One Dare Not Call It Treason…Impeach and Prosecute Now!
Treason usually involves betraying one's country to a foreign power. But, there is nothing inherent in the definition or legal interpretation of treason that limits the crime to this. In the present case, George W. Bush, acting on behalf of the Bush Group, has tried to wrest control of the United States from the people of the United States and deliver it into the hands of a small group of extremely powerful domestic business interests. Their motivation, of course, is the same as in any normal takeover of a country: to steal the wealth of that country. The fact that the plotters are working from within the country in no way exonerates them from the charge of treason: an overthrow is an overthrow, whether it comes from within or without.
And That Ladies and Gentlemen is TREASON! We have already, long ago determined that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney are guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, acts of nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance for which they can and should have already been Impeached and Convicted under our Constitution. We have long ago also determined that they both are guilty of Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes as determined by the Geneva Conventions for which they could either be imprisoned or face the gallows. Now add Treason, and ask yourself: “What the Hell are we Americans waiting for?”
As the response to former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s new book enters its second week, the focus has shifted to the messenger rather than his message.
But the significance of McClellan’s book is that his detailed recounting of what he saw from the inside vindicates pretty much all the central pillars of the Bush critique that have been chronicled here and elsewhere for many years now. Among them:
* That Bush and his top aides manipulated the country into embarking upon an unnecessary war on false pretenses;
* That Bush is an incurious man, happily protected from dissenting views inside the White House’s bubble of self-delusion;
* That Karl Rove’s huge influence on the Bush White House erased any distinction between policy and politics, so governing became about achieving partisan goals, not the common good;
* That Vice President Cheney manipulates the levers of power;
* That all those people who denied White House involvement in the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity were either lying or had been lied to;
* That the mainstream media were complicit enablers of the Bush White House and that its members didn't understand how badly they were being played.
By coming back again and again to the CIA leak story, McClellan also validates a key theme of the Bush critique: That the Plame case was a microcosm of much that was wrong with the way the Bush White House did business.
No one could have predicted that the Plame case would play such a central role in McClellan's personal conversion to Bush critic. But his eventual recognition that Rove and then-vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had flatly lied to him when they denied any involvement in the leak, along with his sudden realization that Bush and Cheney declassified secrets when it was politically convenient, were evidently two major factors. (A third was his unceremonious firing by Chief of Staff Josh Bolten.)
McClellan's revelation that on Oct. 4, 2003, Bush and Cheney directed him to vouch for Libby's innocence once again raises the question of how the president and particularly the vice president have been able to avoid any kind of public accountability. McClellan even raises the possibility, repeatedly hinted at by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, that Cheney directed Libby to disclose Plame's identity.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200806020002
On the May 28 edition of CNN Newsroom, national security contributor Fran Townsend twice made the false claim that neither former deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove nor former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby had "outed Valerie Plame" as a CIA agent and that the lea was former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. In fact, Rove was a source of the information about Plame's CIA employment for at least two journalists -- columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper -- while Libby was a source of the information for both Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller.
Townsend was discussing former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's claim in his new book that Rove misled him regarding Rove's involvement in the leak. During the discussion, anchor Brianna Keilar noted that contrary to what McClellan had told the press in October 2003, "Karl Rove did talk to the media about Valerie Plame" and that "Libby was convicted for lying about his role, or about what he said to authorities." In response, Townsend asserted that "we know from the outcome of the [Special Counsel Patrick] Fitzgerald investigation" into the leak that "it wasn't Karl Rove nor Scooter Libby who outed Valerie Plame. That was a senior official in the State Department." After Keilar stated that McClellan had "said they [Rove and Libby] were not involved, and the facts now show that indeed they were involved," Townsend asserted that "what the facts have showed is they weren't the ones who outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. That's -- that was done by somebody else." She later said that "[t]hey weren't the ones who outed him [sic: Plame]." Keilar then said that it was "Dick Armitage, of course, the original source there for the outing of her name."
In fact, Novak has identified both Rove and Armitage as the sources for his July 14, 2003, column, and Cooper named Rove as his source who identified Plame as an employee of the CIA during a telephone conversation on July 11, 2003. In Cooper's first-person account of his testimony before the grand jury in the leak investigation, he identified Libby as his confirming source. Miller testified on January 30, 2007, that Libby disclosed Plame's CIA employment to her at a breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., on July 8, 2003, the same day as the meeting in which Armitage disclosed Plame's employment to Novak -- and six days before Novak's July 14 column was published. A Justice Department investigation into the leaks resulted in Libby's indictment and conviction on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators that he had learned Plame's identity from NBC's Tim Russert, rather than other Bush administration insiders. Libby's 30-month prison sentence was commuted by President Bush on July 2, 2007.
