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Excerpt: Articles of Impeachment

Center for Constitutional Rights. Posted March 6, 2006.


A new book lays out four clear legal arguments that point to impeachment of President Bush as a necessary remedy for the violation of our Constitution.
030606_story2
Excerpt: Articles of Impeachment

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(Editor's Note: this is an excerpt from the Center for Constitutional Right's new book, "Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush," reprinted with permission from Melville House, 2006.)

INTRODUCTION

How can it be that we are yet again debating another presidential impeachment? Still weary from the Clinton impeachment battles and now completely exhausted from the momentous changes brought about by both 9/11 and this president -- changes that include the Iraq war, indefinite detentions around the world, torture, domestic wiretapping, and more -- we have all we can do to understand and perhaps resist some or all of these measures on an ad hoc basis. While any of the individual acts and policies outlined in the following articles would constitute an impeachable offense, taken as a whole, as a pattern and practice, they constitute something far more sinister, a plan to significantly weaken, if not destroy, our democracy.

As a consequence this nation is confronted with a grave constitutional crisis. We have a president staunchly committed to acquiring unprecedented amounts of power and using it in ways that conflict with the Constitution of the United States, international law, and the common understanding of morality. In short, although the president has sworn to uphold the Constitution, he is doing just the opposite. He is dismantling the Constitution of the United States. Primarily, his apparent purpose is to gather even more power -- power unchecked by judicial or congressional scrutiny -- to a presidency already bloated with power.

Simultaneously, summary arrests, in the United States and around the world, torture, indefinite detention, illegal surveillance, and suppression of free speech and protest have become commonplace. Yet worse, as all of this has happened the government has sought to eliminate any judicial oversight of its activities by weakening the judicial system in innumerable ways. The president has also disregarded Congress and thereby attempted to weaken its role. The consequence has been that the fundamental building block of American democracy, our system of separation of powers, has come under lethal attack.

How did it come about that we are in the constitutional crisis in which we find ourselves today? Before we discuss the reasons for this, or even the historical context, it seems useful to introduce some of the terminology and details that surround impeachment, the Constitution's nuclear option.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides that the president may be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." This was the mechanism that the framers of the Constitution provided Congress to protect itself from executive overreaching. Clearly the framers drafted this provision in the context of what they viewed as the history of their time, i.e., the conflict between the actions of the English king and the ideals of the English law. Thus, for the framers, impeachment was a key element of American democracy in that it provided an ultimate means to curtail abuses of, or unconstitutional expansion of, executive powers.

While bribery and treason were technically defined crimes that would inevitably subvert the Constitution, the more general and less defined concept of high crimes and misdemeanors was intended to identify that activity whereby the executive overstepped the bounds of public office or failed to faithfully execute the laws. Hamilton viewed it as an abuse or violation of the public trust. Thereby the framers provided a much more general category whereby the Constitution would also surely be subverted.


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all of them
Posted by: rsaxto on Mar 6, 2006 2:41 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Impeach all of the top white house people or have war until death do us all part.

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» RE: all of them Posted by: sunluvin
Impeachment is too good for this criminal and his stooges
Posted by: thecynic on Mar 6, 2006 2:45 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
He should be tried in the Hague for war crimes against humanity!

How many tens of thousands of Iraqs has he killed. How many more thousands of deaths has his actions been responsible for? How many Americans in the armed forces are now dead or crippled because of him? Talk about Ben Laden being a criminal. Who is actually responsible for more deaths and more suffering. I will give you a hint. It isn't Ben Laden. It is George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice. Yes. Do not forget Condy, the national security advisor at the time.

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WAWA BLOG:2/27/06 Monday Morning Manifesto
Posted by: eileenflmng on Mar 6, 2006 4:57 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
President Bush claimed his favorite philosopher is Christ:
who is
THE PRINCE OF PEACE
who taught that you must forgive, you must love, you must do good:
NOT seek revenge.



“As of January 17, 2006, the rap sheet listed 2,229 American military dead in Iraq together with an unknown number of Iraqi civilians; what looks to be the sum of $1 trillion to $2-trillion, already committed to The Project for the New American Century’s real estate development in the Mesopotamia desert.

"Better reasons to impeach a president than the one pressed into service against Bill Clinton, whose penis was known to be aimless and shown to be harmless.” [HARPERS p.32]

Monday Morning Manifesto Feb 27, 2006 WAWABLOG:
http://www.wearewideawake.org

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gramps
Posted by: gramps on Mar 6, 2006 7:19 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Representative Conyers has a bill calling for impeachment but it only has 28 signatories. He should implement this action now and not wait for more signers. The Dubai brouhaha has just been followed by Bush giving American military atomic secrets to India. This is treason. It seems as though this lame duck moron is committing new atrocities on a daily basis.

He knows he has lost the coming mid-term election for Congressopeople and is pushing his fascist agenda as fast as possible. Are we going to wait until this idiot has dropped the bomb? Our pundits do more talking than they do thinking. Arianna Huffington said on TV that we should wait until after the 2008 election to begin impeachment. People are already dying from global warming. Are we going to wait for a nuclear winter before we take action?

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» RE: gramps Posted by: pacto
» RE: 666 Posted by: ng1944
Light a fire. Beat the drums.
Posted by: rockpicker on Mar 6, 2006 7:32 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Find a piece of high ground and burn a bon fire near your community to show solidarity and your displeasure. March 20th.
If your fire can be seen ten miles away, it would only take 300 fires to span the country. It's time to quit waiting for the spineless to act. Gather wood. And beat the drums...

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» RE: Light a fire. Beat the drums. Posted by: thinkverybig
Unconstitutional
Posted by: fanny666 on Mar 6, 2006 10:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Read Article 6 Section 2 of the US Constitution. Compare to Bush's treatment of the UN Charter, Non-proliferation Treaty, UN Convention Against Torture.

Read Article 2 Paragraph 2 of Nixon's Letters of Impeachment. Compare to Bush's NSA programs.

Pass it on!

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Can't do it yet
Posted by: dgpdx on Mar 6, 2006 2:15 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Sorry, but he can't be impeached until someone gives him a blowjob!

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» RE: Can't do it yet Posted by: gonzoskismet
» RE: Can't do it yet Posted by: Ellie1
Skeptic
Posted by: philstowe on Mar 6, 2006 11:11 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What if they gave an impeachment . . and nobody at the white house showed up?

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granny6x
Posted by: granny6x on Mar 7, 2006 4:13 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Our chance comes with the 2006 elections.

A vote for the Democrats is a vote for John Conyers who will become chairman of the all important Judiciary Committee, where the impeachment process begins.

Every single member of the House Of Representatives is up for re-election. Voting for Dems is voting for checks and balances. And for John Conyers.

In the meantime, we must join local voting rights groups to fight for an honest election system in each of our states. We need to do some Googling to learn more about these infamous touchscreen voting machines that have been pushed on us by the Help America Vote Act.

We have important work to do and we must do it now. It is already March.

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clinker
Posted by: cottontail on Mar 8, 2006 11:02 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's over.........make your survival plans. I'm making mine.

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When Will We Learn
Posted by: thinkverybig on Mar 9, 2006 10:44 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
WHEN

When will we all wake up?

When will we wake up from being blind

to all that’s happening in our world?

From blood diamonds in Sierra Leone

To the hidden causes of West Africa’s civil wars

To the present day form of slavery in poor nations

That benefits other rich nations

When will the value of human life be the same for all?

Regardless of background, color or creed

When will those in leadership roles start to lead

And not be tainted with greed?

When will we set aside our differences, come together as one,

Compromise, live, love and forgive one another?

When will we learn from our past, heal old wounds

and move forward, together, as one?

When will the government be for the people and not for corporations, the rich?

When will we no longer see color, use race as a divider, a distracter, while the 1% continue to be in power?

Just look around, look past the surface, past what you’ve been trained

and programmed to see and just think

When will we come to understand the root of our problems?

The continued thirst for power and wealth and the continued oppression of millions to maintain that control

No matter the cost

Whether genocide, wars, starvation, neglect or whatever

We must become new beings, born again in our thoughts

And view things with a different perspective

With an open heart and open mind

Filled with compassion and love for one another

When will the violence cease?

When will there be peace?

When will love rise above the fray and stay?

These things we all need to think about

every single day.







Written by: David J. Hudson

© 2006
www.thinkverybig.com

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» RE: When Will We Learn Posted by: oldguy