NP Rank:
Remove Impeachment from the Constitution- Opinion.
The International Institute of Nonviolence
By: Rev. Jermano
I wrote this article in seeking a means to honor the Constitution, but it is clear in my mind that we have a failed State of the United States. It therefore behooves me to grant all burial rights to the nation as a goneby era as Rome. Therefore seeking to make a failed State legitimate criminals I think we should remove the Impeachment process from the Constitution. I would ask the incumbant adminstration its definition of Impeachment if they are to stand in the way of its ousting from the Constitution. The following is what I proposed, but now see how indignant it is.
1.Q. What is impeachment?
A. It is a process, authorized by the Constitution, to bring charges against certain officials of the federal government for misconduct while in office.
2. What are the grounds for impeachment?
A. As noted above, the Constitution specifies that high government officials may be impeached for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." What precisely constitutes "high crimes and misdemeanors" is, however, uncertain because the courts have not specifically defined or interpreted the term, unlike other constitutional clauses. Treason and bribery are very serious offenses against the state, and most experts agree that offenses encompassed within "high crimes and misdemeanors" are similarly serious. ("Misdemeanors" is a constitutional term that does not have the current meaning of an offense less serious than a felony.)
3. Q. What punishment does the Constitution prescribe after Impeachment if the official is convicted?
A. Article 1, Section 3, also specifies, "Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law." http://www.abanet.org/publiced/impeach2.html
Interesting set of explanations I think. In number 1 & 2 I think we all can agree that our current administration qualifies handsdown. So what's the holdup and why the no effort to bringing impeachment? It is pretty clear in number 3. There is no punishment except removal from office. What sense is it? Absolutely makes no sense. Why should the people suffer an impeachment process when there is no consequences to Bush and Cheney? New elections do the same thing. What is really interesting is the rest of #3. in which the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment.
Now is that fair to our distinguished GOP Republican Representatives? I think not. In fact they are certainly held as hostages more than Democrats at this demurring moment. People in the Senate want to hold the party together before the ideals of the Constitution because the party deals with real people, and the constitution is nothing but a GD piece of paper according to Bush. So why should the party members be the ones to suffer the consequences from Bush and Cheney? The Party will face the punishment, not Bush and Cheney. And so who in the Senate agrees to this outlandish hijacking?
To me this is a grave error in which any elected Official can get away with crimes. It's why they always lie and get away with murder, because they know they can get away with it. They know the Senate and Congress will not seek impeachment because it does more harm to them than to the leaders who broke the law, namely Bush and Cheney.
No wonder Truman and LBJ and Nixon got away with crimes because there is no consequence to the crimes they committ; except removal from office. That's why Nixon resigned, and Ford did not seek further punitive action, because he couldn't go against Nixon. It would have brought considerable punishment to the Republican party.
And so what about the Constitution? What about the rule of Law? Why does the Senate and Congress take the brunt of blame for actions committed by the President and Vice President?
There needs to be a change to the law of Impeachment, and that would be that the President and Vice President are held accountable with more than simple removal from office. There needs to be some punitive action provided that does not shift blame to the Senate and Congress in their attempt to protect the balance of power in the Constitution. If the President and Vice President break the law they need to face money fines, prison time, and even recission of appointments they have made to the Supreme Court.
What I am proposing is giving America back its Constitution by making the guilty- guility and not hanging their offenses on the Senate and Congress. If we can assure the GOP will not suffer consequences to Bush and Cheney crimes, there will be movement forward with a swift process of impeachment that bites the right guilty party. This means passing a bill to ammend the Impeachment process to protect Congress and the Senate. Bush could veto, but it can be easily overridden....and now we have the making of needed Justice in America's Impeachment Justice system. I hope the GOP will consider coming to the rescue for America instead of remaining in the clutches to the senseless Impeachment process that convicts them instead of the real guilty leaders.
If we don't process this and use Impeachment with this correct format, our country will suffer greatly from not using it. How can a country be immune from Impeachment? How can there be a stated process, when there really is none yet? It needs to be realized.
Pelosi and Reid are right..that impeachment should not be tabled....but they are wrong in not stating why and how to fix this mess; as I have proposed to clean up here. Pelosi and Reid know they would suffer as much as the Republican party because Democrats do get support from Republican constituencies. It is bringing Impeachment to a new revised correction that will protect Republicans and Democrats while making the Impeachment process a viable justified process to begin with, by punishing those leaders who break the law and lie to the American people.
Thousands of innocent people have died through the years not only in Japan, and Vietnam, and now in Iraq and Afghanistan, and really in Palestine. Foreign Countries are working fervently to cut America off. They are building themselves into the right example of America, while leaving out the bad stuff, and that is very appealing to everyone. Look at the strength of the Euro these days, look at the fall of the dollar, the housing market, and the ever declining support to the MIC...Military Industrial Complex. America will be left out in the cold, as other countries build forms of Government that have real laws that protect the people, unlike the fraud of Democracy the US is trying to push down the worlds throat. If America does not embrace Impeachment as a necessary step to protecting the people, it is clear that Democracy is nothing more than a form of controlled hand-me-down dictatorship.
