Are You Ready for IMPEACHMENT?

With the Senate’s Impeachment Trial of “donald john trump” beginning tomorrow, here’s some light reading to prepare yourselves regarding each team’s basic arguments, should you wish.

Okay, it’s not really “light reading” – well, the trump team’s “Answer” to the House impeachment managers’ “Trial Memorandum” was “light reading” as far as substance and credibility go. It’s also literally light in weight: at a mere six pages, maybe an ounce?, vs the weightier (in all aspects) 110-page House Trial Memorandum.

Since I haven’t actually read the House’s tome, let’s start with the trump team’s “Answer.”

“Ridiculous” is the best way to describe it, starting with its heading:

IN PROCEEDINGS BEFORE
THE UNITED STATES SENATE

ANSWER OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Seriously, they won’t even use the word “impeachment” in the heading, as if not saying it means it didn’t happen.

The opening paragraph repeats the tired arguments that the Dems have been trying to impeach trump since his inauguration, and trying to “overturn” his election:

The Articles of Impeachment submitted by House Democrats are a dangerous on the right of the American people to freely choose their President.  This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election – now just months away.  The highly partisan and reckless obsession with impeaching the President began the day he was inaugurated, and continues to this day.

It has already been argued by smarter people than me that, if an election were to be “overturned” (and the second paragraph also mentions “nullifying an election”), then the candidate who lost would become the winner, and all of the current president’s actions would automatically be null and void.  This idea is just as impossible as it sounds, and no one except an idiot would believe it.  Therefore, trump’s minions all subscribe to this notion.

The trump team’s arguments continue by stating that Article 1 of the Impeachment doesn’t indicate any “crime or violation of law whatsoever”, and claims that “At all times, the President has faithfully and effectively executed the duties of his Office on behalf of the American people.” At this point, they go into the so-called “perfect call” to Zelenskyy, trying to push that the call was about corruption and about other countries “not carrying their fair share.”

Here’s the fun part (and from this and other details included in trump team’s arguments, you can see why many say that trump had direct input or wrote some of this himself):

…the transcripts of the April 21 call and the July 25 call disprove what the Article alleges.  When the House Democrats realized this, Mr. Schiff created a fraudulent version of the July 25 call and read it to the American people at a congressional hearing, without disclosing that he was simply making it all up.”

Anyone who watched the first impeachment hearing knows that Chairman Schiff both preceded and followed his ‘mob’ parody of trump’s call with a disclaimer stating that he was paraphrasing.  Conservatives simply don’t get ‘irony’, ‘sarcasm’ or ‘satire’.

In trump team’s argument against Article 2 of the Impeachment, regarding obstruction of Congress, they state, in part:

…the notion that President Trump obstructed Congress is absurd.  President trump acted with extraordinary and unprecedented transparency by declassifying and releasing the transcript of the July 25 call that is at the heart of this matter. [emphasis theirs]

This is an out-and-out lie.  The actual “transcript” is still hidden in the ultra-secret server (gee, I can’t imagine why) and all we have seen is the call memo, which is damning enough.

Here’s one part that I really don’t get:

Following the President’s disclosure of the July 25 call transcript[sic], House Democrats issued a series of unconstitutional subpoenas for documents and testimony.  They issued their subpoenas without a congressional vote, and, therefore, without constitutional authority.

Huh?  AFAIK, a congressional committee doesn’t need a full vote of the House in order to issue subpoenas.  I have no idea whose ass this came out of, but it smells pretty bad to me.

You can read the rest of the trump team’s arguments and see for yourself how pathetic and, indeed, ignorant they sound.

Now the House’s “Trial Memorandum”: as I said, I haven’t read it yet, but here’s a brief synopsis from Raw Story.:

The document divides the argument by the House of Representatives into three points.

“The Senate should convict President Trump of abuse of power,” is the first section.

“The Senate should convict President Trump of obstruction of Congress,” is the second section.

“The Senate should immediately remove President Trump from office to prevent further abuses,” is the third section.

Raw Story also includes the outlines for the House’s arguments regarding each point.  If you’re like me, and watched or otherwise kept up with the impeachment hearings, their arguments should be familiar to you.

I’ll stop here in order for there to be time to read more of the details.

And while I was finishing up this thread, the House Impeachment Managers issued their own response to the trump team’s “Answer.” I should have waited a little longer!

