Tag: impeachment

If we were wise and brave we would have taken down this President a long time ago.

Is an earnest desire for peace a foolish delusion?  George Bush thinks so…and who could know more about foolish delusions?

The Democrats are either very naive and  nearsighted or they are willing participants in their own party’s destruction. Perhaps they are a mixture of both. If the Democrats win the election this fall, (personally I think Obama is the odds on favorite), then they are going to be saddled with a plethora of problems. As we reach the breaking point for serious global issues. By not fixing accountability for these long ignored problems on this runaway neocon fascist train, the fallout for ignoring those problems will fall squarely on the leader in charge. You would think that the Democrats would understand this: by not pursuing impeachment and fixing accountability where it belongs, the media will vilify and blame them for all the problems that they will be handed.  

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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From Russia comes an interesting view of impeachment and the strange standards which both the Democrats and Republicans seem to think are set for it.

I remember reading a story in the New York Times magazine, in October of 2004 about terrorism and John Kerry’s view on it.

Kerry had a far different view of what should be done to counter terrorism:

But when you listen carefully to what Bush and Kerry say, it becomes clear that the differences between them are more profound than the matter of who can be more effective in achieving the same ends. Bush casts the war on terror as a vast struggle that is likely to go on indefinitely, or at least as long as radical Islam commands fealty in regions of the world. In a rare moment of either candor or carelessness, or perhaps both, Bush told Matt Lauer on the ”Today” show in August that he didn’t think the United States could actually triumph in the war on terror in the foreseeable future. ”I don’t think you can win it,” he said — a statement that he and his aides tried to disown but that had the ring of sincerity to it. He and other members of his administration have said that Americans should expect to be attacked again, and that the constant shadow of danger that hangs over major cities like New York and Washington is the cost of freedom. In his rhetoric, Bush suggests that terrorism for this generation of Americans is and should be an overwhelming and frightening reality.

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. ”We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance,” Kerry said. ”As a former law-enforcement person, I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn’t on the rise. It isn’t threatening people’s lives every day, and fundamentally, it’s something that you continue to fight, but it’s not threatening the fabric of your life.”

This analogy struck me as remarkable, if only because it seemed to throw down a big orange marker between Kerry’s philosophy and the president’s. Kerry, a former prosecutor, was suggesting that the war, if one could call it that, was, if not winnable, then at least controllable. If mobsters could be chased into the back rooms of seedy clubs, then so, too, could terrorists be sent scurrying for their lives into remote caves where they wouldn’t harm us. Bush had continually cast himself as the optimist in the race, asserting that he alone saw the liberating potential of American might, and yet his dark vision of unending war suddenly seemed far less hopeful than Kerry’s notion that all of this horror — planes flying into buildings, anxiety about suicide bombers and chemicals in the subway — could somehow be made to recede until it was barely in our thoughts.

Remember?  Remember when Bush said he didn’t think the “war on terror” could ever be won?  Remember when he and Cheney were running around on every talk show and media newshour one could think of, telling Americans we should live in fear, that it wasn’t just probable but inevitable that we would be attacked again?

I remember it very well.

It’s NOT too late for impeachment, it’s an imperative.  If you think it is too late for impeachment do you also think it is too late for the Constitution?  Here in New York we think impeachment is long overdue.  New Yorkers are actively lobbying House Judiciary Committee (HJC) members Rep. Anthony Weiner (NY CD-9) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY CD-8).  

One group met with Anthony Weiner’s district director on Friday and asked him to convey their message to Weiner that he stated back in December that he would sign onto Wexler’s letter to Conyers and they are still waiting for him to make good on his promise.  They hope to hear back in a few days and will keep you posted.

Another group has come together under the banner of AskNadler2Impeach.org to lobby Nadler to support impeachment.  AskNadler2Impeach.org is hosting a Town Hall Meeting/Impeachment Forum next Sunday, March 9th, from 4-6pm at Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, NYC. to address the question Is Impeachment Necessary to Protect the Constitution?  The Town Hall Meeting/Impeachment Forum will feature Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, Harper’s contributor Scott Horton, and John Nirenberg, who walked 458 miles from Boston to DC to raise the question of impeachment with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as speakers.  

Holtzman and Horton have written recently about torture under the Bush/Cheney administration, addressing how it establishes that impeachment is imperative and incumbent upon Congress.  Holtzman concludes her article Crimes in High Places about Mukasey’s refusal to ensure that criminal law is enforced with regard to torture with the pronouncement:

Crossposted at Orange Satan.

On Tuesday March 4 voters in Brattleboro, VT will vote on a non-binding resolution calling for the following:

According to the organizers the resolution a largely symbolic gesture. One organizer wrote, “it was born simply out of the devastating realization that our Constitution and entire system of government were – and still are – under assault, and that such extraordinary circumstances sometimes call for extraordinary measures.” Now organizers claim the initiative now has real legal teeth. How legal is it?

Read below the fold.

New diary: cataclysmic fight to the death

This is for the impeachment diary arguing that we must impeach now: the Republicans braced for cataclysmic fight to the death.  I say we give it to them.  Nothing less than the utter ruination of the political doctrine that first took hold during the Nixon administration came to full fruition during the current Bush Cheney regime will suffice.

This is unrelated but put somewhere in the story: we must show the world that America does not believe that the eight years two election cycles of the Bush Cheney administration was nothing more than an unfortunate mistake and inconvenient aberration a bad crackerjack in a box.  We must show the world that we utterly reject the practices and beliefs of a regime that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people unjustly and illegally.  We have to accept the fact that we are part of the world community in fact a leader of that and we must guide our actions accordingly.  Does it not mean anything that a high administration official is considered a war criminal?