What we voted for, what we got By Ed Martin

[Demeter]

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ed_marti_070203_what_we_voted_for_2c_w.htm


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February 4, 2007

What we voted for, what we got

By Ed Martin

The only intersection we have with our government that has a direct effect is when we vote. The act of voting is limited to a very brief moment where our decision about a candidate is our only way of telling our government what we want done. Voting has become a choice for or the rejection of the ideology of political parties instead of a choice for a candidate. We only have one of two choices, for the hard-right conservatism, corruption, cronyism, all power to the wealthy and corporations of the Republicans, or for the liberal, even-handed, open-minded, serve the interests of the people that we hope the Democrats will provide. Because our choice is so limited and is the only way we can send a message to those who would run our government, it is of extreme importance that they pay attention to our choices.

The Democrats we elected to control of congress have completely misunderstood and misinterpreted the meaning of the past election. They don't understand that we have rejected George Bush and his Republicans as the worst of a bad lot and that they were elected by default, as the only alternative. The Democrats, being politicians, are under the delusion that their election was all about them and how wonderful they are. They are busily patching and painting over a structure that George Bush is busily bulldozing to the ground. They don't realize that what we elected them to do is to remove George Bush and his Republicans from our government. The media makes it out that the Iraq war was the deciding issue in the election without understanding that the Iraq war is a symptom of the incurable disease that is George Bush and his Republicans. The election was our only way of expressing our disgust, detestation and abhorrence of George Bush and his Republicans...Last year, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor determined and ruled that George Bush has "undisputedly violated" the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution and statutory law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That is only one of the crimes George Bush is undisputedly guilty of. Lying to Congress, declaring war based on false information and opening our mail illegally are a few of the others for which there is overwhelming evidence. These are crimes, crimes for which you or I would be serving a prison term.

We have a criminal president. There are many articles saying the same thing and wondering how we can remove George Bush since the Democrats are content to leave him in office. The Constitution makes no provision for presidential immunity from prosecution. There is only case law on presidential immunity, cases where a court ruled that the president has absolute immunity from prosecution in civil cases "while acting within the ambit of his official duties." There is no presidential immunity from prosecution in criminal cases.

Everyone is focused on the constitutional provision for impeachment as the only way to get George Bush out of office. That's not the only way. The criminal justice system applies to George Bush the same as it applies to everyone else. We must abandon congress and impeachment as a lost cause and go directly to our criminal justice system and insist and demand that the law be followed.

The procedure is to file a criminal complaint against George Bush in a court of law with jurisdiction, in this case any federal judge since his crimes are a federal offense, have the court issue a warrant for George Bush's arrest, have the federal marshals serve the warrant at the White House and frog-march George Bush off to jail. That's what would happen to you and me if we had done what George Bush has done, and the law provides him no more immunity from prosecution than you or I have.

How likely is this to happen? Not very. But, it is a legitimate way to see that justice is done, and it is completely within the law and the rules and procedures of our justice system.

So, why isn't it being done? Can anyone answer? Anyone?



Authors Bio: Ed Martin is an unindicted curmudgeon. He is not a Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, deist, atheist, or a member of any -ism.