Given that the President of the United States may well have committed a verifiable IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE by ordering covert DOMESTIC spying on American citizens, would you, if elected, be willing to introduce (or at least, vote for) Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush?
By the way, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) is now calling for a special prosecutor to look into this matter. Here' s an excerpt:
"I am deeply troubled that the President of the United States may have secretly ordered his intelligence agents to spy on Americans without obtaining court orders," said Miller, Chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee. "Congress had already broadened the powers of the Administration to fight terrorism through the gathering of intelligence, but now it is alleged that the President went even further and secretly ordered the NSA to conduct domestic spying in a manner that may be both unconstitutional and illegal.
So, 9th District hopefuls, what do you think? Let's hear from you, even though we haven't hit the filing deadline yet.
14 comments:
Given that Henry Hyde all but admitted that the Clinton impeachment was a payback for Watergate and that, if the current President is, by some miracle, impeached, that would make two consecutive administrations derailed by their own stupidity and opposition political gamesmanship, I am very disinclined to pursue Articles, even if we regain control of Congress. The Constitution is not to be messed with and simply since the Republicans did it does not mean we have to return the favor. Impeachment is designed as a last resort mechanism to prevent, in our terms, dictatorship. Unless the current administration somehow decides to subvert the 22nd Amendment under the guide of "fighting terrorism," (not likely at all given the current climate), I suggest we take the Dale Bumpers approach: he's only got three years left and then he's gone forever. Instead of focusing on getting rid of Bush, why not concentrate on winning in 2008?
WRONG ANSWER, even if you're NOT running for Congress (at least in TN!)
There's a difference between a blowjob and covertly spying on AMERICAN citizens. Bu$h truly believes that he is above the law.
When a puppy pisses on your floor, you don't just ignore it and wait for it to grow up. You rub its nose in it, smack on the ass and tell it NO and keep doing that until it learns.
This is beyond payback, this is about restoring American confidence in its government, which the Republican Party has been trying to destroy for over 50 years now.
Sigh.... It wasn't about a blowjob. It was about denying a citizen their right to a fair trail by lying in a court of law. For which he was disbarred. By a judge he appointed to the bench.
You guys keep on searching for that Holy Grail. Look where your latest move got you: following Murtha's cut'n'run right into the most successful election in Iraq of the three this year. Now Pelosi says the party won't take a position on the war! It's a "matter of conscience." Sheesh.
Ah, Mike, keep beating that dead horse, it's still dead. It may well have been disbarrable, but it sure as hell wasn't impeachable.
Regarding those Iraqi elections, bully for them, it was a good turnout. The one thing that has unified Iraqis is their desire for the US to get the hell out as quickly as possible so that they can have their civil war and/or partition the country as they choose.
Of course, bastard that Saddam was, he was OUR bastard (we put him in, remember, Mike?) and he kept the Islamic radicals under control.
Oh well, so much for controlling radical Islam now....
Did you hear Bush's Saturday address? It was a special, live, video address. How's that for running scared?
Not only that, but he *admitted* he signed the order. Live! Right there. I'm sure certain quarters of the Left just peed their pants when that happened. It's gonna make his impeachment soooo much easier.
;-)
It's his "I did not have sex with that woman" moment. Or his "We begin bombing in five minutes" moment, take your pick.
You're absolutely right, Mike. Clinton's imeachment wasn't about a blowjob. It was about Bill Clinton's penis. The Republicans wanted to see it, and Bill wouldn't let them. Ken Starr couldn't get pictures for them, so they had to impeach.
That makes about as much sense as what you're saying, Mike.
The Iraqis are about to successfully elect our asses right out of their country. Cut and run? Those are Osama bin Laden's words. Bin Laden was never so powerful before the GOP started recycling his speeches.
It's funny to me that the non-impeachabality of Bush has become a right-wing bragging point. It's just another way of saying, "But Clinton...!"
See, sutoegocrat? You are the one obsessing now over Bill's wing-wang. ;-)
Anyway, as the story has developed over the weekend, it turns out not to be so much after all. Lots and lots of people in different government agencies knew about this... as well as several major Democrats on the Foreign Intelligence committees in the House and Senate!
They knew, but didn't say anything. Hmmm... sounds like conspiracy charges to me! Someone sic Ronnie Earle on 'em!
Messing with you guys is like shooting piranhas in a barrel. Easy doings, AND you get the added bonus of watching y'all get enraged by the blood and then turn on each other. Whee! ;-)
"proposed socialized medicine, expanded welfare state taxation and income redistribution, business regulation, hate crimes legislation".
That, I don't have a problem with. However, if the Clinton Administration was involved with ECHELON, we should investigate them.
However, he's not President any more and he can't be blamed for the ridiculous notion that he is above the law, which is what this is about.
Brother thurbis, he wants uncontrollable power, and, unless you put hallucinogens in the lovely pretzels I've been eating (they were delicious, thank you), these are not mad ramblings.
He and Cheney have been trying to reverse the controls on executive branch power that go back to the Nixon years. NO EXECUTIVE should have that much power, period, terrorists or no terrorists.
As a libertarian, you know this as well as I!
again, thanks for the pretzels!
to follow up, this is at Huffington Post today:
President Richard Nixon, in 1971, made the same argument as President George W. Bush makes today to justify domestic spying without the need for judicial approval. Both Presidents claim that their Constitutional powers as Commander-in-Chief include the right to override any law, statute or other provisions of the constitution in order to preserve and protect the constitution of the United States.
That very argument was litigated all the way to the United States Supreme Court after the Nixon administration lost in the federal district court and the court of appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In its filed brief the Justice Department claimed there were 1,562 bombing incidents in the United States from January 1, 1971 to July 1, 1971, including the bombing of the Capitol building, and that the "seriousness and magnitude, (of these) threats and acts of sabotage against the government exist in sufficient number to justify [these] powers." Robert Mardian, who was later to become a Watergate defendant, argued before the Court on behalf of the government that there was, in effect, an ongoing war within the United States that justified invoking the president's powers as Commander-in-Chief, a power which overrode the privacy rights of American citizens as provided for in the Fourth Amendment to the constitution of the United States.
A unanimous Supreme Court (the vote was 8-0, with Justice Rehnquist recusing himself because he was in the Justice Department legal counsel's office when the domestic spying program was formulated), with Justice Powell writing the opinion, in United States v. U.S. District Court, unambiguously rejected any such notion, articulating a clear-cut admonition to those who would diminish the import of the Fourth Amendment by suggesting that domestic spying at the whim of the president would be permitted under any circumstances.
However, in a single aside, the court noted that previous presidents had engaged in domestic surveillance without securing warrants as part of ongoing efforts to secure foreign intelligence (mainly involving counter-espionage efforts directed against German and Italian embassies and counsulated by the Roosevelt Administration) and that the Court expresses no opinion on such efforts. That opening led to the enactment of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978, a bill sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts with the blessing of the American Civil Liberties Union. FISA established for the first time in our history a "court" that existed outside the framework of the Fourth Amendment, a secret court that most Americans don't even know exists. It has a single function: to authorize by way of issuing warrants at the request of federal agents, surveillance within the United States on a minimal showing that the target is acting on behalf of a foreign power and that the foreign intelligence to be gathered is necessary for national security. The courtroom itself is in a vault-like chamber, a windowless room on the top floor of the Department of Justice, guarded by military security. There are seven rotating judges. The Court meets in secret, with no published opinions or public records. Nearly all of those spied upon never knew they were under surveillance.
No one, except the FISA judge involved and the Department of Justice knows what is done. No one, except the government and FISA judge knows who the warrants are aimed at. There is no review by anyone, neither the regular federal Appellate Courts nor the Congress, of its decisions. Over 15,000 search warrants, permitting eavesdropping, surveillance and break-ins, have been sought by the government and granted. Although the FISA court is required to determine if there are enough facts to justify a warrant, only eight times has it ever denied a warrant sought by the government. The FISA statute specifically gives the FISA Court the exclusive right to issue domestic spying warrants and that power has been generously exercised. There are more warrants issued by the FISA Court than by the over 1,000 district judges who sit throughout the United States in the Federal system.
Since 1978 every administration has had the FISA court available, but, as far as is known, none have rejected its use when foreign intelligence gathering was necessary. The passage of the Patriot Act in 2001 even made it more accessible and expanded its powers. However, this apparently was not sufficient for the Bush Administration.
What is really happening is that the Bush Administration is seeking this moment to reverse the Nixon case and gather unto itself an unrestricted and unreviewable right to engage in domestic spying. The Supreme Court that decided United States v. U.S. District Court included Justices Douglas, Brennan, Marshall, Stewart and Powell. The Court that hears the Bush challenge will have Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy, all of whom have shown in their previous cases great deference to the expansion of Presidential powers.
Nothing that has gone on before in this post 9-11 period, including the Patriot Act, will so drastically alter the rights of Americans to be free of governmental intrusion than a reversal of that landmark decision prohibiting government surveillance without a warrant.
Co-written with Leonard Weinglass. Weinglass was one of the attorneys involved in the Nixon case, U.S. v. U.S. District Court. Martin Garbus is a First Amendment lawyer.
Certainly, the Bush people are trying everything (short?) of repealing the 22nd Amendment to consolidate their power. That, it seems to me, is a non-sequitur (sp?) as it pertains to the word "impeachment." Whether a 2007 Democratic Congress might pursue such a course for principled reasons or, as Dale Bumpers indicated about Bill Clinton, just let the last two years go, it would seem as their motive rested on political payback for the Clinton effort. Impeachment then, given that two consecutive Presidents would at least have impeachment investigations for perceived political reasons, would become just another tool for political advantage rather than a last resort against tyranny. In other words, its overuse would undercut the ability to pursue apart from purely partisan politics the very abuses of power that the Bush administration desires for itself. We as a country then would be more susceptible to the worst possible fear of our Founders.
We cannot afford to "be above the fray" here. George Walker Bush clearly perceives either himself or the Presidency to be above the law, just as Nixon did.
This is TRULY an impeachable offense, and to suggest otherwise is to suggest that you do not believe that this rises above partisan politics.
Domestic spying by our government is ILLEGAL. PERIOD. If we turn our back on this we are opening the door for an American Gestapo, and you are pooh-poohing this as "partisan politics'?
We CANNOT concern ourselves with how this is portrayed in the media; other than Keith Olbermann, they're too busy fighting for the chance to suck Bush's cock.
This is war. The REAL one, for the soul of the Constitution.
FDR arguably violated the Constitution prior to Pearl Harbor in order that we might later be prepared to enter the war. He was not impeached. Lincoln violated the Constitution by going to war without a formal declaration, imposing a naval "blockade" (rather than, as JFK did with Cuba, a "quarantine"), suspending Habeus Corpus and throwing political opponents in jail without charge. He was not impeached. Bill Clinton lies under oath about sex and gets impeached for what Henry Hyde indicates was essentially payback for Watergate. Of course, I believe that if Nixon had not resigned, he should have been impeached, convicted and removed from office. That, however, is not how the House Republicans saw matters in 1998 and went after Clinton because they could.
Of course Bush is violating the law by spying on Americans without judicial authorization. Of course, he should be strongly and loudly denounced for yet another example of his power mad lust for a "permanent Republican majority," which to me is at the root of everything he does.
If the Republicans play with the Constitution, however, we simply cannot do so even if it sorely tempts us. That is, if we are interested in preserving, protecting and defending it. To destroy something in order to save it? I thought we already went through that.
they're not PLAYING with the Constitution, they're DEFECATING on it and DARING us to stop them!
if the Democratic Party regains the House and fails to impeach him for his treason, then I will leave it. They will not be worthy of my support.
Yo, thurbis, check this out, the Echelon this is not accurate:
The Echelon Myth
Prominent right-wing bloggers – including Michelle Malkin, the Corner, Wizbang and Free Republic — are pushing the argument that President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program isn’t news because the Clinton administration did the same thing.
The right-wing outlet NewsMax sums up the basic argument:
During the 1990’s under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon…all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.
That’s flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00:
I’m here today to discuss specific issues about and allegations regarding Signals Intelligence activities and the so-called Echelon Program of the National Security Agency…
There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the FBI scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of U.S. persons are involved, whether directly or indirectly. We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department.
Meanwhile, the position of the Bush administration is that they can bypass the FISA court and every other court, even when they are monitoring the communications of U.S. persons. It is the difference between following the law and breaking it.
Filed under: Intelligence
Posted by Judd at 12:13 pm
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