Impeach Cheney-Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan,

[IChing]

Impeach Cheney

The vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped.
By Bruce Fein
>>>>snip
The vice president asserted presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes. The Supreme Court rebuked Cheney in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Mr. Cheney claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the president's say-so alone, a frightening power indistinguishable from King Louis XVI's execrated lettres de cachet that occasioned the storming of the Bastille. The Supreme Court repudiated Cheney in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.

The vice president initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists. This lawlessness has been answered in Germany and Italy with criminal charges against CIA operatives or agents. The legal precedent set by Cheney would justify a decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to kidnap American tourists in Paris and to dispatch them to dungeons in Belarus if they were suspected of Chechen sympathies.

The vice president has maintained that the entire world is a battlefield. Accordingly, he contends that military power may be unleashed to kill or capture any American citizen on American soil if suspected of association or affiliation with al-Qaida. Thus, Mr. Cheney could have ordered the military to kill Jose Padilla with rockets, artillery, or otherwise when he landed at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, because of Padilla's then-suspected ties to international terrorism.>>>>>snip

Yet without making a written transmittal to Congress, President Bush has ceded vast domains of his powers to Vice President Cheney by mutual understanding that circumvents the 25th Amendment. This constitutional provision assures that the public and Congress know who is exercising the powers of the presidency and who should be held responsible for successes or failures. The Bush-Cheney dispensation blurs political accountability by continually hiding the real decision-maker under presidential skirts.
>>>>snip
http://www.slate.com/id/2169292

Bruce Fein is a constitutional and international lawyer with Bruce Fein & Associates and The Lichfield Group. He served as associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and was a member of the ABA Task Force on presidential signing statements.

[lazer47]

1. Would someone please send this to Nancy Peloise

[redqueen]

2. Have you written to her about it?

http://speaker.gov/contact/

:hi:

[lazer47]

4. Her E-mail dosent accept from anyone out of her district

[redqueen]

5. Her address as speaker does!

(That's the one I linked. :))

[KharmaTrain]

3. Are There 17 Repugnican Senators Who Will Step Up?

Including Liebermann...

I'm asking this as a serious discussion question...

How many Bruce Fein Repugnicans are there in the Senate? How many can see the overt criminality and be willing to do what's right over what's in their best political interests or what the corporate media says they should.

I can only think of a handful...Hagel, Gordon Smith...maybe an Olympia Snowe or Sunnunu who may vote to convict cheney, but will others? And who? Arlen? He'd probably vote "not present" in his finest Scottish brogue. Anyone else? Bueler? Bueler?

That's the real inustice here...that no matter how compelling the evidence, there are 17 people who will keep these goons in power. Hopefully Mr. Fein will dig further and continue to speak out as the criminality here must be addressed and politicians have proved worthless.

One step further...why doesn't Mr. Fein launch his own civil suit...ala Larry Klayman...get the power of discovery and put many of these aparachniks under oath...lets really open the spigots here.

[IChing]

6. Good points and I hope Fein keeps speaking out

and launches his own civil suit.

Reagan is worshiped but not honored by Republicans, he is their golden cow, and a false idol,
but when Reaganites speak out maybe it will filter down to the blind and misinformed.

I thought the article covered some good aspects and arguments which had not been addressed

[KharmaTrain]

7. Fein Has Been Outspoken For A While

I think it was the warrantless wiretapping that pushed him over the edge. Here's a man I detested during the Clinton inquisition, but I've grown to respect his knowledge of the law and his consitancy on applying it across the board.

Yes...he's onto many great points as does John Dean on this issue. Any Constitutional scholar has to be highly concerned with the extent this regime has gone to parse and mangle their definitions.

Maybe the Wilson case will get the ball rolling, but this regime is long overdue for some type of legal action. Too many crimes...too many rights violated. Get 'em on the stand, under oath and let's get some sunshine.

Cheers...

[IChing]

8. I detested him too and his signing statements legal defense

But every little bit helps