Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney
1. Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal "War of Aggression" against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.
2. Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
3. Violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.
4. Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.
5. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.
6. Violating the Constitution by using "signing statements" to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.
7. Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
8. Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.
9. Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a "Unitary Executive Theory" giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
10. Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.
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Impeach07 Campaign Launched
http://www.impeach07.org
A growing network of organizations and individuals has launched a new campaign to pursue the immediate impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney through widespread public pro-*test*-('"), creative dissent, media activism, education, and coordinated lobbying. Members of the Impeach07 campaign believe that Bush and Cheney have committed high crimes and misdemeanors, including - among many others - misleading the nation into an aggressive war, spying in open violation of the law, and sanctioning the use of torture. The campaign is demanding that Congress Members hold Cheney and Bush accountable through the Constitutional remedy of impeachment.
Impeach07 exists to organize people throughout the U.S. to demand that Congress impeach. Newsweek reported in October that a majority of Americans favor impeachment, and in January that 58% said they wished the Bush administration were over. Impeach07 will draw on this energy to mobilize people from all walks of life. As Howard Zinn, noted historian, has said, "Only a great popular upheaval can push both Republicans and Democrats into compliance with the national will."
Speaking of the significance of Impeach07, Debra Sweet, Director of The World Can't Wait—Drive Out the Bush Regime, said: "To end the war in Iraq, prevent Bush from widening the conflict to Iran, stop the dangerous direction of this administration, Bush and Cheney must be impeached. If we do not demand this now, not only will the death and destruction continue for two more years, but all that Bush has done will be legitimized and we will send a terrible message of impunity. We will not accept war crimes being committed in our name."
On March 17, the anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, Impeach07 will mobilize for a march on the Pentagon to demand: "End the War and Impeach Bush Now!" Throughout the spring, Impeach07 will spread across the country through a variety of projects. April 28 will be a nationwide day of pro-*test*-('") in towns and cities across the country. Preparations have begun for a massive outpouring of creative dissent including rallies, concerts, public forums, street theater, and more.
Initial participating organizations represent hundreds of thousands of antiwar, impeachment, military family, peace, youth and women activists and lawyers. They include After Downing Street, Backbone Campaign, Center for Constitutional Rights, Citizens Impeachment Commission, CODE PINK Women for Peace, Constitution Summer, Consumers for Peace, Democrats.com, Democracy Rising, Gold Star Families for Peace, Green Party of the United States, Hip Hop Caucus, Impeach the President, ImpeachBush.org, Military Free Zone, National Lawyers Guild, Patriotic Response to Renegade Government, Progressive Democrats of America, Independent Progressive Politics Network, Velvet Revolution, and World Can't Wait: Drive Out the Bush Regime.
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United for Peace and Justice
http://www.unitedforpeace.org
UFPJ Statement on Impeachment
George Bush, Dick Cheney and other top administration officials have committed impeachable offenses.
These include leading the country into war under false pretenses, ordering violations of the Geneva Conventions, the U.N Charter and International law; violating the civil liberties of U.S. people in an unconstitutional manner; lying to the people of the U.S. and the world; and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
There is growing awareness of these facts among the U.S. people. From across the country there are demands that the Congress act on the principle that this is a government of laws, not of individuals. There is a grassroots movement demanding that Bush and Cheney and others be impeached.
Since its formation, UFPJ’s central mission has been working to end the war in Iraq and other wars of which George Bush is Commander in Chief. We welcome the growing movement to impeach him and others in his administration who have aided and abetted his crimes.
Some of our member groups and friends are already active in Impeach07, an umbrella forum in the impeachment movement. Others may see ways to incorporate impeachment efforts into their antiwar agendas, and we encourage them to do so.
http://www.impeach07.org
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Why Congress Must Impeach the President (By Dave Lindorff)
Many well-intentioned and patriotic Americans, including progressives and liberal Democrats, have expressed opposition to the idea of impeaching President Bush, arguing that it is a diversion from more important issues like ending the war in Iraq, or taking effective action on climate change.
Their concern is understandable, as these are indeed important issues, but they are wrong. Fortunately, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers, who knows this, is beginning the impeachment process next week by calling for a hearing to examine one of the president’s crimes: abuse of power. Fortunately too, several state legislatures in places as disparate as New Mexico, Vermont and Washington, are considering passing resolutions calling on the House to initiate impeachment hearings.
