George W. Bush

Texas Chainsaw President: this is over the top. . .
Check out this link.

If you support the ongoing occupation of Iraq, I'm sure you have your reasons and that they're based in hard scientific calculations. But please indulge me for a moment and help me do this little math problem:

All the benefits we've gotten out of invading and occupying Iraq (whatever they may be)…

Actually, let me stop right there. The benefits you have in mind for this calculation should not include the increased price of gas, the killed and wounded U.S. servicemen and women, or the creation of a breeding ground for terrorists in Iraq (that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have made us less safe is the consensus opinion of U.S. intelligence agencies, supported as well by a conservative British think tank). Oh, and please don't factor in the Iraqis' gratitude, since the majority of them believe the invasion and occupation have made them worse off, and they want the U.S. to leave.

As I was saying, all the benefits we've gotten out of invading and occupying Iraq (whatever in the world they may be) have come at a certain financial cost. U.S. taxpayers have shelled out $450 billion thus far. The Congressional Budget Office expects costs to end up over a trillion. And those calculations do not include the costs of providing health care for veterans and rebuilding the military, or the effects on the economy of removing workers to make them soldiers, of increasing the price of oil, of failing to spend the war money on domestic projects (such as infrastructure), etc. Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes estimate a total cost of at least $2 trillion.

You might not recognize the words at first, but it's still the same old tune. And if we get this one right, our Bilderbergers handlers good friends in gummint have promised us that we can all hold hands and sing "Kumbayah" next.

Oh, why can't everyone tell
A statesman from a thug
Who's got our telephones bugged
A frat boy who took drugs
Who Lays down with thieves
The one who deceived
About the Dubya MDs

How did you get us to trade
Our heroes for shrubs
Democrats for Repubs
A stain we never could scrub
A living, breathing oil spill
How did we reject
Surplus safety net
For nine trillion in debt

How I wish
How I wish you were Gore
It's been two lost terms swimming in a cesspool
Of malfeasance and shame
Trashing all of the Bill of Rights
And starting losing fights
With pre-emptive war
Wish you were Gore

http://www.myspace.com/vastleftdotcom

Posted on Campaign to End the Death Penalty

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 28 December 2006

The Bush administration welcomed the confirmation of the death penalty against Saddam Hussein, reopening the divide with the European Union and the United Nations, which are opposed to execution.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said Saddam should not be hanged for crimes against humanity because his trial had been flawed and was marred by political interference by the Iraqi government.

A spokeswoman for Amnesty said: "We are against the death penalty as a matter of principle but particularly in this case because it comes after a flawed trial."

Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Programme at Human Rights Watch, said: "Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings. That a judicial decision was first announced by Iraq's National Security Adviser underlines the political interference that marred Saddam Hussein's trial."

Iraq's US-appointed interim government reinstated the death penalty in August 2004, causing friction with its coalition partner, Britain. The former top British representative in Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said the UK would not participate in a tribunal or legal process that could lead to execution.

A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that while the execution of Saddam was "a matter for the Iraqis", Britain remained opposed to the death penalty, and had made representations to the government on that score.

The constitution provides for the removal from office of the President and Vice-President for what it terms 'treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors'. As does so much else in our constitutional system, the idea of impeachment derives from English law. Despite their illegitimacy, impeachment and removal are therefore the legal avenue (of several available) that seems most apt for dealing with George Bush and Dick Cheney.

In judicial terms, impeachment is comparable to an indictment; at the Federal level, a simple majority of the House of Representatives is required to vote out Articles of Impeachment. These are then presented to the United States Senate, presided over by the Chief Justice, where a super-majority of two thirds is required for conviction and removal.

Notably, The Federalist Papers make clear that impeachment is a political, as opposed to a judicial, process.

A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.