filmed outside Earl
Blumenauers office at the weekl vigil for Day 508 Week 73 - Three (was four & one more (me) is Five Total) braved the
30 degree weather to satnd at the vigil for justice & accountability.
One year ago was week 22 day 154 .... we are still stand until Bush leaves
office on Jan 20 2009
On Nov 21, 2008, at 9:45 AM,
NIN Coordinator Susan Serpa (Boston) who made the trip to lobby Wexler wrote:
"I now believe the real reason they (Congress)
refuse their duty to impeach is that it is just too ugly to deal with. They are like the lazy housewife who
hates cleaning the garbage pail.Every time she lifts the lid to see what inside, it smells worse and worse, so she just slams the lid…walks away
and tends to other more manageable business instead.Meanwhile the pail is becoming more and more putrid until the day it poisons
the air in the whole kitchen—lid closed or not."
Lying about Iraqi WMD's to Congress and the American people
Causing the deaths of over 2,000 U.S. troops and the maiming of over 10,000 more
Failing to provide adequate equipment and armor to U.S. troops
Allowing illegal torture and murder of prisoners
Causing the deaths of 100,000 Iraqi civilians
Spending $300 billion in just two years for an occupation that could last for decades
Letting Halliburton steal billions through no-bid contracts
Using vast quantities of depleted uranium weapons that will poison Iraq now and for generations to come
September 11
Ignoring countless warnings of an attack in the U.S.
Reading "My Pet Goat" during the attack
Letting Osama Bin Laden escape from Afghanistan
Holding no bureaucrat accountable for ignoring warnings
Delaying and obstructing the 911 Commission investigation
Turning Afghanistan into the world's largest opium producer
Terrorism
Allowing international terrorism incidents to quadruple and trying to cover up the facts
Failing to secure our borders and ports to prevent terrorism
Creating a new generation of terrorists through the invasion of Iraq and the killing of 100,000 civilians
Letting terrorists buy high-powered weapons inside the U.S.
Letting North Korea build nuclear bombs and missiles that can cross the Pacific Ocean
Refusing to shut down Pakistan's nuclear weapons exports
Foreign relations
Turning the world against the United States
Preparing for another war with Iran
Signing treaties that cost America jobs and undermine American laws
Economy
Letting gasoline prices double at devastating cost to the economy while oil companies make record profits
Letting corrupt companies like Enron steal billions from consumers and employees
Cutting taxes for the rich and turning a $5 trillion budget surplus into a $5 trillion budget deficit
Adding trillions to the national debt, which our children and grandchildren will have to pay off with interest
Letting millions of American jobs go overseas
Freedom
Letting bureaucrats wiretap Americans without a court order
Locking up suspects for years without charges or trials
Arresting nonviolent protesters at Bush events
Packing the courts with right-wing judges to outlaw abortion
Ordering federal courts to interfere in the Terri Schiavo tragedy
Taking away our right to sue corporations through class actions
Taking away our right to declare bankruptcy under Chapter 7 and forcing middle-class Americans into debt slavery
Democracy
Stealing the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004
Refusing to investigate the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters in Florida and Ohio
Promoting black-box electronic voting machines without paper trails
Embracing dictators in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Russia, and China
Overthrowing democratically-elected leaders in Haiti and Venezuela
Environment
Allowing global warming, which will cause massive environmental damage
Allowing more toxic mercury in the air and water
Allowing oil drilling in wilderness areas
Scandals
Illegally "outing" CIA agent Valerie Plame, an important anti-terrorism official
Letting a gay male prostitute (Jeff Gannon) roam free in the White House
Paying journalists to give favorable coverage to the administration
Relying on an earpiece for answers during debates and press conferences
Going AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 and covering it up ever since
Defending the most corrupt Member of Congress (Tom DeLay)
MORE INFO & REASONING
FOLLOWS IN BLUE TEXT
1. Conspiring to out Valerie Plame and obstructing justice by commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby.
2. Refusing to comply with Congressional subpoenas.
3. Illegally wiretapping the calls and emails of virtually every American citizen.
4. Issuing Signing statements that led to illegal actions as documented by GAO.
Since Speaker Pelosi is adamantly opposed to impeachment hearings for President Bush,
which of these are the strongest grounds for impeaching Vice President Cheney?
Behind the scenes, Cheney and his Chief of Staff David Addington are key players in all of these battles.
But because they operate behind the scenes, it is hard to indict them specifically - with the exception of #1, conspiring
to out Valerie Plame and obstructing justice by commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby.
Cheney's role in the outing of Valerie Plame was partially revealed through the Libby trial. Just before
Scooter Libby outed Plame to Judith Miller of the New York Times, Libby met with Cheney about disclosing classified information.
Libby claims Cheney authorized him to disclose favorable parts of the pre-war National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, but
that information was leaked to the press days earlier, and neither the Special Prosecutor nor the jurors believed Libby's
story.
Beyond the trial record, there is testimony by Bush and Cheney that has not been published and can
be subpoenaed. Also Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could be asked to prepare a report on these questions. After reviewing
all available evidence, Congress could put both Libby and Cheney under oath and ask whether they discussed outing Valerie
Plame or not.
After Scooter Libby was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison, Bush's commutation was widely
viewed as intended to keep him from finally telling the truth to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and thereby protecting
his boss, Dick Cheney. News reports said Cheney urged Bush to commute Libby's sentence. After collecting all available evidence,
Congress could put Cheney and all other witnesses under oath to determine if Cheney urged Bush to commute Libby's sentence
- and whether it was to protect himself.
Under this scenario, several things could happen:
Libby and Cheney could refuse to testify, but since these would be impeachment hearings, Cheney's
defiance of duly-issued subpoenas would itself be an impeachable Contempt of Congress. This was Article 3 of the Articles
of Impeachment for President Nixon.
Libby and Cheney could lie to Congress, but that would be very difficult because of all the testimony
collected in the Libby trial and the exhaustive analysis of that evidence by bloggers like Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel).
The White House could attack Congress for daring to hold such hearings, but public support for Bush
(and especially Cheney) is so low that these attacks would have no political impact.
Of course the major obstacle to impeachment is the belief by Democratic leaders that any form of impeachment
would backfire politically. Therefore there would have to be really powerful arguments for pursuing impeachment, and I would
offer these:
Outing Valerie Plame was a devastating blow to our essential efforts to stop terrorists from acquiring
WMD's, which is the single most important lesson of 9/11
Outing Valerie Plame may have cost the lives of Plame's spies
Lying to the FBI, and grand jury, and a Special Prosecutor is intolerable by any elected or appointed
government official
No elected official, including the Vice President and the President, can be above the law
We cannot allow the Vice President and the President to spend their final year in office destroying
evidence of numerous official crimes and pardoning those who committed them
As every primary poll shows, the American people still want change, just as they
did in November 2006 when they swept Republicans out of power in Congress. Holding the Vice President accountable for
one of his gravest crimes is a powerful way to begin real change.
IMPEACHMENT VIGIL 10-30-08 THE RETURN
of the LONE VET
After being in the hosipital and the recouping without his usual coffee moca .... Joe Walsh returns
to the protest vigil outside Earl Blumenauers Portland east side office
10.2.08
IMPEACHMENT VIGIL PROTEST
filmed outside of Earl Blumenauers Portland office
Hearing on allegations of Bush administration's misconduct and cause for 'impeachment' filmed on Thursday
July 24 2008 and Friday July 25 2008 at the Hearings in DC
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich on Alex Jones Tv_7/23/08:"The Lions Den" pt2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5rsdq5EtQs&eurl=http://infowars.net/articles/july2008/240708Kucinich_Conyers.htm
Thanks to you, impeachment will be heard Friday 7/25/08
Peace Movement activists
David Swanson
to join the fight for Impeachment.
Those of us who've been involved in the impeachment movement these last 4 years regard David's message a very powerful statement, coming as it does from a leader of his stature and peace movement
roots. David is a very gifted writer and his call will no doubt cause thousands of Peace Movement activists to join us.
For
that to happen we need to quickly forward Swanson's message far and wide and ask all who receive
it to forward it on to all local groups.
Please join us
in this effort.
Thanks, from Portland's South Side DFA MeetUp Group and the Portland chapter of We the People National Coalition
for Impeachment. You're welcome to modify to your needs as you wish.
