Impeach.TV

Impeachment Cosponsors Wanted!

Bob Fertik — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:55:35 -0400

FL19: Robert Wexler
CA06: Lynn Woolsey
CA09: Barbara Lee
NY22: Maurice Hinchey
WI02: Tammy Baldwin
CA17: Sam Farr

CA08: Cindy Sheehan
(indy v. Nancy Pelosi)
CA24: Mary Pallant
MA01: Bob Feuer
(primary John Olver)
NY08: Adam Sullivan
(primary Jerry Nadler)
WA06: Paul Richmond
(primary Norm Dicks)

Rep. Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment, H.Res. 1258, needs Cosponsors so we can pressure Speaker Pelosi and Judiciary Chairman John Conyers into starting impeachment hearings. (We will update the list on the right as we learn of new cosponsors.)

You can play a crucial role in persuading your Representative to be a cosponsor!

Email your Representatives to support Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment
Call your Rep. at 202-224-3121
Call your favorite talk shows and tell everyone who supports impeachment to sign the petition at Democrats.com
Login and click local to meet your neighbors and plan local lobbying actions:
- organize a "Honk To Impeach" event
- turn out and ask questions at community events your Representative will be attending
- pass resolutions by Democratic clubs, local governments, unions, civic and veterans' groups, etc.
- ask community leaders to speak out

Of course most incumbent Democrats and all Republicans have turned a deaf ear to all of our lobbying. So we're also active in House races, encouraging Democratic challengers to endorse H.Res. 1258, and we are listing them above. (We also listed independent Cindy Sheehan because Speaker Pelosi abused the unique power as Speaker by declaring impeachment "off the table," even though it's not her table, but ours!)

Wexler Lights Impeachment Fire in Congress

Bob Fertik — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:24:29 -0500

As promised, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) went to the floor of the House to demand impeachment hearings, and he set the House on fire with his passion! Watch for yourself:

You can see Wexler holding the printed signatures of nearly 200,000 activists from Democrats.com and our pro-impeachment allies. (And thanks for thanking all of us, Rep. Wexler!)

Bush impeachment debate focuses on subpoenas

davidswanson — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:30:33 -0400

McClellan Strengthens Wexler's Case for Impeaching Cheney

Bob Fertik — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:47:53 -0400

When Scott McClellan testified before the Judiciary Committee on Friday, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) only got 5 minutes. But he used it brilliantly as you can see.

Wexler wants to know who told Scooter Libby to leak Plame's identity, and narrows the suspects down to Bush and Cheney. If McClellan believes Bush was innocent, then that leaves Cheney.

Could there be a more impeachable offense than willfully exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative - endangering her life, the lives of her sources, and her entire anti-WMD program - as a way to "get" her husband for telling the truth about Bush's pre-war lies?

You go, Wexler!

The Declaration of Independence as a Tool of Impeachment

Jesai — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:20:38 -0400

Hi Folks: June 18th, 2008

We are involved in public readings/performances of the Declaration of Independence which highlights the similarity between King George and the current administration of the US. Looking for as many people as possible to read/record/perform/present such presentations. Live readings are happening in NYC now through the Society for Ethical Culture: Ethical Communications Committee and Social Service Board.

When people hear it they say "Is that really what's in it?" "Isn't that happening now with our own government.?"

House Sends Impeachment to John Conyers

Bob Fertik — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:47:06 -0400

By a bipartisan vote of 251-166, the full House of Representatives sent Dennis Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment to the Judiciary Committee.

That means Chairman John Conyers now has the power to decide whether to hold impeachment hearings - or not.

Incredibly, 24 Republicans voted with 227 Democrats; the 166 no votes came exclusively from Republicans.

So what will Conyers do? After the Downing Street Memo was published on May 1, 2005, Democrats.com worked closely with Conyers to hold the famous basement hearings featuring Cindy Sheehan, Ray McGovern, and John Bonifaz. In August 2006, Conyers published all of the evidence of Bush's crimes in The Constitution in Crisis. Many of us believed he would begin impeachment proceedings if Democrats won the House, which they did that November.

But in the spring of 2006, Nancy Pelosi declared impeachment "off the table." And when Democrats took control and Conyers was sworn in as Judiciary Chairman, he fell firmly into line behind the Speaker. (Conyers insists Pelosi did not threaten to deny him the Chairmanship.)

Since 2005, Conyers has received millions of impeachment petitions. Hundreds if not thousands of activists have spoken to him personally. But he remains adamantly opposed to hearings, for one simple reason: he fears it will hurt the Democratic candidate for President (now Barack Obama) in November.

Of course there isn't one scintilla of evidence to support Conyers' fear. It is based entirely on the 1998 election, when Newt Gingrich turned the Starr Report (published online on September 9) into a campaign issue but lost a small number of seats by overplaying the issue in TV ads. Despite those small losses, Republicans held the majority and voted to impeach Clinton six weeks after the election, on December 19. And two years later, despite a massively unpopular impeachment, Republican George Bush got close enough to Al Gore to steal the election. And one reason it was close was that Democrats believed impeachment made Clinton too "toxic" to campaign even in Arkansas, which would have put Gore over the top in the Electoral College even without Florida.

And there is no comparison between impeaching Clinton for consensual sex and impeaching Bush for 35 High Crimes, including a disastrous war of aggression based on lies. And the difference is reflected in polls - only 26% of Americans wanted to impeach Clinton in 1998, while 43% of Americans wanted to impeach Bush in our last poll on July 8, 2007. (The Corporate Media adamantly refuses to ask about impeachment in their own polls. You can email all the pollsters here.)

So the election fear that has paralyzed Conyers and the Democrats isn't just baseless, it's idiotic. Bush's polls are now lower than Richard Nixon's ever were. The American people are sick of Bush and can't wait to get rid of him.

Here at Democrats.com, we will continue to do everything we can to persuade Conyers and every other House Democrat to support impeachment. To be effective, we need your support - emails, calls, and especially local organizing.

Now that Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment are before the House Judiciary Committee, the battle is just beginning. And Kucinich feels exactly the same way:

"Leadership wants to bury it, but this is one resolution that will be coming back from the dead," Kucinich told Capitol Briefing. "Thirty days from now, if there is no action, I will be bringing the resolution up again, and I won't be the only one reading it."

Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) has not commented on whether he plans to hold hearings, and Kucinich said he would meet with Conyers this week to present him with documentation for his charges against Bush. But if there is no further action, Kucinich said, "We'll come back and many of us will be reading this [on the House floor], and we'll come back with 60 articles, not 35."

Amen!!!

Comparison of Impeachment Stories Reveals the Intellectual Death of the Washington Post

Bob Fertik — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:16:08 -0400

Here is today's pathetic page 2 Pentagon Post article about impeachment by cub reporter Ben Pershing. The article almost completely ignores the substance of Kucinich's 35 Articles, and instead is infused with Pershing's attitude towards Kucinich, which can be described in one word: loser.

Kucinich Forces Vote On Bush's Impeachment

Having failed in efforts to impeach Vice President Cheney, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) escalated his battle against the administration this week by introducing 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush, using a parliamentary maneuver that will probably force a vote today.

Kucinich's impeachment measure accuses Bush of taking the country to war in Iraq under false pretenses; he introduced it as a "privileged resolution," which requires the House to take it up within two legislative days. Any lawmaker may offer a privileged resolution, but it is usually done only by party leaders.

Kucinich, upon introducing his articles of impeachment Monday evening, insisted on reading the resolution into the Congressional Record, a process that took nearly five hours. He finished reading it late yesterday after the close of legislative business.

As they have previously, Democratic leaders staunchly oppose Kucinich's impeachment effort. They expect to table the resolution by referring it to the Judiciary Committee, where they expect it to die.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) suggested yesterday that engaging in a lengthy debate over impeaching Bush in the waning days of his administration is not a productive use of the House's time.

Kucinich tried a similar maneuver last November, bringing an impeachment measure against Cheney to the floor as a privileged resolution. It was referred to the Judiciary Committee.

