State Senator Eric Oemig seems to be setting himself up as a local version of far-left Congressman Dennis "Moonbeam" Kucinich
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| Eric Oemig | Dennis Kucinich |
Oemig has announced he'll be announcing his sponsorship of a state Senate resolution to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Real good use of legislative time and resources, no? Funny, impeachment is not an issue that Oemig campaigned on, not even to his far-left base. Oemig has sponsored a number of other weird, far-left bills that bear no resemblance to the platform he campaigned on.
UPDATE: Postman reports that Oemig says the group which posted the announcement was wrong to mention impeachment, but he is working on a resolution calling for "an investigation of the financial aspects of the war and occupation". Good issue for Congress, not the legislature.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 08, 2007 12:59 PM | Email ThisPosted by: Cato on February 8, 2007 12:47 PM
(Maybe he's angling for a trip on Air Pelosi?)
Posted by: Interested Observer on February 8, 2007 12:47 PMYou can also point out which laws Pres. Bush broke which would justify his impeachment. Specific laws, not Bush lied - people died, wiretaps and other security measures the POTUS has the authority to enact. Specifics.
Then, you can have your buddies in the United States Congress drop the resolution, hold the votes and start the Senate trial ... while the state Legislature can continue to do its business.
Posted by: jimg on February 8, 2007 12:58 PMBut, this is just a pipe dream..right?
Posted by: Jefferson Paine on February 8, 2007 01:00 PMAmendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Illegal wiretapping without warrants should easily be cause for impeachment. Guess the Kangaroo Courts were not good enough for Dubya.
The wire taps are foreign communications intercepts of known terrorist contacting people in the US. They are not internal phones calls. Phone calls into and out of the country are to and from terror suspects are not subject the Constitution. The Constitution protection applies to CITIZENS of the US not to foreign terrorists.
The phone call database is of phone company call records. The record of your phone calls is not private it belongs to the phone company it does not belong to you.
Standard field craft for operating on enemy soil (ie the terrorists) is to not to call your contact directly. The bad guy calls someone in the US. How many people would pass a message from someone they don't know to another person for $500? Person in the US calls a second and so on for a dozen or so phone calls all passing a benign message. Now the contact is not the last person in the phone chain but some one in the middle.
This is where the phone records come in. The gov't collect 4 data points: originated phone #, terminated phone #, date and time.
They then map the phone tree and see if anyone in the phone tree is of interest.
The appropriate committees in the House and Senate all had been informed of these operations and signed off on them. The Democrat members of the committees knew and signed off on the operations.
The D's have had the house and Senate for a month now. If a crime has really been committee why haven't they started impeachment hearings.
Show me the crime that GWB is impeachable for.
Clinton committed perjury and was disbarred for it. Clinton's perjury was committed while under oath in a lawsuit brought under rules the Clinton Justice Department put into place regarding the questioning of past behavior in harassment suits.
Posted by: JCM on February 8, 2007 01:55 PMFurther along on that point, 52% of Americans agree with you according to a Zogby poll from last year. In contrast, only about 35% (in the most generous polls, it's lower in some others) agree with Bush's current strategy in Iraq.
But people like Oemig are the fringe. OK!
Posted by: thehim on February 8, 2007 01:59 PMYeah genious, next time we'll hold a vote of the people when we need to go to war against those that did and would attack us and others of the free world.
Nobody wants to go to war - sometimes you have to stand and fight regardless the odds.
But then, liberals want nothing more than for America to be destroyed.
Posted by: Jeffro on February 8, 2007 02:31 PMIt looks like this kooky organization put words in the good senator's mouth that weren't warranted. Kudos to Oemig for putting them in their place by publicly refuting their claims, even if it was a mild rebuke.
Posted by: mr. smitty on February 8, 2007 02:57 PMEric, knock it off and grow up. You've got some big shoes to fill. Posted by: Michele on February 8, 2007 03:02 PM
I agree that there's probably a better use of Oemig's time, I was just pointing out that this isn't as unreasonable as the group's original press release claiming impeachment was included.
