It's past time to invoke the 25th Amendment

This president has 'jumped the shark' one to many times.  

He refuses to make a public statement or to allow his Attorney General to make a public statement on the definition of torture.

Torture.  Unfuckingbelivable.  In These United States.  In the 21st Century.  We are having a national debate on whether or not our government, and it's proxies, our national military branches, are allowing and suborning torture.

It's time to remove this egomaniacal despot from office.  Before he drags us all over the breach and into, by his very own words, WWIII.

I've been home the past week, sick myself and now caring for my dying mother.

I haven't seen president Bush on television recently, and was astonished to watch, during a new conference, him chuckle and smirk his way through a tirade during which he invoked the phrase "World War Three". More than once.

If you have the chance, watch a video of this, you will understand my concern.

I work in a medical clinic, where a number of our patients are mentally ill, or have mental deficiencies.  You can often tell these patients by their facial expressions and the look in their eyes.

This president has the face of a man who is no longer in control of his facilties.  This president has the eyes of a man who should not be allowed to manage a ice cream shop, much less the most powerful nation on the face of the earth.  

This president should be relieved of his duties under the terms of the fourth section of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution.

He is a danger to the world. That is the simple truth.

Even as an atheist, I have to say, "God help us all".

•  So that we can give the presidency to a man

  who is even more deranged that Bush?

  Cheney is like incumbency insurance.

  They both have to go. Congress should have impeached them both a long time ago.

  by litigatormom on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:32:15 PM PDT

  •  I really shudder to think what future presidents

    will attempt with all the precedences this one has been allowed to set.

    The Grand Experiment has come to an inglorious end.

    by PatsBard on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:35:20 PM PDT

    •  This thought keeps me up nights.

      The fact that they got away with it -- and made it look so easy -- just lays out a blueprint for future depredations.  One time when Bush some adviser had the temerity to question a Bush plan, referencing the Constitution, Bush snapped "the Constitution's just a goddam piece of paper!"  

      You know what?  Bush is right.  He's right if people in power don't respect our founding documents and our founding principles.  He's right if the public is too apathetic, too timid, or too ignorant to understand the centrality of Constitutional rights and liberties, the indispensable nature of the checks and balances keeping any one of the three branches of government from overreaching the others, the bedrock principles of the rule of law and respect for orderly processes.  

      This Bush-Cheney cabal -- these corrupt, corner-cutting, mendacious, cruel, insensitive, bloodthirsty warmongers --have ravaged our Constitutional system, looted our treasury, sent our young warriors to slaughter without end in sight, and made this once-proud nation's flag an emblem of shame and perfidy.

      I hope America can still be saved, but I think it will be years -- decades, even -- to set right what evil this monstrous regime has wrought.  And every step of the way towards recovery, we'll have to watch oh so carefully, and worry, lest someone else should come along who learned the Bush-Cheney lessons and wants to apply them all over again.

      An American dictatorship was the stuff of fiction a few short years ago.  Now, I have to wonder . . .

      by trivium on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 07:51:04 PM PDT

•  The reason W only appoints Yes-people and

  losers.

  Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President

  .
  Ain't no way they will do this. The crazier he is the more he does what the neo-cons want.

  by OHdog on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:35:13 PM PDT

•  The whole damn country

  is mentally ill, although the malaise does seem to intensify higher on the political food chain.  Perhaps we should relieve ourselves of duty.  Or, more accurately, we have preemptively (if gradually) done so, which is a big part of how we got here today.

  The Constitutional remedy for crimes of office on the part of executive branch officials is impeachment.  Many of us clamor for it; it even polls around 50%.  But there too we are essentially asking Congress to impeach itself, since the majority of its members approve of this crap.

  I think the tyranny is going to continue to get worse.

  by Simplify on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:36:33 PM PDT

  •  Tyranny

    I think the tyranny is going to continue to get worse.

    I take you to mean even under a Democratic Presidency and I tend to agree.

    by Demi Moaned on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:39:33 PM PDT

    •  Howdy-do, DM

      Ha, I wasn't even thinking that far ahead — even the next fifteen months of the Bush Presidency are going to get way crazier than now even.  All kinds of shit is going to go down.  The American Empire is failing, and it's getting uglier for all of us.

      by Simplify on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:46:08 PM PDT

      •  Howdy to you, too

        Haven't crossed paths much lately. And I seem to have lost my TU status. Haven't been commenting as agressively as I used to.

        Of course, I agree that we likely haven't seen the worst of Bush yet. And I'm not saying a Democrat would be as bad as a Republican (far from it). But this process of overthrowing the rule of law is deeply embedded in the system. The best I expect from a Democrat is to slow it down.

        by Demi Moaned on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 07:13:44 PM PDT

      •  TU again

        I seem to have regained my TU status since my previous reply. I guess my mojo account was only a leetle bit short.

        by Demi Moaned on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 10:43:49 PM PDT

        •  Ha, I think it's by design

          Users with a deep comment history only need a little topping off of mojo before it's back in the saddle again...

          by Simplify on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 11:27:55 PM PDT

  •  Figuratively speaking (of course)...

    ...If the Congress were tasked with the job of the Bush cabal's hangman, they would then have to place the noose around their own necks, having not only been complicent but complicit in his crimes. If they weren't standing there "holding the coats" while Team Bush grabbed the Constitution by the scruff of the neck, throwing it to the ground and blowing its brains out, then they would have mitigating circumstances. But they did, in some cases, do more than just "hold the coats". So they are just as guilty as Bush in his murder of the Constitution.

    by ImpeachKingBushII on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:46:51 PM PDT

    •  Congress handed Bush their power

      The power to make war, the power to make law...  Hell, Congress even handed Bush the judiciary's power, the power to predetermine guilt, to hold without trial, to punish...  And so few of us respond in any meaningful way.

      It is a damning flaw in ourselves.  The founders relied upon the jealosies of Conggresspeople guarding their own power.  Oops.  Then again, maybe it was always tenuous.  Our first war, with the Barbary pirates, was undeclared.

      by Simplify on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 07:00:21 PM PDT

      •  The people so easily forget...

        ...when they ask for a king, he carries a sceptor in one hand and a sword in the other. Neither is carried in vain.

        by ImpeachKingBushII on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 07:42:11 PM PDT

•  You know they'll never do it...

  ...but like the guy who smokes two packs a day who knows cigarettes are killing him but smokes like a chimney anyway, for some asinine reason our Congress can't seem to break the Bush habit! Nor do they appear to even want to, some of them "rummaging through the trashcans for his butt to get a drag" even after "the fire" has gone or is about to fizzle out on his term!

  by ImpeachKingBushII on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:37:50 PM PDT

•  Rather invoke Article II, Section 4

  http://en.wikipedia.org/...

  First the one, then the other.

  by JR on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:40:32 PM PDT

•  Congress is part of the problem

  Not part of the solution. We need a brand new government, period.

  by jfern on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:41:04 PM PDT

•  Force Mukasey pledge to hire Special Prosecutor

  to look into all the Justice Department scandals, as a condition of his conformation as A.G.

  by Lefty Coaster on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:42:30 PM PDT

  •  Won't happen...

    ...It was brought out tonight, Bush won't even let him define waterboarding as torture at the confirmation hearings. He's another Gonzo through and through. We are so screwed!

    by ImpeachKingBushII on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:50:51 PM PDT

    •  It's was done in 73' with Elliot Richardson

      Richardson was forced to pledge to hire a Special Prosecutor to look into the Nixon White House before the Senate Democrats would confirm him. He hired Archibald Cox who nailed Nixion's ass, leading to Nixon's impeachment.

      by Lefty Coaster on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 07:35:21 PM PDT

•  defining obscenity

  It was far easier for the Supreme Court to define obscenity that it is for them..Whitehouse dopes, Congress, DOJ..Pentagon, CIA, and your pal next door, to define "torture".  It was a simple thing during WWII.  Remember?  March of Bataan?  Gas chambers?
  Viet Nam prisoners?  Anyone DOUBT they were tortured?
  Nobody doubted Vick was torturing DOGS.
  What is it gonna take?  Videos of OUR soldiers being waterboarded?  Disrobed and made the sick joke of a homosexual act?
  If we can do it to them, they can do it to us.  Every act perpetrated upon these innocent until proven guilty--Not-- enemy combantants lays the groundwork for our captured soldiers.
  The tide will turn on torture when our soldiers start undergoing "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the godless heathens.

  by on the cusp on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 07:12:06 PM PDT

  •  What tide?

    The tide will turn on torture when our soldiers start undergoing "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the godless heathens.

    Who will turn on torture then?  The Bush admin?  Congress?  If you think they value American lives significantly more than Iraqi lives, I'd urge you to reconsider.  If American lives commanded such a premium, we wouldn't still be in Iraq (2003 to infinity).  

    If you mean The American People (barf) will turn on torture then, I believe polls show most are already against torture, despite the inaction and complicity of our "representatives" in Congress.  

    Btw, the "ongoing debate" over "enhanced interrogation" is pure theater and everyone knows it.  Everyone knows we torture.  And many people (Congress) are just fine with that.    

    by android wizard with lasers on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 07:47:57 PM PDT

    •  turning tide

      People on the street who have been indoctrinated by the media think torture is GOOD. And EFFECTIVE. Don't know about you, but I speak with maybe 30 people a day, on average, from all walks of life.  They are mostly afraid of terrorists.  
      They have not seen us..our people, our soldiers, being tortured.  It doesn't occur to them that it could happen.
      I can bet if they did actually see it, know about it, they would absolutely rise up in unison against the perps.

      by on the cusp on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 08:19:04 PM PDT

•  I think we have been approaching this....