There are important reasons why this president must be impeached and they include those very urgent issues that people are afraid will be shunted aside by an impeachment battle.
The key reason this president must be impeached is that his offenses against the Constitution and the nation are so serious that the very survival of Constitutional government and the separation of powers on which it is based are at risk.
Let’s take the war in Iraq. The president clearly lied and tricked both the Congress and the American people into allowing him to invade that country. He and Vice President Dick Cheney carefully cherry-picked half-truths and known falsehoods to lay out as “evidence” that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and that he was in league with Osama bin Laden. His White House orchestrated a campaign to damage the reputation of an honest critic, ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had discovered that a key piece of that “evidence” --some alleged documents from the country of Niger--had been forged, and even “outed” Wilson’s CIA-agent wife. These lies have led directly to the pointless deaths of nearly 3100 American men and women in uniform and to the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children. Bush also illegally pulled American troops and equipment out of Afghanistan, right at the height of a Congressionally authorized campaign to capture or kill bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization (fatally crippling that effort), and sent them to the border of Iraq in preparation for his war there.
If this president is allowed to do such things, unchallenged and unpunished, we can expect subsequent presidents to do so in the future. Indeed, many experts and members of Congress believe that Bush is getting close to repeating this criminal behavior himself, this time with an unprovoked attack on Iran. Clearly, in order to stop such abuse of presidential authority and such a second national and international disaster, Congress will have to impeach the president.
Then there’s the so-called “signing statements.” These are the letters--not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution--which Bush and his crony attorneys in the White House and Justice Department claim allow him to invalidate all or part of any bill passed by the Congress. Bush has used signing statements to do this over 1200 time during his presidency, for everything from refusing to accept a Congressional ban on torture to giving himself the power, in clear violation of federal law, to monitor first- class mail.
Once again, if this president is not impeached for this outrage assertion of presidential absolute power, all future presidents will feel free to do the same thing, simply ignoring acts of Congress. The Constitution is crystal clear on this matter: Article I says “All legislative powers granted herein shall be vested in Congress of the United States," and Article II says the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Note that the Constitution does not say that “some” legislative powers or “most” legislative powers are vested in the Congress. It says “all.” Nor does it say that the president shall execute “some” of the laws. For Congress to let this blatant abuse of power to go unpunished would be to leave future Congresses as little more than vestigial debating societies.
As for the warrantless spying which the president has authorized the National Security Agency to engage in since the fall of 2001, in blatant violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, here is a case of the president unapologetically violating federal law and committing a felony. He is, here, simply daring the Congress to confront him. So far, they have been too cowardly to stand up to the challenge. And yet, if Bush is allowed to get away with this crime, all future presidents will argue that they too are above the law, and that they may pick and choose what laws they will honor and what laws they will break. No Constitutional system, no democratic system, can long endure under such circumstances.
The same can be said for the president’s willful violation of the Geneva Conventions barring torture. It is clear that the president both authorized torture, as defined under the Conventions, and failed to take action to prevent even the most heinous of torture acts, which reached the point of lethality, when they were brought to his attention. These, it must be pointed out, are not merely crimes which violate international law. The US is a signatory (and author) of the Geneva Conventions, and as these have been adopted by the Senate, under the Constitution they have full force of law within the U.S. Furthermore, the Republican Congress in 1996 specifically incorporated the Geneva Code into the U.S. Criminal Code, making it all the more clear that the president’s actions—and his inaction—on torture are criminal acts under U.S. law. As such they must be prosecuted, if the law is to have any meaning, and that requires, as a first step, impeachment of the president.
There are many other reasons that the president should be impeached--his criminal negligence in sending American troops into battle with inadequate armor, his criminal negligence in failing to plan for the occupation of Iraq, his extreme criminal negligence in failing to act to rescue the trapped and drowning citizens of New Orleans following the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, his refusal to provide evidence requested by the 9-11 Commission (and his administration’s lies to that commission), the massive and unchecked corruption in Iraq which has so extravagantly enriched administration campaign contributors, White House corruption linked to the Abramoff and other scandals, illegal use of taxpayer funds for a program of administration propaganda using government agencies, and perhaps an orchestrated campaign of stealing elections, etc. These should all be investigated. Some are easier to document than others, but all deserve a hearing.
