California Joins Illinois in Calling for Bush Impeachment

by Aaron Brazell on April 27, 2006 · 116 comments

I still don’t think Bush is going to escape impeachment like I called for in December. My conservative readers scorn impeachment because their boy can do no wrong. I still don’t understand how Republicans support a man who is more liberal than Bill Clinton, but hey, I guess this will piss them off. That’s fine.

The California State Legislature has moved to pass legislation calling for the impeachment of Bush and Dick Cheney. The lawmaker introducing the measure is Paul Koretz of L.A.

The resolution, in the words of Koretz’s press release, “bases the call for impeachment upon the Bush Administration intentionally misleading the Congress and the American people regarding the threat from Iraq in order to justify an unnecessary war that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives and casualties; exceeding constitutional authority to wage war by invading Iraq; exceeding constitutional authority by Federalizing the National Guard; conspiring to torture prisoners in violation of the ‘Federal Torture Act’ and indicating intent to continue such actions; spying on American citizens in violation of the 1978 Foreign Agency Surveillance Act; leaking and covering up the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, and holding American citizens without charge or trial.”

I think a lot of this is political posturing and I don’t agree with alot of what is said. My sole reason for calling for impeachment is based on NSA eavesdropping and civil rights. Read the article I linked to and the comments that followed.

Source: CensureBush.org

{ 116 comments }

1 Aaron April 28, 2006 at 9:52 pm

What would be your response if he didn’t do everything within his means and we were attacked?

We go back to the origin of my calling for his impeachment. NSA wiretapping.

I don’t buy that he did everything he could. I DO however buy that he did what his agenda-pushing advisors told him to do.

2 Mike April 28, 2006 at 10:00 pm

Aaron go F… yourself… I don’t blindly follow anyone, and you have no idea how to follow anyone… Bush is making huge mistakes with the illigal aliens and I am totally against what he proposes to do… It’s the same on the Democrat side so nobody wins… This is not about Conservative or Liberal it’s about having someone in office who will fight for our country.

In regards to Iran… What do you propose we shoud do? Of course in your thinking Bush was wrong to invade Iraq… He keeps you awake at night because your phone is tapped… The evidence keepss pouring in that justifies what Bush did, but because you feel some of your Civil Liberties have been violated Bush is BAD… Impeach BUSH… So Fn… Childish… Grow up… You might live longer…

3 Aaron April 28, 2006 at 10:01 pm

I have no time to have intelligent conversation with you, Mike.

4 Mike April 28, 2006 at 10:12 pm

Of course not… You only have time to spout your “My Civil Liberites are being jeopardixed” posts… Impeach the president because he did what was necessary and LEGAL to defend the country and the American people… Sure sounds like something Reid or Kennedy would have to say…

5 Travis Seitler April 28, 2006 at 10:20 pm

“Impeach the president because he did what was necessary and LEGAL to defend the country and the American people…”

Since 1978, it is illegal for the Executive Branch to engage in wiretaps apart from the authorization of the FISA court. Congress did not consent to change this with either the AUMF or the PATRIOT Act, so it’s only “legal” if Bush has declared himself Emperor.

In which case there’s no America left to defend.

6 MarkusQ April 28, 2006 at 11:21 pm

What do you believe Bush should have done with the intelligence he had prior to invading Iraq? The intelligence all of the Democrats had?

Ah, but that’s ignoring the key point, isn’t it?

We now know that the Congress didn’t have access to the same intelligence–that in fact the administration specifically provided them with the portions of the NIE that supported war (and misrepresented those), while actively hiding the fact that the portions they provided were not representative and in fact many had already been conclusively discredited at the time they were given to Congress.

This is called lying, and lying to Congress is a crime. Lying to a Congress controlled by your own party, who would back you on almost anything you could make a cogent case for, in order to divert the nations attention from a clear and present danger (remember Bin Ladden?) and set them on a course that is unnecessary and hideously expensive is close to treason if it can’t be explained away be stunning incompetence.

–MarkusQ

7 Mike April 28, 2006 at 10:24 pm

At time of WAR the President has the legal right to do what is necessary to defend the country… This precedent has been set many times…

8 Aaron April 28, 2006 at 10:29 pm

Give me a break, Mike. There is no legal state of war. You know this. I know this. Stop making shit up. If there was a legal state of war there would be a Congressional declaration of war. It doesn’t matter if there is a war powers act or not when the Constitution provides for one and only one way for there to be a legal state of war.

FURTHERMORE, since when can the President do whatever he wants in time of war? That is not at all the case, nor has it ever been the case. You’re fabricating stuff.

FURTHERMORE PART TWO, Republicans and Democrats both express reservations in that the war powers act did NOT expressly give the President the right or power to do anything that he wanted. It gave him the power to use military force, which is not the same as civilian agency wiretapping on Americans.

You’re brainwashed.

9 Travis Seitler April 28, 2006 at 10:30 pm

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

That’s from a li’l ol’ thing called the Declaration of Independence. It kinda lays out why this country was formed in the first place.

10 Jesse April 28, 2006 at 10:32 pm

except bush isn’t trying to reduce this nation to absolute despotism.

liiiitle bit of a discrepancy there

11 Travis Seitler April 28, 2006 at 10:33 pm

“At time of WAR the President has the legal right to do what is necessary to defend the country…”

Additionally, there has been no Declaration of War since the U.S. entered World War II. AUMF is, by the very fact of its existence, not a Declaration of War. Thus your remark here has nothing to do with this discussion.

12 Aaron April 28, 2006 at 10:34 pm

Jesse:

Yes he is.

Eliminate the need for a Legislature by taking authority that is Constitutionally only theres (war powers).

Eliminate the need for a Judiciary by taking away authority that is only theres (warrants, habeas corpus, etc).

That sure seems like the ascendecy of the Executive branch to me.

13 Travis Seitler April 28, 2006 at 10:42 pm

See guys? The terrorists are winning. Bush is scared, and because of that he’s ripping apart the Constitutional framework that made this country what it is, all in an effort to “end terrorism.” This administration is destroying the very thing it claims (or believes itself) to be protecting.

This adminstration is acting like Samara L. Spann.

14 MarkusQ April 28, 2006 at 11:21 pm

What do you believe Bush should have done with the intelligence he had prior to invading Iraq? The intelligence all of the Democrats had?

Ah, but that’s ignoring the key point, isn’t it?

We now know that the Congress didn’t have access to the same intelligence–that in fact the administration specifically provided them with the portions of the NIE that supported war (and misrepresented those), while actively hiding the fact that the portions they provided were not representative and in fact many had already been conclusively discredited at the time they were given to Congress.

This is called lying, and lying to Congress is a crime. Lying to a Congress controlled by your own party, who would back you on almost anything you could make a cogent case for, in order to divert the nations attention from a clear and present danger (remember Bin Ladden?) and set them on a course that is unnecessary and hideously expensive is close to treason if it can’t be explained away be stunning incompetence.

–MarkusQ

15 Travis Seitler May 1, 2006 at 11:54 am

Glenn Greenwald is keeping track of this stuff. Like me (and, I’m guessing, a few others here) he’s not a Liberal — yet he is concerned and alarmed by Bush’s unconstitutional actions.

16 Travis Seitler May 1, 2006 at 11:54 am

Glenn Greenwald is keeping track of this stuff. Like me (and, I’m guessing, a few others here) he’s not a Liberal — yet he is concerned and alarmed by Bush’s unconstitutional actions.

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