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Banned
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I just voted for impeachment, because president Bush, by his actions, convinces me that he is daring the congress to impeach him, or he is suffering from incapacity to perform the duties of his office, or a combination of both.
IMO, your responses are thoughtful and measured, and may be justified if you are correctly interpreting what the impeachment process is, and what the criteria (and precedent) for proceeding with it are, but first, I'm posting timely reporting on a sign of his inconsistency and irrationality:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...901872_pf.html
With Iraq Speech, Bush to Pull Away From His Generals
By Michael Abramowitz, Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 10, 2007; A01
When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.
Bush talks frequently of his disdain for micromanaging the war effort and for second-guessing his commanders. "It's important to trust the judgment of the military when they're making military plans," he told The Washington Post in an interview last month. "I'm a strict adherer to the command structure."......
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IMO impeachment is the only available tool to subject the president to a competency hearing, and I think his behavior and the official decisions that are a fruit of it, warrant such a hearing. For some Americans, the consequences of not examining the president's competency ASAP include the immediate jeopardy of life or limb, depending on what the president, acting as their CIC, decides to order them to do, next. For the rest of us, the security and viability of the country's currency, environment, military readiness, and the integrity of the constitutionally guaranteed Bill of Rights, are at stake.
Here is some support, from the founding fathers, from historical precedent, and from members of the president's own party, for justifying impeachment:
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...879270,00.html
The Proper Grounds for Impeachment
Monday, Feb. 25, 1974
IMPEACHMENT. Rarely has a word stirred such passions or borne such grave implications for the future governance of the U.S. And rarely has a word been given such a latitude of meaning. On the broad side, there is the interpretation offered in 1970 (and since qualified) by Vice President Gerald Ford when he was the leader among 110 Congressmen trying to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas: "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." On the narrow side, there is the argument that a President can be impeached and removed only for an indictable criminal offense.
These are the poles, but if an impeachment is to have any validity, it must surely be based on a middle ground between them. This week the lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee are scheduled to issue their opinion on what offenses are impeachable. Precisely how the report is phrased may have a great deal to do with whether the House votes to impeach President Nixon. And though the point may be heatedly debated, if history and precedent are to be the guides, it is unlikely that the Judiciary Committee's lawyers will find that the President can be impeached only for clear-cut criminal offenses. Most authorities now agree that impeachment is basically a political process, though one still closely responsive to legal precedents.
The founding fathers thought impeachment to be a "heroic medicine, an extreme remedy," as Lord Bryce later called it. They were not looking for a weapon to punish small transgressions. But what should be done if, as Benjamin Franklin asked during the Constitutional Convention, a President "rendered himself obnoxious"? To Alexander Hamilton, the most persuasive apostle of a strong Chief Executive, impeachment was the answer—the ultimate device for checking power in a democracy. In Hamilton's words, it was "a method of National Inquest into the conduct of public men," to be conducted by "the inquisitors for the nation" in Congress.
Treason and bribery, it was readily agreed during the debate on the Constitution, would be obvious grounds for impeaching a President. What else? "Abusing his power," Edmund Randolph of Virginia suggested. James Madison favored protection against "incapacity, negligence or perfidy in the chief magistrate." But when George Mason proposed adding "maladministration" to treason and bribery, Madison thought the word "so vague as to be equivalent to a tenure during the pleasure of the Senate." Borrowing a catchall phrase from English usage, Mason thereupon substituted "high crimes and misdemeanors." Without debate, this curious phrase, which has bedeviled political discourse ever since, became part of the Constitution......
.....(2 of 5)
The phrase may be vague, but it is not meaningless and has a long history behind it. The English Parliament, struggling through the centuries against arbitrary Kings (who were, of course, immune from impeachment), used the charge to get at unsatisfactory advisers for offenses both criminal and noncriminal; significantly, the phrase high crimes and misdemeanors does not derive from normal English criminal law. Thus, Parliament impeached various magistrates for misleading their Sovereign, a Lord Chancellor for putting the seal of trust to an ignominious treaty, an admiral for neglecting the safeguard of the sea, and others for appointing bad men to office, taking bribes, purchasing jobs, subverting the fundamental laws, delaying justice. When the Americans adopted the impeachment process, they made it plain that impeachment was designed to cleanse an office, and not to impose punishment. Impeachment, wrote Justice Joseph Story in a famous commentary, is "a proceeding purely of a political nature. It is not so much designed to punish an offender as to secure the state against gross official misdemeanors." Charles Evans Hughes, writing in 1928, agreed that "according to the weight of opinion, impeachable offenses include, not merely acts that are indictable, but serious misbehavior." The Association of the Bar of the City of New York, in a cogent committee study issued last month, is the latest to conclude that "acts that undermine the integrity of government are appropriate grounds whether or not they happen to constitute offenses under the general criminal law." .....
.....Former Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, in a variation on the Ford formulation, once cynically defined the politics of impeachment: "You don't need facts. You don't need evidence. All you need is votes." Nixon must hope that Congress will not take the advice of his former chief legal officer.....
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If the points in the preceding article are still relevant, I believe that Mr. Bush is not just daring congress to impeach him, by his actions, he is begging for it to happen......
<b>It is a mistake to believe that the senate must ratify the SSI agreement with Mexico. If the congress does not specifically move to rescind president Bush's approval, the agreement goes into effect. The SSI's own estimate shows that it would save Americans working in Mexico, $30 million per year, and cost SSI $105 million per year !</b>
Quote:
http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/facts...SandMexico.htm
UNITED STATES/MEXICO TOTALIZATION AGREEMENT
June 2004
......An agreement with Mexico
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An agreement with Mexico would save U.S. workers and their employers about $140 million in Mexican social security and health insurance taxes over the first 5 years of the agreement.
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An agreement would also fill the gaps in benefit protection for U.S. workers who have worked in both countries, but not long enough in one or both countries to qualify for benefits.....
.....Costs of an agreement with Mexico
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Social Security actuaries estimate that a totalization agreement with Mexico would have a negligible long-range effect on the Trust Funds.
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Costs to the U.S. Social Security system are estimated to average about $105 million per year over the first five years. These costs are for additional benefits to eligible U.S. and Mexican workers and reduced Social Security tax contributions under the dual taxation exemption.
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To put this in perspective, in 2002, costs to the U.S. system for the existing agreement with Canada were about $197 million.
Effective date of an agreement with Mexico
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In the United States, once the agreement is signed, the President will submit the agreement to Congress where it must sit in review for 60 session days. If Congress takes no action during this time, the agreement can move forward....
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In 1999, the reported population of Kosovo was between 1.9 and 2.4 million. the US sent a force of 40,000 troops there to restore and maintain security. To be equally effective, the equivalent number of troops needed in Iraq to deal with a more challenging insurgency would be over 400,000.....
Quote:
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...005/46471.htm+
population+of+kosovo+40,000+us+troops&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3
Kosovo: Current and Future Status
R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs
Statement before the House Committee on International Relations
Washington, DC
May 18, 2005
....The UN and NATO remain committed to the tasks we assumed in 1999, under UN Security Council Resolution 1244. Today, the very able and effective Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) Soren Jessen-Petersen of Denmark leads the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). An equally able retired American Foreign Service Officer, Ambassador Larry Rossin, assists as his principal deputy. The troops of NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) have drawn down over time as the security situation has improved. From a peak of 40,000 troops in late 1999, today KFOR has around 18,000 troops on the ground, from 34 countries, who ensure a safe and secure environment for all of Kosovo’s ethnic groups. From an original deployment of nearly 15,000
U.S. troops, today roughly 1800 Americans serve as an essential part of KFOR. President Bush has made clear that having gone in to Kosovo with our Allies, we will stay there with them until the job is done. We seek, of course, to hasten the day when peace is self-sustaining and our troops can come home.......
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www.rep.org is a republican grassroots environmental protection and conservation organization, check out their website and their report on environmental issues voting scores assigned to republican members of congress.
Quote:
http://www.rep.org/opinions/pressrel...ase1-9-07.html
Bristol Bay Drilling Endangers World-Class Fishery
January 9, 2007
Contacts: Jim DiPeso, (253) 740-2066; David Jenkins, (703) 785-9570
Anyone who values fine seafood, fiscal responsibility, and a rational energy policy should be alarmed at the administration's lifting of an oil and gas drilling prohibition in Alaska's Bristol Bay, <b>Republicans for Environmental Protection, a national grassroots organization that includes elected officials as members, said today.</b>
The administration's action, which lifted a presidential drilling moratorium that was not scheduled to expire until 2012, clears the way for including Bristol Bay leasing in the Interior Department's offshore oil and gas program that will be released this spring.
"Every American who enjoys high quality seafood ought to be outraged at this latest oil and gas industry giveaway," said REP Government Affairs Director David Jenkins. "If I were the owner of a seafood restaurant I would be very nervous right now."
Bristol Bay is one of the world's most productive marine ecosystems. Its clean, cold waters produce some of the highest quality, wild-caught seafood in the world - sockeye and Chinook salmon, king crab, cod and halibut - which support the local fishing economy and supply grocery stores and fine dining establishments across the nation.
"To put all of that natural bounty and economic activity at risk is not only reckless, it defies logic," Jenkins said.
Opening Bristol Bay to oil and gas drilling would amount to throwing away the $95 million that the federal government spent to buy back leases that had been issued in the late 1980s.
Opening Bristol Bay to drilling raises doubts about the administration's stated commitment to ending the nation's oil addiction.
"It strains credulity for the administration to talk about ending America's oil addiction and then endanger one of America's richest fishing grounds for 10 days worth of oil and three months worth of gas," REP Policy Director Jim DiPeso said.
REP called for swift bipartisan action in Congress to protect Bristol Bay and its abundant bounty by reinstating a congressional oil and gas drilling moratorium that expired in 2003.
True energy security for America will be found through greater fuel efficiency and diversifying the nation's energy choices, not in the pristine waters of Bristol Bay, DiPeso said.
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The situation is not as simple as Mr. Bush rescinding restrictions put in place by former president Clinton. The "door" was opened by the influence of lobbyists on the 2003 republican majority in congress. President Bush is making the unsound financial and environmental decision, to support the 2003 effect on congress of a campaign waged by oil and gas industry lobbyists.
Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/wa...rssnyt&emc=rss
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: December 4, 2006
....Last summer the Interior Department recommended reopening several areas of the outer continental shelf, including the southern part of Bristol Bay, which lies just north of where the Aleutian Islands meet the Alaskan mainland, to energy exploration. ,<b>The report said that 14 oil and gas companies had supported the idea.</b> The department has estimated that such a move could create up to 11,500 jobs, part of what it describes as “net benefits” of $7.7 billion.
In a letter to President Bush on Friday, a coalition of environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, citing the impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, called the bay “an economically critical salmon fishery,” adding that “it provides essential habitat for the endangered northern right whale.”......
......When Congress, acting at the urging of Alaska’s senior senator, Ted Stevens, a Republican, rescinded its protections for Bristol Bay in 2003, the area remained protected by earlier presidential decisions, first by President George Bush in 1991 and then, in 1998, by President Bill Clinton, who put the area off-limits to energy leasing until 2012.
There has been widespread speculation among environmental groups and fishing industry representatives that President Bush would end the moratorium during the lame-duck session of Congress, allowing the Interior Department to proceed with its plans to market oil and gas leases in the southern section of the bay, along the north coast of the Aleutian Islands.
The Associated Press reported over the weekend that the administration was considering ending the moratorium, a report that was confirmed by a White House spokeswoman, Emily Lawrimore. She would not comment on the merits of the debate but said the president was considering whether to end the leasing moratorium........
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....update ! This just in:
Quote:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa...ews+%2F+Nation
Details of Bush's new Iraq strategy
By The Associated Press | January 10, 2007
<b>Details of President Bush's new strategy for Iraq, as outlined by White House officials on Wednesday:</b>
U.S. TROOP INCREASE
-- Bush will commit 17,500 additional U.S. combat troops, the equivalent of five combat brigades, to Baghdad. The first brigade is to arrive Jan. 15; the next on Feb. 15; the remainder in separate waves every 30 days.
-- Bush will commit 4,000 more Marines, in two waves, to Anbar, a province that is a base of the mostly Sunni insurgency and foreign al-Qaida fighters.
-- The president's upcoming supplemental budget request will include $5.6 billion to pay for his new commitment of troops.
-- Expand embedding of U.S. advisers into Iraqi security forces....
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Last edited by host; 01-10-2007 at 11:47 AM..
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