachment trial to
"your honor, my decisions were substantiated by the least credible most biased sources of stupidity i could find."
funny that an impeachment can't happen in an election year, what a pity. you'd think that'd be the best time, if Kucinich was on the ballot he'd get my vote! That's the clincher for Obama, he should bring his own impeachment against Bush.
And just so everyone knows that I'm not a Bush lover, I do think Bush can and should be impeached. The spying is a tough one, again because Congress passed it, and because our Constitutional right to privacy is more one of not being forced to self-incriminate. It would certainly be interesting to see played out in front of a court, but it isn't slam dunk by any means.
I'd have impeached Bush a long time ago over Jose Padilla however. Padilla is a scum bug, but he is an American citizen all the same. I routinely disagree with fanatics who scream the sky is falling, and that we'll all go to gitmo for being unpatriotic, but the Padilla case did happen. There should be fallout for suspending the rights of a US citizen.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
But, the upside is that the senate won't get much done while they're busy pointing fingers.
.....for doing this now (and it is, nevertheless, a good one) is that there will be a neat and tidy permanent summation of the misdeeds Herr Bush is accused of in the Congressional Record. It will at least provide a handy "Cliff's Notes" overview for future historians -- a starting point for research. Obviously, there will be no actual action taken. Even more obviously, Bush would be long out of office before the process could possibly end anyway. It may be a naively quixotic quest on Kucinich's part, or just a means for him to get attention (and I discount either theory -- Kucinich may be a bit of an eccentric, but I believe him to be an honorable man). No, I think his only motivation is to make sure it's all "on the record" in an official and permanent manner.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
A lot of people are saying that those who control the U.S. government, obviously oil and weapons investors, are planning another terrorist attack on the U.S.*, which they will use to justify an attack on Iran so that there can be even greater control over oil supplies to make the price rise further.
*Buildings do not fall symmetrically into dust and small pieces, even if there is destruction at the top. The destruction of the World Trade Center was a controlled demolition.
There is a lot of evidence that whoever controls the U.S. government is planning to declare martial law. It's a top-rated story on Digg.com.
Search for "martial law" on digg.com or reddit.com. There are hundreds of links.
Mod parent up.
Treaties ratified by the congress are Law in the United States. That would include agreements made with the UN.
The Supreme Court recently scoped that down a bit, eloquently saying 'uh, but not REALLY'.
I'll leave it to the Constitution to tell you who's right about this (hint: apparently not the 'conservative' and 'strict constructionist' Court in that decision):
Article VI: [...] This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. [...]
What would he have to have done for you to consider impeachment merited? And do you consider his actions so typical that we should assume that any standard that justifies impeaching him would, de facto, justify impeaching anybody simply for being president?
Oh, and btw, he has yet to be arrested or jailed.
Though we can certainly hope ;->
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
That's PRESIDENT Bush to you, you sniveling little parasite.
cnn, abc, cbs, nbc, npr, etc.
The Clinton Impeachment had 35% public support at the peak of public support, but the press harped on the blowjob endlessly and grilled Clinton interminably.
This impeachment already has more than 50% public support, but the MSM will not cover it for fear of people realizing that if the majority demands impeachment, it will happen.
So, this is getting covered by the blogosphere, CSPAN and in the international press.. untouched by the "mainstream" "liberal" press.
Disgusting, as usual.
Okay. That makes sense. But if he can be charged after he leaves office then doesn't that make it even more important to get the ball rolling as soon as possible?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
enough said. Living, breathing relic of "Stupid is as stupid does."
When you are old and think you're sweet, Take off your shoes and smell your feet.
how long till the next 9-11? why don't you ask the people who planned it?
it sure wasn't Iraq, or Iran! Iraq has no capability to attack the US, this was known then and is known now.
Here we have a US Representative reading 35 articles of impeachment (with lots of supporting documentation and citations) on the House floor and there's virtually no media coverage. There's an AP wire paragraph that's quoted about it several places and that's about it. No commentary. No detail on any of the articles. How is this possible? What the hell?! Google it yourself. NOTHING. What does it take? ITMFA!
The Clinton thing was blown out of proportion because they had a provable lie under oath. The fact that it was a lie about a trivial matter (trivial to the public anyway; obviously not trivial to the Clinton family) was irrelevant to the right-wingers who attacked him on what many of them saw as a matter of principal. The problem is the same principals are ignored when one of their own engages in provable lie after provable lie about matters of grave public importance such as war and peace. But Bush and co. have been smart enough not to find themselves in the position of uttering provable lies under oath (they avoided this simply by refusing to take an oath when testifying to the 911 Commission, for example, and by refusing to testify altogether). So we don't have the "gotcha" moment that we had with Clinton. I can agree that Clinton's lies were shameful whether under oath or not and that perhaps I'd have more respect for him had he come clean, but it doesn't change the fact that the issue he lied about was one I had no business knowing anything about in the first place. Whereas Bush & Co's lies have been about issues that the public does have a right to know, and thousands of Americans have died as a direct result of these lies. I hope people can see the difference.
Get The Fuck Out Of MY Sex Life. It's not just idiotic, it's insulting that some people have tried to make it into such a big deal. It's insulting because there are so many truly important things going on, at any given time, independent of which flavor we have in office.
You get your dick sucked and lie about it. I lie my way into war and domestic spying. Prioritize.
Quack, quack.
If you've ever set foot near the Capitol, you'd realize the chamber is constantly on an internal multichannel CCTV feed with captioning.
Just because no one is in the room does not mean it isn't being watched or heard in the members' offices.
So what do we do now?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
"Articles of homage to Lord Zebulon of Orion" "Articles of request for step stool"
BTW: I'm a Brit living in the US and find the War Profiteering very distasteful. I would be quite happy to strongly say that I don't support the war, but support the troops there.
The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. - HGTTG
Is it American to ignore impropriety because it's inconvenient? Just imagine it's a democrat if you have to, corruption isn't drawn on party lines.
Quack, quack.
The evil of those that stand aside, equals the evil of the heinous vile amoral acts of others.
... and sociopathic serial killers. George&Dick have sever antisocial personality disorders that prevent them from considering repercussions of their evil and traitorous actions, and most USA politicians again refuse to honourably act would never feel sincere guilt and remorse for anything performed by USA politicians (POTUS, vPOTUS, Speaker ...). Analogy: There is a cancer in US and it is not diagnosed; Therefor, expect demise not treatment or a miracle cure from our politicians.
... go unanswered and unpunished is an insult to US, our ideals, honour, ancestors and posterity, and an indictment of our valueless, worthless, and treacherous politicians.
Again most USA politicians prove they are the equals of Hitler, Stalin, Mao
Impeach a POTUS for a blowjob in a private office and a little fib to congress, but let real crimes happen against "The USA Constitution", humanity, USA Citizens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopathic
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
There is no case for impeaching Bush.
He hasn't broken United States law.
What we ought to do is turn him over to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes.
Which is why Bill Clinton was *not* convicted of perjury *or* contempt. The byzantine rules of the US court system *allow* you to lie *IF* the question you are asked has no bearing on what you are being charged with. Therefore, his lying under oath about Lewinsky in the Paula Jones case was not perjury, because his relationship with Lewinsky had no bearing on Paula Jones' accusations. Don't blame me or Bill Clinton. That's the law.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
because he thought what he was doing was the right thing to do. Would Al Gore have stepped up security, fought the terrorist and taken us into a war (the war is justified that we thought that terrorist were in Iraq, and rightly so)? Probably not.
If people can get past, can they get future? Best way to confuse a stoner
If ever an article needed this tag...
20th century Marxism is not progress...
It came from Reddit. Home of the Paultard campaign. There's actually plenty of coverage in the media for the worth of the story, but Reddit-anoia makes it into a huge conspiracy by the shadowy MSM.
Should we fail to do anything then we assert that we are tolerant of these violations and should expect ongoing erosion.
Quack, quack.
Bush is a shitty president, I'll give you that. But do you remember a little thing called 9/11. It may be a mess right now but when the war started, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who disagreed with it. And Sadam, he's gone! one less dictator on the planet! and for those WMDs we can't even find osama bin laden, who's to say he didn't just dump them in some cave. The War has dragged on way too long, I'll agree with that. but dammit we went in for the right reasons!
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
After the 2006 election, Nancy Pelosi's first action as Speaker of the House was to take impeachment off the table. Why would she do that when the vast majority of the Democratic base clearly wanted it? Because, even if it had succeeded, it would have hurt the Democrats' chances in 2008. The first interest of the Democrats was to ensure that they remained in power, or solidified their grip on power. An obligation to the Constitution and their constituents was a second priority. And before anyone thinks I'm taking sides here, I'll say that both major parties do this.
Why are they doing it now, when Bush has only seven months left in office rather than a year and a half ago? Election year theater.
And that's why I cringe when people say "We really need to get the Democrats the White House and majorities Congress in 2008" or something to that effect. They have no interest in you, the country, or anything but power and money.
Kucinich is an exception among them. We need more like him, but he is an anomaly.
Lincoln's suspending of habeus corpus was actually not that widespread, nor were most of his other questionable activities, none of which even began to reach the scale of Bush's ones. As for FDR, well, first of all, we really did have a world war going on and secondly, yeah, no sh*t, and look at how much trouble his actions have gotten us into since. The "Military-Industrial Complex" that Bush is so tied to grew directly out of FDR's policies and his obsession with secrecy (not to mention the influence of Hoover) played a huge role in Truman getting suckered by the security establishment into creating so much of the core institutions that are so central to our current national security state. If FDR had lived a few years longer he probably would have faced impeachment hearings. He certainly had enough enemies. Gawd knows Churchill was out on his butt as soon as anybody was in a position to do so.
If you want to try that line of patter, might I suggest that you start with the Alien and Anti-Sedition Acts and Wilson's various illegal actions against folks like Eugene Debs.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
You have no idea what it's like to live in a police state. If you did, you would not make this kind of statement.
and "unjust" is murky. A blow-job is easy.
In political systems, how does entropy affect freedom?
Quack, quack.
What good has Bush done?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Clinton is not the brightest lawyer in the box.
He could have avoided the whole thing and saved a ton of money by:
1. paying of the lawsuit, this means going to the court house and submitting the money asked for. No pleading guilty or not. This action satisfies the legal requirements.
2. going on TV and saying he is the POTUS and cannot be distracted by dumb stuff.
The point is not that he banged another woman. But that he lied under oath.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
The lie that is the problem is the written response. Not what said in front of judge.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
Think on this concept ... President Cheney ... Can't you hear the chanting ... four more years, four more years, four more years.
A form letter email generator for your local congress-person can be found here.
The case for treason is quite clear. If this bastard is allowed to get away scott free with trying to change our republic into a monarchy, it's pretty much game over for democracy in the US. If he is instead made to account for his actions we might have a chance.
If we had some ham, we could make a ham and cheese sandwich
You apparently live outside of the Cleveland area much less the State of Ohio.
If
... Paula Jones. She cared too because her case was thrown out as a result of his obstruction of justice.
Keep in mind, the President's first job is to ensure that the law is faithfully executed. When you violate that responsibility for political expedience.
If he could have argued that violating her rights actually helped the nation, then it wouldn't have been an issue.
Am I blind, or is this not mentioned on CNN at all? It's not linked on their Bush topics page anywhere I can see, and search doesn't find it.
This seems like huge news, so it seems odd that CNN wouldn't be all over it?
YOU might have given YOUR support. I didn't support Bush's war. I fought like a badger against the Iraq War. Anyone actually paying attention knew Bush and his cronies were lying before that war even started.
The UN weapon inspectors said there were NO WoMDs in Iraq well before combat began.
Are you saying the democrats are in favor of having an evil corrupt president? Is that because they aspire to get one of their own?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
>Clinton LIED under oath in a federal court after taking an oath to tell the truth.
Bush took an oath to uphold the Constitution.
What about the monkey torture?
Clinton did not lie about anything pertaining to his duties as President.
The record has been doubled by the Republicans. That needs more explanation than just being in the minority.
