Slashdot Mirror
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.
Impeaching him would have been a better idea 7 years ago. Right now, it would have no real benefit.
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
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
Actually, I think it's a good idea to force representatives to read out loud any legislation that they propose/endorse. Maybe then they'll actually read the fine details instead of just signing off on legislation that lobbyists wrote up for them.
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
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?
I don't understand why this is silly. If "GWB's assault on the Constitution" doesn't merit impeachment, what does?
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.
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.
Well, I agree with your point there.
...just a thought.
Now there needs just needs to be a Constitutional Amendment which requires the ENTIRE US TAX CODE to be read into the Congressional Record every single year for it to be legally binding! Of course, that would either require CSPAN to get another satellite or for the tax code to be shortened into the flat tax...
Then again, I was under the impression that "earmarks" were not required to be read into the record either? Whoops... confusing the Congressional Record's purpose with that of Official Congressional Business as Usual...
What? What was its purpose again?
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
It would've taken a year to read the USA PATRIOT Act aloud.
Actually, that would've been a good thing -- the people hearing it would've actually known behind a doubt what they were stealing from us all.
>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.
Is that I finally have a good reason to use the phrase "Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D'OH!)" in casual conversation.
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.
>all that is needed is approval from the Attorney General
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, requires approval from a judge for eavesdropping.
Even if the Attorney General could repeal laws, in this case the Justice Department had decided the program was illegal and Ashcroft refused to sign off on it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html
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.
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"
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
Actually, I think we might have made it to a point that we NEED a civil war to have any hope of improving our government.
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)
Then you might want to get behind the Read the Laws Act.
.....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
And then your signature tells us the irony in your ad hominem for kucinich.
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.
How about every bill being publicly posted without alteration for 90 days before any voting is allowed? That would stop a lot of bad legislation from being pushed through congress.
"It simply is not factual to call the war illegal."
Technically speaking, it is simply not factual to call this current military activity in Iraq a war. The president never asked congress to pass a declaration of war, congress has not made such a declaration - thus there is officially no war.
Why did the president not ask congress to officially declare war? Maybe because he knew they wouldn't do it, but probably because he didn't want to be on the hook for what an official declaration of war would mean. Instead he submitted requests for funding military action in the region - which the cowardly congress has passed.
So we have de facto war at a heavy price in terms of wasted lives, wealth and resources , with no clear victory conditions - without anyone actually being accountable for approving a war in terms of law.
I can understand how and why people would view such an action by our representatives as illegal and contrary to the spirit and principals upon the which U.S. and its government were supposed to be founded.
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.
... 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.
>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 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.
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
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.
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
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Nonsense. The Legislative Branch should not be responding to emergencies. That's the Executive Branch's job.
The quintissential case is a Pearl Harbor style scenario, where America is under attack and we need a declaration of war. I'd argue that, in this day and age, we could have a provision stating that the President is free to deploy the troops for up to 90 days, but, following that grace period, he must get a declaration of war from Congress (not a resolution, or an authorization, but a formal declaration of war), otherwise he has to bring the troops home. This would allow ample time for the president to respond to short term emergencies, while still leaving leeway for the US to respond credibly to unprovoked attacks.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
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.
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.
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.
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
Thats a good idea. We should call it the War Powers Resolution.
Ahem, I'd like to begin with a reading of the Articles of Impeachment. Here goes.
(You know, some of these are actually plausible. It will be interesting to see where this goes.)
Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.
Article II. Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.
Article III. Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.
Article IV. Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.
Article V. Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.
Article VI. Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.
Article VII. Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.
Article VIII. Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.
Article IX. Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor
Article X. Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes
Article XI. Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq
Article XII. Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural Resources
Article XIIII. Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries
Article XIV. Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency
Article XV. Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq
Article XVI. Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors
Article XVII. Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives
Article XVIII. Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy
Article XIX. Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to "Black Sites" Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture
Article XX. Imprisoning Children
Article XXI. Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government
Article XXII. Creating Secret Laws
Article XXIII. Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act
Article XXIV. Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment
Article XXV. Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens
Article XXVI. Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements
Article XXVII. Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply
Article XXVIII. Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice
Article XXIX. Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Article XXX. Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare
Article XXXI. Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency
Article XXXII. Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change
Article XXXIII. Repe
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
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
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
As long as we also require all the rest of the representatives to sit there and listen to everything be read...so they will all hear the fine details instead of just signing off on it....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That's not how classification works.
First, to be "outed", Valerie Plame would have had to be a covert operative. She wasn't at that time. You can check the Congressional Record to read the testimony of the author of the governing regulations.
Second, the ultimate classification authority is the President. This has a long history of precedent. If the President wishes to reveal something which is classified, that's his prerogative. The Soviet nuke missile sites in Cuba were classified information and JFK didn't need anyone's permission to reveal that.
Third, it was Richard Armitage who revealed the information about Valerie Plame. Even the special prosecutor knew that before investigating.
This is a country of laws, It's the usA, not the usSR.
Congress shall make no law exceeding in length this Constitution.
(Let's make them earn their pay by holding a separate vote on every pork-laden amendment.) ptriot act section 56889
fbi n cia can spy on ppl. dnt need to ask cngress only prez. prez can amend ptriot act with exec order. prez is root. sudo ptriot act.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I know you're being funny, but I kind of like the idea of a parsable legal coding language. Employ a decent supercomputer to recompile the lot every time something gets changed and notify us of contradictions, divide-by-zero errors and broken dependencies.
Even if half of it is true, it's more than enough.
No wonder Kucinich was able to snag such a young, sprightly and attractive wife. The man has the biggest balls in Congress.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
Hey Man, When the president does it, it is not illegal.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
First, to be "outed", Valerie Plame would have had to be a covert operative. She wasn't at that time.
Sorry, I was barely paying attention to this thread, but couldn't help noticing this bit of misinformation.
Plame was covert agent at time of name leak --MSNBC
Yes, Valerie Plame Was Covert --CBSNews
Leak Prosecutor says Plame was Covert --NYTimes
Video: Valerie Plame confirms her covert status --thinkprogress.org
etc.
You may be confused because of the following misinformation campaign:
Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert --Salon
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?
That's why Kucinich entered articles of impeachment for Cheney a year ago. If Congress had enough spine to impeach Bush, they'd probably also have enough spine to impeach Cheney first to keep the unthinkable from happening.
My truck is like a series of tubes.
Try to remove your bias and read what I typed. The facts are the facts.
No, it's very naive to think ANYONE a person who was supposedly an undercover agent 15 years prior has dealt with is "potentially exposed." Semantically, your statement is correct but it's not realistic. Everyone, you included, interacts with thousands of people over 15 years. You may have heard of the concept of six degrees of separation. Apply that and it's quickly apprent the words you used, while semantically correct, yield an impossibly large number of contacts when seen from the "outside." It's common for people who have never been in these types of environments to think that type of thing. As I said, read the Congressional Record. The sworn testimony during a Congressional investigation is more accurate than projections.
No, my "argument" does not rest on "the fact that Bush OK'd the leak." By definition, the President can't "leak" anything because "leaking" would involve unauthorized disclosure which, by definition, the President cannot do. It is impossible for the pre-requisite to exist. The President has the authority to declassify, at will, either explicitly or implicitly.
"Abuse of power" is a phrase with no legal definition. The Executive Officer is not subservient to the Representitive Brach of the Federal Government. The CIA is in the Executive Branch, under the authority of the Executive Officer. Again, the President cannot be guilty of violating classification. It really is that simple.
As as aside, the legal basis for action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq was laid years ago. The first Gulf War was never officially ended according to the U.N. conditions and Saddam's troops kept violating the cease fire agreement. An existing war cannot be "started" again, it can only be in stasis, continue or end. (The Korean War never ended, either. It's in the same situation, a cease fire agreement.) Saddam's troops violated the cease fire repeatedly during Bill Clinton's terms in office. History didn't start in February of 2001.
WRT "a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible", it was Valerie Plame and her husband in conjunction with Vanity Fair and the traditional news media who were proclaiming a "secret" had been revealed. Those are not Federal Branch entities and, most certainly, not controlled by a Republican administration. The President didn't force all the "reporting" and speculating in the press. He didn't put a scarf and sunglasses on Valerie Plame, sit her in a convertible next to her husband, take a photo, write an article and publish them. Valerie, most certainly, wasn't trying to "hide" and wasn't concerned about any past contact who might have been "potentially exposed." If she was, she wouldn't have taken those actions. You can dig through archives such as Lexis-Nexus or even the recorded press briefings on C-Span's website if you wish. What you'll find is the Executive Branch overwhelmingly said there wasn't any "there" there.
Joe Wilson was a paid staffer for John Kerry's Presidential campaign before he wrote the article in which he claimed the VP sent him on a secret mission to gather intel in Niger. Curiously, there was no record of such a meeting, Joe's story changed significantly over time and even he said there was no written record. Additionally, he did state that Iraq was seeking to build increase imports from Niger whose primary exports are livestock products, onions and Uranium ore. Look at a map. Iraq wouldn't get importing onions across Libya then onto ships when they could come from much closer areas. Liby's public renouncement of NBC porograms wasn't an isolated occurrence. It's all in the Congressional Report.
What you are promoting fits the structure of a halfway decent conspiracy theory but only with "a willing suspension of disbelief" given the facts.
Kittens and bunnies were not mentioned I believe.
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
Maybe they weren't so great after all.
