ELECTION NIGHT

[Betsy]

What, no election night watch blog going on?

The Dems are doing pretty well!! Can I get a whoop, whoop??!!!

[RickBaber]

In the immortal words of that doofus Howard Dean,
"YYYEEEEEEEHHAAAAWWWWWW!!!!!"

Woooped 'em, and whooped 'em good!
Tired of those fucking "W The President" window stickers?
"ASA!"

Check out some we've created. I'd post 'em here, but I don't know how to post pictures. Doug, anybody, if you want to, please feel free:

See them at http://www.digitalarts1.com

WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!

[Dardedar]

What a wonderful night! Finally some sanity in this country. And at 12:55 am it looks like they are going to get the senate too!

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Here are the stickers Baber has created:


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[Dardedar]

Say goodbye to these clowns:




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[WindFem3]

In the immortal words of that doofus Howard Dean,
"YYYEEEEEEEHHAAAAWWWWWW!!!!!"

And in the parlance of one of our least favorite right-wingers, I ditto(head) that remark!

Neither James or I realized how wound up we were about this election cycle until we found ourselves still awake at 0200 this morning watching the returns - knowing full well that we both have busy Wednesdays ahead of us.

We're very happy about how most things have turned out, although we're kind of puzzled by the lack of resolution concerning the stem-cell research initiative up here in Missouri. All the other initiatives have been counted and called, but the stem-cell thing is very close and there are still precincts that haven't reported in. Very odd. I'll bet that somewhere in BF Nowhere MO this scenario is playing out: "Hey, Jim-Bob! Marty! Come on, ya'll - we need ya ta get down here and vote again!"

Still, all in all - everything is looking good. Let's hope this ushers in a new era in Washington.

Start packing your bags, Georgie-Boy . . .

[WindFem3]

Say goodbye to these clowns:

Poor, poor GOP: they've been "Santorumed."

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

My shoulder and neck muscles have unknotted and my stomach is calm for the first time in weeks. Just in case there is a god, I'm giving thanks. Once I recover from the election, however, it's back to the trenches - these guys will only make the changes we want (#1 ethics reform, #2 repeal all unconstitutional legislation starting with the Military Commissions Act, also known as the torture bill - and go on from there) if we keep their feet to the fire.

I know I'm going to sound nuts, but I'm with Pelosi - no impeachment. I don't want these 2 years tied up in a media circus while nothing we really need gets done - especially since we don't have the 66 Senators it would take to remove him from office. We impeach, he's acquitted in the Senate, and takes that as a "mandate" to do even more evil crap while he can. (My real hope is Bush and Chaney will be tried as war criminals by the World Court in 2009. I'd say earlier, but unfortunately while he's commander in chief he could start WWIII if they indicted him.)

[Dardedar]

I'm with Pelosi - no impeachment.

DAR
I agree (unless they find a slam dunk criminal case). The repubs have had their asses handed to them and they are only left with a desperately unpopular, buffoonish, extremely lame, duck.

[Doug]

I know I'm going to sound nuts, but I'm with Pelosi - no impeachment. I don't want these 2 years tied up in a media circus while nothing we really need gets done...

DOUG
Give them laptops and teach them to multitask.

If a president can get impeached for oral sex, his successor can be impeached--and jailed--for LYING us into a war.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to be impeached, that he hasn't committed very serious "high crimes" and never mind the misdemeanors. He does and has. What I'm saying is we don't have the ability to remove him from office and all we'd be doing is wasting the next two years. The Rs would love it, because they'd sweep back into power in 2008. As for teaching the press to multitask - Ha! About the only thing they're good for is printing leaks - if their editors let them - especially if they have a "story" like impeachment. I remember the Clinton one very well - no news but impeachment and little congressional work besides. We don't have the time. If we are to clean up the Rs' mess - and have the clean up progressed enough by 2008 that the populace knows we are cleaning it up - we don't have time for an impeachment that will be shot down in the Senate. If we had a chance to remove Bush and Chaney from office, I'd say, "Let's do it" - but we don't. Give them to the World Court in 2009.

[RickBaber]

I'm with the Barb on this.
Unless we just stumble on to some high crime committed by Bushco, I think the new Congress should take care of unscrewing Bush's mess before screwing with Bush. He can always be prosecuted later - once the new Congress paves the way for a DemPrez.
I think that's Nancy's plan also: Make Bush the bitch of the Congress. Get the work done on the promise that he won't be impeached. Then, once his term is completed, he's on his own.

[Doug]

I'm with the Barb on this.
Unless we just stumble on to some high crime committed by Bushco, I think the new Congress should take care of unscrewing Bush's mess before screwing with Bush.

DOUG
Some high crime? Such as falsifying evidence for a war?

We can unscrew Bush's mess little by little AND impeach him, convict him, and jail him at the same time. There are lots of members of Congress. Multitask and delegate.

[Betsy]

It's official - we've taken the Senate majority!

[Hogeye]

As a libertarian, I see it as a good thing that the same faction does not control both executive and legislative branches. The best hope is deadlock - that way the rulers do the least damage.

[Savonarola]

I'm with the Barb on this.

I'm mostly with Baber on this, although I'm willing to listen to argumentation.

It would really suck to either:
1. have Bush impeached only to have a nasty battle that accomplishes nothing, or
2. impeach and remove Bush, which would require that a handful of Repubs get to claim the "moral high ground" for removing a President of their own party, only to have Cheney as the new President. (Maybe if we got rid of Cheney first? Then a Democratic Congress would have to approve the nomination for a replacement, if I'm not mistaken.)

Doug, is lying an impeachable offense (when not under oath)? If not, aren't there plenty of other things we could point out anyway, such as violation of Constitutional rights?

[Doug]

I'm mostly with Baber on this, although I'm willing to listen to argumentation.

It would really suck to either:
1. have Bush impeached only to have a nasty battle that accomplishes nothing,

DOUG
One thing it would accomplish at least is to show the world community that the U.S. is not behind Bush's trumped-up war.

Many Muslim countries, and others too, believe that Bush made up a lot of lies about Saddam and Iraq as a pretense to invade. (Hint: he did.) If the U.S. does not repudiate Bush's lies, these countries will continue to think that the U.S. endorsed these lies. It must be made clear that we do not.

Doug, is lying an impeachable offense (when not under oath)? If not, aren't there plenty of other things we could point out anyway, such as violation of Constitutional rights?

DOUG
Lying alone is not illegal. Lying as part of a conspiracy to deceive Congress under oath may be impeachable.

Here are some suggestions:

For starters, invading another country on false pretenses is grounds for impeachment. Also, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution essentially says that the people have the right to be secure against unreasonable government searches and seizures and that no search warrants shall be issued without probable cause that a crime has been committed. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires that warrants for national security wiretaps be authorized by the secret FISA court. The law says that it is a crime for government officials to conduct electronic surveillance outside the exclusive purviews of that law or the criminal wiretap statute. President Bush’s authorization of the monitoring of Americans’ e-mails and phone calls by the National Security Agency (NSA) without even the minimal protection of FISA court warrants is clearly unconstitutional and illegal. Executive searches without judicial review violate the unique checks and balances that the nation’s founders created in the U.S. government and are a considerable threat to American liberty. Furthermore, surveillance of Americans by the NSA, an intelligence service rather than a law enforcement agency, is a regression to the practices of the Vietnam-era, when intelligence agencies were misused to spy on anti-war protesters—another impeachable violation of peoples’ constitutional rights by LBJ and Nixon.

President Bush defiantly admits initiating such flagrant domestic spying but contends that the Congress implicitly authorized such activities when it approved the use of force against al Qaeda and that such actions fit within his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief. But the founders never intended core principles of the Constitution to be suspended during wartime. In fact, they realized that it was in times of war and crisis that constitutional protections of the people were most at risk of usurpation by politicians, who purport to defend American freedom while actually undermining it.

The Bush administration’s FBI has also expanded its use of national security letters to examine the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans who are not suspected of being involved in terrorism or even illegal acts.

Apparently the president is also taking us back to the Vietnam era by monitoring anti-war protesters. Information on peaceful anti-war demonstrations has apparently found its way into Pentagon databases on possible threats to U.S. security.

Finally, the president’s policies on detainees in the “war on terror” probably qualify as impeachable offenses. The Bush administration decided that the “war on terror” exempted it from an unambiguous criminal law and international conventions (which are also the law of the land) preventing torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. An American president permitting torture is both disgraceful and ineffective in getting good information from those held. Furthermore, the administration concocted the fictitious category of “enemy combatants” to deprive detainees of the legal protections of either the U.S. courts or “prisoner-of-war” status. The administration then tried to detain these enemy combatants, some of them American citizens, indefinitely without trial, access to counsel, or the right to have courts to review their cases.

From here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

We have 51 Senators including pseudo-independent Joe Lieberman who could defect to the Rs at any moment and turn us back into a 50-50 with Chaney "breaking the tie". We cannot remove him from office. The election turning Congress over to the Dems already told the world that America isn't behind this neo-Mussolini. We have too little time and too much work to do. If we try to impeach him under current circumstances we will lose the 2008 election and have lost all chances of bringing America back from the abyss of dictatorship. Remember, the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, and that rider to the Defense budget giving the president the power to define "peaceable assembly" and authorizes him to use Army or Guard against anything he says isn't peaceable assembly are all still law. We have to deal with getting rid of those - and cut the K Street connection - before we can step back and start bickering with each other over what needs to be done to or about Der Decider. Give him to the World Court for trial as a war criminal (along with Chaney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rice, etc.) in 2009.

[JD Allen]

I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to be impeached, that he hasn't committed very serious "high crimes" and never mind the misdemeanors. He does and has. What I'm saying is we don't have the ability to remove him from office and all we'd be doing is wasting the next two years. The Rs would love it, because they'd sweep back into power in 2008. As for teaching the press to multitask - Ha! About the only thing they're good for is printing leaks - if their editors let them - especially if they have a "story" like impeachment. I remember the Clinton one very well - no news but impeachment and little congressional work besides. We don't have the time. If we are to clean up the Rs' mess - and have the clean up progressed enough by 2008 that the populace knows we are cleaning it up - we don't have time for an impeachment that will be shot down in the Senate. If we had a chance to remove Bush and Chaney from office, I'd say, "Let's do it" - but we don't. Give them to the World Court in 2009.

I think the threat of impeachment would be more helpful to this country than actually doing it. If the Dems can leverage it over the President to get some things accomplished, it could be very valuable

[RickBaber]

Yes, JD.
That's what I was trying to say. JD's just better at it than I.
What better tool could the Dems have to get Bush to play ball than the threat of impeachment? Make him Pelosi's bitch. Undo most of the wrong he has done. (Well, except for those 3000 soldier deaths) Who knows? By using the power of the presidential pen like that, it is possible more good can be done for the country than spending the next two years locked in a battle to toss him, leaving DICK as prez for the rest of the term.
But I see the case for impeachment too.
If I hadda take sides though, I'd say use him.

[Dardedar]

We have 51 Senators including pseudo-independent Joe Lieberman who could defect to the Rs at any moment and turn us back into a 50-50 with Chaney "breaking the tie".

DAR
I don't think he'll do that since the Dem's have the power (and popularity) right now.