Edit:  For reference, here’s White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s “fuck you” letter to Gerry Nadler.  I think he used trump’s Sharpie to sign it:

THIS IS AN OPEN THREAD – FEEL FREE TO COMMENT THROUGHOUT THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL.

The Watering Hole: Wednesday, June 20, 2012: Does it really Matter?

Ok, so for the next few months, if you’re in a “swing” State, you’ll be inundated with SuperPAC commercials designed to get you to vote against your own best interests. We will also be systematically bombarded with messages from the Mainstream Media designed to influence our thinking.

IT’S ALL A SHOW. IT REALLY DOESN’T MATTER.

If the Powers That Be really want Obama out, all they have to do is raise gas prices to about $5.00/gallon. Instead, gas prices are going down, heading into the summer vacation season. That’s not to say they won’t go up between now and the election – but they are an accurate predictor of where our economy will head. So, pay attention to the pump, not the talking heads.

Ok, that’s my $0.0199 cents. And you?

OPEN THREAD
JUST REMEMBER
EVERYTHING I SAID
DOESN’T REALLY MATTER

 

Wednesday Open Thread – The Watergate Break-in

On June 17, 1972 a guard at the Watergate complex noticed that several office locks had been taped open. He removed the tape and on a later pass noticed that the locks were again taped open. At that point, he called on the police and thus started a sequence of events [1] that led to the resignation of the president of the United  States – Richard Milhous Nixon a bit over two years later (August 9, 1974) and stretched into the 21st Century.

The Watergate Complex

 The Watergate Break-in[2] was a watershed moment in American history. This was not the first illegal entry of Democrat offices by Republican operatives.  An earlier break-in[2] had gone undetected. Nixon would have probably escaped with only a few scrapes if he had not vigorously pursued a cover-up of the incident.

And just yesterday, the FBI released its records on E Howard Hunt[3]. It bears today’s date because Japan is on the other side of the IDL.
[1] The Washington Post
[2] Wikipedia
[3] Japan Today

“Torture Works” vs. “I Make Up Stories”

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Dick Cheney has been trying to tell us that torture works (okay, he still refuses to use the word “torture”, but in the interests of accuracy and clarity, I will substitute the word “torture” for any other euphemism they may utilize), that we gained valuable intelligence from its use, and that “it saved lives.” Did it, Dick? Did it really save lives? Or did it cost lives? American lives? Americans in uniform? Did your insistence on the use, and staunch defense, of a series of illegally-authorized interrogation techniques, which were based on methods known to elicit false confessions, actually end up getting one or more of our soldiers killed?

Thanks to the ACLU, we now know that Dick Cheney was lying through his gritting teeth when he said we received valuable intelligence through the use of torture, particularly in the case of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (also, and more conveniently, known as “KSM”.) He claimed that intel “saved lives.” Given Dick’s well-documented history of spreading falsehoods, I have every reason in the world to believe that not only was this statement a lie, it was actually the opposite of the truth. I have reason to believe that people died because of the information we gained through torture. And the reason is a very simple one. KSM himself said, in his statement at his “Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing” (Pg 15):

I ah cannot remember now…I be under questioning so-many statement which been some them l make up stories just location UBL.

Send Bush to jail (and throw away the key)

picture source: http://www.brainshrub.com

I wrote in an earlier post, that one of my wishes for the Obama Presidency was signature and ratification of the Rome Statute which constitutes the International Criminal Court in The Hague. I still believe this should be done to restore the trust of the world in American politics by accepting accountability to international standards.  Initially my idea was to find a way to hold President Bush accountable and try him for his crimes in a court of law. However, after some research, I doubt that end would be achieved by joining in the ICC. The Rome Statute states explicitly that it’s rules apply to the signatory states only after the ratification unless it’s jurisdiction was approved retroactively by the signing state.  At least that is how I understood the text.  There may be lawyers among you who know better than me and I would very much appreciate to learn more from you.

I do think it is possible that an Obama Administration signs the statute (or re-signs it, it has already been signed by the Clinton Administration, but the Bush Administration “un-signed” it) and the Democratic Congress ratifies it. I don’t believe it would be made retroactive though, because that would amount to handing Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and some more to The Hague. Barack Obama, among other things, has stressed bi-partisanship and just imagine the Republican’s and their voters’ reaction.

