December 28, 2007

IMPEACHMENT TOOLKIT: Jonathan Turley et al on impeachment

This is not to ignore other great books out .. But to highlight FIRST some things you can feed yer lawyer friends!

Then it's on to a number of links provided by Serendipity ...

Abstract

In this Article, Professor Turley addresses the use of impeachment, specifically the Senate trial, as a method of resolving factional disputes about an impeached official's legitimacy to remain in office. While the Madisonian democracy was designed to regulate factional pressures, academics and legislators often discuss impeachments as relatively static events focused solely on removal. Alternatively, impeachment is sometimes viewed as an extreme countermajoritarian measure used to "reverse" or "nullify" the popular election of a President. This Article advances a more dynamic view of the Senate trial as a Madisonian device to resolve factional disputes. This Article first discusses the history of impeachment and demonstrates that it is largely a history of factional or partisan disputes over legitimacy. The Article then explores how impeachment was used historically as a check on the authority of the Crown and tended to be used most heavily during periods of political instability. English and colonial impeachments proved to be highly destabilizing in the absence of an integrated political system. The postcolonial impeachment process was modified to convert it from a tool of factional dissension to a vehicle of factional resolution. This use of Senate trials as a Madisonian device allows for the public consideration of the full record as the foundation for a vote of "true consent." In this unique forum, an impeached official is subject to a decision of the public-through the cipher of the Senate-as to his legitimacy in carrying out constitutional duties. As such, Professor Turley concludes that, properly utilized, the Senate trial represents the quintessential Madisonian moment.

other relevant scholarly articles include:

[PDF] DETENTIONS, MILITARY COMMISSIONS, TERRORISM, AND DOMESTIC CASE PRECEDENT
C Tobias - www-rcf.usc.edu
... at 1412–21; Jonathan Turley, Tribunals and Tribulations: The Antithetical Elements
of Military Governance in a Madisonian Democracy, 70 G EO . W ASH . ...
View as HTML - Web Search

The United States of America and the International Criminal Court
DM Amann, MNS Sellers - The American Journal of Comparative Law, 2002 - JSTOR
... 5-8. On the postwar trials and the US role, see generally Gary Jonathan Bass, Stay
the Hand of Vengeance (2000 ... 677 (1999); Turley, "'From Pillar to Post ...
Web Search

SENATE TRIALS AND FACTIONAL DISPUTES: IMPEACHMENT AS A MADISONIAN DEVICE - all 7 versions »
E Policy, D Law, J Home - alumni.law.duke.edu
... In this Article, Professor Turley addresses the use of impeachment, specifically
the Senate trial, as a method of resolving factional disputes about an ...
Cached - Web Search

Impeachment: A Handbook

By Charles Lund Black
Contributor Professor
Akhil Reed Amar, Akhil
Reed Amar
Published 1998
Yale University Press
Impeachments/ United
States
96 pages
ISBN 0300079508


n a classic guide to presidential impeachment, Charles L. Black clarifies the issues and questions that surround this controversial subject. With a new foreword by constitutional expert Akhil Reed Amar, this authoritative book is essential reading for every concerned citizen.

<<:>> <<:>> <<:>>
Articles of
Impeachment

Bush has Confessed

A fish rots from the head down. Downing Street Memo

The Impeachment of George W. Bush
Impeach Bush now!

You said it ... and then that little tongue came out; that weird way you stick your tongue out between your lips like the little kid who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat. — Greg Palast, commenting on George W. Bush's 2004 State of the Union speech.
George W. Bush is a pathological liar. He shows his contempt for the American people whenever he says anything in public. Why do you think he smirks so often? It's because he knows he's lying and he's amused that everyone else (so he thinks) is a fool for believing him. (Lately his handlers have trained him not to smirk so often.)

In particular Bush lied to the people of the United States and to the entire world when he declared in late 2002 and early 2003 that Iraq had developed and deployed "weapons of mass destruction" and was an imminent threat to its neighbors and to the U.S. itself.

... George W. Bush and the members of his administration argued, day after day, week after week, month after month, that Iraq was in possession of massive stores of mass destruction weapons that would be delivered to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda for use against the United States. ...

"We have sources that tell us," said George W. Bush on February 8 2003, "that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons."

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt," continued Bush on March 17 2003, "that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." ...

George W. Bush, on March 18, had delivered a letter to Congress explicitly indicating that an attack on Iraq was an attack upon those who perpetrated September 11. Paragraph two reads, "The use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

On May 1 2003, when he announced the end of "major combat operations," Bush proclaimed, "We've removed an ally of Al Qaeda." ...

The uranium claims were based on crudely forged documents, the mobile labs were weather balloon launching platforms sold to Iraq by the British in the 1980s, the al Qaeda claims are utterly impossible to establish as true, any connection between Iraq and September 11 was publicly denied by George W. Bush himself recently, and the mass destruction weapons are utterly and completely absent.

— William Rivers Pitt: Donkeys of Mass Destruction

Bush's lies were used as a justification for launching an invasion and occupation of Iraq which has killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers and thousands of Iraqis and which has and will cost the U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars (far better spent on health, education and unemployment benefits for the workers whose jobs Bush has shipped overseas). The long-term damage to America is incalculable. Bush's lies amount to a "high crime" under the U.S. Constitution and justify impeachement and removal from office.

And not only Bush. In the run-up to the attack on Iraq Vice-President Dick Cheney claimed that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program and had recently attempted to purchase uranium, even though he knew (from the report of retired US Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the man he sent to Niger to investigate this) that this was false. He claimed that following an invasion of Iraq the Iraqis would welcome the American soldiers as liberators (instead the Iraqis are killing as many as they can). For his lies as well as his gross errors of judgment (amounting to wishful thinking) Cheney should be impeached and removed from office.

The same is true of Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and the other neo-cons who did Israel's bidding by launching a war to remove the threat to Israel from Saddam Hussein. All should be swept away. However, as John Kaminski and Michael Ruppert have pointed out, removing Bush and his fellow sleazeballs from power will not fundamentally change the fact (in Ruppert's words), "that the system itself is corrupt and that the people controlling it — both in government, and in America's corporations and financial institutions — are criminals".

Articles on This Website

  • Winning an Oilfield, Losing the World — Superpower Crimes & the Failure of Nationalism

  • Marc Cooper: Uncensored Gore

    [N]obody has ever wrecked the Bill of Rights as he [Bush] has. Other presidents have dodged around it, but no president before this one has so put the Bill of Rights at risk. No one has proposed preemptive war before. And two countries in a row that have done no harm to us have been bombed.

  • Bev Conover: The True "Servants of Evil"

    And on this day [September 11, 2003] he [Bush] has proclaimed Patriot Day of all things, having mired the US military in the depleted-uranium-laden sands of Iraq, showing no remorse for all the innocent people whose deaths he caused, telling the countries on whom he spit they have a duty to help rebuild what he has destroyed, and, after depriving his own people of vitally needed services, asking Congress for another $87 billion as partial payment on the tab he ran up — not to mention the unprecedented $500 billion hole his policies and tax cuts for the rich have put the country in — he further exploits the victims of 9/11 by sacrificing our troops on the altar of his ego and ignorance.

  • Xymphora: George W. Bush, Cocaine and Community Service

  • Dr. Robert Bowman: Some Dare Call It Treason — Wake Up America!

    It is time for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the whole oil mafia to be removed from office and indicted for TREASON.

  • Ramsey Clark's Articles of Impeachment of George W. Bush et al.

    President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General John David Ashcroft have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts: ...

    A modified form of these Articles of Impeachment may be found here, on the website of VoteToImpeach.org, along with Ramsey Clark's Notes on Impeachment.

  • Edgar J. Steele: Bush Must Go!

Articles on Other Websites

  • Daniel Bacher: Bush's Illegal War

    By spending taxpayers' money on military adventures, the Bush administration has taken money that could have been better spent for feeding people, building schools and economic and social development in the U.S. and throughout the world.

  • Drake Bennett and Heidi Pauken: All the President's Lies

    More distressing even than the president's lies, though, is the public's apparent passivity. Bush just seems to get away with it. ... [Does] the complicity of the press help to lull the public and reinforce the president's lies?

  • Jon Roland: Meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"

    [The] phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" ... refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons.

  • George Soros's We Deserve the Truth

  • Patrick Martin: What happened to Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction"?

    ... the claim of chemical and biological weapons was a hoax, deliberately concocted by the Bush administration to conceal its predatory aims in the invasion of a country with the world's second largest oil reserves.

  • Julian Borger: White House 'lied about Saddam threat'

    A former US intelligence official who served under the Bush administration in the build-up to the Iraq war accused the White House yesterday of lying about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

  • Bush is risking his credibility

    What the president doesn't seem to grasp is that criticism over the uranium statement has grown because the White House has tried to kiss it off.

  • Robert Scheer: What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?

    We now know that the threat of deployed WMD was a blatant falsehood. What has not been established is whether the President was in on the lie. If he was, he should be impeached.

  • John W. Dean: Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction: Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?

    If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed. ... Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause.

  • Daniel Meltzer: Was it a high crime?

    If President Bush launched a lethal war, one whose ultimate domestic and global consequences still cannot be foreseen, on the basis of evidence he either knew was false or about which he should have been judiciously skeptical, then in the words of Mr. Bush's own father, former President George H. W. Bush, "this cannot stand," and he should resign or be impeached.

  • Families of soldiers condemn Bush's war

  • Eric Margolis: Bush Deserves To Be Impeached

    The litany of lies produced by the White House and its neo-con allies would be farcical were it not for the deaths of so many Americans and Iraqis.

  • LaRouche Says Charges Against Cheney Constitute Grounds For Impeachment

    The charges against Cheney are centered on the fact that the Vice President repeatedly used documents, allegedly from the government of Niger, purporting to show Iraqi government efforts to purchase large quantities of uranium precursor, "yellow cake" from that African nation, long after he learned that the documents were forged.

  • Michael C. Ruppert: Blood in the Water: Watergate II
    ... it is ludicrous to expect that Cheney sent [Joseph] Wilson to investigate [the claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger], and then did not want a report when Wilson returned [with a negative finding]. Yet, that is the Vice President's position.

  • Francis A. Boyle: It's About the Rule of Law: Impeaching George W. Bush

    We need one Member of Congress with the courage, integrity, and principles of the late and great Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas. Otherwise, the alternative will be an American Empire abroad, a U.S. Police State at home, and continuing wars of aggression to sustain them — along the lines of George Orwell's classic novel 1984.

  • Investigate and Impeach Bush for Failing to Act on 911 Warnings — And then Lying About It

    The following list contains the most serious warnings that were ignored by the Bush administration. ... Collectively, these failures justify the resignation — or impeachment — of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who are ultimately responsible for the failure of their Administration to protect the American people. ...

  • A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Responds to President Bush's National Television Address of September 7, 2003

    During his administration, Bush has only rarely felt that he must address the people, and does so when he fears that a sentiment is growing strong enough to challenge his illegal actions. He must then lie more [than he usually does] to convince the people of the U.S. to support his criminal endeavors, or at least acquiesce in them.

  • Santa Cruz to ask Congress to consider impeaching Bush

    With a sweeping 6-1 vote, the Santa Cruz City Council became the first local government in the country Tuesday [2003-09-09] to ask Congress to look into impeaching President Bush.

  • Walter E. Davis, PhD: September 11th And The Bush Administration: Compelling Evidence for Complicity
    Thus the possibility of complicity on the part of the Bush Administration is very real. At the very least, further and more honest investigations must take place and some accountability exacted from those responsible.

  • Christopher Scheer: Ten Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq

    What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody: ...

  • John W. Dean: President Bush's New Iraq Commission Won't Be Investigating the Key WMD Issue: How the Executive Order Fatally Limits Their Agenda

  • Bill Vann: Bush at the UN — a war criminal takes the podium

    Unlike the American people, the Bush administration is more than willing to accept the resulting increase in young American soldiers, reservists and National Guard members dying daily to secure increased profits for the administration's corporate backers.

  • The Bush Body Count

    This is a list of bodies, a roster of the dead, who might have been called Witnesses had they not met their untimely ends.

  • John McArthur: Impeach Bush now (Also here.)

    Why aren't Americans talking seriously about impeachment? After all, Mr. Bush now stands plausibly accused of the lofty crime of subverting the Constitution of the United States — that is, lying to Congress about an imminent danger to the American people in order to collect enough votes to authorize his corporate/imperial project in Iraq.

