Bush might get Congressional pardon

Arlen Specter (R-PA) has a wiretap bill that is pending a vote in the U.S. Senate.  The bill would allow electronic surveillance of Americans for up to seven days without a warrant from the FISA court.  This alters the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Act, which strictly outlawed domestic warrantless wiretaps.

Even more importantly, because the bill would make domestic warrantless wiretaps partly legal, the Administration officials that have broken the law up to this point would be granted immunity.  MoveOn.org is raising awareness about this bill, and wants users to sign a petition to stop the vote:

This week, the Senate is planning to quietly hold a vote that wouldpardon President Bush for breaking the law by illegally wiretappinginnocent Americans. So far, Democrats and some Republicans are holdingstrong against the bill, and there are good chances to stop it ifenough of us speak up.

This is good news for President Bush, just in case the Democrats take back both the House and Senate.  However, there are few who think that Bush would be impeached even if a huge shift in Congressional seats took place on election day.

That isn't stopping a few local groups from putting impeachment on the ballot:

• The Badger Herald is reporting that Wisconsin Rapids is considering whether to put an impeachment referendum on the local ballot.  The Wisconsin Common Council President opposes it.  "If [the voters] want a referendum, that’s fine, let them have one,”Paterick said. “To me, I think the opposite — if we weren’t in Iraqright now, we might be getting bombed here."  Okay, that's about enough of that rhetoric!
• 38 U.S. House Reps. are supporting a bill that would create a Select Committee devoted to studying whether President Bush conducted any impeachable offense.  But 38 Reps. is probably all the support that bill will get.  There are more than 200 Democratic Reps. all together, and there is virtually no support for impeachment at all.
• Meanwhile, the conservative National Review blog is trying to scare people into thinking that if the Democrats take back the House they will impeach Bush.
• The Spectrum, a Southern Utah newspaper, is trying to stop the GOP scare tactic about impeachment.  The newspaper explained that the Democrats don't want to impeach Bush; and even if they did, they need a 2/3 vote in the Senate.  "While it is true that a simple majority is allthat is necessary to pass articles of impeachment in the House ofRepresentatives, a two-thirds vote is required in the Senate to convictan individual and remove them from office."

But this isn't just about impeachment, nor is it just about President Bush.  It is about precedent.  If the wiretap bill passes and all Administration officials are granted immunity, then whenever the Administration knowingly breaks a law in the future they can just ask Congress to pass a bill to make it legal.  This sort of thing happens when you have a GOP Congressional majority that does whatever the Executive Branch tells them to do.

Comments

[Jodin]

Impeach Bush yourself! No Joke.
This is much more than just a petition.

There's a little known and rarely used clause of the "Jefferson Manual" in the rules for the House of Representatives which sets forth the various ways in which a president can be impeached. Only the House Judiciary Committee puts together the Articles of Impeachment, but before that happens, someone has to initiate the process.

That's where we come in. In addition to the State-by-State method, one of the ways to get impeachment going is for individual citizens like you and me to submit a memorial. ImpeachforPeace.org has created a new memorial based on one which was successful in impeaching a federal official in the past. You can find it on their website as a PDF.

STOP WAITING FOR YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO ACT FOR YOU.

You can initiate the impeachment process yourself by downloading the memorial, filling in the relevant information in the blanks (your name, state, etc.), and sending it in.

http://ImpeachForPeace.org/ImpeachNow.html

More information on the precedent for submitting an impeachment
memorial, and the House Rules on this procedure, can also be found at
the above address.

If you have any doubts that Bush has committed crimes warranting
impeachment, read this page: http://ImpeachForPeace.org/evidence/

If you're concerned that impeachment might not be the best strategy
at this point, read the
bottom of this page: http://ImpeachForPeace.org/

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
Bush, June 18, 2002

"War is Peace"
Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984