CONYERS AND PELOSI IGNORE COURT EVIDENCE, HALT IMPEACHMENT PROBE
Washington-February 13, 2007-TomFlocco.com-
House staffers in the office of Representative John Conyers (D-14-MI) and the offices of the House Judiciary Committee where Conyers is now Chairman both confirmed yesterday that the Democrats have taken any impeachment inquiry off the table despite recent revelations and court testimony that President Bush illegally took America to war in Iraq.
When we asked a female staffer in Conyers’ office why the Chairman made the decision not to commence an impeachment inquiry regarding Mr. Bush’s war crimes involving facilitation of corporate war profiteering, manipulation of WMD pre-war evidence, torture of prisoners along with spying on emails and phone calls of Americans, “signing statements” to change the interpretation of laws, and failure to assist border patrolmen involved in shootouts with Mexican drug-runners, we were told “there will be no impeachment.” Our next phone call to the House Judiciary Committee office where all impeachment inquiries begin resulted in a statement that “there are no plans to begin an impeachment investigation of President Bush,” after which we were placed on hold to prevent further questions from being asked.
Last week MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said “It is a federal crime to take the country to war for no reason at all,” but the Hardball host added that the Democrats probably won’t do anything about it. This, as grand jury testimony in the trial of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis Scooter Libby revealed that President Bush authorized Cheney to have Libby leak information from the National Security assessment to reporters regarding weapons of mass destruction to help make a case for war. And despite strong evidence of criminal acts perpetrated by the Bush administration, Chairman Conyers and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have made the decision not to hold President Bush and Vice President Cheney accountable for their “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The important question is why?
Oy vay and uff da!
i am sorry if the hasent figuered it out NAncy pelosi and john conyers they are bush butties controled by GEORGE W BUSH they are all lying MURDERING THIEVES
Obviously I am pro-impeachment… I helped co-found this organization for gosh sakes, but here is a stark reality:
If impeachment leading to a removal from office is to occur, it will take a 2/3’s majority of the Senate AFTER getting a recommendation from the House to start the proceedings in the Senate. The House shouldn’t have much of a problem once they decide to proceed after airing the results of the plethora of investigations just now beginning.
The Senate is another story, of course.
TWO THIRDS!!! That is 67 votes… meaning if every real Democrat AND Joe Lieberman all voted in favor then we would still need 16 (sixteen) Republican Senators voting to convict Bush and/or Cheney and/or the rest of the cabal – Gonzalez being the dirtiest… or maybe Rice… sheesh, it is too close to call!
Asking why impeachment is off the table is like asking Bush why we attacked Iraq, there are as many reasons as you can imagine. The main one, however, is that it cannot succeed unless and until the GOP themselves are begging for Bush to resign to prevent an even bigger election catastrophe for them in ’08. It is much like with with Nixon when GOP Senators marched from their offices like a herd of… well… elephants, and convinced him to step down rather than bringing the whole party down with him by fighting impeachment in Congress.
Does this discourage me? Not in the least. Every effort to expose the crimes and misdemeanors of Bush/CheneyCorp. that we have all been working on had a marked effect on the elections of last November, and are still affecting policy positively. Right here in Minnesota, Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) has been backing away from his Bush servitude and even voted in favor yesterday of the failed non-binding resolution condemning Bush’s escalation ‘strategery’.
Coleman is listed as the most vulnerable Senator in America up for re-election in ’08 largely because of all the efforts that have shown bush/Cheney to be dirty, guilty, criminal and corrupt and Coleman’s tight alliance with Bush that he cannot now and will not in ’08 be able to shake.
Does this mean that I am doing this to benefit the ‘Democrat’ Party? Absolutely not, but the recent elections have disempowered Bush/Cheney and have allowed the Democrats to dig into the crime evidence with the threat of subpoena power. All this is major progress toward our goals of impeachment now and the greatly strengthened threat of impeachment later for succeeding Executive officials.
What I am hoping for is that by early summer, the mountain of evidence seeing the light of day of all the crimes and misdemeanors will lead Republican lawmakers to begin pushing for resignations. I think the national Dems are holding off on pushing impeachment because they know the GOP must be onboard for it to succeed and as Bush sinks, so sinks the national GOP along with him.
The problem is that if we let them wait and Bush is allowed to attack Iran, which absolutely WILL happen in late March/early April unless Congress intercedes, a chain reaction of disasters will ensue including Iran invading Iraq and overwhelming our troops there, perhaps Syria joining in and even Israel launching nuclear warheads all over the Middle East.
I am not sure, short of impeachment, that Bush can be stopped. He doesn’t listen to his own advisors, his own generals, his own father for gosh sakes! Why would he listen to a bunch of liberal lawmakers? They think they can keep him under wraps for two years and benefit politically by doing so. I am not so confident that this wannabe tyrant can be contained.
Get ready for the big war.
I know we’re all excited for the 2008 elections but I would say to Conyers, Pelosi et al. that we don’t have the luxury to wait for the big day.
We need genuine, decisive action now. My God, the campaign leading up 11/4/08 is already in full swing. With that comes the contradictions and confusion born of candidates trying to weigh political outcomes… a non-stop, non-binding declaration-fest by the hopefuls. Meanwhile, Bushney-co (which really has nothing left to lose) continues to act out on its delusions. The breadth of havoc it can wreak between now and then is… well, I shudder to think.
By refusing to allow even a conversation on a NON BINDING resolution, Congress has, in effect, given Bush another blank @#$%-ing check. And he will keep writing in zeros if he isn’t stopped. Now.
Congress needs to do its job now. Campaign fun can come later.
