Posted on 10/18/2006 8:50:02 AM PDT by Froufrou
For a variety of reasons, Democrats are criticizing the military tribunals bill that President Bush signed into law on Tuesday -- but it's the "stealth pardon" for "war crimes" allegedly committed by President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that upsets one Democrat the most.
Former U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, a New York Democrat and a Bush impeachment advocate, issued a news release on Tuesday, saying that President Bush, by signing the military tribunals bill, "has created a "culture of impunity" for himself and others who allowed the "torture and abuse of detainees," such as that at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Holtzman complained that the new law sanctions the abuse of foreign detainees in defiance of the Geneva Conventions and suspends habeas corpus in defiance of the U.S. Constitution.
Democratic control of Congress "would make impeachment a serious reality," Holtzman blogged Tuesday on the Huffington Post.
According to Hotlzman, passage of the military tribunals bill provides another important reason for impeachment -- because it "guts" the War Crimes Act of 1996, a Clinton-era law that made it a federal crime to mistreat detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions. (The Bush administration has complained that some provisions of the Geneva Conventions are vague, and he pressed Congress for clarification. See earlier story.)
Said Holtzman in a news release on Tuesday, "When a president violates the country's criminal laws and then gets a secret grant of immunity for those crimes, he makes a mockery of the rule of law. Then all lawlessness is permissible."
Holtzman said the "immunity" provision was slipped secretly into the bill, without hearings or debate. "Most members of Congress, most reporters and most Americans have no idea that this has happened," Holtzman said.
She accused President Bush of striking a "horrific blow" at democratic values and the U.S. constitutional system.
"Instead of pardoning himself with the complicity of Congress, the President should be making public what acts of prisoner abuse he authorized the CIA to undertake or what acts of theirs he ratified," Holtzman said.
The New York Democrat has been advocating Bush's impeachment for months, and she has co-written a new book "analyzing the illegal, unconstitutional and/or impeachable actions" of the Bush administration.
In a January 2006 article posted on the Nation website, Holzman cited the president's alleged "scorn" for international treaty obligations, "torture scandals," the war in Iraq, and the secret wiretapping program, intended to eavesdrop on terrorists who contact people in America.
"As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of President Bush," Holzman wrote in January.
"While impeachment is a last resort, and must never be lightly undertaken (a principle ignored during the proceedings against President Bill Clinton), neither can Congress shirk its responsibility to use that tool to safeguard our democracy. No President can be permitted to commit high crimes and misdemeanors with impunity."
In the January article (the one posted on the Nation's website), Holman notes that she sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon.
"As a Democrat who opposed many of President Nixon's policies, I still found voting for his impeachment to be one of the most sobering and unpleasant tasks I ever had to undertake. None of the members of the committee took pleasure in voting for impeachment; after all, Democrat or Republican, Nixon was still our President."
As the midterm election draws closer and the drumbeat for impeachment grows louder, it appears that in the case of George W. Bush,some Democrats would take great pleasure in impeaching this particular president.
The Republican Party has warned that for Democrats, impeaching Bush is what the midterm election is really all about.
If the dhimmocrats didn't read the bill they voted for, that's THEIR problem. Yes, I know they can't read every page of the voluminous piles of verbiage they produce. I submit that that's no excuse.
However, if the Democrats become the majority party, an impeachment attempt is a real possibility. Given that, how likely is it that the current Administration (or any Admin) will be willing to go up against North Korea and discourage nuclear proliferation?
The Democrats will allow the Bad Guys to build up a nuclear stockpile for 2 years. Muslim terrorists are salivating.
And is this what Hillary really wants? Drumming up memories of impeachment?
Regards, Ivan
READ IT OVER AND OVER FOLKS! THOSE OF YOU WHO SAY THERE'S NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS SO WHO CARES WHO WINS THE ELECTIONS NEXT MONTH!!! While Bin Laden and AL Qaeda will be working on striking us again, a Pelosi-controlled House will be working on impeaching the president and distracting the nation with this insane partisan crusade.
IF YOU DIDN'T THINK YOU NEEDED TO VOTE OR WERE GOING TO STAY HOME AND POUT BECAUSE OF SPENDING OR BORDER CONTROL, WELL THESE ARE THE STAKES FOLKS! Nothing will change on spending, border control or any other issue you care about if these obsessive partisan mental patients take control of Congress. It will be about NOTHING BUT IMPEACHING A DUALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT MERELY FOR ACTING IN HIS ROLE AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF TO PROTECT THE NATION and all to avenge the impeachment of their Criminal Clinton.
SHOW EVERYONE YOU KNOW THIS ARTICLE AND THAT THIS IS WHAT THESE SATANIC BEASTS PLAN TO DO IF THEY CONTROL CONGRESS AND THIS IS WHY THEY NEED TO VOTE REPUBLICAN TO PREVENT THE NATION FROM BEING RIPPED APART BY A TOTALLY LUDICRIOUS AND FRIVILOUS IMPEACHMENT ABUSE OF POWER BY A BUNCH OF EXTREMIST WINDBAGS DURING A TIME OF NATIONAL DANGER!!!
Yes. It'll be payback for Bill, it will keep the lunatics that contribute money happy. If the impeachment runs into 2008 it will hurt the GOP in the next election. It's all a sick game to these people and God forbid we don't turn out and vote.
Unbelievable.
She wants to impeach the president for signing a bill that congress passed.
The only people stupider than she is are those that vote for her.
New York lawyer, so what else is new?
Also, making the so-called working-class so d@mned sick-and-tired of politics during the impeachment that the average American will vote for the first female president because "anything is better that what we have!"
Never, never, never, ever, ever, ever vote for any democrat for any reason, even if that dem is a better choice than the repub. Never ever waste a vote or set out an election.
This is why we have to retain the majority.
The jihadists are smart enough to realize that Democrat control of the US government is in their interest, and will presumably try their best between now and Nov. 7 to help the Democrats in the election. They, the 'Rats, and the MSM have coinciding interests.
And by the way b-tch, habeas corpus applies to criminal defendents, not UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANTS...nor does the Geneva Convention apply to such since what they are is ITSELF a violation of habeas corpus. Why don't you get at least a day's worth of legal training before speaking on legal matters you clearly don't understand. Stupid whore.
if Democrats win the House...
John Conyers will take over the Judiciary Committee and he has promised to launch impeachment hearings.
And is this what Hillary really wants? Drumming up memories of impeachment?
No, it’s not.
You don’t ever hear Hillary spouting such nonsense. She leaves that to the moonbat fringe. That’s why the moonbat fringe can’t stand her.
She keeps her looney leftist tendencies in the same closet she keeps her sexuality.
(ITSELF a violation of habeas corpus) - a violation of the Geneva Conventions I meant.
I don't give a rat's ass about the rights and well-being of terrorists...and I don't go with girls that do.
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