Apply the Constitution – Impeach

By Deanna Spingola

Part 2 of 2
May 8, 2007

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It is incumbent upon the U.S. Congress to uphold their constitutional duties. If not, they are also culpable for the same egregious crimes. After Bush was embedded again in 2004, the Democrats considered impeachment – Conyers followed through. However, in May 2006, Nancy Pelosi, who had served as Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives since the fall of 2002, said that “impeachment was off the table.” So, she can circumvent the constitution, ignore high crimes and misdemeanors and discourage the people from insisting that their representatives follow the rule of law. Pelosi, aware of the outrageous war profiteering, reiterated at a news conference on Wednesday, November 8, 2006 that “impeachment was off the table.” Who is pulling her strings? She also said that “Democrats pledge civility and bipartisanship in the conduct of the work here and we pledge partnerships with Congress and the Republicans in Congress, and the president — not partisanship.” Bush invited her to lunch on Thursday, November 9, 2006.

 

Pelosi was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives on January 4, 2007. [1] Apparently, political cronyism and job placement opportunities do not recognize party lines. In a 2005 speech to the AIPAC, the second largest lobby in Washington, Nancy Pelosi said, “One thing, however is unchanged, America's commitment to the safety and security of the state of Israel is unwavering. America and Israel share an unbreakable bond: in peace and war; and in prosperity and in hardship.” She also said, “The greatest threat to Israel's right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran.” [2] She apparently speaks out of both sides of her mouth all in the same time frame. [3]

 

Now, Americans must speak out. Our senators have made it more difficult for the citizens to contact them to let them know how we feel. Shame on them – they closed down those easy-access email boxes, making it that much harder for our Senators to represent us. [4] If according to the constitution, senators were chosen by their state legislators instead of the people, they might be more responsible! [5]

 

The International Commission of Inquiry on the Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration convened in October 2005 and January 2006 to evaluate testimony. Their indictment is a four page word document and includes:

1. The Bush administration authorized a war of aggression against Iraq.

2. The Bush administration authorized conduct of the war that involved the commission of “war crimes.”

3. The Bush administration authorized the occupation of Iraq involving, and continuing to involve, the commission of “war crimes”, “crimes against humanity” and other illegal acts.

The Bush administration breaks numerous international laws including: The Nuremberg Principles and Geneva Conventions of 1949, Conventions I-IV, August 12, 1949, Additional Protocols I and II to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, opened for signature on December 12, 1977.
[6] Their deliberate use of environmentally toxic depleted uranium weapons, napalm, and white phosphorous against Afghani and Iraqi citizens is egregious. Additionally, the Bush administration authorized the use of torture and abuse in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law and domestic constitutional and statutory law. They sanctioned rendition flights, illegal detention, and the withdrawal of habeas corpus, murder of dissidents and other crimes which constitutes another set of indictments. [7]

 

In addition, an alliance of over 100 non partisan grassroots organizations has vigorously campaigned for impeachment for both Bush and Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors. Thousands upon thousands are calling for impeachment. Books have been written defining the abundant reasons for impeachment. Yet, the press remains silent!

 

Broadcast and the print media should impartially report all of the cryptic details. When it is casually mentioned by pro-war shills, it is attributed to crazy anti-war, anti-American “liberals” who supposedly don’t support the troops and should be impeached themselves for even questioning the war. [8] Harry Reid is accused of “putting the troops in harms way.” How about the fascists that put the troops there to begin with? Unless Americans raise their voices for freedom, all dissent about anything will be criminalized.

 

If and when a Bush or Cheney impeachment is mentioned, details about the reasons are conveniently omitted as if the masses can’t be trusted with too much truth and information. Americans have the predisposition to be great, given our avowed love of freedom; Americans also have the propensity to be tyrannical, given our talents and naïveté. Freedom-loving people want freedom for everyone else so we are easy dupes when our government claims to be spreading democracy. Actually, we are not a democracy, but a republic.

 

Secrecy and politics are closely allied. In the June, 1992 published interview granted by George H. W. Bush to Sarah McClendon, Bush said: “Sarah, if the American people ever find out what the Bushes have done, they would chase us down the streets and lynch us.” The same situation, possibly worse, exists over a decade later – “If Americans truly knew exactly what was going on in their names, they would mass outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, scale the gates, haul these perpetrators out of the White House by their shirt collars, and put them on trial immediately for crimes against humanity.” [9]

 

Impeachment is not a liberal/conservative issue – it is an American issue. According to the constitution, the primary power in the United States is with the people. This power includes the authority to impeach. The Congress is to act as representatives of the people. They have no power in and of themselves, other than what the people have given them or power they have unrighteously, greedily seized. In impeachment, the House impeaches and the Senate convicts and removes.

 

The call for impeachment starts in the House, usually with a resolution that asks the house to create a committee for the investigation of possible misconduct to evaluate the feasibility of impeachment. Typically, articles of impeachment are created by a member, an investigative committee, an independent counsel, a grand jury. If the House votes in the majority, then the issue moves forward within the House. Select Committees are established, staffed and funded by the Rules Committee. Upon completion of the report by the Select Committee, the issue is referred to the Judiciary Committee, now headed by John Conyers, which plays the main role in presidential impeachments. They evaluate, hear testimony, question witnesses, review documents and present their findings to the House. If 51% approve, the impeachment process goes to the Senate.

 

All one hundred Senators function as jurors. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Bush buddy, John Roberts Jr. serves as the judge. Sixty-seven percent (2/3) of the Senate may disqualify an individual from holding a federal office and remove a vice president or president. Further justice would have to take place through a civil or criminal suit. If both Bush and Cheney were removed, the Speaker of the House would succeed them. If Bush, alone, were removed Shotgun Cheney would become president – even scarier! Pelosi, as president, would impact the Democrat’s agenda in 2008. One can certainly see how political cronyism may inhibit the impeachment process.

 

Distracted American citizens, uneducated or forgetful regarding their Constitutional freedoms, are kept deliberately ignorant by the press. The mythical free press should utilize their liberties, according to the First Amendment, to expose the escapades of the Bush administration and its close connections to the military/industrial complex. Instead, the corporate owned media exercises their freedom to print the “news” that benefits their owners, the bankers and the accommodating government.

 

As of March 2007, Congress has approved the colossal amount of about $510 billion for military operations, foreign base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs and veteran’s health care since 9/11. This amount covered three military operations: Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, Operation Noble Eagle for enhanced security and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. [10] Other figures may be even more accurate considering we have as many as 16,000 wounded military who need long term care. [11] 

 

The Kucinich documents state that, as a result of the coalition invasion, 654,965 Iraqi civilians died well above the number that would be expected in a non-conflict situation between March 2003 and July of 2006. This is based on a study by the Johns Hopkins University which appears very reliable. Approximately 601,000 of these deaths are attributed to violent causes. These egregious figures constitute a humanitarian emergency – it is called genocide. [12]

 

Iraq did not attack America! One country cannot bomb another country into democracy, a fallacious excuse. Sure, Hussein was a monster – we should know, the CIA bought and paid for him until he nationalized oil. Cheney and his pentagon propaganda machine focused on Iraq, a 1992 PNAC-planned war, long before 9/11, a “shock and awe,” fear-producing event that functioned as the Reichstag fire of America. If the populace feels frightened or insecure, they are more easily controlled. Fear of the terrorists makes it easier for Bush to use the national Security Agency to spy on our email and letters. A friend, who should know better, remarked that if she “wasn’t doing anything wrong, what difference did it make if the government reads all of my mail and email?” The events of 9/11 apparently stifled our courage, made us forget the Constitution, our history and our power to think independently and envision the terrible probabilities.

 

Clinton, another insider, a globalist player, was impeached for lying about sex. Yet he was never convicted or removed from office. No one died as a result of that particular lie, he didn’t lie us into a lengthy war, condone torture or rendition flights (that we know of). I must give Bush some credit for honesty – he didn’t lie when he was confronted about using the NSA to spy on the citizens and it is actually an impeachable offense. Clinton also did not scrap our constitution by agreeing to consolidate Mexico, the United States and Canada into the North American Community. On April 30, 2007, Bush signed an unconstitutional treaty with the European Union committing the U.S. to a “deeper transatlantic economic integration” now that we are “at the forefront of globalization.” “The Transatlantic Economic Council is hereby established.” Bush failed to inform Congress, let alone obtain ratification. This document was signed by George W. Bush, Angela Merkel, President of the European Council, and José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission. [13] We are speedily approaching the One World Order, a government of elitists and slaves – which category do you think most of us will fall into? 

 

With Clinton, the House voted to impeach. With Bush and Cheney, it is a substantial online grassroots effort. Congress completely ignored Clinton’s numerous covert acts of treason. Okay, so maybe that is the key – Congress really wasn’t looking for serious, treasonous-type, impeachable offenses – they were just positioning political perceptions. His sexual escapades and impeachment proceedings were not lost on the American public who then looked for morality and responsibility in the next presidential election. Almost as if choreographed, the accommodating press and high-priced public relations built the “right” candidates – the other faction of the globalist, treacherous puppets-for-the-bankers bringing us even closer to the New World Order.

 

Naïve voters trusted the candidates, the ballot-eating voting machines, and the duplicitous press and were given the results of the election by the Supreme Court. That was months after 58,000 individuals (mostly Democrats) were disenfranchised by the office of Governor Jeb Bush, along with the assistance of his Secretary of State, accommodating Katherine Harris. All of this went unreported. For the voting public, this was not exactly a legitimate way for the elite-chosen puppet who campaigned on moral values to begin his term of office and solemnly swear an oath to uphold the constitution whose authority he immediately conspired to exceed. “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

 

“Government is set up -- and here's what a Declaration of Independence is about -- government is set up by the people in order to fulfill certain responsibilities: equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. And according to the Declaration of Independence, when the government violates those responsibilities, then, and these are the words of the Declaration of Independence, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government.” [14] Equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not merely for Americans, but for the peoples of other countries. “So, yes, patriotism today requires citizens to be active on many, many different fronts to oppose government policies on the war, government policies that have taken trillions of dollars from this country's treasury and used it for war and militarism. That's what patriotism would require today.” [15]

 

[1] Nancy Pelosi, House of Representatives, Biography, http://www.house.gov/pelosi/biography/bio.html  Accessed May 8, 2007

[2] With Hand on Heart: Pelosi Admits Israel Comes First by Joshua Frank, May 31, 2005, Accessed May 8, 2007,

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jfrank.php?articleid=6157

[3] Nancy Pelosi Blog, November 7, 2006, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-nancy-pelosi/one-hundred-hours_b_33529.html?p=2  Accessed May 8, 2007

[4] E-Mail Boxes of All U.S. Senators are CLOSED, http://fourwinds10.com/NewsServer/ArticleFunctions/ArticleDetails.php?ArticleID=15044  Accessed May 7, 2007

[5] U.S. Constitution: Article I, Section 3, http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/constitution/article01/index.html#1.3  Accessed May 7, 2007

[6] The Bush Commission Indictment, Word Document, http://www.bushcommission.org/Indictments/War%20indictment.doc   Access May 5, 2007

[7] The Bush Commission Indictment, Word Document, http://www.bushcommission.org/Indictments/Torture%20indictment.doc   Access May 5, 2007

[8] Harry Reid Should Resign or Be Impeached! http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/impeachharryreidnm.html  Accessed May 4, 2007

[9] Impeach the President, the Case Against Bush and Cheney edited by Dennis Loo & Peter Phillips, preface. See Dennis Loo Blog, http://dennisloo.blogspot.com/2006/12/most-recent-review-of-impeach-president.html

December 29, 2006, accessed May 4, 2007

[10] The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, PDF file, http://kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/clo3.pdf  Accessed May 7, 2007

[11] Iraq war could cost $2.6 trillion, January 10, 2006 - 1:15PM,  Accessed May 7, 2007

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/iraq-war-could-cost-26-trillion/2006/01/10/1136851198921.html See also the Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/dailyUpdate.html

[12] Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey,

[13] Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration Between the United States of America and the European Union, April 30, 2007, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070430-4.html

Accessed May 8, 2007, Read the entire document!!

[14] Zinn on Patriotism, April 18, 2007, http://www.alternet.org/stories/50654/ Accessed May 4, 2007

[15] Ibid

 

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