It has been well-known that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted that there will be no impeachment of President Bush during her term. Activists, however, have reported that John Conyers may be considering confronting Pelosi and starting such proceedings after a meeting in his office. They have started a campaign to show Conyers that he will have the support of the Democratic base, even if he lacks the support of Democratic leadership.
The meeting and campaign is detailed here.
This follows Mukasey’s bizarre rationalization of why he will not allow a criminal investigation into the Bush torture program. Click here
The Democratic leadership has been helping the White House behind the scenes to block any serious investigation of torture to avoid triggering an impeachment investigation and the disclosure of Democratic knowledge of the torture program. Conyers, however, is the wild card. Any impeachment move would be a direct confrontation with Pelosi. He would be lionized by Democratic activists, who have grown unhappy with Pelosi. Indeed, it may be difficult for Pelosi to survive such a public fight and to secure the votes needed next Congress to be renewed as Speaker. It is worth watching.
TS,
I just read your earlier longer post addressed to me…sorry to have missed it; its very hard to keep track of the constant downwardly scrolling blizzard of threads and posts.
I kind of agree with your main point: 2008 is going to be a continuation of a new-bosses-same-as-the-old-bosses leadership no matter who gets elected.
You may be right.
But the key for me is not the guy at top. It really isn’t. It’s the political culture that moves into power and although Washington has an amazing ability to neutralize reformist waves, this year may be something special, because sadly, the economy may be going south for a little while, and that gives the reformers ALOT of leverage. Just wait and see! It will be a very busy first four years for everyone.
d’accord mes enfant.
But on a more humane note…
I suggest we follow the State of Georgia’s lead (see one of JT’s earlier threads on this topic) and use the sentence of banishment for all the malfeasors of the current administration.
Assuming about 2,200 mid and upper level personnel, we could life-banish them to 10,000 acres or so in the Great Dismal Swamp, where they could gainfully pass their time building a new shining “City on a Hill” or more accurately, a shantytown on a tussock!
Capital idea, deeply worried! The tumbrel, now why didn’t I think of that. I emailed Paris and discovered that there are no motorized tumbrels available and you know as well as I that American peasants won’t push or pull anything! The French recommend the Citroen but I fear it is just too small for the task at hand.
“Demons in human form”, “thugs, reptiles and invertebrates”, “gathering of whores” “absolute traitors”
WOW, talk about jeremiads!
With emotions like this raging, we might as well roll out the tumbrels!
Wow, Monish Chatterjee. Well said! And James, your prediction about Social Security is right on the money. Or should I say that stack of money.
James:
“First stop?” We have all long suspected that you have been visiting other sites. No matter, it is great to have you with us!
The long-known Ralph Nader position that both parties in this 2-party “democratic” charade answer to the same corporate masters, and are members of the same plunder-and-loot club of heartless thugs and traitors to the nation- has been amply proven in the last 7+ years of this viciously criminal “administration.”
The soft and corrupt underbelly of the spineless and unprincipled Democrats was thoroughly exposed from the very moment of the massive electoral fraud inflicted upon voters in this country in 2000, aided by a lawless “Supreme Court” (an agency whose criminality makes its function so painfully ironic).
These contemptible, inhuman Democratic enablers of the mass-murdering, Constitution-shredding, obscenely profiteering band of criminals posing as a “government” should go down equally with the R-party gangsters and crooks as the most repulsive bunch of thugs, reptiles and invertebrates known to civilized Man. That list, to me, would include the likes of Hillary Clinton, Diane Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi. They are as much a part of the deliberate mass-murder and (U.S.) government-sponsored terror inflicted upon Iraq and her people, as the clueless psychopath in the WH and his bloodthirsty, criminal enablers. Note that I am not even including revolting Quislings such as Zell Miller and LIEberman. In recent years, the takeover of these United States by the AIPAC lobby is complete, as the utterly horrified world (including many, many humane and caring Jewish and Israeli people) watches helplessly.
