Justice after Bush -- Prosecuting an outlaw administration »
Posted By berkeley 10 months, 1 week ago in Political NewsAmericans may wish to avoid what is necessary. We may believe that concerns about presidential lawbreaking are naive. That all presidents commit crimes. We may pretend that George W. Bush and his senior officers could not have committed crimes significantly worse than those of their predecessors. We may fear what it would mean to acknowledge such crimes, much less to punish them. But avoiding this task, simply “moving on,” is not possible.
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berkeley
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. Of all the enemies to public ...
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codgerpriceComment removed: Retracted by user25 Replies
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Goppy10 months, 1 week ago
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I say ... forget im.
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Let history be George W. Bush's prison.
I just don't see the benefit of trials for this rogue administration.
All it would do is tear our nation further apart.
Let's be thankful that even more damage wasn't done by these idiots ... these promoters of a disgraced ideology ... the anti-American Ideology of Neo-Conservatism.
Let's move on.-
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PatrioticAmerican10 months, 1 week ago
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You guys are always full of accusations, but never strong on PROOF, i can say Obama is a shady dealer , and the proof is the people he associates with, but just saying bush is guilty of crimes against this Country
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does not make it true, Find something on him charge him with it and see what happens if he is found guilty then he is guilty. for 8 years people have been ACCUSING Bush of things and NOTHING has stuck or gone any further then that, LMAO dems say if we get into power we will put impeachment on the table, then when they got the power they flopped and didnt do it , they couldnt because they had nothing to impeach on, unlike Clinton Bush did not lie under oath during an investigation, Bush did not use the Oval office as a sex room, Bush had the Balls to do what HE thought was the right thing to do and stood by his decision and didnt let people like Ted (been in congress for 60 years and needs to get out ) change his postion he is the only president that has not flip flopped on what they did, once again you have to look at your messiah Obama he has flopped n several things already, he ran on "in 16 months ill bring the troops home" now its it wont happen in my first term, HMMMM so he lied to the people that voted for him. there are others but i dont like to type this much, Bush has done things wrong like every president before him but nothing he can be charged with, i do not agree 100% with him but support 100% -
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fiftynine10 months, 1 week ago
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I would agree Goppy except for the fact that the damage this moron and his buds have brought on this country will be felt for decades.I think that letting them off the hook with their pockets lined with blood money is not right.
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We have a habit in this country of letting criminals go,turning the other way and pretending that all is ok...All one has to do is look around to realize that everything is not ok.These people need to suffer the same as what they have made others in this country suffer, if for no other reason than to send a message to the next bunch that would do the same. -
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Goppy10 months, 1 week ago
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I hear ya 59 ... and you too crespi. ("Isn't there room for just a LITTLE prosecution?)
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We simply must stop impeaching and seeking revenge upon those who occupy the Oval Office.
It's going to rip our nation apart.
I'm pleading with you. Y'all do not seem to understand how deeply depraved is the Modern Right in this nation!
The Modern Right Wing is comprised of so many lunatics who are so vocal and 'ready for action' that you cannot predict how they will react.
Seriously, have any of you read libsRfunny's comments lately? What about pc25? simonsez has become COMPLETELY unhinged since Obama was elected. Endoscopy is a seething cauldron of limitless hatred and angst.
Just look at (un)Patriotic American's comments on this thread.
Look, the best thing about the Bush administration is that America was presented the very first, complete Republican/Neo-Conservative Federal Government.
And America has come to see that these ideologues are complete lunatics. At every step, they have chosen to place their hardline ideology above the interests of our nation.
These men were ... ARE ... Morally Vacant. Bush and Cheney supremely so. And now, America knows it.
Why make martyrs of them to the hair trigger nut-cases that populate the right wing extreme?
I personally believe that if you on the Left pursue a judicial path with these reprobates ... it will only serve to launch our nation into a PERMANENT state of tit for tat.
Why do y'all think Clinton was impeached?
It had NOTHING to do with Monica or a stained blue dress.
The right impeached Clinton as PAYBACK for Nixon.
Think I'm wrong?
Just read the livid comments from those on Propeller's right. If it wasn't for the Right's negative, angry energy ... the Right would have no energy at all.
The Right runs on anger ... passionate anger ... and revenge.