======= David Swanson's =======
Statement to Peace Activists
The peace movement has stood for peace and justice, for ending wars, preventing new ones,
and building peace. Our top priority in Washington, D.C., has been ending the funding of the
occupation. That work is over for the next year, because Congress has provided that funding. We can still work against recruitment, we can still educate,
we can still agitate, we can still oppose an attack on Iran.
But
one of our secondary priorities in Washington has been imposing a penalty for the illegal attack on Iraqin order to discourage
future attacks on Iran or anywhere else.
We have pushed half-heartedly for impeachment,
with our main lobbying focus on cutting off the money.
Now, at the same time that the money (for Iraq) is
a done deal for another year, the possibility of impeachment
is beginning to spark.
After over two years of declaring impeachment "off the table," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has
relented and suggested that some sort of preliminary hearing be held in the Judiciary Committee - and specifically on the
impeachable offense of misleading a nation into war.
If the peace movement is not just a movement against one
war or occupation, but a movement for peace, we should push with everything we've got
for that (impeachment) hearing to happen, happen soon, and happen well.
We
should ask everyone who cares about peace to phone Pelosi and Committee Chairman John Conyers, as well as their own representatives,
whom they should ask to introduce their own articles of impeachment.
We've been on a losing streak, brothers
and sisters, and the door is cracking open toward a major victory. Let's open that door fully
and lead a peaceful march of millions through it.
If we fail to motivate our Congressmen to call for
Impeachment Hearings before the Election, we will lose all of our power to change America for four years.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DAVID SWANSON BIO:
He serves on a working group of United for Peace and Justice, is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats
of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked
as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press
Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications
Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform
Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
<this was posted on July 15 2008 by
Joe Anybody from an Email I received>
With the Democratic leadership still staunchly against impeachment, it remains unlikely
that Chairman Conyers will bring hearings on Rep. Kucinich's 35 articles of impeachment. David Swanson suggests that the most
likely road to impeachment would include article 27, which charges the Executive with failing to comply with Congressional
subpoenas.
Well over
100 people filled Hearing Room 2 and an overflow room in the Cherberg Building today to hear statements in support of SJM
8016 calling for impeachment investigations. Only a handful of people got to speak but those who did spoke eloquently on their
desire to see the Constitution restored.
Packed hearing room--Washington Legislature
The seriousness of the debate was disturbed when the lone Republican on the Committee,
Senator Pam Roach, showed up late. Abandoning any pretense of civility, she sat down with a look
of pure disgust as the last person on the panel was speaking. After the panel finished, she took over the microphone and challenged
the legitimacy of the hearing. She shouted that she was going to complain to the ethics committee because this committee was
engaged in political campaigning on state time and using state resources.
Roach argued that this hearing was political
because this was an election year—her assumption being, I guess, that impeachment would be good for the Democrats. Of
course, the Democrats in DC, under Pelosi's assumptions, believe impeachment would be bad for Democrats.
It was bizarre.
World Can’t Wait Chicago held a town hall meeting to discuss impeachment of the Bush
administration. Speakers included John Nichols of The Nation,
Elaine Brower of World Can’t Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime, Author Larry Everest and David Swanson, co-founder of
Afterdowningstreet.org. The event was held on July 21, 2007. This is part one of a two part program.
The program
was produced by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).
California Republican Party leadership: Bush has done, "Nothing warranting anything remotely like
Impeachment. Impeachment involves high crimes and misdemeanors." Democrat Nancy Pelosi has said:
"Impeachment is off the table" Our
Congress seems to think launching illegal war is not a crime. However, we know better, and we know that Bush and Cheney must
be impeached for the crimes they've committed against HUMANITY!
Sunday, July 15th, The World Can't Wait - Drive out
the Bush Regime held its San Francisco Town Hall/Organizing Meeting to discuss and organize around impeaching Bush and Cheney
for War Crimes.
Speakers included: Sunsara Taylor: World Can't Wait National Spokesperson Rev.
Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus Dennis Bernstein: KPFA's "Flashpoints"
CONTACT DENNIS KUCINICH
NOW
I just taped Thom Hartman
talking with Dennis Kucinich on Air America
(Nov 7 11:00am) I will post this audio latter this evening right here on my website
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer Nov 6 2007 2:45pm PST
WASHINGTON - House Democrats on Tuesday narrowly managed to avert a bruising debate on a proposal to impeach Dick Cheney after Republicans, in a surprise
maneuver, voted in favor of taking up the measure.
Republicans, changing course midway through a vote, tried to force Democrats into a debate on the resolution sponsored
by longshot presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.
The anti-war Ohio Democrat, in his resolution, accused Cheney of purposely leading the country into war against Iraq and manipulating intelligence about
Iraq's ties with al-Qaida.
The GOP tactics reversed what had been expected to be an overwhelming vote to table, or kill, the resolution.
Midway through the vote, with instructions from the GOP leadership, Republicans one by one changed their votes from yes
— to kill the resolution — to no, trying to force the chamber into a debate and an up-or-down vote on the proposal.
At one point there were 290 votes to table. After the turnaround, the final vote was 251-162 against tabling, with 165
Republicans voting against it.
"We're going to help them out, to explain themselves," said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. "We're going to give them their day in court."
Democrats countered by offering a motion to refer the proposal to the House Judiciary Committee for further study, effectively preventing a debate
on the House floor. That motion passed by a largely party-line vote of 218-194.
The White House, in a statement, said Democrats were shirking responsibilities on issues such as childrens' health insurance
"and yet they find time to waste an afternoon on an impeachment vote against the vice president. ... This is why Americans
shake their head in wonder about the priorities of this Congress."
Kucinich has long pushed for a vote to impeach Cheney, but has failed to win the backing of the Democratic leadership.
After Kucinich introduced the resolution, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., immediately moved to table it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
said "impeachment is off the table" and Congress is focused on responsibly getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, covering 10 million uninsured children
and meeting national priorities long neglected by the Bush administration, said her spokesman Nadeam Elshami.
The resolution said that Cheney, "in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president,"
had "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating
a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a
manner damaging to our national security interests."
The 11-page resolution also charged that Cheney purposely deceived the nation about an alleged relationship between Iraq
and al-Qaida and
has "openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States."
House approval of an article of impeachment sends the issue to the Senate, which has the constitutional authority to try
and, with a two-thirds vote, remove a person from office.
___
The bill is H. Res 799.
H. Res 799"
2 vido clips of "Live Coverage" in Congress 11-6-07
The following article is Earl Blumenauers opinion
I copied from BlueOregon.com on 10-4-07. It was written by Eral and came from his website:
After last Sunday’s Town Hall I spent several hours thinking about the challenges
to my assessments and searching for any new ideas, evidence or approaches to the critical issues of peace and accountability.
Because so many people had asked for this meeting, the format was organized to give them the opportunity to speak to me directly.
I wanted to be sure I heard from as many people as possible.
And yes, it was emotional for me. These are emotional topics; everybody in that
room feels strongly about them. Having just put my daughter on a plane to spend the next 2 1/2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer
in Mozambique, I felt a little apprehensive about what is happening in that country and was starting to miss her already.
I was also preparing to go to a memorial service for a dear friend later that afternoon. It’s never pleasant to have
people insult you, but after a lifetime of public service I’ve learned to listen, to think, and to try not to take the
insults personally.
This was the third opportunity for people in my district to speak out on these
issues in the past week. I had a telephone Town Hall that involved almost 5,000 people and also entertained people's questions
with an online conference.
Yet after hearing from hundreds and hundreds of people, I found that the fundamentals
had not changed. I am still unalterably opposed to this administration, their war policies, and the way they conduct themselves.
Nobody in Oregon has been more opposed to this administration and that will continue. Nobody in any of these meetings has
worked harder or longer to get the Bush administration out of office and I will continue that fight every day that I am in
Congress, opposing Bush’s disastrous war policies, his destructive attitudes towards children’s’ health,
and his continued attacks on the environment. I am not going to let up, nor will I stop looking for new ways to protect my
constituents, our state, and our country from their actions.
Blumenauer also offers his thoughts on impeachment, a topic which dominated the
town hall, arguing that impeaching the President would only hurt progressive causes:
If I thought for one minute that simply trying to impeach George Bush
would change our nation’s course, I would do it in a heartbeat, even if it was a long shot. But impeachment is not going
to happen at this point. We may have a Democratic majority in Congress, but we still don’t have a progressive majority.