At such times, one would normally hope for someone like John Conyers to take a principled stand in order to bring these criminals (who surpass the Nixon bunch by light years in their genocidal crimes against humanity, and deserve trials for massive crimes against humanity) to accountability and justice. Yet, the lure of power (and who knows what else- perhaps hush funds and palm grease?) or fake notions of “loyalty” seem to have usurped all human ideals from the vast majority of these public figures. SHAME, A THOUSAND TIMES, UPON ALL OF THEM! The disgraceful treatment meted out to Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Ron Paul, and the way their campaigns for an honorable return to decency in government was snuffed out by the criminal machinery of this country (corporations + media- A GATHERING OF WHORES whose very faces are deeply repulsive to decent human beings, including the real women known by that appellation)- these do not bode well for the future of this ruthless military behemoth hell-bent upon wreaking death and destruction upon human beings worldwide.
Impeachment and criminal prosecution should have commenced as soon as these spineless Democrats recovered their majorities in the Congress and Senate by falsely claiming to do exactly that prior to the 2006 elections. ALONG WITH THE MURDERERS IN THE WH, THEY TOO HAVE PROVEN THEMSLEVES TO BE ABSOLUTE TRAITORS. There are no words of shame harsh enough for these demons in human form.
This site just became my first stop of the day.
Wonderful to see people criticizing the powers that be within the Democratic party for what they are, tools of the status quo.
And the bit about Clinton being hooked into the Carlyle Group?? Of course he is. He and Poppy are laughing their asses off as the media rips into Obama like he’s some sort of threat to America or that he’s a breath of fresh air. If he represented any threat to the corporate owners of this society he’d have been gone by now.
Yes, there will be a Democrat in the White House come 2009. After much ruminating I’ve come to the conclusion that Bush/Cheney will go quietly into infamy in 2009. There will be elections and a Democrat will win. Shortly after taking office, that Democrat will announce that Social Security is in grave danger along with Medicare and, rather than attack the inflationary system of health care that contributes to the instability of Medicare, s/he will announce a major overhaul of Social Security, kind of like the overhaul that was engineered to screw middle and lower class Americans who are faced with bankruptcy.
While Bush’s cronies walk away with literally billions of dollars from the Treasury, lower and middle class Americans will be forced into a means-testing system to determine whether or not they should survive in retirement. And no matter who the Democrat is who gets elected make no mistake about it: Social Security will be in the crosshairs.
Clinton eviscerated welfare while pimping NAFTA, GATT, and WTO. Don’t expect anything different from either of the current Democratic candidates.
rcampbell you state that the Bush Administration has slightly less integrity than the administrations of Stalin, Hitler, etal.
I seriously doubt that you can substantiate this. If you focus only on integrity, my guess is that Bush is far and away the number one liar. And he is not very good at it. Are there any historians in this group that can answer the question?
Right On Carol Wolman!
From my frame of reference — IMPEACH, TORTURE, THEN HANG!
deeply worried, for the Democrats to surprise me they would have to do something.
I’m not holding my breath in anticipation!
It shouldn’t be too difficult to remember the interim election and all the hype about change if the Dems won. And by god the American public actually came out and voted them in. And then?
Well, the Dems can’t not fund the imperial troops. Oh, a surge? Oh yes, oh yes! We can’t look weak! Oh, the Dems can’t not pass anything that has the word terror in it. Oh goodness, the Dems can’t not pass the FISA Bill without being sure that ATT gets covered. Thank you so much Diane Feinstein. Just how often has Diane bent over and taken one for the “gipper”? Gee, censure Diane? NO, recall the bitch!
If the House comes back after break and really takes a stand it will be a first. Do I have hope? No. But I’d love to be wrong on this one.
And then there is NO GUTS NANCY. She’s the leader? Give me a break!
Oh, we can’t impeach, it might upset Bush’s lackeys and running dogs and then we might not get elected.
Well, I believe there is a huge dormant sector of Americans that are looking for change in this country and to date what we get is business as usual.
Look at the line up!
HILLARY. Hanging out with Rupert Murdoch? Bill running up to Kennebunkport to play with Daddy Bush? Gosh, I hope Bill is investing correctly, The Carlyle Group anyone? Hillary votes for the imperialist war, she votes to fund the war, she votes for the Patriot Act, she refused to filibuster the Military Commissions Act which fundamentally overturned habeas corpus and even Ann Colter is leaning toward her! Now that is spooky.
