Impeachment

Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards of The Toledo Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He lays out a case for impeachment and then says he's not arguing for impeachment because there's no chance the Republicans controlling Congress will impeach Bush.

By David Swanson

Is that anywhere in the Constitution? Seriously, did you see today's NY Times editorial, which purports to explain the difference between the NSA spying leak and the Valerie Plame leak. The former is a story of crime leaked by a whistleblower and forced into print by an enterprising reporter who got a book deal. The latter is an act of retribution against a whistleblower, an act with which a New York Times reporter was complicit and about which the NY Times kept silent until forced to speak. But that's not exactly how Judith Miller's former employer tells it:

BY RUSSELL BERMAN, New York Sun
http://www.nysun.com/article/25293

Working out of a cramped office in his Jackson Heights apartment, Robert
Fertik has one clear goal for 2006: impeaching President Bush and Vice

By Bob Fertik, ImpeachPAC

Mr. Ken Mehlman, Chair
Republican National Committee
info@gop.com

Dear Ken,

Today a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Tracey Schmitt, dismissed ImpeachPAC.org as "fringe, to say the least."

"If Democrats choose to align themselves with such a laughable campaign, it will be at their own peril," Ms. Schmitt said.

Did Ms. Schmitt accurately reflect your views? If so, I challenge you to a public debate on the question: "Should George W. Bush be impeached for lying about Iraq?"

As a graduate of Harvard Law School and a frequent guest on talk shows, you are among the best debaters in the U.S.

Do you dare to debate me, a humble blogger, in front of a live audience?

Bob Fertik, President
ImpeachPAC
http://impeachpac.org/contact

Outrageous, out of the question? Of course. Then again, here's what happened in the summer of 1998 when the president was named Clinton. Dozens of editorial pages clamored for him to quit (see this a list). "He should resign," the Philadelphia Inquirer declared, "because his repeated, reckless deceits have dishonored his presidency beyond repair."

By James McWilliams, Register Guard (Oregon)

In his Dec. 22 column, Jonah Goldberg baited the Democrats to try to impeach President Bush for his unwarranted surveillance of American citizens. Was Goldberg trying to forestall such an option, or was he focusing on surveillance to draw attention away from the more egregious and clearly impeachable offense: the grand deception leading to war?

By David Wallechinsky, HuffingtonPost

President George W. Bush began the new year by telling the American people that his NSA domestic surveillance program was only used to monitor communications between members of al-Qaeda and people in the United States. He did not address the issue of why he deemed it necessary to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that had, for 24 years, been reviewing and approving such surveillance programs.

Impeach Bush and Cheney Now!
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@greens.org

http://www.impeachpac.org/?q=node/192

"We are honored by the broad support for impeachment from this distinguished group of true American patriots," said Bob Fertik, President of ImpeachPAC. "Impeachment is not a 'fringe' position, as the Bush Administration would like Americans to believe. With a recent Zogby poll showing Americans support impeachment hearings by a solid majority of 53%-42%, there is far more support for impeachment than there is for the War in Iraq," Fertik said.

By Matthew Cardinale, Atlanta Progressive News

A total of eight US House members have co-sponsored Resolution 635 to create a select committee to investigate the grounds for impeaching President Bush, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.

By David Swanson

This is a new one: a column arguing that we should not impeach Bush because he's so dangerous, his crimes so serious, and the lies he's told so widespread. With friends like these...

By HAZEL TRICE EDNEY, The Wilmington Journal

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – President Bush’s authorization of a secret domestic spying program – and his fierce defense of his action – is leading to talk of possible impeachment.

Molly Ivins: "Either the president of the United States is going to have to understand and admit he has done something very wrong, or he will have to be impeached."

AUSTIN, Texas -- The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Thirty-five years ago, Richard Milhous Nixon, who was crazy as a bullbat, and J. Edgar Hoover, who wore women's underwear, decided some Americans had unacceptable political opinions. So they set our government to spying on its own citizens, basically those who were deemed insufficiently like Crazy Richard Milhous.

By David Swanson

Talk of censure and impeachment has begun swirling around President Bush. Can Vice President Cheney come to the rescue? He will do so if enough of Bush's opponents adopt the position of this Philadelphia Daily News op-ed writer -- the position that impeaching Bush would be a mistake, since Cheney is worse than Bush.

By John W. Dean, FindLaw.com

Both claimed that a president may violate Congress's laws to protect national security

On Friday, December 16, the New York Times published a major scoop by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau: They reported that Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on Americans without warrants, ignoring the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

By ROSA BROOKS, Los Angeles Times

Is Clinton's history in Bush's future?

IT'S HISTORY.

You know, the Clinton impeachment thing. Remember that? It had something to do with an intern, secretly taped conversations and a cigar. But it happened in the late 1990s, and it's getting harder and harder to remember the details of that long-vanished era.

A Cap Times editorial, December 29, 2005, http://www.madison.com

The dwindling circle of right-wing defenders of the Bush-Cheney presidency would have Americans believe that only the most reckless partisans would even consider the prospect of censuring or perhaps even impeaching the president and vice president. But the prospect of officially sanctioning Bush and Cheney, as has now been proposed by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is gaining ground in unexpected quarters.

By David Swanson

Listen to audio of Congressman John Conyers talking about the Bush Administration's crimes, and his efforts to censure Bush and Cheney and to create an investigation that would develop articles of impeachment. I recorded this conversation with the Congressman on December 29th. The bills and the report referred to in the conversation can be found here. The upcoming events discussed can be found here.

This mp3 is 24 minutes and 21 MB: LISTEN.

Here's an mp3 that www.chris-floyd.com reduced to 3 MB: LISTEN.

Here's a Podcast version.

'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for December 27
Guest: John Dean, Bob Bernstein

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow?

And worse and worse it gets. Did the Bush administration bypass the special wiretap court because the court was refusing to sanction those wiretaps? Did the NSA spying include eavesdropping at the U.N.? And is, as our guest John Dean suggests, the president already guilty of at least one impeachable offense?

By David Swanson

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that he "ghosted" a detainee, meaning that he made the decision to hold a prisoner without keeping any records of the fact.

By Hazel Trice Edney, San Francisco Bay View

President Bush’s authorization of a secret domestic spying program – and his fierce defense of his action – is leading to talk of possible impeachment.

Geov Parrish - WorkingForChange.com

"Congress, if it is (in the words the Bush White House once reserved for the U.N.) 'to remain relevant,' must impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney."

12.28.05 - In the waning days of 2005, a number of Beltway developments have pointed to 2006 as a pivotal year in the future -- if there is to be any -- of American democracy.

By Martin Garbus, HuffingtonPost

An hour after the New York Times described Bush’s illegal surveillance program, I wrote on the Huffington Post that Bush had committed a crime, a “High Crime,

By Jack Lessenberry, http://www.metrotimes.com

John Conyers Jr., that cranky old left-wing dude, introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives calling on Congress to impeach the president. I can just see you shaking your head.

By Doug Giebel, http://www.scoop.co.nz

Impeaching President Bush: A Game Of Ambiguity

By Doug Giebel
“im-peach . . . 2. to call in question

The American Enterprise Institute ("The People Who Brought You Eternal War!") have thunk this up: "we should have a serious debate about abolishing FISA and restoring the president's inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." READ MORE

And read this from AEI: Impeach the President? Bring It On!

By David Swanson

A new report looks into instances in which the Bush Administration leaked classified information to support its case that Iraq was a threat to the United States.

While that case was, of course, ridiculous and the information falsified, the leaking of it was illegal. And the leaks appear to have been part of a coordinated effort. Immediately following important leaks, top administration officials appeared on talk shows to discuss information that they could not have legally discussed had it not appeared in a newspaper that morning.

By Jonathan Schell, The Nation

When the New York Times revealed that George W. Bush had ordered the National Security Agency to wiretap the foreign calls of American citizens without seeking court permission, as is indisputably required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed by Congress in 1978, he faced a decision. Would he deny the practice, or would he admit it? He admitted it. But instead of expressing regret, he took full ownership of the deed, stating that his order had been entirely justified, that he had in fact renewed it thirty times, that he would continue to renew it and-going even more boldly on the offensive-that those who had made his law-breaking known had committed a "shameful act." As justification, he offered two arguments, one derisory, the other deeply alarming. The derisory one was that Congress, by authorizing him to use force after September 11, had authorized him to suspend FISA, although that law is unmentioned in the resolution. Thus has Bush informed the members of a supposedly co-equal ranch of government of what, unbeknownst to themselves, they were thinking when they cast their vote. The alarming argument is that as Commander in Chief he possesses "inherent" authority to suspend laws in wartime. But if he can suspend FISA at his whim and in secret, then what law can he not suspend? What need is there, for example, to pass or not pass the Patriot Act if any or all of its provisions can be secretly exceeded by the President?