So where does that leave you? You will have to go it alone. And the Bush Administration must be held accountable for their actions. There is a number of crimes that have been assembled by the National Lawyers Guild in an attempt to impeach Bush. In November Joel S. Hirschhorn wrote an article in MWCnews saying:

I want President Obama soon after taking office to go on television and announce the formation of a special group of outstanding jurists and attorneys to make a recommendation whether or not the US Justice Department should bring criminal charges against George W. Bush.  Based on earlier analyses, including work by the American Bar Association, I have no doubt they will recommend indictment.

I could not agree more. The documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side” ran on a German tv-channel yesterday and it brought back the atrocities of the “War on Terror”. And yes, I would like to see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo and some more held accountable for these crimes and more in a court of law.

Friday’s House Judiciary Hearing on Impeachment: A Victory and a Challenge

by Dave Lindorff (CommonDreams)

The dramatic hearing on presidential crimes and abuses of power held on Friday by the House Judiciary Committee was both a staged farce, and at the same time, a powerful demonstration of the power of a grassroots movement in defense of the Constitution. It was at once both testimony to the cowardice and self-inflicted impotence of Congress and of the Democratic Party that technically controls that body, and to the enormity of the damage that has been wrought to the nation’s democracy by two aspiring tyrants in the White House.

As Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the committee, made clear more than once during the six-hour session, this was “not an impeachment hearing, however much many in the audience might wish it to be.” He might well have added that he himself was not the fierce defender of the Constitution and of the authority of Congress that he once was before gaining control of the Judiciary Committee, however much his constituents, his wife, and Americans across the country might wish him to be.

At the same time, while the hearing was strictly limited to the most superficial airing of Bush administration crimes and misdemeanors, the fact that the session — technically an argument in defense of 26 articles of impeachment filed in the House over the past several months by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) — was nonetheless a major victory for the impeachment movement. It happened because earlier in the month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has sworn since taking control of the House in November 2006, that impeachment would be “off the table” during the 110th Congress, called a hasty meeting with Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Rep. Conyers, and Rep. Kucinich, and called for such a limited hearing.

It was no coincidence that shortly before Pelosi’s backdown, peace activist and Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan announced that her campaign had collected well over the 10,000 signatures necessary to qualify for listing on the ballot as an independent candidate for Congress against Pelosi in the Speaker’s home district in San Francisco. Sheehan has been an outspoken advocate of impeaching both Bush and Cheney. “Pelosi is trying to throw a bone to her constituents by allowing a hearing on impeachment,” said Sheehan, who came to Washington, DC to attend. “It’s just like her finally stating publicly that Bush’s presidency is a failure — something it has taken her two years to come to, but which we’ve been saying for years.”

So determined were Pelosi and Conyers to limit the scope and intensity of the hearing that they acceded to a call for Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to adhere to Thomas Jefferson’s Rules of the House, which prohibit any derogatory comments about the President, which was interpreted by Chairman Conyers as meaning no one, including witnesses or members of the committee, could suggest that Bush had lied or deceived anyone. Since a number of Rep. Kucinich’s proposed articles of impeachment specifically charge the president with lying to Congress and the American People, this made for some comic moments, with witness Bruce Fein, a former assistant attorney general under former President Ronald Reagan, to say he would reference his listing of crimes to the “resident” of the White House.

In the end, the rule imposing a gag on calling the president a criminal fell by the wayside, with witness Vincent Bugliosi, a former Los Angeles deputy district attorney, accusing Bush of being guilty of the murder of over 4000 American soldiers and of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians because he had “lied” the country into an illegal and unnecessary war, and with committee member Shirley Jackson Lee (D-CA) suggesting that the president may have committed treason in invading Iraq, and that he appeared to be preparing to do it again with an unprovoked invasion of Iran.

Conyers also acquiesced in a Republican effort to minimize public monitoring and involvement in the hearing, allowing the minority party to fill most of the available seats in the hearing room with office staffers who showed little interest in the proceedings. Only a few dozen of the hundreds of pro-impeachment activists who had come to the Rayburn Office Building at 7 am in order to get seats in the Judiciary Committee hearing room were allowed in, with the rest having to remain in the hall or go to two remote “overflow” rooms to watch the proceedings on a TV hookup. Conyers also went along with a call by Republican members of the committee to have some of those who did make it into the hearing ejected simply for wearing buttons on their shirts calling for impeachment (the Republican members referred to these as “signs”), though such small personal tokens are routinely allowed in congressional hearing rooms.

It was clear that this was to be a tightly controlled and strictly limited hearing.

It was also clear that it was intended to go nowhere.

Really.. Read the rest of this great post.

Video from the Limits of Executive Power Hearings

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Vincent Bugliosi Testimony

More from Bugliosi

Be sure to pay close attention starting at 4:49. It’s truly amazing that this was said at a hearing.

Watch Kucinich, Wexler, Fein and more below the fold.

Impeachment Hearings Are the Appropriate and Necessary Next Step

by John Nichols – via Truthout

As the House Judiciary Committee took up the question of how best to address what its chairman described as “the Imperial Presidency of George W. Bush,” it was the ranking Republican in the room, Iowa Congressman Steve King, who observed that, “We are here having impeachment hearings before the Judiciary Committee.

“These are impeachment hearings before the United States Congress,“ King continued. “I never imagined I would ever be sitting on this side when something like this happened.”

King was not happy about the circumstance.

A resolute defender of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the congressman was objecting to the very mention of the “I” word.

As it happened, impeachment was mentioned dozens of times during the hearing, often in significant detail and frequently as a necessary response to lawless actions of the president and vice president.

Read on…

John Nichols ends his article with this:

As we know, the framers of our Constitution called for impeachment only in the case of high crimes and misdemeanors. The standard is purposely set high because we should not impeach for personal or political gain – only to uphold and safeguard our democracy. Sadly, in my judgment, at least two high-ranking administration officials have met that standard. Although the call to impeach is one I take neither easily nor lightly, I now firmly believe that impeachment hearings are the appropriate and necessary next step.

I agree wholeheartedly. I listened to the entire nearly 6 hours of the hearing today. Surely members of the Judiciary will come to the same conclusion. One can still hope..

John Nichols and Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein were guests of Bill Moyers Journal (PBS) on July 13, 2007 where they did a segment called “Tough Talk on Impeachment“. One of the House members this morning read quotes of John Nichols from the transcript of that segment before asking Bruce Fein to expand on it (which he was happy to do, and did it well).

If you haven’t watched this episode of Bill Moyers Journal, do yourself a favor and watch it.

Here’s the segment of the interview I am referring to:

BILL MOYERS: That struck me about your writings and your book. You say your great– your great fear is that Bush and Cheney will hand off to their successors a toolbox that they will not avoid using.

JOHN NICHOLS: Well, let’s try a metaphor. Let’s say that– when George Washington chopped down the cherry tree, he used the wood to make a little box. And in that box the president puts his powers. We’ve taken things out. We’ve put things in over the years.

On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any president has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don’t give away the tools. They don’t give them up. The only way we take tools out of that box is if we sanction George Bush and Dick Cheney now and say the next president cannot govern as these men have.

BRUCE FEIN: Well, that’s accurate but also we do find this peculiarity that Congress is giving up powers voluntarily. because there’s nothing right now, Bill, that would prevent Congress from the immediate shutting down all of George Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s illegal programs. Simply saying there’s no money to collect foreign intelligence-

BILL MOYERS: The power of the purse-

BRUCE FEIN: –the power of the purse. That is an absolute power. And yet Congress shies from it. It was utilized during the Vietnam War, you may recall, in 1973. Congress said there’s no money to go and extend the war into Laos and Cambodia. And even President Nixon said okay. This was a president who at one time said, “If I do it, it’s legal.” So that it we do find Congress yielding the power to the executive branch. It’s the very puzzle that the founding fathers would have been stunned at. They worried most over the legislative branch in, you know, usurping powers of the other branches. And–

BILL MOYERS: Well, what you just said indicts the Congress more than you’re indicting George Bush and Dick Cheney.

BRUCE FEIN: In some sense, yes, because the founding fathers expected an executive to try to overreach and expected the executive would be hampered and curtailed by the legislative branch. And you’re right. They have basically renounced– walked away from their responsibility to oversee and check. It’s not an option. It’s an obligation when they take that oath to faithfully uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. And I think the reason why this is. They do not have convictions about the importance of the Constitution. It’s what in politics you would call the scientific method of discovering political truths and of preventing excesses because you require through the processes of review and vetting one individual’s perception to be checked and– counterbalanced by another’s. And when you abandon that process, you abandon the ship of state basically and it’s going to capsize.

They lay out the important piece concerning the precident that is being set by this Congress allowing this administration and this president to run roughshod over the Constitution and our laws with no oversight or accountability, and what it means to future presidencies –  and ultimately the very future survival of our form of government and of this nation.

Watch entire interview – Read entire transcript

CSPAN will be running the entire hearing of today again this evening in case you missed it.

King George..?

Please excuse me for re-posting this in its entirety, but it’s important.

THIS HEARING IS STARTING RIGHT NOW! (Friday 7:30 AM Pacific Time on C-SPAN)

Raw Story

‘Imperial presidency’ hearing to feature 13 witnesses

The House Judiciary Committee has released a witness list for its hearing to examine “the imperial presidency” of George W. Bush.

Testifying Friday morning will be Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who has introduced several resolutions calling for President Bush’s and Vice President Dick Cheney’s impeachment; former Rep. Bob Barr, the Libertarian presidential candidate who led the charge to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998; Vincent Bugliosi, author of the just-released book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder; and 10 other current and former members of Congress, constitutional experts and human rights activists.

The hearing, which was announced last week, seems to be the one Judiciary Chairman John Conyers promised to Kucinich after he introduced his second impeachment resolution aimed at Bush earlier this month. Any action on Kucinich’s articles of impeachment still seems unlikely, but the Ohio Democrat has previously said he just wants to be able to present his case.

Late Thursday afternoon, the committee released the full witness list, broken down into two panels.

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

Conyers (D-MI) previously laid out six areas the hearing would explore:

(1) improper politicization of the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorneys offices, including potential misuse of authority with regard to election and voting controversies; 

(2) misuse of executive branch authority and the adoption and implementation of the so-called unitary executive theory, including in the areas of presidential signing statements and regulatory authority; 

(3) misuse of investigatory and detention authority with regard to U.S. citizens and foreign nationals, including questions regarding the legality of the administration’s surveillance, detention, interrogation, and rendition programs; 

(4) manipulation of intelligence and misuse of war powers, including possible misrepresentations to Congress related thereto;

(5) improper retaliation against administration critics, including disclosing information concerning CIA operative Valerie Plame, and obstruction of justice related thereto; and 

(6) misuse of authority in denying Congress and the American people the ability to oversee and scrutinize conduct within the administration, including through the use of various asserted privileges and immunities.

The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday on Capitol Hill.

I really hope this hearing is televised. I am especially anxious to hear Bruce Fein, Vincent Bugliosi, and “Rocky” Anderson speak. No, I don’t expect anything to happen. Yes, this is a very visual exercise in democracy and accountability in action, and it gives me hope (at least a little) that our government isn’t completely demolished yet.

It is Friday though, and it is quite uncanny how when something is happening that puts the administration in a bad light, something ELSE bad will happen (like a “terror” alert or some other nonsense) that will take over the news cycle.. Just watch and see.. How much do you want to bet that something will happen to divert this country’s attention away from these hearings..

Just sayin’…

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Jonathan Turley: Evidence suggests Bush committed crimes

Raw Story

Law professor rebukes Democrats for letting Bush off hook

Nancy Pelosi needs to hold meaningful impeachment hearings that will focus on evidence that President Bush has committed crimes in office, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley said Wednesday.

Turley was speaking with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann about the House Speaker’s indication that she would let the Judiciary Committee hold an hearing to consider an impeachment article introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

The problem, Turley says, is that Pelosi has already rendered a “not guilty” verdict on the impeachment question, and the hearing organizers are making sure they won’t be exposing any additional criminal activity. This makes the whole exercise more like a “fancy dress ball,” than a criminal prosecution, he said.

Read rest of article…

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Dennis Kucinich Interview on Impeachment Part 2

Maya Schenwar interviews Dennis Kucinich continued. Regaining Our Balance: War, Economy & Personal Responsibility. Interview part two of two.

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Dennis Kucinich Interview on Impeachment Part 1

Maya Schenwar interviews Dennis Kucinich about impeachment of president Bush, Iraq, and how the United States can re-conceptualize its relationship with the world. Interview part one of two.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Dennis Kucinich Interview Part 1“, posted with vodpod

Kucinich to bring single article of impeachment for misleading US into war

Raw Story

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is sticking to his drive to impeach President Bush.

Few in the House of Representatives have any intention of doing anything with the last 35 articles of impeachment Kucinich set before them last month, so the former presidential candidate appears to be lightening the load. Kucinich sent a letter to colleagues Tuesday asking them to support a single article of impeachment, to be introduced Thursday, which accuses President Bush of leading the country to war based on lies.

Read more..