The most dangerous people in the world are those who believe that violating human rights for any reason is worse than not doing so. These people realize that peace can become viral, and if they are charismatic enough, they can start persuading people to give up force as a form of politics. Those who rely on force fear these people more than anyone else. Ghandi was such a person, as was MLK. Look what happened to them.
In fact, this is the central story in Western culture. A guy suggests (just suggests... doesn't start a revolt or hit people or act like a bigot) that we abandon violence and hate as a means of life and promptly gets nailed to a piece of wood for his trouble. I'm not a believer, but the essence of the story is spot on.
That's my dose of idealism for the day.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
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...
Wow are you wrong. Hans Blix and his inspections team were in Iraq with what they described as unfettered access for 11 weeks in late 2002/early 2003. Inspectors had been denied access earlier in 2002, but the claim that the UN was never allowed to do inspections is false.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/14/iraq.unitednations1
please note that, to the best of my knowledge, no one in the Bush administration claimed Saddam was an imminent threat. that allegation started with Democrats.
9/18/2002: Donald Rumsfeld tells Congress, "Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam Hussein is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certainÂ--we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/ (warning: source is biased, but comprehensive)
I think you'll find that theres a pretty obvious answer ... hang on, Living with Lohan just started on TV. bbl
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Try to remove your bias and read what I typed. The facts are the facts.
No, it's very naive to think ANYONE a person who was supposedly an undercover agent 15 years prior has dealt with is "potentially exposed."
What's your position here, that everyone else's cover must have already been blown in 15 years or that intelligence services are too lazy to trace back 15 years to uncover other agents?
No, my "argument" does not rest on "the fact that Bush OK'd the leak." By definition, the President can't "leak" anything because "leaking" would involve unauthorized disclosure which, by definition, the President cannot do. It is impossible for the pre-requisite to exist. The President has the authority to declassify, at will, either explicitly or implicitly.
You're argument rests on the fact that Bush must have given the OK to tell the press Plame was CIA. This is exactly opposite to what Bush has publicly maintained. We already know he lied when he said he'd fire anyone involved, did he also lie when he said he had nothing to do with it?
You say "Abuse of power" is a phrase with no legal definition. I say blowing the cover of an agent who worked to stop nuclear proliferation to get back at an op-ed writer is an impeachable offense.
As as aside, the legal basis for action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq was laid years ago. The first Gulf War was never officially ended according to the U.N. conditions and Saddam's troops kept violating the cease fire agreement.
Which is up to the UN security council to enforce, if they feel is necessary. The passed a tough resolution, found violations, and forced Saddam to comply. Consequently, they refused to authorize the use of force. The history of 2002-2003 seems to be completely missing from the thinking of most Bush defenders.
WRT "a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible", it was Valerie Plame and her husband in conjunction with Vanity Fair and the traditional news media who were proclaiming a "secret" had been revealed.
Let's see, you're leaving out Libby and Rove's successful efforts to get prominent newspapers to publish Plame's CIA role which led to saturation news coverage then months later Vanity Fair did it's bit. Where do you get these talking points?
Joe Wilson was a paid staffer for John Kerry's Presidential campaign before he wrote the article in which he claimed the VP sent him on a secret mission to gather intel in Niger.
By the time Wilson wrote the op-ed, he'd already warned the administration repeatedly that it's Niger claims were false, but they refused to drop the claims.
What you are promoting fits the structure of a halfway decent conspiracy theory but only with "a willing suspension of disbelief" given the facts.
Let's see: the administration claims that Iraq was buying Uranium from Niger, their sole evidence is a amateurishly forged document that didn't even have the right fake signatures, but *just to be sure*, Joe Wilson is sent to Niger, and finds that no, there's nothing to the story, writes an article to that affect.
And you believe the administration and doubt Wilson even though Saddam already had a stockpile of yellow cake, and he didn't have a nuclear program, and not a single piece of real evidence of a Uranium deal has ever been found anywhere in 5 years since. Now that's what I call "a willing suspension of disbelief".
Play Command HQ online
I assume this was meant to be funny, but in reality it seems like that statement is closer to the truth than it should be.
If anything, the punishment for breaking a law should be more severe the higher up in the government you are.
This would discourage people in power from abusing their power.
Granting them any kind of immunity is asking them to abuse you...
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
You are contradicting yourself and the evidence. I'll answer but this is the last time.
First, the supposed threat to an undercover agent would be exposure. By definition, that means exposure to someone other than their own association. You seem to have missed that point. Second, it is impossible for any entity to find every person someone has interacted with over the course of 15 years in free societies. It's very clear you don't have any legal or intel experience. Statement of fact.
It's not possible for the general public to know if President Bush "lied" when he said he'd fire anyone involved in revealing a covert agent. First, you'd need inside knowledge to ascertain at what point the administration knew Valerie's actual status. Second, since she wasn't covert, nobody could reveal her as being covert. You refuse to admit the claims have prerequisited which were not met. It is just as valid to say President Bush did indeed fire everyone involved in leaking Valerie Plame's name as a covert operataive. She did not have the legal status of being covert. That's all there is to it.