Several statements by the president and the vice president were either contradicted by the intelligence they had or made up from thin air. These are statements made to convince the public and Congress that Iraq was a threat to the United States. If that's not lying, then what is?
Didn't you watch There Will be Blood? It's called drainage! We should have been drilling down there years ago, now the Chinese have beaten us to it. Yes, it is a global market, but the last thing we need to do is increase our trade deficit for no reason at all.
What happens in the Middle East over all, but specifically in Iraq. If Iraq stabilises and becomes a flourishing democracy, it'll be attributed to Bush's visionary leadership. The flaws and the problems will be slowly forgotten, replaced with the idea of a leader willing to stand up and do the right thing and free people. He'll be hailed as a great president. If Iraq stays the same or degenerates, he'll be remembered as a failure, who screwed things up and was a really shitty president, maybe even the worst.
A quote from a Bond film (which may have been somewhere else first but that's where I heard it) is "The line between genius and insanity is measured only by success." Well, there's some truth to that. Something that is "An insane stunt," when it fails can then become "A brilliant feat," when it succeeds. Success or failure often clouds how we evaluate the situation that lead to something.
Thus it will most likely be for Bush. The Iraq war has been the major thing of his presidency, so it's outcome will likely shape how he is judged. Doesn't matter if it's outcome really has nothing to do with his actions, or is even in spite of his actions. If it comes out good, he'll likely be held up as a great president, if it comes out poorly he'll be held as one of the worst.
How he is not impeached already boggles my mind... Other then the fact democrates are wussys there is no excuse for him still running a country when he can't even run his mouth properly!
But of course having a whore pleasure your dingdong and thats an impeachable offense... Even tho the only thing it has any real effect on is the clintons.
Fact is Bush is:
1 a war criminal
2 has managed to break not 1 country but 2!
3 He is DEE DEE DEE which should be more important wanting to spray your man juice.
4 He has pretty much givin corporations a free pass every which way.
5 O ya lets not forget about lieing about pretty much everything... but whatever its just a trillion dollar war he got into
6 Torture
7 How about shitting on the constitution
Course clinton being capable could never make up for what he did in his personal life which was never anyones damn buissness in the first place.
Bush being retarded on the other hand, and well do i really need to point on the 200 page list of shit he has fucked up. Good thing americans base stuff on sex rather then ya know that thing you do with your head. You know when you try and figure something out...
I mean really what the hell is wrong with america these days that they can't even save themselfs from the bush group... Is letting him be the worst president in the history of USA really better then impeaching him. 35 reasons yet nowon with enough reasoning to do anything about it. But it only takes one if your a democrate..
Please bare with me on this for a moment, and put aside your feelings about if the Clintion or Bush impeachments are warranted...
I have a bad feeling we are witnessing a new trend in politics... that from here on out damn near every president will be impeached by the other side of the isle.
If I'm right on this it's going to hurt us as a nation in the long run, and make the act of impeachment have little meaning.
Think about it, if every president is officially pronounced a criminal.. what message does that send to the rest of the world about our nation? How strongly will our citizens back a president in times of crisis?
"Whackjob?" Voting machine fraud aside, there are many ways to cheat in a presidential election.
A LOT of smart people called Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein names as well, but their efforts resulted in the Nixon impeachment because they took the time to research the subject matter rather than bow to ridicule, lies and threats. --Rather than take the easy way out; to simply go with the flow and believe what they were told; that only 'whackjobs' think that corruption exists.
-FL
This is all TROLL worthy.
Please read up on the Starr Report then. There was all kinds of evidence linking him to a laundry list of crimes. He was charged however only with perjury and abuse of power if I recall.
The biggest problem with the Starr report, is that it dug up far too much, so both parties then quickly sought to bury it, so as to not make the entire country look bad.
And I am extremely suspect of anyone who claims that Clinton wasn't a liar. Primary Colors was written by a close friend of his, and even that book suggested he was a life-long pathological liar.
As a disclaimer, I consider myself very liberal in my political platforms. That doesn't mean I have to worship Clinton, and hate Bush absolutely. There are reasons to hate Bush certainly, but I feel the need to play devil's advocate to try to keep such discussions factual.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Another Reason... I suspect the timing on this is no accident... we finally got a democrat candidate and the election is right around the corner. There is going to be tons of press about how evil Bush is, and will likely cause people to think "I don't want another criminal republican in office". I suspect those behind this are more interested in casting republicans as evil and therefore sealing the deal for Obama than actually impeaching Bush.
I'm a huge fan of factcheck.org, and oddly enough I discovered it during the Vice Presidential debates 4 years ago when Cheney was advocating it (except I think he called it factcheck.com mistakenly).
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Someone wants to make sure he is re-elected this fall. After 2 badly failed attempts at President some of his constituents have figured out he is in it for power.
By the time Congress acted it would be to late anyway. This is just a big "look at me" grandstanding event for the cameras.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Your national public broadcasters were on to a lot of what went wrong and were stating so in their broadcasts. But since too many people watch/listen/read the news as brought to you by News Corp, the neo-cons won the communications victory and got their war.
Scott McClellan's book says not only that they were lying, it says they KNEW they were lying about the intel when they said it.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Happened-Washingtons-Culture-Deception/dp/1586485563
Scott McClellan's book says not only that they were lying, it says they KNEW they were lying about the intel when they said it.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Happened-Washingtons-Culture-Deception/dp/1586485563
Seriously, what the hell is this doing on Slashdot?
Go back to CNN or MSNBC. I'm starting to see major political leanings on my nerd news.
Not to mention anything of the millions of people of other nationalities (perhaps an order of magnitude higher) who have died, been irreversably wounded or displaced as a direct result of Bush's lies and mis-leading of the American public. A few Americans might have a problem with that, too.
However it won't. Congress is not at all willing to stand up to the president, it seems, even though the party majority has shifted. Impeachment is a long process. The articles being introduced doesn't really mean anything. For the President to actually get impeached, the House of Representatives has to vote to do so, and they aren't going to. Well then getting impeached in itself doesn't really do anything. To actually be removed from office or anything more serious, there's then a trial conducted by the Senate. 66% have to vote to convict. If convicted, then he'd be removed from office. After that, criminal charges could be leveled in criminal court if appropriate.
Unfortunately, this is likely to just be for show, as I doubt the House will even vote on it, much less pass it.
Took long enough. Now it's completely pointless to do this.
http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/
I plan on using this impeachment attempt to sample the people in power.
The people that try to push this to the back burner, or fight it, will never receive a vote from me again. Not that I can vote in most of the areas these people are from anyways, but I am sure a lot of you folks can.
I can't wait to see the guy gone -- but think about it, folks. Even if our Congresscritters grew a collective spine and acted on this, we do *NOT* want to impeach Bush.
I mean, does *anyone* here want "President Cheney"?!?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
I watched Kucinich read all 35-counts. His mailing list was the first to inform me that he was about to do it, and I'm thankful I was at my computer at the time.
Some of it was just jaw-dropping. Children being detained as enemy combatants? Going on vacation while the terrorist attack sirens were blaring? Sitting back and doing nothing while Katrina destroyed the gulf coast? Usurping FISA's exclusive authority to issue electronic surveillance warrants for intelligence purposes?
Never, in the history of the United States, has any President, EVER, deserved to be impeached and removed from office more than George W. Bush.
As a Progressive Democrat, I understand why my party is moving for the impeachment of George Bush. What I really *don't* understand is why the Conservative Republicans aren't doing the same thing? If there's *anything* in the world that will give McCain even a slight chance against Barack Obama, it would be rallying the Republican party to impeach George W. Bush. Republicans who supported him might even be allowed to keep their jobs in the next election cycle! Why aren't they all over this like flies on dog shit???
Let's remove this tyrant from office. For the good of the Presidency, for the good of America, for the good of the American people, and finally for the good of the whole damn world!
IMPEACH BUSH NOW!
Maybe the goal isn't to actually impeach him now, but to have this on the record for the unexpected national emergency we're all expecting.
...That would be Obama.
Please tell me Slashdot isn't turning into Digg....
A lot of people including myself deeply respect Dennis Kucinich. Do you know anything about his accomplishments, or are you just parroting back what the conservative media tells you to say?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Locked away in prison for the rest of their lives.
Or better yet - handed off to all of the various countries who would love to bring charges against them.
Yep, back then it would have put Cheney in office...or more likely not gone anywhere.
Seven years later I don't feel like my rights have been abridged in any way. I don't feel like I lost any critical privacy. I don't feel less free. I in fact feel good about stepping thru scanners, being sniffed by dogs, and being searched at the airport. I feel more put off by having to listen to Congressman K talk than by people being locked up in Gitmo or putting up with any of the changes.
If you feel like someone really is abridging your rights then get on to your rep about why there is no MI5 style unit here in the US, with restrictions and judical & legislative oversight. It would be a great middle ground. Right now if I have to take an extreme - everything starts with security.
Dennis Kucinich is an idiot. No, I don't mean that euphamistically. I mean he's an actual idiot. If you want such a measure to be taken seriously, get someone who's NOT an idiot to bring it forward.
Prosecutors didn't indite O.J. Simpson because they didn't like him and wanted to send him to prison for the rest of his life, they indited him because they had two dead bodies in the morgue and a ton of evidence.
What led to Clinton's impeachment wasn't a crime he committed, but a desire among Republicans to remove him from office by any means necessary. Whitewater and Vince Foster were investigated and re-investigated and no dirt was found on the Clintons. So Ken Starr and House Republicans settled for a manufactured perjury charge.
Whereas with Bush and Cheney, we know for a fact that they have broken the law and violated the Constitution countless times. They violated Habeas Corpus, the 4th Amendment (warrantless wiretapping), 5th Amendment (due process), 6th Amendment (speedy trials), 8th Amendment (cruel & unusual punishment) and laws against using federal agencies for partisan gain (attorney firings, Don Siegelman prosecution).
Democrats shouldn't remove Bush and Cheney from office because they don't like them, but because they committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
The last time the Speaker of the House was of the opposite political party when there was the prospect of both the president and the vice president being tossed out, he said in such a situation, he would resign after handing the reigns to a Republican vice president. I would hope that Nancy Pelosi would do the same.
But that PDF doesn't contain evidence for impeachment. It contains evidence that GWB makes even Warren G. Harding look good by comparison. But being a bad President, even being the worst one ever, isn't an impeachable offense.
"Misleading Congress and the American Public" isn't a crime. Anyone pushing any policy is selective about the evidence they present. Bush and Cheney have been extreme in their selection of evidence and the consequences are tragic. But I see no evidence for impeachment. Or the one or two articles where there is a shadow of a hint of a case are buried in a pile of BS.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
And rightly so. When Carter left we had just finished boycotting the 1980 olympics in Moscow because the Soviet army had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Solidarity movement in Poland was being persecuted, and millions lived in brutal gulags which amounted to [slow, work you to] death camps. The KGB was funding and training islamofascist terror, including the attempted assassination of the pope. Let's not forget that 1000's of warheads were pointed at American population centers and all of western Europe. That's some serious mind bending you got going there to describe the detente of the 1970's USSR under Breznev and Andropov as "well and truly over", but I guess the ability to twist history to support your illiterate and ahistorical yearning for one party rule is what makes you an outstanding useful idiot.
Israelis want the U.S. taxpayer to pay for eliminating a threat to their nation.
I suppose the parent comment was written by someone who sympathizes with that.
> People that hate Bush 43 are going to have to choose: too stupid to tie his own shoes or the mastermind of the Iraq war for his oil buddies. I believe he is neither, but he can't be both.
How about "puppet figurehead of a corrupt regime"? I believe that proves that someone CAN be both, even if you try to argue that it's not actually true.
Never mind the fact that it's been corroborated by insiders many times over. But don't get me wrong, I still don't think the impeachment will ever go anywhere, even if I strongly believe that Bush deserves it far more than Clinton deserved one for lying under oath.
That last part? Yeah, that's because I know the charge Clinton was actually impeached for, being one of those life-long Republicans who are turning their back on the party right about now. Those who are saying that you'd have to kill the Republican party to save it have it right in my book.
I just hope that we get a better name than Whigs, Know-Nothing, or Bull Moose...
Part of the blame is on Clinton. Clinton made Nixon look ok, and Bush makes Clinton look like a boy scout. Clinton should have seen jail time but Bush should be executed by international court. Still, the Clinton machine's hatchet job on the impeachment congressmen ensures that noone will ever try to hold the president accountable for their crimes again. The dems know all too well how the Republicans can exact revenge for an impeachment. They themselves handed over the blueprints in 1998.
What on EARTH are you people going to do in 10 years when not a bloomin' history book reflects a damn thing you're so seriously and deludedly whining about? One hundred fifty years after Lincoln's crimes, he's become a hero he certainly wasn't in his day. In Lincoln's day, if any of you whiners were newspaper publishers or politicians, you'd be in jail 24 hours after posting. People should definitely air their concerns. But people also shouldn'e be freakin' deluded morons. This post is NOT in defense of Bush. It's in shock at idiocy that's a couple centimeters from trutherism.
That's all there is too it. The David Broder's of the world would throw a fit if Democrats impeached Bush, even though they wanted Bill Clinton to resign for getting a blow job. Democrats need to learn one lesson from Republicans: telling the media they're full of shit will not only not cost you elections, it will gain you respect with voters.
The Iraq occupation is a good example of this; the only Dems to lose seats in Congress were those who voted for the invasion like Tom Dashel and Max Cleland. Democrats were terrified of being viewed as "weak" on national security long after the majority of the public started to oppose the occupation. Ned Lamont helped break that dam by successfully primarying Joe Lieberman while vocally opposing the war. The mass market media, however, is as pro-war today as it was in 2002. The military contractor/analyst scandal has been ignored. The only people invited on-air to about the war were those in favor of the invasion from the beginning - not those who had it right from the start.
Another example: NSA wiretapping. There was the usual blathering from idiot pundits like Joke Line of Time, and the Senate caved as usual. The House, however, held firm...and the sky didn't fall.
Democrats need to learn to stop being afraid of their own shadows and asshat pundits.
Wow...
/. were supposed to be at least above average intelligence...
All this nonsense based on spin and innuendo... And people actually believe this stuff...
I thought that the people on
I know, I'm trolling, thats not like me... But Wow...
---
When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out fact and reality, is your conclusion true?
--- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
200 billion barrels in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota.
ANWR
Both coasts and the Gulf.
We have the oil. JUst too many stupid laws that prohibit drilling for it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
1. He has greatly reduced U.S. role as a global hegemon. Now on, it will be a multipolar world. No more railroading through UNSC etc., Good for world peace. 2. (Indirectly) Greatly increased petroleum prices. This will promote conservation and reduction in emissions strictly by market forces without the need for Kyoto or Al Gore. 3. He has greatly weakened U.S. military; there won't be an aggressive war for another generation. 4. He has helped to enhance the credit crisis that was created by sub-prime lending by making the federal government impotent to help (due to large budget deficits and national debt). This will tip over the point of living extravagantly by borrowing. 5. The monopoly of U.S. $ for international reserve seems to be breaking. This is good for U.S. and the world. This will keep us honest in terms of production & consumption and fairer to others. etc., etc.,
That would be a solution to a host of problems. Impeach the Republican party, remove all republicans from office. Impeach the Democrat party, remove all Democrats from office.
Maybe then we can get into the real meat like tax reform, making them read what they vote for, and getting the government out of every room of our house (not just the bedroom, though that is important).
so it'd probably be a good idea to do this soon.
No matter how cynical you are, throwing the bums out is a Good Thing. Even if you install equally bad bums you've avoided getting entrenched bums.
Kucinich is nuts. Like most of the members of Congress, he engages in spurious insults rather than dealing with the real problems of the country like taxes, taxes, taxes and taxes. . . and, oh, yes, gas and oil prices. How do you take profits from oil companies (5%) when the taxes add 15% to the price. Seems hypocritical just like these bogus charges. Why do we pay these clowns hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to engage in self-promoting diatribe? What a vacuous disgrace!
Any formation when taken by itself is a small part of the worlds supply. If everyone took that attitude, we wouldn't have any oil. And no, alternative technologies would not provide more bang for your buck. At the vary least, if we drilled this oil, we could use it to build new alternative energy sources more cheaply. Good luck building your nuclear reactors, the same forces that stop new drilling will stop them too.
How many more Americans are going to be killed in Iraq before the next president takes office? How many more phones will be illegally wiretapped? How many more suspects will be tortured? How many more times will federal agencies be used as wings of the RNC, as with the U.S. States Attorney firings and the Don Seigelman prosecution? Bush is still the president, and will continue to trash the Constitution until he leaves office.
Imagine if prosecutors had your attitude when Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were found dead: "sure we have this mountain of evidence, but sending O.J. to jail wont bring them back. We'll just let him go so he can get back to what's left of his family."
Remember: no bush, no dick.
(damn I was all set for +5 insightful and had to spoil it down to +5 funny with that last line ...)
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
You guys DO know that even Kucinich isn't serious about this stuff don't you? The guy has a very tenuous grasp on reality at best. He believes that it is prudent to legislate against mind control rays being used in space but even he has to be secretly laughing at the mad hatter crowd who takes this stuff seriously. But if we are going to do it then let's at least be thorough. We need to have war crimes trials for the leaders of all of the other countries that sent troops (there are a LOT of them) and for the UN which authorized the use of force and for Hillary Clinton and the rest of the gang who voted for it. We will need to arrest the members of the Czech, German and British intelligence agencies who are still standing by the false information that led us to war. Then we will need to do something about all of the judges who ruled the wiretapping acts as being legal and about the congressmen on the intelligence committees who knew of and approved what was happening. Then we need to release all of those nice young men in Guantanimo... maybe somewhere like San Francisco, where they can recuperate from the injustices they have suffered. Since they have been unjustly held we sure wouldn't have anything to fear from them now would we? Oh yeah, and what about the Iraqis? We need to round up all of the ones who fought on the wrong side of this "illegitimate war" and charge them with war crimes of some sort. We need to remove the democratically elected government of Iraq and replace it with Saddam's nearest relative. We will also need to make reparations to Al Queda for all of their brave young soldiers that we killed while trying to stop them from turning Iraq into the new caliphate. We can reopen the torture houses and refurbish the mass graves so that they can hold more bodies in a more environmentally sound manner. We will also need to pay the French and Germans for the income they lost from Saddam; the legitimate president of Iraq elected with 99% of the vote. At least THEY acted honorably in this whole affair. Then, after all of this is accomplished, we will finally have purged all of our sins and the world will be a better place. We can elect the Obamessiah safe in the knowledge that He will talk to our enemies and our security will be assured. Or we could just laugh our asses off at anyone who takes this stuff seriously. I bet Dennis is... at least when his tinfoil hat is getting particularly poor reception.
Suddenly, impeachment looks like a really, really bad idea.
I can see why the USA wants to export there quality semi democracy around the world.
One knows it a quality system when it takes 1 thing to impeach a president on one side of the isle and on the other side even 35 reasons end up shrugged off...
i hate to rain on your parade, but CIA world factbook put's Canada's total oil production is only about 4 million barrels per day, and the US consumption at just over 20 million barrels per day.
I don't know by who's definition "the bulk of" = app 20%, but not mine.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
It's not remotely debatable. What part ofdo you not understand?
and again, we're talking about bills that have been passed repeatedly by a bipartisan Congress
Congress never passed any bills to legalize warrantless wiretapping, and even if they did, it wouldn't be Constitutional. And in addition to the 4th Amendment, the Bush administration has also violated the 5th (due process) the 6th (speedy trials) and 8th (cruel and unusual punishment).
To say that Bush and Cheney should not be impeached for their long, long list of crimes marks one as either grossly ignorant or an incompetent tool.
And I am extremely suspect of anyone who claims that Clinton wasn't a liar.
Your suspicions are irrelevant. Unless you read his mind, there is no way you can say Clinton lied about "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky.
The right to privacy is implied, but not very clearly defined in the Constitution.
Again, what part ofdo you not understand?
It simply is not factual to call the war illegal.
What a surprise, the facts don't meet your storyline. Wars are only legal if it's in self-defense or there's a humanitarian crisis, and the invasion of Iraq fails on both counts.
Given that oil price is being caused by
a) rising demand
b) declining value of the USD
what pray tell can congressional democrats, or anybody else, do about it?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
First, the proles elected him, they love him, and they find matters such as this to be the work of crazy bitter men. Their standards are for the president to be an extremely rich working class kinda guy (insanity knows no bounds) and that he be forgiven for trying to do "What's right" instead of doing anything actually right It doesn't help that people give the president and his cronies credit for things that reek of blatent incompetance as opposed to conspiracy. One might even argue that he is grossly incompetant and that he should be removed for that reason alone. No one would have their job still if they fucked up as often and as profoundly as this president. When the world goes past wanting well meaning but stupid, goes past wanting devious and good at it, to devious and retarded, then Rome isn't burning. It's in ashes, in an urn, ejected into space on a course heading directly for the sun.
George Washington. What area? He was perhaps our most careful POTUS as he knew everything he did was the first and would be emulated.
Thomas Jefferson (depends on LA purchase view)
Adams was about as bad as Bush if not worse with the Alien and Sedation Acts.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
>wording that gives any member nation unilateral authority to ensure compliance with existing resolutions.
While carefully and deliberately avoiding phrasing that would authorize military force. The Security Council removed "all necessary means", the diplomatic code for using force, and substituted "serious consequences".
Legal opinion on UN resolution 1441.
the reason it doesnt get publicity is because it is a complete crock and will never get any consideration because it isnt based on any solid fact. its designed simply as another chip to throw at the republican ticket when election time nears. most of you posting know nothing about the impeachment process or the general state of the govt. /agree with Israfels... why is this on slashdot? "near and dear to the hearts of many of us here" speak for yourself.
You can't even prove Clinton lied in the first place. And even if he did lie, it has to be a relevant lie to be perjury. And since the judge ruled that what happened between Bill and Monica wasn't relevant to the Jones case, it would have been impossible for Clinton to commit perjury on the subject.
Clinton's impeachment wasn't about perjury, it was about Republicans trying to remove him from office by any means necessary.
It helps to be old enough to have read a newspaper at the time instead of getting the mindless revisionism required to paint Reagan as a dead hero. The Soviet union fell apart under it's own weight - Thatcher fortunately pointed it out to Reagan who was not going to listen to any of his own advisors on the topic.
The real question about Clinton is not that he did it while in office. After all it is a powerful position. Men do not ascend to positions of power and be choir boys.
The only problem with his sex is that he got caught. You should be more worried about a man who ascends to high office and has tons of power and does not get some nookie on the side.
I know this is not PC to say, but alas it is a truism
Read and pay attention to number 9 http://psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-4359.html
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
My God, man. You could find a silver lining in the blackest of clouds.
...want to move to Australia. I love this country and think its the greatest in the world but we've got some of the worst people in office imaginable. This dumb shit waists my tax dollars (I live in Ohio) to try to impeach a president in the last 6 months of his 8 year term. Maybe Dennis needs to be smeared with meat paste and locked in a room with hungry wolverines... Yeah... I like that... Maybe with a web cam....
While it's probably in our best interest to avoid a war with Iran, when oil passes $150, I think at that point it's unavoidable.
If the current crop of politicians had been in Congress 35 years ago, Nixon would have served a full second term.
"If it's real, then it gets more interesting the closer you examine it. If it's not real, just the opposite is true." -
And that's why he did it. A permanent record.
Yes, the impeachment is going nowhere. Even if Pelosi did go forward with it, a split Senate would never get the 2/3 majority to actually oust Bush.
But at least people in the future will be able to look at the record and know that we all weren't duped.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Bush doesn't have to be an evil genius to be guilty of mass murder. The two are not mutually exclusive.
The buck stops with him, and it's HIS fault if he was to ignorant to think analytically about the bullsh*t that Cheney, Rove, and Rummy were spooning him.
