Politics

[shadowkat]

Ooooh I've discovered a cool new lj site - freespeechzone where I found This. Apparently the New Mexico State Senate has drafted and voted on a resolution which they sent to US Congress to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney regarding their policy on Iraq and the illegal wire-tapping and spying on Americans amongst other things. Ahhh. Interesting. And yes, the state legislatures can do that. It's been a while, but if memory serves, the States can check the Federal Government's policies. This fascinates me. None of the States have done this sort of thing since the Civil War and it's coming from the state of New Mexico. Here's the The full text of the resoultion. Whether you are a Bush fan or not a Bush fan or just ambivalent, this is fascinating from a historical perspective. I'm not sure if a State Legislature has done this before? And according to the article, New Mexico isn't the only State Legislature doing this or considering it.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Yay! It's about time! Bush has done a lot of illegal stuff since being illegally elected and I'm happy to have this resolution, even if it is ignored (but I hope it will be investigated!)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It made me astonishingly happy too. It's interesting - another sign that the publis is NOT happy with our current President's behavior - which I knew would happen once those body bags started coming back from Iraq.

There's another article at freezone about Chuck Hagel - I think that's his name, a populist and conservative Republican Sentator with a potential bid for Prez, whose risking it all to oppose the President's plan to increase troops to Iraq. He states that his vote in support of the resolution that supported the War in Iraq specifically stated that it only supported the War after all other options were exhausted and that the Prez decided he didn't need Congress' approval and went ahead and did it anyway. That the original resolution that the Prez wanted would give Congressional approval for the US to invade any country. Chuck, and three other senators re-wrote it so that it said just Iraq, and only after all options were exhausted.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

So glad the states are stepping up, since Congress won't! We should never forget the Democrats who aren't doing all they can to oppose him.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Well, it's dicey. I can see why Nancy Pelosi took it off the table - she just got Speaker of The House and if Cheney/Bush got impeached, she'd be President of the US.

Been reading the Atlantic Monthly this week and it has a marvelous article entitled "Untruth and Consequences" - the article examines why Clinton's lie is not as damaging as Bush's. Clinton's was to protect personal information related to his own private life that had no bearing whatsoever on his role as President or the daily duties of the job. Was it unethical? Sure. But not damaging. Bush's lie on the other hand has had far-reaching consequences, ones that may damage the US for decades after he's out. It killed our ability to do a preemptive strike, severly damaged relations with the North Koreans, hurt our relations in the Middle East, cost us billions of dollars, hurt our relations with our allies, and killed over 2,000 of our citizens.
That's, if you think about, far worse than the consequences of Nixon's lie regarding Watergate or FDR's about his health. They all lie of course, the question is what is the nature of the lie and what are the consequences?
Reading about it in the Atlantic is interesting, because the Atlantic Monthly is more conservative.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I've seen bumpersticers: "When Clinton lied, nobody died." But very glad to hear the Atlantic is getting the point--and getting it across.

I understand Pelosi's situation, but not why people like Hilary Clinton voted for the war in the first place. I'll vote for her against a Republican, but never in a primary.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Bumperstickers. Sorry.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Actually I'm not sure she did vote for the War. There's a fascinating interview with Senator Chuck Headly (sp?) online at The Nation, I think - you can find a link at freespeechzone. In it
an interviewer askes him if he regrets voting for the war.
He responds, did you read the resolution?
The interviewer says yes.
Did you read the part that says we only invade Iraq after we have exhausted all other options?
The interviewer is perplexed.
He goes on to state that the interviewer should have seen the original resolution that the president sent - this one said invade any terrirtory and did not give limitations. They rewrote it, specified Iraq and said only after all the other options had been exhausted and the evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
The President apparently went around Congress when he found out that he did not need their permission to go into Iraq and declared an executive order.

Granted they probably shouldn't have done the resolution - but it was close to 9/11, so they didn't have many options. But they never gave the Pres carte blanche permission to go to war in Iraq, there were stipulations, one of those stipulations the President lied about.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

It's true that those who voted for it make the argument, but still, people like Kucinich could see through the smoke and mirrors. And those who couldn't--that's another reason to be concerned about them holding high office. If those of us out here knew what Bush intended, and what a huge error it would be, why couldn't the people who voted for the resolution?

And I called and wrote letters to my own reps (ha, like it would do any good), saying exactly that when the resolution was on the floor, so I know the danger was clear to many in the public. Many, many people predicted that Bush would invade, regardless, and that it would turn out exactly the way it did. Actually, I even remember a lot of posts on ATPO around that time on the topic.

I want leaders who can at least out-think George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Sorry to rant! I'm just very angry about this war.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No worries. Never been for the war myself.

But looking at it objectively for a moment - I remember when it happened and I remember being in the minority - in that I saw it as another Vietnam, potentially worse than Vietnam, with no clear end in sight, and it would only make everything worse. But the pundits, most of the people online (who weren't liberal) and a good portion of the public disagreed. Bush's approval rating was very high back then.
It wasn't that long after 9/11. At the time the public believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that Al Quada was hidden there and training there - an opinion not helped by the media who pushed this view - partly with repeated showings of Iraq celebrating what happened on 9/11 (whether they really celebrated it or not is another story - that was what aired on the network news broadcasts.)
It was not until much later that the media began to show more of the story, and no, I don't mean NPR, BBC, or the media we were looking at - I'm talking about the popular media, which the vast majority of people watched and trusted at the time.

I remember a lot of people comparing the Iraq War to World War II and Suddam Hussein to Hitler. A comparision I found to be ludricous, since Iraq had far more in common with Vietnam from everything I'd read and seen on it. But I had intense arguments with people who thought differently.

What is ironic, is it is now those same people - who believed in Bush, that are now screaming about it. Because the body bags are coming back. The war is not ending. They are going back again, possibly for the fourth time. The violence is escalating. And the management of the situation over there? Chaotic, which is also part of the problem.

It's interesting that the Pentagon and the generals, specifically Colin Powell were never in favor of it. Most of them argued against it. It's also interesting that Bush went around a lot of people - he went around Congress, because the Executive Branch does have the ability to invade and declare war if it is in the nation's best interest and to defend ourselves without the direct consent of Congress. The question is did Congress consent? Can he send more troops in now without Congress's consent? Objectively it is interesting to watch. I try not to think about emotionally too much or I just get upset and angry. I figure I did my job, I voted against him. I signed petitions against the war. I informed people I was against it. But I know I was in the minority, which frustrated me back then and frustrates me know - it's not always great to be looking at the other guy and thinking, ghod, I told you so, you stupid people. Why didn't you vote for Gore and Kerry? But nooo, you had to vote for the dimwit. Ugh! LOL!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And one of the sadder things to me was Powell, because it was so clear he was being forced to give the WMD speech, and even then it was clear that he hated what he was saying.