felis_ultharus

Organise your own letter writing. Don't let it be one-sided.

And please explain to the non-North American: why can't Bush be impeached with the evidence that's good enough to prevent Rolling Stone being sued for the article?

From:

He can be, although they're choosing not to try. A distinction that even Americans usually fail to make is that impeachment refers only to the progress of scraping together arguments for the court case and submitting the formal paperwork. Nothing, aside from a media blitz, happens to the jackass you're charging if you don't win, just like in a normal criminal case. The justice system in the US also contains clauses against "double jeopardy", meaning that if they charge him and lose, they can't ever try to nail him on that charge again, and the smug little bastard walks forever. If the State loses, they cannot appeal. A defendant who has been convicted, however, CAN file an appeal with a higher court, if there is one, so even if they win it could go on for frigging DECADES.

I think this is reasonably close to most Western countries, although we're missing some of the more useful bells and whistles that they have in, say, the UK. US courts don't accept verdicts other than 'guilty' and 'not guilty', meaning you can't put in a vote of 'no confidence' in re the charges (a grand jury, which is a bunch of people tossed together to hear the case made by the State and vote on whether it's worth it to press charges, can file this, but once the trial has started the actual court cannot), and you can't use the Scottish verdict of 'not proven', which I am told means something like "We can't prove you did it, but don't you ever dare do it again." Moreover, if either side makes so much as a minor procedural error (which is easy to do, as half of US law is code, and the other half a mishmash of case law that has accumulated over the past two and a half centuries), a mistrial can be declared, which means they have to start all over again, frequently after a lecture from the judge.

The last time they threw charges at a President it turned out badly for both parties. The comedian Lewis Black has a routine on one of his albums that's fairly accurate, including lines like, "And they pointed at the President and gave the Republican party [the Prez at the time was a Democrat, and despite having a large pool of wealthy lunatics with an interest in politics, we essentially have a two-party system] a gun and said, 'Go get him'. And the Republicans took that gun, and got him in their sights, and then turned it around to point at themselves and went BLAM!" Also his commentary on the trial, which was heavily televised, was something to the effect of watching about an hour of the prosecution and the President argue over the definition of the word "is" -- not kidding here -- and then trying to take his own eardrum out with a fork, shouting, "Shut up, shut up, you can be the President, just SHUT UP." I expect they haven't tried right now because the current President's party is also in power in the two voting houses we have, and because the Monica Lewinsky jokes still make periodic reappearances years after they ought to have gone away. Their PR campaigns are unbelievably stupid but because they've managed to pass legislation that's actually based on, "If you're not in agreement with us, you're with the TERRORISTS!" nobody can put up much of an argument for fear of being mocked and silenced -- not unlike Felis' complaints about postmodernism in academia a few entries back.

These are a few of the many reasons I'm taking a stab at joining the merry band up in Quebec when I go to grad school. Or I might go to Switzerland. Or Germany. Or France. Or the UK. Or pretty much any First World country other than HERE.

From:

Oh, and why criminal charges can't necessarily be filed with the information that's apparently right enough to keep Rolling Stone from being sued? Because the standards of evidence are different for criminal and civil cases here. A criminal case is supposed to only result in a conviction if the prosecution has proven to the jury that the accused is guilty 'beyond a reasonable doubt', i.e., you have eyewitnesses and forensic evidence and stuff that prove the accused was there/was committing the crime, and no proposed alternate theory could also reasonably fit the evidence. Civil cases can be decided 'on the preponderance of the evidence', i.e., you argue better and make more sense than the other side. Hence why O J Simpson can be acquitted of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson in criminal court, but decided against in the civil case for her wrongful death.

Libel cases -- which is what it would be if you sue over something printed in an article -- can be defended against by proving either that what you wrote was the truth OR that you believed that you had true information from a trustworthy source at the time the article was written. It's not a criminal case, so even if the judge decided for Rolling Stone in a civil libel case, the way they demonstrated that they had a reasonable belief that the statements were true might not hold up in criminal court. This is not to say that they don't have enough proof to press some kind of criminal charges, just that the Rolling Stone case in isolation isn't enough to conclude that they do.

