The Evergreen State

2007-02-16T10:49:00.000-08:00

On February 14, 2007, Washington State Senator Eric Oemig introduced to the state's legislature a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. If you didn't know, State legislatures are able to submit petitions for impeachment to the United State House of Representatives, and Washington is one such state that is racing to be the first to do so. It's a small step in the right direction, but it's pretty exciting.

Here's what it looks like:

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SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 8016
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State of Washington 60th Legislature 2007 Regular Session

By Senators Oemig, Regala, Kohl-Welles, Kline, Spanel, Fairley, Kauffman, Fraser, and Prentice.

Read first time 2/15/2007. Referred to Committee on Government Operations and Elections.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:
We, your memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:
WHEREAS, On September 8, 2006, when summarizing a bipartisan Senate investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said that, "The Committee's investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq has revealed that the Bush Administration's case for war in Iraq was fundamentally misleading. The Administration pursued a deceptive strategy of using intelligence reporting that the Intelligence Community had already warned was uncorroborated, unreliable, and in critical instances, fabricated."; and

WHEREAS, The President, the Vice President, and members of the President's Administration appear to have deliberately misrepresented the severity of the threat from Iraq by providing distorted intelligence to Congress and the public in order to justify war with Iraq; and
WHEREAS, The war with Iraq has cost the lives of many Washington state residents and squandered taxpayer money from the state of Washington; and
WHEREAS, The President has publicly admitted to conducting electronic surveillance of thousands and perhaps millions of American civilians without seeking warrants; and
WHEREAS, Washington state residents are likely to have been subject to this electronic surveillance; and
WHEREAS, The President, the Vice President, and members of the President's Administration have acted to strip American citizens of their constitutional rights, based solely on the discretionary designation by the President of a United States citizen as an "enemy combatant"; and
WHEREAS, Such offenses, if committed, are subversive of constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of Washington state and of the United States of America; and
WHEREAS, Petitions from the country at large may be presented by the Speaker of the House according to Clause 3 of House Rule XII; and
WHEREAS, Jefferson's Manual section LIII, 603, states that impeachment may be set in motion by charges transmitted from the legislature of a state, and
WHEREAS, If the President and/or members of his administration committed such offenses, ignoring these offenses would undermine core American values of truth and justice; and
WHEREAS, Impeachment is a process defined in the United States Constitution by which charges are brought against a President of Vice President of civil officers of the United States; and
WHEREAS, The filing of these charges is followed by a trial in the United States Senate that determines guilt of innocence;
NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully request that, in order to preserve confidence in the office of the Presidency and the Executive branch, our senators and representatives in the United States Congress determine whether there is sufficient evidence to charge President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney with the above offenses and, if so, to follow the Constitutional process of impeachment.
BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and each member of Congress from the State of Washington.

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that took a lot of balls.

2007-02-14T22:04:00.000-08:00

The Objectionist

The Evergreen State

that took a lot of balls.