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Entry tags:	politics

Articles of Impeachment being read against Chief Executive Bush
Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is reading articles of impeachment against Chief Executive Bush right now on C-SPAN. We've missed the first 10 articles, because we've just heard about it; 11 was spending of moneys for permanent military basis in Iraq in violation of Congressional budget law. 12 is the invasion of Iraq for the purposes of seizing oil assets. He's previously read articles out against Mr. Cheney. I presume it will go nowhere, of course, but it's interesting as a spectacle. There's a petition you can sign to support impeachment; the site has been having problems, so it may take a few tries.

ETA: Apparently Scott McClellan is willing to testify in at least the Plame leak case.

ETA next day: Found it in the Congressional Record; third column, page H5508 of 2008. Filling in missing articles below from the Congressional Record.

ETA: Raw Story has a starting transcript here (first 10 minutes only). C-SPAN's video is not behaving well, but is archived here, and is at least long enough to be the entire thing.

Article 1: Illegal secret domestic propaganda campaign (discussed previously here) for the purposes of fomenting war against Iraq.

Article 2: Through the use of proxies, intentional conflation of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks with the government of Iraq in order to promote a war of aggression against Iraq. Campaign under his direction and control, executed through the the Office of the Vice-President and agencies of the Vice-President.

Article 3: Lying to Congress and the American people about the state of Iraq's capabilities for production and utilisation of weapons of mass destruction.

Article 4: Knowingly making a false case to Congress and the American people about the level of threat to the United States posed by Iraq in order to justify a war of aggression against Iraq.

Article 5: Illegal spending of funds (US$2B) to build support for and initiate a war against Iraq, including the building of unauthorised military bases in Qatar.

Article 6: Invasion of Iraq in violation of the terms of HJR 114 (authorisation of utilisation of force against Al Qaeda); providing false statements to Congress about Al Qaeda in Iraq; key here seems to be the fact that Al Qaeda wasn't operating in Iraq, therefore the use of HJR 114 to justify an invasion of Iraq was illegal.

Article 7: Invading Iraq without a Congressional declaration of war.

Article 8: Illegal invasion of Iraq as an act of aggressive war in violation of US treaty (via the UN charter).

Article 9: Inadequate provisioning of troops - body armor, vehicle armor, all that. No meat here.

Article 10: Falsification of reports to Congress and the American people about troop deaths and injuries for political purposes - in short, more illegal domestic propaganda. Tillman, Lynch highlighted.

Article 11: Establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq in direct violation of Congressional law, including congressional spending law, specifically HR 4986, Section 1222, which prohibits any expenditures for the purpose of establishing permanent military bases in Iraq.

Article 12: Illegal instigation of war against Iraq for the purpose of seizing control of Iraqi natural resources, specifically oil.

Article 13: Cheney's Energy Task Force - holding of a secret policy group (NEPDG, National Energy Policy Development Group) to formulate energy and military policies.

ETA: Article 14: Obstruction of justice in the matter of Valerie Plame.

ETA: Article 15: Immunity from prosecution for contractors in Iraq; including all employees; immunisations from all forms of law.

ETA: Article 16: Croneyism in Iraq, national security, and border-control contracts, amoungst others; fraud in spending.

ETA: Article 17: Illegal detention of individuals, including US citizens, indefinitely, without charge or writ of habeas corpus; abuse of prisoners; secret detention of individuals. Violation of the Geneva Conventions and treaties; operation of secret prisons.

ETA: Article 18: Torture, authorisation and encouragement thereof, against captives in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, as a matter of official policy, together with his vice-president and agents. Specifically, of torture as official policy. Separately, failure to punish those responsible or halt the policies once exposed. Illegal elimination of criminal liability for torture.

ETA: Article 19: Extraordinary rendition; kidnapping of individuals and transport of them to secret facilities and other countries for torture. Refusal to assign status to individuals captured (combatant or noncombatant) for the purposes of excluding them from protection of any law.

ETA: Article 20: Imprisonment of children. Personally and through agents authorised or permitted the arrest and detention of 2500 people between the ages of 14 and 18 as enemy combatants, and acting against children aged 10 as enemy combatants, a war crime. (Kucinich's words: war crime.)

ETA: Article 21: Misleading of Congress and the American people regarding Iran, particularly regarding a nuclear threat from Iran against the United States, and the launching of a low-level illegal secret proxy war against Iran. Notes again that this is an act against Constitutional government.

ETA: Article 22: Creating secret laws through agents and subordinates, including the Vice President, through opinions issued by the Office of Legal Council, including the Yoo memo justifying torture, and the unjustifiable classification of these laws in the form of legal opinions, and the memo declaring the 4th Amendment void, domestically, for military operations of any form. Other such secret laws remain secret; many are unknown. Rep. Kucinich indicates at least eight additional secret office of legal council opinions being acted upon by the executive as law. Brings up blatant violations of FISA (domestic spying) law that you've read about here and the warrantless domestic spying; discusses declared ability of the Chief Executive to modify law by not following it.

ETA: Article 23: Violation of posse comitatus act. Establishment of programmes to appropriate power of the military for use in law enforcement. Includes use of military surveillance for the purpose of domestic law enforcement. Also brings up classified "continuity of government" annexes to executive orders which have been refused to Congress.

ETA: Article 24: Spying on American citizens in the United States without warrant in violation of law and 4th Amendment, including communications between private US citizens both within US borders. (Note that some of this comes depositions from the EFF's lawsuits against the illegal FISA violations - the only functioning route of investigation that retroactive immunity is designed to shut down.)

ETA: Article 25: Directing telecommunications company to create database of private telephone numbers and email records of American citizens in direct violation of Federal law. Records collected illegally of tens of millions of Americans. Specific intent to create a database of all calls made and email messages sent within the US.

ETA: Article 26: Announcing intent to violate laws via signing statements, and then proceeding to violate those laws. "Subversive of Constitutional government."

ETA: Meanwhile, here's the fundamentalist headline graphic:

(courtesy cow)

ETA: Article 27: Failing to comply with Congressional subpoenas and instructing former employees not to comply with those same subpoenas. Includes Judiciary Committee subpoena for papers; House Oversight and Government Reform subpoena to the Secretary of State; Judiciary Committee subpoena to Harriet Myers; Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena of Joshua Bolton; Senate Judiciary Committee for documents and testimony of White House Political Direct Sarah Taylor (appeared but refused to answer questions); Senate Judiciary Committee Subpoena to Karl Rove; Senate Judiciary Committee Subpoena to J. Scott Jennings (and papers) (Jennings appeared but refused to answer questions); Senate Judiciary Committee for legal and other documents on warrantless wiretapping; if documents not produced Bolton, Philip Lego, others must testify, ignored; House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoena for Lt. General Kensinger.

ETA: Article 28: Conspiracy to undermine conduct of free and fair elections. Corruption of the administration of justice. Manufacturing of false allegations of voting fraud in heavily-Democratic districts. Firing of US attourneys for failing to comply with orders to engage in frivolous and biased investigations into Democratic officeholders and candidates. Obstruction of justice in the investigation of these issues. Ordering of subpoenaed witnesses not to appear.

ETA: Article 29: Conspiracy to violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2004 election. Aiding and abetting scheme to use computerised phone calls to jam phone lines of opposition party groups (2002). Widespread intimidation and abuse in Ohio (2004) in violation of several laws. 2004: John Kenneth Blackwell (Sec. State, Ohio) and co-chair Committee to Re-elect George W. Bush committed unlawful acts in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by failing to protect the voting rights of American-American voters in Ohio, including disenfrancising of African-American voters by willfully denying neighbourhoods an adequate number of voting machines and provisional ballots. Partisan purges of voter registration lists. Obstruction of Justice, as alleged by members of the Justice Department.

ETA: Article 30: "Misleading Congress and the American people in his attempt to destroy Medicare." Designing benefits without cost controls creating a financially unstable programme for the purpose of enriching drug programmers. Publishing false data about the cost of the programme, at US$400B. Medicare administrator ordered denials of requests for true costs of programme, including threat of sanctions against a specific actuary who had the correct data. Impeding of investigation into these matters.

ETA: Article 31: Katrina; failure to respond to civil emergency. Failure to take action to protect life and property either in advance or during the approach of the hurricane. Failure to aid in rebuilding afterwards. Restricting of data and interference with publication of science; interference of and restriction of data regarding global warming and intensifying average hurricane strength. Gross negligence.

ETA: Article 32: Global climate change. "Deception of Congress and the American people" in the suppression of information about global climate change. Suppression of reports by DARPA, others, on security implications, including replacement of scientists with politically-chosen appointees, and warnings of "dire consequences" for Federally-employed scientists who reported their findings on global climate change; political monitoring of all science related to global climate change reporting; political editing of scientific reports; in all, "a systematic effort to manipulate climate chance science and to mislead legislators and the public" about global climate change.

ETA: Article 33: Incompetence in failing to respond to high-level warnings of terrorist attacks before September 11, 2001.

ETA: Article 34: Obstruction of investigation into investigation of September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, including failure to hand over documents by the CIA and other Executive branch offices.

ETA: Article 35: Endangering the health of 9/11 first responders near the former World Trade Center by ordering the EPA to issue false reassuring statements about health impacts from the attack in the immediate aftermath and suppressing EPA cautions from other materials. Political control (through National Security Council) of EPA updates and news/press releases.

[House adjourns for the evening]

As of 20:57 PDT, this story is not on the front pages of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS News, and so on. There are some very short articles on the wire services, and in some local websites. I'm still seeing nothing about the articles I missed; help me out here?

ETA 11:49 PDT 10 June 2008: The filing has just gained a cosponsour. (13:11 PDT) Also, reported in email, Congressman Robert Wexler has signed on today as well.

Articles of Impeachment being read against Chief Executive Bush by Dara Korra'ti
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov.