Pelosi 8-11-08 LA
Our very own first woman Speaker of the House...coming to the hotbed of peace and impeachment activists. It's certainly time that we plan a WELCOMING EVENT so that Nancy will know just how much we appreciate her efforts to stop the war, cut off funding, begin the impeachment investigations, and protect us by voting for the new FISA bill that finishes off the 4th Amendment and prevents the telecoms from getting their day in court. Way to GO Nancy!!! The Republicans certainly couldn't have done it without you!!!
FISA VOTE:http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml
After yesterday's Netroots Nation 2008 session with the Speaker of the U.S. House, I went up and shook Nancy Pelosi's hand and asked her directly whether impeachment and censure are still off the table. She answered that no, censure is not off the table (or even "definitely" not off the table, maybe); and as for impeachment, she again stepped aside from the question, as she did during her answers on the stage, by saying that (inherent) contempt was up to John Conyers. (Earth to Nancy: "contempt" and "impeachment" are separate issues...)
So, while NP offered No Palaver about impeachment, the silver lining is that, as per my (non-used) question from askthespeaker.org, censure is still possible.
Scream louder. Maybe another strongly worded letter is appropriate.
Two weeks ago, when Rove failed to appear for his congressional subpeona, he was out making bling that most wage earners get in a year.
I'm referring to the new Newsweek article that details what Raw Story told us the day after his failure to appear. The same day (I think) Conyers issued his July 15th deadline.
All I really have is a few choice quotes below the fold. The rest is up to the readers, which I guess means scream louder.
So I am sitting at home and reading dKos as per usual, except that today was a special day for me. I had great expectations. I got on the computer as early as I could (damn, it was already afternoon here in CA), confident that my fellow Kossacks attending the glorious Netroots Nation event in Austin, would come armed with the full arsenal of questions for Speaker Pelosi.
So I click here, I click there, my mouth waters as I get to Smitheus' report on the front page about what went down with Pelosi and Gore...and... and... then the report is over. I am stunned. I quickly peruse the article again, but nope, it's not there. Now I am totally flummoxed: THE question has not been asked! You know, The Question. The one that Ms. Speaker has taken off the table like a stressed housewife in the grips of obsessive-compulsive over cleaning, the Impeachment Question, of course!
Q: Madame Speaker, why did you take impeachment off the table?
A: THE ANSWER!
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It did not happen! The question was not asked!
Whyohwhy, dear beloved Kossack at the convention, has nobody asked that question?
You may know that Bob Barr has arrived at Netroots Nation. He bought a one-day pass and decided to mingle with the assembled conventioneers. And he drew a crowd. I first spied him when Kate Sheppard of Grist was interviewing him about his environmental policies (a lot of "we don't know if man is causing global warming, we need further study, etc). All of us wanted to talk to him, but we didn't quite know what to ask. But after a couple of minutes it hit me, and my good buddy clammyc lent me his voice recorder and I sidled up to Barr to ask my first question.
Me: Rep. Barr, do you believe the impeachment of President Clinton was a good deterrent to the expansion of executive power and the establishment of the rule of law for the executive branch?
House Democratic leaders said the proceedings would not be about Bush's impeachment, a first step in the Constitution's process of a removing a president from office.
The crimes are under review by our crime fighting congress! Oh goody, more investigations that have no result, other than casting further doubt on the notion that we are a nation of laws.
It is as if, one fine sunny day in school, a bully went rampaging through the halls, breaking into lockers, beating up students, and the hall monitor snuck over to one of the victims and whispered, "Excuse me, did you notice if he had the requisite hall pass?"
... of Cheney, or Bush, isn't going to happen.
There simply isn't enough time left on the play clock.
That doesn't mean that Kucinich and company are tilting at windmills, however. The impeachment movement is fulfilling a very important role, one vital to the welfare of our democracy. It is using the Republican's most potent weapon against them.
Fear.
Not the same way they use it against us. We are making them fear for the only thing they really care about... their own asses.
Nope, impeachment isn't going to happen. But that's OK.
Eight days ago, I saw the video of the second meeting Veterans for Peace held with Congressman John Conyers and ran completely out of patience.
The wrongdoing of this administration is clear. We have been presented with lie after lie and excuse after excuse by this complicit Congress for a lack of movement on the impeachment issue. The Bush administration has been cited with NINE subpoenas by Congress that they have completely ignored.
I wrote and emailed a letter (several weeks ago) to Speaker Pelosi, as did many people who were disgusted with her actions of late related to impeachment and FISA, and then, subsequent to this, I believe, realizing that her political career might actually be in jeopardy due to her failure to honor her sacred responsibility to defend the constitution, she made a decision to attend this year's NETROOTS convention, thinking, I believe, that she can play some spin-doctoring to change the opinions of the blogging world, given our rising power in politics ... additionally, she has made an empty gesture by sending the articles to the Senate (see video below)
... well, my request to you all in attendance at NETROOTS ... please SLAM her and let her know that her empty gestures will NOT salvage her political career!
Your enabling of this corrupt regime will be recognized. I as well as my father just donated 4600 dollars each to the honorable Cindy Sheehan. We are determined to primary you. Should we fail, we have also petitioned the International Criminal Court to prosecute you as well as the not so honorable president (lower case intentional) George W. Bush. You were complicit after the fact. You have allowed his crimes against humanity to continue unabated. This we, and the world will not forget. How can you open an inquiry to his most obvious crimes, and not move forward to hold him accountable? Your weakness is not an excuse. Just as "I was just following orders" was not an excuse at Nuremburg, it shall not be now.
In a stunning development which fell with the silence of a feather yesterday, 9 Republicans broke with their iron-fisted party to put country first, and voted to send Rep. Dennis Kucinich's article of impeachment HR 1345 to the Judiciary, where Chairman John Conyers will hold a hearings on abuses of power by the Bush administration, according to the Congressional Quaterly's CQToday. Ten Republicans abstained in this critical moment, while only 5 Dems did. The vote was neck and neck at many moments, with "Nays" pulling ahead twice.
Those Republicans are (Yea 238 - Nay 180):
Congressman Kevin Brady (TX)
Congressman Wayne Gilchrest (MD)
Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC)
Representative Don Manzullo (IL)
U.S. Congressman Tim Murphy(PA)
Congressman Ron Paul (TX)
Congressman Dave Reichert (WA)
Congressman Christopher Shays (CT)
Representative Mike Turner (OH)
One of the Republicans, Walter Jones, represents Camp LeJeune in North Carolina, one of the largest Marine bases in the country, and one which has borne heavily the sacrifice of the Iraq War.
I read once, "funny how people get peaceful once dead".
If our Congress' capitulation to Bush is supposed to somehow sate his thirst for total power over us, and if by surrendering or acquiescing to his demands we are to believe that by scrapping the 4th Amendment he will not make any more assaults against our Constitution, then we are truly dead. Surrender equates to the death of our republic-and us, just a surely and as quickly as standing in front of a firing squad.
And all the rationalizing away of the consequences of the FISA capitulation and saying, "we'll get him next year" when Obama takes office is a copout, and well, it's simply living in a dream world or alternate reality. It shows a total ignorance of the lessons of past history. Follow my rant under the fold...
Rep. Jerrold Nadler,(NY) member of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, the committee whose Constitutional duty it is to bring impeachment charges against criminal presidents, says it as baldly and plainly as it can be said:
The Bush Administration has committed War Crimes.The only thing stopping him from being impeached is politics.
"People say, 'Why do you keep doing it? Why do you want to stand outside of some fundraiser with a sign? What's the point?'" a Milwaukee activist said at a recent meeting at Peace Action-Wisconsin.
There are a lot of reasons. Some are personal. Some do it to take a stand, bear witness, confront a politician.
And every now and then something happens to make you think that it might actually be having an impact and making a difference.
Ask members of the Milwaukee Impeachment Committee about their recent experience with John Conyers.
