Gonzales Is "Bush's Watergate-on-Steroids"

Fact. The allegations of massive illegal acts (from violations against the Constitution to the Geneva Conventions to.....), on the part of Gonzales are now part of the Congressional Record.

Fact. All those illegal acts were premeditated and perpetrated by the chief legal counsel to the President -- as direct of a report to the President of the United States of America as you can get.

Fact. Repeatedly, Gonzales was admonished for obfuscation, refusal to answer questions, refusal to supply documents, and more, during his under-oath hearings for AG and he was confirmed today still stone-walling, still arrogantly and dishonestly 'covering-up' or, if you will, lying.

Fact. The Republican leadership of the US Senate brought to vote an individual who refused to provide full disclosure of requested information; they acquiesced and are now active participants in Gonzales' 'cover-up.'

Fact. Those Senators who voted for Gonzales did so with full knowledge of the allegations and the extensive documentation that supports the allegations and the fact that Gonzales refused to provide requested information.

Now, allow me to quote from the Articles of Impeachment of Richard M Nixon, on his role in the attempted cover-up of ONE ACT OF UNLAWFUL ENTRY:

http://watergate.info/impeachment/impeachment-articles.shtml

ARTICLE 1

In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to 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 prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, in that:

On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.


Fact. Gonzales is truly Bush's Watergate-on-steroids because his crimes were committed in service of the President and his obstruction of the process, throughout his confirmation hearings, of revealing information requested by members of the US Senate, not only compounds the scale of his violations but effectively set a 'complicity trap.'

Fact. 60 US Senators just aided and abetted the cover-up of massive violations of the rights of prisoners and the torture of human beings (the implications of their vote will haunt them for the remainder of their lives). Those 60 US Senators are complicit with Gonzales and the President in covering up, in refusing to tell the American people the truth about past and ongoing brutally inhumane treatment of prisoners.


For instance, among the still-ongoing activities those 60 US Senators are now directly and actively aiding and abetting, here's just one example:

"Some attorneys for detainees say they believe the administration is hoping to avoid having to defend in court its alleged practice of sending suspects to foreign prisons where questionable interrogation tactics are used. "The political folks have decided this is now hurting the administration and they need to make it go away," said Brent Mickum, an attorney for Mubanga (British citizen released from Gitmo in Jan 2005). "And they're looking to avoid having any bad precedent that would affect their ability" to transfer detainees to third countries."

The scale of crimes that Mr Gonzales has committed, on behalf of the President of the USA, vastly exceed those that drove Mr Nixon to resign (even including Articles 2 & 3 against RMN). The President, in appointing him AG, has taken an extraordinary step to cover-up war crimes; he's appointed the architect of torture to the #1 "law enforcement position" in the USA. That's some kind of 'steroids.' In fact, that is way more than adequate to qualify Bu$h for the following:

"RESOLVED, That George W Bush, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanours, and that the following articles of impeachment to be exhibited to the Senate:

ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT EXHIBITED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE NAME OF ITSELF AND OF ALL OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AGAINST GEORGE W BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF ITS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HIM FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS."

If those Articles of Impeachment are not already being drafted by members of the House of Representatives, assisted by their colleagues in the Senate, I will be surprised.

In any event, "We The People...." will make it happen, just as we will force the resignation of every Senator who decided, today, to align themself with a war criminal and actively allow him to continue to lie about both the President's torture policies and the extent of those already, as well as currently being, tortured.

COMMENCE THE PURGE

Peace.


BE THE BU$H OPPOSITION; 24/7

But hasn't this administration already gotten away with several watergate on steroids? The Plame outing is one example, and there are many others.

....the difference in the Gonzales case is we have absolutely no hurdle linking him and his crimes with the person he was servicing by those crimes, Mr Bush. SLAM-DUNK, as they say.

Oh, and regarding Ms Plame; that will never be forgotten. Never.

Peace.


BEGIN THE PURGE

That is the natural order of things in an ordinary world. Will it happen? It should have happened before this.

that there is still some justice, somewhere in this country.

:kick:

How can we make this happen? Send this extremely insightful post to as many people as you can think of, just for a beginning.

...or at VR. Please use in any way that helps the cause from sending it to 'the patriotic 36' to KO.

We can reach our fellow citizens; all we need to do is persevere.

Peace and Thank you.


TBO;24/7

Any suggestions on getting those 60 to resign?