If trials are implemented for Bush and Cheney ... I will GUARANTEE you that the Right will devote their entire existence toward formulating impeachment for Obama.
Let's nip this tit for tat in the bud ... and let's do it now.
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frctm510 months, 1 week ago
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I agree with you in some ways Goppy, but its not strictly about Bush but a restoration of faith in process and the legal system. If we allow our laws to be broken without recourse or consequences, we weaken these for all who might follow by allowing them to say, we'll these guys got away with it, so why can't we? Even if investigations turn up nothing of consequence, it will help shed light on the truth. No one should object to discovering the truth regardless of their political leanings.
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jaern10 months, 1 week ago
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I don't know Goppy. I think there should be consequences for actions. If they go unpunished, what message does that send? Yes it will cost a lot of money. Personally, my pocket book was impacted with the impeachment of President Clinton, nor was anyone else that I know.
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Klarissa10 months, 1 week ago
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Mr Horton honestly does admit he has close business ties to Georgian government officials for the purpose of fun and profit. Good for him.
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Business is always good if done with ethics and gain for all. But doesn’t this make him suspect on his point of view? But I am sorry, I have to take with a grain of proverbial salt his basic defense of the Georgian regime. I appreciate his point of view on the heroism of the younger generation in achieving what appears to be some level of democracy. But beyond that, sorry.
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Spadecaller10 months, 1 week ago
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If our nation is to leave the
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Dark Ages that we have fallen into, it will require action not just words of condemnation. If we value the international law as a nation, the civil right of all human beings, the right to fair trials, habeas corpus, the right to live without the fear of unwarranted wiretaps, secret detentions, political imprisonment, exploitation of our children for wars of "luxury" that only benefit the corporate moguls who profit from them, we will have to bring these men before the courts.
Too many people in this world and in this country know that our government has abused its power and our tax money to wage war, to kill innocent Americans and Iraqis because it was lucrative.
Most people know that we have only increased the burdens of the people from these oil rich nations; the result will be that we have only added more people to the terrorist organizations who want to find revenge. Our government has the blood of terrorist victims all over the world on its hands. The day must come when we must face these crimes or we will become exactly what we condemn.
I am saddened to admit these truths, but they are now self-evident.
The last vestige of hope that we have in this nation is to use the internet to expose those companies, the same companies who own the media and who profit from engaging in endless wars. But without showing that our nation will not tolerate crimes against humanity and will not tolerate an imperial dictator who used the title of the president too loosely, we will stay in the dark ages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHZXsdeWYGA-
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berkeley10 months, 1 week ago
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i agree entirely.
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if you read the legal and historical arguments in favor of criminal prosecution, they are overwhelming. no legal authority figure is speaking out in favor of doing nothing.
but almost every "popular" voice, or political voice, or media voice, is saying the opposite. do nothing. we can't change the past. it would tear the country apart. blah blah blah.
the corporate press, and congress, are united on this question. that alone should give us warning.
scott horton has done an excellent summary. -
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ellsworth-tooheyComment removed: Hard Banned3 Replies
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ellsworth-tooheyComment removed: Hard Banned1 Reply
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donald5110 months, 1 week ago
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We helped hang 11 Natzi and 3 Japanese after WW2 for what Dumya has done! How about outing a CIA agent? How about a VP who didn't get the intel he wanted from the CIA so he recycled the lies through the Pentagon to go to war? Such evil, corrupt Americans!
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Can you belive that the repug congress passed a Homeland Security Act that also said Eli Lilly Pharma can't be sued for additives to children's vaccines found to cause brain damge, and that dropped sanctions against big business overseas bank accounts? Just one of the many examples of proven repug evil!
The repug party should be declared a terrorist organization and banned! -
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donald5110 months, 1 week ago
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What do you expect? His daddy's lawyers got him off the hook for his illegal sale of Harken stock in '89.
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Put a white collar criminal in the White House and you get a war criminal too!
Too many un-American, corrupt, greedy repugs out there will excuse/rationalize this un-American behavior.... no scruples, no ethics... no morals, only what is expeditions from the repugs! The party of Watergate, Iran Contra and Plamegate... continues its inherent un-American behavior and gets away with it!
