Impeach Bush, Cheney, and Gonzales

 

Originally from Consortiumnews

Impeachment & the Constitution

By Stephen Crockett
July 31, 2007

Editor’s Note: Once considered a fringe idea, impeachment is moving quickly into the mainstream of American public opinion, as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney insist on flouting the rule of law and defying congressional oversight.

In this guest essay, Stephen Crockett of DemocraticTalkRadio.com casts the impeachment of Bush, Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as not just an option but an imperative:

The United States has been in a prolonged Constitutional crisis since the Supreme Court showed it had been corrupted by partisan politics when the Bush vs. Gore ruling was issued in December 2000.

The Bush Administration began by Republican politicians thumbing their noses at the rule of law. The past seven years have been an unending assault on Constitutional government, American political traditions and personal freedom.

It is time to place impeachment fully on the table for the top members of the Bush White House and Cabinet.

The appointment of Attorney General Gonzales should never have been approved by the Senate. His record of distorting the truth in order to protect the political career of George W. Bush is the only real qualification he had when nominated. It was the reason he was appointed and the reason the appointment should have been soundly rejected.

Gonzales has always been an advocate of radical legal theories that attack the essence of our Constitutional protections of personal freedom. The Attorney General holds legal theories that would give the President dictatorial powers.

Bush, Cheney and Gonzales have resolutely claimed powers not given by the Constitution to the Executive Branch. These claims are essentially “high crimes” by their very nature. They subvert the American Constitution and border on treason.

Claims that the President can place in prison any American citizen by declaring that person an enemy combatant, without court hearings forever, are criminal violations of Constitutional guarantees of personal freedoms.

These claims are illegal bids for power – not granted in our Constitution – by Bush, Cheney and Gonzales. These legal theories are fascist in nature. All three need to be facing impeachment.

Impeachment is designed to check corrupt, dictatorial members of the Executive and Judicial Branches of government.

Bush has issued executive orders that negate laws passed by Congress like the Presidential Papers Act. The signing statements routinely and radically used by Bush to gut the intent of Congress concerning legislation are assaults on the Constitutional checks and balances and are illegal.

Cheney’s claims that he does not have to comply with laws limiting the powers of members of the Executive Branch or Congress are illegal. His role in almost every scandal connected to the White House seems apparent but Cheney remains secretive and defiant. The power claims of Cheney are assaults on the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

Impeachment hearings are needed for Bush, Cheney and Gonzales for many reasons. All three are claiming Constitutional powers that are not Constitutional. All three have played major roles in subverting federal law enforcement and an independent judiciary.

All three have deceived both the American public and Congress. All three are hiding their activities, using false national security and executive privilege claims to hide their law-breaking.

Bush has demonstrated his willingness to use Presidential powers to keep his White House cronies from paying the costs of their illegal behaviors.

Scooter Libby committed perjury to obstruct justice in a federal investigation of White House operatives who broke the law by intentionally outing a covert CIA agent. Bush protected him. It appears that Bush and Cheney may have been directly responsible for the crime.

The political firings of U.S. Attorneys has been another issue where Presidential powers may be used to obstruct justice, hide the truth and subvert the rule of law. It certainly appears that Gonzales has committed perjury like Libby and for similar reasons.

Presidential pardon powers do not apply to impeachment.

Because Bush is willing to misuse his Presidential powers and the Supreme Court has been packed with radical, partisan Republican appointees, only impeachment hearings will reveal to the public the abuses of the Bush White House. Only impeachment will bring these powerful criminals to justice and preserve the Constitutional rule of law.

Stephen Crockett is co-host of Democratic Talk Radio, http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com. His e-mail is midsouthern@aol.com.

Technorati tags: impeach, U.S. Constitution, george bush, dick cheney, alberto gonzales, congress

Spineless Democrats and The " Terror War "

  Check this article out from Black Agenda Report.

When a cowardly congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 last fall, many were quick say that in the House of Representatives at least, Democrats never had any realistic hope of stopping it. This anti-constitutional atrocity rolled the cause of human rights back some 800 years, legalizing secret imprisonment, torture, and evidence obtained by torture. It made possible life imprisonment with neither accusation nor trial, and absolved from prosecution all the recently active kidnappers and torturers on US government payrolls and contracts along with those who gave them orders.

But last fall’s good news, supposedly, was that the Republican congress was certain to be replaced in a matter of weeks by clear Democratic majorities in the House and Senate who’d stand up to the president, end the war, indict even impeach some of the malefactors, and begin to undo some of the damage inflicted by the most lawless presidential administration in the nation’s history. It hasn’t happened that way.

Instead, Democratic leaders of the House and Senate have ruled impeachment of Bush, Cheney or Gonzalez off the table. Congressional Democrats have increased the Pentagon’s budget by $100 billion over Bush’s request. They continued construction of an 80 acre embassy and the largest military bases in the world in Iraq. The end of 2007, a full year of Democratic control of the nation’s purse will see more US forces and mercenaries in Iraq than at the beginning of the year. Only last week Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama declared himself ready to take up the “White Man’s Burden” and invade Pakistan. Democrats are scrambling to re-brand the fictitious “global war on terror” as their own, and to outdo Republicans at threatening the peace abroad and scaring citizens at home.

