Do you think the public is ready for an open call for impeachment?

I do, given Bush's already-crappy ratings, and now a clear violation of a law that everyone can understand. Can we call for impeachment without looking like loons?

What the heck are you people thinking? What will it take? Oh, I get it - nevermind.

What do we do about President Cheney?
Impeach and remove, of course!
What about President Hastert?
Anybody know who comes next?

It is the imperative incumbent with self government. If our representitives will not defend the constitution from a soi-disant elected official, then we should just rip the thing up and be done with it.

We would be better admitting that the noble experiment had ended, than to make our children affirm such a lie.

...a private, personal matter. But they don't want to impeach Bush for prying/spying into US citizens personal, private matters illegally. Should tell you something about the nation they desire. They are the scared little weaselfucks hiding in a corner, needing Daddy Government to spy on everyone (but them) to make them feel safe. They are the biggest bunch of ninny big-government teatsuckers the world has ever seen.

That might accomplish something!

it won't matter if we do. Also, if we openly call for it, our candidates for the House could run on it.

Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.
Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.
Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.
Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.
Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.
Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.
Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.
Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.
Impeach. Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.

All of them!

Impeach him or fire him 5 years ago.

I think the war crimes tribunal ought to have precedence over the domestic spying charges,
though the domestic spying charges have more traction as grounds for impeachment.


if they are convicted, they will spend the rest of their lives here:




pResidential pardons not accepted.

Oxycontin Boy and the Falafel Master can join them!

I guess it could be like day dreaming though with more "work involved. Studies have shown that imagining something in detail often helps to accomplish the goal.

Forget the Republicans doing anything.

or did the Republicans control the House in 1998 when Clinton was impeached??

Consider the effect the call would have on 2006 election.

People's tax dollars are being drained away, the military, which used to be seen as a way from the lower class to middle class stability has become a meat grinder, not because of the military leadership, but because of elected officials in Congress and the White House. It has been documented that the president lied in order to start the war.

Less widely covered but equally well-documented, the White House planned for our oil companies to benefit from the war, and the oil companies clearly showd they won't return the favor with price restraints as we saw after Katrina.

The president has harmed our reputation in the world not only by supporting torture of foreign nationals, 60% or more of whom the Red Cross determined were innocent, but by lying about the threat necessitating war diminished our credibility.

Hatred of us in the Arab world has gone UP, increasing the chance of terrorist attacks here.

Further, polls have shown the one thing people like about Bush even now, is that he acts based on his stated goals.

If Democrats make a united call for impeachment before the election, the public would see that they are willing to stand up for what's right even at risk to their personal safety and before they have 100% public approval, which seems to be the current standard.

You listed a bunch of swell issues to run on next year. Let's run on them! Calling for impeachment makes the Democrats look ridiculous.

but being able to point to the exact point in the law that Bush has violated means that if he hasn't committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" now, then they don't exist.

Is this the fiftieth time impeaching Bush has been proposed here? The three hundredth? The five thousandth?

But it doesn't matter. Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding, it's a political one. If we want to get rid of Bush and company, the way to do it is to vote them out!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5621982

they detail exactly what crime has been committed.

Second, supporting the rule of law is good politics. Just ask the Democratic Watergate Babies who got elected precisely because of Nixon.

the policies and game the same as much as possible.

All the corruption with D on the team jersey instead of an R.

Bush accountable?

Is this Karl Rove?

when they impeached President Clinton.

After the mid-term elections, when the Democrats actually gained some seats in Congress, the Republicans knew the apetite was not out there for impeachment.

But they were too far gone, and knew it would make them look bad (to their own party base) if they backed off impeachment.

So I don't think we should care what the public things.

Impeaching George Bush is the right thing to do. It's the only thing.

The public will only be ready if it takes the form of a reality T.V. show.

I don't think it exists (yet). Republicans impeached Clinton, and it didn't score them any points with most Americans.

I have to think that most people would care more about that than a blowjob. Mydd.com is working on commissioning a poll on this issue. let's see what that says.

that around 40% of America is going to back Bush on this. I think many Americans will assume that *they* will never be spied on, so who cares? The same way many Americans will support war as long as they aren't the ones fighting it.

KEY EXCERPTS:

I think most Americans don't think he lied, they think he mislead.
As for the Clinton poll, that is no surprise.

on the connection between Iraq and 9/11 misled is accurate (thought lie is close).

On WMD, it's more accurate to say lie based on the DSM, and French and German intel stories.

You can also go back and look at George Tenet's declassified letter to the Senate that said even if Saddam did have WMD, he would have been unlikely to use them or give them to terrorists unless his regime was in immediate danger of being overthrown.

I haven't seen evidence that most Americans feel Bush LIED. I think most Americans feel misled. Hence, the Zogby poll (that most Americans would support impeachment if Bush lied) is moot. Even Sean Hannity could say "I support impeaching president Bush if he lied" because Sean doesn't feel Bush lied.

In conclusion, Bush isn't going to be impeached anytime soon. :(

If you impeach Bush using the ordinary constitutional process, then you get President Cheney. And Cheney could run for office in 2008. I doubt he'd get elected but you never know with the blatent vote rigging what would happen.

Impeachment may be good for soiling the Republican Party but every member of Bush's administration probably down to the third level is a likely criminal. I wouldn't trust a single one of them with the highest office in the land. At least Bush is a buffoon and seems to have a singular talent of making himself look bad.

A single Bush impeachment is not going to change anything in terms of government. It may change the political landscape and that's what the wingnut "critics" are going to assert. And a mass impeachment of the entire Bush administration is not possible; it's politically a non-starter and unprecedented besides.

So, what you're left with is a single impeachment which basically halts the process of tearing this administration up from the inside out. Investigations of the vice president's office and other things shouldn't be pushed to the back burner, and as a practical matter it should be possible to do two things at once, but as a practical matter that is what would happen.

Impeachment requires the cooperation of Republican members of Congress, some of whom are under investigation themselves. It is almost hysterical to talk of a real impeachment being GOOD for the Republican party as a whole but that's what you're left with when you consider all the pieces on the chessboard.

It may be a slow and agonizing process, but hubris is destroying this administration and the Republican party; it is doing the job impeachment cannot constitutionally do. We should be doing exactly what we are doing, which is documenting this administration's crimes for later prosecutions and otherwise fostering an atomsphere in which leaks can occur.

So, sure, talking about impeachment is great. Actually doing one is politically counterproductive for our side.

I personally want to see the protections the founders put in the constitution do their thing, but I understand where you are coming from.

There should be a "Fruit of a Poisoned Tree" rider on the articles of impeachment to revise the line of presidential succession in the event a "Fruit of a Poisoned Tree" finding is reached in any successful impeachment (and you can spell out what that means to come to such a conclusion, such as anyone in the line of succession being under investigation for a crime, et. al.).

The revised line of sucession would change from the President->Vice President->Speaker of the House to President->House Minority Leader->Senate Minority Leader.

This would make Nancy Pelosi President of the United States in the event Bush was convicted of impeachment.

but otherwise, that's just the kind of "out-of-the-box" thinking we need!

the Vice President had to be of the opposite party as the President. Changing that was all well and good, but it created a problem.

There's no constitutional way, now, to easily get rid of an Evil Cabal or Junta from the presidency. Let's say you impeach the president. Vice President of Evil Cabal takes over and appoints his own vice president (subject to Senate Confirmation). Now, you impeach the Evil Vice President-cum-President. Who next takes over, the Acting Vice President or the Speaker of the House? And what if the Speaker of the House is a member of the Evil Cabal?

We have a situation where impeachment leaves no possibility for the fact that you have an entire party or group of people that is corrupt to its very roots. There is no constitutional way to deal with that, short of a Congress which is in open rebellion.

Now, whether you argue that the entire Republican Party is an evil cabal or not (I tend to think it is, but it's rather unimportant in the broader argument) there has to be a way to deal with that. The narrower argument can be deferred.

and the top two vote getters were prez and vice prez. There was no requirement that the vp be the opposing party. Just a point of history, carry on:)

But in practical terms, that is what would happen, right? There would never be a "second top vote getter" of the winning party, since each party caucuses and fields only one candidate.

What we have to acknowledge here I think is that there are succession scenarios which are different and that different scenarios need different outcomes.

You could argue that an assassination or sudden death of a President favors the current line of succession. But an impeachment convictions are hard to get in the first place. The very difficulty of succeeding makes a successful impeachment conviction pretty damning, not only for the President, but everyone he ever appointed and members of his own Party.

Now, I don't want partisan impeachments, nobody does (Clinton's unsuccessful (unconvicted) impeachment being partisan).

But there isn't any constitutional way to rip the entire tree up by its roots in a single action, even with impeachment.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Thanks .. Happy Winter Solstice ! :D

For Impeachment to be viable the public has to 1)become aware enough of the scandals to solidify in their outrage. 2) See a viable alternative.

Right now 1 is growing. IF the democrats can POUND AN POUND about the Bushco corruption then this can materialize. But some of it also will take some time. Delay and Frist and Reed etc all need to actually start getting convictions. We need the Rove indictment so that it's back on the front page. Then we'll have the first half ready.

The second part is where our problems still occur. We need someone who looks like the soon to be immediate successor. We need one of those who are viable in 08 to be leading the charge now. We need someone who will be able to call Bush out AND appeal to the public in the way that they think "when Bush goes, this guy will take over". Otherwise we're just stuck in the "Ok so we get rid of Bush so now we've got Cheney?" mindset.

A successful 06 change in Congress could Radically help bring this about. Just like Watergate though, this all takes time. We've had some HUGE victories BEGIN this week...but we will have to grab ahold of the media and fight like hell to get FAUX etc from spinning it right back into the drivel the RW pray it will be seen as...confusing and complex and marginalized so that the American viewer will tune it out...I think they CAN fail here if we can rightfully show the tweeties of the world that Buscho is going down under the weight of it's own corruption and if they want their jobs in 08 they'll need to get back to objective journalism and stop shilling for the right.

I see Impeachmen motions as a possibility. But I think it's 9 months or more away. I see a lot of potential obfuscation and political play between now and then. We aren't in a game of flipsies here. This is a 3-D chess match and we're just beginning a new game. It'll take a while to play out. But we can win.

1. Win the House and Senate, even with bare majorities. but the House first.
2. Charge Cheney with a crime and remove him from office.
3. Do not confirm any successor Bush tries to appoint to the VP's office.
4. Impeach.
5. With no VP, Speaker of the House (now a Democrat) becomes president.
6. Constitutional Crises ensues.

Conviction in the Senate. Requires 2/3 majority. It is impossible for us to have a 2/3 majority in the senate in 2007.

Next pipedream?

Since everyone here is talking about "what if" scenarios I have no problem in joining in and hypothesizing about something however unlikely it is. Web space for such things is cheap enough ;)

I'm a computer programmer - that's what I do for a living - and doing this is something I call "gaming scenarios" whatever the proper term may be, it's an important thing to do because once in a while, the very unlikely happens and if you aren't the type turn over every rock just for fun, in my world you often find yourself unprepared for the "very unlikely eventuality" that kills you ;)

impeach impeach impeach, like a mantra, "Who brought up impeachment? You or me?"
If the letter writers of opposition are ready with pen-hand, impeach should be the
most visible word in the english language on every free form of media... spraypainted
on freeway overpasses... pouring from letters to editors. And the kettle will boil
of its own accord... no "open call" required.. .just heat.

Simple paste
1 part flour + 3 parts water. mix together in pan. Bring to boil and cook for 5-10 minutes.
check local laws first.

It seems like, whenever they pop up in conversation, they are some anonymous mass out there, but I'm never one of them. They are the "others."

The question is never, am I, as a member of "the public," ready for impeachment, or whatever else is on the agenda.

Is there really a "public" out there, or is the public made up of individuals?

Just because I don't think people really understand the full implications of what's going on. To Billie Bob Joe in Ruraltown, Middle America, he just thinks that the President is spying on terrorists. There's nothing wrong with that. He doesn't understand the ramifications of the real story - that he's probably being spied on too!

and here's the thread I posted about it...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5638919

No one is ready. But we're out of time.

He'll resign just like Nixon before an impeachment call could even be made.

he'd still be out of office, and he would still bear the stain of being forced to resign for as long as America exists

Shit, I'm tired of this crap, W has got to go!

stop impeaching politicians we can't beat at the ballot box?
That's all I'm wondering. He gets impeached because of Clinton,
then John Edwards or John McCain will get impeached someday because
of Bush's impeachment. It never ends and only the MSM wins. Shameful

should be the Democratic Party. A grass roots movement might work better.

Those idolators deny their god nothing, even at the expense of their own rights and freedoms.