Kucinich introduces articles of impeachment

[Betsy]

Last night, on the House floor, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) presented 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush to Congress. “The first article Kucinich presented regarded the war in Iraq. ‘Article 1: Creating a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false case for war against Iraq.’”

See a video of his presentation here: http://thinkprogress.org/
(scroll down)

[LaWood]

House Approves Sending Impeachment Bill to Judiciary

By a bipartisan vote of 251-166, the full House of Representatives sent Dennis Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment to the Judiciary Committee.
That means Chairman John Conyers now has the power to decide whether to hold impeachment hearings - or not.
Incredibly, 24 Republicans voted with 227 Democrats; the 166 no votes came exclusively from Republicans.
So what will Conyers do? After the Downing Street Memo was published on May 1, 2005, Democrats.com worked closely with Conyers to hold the famous basement hearings featuring Cindy Sheehan, Ray McGovern, and John Bonifaz. In August 2006, Conyers published all of the evidence of Bush's crimes in The Constitution in Crisis. Many of us believed he would begin impeachment proceedings if Democrats won the House, which they did that November.

http://www.democrats.com/house-sends-im ... hn-conyers

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I still think this is a sucker play. (Not that this entire administration doesn't deserve impeachment and removal from office - they do, big time.) We can't remove them from office, even if we get impeachment passed in the House. That means we can't stop them from anything they want to do, including attack Iran. Meanwhile, if we actually DO go forward with impeachment of W, he can just resign like Nixon did and the Cheney will pardon him - and then attack Iran.

[Doug]

Meanwhile, if we actually DO go forward with impeachment of W, he can just resign like Nixon did and the Cheney will pardon him - and then attack Iran.

DOUG
That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. If this doesn't deserve impeachment, what does? A blowjob?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I really want these guys "tried and fried" - and unfortunately, they have 2 outs if we impeach 1) Senate acquittal and 2) resign-pardon. The legal tool that should be able to stop them in their tracks, get them out of office, and handed over to the court system for said trying and frying won't work here. In fact, it's counter productive here. Our Founders didn't have much faith in people, but they had enough faith in enlightened self-interest to create the system they did. Lock-step neofascists voting against their own interest as well as the interests of the people they were supposed to represent may be something you just can't guard against. At any rate, nothing the Founders did managed to guard against it.

[Betsy]

I would like to see them all brought up on criminal charges and thrown in a dungeon somewhere in the next few years. And I don't think that's too far out of the realm of possibilities.

[Doug]

I would like to see them all brought up on criminal charges and thrown in a dungeon somewhere in the next few years. And I don't think that's too far out of the realm of possibilities.

Kucinich is doing his best, but he has few people on the Hill supporting him.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Doug you're not getting the point. Impeachment isn't going to bring them up on criminal charges and throw them in a dungeon somewhere for the rest of their natural or unnatural lives - the best it can do is gather evidence, the worst (and most probable) outcome is guaranteeing they get off scot free. Under impeachment the House can pull together an investigation, but that's pretty much it. So they investigate and find what we already know - that these guys are a bunch of criminal thugs who've wasted American lives and American money to enrich themselves and their cronies - the House then votes on the charges (articles of impeachment) and if a majority votes yes - then it goes to the Senate for trial. With Justice Roberts presiding. And requiring agreement of 2/3s of "the members present" to convict and remove from office, which is the ONLY thing they can do - real trial with jailtime type decisions upon conviction have to wait until they are out of office and can only happen if meanwhile (like just as soon as the articles of impeachment are drawn up) W hasn't resigned and Cheney pardon him for whatever crimes he might or might not have committed.

[Doug]

Doug you're not getting the point. Impeachment isn't going to bring them up on criminal charges and throw them in a dungeon somewhere for the rest of their natural or unnatural lives - the best it can do is gather evidence, the worst (and most probable) outcome is guaranteeing they get off scot free. Under impeachment the House can pull together an investigation, but that's pretty much it. So they investigate and find what we already know - that these guys are a bunch of criminal thugs who've wasted American lives and American money to enrich themselves and their cronies - the House then votes on the charges (articles of impeachment) and if a majority votes yes - then it goes to the Senate for trial. With Justice Roberts presiding. And requiring agreement of 2/3s of "the members present" to convict and remove from office, which is the ONLY thing they can do - real trial with jailtime type decisions upon conviction have to wait until they are out of office and can only happen if meanwhile (like just as soon as the articles of impeachment are drawn up) W hasn't resigned and Cheney pardon him for whatever crimes he might or might not have committed.

DOUG
They can be put on trial and they can go to jail. So why is that a futile effort? We should at least make the attempt.

Anyone read Vincent Bugliosi's book on charging GW for murder?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Not if they use impeachment as an excuse to resign-and-pardon. Impeachment does nothing about trying and jailing. Impeachment in the House can't even remove them from office so they CAN be tried and jailed. (The office protects them while they're in - impeachment in the House says there's reason to remove from office so they can be tried, but only the trial in the Senate can actually remove them - and neither puts them in a civil or criminal court to answer for their crimes.) If we wait until they are out of office and then hit them with indictments, it's too late for the pardons - they're out of office and no longer have the authority.

[Doug]

Not if they use impeachment as an excuse to resign-and-pardon. Impeachment does nothing about trying and jailing. Impeachment in the House can't even remove them from office so they CAN be tried and jailed. (The office protects them while they're in - impeachment in the House says there's reason to remove from office so they can be tried, but only the trial in the Senate can actually remove them - and neither puts them in a civil or criminal court to answer for their crimes.) If we wait until they are out of office and then hit them with indictments, it's too late for the pardons - they're out of office and no longer have the authority.

DOUG
Impeachment is the start of the process.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Impeachment is the start of the process to remove from office for cause. It is not the start of the process to indict, try, and imprison if convicted. That process only starts once they are out of office, it's true, but if the situation warrants, you can just wait until they are out of office via election or term limits. Since they have the Nixon example of what to do should impeachment proceedings be started, I'd rather wait.