-Hoot

Parliamentary governments dissolve or collapse under No Confidence motions. We The People do not have a direct way to impeach or recall *. I see no reason to expect Congress to do this. It is OUR voices that must be heard, and the more unified and the tighter the harmony, the louder and more powerful it will sound. What should we say? In these Orwellian times, we have no reason to believe; there is no basis for confidence.

Read the No Confidence Resolution:

http://guvwurld.blogspot.com/2004/11/no-confidence-resolution.html

Our country, our world, and us are dying due to the horrific actions of this bush administration. We, we have to be and we are the patriots of the 21st century.

Conservatives can easily live in our world, however we cannot at all live in their world.

That is his number one function. He will never ever appoint a Special Prosecutor for anything. He will never ever recuse himself from anything. He is Special Counsel Extraordinaire.

Any witch hunts he conducts of administration enemies will be in his spare times, if he is not busy covering *'s ass.

our 'dems' in the senate.

WTF were 'our' senators thinking???!!!!!

There will be NO administration crimes looked into (and there are plenty). WE already knew that the congress has a repub majority, so no chance for investigatios there.

Our one only last chance was a decent AG. The dems sold our asses down the river. WHY?

incredible they hide in plain sight, so large they're blinding. Nixon's, by comparison, were recognizable to ordinary mortals.

....got 60+% of our fellow citizens thoroughly disgusted with the creep and all they need is for us to convey a simple, persistent message:

"Yes, it is as bad as you think it is. But, remember that they work for us and we can remove them, peacefully and legally. Let's just do it, Now."

Nixon, Mitchell and that gang of hoodlums appeared 'invincible' to oh so many on inauguration day, 1973. But, to a few of us, they were perceived as exactly what they were -- a slimy bunch of arrogant creeps just asking to have their butts kicked.

This time around, when we kick their butts, we are going to do something different than in 1974 and thereafter. We are going to use our networked base of activists to stay in the face of those whom we elect, daily. No intermediaries; us, together, directly.

Peace.

PURGE THE BU$H NEOCONSTER SCUM, NOW

From Kleindienst's obit:

Richard Kleindienst assisted in Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign. He was rewarded for his efforts by appointment as Nixon's Deputy Attorney General. When Attorney General John Mitchell resigned in 1972 to head the ill-fated Committee to Re-elect the President, Kleindienst succeeded as Attorney General.

Kleindienst was sworn in as Attorney General just 5 days before the break-in to the Democrat's Watergate headquarters which eventually forced Nixon's resignation. Early in 1973 as charges of obstruction of the Watergate scandal came to a head, Kliendienst joined White House aids H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and White House counsel John Dean in resigning their offices."

We can make it happen. These war crimes have not and will not go ignored.

....attention!!

Thank you.


BE THE BU$H OPPOSITION; 24/7

...manager in 1972. As head of CREEP Mitchell was involved in the dastardly deeds, including working with Nixon to attempt the cover-up. Didn't work and Mitchell is the only AG to ever be convicted and imprisoned.

Bu$h has just done something vastly dumber. He just appointed the known criminal to AG, when what he should have done is pack him off to some neoconster thinktank.

In the process, a massive amount of incriminating detail is now part of the Congressional record; the criminal stone-walled and lied to Congress and thereby compounded his own rap sheet and his boss's; and, he now has 60 US Senators complicit.

They're going down. Way too many career lawyers with the Justice Department are not going to tolerate having a war criminal as a boss, for starters.

Thank you for your comments; most helpful.

Peace.



AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TODAY TO PURGE BU$H & HIS NEOCONSTERS?

:loveya:

Torturegate makes Watergate look like a picnic in the park. If it doesn't turn this nation around, then we better hope global warming gets us first.

Thank You SS!

-Hoot

...avoided the addition of the suffix "-gate" since "Watergate."

But, I agree with you that Bu$h and Gonzales have created a monumental stack of crimes more than deserving of their own "-gate" -- TortureGate, it is.


Peace.


TBO;24/7

...And I hope I live to see the day when they are called upon to pay for their "stack of crimes."

:nuke:

....arm-in-arm, celebrating our saving of America, once again, from the thugs who defame its name.

Peace.

TBO;24/7

Thank you sir for taking the time to write this and for sharing it with us! I will proudly send it to many! :hug:

Nominated!

....what matters is what we all do to boot these creeps from DC, permanently.

Peace.


TBO;24/7

his perspective on political ecology merits much consideration.

:thumbsup:

forwarded this to Boxer, Kerry, Kennedy, Reid, Dodd, Obama, etc., etc?

Looks to me like you have already written it up for them. All they have to do at this point is include the text of the memorandums and the evidence they have access to that we don't!

If you haven't forwarded it to them. I would be happy to aid you in that endeavor. This looks like an excellent start to impeachment proceedings on behalf of DU and several other organizations might be interested in faxing and emailing this as well. answercoalition and PDA, veterensforpeace are the first three that come to mind.

...forward to whomever you think should read it.

I began by sending it to Senators Kerry and Kennedy and to Congressman Conyers and am preparing to send it to others. But, it is most effective if it is being sent by several citizens with whatever personal messages each person wishes to append.

Also, I have 'no pride of authorship' in anything I post here (and at VR) -- it is all for anyone to use in any way they consider helpful. Feel free to edit, amplify, whatever.

It is my opinion we have way more illegal acts than we need to charge Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rice & Gonzales (& others). Best to start with articles of impeachment against Bush and Cheney and then file charges against the others and watch which of them is willing to 'plea bargain,' first. They'll form a 'circular firing squad' as soon as they know they are all going to be prosecuted.

Peace.


TBO;24/7

"Michael Scheuer a former CIA counterterrorism agent told The New Yorker magazine "all we've done is create a nightmare," with regard to the top secret practice of renditions.

In an article titled 'Outsourcing Torture' due to hit newsstands this week, the magazine claims suspects, sometimes picked up by the CIA, are often flown to Egypt , Morocco, Syria and Jordan , "each of which is known to use torture in interrogations."

The report said suspects are given few, if any, legal protections.

Despite US laws that ban America from expelling or extraditing individuals to countries where torture occurs, Scott Horton -- an expert on international law who has examined CIA renditions -- estimates that 150 people have been picked up in the CIA dragnet since 2001." (more at the link)

http://us-politics.news.designerz.com/cia-renditions-of-terror-suspects-are-out-of-control-report.html?d20050206

More input to the Articles of Impeachment, I'd say.



TBO;24/7

Stories From the Inside
By BOB HERBERT

Published: February 7, 2005

"During the whole time we were at Guantánamo," said Shafiq Rasul, "we were at a high level of fear. When we first got there the level was sky-high. At the beginning we were terrified that we might be killed at any minute. The guards would say to us, 'We could kill you at any time.' They would say, 'The world doesn't know you're here. Nobody knows you're here. All they know is that you're missing, and we could kill you and no one would know.'"

<snip>

"It's a place where human beings can be imprisoned for life without being charged or tried, without ever seeing a lawyer, and without having their cases reviewed by a court. Congress and the courts should be uprooting this evil practice, but freedom and justice in the United States are on a post-9/11 downhill slide.

So we are stuck for the time being with the disgrace of Guantánamo, which will forever be a stain on the history of the United States, like the internment of the Japanese in World War II."


(more at the link):

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/opinion/7herbert.html?oref=login&hp

Peace.


TBO;24/7

It would be worthwhile for all of you to read Senator Kennedy's letter, posted shortly after he spoke against the appointment of Gonzales:

KENNEDY URGES SENATE TO DENY GONZALES NOMINATION OVER TORTURE POLICIES

http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/05/1/2005201A51.html

Three quotes:

"Torture became a pervasive practice. The F.B.I. says so. The Red Cross says so. The Defense Intelligence Agency says so. The Defense Department says it has investigated more than 300 cases of detainee torture, sexual assault, and other abuse. Additional allegations of abuse - many of them too sickening to be described in open session on the floor of the Senate - are reported almost daily. Yet Mr. Gonzales can't remember the details of how any of it happened."

"The Bybee Memorandum defined torture so narrowly that Saddam Hussein's lieutenants could have claimed immunity from prosecution for many of their crimes. Beating you, suffocating you, ripping out your fingernails, burning you with hot irons, suspending you from hooks, putting lighted cigarettes in your ear - none of these barbaric methods are categorically prohibited under the Bybee Memorandum, since none of them necessarily involved near-death or organ failure, the specific conditions required by the memo to constitute torture."

"The legal analysis in the Goldsmith Memorandum is preposterous. Yet it appears to have provided a legal justification for the C.I.A. to commit war crimes. As with the Bybee Memorandum, Mr. Gonzales has categorically refused to answer the Senate's questions about his involvement."


DEMAND OF YOUR CONGRESSPERSON IN THE HR AND YOUR SENATORS THE FILING OF WAR CRIMES CHARGES AGAINST GONZALES AND ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST BUSH AND CHENEY.


TBO;24/7

"In international legal terms, the Bush Jr. administration should be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, due to its formulation and undertaking of war policies which are legally akin to those perpetrated by the Nazi regime in pre-World War II Germany."

Just so everyone realizes why we can never allow a 'secret vote count', ever again; so everyone realizes why I insist on "Not one single line of software code between a voter and a vaild election." Just so everyone realizes how much support we will all want to provide "Land Shark" and his colleagues as they pursue their suit against Sequoia.

Francis A. Boyle is a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law. He was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He served as Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993, served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia-Herzegovina at the World Court. Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign and is author of, inter alia, Palestine, Palestinians and International Law, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence, Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law, The Future of International Law and American Foreign Policy, Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations 1898-1921, and The Bosnian People Charge Genocide. Francis A. Boyle holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University.


BE THE BU$H OPPOSITION; 24/7

"Just so everyone realizes why we can never allow a 'secret vote count', ever again; so everyone realizes why I insist on 'Not one single line of software code between a voter and a vaild election....'" --understandinglife

Bravo!!! You're so exactly, laser-point RIGHT on this!

And thanks for the url on Kennedy's speech! Best speech I ever heard (possibly with the exception of MLK's "I have a dream").

TAKE ACTION! See my post on writing to 36 Senators who voted NO on Gonzales and spoke eloquently against the nomination, to the 6 Dems who voted YES on Gonzales, to the 3 Dems who didn't bother to show up for this vote, and to the Repubs if you feel it might be useful.

The 6 Dems who voted for and the 3 who didn't show up prevented the 36 from doing a filibuster on this nomination. They needed 40 votes to keep the floor. So these 9 are VERY BAD, and should hear from us. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, the courageous 36 should be praised and thanked.

It's VERY IMPORTANT that they know we're paying attention.

GO HERE:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319464

--has list of all Senators who gave speeches against
--has list of the 6 who voted against, and the 3 no-shows
--has links to DU live reports and discussion as the debate occurred Feb. 1, 2 & 3
--has links to all Senate contact info.
--has a sample letter linking Bush extremist appointments and policies to 2004 Election Fraud

-------

On another subject: The fight for election reform is taking place in the states right now--and particulary in California. Congress is NOT going to remedy this! The BushCons know this quite well, they know that it is a state fight, and they are a thousand steps ahead of us. They just got rid of one of our few allies, CA Sec of State Kevin Shelley (for his opposition to Diebold).

TAKE ACTION: Contact Calif. legislators (who must approve any appointment by BushCon Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace Shelley, who just resigned). Contact info and draft sample letter at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319613

...staff. I will never allow them to forget their "collaborator status" that they publicly revealed by their support for torture boy and his boss(es). We all know about the "collaborators" in France, Norway, etc., during the early '40s, don't we.

You're efforts and the resources you make so readily available, Peace Patriot, are so very much appreciated.

Peace.

TBO;24/7

.....own honor and self-respect."

The ethics of war

Is The U.S. Military Guilty Of War Crimes In Iraq?

Jeremy Iggers
Staff Writer

02/06/05 "Star Tribune" -- Some people believe it is unpatriotic even to ask this question, which may be why the issue has been largely ignored by American news media. But the question of U.S. war crimes is not being ignored elsewhere around the world, where images of dead Iraqi women and children, tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the devastation of the city of Fallujah and the shooting of unarmed captives in a Fallujah mosque have done much to destroy America's image abroad.

It isn't only a question about the moral culpability of American troops, their commanders or their political leaders. While they bear moral responsibility for their actions, we as citizens in a democracy share responsibility for actions undertaken in our name. That responsibility is not diminished by the fact that Iraqi insurgents are committing horrific crimes against their own people. In years to come, the world community will likely ask of us: Did we know? Did we care? Did we speak out?

The issue of war crimes has taken on a new urgency in the wake of a recent study by public health researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and a Baghdad medical college, which estimates that 100,000 Iraqi civilians may have died because of the war." (more at the link)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7988.htm

THIS IS NOT ABSTRACT, MY FELLOW AMERICANS. We are either culpable or we are actively organizing peaceful, legal removal of Bush, Cheney, and all those who have in a premeditated, systematic manner engaged in illegal warfare and a wide range of war crimes; who have violated our US Constitution and a variety of other laws and treaties.

