Republican Congressman Predicts Bush Impeachment

Debra wrote: "George W. Bush is not the messiah of the Republican party. He's expendable."

According to some on a2k and the editorials in our local newspaper, some still hold Bush as the "messiah," because, they claim, he's tough on terrorism and a strong leader. His approval rating still hovers close to 40-percent. For a president that may be headed for impeachment, that seems like a contradiction. We would think that a president headed for impeachment for crimes against all Americans, his approval rating would be in the low teens. I'll have more confidence about Bush's impeachment when his rating drops another 50-percent.

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You libs will probably be having wet dreams about Bush's impeachment right up until the moment his successor takes the oath of office.

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Wouldn't it be nice, Brandon, if Bush's successor is a liberal democrat who violates the law and thumbs his/her nose at the Constitution. That would be okay with you, if that happened, right?

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Follow the leader!

(What Constitution?)

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As an excuse for Brandon: they tend to get that kind of propaganda in Florida.....

http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/november2004/221104bilboard1.jpg

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Yeah, George W. Bush is leading this country into oblivion.

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Debra_Law wrote:

Wouldn't it be nice, Brandon, if Bush's successor is a liberal democrat who violates the law and thumbs his/her nose at the Constitution. That would be okay with you, if that happened, right?

No, and it wouldn't be okay with me if Bush did it either, but he doesn't. Your previous assertion that his use of wiretaps is illegal may or may not be true, but the legal issues are probably comlex. If current practice is illegal, the courts ought to stop it. You have, however, failed to demonstrate the tiniest intent on the president's part to violate the law.

My actual point, however, is that you folks are fantasizing about something that certainly won't happen unless the president's behavior changes drastically.

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Bush change? Get real.

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Imbeciles do not change until they're dead.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Yeah, George W. Bush is leading this country into oblivion.

CI,

Good Lord Son,

They let you back in boy?? I thought they got you trouble making commie pinko bastards locked up in some Eastern European torture prison!!

Welcome back !!!

You know CI, the only supporters George Bush has left are the hard core stupid, and there's nothing you can do about that!!! Those are the ones he wanted, and those are the ones he's got!!

Good to see ya!!

Anon

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Anon, That's pretty discouraging, cause some 40-percent of Mericans still support this idiot.

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Debra_Law wrote:

oralloy wrote:
Debra_Law wrote:
The president's violation of any crime designated as a felony is sufficient to constitute grounds for impeachment.

That seems an unusually broad interpretation of "high misdemeanor".

If such broad definitions are the correct interpretation, then the Democrats should have used them when their own politicians were on trial.

Using such a broad interpretation of high misdemeanor, both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton should have been removed from office.

I don't consider it fair play for the Democrats to shift the definition of what is impeachable depending on whether it is a Republican or Democrat who is under scrutiny.

Impeachment proceedings were indeed brought against Bill Clinton and he was tried.

And had he been tried using the broad definition of high misdemeanor that you propose using for Bush, he would have been removed from office.

I don't consider it fair play to use a different meaning of "high crimes and misdemeanors" for Republicans than are used for Democrats.

Debra_Law wrote:

All warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable unless the search or seizure at issue falls within an exception to the warrant requirement. There is no national security exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. If you believe Bush's domestic spying program falls under some exception, please let us know exactly what that exception might be.

I propose that 9/11 created a national security exception to the warrant requirement.

Debra_Law wrote:

The goal of crime prevention does not justify turning our executive branch officials and law enforcement officers into law breakers themselves. Your rationalization is absurd.

I think preventing al-Qa'ida attacks is a bit more serious than mere crime prevention.

What is absurd about pointing out that all Bush is doing here is trying to protect us from Osama?

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Quote, "What is absurd about pointing out that all Bush is doing here is trying to protect us from Osama?"

When Americans are ready to sacrifice our freedoms for a dictatorship based on "security," the terrorists have already won.

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Debra_Law wrote:

oralloy wrote:
I'm not the one who did the deciding. Blame those English judges who came up with the terms a few centuries ago.

They sanctioned the removal of government officials from office for public drunkenness or turpitude, so what the heck are you talking about?

Those high misdemeanors damaged their ability to perform their government office. The removal was authorized because of their damage to the government, not because of their personal activity.

Debra_Law wrote:

Not even your own cited source of authority supports your limited and absurd viewpoint.

Two points emerge from the 400 years of English parliamentary experience with the phrase "high Crimes and Misdemeanors." First the particular allegations of misconduct alleged damage to the state in such forms as misapplication of funds, abuse of official power, neglect of duty, encroachment on Parliament¹s prerogatives, corruption, and betrayal of trust......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/watergatedoc_2.htm

Debra_Law wrote:

You can't blame the "English judges" who died centuries ago for your present-day misunderstanding of what constitutes an impeachable offense.

Well, that is because I have no misunderstanding to blame on anyone to begin with.

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parados wrote:

So how do you get to jailing individuals for opposing the govt is a crime agains the government? Individuals are not the government you keep saying.

I get it from the motive for the jailing.

Our government depends on people being able to freely express their views, even if those views put them in opposition to the people in the White House.

parados wrote:

You mean this meaning?
A history of judicial impeachment

Quote:
John Feerick examined more than 100 impeachments of English judges and found that 75% were for "high crimes and misdemeanors" that included "grave misuse of one's official position."

Blackstone argued that "mal-administration" by public officials was impeachable. His successor counted among impeachable offenses when "judges mislead their sovereign by unconstitutional opinions." English judges were impeached for extrajudicial opinions and misinterpreting the law. Professor Berger's examples include impeachment for "abuse of official power" and "encroachment on or contempt of Parliament's prerogatives."

Yes.

parados wrote:

It seems encroachment on the legislative branch is cause for impeachment. That would include ignoring laws written by the legislative branch.

I don't think merely breaking the law would amount to encroaching on the legislature.

parados wrote:

Our government also depends on people being able to defend themselves in court and to be free from government searches without a warrant.

Some warrantless searches are legitimate.

I agree that people have the right to defend themselves from criminal charges, and that this is part of our system of government.

parados wrote:

So if a police officer burned down his neighbor's house would he be doing his job and should he keep it? No, because we rely on police officers to not break the law. Their job is to enforce it. The same thing with the President. His job is to enforce the law. If he doesn't perform his job it is a crime against the government since the government is harmed by not following the constitution.

Looks to me like Bush is doing his job. How is he not following the Constitution?

parados wrote:

If we know who did a crime and didn't punish them it would be a crime against our form of government which is a government of laws, not of men. Your scenario is that certain people are above the law. That is directly antithetical to our form of government and does as much harm as tampering with the elections.

The president can be charged for any non-impeachable crimes he's committed, when he leaves office. That isn't antithetical to our system of government, it is our system of government.

parados wrote:

You still haven't explained away maladministration from earlier.

Well, they took maladministration out and replaced it with "high crimes and misdemeanors" because they thought "maladministration" was too broad a term for what they wanted. Yet their debates indicated that they felt some kinds of maladministration were still impeachable.

I'd guess that they only intended the more severe forms of maladministration to be impeachable offenses.

parados wrote:

Try to explain away the 100 cases from English common law.

Since I am relying on them to support my case, I'd hate to end up explaining them away. Smile

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oralloy wrote:

parados wrote:
So how do you get to jailing individuals for opposing the govt is a crime agains the government? Individuals are not the government you keep saying.

I get it from the motive for the jailing.

Our government depends on people being able to freely express their views, even if those views put them in opposition to the people in the White House.

And how do you propose we find the motive for it? Do we just trust the President? Or do we let them get their day in court? Bush has argued that they don't get a day in court if he says they don't. If the President can jail US citizens and prevent them from getting their day in court would that NOT be a crime against our government? A President only needs to declare them a terrorist.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

Debra_Law wrote:
Wouldn't it be nice, Brandon, if Bush's successor is a liberal democrat who violates the law and thumbs his/her nose at the Constitution. That would be okay with you, if that happened, right?

No, and it wouldn't be okay with me if Bush did it either, but he doesn't. Your previous assertion that his use of wiretaps is illegal may or may not be true, but the legal issues are probably comlex. If current practice is illegal, the courts ought to stop it. You have, however, failed to demonstrate the tiniest intent on the president's part to violate the law.

My actual point, however, is that you folks are fantasizing about something that certainly won't happen unless the president's behavior changes drastically.

How are the courts going to stop it, Brandon? Do you know anything about how the judicial system actually works?

Perhaps the Attorney General, the head of the Justice Department and the top law enforcement officer in the country, can bring criminal charges against Bush for violating FISA and the civil rights of Americans. But wait . . . just a minute . . . hmmmm . . . the Attorney General is a co-conspirator in this criminal enterprise. It's not likely that the AG will arrest himself and have himself indicted along with his criminal cohorts.

