"The President Cannot Ignore an Impeachment"

 The Nation has an opinion peace on Jay Inslee's attempt today to start a Gonzales impeachment proceeding in Congress. I've attached a snippet of the article, but the entire piece is a good read. 

After months of revelations about his ham-handed attempts to politicize investigations and prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys and sections of the Department of Justice he heads, after his repeated refusals to cooperate with Congress and his deliberate attempts to deceive the House and Senate judiciary committees, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has invited impeachment to an extent rarely seen in the long and sordid history of executive assaults on the rule of law.

And Congressman Jay Inslee is answering the invitation.

The Washington Democrat moved Tuesday to introduce a resolution that directs the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Inslee's initiative is a serious one, and he is in many senses precisely the right member of the House to be making this push.

As a former prosecutor, he is well acquainted with the requirements of the oath that all House members swear to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic." He is, as well, a member of the Democratic establishment in the House, a relatively moderate representative who is on good terms with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But, most significantly, he is a representative from a state with an active impeachment movement.

For more than a year, the Washington for Impeachment campaign has demanded that Congress act to hold members of the Bush-Cheney administration to account for their high crimes and misdemeanors. Inslee has heard those demands, loud and clear, and he recognizes their broad appeal. Thus, his move to open an impeachment inquiry is proceeding on the precise lines that the founders intended.

"The President Cannot Ignore an Impeachment"

I Don't Recall.....

"I don't recall" The quote of the month, er, year, I mean the last six years.. 

Cheney on Trip to Ashcroft's Hospital Bedside: "I Don't Recall"

TPMmuckraker July 31, 2007 4:52 PM

Health Care Reform: What Presidential Candidates Are Saying

From government and business subsidized universal coverage to a market-based laissez faire model, opinions among the 2008 presidential candidates on how to fix our health care system are diverse. Get a glimpse of what they're saying.

The Presidential Candidates on Health Care Presidential candidates in both parties are promising to overhaul the nation's health care system and cover more — if not all — of the nation's uninsured. In 2005, 44.8 million people — 15.3 percent of the population — were without health insurance, according to estimates released by the Census Bureau in March. The leading Democrats are competing among themselves over who has the better plan to control costs and approach universal coverage. The Republicans, for the most part, are promising to expand coverage without increasing the role of the federal government, and reduce cost through tax incentives. Most of the candidates have not presented a detailed outline of their health care plans, but here is what they have said so far.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/us/politics/HEALTH_POSITIONS_2.html

Remembering the Iraq War Resolution Vote

This October will mark the fifth year since Congress passed the Iraq War Resolution (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002). It seems like a good anniversary to refresh our memory about how Congress voted.

In the House of Representatives, a total of 296 votes were cast to pass the resolution (81 by Democrats). Votes against adoption were 133 (126 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and 1 Independent). Three members did not vote. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml#Y

In the Senate, 77 voted for passage (48 Republicans and 29 Democrats). There were 23 who voted against. All were Democrats with the exception of Sen. Chaffee (R-Rhode Island) and Sen. Jeffords (I-Vermont). http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237

Here’s how the Senators and Representatives from Washington state voted:

Voting “nay” were: Sen. Patty Murray (D), Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA 3th), Jay Inslee (D-WA 1st), Rick Larsen (D - WA 2nd), and Jim McDermott (D-WA 7th).

Voting “yea” were: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D), Norman Dicks (D-WA 6th), Jennifer Dunn (R-WA 8th), Doc Hastings (R-WA 4th), George Nethercutt (R-WA 5th), and Adam Smith (D-WA 9th).

The question that has nagged me for the past five years is why so many Democrats voted for passage. Let’s remember that these votes were cast long after some members of Congress had raised serious questions as to the veracity of the information presented by the Bush Administration supporting passage of the resolution. So what happened to critical thinking? (I am neither excusing the Republicans who voted for passage nor suggesting that they possess lesser intellect, but we all know that the custom in the D.C. beltway is to vote with your own Party’s president.)

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) was memorable, doggedly challenging the Administration those many months leading up to October 2002, but he certainly was not the lone voice of dissent. There were others, both in the Senate and House of Representatives. Here’s a portion of Sen. Russ Feingold’s speech given from the Senate Floor on October 9, 2002 http://www.feingold.senate.gov/speeches/02/10/2002A10531.html

Now, after many more meetings and reading articles and attending briefings, listening to my colleagues' speeches, and especially listening to the President's speech in Cincinnati on Monday, Mr. President, I still don't believe that the President and the Administration have adequately answered the critical questions. They have not yet met the important burden to persuade Congress and the American people that we should invade Iraq at this time.

Both in terms of the justifications for an invasion and in terms of the mission and the plan for the invasion, Mr. President, the Administration's arguments just don't add up. They don't add up to a coherent basis for a new major war in the middle of our current challenging fight against the terrorism of al Qaeda and related organizations. Therefore, I cannot support the resolution for the use of force before us.

Doesn't it make you wonder how things would be today if those 29 Democratic Senators had voted against the resolution?

So I ask those Democrats in Congress who supported the resolution, “Just what were you thinking?”

Talking Points Memo | Cheney?

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo writes that the Vice President is really behind that hospital visit by Gonzales and Company to Ashcroft while he was under sedation: 

We've noted Sunday's NYT editorial endorsing the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales if Solicitor General and acting AG Paul Clement does not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales' alleged perjury before Congress. But a number of readers have pointed out this odd passage. The Times editorial rather blandly states that it was Vice President Cheney who ordered the nighttime visit to John Ashcroft's hospital room.

Talking Points Memo | Cheney?

Amazing--where have all the scruples gone?

Think Progress » Conservatives Refuse To Appear On Fox News To Publicly Defend Gonzales

Some of the Attorney General's biggest critics are republicans.... 