Meanwhile, however, it is essential that the key crimes be introduced as bills of impeachment in the House as quickly as possible, so that hearings can begin.
Critics of impeachment have argued that it is pointless to call for impeachment since removal from office would require a vote by two-thirds of the Senate, which is 49 percent Republican. That ignores the impact of truth and fact on a group of politicians who will be looking at 2008 very anxiously. When impeachment hearings began for President Richard Nixon, a scant one in four Americans thought he should be impeached. During the Clinton impeachment farce, support for the president’s removal from office never topped 36 percent. Yet a Newsweek poll taken last fall found that a remarkable 51 percent of the American public felt this president should face impeachment (including 29 percent of Republicans!), and than only 44 percent opposed impeachment.
The likelihood is that, once impeachment hearings began, they would have the same impact on Republicans this time around as they had on Republicans in Congress during the Nixon impeachment. That is, as the depth of administration perfidy and criminality was exposed on live television, through the -*test*-('")imony of White House staff talking under oath, honest Republicans facing re-election soon would feel compelled to cut their ties and support for Bush and his cronies. Who knows? Some might even support impeachment for reasons of principle and patriotism as the facts came out.
The real reason Bush must be impeached, though, is that if he is not impeached, this usurper will simply ignore any bills passed by Congress, will act despite any resolutions passed by Congress, and will break any law that he thinks gets in his way. Furthermore, future presidents, Democrat and Republican, will use Bush as a precedent to ignore Congress and break laws themselves.
The real question for impeachment skeptics then, is: “What are you waiting for?”
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<i>DAVE LINDORFF is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of “The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office"
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Impeachment: The Case in Favor (By Elizabeth Holtzman)
"Approximately a year ago, I wrote in this magazine that President George W. Bush had committed high crimes and misdemeanors and should be impeached and removed from office. His impeachable offenses include using lies and deceptions to drive the country into war in Iraq, deliberately and repeatedly violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on wiretapping in the United States, and facilitating the mistreatment of US detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act of 1996.
Since then, the case against President Bush has, if anything, been strengthened by reports that he personally authorized CIA abuse of detainees. In addition, courts have rejected some of his extreme assertions of executive power. The Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees, and a federal judge ruled that the President could not legally ignore FISA. Even Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's recent announcement that the wiretapping program would from now on operate under FISA court supervision strongly suggests that Bush's prior claims that it could not were untrue.
Despite scant attention from the mainstream media, since last year impeachment has won a wide audience. Amid a flurry of blogs, books and articles, a national grassroots movement has sprung up. In early December seventy-five pro-impeachment rallies were held around the country and pro-impeachment efforts are planned for Congressional districts across America. A Newsweek poll, conducted just before election day, showed 51 percent of Americans believed that impeachment of President Bush should be either a high or lower priority; 44 percent opposed it entirely. (Compare these results with the 63 percent of the public who in the fall of 1998 opposed President Clinton's impeachment.) Most Americans understand the gravity of President Bush's constitutional misconduct.
Public anger at Bush has been mounting. On November 7 voters swept away Republican control of the House and Senate. The President's poll numbers continue to drop.
These facts should signal a propitious moment for impeachment proceedings to start. Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment "off the table." (Impeachment proceedings must commence in the House of Representatives.) Her position doesn't mean impeachment is dead; it simply means a different route to it has to be pursued. Congressional investigations must start, and public pressure must build to make the House act.
This is no different from what took place during Watergate. In 1973 impeachment was not "on the table" for many months while President Nixon's cover-up unraveled, even though Democrats controlled the House and Senate. But when Nixon fired the special prosecutor to avoid making his White House tapes public, the American people were outraged and put impeachment on the table, demanding that Congress act. That can happen again.
Congressional and other investigations that previously found serious misconduct in the Nixon White House made the public's angry reaction to the firing of the special prosecutor--and the House response with impeachment proceedings--virtually inevitable. Early in 1973, once it appeared that the cover-up might involve the White House, the Senate created a select committee to investigate. The committee held hearings and uncovered critical evidence, including the existence of a White House taping system that could resolve the issue of presidential complicity. The Senate also forced the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Watergate. Other committees looked into related matters. None of the investigations were prompted by the idea of impeachment. Still, they laid the groundwork for it--and the evidence they turned up was used by the House impeachment panel to prepare articles of impeachment against Nixon.