Like it or not, it all comes down to the numbers – and right now, the numbers are simply not there.
Every member of the House of Representatives understands that Republicans in the
Senate continue to ally themselves with the White House. They also know that Senator Joe Lieberman, who returned to the Senate
as an Independent, is not only sympathetic to President Bush, but ran on a pro-Bush platform. What most people at Sunday’s
Town Hall see as impeachable offenses, Joe Lieberman believes to be true and just – and he holds the balance of power
in the Senate. If impeachment proceedings drive him into the Republican fold, the Senate will revert to Republican leadership,
headed directly by Vice President Cheney and controlled by President Bush. This shift would, among other things, immediately
shut down Senator Patrick Leahy’s investigations into abuses at the Department of Justice and the White House.
I agree that Democrats need to be more forceful in their response to this administration
and I am keenly interested in finding effective ways to bring about peace and hold the Bush administration accountable. We
gain nothing by avoiding direct confrontation; we need to continue aggressive oversight hearings, pushing and enforcing subpoenas
that can lay the groundwork for further action. Nothing is off the table.
I know that the frustrations I heard are widely shared by Oregonians; I encounter
them every week as I come home for meetings in our community. However, I also hear that impeachment is not the only issue
of importance; Oregonians also want us to push back on the Bush administration’s failure to take on global warming,
its attacks on the environment, its illegal domestic spying, and its mindless opposition to children’s healthcare. I
also care about these issues and continue to work on them every day.
On June 16th during operation "Shock and Awe on the Oregon
Coast",, members of SQUADRON13-DEPLOYED recorded this arrest warrant for Bush and Cheney at City Hall in Newport Oregon.
[Text of arrest warrant] As former members of the armed services of the United
States of America, we swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Upon discharge from service we did not renounce that oath, which remains our sacred duty. It has long been apparent to
us that our Constitution is under attack and has been deliberately and relentlessly undermined by domestic enemies -- indeed,
by our highest government officials who took and have violated that same oath. Many Constitutional crimes have been committed
by the Bush administration, including warrantless electronic surveillance of American citizens in violation of the 4th Amendment,
failure to provide due process rights in violation of the 5th and 6th Amendments, infliction of cruel and unusual punishments
in violation of the 8th Amendment, usurpation of powers granted exclusively to Congress in violation of Article I, Section
1, and violation of Article VI, Paragraph 2, which states that all international treaties to which the United States is a
signatory are "the Supreme law of the Land." The wars prosecuted by the Bush administration in our name with our national
resources are violations of all treaties defining the international laws of war since 1928, including the United Nations and
Nuremberg charters, which uniformly prohibit wars of aggression. As violations of these international covenants and pledges,
they also constitute high crimes against the United States Constitution. Furthermore, the illegal occupations of Iraq
and Afghanistan and other war crimes including torture and use of internationally prohibited weapons such as depleted uranium,
violate the Geneva Conventions of 1949, thereby further violating the Supreme Law of our Land. Our oath therefore compels
us to issue a citizens' warrant for the immediate arrest of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, President and Vice-President
of the United States. We call upon President Bush and Vice-President Cheney to surrender themselves to federal law enforcement
authorities or to any private group of Americans that is prepared to make these citizens arrests. The right of citizens
arrest is deeply grounded in English common law and is constitutionally protected under the 9th Amendment, derived from the
natural right of self-defense and defense of others. A citizens arrest is valid when arresting citizens have a reasonable
belief that the suspect has committed a felony. We believe that felonies of great magnitude have been committed, and the
evidentiary bases of these are conclusively established in the public record. We charge these officials with conspiracy
to commit genocide against the citizens of another sovereign state, with conspiracy to commit mass murder of American citizens
by waging a fraudulently justified war, and other high crimes described on our website, www.VeteransAgainstTorture.com. Our
charges include war crimes and crimes against humanity for which we will seek extradition for trial in the international criminal
court at the Hague, Netherlands, following trial in the United States for treason and other high crimes against our constitutional
government.
TOUGH TALK ON IMPEACHMENT BILL
MOYERS JOURNAL explores the talk of impeachment with Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment
against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION's John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT
Read the text
Or watch these EXCELLENT videos - THIS WAS "GREAT" ~joe
Live Vote /dotRed.gif){kind=small}
