Kucinich Introduces Articles of Impeachment

[stopcamping]

Kucinich Introduces Articles of ImpeachmentPOSTED June 9, 8:38 PMRep. Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush yesterday in the House of Representatives. Here's a portion of Kucinich's speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nSA472_nKM

Many will watch Rep. Kucinich's speech, roll their eyes, and decide it's a major waste of time. The President's term is almost up, and American's just don't support impeachment. Right?Nope, not right. In fact, there is a surprisingly large percentage of Americans who support the impeachment of President Bush.

According to Angus Reid, an InsiderAdvantage poll around May 1, 2007, found 39 percent of American voters to favor impeaching both Bush and Cheney, and 55 percent opposed. Analyzing these numbers, Bob Barr, who initiated the Clinton impeachment hearings, said that "this indicates the surprising depth of dissatisfaction with Bush."

On July 6, 2007, a telephone poll conducted by the American Research Group found that 45 percent of American adults favored the US House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against Bush, with 46 percent opposing the proceedings. In the same poll, 54 percent wanted impeachment proceedings against Cheney, and 40 percent were opposed.

In another July 2007 pool by USA Today/Gallup, 36% of Americans felt there was justification for congress to begin impeachment proceedings against the President, while 62% felt that there was no justification.

A November 13, 2007 nationwide poll by American Research Group found 34% of all voters agreeing that "President Bush has abused his powers as president which rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the Constitution and he should be impeached and removed from office", distributed among 50% of Democrats, 18% of Republicans and 34% of independents. 43% of all voters nationwide agreed d!ck Cheney has abused his powers as vice president to the level of impeachable offenses and he should be impeached and removed from office. (Link)

Clearly not majorities, but note that the polling was done a year ago and, even then, the number supporting impeachment was surprisingly high. When the question is rephrased slightly:

A new American Research Group poll finds that 55 percent of voters believe President Bush has “abused his powers” in a manner that rises “to the level of impeachable offenses under the Constitution,” yet just 34 percent believe he should actually be impeached. Fifty-two percent say that Vice President Cheney has similarly abused his powers, with 43 percent supporting impeachment.

It may be that, with only six months left in the President's term, Congress won't have much enthusiasm for beginning an impeachment process. But the meme that the country just isn't interested in impeaching the president is not completely correct.

The president will, undoubtedly, be held accountable for his actions. But it will happen later rather than sooner.

[stopcamping]

btw I think this is a waste of time but I'd like to know how far this will go.

[rn79870]

The real problem is that stupid isn't a crime. I don't think Busk is a liar or a cheat. In fact, I think he believed what he told America. However, he was wrong, and he continued to believe he was right after all of America knew otherwise.

My opinion, let history judge him, not the House. He's a lame duck with 6 1/2 more months left before we're finished with him. Hopefully, he won't cause too many more problems in that time.

[AZhitman]

"Abuse of powers" is a term that shouldn't be tossed about lightly.

Following the suggestion of trusted advisors (who might ought to be impeached as well) and then knowing that "pulling out" would cause more damage than staying the course is not an "abuse of powers".

Now, if he had personally profited somehow? Sure.

Politicians lie. We hardly give it a passing thought. Poor Hillarious dodged sniper fire (a LIE that was purely self-serving) and people still wanted her to be Prez.

I just don't think we can chalk this one up to evil intent, premeditation, or ill will on the part of Dubya.

Wonder how much of Dennis's actions are a desperate ploy by the Left to "pile on" and smear the Right in tough times?

[HashiriyaS14]

The real problem is that stupid isn't a crime. I don't think Busk is a liar or a cheat. In fact, I think he believed what he told America. However, he was wrong, and he continued to believe he was right after all of America knew otherwise.

My opinion, let history judge him, not the House. He's a lame duck with 6 1/2 more months left before we're finished with him. Hopefully, he won't cause too many more problems in that time.

I couldn't agree more.

Hopefully he doesn't go invading Iran or some damn fool thing before his term is up. I think he would've done that by now though, if he was so inclined. He's only got until January.