The same approach can govern now. Senate and House committees must commence serious investigations that could uncover more evidence to support impeachment. The investigations should ascertain the full extent of the President's deceptions, exaggerations and lies that drove us into the Iraq War. (They can simply in effect resurrect Republican Senator Howard Baker's famous questions about Richard Nixon: "What did the President know and when did he know it?") Congress should also explore the wiretapping that has violated the FISA law, the President's role in mistreatment of detainees and his gross indifference to the catastrophe facing the residents of New Orleans from Katrina.
Investigations should also be conducted into Vice President Cheney's meetings with oil company executives at the outset of the Administration. If divvying up oil contracts in Iraq were discussed, as some suggest, this would help prove that the Iraq War had been contemplated well before 9/11, and that a key motivation was oil. Inquiries into Halliburton's multibillion-dollar no-bid contracts should also be conducted, particularly given Cheney's ties to the company.
White House documents about Katrina that have not already been turned over to Congress should be sought to document further the President's failure to discharge his constitutional duty to help the people of New Orleans.
Our country's Founders provided the power of impeachment to prevent the subversion of the Constitution. President Bush has subverted and defied the Constitution in many ways. His defiance and his subversion continue.
Failure to impeach Bush would condone his actions. It would allow him to assume he can simply continue to violate the laws on wiretapping and torture and violate other laws as well without fear of punishment. He could keep the Iraq War going or expand it even further than he just has on the basis of more lies, deceptions and exaggerations. Remember, as recently as October 26, Bush said, "Absolutely, we are winning" the war in Iraq--a blatant falsehood. Worse still, if Congress fails to act, Bush might be emboldened to believe he may start another war, perhaps against Iran, again on the basis of lies, deceptions and exaggerations.
There is no remedy short of impeachment to protect us from this President, whose ability to cause damage in the next two years is enormous. If we do not act against Bush, we send a terrible message of impunity to him and to future Presidents and mark a clear path to despotism and tyranny. Succeeding generations of Americans will never forgive us for lacking the nerve to protect our democracy."
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Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman is the author of "The Impeachment of George W. Bush."
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"Sean Penn Speaks Up for Impeachment"
"On Receiving the 2006 Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award
By Sean Penn"
"The Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award. For the purposes of tonight and my own personal enjoyment, I'm going to yield to the notion that I deserve this.
And in the spirit of that, tell you that I am very honored to receive it. And for this I thank the Creative Coalition and my friend Charlie Rose. It does seem appropriate to take this opportunity to exercise the right that honors us all - freedom of speech.
Note for later:
The original title for the Louis XVI comedy called "Start The Revolution Without Me" was one of my favorites. That original title was "Louis, There's a Crowd Downstairs." But I'll come back to that...
Words may be our most civil weapons of change, when they connect to actions of sacrifice, or good will, but they have no grace or power without bold clarity. So, if you'll bear with me, borrowing a line from Bob Dylan, "Let us not talk falsely now - the hour is getting late."
Global warming
Massive pollution
Non-stop U.S. war in Iraq
Attacks on civil liberties under the banner of war on terror
Military spending
You and I, U.S. taxpayers, spend 1 1/2 billion dollars on an Iraq-war-'focused' military everyday, while social needs cry out.
Health care
Education
Public transit
Environmental protections
Affordable housing
Job training
Public investment
And, levy building.
We depend largely for information on these issues from media industries, driven by the bottom line to such an extent that the public interest becomes uninteresting.
And should we speak truth, we stand against government efforts to intimidate or legislate in the service of censorship. Whether under the guise of a Patriot Act or any other benevolent-sounding rationale for the age-old game of shutting down dissent by discouraging independent thinking and preventing progressive social change.
The most effective forms of de facto censorship are pre-emptive. Systemically, we are encouraged to keep our heads down, out of the line of fire - to avoid the danger, god forbid, that someone in the White House, on Capitol Hill, or a media blow-hard might take a shot at us.
But, as a practical matter, most of the limits on creative expression and other forms of free speech come from self-censorship, where the mechanism of corporate clout offers carrots and brandishes sticks. We avoid a conflict before the conflict materializes. We reach for the carrots and stay out of range of sticks.