You're trying to build a straw man again. By definition, anything the President chooses to release is unclassified. That's all there is to it. You are more than welcome to study the laws.
True, the UN Security Council could issue a piece of paper condemning Saddam but that's all it can do, in and of itself. The UN Security Council is really nothing more than a group of Ambassadors to the UN. Their agreements become the responsibility of the memebre nations. The United States is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and carries the responsibility to enforce the Security Council resolutions. The UN Security Council has no military forces of its own. The conditions of the cease fire did not cease to pertain simply because a subsequent unanimous decision was not reached. The UN Security Council has reached unanimous vote to take military action twice; the Korean War and the first Gulf War. Neither war had been ended. Fact.
Uh...can't "blow a cover" which doesn't exist. See previous message, comments above, basic logic and law.
Joe Wilson was not privy to all intel. He was an unemployed ex-Civil Service worker with no security clearance. In fact, yellowcake from Niger was found in Iraq and there were commercial records of the transactions. Even if it were not, the mere act of pursuing negotiations with Niger for Uranium violated the cease fire. That's all there is to it. 10 years of violating the cease fire agreement of an active war created the obligation and authority to respond militarily. That's the law.
No, it was Jack's column which revealed Valerie's name. Wilson's "article" was so full of lies the Congressional investiagtion threw it out. If it had been an actual trial and he made such claims, he would be guilty of perjury. Jack couldn't reveal Armitage told him Valerie's name until after the falrse trial without creating legal risk to himself. The press will promoteo whatever it chooses to promote. They built a strawman because that's what they wanted.
No, the forged document was widely acknowledge to be forged. That wasn't the only evidence. President Bush stated that the British intel believed Saddam was pursuing Uranium purchase. That statement of fact was followed by Joe Wilson's strawman "article" which has been totally debunked. (Again, Congressional Record to read the investigation testimony and evidence.)
You don't have access to intel information of the sort which would be required to state, with any surety, wether or not nuke materials were found. All you have is free market information.
You're wasting time chasing a poorly-constructed conspiracy theory.
This statement, which is a paraphrase of what the president said once, is actually true in this case.
The authority that protects classified documents lies with the executive branch of government, and as the head of that branch the chief executive holds ultimate authority to classify, declassify, disclose or deny any material information held by the government.
Which doesn't mean the action and the statement weren't dumb. They were. But as regards disclosure of classified information: When the president does it, it's not illegal. Really.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This is a country of laws, It's the usA, not the usSR. So, the question remains, did Bush and Cheney use Armitage as their patsy, or did they seize on the opertunity of an Armitage slip to try to use the situation to push their case for war? Either way is impeachable.
Second, it is impossible for any entity to find every person someone has interacted with over the course of 15 years in free societies.
Some spies who knew Valerie Plame were able to avoid exposure. This is probably true of every blown cover in the history of the world, so it doesn't really win Bush any points.
By definition, that means exposure to someone other than their own association. What does this mean?
It's not possible for the general public to know if President Bush "lied" when he said he'd fire anyone involved in revealing a covert agent. First, you'd need inside knowledge to ascertain at what point the administration knew Valerie's actual status. Second, since she wasn't covert, nobody could reveal her as being covert. You refuse to admit the claims have prerequisited which were not met. It is just as valid to say President Bush did indeed fire everyone involved in leaking Valerie Plame's name as a covert operataive. She did not have the legal status of being covert. That's all there is to it.
First point we now know that Armitage, Libby, and Rove were behind the leak and attempted earlier leaks, by their own admission. Second, she was covert and under an unofficial cover which means that merely revealing her as CIA blew her cover. Her cover, BTW, doesn't become useless just because she wasn't in the field. Anyone with intel experience would know. You're also putting words into the Whitehouse's mouth. They pledged to fire "anyone involved in it." There wasn't always your careful parsing about "covert agents".
No, the forged document was widely acknowledge to be forged. That wasn't the only evidence. President Bush stated that the British intel believed Saddam was pursuing Uranium purchase. That statement of fact was followed by Joe Wilson's strawman "article" which has been totally debunked. (Again, Congressional Record to read the investigation testimony and evidence.)
"British Intel" is not evidence, a point which becomes crystal clear when you research the source of their belief, which was the same poorly forged documents, and which lead to Bush's tortured phrasing, since they didn't have any evidence that could convince American Intel.
You don't have access to intel information of the sort which would be required to state, with any surety, wether or not nuke materials were found. All you have is free market information.
This is nothing more than deluded authoritarianism. Consider that they paraded around every piece of crap "evidence" that they could find, then try to convince anyone that they withheld the good stuff.
Play Command HQ online