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Endoscopy10 months, 1 week ago
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There are just days left for Bush to serve. But the liberal hate Bush machine is still going strong. I have some problems with things Bush did but none of them were Illegal. The left has had the Hitler type of Big Lie going on the administration for so long they believe their own lies. Hitler stated that if a lie is big enough people will not believe that someone could say something like that and it not be true. They would not check it out as they would a small lie.
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In a court of law there needs to be a definition of law the person is charged with breaking and acceptable evidence that the person did break that law. This is required just to get to trial. At that point the evidence has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the person is guilty.
Provide the laws and evidence. Ranting is neither. I can rant all day that Obama is a criminal and should be locked up and the key thrown away. But since nothing exists in reality nothing would be done except for rants against me. -
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CactusAnnie10 months, 1 week ago
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Hi Endoscopy! It is very nice to see you and I wish you an absolutely wonderful New Year. Life is good and I am sure yours if filled with love, my best to your entire family!
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You know, lack of evidence for prosecution has never stood in the way of full scale persecution...-
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frctm510 months, 1 week ago
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Yes, as whitewater has demonstrated. Republicans hunted Bill for years and turned up nothing. One party's persecution is another's search for justice. The only time it is persecution is if there is no probable cause or evidence is fabricated. Since you all seem to have so much faith in Bush's innocence, I fail to see why you would be concerned about any investigation of charges or allegations. If anything, it will only vindicate your claims so I don't understand why you wouldn't lend your support.
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Goppy10 months, 1 week ago
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Yes ... truer words were never spoken CactusAnnie.
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As frctm5 has mentioned, the RNC and Mainstream Media began the White Water Witchhunt as soon as Bill Clinton was elected.
The Rabid Righties, as I like to call those who cannot see the big picture, learned their lesson from THAT experience.
They learned they needed to indict the candidate BEFORE he gets elected.
That's why they came up with the whole Swift Boat thing for John Kerry.
And with the Right's Domination of Media ... it's very difficult to find justice once the Rabid Righties launch into their persecutions.
Why ... did you know that Julian Sinclair, the owner of SBC broadcasting ... and owner of the MOST independent TV stations in the nation ... ORDERED every one of his stations to broadcast .... IN TOTAL ... the Swift Boat Hate Campaign against John Kerry just one week before the national elections in 2004?
That's quite a propaganda coup.
But I still maintain ... speaking from my position as a Centrist ... that you on the Left must take the high road.
Don't muck around using the same tactics as the Rabid Righties.
When the Rabid Righties launch into their Hate Speak Campaigns like they did against Clinton, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Obama etc ... America EXPECTS this. America realizes that the Right has become Rabidly Extreme.
I mean ... CRAZY EXTREME.
So they EXPECT the Right to engage in anti-American, Pro-Right Wing Ideology Hate Speak.
But see, America expects MORE from the Left.
America Expects Liberals to CARE about holding our nation together.
America Expects Liberals to be intelligent.
America Expects Liberals to be healers.
In short ... everything that is the opposite of the Modern Republican.
So if you on the Left choose to pursue a persecutory tack with GW and DC ... be prepared to lose face.
And though you may be within your rights ... legally ... don't expect America to PERCEIVE you to be in the right.
And in politics ... PERCEPTION is reality.
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mmrhe10 months, 1 week ago
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Endo
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Do you believe the case to invade Iraq was completely above reproach?
Or will you admit there's at least the chance that intelligence may have been cherry picked to support an ideology or strategy?
It seems to me that there is plenty of evidence and witnesses who would be willing to testify to this but I have to agree with Goppy to a point.
It may be wiser to wait for a second Obama term OR if things get MUCH worse economically, there could be a populist movement to prosecute that may prove undeniable. -
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mc1954car10 months, 1 week ago
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"The Crawford Cowboy"and many others in this andminastration should be charged and convicted of war crimes and crimes against the constitution.This needs to happen to restore confidence in our political arena as well as the monetary system.I have great doubts that it will .........so I will hope "Dick" takes Georgey Boy hunting soon for "Lame Ducks".
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frctm510 months, 1 week ago
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Many of the accusations and investigations have been hampered by claims of executive privilege that are far broader than that right was designed to sanction or protect. I think it is worthwhile to investigate these claims further. As the conservatives say, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Once Bush is out of office, executive privilege is no longer relevant and given their love of justice and the rule of law, conservatives would voice no opposition to comprehensive investigation into malfeasance by the administration. After all, they supported seven years of whitewater investigations, so for moral consistency conservatives would not object to a thorough postmortem on this administration.
