Impeachment Daily - Article 1

[mikelewis]

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the
following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in
the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its
impeachment against President George W. Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors.
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional
oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability,
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional
duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed the following abuses of power.
_____________
ARTICLE I
CREATING A SECRET PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN TO MANUFACTURE A FALSE CASE FOR
WAR AGAINST IRAQ
In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional
oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability,
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional
duty under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed",
has both personally and acting through his agents and subordinates, together with the Vice President,
illegally spent public dollars on a secret propaganda program to manufacture a false cause for war
against Iraq.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has engaged in a years-long secret domestic propaganda campaign
to promote the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This secret program was defended by the White House
Press Secretary following its exposure. This program follows the pattern of crimes detailed in Article I,
II, IV and VIII.. The mission of this program placed it within the field controlled by the White House
Iraq Group (WHIG), a White House task-force formed in August 2002 to market an invasion of Iraq to
the American people. The group included Karl Rove, I. Lewis Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Karen
Hughes, Mary Matalin, Stephen Hadley, Nicholas E. Calio, and James R. Wilkinson.
The WHIG produced white papers detailing so-called intelligence of Iraq's nuclear threat that later
proved to be false. This supposed intelligence included the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from
Niger as well as the claim that the high strength aluminum tubes Iraq purchased from China were to be
used for the sole purpose of building centrifuges to enrich uranium. Unlike the National Intelligence
Estimate of 2002, the WHIG's white papers provided "gripping images and stories" and used "literary
license" with intelligence. The WHIG's white papers were written at the same time and by the same
people as speeches and talking points prepared for President Bush and some of his top officials.
The WHIG also organized a media blitz in which, between September 7-8, 2002, President Bush and
his top advisers appeared on numerous interviews and all provided similarly gripping images about the
possibility of nuclear attack by Iraq. The timing was no coincidence, as Andrew Card explained in an
interview regarding waiting until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on military action
against Iraq, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
September 7-8, 2002:

NBC's "Meet the Press: Vice President Cheney accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop
nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms.
CNN: Then-National Security Adviser Rice said, regarding the likelihood of Iraq obtaining a nuclear
weapon, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
CBS: President Bush declared that Saddam was "six months away from developing a weapon," and
cited satellite photos of construction in Iraq where weapons inspectors once visited as evidence that
Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms.
The Pentagon military analyst propaganda program was revealed in an April 20, 2002, New York
Times article. The program illegally involved "covert attempts to mold opinion through the
undisclosed use of third parties." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recruited 75 retired military
officers and gave them talking points to deliver on Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC, and
according to the New York Times report, which has not been disputed by the Pentagon or the White
House, "Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their
contacts with the Pentagon."
According to the Pentagon's own internal documents, the military analysts were considered "message
force multipliers" or "surrogates" who would deliver administration "themes and messages" to millions
of Americans "in the form of their own opinions." In fact, they did deliver the themes and the
messages but did not reveal that the Pentagon had provided them with their talking points. Robert S.
Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and Fox News military analyst described this as follows: "It was
them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.'"
Congress has restricted annual appropriations bills since 1951 with this language: "No part of any
appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes
within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."
A March 21, 2005, report by the Congressional Research Service states that "publicity or propaganda"
is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) selfaggrandizement
by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or (3) "covert propaganda."
These concerns about "covert propaganda" were also the basis for the GAO's standard for determining
when government-funded video news releases are illegal:
"The failure of an agency to identify itself as the source of a prepackaged news story misleads the
viewing public by encouraging the viewing audience to believe that the broadcasting news organization
developed the information. The prepackaged news stories are purposefully designed to be
indistinguishable from news segments broadcast to the public. When the television viewing public does
not know that the stories they watched on television news programs about the government were in fact
prepared by the government, the stories are, in this sense, no longer purely factual -- the essential fact
of attribution is missing."
The White House's own Office of Legal Council stated in a memorandum written in 2005 following the
controversy over the Armstrong Williams scandal:
"Over the years, GAO has interpreted 'publicity or propaganda' restrictions to preclude use of
appropriated funds for, among other things, so-called 'covert propaganda.' ... Consistent with that view,
the OLC determined in 1988 that a statutory prohibition on using appropriated funds for 'publicity or
propaganda' precluded undisclosed agency funding of advocacy by third-party groups. We stated that
'covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties' would run afoul of
restrictions on using appropriated funds for 'propaganda.'"
Asked about the Pentagon's propaganda program at White House press briefing in April 2008, White
House Press Secretary Dana Perino defended it, not by arguing that it was legal but by suggesting that
it "should" be: "Look, I didn't know look, I think that you guys should take a step back and look at this
look, DOD has made a decision, they've decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the
things that we try to do in the administration is get information out to a variety of people so that
everybody else can call them and ask their opinion about something. And I don't think that that should
be against the law. And I think that it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are
seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of those
military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I think you can go back and look and think that a
lot of their analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk to
people."
In all of these actions and decisions, President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his
trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the
prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore, President George W. Bush, by such conduct, is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting
removal from office.

[JDPriestly]

1. Thanks for posting this.

I would like to comment that I have no quarrel if an administration or an office within the administration holds a press conference and makes an announcement. What made the propaganda of the Bush administration unlawful in my view was its surreptitious nature.

The Bush administration did not clearly identify the source of the information as an official government agent. The sources presented themselves or were presented as though they were well informed, objective sources reporting on information they had obtained first hand or that was based on reliable objective evidence. In reality, the sources were salesmen and women for the political viewpoint of the Bush administration or the war machine.

[Ellipsis]

2. 5th R & and a kick

Thanks.

[midnight]

3. It is time......

[electropop]

4. Democrats scuttle proposal to impeach Bush

Susan Milligan
Globe Staff / June 12, 2008
WASHINGTON - Democrats in the House of Representatives yesterday scuttled a colleague's proposal to impeach President Bush on a wide range of charges, including lying to the American public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, torturing war captives, and misleading Congress in an attempt to destroy Medicare.

By a 251-166 vote, the House sent the 35-count articles of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee, which is expected to let it die without further action. While the vote technically forces the measure to the committee for consideration, it also means the full House will avoid having to debate and vote on impeaching the 43d president.

Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who ran for his party's presidential nomination this year, spent several hours reading into the Congressional Record his lengthy and far-reaching indictment of Bush's presidency.

He introduced the proposal as a resolution, which could be considered by the full House without going through the committee process.

While fellow Democrats have frequently used the House floor to attack Bush for his policies on Iraq, healthcare, domestic surveillance, and many of Kucinich's other grievances, none has joined him in mounting an impeachment effort.

...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/06/12/democrats_scuttle_proposal_to_impeach_bush/

Assholes. They've just forced me to vote for Nader. Apparently, all the votes in favor were Rethugs. The remainder of the article makes it clear that both Dems and Thugs somehow have the mistaken and irrelevant idea that impeachment would be unpopular. Impeachment is legally mandated by the Constitution, given the massive and blatant evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. And by the way, the reason impeachment of Clinton hurt the Thugs was that it was based on bullshit. Impeachment now is not only necessary for justice, it is an urgent matter of national security. Everybody can see that the madman is planning to invade Iran, using the exact same worn-out bag of tricks he used for Iraq.