  This is one reason that we may have to fire some of our elected Democrats in 2008. They are not doing the job that we have been paying them to do and that is cause for dismissal, starting with Nancy Pelosi. It has become time to put her on the table if impeachment of Bush and Cheney is to remain off of the table.

   The above article in its entirety, crossposted from CommonDreams, is below.

Published on Thursday, August 9, 2007 by Black Agenda Report

“Terror War” Terrorizes Spineless Democrats

by Bruce Dixon

When Democrats compete to adopt the phony “global war on terror” as their own, and promise they can do it “better” or “smarter” than Republicans, they erase what little difference remains between the parties. “Terror Democrats” have abandoned the politics of hope for the politics of fear, and turn the political process into one that threatens to elect the candidates who frighten us the most.

When a cowardly congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 last fall, many were quick say that in the House of Representatives at least, Democrats never had any realistic hope of stopping it. This anti-constitutional atrocity rolled the cause of human rights back some 800 years, legalizing secret imprisonment, torture, and evidence obtained by torture. It made possible life imprisonment with neither accusation nor trial, and absolved from prosecution all the recently active kidnappers and torturers on US government payrolls and contracts along with those who gave them orders.

But last fall’s good news, supposedly, was that the Republican congress was certain to be replaced in a matter of weeks by clear Democratic majorities in the House and Senate who’d stand up to the president, end the war, indict even impeach some of the malefactors, and begin to undo some of the damage inflicted by the most lawless presidential administration in the nation’s history. It hasn’t happened that way.

Instead, Democratic leaders of the House and Senate have ruled impeachment of Bush, Cheney or Gonzalez off the table. Congressional Democrats have increased the Pentagon’s budget by $100 billion over Bush’s request. They continued construction of an 80 acre embassy and the largest military bases in the world in Iraq. The end of 2007, a full year of Democratic control of the nation’s purse will see more US forces and mercenaries in Iraq than at the beginning of the year. Only last week Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama declared himself ready to take up the “White Man’s Burden” and invade Pakistan. Democrats are scrambling to re-brand the fictitious “global war on terror” as their own, and to outdo Republicans at threatening the peace abroad and scaring citizens at home.

Last week both houses of Congress, including dozens of Democrats approved legislation granting the feds the absolute power to intercept phone, fax and email traffic of anyone, anywhere in the world without the bother of explanations to any judge or competent authority whatsoever. House Democratic leaders denounced it, but didn’t stop it. Senate Democratic leaders, including presidential candidates Clinton, Obama, Dodd and Biden if they mentioned it at all, decried the bill. But true to form, none stepped forward to lead a filibuster that might have stopped it.

With Congressional poll numbers nearly as low and the president’s the gap between Democratic office holders and Democratic voters has never been wider. At the same time, corporate donations to Democratic candidates are higher than ever. These are two sides of the same coin. The Democratic establishment’s uncritical embrace of the so-called “global war on terror” is exposing for all to see the widening fissure between the two Democratic parties — the Democratic party of voters who are called out once every year or two, and the permanent Democratic party of consultants, pundits, lobbyists and wealthy campaign contributors. It is this gap between the expectations of voting Democrats and the will of donors and leading Democrats that prompted Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate President Harry Reid to avoid last weekend’s Yearly Kos, where they would have faced pointed questions on impeachment, war and peace, or domestic policy from an ordinarily tame crowd of Democratic bloggers, consultants, campaign staffers and wannabees. Pelosi and Reid know who their real base is.

Bush and Cheney have already declared that their “global war on terror” will be the foundation of America’s domestic and foreign policy for the next twenty or thirty years. By following their lead, Democrats have doomed themselves to a cycle in which they will no longer compete with Republicans to offer a better vision of life for Americans and the rest of the planet, and have made the Republican politics of fear their own. Subsequent campaigns, including the 2008 presidential well underway will be contests to see who can scare us the most. And worse news still — they’re pretty good at it. Four out of seven Democratic presidential candidates declared their immediate readiness to undertake immediate US military action in Sudan, completely bypassing the African Union force option to which all the regional parties have agreed.

As former Alaska senator Mike Gravel remarked in more than one of this year’s presidential forums, “…all these guys up here scare me….” He should know. Gravel is a man well acquainted with scary times, scary politicians and exposing the lies they tell the public. As a US Senator back in 1968 Gravel risked his own safety and his political career by revealing to the the massive decade-long campaigns of lies to the American public that made possible the secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia and the war in Vietnam, which killed two to three million Vietnamese alone.

“You won’t get change from any of these guys up here” said Gravel in Chicago last week. “For that you need a movement. You’ll have to get together and make some of your own policy, your own laws. Change doesn’t come from elections and political parties and politicians. It comes from movements”

We at BAR think this is uncommonly good advice coming from a presidential candidate. Our African American politicians are fond of describing themselves as sons, daughters and heirs of the Freedom Movement. It’s time we began to untangle that mess, to consciously separate those claims from reality, and see whose followers, whose heirs they really are.

Bruce Dixon, Managing Editor of The Black Agenda Report, can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com

© 2007 The Black Agenda Report

Technorati tags: Democrats, war on terror, Mike Gravel, george bush, dick cheney