I'm not sure I feel the same way about Cheney though. I DO think that Cheney intentionally misled the United States and the legislatures to support the war effort, and I think he coerced the CIA and other intelligence sources to sell his story.

I don't think his motivation is that he's an evil guy, but I think he subscribes to an unrealistically grim world view and was more aggresive than was appropriate in his push for the invasion.

Ultimately, Bush's major failing might just have been allowing Cheney to do too much as VP. Again, a failing of competence and will and perhaps intelligence, but probably not one of intent.

[stopcamping]

Did Cheney profit from Iraq?

[AZhitman]

Just remember, the critics all have something to hide as well.

Would we be better off today had Algore or Kerry taken office? I doubt it.

Would we still have problems? Of course. Different problems, I'm sure - but problems all the same.

[sensibleS13driver]

.

[ishkabibble]

Would we be better off today had Algore or Kerry taken office?

Probably. Doubt we'd be in Iraq.

Would we still have problems? Of course. Different problems, I'm sure - but problems all the same.

Yep. We don't live in utopia and never will, but I doubt we'd be in the bind we're in right now.

As far as impeachment goes, I doubt anything could be pinned on Bush since he's more or less just an ignorant puppet, but IMO a fair amount of stuff could be dug up on nearly everyone below him. A lot of that data is under so-called "executive privilege". We'll either see it unearthed when the Dems take over, or 50 years in the future when it's so old it's declassified.

[smockers83]

Would we be better off today had Algore or Kerry taken office? I doubt it.

Probably. Doubt we'd be in Iraq.

If Kerry took office, we'd be in a much worse position. He wanted to make our foreign policy subject to an international vote! What idiot would do that? So no, if Kerry was in office, we would not be in a better position, in fact we would be in a worse position. Gore, well I don't know much about Gore except that he claimed to have invented the Internet and that he made An Inconvenient Truth...was a little young to want to follow the 2000 election.

[Cold_Zero]

Did Cheney profit from Iraq?

Not sure how he could have. By the time he took political office, he would have had to sell his ownership (stocks) in Halliburton.

I would like to point a few things out. 1. Bringing impeachment proceedings never boads well for the accuser. Look at Newt Gingrich filing charges against Speaker Jim Wright. There was later payback with Newt being accused of ethic violations. Henry Hyde and Bill Clinton...2. This was probably to be expected, since Bill Clinton was impeached in 98. I guess we can expect this to be done to EVERY President for now on. You want a totally ineffective position of President of the United States? Keep this crap up.

[audtatious]

Same old tune on a skipping record.

[HashiriyaS14]

2. This was probably to be expected, since Bill Clinton was impeached in 98. I guess we can expect this to be done to EVERY President for now on. You want a totally ineffective position of President of the United States? Keep this crap up.

I do agree wholeheartedly with this statement, it's becoming a political gimmick when it should be a very serious (and rare) proceeding.

This is the danger of such narrow-margin strictly partisan politics.

I said earlier that I DID think that Cheny was guilty of misleading, however I don't want that to be misconstrued as that I think the offense was worth of impeachment.

I don't think that *either* any of this OR the Clinton affair were worthy of impeachment AT ALL. Both were political dog-and-pony shows and bring shame on our nation.

[audtatious]

Clintons was more that he lied to the nation and under oath when he did in fact "do the deed". There is no proof that Bush lied to the public about Iraq and the intelligence.

[ishkabibble]

If Kerry took office, we'd be in a much worse position.

Who is going to win the Super Bowl this year?

[audtatious]

Who is going to win the Super Bowl this year?

Colts

Any other questions?

[ishkabibble]

No, just wanted to find out which AFC team the Vikings were going to lose to.

[audtatious]

Listen bub, you didn't ask me to find out who was going to be in the cellar and I aint gonna drain my dilithium crystals to go forward in time again.

[ishkabibble]

Oh, no, I already know the Vikes will win the NFC Championship. I don't need that verified.

[audtatious]

Then you need to press the "Forward in time" button because you are going backward in your analysis

[ishkabibble]

Time to do the flux capacitor mod to the NX, I guess.

[heliochrome85]

damn straight.