http://www.perjury.us

“homed in”

Not “honed in.”

Thanks, 95 @ 115 for your sage and measured thoughts on not getting ahead of ourselves. In San Francisco, we had a local ballot measure last November asking us to vote on a “Declaration of Policy that would call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney for violating the public trust and for knowingly harming the United States of America, California, and San Francisco.”

Much as I loathe the current administration, I voted against this proposition because it struck me as ineffective sense of the city grandstanding backed by no authority to enact change. John Dean has some thoughts on the subject, too.

While we wait for the Libby jury verdict, in the hope that our legal system is still, in some part, functioning, we contemplate a completely lawless regime in OUR White House, committing gross crimes against the American people, and others around the world, every day that goes by. The ONLY “check and balance” against this lawless junta is impeachment. We don’t have a presidential recall capability. We don’t even have the ability to recount the votes by which they were supposedly “re-elected” in 2004, because most of that so-called vote occurred on paperless touchscreen voting machines, and central tabulators, run on ‘TRADE SECRET,’ PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations, and we have a Congress that also remains seriously compromised by non-transparent elections.

I think you made a mistake by voting against the city impeachment resolution. Impeachment is both a political and legal proceeding, involving not just crimes, such as those that would be prosecuted in a court of law, but also gross malfeasance. It is the ONLY “check and balance” against federal executive tyranny, especially in the absence of transparent elections. A city impeachment vote would help build momentum for the state legislature to do its duty, in this case, of submitting a bill of impeachment to the U.S. House. And it would help build momentum around the country, for other state legislatures to act. Opinion polls now show a majority in favor of impeachment, a huge majority who want the Iraq War ended (74%), a whopping majority opposed to any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast War (84%), and more than 70% disapproval of the Bush regime. (And if you look at opinion polls over the last several years, you find 60% to 70% disapproval of every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic.)

City and town resolutions, and county resolutions, and resolutons by all manner of civic and political groups, to impeach and remove this regime, are highly appropriate in this situation, because they reflect the will of THE PEOPLE, who want an end to this war, who want peace, and who want good, progressive, honest, functioning government.

What is wrong with expressing that? No, a city cannot implement impeachment, but what is wrong with the people expressing their utter contempt for this regime, by calling for impeachment, by building momentum for impeachment, by trying to MOVE this toxic cesspool of “military-industrial” corruption in Washington DC, to cleanse itself and start being a democracy again?

Here we sit, desperately hoping that the truth will prevail in one trial of these criminals, and that, somehow, if this one cog in our justice system starts turning, somehow our democracy will be saved.

“Madness, madness, madness!” indeed. But it should not be up to Patrick Fitzgerald and his team to set it all right. WE have to do our part, in whatever venues are still open to us, to insure that the will of the people is done. It is NOT being done now. We are still at war. Bush and Cheney are still sending U.S. soldiers to die in Iraq. And they are planning a SECOND war. We are bankrupt. They’ve stolen us into a $10 TRILLION deficit. And meanwhile, the planet is dying! We don’t have two years to waste on the multiple crises we are facing. They need to be removed NOW. Why shouldn’t the people express this, in a city vote–to push state legislatures, grand juries and Congress to act?

I don’t get it. I really don’t. Why would you be against such an expression of the peoples’ opinion, and the use of public pressure for change? You say “backed by no authority.” What about the authority of the American people–the ONLY sovereign in this land?

I went out this morning to scatter some cracked corn for the dove and pick some flowers for my kitchen table, and I noticed at least five buzzards circling over the hills behind my house. By the time I came inside, they had moved to the skies over the field across the road. They’re hunting…

Perhaps they’ll make their way to DC by this afternoon?

shut up about that dove and the cracked corn and the spring flowers, willya? up here in the frozen north we’re walking on the same snow that fell in early december and we drool over seed catalogues, knowing nothing will come up till mid-june. so stop gloating and pay attention to the beginnings of the fall of the rovan empire…;-)

OT- Just heard on the local L.A. news that Bush is making a speech today in which he will announce “small, subtle signs that the Iraq troop surge is working.” Don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait…

I’d say that was lousy timing, given the nine US troops killed by roadside bombs today.

The unreality-based administration won’t give that a second thought. Onward!

Much as I loathe the current administration, I voted against this proposition because it struck me as ineffective sense of the city grandstanding backed by no authority to enact change. John Dean has some thoughts on the subject, too.

bg @ 82

Thomas Jefferson made a point that a state legislature can ask for impeachment. I can find the info, but it is there. Several state legislatures are doing this now, but perhaps NM is the farthest along in it.

Any state legislature has to pass it through both houses, and then the national congress has to hold a hearing or something similar on the merits.

The private musings of Mr. Jefferson are not considered constitutionally binding. There’s no reason that Congress would have to take up this ill-advised resolution, even if it were to pass. Why doesn’t the New Mexico state legislature devote its obviously-considerable energies to a more productive endeavour, like investigating the deplorable condition of veterans’ care in the state, or the burgeoning scandal surrounding the dismissal of its (former) US Attorney?

If there’s anything that we should have learned from Fitz, it’s this – never go to trial until you’ve got your ducks lined up in a row. He spent two years carefully, laboriously, painstakingly assembling an ironclad indictment, and I suspect within a few hours we’ll see that pay off. To impeach is to indict – and I have yet to see an assemblage of evidence capable of convincing the requisite number of senators to remove the president from office. In the absence of such evidence, an impeachment would simply serve to polarize the country, paralyze the government, and most regrettably of all, rally the public to the president’s defense. (Recall, if you will, the effect of impeaching and trying Clinton on his previously-flagging approval ratings.)

So let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. For the moment, the best thing we can do is to support Henry Waxman and the other tenacious investigators in Congress, and to stoke the public outrage that is fueling the rapidly-growing number of investigations. If this administration is as rotten as many of us believe, the evidence of that rot will certainly be forthcoming. Impeachment ought properly to be the capstone of that process, coming at a moment when most Americans favor the removal of the president from office for committing high crimes and misdemeanours. We’re a long way from that day yet.

Jefferson’s Rules are the official rules of Congress–I believe re-voted on every session. They are NOT “the private musings of Mr. Jefferson.”

As for your advice, “never go to trial until you’ve got your ducks lined up in a row,” impeachment is not a trial. It is first of all an investigation. And it never really is a court trial. It is a political/legal proceeding, by its very nature. The consequence is NOT jail–deprivation of the accused’s liberty–but rather removal from office. Different (lesser) level of “proof.”

In any case, do you have any “reasonable doubt” that Bush and Cheney are criminals? They’ve ordered torture, and massive domestic spying, in direct violation of laws. They’ve used “signing statements” to unwrite the laws of Congress. They’ve funnelled billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to the VP’s own company (which is paying him $100,000 to a million a year “retirement,’ tied to Halliburton “profits”). They’ve slaughtered over a hundred thousand people in a war based on a 100% pack of lies. They outed a covert CIA agent and an entire network of deep cover WMD counter-proliferation agents/contacts around the world, putting their lives in acute danger. Need I go on?

Submitting a bill of impeachment to the U.S. House–whether done by a state legislature (or several of them), or by a grand jury, BEGINS a process. It is obviously not the full case, laid out for an impeachment vote.

What is your problem with this–whatever the fate of such a state or grand jury action? Do the states not have a right to say something about this, in your opinion? Are the states, and their citizens and their governments, not affected by the Bush Junta’s lawless, thieving fascist rule? The Rules of Congress, written by Thomas Jefferson, say that they DO have that right, and I’m sure that Jefferson’s thinking was, if you have an out-of-control executive, and a hampered, compromised Congress, the states will act in the interest of their citizens and of the American people as a whole, to try to force Congress to do something about it. It’s the ultimate “check and balance.” The people and their state governments.

looseheadprop @
38

However, a couple things to remember. They don’t have the trial transcripts in there

Are you serious? Is that normal? I would think a transcript of the entire trial (well, the portions held with the jury in the courtroom) would be the FIRST thing provided to a jury.
They’re supposed to grok all this detailed testimony with just their memory and whatever notes they managed to scribble while trying to listen? I find that amazing. Might as well blindfold them and bleep out every third word of testimony and expect a rational decision.

I’m kinda with chaboard here. I mean I thought that is why there was such a big deal about “striking” testimony from the record, so the jury wouldn’t have it before them in deliberations if it was improper. You can’t really strike anything from someone’s memory, indeed trying to do so may just implant it better.