I'm gonna shut up with the communication law lecture now... ^^;;;

From:

Thank you so much. I'm ok on Irish law, really, but anything outside and I start to get confused. Ireland is pretty much using the British system except when it fucks up horribly (like it did last week with the loophole the size of the six counties in the repeal of the statutory rape law). So if you sue for libel you do not have to be able to prove that the allegation is false. The burden of proof is on the other side to prove it true. That looks to me the same sort of proof as is found in the criminal courts.

From:

Not quite. You only have to prove that you had good reason to believe what you were printing was true, or at least that you had no information indicating it was false. The cites have long since gone from my memory, but there was one precedent setting case where a newspaper published defamatory statements about a particular politician, was sued for libel, and was cleared of wrongdoing because the source they had gotten the information from (IIRC, it was actually an ad, and the source had paid for it to be placed) was considered trustworthy. In this case, the politician in question could have then gone back to sue the source for slander (slander = spoken, libel = printed. In electronic media you're generally sued for slander, except on the internet, where it's libel), but they chose not to.

Since as far as I know the Rolling Stone case didn't actually go to court at any point, there has been no official decision as to whether the printed information was true or just believed to be true, and so there's no way to know for sure whether they can build a case strong enough to press criminal charges.

From:

I know. I'm going to urge people to write letters in an upcoming post.

As for Bush,

yumemisama went over the legal aspects better than I could have. A leading group of Ameri8can Constitutional experts -- the Center for Constitutional Rights -- has published a book outlining the case for impeachment in plain language which is available through Melville House Publishing.

But first, the case has to be brought before Congress...

From:

And to do that there's a whole complicated procedure. In Ancient Rome an incumbent consul or curule magistrate could not be prosecuted while in office but their crimes would be held over even after the expiry of the normal statute of limitations (such as there was) and they could still be tried for them. Could Bush be arraigned after he leaves office or is the offence dependent on him being the person for whom the rigging was done rather than being necessarily the one responsible?

From:

If they can prove it was rigged to a criminal court, the people who did the actual rigging can and probably will do jail time. IIRC, Presidents are exempt from certain ordinary criminal charges while in office, at least to the extent that they normally go through state or federal courts; for those offenses, like Felis said, it has to be brought before Congress and an impeachment hearing started instead. Presidents are NOT exempt from civil cases, I don't think, but the statute of limitations on those can be waived on occasion if you can prove extenuating circumstances, i.e., the suit was delayed until he wasn't President anymore.

Presidential impeachment proceedings, I might note, have never actually resulted in a criminal conviction. Clinton was impeached and acquitted. Congress voted to impeach Richard Nixon, but upon being informed that they had enough votes to impeach and were certain to convict, Nixon tendered his resignation. His charges were dropped (he was declared an 'unindicted co-conspirator' by the grand jury) in exchange for him going the hell away. Most of the people who *were* indicted alongside him for the Watergate stuff either had their charges waived in exchange for cooperation with the prosecution, or did serious prison time.

Other officials can be impeached at the state and federal level. Back in the 1980s, one of our Arizona state governors was impeached, recalled, and made into a laughing stock over a financial scandal. They've done it to some Federal judges and such.

Some charges have no statute of limitations at all. The only one that comes to mind as universally lacking a time limit in all 50 states, all territories and at the federal level is a murder charge. (I think there's even a statute of limitations on most manslaughter charges, which are like a murder charge but lack the mens rea requirement of premeditation. They're used for cases where death was caused by negligence or stupidity above and beyond the ordinary limits.) If someone could dig up information that Dubya had personally killed someone or been involved in a conspiracy to kill someone, they could probably charge and make it stick, but anybody attempting to make a name for themselves by charging him with a count of murder for, say, every casualty in Iraq would have their case instantly chucked out of court, and quite possibly find themselves fined or slapped with a countersuit for initiating frivolous procedings.

From:

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens once Bush is out of office. Thank you for all of this information, it's so interesting to see it from a perspective closer than mine.

From:

boywonder13.livejournal.com

*feeling discouraged*

From:

Don't be discouraged. For the Canadian stuff, we still have the advantage -- it'll be the religious right fighting uphill this time. We just have to make sure they don't make any progress by stealing our soft support.

The best way to do that is to start a letter-writing campaign. I'll have details about that here later.

As for Bush -- it's worrying. But dictatorships are inherently unstable, and the one the Republicans are trying to create is especially so. So far, it depends on electoral fraud and could be overcome by a large enough vote in the other direction.

