So . . . When Can We Impeach Bush?

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Guess what? There's no WMD.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002148445_iraq12.html

And should it be for dishonesty or for incompentence?

Slick Willy, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Guess what? There's no WMD.

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

Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Really?

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!

Slick Willy, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Today's edition of ye olde local newsrag leads off with a story about the city council's vote on condemnation of the local water company, a popular local issue that almost no one in this hick berg understands. Meanwhile, buried back on like page 7, lo and behold there it is, NO WMDs FOUND, in all its three paragraphs of glory.

nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

When there's a Democratic House. ('cept they wouldn't want to be that "petty")

Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I wasn't *for* the war, but if you'll remember, Saddam was being a real dick about proving that he had no WMDs.. So although the original premise was bullshit and the action taken was a mistake, I *can* see how an administration predisposed to war could convince themselves that WMDs did exist.

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.

dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Meanwhile Clinton had sex out of wedlock! Where's the justice?

xpost

Slick Willy, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

education, the economy, civil liberties, an administration predisposed to war convincing themselves that WMDs did exist. . .whatever it takes!

Slick Willy, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 15:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I saw a bumpersticker I liked recently:
"I liked it better when the president was the one getting screwed."

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

dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

How is this not grounds for impeachment yet Monica sex is?

"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. . . ."

Slick Willy, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

hahahaha "has expressed disappointment" hahahahaha

sgs (sgs), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

GET NINE ELEVENS

Bernard the Butler (Lynskey), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:37 (twenty-one years ago)

5000 US deaths < 100,000 Iraqi deaths

GET A SOUL

Slick Willy, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:41 (twenty-one years ago)

"President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons, and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United States."

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.

Slick Willy, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

those are 100,000 american hating brown godless fuckers, though, don't you understand? why do you hate the US of A?

kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

The Iraqis think we're evil and want to kill us all but really they're the evil ones so we need to kill them.

Slick Willy, Wednesday, 12 January 2005 17:49 (twenty-one years ago)

today's NY Times says

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.

Slick Willy, Thursday, 13 January 2005 14:55 (twenty-one years ago)

ts: terror vs. the only thing we have to fear is fear itself

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."


slick willy, Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Willy, have you considered writing some Congressmen and Congresswomen about this?

The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:39 (twenty-one years ago)

anding signing off each letters as "slick willy"

ken c (ken c), Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:42 (twenty-one years ago)

no

willy, Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe you should. Try writing all of them.

The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

5000 US deaths < 100,000 Iraqi deaths

GET A SOUL

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

j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 13 January 2005 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

this really is sender gleiwitz II isnt it

:| (....), Thursday, 13 January 2005 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

The Gleiwitz incident refers to a staged attack against a German radio station in Gleiwitz (nowadays Gliwice) on August 31, 1939. German troops dressed as Polish revolters attacked the radio station and broadcast a message urging the Polish minority in Silesia to take up arms to overthrow Adolf Hitler. This and similar staged incidents were used as an excuse by Hitler to launch an attack against Poland the following day, thus starting the Second World War.

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'.

willy, Thursday, 13 January 2005 16:39 (twenty-one years ago)

You're right though. Our society is managed by bullies. We should defend them with dismissive sarcasm and attack each other.

willy, Thursday, 13 January 2005 16:41 (twenty-one years ago)

seven months pass...
Isn't there something in the articles of impeachment about incompetence? Doesn't underfunding FEMA count? Isn't that worse than fooling around with an intern?

subscription dept., Tuesday, 6 September 2005 13:23 (twenty years ago)

>Isn't there something in the articles of impeachment about incompetence?<

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

Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 6 September 2005 13:25 (twenty years ago)

But we've impeached two of our last seven presidents: for covering up a break in and for lying about sleeping with an intern, respectively. Ol' GW's done way worse than those two.

subscription dept., Tuesday, 6 September 2005 13:37 (twenty years ago)

remember, it's never gunna happen. Only the folks in charge of the Congress right now(which ain't the Democrats) can bring about articles of impeachment. I wish people would remember that, and focus more energy on getting as many Repubs out next year instead.

kingfish superman ice cream (kingfish 2.0), Tuesday, 6 September 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...
this is an interesting argument

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

slick dick, Saturday, 14 January 2006 21:14 (twenty years ago)

Even IF the Dems won back Congress in November, I don't see them having the political will to do this, to their disgrace.

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

Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 21:26 (twenty years ago)

Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress.

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

Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 19 January 2006 01:30 (twenty years ago)

that chomsky interview is really interesting. leading up to the 04 election i got in a lot of debates about whether bush is really dumb or that he acts dumb because not only, unimaginably privileged, has he never had to try hard, but his casual syntax appeals to the people he and his friends exploit. so chomsky's insight about the administrations rational imperialism strikes a chord.

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

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

dogtown, Thursday, 19 January 2006 18:24 (twenty years ago)

"Impeachment: White House Prepares for the Worst," from a conservative website

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

huffington's bitch, Tuesday, 24 January 2006 15:39 (twenty years ago)

52% polled in favor

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

huffington's bitch, Thursday, 26 January 2006 02:32 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...
Sassy. Just read this in The Nation.

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."

smogwai, Friday, 10 March 2006 00:45 (twenty years ago)

This video starts off smartly enough and ends up... just... in-fucking-sane!

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.

One Hour Twenty-One Minutes (get the popcorn), Friday, 10 March 2006 01:12 (twenty years ago)

Get one Harper's.

gbx (skowly), Friday, 10 March 2006 01:18 (twenty years ago)

yeah, impeach Bush & Dick and install Al Gore to his rightful place in teh Oval office, lol!

timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 10 March 2006 03:21 (twenty years ago)

1. I prefer Woman's Day
2. I'd prefer to impale him

Answering Machine, Friday, 10 March 2006 05:18 (twenty years ago)

I love Vermont.

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 10 March 2006 06:06 (twenty years ago)

aw, it's cute...
http://www.newfanevt.com/

Knute Rockne, All American (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 10 March 2006 06:17 (twenty years ago)

dig their planning commission minutes!

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

Knute Rockne, All American (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 10 March 2006 06:19 (twenty years ago)

"yeah, impeach Bush & Dick and install Al Gore to his rightful place in teh Oval office, lol!"

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

smogwai, Friday, 10 March 2006 07:48 (twenty years ago)

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/images/lg_covers/9effc521df6f7ece624aac3c2cc2038a.jpg

Knute Rockne, All American (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 10 March 2006 07:51 (twenty years ago)

xpost

you & George have been smokin' the same crack!

timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 10 March 2006 08:19 (twenty years ago)

Go Putney, VT!!

Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 10 March 2006 10:54 (twenty years ago)

"mainstream" support for impeachment grows:

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/

howard chomsky, Tuesday, 14 March 2006 13:41 (twenty years ago)

So who becomes president if he gets impeached?

right.

Dave NSFW (dave225.3), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 13:50 (twenty years ago)

One of my buddies went to college with Anderson Cooper! I've seen his freshman facebook picture.

Dan (Middle Name: "Goober") Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 16 March 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

really? did he have the graying hair back then? i think he dyed it during the Channel One years

kingfish da notorious teletabby (kingfish 2.0), Thursday, 16 March 2006 21:51 (twenty years ago)

He didn't have the graying hair. He did have the Opie face.

Dan (Fresh From Mayberry) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 16 March 2006 21:52 (twenty years ago)

WTF are you talking about? You have any idea how you start that whole impeachifyin' thing?
That was more of just a general comment. I didnt mean "you, kingfish, go round up some dudes and lets have us an impeachin'". I dont know how the numbers work out, but all it takes is a house majority to send an impeachment to the senate for trial.

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, Thursday, 16 March 2006 21:58 (twenty years ago)

"The point was that he claimed to have the support already, but he didnt."

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.

howard chomsky, Thursday, 16 March 2006 22:06 (twenty years ago)

I wish I could find you guys the George Stephanopolous interview transcript because thats what I was talking about from the start. It was his first interview on monday after he mentioned it over the weekend. His attitude was much different. He wasnt being smug, just really sure of himself.

Spink, Thursday, 16 March 2006 22:09 (twenty years ago)

'democrats too ballsy, sure of themselves, hard on the president claims ilxor politicial analyst'

j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 16 March 2006 22:11 (twenty years ago)

Good! He should be sure of himself, Spink. This President is historically unpopular. His administration manipulated the public into supporting an attack on Iraq, despite Iraq posing no threat to us, by implying Saddam had al Qaeda links and access to nuclear technology. For that and, sadly, way too many other reasons, the public doesn't buy what they're selling anymore. Yes, Feingold is in a sense taking advantage of the moment, but for an agenda he's always been pushing--that just four years ago had him branded a leftie loonie, while now sentiments have changed in his favor. It would really stupid of him all of a sudden to stop pushing the agenda he's patiently been standing for all these years.

howard chomsky, Thursday, 16 March 2006 22:19 (twenty years ago)

I just cant help but feel that his call to censure was just a way to make noise

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.

dar1a g (daria g), Thursday, 16 March 2006 22:20 (twenty years ago)

"He wasnt being smug, just really sure of himself."

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

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

howard chomsky, Thursday, 16 March 2006 23:58 (twenty years ago)

"When asked for a one-word description of Bush, the most frequent response was "incompetent," followed by "good," "idiot" and "liar." In February 2005, the most frequent reply was "honest."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

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

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 March 2006 00:02 (twenty years ago)

He's like the Chauncey Gardener of mass murder. Anything he stumbles into, masses of people die horribly.

Grey, Ian (IanBrooklyn), Friday, 17 March 2006 07:23 (twenty years ago)

He's on a mission, Chance wasn't.

Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 March 2006 14:42 (twenty years ago)

'democrats too ballsy, sure of themselves, hard on the president claims ilxor politicial analyst'

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.

TOMBOT, Friday, 17 March 2006 14:49 (twenty years ago)

tom i think he was being sarcastic

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

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Friday, 17 March 2006 14:58 (twenty years ago)

go will!

"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

howard chomsky, Friday, 17 March 2006 22:50 (twenty years ago)

The fact of the matter is I'm a douchebag who jerks off to My Little Pony.

someone pretending to be TOMBOT, Friday, 17 March 2006 22:51 (twenty years ago)

don't be so hard on yourself

howard chomsky, Friday, 17 March 2006 22:52 (twenty years ago)

So Russ does it all cuz he wants to be prez? Fuck, I want him to be too!

Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 March 2006 22:53 (twenty years ago)

I can't help it, Chomps. I'm a complete and total nitwit. I eat meat, I know everything about everything except what a demimonde is, I'm cranky and annoying. I probably have IBS.

someone pretending (unconvincingly) to beTOMBOT, Friday, 17 March 2006 22:56 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...
some of the attitudes expressed upthread seem so innocent now

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

ts: woodward vs. bernstein, Tuesday, 18 April 2006 03:11 (twenty years ago)

The problem with Bernstein ending with Bartlett and Buckley pointing out the Chimp's nudity is they're not officeholders. It'll take an imminent Dem landslide in November, or more, to get them to throw W over.

Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 18:44 (twenty years ago)

that article is a lot of wishful thinking. esp. with Rove now free to "focus on politics" watch out - its whip-crackin time at the RNC.

Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 20:46 (twenty years ago)

eleven months pass...
Kucinich plans Cheney impeachment bill

Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

A Dem congressman quipped: "Kucinich has a better chance at being president than passing his bill."

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

that was a congressional aide, loser

Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:39 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

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

gabbneb, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:34 (nineteen years ago)

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!)

Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:37 (nineteen years ago)

"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.

nabisco, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:50 (nineteen years ago)

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

gabbneb, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

agreed

Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

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."

nabisco, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:51 (nineteen years ago)

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.

nabisco, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:53 (nineteen years ago)

he's an all natural robot

Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:54 (nineteen years ago)

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

gabbneb, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:55 (nineteen years ago)

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.

gabbneb, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:56 (nineteen years ago)

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

Mr. Que, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:56 (nineteen years ago)

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

Mr. Que, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:58 (nineteen years ago)

I'm more of a hyperbolisyllabicsesquidelamystic kinda guy.

Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:59 (nineteen years ago)

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.

gabbneb, Thursday, 31 May 2007 21:59 (nineteen years ago)

That's why he's so AWESOME.

J, Thursday, 31 May 2007 22:01 (nineteen years ago)

so many things about Gore are WTF.

Dandy Don Weiner, Thursday, 31 May 2007 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

I still think he shoulda kept the beard.

kingfish, Thursday, 31 May 2007 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

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

Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 31 May 2007 22:20 (nineteen years ago)

eight months pass...

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

StanM, Monday, 11 February 2008 08:01 (eighteen years ago)

lol zionists love dick cheney waht

El Tomboto, Monday, 11 February 2008 08:37 (eighteen years ago)

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

Hurting 2, Monday, 11 February 2008 14:44 (eighteen years ago)

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.

StanM, Monday, 11 February 2008 15:18 (eighteen years ago)

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

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

StanM, Tuesday, 12 February 2008 08:42 (eighteen years ago)

seven months pass...

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

Michael White, Friday, 26 September 2008 20:07 (seventeen years ago)


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