Here’s a great post from the Daily Kos about how the RNC is desperately pleeding Republicans to not abandon Bush in the run up to the November election.
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By Daniel Barlow
Town Meeting representatives overwhelmingly called for a congressional investigation into President Bush’s actions and policies Saturday to determine if he should be impeached. Brattleboro is the sixth Vermont town to pass such a resolution this month.
The resolution passed by a large majority of Brattleboro’s 140 Town Meeting representatives in a voice vote came at the end of a daylong meeting and spurred about 90 minutes of debate that highlighted the political divisions in this Windham County town of 12,000.
Read More at the Rutland Herald
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By W. Dale Nelson
Albany County Democrats (in Wyoming) rejected a platform plank calling for an impeachment investigation of President Bush after opponents argued Sunday that it would hurt the chances of Democratic candidates in Wyoming.
“The conversation at this point needs to be, ‘How do we win elections?’” Edward Janak argued. “And having this plank in our platform is not going to win anybody any election.”
Read More at the Casper Star Tribune
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By Michael Powell
To drive through the mill towns and curling country roads here is to journey into New England’s impeachment belt. Three of this state’s 10 House members have called for the investigation and possible impeachment of President Bush.
Thirty miles north, residents in four Vermont villages voted earlier this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock salt, approve school budgets, and impeach the president for lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for sanctioning torture.
Read More at the Washington Post
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By Harvey Wasserman
By pledging to prolong the slaughter, Bush endangers both our troops and our national security.
The war is destroying the American army. It recruits and trains hordes of anti-American terrorists. It is dividing and bankrupting our nation.
Impeachment and removal have become vitally necessary to preserve whatever defenses the US has left against international terrorism.
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By Paul Joseph Watson
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show and addressing the port sell-out, (Republican Congressman Ron) Paul stated that, “it probably will contribute to the Republican’s failure in the next election.”
Asked if the Democrats would use gains in the mid-term elections to set in motion impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush, Paul responded,
“I predict that would happen.”
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By Paul Joseph Watson
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show and addressing the port sell-out, (Republican Congressman Ron) Paul stated that, “it probably will contribute to the Republican’s failure in the next election.”
Asked if the Democrats would use gains in the mid-term elections to set in motion impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush, Paul responded,
“I predict that would happen.”
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By Kathryn Casa
As patriots go, Dan DeWalt looks the part. With his ponytail and winter beard, a pair of breeches and a musket would put him right into character in 1775.
But it was no act earlier this month when DeWalt fired the opening salvo of his revolution. Only this time, the shot heard ’round the world came not from a rebel in Massachusetts but from a selectman in Vermont. And rather than start a shooting war, it was meant to put a stop to one.
DeWalt, 49, is as mystified as anybody at his international star status as the author of a town meeting resolution, which Newfane voters passed 121-29, calling for the impeachment of Pres. George Bush, in part because he “used falsehoods to lead our nation to war unsupported by international law.”
Read More at the Vermont Guardian
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By Peter Phillips
Polls show that nearly a majority of Americans favor impeachment. In October of 2005, Public Affairs Research found that 50% of Americans said that President Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war in Iraq. A Zogby International poll from early November 2005 found that 53% of Americans say, “If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment.” A March 16, 2006 poll by American Research Group showed that 42% of Americans favored impeaching Bush.
The corporate media is ignoring the broadening call for impeachment - wishing perhaps it will just go away. Television news and talk shows have mentioned impeachment over 100 times in the past 30 days, mostly however in the context of Senator Russ Feingold’s censure bill and the lack of broad Democrat support for censure or impeachment. Nothing on television news gives the impression that millions of Americans are calling for the impeachment of Bush and his cohorts.
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Feingold says that censure actually represents “moderation” and calls the terrorist surveillance program an impeachable offense. Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, fails to rule out impeachment if Democrats retake Congress. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin is talking “high crimes and misdemeanors.” And 31 House Democrats are calling for a committee to look into impeachment. Their leader? John Conyers, who would become House Judiciary Committee chairman under Democrat control.
The Democrats’ plan for 2006? Take the House and Senate, and impeach the President. With our nation at war, is this the kind of Congress you want?
Yes, that’s what we want!!
From Alternet
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By Don Van Natta
(B)ehind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair’s top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
“Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning,” David Manning, Mr. Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
“The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March,” Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. “This was when the bombing would begin.”
Read More at the New York Times
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by Chris Lehmann
(Former Democratic National Committee press secretary Terri) Michael said, the reigning mentality among Democratic leaders is that “if we take a stand, we risk defeat. That’s a chicken-shit refusal to have a real debate …. The Democratic establishment and the press establishment won’t let that debate happen.”Senator Feingold seems placidly determined to ignore all that. “Guess what? They’re out of touch,” he said. “That story is finally emerging, now that polls are showing popular support for a censure. It just shows that people in that town are only talking to each other. You can publish that. That’s on the record.”
Read More at the New York Observer
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By Lewis H. Lapham
The Conyers report doesn’t lack for further instances of the administration’s misconduct, all of them noted in the press over the last three years—misuse of government funds, violation of the Geneva Conventions, holding without trial and subjecting to torture individuals arbitrarily designated as “enemy combatants,” etc.—but conspiracy to commit fraud would seem reason enough to warrant the President’s impeachment.
Read More at Harper’s Magazine
Also, AlterNet talks to Lapham about why he decided to write this controversial article.
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By W. Harrison Goodenow
Moderates of both parties are finally realizing and acknowledging that extremism breeds excess, that corruption spawns incompetence, and that the Bush administration’s performance is setting new records for all four. I have never called Bush a liar. I have accused him and his cohorts of willfully distorting and exaggerating those things that suited their purpose, but I have always stopped short of calling him a liar—and I don’t intend to start now. I don’t have to. Everyone who saw the recently and very belatedly released videotape footage of Max Mayfield, head of the National Hurricane Center, expressing to Bush directly, via a secure teleconference hook-up, “a very, very grave concern” about New Orleans’ levees one day before Katrina made landfall, now knows the unvarnished truth. Bush simply lied when he told Diane Sawyer on Sept. 1, 2005, after Katrina hit, that “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”
Read the Full Letter at the Rock River Times
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By Lonna Gooden VanHorn
At their state convention last weekend the majority of New Mexico Democratic delegates voted for an amendment to their party platform calling for the impeachment of our imperial president, G.W. Bush.
If only the Democratic Leadership Council, the people who forced a man greatly admired by most of the people, Paul Hackett, out of the Ohio primary, would exhibit that kind of leadership!
It is amazing that when Clinton was impeached, only 26% of the population (Democrats and Republicans) were in favor of impeachment, but Republicans were so “outraged” a president would lie about his sex life, they went ahead with impeachment anyway.
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By Hal Marcovitz
The nascent impeachment movement may have few backers on Capitol Hill, but Democrat Andrew L. Warren said Tuesday that if he wins the 8th District race for Congress this year he would add his name to the list of supporters.
Speaking before an audience in Quakertown, Warren endorsed the House bill that would create a panel to explore the impeachment of President Bush. The bill, introduced in December by Michigan Democrat John Conyers Jr., has 29 co-sponsors.
‘’I'd support it because I believe the president lied to the American people about the reasons for war,'’ Warren said. ‘’I believe there is enough evidence to begin the process of impeachment hearings.'’
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Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post on the myths and excuses that Democrats are using not to support Russ Feingold’s Censure resolution:
In order to generate further support for the Feingold Censure Resolution, numerous bloggers are encouraging everyone to pay an actual physical visit to their Senators’ local offices in order to urge support for censure. Anyone doing so is likely to encounter the two primary myths/excuses which have been concocted by Senators and others in order to justify their refusal to support the Resolution…
MYTH/EXCUSE NUMBER ONE: An investigation is needed before it can be known whether the President broke the law.
MYTH/EXCUSE NUMBER TWO: Republicans want this scandal to persist because it benefits them politically.
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By Carol Wolman
Patriotism means love of one’s country and of the principles for which it stands. The United States Constitution lays out our principles- respect for the individual and safeguarding of rights, separation of powers that are then balanced among three branches of government, ultimate sovereignty resting with “we the people”. All naturalized citizens promise to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is assumed that people born in the United States will do likewise.
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RAPID CITY, S.D. - Members of the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center staged a rally Friday in front of Rep. Stephanie Herseth’s office to seek support for impeaching the president.
“I feel like every person should have a voice in what’s happening in our nation today and there are people all over the country that aren’t going to settle for what’s going down in Iraq and sending our soldiers oversees to wars that are unjust,” said Teri Powell of South Dakota Peace and Justice.
“We’re here to ask (Rep.) Herseth’s staff to support impeachment of Bush and Cheney,” said Tom Diggins of Rapid City.