What's more, the American military -- both the generals and the rank-and-file -- are not happy with the administration. Neither is much of the CIA (hence the leaks). Those are two groups would-be dictators should not make enemies of.

On top of it all, it's economically shaky. The "debt-clock" in Times Square is expected to run out of digits next year, because American debt is skyrocketing. People are openly talking about the country declaring bankruptcy. Bush is already devaluing the currency.

Rome was brought down in great part due to military overspending. But it took them centuries to hit the point that the US has hit in six years.

I think this new Empire will be stillborn -- it's already having trouble keeping together. The worry is what will happen when it enters its death throes. Empires tend to implode, destroying their centre. I worry for my American friends. I worry for us, too, being right across the border. But I don't think it'll last.

From:

teecs.livejournal.com

I love reading your political entries. They make me feel like I am a part of something, and there are other people out there that think like me...

From:

Thank you. I always worry that no one wants to hear it, but everyone tells me different -- even my apolitical and non-Canadian friends.

From:

Please believe me when I say that I am very glad our Constitution prevents that man from ever being President again.

I remember diddly squat from the American Government class they required me to take in high school, but I've been clinging to that two-term limit thing since about February 1 2000. -_-

Also, the same-sex marriage vote? Fucktarded. There should be nothing preventing dysfunctional homosexual men and women with personality disorders and crippling intimacy issues from obtaining a legal document that will make it very difficult to disentangle their taxes and bank accounts after they grow to loathe the sight of one another. (Arguing using your children as go-betweens and engaging in new and creative passive-aggressive methods of alienating your spouse are entirely optional.) I s'pose you can be happily married too, but this seems to be an unpopular option among heterosexual couples, and a much less realistic goal. ^_~

If it helps any, this is why I'm a minister of the Universal Life Church despite being just about the most apathetic-towards-organized-religion person I know. If I run into you in a country that is not busy trying to lodge its head even farther up its ass over this issue, I will cheerfully marry you to any consenting man, woman, creature and/or object that you can get to sign the marriage license. Or to any two or three of them. I will accept payment for my services in the form of liquor, or possibly help figuring out where the hell I am (and in which direction I need to head to find the bar) if you read the local language and I don't.

From:

I know two very, very happy same-sex couples ^_^

50% of Canadian marriages end in divorce. But that means that 50% don't ;)

I used to be pretty apathetic about the marriage issue -- issues like gay teen suicide and homelessness were higher on my list, and probably still are.

But when I started to explore the legalities of it, I realized that marriage is a lot more than a word. There were people whose partners were facing deportation because they couldn't marry -- poorer people who were being hit very, very hard for taxes because they weren't registered as married. That sort of thing.

In some places, a marriage certificate determines if you can visit your partner in a hospital emergency room. Or if you get anything when you die. So many people were in such horrible situations because of that license.

As for your president, I worry. Bush really is just a puppet. The people running things are behind the show, and that group has no term limitations. They'll simply pick up a new puppet afterwards. What are Reagan's children doing these days?

A lot of Americans are coming up here. We've played host to a few, trying Canada on for size. I think it's great. Canada's always gotten these waves of Americans who prefer a different way of life -- from the Loyalists to the draft-dodgers. :)

From:

You know, that 50% deal is widely quoted as an American statistic, too. It makes me wonder if it's actually true, or was true decades ago and nobody's checked it since. I haven't heard it bandied about in the UK, so I think it's local to North America.

I do worry from time to time that this isn't rightly my soapbox to stand on. I'm a Caucasian, middle-class, heterosexual female; what the hell would I know about marriage restrictions? I go all frothy over it sometimes, and I'm always afraid I'll get some sympathetic comment about my girlfriend and then I'll have to be honest and say, "I'm actually straight _{but it's not my fault I swear, you don't choose this kind of lifestyle}...."

But then I remember that people engaging in asshattery to the point of asshaberdashery makes me angry no matter what it involves, which puts it better in perspective.

From:

Actually, straight women have been some of the passionmate supporters of gay equality, and backbones of the gay male community. Straight women (including such notable names as Mae West and the Queen Mother (!)) have often been better at speaking up for us than we have for ourselves :)

It's true -- most people (even in the community) tend to trip over the marriage issue because it's so complicated. If someone's genuinely supportive, though, we generally just correct them if they get something wrong. It's almost never a problem ^_^

"engaging in asshattery to the point of asshaberdashery"

This is my new favourite phrase ^_^

From: