June 11, 2008: House votes to send impeachment resolution to Judiciary Committee and Paul voted with the Dems “aye”. ~ Lo
Statement Regarding Impeachment of Vice President Cheney
Ron Paul Speech to Congress
by Ron Paul
November 6, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I rise, reluctantly, in favor of the motion to table House Resolution 799, Impeaching Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors, and in favor of referring that resolution to the House Judiciary Committee for full consideration. I voted to table this resolution not because I do not share the gentleman from Ohio’s desire to hold those responsible for the Iraqi debacle accountable; but rather, because I strongly believe that we must follow established protocol in matters of such importance. During my entire time in Congress, I have been outspoken in my opposition to war with Iraq and Iran. I have warned my colleagues and the administration against marching toward war in numerous speeches over the years, and I have voted against every appropriation to continue the war on Iraq.
I have always been strongly in favor of vigorous congressional oversight of the executive branch, and I have lamented our abrogation of these Constitutional obligations in recent times. I do believe, however, that this legislation should proceed through the House of Representatives following regular order, which would require investigation and hearings in the House Judiciary Committee before the resolution proceeds to the floor for a vote. This time-tested manner of moving impeachment legislation may slow the process, but in the long run it preserves liberty by ensuring that the House thoroughly deliberates on such weighty matters. In past impeachments of high officials, including those of Presidents Nixon and Clinton, the legislation had always gone through the proper committee with full investigation and accompanying committee report.
I noted with some dismay that many of my colleagues who have long supported the war changed their vote to oppose tabling the motion for purely political reasons. That move was a disrespectful to the Constitutional function of this body and I could not support such actions with my vote.
I was pleased that the House did vote in favor of sending this legislation to the Judiciary Committee, which essentially directs the committee to examine the issue more closely than it has done to this point.
h/t: nouMenon from a comment on this post:
Why Did Ron Paul Vote Against Impeachment? By Manila Ryce
***
Ron Paul…..Do You Support Impeachment?
I dialed up CSPAN and asked Republican 2008 Presidential Candidate Rep. Ron Paul (TX) if he supports the impeachment of George W. Bush.
Read the rest of the story at: http://www.tomsongs.com/tomsongshome/…
Added: March 13, 2007
***
For sake of Rule of Law, Congress must proceed
Only Clinton’s resignation should stop impeachment hearings
by Ron Paul
September 28, 1998
Despite partisan rancor and political positioning, no American should rejoice in the events which now grip our nation. In fact, this is indeed a solemn time for our country.
But at the same time, it is an opportunity – regardless of position, persuasion or party – for we as a nation to reassert that we are a nation built upon the Rule of Law, and not the whims of men. That all people are held to the same standards under the law, and that laws and correct procedures are followed.
The president stands accused of several things, and what is on the forefront of public attention is the charge of perjury and obstruction of justice before a federal grand jury in regards to a civil case involving sexual harassment.
Under our Constitution, the House of Representatives is charged with investigating allegations against a sitting president or judge. While some may talk about whether or not an offense is “impeachable,” that is only so much political rhetoric. The Constitution only specifies that Congress can impeach a president for “high crimes” and “misdemeanors,” but the definitions of those words are left to Congress to determine – anything a sufficient number of Members of Congress find offensive can be cause for impeachment.
In recent weeks I have been asked many times what the timetable might be for impeachment. We now have a tentative outline.
Currently, the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives is looking into the report issued by the Office of the Independent Prosecutor on charges that the president lied under oath.
According to Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), his committee will receive a full briefing on the evidence on October 1st or 2nd. Over the next three days, the full committee will debate the evidence. On either October 5 or 6, the committee will consider a resolution to begin an impeachment hearing.
The resolution would then go before the entire House for a vote within three days.
A simple majority of the House of Representatives is all that will be required to initiate impeachment hearings. Those hearings could begin immediately, or be held until early November, after the elections.
A big question will be whether or not the impeachment hearings will be limited solely to allegations that the president lied under oath, or if it will also include other charges. Those involve potentially treasonous activities in transferring advanced missile technology to the communist Chinese in exchange for campaign donations, as well as violations of peoples rights in the abuse of more than 1,000 confidential FBI files for partisan purposes. (By comparison, a man went to prison in the early 1970s for misuse of one FBI file.)
While one should never discount the importance of lying under oath, I am saddened that some congressional leaders have recently suggested hearings will not include these other, far more serious, allegations. Crimes against our Constitution must not be set aside for details of sexual escapades. I hope that after $40 million being spent on investigating these more serious charges of crimes against the Constitution, that the entirety of the hearings are not simply restricted to this matter of perjury.
Under our Constitution, in accordance with the Rule of Law, the hearings must be held as long as the allegations remain and the president is in office. Since the allegations are not going to go away, the only constitutionally and morally correct way for hearings to be stopped would be for the president to resign if he has indeed committed these crimes; knowledge certainly the president possesses.
Some claim this situation creates a “constitutional crisis” and an “embarrassment.” A crisis will develop only if we, as a nation, reject the Rule of Law, and embarrassment will result only if we forego constitutional hearings.
It is in times of stress that the quality of metal is tested. The same is true for a nation.
***
‘High crimes and misdemeanors’
Hearings must be held for sake of nation
by Ron Paul
September 7, 1998
“Impeach the president!” and “Clinton must resign!” are phrases which were once relegated to the back rooms of – to borrow a phrase from the First Lady – a ‘vast right-wing conspiracy.’ Today, those statements are being boldly proclaimed in public by many, even by those who otherwise have strongly supported this president.
Unfortunately, those calls are only now being made after our nation’s president has admitted to living a life more akin to an afternoon soap opera than the traditional values which so many in our nation hold dear. While there is a great deal of significance to the fact that the president has admitted to lying under oath in a judicial proceeding, I have not considered – nor do I now – this “scandal” worthy of the attention it has received in the light of so much else before us.
It might be more pressing if this were the only impropriety involving President Clinton; lying under oath, tampering with witnesses and the litany of related crimes alleged, are certainly worthy of trial under our system of government.
But allegations of bribery, treason and oppression of rights are far more serious.
Almost a year ago, long before our national obsession with the Bill-said/Monica-said affair began, Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia and I cosponsored legislation called an “Inquiry into Impeachment,” House Resolution 304.
I did so because credible allegations have been raised that this president has abused the power of his office, domestically and abroad.
Discussions of a powerful man using influence in an attempt to secure employment for his much-younger mistress, while disgraceful and shameful, pale in comparison to the abuse of power in accessing hundreds of confidential files on private citizens and political opponents. It is disturbing that under this president’s watch, at least 900 files from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, detailing the intimate details uncovered for security background checks, were found to have been illegally transferred to the White House.
If this president used his powerful position to illegally secure information regarding political detractors, then this president must be impeached.
The situation would be bad enough if the allegations were limited to internal, domestic politics. But even more frightening allegations exist.
Far more pressing than the results of DNA tests on a cocktail dress are investigations into whether this president allowed highly-classified missile technology to be transferred to the communist Chinese government in exchange for campaign donations. The allegations and accompanying evidence are compelling, if not yet complete, to indicate that this has indeed been the case. Let us be clear about this: the government of China is not our ally, and in fact has nuclear missiles aimed at our cities. While we are “at peace,” we should be mindful that China is a foreign government with a system diametrically opposed to our own.
If this president not only broke the law by accepting donations from a potentially hostile foreign government, but proceeded to trade our nation’s military secrets as a “quid pro quo,” then this president must be impeached.
For far too long, Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility to independent prosecutors. This Congress should begin proceedings to hear the facts behind these allegations, as the Inquiry legislation would require.
Congress must move forward now to secure the integrity of our system of justice, protect the liberties of our people, and to ensure our national security. But Congress must move forward with hearings for the sake of this president and the office he holds. If this president has done nothing meriting impeachment, public hearings will vindicate him and the sordid allegations – and purveyors of the falsehoods – will be revealed.
If, however, the allegations bear the weight of the evidence, then the man entrusted with the highest office in our land must be impeached. Should this be the case, it will be a difficult time for our nation, but it is far worse to allow transgressions against our sovereignty and liberty to go unpunished.
Impeach the president? For the sake of our nation, let us hold hearings and weigh the evidence; the allegations are simply too compelling.
see
Why Did Ron Paul Vote Against Impeachment? By Manila Ryce
Impeachment: A Message to Iowa Democrats (video; Kucinich)
Kucinich: I have 3-inch binder documenting Cheney’s crimes By David Edwards & Jason Rhyne (link)
Impeachment: What to do next (Action Alert; updated)
Rep. Wexler Will Urge the Judiciary Committee to Hold Immediate Hearings on Impeachment!!!
Dandelion Salad 
oh shoot, i meant to talk about the right-left alliance BON was bringing up… but definitely can’t get into that right now… that’s why I felt “weak” at the end: I forgot one of the main places I was going with my comment lol
POWER: I’m not going to go down this route much further. If what you claim is true, and it probably is, I have to assume you’ve simply stopped thinking when it comes to Paul. You already *know* what the man is about. Like when you claim that contradicting Paul’s own words from ’98 that Lo posted, Paul *really* only cared about the Lewinsky lies/scandal a few months later. That is to say, you have some quote somewhere that verily *proves* (to you) that Paul didn’t really mean any of this crap (after all, it’s an inconvenient explanation if your purpose is to *prove* that Paul is a hypocrite on impeachment). So whatever that quote is, and in whatever context it was made, it’s logic must reign supreme regarding Paul… because, after all, that quote supports your argument and this full article by Paul which predates that quote does not.
Paul claims that the Clinton impeachment process (as did Nixon’s) went through the ordinary channels first and that Kucinich’s bill pushes for impeachment before going through those channels. Is that true? Do you know if that’s true or not? Does it matter to you?
His positions regarding the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act are indeed being portrayed in much of the mainstream media as racist positions. This portrayal looks more like naivety and distortion to me than an exposal. I would argue that you are rationalizing the logic behind Paul’s positions to fit a more comfortable reality—simplifying an urge on your part to place Kucinich in a position of absolute moral authority (which is commonly desired from politicians).
If you truly can not understand why one could possibly have an interpretation of history which views the Civil War as not about slavery and about a power-grab, and similarly the Civil Rights Act as also being used to slip in language pertaining to a power-grab, if one were not a racist… then this is your own limitation. And you should explore why that absolutely can not be. More importantly, I would recommend you do some meditation/thinking/analysis regarding absolute positions in general.
Now, Paul may be wrong regarding his analysis of history, but that also does not necessarily make him a racist.
More importantly, in my opinion, is the unfortunate lack of awareness of the high percentage of policies throughout American history that have been about grabbing and protecting power as opposed to the logic of their accompanying propaganda.
Why is it weird that something so moral and important and emotionally-charged as racial equality (or, better worded: fighting institutional racism) might have been used to justify irrelevant processes for expanding and defending unworthy governmental power? Because such issues mean so much to us?? Wait a minute… if something means a lot to the public, if something can be made sacrosanct… isn’t that the EXACT place to hide such machinations? Seriously, isn’t it?
Regarding George W Bush and supposedly the worst presidency ever … again … more history is illuminating here. Obviously we’re saturated with information regarding this presidency, and that’s great… but it shouldn’t confuse us regarding the big picture.
Let’s not forget how many of our presidents have supported outright ethnic cleansing (let’s not forget our native american brothers and sisters). Certainly Bush may be on par with such men, let’s not give him a special place in history simply because his actions feel less removed from our own narrow perspective along the spacetime continuum.
I think a lot of this information saturation is a new thing which is going to dog all presidents in the Information Age. Let’s be aware of our relationship to such an Age.
Kucinich is also closer to my own politics than Paul… but be aware that these sorts of “expositions” would be much more sophisticated and wide-spread were Kucinich to receive the sort of support Paul is receiving. I have seen the race card, amazingly, played against Kucinich as well. I’m sure the logic behind that attack would be much more developed if he were viewed as having the same ability to threaten other candidates as Paul.
One of the few things Paul says (these days any way) that the federal government should do is uphold environmental protections. This is not the absolute and pure libertarian position. Though, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if you find information exposing Paul as overall very weak on the environment.
Another thing we should keep in mind is that the president’s foreign policy is of the utmost importance… his domestic policies will either be supported or rejected by Congress. Regarding foreign policy, her positions do rather reign supreme.
The last two paragraphs I feel weaker on than my words preceding it… I’m a bit distracted so that’s all for now.
Not sure what Yrito is referring to pertaining to my pointing out the dichotomy and irreconcilable positions of Paul’s past and former positions on impeachment (1998 and 2007).
(Anything else tossed on the Paul ‘pyre’ about his ‘Patriots’ pandering, etc. is purely my exploiting the opportunity for a few more jabs at paul’s positions, and indeed would be better addressed on a forum about Paul’s racism, including but not limited to: Allegations of Paul’s cozying up to racist organizations, accepting donations and failing to return from a racist, his basic stance on the civil rights act, his position on Katrina victims, which could be considered racist, his remarks about those ‘people’ being fleet-footed in a mugging and the percentage he thinks are criminals, his position on immigration which is fundamentally racist at it’s core, his submitting legislation to deny immigrants the right to be citizens of the country of their birth, as in ‘I may like delivering babies, but those Chicano babies? Send ‘em back to Mexico where they can die of dysentery and infant mortality brought on by the USA’s destabilizing of the Mexican economy dating back to the 19th century, but largely from Paul’s party’s propagation of puppet fascists that toppled worker-rights and democracy all over Latin America, pursued by Raygun, a president Paul took an activist stance in installing, etc. etc.—I’m paraphrasing of course, but clearly the mound of dung piling up about Paul’s racism and a host of other seriously controversial issues unbecoming to those on the left who support him, and it’s a very smelly pile!)
Without becoming too embroiled in House voting history and comparisons (and I Hate looking at the ultra boring legal history of congress—tho I will point out that in doing so I did discover to paul’s credit he did attempt to kill the selective service system, but only to save 250 mil over 10 years, nothing to do with taking the draft ‘off the table’ as it should be), you can see his position on his archived press-release pages at:
http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press98/pr121998.htm
I will perhaps paste in the position he espoused in 1998 below, but suffice to say Paul’s promoting of impeachment of Clinton ultimately was indeed over ‘lying, perjury, and obstruction of justice’, etc. as per Paula Jones and Lewinsky malarkey, NOT anything to do with China and nuclear secrets (which might have had some legitimacy, but are still no comparison to what the current admin has done in terms of domestic and international high crimes!).
My point is regarding the fact that Paul not only voted immediately to investigate (no tabling in 1998, guess they didn’t have to force votes back then) even though the crimes of Clinton were so much less egregious than Bochco’s.
Apparently Clinton’s political ‘enemies’ in the Paulian congress were far more fanatically activist, or perhaps the current Congress scared to death of what Cheney might do to them if they tried to impeach him, something apparently less of a concern with the comparatively mild Clinton.
But paul, per the link above and text below, apparently took an activist stance in the impeachment of Clinton, and when the real crimes appear in the executive branch, crimes of which Paul is fully and vocally aware (up until he announced his candidacy, apparently), Paul flatly refuses to uphold his old principles of backing the constitution, and suddenly for some ‘inexplicable’ reason Paul’s famous loyalties to the constitution evaporate in this far worse case of High Crimes in the Executive branch than before. It’s not just duplicitous, it’s hypocrisy. And it’s inexcusable (and unforegivable!)
The prior impeachment resolution ultimately filed by the House, and so actively espoused by RP, was a charade, a lynch-mob, purely a partisan game over nothing, certainly compared to the current fraud by the present admin.
Sure in Sept of 1998, per Lo’s excellent post above RP claims:
“Far more pressing than the results of DNA tests on a cocktail dress are investigations into whether this president allowed highly-classified missile technology to be transferred to the communist Chinese government in exchange for campaign donations”
And in October of that year, he was an activist for impeaching Clinton again: http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press98/pr100898.htm
For these reasons:
“Allegations of crimes against our Constitution – selling out our national defense and violations of privacy – are indeed serious and Congress has a solemn responsibility to investigate these matters fully and completely.” Added Rep. Paul, “This is a serious issue, and one I do not take lightly. I swore an Oath to uphold the Constitution and our laws, and so I will cast a vote in favor of beginning impeachment hearings.”
But by Dec. of that year, he was only interested in lynching Clinton for the comparatively trivial issues that ended up in the indictment regarding Jones and Lewinsky that got submitted to the Senate.
The fact that he could find such high crimes committed by Clinton that he helped lead the lynch-mob against Clinton (even if you consider Clintons worst offenses detailed by Paul), and here we have the most horrific and blatant war-crimes committed by any president, perhaps in history, including, mind you the most undeniably blatant attacks on ‘privacy’ which Paul is so possessed about with Clinton above– It’s all just a mite suspicious, don’t you think? Especially considering all this ‘trustworthiness’ his supporters seem so convinced of.
Now you could catch me on my prior indictment of Paul for backing a bill based on trivialities (which indeed he acknowledges), which bill (and again correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not gonna read the 1998 House Resolution 581 tonight!) included nothing of his real gripes with Clinton, which were other, far worse crimes—and compare that to the fact that the Kucinich bill H res 333 also specifies different crimes than all the ones some other strategists (including Paul’s own legal council) have offered—the fact still remains the same that Paul’s eagerness and activism to get Clinton over ANYTHING, even if it ended up being stains and favors, while now he won’t go after Cheney AT ALL, and in fact knowingly throws a wrench into the works? No excuse is ever offered by paulies for this, nor even any good faith attempt by them to address this duplicity in their Messiah.
I have no ‘undercover’ agenda in bashing Paul. I was pleased with his anti-war stance. All of my investigating of Paul came largely after his votes that day Nov. 5th, 2007. Since then I, and others have looked a little harder. And lo and behold, there’s a LOT of dirt! Certainly no conceivable excuse why it should come to pass that Paul garners such a wellspring of financial support and all this activism (and yes it is ‘rabid’ and ‘mouth-foaming’ to paraphrase the Times today, hey I finally agree with them about something!). It appears that the Paul people are defending some really bad stuff because they are so desperate for a leader, some sort of opposition.
There’s so much bad stuff on Paul, while Kucinich comes with NONE of this scary stuff, and in the end is the one who legislated for justice and accountablity on our behalf, while it was Paul who, undeniably per the evidence above, bailed on any principles, misrepresented his reasons not voting to debate then and there after the forced vote (and correct me if I’m wrong, but you can debate a bill and STILL then send the bill to committee for further judicial investigation).
Paul knew full well from the response by the House Judiciary and Pelosi’s prior pledge that a vote to committee meant only that the bill would fall from the ‘table’ into Conyers’ circular file.
It’s getting time to ring in the new resolutions, and if the impeachment resolution is again buried for now, then I offer that the Paulies make a resolution that they stop seeing their candidate with such glowing praise to the extent that they refuse to see his extremely dark side. Instead Paulies are piling into a bandwagon for some paternalistic star that they’re so starry-eyed over that they fail to see the really scary stuff behind the smile and concerned paternalistic brow.
But what do you expect, much of paul’s support comes from the military, something he’s proud of, but where are you going to find a more lock-step, unquestioning crowd than the enlisted military, who don’t know enough to refuse an illegal order to kill when it’s in violation of their personal responsibilities in the Geneva Accords? It’s just more believer stuff. As the red states fell full force for Reagan and the mega-churches of Robertson and the Christian Coalition which brought us the clones we have in office now, so some fringe of them who decide to back another fanatical ‘believer’ cult will follow this guy.
It is tragic to me that Kucinich didn’t get the support he deserves but Paul did. But you can’t expect much from Amerigoons, they fell for this war unanimously up until recently, they don’t question, they follow, and they do so in vast, unquestioning unthinking droves as you see with the paulies.
Paul supporters should make a new year’s resolution to stop blindly believing, and most of all to STOP LYING!
Good luck folks, stay off the road tonight.
(PS, Yrito, if Dennis can’t afford an office in Iowa such that it gave the Register reason to exclude him from the debate, then you KNOW he’s not paying me to trash Paul—besides, Dennis would probably not approve of my venomous animosity toward paul, he’s a very peaceful man! But I for one do NOT excuse duplicitous liars, bigots and anti-environmentalists, which Paul is, and if you want to get into THAT last one, well there’ll have to be yet another forum, since NOBODY is talking about what his philosophical position on fed regulations and the Endangered Species Act would have on the environment and species.
So, you have now three huge topics to expose about Paul just for starters: Bigotry, Environment, and Impeachment. So far the first is the only one getting any air, and only recently. The other two are rotting skeletons waiting to be exposed, and I can fairly guarantee those two are as huge or huger than the racism thing!)
BON: What do you mean about the right-left alliance? I’m keen to seeing a movement in this society to think more dynamically in regards to politics (as opposed to this absolutist ideological bullshit which passes for political thinking these days—right, left, up and down)… the mass-realization that we can entertain competing theories and be open about the process-as-we-experience-it. We don’t have to “know” the absolute and fundamental truths, and we certainly shouldn’t expect anyone else to… that just invites an incompetent politician to feign that archetype.
But what sort of strategy do you think is most effective? Is it realistic that Ron Paul pick Kucinich if he were to win the Republican nomination? Are you assuming an independent party ticket? If not Kucinich, who? If Paul kept it completely secret until, against all the media hot air, he won the Republican nomination… what would a Kucinich VP mean? Certainly he would immediately alienate a great deal of Republicans who would already be unhappy about him winning the nomination. You’d hope, of course, they’d all be discouraged from showing up to vote… but wouldn’t a Clinton/Obama/Edwards/whatthefuckever/Richardson be positioned to woo that significant block into their camp with a well-triangulated conservative VP pitch. Who could possibly fit that bill?
…the mind-blowing possibilities… 😉
As of November 11th, 2007 at 10:20 am POWER TO THE VOICES! either had not read the above article or did not understand it. That, or POWER TO THE VOICES! is consciously spreading disinformation/propaganda.
…
I remember an earlier comment I read where this poster had some Ron Paul links to prove Paul’s racism… one of which was a youtube link to a speech about the North Americn Union to the John Birch Society. Of course, generally the John Birch Society is invoked, because of its history, to activate/prep race-consciousness memes. Thing is, the video came off more like Ron Paul was there to drum up support for his own issue (NAU) and pleased at having supporters present.
Anyway, a thought comes to mind thinking of disinfo: I happen to think POWER TO THE VOICES! works better at discrediting the anti-Paul faction. Especially when making such random and irrelevant links (admittedly I only followed one of the three links in comment to the “Paul Racism” article I referred to) and then this comment to an article where Paul is clearly saying something non-analogous to what is being attributed to him.
I know typically you’d reduce that to stupidity or laziness… but you know, this such a heated political season… you never know who’s getting paid to post their comments. This is something which is usually aimed at the Paulites, but of course everyone is doing it. So who knows, maybe this is a Kucinibot, i.e. somewhat who is not engaged in a conversation with us, simply spreading pro-Kucinich propaganda (payed or not)… but maybe it’s a more subtle sort of Paulbot.
Anyway, I’m just intellectually masturbating beyond the very first two sentences of this comment. Seriously, read the article in full and then read POWER TO THE VOICES! response to it As of November 11th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Ron Paul is a coward and a hypocrite. He’s marching in lock-step with the Republicans for his own benefit, because he’s running for president, himself. Ultimately, he wants their financial support and wants to leverage the power-structure of the Republican party–If he didn’t, he’s be running as a Libertarian or an Independent. Because of this, no matter what lies he spouts now, he’s going to conform to what they dictate. Don’t believe a word Ron Paul says. A vote for Ron Paul is a vote for more of the same corporate a*s-kissing!
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Ron Paul is full of doublespeak. Ron Paul claims that he voted to send the bill to committee to go through the proper channels. This was only after he voted to kill the bill by tabling it. If the vote to table the bill had succeeded then the bill would be dead and it would not be in committee. Ron Paul is nothing more than an opportunist. Paul only cares about getting elected. He’s not the Constitutionalist he claims to be.
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Ron Paul is a Republican presidential candidate. If he were to vote for the Republican Vice President’s impeachment, he’d risk losing credibility with his base. It’s just politics.
Power to the Voices nails it. Great post!
i think paul is taking a more effective route with his “american freedom agenda.” if you haven’t yet read the full text of this piece of legislation, please do so immediately, because it is one of the most important bills to hit congress in decades.
if you strip the executive branch of all the unconstitutional powers it has accumulated especially over the last couple of years, then it doesn’t matter who is in office, they will be very limited in what they can do (they would *not* be able to launch an attack against iran, for example, without a declaration of war from congress).
do you really think that merely by impeaching cheney the criminals within this administration wouldn’t just fill the vacancy with another puppet (like pelosi or whomever is next in line) who will continue the racket for war?
our goal should be to target the infrastructure, cut the root, then the hydra-headed beast is bound to fall.
why wait for impeachment proceedings, which are bound to be a long and convoluted process, when we can render the president and his cronies lame ducks *now* with a simple piece of legislation that *no* member of congress would dare rise against for fear of their patriotism being questioned? it is like turning the patriot act against itself. it is quite brilliant, actually.
please tone down your rhetoric, POWER. we are in this together. i am a paul supporter, but i bring kucinich materials with me to my campaign tables as well. we have to get these guys to the forefront of their parties and unite the grassroots movement on the left and the right. this is the only way we will win this thing.
if neither are nominated to their respective parties, we should all call for a split paul/kucinich ticket. they have worked together before on different issues, and consider themselves friends. i think such a third party would be unbeatable and would bridge the partisan divide.
let’s stay positive!
-b-
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Ron Paul is a perfectly unapologetic Hypocrite!
Paul’s vote to “Table” then “Committee” completely flies in the face of his prior positions on impeachment. His volatile vote to clear out Clinton for purely partisan purposes is a huge, rotting skeleton in Paul’s closet.
Paul apparently claims the “evidence” was there for Clinton’s impeachment because Clinton, technically correctly claimed he “did not have” certain relations with “that woman”, and Paul proposes that was considered irrefutable evidence of Clinton’s culpability, while this elusive moving target of treasonous excuse for mandating the killing in combat is “bad information”? What a load of beltway-bullcrap!
If Paul was such a scion of scruples as he claims, he would have NOT voted to “table”, which was in effect a vote to kill, and not, as he now holds, a vote for further “investigation”.
Paul’s party-line play reveals he’s a preposterous political poser. While we’ve all seen him tell his truth at the debates, we’ve now clearly seen him lie on the video tape!
Anyone supporting Paul at this point fails to see he’s a “Patriots”-pandering kook with bizarre, extremist, unbalanced and unreasonable concepts of private enterprise run completely amok, among other piggish proposals and posturing.
Sometimes the extremist far-right lunatic-fringe reaches so far around the back side of capitalism they end up in the but-crack of corporatism and it’s requisite cronyism and collusion. What’s supposed to be ‘right’ seems ‘left’ for a minute, but for all the ‘wrong’ reasons. Elect Paul and you’ll likely get a huge red swath of selfish, bible-belted, gun-toting, money-making militias spanning the heartland, while any healthy humanism holes up in some hovel on Manhattan’s upper-left side.
Don’t be fooled!
Paul’s paramount political purpose to peace is purely to divide the republican mega-church of militant, militaristic cultist lemmings into more manageable mouthfuls for the opposition to masticate, as Nader once unfortunately did for the Dems.
But Paul should NOT be dividing the genuine anti-war vote. A Paulie presidency, while he’s an “ABB” to be sure, would pose a precarious predicament for progress.
Anyone who believes in peace and justice should donate instead to Dennis Kucinich. We are all very fortunate to have such a sane candidate as Dennis. This incident should prove once and for all to the “Paulies” that they need to question the crowd and get off that bogus bandwagon, and instead pursue impeachment by supporting the candidate who really cares, Dennis Kucinich!
Excellent substance on this post!