Impeach for Peace’s first protest was held in conjunction with Bush's 2006 State-of-the-Union speech. At 7:30 p.m., IfP protesters gathered at the Minneapolis Federal Building. After grabbing a variety of signs and chatting vehemently about the corrupt administration, protesters listened to a speech in which IfP organizers described some of the various impeachable offenses committed as of this date by the Bush administration.
Bush’s State of the Union address commenced at 8:00 p.m., and at this time the protesters began making a great deal of noise — banging on drums,blowing whistles, playing music, and chanting to drown out symbolically Bush’s lies. Through the evening, the crowd alternated between making noise and listening to speeches.
Everyone who wanted to speak was allowed to do so. Several people shared their perceptions on the illegal activies of the administration, and the
importance of activism in light of the dangers to American democracy. At one point, even the child of one of the protesters felt compelled to comment, albeit somewhat inarticulately. His heartfelt yell into the bullhorn was greeted by the crowd with a resounding "yeah!"
Two counterprotesters also showed up to show support for the Bush administration, in spite of its many illegal activities.
The protest was covered by KARE 11, Fox News, and Channel 5 Eyewitness news. All in all, approximately 80 to 100 people showed up — a remarkable turnout in light of the cold weather and increasingly furious snowstorm.
Here's the Bulhorn Speech...
So, we're going to hang out, talk about bush, hear some music
people can come up and speak, and maybe lead some chanting.
And at 8:00 we're going to make a lot of noise as the president starts his speech. It might sound something like this....
A few guidelines if you want to avoid having trouble with the police:
• Don't block people's path on the sidewalk
• Stay out of the streets
• Obey any police officers' orders
• Remember, this is a peaceful protest. Refrain from advocating or practicing any violence tonight.
Now, we could talk all night about Bush's incompetence, cronyism and greed:
• his opposition to Kyoto, support of ANWR drilling, ignoring of global warming
• failing to develop an energy policy (unless you count wars to acquire other people's resources)
• his attempt to dismantle social security
• stacking the courts with extremist judges
• appointing an unqualified crony to FEMA, ignoring evidence that Katrina was imminent, and failing to react for three days when it happened, costing people their lives
• handing war contracts to Haliburton and Bectol without a public bidding process
• alienating our traditional allies
• opposing stem cell research vital in the fight against disease
• his slashing of funding for research-based programs that help reduce teen pregnancy and STDs
• racking up the national debt in spite of promises to the contrary, by cutting taxes in wartime
• giving tax breaks to the incredibly wealthy while cutting benefits for those most in need
• disregarding nuclear proliferation regarding north korea and isreal
• and allowing U.S. wages to drop for the 5th year in a row. (real w/inflation)
However, to narrow things a bit, What I'd like to focus on, cuts to the very heart of our democracy — specifically ignoring the rule of law.
To be perfectly clear here, BUSH IS A CRIMINAL.
Let's hear in his own words what he has to say about his obligations as president.
You see, Bush believes the laws apply to everyone except those in his administration.
In fact, what I'd like for you all to pay attention to tonight, as you hear about the Bush crimes, is the disregard to the balance of powers. This is referred to as the 'Unitary Executive.' When I was in school, I remember being taught that our Constitution created three COEQUIL branches of government. The Executive, Judicial, and Legislative. Bush believes himself, however, to be a dictator, and criminally disregards all branches other than his own.
This is something we all need to get together on regardless of our political beliefs.
Whether you are liberal or conservative, libertarian, anarchist, republican, independent, socialist, or something else.
Whether you are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, pagan, or some other belief.
We need to UNITE!
President Bush, YOU are an illegal president because:
you are destroying our nation's Constitution,
When people were dying in New Orleans, you couldn't be bothered to leave your vacation for three days.
you're destroying the worlds resources,
killing innocent victims in Iraq,
supporting murderous dictatorships in Latin America and around the world,
and obliterating the English Language!
And we're going to Impeach you!
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SPYING
In preparing for this event, I sent out emails about protesting bush, did many web searches about Bush's crimes, downloaded audio of the president, and made many cell phone calls. And since the National Security Agency does have a drag net on the internet, cell phone transmissions, and emails (as shown in the NSA recently released document), then I'm sure to have been classified as a credible threat.
For the first time in my life I'm worried that the government might be spying on me.
When it was first shown that Bush was secretly spying on American citizens, he insisted that he always had court orders, as required by the fourth amendment to the Constitution.
Bush's Attorney General later stated on CBS that FISA, which governs this activity, is "outdated."
I wonder if Bush thinks the Constitution is outdated too?
FISA was set up during the cold war in order to prevent 4th amendment abuses of power by presidents. Remember Nixon? Like Bush, he abused wiretaps.
Concern prior to FISA was that state secrets would be revealed while getting a court order. Because of this, congress created FISA courts to maintain secrecy while still holding the executive branch accountable.
FISA allows the president to spy when opportunities arise and ask permission later, allowing for total expediency in protecting the country and merely requiring a little paperwork afterward.
The FISA court has processed under 19,000 applications for warrants since its inception and only 6 have ever been denied or delayed.
I don't know about you, but it seems to me that giving the president this much power is dangerous enough.
But Bush won't even adhere to FISA laws.
What he's openly admitting is that our civil liberties are not important enough for him to bother with a little red tape.
But what's more likely is that he wants his activities to remain secret.
According to the New York Times, in 2002 the justice department narrowed its definition of torture, allowing Bush to ignore domestic and international prohibitions against torture in the name of national security.
The Bush administration is holding foriegn nationals and U.S. citizens with little or no evidence of terrorist activity in indefinite detention without charges or trial. This is obviously unethical. And the supreme court has decided that it's also unlawful.
Most of us have heard that under Bush's administration torture has occurred at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. Bush has opposed the International Criminal Court established to prevent this. According to Amnesty International, the United States even established labor camps around the world to commit torture.
The Bush administration has come out as saying that it is adamantly opposed to torture. And has attempted to comfort our allies...
Yet behind the scenes, he pushed for an exception to be made in the case of the CIA. After pressure from Congress, notably Republican Senator John McCain, he signed legislation that there would be no exception to the torture ban. However, while signing this bill he simultaneously made a signing statement in which he essentially stated that he would not honor the very bill he was signing into law.
This had a chilling effect on the congress. Showing that the president did not feel the need to follow any legislation that congress enacted that he didn't personally agree with. Only two presidents have ever made such an assertion.
The other was Richard Nixon. (Los Angeles Times, Jan 6, 2006)
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WAR
Prior to Bush's taking office, Bush knew he wanted to go to war in Iraq.
Immediately after 911, Bush's administration was saying they wanted to go to war with Iraq, not Afghanastan.
It is clear now, as it was then, that Iraq and Al'Queda are not connected, and that the president did next to nothing in his attempts to catch Osama Bin Laden. He had the opportunity in Tora Bora, but instead outsourced the military job to local Warlords instead of seeking the one man who was ultimately responsible for 911. Why did he do this? So he could redeploy our troups in Iraq for his oil war, and in doing, ignore the real problem — terrorists and the root causes of terrorism.
We all know now, that Bush lied about evidence to support WMDs.
Didn't respect that Congress has the responsibility of deciding when to go to war, not the president, and for good reason.
Didn't meet the Requirements of Congress' War Resolution, and in fact, never intended to.
In this next clip, pay attention to the Heartless and cavalier way in which he expressed with humor his administration's inability to find the WMDs. In it, he's presenting a slide show to a group of media executives. In the slide show, he's shown looking around the white house in an attempt to locate his "mythical" WMDs.
The evidence most significant to the debate over WMDs in Iraq prior to the invasion, according to the Washington Post, was the alluminum tubes Iraq had purchased.
Bush's administration had reports that the aluminum tubes couldn't be used for refining uranium but had other purposes. Bush claimed they could be used for nuclear armorment to justify the war.
Additionally, Bush tried to convince us that Iraq had attempted to purchase Uranium from Niger. However, Ambassador Joe Wilson blew the whistle, showing that the evidence had been fabricated.
In response, the Bush administration outed his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plain. This not only destroyed her career, it may have undermined intelligence operations and could even have resulted in the capture, torture or death of other operatives.
Whomever was involved in the outing of Valerie Plain committed treason, and according to U.S. law, treason is punishable by death. Yet this has not yet been thoroughly investigated. How could it be when the Congress is Bush's lap dog.
The administration believes it can do whatever it wants so long as we are at war. But this war on terrorism is without end. This could give him unlimited powers.
Bruce Fein, Former Regan Dept Deputy Attourney General says that according to Bush's current interpretation of the Constitution, there is no statute that he could not break during wartime. This includes things such as imprisoning anyone he sees fit in concentration camps or refusing to hold elections in 2008.
Is this what we want in a president?
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Other
The nonpartisan General Accounting Office concluded the Bush Administration created illegal, covert propaganda-in the form of fake news reports-to promote its industry-backed Medicare bill.
According to the Washington Post, The Bush Administration, in violation of the law, refused to allow Medicare actuary Richard Foster to tell members of Congress the actual cost of their Medicare proposal. Instead, they repeated a figure they knew was $100 billion too low.
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We're calling for Bush to step down, but we all know that Bush isn't likely to do that. So what we need to do is ask our legislators to impeach him. So, to help you put pressure on your congresspeople, we've been handing out flyers which contain the contact information for our congresspeople in Washington. If we accomplish nothing else tonight, us contacting our representatives, will have made this event a success.
We've only scratched the surface of Bush's unethical and illegal activities.
But the main thing to take away from all this is that Bush is illegally attempting to turn the Executive Branch of the U.S. into a Dictatorship through his criminal activities.
Currently, he's attempting to appoint Judge Alito to the Supreme Court. A judge that has shown himself time and again to be in favor of Supreme Executive Power.
In the past he's come down in favor of a Policeman Shot dead, an unarmed 15 yr old boy. Shot him in the Back of Head as he was trying to escape after having stolen $10.
Policeman Strip searched a 10 yr old Girl and her mother in their own house, even though the cops search warrant didn't give that authority.
This Bush appointee may wittle away, over the next 30 yrs, what little balance of powers our government has left. Leaving us with Orwell's 1984.
This president has brought the U.S. to utter lawlessness. And yet there is no independant Council. Nixon had an independent council, even Clinton had an Independent Council. If EVER there was a need for an independent councel, it is for this illegal fascist dictator. Demand that Norm Coleman call for an independant Council. And if Norm doesn't, Norm can find a new job, and we'll elect someone who is willing to defend our Constitution.
The question you have to ask yourself is:
Are you for pre-emptive oil wars, or are you sick of it?
Are you for a police state, or are you sick of it?
Are you for the melting of our planet's polar ice caps, or are you sick of it?
Are you for the demonization of gays & Lesbians? Or are you sick of it?
Are you for the spying on american citizens, or are you sick of it?
Are you for torture, or are you sick of it?
Are you for Corporate power being more important than People power, or are you sick of it?
And ultimately, are you for a Fascist Dictatorship, or are you sick of it?
So what are you going to do?
do you think this administration, Congress, or the courts are going to police this Executive?
No! They've proved they can't or won't.
Someone once said, "All it takes for evil to take over, is for good [people] to do nothing."
So it's up to you and me, to stand up, to protest, to call our legislators, to yell at the top of our lungs! Protesting! Moving! Acting! Demonstrating! That the World Can Not Wait !
to say, "We've had enough! And we're not going to take it any more!"
We've all been wondering who was going to step up and Stop this President. Well, now we know. WE are the ones we've been waiting for!
