afterdowningstreet.org
UPDATE #2: Conyers has canceled the noon meeting with Veterans for Peace, suggesting that the 10 a.m. hearing is expected now to run more than 2 hours. VFP rightly sees this as a success for our cause.
UPDATE: Harold Burbank says Ralph Nader says Ralph Nader will be testifying. Add him to the list of those who will speak for impeachment.
By David Swanson
In response to public demand for impeachment hearings and pressure from Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Congressman Robert Wexler, and others, as well as electoral challenges by pro-impeachment candidates, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally caved and proposed to allow Kucinich to present impeachment in a Judiciary Committee hearing.
The hearing was then scheduled for a Friday (July 25) and scheduled to last a full two-hours (10 a.m. to noon). Then the topic was altered. Rather than being about impeachment, the hearing will be about impeachment and other supposed remedies to a lawless presidency, with the bulk of the time devoted to those other remedies. Most of those other remedies will involve, believe it or not, legislative proposals. Thus, the dererrence to future presidents who follow the Bush-Cheney tradition of violating all laws and checks on power will be the knowledge that during the administration following Bush-Cheney some bills were passed criminalizing what had always been criminal activity.
Rumor has it there are two panels being planned for the hearing, one consisting of Kucinich and four other members of Congress (Jane Harman, Walter Jones, Brad Miller, and Maurice Hinchey), and the other consisting of five non-Congress Members (Elizabeth Holtzman, Bruce Fein, Frederick Schwartz, John Dean, and Bob Barr). Each of these speakers will likely have 5 minutes for opening remarks. So, Kucinich’s presentation of the impeachable offenses of 7.5 years will be limited to 5 minutes. The hope of those planning this affair will be to bury impeachment.
Here’s why they’ll fail. Holtzman and Fein — and Kucinich — are among the most persuasive advocates for impeachment alive. At least those three speakers, it is safe to assume, will be standing up for our Constitution. Another you can add to that list is committee member Robert Wexler. Others are committee members Sheila Jackson-Lee and Tammy Baldwin. It is safe to assume that these members will direct their questioning to the need for impeachment and the advocates of beginning it. Plus Hinchey favors impeachment too.
Other supporters of impeachment on the committee are Keith Ellison, Steve Cohen, Hank Johnson, and Maxine Waters, as well as Luis Gutierrez and Anthony Weiner. Zoe Lofgren is also likely to speak up for impeachment. And those in the room as audience will be overwhelmingly defenders of our Constitution. But you can help defend it without coming to Washington. Here’s how:
Contact the members of the Judiciary Committee and insist that they be there on Friday the 25th and that they speak up for impeachment:
afterdowningstreet.org/judiciarycommittee
(Original Article)
Impeach!