Townsend is a former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to President Bush.
One Dare Not Call It Treason…Impeach and Prosecute Now!
The Bush Group: Guilty of Treason?
Treason usually involves betraying one's country to a foreign power. But, there is nothing inherent in the definition or legal interpretation of treason that limits the crime to this. In the present case, George W. Bush, acting on behalf of the Bush Group, has tried to wrest control of the United States from the people of the United States and deliver it into the hands of a small group of extremely powerful domestic business interests. Their motivation, of course, is the same as in any normal takeover of a country: to steal the wealth of that country. The fact that the plotters are working from within the country in no way exonerates them from the charge of treason: an overthrow is an overthrow, whether it comes from within or without.
George W. Bush: Not a Bad President
By Chris Rowthorn
The Smirking Chimp, Nov 15, 2006
Straight to the Source
Traitor: One who violates his allegiance and betrays his country; one guilty of treason.
Treason: The offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance. -- Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. -- Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution
It is clear that George W. Bush is a bad president. He may have allowed 9-11 to happen because he ignored clear and repeated warnings about terrorist plans. He invaded Iraq based on outright lies, causing the death of over 2800 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. He gave no-bid Iraq reconstruction contracts to his cronies, thereby robbing the American public of billions of dollars. He has presided over a regime in which enemies are tortured and citizens are spied on. Thus, it is clear that Mr. Bush is a bad president -- probably the worst president in American history.
But to call George W. Bush merely a bad president is to miss the point entirely. For George W. Bush is far more than just a bad president. George W. Bush's misdeeds go far beyond mere inept statesmanship or run-of-the-mill political corruption. If one looks carefully at the means by which Bush took office, the way he has governed since taking office, and the clearly stated beliefs and aims of his administration, one cannot help but conclude that George W. Bush is guilty of a crime against his country. And that crime is treason.
George W. Bush is a traitor to the United States of America.
Please read the definition of traitor at the start of this article one more time. A traitor is someone who betrays his country, or someone who is guilty of treason, the offense of attempting to overthrow the government.
This is precisely the crime that George W. Bush is guilty of. For George W. Bush is the representative of a small group of people and corporations who have made a very public attempt to overthrow the United States government.
The exact nature and membership of this group is debatable and partially hidden from public view, but its existence is beyond dispute and its aims are clear. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to this group as the Bush Group. George W. Bush is the representative and figurehead of this group, but he is by no means its leader.
The Bush Group consists of highly placed figures in the oil industries and related industries, most notably companies like Halliburton and Bechtel, as well as figures in the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based private equity firm. Of course, these are only the most visible and most powerful members of the Bush Group. Other members can be identified by looking at a list of major Bush campaign contributors and recipients of large government contracts since Bush took office.
The companies and individuals who make up the Bush Group used their vast political influence and capital to place George W. Bush in power. They did this for one reason only: to use the apparatus of the government of the United States to channel money into their pockets.
Of course, this would merely be politics as usual if it weren't for the fact that the Bush Group originally took power illegally and has sought to maintain and increase its power by non-democratic means. The Bush Group, acting through the Republican National Committee, local Republican organizations, and various allied groups, used a variety illegal means to insure a Bush victory in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. Those who doubt this are urged to read Mark Crispin Miller's book "Fooled Again" or Robert F. Kennedy Jr's article "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"
After placing George W. Bush in office through illegal means, the Bush Group sought to cement its grip on power by rewriting and reinterpreting American law to make the executive branch of government supreme above the judicial and legislative branches. That is, to make the president the supreme power in the land, unanswerable to Congress, the courts and, ultimately, the people of the United States. Needless to say, this is a stunning violation of both the letter and the intent of the Constitution, and a direct breach of the Oath of the Office of the President, in which the president swears to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.".
What is most remarkable about the Bush Group's power grab is their brazen frankness about their intents and their beliefs. The Bush Group has declared that they are guided by the "unitary executive theory." This term describes a government in which one man, the president, holds supreme power in the land, or, to use Bush's formulation, "I am the decider and I decide." Even the briefest reflection on the term "unitary executive" leads to one simple conclusion: "unitary executive" is a euphemism for dictator.
According to the "unitary executive theory," the executive, or president, has power over the other two branches of government. The most famous example of Bush exercising the power of the unitary executive is in the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) passed by Congress in 1978.
A clearer insight into the Bush Group's practical application of the "unitary executive theory" can be found in Bush's use of the "signing statements" which Bush routinely appends to laws passed by Congress. Bush's signing statements challenge the validity of the laws in question and declare that the president can either interpret the laws as he wishes or ignore them completely.
