So what do we do now?

[Paul]

thorny said:

1. "Fight Fire With Fire"

By this, I certainly don't mean what the Administration considers is "fighting fire w/fire" (i.e, the War in Iraq) -- that's obviously bullshit, and only succeeds in guaranteeing the perpetuation of the cycle of violence.

What I mean by the term, is utilizing the Law to try and find this Administration Guilty of breaking it.

I realize that a lot of Supreme Court Justices have been replaced/appointed/cherry-picked by this Administration, so that is a stumbling block.

I figure, we can either

~Represent ourselves (rather than have a corrupt lawyer foil us)
or
~Insure a proper lawyer who is earnestly on our side represents us. I am not so cynical/despondent to think that ALL lawyers are corrupt; therefore, surely there is a pool of well-intentioned lawyers who might represent such a case.

I say: We the People form a Case Vs. The Bush Administration as well as one that directly connects, and implicates, dozens of long-gone, past politicians traced right back to the L.B. Johnson Administration -- threading through George Herbert Walker Bush and all the rest of them -- and succeed in a Citizen's Arrest of the entire backlot of these short-sighted, greedy capitalist scoundrels.

Just a thought.

I like this idea Thorny!

"Insure a proper lawyer who is earnestly on our side represents us. "

Is Mr. Holzman busy?

[chrisfan]

There have been some good, relevant arguments made against Bush and his policies since yesterday. I don't agree with them, but they're valid. That said, they're not impeachable. They're matters of disagreement - not examples of the law being broken. Time and time again, a faction of Bush detractors has attempted to find and prove criminal activity in the Bush admin, and time and time again, it's fallen flat. (most recently the revelation that Armitage was Novak's source on the Plame story, obliterating the whole "it was done for political revenge" angle)

So when you slice and dice it down to a logical argument, there are two MAJOR problems with the whole "Bush must be impeached" argument. The first is that if you do it, you're left with Cheney. I can't really say I have come across many people who hate Bush who spend a lot of time saying "Oh, if we ony had Cheney!"

The second problem, and the more important one, is the danger of the precedent that is set. Do we really and truly want to establish the precedent in this country that when you adamantly disagree with an administrations policies, you turn to impeachment? When caught up in the emotions of "but this is such a HUGE example - it's not just disagreeing" it's easy to look at that question and say "yes!" But the simple truth is that the pendulum WILL swing, and there WILL be an administration that is doing things on the other end of the spectrum which will be cheered by many of the strongest Bush detractors, and met with the same level of utter disgust by others. If we continue down the "impeach Bush" rhetoric trail now, then we're endorsing it then.

Impeachment is for breaking the law in a serious way. It's not for disagreements. And I"m sorry, I know that most everyone around here disagrees with me when I say it, but you've yet to find anything that stands up to actual law breaking in this administration.

[rockysigman]

A lot of people think the illegal wiretapping are significant enough to allow for impeachment. It's pretty serious. And there's the whole illegal war thing. Yes, more evidence would be needed to prove that he intentionally mislead us into war rather than just being a complete dufus about it, but if a few people ended up winning congressional seats this fall who would actually be interested in investigating the matter, then who knows. I know we've had this dispute before, but the main reason that there isn't enough evidence is because every time there is any little piece of evidence, the sheep in congress refuse to investigate.

I obviously wouldn't be excited about a President Cheney, but if he got into office because Bush was removed by impeachment, he would most likely find himself pretty powerless. Also, if Bush is guilty of any impeachable offenses, well, Cheney probably is too, so it could end up as a president Hastert instead (yikes!).

[kmc]

I urge anyone to pick up the March issue of Harper's. The lead story is "The Case For Impeachment" and, in true Harper's fashion, delineates and cites studies, speeches, experts and events in its conclusion that yes, criminal charges can be and should be brought against the President.

An excerpt:

www.harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html

[Galactus]

Won't happen. I've resigned myself to waiting out the rest of his term in the hopes that he simply doesn't make it worse. The GOP will lose the house in Nov. and we can start blaming it all on a Democratic congress. It's going to take alot of fix all of this and quite honestly I don't see it getting much better just because Bush is out.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Nixon would be remembered as a genius if it wasn't for Watergate.

He opened trade between China and Russia which was Russia's fall and is starting to begin China's fall into a non-communist socialist democracy.

