Positive Signs from Conyers
By David Swanson
Coming out of today’s meeting with John Conyers, these seem to be the significant developments:
He is circulating a letter among his colleageus for signatures, a letter addressed to Bush letting him know that an attack on Iran will result in impeachment hearings. LET’S ASK EVERY MEMBER OF CONGRESS TO SIGN ON! I know it seems bassackwards and we want impeachment before a new war, not after, but this is a way for us to show Conyers the support that will be there any time he moves forward.
He is open to the new argument that we have been making to him, namely that impeachment hearings for Cheney or Bush (on torture, signing statements, spying, war crimes, etc, etc) would hurt John McCain’s candidacy by forcing him to defend the crimes.
He is open to meeting with experts allied with us to hear their arguments for impeachment.
All of that is positive. Still, Conyers continues to believe that elections are more important than justice, that impeachment would be bad for the elections, and that impeachment hearings would be stonewalled by the White House. There are a couple of possible responses to the last point. One is that impeachment hearings, including taking up H Res 799 as instructed by the full House last November, and even marking it up to add new charges, overrule claims of “executive privilege.” Of course Bush and Cheney could claim otherwise, but there is an answer to that. When Nixon refused a subpoena, the House Judiciary Committee passed an article of impeachment against him for that refusal. Cheney and Bush have already refused subpoenas. There’s no need to wait.
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Glad to see you around. Hope you’re doing well. Thanks for the update.
let’s think about this for one minute.
what makes the dems think they’re going to impeach bush when we’re in the middle of two wars????
it sounds good. but it makes NO sense to me.
if the president is that dangerous, then there should be no barrier to starting impeachment for all the harm he has done up to now… not to mention before they allow him to attack any other country.
and i think Bush needs a resolution, no?
hey Tigana… great to see you again!!! sorry for being so cynical, but after seven years of being pounded, what can i say?
Hey, is anyone still working on impeachment anymore?
What happened to Kucinich? Is he on vacation? He does get a salary as a member of congress.
Kucinich should still be pushing impeachment, even though his presidential aspirations are finished.
What happened? What about Kos? Does anyone call out Kos now that I’m busy working?
Wexler ain’t doing shit. Who is still making noise about impeachment these days?
I suppose the netroots phenomenon has ended with a whimper after Kos had his “front-pagers” scolded everyone for wanting too much and convinced us there would be no impeachment.
Remember all those lectures from Kid Oakland, Major Danby, DHinMI, Elise and all Kos’ other bloggers?
WTF happened? And how did Budhy end up claiming Kos as his blog-father? Whatever it is which has happened to the Netroots I once knew is really weird.
But that enthusiasm faded pretty fast once the Dems got their majority. Is this for real this time, or just calculated for effect?
P.S.: Hi Tigana, nice to see you.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…
They simply do what the Bilderburgers tell them to do. The soundbyte of the minute will wear off and US politicians are actually the pawns on the chessboard.
I’ve given up hope of the Dems, or Conyers doing anything besides send SWL’s (sternly worded letters) to the WH. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop doing anything I can to move impeachment along, because there’s always the hope that something we do will strike a chord with the Dem leadership.
Code Pink got me on April Fools Day, with their “Conyers puts impeachment back on the table”. I guess when you really want something so bad, you will believe it.
it’s bullshit (IMO).
If they haven’t impeached him yet, they’re not about to.
enough Congresspeople to make a quorum in short order.
Putin is already combative enough, right now: any attack on Iran could likely trigger a set of events that will have serious and unfortunate consequences for the whole planet.
Little suns popping up on Earth is not what mother nature intended. Bush and Cheney can’t even control what is on their plate now – it’s unlikely they will be able to control events post Iran attack.
Too many variables, and things have a nasty way of going boom when you least expect it.
david is a hero to me even if i think he is grasping at straws on this one.