Posted by: mr. smitty on February 8, 2007 03:26 PMJust takes one false accusation (like that lawyer in Portland) of terrorism and your wisked away in the middle of the night, deported to Syria, and tortured till you admit what they want you to say.
Seems wholly undemocratic and impeachable to me.
Please explain, Cato.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 8, 2007 03:59 PMit's a state emergency.
Posted by: Andy on February 8, 2007 04:14 PMSee Cato, this is exactly what I expected from people like you when I asked the question - you citing a statute, a portion of a statute or a portion of the Constitution and then you apply your rationale and call that grounds for impeachment.
If everything is so cut and dried as you say it is, then why aren't the articles of impeachment drawn up already? Could it possibly be there is no impeachable offense? Naw. Can't be that. Must be some nefarious plot.
Typical.
Care to answer the other questions I posed? Like Republican state legislators who ran out the Impeach Clinton canard? That was the point in your original post, no?
Posted by: jimg on February 8, 2007 04:15 PMNow, I'll admit that I wasn't looking forward to you taking office from the start. I'm a staunch Republican but yet, I'm willing to give pretty much anyone a chance. I'm not even going to take extreme issue with you sponsoring bills that I disagree with in principle. What I can't stand now though is the fact that you're sponsoring all these bills and resolutions that have absolutely nothing to do with the duties of a STATE legislator. Do you have no concept of federalism? I expect such things from the general citizenry but you are an elected official. You're held to a slightly higher standard. Therefore, why on earth are you planning on sponsoring a bill to impeach the president. It's wrong on so many levels and even if I agreed with you on the principle that Bush is a war criminal, a liar or whatever other nom du jour you're using for him may be, I'd still disagree with what you are doing. A resolution to impeach the president is, at very best, the authority of US congress. You were elected to help create laws for the functioning of the state's education system, transportation, emergency preparedness, business development and tax revenue. If you don't like the president, fine, why don't you call up Jim McDermott, Adam Smith or Rick Larsen and tell them to do something about. Or perhaps they are at least intelligent enough to know that doing such a thing is an incredible waste of time. For even if such proceedings were to get underway and the results were to end up favorable to people of your ilk, they wouldn't be so until after Bush had already left office. Furthermore, do any of you people really stop to think about what you're saying when you say "Impeach Bush!" You're saying you'd like Cheney to be president. Really?! Wow!
I usually try to be civil with my civil servants, even the ones I disagree with, but there just aren't any other words that encompass what I think of you, Eric. You are completely unfit to serve in elected office. You never expected to be elected. You only rode the wave of anti-Republican sentiment and now you have no idea what you're doing in Olympia. Enjoy the next four years because if you and the other more extreme members of your party continue to sponsor bills of the nature you have been they will most certainly be your last.
A very disappointed constituent.
Climb aboard Eric! The Harold Feingold Saucer Squad has a navigator's seat near a window for you!
BTW -- according to WikiPedia, "impeachment" is a charge brought against any high level officials.
A Senator can be impeached.
Therefore I am launching a "local group" (as the Seattle PI so often concocts it) to Impeach Hillary Clinton.
Among her crimes are:
Travelgate 1992
Death of Vince Foster
Wasting Public Funds on Hairbrained Health Care Plan
Lying about her stand in Iraq
It seems the reason no Republican state legislators seemed to jump on the Clinton impeachment is that the House of Rep. was already on top of it.
I think this attempt by several state legislatures (mainly Dem controlled) is to express their displeasure that no one on the national level has taken up their cause. You can read all about it here.
That was the point in your original post, no?
If you read my original post it says:
I'm sure people on here would be lining up to impeach Clinton had this blog been around in the 90's.
Seems to imply people like you who post on Sound Politics would be calling for the impeachment of Clinton had this website been around in 1994 - 1999.
You fascists sure like to pick on the downtrodden.
This reminds me of all of the leftists I've been hearing touting an MSNBC poll saying 80+ percent of respondents favor impeachment--and it turns out that was an on-line poll. Bogus.
People who think Bush should be impeached are utterly unserious. I hope Oemig's smarter than that.
Posted by: DJ on February 8, 2007 08:41 PMFirst, you are an idiot. You are no more "Cato" (As in the CATO institute??) than I am Jesus Christ.
"I'm sure people on here would be lining up to impeach Clinton had this blog been around in the 90's."
Republicans understand that matters such as impeachmen and foreign policy are FEDERAL MATTERS and would never waste the time of the people of the State of Washington on meaningless "resolutions" that exceed their authority.
Only ignorant liberals make up meaningless "resolutions" on such matters in their state,local and municipal elected positions.
Second of all your bit about "Warrantless Wiretapping" is the same old liberal LIE. The only people wiretapped were people who were phoning KNOW AQ terrorists. If they did NOT wiretap these people and we had another attack, you traitorous liberals would be out there shouting about how they weren't being wiretapped.
Oh and you forgot to regurgitate the liberal lie about checking on terrorist finances too. Apparently the only time Liberals want to delve into people's finances is when they are dadbeat parents (See Clinton's Welfare reform Act of 1997, US Code: Title 42, Section 666, FINANCIAL DATA MATCHES).
Apparently to liberals, disrupting terrorist finances is taboo, unless they are deadbeat parents, OR we have another attack. Then they love finger pointing about how the things they insisted not be done, were not done and the cosequences came home to roost.
"I think this attempt by several state legislatures (mainly Dem controlled) is to express their displeasure that no one on the national level has taken up their cause.
State legislators can contact their federal elected representatives and NOT waste time during the legislative session. That is how it works idiot, I mean CATO.
A Portland guy was detained as a material witness since his fingerprints were all over bomb material to a case where Canada (not the US) accused a guy of terrorism so they deported the scumbag to place of origin. While there, he claims he was tortured.
These two stories are not related.
pbj spells out the particulars in this case very succintly- Oemig should contact his legislators in DC the same way you and I do.
Posted by: swatter on February 9, 2007 06:49 AMPentagon officials undercut the intelligence community in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq by insisting in briefings to the White House that there was a clear relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, the Defense Department's inspector general said Friday.
$166 billion of wasted funds by Dubya.
You guys get angry at your taxes being misspent locally, how about nationally. =)
You want to impeach Bush over what you believe are law-breaking offenses and lies, fine. Do it. Now. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Introduce the Articles of Impeachment and stop talking about it. Thing is, you won't. But won't stop you from boring the crap out of the rest of us with your constant threats and made-up accusations.
Effin' fools. The lot of you.
Posted by: jimg on February 9, 2007 10:39 AM-JP
Posted by: Jefferson Paine on February 9, 2007 11:05 AMTrust me, I know him all to well. I think what my esteemed brother-in-law fails to understand in his Left-wing zeal is A) There is no obvious impeachable offense. The President using his executive powers to command the military after the Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill entitled "Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq" is pretty much per the Constitution. Not to mention the multiple breaches of the cease fire agreement signed by Saddam in 1991, each of which is legal grounds for a resumption in hostilities. B) Even if there was an impeachable offense, it's not 2 for 1, then you have Dick Cheney as President. Then you have to start over from scratch. C) Even if you could find a loophole to impeach President Bush, by the time it came to pass, we'd already be at the 2008 election. So what would it accomplish? D) Even if you could find a way to impeach Bush and then find a way to impeach Cheney, you'd then have an incumbant President San Fran Nan Pelosi. Good for Democrats, BAD for Sen. Clinton. Any Democrats really think that the Clintons will allow another Democrat to ursurp Hillary's run in 2008??? Seriously?
Far more politically calculating to let Bush twist for the next two years, (while doing everying humanly possible to undermine anything he tries to do), so the Republicans will be in the worst possible political position in 2008, ripe for Democrat to be elected. And that Democrat will of course be Hillary. *shutter*