Act on impeachment, now

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http://www.nj.com/opinion/times/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1184904650307380.xml&coll=5

EDITORIALS
Act on impeachment, now
Friday, July 20, 2007
BY MARY ELLEN MARINO

The Constitution states that the president and vice president can be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors."

If we do not impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, we establish that it is permissible for future presidents and vice presidents to deceive Congress and the public into futile wars, engage in widespread illegal spying on Americans, detain prisoners without charge, engage in torture, operate in secrecy and re fuse to execute laws passed by Congress. In writing the Constitution, our Founding Fathers chose impeachment as the primary check on federal officials who act as despots while in office. They had just removed a king and had no interest in replacing him with an elected one.

This was the message we, a group of constituents and leaders of the Central and South Jersey Impeach Groups, brought Rep. Rush Holt, D-Hopewell Township, on July 9. We delivered an impeachment resolution passed by the Princeton Community Democratic Organization (PCDO), hundreds of signed petitions, and our passionate belief that our Constitution and democracy are in grave danger. The actions of Mssrs. Bush and Cheney continue to parallel the offenses that caused the House to impeach Richard Nixon 33 years ago.

We asked Holt to co-sponsor HR Res. 333, the resolution to impeach Cheney introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, on April 24, which now has 15 co-sponsors...



Mary Ellen Marino is co-chair of the Central Jersey Impeach Group, a member of the Princeton Community Democratic Organization.




Bring end to reign of Bush and Cheney

http://ldnews.com/letters/ci_6422466

Editor:
Lebanon Daily News


Hooray and thank you to Paul Heise for his July 12 column. Indeed, the time has come to show America’s vice president the exit. And it should be a hasty exit.
I don’t agree, however, that removal of Dick Cheney is enough. Although, as Heise states, “It is probably safe not to impeach George Bush and just let him continue to strut about like some underinflated little king,” he, too, should be removed from office.

Without Bush’s complicity, Cheney could not have advanced his devious plots. Bush anointed himself “the decider.” All parties to their deceptions and secretive actions must be held accountable.

Sadly, the very terrorists who threaten us now are a product of American government administrations, created and organized during the Reagan years (to be used against the Russians), supported through Bush the First’s administration, now inflamed by Bush the Second. I will believe, until my last breath, if we hadn’t put another Bush in the White House, the World

Trade Center towers would still be standing. I will also believe the Bush administration had enough knowledge and the ability to prevent the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center. But it was opportunistic for them to let it happen...



http://www.ldnews.com/columns/ci_6358318

Time to show vice president the exit
By Paul Heise
Lebanon Daily News


It is probably safe not to impeach George Bush and just let him continue to strut about like some underinflated Little King. But Dick Cheney, that’s a whole different bundle of worries.

Left to himself, Bush does what is dumb but rarely what is dangerous. People were easily able to clean up after his military record, his oil-patch misadventures and his plaything baseball club. As president, think Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. (He had not told Cheney.) Or recognize that whatever he says in unscripted moments can be chalked up to dyslexic muttering. (You know what he meant!) Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders are unlikely to get upset; they have measured the man.

Cheney, on the other hand, has shown that he is able with great stealth and sometimes with disarming candor to manipulate the agenda, the policy and the outcome virtually anywhere in this government. All papers going to the president pass through Cheney’s office, to be supported or undercut, whether others in the Office of the President know it or not. This is where, for instance, signing statements are controlled. Bush may be the decider, but Cheney controls the flow and presents the decisions to be made.

The trial of Scooter Libby and the attendant exposures made it clear that the vice president led us fraudulently into a war that strengthened al-Qaida and threatens the security of our country. Cheney led the attack on Ambassador Wilson and tried to suppress information that might have shown there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To that end, he was willing to have his staff commit multiple crimes and perjuries. All of this was done to mislead the American public and build a case, which he knew was false, for war...