And as President she would keep the imperial army in Iraq for the same 100 years that McCain is talking about but only to protect America’s vital interests! You may want to check out America’s vital interests in Iraq when you get time but to save you time – – -it’s everything. The corporate class has bought up(perhaps stole is more apt) Iraq and all of its infrastructure, factories and banks. And soon the oil will be taken as well. What do the Iraq people get? At the moment, not even jobs because Corporate Ownership has sub contracted all the work to “cheeper” labor from outside Iraq. OH JOY! Now where did I put my explosive belt again? Looks like Business as usual to me.
THEN BARACK. He makes a big deal that he didn’t support the war but not from the high moral principal that pre-emptive war is wrong but from the frame that he didn’t think that it would work!
Somehow what has been lost in the debate is pre-emptive war is double speak for aggression. Which in my way of thinking requires the troops to be arrested and held in The Hague as war criminals. Along with a very long list of the administration and Congress! Only in an ideal world would that ever come to pass.
What Americans have missed is that we ARE the bad guys.
With Obama you are not going to see the troops come home either. He is right there in front with McCain and Clinton in threatening Iran. And Obama will attack Pakistan if the intelligence is such that we could get Osama!
Osama-Obama—Obama-Osama, there has got to be a rap song in that somewhere.
Obama votes for all the military funding and wants to add 92,000 more troops to the military to keep our military the best in the world!
Sounds like business as usual to me.
And then to add to Barack’s business as usual stance, like Clinton he voted against the Military Commissions Act but then turned around and refused to filibuster the Act to prevent it from becoming law.
And to cap it for me, Obama is being advised by Anthony Lake and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Now those guys should take the wind out of the sails of anyone who tries to frame Obama as a candidate of HOPE and CHANGE. Sure he is!
As for McCain, well he’s too white! Look at him. Do you want a ghost for President?
So America has to face this coming election from a very sober position.
How in the world can anyone ever say, “America is the greatest country” when all we have got to show the world are these three clowns as the best leadership the country can come up with in 2008?
There was a deal made between Bush and Pelosi in May 2006, to take impeachment off the table. Both made public statements. Many other incumbents backed off. Jerry McNerney, then a PDA candidate for Congress Dist 11, had solicited the help of Impeach Bush-Cheney for phone banking in February, which we gave. In May, he asked us to take his name off our literature (we were listing his campaign as one of our projects). McNerney was the only PDA Democrat out of 23 to be elected; the rest were knocked out of the primary by DLC money.
During the ’06 campaign, the campaign was used to justify taking impeachment off the table- so as not to antagonize moderates. Once the Democrats won by an overwhelming majority, that excuse no longer held water. Still, within a few days after become Speaker and Chair of Judiciary, Pelosi and Conyers hastened to assure us that impeachment was still off the table. The deal still held, and Bush and Cheney are STILL being protected- they can do anything they want, with impunity, and they do.
What’s the tradeoff? What do the Dems get in return? Biden hinted recently that it was/is an agreement not to start war with Iran, when he said that impeachment hearings would begin at once if they did that. Maybe it’s a promise not to impose martial law and suspend elections. Maybe it’s blackmail of many individual Congresspeople. Whatever- the reasons given simply don’t hold water.
It’s obvious that the way out of Iraq is through impeachment. The way to prevent an attack on Iran is impeachment. The way to address global warming is impeachment. Etc, etc, etc. As long as Bush and Cheney are in office, they will block all good moves and continue to pursue policies that enrich themselves and their superrich friends at the expense of the rest of us.
And Congress is complicit. There’s a protection racket going on. There’s no other plausible explanation.
So we need a clean sweep of Congress- see http://www.newbroomcoalition.org.
Peace,
Carol Wolman
Green Candidate for Congress
CA District 1
Cochair, Impeach Bush-Cheney
Hi Patty C,
Re-reading my posts in light of your kind words, I note with a lot of chagrin I misled everybody: The Congressional Research Service, not the Congressional Reporting Service.
I am a living errata sheet! 😉
Also, unlike the OLC, the CRS researches EVERYTHING imaginable. With 2000+ reports a year, its not unlikely they’ve done an analysis of the bricks in the chimneys of your neighborhood at some time or other!
