( – promoted by buhdydharma )
While adding a comment to Bhudydharma’s FP Essay: The Torture Conspiracy: Will They Get Away With It? I came across this: Newsrelease: Conyers Plans to hold May 6 hearings on Torture Memo & Executive Power.
Excerpts Below, as well as Contact links for the Chairman of the Judiciary and the Speaker of the House:
“…Today (April 8, 2008) House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) announced plans to hold a May 6 hearing to examine a recently released torture memo and the issue of executive power as it relates to interrogation and war-making authority. Conyers also sent a letter today to University of California – Berkeley professor John Yoo asking him to testify at the hearing…”
“I am concerned that some in the administration view the president’s power as that of an imperial presidency – not a democracy,” Conyers said. “The Judiciary Committee will look at the legal basis for actions taken before and during the war and whether we need to write stronger laws to prevent a future imperial presidency from steamrolling Congress and the American people into a thoughtless war and violating our fundamental human rights obligations.”
“…The announcement comes the same day as a request from Judiciary Committee member Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) to hold such hearings…”
(Bhudy commanded very nicely requested that I repeat my info in a “quick” Essay-so here it is.) I know that we’ve all got some degree of “contact your representative” fatigue, but I’ll overcome mine, if you’ll overcome yours and join me in writing to Conyers here at the Contact the Judiciary Website and for good measure, let’s Tell the Speaker what we think about Bush and his “Senior Advisors” including Co-President Cheney “authorizing” Torture.
If the Chairman or Speaker need some legal guidance about the lawfulness/Constitutionality of these actions, maybe we could share the link to Keith Olbermann’s interview of Law Professor Jonathan Turley and his comments on the illegality of the Bush Administration’s actions.
Paul Keil at TPM Muckraker has a good summary of the “road to torture” here: Today’s Must Read.
So let’s take Bhudy’s advice, let’s
“…raise a unignorable din”
.
22 comments
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Lets hope he’s really serious this time, and doesn’t let them get away with their usual crap.
Break out the subpoenas, put on your impeachment shoes and let’s stomp some deserving neocon ass!
Are you cross posting at CB? I sure hope so.
except get another administration official on record as having thumbed his nose at Congress. Why would Yoo accept Conyers’ “invitation”?
If Conyers were truly intent on pursuing this administration’s misdeeds he’d have showed it by now. I’m afraid this is just more window-dressing by a powerless legislative branch. The lazy bastards stood by for years while Bush usurped their power. They’ll never get it back.
to get a lot of the illegal, unethical, and questionable acts of our government on the record. A lot of bloggers complain about Conyers, but I’ve talked with him a little, and exchanged letters with him. He’s a very good man who really wants to change the course we’ve been on – but he cannot do it alone. He was calling for impeachment before we had a glimmer of taking the Congress in 2006.
He can’t get enough of his colleagues to press forward on impeachment, on stopping torture, on de-politicizing every nook & cranny of our government. Part of it is that there is a strong enough Republican backlash… but a lot of what’s in his way is the simple fact that many of his colleagues are very worried about not KEEPING control of Congress and taking control of the White House. He’s stuck… so he’s trying to get as much on the record as possible until after the election has passed.
If it wasn’t for his tenacity and careful approach, we might not have learned so much in detail regarding the illegal wiretapping programS (since there is more than one program), the systemic approval of torture at top levels of our government, the secret prisons, the politicizing of the judicial branch and other areas of government that should be non-partisan, voter caging, and so many other topics.
I’d love to see Bush and Cheney impeached, I’d love to see this war end immediately, and I’d love to see both administrators and politicians held legally accountable for their unconstitutional and illegal activities. I’ve learned to be patient. Conyers is getting it all on the record, making people think he’s too timid to do anything once he has a mounting pile of evidence. This evidence may lead to something bigger than an impeachment trial.