Why We Need More Investigations Like Cheney Needs More Power

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/24608

Why We Need More Investigations Like Cheney Needs More Power
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2007-07-12 19:51. Evidence | Impeachment

Their crimes stand open on the table before us. Their lies about Iraqi ties to al Qaeda are on videotape and in writing, and they continue to make them to this day. Their claims about Iraqi weapons have been shown in every detail to have been, not mistakes, but lies. Their threats to Iran are on videotape. Bush being warned about Katrina and claiming he was not are on videotape. Bush lying about illegal spying and later confessing to it are on videotape. A federal court has ruled that spying to be a felony. The Supreme Court has ruled Bush and Cheney's system of detentions unconstitutional. Torture, openly advocated for by Bush and Cheney and their staffs, is documented by victims, witnesses, and public photographs. Torture was always illegal and has been repeatedly recriminalized under Bush and Cheney. Bush has reversed laws with signing statements. Those statements are posted on the White House website, and a GAO report found that with 30 percent of Bush's signing statements in which he announces his right to break laws, he has in fact proceeded to break those laws. For these and many other offenses, no investigation is needed because no better evidence is even conceivable. And rather than taking three months, the impeachment of Cheney or Bush could be completed in a day.

But the investigations that Congress has pursued at its glacial pace over the past six months, while thousands upon thousands died, have produced another impeachable offense, the refusal to comply with subpoenas. That is what President Richard Nixon did; and his refusal to comply with subpoenas constituted the offense cited in one of the three Articles of Impeachment approved by the House Judiciary Committee on July 27, 1974 as warranting "impeachment and trial, and removal from office."

Bush and Cheney are claiming executive privilege. Nixon also tried that one. It didn't work then; and it won't work now. Condoleezza Rice is claiming, with more frankness, that she's just not inclined to comply. Even Nancy Pelosi ought to understand by now that the removal of the threat of impeachment is what empowers the White House to ignore subpoenas, and that the threat of impeaching the White House for its stonewalling would break down the wall even before we reached impeachment.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Consider the saying:

"Death by A Thousand Cuts". Or in the case of the maladministration, "Suicide by A Thousand Cuts".

What is being created by all these investigations is a complete picture, a total narrative.

[zonmoy]

2. at what point though are the congress going to stop slow torturing bush

and the world to boot and impeach him to put him and the world out of its misery.

[G_Leo_Criley]

5. Agreed

T_S I agree.

Even if we were to rid ourselves entirely of this administration this minute, there are those among them who would come back, much as Cheney and Rumsfeld rose from the ashes after the fall of Nixon.

We need this total narrative to protect us in the future.

glc

[snappyturtle]

3. I agree:

"Even Nancy Pelosi ought to understand by now that the removal of the threat of impeachment is what empowers the White House to ignore subpoenas, and that the threat of impeaching the White House for its stonewalling would break down the wall even before we reached impeachment."

They're just running the clock out....just pick one reason and impeach the delusional "decider".

[shance]

4. Amen to that. We need leaders to be grown ups and do their jobs.

n/t