  • GW Bush went AWOL

  • Xymphora: More on George and Drugs

  • Lori R. Price: Will Bush play the bioterror card?

  • Kirwan: When Lives are Written in Invisible Ink

  • Four Reasons (Five Actually) to Impeach Bush

  • Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President

  • William Rivers Pitt: The Ramadan Offensive

    George W. Bush said the intricately coordinated and highly effective attacks [at the start of Ramadan] were a sign that the Iraqi insurgents were becoming "desperate." He described the attackers as people who "hate freedom" and "love terror." This is the reaction of a man residing comfortably in Bizarro World, a land where up is down, black is white, and reality has no place at the table.

    To Americans: This is Your President. A lunatic. Despicable. Worse than a disgrace to America. You like this? Do you know that you, the People, have the power to remove him from office, through your elected representatives? Let them know how you feel.

  • The Bush Hitler Thing

    So far, I've seen nothing to eliminate the possibility that Bush is on the same course as Hitler. And I've seen far too many analogies to dismiss the possibility. The propaganda. The lies. The rhetoric. The nationalism. The flag waving. The pretext of 'preventive war'. The flaunting of international law and international standards of justice. The disappearances of 'undesirable' aliens. The threats against protesters. The invasion of a non-threatening sovereign nation. The occupation of a hostile country. The promises of prosperity and security. The spying on ordinary citizens. The incitement to spy on one's neighbors - and report them to the government. The arrogant triumphant pride in military conquest. The honoring of soldiers. The tributes to 'fallen warriors'. The diversion of money to the military. The demonization of government appointed 'enemies'. The establishment of 'Homeland Security'. The dehumanization of 'foreigners'. The total lack of interest in the victims of government policy. The incarceration of the poor and mentally ill. The growing prosperity from military ventures. The illusion of 'goodness' and primacy. The new einsatzgrupen forces. Assassination teams. Closed extralegal internment camps. The militarization of domestic police. Media blackout of non-approved issues. Blacklisting of protesters — including the no-fly lists and photographing dissenters at rallies.

  • A BuzzFlash editorial, 2004-02-02: In Memory of Our Soldiers Dead in Iraq, More than 3,000 Dead On 9/11, and Patriots Outed by Treasonous Bush Staff, No More Sham "Investigations" Aimed at Covering Up the Truth and Protecting the Guilty. Impeachment, Prosecution and Jail Time, Now.

  • Forget About Condi's Show "Testimony" of Lies Today: That's All White House "Made for Television" Theater. If You Want the Truth, Let's Move on to Plan "B": Impeachment.

  • William Saletan: Trust, Don't Verify — Bush's incredible definition of credibility

    Three times, Bush repeated the answer he gave to Edwin Chen of the Los Angeles Times: "Had there been a threat that required action by anybody in the government, I would have dealt with it." Outside Bush's head, the statement was patently false: The 9/11 threat required action, and Bush failed to deal with it. But inside Bush's head, the statement was tautological: If there were a threat that required action, Bush would have dealt with it; Bush didn't deal with it; therefore, there was no threat that required action.

  • Sidney Blumenthal: Hear no evil, read no evil, speak drivel

    Bush's [April 2004] press conference shows just how ill-informed he is about Iraq

  • Kirwan: War Has Answered!

    ... diplomacy [with regard to Iraq] was never even tried — because our anointed one, had talked to god and then decided, "WAR was what it had to be!" Never mind that there were laws about making those kinds of decisions. This mattered not to BUSH, because he was chosen above all men to bring freedom to the waiting world, despite the rights of other peoples, and the Constitution of the USA. Bush had his mission, and nothing as small as the US Congress or the courts were going to get between him and his mission: because he was chosen by god to do this.

  • Brian Cloughley: America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq

    Bush does not actually read newspapers, except the sports sections. ... Bush might prefer to get the "news du jour" through the filter and interpretation of his sycophants [Card, Rice, Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest of the loonies running the White House asylum], but it would serve his country better were he to read honest and accurate reports of what is going on in the land he invaded and has destroyed. He has dishonored his own country, and, alas, he has set an example to his armed forces that has resulted in conduct that I would never have thought possible on the part of Americans in uniform.

  • Dr Susan Block: Bush's POW Porn

  • Doug Thompson: Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides

    President George W. Bush's increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader's state of mind.

  • Marjorie Cohn: The Torturer-in-Chief

    The Constitution mandates the impeachment of a President for high crimes and misdemeanors. There is no higher crime than a war crime. Willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, which are considered war crimes under The War Crimes Act of 1996. ... Bush impliedly admitted sanctioning willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment in his 2003 State of the Union Address. He would be liable under the doctrine of command responsibility for war crimes committed in Iraq as well. The captain goes down with his ship. It is time to call for the Impeachment of George W. Bush.

  • Teresa Hampton: Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior

    [According to one] long-time GOP political consultant ... "We have to face the very real possibility that the President of the United States is loony tunes," he says sadly. "That's not good for my candidates, it's not good for the party and it's certainly not good for the country."

  • Eric A. Smith: The Goods on Bush: What We Can Prove

  • How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

  • Alex Salmond joins bid to have Tony Blair impeached

    A 99 page report drawn up by two leading academics, details four "impeachable offences" under which Tony Blair could be charged: misleading Parliament and the country and failing to resign in consequence, negligence and incompetence, undermining the constitution and entering into a secret agreement with the President of the United States regarding the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

  • Frederick Sweet: Just sitting next to a friend who expresses an anti-Bush opinion can get you into big Secret Service trouble in George W. Bush's United States

  • Karl W. B. Schwarz: Demand Letter Sent To Bush By Corp CEO

  • Peter Dale Scott: A Post-Election Wrap-Up: Iraq, 9/11, Drugs, Cheney, and Watergate Two, including 9/11 as an Issue for Impeachment

  • Carla Binion: Bush and Cheney: reprehensible, corrupt, seeking your vote

    Shouldn't we be thinking of impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney instead of running them for political office? These are two of the most corrupt politicians in U.S. history. We have factual proof they're serial liars. They've hoodwinked Congress and the American people into a war based on lies.

  • Open letter to the citizens of the United States of America

    George Bush has turned the USA into a pariah state in the international community and before the eyes of the citizens of the world. ...

    Killing tens of thousands of civilians is not Christian, it is evil and the callousness with which this issue is faced by the Bush regime is witness to the coldness in their hearts and minds, a coldness which creates shock and revulsion in the community of nations. In Europe, in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, in Canada.

  • Stanley Hilton Lawsuit

  • THE AWOL PROJECT An Examination of the Bush Military Files

  • FBI Memo: Bush's Executive Order Approved Torture Techniques

  • Matthew Rothschild: Stripping Rumsfeld and Bush of Impunity

  • Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist: Bush, The Spoiled Man-Child

    Unlike you or me or any human anywhere who happens to be in possession of humility or subtlety of mind, Bush, to this day, admits zero mistakes. He refuses help, rejects suggestions that everything is not dandy and swell. He is confounded by questions that dare suggest he might be somewhat inept, or failing. And he absolutely insists that America exists in some sort of bizarre utopian vacuum, isolated and virtuous and towering like a mad hobbled king over our enemies and allies alike. He is, in other words, our downfall.

  • George W. Bush Must Answer to the People

  • Prof. Francis A. Boyle: Campaign to Impeach President George W. Bush

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court's installation of George W. Bush as President in January of 2001, the peoples of the world have witnessed a government in the United States of America that demonstrates little if any respect for fundamental considerations of international law, international organizations, and human rights, let alone appreciation of the requirements for maintaining international peace and security.

    What the world has watched instead is a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the integrity of the international legal order by a group of men and women who are thoroughly Machiavellian in their perception of international relations and in their conduct of both foreign policy and domestic affairs.

It is clear that George W. Bush is the most hated U.S. President ever. And for good reason: He is a psychopathic mass murderer who has brought the United States of America into disgrace, despised by the rest of the world. Even worse, he is an instrument in the coming destruction of the U.S. itself. But for the future well-being of all life on Earth maybe that's not such a bad thing.

There are, however, two major problems with the removal of George W. Bush by impeachment and conviction:

  1. It requires a simple majority of the House of Representatives to impeach and a two-thirds majority of the Senate to convict, and both houses are controlled by the Republican party.
  2. It is a slow process which requires months, and in the meantime Bush, an insane psychopath, remains commander-in-chief of the world's largest arsenal and a born-again lackey of that other insane psychopath Ariel Sharon, who apparently (with U.S. assistance) is about to plunge the whole Middle East into war.

There are a few other possibilities for removing Bush. One is: Arrest the President Now! A radical course of action, but perhaps necessary if the world is not to be plunged into major wars, famines and comprehensive disaster.

Another would follow from the public recognition that George W. Bush is, if not certifiably insane, at least mentally incompetent to perform his duties as President. There is clear evidence of this, for example:

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: I don't really understand. How is it the new [Social Security] plan is going to fix that problem?
DUBYA: Because the — all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those — changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be — or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the — like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate — the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those — if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

— Dubya explains the virtues of his Social Security plan, Tampa, Florida, Feb. 4, 2005

This is taken from Fresh Dubya (The 15 most recent Dubya declarations). This statement of Bush's plan to "save" social security is reminiscent of the well-known statement by a Marine commander in the Vietnam War, speaking of a Vietnamese village: "We had to destroy it in order to save it."

This possibility that Bush could be removed from office on the grounds of being mentally incompetent to perform his duties as President was discussed in July 2005 by Jeffrey Steinberg in his article The Plame Affair: Rove and Cheney Are Guilty As Charged:

Cheney's departure, and replacement by a qualified, experienced figure, such as several leading Republican Senators, would create the safe conditions for the removal of President George W. Bush, for the good of the nation.

Procedures for the removal of Bush from office are contained in the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which spells out the procedures for the removal of the President from office if he is determined to be "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office." The Constitution itself demands that the President meet the standard of competence. And that is where Bush fails, miserably.

It was amusing to watch the press conference given by George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in Bratislava on January 24th, 2005. While Putin delivered concise, coherent and intelligent answers to the questions put to him by reporters, Bush was only able to mouth platitudes about how important democracy and a free press is, and when he couldn't think of anything else to say he resorted to rambling on about how, when "Vladimir" says something, you can be sure that he means it. As if anyone thought otherwise. Seen standing next to a statesman, Bush was revealed to the entire world as a bumbling fool, and a disgrace to America as well.

A transcript of the press conference was available for awhile on the website of the L.A.Times (here), but they removed it (perhaps because it was embarrassing). The transcript provided by the Washington Post is still available here.

The Downing Street Memo

Impeach Bush

The Watergate burglary occurred in Richard Nixon's first term as US President. Accusations of a cover-up did not stop Nixon from being re-elected in 1972. Nixon was impeached in 1974.

The US attack on Iraq occurred in Bush's first term. The charge of taking the US into an illegal and immoral war did not stop Bush from being re-elected (by means of rigged voting machines) in 2004. Were history to repeat itself Bush would be impeached in 2006.

The movement for Bush's impeachment gained strength following the publication on May 1st, 2005, of the Downing Street Memo by the Times of London.

Bush had Prior Knowledge of the Katrina Disaster,
Did Nothing, and Lied about it

Bush has Confessed to an Impeachable Offense

Bush has confessed (on TV even) to a high crime (that is, a crime committed by someone in a high place). Why hasn't Congress begun impeachment hearings?

But now, at last (2006-01-15), things are beginning to move ...

Of course, times have changed since 1974, and rather than retire (with the implicit acknowledgement of wrongdoing) Bush may conveniently die before he can be impeached.

But don't worry — another Bush is being groomed to take over the Presidency in January 2009, Brother Jeb.

But why should we have to wait three years? Bush reportedly (like Cheney) has a weak heart. He could die tomorrow. Then Cheney (affectionately known as "Vicious Dick" among his admirers) would become President. And he could then appoint the brother of the dearly departed as his Vice-President — obviously a fitting tribute, of course, to the valiant war-time President who died fulfilling his duty to the great nation of the United States in its noble quest to bring the blessings of Democracy and Liberty to the formerly oppressed Iraqi and Afghani people. Then Dick could conveniently have another heart attack, this time fatal, and — voila! — we get the third President Bush! And maybe even President-for-Life if some congresscritters (from both parties) succeed in their attempts to repeal the 22nd Amendment.

Of course, President Vicious Dick (currently renowned among his supporters as the author of the Cheney doctrine) would not actually have to have a fatal heart attack in order for Brother Jeb to become the third President Bush. He could simply retire, citing heart problems (brought on, naturally, by the stress of making the world safe and profitable for the likes of Chevron, Bechtel and Kellogg, Brown & Root). Thus the only obstacle to Brother Jeb's becoming US President within a year or two is the continuing incumbency of his moronic brother. This, however, is a problem that the FBI could solve with a bit of planning, in the same way that it solved the problem posed by Martin Luther King in 1968. Or if the FBI can't handle it then no doubt the CIA would be more than happy to take on the task, though by now they probably have realized that an exploding Cuban cigar won't do the trick. Perhaps an exploding pretzel?

[Note added 2007-04-25: Due to the widespread disgust among the people with George W. Bush, Jeb Bush is currently unelectable and his presidency has been postponed. The betting is now that Hillary will be "elected" in 2008. She will be blamed for the economic collapse within the U.S. during 2009-2012 (actually resulting from George's policies), paving the way for the "election" to the presidency of Brother Jeb.]

Unfortunately the reality in the U.S. in early November 2006 is no laughing matter.

In the November congressional elections, widely seen as a referendum on Administration policy regarding Iraq, the voters installed a slim Democratic majority in both houses, a clear sign of their wish for American troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. George W. Bush, in typically psychopathic fashion, responded by ordering more troops to be sent to Iraq. It looks like the U.S. is headed for a constitutional crisis, in which the people can win against a ruthless dictatorship only by exposing its crimes. Ideally this will include exposing the role of elements at the top of the U.S. Administration in the planning and implementation of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

  • Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith: Start Preparing Now for the Coming "Cataclysmic Fight to the Death"

  • Paul Craig Roberts: Bush Must Go — Only Impeachment Can Stop Him

    When are the American people and their representatives in Congress and the military going to wake up and realize that the US has an insane war criminal in the White House who is destroying all chances for peace in the world and establishing a police state in the US?

    Americans don't have much time to realize this and to act before it is too late. Bush's "surge" speech last Wednesday night makes it completely clear that his real purpose is to start wars with Iran and Syria before failure in Iraq brings an end to the neoconservative/Israeli plan to establish hegemony over the Middle East. ...

    Nothing can stop the criminal Bush from instituting wider war in the Middle East that could become a catastrophic world war except an unequivocal statement from Congress that he will be impeached.

    Bush has made the US into a colony of Israel. The US is incurring massive debt and loss of both life and reputation in order to silence Muslim opposition to Israel's theft of Palestine and the Golan Heights. That is what the "war on terror" is about.

But, as someone said, if Congress had ever had the courage to impeach Bush it would have happened on September 12th, 2001. There has been ample opportunity, and almost nothing was ever been done. Bush won't be impeached. Nor will Cheney. That's real bad news for the rest of us.

Despite multiple offenses and parole violations, Spahn Ranch [residence of Charles Manson and Charles "Tex" Watson] wasn't raided before [the] Tate-LaBianca [murders] because the police were expressly told they should not arrest Manson or his followers. Despite the grievous injuries they've inflicted upon the nation and the constitution, George Bush and Dick Cheney will not be impeached because Democrats have elected, for some reason, to take impeachment "off the table." Like an unmolested Manson sending his family on "creepy crawly" burglaries of canyon homes Bush will not be stopped by the law, because behind the law are the gods of Helter Skelter who are not yet finished with him. As [Los Angeles County deputy sheriff] Guillory said of Manson, so Bush is "a very ready tool" who currently enjoys the unprecedented and seemingly unaccountable permission to do the unthinkable. And because he can, something big is coming down.

Only after his chaotic work is done and the last doorpost daubed in gore may he be brought low. Not to justice, because American presidents never are, but perhaps to a singular injustice that has sometimes made their acquaintance. Until then, he may as well tell us as another Texan [Watson] reportedly did, "I am the devil, and I am here to do the devil's business."

— Jeff Wells (Rigorous Intuition, 16 January 2007), We Are Family

Let him save himself who can.

A copy of (almost) the entire Serendipity website is available on CD-ROM. Details here.

Seymour Hersh on Iraq, Bush and the Neocons Bush Flubs it Again The Madness of George W. Bush
The Letter of May 2006 from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to George W. Bush
Serendipity Home Page

Arranged by ladybroadoak at 12/28/2007 07:13:00 PM
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