Buck Naked Politics: Congress Considers The Culpability of the Bush Administration for Murder and War Crimes (with Videos)

Bnpolitics4_2 by Damozel | As you know, Congress is finally sitting down to consider the many offenses of the Bush Administration. H/T to Crooks and Liars for bringing these speeches (and a related discussion in the mainstream media) together for me..

Via John Amato at Crooks and Liars: hear Manson-family prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi---author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder---set out his case for a criminal referral to the DoJ. It's quite riveting.

Spectators applauded and were rebuked, but not cleared out.

Part 1:

Part 2:

As Bugliosi says, 'All Americans--whether Democrats or Republicans--should be outraged.'

Congressman Robert Wexler---a fellow Floridian; yay--- tore into Bush's abuses of power. Logan Murphy posted a transcript and the video.

As Murphy observes, 'You got to give Wexler credit, he’s been very vocal for pushing for accountability and taking the hits from the wingnuts for it. And now he’s getting support from other Democrats in the House, like Maurice Hinchey: ' The transcript is posted at C&L. Here's an excerpt.

The allegations made against the Bush White House documents serious abuses that if proven, would certainly constitute High Crimes. The White House is charged with deliberately lying to Congress and the American people, manipulating intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, ordering the illegal use of torture, firing US Attorneys for political purposes, denying the legitimate Constitutional powers of congressional oversight by blatantly ordering subpoenas among countless other crimes.

Never before in the history of this nation has an administration so successfully diminished the Constitutional powers of the Legislative branch. It is unacceptable and it must not stand.... In a deliberate effort to reduce the power of this Congress, and obstruct our ability to provide oversight over the Executive branch, President Bush has ordered Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, Josh Bolten and other administration officials to simply ignore Congress by refusing to testify. This failure of administration witnesses to even appear is unprecedented in the history of our nation. The Bush White House has distorted the concept of Executive Privilege beyond recognition in order to hide White House wrongdoings.

Faced with this litany of wrongful actions, I am convinced the most appropriate response to this unprecedented behavior is to hold hearings for impeachment....[T]he power of impeachment, which our Founding Fathers provided to the House of Representatives was designed precisely for this type of wrongdoing. (C&L)

He also suggests that they delve a bit into Nixon's obstructionism and his inappropriate use of excutive privilege to bury evidence of wrongdoing.

I mean, come on. What Nixon did was bad---and yet, it seems like nothing compared to what we've seen from the Bush Administration..

But never mind Congress. Meanwhile, Silent Patriot posted a note on Dave Letterman's interview with Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.

SilentPatriot says:

During the Nuremberg trials Robert H. Jackson said:

“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

By that standard — you know, the internationally agreed upon one — I think the answer is clear.

When this sort of thing starts being discussed on mainstream shows like Letterman, I start to have some hope.

I almost feel as if those rusted and clogged wheels are starting to move.

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Here's Dennis Kucinich at the hearing: