So . . . When Can We Impeach Bush?

Yes, and you might have heard that after Dean's wrestler scream that Kerry's nomination looks like a shoo-in.

Uh, it took the repugnanticans six years to get Clinton for fooling around on Hillary. Of course we all know he was doing it just like we knew, after Hans Blix told everyone, there were no WMD.

Grass roots movements take time!

I'm all for impeaching Bush, but he has so much more to answer for with regard to education, the economy and civil liberties - that I've just accepted the whole WMD/war thing as a well-intentioned* mistake that they just won't admit to.

*Well-intentioned -> intentions were actually to get revenge on Saddam and remove him from power and flex some muscle to let the world see that you don't mess with Texas. It had nothing to do with any direct threat from Iraq. I don't mean to say that the war was justified or a good decision... only saying that to the people who advocated the war, I don't think the intentions were strictly evil, but just completely off the mark. Descisions regarding the economy and education I *do* see as motivated strictly by greed and antipathy toward the lower class.

xpost

Reads like a bumpersticker, but it's funny cuz it's true!

"Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war or are well-hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence official said that possibility is very small.

"In Iraq yesterday, at least 18 Iraqis and a U.S. soldier were killed in a fresh round of attacks. . . ."

GET A SOUL

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6814588/

But who cares really. So they either lied or they're incompetent. Only poor people and foreigners are dead. Except for that one football player. But still.

Bulletin: No W.M.D. Found

Published: January 13, 2005

The world little noted, but at some point late last year the American search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ended.

We will, however, long remember the doomsday warnings from the Bush administration about mushroom clouds and sinister aluminum tubes; the breathless reports from TV correspondents when the invasion began, speculating on when the "smoking gun" would be unearthed; our own failures to deconstruct all the spin and faulty intelligence.

The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq may have been one of the greatest nonevents of the early 21st century, right up there with the failure of the world's computers to crash at the end of the last millennium. That Y2K scare at least brought us an updated Internet. Fear of the nonexistent W.M.D. brought us a war.

Even after most of the sites were searched, the places that had been identified in spy photos as sinister weapons-production sites had been shown to be chicken coops, and the scary reports about nuclear weapons ready to be detonated proved to be the fantasies of feckless intelligence analysts, die-hard supporters of the invasion insisted that something would turn up. This proves once again the difficulties of debunking hard-held convictions: Mr. Bush did such a good job selling the weapons-hunting nostrum that 40 percent of Americans recently said the weapons were there.

The fact that nothing was found does not absolutely, positively prove that there wasn't something there once, something that was disassembled and trucked over the border to Syria or buried in yet another Iraqi rose garden. But it's not the sort of possibility you'd want to fight a war over. What all our loss and pain and expense in the Iraqi invasion has actually proved is that the weapons inspections worked, that international sanctions - deeply, deeply messy as they turned out to be - worked, and that in the case of Saddam Hussein, the United Nations worked. Whatever the Hussein regime once had is gone because the international community insisted. It was all destroyed a decade ago, under world pressure.

This is not a lesson that many people in power in Washington are prepared to carry away, but it is what the national adventure in the reckless doctrine of preventive warfare has to teach us.

The findings issued last fall by the Iraq Survey Group, which concluded that the W.M.D. threat did not exist in Iraq when Mr. Bush decided to go to war, will apparently stand as its final conclusions. The Washington Post reported that the leader of the search team, Charles Duelfer, is working on some additions that will be included when the report is published in book form, but quoted an intelligence official as saying there was "no particular news" in the extra material. The 1,200 military men and women who were assigned to his search team are now fighting Iraqi insurgents. We hope they succeed. If they do not, large swaths of Iraq could become a no man's land, where terrorists will be free to work on W.M.D. projects and United Nations weapons inspectors cannot go to thwart them.

Published on Tuesday, December 7, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit - And Power
by Thom Hartmann

What if there really was no need for much - or even most - of the Cold War? What if, in fact, the Cold War had been kept alive for two decades based on phony WMD threats?

What if, similarly, the War On Terror was largely a scam, and the administration was hyping it to seem larger-than-life? What if our "enemy" represented a real but relatively small threat posed by rogue and criminal groups well outside the mainstream of Islam? What if that hype was done largely to enhance the power, electability, and stature of George W. Bush and Tony Blair?

And what if the world was to discover the most shocking dimensions of these twin deceits - that the same men promulgated them in the 1970s and today?

It happened.

The myth-shattering event took place in England the first three weeks of October, when the BBC aired a three-hour documentary written and produced by Adam Curtis, titled "The Power of Nightmares." If the emails and phone calls many of us in the US received from friends in the UK - and debate in the pages of publications like The Guardian are any indicator, this was a seismic event, one that may have even provoked a hasty meeting between Blair and Bush a few weeks later.

According to this carefully researched and well-vetted BBC documentary, Richard Nixon, following in the steps of his mentor and former boss Dwight D. Eisenhower, believed it was possible to end the Cold War and eliminate fear from the national psyche. The nation need no longer be afraid of communism or the Soviet Union. Nixon worked out a truce with the Soviets, meeting their demands for safety as well as the US needs for security, and then announced to Americans that they need no longer be afraid.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon returned from the Soviet Union with a treaty worked out by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the beginning of a process Kissinger called "détente." On June 1, 1972, Nixon gave a speech in which he said, "Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear—for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world."

But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford's Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated?

Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort - first secretly and then openly - to undermine Nixon's treaty for peace and to rebuild the state of fear and, thus, reinstate the Cold War.

And these two men - 1974 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ford Chief of Staff Dick Cheney - did this by claiming that the Soviets had secret weapons of mass destruction that the president didn't know about, that the CIA didn't know about, that nobody but them knew about. And, they said, because of those weapons, the US must redirect billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day work.

"The Soviet Union has been busy," Defense Secretary Rumsfeld explained to America in 1976. "They’ve been busy in terms of their level of effort; they’ve been busy in terms of the actual weapons they ’ve been producing; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding production rates; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding their institutional capability to produce additional weapons at additional rates; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding their capability to increasingly improve the sophistication of those weapons. Year after year after year, they’ve been demonstrating that they have steadiness of purpose. They’re purposeful about what they’re doing."

The CIA strongly disagreed, calling Rumsfeld's position a "complete fiction" and pointing out that the Soviet Union was disintegrating from within, could barely afford to feed their own people, and would collapse within a decade or two if simply left alone.

But Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted Americans to believe there was something nefarious going on, something we should be very afraid of. To this end, they convinced President Ford to appoint a commission including their old friend Paul Wolfowitz to prove that the Soviets were up to no good.

According to Curtis' BBC documentary, Wolfowitz's group, known as "Team B," came to the conclusion that the Soviets had developed several terrifying new weapons of mass destruction, featuring a nuclear-armed submarine fleet that used a sonar system that didn't depend on sound and was, thus, undetectable with our current technology.

The BBC's documentarians asked Dr. Anne Cahn of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during that time, her thoughts on Rumsfeld's, Cheney's, and Wolfowitz's 1976 story of the secret Soviet WMDs. Here's a clip from a transcript of that BBC documentary:

" Dr ANNE CAHN, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1977-80: They couldn't say that the Soviets had acoustic means of picking up American submarines, because they couldn't find it. So they said, well maybe they have a non-acoustic means of making our submarine fleet vulnerable. But there was no evidence that they had a non-acoustic system. They’re saying, 'we can’t find evidence that they’re doing it the way that everyone thinks they’re doing it, so they must be doing it a different way. We don’t know what that different way is, but they must be doing it.'

"INTERVIEWER (off-camera): Even though there was no evidence.

"CAHN: Even though there was no evidence.

"INTERVIEWER: So they’re saying there, that the fact that the weapon doesn’t exist…

"CAHN: Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. It just means that we haven’t found it."

The moderator of the BBC documentary then notes:

" What Team B accused the CIA of missing was a hidden and sinister reality in the Soviet Union. Not only were there many secret weapons the CIA hadn’t found, but they were wrong about many of those they could observe, such as the Soviet air defenses. The CIA were convinced that these were in a state of collapse, reflecting the growing economic chaos in the Soviet Union. Team B said that this was actually a cunning deception by the Soviet régime. The air-defense system worked perfectly. But the only evidence they produced to prove this was the official Soviet training manual, which proudly asserted that their air-defense system was fully integrated and functioned flawlessly. The CIA accused Team B of moving into a fantasy world."
Nonetheless, as Melvin Goodman, head of the CIA's Office of Soviet Affairs, 1976-87, noted in the BBC documentary,

" Rumsfeld won that very intense, intense political battle that was waged in Washington in 1975 and 1976. Now, as part of that battle, Rumsfeld and others, people such as Paul Wolfowitz, wanted to get into the CIA. And their mission was to create a much more severe view of the Soviet Union, Soviet intentions, Soviet views about fighting and winning a nuclear war."
Although Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld's assertions of powerful new Soviet WMDs were unproven - they said the lack of proof proved that undetectable weapons existed - they nonetheless used their charges to push for dramatic escalations in military spending to selected defense contractors, a process that continued through the Reagan administration.

But, trillions of dollars and years later, it was proven that they had been wrong all along, and the CIA had been right. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz lied to America in the 1970s about Soviet WMDs.

Not only do we now know that the Soviets didn't have any new and impressive WMDs, but we also now know that they were, in fact, decaying from within, ripe for collapse any time, regardless of what the US did - just as the CIA (and anybody who visited Soviet states - as I had - during that time could easily predict). The Soviet economic and political system wasn't working, and their military was disintegrating.

As arms-control expert Cahn noted in the documentary of those 1970s claims by Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Rumsfeld:

"I would say that all of it was fantasy. I mean, they looked at radars out in Krasnoyarsk and said, 'This is a laser beam weapon,' when in fact it was nothing of the sort. ... And if you go through most of Team B’s specific allegations about weapons systems, and you just examine them one by one, they were all wrong."

"INTERVIEWER: All of them?

"CAHN: All of them.

"INTERVIEWER: Nothing true?

"CAHN: I don’t believe anything in [Wolfowitz's 1977] Team B was really true."

But the neocons said it was true, and organized a group - The Committee on the Present Danger - to promote their worldview. The Committee produced documentaries, publications, and provided guests for national talk shows and news reports. They worked hard to whip up fear and encourage increases in defense spending, particularly for sophisticated weapons systems offered by the defense contractors for whom neocons would later become lobbyists.

And they succeeded in recreating an atmosphere of fear in the United States, and making themselves and their defense contractor friends richer than most of the kingdoms of the world.

The Cold War was good for business, and good for the political power of its advocates, from Rumsfeld to Reagan.

Similarly, according to this documentary, the War On Terror is the same sort of scam, run for many of the same reasons, by the same people. And by hyping it - and then invading Iraq - we may well be bringing into reality terrors and forces that previously existed only on the margins and with very little power to harm us.

Curtis' documentary suggests that the War On Terror is just as much a fiction as were the super-WMDs this same group of neocons said the Soviets had in the 70s. He suggests we've done more to create terror than to fight it. That the risk was really quite minimal (at least until we invaded Iraq), and the terrorists are - like most terrorist groups - simply people on the fringes, rather easily dispatched by their own people. He even points out that Al Qaeda itself was a brand we invented, later adopted by bin Laden because we'd put so many millions into creating worldwide name recognition for it.

Watching "The Terror of Nightmares" is like taking the Red Pill in the movie The Matrix.

It's the story of idealism gone wrong, of ideologies promoted in the US by Leo Strauss and his followers (principally Wolfowitz, Feith, and Pearle), and in the Muslim world by bin Laden's mentor, Ayman Zawahiri. Both sought to create a utopian world through world domination; both believe that the ends justify the means; both are convinced that "the people" must be frightened into embracing religion and nationalism for the greater good of morality and a stable state. Each needs the other in order to hold power.

Whatever your plans are for tonight or tomorrow, clip three hours out of them and take the Red Pill. Get a pair of headphones (the audio is faint), plug them into your computer, and visit an unofficial archive of the Curtis' BBC documentary at the Information Clearing House website. (The third hour of the program, in a more viewable format, is also available here.)

For those who prefer to read things online, an unofficial but complete transcript is on this Belgian site.

But be forewarned: You'll never see political reality - and certainly never hear the words of the Bush or Blair administrations - the same again.

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," The Edison Gene, and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy."

GET A SOUL

Seen on another bumper sticker "When Clinton lied no one died"

The action, dubbed 'Operation Himmler', was directed by Alfred Helmut Naujocks under orders from Reinhard Heydrich. Furthermore, inmates from concentration camps were killed and dressed in Polish uniforms as 'proof' of the attack, as directed by Gestapo, in what was known as 'Operation Canned Goods'.

Would we have had to endure our last 6 or 7 presidents if there were?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060130/holtzman

Alternet: Is George Bush in political trouble? And if so, why?

Noam Chomsky:

George Bush would be in severe political trouble if there were an opposition political party in the country. Just about every day, they're shooting themselves in the foot. The striking fact about contemporary American politics is that the Democrats are making almost no gain from this. The only gain that they're getting is that the Republicans are losing support.

Now, again, an opposition party would be making hay, but the Democrats are so close in policy to the Republicans that they can't do anything about it. When they try to say something about Iraq, George Bush turns back to them, or Karl Rove turns back to them, and says, 'How can you criticize it? You all voted for it.' And, yeah, they're basically correct.

http://www.alternet.org/story/30487

I like the idea that the Internet, the press, etc. have never seen talk of impeaching Bush before this point except in "hushed whispers"

at any rate, bin laden's healthy skin is reminiscent of wag the dog

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/security_qaeda_dc

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/impeachment.htm

Maybe it's some weird kind of pre-emptive innoculation or something, raise the hackles of the conservative hard core before things get too serious

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/13705324.htm

A single Vermont community's call for the impeachment of President Bush turned into a chorus Tuesday night, with town meetings across southern Vermont echoing the demand that Congress act to remove the president.

Voters in the town of Newfane, where the movement began, endorsed impeachment by a resounding margin. The paper ballot vote was 121-29 for a slightly amended version of the resolution that had been submitted by Dan DeWalt, an elected member of the town's select board. DeWalt's initial resolution declared:

Whereas George W. Bush has:

1. Misled the nation about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction;

2. Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda;

3. Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;

4. Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and

5. Has directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law.

Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office.

The key amendment involved the addition of a call for the Vermont House and Senate to take up the issue. Though it is a little-known and even less-used power, state legislatures can officially forward impeachment resolutions to Congress.

The Newfane vote was expected. The surprise on Tuesday night came from neighboring communities where, inspired by Newfane's example, citizens demanded that their town meetings address the issue. At least four other Vermont towns -- Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney – voted for impeachment resolutions Tuesday night. Most of the additional resolutions passed by voice votes, but in Marlboro a show of hands produced a 60-10 vote for impeachment.

DeWalt, the Newfane official who started the process when he drafted an impeachment article and placed it on the official agenda for the annual town meeting, celebrated the grassroots revolt against George Bush and his administration as a healthy sign that democracy is still alive – at least in Vermont.

"In the U.S. presently there are only a few places where citizens can act in this fashion and have a say in our nation,'' explained DeWalt.

U.S. Representative Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who has been a fierce critic of the Bush administration, responded to the call from the towns with an acknowledgement that Bush "has been a disaster for our country, and a number of actions that he has taken may very well not have been legal." Yet, despite the fact that more than two dozen House members have cosponsored a resolution calling for the establishment of a select committee that would make recommendations regarding impeachment, Sanders said that Republican control of the House and Senate makes it "impractical to talk about impeachment" at this point.

Vermont Republicans and conservative commentators were dismissive, suggesting that town meetings ought to focus on local issues rather than attempts to check and balance executive excess.

But Newfane's DeWalt said impeachment was an appropriate item for town meeting consideration. While he noted that the resolution cited a number of issues, the select board member used the example of the continuing occupation of Iraq. "The war affects us here in Newfane," he said. "It affects us when our mothers and fathers and sons and daughters are sent off to war, and it affects us in our tax dollars to pay for that war."

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801&q=loose+change

I mean, holy shit. It's all there, every ridiculous lie and cover-up nitpicked apart until there's no room left for wiggle room. The "conspiracy theorists" were right.

PLANNING COMMISSION

Meetings are held at the Town Office
on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month at 7 PM

Minutes - Newfane Planning Commission, November 22, 2005, 7:00 p.m.

Present: T. Bedell, J. Feifel, G. Garbe, K. Robinson

Absent: J. Spencer

1. Co-Chairman G. Garbe called meeting to order at 7:12

2. Minutes of November 8, 2005 meeting read and approved. (4:0)

3. Correspondence: >Follow-up re Suzanne Borichevsky of Guilford Planning Commission: T. Bedell reports on contacting her and suggesting a meeting at another time.

>Follow-up to Jim Borta – letter of thanks to go out from PC.

4. Note of Selectboard hearing at 8 pm Dec. 1 on Zoning Bylaws changes.

5. Subdivision regulations: Further using Putney’s draft as a model, PC goes through section by section to revise and adapt for Newfane use. Finally decide to scan all pages into computer, make changes, and then use Westminster’s as primary source, Putney as secondary.

Meeting adjourned at 8:08 p.m.

Tom Bedell, Secretary

***

Calendar:

--December 13, 2005, 7:00 p.m. – Regular meeting

--[December 27, 2005, 7:00 p.m. – Regular meeting [Tentative]

--January 10, 2006, 7:00 p.m. – Regular meeting

***

Agenda for next meeting, December 13, 2005, 7 pm

1. To continue work on subdivision regulations.

2. To consider any business that may come before the Planning Commission

That's so practical! Put down dissent! Fuck Thomas Paine! No matter what, excuse governmental incompetence! Fuck yeah! Go America!

you & George have been smokin' the same crack!

Republican Joe Scarsborough, talking on CNBC:

"There's a movement out there right now calling for George W. Bush to be impeached. Just take a look at how many cities and towns across America have either drafted resolutions calling for the president's impeachment or are considering doing so. Not only that, but 11 candidates for the House of Representatives and three for the U.S. Senate are all running on the impeachment platform. Why do they want the president gone? Well, here are the common reasons cited. The war in Iraq, which they say Bush lied to get us into; warrantless eavesdropping, authorized by the president; the torturing of prisoners; and the president`s response to Hurricane Katrina."

http://www.alternet.org/story/33373/

right.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0301-02.htm

Not sure if that's good or bad, actually.

all good guys and bad guys talk aside... seriously, scandal after scandal after scandal, no justice done. no repentance. no resignations. (no real resignations.)

party image has become more important than justice. our country owning up to it's mistakes... our unwillingness to admit that we've genuinely fucked up are coming before justice.

seriously, for a country so slap-happy over morals, we're pretty fucked up when a good half of us think detaining, torture, spying, and wrongful warfare is ok. or at very least, they're willing to allow that stuff to go on in the name of party lines. they would probably tell me to, "think of the unborn children!"

i guess my question is a bit simplistic. i just worry about my boys.
m.

/possitioning 2008 yay

yeah, but the mantra for years has always been "personal responsibility for thee...."

So where's the surprise there?

Gerald Ford can reasonably be argued as the least-damage-done prez of the last 37 years.

Feingold new damn well the censure wouldnt pass. He just did it for publicity. He knows he wont get what he wants, so he's just going to make a lot of noise instead. Bunch of sissies....

That strikes me as a moral imperative as well as a strategic must.

ah all CONCEIVABLY principled votes are grandstanding; better to cave and pander with everyone else. COUNTRY OVAH

um, okay.

You can replace "he" with "Spink" if it makes you feel any better. The same point could be made in that case too. Im obnoxious.

Thats not what Im saying. My point is that he cant agree with either of them regardless of how he really feels - because they said it first. How is he going to get the nod over Hillary if they have the same position on key topics? He wont.

It is my opinion that he is talking to Hollywood; specifically the Michael Moore's and Scientologists.

Did you know Isaac Hayes is a Scientologist?

Yes, I have read the Internet today.

What was really obnoxious was his interview two days ago on CNN (or CBS, im looking for it) regarding the movement for censure he was proposing. He assured the interviewer that there was ample proof of lawbreaking and that his party would file in behind him. When asked why he isnt pushing for a full-out impeachment (since censures actually do nothing what so ever), he said something to the effect of "that is an option, but the last thing we need to do as responsible politicians is remove a country's president during a time of war".

In effect, he was saying "i could if i want to...but i know whats best for the country" in a pompous way. Therefore I call bullshit.

Kingfish - Im a 23 year old sys admin with a negative outlook on life. Think of my experiences as "age excellerators". I wish I could just watch Maury all day.

haha no shit.

i actually called my senators to have them back the guy. oh well.

George got to his point where he asked Feingold basically, "So, Russ...you know this isnt going to work. No one is going to stand by you. In fact, you will even admit that no court has found President Bush to have overstepped any consitutional boundary. Are you just wasting our time (and tax money)?"

To which Russ spun wildly out of control making a loud clanking and whirring noise. Eventually they cut to a commercial because they could see it going nowhere.

And what happened? The house leadership told him to STFU.

I show up in short bursts every month or so when work is slow or I find myself working during the holidays.

I at least do a search on shit TOMBOT writes every 30 days. That dude is a visionary.

DROP DEAD, NEW YORKER.

The ideal sequence would be:
Cheney resigns over Plame scandal
New vice prez nationally acceptable moderate
Bush resigns before impeachment.
New VP becomes Prez.

But I'm pessimistic. It seems you've had a coup, and the opposition party has no clue about what to do about it. Clinton was impeached over a minor indescretion, and Bush, a far more divisive character, is protected. Sheer power, and it wins. Pehaps now that the US will be voting for a dictator every 4 years they'll take the vote more seriously?

heh, moral: shorten presidential terms to two years!

"Feingold's public appearances on CNN and interviews with mainstream media outlets are solidifying the knowledge that many lawyers have already digested: President Bush's warrantless wiretap program is illegal and falls easily into the impeachable category of high crimes and misdemeanors.

"When CNN's Soledad O'Brien questioned whether there was still doubt about the legality of the program, Feingold retorted,

"'There is no serious debate about whether the president was within the law. This is the game of intimidation and it's working. Obviously, they've got you thinking that there's a legal basis for this when there isn't. Even Republican Senators have said this isn't within the law. What we do know, what the President has admitted is that it was not within the FISA, so president broke the law.'

"While acknowledging that the NSA program is 'a lot more like an impeachable offense than anything President Clinton ever did,' Feingold fails to follow through, arguing that censure, rather than impeachment, is 'a way to restore constitutional order on a bipartisan basis.'

"But the argument makes little sense. There is no escaping the fact that publicly chastising this president is a partisan issue. It seems unlikely that those who oppose impeachment will be inclined to support Feingold's political call for censure.

"Even outside of the appeal for bipartisan support, the notion that censure would restore order is misleading. Feingold told the press, 'Congress has to reassert our system of government, and the cleanest and the most efficient way to do that is to censure the president.'

"With all due respect to Feingold's boldness, this statement is simply incorrect."

http://alternet.org/blogs/themix/33532/

Yep, same dude. I messed up a while back and had my password reset on my registered account that was set to an email address I no longer had. When things like that happen, i have a tendency to just walk away and move on.

Chomsky- In all fairness, Im sure Feingold believes that what Bush did was illegal, and calling attention to it is the proper thing to do. But the way he went about it was a little over the top. So much that it drew attention away from his "honest" grievance. These people never shoot straight...they are agenda driven assholes...and pulling stunts like this makes me want to shake the ever loving shit out of them. That goes for all politicians, not just the left.

I just cant help but feel that his call to censure was just a way to make noise and pander to the far left. It was so far left that even Boxer didnt think it was a good idea...or worth while? Dunno. Im just calling bullshit on it.

The particular interview I was talking about was with George Stephanopoulos though. I dont remember if his show is syndicated to CNN or some other news channel.

so you're saying that it wasn't actually illegal, then?

It was so far left that even Boxer didnt think it was a good idea...or worth while? Dunno. Im just calling bullshit on it.

Far left, huh? been following the polls lately? also, what far left? The folks who write MIM Notes?

oh yeah, and you know Boxer signed on to this today, right?

Lawyers/politicians can spin anything into looking suspect. Im neither. But I dont think it was illegal, no.

Far left, huh? been following the polls lately? also, what far left? The folks who write MIM Notes?