Impeachment tells us there is a rule of law, and respect in the land of Governments. Without it America will crumble as it is doing today...more crime...more uncertainty....more corruption....more murder....until its pariah nature turns on itself and men take up arms against each other with Patriots fighting Patriots into an unending American type Israel / Palestine creating a divide in the contiguous United States.This is where it is headed....unless the Senate and Congress agree they need to fix this corrupt useless Impeachment process.
photo credit: Afterdowningstreet.org
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April 24, 2008 at 09:52 am by djermano, 411 views, 6 comments





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Comments (6)
at 02:52 on April 25th, 2008
What would your articles of impeachment include, simply put, what are the charges? I also have a question on your second photo, where did you get it? What is the backdrop or context of the photo? Did you take this photo yourself? If not what is its origin? Thanks
at 21:57 on April 26th, 2008
Polisite the main charge is lying about going to war, and the killing of thousands of innocent Iraqi Families. Bush will claim Saddam did this, but clearly the bombs from the US killed those families.
Here is a list I agree with posted at Oprah.com. This is encouraging news because it was Oprah who gave her support to Obama, and yet she is going against Obama's stand on impeachment by supporting an impeachment website? If Obama supported Impeachment I would be happy to support him, but he has sent me a personal email telling me he opposes Impeachment.
http://www.oprah.com/community/message/40161
1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of over one hundred thousand Iraqis, and thousands of U.S. G.I.s.
2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.
3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.
4) Instituting a secret and illegal wiretapping and spying operation against the people of the United States through the National Security Agency.
5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.
6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
7) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.
8) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.
9) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."
10) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.
11) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.
12) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.
13) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.
14) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.
15) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.
16) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."
17) Engaging in criminal neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, depriving thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and other Gulf States of urgently needed support, causing mass suffering and unnecessary loss of life.
18) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.
19) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.
20) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.
I might add:
1. The willful execution of Saddam Hussein without a real trial.
2. The invasion of Afghanistan, without disclosing Enron Corporations involvement in the run up to the war.
3. The killing of innocent Afghanistan people, and a Taliban government who was instrumental in stopping the drug trade and opium production.
4. The ruining of American peoples reputation over-seas who teach English. Foreign people stay away from American and British counterpart Language Schools, because of the association of the War, due to acts of getting away with killing innocent people. Frankly they don't want to learn English Language now.
5. The complete disregard to Martin Luther King and chucking his works of Nonviolence in the trash, by supporting War that has no end.
6. Forcing Nonviolent Religious people to support war through their tax dollars.
7. The willful sacking of the US economy by compiling a war debt never seen in the history of the USA. You mean to tell me a war on Terror cost more than WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam wars put together? Ruining the lives of millions of Americans due to the failing economy from a housing mortgage crisis, and the lie that by going to war to secure Oil in Iraq would bring down gas prices.
8. The false 911 Commission Report, that leaves out huge sections to what really happened on 911. I believe Bush helped orchestrate 911 blaming terrorists in a lie to the American people.
9. He is also responsible for threats to Congress-members using anthrax, to convince the Congress to authorize for war.
10. The willful transport of so called Terrorists out of the USA, leaving without questioning.
The photos are listed in credits in the article. Afterdowningstreet.org
If you give me your email I will forward you The American Photo Album. Pictures by Dave Swanson and Layout by myself.
at 20:42 on May 3rd, 2008
In all respects I think the real reason why America has never had a successful impeachment and will never bring this administration to justice, or ever recognize the need for law in the Executive Office in the future, is because we have really resigned ourselves to the fact that America is a failed State of aggression, and no matter what we do to try and bring justice to it....is essentially a waste of time and effort. Impeachment will never find the light of day, because America has buried itself so deep in Crimes against humanity that Impeachment is merely a signing document ceremony that essentially means nothing. I compare it to all the years of peace negotiations with Israel and Palestine, which is always a failed process. We shall continue that failed program because essentially Americans have given up hope and will always cling to arms and aggression. In my opinion America is a failure.
at 10:12 on May 7th, 2008
Do you read Chomsky, by chance?
at 10:14 on May 7th, 2008
Speaking of Chomsky. . .Failed States is on google, in its entirety? This whole google thing is freaking me out, I swear.
http://books.google.com/books?id=yDhGoR6yU8AC&dq=chomsky+failed+states&pg=PP1&ots=pJdcfrqT2x&sig=zCpEtpWTAoHOcUQLFNsxF6fETNc&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26hs%3Dw54%26q%3Dchomsky%2Bfailed%2Bstates%26btnG%3DSearch&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPP1,M1
at 20:36 on May 7th, 2008
Thanks Drew,
Chomsky is right, and although he has his critics, they can't take away the assertion, that people who write about our troubles in order to fix them are not Anti-American, but real Americans who face reality and resolve. God Bless Norm. I hope our Gang&Bang Government will growup, and realize their chaos strengthens the very idealism they hate to admit they want. Rev. Jermano