Add to that “why? on Conyers/Pelosi by Tom Floccot, why was Conyers’ an unannounced speaker at the Jan. 27 rally in DC—where about 30% of the 500,000 of us heard his tremendous close that Bush could fire generals, Nov. 7 voters, ISG, et al. but he couldn’t fire us and “We can fire him!” Why did Conyers four days later have the House Judiciary Committee hold a hearing from 5 witnesses on signing statements? And why the next day, a hearing on warrantless wiretapping? Toppers on the mountain of evidence of the 26 high crimes his staff report/paperback (The Constitution in Crisis) that “rise to the level of Constitutional standards of impeachment??? Why did the Dem steering committee on the HJC have spirited meetings on which 6 Dems to tap as new members—or be one of the last panels to be formed? Or leave a vacancy on the Dem side? Why select freshman Keith Ellison (D-MN), who campaigned on impeachment?
Out here in “Little Beirut” (Portland OR), theories after looking after the deeds (not their words) range from:
1) Pelosi/Conyers/Hoyer/Murtha lulling the Republicans into believing impeachment IS off the table to get their 100-hour agenda/no-escalation binder passed so they’ve got some bi-partisan votes and allies. Then,and instantly springing the impeachment trap after the Scooter Libby verdict and the midway point in the oversight committee hearings furnishing enough evidence against B&C not only to impeach, but to oust.
2)PCHM lulling activists into believing all of the above and being patient—and doing nothing.
Our DFA group is: 1)keeping our powder dry for the moment, running off copies of Sherwood Ross’s passionate “J’accuse-like piece (“America! If You Will Not Impeach This Tyrant, Who Will You Impeach?” URL: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/5494). We’re bannering (“Impeach Bush & Cheney”) main thoroughfares every Monday evening rush hour—along with our huge red balloon we bought off the Net (“Impeach Bush & Cheney”). And we’re showing up this week where the Congressional folk are staging town meetings, coffees to ask how high the pile of high crimes has to be before they stop being timid and do it. And writing weekly letters to the 120 in the House to ask whether they’ll impeach if B&C do a pre-emptive attack on Iran without Congressional authorization as seems to be planned for mid or late March. And, of course, to include Conyers in our “How long, O Lord, how long..” imprecations. Gotta keep those pokers hot, hot, hot.
Perhaps you didn’t see Amy Goodman’s interview of Rep. Conyers on Democracy Now yesterday (the main topic was Vulture Funds) but, during the interview, she played a clip of his speech at the recent Washington, D.C. anti-War rally and followed up with the the question of impeachment:
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REP. JOHN CONYERS (at the rally): George Bush has the habit of firing military leaders who tells him the Iraq war is failing. But let me tell you something. He can’t fire you. He can’t fire us. But we can fire him! We can fire him!
AMY GOODMAN: That was Congressmember Conyers in Washington, D.C. Are you calling for President Bush’s impeachment, Congressmember Conyers?
REP. JOHN CONYERS: The reason I am not, notwithstanding my fiery rhetoric at the rally, which I thought was quite appropriate, by the way, and I don’t retract, we’re firing — on November 7, we fired all the Republicans we could find that are supporting President Bush. Next year in November, we’re going to get hired to do the job of leading this country
with a Democratic president and with a stronger House and Senate majority. You know, a one-senate majority lead is not much of a majority. Fifteen-vote change in the House would erase the advantage that we have. And quite frankly, any impeachment proceeding that would go forward without taking out the Vice President and the President, to me, would be a waste of time. We don’t have the luxury to impeach this president and this vice president. We have the responsibility to stop the war in Iraq, and I think it’s proceeding along sound lines, and then we will be able to deal with Katrina, the domestic under-funding of everything from healthcare to housing to job creation, to re-entry of former felons. All the things that need to be done have to be taken care of. A $2 trillion debt is what we are paying to stay in Iraq. We’ve got to stop that financial hemorrhaging as a first responsibility in the Congress.
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So, it seems that pragmatism is the operative word in the Democratically controlled House & Senate. I’m becoming suspicious that the only way an impeachment will occur is for Bush to openly confront a congressional mandate thus leaving the House no choice but to initiate impeachment. Perhaps aggressive investigations by congressional committees will lead to revelations that cannot be ignored (I know the revelations are there, the ‘perhaps’ question is whether they’ll be ignored), but I believe that exposing 2nd & 3rd echelon malefactors will occupy them until December ’08 and, after that, it’ll be a moot point. D’ya think there’s a chance that anybody’ll bring criminal charges against Bush & Cheney after their term is over? Not to damn likely.
It seems all too evident that idealism, respect for the law, and respect for the Constitution are being subordinated to “business as usual”.
…sigh.
Wow. I really don’t know what else to add to these two outstanding comments. So I’ll just say that PCHM must be made to understand perfectly clear when we say “Hey! WE’RE SERIOUS!! And you know what? WE’RE NOT ALONE! Nearly the whole rest of the world is behind us!!!!”
Conyers is now saying to Amy on Democracy Now on Friday, Feb 16th, that impeachment is “a luxury” that the democrats cannot afford because it would “tie up” their busy agenda and would interfere with the fast approaching ’08 elections, so they decided their best strategy is to let the “clock run out”. WHOOPS! He forgot to mention all that evidence that he and others have already collected that indicates for sure that something must be done about all those high crimes and misdemeanors.
There used to be a Russian Field Marshal who wanted to fire one missile at the US just to see what we would do. I say we fire off impeachment proceedings at Conyers and Pelosi just to see what they would do. Nothing serious mind you, but just enough to make them want to place impeachment back on the table.