It has been proven that Bush intentionally violated FISA. He even confessed. You ignored the proof; you have no ability to refute it; and you fled from the thread for a few days to avoid addressing the proof. So don't try to sneak in here days later after your disappearing/avoidance act and make unsubstantiated feeble-minded statements.

Bush deserves to be impeached. Impeachment may not happen based solely on politics (rather than his ACTUAL GUILT), but if Congress fails to impeach the BASTARD, that won't change the fact that Bush violated the law, thumbed his nose at our constitution, and deceived both Congress and the American people about his dirty deeds. If that's the kind of presidency that Americans find acceptable, then the future of America is despicably bleak.

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Are Republicans Getting a Clue?

With the trouncing of the pretend president, George W. (for waste) Bush on the ports deal, Congressional Republicans should take note that their poll numbers are looking better. For all Republican representatives in the House and a third of those in the Senate, this is an election year and the message may need to be drummed into their thick, heretofore unyielding skulls: Distancing yourself from the President will help you get re-elected.
If Republicans are really concerned about re-election this year, they should consider this strategy carefully. Opposition to the president and the neocon-led administration on practically any issue can only aid in their own re-election efforts. Voting to impeach the President, VP, Secretary of State, Secretary of War (er, Defense) and the Attorney General (Yes, the constitution allows for impeachment of all high administration officials, and beyond the doubt, they are high on something!) would make their own re-election a virtual shoo-in.

House and Senate Republicans are playing party politics at a dangerous level. They seek to distance themselves from the administration without holding it accountable for lying to the Congress and the American public on Iraq, their shameful performance on Hurricane Katrina, unauthorized wiretaps and a host of other impeachable offenses.

The Republicans need to know that they are fooling nobody by only occasionally standing up to the president and his administration. Republicans need to be informed by their constituencies that supporting the administration in any effort is unacceptable.

They need to know that the American public demands accountability and oversight and that if the Republicans aren't going to supply it, then they will be summarily excused in November and the Democrats in Congress can lead the charge to end the tyranny of George Bush, Dick Cheney, et. al.

People have called the Democrats spineless in their positions concerning administration demands, but the truth is that many of them have tried to awaken a sleeping public to the dangers emanating from Pennsylvania Avenue only to be met by an intractable, loyal and dunderheaded Republican majority.

If the Republicans are paying any attention and have the best interests of the American Republic at heart, they will do the right thing and move to impeach. By doing so, the public can once again place their trust in them and some of them may actually win re-election.

It's all about self interest and the most self-interested people on the planet ply their trade in the halls of the United States Congress.

Rick Gagliano is the publisher of Downtown Magazine. On the web at http://www.dtmagazine.com

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Debra, Correction; it's bleak today.

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oralloy wrote:

Debra_Law wrote:
Impeachment proceedings were indeed brought against Bill Clinton and he was tried.

And had he been tried using the broad definition of high misdemeanor that you propose using for Bush, he would have been removed from office.

I don't consider it fair play to use a different meaning of "high crimes and misdemeanors" for Republicans than are used for Democrats.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Clinton was impeached in accordance with the Constitution that makes the president liable to impeachment for "treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors." The accusations simply were not proven at trial to the satisfaction of the requisite number of senators.

Clinton escaped removal from office because those prosecuting him for impeachable offenses failed to prove their case. The failure of proof does not magically transform the charges against him into non-impeachable offenses.

Do you understand?

Debra_Law wrote:

All warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable unless the search or seizure at issue falls within an exception to the warrant requirement. There is no national security exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. If you believe Bush's domestic spying program falls under some exception, please let us know exactly what that exception might be.

oralloy wrote:

I propose that 9/11 created a national security exception to the warrant requirement.

Propose all you want, but you don't get to throw the constitution out the window because a group of fanatics committed an atrocious crime.

Debra_Law wrote:

The goal of crime prevention does not justify turning our executive branch officials and law enforcement officers into law breakers themselves. Your rationalization is absurd.

oralloy wrote:

I think preventing al-Qa'ida attacks is a bit more serious than mere crime prevention.

What is absurd about pointing out that all Bush is doing here is trying to protect us from Osama?

Millions of people in this country are victims of murder or violent crimes every year. Millions of people in this country die from cancer and other diseases every year. The losses we suffered on 9/11/2001 pale in comparison. If you're going to tremble in fear and throw away our constitutionally-protected rights for an ounce of illusory protection from a handful of criminals, then you're a coward and you deserve to wear the chains of oppression.

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Republican Congressman Predicts Bush Impeachment

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