Congress Must Debate The Implications Of A Bush Self-Pardon
Many people have been asking us, "Could Bush actually pardon himself?". Would it be despicable? Sure it would. Would it be shameless and cowardly? Yes, that and that too. But all those adjectives fit Bush like O.J.'s glove before it shrunk from being soaked completely in blood. Which means he is absolutely is planning on doing it. And only impeachment could stop it. We need to talk about this. We need Congress to talk about this. And Congress is in session this week, so we need you to speak out this week while there is still time. Tens of thousands of you submitted the action page on this last week. Do it again. Please speak out again while we still can.
There is already a drum beat in the right wing media calling on Bush to pardon his whole administration. Only our voices can raise the price of such action so that there would be real consequences. We have not given up, and will never give up hope on justice. We will be taking delivery of another huge shipment of the "Impeach Both!!!" caps that are still so popular. But this might be the last batch. So if you want to demonstrate your support for impeachment, please request yours now from the return page of the action page submission.Impeach Now Action Page:
Will Congress now act? That is not the yardstick of the worth of our activism. We speak out because we must speak out, whether we are heeded or not. Let history record that we spoke out until the last minute to the eternal shame of those who did not. Because when enough of us speak out at once, the worst thing that can possibly happen is that we are building the progressive base for the REAL change of the future. So Bush most certainly is planning on pardoning himself. And all the right wing lock down ideologues in the corporate controlled media will call it "healing". Let's all make nice with war criminals? Shall we all make nice with the gang rape of our economy, our environment and our Constitution? We think not. And one more thing. You know that come January 20th the right wing will start calling for the impeachment of our new president, over a endless litany of the most ridiculous of trivial trifles. In fact it has already started even though he has not even taken office. If they are so hot on impeaching someone, let them speak out now, when it truly is called for, or shut the hell up in 65 days.
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Comments: 20
You stated "And only impeachment could stop it." Are you talking about trying to impeach someone, I'm not sure who, before the end of the Bush administration? Does this even sound reasonable to you? Bush is not going to pardon himself or his administration. And he is not going to be impeached in the limited time left. If someone wants to indict and prosecute him after he leaves office, so be it, I'll wish them luck as they'll need it.
Just like previous administrations, this one will fade into history and that will be that, a bad memory. While the desire for retribution is quite understandable, it is not going to happen, in my humble opinion.
Besides, remember that Bush being impeached, would not preclude civil sanctions taken against him for any crimes that he might provably have committed which in office. Of course, that is limited by standing to prosecute, jurisdiction of crimes committed and several other factors in trying to prosecute a man for the way he did his job, good or bad.
The only one in Washington that has tried to bring these criminals to justice is Kucinich and he has been blocked by Pelosi all the way including when she promised Bush a positive vote for his pork bailout before the legislation even reached the house. But do not forget all financing bills are supposed to be started in the house and sent to the senate by constitutional law and the pork bailout war drawn up in the senate.
As long as political crime lords continue to go unpunished in America thing will just get worse and it will hasten our demise that much sooner. Nothing like leaving your future generations a burnt out country because their families wanted to look the other way.
Peace,
libramoon
Bush is guilty of insurrection against the constitution and American public.
You think your support for the chimp and his boss Cheney is going to get you some kind of reward?
To bad we didn't have another Clinton to be where Bush is now at least he didn't bleed the country dry and even left a surplus of money that Bush give away the first day he was placed into the White House.
I understand your feelings as I share most of them but I have a hard time understanding just what "crimes", by legal standards, he is guilty of violating. How does one "commit insurrection the constitution" as I don't comprehend what you mean by that or what specific law was broken.
I know how a lot of people feel but is this much different than those who are now condemning and calling for impeachment of Obama before he has even been sworn in? Radical extremism will not come to fruition. Bush will retire and fade into the sunset along with the others in his administration and history will be the sole judge of his administration.
When America allows Bush and his gang to walk away after finally stealing our entire economy and mudrering so many innocent people the world will know again we an all talk and no show country that does not know the meaning or value of justice or moral values of any kind.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors is a term that comes from Old English Law, and is commonly understood by Constitutional scholars as actions that do injury to the state. It's a broad term, but in practicality the President is sworn to protect the law and the Constitution.
Bush has violated the law (1996 War Crimes Act) in his 2002 Torture Memo. He also violated FISA law and lied to the public about the violation while it was going on. His only defense for this FISA violation was that he was authorized by the Authorization of Use of Military Force Resolution, and the Constitution. Neither he nor A. Gonzales was able to give specifics of how those documents authorized spying on American citizens which is prohibited by the Constitution. I'd be fascinated if anyone could quote from either of those documents any line that comes remotely close to granting this authorization.
These event alone are compatible with issues that previous impeachment panels worked on, specifically the Nixon Impeachment Panel, before he resigned. Surely they represent a more grave threat to the integrity of the Constitution and "rule of law" than the Clinton version of "what is is."
If it was the last day of the Bush administration the time would be right to establish an impeachment panel. If nothing else it demonstrates that we the people will not allow our supposed democratic republic to be turned into a monarchy in such illegal and compromising fashion.
We will never have a good economy or even a bad one as long as we continue to support corporate socialist bailouts like communist countries do and we can never have an economy as long as we do not have any jobs. "We the people" can't get it through their heads that as long as they support communist slave labor so they can buy cheap junk at Wal-Mart they are defeating their own economy.
Shameful!!!!!!!!!!!!
\\\\support corporate socialist bailouts like communist countries do////
You may not have noticed that communist countries don't do bail outs. The state owns all the means of production. Our "bail outs" are intended to try and preserve as much as possible, the capitalistic system we have. Of course, the big money folks with the insurance and banking industries have already received their bail out.. Now it's just a matter of trying to keep the auto industry, which actually produces a product, from sharing in that bit of government largess!
Perhaps you are correct and the constitution doesn't mean what it says. But to millions of Americans the word "crimes" is a little hard to misinterpret. However, if you are correct and that the constitution is kidding, then that would only be applicable to the impeachment process and prosecution for actual, real crimes could be processed after Bush leaves office.
I'm not much interested is "sending messages" and simiilar matters. If we cannot successfully prosecute an impeachment, then we have no business implementing one. It's a waste of my tax dollars. And with the slight majority the Democrats have in congress, the chance of successful prosecution of an impeachment trial is somewhere between slim and none!
We, the taxpayers and citizens, made a huge mistake and elected Bush, not once, but twice! The p;rice of that bad judgment is living with the fact t hat Bush and all are going to simply fade away and that prosecution is not a reasonable and doable course of action.
I can assure you that I had no part in electing Bush either time. I knew he was probably going to be a disaster when he was sort of elected the first time. He turned out to be even worse than I had anticipated. But we have many needs that must be dealt with in this nation and conducting a Ken Starr muck raking effort to make ourselves feel better about the mistake we made is counter productive to good government. This would be a very divisive effort and tend to polarize the congress even worse than it already is.
If I thought there were a chance in hell that it could be successfully done, I'd be supportive of doing it. And all the claims about the message we send, etc. are irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. If it doesn't succeed, the only message would be that getting away with it is not that hard. Let's live in the world of reality and try for tomorrow to do better than we did yesterday, rather than try to re-do yesterday when it cannot be done!
Statements like they need to impanel an impeachment committee, etc. are not realistic and serve only to make someone feel slightly vindicated. In real life, if it won't fly don't board it!
You think Bush and his gang will just fade away? Bid the Bush family fade away after supporting the Hitler war machine? dis Bush fade away after his involvement with Enron and his friend Ken Lay?
Do these crime lords ever just fade away? They never go away because their are to many people that think tomorrow will bring some kind of enlightenment if we just forget the daily actions of the political criminals that infect our government. Kucinich thought he had good cause for impeachment and tried to carry it out and why do you think Pelosi kept blocking him? Why do you think Pelosi called Bush and promised him a yes vote on the pork bailout before the bill even got to the house? Supporting criminals like Bush and his gang is not the way to carry on a good government for the people.
It's shameful how the Congress (both parties) gave Bush a pass. With the precedents he set, future presidents have their way clear to not only spy on Americans, but they can spy on their political adversaries or opposing campaigns or whomever disagrees with them. They can torture who they want by labeling anyone, American citizen or not, a terrorist and hold that person indefinitely without saying why. No need for future presidents to abide by the Constitution they are sworn to uphold, this one didn't and he didn't get impeached. Basically giving Bush a pass on impeachment establishes the groundwork for most any kind of tyranny you can imagine. The founders are spinning wildly, six feet under.