At last count, Bush had signed 139 signing statements, containing challenges to over 750 individual laws. These signing statements amount to 139 written declarations that George W. Bush and the Bush Group consider themselves to be unconstrained by the laws of the land, the Congress of the United States and the will of the people. Or, to quote Mr. Bush: "(The Constitution) is just a goddamned piece of paper!"
The Founding Fathers took great pains to frame a Constitution that would prevent one individual or one branch of government from taking power over the other branches. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." Having lived under a king, they created a sacred document that was intended to prevent a king from taking power in their new country.
What the Bush Group has tried to do is install a new king over the United States. They took control of the government of the United States by illegal means and then announced that their man, George W. Bush, is no longer bound by the Constitution. This is not politics as usual. This is a takeover of the government of the United States. This is treason.
Remember that article II, section 4 of the United States' Constitution states that, "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Of course, treason usually involves betraying one's country to a foreign power. But, there is nothing inherent in the definition or legal interpretation of treason that limits the crime to this. In the present case, George W. Bush, acting on behalf of the Bush Group, has tried to wrest control of the United States from the people of the United States and deliver it into the hands of a small group of extremely powerful domestic business interests. Their motivation, of course, is the same as in any normal takeover of a country: to steal the wealth of that country. The fact that the plotters are working from within the country in no way exonerates them from the charge of treason: an overthrow is an overthrow, whether it comes from within or without.
All of Bush's crimes are secondary to this one. And Congress must look beyond craven political calculation to do what is right to answer this fundamental challenge to American Democracy. Now is not the time to think only of maintaining a Congressional majority in 2008. Now is the time to do the will of the Founding Fathers and strike down this vulgar would-be king and the people he represents. Now is the time to try George W. Bush for treason in the United States Congress. Our very Democracy is at stake.
At 3 minutes into the Today Show interview with Meredith Viera, McClellan relates a moment on Air Force One where Bush admitted to him that he had authorized Scooter Libby to leak Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent.
And That Ladies and Gentlemen is TREASON! We have already, long ago determined that George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney are guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, acts of nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance for which they can and should have already been Impeached and Convicted under our Constitution. We have long ago also determined that they both are guilty of Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes as determined by the Geneva Conventions for which they could either be imprisoned or face the gallows. Now add Treason, and ask yourself: “What the Hell are we Americans waiting for?”
Something astonishing happened the other day in the House: The Democratic leadership found some courage. After over a year of demoralizing, often inexplicable capitulation, they actually gathered the fortitude to push back slightly against Republicans on so-called national security issues. The Republicans' response was swift: They took their ball and went home, after a brief stop at a prearranged press conference on the Capitol steps.
Two issues caused the dispute: One, in a stunning display of rudimentary oversight, the House issued contempt citations for two former Bush staffers, Harriet Meiers and Josh Bolten, who've been ducking House subpoenas for months now. This was predictably dismissed by weepy Minority Whip John Boehner as a "partisan fishing expedition," a boilerplate cliche if ever there was one.
The second issue, which the indignant Republicans preferred to discuss, for obvious reasons, was the House Democrats' refusal to cave on retroactive immunity for telecom companies, like AT&T and Sprint, for collaborating with the White House in spying on domestic internet and phone communications, which, to be clear, was tremendously illegal.
What's less encouraging, but interesting, is that the Democrats were ready to sign off on extending the repugnantly named Protect America Act, except for telecom immunity. To Bush, this made the bill dead on arrival. That's right; Bush promised to veto the bill if it reached his desk without a get out of jail free card for Comcast.
It's hard to line that up with the apocalyptic tenor of Bush's exhortations regarding the bill. If the warrantless domestic spying provisions of the Act were not renewed, Bush warned, Osama bin Laden would rain fire upon us all. But he was planning to veto them if they came to him without immunity. Naturally, this makes no fucking sense. Either Bush is willing to risk another 9/11 to embarrass the Democrats, or he's lying when it comes to the threat posed by having to get a FISA warrant -- retroactively, after the fact -- for domestic surveillance. I think he's lying, but I suppose it could be both.
It's interesting that these issues are what it takes to really outrage Republicans -- threaten huge corporate giants with lawsuits, or exercise congress's constitutional oversight powers. Of course, it's only natural that the Republicans would shudder at the prospect of effective investigations being conducted in the House. If the Democrats actually start following through on the legal options to compel testimony, it's only a matter of time before everyone's implicated. But telecom immunity?
Republicans are, of course, fundamentally pro-corporate, even more so than modern Democrats. But to go to bat this hard on behalf of an industry seems anomalous even for them. All a congressman usually has to do for his biennial bribe is vote in a corporation's interests, not engage in tantrum theatrics. There's more than pedestrian corruption at work here.
Of course, there is the terror issue, and in a most perilous election year, Republicans would like nothing more than to be able to run on the "Dems are sissies" platform. If they can keep people frightened and badly misinformed, they may manage to make telecom amnesty into a winning issue for them come November.
But to do that, they have to lie. A lot. They have to feign outrage, and actual concern for the wellbeing of their fellow Americans. They're doing their level best. To hear Republicans tell it, requiring a rubber-stamp warrant, after the fact, to spy on Americans is like mailing plutonium to Iran. Bush's spiel was grade A horseshit from start to finish:
"Because Congress failed to act, it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attack. At midnight, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad. This means that as terrorists change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, we may not have the tools we need to continue tracking them--and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America…. Instead, the House held partisan votes that do nothing to keep our country safer. House leaders chose politics over protecting the country--and our country is at greater risk as a result."
Then sign the bill without the telecom amnesty provision, and work on that part later. If it's nearly as vital as Bush says, he's providing aid and comfort to the enemy by not compromising, right?
"If the Protect America Act is allowed to expire, Americans will be at risk," echoed Boehner, despite having just voted against a three-week extension on the bill, like all his fellow Republicans in the House.
What the hell is going on here? When you compare the truths of this dispute with the rhetoric from the White House and its mouthpieces, there's really no other conclusion than that this country has gone fucking bonkers. Reality and public perception don't even share a zip code anymore. After years of constant, obvious lies, their ridiculousness compounded by countless revelations of their falsehood, Bush is still sticking with the same despicable, transparently manipulative bogeyman bullshit he started with. And like-minded jackasses in the media, like Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday, still have the inconceivable gall to say things like, "I think it's kind of unbelievable, frankly, that -- it's a judgment call, we don't know -- not to give the administration the benefit of the doubt."
The benefit of the doubt? A judgment call? Sorry Bill, but fuck you. Your judgment's been shit; your President's judgment's been shit, and both of you are documented liars. So forgive the hell out of the rest of us if there's no doubt to benefit from when it comes to whether the president is a fucking fraud. The entire administration is a fraud. Every department is a fraud, staffed by fraudulent people, hostile to its stated mission and intent on its nullification, by death or paralysis. There may never be proof, especially if Bush gets his way. But what thinking person can muster much doubt that the administration is listening not just for terrorist chatter, but to anyone they want -- political enemies, reporters, chicks they're into --whoever?
In 2006, after Andrea Mitchell asked New York Times reporter James Risen, who broke the domestic spying story, out of the blue, "You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?" Risen did not, but NBC scrubbed the question from its transcripts of the interview, later explaining that the story had been "released prematurely," that they had not "completed" their reporting. But they didn't call the allegation irresponsible, or speculative, or any other dismissive adjective they could have used. They essentially confirmed that they had reason to believe that Bush was secretly wiretapping a prominent CNN reporter.
And why the hell wouldn't he, after all? Without a reviewable record of warrants, it's not as if anyone can possibly find out -- unless somebody sues the telecoms, and specific, decidedly non-terrorist surveillance targets are identified in the ensuing discovery process. And that is why the Republicans are going apeshit over retroactive immunity, not just to protect the telecoms, but to cover their own asses. If it ever comes out that their secret, illegal domestic wiretaps were not targeting al Qaeda, but Al Gore, the jig is finally up. The entire "trust us, we're hunting terrorists" rationale, as thin as it always was, will lose any residual integrity, and the GOP may never recover. And they know it. And maybe, hopefully, the Democrats finally know it too.
The Impeachment of Bush is Imminent, Just in Time
So now, thanks to his revelations those tilling the ground for impeachment have proven that the soil was fertile. The former press secretary has painted a picture perfect image of what most of us could only see from afar. ...
Democracy for New Hampshire -... - http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com
Newest McCain official: President has "near dictatorial powers"
So, consistent with his President-as-Dictator vision, McCain's new communications official believes that -- as I wrote at the time -- when "federal agents" come knocking at your door and issue orders, you better "damn well" obey -- you had better not "resist" -- even if the orders you're being given are illegal, even if they're designed to spy on Americans in violation of the law, and even if they're intended to facilitate the torture of detainees. That's what patriotic Americans do -- they obey the orders of their near-dictatorial Leader, so sayeth the heel-clicking Michael Goldfarb. That's a superb, and very mainstream, new addition to the maverick McCain team.
John McCain just hired the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb to be his number-two communications guy. Glenn Greenwald points out that this isn't a particularly encouraging sign when it comes to reining in executive power. Goldfarb has written (falsely, by any reasonable reading of the Constitution, Federalist Papers, or diaries of the Constitutional Convention) that the founders believed the president should have "near dictatorial" powers when it comes to war and foreign policy.
This administration genuinely believes that we cannot handle freedom and that freedom is a very dangerous commodity.
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