Bush must be accountable for his decisions, whether or not they were his ideas or not...he's the 'decider' as he was fond of saying.
That said, I think he should be impeached, booted out of office in disgrace (along with Cheney), tried for many crimes, but I would stop short of saying he should be put in court for mass murder.
Thank you Dave Raggett
*shudders at a Cheney presidency*
;P
Don't kid yourself, he's probably in on it.
Twinstiq, game news
>and they have to decise that he has committed a crime
That was a good summary but this particular point leaves out something important.
An impeachable offense does not have to be a crime. Some, such as bribery and treason, definitely are. Historically, others aren't. We got the idea of impeachment from the English, whose history included the 1450 impeachment of the Duke of Suffolk for "obtaining offices for unfit persons and delaying justice by stopping writs of appeal". Official misconduct and misuse of power were among the problems impeachment was meant to solve but which were beyond the criminal code. Hamilton in the 65th Federalist Paper described impeachable offenses as those "which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust."
There are wagers in Vegas as to the next inside attack against their own citizens. I'm betting on a nuke if you try to impeach or vote away from McCain. You get the same options Saddam had.
To me this issue is as simple as can be. We are (in theory) a nation governed by rule of LAW, not men. This administration has committed serious crimes. The proof is clearcut and easy to find for anyone who bothers to look. For some of the crimes, the domestic spying, we have public admissions of guilt. So being a nation of law, we put the accused on trial. The likely outcome of the trial is totally irrelevant at this point. In fact it doesn't matter if you support the republicans or the democrats, if you support the constitution you support impeachment and trail. It is the process that matters not the outcome. I supported the impeachment of Clinton, the crime was clear and so was the evidence, put him on trial and see how it works out. I was glad to see he was acquitted, but no man especially the President is above the law. If we let them/him get away with all of these crimes, then we set a precedent and since these crimes are about basic constitutional issues and issues of life or death for thousands of Americans and many more Iraqis, and the evidence is very strong, the precedent is that we become a nation governed by men. Laws become irrelevant to those in power.
Of course that's just my patriotic rhetoric. I believe that we stopped being a nation governed by law a looooong time ago. It's just now we have to live with it thrown into our faces on a daily basis, and there will be no consequences for these criminals except that a marginalized senator reads a bunch of accusations into the record.
-- QED
The real reason it took 4 hours to read 35 articles was that Kucinich had to stop every couple minutes to check in with the mother ship.
How many more Americans are doing to die in Iraq by January of next year? How much more spying will be done without warrants? How many more people will be tortured by our government?
You sir, are a fool and a tool.
>unless the U.S. specifiably signed a treaty saying that it would follow that guideline
The US Senate ratified the UN Charter on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2. We committed to not making war except in self-defense or as part of action agreed on by the Security Council.
From what I remember from college history, Congress impeached Johnson because he was doing the exact opposite of what Lincoln would have wanted.
Lincoln picked Johnson as his VP because he was from a southern state, but refused to side with his state, and continued to sit in Congress during the Civil War even though his state seceded from the union. Lincoln made him his running mate to try to unite the country back together, he had no intentions of dying.
FYI-
No U.S. president has ever been removed from office from an impeachment.
>Btw an impeachment can also result in jail time
Not so, explicitly: Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7--"Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States".
This is by design. Impeachments in England could lead to criminal punishment, but the founders didn't want to recreate that here.
Jail time would have to be the result of a separate criminal prosecution, which is authorized in the Constitution but is not part of impeachment.
TO cut off U.N. oil for food corruption.
These money are being used by terrorist and KGB operatives world wide. That includes the Jews that are controlling the left-wing in the U.S.A.
Patriot Act + ENabling Act + Martial Law = peace
FUCK DA JEW
I will choose fascism over communism at any time.
And how's Pelosi's approval rating?
Maybe his co-conspirators in Congress can prevent the criminal impeachment, but what about hitting his pocketbook?
Impeach Cheney first and refuse to confirm any VP nomination before removing Bush from office as well.
Fascism at it's heart is unaccountable, corporate militarism. That is the Bush Administration, straight up - deal with it.
98% consider his presidency a failure. The percentage who think he's the worst ever is only 61% (http://hnn.us/articles/48916.html).
After the Speaker of the House comes the president pro tem of the Senate, who is Robert Byrd (D-WV).
Byrd on Iraq February 12 2003
Byrd on Iraq, February 26 2003
Actually, the money went to black Ops, and illegal payoffs to warlords... see the invoice lines listing the millions or $500 hammers and $800 toilet seats purchased ....
ABOUT
FUCKING
TIME.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
The US blocks any resolution that reflects badly upon itself or Israel.
Saddam handed over a 10,000 page report detailing their destruction of WMDs, and since we have only found ridiculously small quantities of mustard tipped artillery shells, I would say he was telling more truth than our own government.
Saddam was megalomaniac, and kicked the UN out to piss the US off. Unfortunately for him, he didn't realize or believe that the top levels of government were filled entirely with lunatics who consider the Christian God part of their foreign policy. I really wish I was making that up.
If you really value UN resolutions, as other posters have said, we should be paying reparations to Nicaragua for war crimes, yanking funding and military support for Israel, and perhaps even helping people in Darfur. Unfortunately for those in Darfur, there aren't billions of barrels of easily obtained oil under their feet worth trillions of dollars. Otherwise we might pretend to care for them as well.
The point is, really, that Bush has no morals. His ethics are fucking meaningless, and in my opinion that sentiment fills the whole executive branch, the CIA, the FBI, and probably a majority of the congress and judiciary branches as well.
The American government has not only lost touch with it's own constituency, it actively goes out of it's way to ignore their will through gerrymandering, spreading bullshit during their campaign, and using wedge issues to divide the country for their own benefit. You have swallowed that empty rhetoric hook, line, sinker, and reel.
But hey! Welcome to the Repocratic Party! Enjoy your jetski, and keep shopping.
If the Haliburton invoice signature doesn't fit, you must acquit!
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
I am so sick of this. Clinton LIED under oath in a federal court after taking an oath to tell the truth. He lied ABOUT sex.
No, he didn't. The impeachment of Bill Clinton wasn't about perjury, it was about removing him from office by any means necessary. In this country, we're supposed to investigate crimes, not people. Starr and the Republicans in the House should have been thrown in jail for malicious prosecution.
You might want to think that over again:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801687.html
The Rockefeller report seems to make the case Bush didn't lie despite Rockefeller trying to indicate that he did. Speaks badly for the press, politicians, opponents of Bush, and Bush himself for not defending himself better.
Does anybody out there still take this guy seriously? He's nothing but a stalking horse for the Democratic leadership, every time some issue threatens to generate a base of left wing political support independent of the Democratic party they roll out Dennis with all his talk about being the "last real Democrat" and once he's sucked all the life out the the independent movement he quietly steps back behind the party line.
This is just the Democratic leadership trying to make sure the anti-war folks on the left believe that the Democrats are on their side. Once any possibility of a serious anti-war movement breaking off from the party has been eliminated then Kucinich will fade back into the woodwork in 2008 just like he did in 2004.
Clinton's actions were immoral in that he cheated on his wife, but those actions and the subsequent testimony did not meet the standard one would normally require for criminality (let alone "High Crimes and Misdemeanors").
You missed the nutjob with the hot wife tag.
Im just sayin'....
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
More holier than thou posts. Great!
While we're at it, can we impeach Carter and all the other nutcase Democrat Presidents for the crap they pulled while in office? You can pretty much thank this wonderful president for making Iran the disaster it is today. Thank you Mr. Carter!
Oh, and thank you for meeting with Hamas. That is *really* going to bring peace to the middle east! Great job!
I suppose they would be experts at damaging the country by now. I wonder why the change of heart? Ah, they don't want anyone else to do it. They don't like to share.
Yeah! Let's charge President Bush with all kinds of crimes! But make sure we get Clinton, too! He bombed those folks in Europe. Get him!
Stirring up the mob with this impeachment nonsense is a way to get people to ignore what's going on around them. Congress has driven us to start putting food in our gas tanks. The end result will be famine and food riots. Way to go!
"American's demand we do something about these obscene oil profits." I actually heard this quote on the radio driving home. No, we don't. We want our lower cost of living back. The U.S. is the only nation on earth with abundant untouched oil resources that has decided not to harvest them. Thanks Congress! No off shore oil, no shale processing, no drilling in ANWR, and no reasonable alternatives (nuclear, darn it, like France).
Congress is currently trying their best to centralize the U.S. economy under the guise of phony environmentalism (Cap & Trade). With even limited use, cap and trade schemes have led to worse pollution, because now companies can simply pay money to pollute more. So why write it into law? Why, to lock down that nasty free market thing, of course. Free markets are key to free societies.
But just so people don't notice this tilt toward a centralized economy (which historically always leads to a weak economy and totalitarianism), we'll prattle on about how horrible we think President Bush is.
Fire and motion. The American people are the ones pinned down.
/rant... You can mod me down now. Sigh.
I really think we had a bunch of Cold War guys that got blindsided by 9/11 and overreacted. They sincerely wanted to protect U.S. interests and scraped and fought for any means to do it. Reign them in, vote them out. But this frothing at the mouth has got to stop. Bring back the debate of clear ideas, unclouded with slippery half-statements.
To Congress: Stop telling me what I demand. Stop putting words in my mouth. I want to be able to work hard and enjoy what I've earned. If I work harder, produce more or better than my neighbor, then I do deserve more. Let me keep it. I'll pay you to keep criminals at bay. I'll pay you to keep the opportunities equal. I'm not paying you to keep the results equal. That only achieves a lowest common denominator. I'll pay you for the infrastructure you maintain on my behalf. But please, no more power grabs. I demand the rule of law, tempered by the application of principle, guided by the restraint of morals. You must serve, you must not rule.
Dennis is cool, and so is his lovely and outspoken British wife. (In fact, I think I'll have to get myself one of those as soon as possible!) What's more, we're going to have him on Vegan Radio really soon, so tune in sheeple!
-- thinkyhead software and media
The US Attorney's Manual makes the difference between criminal contempt and civil contempt
Bill Clinton was not convicted because he never got a trial and the charge was non-criminal.
And no, no one would've gone to jail over this. It was politics, pure and simple. During the impeachment, both Gingrich and Delay were having affairs (not with each other) and Republicans are still okey-dokey with both of them. Where is the moral outrage? Where are the lamentations that they have sullied the nation, and eroded our moral fabric? Basically Republicans don't care a whit about affairs by Republicans. They wanted to take down Clinton because he is a Democrat.
Adultery is not a Democratic monopoly--during the impeachment both Delay and Gingrich were having affairs. During! Do Republicans care? No, which shows that the whole sordid thing was, after all, only about politics.
Which do you consider more morally wrong--Clinton's blowjob, or people being tortured at Abu Ghraib?
...is that articles of impeachment are fairly routine. Yes, it's true - they were introduced by various congressmen at various points against Bush prior to this, against Clinton (before Lewinsky), GB I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson...
Any congressman can introduce articles of impeachment. Big deal. 99.9% of the time, it's a publicity stunt. Just like this time.
Advice: on VPS providers
I think you can calmly make the case that many of the decisions of this administration were morally repugnant and in violation of written law, but you can't make this case with a wacko, however well-meaning, screaming "mass murderer!" right next to you.
It's funny if the BUSHADMIN spent as much money on fixing problems in the USA instead of creating problems for the USA imagine where they would be..... If you ask me i think its a bigger problem then CLINTON LIED ABOUT HIS SEX LIFE!(which was never really relevant to ones leader ship IMO)
Guess what alpha males tend to have BALLS... But at least unlike bush, Bill has brains to go along with those balls... I am just glad obama will be the next president and the bushwackers can go back to collecting profit and clearing BRUSH....
Jesus Fucking Christ....if you are hanging your hats on the rantings of some nutjob who thinks he's been contacted by UFOs you're kidding yourselves. It's shocking that horseshit like this is "news for nerds" - "news for nuts" is more the case.