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Hume introduced the segment, “Democrats may be running away from Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold’s proposal to censure the president over the NSA phone intercept program, but they may run even faster when the question of impeachment is raised. As Fox News Chief Washington Correspondent Jim Angle reports, Feingold was talking openly about both ideas.”
JA: “Senator Russ Feingold went even further today in his campaign to censure the president, making clear he thinks that is the least Congress should do, that the president probably deserves even worse.”
Clip of Feingold: “I think this actually is in the area of an impeachable offense. I could be, I think it is right in the strike zone of what the Founding Fathers thought about when they talked about high crimes and misdemeanours.”
Comment: Of course, Angle and Hume are completely exaggerating Feingold’s comments and taking them out of context. His comments immediately prior to the statement Hume chose to show, and immediately following, put his actual opinion into a better light.
The lying is always a good sign that the Republicans are starting to sweat.
Read More at News Hounds
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LARAMIE — Democrats in Albany County will consider whether to adopt a platform that calls for the impeachment of President Bush.
The platform committee of the Albany County Democratic Party has voted unanimously in favor of presenting the impeachment resolution at the party’s county convention on March 26.
Read More at the Billings Gazette
Read More at the Jackson Hole Star Tribune
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And … a majority of Americans support it.
See the Poll at the American Research Group
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By David D. Kirkpatrick
With the Republican base demoralized by continued growth in government spending, undiminished violence in Iraq and intramural disputes over immigration, some conservative leaders had already begun rallying their supporters with speculation about a Democratic rebuke to the president even before Mr. Feingold made his proposal.
“Impeachment, coming your way if there are changes in who controls the House eight months from now,” Paul Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer, declared last month in an e-mail newsletter.
The threat of impeachment, Mr. Weyrich suggested, was one of the only factors that could inspire the Republican Party’s demoralized base to go to the polls. With “impeachment on the horizon,” he wrote, “maybe, just maybe, conservatives would not stay at home after all.”
It looks like a very difficult and nasty fight for both sides.
Read More at the New York Times
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U.S. Rep. Bernard Sanders has signed on as a co-sponsor to Rep John Conyers’ House Res 635. This legislation is calling for an investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses. This action is in response to what has happened in Vermont in the last few weeks. Five Vermont towns have passed local legislation supporting impeachment of President Bush. The actions of these small towns have added pressure to the Congressman who is seeking a Senate seat in November.
By David Gram, AP
“You can’t talk about impeachment unless you have the facts,” Sanders said. “Unlike Republicans who were prepared to impeach (President) Clinton because of his sexual behavior, I regard impeachment as far more serious than that.”
Nevertheless, Sanders said he had responded to votes in five Vermont town meetings last week calling for Bush’s impeachment by signing on as a co-sponsor to legislation submitted by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., last year.
Conyers’ resolution calls for “creating a select committee to investigate the administration’s intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.”
Read More at the Bennington Banner
See H Res 635 Scorecard at the Library of Congress
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Popular blogger and fact-finder Josh Marshall, of Talking Points Memo, has wrote an article against pursuing the impeachment of George W. Bush. He bases his argument, in part, on the theory that impeachment is a process that is (yes, you guessed it) … political. The argument against impeachment for political reasons is the raison du jour among progressives against the impeachment movement which has gained considerable strength in the last two months. Josh writes:
I’m in the camp of those who believe that impeachment is inherently political. None of the constitutional scholars who speak of this or that crime “rising to the level” of high crimes and misdemeanors makes any sense to me. Crimes that would lead to impeachment can’t be understood outside their particular political context. Or, to put it another way, the judicial crimes that a president might commit only become impeachable because they become political crimes.
Marshall is not an idiot. He is a very smart investigator who usually comes down on the side of truth and righteousness. But, even as I find myself agreeing with him most of the time, before I can do that this time I would like to hear what his thoughts are on the long-term effects of not exercising impeachment remedies thereby creating a new, lower standard for Constitutional Law that will be ripe for exploitation by future American presidents — perhaps ones that are much scarier than George W. Bush.
As Marshall points out, the definition of impeachment in the Constitution is vague. But, it is vague for a reason. It is intended to grow and be defined as our country grows and becomes defined. This means that like all law, it will always be measured by the cases that come before it. What are the consequences, for generations to come, of leaving gross violations of the Rule of Law by the Executive Branch unchecked?
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