Peace.

TBO;24/7

"They (torture images) have become a potent propaganda tool for terrorists, and at the same time, they remain so repellent and perverse that they have served to bolster the "few bad apples" argument - the suggestion not only that the photographed abuses were perpetrated by "a kind of 'Animal House' on the night shift," in one investigator's words, but also that the larger problem was confined, as the Bush administration has asserted, to a few soldiers acting on their own.

"The Torture Papers," the new compendium of government memos and reports chronicling the road to Abeu Rabi and its aftermath, definitively blows such arguments to pieces. In fact, the book provides a damning paper trail that reveals, in uninflected bureaucratic prose, the roots that those terrible images had in decisions made at the highest levels of the Bush administration - decisions that started the torture snowball rolling down the slippery slope of precedent by asserting that the United States need not abide by the Geneva Conventions in its war on terror."

(more at the New York Times link):

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/books/08kaku.html?oref=login


So, where are those Articles of Impeachment?


TBO;24/7

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/11/opinion/11herbert.html?hp

"Any government that commits, condones, promotes or fosters torture is a malignant force in the world. And those who refuse to raise their voices against something as clearly evil as torture are enablers, if not collaborators.

There is a widespread but mistaken notion in the U.S. that everybody seized by the government in its so-called war on terror is in fact somehow connected to terrorist activity. That is just wildly wrong.

Jettisoning the rule of law to permit such acts of evil as kidnapping and torture is not a defensible policy for a civilized nation. It's wrong. And nothing good can come from it."



HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE A CITIZEN OF A ROGUE SUPER_POWER?

Front page, New York Times.

Ex-Detainee Says He Was Tortured
By RAYMOND BONNER

Published: February 13, 2005

"SYDNEY, Australia, Feb. 12 - Mamdouh Habib still has a bruise on his lower back. He says it is a sign of the beatings he endured in a prison in Egypt. Interrogators there put out cigarettes on his chest, he says, and he lifts his shirt to show the marks. He says he got the dark spot on his forehead when Americans hit his head against the floor at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

<snip>

Speaking publicly for the first time since he was freed two weeks ago, Mr. Habib, a 49-year-old Australian citizen born in Egypt, also described psychological abuse that seemed intended to undermine his identity - as a husband, a father and a Muslim man. At Guantánamo, he said, he was sexually humiliated by a female interrogator ...... He also said he was forced to look at photographs of his wife's face superimposed on images of naked women next to Osama bin Laden.

<snip>

A few days ago, Mr. Habib said, he gathered his family and told them everything that had happened since he left Sydney in July 2001. Just in case something bad happens to him, he said, "I want them to know fully everything.""

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/international/middleeast/13habib.html?hp&ex=1108270800&en=9e7c66fbed924803&ei=5094&partner=homepage

All the more reason for "Crushing the Coup":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=321092


"DO YOU LIKE BEING A CITIZEN OF A ROGUE SUPER_POWER?"

.....of a case without the executive branch of government actually doing so, the judge said at a hearing."

Judge Questions Gov't Response to Detainee
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 12, 2005

Filed at 9:54 p.m. ET

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Concerned about government secrecy in a terrorism case, a federal judge expressed skepticism Friday at the Bush administration's request to dismiss a lawsuit on behalf of a Virginia man held in Saudi Arabia.

The government is bolstering its effort to get the case thrown out by submitting classified information to U.S. District Judge John Bates that is unavailable to lawyers for imprisoned terrorist suspect Ahmed Abu Ali."

(more at link)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Saudi-Detainee.html?



"DO YOU LIKE BEING A CITIZEN OF A ROGUE SUPER_POWER?"

evidence grows.

The truth is huge and unchanging.

:thumbsup:

....until it gets 'archived' rather than posting new items.

Just to keep the focus on the fact that Gonzales and his boss and Cheney and Rummy and many others will not escape being indicted and prosecuted for their crimes against humanity, against the human spirit, and against our Constitution.

Peace.


"DO YOU ENJOY KNOWING YOU ARE NOW A CITIZEN OF A ROGUE SUPER_POWER?"

If it works for lies, how powerful is it for the truth?

:thumbsup:


P.S.: "I'll be back."