Impeachment. What does it have to do with the war, the economy and gas?

[JDPriestly]

On a very long thread about impeachment, a post suggested that the American people does not want impeachment. Instead the poster said, the American people are worried about health care, the war, the economy and gas prices and want Congress to address those issues. Here is my response which I prefer to post as a separate thread.

With the exception of health care, it is probable that the war, the economy and gas prices are all directly or indirectly the result of Bush's criminal conduct.

The War in Iraq, especially the borrowing to fund it, is the cause of the fall of the dollar which has caused problems in our economy including ultimately the problems in the housing market and the rise in gas prices.

Bush lied to get a war. That is criminal.

He and his minions made deliberate misrepresentations to Congress and to the American people, and they made them although they knew that their statements were not supported by the evidence. Omission or commission? Makes no difference.

Even if the original misrepresentations were not intentional, the efforts of the Bush administration to discredit its critics who were telling the truth (as the Bush administration well knew by that time) was a conspiracy to insure the continuation of the misrepresentations. McClellan's book reveals the extent to which the cover-up was protected by the president himself and thus Bush's role in the cover-up may have been intentional.

The Bush administration's corruption in granting contracts to its friends to fight the Iraq War robbed our treasury of unimaginable amounts of money, put our troops in bodily danger for no noble cause and diminished the ability of our men and women in uniform to fight the war they had been sent to fight.

The war, the economy and gas prices cannot be addressed unless the crimes of the Bush administration are also addressed. Until those crimes are addressed, a good percentage, a particularly well educated percentage, of the American people remain confused wishing to trust and believe in their government, but uncertain whether they should.

The country is divided not just by different opinions about policy but by different beliefs about the facts. That is why determining the facts is the key to solving other problems and getting the American people to begin to work together and to trust each other. Who is to believe? Rush Limbaugh presents one set of facts. The news media presents a different set of facts. And Randi Rhodes presents a totally different set of facts. What is the truth?

The process set forth in the Constitution for ascertaining the facts and the truth in this circumstance is the impeachment of the the officers accused of lying and covering up and other political crimes including the president. Therefore, to unify the country, to determine the facts about what has happened, we need to start with impeachment. Anyone who thinks that we will be able to unite the political will without the impeachment process is fooling him or herself.

Richard Clarke seemed to suggest recently that we might have some sort of reconciliation commission. The reconciliation process provided by the Constitution is impeachment. Reconciliation you ask? Yes. Impeachment is the outing of the truth. It does not entail punishment necessarily. That is because impeachment may or may not be followed by criminal prosecution. We do not need to look to South Africa or some other country to conduct a reconciliation proceeding. Our Constitution provides for such a proceeding: impeachment.

At the very least this impeachment process will give notice to future presidents that they cannot abuse the trust of the American people as Bush has done. We must impeach this president and the vice president now.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

1. Here here!

The hoisting of petards has begun.

We have all colluded in this sham for eight long years through silence, apathy, not yelling loudly enough. Impeachment is the only way for the American people to regain some dignity.

Besides, think of the ratings . . .

[midnight]

3. Goober.

[lonestarnot]

2. Weeener Weeeeener Weeeeeener! Ding Ding Ding! Weeeeener!

K & R!

[chill_wind]

4. The elective illegal war, the economy and soaring gas prices--- it's incomprehensible

to me that that there can STILL be any American left, Republican or Democrat, that doesn't get the cause and effect.


Consider the costs...

$4,681 per household.
$1,721 per person.
$341.4 million per day.


The War in Iraq Costs
$527,799,230,458

Taxpayers in the United States will pay $525.9 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

*154,997,406 People with Health Care for One Year*





See the cost of war counter for your community:

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home


Impeach!

[Recursion]

5. I don't know if you were referring to my post

But I was one who asked a question like that.

I never for a minute doubted that Bush's criminal conduct was the cause of these problems.

I doubt, or at least I am skeptical, that impeachment will improve any of these situations. And I think if we impeach, he attacks Iran.

Convince me I'm wrong on either count: what will impeachment do to improve any of these problems? I'm quite open to persuasion on this point.

[JDPriestly]

6. There are several questions in your post.

I'm not sure whether I was responding to your post, but I think you are asking legitimate questions in any event. Sorry my post is so long.

We agree that Bush's criminal behavior is the cause of these problems.

As for Bush attacking Iran, if he chooses to, he will, whether we impeach or not. If he attacks Iran, based on Bush's past conduct, it will be because he has a longstanding plan and finds a pretext to do so. There is nothing to be done about that.