Hello All, As someone who has spent the last year or so working on impeachment with folks who have been working on it a lot longer than myself I can say with some level of confidence IMPEACHMENT can happen if you want it. That is, every time we have a face to face with a Congressperson or their staff, we get the message that Congress isn't hearing from *enough* people. Moreover, whenever we're out in the streets protesting we don't actually get a lot of folks to join us. Sure we get a bunch of honks and thumbs up from passersby, but we need people standing with us AS WELL AS people calling their Congressperson, House Speaker Pelosi, House Judiciary Chairperson Conyers, and as many other House Judiciary Members as you can afford the time to call. Faxes and postcards are good too. The bottom line is knowing that Bush and his cohorts are literally getting away with murder while the Congress rests on their butts. We ALL need to stand up like Dennis did on Monday and let Congress know we want IMPEACHMENT NOW! It is that easy. Just call and state that you support impeachment investigations for both President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Tell them you're sick and tired of Congress's lame excuses not to do their jobs. That's about it. I truly believe if enough of us call, fax, write, and get out into the streets we will see justice served. Oh, and one other thing. Folks who think this is a political thing need to read Representative Kucinich's 35 articles of impeachment throughly and with an open mind. Once they do I'll bet they'll change their tune. This is about saving our Democracy. That's it. Thanks for listening. :-)
So he lied about a blowjob to safe face/marriage.
To me that sounds even more ridiculously than the first one.
Nice to see everyone can agree on this... but where the hell were all of you five years ago? Hell, even four years ago. The guy's not suddenly more of a douche now. Seems like most of the crazy bullshit was pulled off during his first term - Iraq, spying, torture, Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, Enron, etc etc etc. And only NOW he's worthy of impeachment? For what, high gas prices?
In 2004, half of America voted for a guy who did nothing right and everything wrong. They chose to continue down the path of complete fucked-upedness. I say, you wanted it, you got it, bitches. The Republicans, the Limbaugh fans, the Christian wackos, they all had everything they ever wanted - blind control of Congress, the Supreme Court, an executive who felt he was above the law and could do whatever he felt like - yeah, how that'd work out for ya? Me, I won't forget all the bullshit and vitriol those people put us through, and how everything they believed in ended up in failure and ruins. But where are all these people now? Give them a little impeachment filing that goes nowhere, and that's it? These people were chock-full of evil. C'mon, what ever happened to being tarred and feathered?
Oh, sorry, I'll just go put on my flag lapel pin... carry on, nothing to see here...
No, he's broken the constitution. Which is more serious than breaking the law.
Plonker.
I'll never understand the american political climate. Bill Clinton boosted the economy, slashed foreign debt, was very well received by most of the world, yet he almost got impeached because of some affair with a secretary. George Bush lied to the american people numerous times, is throwing incredible amounts of money away for a war based on false facts, has boosted terrorism and anti-american sentiment all over the world, ignores human rights and international law, didn't accomplish anything at all except increasing military spending and oil price to historical levels... and there he was... happily going about his business for the full 8 years of his two terms, without anybody stopping him. Can someone please explain this to me?
What's the point? I'm sure congress has also given Dubya the right to veto his own impeachment. Also didn't he get immunity to just about everything with some bill?
In a perfect world Dubya would be tried in Hague after his impeachment.
The system doesn't work as intended, because members of Congress have nothing to gain in this case. In Clinton's case, or Nixon's case, the other side stood to gain from impeachment. It made the impeached and his party look bad. In this case, the most serious reasons, such as the Iraq War, were only possible with the support of many (but not all) Democrats. They signed off on several bills that were at the heart of all this. We've seen Obama attack Clinton because she was in favour of the war before she was against it. Obama's hands are clean in that respect, because he wasn't in office when those bills were on the table. One more reason why he is better set than Clinton to take on McCain, at least when those issues are being discussed.
Voting for impeachment would in this case result in a lengthy investigation of what went wrong and many people on both sides have plenty of reasons not to want too much scrutiny of what happened. If you want to be really cynical, you can also argue that Democrats are also feeling the pressure of lobbyists for those profiting of all of this. Money talks...
The only way that impeachment could work as intended would be if the people deciding over it were impartial. Perhaps SCOTUS would be in such a position, but even they are not entirely independent, having been selected for office by the president himself. That might be one more thing to adress in the future...
Now if you could make such things convincing and I could just hire you to do my sales presentations I'd be doing great ;->
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I do know that having just once had to run down a street as gunfire went off, mobs set buildings on fire (damnit, I liked that McDonalds!), and the local government was "threatened" by idiots with loaded weapons, I have no desire whatsoever to see it happen here in the U.S. In my experience this kind of thing seems much more romantic and "cool" to folks who have never huddled in a basement stairwell wondering if they're about to get shot.
I'm curious. You ever been somewhere like that?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
...they could revoke the sweeping powers they gave the government. But that would amount to admitting they made a mistake in the first place. A very un-politician act ;-)
C - the footgun of programming languages
Impeach and imprison!
If only the Democrat-led leadership in Congress had the guts to impeach this criminal president, they would find that not only would they have the support and backing of a majority of the American public, but also the rest of the world, and likely guaranteeing a Democrat win in November for the White House.
The strength of America has always relied on the foundations set forth in its laws and Constitution. To ignore those cherished laws now in the republic's time of need, is a crime in itself, and indeed possibly a greater one.
There is even less to this story than the title. I can't believe that I wasted time and electrons responding. Oh, the tin-foil, anti-Bush crowd (who STILL haven't figured out he's not running for re-election) will have their knickers in a bunch so it may be worth letting them fuss over defending a blowhard like Dennis Kucinich. Go ahead, mod this down. I don't read replies to my posts.
Clinton killed several thousand troops and who knows how many Iraq citizens on two lies about Iraq. This doesn't make any sense. There is no law in the US, just who has the most power.
So who did Jeff Gannon blow?
Impeach and imprison!
If only the Democrat-led leadership in Congress had the guts to impeach this criminal president, they would find that not only would they have the support and backing of a majority of the American public, but also the rest of the world, likely guaranteeing a Democrat win in November for the White House.
The strength of America has always relied on the foundations set forth in its laws and Constitution. To continue to ignore those cherished laws now in the republic's time of need, is a crime in itself, and indeed possibly even a greater one.
I think you mixed up your presidents, but yes.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Cheney has also been impeached earlier. You need to take out both heads of this snake to get rid of the evil.
Then you're gonna LOVE November, cause the 'moonbats' are going to be running the 'koolaid drinkers' out on a rail.
'Moonbats' and 'koolaid drinkers' are both terms widely used for liberals. Then again your post didn't make you sound all that astute, unless you think of that as two words. You seem to be the only one frothing at the mouth here.
You may consider my favorite quote from Samuel Beckett (below) as my response to any further comment you may have.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
The pubs have passed a number of laws that gave W. and top ranking pubs all sorts of "get out of jail free". These guys learned a lot from Nixon and reagan. If you can not be moral and legal, well, just pass laws that retroactively give you an out.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If being an idiot were a capital offense the world would have far fewer people. With the reduced demand gas would be $.50/gallon. We'd have a new president every few weeks. Orgy of hate and execution? You ain't seen nuthin yet. In 20 years the current troubles will be long forgotten. They'll be trivial by comparison to the issues of the day.
Yes our president is an idiot. I'm saddened both that I voted for him and that I'd do it again. I knew he was an idiot at the time. An idiot is by chance only wrong half the time. I'll still take an idiot over a coward every time because a coward is by definition always wrong. Who is responsible for offering me this painful choice? That's who I'm mad at.
BTW, I'm not disagreeing with you -- spies, saboteurs, unlawful enemy combatants, the falsely surrendered = shot on site or exploited for information and then dealt with in the most profitable way. War is a cruel sport. Neither the Geneva Convention nor any other treaty I know of that the US is a party to offer any protection for these sorts of combatant. This is the way it must be. Otherwise the common mode of conflict would be espionage, sabotage, terror and betrayal. Machiavelli and Byzantium would be the chaotic order of the day.
Is it a good rule? I don't know. It may be useful to remember that in war the history of whose cause was just, whose heros the most noble, which side was divinely favored is written by the survivors.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
As a foreigner who admires the US constitution from afar, I am puzzled by this:
'The (Democratic) House leadership has said that the idea of impeachment is "off the table."'
If the president is alleged to have broken a whole swathe of laws, and the Democratic party refuses to do anything about it - what is the point of the Democratic party?
Furthermore, if the constitution can be selectively ignored by the executive branch, and the legislature and judiciary steadfastly look the other way, what is the point of the separation of powers?
I feel as if I'm watching a man jump out of a plane, wearing a functioning parachute, but making no attempt to deploy it.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
But it's nice to see a congressman with some balls. To stand alone on this issue takes guts, and I respect Kucinich for that.
This is a bit like closing the barn door after the animals have left.
This corrupt, selfish, and incompetent administration has done its damage. If democrats other than Kuccinich gave a dam about anything else other than their jobs and themselves, they would have fought the Bush administration numerous times over numerous egregious acts over the past 7.5 years. Instead they rolled over with their legs in the air and did nothing. The Bush administration only has about 7 months left. I say it is time to move on. Vote for Obama. Nobody can reform the country, but he is the closest thing to a breath of fresh air we will get.
He did not say it was a spaceship, or ethereal intelligence, or whatever the current woo is.
He saw a light in the sky and he didn't know or speculate about what it was.
An astrologer in-law of his (name escapes me, but a fairly well-known mistress of woo) added a bunch of crap in some interview about how he felt a great sense of peace blah blah, which he subsequently denied, repeating that it was just an Unidentified Flying Object.
It's shocking how little it takes to get labeled a nutjob. Apparently accurately reporting facts is enough - as with the UFO and as with these articles of impeachment.
He read it into the record when? When everyone was asleep?
My guess is that Kucinich wasn't doing it because he believed in it, so much as he's going to use the fact that he read them into the record in a future election bid. Mark my words... Politicians are, by definition, sneaky devils that cannot be trusted to do anything but lie, cheat, and steal.
Besides, why would impeaching Bush be "off the table"? If Bush really did violate laws, then of course he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Everybody said the same of reagan. One of the items that I was in on (HIV in 1981), I know for a fact he was very active in deciding to stop our extra funding, and yet the pubs, media, and history later record that he had nothing to do with it. We went to the man for 50 million for epidemiology to be able track and stop the active transmissions. He shot it down multiple times. At that time, there were less than 1000 infected. Could not have been stopped, but could have set it back a decades worth.
This had multiple repercussions. One of the later figures, my boss, who approach reagan for the 3rd time for this money was the first man asked because he he WAS the best person for this. He turned it down right away. Even though this man had been a life long pubs himself, he was absolutely disgusted by what he had seen. The "band played on" actually gets the early history of HIV wrong WRT CDC.
Ok, I don't me "we" as in /. but "we" as in this nation. Why has this stuff gotten this far and nothing has been done about it? Why do we (Americans) continue to elect politicians who will not do the hard parts of their jobs? Will any of us still be alive when the revolution comes?<complaint>
Wow. I check Slashdot every few weeks or months and threads like this are what keep me away. If this is what the technical "elite" think about things, we are well and truly screwed.
Read the Rockefeller report (not the summary, the actual report) if you want to understand the pathetic lack of evidence for Bush's "lies" and "crimes." Criminalizing policy differences, as liberals have tried to do with John Yoo and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush is a terrible idea. You know why? It's simple, and I will try to explain it here to people who spend too much time in front of a computer screen bloviating on the Internet and not enough time using common sense:
If you make it a crime for policymakers to disagree with the opposition, nobody good will agree to serve in office for fear of being ruined or jailed when they leave. And the people who ARE willing to serve in office will eventually decide they won't leave at all. You get my drift?
Dennis Kucinich replied succinctly, "I read it."
Interesting list, but what about:
1) Defense Authorization Act enacted by Bush in 2006 which repeals Posse Comitatus and authorizes the president to use the US military against its own citizens "to suppress public disorder" at his discretion
2) The Military Commissions Act signed on the same day which empowers Bush to arbitrarily deem any US citizen "an enemy of the state", thus removing their rights to representation, a fair trial, etc.
Oh wait, both of these acts where approved by Congress as well. Guess if they were on the list we would have to impeach them too.
Read, learn, cast off your ignorance.
... catchy slogan, but ignorant.
...
http://www.amazon.com/Moment-Truth-Iraq-Greatest-Generation/dp/0980076323
For all you 'bush lied people died'
Of Course, when you are draining the swamp, you need to start somewhere
It all just a setup so the next administration can pardon Bush and Cheney making absolutely sure they don't go to jail.
I've thought this is where vehicles should be going for a long time. Kind of a retro return to vehicles in cloth (ie: WWI fighters).
Even more interesting is the talk of expanding materials being used as bomb proofing material. These materials actually thicken when stretched due to molecular structure.
Take a strong lightweight titanium frame and overlay it with materials like kevlar and newer fabrics that expand when stretched. And you might have the world's safest vehicles. With the additional caveat of being bomb resistant.
Can't we get some DOD/DARPA funding for development of a prototype?
as they were covering this story at least in the morning of Wednesday 6/11
the history of the world
Bill Clinton boosted the economy
It depends on which economy you are talking about. In American politics, it is always city vs industry. Clinton was about the city, Bush is about the industry.
Under Bush, the dollar is devalued, and this, coupled with global demand, is driving commodities prices through the roof. This means that American resource extraction companies and manufacturing export companies are making tons of money. So, oil companies, coal companies, gold companies, farms of all kinds, are all doing really well under Bush. However, the falling dollar is bad for investment and so Wall Street in particular and the services sector in general, are taking a beating. The mortgage and other banking crises are ultimately a consequence of this.
Under Clinton, on the other hand, you couldn't make a dime in any of the commodities or farming sectors, and those people took a beating. Manufacturers went out of business in droves in favor of offshore production, whereas under Bush, manufacturing is actually doing rather well as a whole - exports have surged to a record 15% of US GDP. However, services people made out like bandits, as a strong dollar is good for investment.
Just look at the stock market, and you can see what companies are pro-Bush and Republican and which ones are Democrats. Banks right now are donating big to Democrats because they like a strong dollar and don't care about the consequences to American manufacturing and resource extraction, and they are supporting Obama in droves. On the other hand, Exxon Mobil is getting hauled before congress but, their shareholders (Republicans), are making out extremely well.
The problem is that, we're at the extreme end of both approaches. Clinton's strong dollar gutted American manufacturing, and Bush's weak dollar gutted American wallets. An excellent government would peg the dollar to world currencies so that it is stable at a level protective to American manufacturing, but also not falling so much that banks are screwed and investors are hiding in commodities. You would have some environmental deregulation - we should be drilling for oil in anwr and off the coasts, simple to take the money in an era of rising demand. Unfortunately, neither of what Obama or McCain propose are sane. Obama wants to have a strong dollar but guard against the effects of it by restricting imports, which, is silly, because, lower prices of imports are a benefit of the strong dollar and it will only trigger a trade war. And, on the other hand, McCain wants to keep the weak dollar but attacks the only sectors (commodities), that are actually making money right now. So we have two idiots running for President.
Compared to the fates of millions of commodities workers versus millions of service sector employees, really, Bush's supposed reputation abroad, or even Clinton's, don't matter one bit.
Even in the case of Europe, most European leaders could care less about Bush invading Iraq, than they do about access to American markets, and Obama does threaten that stability. For example, Germans don't like the war, but if Germans have to lay off 500,000 steel and car workers because of American protectionist legislation, they will miss George Bush... but they will still miss Clnton more because Clinton had that nice strong dollar. On the other hand, McCain might well go and invade Iran or do something else crazy, which will upset the Germans to no end, but... if he keeps the present open nature of American trading in place, they will live with American moral failings and take the profits the same way they take them from the Chinese.
This is my sig.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) should be fired for wasting 100's, perhaps 1000's of hours of congressional time. Get to work and actually accomplish something that will help the American people. Punishing Bush for something that most of the rest of the congress agreed with is stupid and will not hold up anyway.
Take the massive hours wasted in making this document and start fixing health care, the Tax system, anything...
I can't believe we want to pat the Congressman on the back as if he accomplished some great act of goodness for the American people. This is exactly why our country is so screwed up right now. The congressman is only adding to the bullshit by producing more of his own!
At least Kucinich can say he tried to do the right thing, just like McKinney tried in January 2007.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Your president are failing your country, stealing your rights and he and his friends are a real threat to the world and humanity. If your congress is bought of or to chicken to deal with this... don't sit by and complain!
YOU ARE THE PEOPLE! YOU HAVE TO POWER! THEY ARE FEW, YOU ARE MANY! OVERTHROW THEM IF NESSECARY.
Please rally, please unite, please fight for your rights! It is not the citizens of USA that is to blame for this mess, this could have happen in any mighty western country. You've been fed lies, we've been fed lies. You got fooled!
Our civilization will allways have maniacs and humans with evil intentions, that is not the problem! The problem is our incapability to REACT. We have built our society with more and more centralized authority which is totally wrong in a 'democratic' world. We need to disolve centralized power and equally spread it among many institions, so that people get more power. Granting people more power will enforce them to learn to take more responsability for shaping their local community. Internet was created for withstanding any attack, it got design with decentralized responsibilities.... why not design our society the same way?
Vote for Obama. Nobody can reform the country, but he is the closest thing to a breath of fresh air we will get.
See, there's the rub. If I work for Exxon, in the Clinton era, I was screwed. Under Bush, I'm making out pretty good. When Obama comes in, I'm going to get screwed again. So, if I work for an oil company, a gold company, or an American farm, or, for an American export manufacturing company, why should I vote for Obama, in strictly economic terms. All of his policies are going to screw me, and I want Bush economics to continue.
Paradoxically, Bush is probably doing more for the environment than any Democratic law ever could. Democrats railed about the puacity of transit ridership and the SUV, but, under Bush, the SUV is dead, mass transit is up, gasoline consumption is down, and the USA in one year of high prices has already significantly reduced its carbon dioxide production.
The dirty secret of the environmental movement of this... is that, if you really want to save planet earth, you want another 8 years of Bushonomics, because, when gasoline is $10/gallon, nobody is going to drive, and we'll easily hit the 80% reduction in greenhouses gasses.
This is my sig.
Not so much.
However, I do appreciate the opportunity to observe the left-wing (sorry, I refuse to attribute the honorable term "liberal" to this crowd) echo chamber in action. The madness of crowds has always been of interest to me.
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
What congressmen should do when they see these articles is to judge whether they are credible, serious, and criminal.
If you read through the articles, you will see they are well enough supported to justify the charges. Whether the charges would be proven is a matter for the Senate. All of them seem to be serious. There are no "lied about parking tickets" charges here. All of these charges involve real and large consequences for real people. Many of them are matters of life and death or worse (torture). Most of them involve matters that are truly criminal. Some of them are more like "criminal negligence" or "reckless disregard". For example, the charges relating to Katrina and the 9/11 responders, while both credible and serious, are not - in my opinion - criminal enough to justify impeachment.
What I expect Congress to actually do is to let this die as quiet a death as they can manage. They will say (perhaps with a little merit) that the cost of impeachment outweigh the benefits. To that I would only say "That's the thinking that let this go on for seven years. That's the mindset the Bush/Cheney team was counting on when they did these things".
Read the articles. Judge for yourself: Do you believe the evidence merits consideration? Do the charges involve serious consequences to people or nations? Do they involve criminal actions? Anyone who distracts you from those three considerations is doing just that: distracting.
An conglomeration of techies wants representatives to read reams of complicated legalese, when said group of techies generally can't bother to browse a one-paragraph article summary before engaging in debate? (No, I didn't RTFA.)
Besides, assuming that congressmen can read gives many of them too much credit.
They're not preventing it from happening. It's increasing it.
First off, the Gulf is being drilled. Just not by us. Cuba & China. And you know those crappy products you get from China. Imagine that sub-par drilling. And guess what. They don't care because if they release a billion gallons of oil into the gulf. It's simply going to destroy Florida's coast. Oh well.
ANWAR, one of the drilling spots is 700 miles from the nearest tree. Drill, even a leak could be easily cleaned by collecting it from the ice. Which would freeze and harden the oil.
The wise thing would be to have the military drill those spots regardless of Congress in order to make the military independent of foreign oil. Then have all the excess sold for profit to fund tax breaks for those who put solar cells on their homes, and buy plug-in hybrids & electrics.
But that's the type of thinking Conservatives have...solutions. Versus Liberals who just want to blame.
> Nancy Pelosi promised that her congress would reduce gas prices from the outrageous $2.30. It is now more than $4.
Lies, deceit, falsely misleading the public.
> Now we have Democrats in Congress threatening to "take control" of the oil companies. Blaming the high price of oil on oil companies. Yet, they make less money per gallon than the milk companies. An affront to the American system of capitalism (and exactly what Putin did in Russia).
> Almost ALL of congress votes themselves abnormal raises, participate in the most lucrative of retirement programs, spend pork barrel upon barrel. Congress is a 1,000 times worse than any president.
They just happen to sell a gallon of oil for about everything else sold. And of course they're going to have record profits. Oil usage is sky-rocketing. It's called CHINA.
Oh, why are oil prices so high? Three reasons:
1. Foolish environmental protections: Like not drilling in the gulf. While Cuba, China and Venezuela begin drilling there. Except with a lot less safety and environmental protections than we'd have. And the Anwar. Yes, drilling in a tiny pin drop of Alaska 700 miles away from the nearest tree is BAD....
We'd be better off drilling, and offering a special tax, with that tax going to provide tax breaks on solar cells, and plug-in hybrids.
Refinery's we haven't built any in years because of environmental regulations. The result is we don't have the capacity we need. No nuclear plants have been built in the U.S. for decades. And it's been nearly half a century since they were designed. The safety has improved a lot. It's like comparing a Prius to a Ford Model-T.
2. We're not innovating, developing new technologies, and protecting those technologies. (ie: last time new technologies were being developed, OPEC slammed the prices down in order to kill them).
3. Increased demand as more and more nations industrialize. Meanwhile, Congress - yes Congress, not the President, has so mis-allocated the funds and taxes. Spending the next few decades today. No, it's not just the war. We've been in budgetary financial crisis for decades. Money that should have been devoted to weening us off of foreign oil is squandered on pork-barrel projects.
EVERY MEMBER OF CONGRESS (both Democrat and Republican) SHOULD BE DRAGGED OUT AND "TARRED & FEATHERED"
Slashdot is so funny. Other than dailyKOS, this is about the only forum this will get any attention. Real nice waste of electrons.
about his penis size? No, he's just pissy because he missed his recall to the mothership.
What a nut job.
I think the reason the dems want to bring this up now is because of the current election coming up. They want to highlight all of the ridiculous stuff the bush administration did and put that in the spotlight to help in their campaign in all of the elections in November.
That was true two or three years ago, but with with as little time as Bush has left in office, by the time everything's said and done we may have already elected their replacements. There's nothing left for either of those two to do except go on "farewell" tours to Europe and such.
After reading the comments on this article, it has become clear to me the easiest way to get modded up: 1) Laud the actions of Senator Kucinich. 2) Say something negative about Bush (perhaps "He's a mass murderer" or "He's an idiot" or my personal favorite "He's an idiot AND a mass murderer") 3) Throw in some extra bashing of Republicans. I've discovered the Secret to Slashdot Success! Maybe I should go write a book or something...
It's pathetic the American media, just unbelievable how much they have become an arm of the government (Dem or Repug) and there to sate the masses into acquiescence.
They are all crooks, and they are fucking you collectively up the ass. The really horrifying part is how they have managed to convince so many men to defend their crimes, both financial and moral. Tens of thousands of people dead for this farce of a war, billions of dollars in your tax money just gone up in smoke. Wake the fuck up and be angry, give people like Dennis Kucinich some support and encouragement for having the cajones to go after these crooks.
All governments are corrupt, but this is a new gold fucking standard of monumental proportions of corruption.