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hefaa1Comment removed: Hard Banned
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watchingU66710 months, 1 week ago
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so bringing the guilty to justice is "bush bashing"? how then could all you cowardly bush sheep scream for clinton to be brought up on charges over something that didn't kill anyone and clinton was at least a good if not great president? bush and his cabinet outright lied to everyone to have us INVADE a country that was not in any way involved with 911 and why did bush put all his buddies the bin ladins in the air to maybe keep he and his fathers involvement with the bin ladins secret? why did we not go after them and hold them like we did so many innocent people in guantonimo bay? he and his cabinet used terror to do his dirty work.what bush did is almost surely going to kill many more than he already has like creating a world that will hate us for decades to come and iran can't be feeling safe stuck there between iraq and afganistan, is bush and his"chosen" guilty of war crimes? more than we'll ever know i'm sure, they should see what daddy bush had to do with this mess, they lied to us and used a horrible attack to trick a big populous of us to believe iraq was responsible when we all knew who was responsible(bin ladin in afganistan) but like i said before the bush people were great friends with the bin ladins.i wonder how much it cost us, and how much more its going to cost us in the future? we need to bring bush to justice before all these republicans want to bring obama up on charges for bushs' crimes.we have invaded someones country and i hate being on the side of the bad guy, Americans are supposed to be the heroes and if you're not upset about being the villain what can you think of our country.we need to be fair and bring the evil to light and set them on their course towards their punishment,i'd be willing to bet that if charges were brought against them bush would run hide in the caves with bin ladin.
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Justice4All10 months, 1 week ago
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I still think Bush should be prosecuted. Even if he's impeached the day he leaves office it sends a strong message to the world as well as future presidents that they will be held accountable.
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Other than the thought of Cheney as President I can't think of any reason to let Bush get away with everything he has done. -
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THOMNH6210 months, 1 week ago
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under an Obama admin there will be another 911 and history will judge GWB as the president who kept this country safe for 8 yrs. You moron lefties will never get it, the world is not full of sushi and wine and is filled with people would rather shoot you in the head than listen to your rants about equality and peace. Give me break.
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CHAM10 months, 1 week ago
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But there are too many THOMNH62 people. The overly too long article said there should be punishment. And there should. Those guilty of the crimes against the American people and the crimes against humanity should never go unpunished. To ignore the crimes THOM, is to condone the crimes.
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Matters not a bit whether others that went unpunished committed the same or worse crimes, we have here an Administration that had no fidelity for law or life or liberty. That you would support such is to your shame.
The article talked much about waterboarding and other torture but failed to mention that tens of thousands of people were tortured and that there are over 100 documented cases of detainees being tortured to death. The undocumented number will never be known. There are a few documented cases of detainees forced to watch as their children were tortured to elicit a confession or a knowledge of something the interrogator was looking for.
What kind of monster would condone this behavior?
WE should bring the perps up for charges and let their lives be on the line based on the evidence. The enablers would be even harder to bring to justice, you for example might not know of some the information I just wrote down above but rest assured there are others that know every sordid detail and approved of it. And this is just about one violence to the law. The deaths of over a million people for no reason other than to feed the War Machine is despicable and against the law. And over four thousand of those dead are Americans.
As to the Party that brought Bush and the immoral crowd upon the heads of America, my solution for the Republican Party is to shun it, until it becomes irrelevant in American Politics.
Thom, you supposed what might happen under Obama and you condemn it, but you readilly approve of the crimes committed by your kind, and make inane excuses for their behavior. Your heroes would demand your blood if it was profitable to them, and whether you know it or not, they have removed from you some things more precious than anything except life, they have stolen some of you freedoms. -
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crespi10 months, 1 week ago
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jk-
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George Bush SWORE ON THE BIBLE to UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION of the United States, then turned around and said, "the Constitution is just a Goddamned piece of paper."
Besides publicly LYING TO GOD, he spit on our American law, the American people, and the Founding Fathers.
Bush CLEARLY DEMONSTRATED that HE hates America!
What is with you Neocons? You LOST the hearts and minds of America through hate and greed. And do you really think such PRIDEFULNESS about lying pleases GOD?
Seriously, DO YOU?
Please explain how, exactly.
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