He started OSHA.

He started the EPA.

He pushed for a Maximum Living Wage

He admitted in a memoir that the Protesters of the Vietnam War had much to do with his pulling out of the conflict despite his public speeches against such behaviour.

He had a pretty good rating in foreign policy and higher than most really.

Nixon's problem was the fact that he was totally paranoid. I also think the dude was just strange, but he did some things that weren't totally bogus.

I do have another question though and it's posed to more classic liberals.

What else is it that you don't like about Bush besides his foreign policy and the Iraq war?

Bush has spent more on helping AIDS in Africa than the last 3 presidents combined.
He spends more on social programs (even if they are "faith based") than Clinton could ever dream of.
Bush has also reopened parts of the NEA that were closed down by Clinton for budgetary balancing reasons.

Now I also have a list of things he's done that I hate about a mile long, but I try to find some good out there regardless if I can.

[phil]

Aids fear as Bush blocks sex lessons

US undermines global declaration

Gaby Hinsliff, chief political correspondent
Sunday May 5, 2002
The Observer


President George W. Bush is blocking an international drive to provide teenage sex education because of his belief in chastity before marriage. Health experts say this could fatally undermine the battle against Aids.
Bush has poured millions of dollars into 'true love waits'-style programmes in America, which teach that abstinence out of wedlock is the best way to avoid underage pregnancy.

Now he has triggered a row with British and other European Union governments by refusing to sign a United Nations declaration on children's rights - designed to set funding priorities across the Third World - unless pledges on sexual health services are scrapped.

Experts argue that inflicting such views on Aids-stricken nations could have a catastrophic impact on millions of young people, threatening funding for life-saving drives to encourage condom use and safe abortions.

Clare Short's Department for International Development, alongside other EU governments, is insisting there should be no retreat on contraception - setting the stage for a clash at this week's UN summit on children's rights.

The Bush delegation objects on moral grounds to a pledge to guarantee 'reproductive and mental health services' for under-18s and to a pledge to 'protect the right of adolescents to sex education and avoiding unwanted/ early pregnancies'.

Backed by the Vatican, it is understood to have been pushing for guarantees that UN-funded sex education programmes will include commitments to preach chastity outside marriage.

That would stop Third World teachers discussing contraception honestly, campaigners say, with fatal consequences. Every minute, five people under 25 are infected with HIV worldwide, while 10 teenage girls undergo an unsafe abortion.

It's just a scandal,' said Françoise Girard of the International Women's Health Coalition. 'In today's world it is really unconscionable that the US should be objecting to a discussion of a full range of topics.' A similar impasse over the morning-after pill at a UN summit on women's health two years ago - triggered by the Vatican - prompted Short to accuse the Catholic Church of being 'morally destructive' and in an 'unholy alliance with reactionary forces'.

Talks to broker a deal resume tomorrow, but the Bush administration, supported by the Vatican and Islamic countries, is sticking to its guns. Charities fear the UN may be tempted to water down its policy to keep one of its biggest paymasters on board.

The aggressively Christian Bush administration has taken a harder moral line than the Clinton regime, which helped broker international agreement on contraception. Since coming to power, Bush has introduced laws cutting back on the use of the morning-after pill in the US and halted funding for international charities that give advice on abortion.

[phil]

US blocking international deal on fighting Aids

· Britain distances itself from Bush administration
· Negotiators try to salvage package at UN summit

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Friday June 2, 2006
The Guardian


The Bush administration, heavily influence by the Christian right, is blocking key proposals for a new United Nations package to combat Aids worldwide over the next five years because of its opposition to the distribution of condoms and needle exchanges and references to prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals.
The United States is being supported by many Muslim countries, including Egypt, and various conservative African and Latin American nations. "There are a lot of unholy alliances all over the place," said a European official attending UN talks in New York last night.

Fraught negotiations were continuing to try to salvage as much of the package as possible. More than 140 nations are attending the UN summit in New York which began on Wednesday. The meeting is intended to update a 2001 declaration that provided the momentum for a worldwide campaign against Aids. A new declaration is due to be agreed today.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, told the summit: "The world has been unconscionably slow in meeting one of the most vital aspects of the struggle: measures to fight the spread of Aids among women and girls. These shortcomings are deadly."

A report published on Tuesday by the agency UNAIDS says new figures suggest the infection rate is slowing down globally, but new infections are continuing to increase in certain regions and countries.

The report adds that an estimated 38.6 million people are living with the Aids virus, HIV; 4.1 million were newly infected last year; 2.8 million died of Aids last year; and treatment with medicines is available to less than half of those infected withthe virus.

Of those infected worldwide, almost half - about 17 million - are women, and three-quarters of those are in Africa.

The British government, which has sided with Washington so often over the past decade, is in the progressive bloc at the summit, along with Canada and other European countries, and is diametrically opposed to Washington over its approach to Aids.

Although the US is the world's highest spender in combating the virus, much of the money goes towards sex abstinence campaigns rather than the distribution of condoms or needle-exchange programmes. ...

[phil]

Bush, AIDS, Big Pharma


When George W. Bush announced a $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in his 2003 State of the Union address, he compared the fight against AIDS to the war on terrorism. Unfortunately, the analogy has proved apt. More than fourteen months and 3 million AIDS deaths later, the Administration's "war on AIDS" has been characterized by unilateralism, disregard for international consensus and corporate cronyism.

Rather than support existing and proven international programs to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, the Bush plan has undercut and circumvented them at nearly every turn. It has reduced funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria from $550 million appropriated by Congress for 2004 to $200 million for 2005, a 64 percent reduction at a time when the fund desperately needs resources to make its fourth round of grants. ...

Complete article ...
www.thenation.com/doc/20040426/editors2

-----------

I could go on but those three articles should make my case ...

[skvorisdeadsorta]

I said he spent more on combating AIDS than the last 3 presidents not on how the money was spent.

Again, I'm all for spending the money myself on condoms and needle exchanges but I would like to make the following statesments:

Condoms REDUCE your changes of getting HIV but does not PREVENT.
Needle exchange programs are great and all and I've volunteered at a few myself, but really, at the end of the day a junkie isn't going to care about clean needles, they care about their fix.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

kmc said:

I urge anyone to pick up the March issue of Harper's. The lead story is "The Case For Impeachment" and, in true Harper's fashion, delineates and cites studies, speeches, experts and events in its conclusion that yes, criminal charges can be and should be brought against the President.

An excerpt:

www.harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html

Look, as Mary stated and I and a few others before, there are several other instances of pre-emption throughout the history of the US, democrat and republican. Until you change the culture of the US Congress and powers that be, welcome to the new boss, the same as the old boss.


More food for thought: The War Powers Act
Questions about constitutionality
Every President since the War Powers Resolution's enactment has taken the position that it is an unconstitutional infringement by the Congress on the President's authority as Commander in Chief.[citation needed] The courts have not directly addressed this question.

The Supreme Court has struck down the 'legislative veto' embodied in Section 5(c) of the Resolution in the case INS v. Chadha (1983). However, in every instance since the act was passed, the President has requested and received authorization for the use of force (though not a formal declaration of war) consistent with the provisions of the resolution. The reports to Congress required of the President have been drafted to state that they are "consistent with" the War Powers Resolution rather than "pursuant to" so as to take into account the Presidential position that the Resolution is unconstitutional.

One argument for the unconstitutionality of the War Powers Resolution — Philip Bobbitt's in "War Powers: An Essay on John Hart Ely's War and Responsibility: Constitutional Lessons of Vietnam and Its Aftermath," Michigan Law Quarterly 92, no. 6 (May 1994): 1364–1400 — runs as follows: "The power to make war is not an enumerated power" and the notion that to "declare" war is to "commence" war is a "contemporary textual preconception"; the Framers of the Constitution believed that statutory authorization was the route by which the United States would be committed to war, and that 'declaration' was meant for only total wars, as shown by the history of the Quasi-War with France (1798–1800); in general, constitutional powers are not so much separated as "linked and sequenced"; Congress's control over the armed forces is "structured" by appropriation, while the president commands; thus the act of declaring war should not be fetishized. (Bobbitt, the nephew of Lyndon Johnson, also argues that "A democracy cannot… tolerate secret policies" because they undermine the legitimacy of governmental action.)

A second constitutionality argument concerns a possible breach of the 'separation of powers' doctrine. The legislature may be impeding the executive in carrying-out the Oath of Office. "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability; preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." (US Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8) This type of constitutional controversy is similar to one that occurred under President Andrew Johnson with the Tenure of Office Act (1867). In that instance, the Legislative branch attempted to control the removal of Executive branch officers.

On December 20th, 2005, ABC News reported that vice-president Dick Cheney had described the War Powers Resolution as an "infringement on the authority of the president." [1]

[skvorisdeadsorta]

rockysigman said:

A lot of people think the illegal wiretapping are significant enough to allow for impeachment. It's pretty serious. And there's the whole illegal war thing. Yes, more evidence would be needed to prove that he intentionally mislead us into war rather than just being a complete dufus about it, but if a few people ended up winning congressional seats this fall who would actually be interested in investigating the matter, then who knows. I know we've had this dispute before, but the main reason that there isn't enough evidence is because every time there is any little piece of evidence, the sheep in congress refuse to investigate.

I obviously wouldn't be excited about a President Cheney, but if he got into office because Bush was removed by impeachment, he would most likely find himself pretty powerless. Also, if Bush is guilty of any impeachable offenses, well, Cheney probably is too, so it could end up as a president Hastert instead (yikes!).

Again, I disagree with the War, but illegal War? To whom, the UN? Like the UN has really done anything of any lasting value! Do you remember Kosovo? And the UN involvement in that turned out so well (shouting that with sarcasm mode turned on way high!)! Wiretapping? Since when have you ever had total privacy in this country beginning with the Anti-Sedition Act in it's very inception.

Another sticking point with me when people talk about wiretaps is the following facts:
"In a little-remembered debate from 1994, the Clinton administration argued that the president has "inherent authority" to order physical searches — including break-ins at the homes of U.S. citizens — for foreign intelligence purposes without any warrant or permission from any outside body. Even after the administration ultimately agreed with Congress's decision to place the authority to pre-approve such searches in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, President Clinton still maintained that he had sufficient authority to order such searches on his own.

"The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes," Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on July 14, 1994, "and that the President may, as has been done, delegate this authority to the Attorney General."

"It is important to understand," Gorelick continued, "that the rules and methodology for criminal searches are inconsistent with the collection of foreign intelligence and would unduly frustrate the president in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."

Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981, provides for such warrantless searches directed against "a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power."

Reporting the day after Gorelick's testimony, the Washington Post's headline — on page A-19 — read, "Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches." The story began, "The Clinton administration, in a little-noticed facet of the debate on intelligence reforms, is seeking congressional authorization for U.S. spies to continue conducting clandestine searches at foreign embassies in Washington and other cities without a federal court order. The administration's quiet lobbying effort is aimed at modifying draft legislation that would require U.S. counterintelligence officials to get a court order before secretly snooping inside the homes or workplaces of suspected foreign agents or foreign powers."

In her testimony, Gorelick made clear that the president believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime. "Intelligence is often long range, its exact targets are more difficult to identify, and its focus is less precise," Gorelick said. "Information gathering for policy making and prevention, rather than prosecution, are its primary focus."

The debate over warrantless searches came up after the case of CIA spy Aldrich Ames. Authorities had searched Ames's house without a warrant, and the Justice Department feared that Ames's lawyers would challenge the search in court. Meanwhile, Congress began discussing a measure under which the authorization for break-ins would be handled like the authorization for wiretaps, that is, by the FISA court. In her testimony, Gorelick signaled that the administration would go along a congressional decision to place such searches under the court — if, as she testified, it "does not restrict the president's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security." In the end, Congress placed the searches under the FISA court, but the Clinton administration did not back down from its contention that the president had the authority to act when necessary

Also, LBJ lied to the public with the Gulf of Tonkin and dude, nothing happened to him.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

I get the vibe from these kinds of debates from people on the left (who are obviously pretty intelligent) that if as long as the white Democrats help the status quo under the guise of liberalism, it's totally okay and genius. When a Republican does it, it's criminal.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Really it just reaffirms my hatred for the American "liberal" and "left".

I go bye bye now. Game on.......

1 Point though: If you come back with "Bush enabler blah blah blah" I'm going to ignore you right off the bat. That's usually the rhetoric of someone who can't handle the truth that the major "opposition" party in this country does squat and will do squat and doesn't care about you. Ever. So I won't respond.

[kmc]

skvor, is it your contention that Bush is ok because previous Presidents have been as shitty? Because that's what it sounds like, man.