Salut,
Jacques
What the World has witnessed is the greatest heist in history. BushCo effectively robbed the U.S. Treasury. US citizens, and our children's children, will have to pay it back.
But first get rid of the criminal(IMHO) behavior of Speculators such as Morgan Stanley and others which is adding between 30 and 50 percent to the price of a barrel of oil.
Just like the pointless Microsoft bashing that goes on around here, why exactly is this news? It's not even IT related. It's just flame bait for people with a liberal agenda. Think how many productive hours have been wasted already with 1000+ people posting and reading all this drivel.
The United States as an governing entity has become rotten. No matter who is President, who the congressmen are, and who is in the senate, nothing will change. I've become convinced that the real power is hidden away from prying eyes, and their agenda will be unknown untill it comes into full fruition. Unfortunately, it's not only a problem in the United States, but with governments all over the world. Regularly so-called 'leaders', business magnates, lobbyists, and media get together 'behind closed doors', such as Bohemian Grove (you don't think those guys just sit around fishing and playing Gin, do you?), discuss and make policy without concern for what the people want.
If you are not in the United States, and believe your country doesn't participate, or is blameless, then you are part of the problem.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Start a little "they stole the election" noise, then work it up with news stories EVERY night of the world, and we get here. Impeaching a guy in the last remaining days of his term, permitting us to repeat the lies of Sororos again....is IS an election year, after all.
But let's not forget: these are the same people who picked up a CENTURY OLD ARGUMENT with Turkey so that they would no longer help our troops in Iraq. Yeah, they're some good people, alright. So giving- it's all about making us happy.[SARCASM]
First, because America has government school, important historical facts are forgotten- facts like a plane hitting the Empire State Building somewhere around 1948, how we attacked an ally as our first serious action of WW2 (look it up- not the Tokyo attack, I said serious.) If you know these things, there's nothing spooky about Bush not responding for 22 minutes to the first plane crash, or attacking Saddam, a known trouble source deep in the thick of it.
So today we have people blaming Bush for Katrina, both for the actions of FEMA [The AFTER the disaster people] not being able to stop the hurricane in it's tracks, as well as promoting Global Warming with the specific intent to kill negros in Louisiana.
I've seen it; ask people why they don't like Ashcroft. Much passion, no answer. Cheney? Much passion, no reason, despite 50+ investigation of the company with whom he was linked, Halliburton.
Robots. We've created millions of robots.
The "housing crisis" has "doubled" according to the mainstream media, but they forget to mention that it brings the number of failed mortgages to an ENTIRE percentage point- not quite the Great Depression of our time, unless you're on TV.
Don't you see this, too? No one's critical thinking anymore. Everyone's become Homer Simpson, equating a good haircut with a good president. When in reality, a liberal president (taxing everything, giving The Fed a reason to insert themselves into everything we do) is a long-tested, long-failed idea....yet people will vote that way, because "they need a change".
We'll get a change, alright. Having 96% employment, for example. For no terrorist attacks in many years, for what little freedom we have left. Sadly, all three stooges we can vote for are all just about identical.
So no, no answers here...just the observation that people are being programmed to hate upon command of Tom Brokaw and friends, forgetting history, and hoaxes like Global Warming and the concept that the government can care for you better than YOU can.
1) You would not go to jail for failing to spy on US Citizens.
2) People are unaware of NSA directives because they are largely classified. The one you cited earlier was only recently declassified.
3) Since you have confirmed your belief that the Constitution and the laws passed by congress are irrelevant. And since you have also asserted your belief that NSA directives can provide for exceptions to the US Constitution. Would you kindly tell us if there are any other (secret) NSA directives that you feel provide for exceptions to the rights protected by the US Constitution?
4) You should be aware that an appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. But in this case I hope you're right that NSA obtained the Attorney General's permission every time they spied on US Citizens. And I hope they are able to produce those documents when required.
5) You can see my name above. If you really work for NSA then you can probably get the names of everyone else in this conversation (go ahead and ask Gonzo for permission, if that's all you feel you require). Would you be so kind as to provide us with your name?
6) If the answer to #5 is no, do you think it would be okay for Taco to give us your IP address if, say, he issued a secret "Slashdot directive" providing exceptions to the Terms of Service beforehand?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Why are you "done with politics?" You sound like you're still pretty interested.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
this guy should be doing something productive instead of spending his time being a d-bag.
Just checking in as another liberal who supports the right to keep and bear arms. Personal responsibility, including self-defense, is needed to keep the US from falling apart.
Wow, we could have elected _him_ president.
I know what irony is. Yours is too subtle for me. Or maybe I your strident tone made your irony less than obvious. That was certainly the reaction of the moderators who rated your post "informative".
Then you should support the Read The Bills Act.
Just sayin.
folks, what we are witnessing, is the End of America. It has taken the International Bankers and Big Oil about 100 years, but they have finally succeeded in 'eating the elephant one bite at a time'...slowly, over the years, more and more of our government has eroded away and our freedoms with it. We are possibly the last generation that will be alive before America becomes another banana republic.
Somehow I thought there would have been more...
You do know that the Congress that approved Bush's crimes was different from the one now entertaining motions to impeach him, right? And that official impeachment introduction is a lot more than just "hot air".
Ever since Congress was converted by the 2006 elections from the Republicans who undeniably conspired with Bush on these crimes into a Democratic one, there's been actions towards impeaching Bush. It's true that not all Democrats are willing to do it. And that some of the worst foot-draggers are those who run the Senate and the House, because they indeed are more interested in running against Bush in 2008 than in stopping his crimes.
But your argument against impeachment puts you in league with them. Impeaching Bush would stop his crimes now, rather than leave him 1/8 of an entire presidential term to commit more.
But more important, impeaching Bush now would make it harder for the next president - probably Obama, a Democrat - and subsequent ones from committing these kinds of crimes. It would stop Congress, even a Democratic one, from collaborating.
What kind of masochist doesn't want that fix put in place ASAP?
--
make install -not war
... the Democrat leadership chooses to milk the damage that Dubya is doing to the Republican party and ignore the damage he is doing to the nation.
That's pretty much the only reason that impeachment is "off the table" -- the Democrat party is benefitting too much from Dubya's incompetence to dream of removing him before next January.
If they could, they'd have Dubya run again, and would field a candidate sure to lose against him (regardless of how difficult it would be to find such a candidate). The gains they are making in the House and Senate make the Presidency almost superfluous.
2- That is one of the reasons I said that popular opinion is often wrong.
3- I have not confirmed any belief that I think the Constitution is irrelevant, only that the directives that I live with every day exist, and that most people are unaware of them, thus making public opinion wrong, a lot of the time. I have confirmed that there are laws and rules and guidelines and directives that exist in EVERY industry that require no understanding whatsoever of the Constitution. Please, don't put words in my mouth. USSID 18 provides clear cases ("exceptions") of when and how it is LEGAL to collect on US Persons, period, full-stop. If it isn't Constitutional, then do something about it. As much as I personally disagree with blanket authority given to the AG (especially when said AG is appointed by the President), it is not my place to determine the constitutionality of it all.
4- You can't get some of the documents, because, gasp, they are protected by classification guidelines and exempt from declassification. Tell us more what you don't know.
5- Again, your ignorance is not my problem. Show me where I said I work for the NSA, because I don't, nor did I say I do.
6- Taco is not a Government agency governed by the Intelligence Oversight as outlined in USSID 18. Therefore, I would trust Taco about as far as I could throw him.
Since GW, every action by the US is considered highly suspect. Were as in past history there was usually *some* moral ground the US could stand on to justify action (eg. Nazis in WWII, Communism in Korea and Vietnam, the first Gulf War), all US policy for the last 7 years has been based on lies and an alarming lack of anything resembling common sense, with an inbred stupidity and lack of understanding of world culture and forces enough to create a crushing snowball in the desert (I'm feeling poetic...). Astonishingly, many either believed or followed for personal / national gain. The result is an embarrassment. How can the US possibly be trusted as a world leader now?
Also, the American people (and the media) never questioned obvious fallacies throughout the current term such as: Iraq has WMD, Iraq was behind 9/11, fight them there so we don't fight them here, we are safer. Nobody questions why Osama was allowed to escape by blatantly ignoring Afghanistan in comparison to Iraq.
The Democrats have also shown a sorrowful lack of spine. Anyone who bothered to think about the issues at the time could conclude that George was a crazed, idiotic, lunatic (or worse, a cold, calculating, ruthless opportunist). But they all decided to hedge their bets... and we all lost. I think impeachment is vital to reclaim some credibility. If not now... then I hope that the Dems recover some of their lost courage and during the next term begin the process. McCain sure as hell won't do anything if he wins. For all his progressive stance, I gather he is very shortsighted still if rehtoric is anything to judge by.
So... impeachment is vital. It will allow the legislative and judicial branches to flex some long unused muscle, and allow the American people to learn the truth for once and for. The greatest benefit from learning the truth? We may just learn something... at least we'll have a better notion of what to avoid.
http://iilj.org/documents/Jordan-47_BC_L_Rev_000.pdf
Since most of you want to ONLY talk about the Constitution, you might want to start on Section II of the paper, which discusses all FOUR elements that form the Legal framework of this discussion. It appears that the "Supreme Law of the Land" has some friends, and most slashdotters don't care to recognize them.
Dennis Kucinich is such a funny little dwarf. I imagine him standing on a little box, hidden by the podium, just so that he can reach the microphone.
I'm more interested in how many people fell asleep during this moronic diatribe, than what were the charges he read. In the end, this was a great waste of time and energy.
If they were actually concerned with conserving energy, they would have turned off the lights and sound in the chamber when the little gnome mounted the podium.
Evolutionary thinking will move you down the road, revolutionary thinking will put you on a new road!
So what you've been elaborately and self-assuredly telling us is that you operate as part of a classified system that is illegal under the law and that can't be challenged by the public in court since the public doesn't know about it. Apparently, it can only be challenged by the Intelligence committee of the Senate itself.
I think that fits nicely into the definition of treason. If you're part of a system that is not only theoretically, but - as demonstrated in the past few years - practically in violation of the law, and takes elaborate action to evade that law, the responsibility for any resulting abuse is divided between you and your co-workers with the same level of knowledge.
I understand that national security operators sometimes have to overstep the bounds of laws that provision their work, and must keep their work secret. It's the codification and routine rationalization of this that I find completely unacceptable. If your work is both illegal and secret, then it becomes your responsibility to evaluate it from a moral ground. Your moral obligation as a public servant is to serve the best interests of the people, and creating an operational framework for evading the law goes about as far away from that as it can.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Its too late. Its meaningless. Its a waste of taxpayer money. Kucinich must be up for re-election or just wants his name in history. Even if its for being a dolt.
I have never seen some many "so called intelligent" people who can't see this for what it is...it is yet another attempt to tarnish the Bush administration in order to insure that a Liberal Democrat will take office. I don't see how making Bush look bad has anything to do with the present Republican nominee.
But then again we are dealing with a totally ignorant extremist liberal faction of the Democratic party, who obviously rightly think most Democrats are also ignorant.
And for the record, Obama is nothing less than a Socialist....and you are going to vote for him due to the hate propaganda that Democratic party has fed to you. Oh yeah, propaganda, isn't that what communists use to control?
I know many of you believe all that you have been told...but how many of you really know what you are voting for?
If you think that it's the banks fault that people can't manage their credit spending...you will be bailing those people out. Can't handle your mortgage? Government will pay...problem is the money is yours and mine, not the governments.
College? Government will pay...Food? Government will pay...Medical insurance? We already have universal healthcare, it's called medicaid! Oh, but you will still pay for more, even those who can afford it....
This is all that your so called "liberal" and "democratic" party has offered you...are you really voting for that? If you are, there is not any reason for me not to call you ignorant sheep.
Article Four protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Granted, no problems there. However, there are provisions...
EO12333, FISA 1978, USSID 18 put limitations on electronic surveillance of US citizens, IN SUPPORT of Article Four of the Constitution. These documents provide the required OVERSIGHT to assure your tin-foil scenario of treason doesn't occur. They also happen to outline those few instances where security trumps rights. Don't attack me because I didn't write any of these documents. If you don't like them, do something about it.