Elizabeth de la Vega: Impeach Bush & Cheney!

Elizabeth de la Vega spoke in Binghamton, NY on 10/13/07.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Elizabeth de la Vega is a former federal prosecutor with more than twenty years of experience. During her tenure, she was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Chief of the San Jose Branch of the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. Her pieces have appeared in The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, and Salon. She writes regularly for Tomdispatch.

Read Elizabeth de la Vega’s book – United States v. George W. Bush et al.

Here is more on this subject (in more detail) from The Public Record.

Kucinich’s 4th of July message: Help me restore “rule of law in America”

The Raw Story

[Dennis] Kucinich has released an Independence Day message which invokes the words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to urge support for impeachment and the restoration of the rule of law.

“Some Democratic leaders say impeachment’s off the table,” Kucinich begins. “So let’s set a new table for our nation, upon which we place the Constitution, and where we demand that all those who’ve taken an oath to defend it keep their promise and protect our nation from the threat within. Please go to kucinich.us now and sign the petition which calls for impeachment. This is the one petition that will make a difference because I will be personally delivering it to your member of Congress.”

“Two hundred thirty two years ago, our nation was ‘conceived in liberty,’ continues Kucinich, quoting Lincoln’s famous phrase. “We have once again reached a moment of truth, one that Lincoln recognized at Gettysburg, as to ‘whether this nation, or any nation so conceived or so dedicated, can long endure.'”

“Through the ashes of the Civil War,” he goes on, “Lincoln prayed ‘that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.’ This 4th of July 2008, we face a different kind of war, one which is trying our souls, a war based on lies.”

“With the power of truth, the power of the people,” Kucinich concludes, “we can achieve a new birth of freedom.” As the strains of “America the Beautiful” swell in the background, he urges, “Be the answer to Lincoln’s prayer. Please pledge your support now for restoring the rule of law in America. As we once again celebrate Independence Day, let us celebrate freedom from fear and pledge that this government of the people will survive in this land that we love.”

Go sign the petition.

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The larger possible consequences of impeachment being “off the table.”

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Truthout

When Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House in 2006, one of the first things out of her mouth was “impeachment is off the table.” With this sentence she betrayed the American people and her oath of office. But that’s only scratching the surface of the problem…

We have witnessed a staggering abuse of power by President Bush. Even former Bush Justice Department officials now charge him with trampling the Constitution. Bush has claimed the prerogative to declare an endless war without congressional approval, to designate someone an enemy without cause, to proceed to wiretap them without warrant, arrest or kidnap them at will, jail them without a hearing, hold them indefinitely, interrogate them intensively (read torture), bring them to trial outside the U.S. court system. He claims that executive privilege exempts his aides – even the aides of his aides and his vice president’s aides – from congressional investigation. He claims the right to amend or negate congressional laws with a statement upon signing them. And much more.

The possible consequences of Pelosi’s colossal failure…

According to the leading case on presidential powers, if Bush’s extreme assertions of power are not challenged by the Congress, they end up not simply creating new law, they could end up rewriting the Constitution itself. Inaction can alter the Constitutional division of powers by establishing the president’s claims as authority that the Congress or the courts may not infringe. (Emphasis added)

Read that again.

Yeah, you read it right…

Moreon Impeachment

Here’s parts One and Two of a three-part series on the articles of impeachment.

Click to access kucinich-bush-articles-of-impeachment.pdf

Click to access kucinich-bush-articles-of-impeachment-violations.pdf

Waxman subpoenas FBI transcripts of Bush, Cheney interviews

Raw Story:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman is demanding the Justice Department hand over transcripts of FBI interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney conducted during the investigation into who outed former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

The committee on Monday issued subpoenas ordering the Justice Department to hand over the transcript. Of course, if the Bush administration treats this subpoena like they have virtually every other one issued by Congress, it could take months or even years of legal wrangling before the issue is resolved.

The timing of this along with Kucinich introducing 35 Articles of Impeachment, (all 35 articles of impeachment), and the House Judiciary subpoenaing Scott McClellan to come testify, and now the FBI transcripts of the Bush/Cheney interviews is interesting and I am sure, not a coincidence.

Dennis Kucinich has let it be known that if the Judiciary doesn’t act on his 35 Articles of Impeachment and allows it to die, he will come back with 60 Articles of Impeachment. This time he means business. He won’t be alone in his efforts. As of today, co-sponsors include Rep Robert Wexler, Rep Lynn Woolsey, and Rep Barbara Lee. Hopefully more Congressmen and women will sign on as co-sponsors and join him in his efforts.

