by Dave Lindorff

The largely unstated word at the massive anti-war demonstration and march in Washington on Saturday was “impeachment.” Not that it wasn’t on demonstrators’ lips and signs, but it wasn’t coming from the podium.

The march, organized by United for Peace and Justice, was instead deliberately focused narrowly on the issue of ending the war in Iraq and preventing an invasion of Iran. But clearly, behind that was the sense that the US government is in the hands of a cabal of warmongers and anti-democratic usurpers who are intent on broadening the war in the Middle East, not ending it , and that the Democrats in the 110th Congress haven’t got the spine to stop them (a group from Seattle actually addressed this with a giant white spine float emblazoned with the words “investigate, impeach, indict”).

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the new head of the House Judiciary Committee, was a late addition to the roster of speakers at the rally on the National Mall. He told the cheering throng that while Bush may have been “firing the generals who tell him that we’re losing the war in Iraq,” he “can’t fire you.” Then he added, in a none-too-veiled hint that impeachment may be coming, “But we can fire him!”

The crowd went wild, with chants of “Impeach him!”

The stage has been set.

Read More at CounterPunch

Filed under: Blog, In the News, Video, Impeachment Strategy, Democrats' New Power, Iraq War Crimes, Oversight/Investigations
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by Mike Sheehan

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) says the White House is “up to its old tricks” as it preps for a U.S. attack on Iran, according to a press release.

The 2008 Democratic presidential candidate warns that Bush’s actions could result in impeachment.

Kucinich accuses the Bush administration “of mounting a media blitz to prepare the U.S. public for an eventual attack on Iran,” according to the release, which cites a report that the President authorized the military to kill Iranians operating inside Iraq.

“The White House is up to its old tricks again,” says Kucinich, accusing the administration of “providing information by anonymous sources and portraying Iran as an aggressor in Iraq.” He continues, “The President is mischaracterizing U.S. action vis à vis Iran. In fact, the U.S. is already engaged in offensive and provocative acts against Iran.

“The President’s strategy, by portraying our involvement as only being on the defensive, is laying out the groundwork for him to attack Iran and bypass authorization by Congress.”

The six-term Congressmember, a long-time advocate for peace, blasts “the White House spin machine” for “providing justification for a new war … against Iran.” He adds, “The Washington Post is quoting strategically placed Administration sources who are providing justification for an attack… This new twist on Iran, a country this Administration refuses to have free and open diplomatic talks with, is stating the Administration’s case for war.”

Kucinich closes by warning, “The degree to which this President continues to take steps to go to war against Iran without consulting with the full Congress is the degree to which he is increasingly putting himself in jeopardy of an impeachment proceeding.”

The full release is available at Rep. Kucinich’s official site.

Read More at Raw Story

Filed under: Blog, In the News, Impeachment Strategy, Constitutional Crisis, Democrats' New Power, Iraq War Crimes, 2008 Election News
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by John Nichols

The news from former vice presidential chief of staff “Scooter” Libby’s trial on charges of obstructing a federal investigation — particularly the revelation that Vice President Dick Cheney wrote a memo that effectively confirms his intimate involvement in strategizing about how to counter the inquiry into the Bush administration’s politically-motivated outing of CIA operative Valarie Plame — should slowly but surely edge the prospect of impeachment back onto the table from which Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi removed it.

Cheney is expected to testify in the Libby trial and, if a federal jury rejects his testimony as less than credible, that would seem to create an appropriate opening for members of the House who take seriously their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution to entertain a discussion of impeaching the vice president.

Intriguingly, Cheney almost found himself in the middle of the discussion this week.

Prior to CNN personality Wolf Blitzer’s testy-if-not-particularly substantive interview with the vice president on Wednesday, the network’s resident rabble rouser, commentator Jack Cafferty, presented a reasonably favorable feature on a move by New Mexico state Senators Jerry Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, and John Grubesic, D-Santa Fe, to get that state’s legislature to petition Congress to impeach both Cheney and Bush.

Read More at The Nation

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Dave Lindorf: Conyers Puts Abuse of Power “On the Table”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have taken impeachment “off the table,” but House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI) is about to put it back on the menu.

Conyers may have been blocked by a timid Pelosi from initiating impeachment hearings immediately into President Bush’s crimes against the Constitution, but he’s taken the first step anyway, with the anouncement of plans to hold hearings into what is surely the President’s gravest abuse of power.

The congressman, a veteran of the Nixon impeachment hearings who recently published a book on Bush’s crimes, today announced plans to have his Judiciary Committee hold hearings on Bush’s rampant use of so-called “signing statements.” These are the documents the president has claimed give him the power, as a commander-in-chief, to ignore laws duly passed by the Congress.

Bush has used this bogus claim to ignore all or parts of some 1,200 laws
passed by Congress. He has done it willfully, and he has done it
deceptively, often adding the signing statement saying he will be ignoring a law after having first hosted a friendly photo-op signing session at which he offer no indication that he had any problem with a measure.

The first Judiciary Committee hearing is set for January 31.

Hopefully this will be followed by more Judiciary hearings into the president’s other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Readers should encourage Conyers in his efforts, and urge him to follow through, by sending messages of support to John Conyers.

source: BuzzFlash.com

Filed under: Blog, In the News, Video, Impeachment Strategy, Constitutional Crisis, Democrats' New Power
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Sen. Jim Webb handles the response to Bush’s State of the Union Address. “The (American) Middle Class … is losing its place at the table ….”

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by David E. Sanger and Jim Rutenberg, New York Times

It was a speech that reflected Mr. Bush’s difficult circumstances. It was limited in ambition and political punch at home, with no proposals to rival his call two years ago to remake Social Security, no mention of rebuilding New Orleans and no allusions to limiting stem cell research or banning gay marriage.

And when it came to his plan to send additional troops to Iraq, he was forced to plead with the Democrats who now control Congress — and with a growing number of Republican critics — to “give it a chance to work.”

In an admission that the United States now finds itself trapped in the cross-fire of a sectarian conflict, Mr. Bush said, “This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in.” While he insisted that America could not afford to fail, he also warned the Iraqi government that “our commitment is not open-ended.”

Read More at the NEW YORK TIMES

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By JENNIFER LOVEN. AP WRITER. WASHINGTON — On the day after came the grumbling. The White House warned for days ahead of President Bush’s State of the …
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By Steve Holland. Jan 24, 2007 — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, bearing the weight of six years in office, down in the polls and under …
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WASHINGTON: It was a night of firsts for President George W Bush’s State of the Union address to Congress: a Democratic Congress, a woman seated in the …
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AP. WASHINGTON - On the day after came the grumbling. The White House warned for days ahead of President Bush’s State of the Union address that changed …

DOWNLOAD: State of the Union Speech 2007

Filed under: Blog, In the News, Constitutional Crisis, Karl Rove, Mainstream Media, Democrats' New Power, GOP, Iraq War Crimes
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by Jorge Hirsch

However, Congress could pass a law making a nuclear attack on a non-nuclear nation in the absence of Congressional authorization illegal. In so doing, Congress would effectively be preventing Bush from launching any attack against Iran without its authorization, thus reclaiming its broader constitutionally assigned duties. Because Bush will not dare putting 150,000 American lives in Iraq at risk of Iranian retaliation without having the nuclear option on the table. By removing the nuclear option from the Bush toolkit, Congress would be forcefully imposing its will and that of the American people on an administration gone mad.

If Congress chooses not to face the fact that US military action against Iran is likely to lead to the first US use of nuclear weapons since Nagasaki, each one of its members will share responsibility for the nefarious chain of events that is likely to follow, and should be preparing to face his/her very own nuclear Nuremberg trial.

Read More at antiwar.com 

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by Neerav B. Trivedi

For the last six years, President Bush and his Republican Party have run rampart over our Constitution – using it to violate our Constitutional rights as American citizens, commit ordinary, as well as political crimes, and start and perpetuate wars based not only on lies and manipulated intelligence, but based on greed, oil, and world domination (in the false guise of “spreading democracy in the world”), resulting in tremendous chaos, as well as rampart death and destruction. President Bush and his Administration still invoke the September 11th terrorist attacks to justify the so-called “war on terror”, which has all but failed, as the main culprit of the September 11th terrorist attacks – Osama bin Laden, is still alive, with his henchmen, plotting the next move against the American people, and their interests, while laughing at our innumerable failures. President Bush and his Administration used and abused the patriotic fervor, present after the September 11th terrorist attacks to violate the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and to go to war against a sovereign nation, which neither had anything to do with the September 11th terrorist attacks, no had any of the so-called “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMDs), which essentially distracted us from the real purpose of this “global war on terror”, which is to get the real perpetrators of the September 11th terrorist attacks – Osama bin Laden and his henchmen. Instead of catch these perpetrators, we instead go to war in both Afghanistan and Iraq to build “puppet governments”, used as stepping stones to more greed, oil, and both socio-economic, as well as political power, in the Middle East.

Read More at TPMCafe.com

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By James Lileks

Peevish, dissatisfied, weary and dismissive: That’s how the conservative base feels about their president. Granted, they think Bush is better than Hillary, whom they believe should be skywriting “Surrender Dorothy” over the Emerald City. But a politician eager to capture the nomination for ‘08 would do well to ask:

After six years of one-party rule, what does the base have besides some peeling bumper stickers and a few judicial appointments? What consolation do they clutch to their bosom? For the last few years the Republican base wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Katrina reconstruction has been contracted to Dubai firms, and Harriet Miers will oversee the work. Could it get worse? Of course.

Read More at Newhouse News Services

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by John Nichols, The Nation

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, is today introducing legislation to uniquivocally “prohibit the use of funds for an escalation of United States forces in Iraq above the numbers existing as of January 9, 2007.”

Kennedy voted against authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq and he has been a consistent critic of the war. But this targeted piece of legislation specifically addresses the “surge” being proposed by the president.

Even more importantly, Kennedy’s bill reasserts the role of Congress in a time of war. The Constitution allows the president to serve as commander-in-chief and affords him reasonable war-making powers in that role. But it reserves for Congress the power of the purse, and the founders were clear in their believe that the House and Senate should use that power to constrain a president who is waging war without reason or sound strategies.

The Congress has frequently used the power of the purse to control presidential war-making. Kennedy points to examples from the Vietnam era, but there are also examples from just the past quarter century of the Congress specifically embracing troops caps in Lebanon, in the European NATO countries and in Colombia. Indeed, as the Center for American Progress notes in a detailed new report, “Congressional Limitations and Requirements for Military Deployments and Funding,” the Congress has a rich record of stepping in to prevent presidents from expanding U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts.

Read More at The Nation

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source: indybay.org

Will other members of congress support the action Congresswoman McKinney has brought forth?

At the table in what could be considered her impeachment “war room” the question is brought up a number of times.

Mike, an advisor to McKinney, mentions, “Conyers was supposed to have investigations. They were chomping at the bit 6 months ago to do subpoenas.”

McKinney quietly replies, “Now they say they aren’t even going to issue subpoenas.”

Looking up from her papers she takes a deep breath, “I’m going in alone on this one because now it is all about them playing majority politics.”

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