The “Investigating the DOJ” report makes for interesting reading. Not because it reveals any current malfeasance–it doesn’t and it was not commissioned to. In my uninformed opinion, the epi-center of the criminal behavior in this administration was centered in the DOJ. The OVP had its role to play also, and outrages at Labor and Interior are still below the radar, but if you have to pick an agency: start at DOJ.
And then work your way back up. Felony crimes were possibly committed and left unreported. A very ugly picture and one with no precedent to my limited knowledge.
Basically the Administration did the legal equivalent of trying to raise itself in the air by pulling on its own shoes. They would have their house lawyers declare something legal then go ahead and act under color of not law, but the advice of legality.
When their advisors balked, they would simply replace them with more compliant models. Utterly ruthless, and the greatest threat to the rule of law this country has ever seen.
Good riddance to it, says we!
Thanks, DW – the Energizer Bunny’s got nothin’ on you!
I think you have assigned everyone’s President’s Weekend reading
– the subject titles alone ‘speak volumes’, as it were 🙂
p.s. How ’bout that expired PAA, huh? huh?
No one responded to this invitation so I will trot out some more significant ones:
“No Confidence” Votes and Other Forms of Congressional Censure of Public Officials, June 11, 2007
Presidential Advisers’ Testimony Before Congressional Committees: an Overview, updated April 10, 2007 [NOTE DATE]
Statute of Limitations in Federal Criminal Cases: An Overview, updated April 9, 2007 [DATE]
and lastly, my favorite:
Congressional Investigations of the Department of Justice, 1920-2007: History, Law, and Practice, October 3, 2007
Draw the appropriate conclusions.
Again welcome to the influx of new posters. As a fellow poster I appreciate your energy and enthusiasm.
We all need to add to our sophistication about how the government is working.
The affairs between the branches are conducted by representatives and officials who are harried, overworked, and basically operating in a perpetual fog. They are expected to be experts on everything from pre-stressed concrete fracture under load, to fish counts on obscure waterways. To alleviate that fog, they call on experts to help them. The Executive branch for legal matters has its OLC, the Congress has its CRS.
If you want to really know what is concerning both branches, what they are worried about, what actions they are contemplating, what defenses they are readying, study the reports they request from their respective “law firms”.
We have talked about the OLC and the declassified memos, but lets look at the Congressional Reporting Service and their “product”.
Here are some topics the 110th Congress (the democrats, my friends) have sought clarification on and it is very illustrative:
Direct Assaults Against Presidents, Presidents-Elect, and Candidates, updated Jan 7 2008
Perjury Under Federal Law: a Brief Overview, updated Dec 27, 2007
Obstruction of Congress: a Brief Overview of Federal Law Relating to Interference with Congressional Activities, Dec 27, 2007 (Same day as supra!)
Obstruction of Justice: an Overview of Some of the Federal Statutes That Prohibit Interference with Judicial, Executive, or Legislative Activities, Dec 27, 2007
Proposals to Reform “Holds” in the Senate, updated Dec 20, 2007 (we know who prompted this!)
Federal Tort Claims Act, updated Dec 1l, 2007
Congress’s Contempt Power: a Sketch, Aug 1, 2007
Congress’s Contempt Power: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure, July 24th 2007 [PLEASE READ THIS ONE, IF YOU WILL]
Recess Appointments Made by President George W Bush, January 20, 2001-June 4, 2007 updated June 14 2007
and so forth and so on.
Here’s the website for your further research:
http://opencrs.com/
Why, thanks, gracious Patty C!
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
When it comes to incisive comment,
Patty C, is better than you (and you, and you)!
Roses are red,
The stems are green,
When it comes to ipse dixit bluster,
DW is an unstoppable cut-and-paste machine!
I do hope JT is delegating the site’s maintainence and taking a nice out-of-town vacation or some such!
“It has been well-known that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has insisted that there will be no impeachment of President Bush during her term”
When did she say that? She said impeachment is off the table, but oversight would continue and where that leads, we would have to see. The first part of the statement is commonly quoted — the second half is studiously ignored.
It’s likely that Cheney could be impeached. If the desire is to impeach the President, that will scuttle the effort. If the effort is restricted to Cheney, I believe that the Speaker will let it go through. The contempt citations are a positive sign in that direction.
I forgot to include this reference. you will have to add the dubya dubya dubya .cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a0601german#a0601german