Of course the Washington Post gained fame for its coverage of the impeachment of Richard Nixon. So let's compare the introduction of Articles of Impeachment against Richard Nixon. Here is a summary compiled by Barbara Ellis in her excellent white paper on the Nixon Flooding Plan:

On June 12, 1973, Rep. Pete Stark - who is still in Congress! - introduced the first resolution for an impeachment investigation, H.Res. 431. On July 31, Rep. Father Drinan introduced the first actual Article of Impeachment, H.Res. 513. But Drinan's resolution had 0 co-sponsors. The first Article of Impeachment to get a co-sponsor was introduced on October 24, 1973 by Bella Abzug (H.Res. 650), which ultimately had 16 co-sponsors.

To measure the intellectual death of the Washington Post, here is Jules Witcover's page 1 article from October 21, 1973, three days before Abzug's resolution was introduced.

Pressure for Impeachment Mounting

Demands for the impeachment of President Nixon mounted swiftly last night in the wake of his firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and the resignations of Attorney General Elliott L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus.

Within the White House, sources reported an immediate reaction of "shock" among presidential aides to Mr. Nixon's action and an expectation that it was now inevitable that Congress would move to impeach him.

Members of the House and Senate -- from both parties -- expressed dismay at the President's moves. One member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerome R. Waldie (D-Calif.), said flatly that he will introduce an impeachment resolution when the House reconvenes, probably Tuesday. So did Rep. Ogden R. Reid (D-N.Y.), a one-time Republican.

Waldie charged that Mr. Nixon "in one wild move has removed the few remaining men of demonstrable integrity in the administration."

The action, he said, leaves no doubt that release of the Watergate tapes in Mr. Nixon's possession "would prove the President's complicity in the crime of obstructing justice and would make him impeachable."

The President would rather withhold the tapes and make the matter of impeachment a test of "the guts of the members of Congress, which he considers a better bet," Waldie said.

Three of the most prestigious Democrats in the Senate -- Stuart Symington of Missouri, Edmund S. Muskie of Maine and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts -- all indicated their belief that Mr. Nixon's actions made impeachment proceedings more likely.

Muskie said the President's actions "are of such gravity and consequence to our form of government" that the House should consider impeachment proceedings. "What the President has done," he said, "threatens to destroy our system of law. It smacks of dictatorship. Unless Congress responds in the only way provided in the Constitution for resisting such a usurpation of authority, we endanger our country's future."

Kennedy called the firing of Cox "a reckless act of desperation by a President who is afraid of the Supreme Court, who has no respect for law and no regard for men of conscience.

"It is obvious," he said, "that Mr. Nixon is bent on maintaining the Watergate cover-up at any cost. The burden is now on Congress and the courts to nullify this historic insult to the rule of law and to the nation's system of justice."

Symington charged that the President "has now violated his solemn obligation to the Senate" on Richardson's independence, and said "there is no question that whatever the chances for impeachment were before, they have been materially increased."

Republicans also saw impeachment down the road for Mr. Nixon. Rep. John B. Anderson (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Republican Conference, said "the President has precipitated a constitutional crisis" and he predicted impeachment resolutions would be introduced this week.

Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.) said, "This act on the part of the President, under the circumstances, is sufficient evidence which the House of Representatives should consider to begin impeachment proceedings."

Rep. John N. Erlenhorn (R-Ill.), a moderate, said he, too, expected impeachment proceedings and predicted that the vote for removing Mr. Nixon "will be significant," but he would not say whether he thought it would succeed. He called the President "ill-advised" for his action yesterday, and for withholding the tapes.

Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) in a telephone interview from Oregon, said, "It seems to me the President is almost intent on committing political hara-kiri."

While saying he is still hopeful that "we can resolve this short of impeachment," Hatfield said the President's action "invites far more serious consideration" to taking that step than before.

Hatfield also said the President's actions would seem to put "in jeopardy" his nomination of Rep. Gerald R. Ford to be Vice President, succeeding the resigned Spiro T. Agnew.

The Oregon Republican noted that several Democrats had indicated they wanted to withhold action on Ford's nomination pending release of the White House tapes by Mr. Nixon. I wouldn't be surprised to see Jerry Ford held hostage," he said.

Ford was one of the few voices heard last night in support of Mr. Nixon's actions. "The President had no other choice, after Cox -- who was, after all, a subordinate -- refused to accept the compromise solution to the tapes issue," he said.

Agreeing with Ford was Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.). "I don't know what other choice the President had" he said. "It's a question of who's the President -- Nixon or Cox." Dole said whether impeachment proceedings start depends on what each man says and the reaction on Capitol Hill to the President's proposed compromise on the tapes, in which he would have provided a summary of the contents, and let Sen. John Stennis (D-Miss.) listen to the tapes for verification.

One House member, Rep. Donald M. Fraser (D-Minn.), national chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, said the President left the House "no choice but to proceed with impeachment," and he proposed that the House hire Cox as its special counsel to explore grounds to impeach Mr. Nixon.

Cox himself in his statement of the President's action against him implied that the next proper step was impeachment. "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people," he said.

Until last night, Congress had appeared to be extremely reluctant to even consider the impeachment step seriously. But there had been growing signals that if the President eventually bucked the judiciary branch on the issue of the White House tapes, it could provide the catalyst for action.

In discharging Cox and closing down his special Watergate investigation, the President appears to have averted that direct confrontation. But in so doing, he appears at the same time to have assured another, more direct one with Congress on the ultimate question: whether Watergate and its attendant machinations will drive him from the White House.

Of course the "underlying crime" of Watergate was a "second-rate burglary" of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel by White House operatives.

The famous Watergate investigation by WaPo's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein tried to figure out who the White House - authorized the break-in. And Congress tried to go beyond the journalistic efforts of "WoodStein" by using its subpoena power to examine evidence of Nixon's personal involvement - including the famous Oval Office tapes whose existence was dramatically revealed in Congressional testimony by Alexander Butterworth.

Intellectually, it's impossible to compare the "second-rate burglary" with the innumerable High Crimes of the Bush Administration, only 35 of which are documented in Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment.

The closest analogy is the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, but the seriousness of that crime eclipses the seriousness of the "second-rate burglary."

And Nixon did not participate in the decision to break in to the Watergate, while Bush probably did participate in the decision to expose Valerie Plame, according to the extraordinary investigative blogging of "emptywheel" (a.k.a. Marcy Wheeler), who deserves a Pulitzer infinitely more than "WoodStein."

According to Marcy, the first evidence of Bush's involvement was the note Scooter Libby wrote to himself on June 9, 2003, one month before Libby, Rove, and their gang quietly outed Plame.

Libby told the Grand Jury he couldn't remember how he learned P (President Bush) was interested in Nicholas Kristof's NY Times op ed about an unnamed former ambassador's trip to Niger, which was published three days earlier.

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.

There's a pretty strong clue here - the mention of the "vice president's office," which set off alarm bells there - and probably reached P himself, although Libby wouldn't admit it to the Grand Jury. (Libby, as we know, was convicted of lying to that Grand Jury.)

And here is the most recent "dot" Marcy connected:

Scottie McC's denial--which is not one, not by a long shot--only addresses the method of the leak, the fact that Scooter and Shooter leaked via the old A1 cut-out using Judy Judy Judy. After raising the question of whether or not Bush had authorized the content that Valerie was covert ... Scottie McC said nothing.

In Watergate terminology, I'd call that a "non-denial non-denial."

So why is the Pentagon Post so contemptuous of the first serious effort to impeach George Bush for the outing of Valerie Plame - and 34 other indisputable High Crimes?

Because the Post, like the rest of the Corporate Media, has become fatally corrupt - and intellectually dead.

Impeachment: Where Olbermann, Turley, and Fineman Are Wrong

Bob Fertik — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:48:58 -0400

Kucinich's historic Articles of Impeachment were the top story on Tuesday's Countdown with Keith Olbermann - which is now the #1 cable news show, beating out The O'Reilly Factor for the first time.

Olbermann and his guests treated Kucinich with tremendous respect - which formed a sharp contrast to the nasty coverage Kucinich received last November (led by the ineffable Countdown regular Dana Milbank) when he introduced 3 Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Cheney.

But there was still a fundamental problem with the analysis by Olbermann, Georgetown Law Professor Jonathan Turley, and Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman: they missed three of the five major reasons for impeaching a President:

To stop one or more criminal activities being committed by the President
To put the President on trial for those criminal activities as a political punishment
To remove him or her from office as a limited form of accountability, namely losing the powers and trappings of the Presidency
To allow a President to be prosecuted under the law for full accountability, which is prohibited while (s)he is in office
To deter future Presidents from committing similar crimes

In the minds of Olbermann, Turley, and Fineman, the only reasons to impeach George Bush are #2 and #3 - to put Bush on trial and possibly remove him. But why are they missing the other three reasons?

1. Remarkably, none of them want to recognize that Bush's criminal activities are ongoing. The closest anyone got was Olbermann saying Bush should be removed even with just a few months remaining in his term because every day he is taking America to hell in a handbasket. But that was a ridiculously weak statement compared with the searing indictments in Olbermann's own "Special Comments."

In Iraq, Bush is still occupying a country that he invaded illegally at massive cost in blood and treasure, and his agents are still committing war crimes in some of their actions against civilians and prisoners. Here at home, Bush is still wiretapping Americans without a warrant, still defying Acts of Congress with signing statements, and still destroying all the evidence of his crimes to obstruct justice.

So the first reason to impeach Bush is to finally stop him from committing all of these crimes!

4. The concept of post-office prosecution was entirely absent from the conversation. Here Turley deserves the most blame, because he is the only lawyer among the three of them. Surely he understands that a former President can be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office. And when it comes to war crimes, there is no statute of limitations.

5. The concept of deterring a future President was also entirely absent.

So why did they ignore these three reasons, which are completely obvious to everyone in the impeachment movement?

Because the Washington elite - even the most "liberal" - refuse to recognize Bush's activities as not just bad policies, but actual crimes.

More broadly, they refuse to see George Bush and his administration as a criminal enterprise.

Here at Democrats.com, we recognized this shocking fact from the day they stole the Presidential election in Florida by order of a 5-4 Republican majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. That's because we recognized that the 2000 election was literally stolen through illegal voter disenfranchisement, most famously the "felon" purge uncovered by Greg Palast.

Until HBO broadcast "Recount," the Washington elite refused to even discuss the possibility that the 2000 election was stolen by George Bush and his corrupt Republican cronies on the Supreme Court. And now it is so long ago that none of them remember or care about the crimes.

But we at Democrats.com remember the Stolen Election of 2000 like it was yesterday. And despite the demands then - and even now from the Felon-in-Chief, Justice Antonin Scalia - we will never get over it.

And that's why we will insist on holding George Bush and Dick Cheney fully accountable for all of their crimes until the day they die.

Of course, those of us who understood that Bush stole the White House - and has led a criminal enterprise in the White House ever since - are not permitted on TV to articulate what 70% of Americans know deep in their hearts, because those of us who believe in "quaint" things like the Constitution and the Rule of Law are just DFH's - "dirty f**ing hippies."

But maybe someday soon Olbermann will let us on his show to finally break the deafening silence...

Impeachment Happening in Congress Right Now!

davidswanson — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:27:57 -0400

Congressman Dennis Kucinich is on the floor of the House of Representatives right now introducing 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Yes, 35. He'll be reading for a while.

Watch C-Span Now!

If you don't have cable, go to a bar and tell them to put it on C-Span 1!

Or watch at the Video/Audio tab at
http://c-span.org

Take your laptop outside and turn the volume up!

More details coming later tonight!

Action in the House coming later this week!

Good websites to watch for updates and actions:
http://kucinich.us

http://democrats.com

http://afterdowningstreet.org

Let Justice roll down like waters in a mighty stream . . .

There's going to be at least one article of impeachment that interests you and perhaps even mentions you. Watch for updates.

David Swanson and Elizabeth de la Vega

davidswanson — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:39:04 -0400