Do you want action on the issue of the Bush Administrations apparent State Sponsored Torture program? It is an easy enough question, but you should consider it. Not, do you think it will happen or should happen, but do you want it to happen? Knowing the answer to this question can inform your next steps, so even if you think you know take a couple of minutes and really think about it.
Tag: John Conyers
Jan 26 2009
Can you say “frog march”?
Congressman John Conyers has upped the ante, issuing a fresh, brand spankin’ new subpoena for KKKarl Rove, requiring his appearance “to testify regarding his role in the Bush Administration’s politicization of the Department of Justice, including the US Attorney firings and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.”
Poor Karl, no friendly occupant in the White House to shelter him now. With negligible legal standing, it’s looking as though he may actually have to show up and defend himself against charges of organized politicization of hirings and firings in the Justice Department.
Jul 23 2008
Support the Kucinich Impeachment Hearing on Friday
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).
Jul 08 2008
Rove, Pelosi and Contempt of Congress — Urgent – Action Needed – Update 7/9
I’m updating this diary because I really think we have a good chance to get some accountability and justice on this. Please check the links in Lisa Lockwood’s comment below (it’s about the 4th comment). Please read these links and take action. ADS site link has toll free numbers to Congress and lists Jud Comm members. The AtLarge link has really good prosecutable points! end this update 7/9
House subpoenas
Karl Rove!!!
Rove’s lawyer claims that Rove will
NOT TESTIFY UNDER OATH. In
response, the House Judiciary
Committee has SUBPOENAED the
former White House adviser
He is to appear July 10 to testify.
Now his lawyer says he will not
even show up. Conyers says Rove
is not above the law & he will take
action.
This is breaking news which I heard at about 11:15 A.M. (7/8/08) on the Thom Hartmann show on Air America Radio. Hartmann announced that not only has Karl Rove refused to testify under oath at his hearing before the House Judicial Committee on Thursday, 7/10; Rove’s attorney said today that Rove is not going to show up at all. Rove will defy the subpoena completely. Hartmann further reported that Pelosi has just said she will oppose prosecuting Rove for Contempt of Congress and has told Conyers not to proceed with such prosecution.
Thom Hartmann had Don Siegelman on his program to discuss this. I have not been able to get further confirmation on Pelosi’s position; Spiegelman was not certain either. Pelosi’s phone is busy/busy/busy! Both Spiegelman and Hartmann urge all of us to take action. Call our Congresspersons, call the speaker, call members of House Judiciary committee.
The person I spoke to in Conyers’ office claimed they didn’t know anything more that that Rove was scheduled at the hearing for this Thursday. If anyone gets any confirmations of this, please post in comments.
More information at Don Siegelman dot com and Thom Hartmann dot come.
As xofferson says, “DO SOMETHING.”
And, Thanks for doing something!
Jun 12 2008
Dennis Kucinich: “There will be more.”
Dennis Kucinich is making my Summer just a little bit more fun.
Today his 35 Articles of Impeachment against President Bush were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where the conventional wisdom says they will languish without a hearing.
But the Committee’s expected inactivity isn’t stopping Dennis.
Kucinich said that if the Judiciary Committee does not act within 30 days, he intends to introduce another, longer version of the articles of impeachment, with 60 counts instead of 35.
“I am not going to let this go. I am not going to let it go. I’ll just keep coming back and they can pile these things up in committee but I’ll keep coming back,” Kucinich said. “I’ll bring it up again, and there will be more. There will be more.”
Jun 10 2008
Conyers Ulysses: Some work of noble note
Reposted, with minor edits, from February 2008
The story of a once-proud warrior
with one last battle left to fight.
Ulysses
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
IT LITTLE PROFITS that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife,
I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,
Apr 14 2008
EENR for Progress: Americans are Dying
For the sixth year in a row, the percentage of uninsured Americans is on the rise. Just in 2006, 2.2 million Americans joined the ranks of the uninsured. Back in 2002, The Institute of Medicine released its second installment of a six part report on what happens to thousands of Americans who lack health care coverage in America. The result was shocking, 18,000 Americans die every year because they lack health care coverage.
Apr 10 2008
National Lawyers Guild: Fire Yoo & Try for War Crimes
The National Lawyers Guild has issued a press release calling for University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall law school to fire Professor John Yoo. The NLG calls for the rescission of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 provisions that allow immunity and the prosecution of Yoo as a war criminal. Meanwhile, yesterday, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) threatened to subpoena John Yoo to testify about the memo at a May 6 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.
The declassification and release of Yoo’s memorandum to William Haynes, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, written in March 2003, has caused a firestorm in the press. Yoo’s memo is the smoking gun for those looking for evidence of how the Bush Administration flouted basic human rights law, the UN Convention Against Torture, and the U.S. War Crimes Act to initiate a campaign of torture against detainees swept up in the aggressive U.S. military and covert campaigns that followed 9/11.
Apr 03 2008
Conyers threatens impeachment if Iran attacked – Afterdowningstreet
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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Feb 25 2008
EENR for Progress: Health Care is a Human Right
Health care is a human right. In my own definition of the progressive movement, I count that as a basic progressive principle.
For various reasons, from my own personal perspective, it is simply unacceptable to settle for anything less than true universal health care. Some of those various reasons are my experiences with health care in the United States, as well as those of my friends and family, some of whom have serious or chronic conditions.
In tonight’s EENR for Progress, we look at why we need universal health care, proposals for universal health care, and what progressives can do to achieve it.
Feb 23 2008
Dismantling the arguments against impeachment
“I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
— Congressional oath of office
In the flush of excitement after the November 2006 elections, when Democrats had taken control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years and anything seemed possible, there was much discussion in the progressive blogosphere about the tantalizing prospect of finally holding to account the criminals in the BushCheney administration through the use of the constitutional mechanism of impeachment. (This in spite of the fact that incoming House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi had taken impeachment “off the table” half a year earlier.)
To some who had worked so hard to get Democrats elected to Congress, impeachment seemed the most obvious and necessary thing in the world now that BushCo’s Republican accomplices were no longer in the way to stop it – a natural process that would follow the administration’s criminal misdeeds as surely as night follows day.
Others argued against impeachment. Let’s not focus on the past, they said; we need to move our Democratic agenda forward. If Congress spends all its time on impeachment, it won’t get anything else done. Besides, they would argue, Republicans will spin it that we’re just out for revenge. It will hurt our chances in the 2008 elections. Anyway, we don’t have the votes to guarantee success. Not to mention that the Clinton fiasco cheapened impeachment forever in the minds of the public.