Impeachment: Impeach Bush and Cheney, George Mason Forum This Saturday

FROM THE LIBERTY TREE OF ALEXANDRIA VIRGINIA

PRESS

http://alexandriaadvocatesalliance.blogspot.com/


Ed. Dickau ed.dickau@yahoo.com

RELEASE

For immediate release
June 14, 2007
Contact: Bob Crowe
703-200-3379 (cell)

Town Hall Forum

Topic: Presidential Accountability: Should Impeachment be ON the Table?

WHO:

Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell

Bruce Fine, Constitutional lawyer, Associate Deputy Attorney General Reagan Administration

Markus Raskin, Co-Founder Institute for Policy Studies

Barbara Olshansky, Professor, Stanford Law School; Co-author The Case for Impeachment

Moderator Ron Pinchback, General Manager WPFW (89.3FM) Pacifica Radio.

Also attending: Mark Levine, Host “Inside Scoop” radio-web-TV talk show, former Congressional staff attorney

Dennis Loo & Barbara Bowley, Co-editor/author, Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush & Cheney

- Invitations have been extended to Hon. Jim Moran, VA 8th Cong. Dist. and Hon. Tom Davis, VA 11th Cong. Dist.

WHAT:

Virginians for Peace and Accountability (VPA), a non-partisan grassroots organization, is holding a public town hall forum.

The purpose of the forum is to stimulate public discourse by presenting the practical political and legal arguments both pro and con:

Should Impeachment be on the Table?

The event format will be speaker presentations, with Q & A from the audience.

The main program is scheduled to last approximately 60 to 90 minutes. A number of workshops will take place after the main program.

Free and open to the public. Seating is limited.

For more information

http://www.peaceandaccountability.com/.

WHEN:

Saturday, June 23, 2007 1:00 – 4:00 PM

WHERE:

George Mason University (Fairfax Campus), Mason Hall Conference Center

Virginians for Peace and Accountability (VPA) is a non-partisan grassroots organization.

This event was born out of the group’s ambition to generate public discourse about accountability of elected officials. The group is looking to present a series of forums on this topic in the run-up to the fall 2008 elections, to inform as well as encourage participation in the process.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

THE WORDS OF TACITUS RING TRUE:

A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.

“When monarchs through their bloodthirsty commanders lay waste a country, they dignify their atrocity by calling it "Making Peace”

“So, as you go into battle, remember your ancestors and remember your descendants”

“Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth…”

-Publius Cornelius Tacitus-

ALEXANDER HAMILTON ON IMPEACHMENT:

"The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.

The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable: There is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable, no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution."

"[Impeachable conduct is] misconduct by public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust."

"The prosecution [of impeachments], will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust, and they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."

-Alexander Hamilton-

George Mason supported the impeachment power as a check on the President.

No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?[21] July 20, 1787

“Impeachment should be reserved for treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors where the president's actions are great and dangerous offenses or attempts to subvert the Constitution and the most extensive injustice.”

“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials.”

Early on in their discussions of the grounds for presidential impeachment, the delegates in Philadelphia confined themselves to grave abuses of executive power.

Concerned about those who were skeptical of, or opposed to, any sort of impeachment provision, they purposely kept the standard for impeachable offenses high, and reserved it for grave matters concerning the performance (or non-performance) of executive duties.

They could not have been more explicit: "[M]alpractice or neglect of duty" (Hugh Williamson); "incapacity, negligence, or perfidy of the chief Magistrate," involving crimes that would "pervert his administration into a scheme or peculation or oppression.," including, specifically "betraying his trust to foreign powers"

(James Madison); "corruption & some few offenses," such a as "treachery," "corrupting his electors," and being "bribed by a greater interest to betray his trust" (Gouverneur Morris).

Theodore Roosevelt, quotes about Impeachment:

'Liar' is just as ugly a word as 'thief,' because it implies the presence of just as ugly a sin in one case as in the other. If a man lies under oath or procures the lie of another under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns perjury, he is guilty under the statute law.

Impeachment is not a remedy for private wrongs; it's a method of removing someone whose continued presence in office would cause grave danger to the nation. Charles Ruff

The only conduct that merits the drastic remedy of impeachment is that which subverts our system of government or renders the president unfit or unable to govern. Charles Ruff

THE REPUBLICANS SPEAK

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) : "I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail."

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE): "....I find that the President abused his sacred power by lying and obstructing justice. How can parents instill values and morality in their children? How can educators teach our children? How can the rule of law for every American be applied equally if we have two standards of justice in America--one for the powerful and the other for the rest of us?"

Rep. James Sensebrenner (R-WI): "What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law."

Speaker of the House Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX): "This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law.....No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That's the principle that we all hold very dear in this country."

CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE DELAY UTTERING THOSE WORDS?

I THINK HE BETTER READ THE ROOSEVELT QUOTE!