  ...the total wrong way. We keep demanding to tell them what they do and don't do to prisoners, and ask if they perform this procedure or that procedure. In other words, we get into the weeds, and we also risk some thinking that we are exposing our methods to the world.

  All we have to say is this: Mr. Mukasey, as you know, we have signed the Geneva Convention on the subject of treatment of prisoners. Do our interrogation methods comply with the Geneva Convention?

  by Bensdad on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 07:44:47 PM PDT

•  warning: expletives below

  I just want to say how fucking amazing it is that we have to even consider this.  

  Every single day when I read the news, and the next set of lies and bullshit being heaped on the American people in the name of "freedom" i am sickened by a single thought:

  CLINTON GOT IMPEACHED FOR A MOTHER FUCKING BLOWJOB!

  This guy shits on the constitution, rapes the geneva convention, and stuffs habeas up his ass, fondles every corporation in the world, pisses on the environment and yet still is alive to claim "I sleep fine at night." and his wife gets to go on teevee and say "no one suffers more than the president and I do."....

  MOTHER FUCKING BASTARD.  

  I have never, ever in my entire life been this angry.  If I am not positive a dem will win in 2008, I am leaving the country.  It's a promise.  I refuse to go down with this ship.

  by LucyMO on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 08:04:23 PM PDT

•  From Pure Crazy to Pure Evil.

  I think W has pretty much lost what little sense he had.

  I suspect he's heavily medicated -- Scotch, prescription meds, whatever.

  Before reaching for the straightjacket, however well it might suit him, do keep in mind that the vice-president, who would succeed to his office, is Dick Cheney.

  That would be the most evil man in Murka, excepting possibly Henry A. Kissinger, Richard Mellon Scaife and/or George H. W. Bush (the latter a player in every shit deal going back to the Bay of Pigs including, probably, the JFK assassination).

  Either we have a massive and nonviolent uprising -- as in large-scale tax refusal -- or, conceivably, the military might refuse future acts of aggression.

  The alternative seems to be an indeterminate period of "hard" fascism (as in people disappearing, complete dictatorial rule and the suppression of dissent plus, as always, wars, wars, wars).

  I wish Cheney would resume his heavy smoking habit.

  by Kargomania on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 08:27:23 PM PDT

•  How about Barbara Boxer re: 25th Amendment...

  WE ALL KNOW HE'S CRAZY.  He is in fact THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. So many respected reporters have been hinting at this for months, and months and months now...."Bush seems out of touch.....delusional....disconnected.....another word for that is disassociated personality in psychological terms....and the reasons is (drum roll please)

   BECAUSE HE IS MENTALLY DISABLED RIGHT NOW.

  The other day Barbara Boxer specifically said on a one of the national cable news channel, "He is unstable."

  Wow...right, we know it, now, who can we get to write up a piece of legislation, invoking the 25th Amendment? in Congress.  Yes I know that if it were to work, then we might get stuck with Cheney, but you know what, the entire congress would be PUT ON NOTICE and it could be "just the ticket" to get things at least moving in the right direction, meaning, getting rid of these two insane men.  

  I know it sounds a bit outrageous, but certainly not any more outrageous then what is happening to our country and out Constitution. Think about it....

  How much money and time did Congress spend raking Bill Clinton over the coals, day after day after day wasting our hard earned tax dollars? And besides, its not like they are getting a hell of a lot done anyway...right?  Yea, I think what we need is some real honest to goodness, totally out of this world outrage.  

  I mean, why not just have someone stand up in Congress, invoke the 25th, and point at the crazy elephant that is trying to start WWIII, and yes, every time I see him on television, he is SMILING OR KIND OF LAUGHING, when talking about extremely serious world events.....he is starting to remind me of "Renfield" .....Count Dracula's assistant....
  and we all know who Count Dracula is (I mean, how many heart attacks can you have, he's already had three).  

  Now, I tell you, if someone in the Democratic party could grow a set of balls, and stand up and do this, then we would finally know, that "Lady Liberty" standing proudly in the waters of New York harbor will stop shedding constant tears for us, as she does now.  

  Bless you and your mother Angie.

  Badabing....

  by Badabing on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 09:03:54 PM PDT

•  Daily Impeach Letters to Pelosi and Congress

  Keep writing your daily letters. Write call write call write call etc etc . Get your friends to do the same get a letter buddy to keep you on the write Pelosi for Impeachment today and every day wagon. I'll be your buddy today. Did you write your Impeach Bush letter to Pelosi yet today?

  by barbybuddy on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 09:40:29 PM PDT