Promoted from the diaries by Steven D with minor edits.
Most of us on this site have followed this constitutional crisis. We all understand how serious this is. At this point I still hear a few Dems saying they want to have “hearings to investigate” this very serious issue.
Well, we have seen the many diaries discussing these issues and we know these two things already:
- Bush has admitted that he has been illegally wiretapping American’s phones. Oh, he might say it isn’t illegal, but the fact remains that it is. You know it, we all know it.
- Bush has said that he will continue to violate the constitution, the rights of citizens, and the various laws involved.
Do you really see a need for investigations?
Jump with me!
The fact that Bush has admitted these crimes eliminates the need for an investigation. All we need is to open a hearing, let the video tape roll and have a vote. A simple half hour process. There is no disputing the facts.
AMERICA HAS SEEN HIS CONFESSIONS ON TV, AND IT IS EVEN SAVED ON VIDEO TO SPEED UP THE COMMITTEE PROCESS.
The evidence is already in for Bush’s crimes. What is left to do then?
VOTE TO IMPEACH
The facts are a matter of public record. The House needs to have a committee up before the end of this year and VOTE TO IMPEACH immidiately given the fact that bush has stated that he will continue to rape the constitutional rights of US citizens. We must end this constitutional crisis. We must stop this criminal. Not in a month, not in the new year…
Right now! Before he commits another crime.
It is the House’s responsibility and their duty to act right now and VOTE TO IMPEACH.
Any inaction on the part of the House, given the facts as we all know them, would mean that they are complicit. Flame me for being ignorant, but this is true as near as I can tell.
[Updated] to reflect the obvious mistake pointed out by Booman in the comments. And he didn’t even flame me? Is that cool or what? 🙂 CM1
A NOTE TO THE THE HOUSE AND SENATE:
ARE YOU GOING TO SIT THERE AND WATCH THE BENEDICT ARNOLD ADMINISTRATION COMMIT FURTHER CRIMES?
We will hold you as responsible as George W Bush and his administration is for these crimes if you do not act now.
Prior Articles of Impeachment @ Counterpunch, another set @ VFP. Both generated in ’03.
I’m going to post a comment and offer the free choice to site management to delete it if it’s deemed to be a destructive force in this diary. No questions asked. I believe we have had the justification and need for impeachment for several years but haven’t been able to get the support.
To impeach we need to base a case on credible evidence of crimes committed. To base it on a vague definition of protection from threat versus violation of law securing privacy is flawed.
As a society, we have collectively accepted all claims made by the government as to who the threat is/was and what the crimes were. We have allowed unjust detention, persecution and prosecution without demanding due process.
We have accepted the entire GWoT based solely on government claims without demanding credibile evidence that any competent juror would feel obligated to demand in deliberation.
Until we are willing to demand due process for the entire system, the entire effort is based on flawed policy. We have allowed them to make the rules all along. Why should it change now?
I certainly hope no one deletes your comment! I thought it was excellent.
I am not quite understanding why illegal wiretapping is supposed to upset people – when kidnapping people and sending them to Gitmo (at best!) to hold them without lawyers or trials is apparently OK. I don’t know what the hell has happened to this country that people just shrug their shoulders.
But back to your point. I am afraid you are right this latest example of our slide into dictatorship isn’t going to convince people to support impeachment. As long as the administration can make any argument, however strained, that their actions are in support of saving us from The Scary Terrorists, enough people will probably go along. We need to catch the president robbing a 7-11 or something.
Remember when Clinton said “it depends on what the definition of is is”?
There was a very good reason he did that. It was what he needed to do to avoid saying he lied under oath, or committed perjury. Proving perjury is very hard, because it involves the interior conscious states of another person, and we can never know that with certainty unless they tell us what they were thinking. If Clinton admitted he lied then the case for perjury was proven. End of story and his Presidency might be over.
Well, Bush admitted his crime. And worse, he said he is intent on continuing to commit the crime.
What if Clinton had said that “yeah, I lied, but I plan on having a new 20 year old fellate me each month for the rest of my presidency and if you haul me into court to ask me about I plan on lying about it again.”
That is what we are dealing with.
Sometimes I think half GWB’s problem is that he’s never in his life HAD a blowjob.
God, can someone go in there and give the fucker a blowjob so he can quit wanking in office and ejaculating all over the rest of the world!
My feeling exactly!
Perhaps we don’t have to worry about public opinion in this case. We have congress.
Yeah, I said it. We have congress. Now don’t get to excited because I am not suggesting that the republican led congress or even a large enough coalition of Dems and Thugs will impeach Bush for this. But I do think that they will reign him in.
You see congress I think has reached a point where they are ready to take back the power that Bush/Cheney/Gonzales have stolen from them. With their polls in the tank congress has to show some strength to gain back confidence and reigning in Bush would be the most visible way of doing it.
So why do I think that public opinion will not make a difference in what congress does regarding this matter? I’ll answer that with a question.
Since when has congress done what pubic opinion wants?
This was supposed to go under Emma Anne’s post above.
Multi-tasking isn’t all that it’s built up to be. 🙂
Thanks for the comment and good words. I put that delete disclaimer in to help show that I understand the responsibility to each other than comes with freedom of speech in society.
If any president makes the case that a threat is present and the public supports that claim then we have already given him the basis for arguments that arise from that claim. If the president’s original claim is flawed then the legal foundation for decisions related to that claim is removed. All the government has to do is accuse an entity of connection to perceived terrorist threat and then claim secrecy.
Not to mention, if we don’t demand due process for those innocent until proven guilty, then we have nothing to gain.
I’d like an investigation. I want to know what was so critical to our safety that Bush had to bypass the courts. When I ask myself why Bush might have bypassed the courts, the only answer that makes sense to me is that he wouldn’t get clearance and he knew it. Who are they spying on that the courts wouldn’t have given them clearance on and why? My gut tells me that the answers to these questions do not reflect kindly on the Preznit.
Yes, you are right. The administration could not have gotten warrents because they were on pure fishing expeditions. There was no basis for suspicion, and hence no basis for a warrant. They were randomly spying on American citizens, because they wanted to.
I agree that there needs to be an investigation. But not on bush’s crime of authorizing illegal spying on American’s.All a committee needs for is to see Bush’s video where he admits the crime, then a vote.
Then we can have a full investigation of all of the facts, and whomever else may guilty. The TV news seems to show many knew and approved of these MULTPLE crimes. Cheney, Rice, Gonzales, etc.
This needs to be dealt with immidiately to stop any further criminal acts.
well they have to do something. This administration is beyond out of control. They are an administration of lawlessness. Barbara Boxer is siting it in an email to her constituents today. I would like to see something started before the holiday break. Cheney is on his way home, cutting his trip short in “case there is a tie breaking vote”. They are up to something and we need to stop them in their tracks.
I didn’t keep a copy of my emails to various Congresspeople, but basically what I said was there is NO NEED for an “investigation,” there is NO NEED for hearings. A felony crime has been committed. Neither Bush nor any of his advisors has been able to cite a statutory or constitutional precedent for these actions. In this case, he should be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
The burden of “proof” is on THEM.
What is the constitutional or statutory precedent upon which these actions are based–there is none.
How on earth can these fuckers CONTINUE to commit felony crimes, then craft the law to fit the crime with impunity? How is this happening and how are we the people so powerless to stop the shit?
They are de facto committing crimes left and right–publically, openly admitting to them–and no one seems to be able to STOP them.
I don’t get it.
The people gave the government virtually unchecked power because 9/11 changed everything.
I think the people, in their laziness and for sheer convenience sake, gave the gov unchecked power long before that and now that it’s completely out of control, don’t know how to put the genie back in the bottle.
And those of us who saw it coming in the early 80s (Reagan), those of us who have been screaming ourselves blue in the face, predicting EXACTLY what was coming, step by step by step, are NOT getting any satisfaction from saying “I told you so.”
Not a stitch.
of course it is the house, not the senate, that must begin an inquiry of impeachment in the Judicial Committee, then vote out articles of impeachment to the floor, and then pass at least one of those articles.
Then the Senate must have a trial, and they should convict.
I’ll edit to reflect.
these are the people we need to convince.
http://judiciary.house.gov/CommitteeMembership.aspx
I am glad you put that Email contact up there for others.
But I contacted My Rep Nancy Johnson (R) (and Senator) the moment I realized that this was a serious case for impeachment 2 days agao… lol
Every day they wait they are purposely allowing another crime to happen.
I fully expect that bush will be impeached. I just doubt that bush will resign over something like this. I think it will take a court case to get him out of office.
I have wondered if Bush might have been chosen for his expendability.
Impeaching him would give a great deal of psychological comfort to elements that might jeopardize bipartisan unity, and US policies would certainly not be in danger of any change under President Cheney.
Mom always did like Jebbie best…said he was the smart one.
that this president DESERVES impeachment perhaps more than any other, my sad experience tells me that it is never going to happen.
Nothing — NOTHING — is going to come of this. Nothing came of the illegitimate elections, nothing came of the Downing Street Memos (minutes), nothing came of Abu Ghraib, nothing came of thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead or maimed for a bunch of lies.
It has been the mantra of totalitarians from time immemorial: in order to preserve your security, we must take away your freedom. It is an argument that we, as a nation, have bought lock, stock, and barrel since 9/11.
Get used to it, folks. It is only the beginning.
I’m afraid you’re right…the bigger the crime and all that.
The only thing that could maybe stop it would be if the 59 million-plus people who voted against him (assuming that number is far larger, but let’s say 59 million) descended upon Washington. It would be the only thing–the MSM and international media would not be able to ignore that.
We need that many people–physical bodies descending on the fucking WH.
But we’d rather be shopping, wouldn’t we?
I do not understand why and how we the American people cannot learn from the many other countries who have successfully ousted criminals from office: I’m thinking Ukraine in particular as most recent example.
We need 59 million people on the street. In Washington. Not 59 million scattered in teeny-tiny little enclaves that can be ignored by the press.
59 million. Where the fuck are they?
Walmart.
Costco.
Target.
It’s the government that is keeping them from going to DC. It’s the “little people” that would protest but they don’t even have money for heating their homes let alone go to DC. And yeah, they are shopping at Costco, Target and Walmart because that is all they can afford. This government is making people choose between heat or food. This government is keeping thousands of Katrina victims homeless while thousands of Fema trailers sit vacant. It is all part of their plan. Divede and conquer. Keep them downtrodden to keep them from doing anything about it.
Let there be a revolution and let it start with me.
If they can afford to go shopping, they can afford to go to Washington.
Katrina: You know, back in September, when the weather was relatively good in DC, I kept wondering: what really would be the difference for Katrina evacuees between sleeping on a cot in some fucking shelter somewhere in Texas and sleeping in a tent in DC. For the kids, it might have been a kind of an adventure, you know.
A few months later, calls were going out to send TV sets, cards, games, etc. to keep the Katrina evacuees from getting bored. Why are we too stupid to figure out that a big ol mass trip to DC would not only be politically effective, it would have been more entertaining than Simpsons reruns and Nintendo?
(and for the price of the TV sets, nintendos, etc. we were being asked to send, this could easily have been arranged
Look back at the pics of people protesting in the Ukraine. You think those people had MONEY? No they didn’t. What they had was the will and willingness to sacrifice some “creature comfort” on behalf of a greater issue.
We have LOST that in this country.
Just give me a couch and cable TV, and let the rest of the world go by.
Believe me, Aloha, you’re preaching to the wrong person about poverty and the choice between heat or food. I’ve been writing about and working on these very issues ever since the day I “pulled myself up from the bootstraps” of the welfare line many years ago.
But if all those of us who do have some means (however modest they may be) would join together (again, I’m talking about the 59 million) and get up off our asses, stand in the freezing fucking cold if we have to (it’s better than freezing to death in your living room, ain’t it?)…that is what it would take. We don’t have the will. that’s the problem. I’ve got room in my car for at least two homeless people, and I sure would have no problem finding em and/or convincing them to go on a road trip, but I’m sure as hell not gonna do it if I don’t have 59 million backing me up on it because anything else is a waste of time.
Believe me, I know about the plan: as I said, I’ve predicted it and been outlining it step by step for the past 20 years. In print and in action.
First of all I agree with you 100% that it will take an uprising of millions of people. I cannot speak for other people but I went to Crawford in August and it was worth every penny spent to get there. A huge group from here went to great lengths to get to DC. The f’ing media never showed the tens of thousands of people that showed up.
What I was trying to convey I guess in not a very eloquent or “credentialed” way is that there are people out there that have tried. We are angry, frustrated, scared to f’ing death of what is happening to our country. What else can we do?
I know, Aloha, I’m just as frustrated and don’t know what the hell to do…and what I’m saying is that the tens of thousands just don’t do it anymore, it’s too easy for the media to ignore and if the media ignores it, it’s like it never happened.
That’s why I’m saying: we need MILLIONS, many millions, and we need them to camp OUT there–many will have to be arrested–but they can’t arrest 59 million, they can’t. They don’t have enough prisons to contain them (not yet).
Anyway, thanks for going to Crawford. I didn’t. I just sent money, and attended vigils here–I also thought it strategically better for the Crawford movement to be just what it looked like on TV “soccer moms and wonder bread America”–really felt my presence as starkravinglunaticradical would have been disruptive.
But, I could be easily camouflaged in a crowd of 59 million.
Somedays Stark I think I will go crazy from all the insanity that surrounds us. Somedays it feels so hopeless. Believe me when I say that you would have fit right in down in Crawford. It was far from “soccer moms and white bread America”. It amazed me the diversity that was united down there. I agree it is going to take millions and/or the dems to grow some balls(like Boxer and Conyers) to get rid of the Cabal of Fascists occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Actually, and I hate to address a touchy subject, but, if the responses to me and my views during the “Stark Wars” were any index, it is very clear to me that my presence in Crawford would not have been productive. (I doubt I’d have gotten out of there alive! 😉
But that doesn’t matter–as I think I’ve made clear, I was very supportive of the whole Crawford thing and did what I thought was appropriate from here.
Plan? Was your question about a plan addressed to me?
I don’t have a plan: I only know that I see the problem resting with the American people–BushCo did not emerge from a vaccuum, BushCo has been a long time coming–I saw it coming in 1984 and left the goddamned country it scared me so bad.
Now, however the problem with the American people came about, i.e. with a lot of “help” from the gov–divide and conquer as you say, dumbing people down [seen the latest stats on adult literacy?], encouraging insulation and isolation from what’s going on in the rest of the world [i.e. encouraging people to believe this is the way things work everywhere in the world], etc., it still is the number one problem. That is to say, I’m not trying to play the “blame game” here and say “bad, bad Americans, you fucked up, you are fucked up and your whole society is just fucked: may you be hung by thumbs, tarred and feathered or whatever”–No, I’m just trying to get at the root of the problem so that it can be solved.
One of the most encouraging things about the Crawford and Cindy Sheehan movement was that I saw many people who were traditionally politically “uninvolved” finally getting involved. It was a damn good sign. It moved me to tears.
So I don’t have a plan, all I have is ten years’ experience in parts of the world where things work differently. Let me cite a couple of examples:
Gulf War I: I was in Germany. The day the US invaded Iraq, I was in my practice room with my drum. I got up, walked out the door with my drum and began moving toward the city center. From all over the city, others did the same. There was no organized effort behind it. After a couple of blocks, I had been joined by hundreds, when we reached one of the main intersections, three separate groups came together and there were then thousands. By the time we reached the city center, there were tens of thousands. This happened all over Germany (and in fact all over Europe). There was no organized effort, at least not in my town. It was AUTOMATIC. Everyone KNEW and everyone got up and went out on the streets to protest. We didn’t sit around waiting for someone to tell us this was the thing to do. No one organized anything. It just happened.
I was in Berlin a few years ago when George Bush visited the city. By then, of course, I’d been “repatriated” into the American way of doing business (that is, the American way of NOT doing business).
There was a huge organized protest against George Bush’s visit. I had no intention of attending. But amongst “politically conscious” “liberals” and “left-wingers”–that was considered totally and completely out of the question. I would have been seen as a complete social (political) PARIAH and slacker if I had not gone to the protest. That is to say, there was significant peer pressure to participate in that protest. It would have been unthinkable to stay home.
Somehow, we Americans have managed to put so much emphasis on our “rights” to do whatever we want that we have completely forgotten that we also have RESPONSIBILITIES and one of those responsibilities is to express dissent–especially in times such as these. Somehow we have come to believe that other people’s problems are their problems, not ours.
So who gives a fuck what happens to the folks in NOLA?
Not my problem.
Who gives a fuck how many more soldiers die in this unjust war?
Not my problem.
And I, as a free American, have the right not to care. I have the right to sit here on my couch and do nothing. I have the right to go shopping instead.
Well, hmmm. From my experience, that attitude is totally and completely socially unacceptable in Europe: no, you don’t have the right not to care and you don’t have the right to sit back on your ass (or go to Walmart instead) while injustices are being inflicted on others. Au contraire. You have the RESPONSIBILITY to do whatever you can to stop it. This is not a government mandate–it comes from the people. It is embedded in the social fabric of what is considered right and wrong.
Imagine a world in which it is considered BAD FORM, a social faux pas, to NOT attend a protest against GWB. Well, that’s the world I lived in for ten years and it breaks my heart to know that this world exists tens of thousands of miles away, but not here.
So, that’s where I see the problem. And that is what scares me even more than this regime. This regime–I saw it coming: it happened exactly as predicted. The fact that even now, Americans are not getting up and automatically screaming “I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE.” That scares me. I didn’t understand why 59 million Kerry voters did not descend on DC last time this year. I did not understand why everyone in this country who claims he/she is NOT a racist was not en route to New Orleans this fall. It was all I could do not to set out on foot by myself. So now, with this most latest criminal attack, I am really scared. Really. Because people are still going shopping instead. Even scarier: so am I. (Actually, I’m not, but I’m also sitting here at my compute in my pajamas–sure, I’m signing petitions and writing letters just as I have been doing all my life, but that’s not what is needed right now: we need 59 million taking to the streets).
I don’t have a plan — I’ve run out of ideas.
My strategy for contributing to a solution includes talking to people about it–above all to my STUDENTS, at the university and elementary school aged children (well, I don’t talk to the kids DIRECTLY about that, but I do try to inspire in them a sense of collective responsibility–the nature of my subject matter lends itself to that; and with the kids, I also teach by example–they see how politically involved I am by seeing how I distribute materials to their parents, for example, which I do very openly and deliberately so).
To my students at the university, I talk a lot more about civic responsiblities than I do about civil rights. And there too, since my subject matter is German literature (and hence also German culture), there is ample opportunity for talking openly about these things–especially about what I experienced in Germany in terms of the norms and standards for political involvement and civic responsibility.
Thank you Stark for your experience and insightfulness. So when do we leave for DC?
I’ll be number 27,999,999: and I’ll take three people in my car with me–my hubby and two homeless people.
Yeah, and that may sound hypocritical, but it’s not, goddammit, I’ve been participating in protests–throughout the world–for thirty years and counting, and NOPE, I’m not getting up off my ass (at least not to DC) until I see at least 28 million doing the same. Way I see it: I’ve protested on behalf of my fellow Americans who’d rather be shopping or driving their kids to the soccer game for all this time–done it in Berlin, Bonn, Madison, Eau Claire, Minneapolis, Chicago, Wuppertal, Kiel…uh where else? God knows where.
So, as I said, I’ll take my place in line somewhere around 28 million.
In the meantime, I’ll let my pen do the walking and continue with my efforts to inspire a more active generation of adults in the future (in case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel on the adult population, hence “Adults Anonymous”; that also relates to an American Indian prophecy [not sure whether it’s “intertribal” or specifically Ojibwe] about a time when the children will be the elders [i.e. the wise ones] and the adults will be the infants [i.e. the idiots]). I believe I first concluded that that time had come sometime around 1993. For the past 12 years, I’ve been doing my damndest to give the adults just one more chance before I “turn them into a goon.” Now, in my book, they’re mostly just goons.
If 28 million adults manage to get off their asses and head for DC at some time in the near future, I will have been proven wrong and will change my peer group: for now, I’m placing my bets and my energies on the 6 to 16-yr olds.
I would be interested to hear your plan?
Well the lame-ass dems have a FOIA request for which they are requesting support, maybe most have already seen it and signed on
http://www.democrats.org/page/petition/domesticspying
I’m supporting them, but I’m so tired of screaming at them to do their fucking jobs (I have said, since November: FILIBUSTER EVERYTHING. SHUT THIS REGIME DOWN….but, noooooo we gotta pretend the election wasn’t stolen lest they throw sticks and stones and break our bones…)….
THe email they’re sending out says “Did George Bush break the law?” — and this is the problem with 401K liberals and the democratic party as a whole: “DID GB break the law?”
Wtf. YEs, GB broke the Law.
The email should read: George Bush has committed yet another felony crime!
Argh. Fucking lameass fellow travelers!
Once again, Rep. Barbara Boxer has stepped up and spoken truth to illegitimate power. She sent a letter to four top Constitutional scholars asking for an opinion on the case for Bush’s impeachment. Following is a statement she emailed to supporters. If you really want to do something about Bush’s crimes, now is the time to support Boxer in every way you can ( http://boxer.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=249975 ), plus mercilessly harass your rep in Congress to go on record in support of a serious impeachment investigation.
Gotta say, Feingold/Boxer or Boxer/Feingold in ’08 is shaping up as the ultimate dream ticket.
I have that letter in my inbox… Her and a very few other select Dems are the only one’s I get Email from.
Oh yeah… Conyers Email is welcome even more. He is always on top of the real issues.
I wonder? Can we “impeach” a House Rep. or a Senator for NOT taking action? Or do we have to resort to a recall? Or what?
Because inaction on this issue would make them complicit, IMHO.
but only if the California voters show some sense and cojones next November and put a Democrat back in Sacramento; I don’t want the Governator or any Republican wanna-bes appointing Barbara’s replacement…
This is my opinion only, but I have a sense that despite overwhelming evidence that might come forward to clearly and unambiguously show the criminality of the Bush regime in this matter, the Dem leadership and the most prominent, (generally DLC, corporate type) Dems, will very actively discourage any impeachment action even if the Dems do win a majority in the House in 2006.
They are too afraid of being slammed by the wingnut slime machine when and if another major terroristic type event happens, and their cowardice, just like it’s been doing for the last 3 years, will prevent them from standing up in defense of the constitution and our civil liberties. (And, perhaps more importantly for them, their big money corporate donors won’t back an impeachment proceeding either.)
Just saying!
Yep. You’re right. They’re “in on it.”
As if lending credence to my own comment above, here’s a piece referencing DLC uber-hack Marshall Wittman’s latest effort at GOP collusion.