During these long six years of Junior’s Presidency I have patiently avoided calling for his removal. But it is time.
The crimes committed by this group of thugs are really unprecedented in our nation’s history. No other President has misled us into a war that not only was sold under false pretenses but then conducted in such a way to ruin both the nation attacked and our own. No other President has used the death of 3,000 of our fellow citizens as cover for the rescinding of our Constitution.
But now we see this mob run roughshod over the few remaining checks on their power in the removal of eight U. S. Attorneys because they failed to tailor their prosecutions to fit the Administration’s election needs; we see the FBI exposed for its illegal practices in spying on us and of course, their sordid practices in the Plame affair exposed just how low they will go to hide their lies.
Year after year, day after day we see new affronts to our Constitutional system, from the euphemistic “signing statements†that attempt to make Congress irrelevant to the effort to install a state religion and more. There seems to be no end to this cabal’s dismantling of our hard won freedoms.
We now find out that prosecutions by the remaining U. S. Attorneys have been politicized as well. Paul Krugman reports in the N. Y. Times
Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.
Every inch of American life is being manipulated, spied upon and turned toward political gain by this crew. It is time they go. We cannot afford two more years of this madness. We now discover the FBI has violated even the very loose standards of the Patriot Act to spy upon us. They read our emails, listen to phone conversations and do so without any apparent concern for laws or justice.
The Constitution provides that a President or Vice President may be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors", the latter phrase having been interpreted as basically meaning whatever Congress determines it to mean. Arguably, this President and Vice President have met any standard for their impeachment and removal from office.
Of course the problem is Congress which is an equal part of the problem. They too should be removed for office for having been complicit in all that is wrong in our political system. The voters made a down payment on that removal in the last elections but one wonders whether they are up to the task of completing the job in the next election. Present indications are that we are not.
We the people have placed ourselves in a very bad spot. After all, all of the above mentioned culprits received votes from us, well all but Bush the anointed, and not enough of us have raised a stink about any of this to make a difference. The last time I felt this desperate about government was 1966 when I decided enough is enough and took to the streets when other means failed. It may be time once again.
There is such a level of despair among the American people that most do not even bother to vote. Candidates are chosen before we have a voice; once chosen they mouth what they think we want to hear, and then go on and serve the interests of those who chose them in the first place once elected. Dismantling this enterprise is truly Sisyphean in nature.
Some of us have never learned to politely give up, however. Some of us fight the good fight no matter the odds. I truly hope you are one of us.
(Phil Hoskins is a Hollywood attorney who founded “Take Back West Hollywood.â€)
