Category: Congress

Continued from First essay here

Hearing can be watched at CSPAN

House Judiciary Committee members have made their opening statements, and witnesses have made their opening statements.  House members are now questioning the witnesses.  Here is the witness list:

Panel One

The Honorable Dennis Kucinich, Representative from Ohio

The Honorable Maurice Hinchey, Representative from New York

The Honorable Walter Jones, Representative from North Carolina

The Honorable Brad Miller, Representative from North Carolina

Panel Two

The Honorable Elizabeth Holtzman, Former Representative from New York

The Honorable Bob Barr, Former Representative from Georgia, 2008 Libertarian Nominee for President

The Honorable Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson, Founder and President, High Roads for Human Rights

Stephen Presser, Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History, Northwestern University School of Law

Bruce Fein, Associate Deputy Attorney General, 1981-82, Chairman, American Freedom Agenda

Vincent Bugliosi, Author and former Los Angeles County Prosecutor

Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law

Elliott Adams, President of the Board, Veterans for Peace

Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., Senior Counsel, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

UPDATE:  I overlooked jimstarro’s excellent essay this morning, “Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations”

Please, go give this some ponies  : )

It’s starting – hope you can join me in discussions here and at ConyersBlog

The hearing can be watched on the House Judiciary Committee website or at CSPAN

For some background, check out afterdowningstreet

Live-blogging continues at Live-blogging House hearing on Executive Power II

Sorry, I’m having trouble with formatting for some reason…

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has led the fight for impeachment since April 2007, when he defied Speaker Pelosi and courageously introduced 3 Articles of Impeachment (H.Res. 333/799) against Vice President Cheney. On June 10, Kucinich defied Speaker Pelosi again and introduced 35 Articles of Impeachment (H.Res. 1258) against President Bush.

When Pelosi refused to allow hearings on any of the 38 Articles of Impeachment, Kucinich returned to the floor of Congress to introduce one more Article of Impeachment against President Bush (H.Res. 1345).  

In order to grok the future, it is necessary to understand the present and remember the past.  In order to influence the future, strategies must be emplaced. This is my attempt to bring the docudharma nation to concensus of understanding.

feline wrote

Apparently, something is more important to members of Congress

Submitted by feline on July 17, 2008 – 9:57am.

than public opinion; more important than the U.S. Constitution, the treaties of the Geneva Conventions, and the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal; more important than truth, justice, accountability, restoration of the rule of law. It’s something so terribly important that the opinions of the United Nations, the International Red Cross, retired generals, veterans and enlisted military personnel, the intelligence community, imbedded journalists, victims’ families, judges, constitutional and international legal scholars, psychiatrists, etc. are basically obsolete. Something is more important than our civil liberties, real national security, a stable domestic infrastructure, and diplomatic foreign policy.

Providing immunity to violators of the law and perpetrators of obstruction is more important than any of our opinions.

Rasmussen reported that 9% in a poll said that Congress is doing a good to excellent job.

That’s down from a 15% high of this year. Merely 3% of the all-important independents approve.

Further, only 12% of voters feel Congress has passed important legislation in the last six months. 62% say NO important legislation has been passed. We keep hearing from the Democratic leadership that they should make no serious attempt to protect the Republic. This would, apparently, displease the public. Instead, they tell us, they are focused on important legislation.

Add this together and here is the answer to the question:

“Is it that Congress thinks the people are stupid; or is it that Congressionals are actually the stupid ones?”…

Well the answer can only be a resounding “YES”.

It’s not just the liberals held hostage to the Democratic leadership that understands big changes are needed. America wants it, and wants it big time. If you think politicians will volunteer to make the changes we need, you might consider quitting dope.

Practically speaking, here’s one thing we might do:

Call, fax or email. It’s too late now to send a postcard to stop this heinous capitulating “cave-in to be” but it’s not too late to start letting them know that gutting our fourth amendment is not cool.

Why is it necessary, why is it politically expedient, to set in stone and make yet another law that falsely legitimizes the crimes of the Executive, of Congress, of the Department of Justice and the telecom industry?  In light of the FACTS that Bush Committed 30 Felonies and did not do so alone, did not act without support and protection from Congress — what makes it so important that this must be passed today?  There are ongoing cases that this would shut down — more reason, not less, to send this disgraceful veil of faux legitimacy to an early and ignoble grave.

Something is missing beyond the spine of some Democrats in the rush to legalize warrantless wiretaps, end privacy, and reward corporations for betraying the public trust. Let’s call it the beef (or nicely textured soy protein for the vegetarians among us).

I am an empiricist at heart. I want proof in the form of sound evidence before I am willing to believe something is true. I am also deeply cynical and suspicious of politicians because too few decisions favor the common good. That cynicism has grown after our elected officials ‘misrepresented’ the threat posed by Iraq. In the uproar over the FISA revisions, now is a good time to point out there are some glaring gaps in the evidence at hand.  

The House passed FISA bill is bad legislation for many reasons, but these are the five biggest problems I see.

Politically Unnecessary

When addressing a bill with so many substantive issues I hate to start out with the politics of the matter but in this case it seems necessary. There can be no doubt the Democrats who support this bill do so in the belief that their support will protect them from charges they are soft on terrorism. That belief is misplaced. In the upcoming election the only card the Republicans have to play is the fear card. Every Democrat will have to face the “soft on terrorism” charge irrespective of how they vote on this or any other piece of legislation. Why? Because the fear card is premised on a lie, and that lie will be repeated over and over again.

The evidence continues to mount. We are rapidly moving from speculation into the territory of hard, clear, indisputable evidence. What happens when the truth comes out…as it is clearly beginning to do? What happens if there is clear evidence that the Bush Administration authorized Torture?

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.): “Some have suggested that detainee abuses committed by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and at Guantanamo were the result of a ‘few bad apples’ acting on their own. It would be a lot easier to accept if that were true…”

“Senior officials in the United States government sought out information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.”

WASHINGTON – A Cambridge-based human rights organization said it has found medical evidence supporting the claims of 11 former detainees who were allegedly tortured while in American custody between 2001 and 2004, in what a former top US military investigator said amounts to evidence of war crimes.

more stories like this

Medical evaluations of the former inmates found injuries consistent with the alleged abuse, including the psychological effects of sensory deprivation and forced nudity as well as signs of “severe physical and sexual assault,” Physicians for Human Rights said in a report scheduled for release today.

The report also alleges that in four of the cases, American health professionals appeared to have been complicit by denying the detainees medical care and observing the abuse but making no effort to stop it – charges that, if true, represent gross violations of medical ethics.

A hearty and sincere congratulations to Barack Obama and all of his supporters.  The only other thing I have to say about that is to ask you to please reach out to our brothers and sisters in the HRC camp, many of whom have been abused in this process.  We are all Democrats, we are all progressives, and we all have a lot of work to do in fixing our sadly and badly broken country.