Will impeachment improve the economy, the housing crisis, the healthcare crisis, the war? In my OP I explain that I believe it will. Thus far we have been unable to agree on how to solve these problems because we are such a divided people. The divisions, to some extent about money, culture and morality are, even more, about how we perceive, understand and talk about facts.

The greatest bar to our agreeing at least to a reasonable extent about the facts is the secrecy and lies of our current government. The process of impeachment will allow us to get the facts on the table.

In my own version of the facts since Johnson, D.C. lobbyists have become more and more powerful. Since Bush has been in office, they have virtually taken over the government.

For example, no-competition defense contracts have become increasingly the norm since the Johnson era. But no president has dared to shower his friends and maybe even himself with the profits from these kinds of deals like Bush has. As a result, the parasite of corruption has nearly strangled our government. That corruption is a major cause of our financial problems.

Until it is proved through the impeachment of Bush and Cheney that leaders who steal from the American people will be investigated and that the facts about their acts will be held up for all to see, we will never stop these serious crimes against the American people. We will never enjoy honest government.

We cannot alleviate, much less solve our financial, environmental and healthcare problems or stop illegal wars unless we have honest government -- even if we finally decide that the solutions to some of our problems do not necessarily involve government. Most important, we cannot have physical security unless we have honest government.

Will the impeachment process take a lot of time? Could that time be used to pass positive legislation? The answers are "yes" to both questions. But will such "positive legislation" ever really become law, will positive answers to our problems ever receive the people's support without impeachment? I doubt it. That is why impeachment must be the priority.

We, the people, need to finally say, enough already of this corruption and secrecy. We want to know the facts. We demand open, honest government. Mr. president, we will require you to come before us, to testify and to clarify the facts.

While technically the Senate sits as the jury and judge in an impeachment proceeding, the presentation of the evidence during the process of impeachment will allow every interested American to decide for him or herself just what the facts are. Will we ever agree 100%? No, but at the moment we cannot even talk the same language, much less agree on legislation. And why? Because our ideas about what the facts are, are just too divergent. Limbaugh has one version; Randi Rhodes has another and the rest of America is lost somewhere in between. And what none of us admit is that not a one of us has enough information to determine the whole truth.

Why would impeachment be a better process than ordinary committee hearings? First, impeachment allows the House to question the president and his aides without the assertion of the executive privilege (assuming it exists). Second, the drama of a quasi-trial is more interesting to follow. The time constraints on questioning in committee hearings will not impede examiners from completing a line of questioning. Witnesses will be less able to confuse examiners and evade questions.
The purpose of the examination will be to reach the truth, not to impress C-Span viewers with the questioner's own grasp of the facts.

In Federalist Paper No. 65, Alexander Hamilton acknowledges that impeachment is a political process and that it is likely to be partisan, but he also explains that impeachment must be carried out by the House because that is the branch of government closest and most responsive to the people.

Thus impeachment is the process through which the people directly intervene to stop crimes against themselves. It is the process through which the people reassert their supremacy in a government that has become not a government by and for the people, but a government by and for the lobbyists and the politicians in their pay. It is precisely that aspect of impeachment that is necessary if we are to come together as a people to solve our problems.

Note on another topic:

I urge you again to read Federalist Paper No. 65. It is available on the internet.

My reading of Federalist Paper No. 65 convinces me that unless Bush is impeached he cannot later be prosecuted in a court of law for crimes committed in his official role.

The rulings that provide that Clinton could be prosecuted for his alleged crimes once he left office do not apply. Clinton's alleged perjury was about a personal matter as were the other wrongs of which he was accused. In contrast, Bush's lies were about public matters. He must be impeached first in my opinion.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. So you don't mind being blackmailed by a criminal monkey who threatens to attack Iran

if he's brought to justice? Trying, convicting, and sentencing a common murderer in the legal system doesn't bring back the victim. But it maintains civil order which is founded upon the scales of justice. I don't care if impeachment fails to rectify the damage Bush has done. I for one need to have the feeling that we have laws and respect for the Constitution in this country and that a President must be made to obey them or face the consequences.

[Recursion]

9. He's liable for trial after he leaves office

I'd love to see him unable to leave Paraguay or (God willing) actually arrested when he's en route to there.

Do I mind being blackmailed by a chimp who throws cluster munitions like they were his own feces? Yes. Do I see impeachment improving that situation? No.

[onenote]

8. or it could've been my post. And my response is similar