Decades ago, Fred Friendly called it a "positive veto" - corporations putting big money behind shows that they want to establish and perpetuate. Whether in journalism or drama, creative efforts that don't gain a financial "positive veto" are dismissible, then dismissed. We may not call that "censorship." But whatever we call it, the effects of a "positive veto" system are severe. They impose practical limits on efforts to bring the most important realities to public attention sooner rather than later...
We're beginning to see more revealing images of this war. But it's later now, isn't it? What we have to pay attention to are the results of these "practical limits." One, is that wars become much easier to launch than to halt.
I've got a feeling about how we can begin to change this process and I want to pass it by you. Children grow up in our country -- many by the way, under conditions of extreme poverty -- and are told from a very early age "You will be accountable!" "With freedom, comes responsibility!" And so the lecture goes...Democratic and Republican alike. Lie-cheat-steal, and there will be consequences! Theft will be punished. Actions that cause the deaths of others will be severely punished. The message, from leaders in Washington, news media, mom, dad, and church is clear. Criminals MUST be held accountable.
Now, there's been a lot of talk lately on Capitol Hill about how impeachment should be "off the table." We're told that it's time to look ahead - not back...
Can you imagine how far that argument would go for the defense at an arraignment on charges of grand larceny, or large-scale distribution of methamphetamines? How about the arranging of a contract killing on a pregnant mother? "Indictment should be off the table." Or "Let's look forward, not backward." Or "We can't afford another failed defendant."
Our country has a legal system, not of men and women, but of laws. Why then are we so willing to put inconvenient provisions of the U.S. constitution and federal law "off the table?" Our grea-*test*-('") concern right now should be what to put ON the table. Unless we're going to have one set of laws for the powerful and another set for those who can't afford fancy lawyers, then truth matters to everyone. And accountability is a matter of human and legal principle. If we're going to continue wagging our fingers at the disadvantaged transgressors, then I suggest we be consistent. If truth and accountability can be stretched into sham concepts, we may as well open the gates of all our jails and prisons, where, by the way, there are more people behind bars than any other country in the world. One in every 32 American adults is behind bars, on probation, or on parole as we stand here tonight.
Which is to say that, globally, the United States is number one at demanding accountability and backing up that demand with imprisonment. But, when it comes to our president, vice president, secretary of state, former secretary of defense...this insistence on accountability vanishes. All of a sudden, what's past is prologue. And we're just "forward-looking." But some people can't just look forward. Men and women stationed in Iraq at this moment, under orders of a Commander-in-Chief so sufficiently practiced in the art of deception, that he got vast numbers of American journalists and the most esteemed media outlets of this country, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and PBS to eagerly serve his agenda-building for war. And the process also induced vast numbers of artists and performers (probably even some in this room tonight) to keep quiet and facilitate the push for an invasion in Iraq.
I'm sure many people who I met in Baghdad, both in my trips prior to and during the occupation, now similarly cannot just look forward. With lives so entirely shattered by a violence of occupation - an ongoing U.S. war effort and the civil war that it has catalyzed. All on the back of a crumbled infrastructure, following eleven years of devastating U.N. sanctions.
And, where is the accountability on behalf of the American dead and wounded, their families, their friends, and the people of the United States who have seen their country become a world pariah. These events have been enabled by people named Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice, as they continue to perpetuate a massive fraud on American democracy and decency.
On January 11, 2003, I made an appearance on Larry King's show following my first trip to Iraq. I suggested that every American mother and father sit down with a scrap of paper and pencil and scribble the following words: Dear Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so -- We regret to inform you that your son or daughter so-and-so, was killed in action in Iraq. I then asked that those mothers and fathers complete that letter in whatever way might comfort them should they receive it. When one considers what a bewildered continuation of those words a parent might attempt to write today, it seems inconceivable that this country could've ever bought into this war. Who were those mothers and fathers believing in?! We know it's not the administration alone, but a culture at large, cloaking itself in self-righteousness, religion, and adolescent hero-dreaming machismo. Would they have believed Rush Limbaugh if they'd known he was high as a kite on OxyContin? Would they have believed the factually impaired Bill O'Reilly if they knew he was massaging his rectum with a loofah while telephonically harassing a staffer? Hannity, had they known he was simply a whore to the cause of his pimps - Murdoch and Ailes? Or the little bow-tie putz, if they knew all he was seeking was a good laugh from Jon Stewart? Maybe our countrymen and women were listening to Ted Haggert while he was whiffing meth and boning a muscle-headed gigolo? Or Mark Foley seeking junior weenis? Joe Lieberman, sitting Shiva? And Toby Keith, singing about how big his boots are?