Polling just show how ridiculous polls are. I think they are funny, but hardly anything more than that. They are useful for spotting trends but public emotion/outrage seem to be the factors in it. Knee-jerk reactions arent always the best thing to go by...even if millions of people feel the same way. And if you're going to say "so and so million people cant be wrong", I will refer you to the millions of people that voted for this guy:

http://www.willisms.com/archives/barrygoldwater.gif

oh yeah, and you know Boxer signed on to this today, right?

If she honestly felt that it was a good move, she would have been onboard from the start. After 4 days of the Republicans chuckling at the lack of democrat comradery and ability to work as a group of people with a similar goal...

Regardless, in my mind Barbara Boxer == Nancy Grace. Im bias against her and anything she says/does. Listening to her talk is on par with sticking your head past the flashing lights in the metro...fucking silly.

So what should Dems who think Bush is an impeachable criminal many times over be doing, Spink?

however, Democrats in not-turn-on-a-dime-topdown-authoritarian-setup shocka. The senator freely admitted on Ed Schultz yesterday that it'd take a while to bring more folks on board, but he already has Boxer & Tom Harkin with him, and word had it that John Kerry was probably going to join on. Yeah, it's a pathetically small beginning, but you gotta start somewhere.

so, today she voted to close the corporate tax loopholes which would improve tribal funding, restore funding to the Corps of Engineers/NOAA/Natl Park Service(rejected by repubs by 1 vote), and keep funding for veteran's benefits up where it should be. You against all that?

(btw all three were rejected by the republican majority.)

I mean, yeah, I don't like listening to Nancy Pelosi either, but shit, dude, i'm hazarding a guess that you'd be more for the shit she stands for than the other shit.

Im not sure. But im sick of seeing people pull shinanegans just to get recognition. If you're message has any value, then you shouldnt need theatrics to bring attention to it.

Things like using the recent King funeral as a political soapbox, for instance. The whole political atmosphere right now seems childish to me.

But Jeeezus, in an era of CNN/Fox/post-O.J. trial, if you're waiting for NON-theatrical national politics to come back, it ain't. Reagan and Clinton took care of that. And without sufficient attention, "message" doesn't exist. Hell, the Katrina debacle has been mostly forgotten in 6 months.

If it was so damn important to them, then they should have pulled an emergency midnight "Shiavo" vote. The point was that he claimed to have the support already, but he didnt. He came across so sure of himself. The democrat's reaction to his idea was one of hesitation. You could tell that:

-some people outright agreed with him and said so (few).
-some people agreed with him but were afraid to say so without a posse (majority).
-some thought it was a terrible idea and said so.
-some thought it was a terrible idea but didnt make their opinion known because they dont want to give the conservatives a reason to bite.

Like John Mirtha. So many people were anit-war..."pull out now!" Finally someone had the balls to say it and then people kind of turned around and acted like they didnt hear anything. Or their story changed.

If impeachment is what you want, then fucking do it. Get your shit together and do it. None of this partisan ass-slapping sissy fighting. Censure is stupid and they know it...it means nothing more than a black eye. You think Bush would even give a damn? I doubt it. Censure is more of a "cover your ass" for Congress...

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/archive/09/0909001r.jpg

I know...i know. Its fucking sad. I hope the world ends soon...and by "world ending" I mean "Anderson Cooper dies of a rare African blood virus".

xpost - why are people engaging with this moron again?

Who?

WTF are you talking about? You have any idea how you start that whole impeachifyin' thing?

Things like using the recent King funeral as a political soapbox, for instance.

.....

Remember though that Feingold was never privy to anything related to the NSA wiretapping program. He was never briefed and has no access to the program itself. All of the charges he's made are from a shallow perspective.

I'm not going to defend the King thing as Im about to go do some work. Not even sure if I could defend it. So just scratch that off the list.

Spink, my impression of Feingold's stance is that he's urging his fellow Senators to vote with him because the lack of public support for the President (36% and falling) should indicate to them they don't need to be intimidated anymore.

Sure it was, but what's the problem? I agree that the environment is childish and lends itself to stunts that often look childish, but to my mind #1 responsibility for this goes on the news media, specifically TV news. Are they going to pay attention if there's not some dramatic gesture a la Harry Reid forcing the Senate into a closed session? No.

C'mon, Bush is the PowerPoint president, he's been doing this a while - come up with a catchphrase anyone can sort of glance at and agree with, and then off camera either fuck it up, underfund it, or send the $$$ to his rich friends.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060316/pl_nm/bush_politics_dc

Strike while the iron's hot, as they say.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

man fuck that guy with steamin red hot pokers, he's totally gonna burn in hell.

democrats aren't too ballsy or sure of themselves, blount, and you fucking know it. Feingold's going to get noogies and indian burns just like Murtha did for trying to upstage our great leadership of Clinton, Reid and whoever else is toeing the occasional-churchgoer soccer moms line that week. I think Spink's point takes on a much different character and meaning if you read it in the context of what the party's doing to the people it should be getting behind. Feingold looks like a grandstanding idiot because his party is a bunch of headless fucking chickens. Call for impeachment. The man violated the goddamned Bill of Rights.

your man spink seems like hes probably an ok guy but he needs to chill with the racist/south park republican/'i dont listen to karl rove OR jon stewart!' bullshit

"Senator Russ Feingold is an embarrassment to the US Senate, which makes him an authentic hero of the Republic. The Wisconsin senator gets up and says out loud what half of the country is thinking and talks about every day. This President broke the law and lied about it; he trashed the Constitution and hides himself in the flag. Feingold asks: Shouldn't the Senate say something about this, at least express our disapproval? He introduces a resolution of censure and calls for debate."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060327/greiderweb

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/articles/060417fege08

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1100316

kinda funny allusion to violent revolution there - not exactly what I would expect him to say (cuz it sorta sounds like he honestly considered it!)

"With a year and a half to go in his term and with no consensus in the nation as a whole to support such a proposition, any realistic analysis of that as a policy option would lead one to question the allocation of time and resources," Gore said during an interview with PBS.

Hahaha oh man and I used to wonder what brand of anti-intellectualism made people think Gore was egg-headed and robotic.

yeah the idea that this dude has 'changed' somehow is ridic

agreed

Somewhere during the beard era he must have been all like "fuck it, I'll sigh if I wanna sigh, I'm CRAZY, I'm gonna say stuff like 'any realistic analysis of that as a policy option would lead one to question the allocation of time and resources' and ain't nothing you can do to stop me, sucka."

xpost No actually I do think his demeanor has changed, insofar as he no longer seems like he's having to pose and act and modify his behavior, which was a lot of where the "robotic" thing came from -- now when he's hifalutin it feels like he's just straight-up confidently hifulatin, and when he's casual it comes off more natural.

he's an all natural robot

where do you put the accents? how about

With a YEAR and a half to go in his TERM and with no conSENsus in the nation as a whole to supPORT such a proposition, ANY reaLIStic analysis of that as a POLicy option would LEAD one to QUEStion the alloCAtion of time and REsources

yeah, that's kinda, uh, otm, nabisco, but it's not like people are gonna like it any more than they did before. ppl have changed a little bit, tho.

the NY Magazine Gore article was hysterical, especially this gem

This is a hoary line of argument, but Gore adds a novel neuropsychological twist, explaining that the brain’s fear center, the amygdala —“which as I’m sure you know comes from the Latin for ‘almond’ ” — receives only a trickle of electrical impulses from the neocortex,

OH YEAH I'M ALLA BOUT THE AMYGDALA

i mean, who knows that the amygdala was named after the almond besides, like, al gore?

I'm more of a hyperbolisyllabicsesquidelamystic kinda guy.

yeah, that was pretty wtf. i wonder if he like couldn't resist explaining the latin root but didn't want to seem too professorial/condescending in the process.

That's why he's so AWESOME.

so many things about Gore are WTF.

I still think he shoulda kept the beard.

he shoulda let it get all civil war/walt whitman style

http://www.impeachthem.com/?q=node/1736

lol zionists love dick cheney waht

um "click the kucinich banner to read the rest" -- nothing happens when you click the banner

That's because that sentence is the last sentence of the first paragraph, the one that's on their front page. Clicking the banner there takes you to the page I linked to.

But it didn't happen, apparently. damn hoaxers :-/

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/30931

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200809u/gonzales-investigation