In addition, you can throw in the US Patriot Act, passed by Congress (not George Bush, to get this back to the topic on-hand). I've thus avoided it, because, for the 14th time, it's not my area of expertise, and I don't pretend to be an expert in something I'm not (yeah, I must be new here).
All four of these documents provide the balance that is required in maintaining Security while at the same time safeguarding civil liberties.
Those oil companies you're so keen on protecting are the ones not drilling down there.
This coming from a guy who swears he saw a UFO. Seems to me that term limits would keep trash like this out of our government. That guy really gets paid $167,000 for crap like this?
Inspired the visual of Shatner impacting the dome on the Enterprises saucer and breaking his neck. Leaving us to follow the misadventures of a 171cm actor for the rest of the post.
Alternatively: Uhura squeezing one of his buttocks in the Turbolift. Maybe Spock would be more amusing?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Is it because he doesn't cater exclusively to billion-dollar oil companies?
Is it because he doesn't encourage torture and illegal detainment?
Medicaid is not universal healthcare.
Okay, so this reply will go unread by you, anonymous coward, but I still considered it a good idea to point out that you're a moron. I could go on and on about how ridiculous you look, but you really did that to yourself.
Why your Congressman is bound by oath to endorse and support Dennis Kucinich's 35 articles of impeachment- their oath of office: 'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.' Everyone should repeat this oath in the ear of their Congressman, and of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. Call them through capitol hill at (202)224-3121 and ask them why they are not honoring their oath! Our nation is going down the tubes because the war criminals and back-stabbers are not being put behind bars where they belong. Impeachment hearings may be our only chance to keep the warmongers from attacking Iran! Demand impeachment! Let them feel the heat...
He actually served his citizens before the business interests. It's not an uncommon thing over in that part of Ohio.
Businesses are not $DEITY, and Kucinich recognized that quite well.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
America voted for him...... twice.
What does that say about America?
Now you leave him in power, pissing away your reputation with the rest of the world, your ecology and your economy and you sit by while his pals in Washington stall and the press (who like their comfy little world) gloss over it all.
Will the election bring anything better? Possibly... but unless a clear message is sent loud and clear now where is the incentive for the President (Obama, Mcain or whoever ends up with the job) or any of your other elected officials to treat the law as more than a guideline and care about the American people as more than a source of revenue and sometimes cannon fodder?
You should be proud of your elected officials, your mechanisms of State and your country... not apologizing every time you meet a foreigner.
The independent media - Slashdot and the rest of the citizen journalist world - are the last line of defense against the brainwashing and dumbing down that traditional media are very complicit in supporting.
Gosh, I feel like a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist reading this but.... am I that wrong?!
This is not on the record. I saw the C_SPAN clip, but it does not appear on the Floor Summary at http://clerk.house.gov/floorsummary/floor.html
LEGISLATIVE DAY OF JUNE 9, 2008
110TH CONGRESS - SECOND SESSION
11:55 P.M. -
The House adjourned. The next meeting is scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on June 10, 2008.
On motion to adjourn Agreed to by voice vote.
Mr. Kucinich moved that the House do now adjourn.
11:54 P.M. -
At the conclusion of the notice provided by Mr. Kucinich, the Chair announced that the proper determination would be made in accordance with the rule.
7:12 P.M. -
NOTIFICATION OF INTENT TO OFFER RESOLUTION - Mr. Kucinich notified the House of his intent to rise to a question of the privileges of the House and to offer a resolution. Mr. Kucinich was recognized to notice the form of his proposed resolution.
H. Res. 127:
recognizing and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the entry of Alaska in the Union as the 49th State
On motion to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 375 - 0 (Roll no. 390).
Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.
What really is the point of this impeachment fantasy some democrats have? I think Dennis is seeking attention. He got none during the democratic primaries and I doubt anyone would know who he was if he did not do these insane stunts.
The lengths liberal idios go to paint President Bush as a criminal, idiot, and liar are the only thing more pathetic than Dennis. If you check your facts you will learn that the 1st Gulf War was never legally settled. The peace agreement required that Saddam and the government of Iraq cooperated and abided by several agreements. He failed to comply, he sought retribution against his own citizens killing thousands and thousands of them. His military attempted time and again to shoot down our pilots as they patrolled the no fly zone over northern and southern Iraq established by the United Nations and agreed to by Saddam during his surrender after the First Gulf War. His non-compliance and agression towards us warranted the invasion and toppling of his government. It should have been done the first time, but the world community gave him a second chance. He blew his second chance and most of the world preferred to enrich themselves off of the oil for food programs they were pilfering for profits.
What reasoning is there from you people that claim Bush is a mass murderer? Are you saying he has ordered and orchestrated the murder of innocent people? Or are you saying he is responsible for the actions of the insurgents and terrorists that operate in Iraq, killing innocent civilians, American troops, and Iraqi security forces. Suggesting that our invasion of Iraq is the only reason they are killing without discretion is ludicrous. Who did we attack when they planned and executed 9/11? It is tragic that so many innocent people have died in Iraq the last few years, but let us put the blame where it belongs, on those who will kill anyone for any reason. Not our troops, not our president.
But I suppose the hatred rhetoric spewed by so many against Bush and anyone identified as a republican is only to be expected from the same group of morons who think 9/11 was an inside job. It is amusing that people with no structural engineering education somehow come to the conclusion that jet fuel cannot "melt" steel, so therefore the buildings were blown up. Have you ever seen an ironsmith work with metal? He does not have to melt the metal to mold it and shape it. He just has to heat it up to the point that it loses its structural integrity. Then he is free to bend it anyway he wishes. So in a structure designed under the laws of reality can only support themselves plus some extra weight that makes the structure functional as a dwelling for humanbeings and their stuff. The parameters that dictate this are based on some assumptions. One of those being that the building structure is not much hotter than room temperature, let alone 800, 900, 1000+ degrees. Then realize that one floor in the world trade center tower was not designed to be cut in half by the impact of a plane and still maintain its structural integrity. Now when those few floors collapse their load is transferred to the floor below it and the result is a pancake effect. After a few floors stack up as the building falls the combined weight can sheer and twist any material known to man.
One of the things going wrong with this country is that there are people whose lives are so mundane they have the time to consume themselves with paranoid conspiracy theories. They don't have to worry about providing for themselves or their family, they don't have any real concerns in their life so they have to invent some to occupy their feeble minds. Previous generations were so much tougher than this current adult generation. My god, we have turned into a nation of pathetic babies.
Aliens told Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to file the charges. They are really pisssed that Bush is considering using their technology, currently held in Area 51 in spite of a United Galaxy ruling denouncing the holding and use of alien technology by Earth. Bush was planning on using the technology to complete his war on terror prior to his leaving office on January 20th 2009
Seems that that you're too concerned with the mote in your democratic cousins eye when you should be more concerned with the log cabins in the presidents.
And do you know how costly it would be for people who depend on oil for their work machines if everyone who is using oil to commute to work in an obscenely large air conditioned monstrosity was forced to bike their ass to a bus or train? Not a whole hell of a lot.
Mind you I'm in Japan and I agree, price per gallon is nothing to rant about. What people in the US are ranting about is first, filling up for close to a hundred dollars because they have huge inefficient air conditioning suites on wheels, and second they live at least 15-20 minutes by drive from work. None of that is in an orderly fashion, the roads were never meant for the current level of traffic in most cases and so trying to build additional public transport or adding buses is a futile effort in the short run, and people do not wish to hear that it will be years or decades before their transportation woes are ammended.
Fine rhetoric from an anonymous coward. Step out from behind your cloak of anonymity to say that.
I'm the one in this conversation that is proud enough of my political beliefs to wear them "on my sleeve" or at least my login ID here.
I've gone by that name here since I found this place shortly after Dubya took office, and wore it proudly right through Dubya's 93% approval ratings.
Go away and troll someone who your nonsense might get a rise from.
Scott McClellan's book says not only did the Bush Administration lie about the intel on Iraq about WoMD (including African uranium), it says the Bush Administration KNEW they were lying about the intel on Iraq MoMD.
As much as I personally disagree with blanket authority given to the AG (especially when said AG is appointed by the President), it is not my place to determine the constitutionality of it all.
No, it's your place to swing from the gallows for committing treason. "I'm too stupid to do anything but follow orders", was invalidated as an argument at Nuremberg.
I am in favor of the process except that it will take more than 7 mos and the guy is out of the office already. Alot of money and time would be wasted. We could use that time to focus on moving toward solutions to the mountain of problem that this Republican Administration has caused, namely House, Senate, Executive and dare I say Judicial. What I would like to see instead is the nullification of post office benefits. No Secret Service protection, no book deals, no speech engagements. Any money raised from such should go toward retifying the deficit, Veteran benefit, no child left behind, etc... What you have read is but a dream, my dream. Anyone knows anybody who can make this humble dream a reality?
The problem is that Democrats are not asking us how we feel about this. They are on the assumption that we want to simply focus on the election. But, my question is what if Obama doesn't win? Will McCain reverse the constitutional damage or take advantage of the "new rules". I think the latter. And I'm not convinced without a doubt that we will win, so our right to Impeach is the only way to get rid of these atrocious new presidential rights that completely disregard the Constitution. Or we are going to see this all over again with McCain and Iran 2009. And where is MoveOn.org in all of this...baking cookies? WTF? Call these people today and say you want to hold the president accountable for using our tax dollars to hire ex-generals to help build the case for war, wiretapping Americans, creating secret prisons, torture and most of all not upholding his sacred oath to protect the constitution. And you know what else, he LIED about it. It is our right to Impeach, so do it! Pelosi is wrong, this is not about revenge. This is about doing the right thing. Nancy Pelosi: 202-225-0100 Majority Leader: Rep. Steny Hoyer 202.225.3130 DNC Chairman:Howard Dean:202-863-8000 Judicial Committee Chairman: John Conyers: (202) 225-5126 And your local representative: http://www.house.gov/
We should be able not only to vote people in but also voting them out. If a candidate has 1000 votes for, but 1 million votes against, the right thing to do is to kick him out. That would have been the case with GWB in the last election.
The current system does not work well, as it allows manipulation... we the citizens are disposable, and the intention of the ones in power is totally misaligned with the expectation of common people.
Political parties' groupthink does not help either.
Some people argue that Bush has violated civil rights, some argue otherwise.
Some people think the Holocaust didn't happen and that the Sun revolves around the Earth. We have a word for such people: morons. But the Bush Administration has gone way beyond that because they've admitted to spying on Americans without warrants, holding suspects with no trials, torture, the whole nine yards. There's no way you can read the Constitution and not see that these are blatant violations of said Constitution, unless you are a tool.
My point (and I was keeping it non-partisan) was that Kucinich is perceived as a nutjob, and unless he has someone with him who isn't perceived as a nutjob, it's not going anywhere.
And Ron Parsons thinks the United States was founded to oppose Islam. Doesn't make either one a reasonable position.
Impeachment is a disruption, but that's the point. There's never a good time for impeachment, which is why it is so grave. Personally, I believe it would help us join the civilized world, because it would attest to our belief in our nation being one of laws. I mean, preemption is a terrible concept, a war-mongerer's concept. So a disruption would be most welcome, especially considering 35 articles (each of which are pretty weighty in their own right) is only the tip of the iceberg. Kucinich vows to come back with even more articles the longer HJC stalls. Plus, I hate to think that the man stood for four hours in an empty House floor droning on and on to an irritated Speaker about such important charges and to have nothing come of it when the evidence behind the charges are so overwhelming. He's doing what he's supposed to be doing; she isn't. (The fact that they are both Democrats only highlights the absurdity of political faction affiliations in the face of real issues.) So I wrote my representatives and let them have my two cents on the matter. I'm sure I'm not the only one who did, and I hope others who haven't yet, do so. Cynicism, apathy and cheap skepticism among us ordinary citizens is exactly what those who abuse their power want, so we should get involved in the war against all this executive overreaching.