"Oh, there goes Sean...he had to go and name-call. They say he can't help himself." Or, did I name-call? Maybe I just quickly summed up 7 or 8 little truths. Oh, no, you're right - I name-called. I said, "putz". I take it back. Or, do I? Did I say "whore?" Pimp? These are questions. But, the real and great questions of conscience and accountability would not loom so ominously -- unanswered or evaded at such tremendous cost -- without our day-to-day failure to insist on genuine accountability. Of course we'd prefer some easy ways to get there. But no easy ways exist. Not a new Congress. Not Barack Obama. And, not John McCain. His courage in North Vietnamese prison makes him a heroic man. His voting record in Congress makes him a damaging public servant. We have gotta stand the fuck up and show the world how powerful are the people in a democracy. That's how we regain our position of example, rather than pariah, to the world at large. And that is how we can begin to put up our chins and allow pride and unification to raise our own quality of life and security.
They tell us we lost 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Is that enough? We're about to match it. We're within weeks, if not less, of killing 3,000 Americans in Iraq. I ask Speaker Pelosi, can we put impeachment on the table then? Without former FEMA chief Mike Brown being held accountable, post Katrina (scapegoat though he may have been) we'd have had the same chaos and neglect when Rita hit Houston. Think about it. And, the same people who trumpet deterrence as a justification for punishment when we speak of "crime and punishment," will boast their positive thinking when dismissing the deterrent qualities of an impeachment proceeding.
What is impeachment? It's not a Democratic versus Republican event. Not if used responsibly. If the House of Representatives votes to impeach this president, is he thrown out of office? No, he is not thrown out of office. That is not what impeachment is. Impeachment is the opportunity to proceed with accountability and give our elected senators, democratic and republican, the power to pursue a thorough investigation. The power to put the truth on the table. Mothers and fathers are losing their kids to horrifying deaths in this war every single day. Horrible deaths. Horrible maimings. Were crimes committed in enlisting the support of our country in this decision to go to war? For the moment we're living the most spineless of scenarios; where the hawks abused impeachment eight years ago, now, the rest of us politely refuse to use it today. Let's give the whistle-blowers cover, let's get the subpoenas out there, and then, one by one, put this administration under oath. And then, if the crimes of "Treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" are proven, do as Article 2, Section 4 of the United States Constitution provides, and remove "the President, Vice President and...civil officers of the United States" from office. If the Justice Department then sees fit to bunk them up with Jeff Skilling, so be it.
So...look, if we attempt to impeach for lying about a blowjob, yet accept these almost certain abuses without challenge, we become a cum-stain on the flag we wave. You know, I was listening to Frank Rich this morning, speaking on a book tour. He said he thought impeachment proceedings would amount to a "decadent" sidetrack, while our soldiers were still being killed. I admire Frank Rich. And of course he would be right if impeachment is all we do. But we're Americans. We can do two things at the same time. Yes, let's move forward and swiftly get out of this war in Iraq AND impeach these bastards.
Christopher Reeve promised to get out of that chair. Well, I don't know about you, but it feels like he's up now and I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't on his shoulders. Let it be for something.
Georgie, there's a crowd downstairs.
Thank you and good night".
"Sean Penn Impeachment Letter"
"Sissy Riffin
America has suffered the erosion of the constitutional equal rights for all. This great United States has experienced a severe separation of Constitutional privilege spurred by the Bush Administration. The Country no longer finds unity in the Bill Of Rights or the Constitution of the United States of America!
Power at the top of the pyramid...the New Undemocratized Nation has diminished the freedoms we cherished.
A government open, informative and scrutinized by the People ended!
A Congress and House of Representatives representing King Bush.
A Senate creating the basis for narrowing control of the people and
giving control to Bush and his appointees, ruling against the Constitution of the United States of America. Those in power are not truly Republicans with moderate and conservative economic values.
They are Neocons, Extreme Fundamentalists where Greed became their God. It is the New Repulsican Party.
Could not get any closer to Totalitarian governing!
The result of that great concentration of power in ONE Man, the President who would be King, and all the King's men, has left chaos for those who have recently been elected to Congress! And chaos for the people.
The crimes against the Constitution screams out for impeachment!"
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