I still have hope.

Articles of Impeachment go to Judicial Committee

The Raw Story

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), two days after presenting 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush, urged in a statement that a key House committee commence examination of the articles.

“It is now imperative that the Judiciary Committee begin a review of the 35 articles,” said Kucinich. “I will be providing supporting documentation to the committee so that it can proceed in an orderly manner.

“The weight of evidence contained in the Articles makes it clear that President Bush violated the Constitution and the US Code as well as international law,” said the Ohio lawmaker, whose efforts to impeach Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been largely ignored by the mainstream media.

The House of Representatives approved Kucinich’s motion today to refer the articles of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). Kucinich said on Wednesday that he would meet with Conyers this week.

Conyers has not been supportive of impeachment, and the articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney are currently stalled in committee.

Kucinich’s statement continues…

“It is the House’s responsibility as a co-equal branch of government to provide an effective check and balance to executive abuse of power,” Kucinich continued in the statement. “President Bush was principally responsible for directing the United States Armed Forces to attack Iraq.

“I believe that there is sufficient evidence in the Articles to support the charge that President Bush allowed, authorized and sanctioned the manipulation of intelligence by those acting under his direction and control, misleading Congress to approve a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

“As a result over 4,000 United States soldiers have died in combat in Iraq, with tens of thousands injured, many of them permanently impaired,” explained Kucinich. “Over a million innocent Iraqis have perished in a war which was based on lies, a war which will cost the American taxpayers as much as three trillion dollars.”

If the articles of impeachment are not acted upon in committee within 30 days, Kucinich promises to present his resolution again:  “Leadership wants to bury it, but this is one resolution that will be coming back from the dead. … I will be bringing the resolution up again, and I won’t be the only one reading it.”

Kucinich closed in his statement, “We must not only create an historical record of the misconduct of the Bush administration, but we must make sure that any future administration is forewarned about the constitutionally proscribed limits of executive authority and exercise of power contravening the Constitution.”

Well done, Dennis.  Please keep up your great work.

Impeachment resolution gains co-sponsor

Raw Story

Stalwart liberal Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) became the first member of Congress to co-sponsor Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s resolution calling for President Bush’s impeachment.

“President Bush deliberately created a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people and the charges detailed in this impeachment resolution indicate an unprecedented abuse of executive power,” Wexler said in a news release. “A decision by Congress to pursue impeachment is not an option, it is a sworn duty. It is time for Congress to stand up and defend the Constitution against the blatant violations and illegalities of this Administration. Our Founding Fathers bestowed upon Congress the power of impeachment, and it is now time that we use it to defend the rule of law from this corrupt Administration.”

Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment Monday night, and the House is expected to vote on them Tuesday.

Read more…

Contact Kucinich and thank him: http://myinfo.kucinich.us/
Contact Robert Wexler and sign the petition: http://www.wexlerwantshearings.com/

Robert Wexler has the text (complete) of both Articles of Impeachment – against Bush AND Cheney at his website.

Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush

Dennis Kucinich read these Article of Impeachment into the Congressional Record last night, to an empty House of Representatives.  I’ve been cruising around the televised Corporate Media this morning, and have been shamed to find no mention of this event.  Lots of talk about poison tomatoes, the Democrats’ efforts to tax the windfall profits of Big Oil, and snow in Washington state. 

I guess it’s up to the bloggers to help get the word out.  These are simply the Articles and the title of each.  Go to the link above to find the detailed text of the charges.  Here goes….

Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.

Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With
Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.

Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.

Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.

Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.

Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.

Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.

Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.

Article IX
Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor.

Article X
Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes.

Article XI
Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq.

Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation’s Natural Resources.

Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries.

Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq.

Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors.

Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives.
Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy.

Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to “Black Sites” Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture.

Article XX
Imprisoning Children.

Article XXI
Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist
Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government.

Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws.

Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment.

Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the
Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens.

Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements.

Article XXVII
Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply.

Article XXVIII
Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice.

Article XXIX
Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare.

Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil
Emergency.

Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change.

Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist
Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.

Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001.

Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders.

HT to The Wolverine & spencersmom for the text and link.  Thanks!

Iran Attack = Impeachment

: : : : : : : : : :

AfterDowningStreet.Org

Please call your Congress Member at 202-224-3121 and Email them and ask them to co-sign a letter to President Bush from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers threatening impeachment if Bush attacks Iran.

Below is a note from John Conyers asking his colleagues to co-sign. Below that is the letter to Bush.

May 8, 2008

Join Me in Calling on President Bush to Respect Congress’ Exclusive Power to Declare War

Dear Democratic Colleague:

As we mark five years of war in Iraq, I have become increasingly concerned that the President may possibly take unilateral, preemptive military action against Iran. During the last seven years, the Bush Administration has exercised unprecedented assertions of Executive Branch power and shown an unparalleled aversion to the checks and balances put in place by the Constitution’s framers. The letter that follows asks President Bush to seek congressional authorization before launching any possible military strike against Iran and affirms Senator Biden’s statement last year that impeachment proceedings should be considered if the President fails to do so.

I hope that you will join me in calling on the President to respect Congress’ exclusive power to declare war. To sign the letter below, please contact the Judiciary Committee staff at 225-3951.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

Chairman

White House destroyed computer hard drives

ThinkProgress

The AP reports that yesterday in federal court, the White House disclosed that older “computer hard drives have been destroyed,” the latest revelation in the controversy surrounding missing White House e-mails from 2003-2005.

This news should hardly surprise any of us, since this administration does exactly what it pleases, when it pleases — law be damned — but this really makes me angry.

From the AP article on Yahoo:

The White House revealed new information about how it handles its computers in an effort to persuade a federal magistrate it would be fruitless to undertake an e-mail recovery plan that the court proposed.

“When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired … the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction,” the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.

Oh yeah, just your everyday disposal of computer hard drives — except it’s the WHITE HOUSE, and they know they’re supposed to keep frickin’ EVERYTHING. But they don’t want to keep everything, because this administration is more crooked than any we’ve ever had before, so they simply do not.

[U.S. Magistrate Judge] Facciola proposed the drastic approach of going to individual workstations of White House computer users after the White House disclosed in January that it recycled its computer backup tapes before October 2003. Recycling — taping over existing data — raises the possibility that any missing e-mails may not be recoverable.

But the Bush administration didn’t simply tape over existing data — OOPS!! — they sent the hard drives outside the White House to be DESTROYED. This behavior is an acknowledgment of guilt, and it’s covering up crimes we probably don’t even have a clue about yet.

At a House committee hearing last month, a computer expert who previously worked at the White House called the e-mail system “primitive” and said it was set up in a way that created a high risk that data would be lost from White House servers where it was being archived.

Under pressure to provide details about its computer system, the White House told the congressional committee that it never completed work that began in 2003 on a planned records management and e-mail archiving system. The White House canceled the project in late 2006 and says it is still working on a new version.

Of course Bush’s email and archiving systems are “primitive” and at high risk of losing data! It’s their stated intention (see the Bush Presidential Lie-berry) to be secretive about EVERYTHING. Bush has been in office for over seven years, and they’re still “working” on an email archiving system? Give me a break!

Wake up, America!!

It would be costly and time-consuming for the White House to institute an e-mail retrieval program that entails pulling data off each individual workstation, the court papers filed Friday state.

Damn right, it would be expensive — and worth every single penny. Get started. Now.

IMPEACH NOW.

Five Vermont Towns Vote to Impeach Bush

via: CommonDreams

NEWFANE, Vt. — In a white-clapboard town hall, circa 1832, voters gathered Tuesday to conduct their community’s annual business and to call for the impeachment of President Bush.

“In the U.S. presently there are only a few places where citizens can act in this fashion and have a say in our nation,” said select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article that was placed on the warning – or official agenda – for this year’s town meeting.

“It absolutely affects us locally,” DeWalt said. “It’s our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying” in the war in Iraq.

The article, approved by a paper ballot 121-29, calls on Vermont’s lone member of the U.S. House, independent Rep. Bernie Sanders, to file articles of impeachment against the president, alleging that Bush misled the nation into the Iraq war and engaged in illegal domestic spying.

At least four other southern Vermont towns, spurred by publicity about Newfane’s resolution, brought up similar resolutions during Tuesday’s meetings and endorsed them. They were Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney. Marlboro passed it 60-10 by paper ballot. Putney and Dummerston approved the measures under “other business” from the floor.

Read entire article… 

Photo: Jon Olender / Rutland Herald

I wonder if this will get reported in the MSM..? Wish I could have been there to see it.

Ask and ye shall receive..?

For witch1…