A Plan For The Immediate Impeachment Of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld

[Guest guest]

A

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 07:46:06 -0500

PLAN FOR IMPEACHMENT- VERY SPECIFIC

 

 

 

OpEdNews.com

 

Original Article at

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rev__bil_060219_a_plan_for_the_immed.htm

 

February 19, 2006

 

 

 

A Plan For The Immediate Impeachment Of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld

 

Based on the U.S. Constitution and the Parliamentary Procedure of the

House of Representatives

 

By Rev. Bill McGinnis

 

by Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director - LoveAllPeople.org

 

According to the published " House Rules And Manual, " as I read it, any

Member of the House, after being recognized by the Chair to speak,

could propose the following " motion to impeach, " as shown below:

 

" I move to impeach the President, the Vice-President, and the

Secretary of Defense,

For their many and persistent high crimes and misdemeanors against the

Country;

And in particular, for spitting in the face of Congress,

By conspiring to commit the crime of Torture,

In direct violation of our specific Law, and

Against our clear and oft-restated will forbidding Torture. "

 

 

Under the " House Rules And Manual, " this motion to impeach would be

" highly privileged, " and would take immediate priority over any

regular business already before the House. It would be immediately

debated on the floor, without first having to go into Committee. If

defeated, it could be moved again and again and again, in contrast to

regular non-privileged motions. It would not be killed by an initial

rejection.

 

" HOUSE RULES AND MANUAL, " AND RELATED DOCUMENTS

 

You can see the " House Rules And Manual " located here:

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/hrm/index.html .

 

According to this official website, this document " contains the

fundamental source material for parliamentary procedure used in the

House of Representatives, " and includes The Constitution, excerpts

from Thomas Jeffersons's " Manual Of Parliamentary Procedure, " and

" Rules Of The House. " Within this document, there is a section called

" impeachment, " on pages 313-330. The words in this section are a

functioning part of the parliamentary rules used by the House today.

For your convenience, I have copied this section into a file located

at http://www.loveallpeople.org/impeachment.txt ,

 

This section contains the following words, which show that any one

Member of the House can move to impeach, directly from the floor,

without having first to go through Committee:

 

" . . . there are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion:

by charges made on the floor on the responsibility of a Member or

Delegate; by charges preferred by a memorial, which is usually

referred to a committee for examination; by a resolution dropped in

the hopper by a Member and referred to a committee; by a message from

the President; by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State

or territory, or from a grand jury ; or from facts developed and

reported by an investigating committee of the House. " (footnotes not

shown here)

 

And this same section says that, " A direct proposition to impeach is a

question of high privilege in the House and at once supersedes

business otherwise in order under the rules governing the order of

business. It may not even be superseded by an election case, which is

also a matter of high privilege. It does not lose its privilege from

the fact that a similar proposition has been made at a previous time

during the same session of Congress, previous action of the House not

affecting it. " (footnotes not shown here)

 

And so we see that any Member can move directly to impeach, and that

such a motion takes precedence over almost everything else, and that

it does not have to go into Committee prior to being debated on the

floor, and if it is defeated, it can be made again and again.

 

 

Two more related documents are " House Practice, " at

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/hpractice/index.html , and " Rules and

Precedents that Govern the House of Representatives, " at

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/precedents/index.html These two documents

provide additional support for our efforts to impeach.

 

NOTE: A huge and wonderful online source of Government Documents is

located at the Government Printing Office: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/ I

usually criticize the Bush Administration for almost everything they

do, because I think they are fundamentally wrong on almost all the

important issues. BUT - they have done a really great job in making so

much Government information available online, free of charge, to all

people. This is really good, in my opinion.

 

THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER TO IMPEACH AND REMOVE FROM OFFICE

 

The House of Representatives has the Constitutional power to impeach

any Government civilian official, that is, to present charges against

him to the Senate, which must then conduct a trial and remove him from

office if convicted. In Article I, Section 2, the Constitution says,

" The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other

Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. " And in

Article I, Section 3 it says, " The Senate shall have the sole Power to

try all Impeachments. " And in Article II, Section 4 it says, " The

President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States,

shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of,

Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

 

Source: United States Constitution, as located at

http://www.loveallpeople.org/usconstitutiona.txt and elsewhere.

 

So there is no question that Congress has the Constitutional authority

to remove these people from office, if it chooses to do so.

 

THE SPECIFIC LAW VIOLATED BY BUSH-CHENEY-RUMSFELD

 

The " specific law " mentioned above (in the motion to impeach) is found

in the United States Code, Title 18, Chapter 113C, " Torture, " also

known as " The Federal Torture Act. " It is shown here:

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/113c/toc.html

 

This Law provides for the prosecution of a U.S. national or anyone

present in the United States who, while outside the U.S., commits or

attempts to commit torture. Torture is defined as an " act committed by

a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to

inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain

or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person

within his custody or physical control. " The specific provision that

Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have violated is Section 2340A©, which

says, " Conspiracy. - A person who conspires to commit an offense under

this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the

penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the

commission of which was the object of the conspiracy. "

 

THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT THAT TORTURE WAS OFFICIAL (SECRET) GOVERNMENT

POLICY AT ABU GHRAIB

 

The photographs have made that clear. This wasn't the misbehavior of a

few isolated individuals. And " panties on your head " wasn't what they

were doing. It was official Government policy, and it was torture, as

defined in The Federal Torture Act, cited above.

 

If it were merely some individuals, then where did they get all the

sophisticated and expensive torture equipment shown in the pictures?

Where did the restraint chairs come from? And the various straps, and

racks, and hoods, and electrical equipment, and shackles, and

waterboards, etc. etc. come from? Did the individual soldiers bring

them from home? Obviously not. The Government provided all these

things, in order to implement their illegal policy of torture. And

Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld were behind this policy, all the way. It

could not have happened without their knowledge and consent.

 

REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS MAY EVENTUALLY SUPPORT US

 

But you might say, " It will never work. Republicans who control the

House would never let this happen. They would find some way to block

this effort. "

 

To which I would reply, " Maybe not. They would still keep the

Presidency, because Speaker Hastert would become the new President,

under existing law, and he is a Republican. All they would lose is

Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. Many Republicans might actually enjoy

being rid of these arrogant, dangerous, power-grabbing individuals,

who have so clearly and persistently broken the duly-enacted Laws of

Congress, including all those relating to torture. "

 

(The order of Presidential Succession is described here:

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/9-12/government/national/succession.html )

 

" Moreover, " I would say, " they may have won some elections, but they

do not own the House. They are merely the temporary custodians of it,

subject always to the Constitution and the " House Rules And Manual. "

 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

 

I am horrified and revolted by the mere idea that our Country - acting

in our name and by our authority - is committing the Satanic and

depraved acts of torture which the whole world has now witnessed. As a

Christian minister, I cannot imagine how people who dare to call

themselves Christians could ever fall so far into Hell as to do these

things or support them. We have no excuse whatsoever, not even the

phony excuse that we need to torture in order to " protect Americans

from the terrorists, etc. " To me, this is a flat-out lie, and I

challenge them to produce even one solid case where torture was

necessary to accomplish any good result. We are not the desperate

Israelis, surrounded by hostile neighbors and outnumbered 100-to 1,

and being bombed repeatedly. Grasping at straws, and unwilling to

admit their mistakes, they have actually legalized torture in some

cases (or so I have read). But their unfortunate situation is far

different from ours, thank God. We have no excuse. And we certainly

should not be following their example in anything regarding terrorism,

because their results have been a disaster. And they are far less safe

now than before they started to torture their enemies.

 

If the United States Of America has become so powerless and

ineffective that we now need to torture people in order to " protect

ourselves us from terrorism, " then we have become just as rotten as

the terrorists, and we do not deserve to defeat them or anybody else.

 

And I directly blame Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, first for sleeping

through the warnings and allowing the 9-11 attacks to occur, and then

for using torture as a favorite means of trying to get us out of the

mess that they themselves have created for us.

 

I hope and pray they will soon leave office and simply go away.

 

 

Blessings to you. May God help us all. And may God bless America!

 

Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director - LoveAllPeople.org

http://www.loveallpeople.org

and http://www.internetchurchofchrist.org

 

 

HTML version of this document is located at

http://www.loveallpeople.org/aplantoimpeach.html

 

 

 

Authors Website: www.LoveAllPeople.org

 

Authors Bio: Rev. Bill McGinnis is an Internet Christian minister,

writer and publisher. He is Director of LoveAllPeople.org, a small

private think tank in Alexandria, Virginia, and all of its related

websites, including

InternetChurchOfChrist.org,CommitteeForTheGoldenRule.org,CivicAmerican.com,

and AmericanDemocrat.net. His agenda is to help maximize the happiness

and well-being of all people