On Fox News Sunday this morning, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) refused to defend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against accusations that he may have perjured himself before Congress. “It’s very damaging…we badly need an attorney general who is above any question,” said Gingrich. He continued:

Both the president and country are better served if the attorney general is a figure of competence. Sadly, the current attorney general is not seen as any of those things. I think it’s a liability for the president. More importantly, it’s a liability for the United States of America.

Later in the show, host Chris Wallace revealed that no conservative would willingly defend Gonzales on Fox. “By the way, we invited White House officials and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend Attorney General Gonzales,” said Wallace. “We had no takers.”

Think Progress » Conservatives Refuse To Appear On Fox News To Publicly Defend Gonzales

G.O.P. Leaders Fight Expansion of Children’s Health Insurance - New York Times

G.O.P. Leaders Fight Expansion of Children’s Health Insurance - New York Times: "WASHINGTON, July 24 — Republican leaders of the House and Senate on Tuesday attacked proposals that call for a major expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, to be financed with higher tobacco taxes.

“Republicans will fight these proposals,” said the House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio."

Shame, Shame, Shame! Denying health care to anywhere between 3.5 and 5 million children. Republicans are trying to stop this by saying it is a step towards a nationalized health care program. They had six years to come up with an effort that would work. They failed.

It's time to stop hurting our children, and get something done.

Complicity

Complicity. It is a word that describes the ulcer gnawing at my conscience. I felt its first twinge the day I watched in horror the televised air raid as our bombs lit Baghdad’s pre-dawn sky on March 20, 2003, the event that marked the beginning of the Bush Administration’s Operation Shock and Awe. I was neither shocked nor awed, only horrified as I imagined the fear and carnage that descended upon the streets of that ancient city as our weapons of mass destruction struck their targets one by one. There was a moment of surrealism, of disbelief that my government would actually invade another country without provocation. Iraq had caused us no harm and posed no imminent threat. This war was not even preemptive. There was no danger to preempt, at least none existed that some means short of an invasion could not have extirpated.

In the months preceding Shock and Awe, I observed with detached curiosity and amusement the Bush Administration’s clumsy slight of hands as it shuffled facts, seemingly mixing one deck of cards (al Qaeda) with another (Saddam Hussein). Clumsy because the Administration’s claims were contemporaneously refuted by reputable sources as being weak at best. The reports that contradicted the Administration’s claims were readily available to the public even though the mainstream media failed to put it into pablum for easy consumption. Surely, I thought, Congress with its almost unfettered access to a wealth of classified and unclassified information would demand that the Administration respond to these reports. I hoped against hope.

As the reality of Shock and Awe sank into me, the disbelief was replaced by outrage at Congress, other government officials who had the facts but didn’t speak out, the mainstream media for not living up to their responsibilities as our Fourth Estate, and the citizens who were paralyzed by fear into not questioning our government.

Yet through the heat of my outrage, I felt the first pangs of pain. I criticized others but what had I done as a citizen of the most powerful nation in the world? I stood aside and did little while my government plummeted into the abyss with devastating consequences. By not challenging the actions of my government by any and all legal means available to me, by that passivity I became complicit. I am an accomplice in my government’s immoral action that killed and wounded over 100,000 people, including our brave women and men in uniform, an action that is far from over.

Each time I see photographs of our dead soldiers being honored by the media, read about the plight of our wounded, see images of bloodied bodies of beautiful Iraqi children limp in the arms of their parents who are too bereft to do more than groan, I am overcome by such excruciating pain that I feel I must scream. Yet I know that that achieves nothing. Each day I spend paralyzed costs more lives, so I am moved to act now, to make my voice heard by my Congress. I intend to become a constant pain in its backside just as my complicity constantly gnaws at me. I come to this late, but there are still many more lives at stake.

It is my hope that each of you, as a citizen of a nation that many people around the world regard as the greatest experiment in democracy, will join me. Although trite from overuse, we must remember those wonderful words from our Constitution's preamble. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We the people must make our voices heard by those who represent us in Congress. Write, email, and call them as often as you can and demand. Demand that they represent YOU. Whether you want them to end this immoral war or impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for abuses of power including misleading this country into this disastrous war, make Congress listen to YOUR voice. They will try to paralyze you into silence by their excuses which are cloaked in political pragmatism, but do not listen because they are specious arguments. Do not let them think for you. Think for yourself. Remember the words Immanuel Kant wrote in 1787 describing enlightenment:

“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!”

“Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remain immature for life. For the same reasons, it is all too easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so convenient to be immature! If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me.”

Another case for Impeachment

Talking Points Memo | Impeachment?

As regular readers of this site know, I've always been against the movement to impeach President Bush. I take this position not because he hasn't done plenty to merit it. My reasons are practical. Minor reasons are that it's late in the president's term and that I think impeachment itself is toxic to our political system -- though it can be less toxic than the high officials thrown from office. My key reason, though, is that Congress at present can't even get to the relatively low threshold of votes required to force the president's hand on Iraq. So to use an analogy which for whatever reason springs readily to my mind at this point in my life, coming out for impeachment under present circumstances is like being so frustrated that you can't crawl that you come out for walking. In various ways it seems to elevate psychic satisfactions above progress on changing a series of policies that are doing daily and almost vast damage to our country. Find me seventeen Republican senators who are going to convict President Bush in a senate trial.

On balance, this is still my position. But in recent days, for the first time I think, I've seen new facts that make me wonder whether the calculus has changed. Or to put it another way, to question whether my position is still justifiable in the face of what's happening in front of our eyes.

I've made up my mind. Impeachment must be on the table. The precedents being set by this presidency is setting the stage for an evolution of our government that no one wants. If impeachment means that a liberal will lose the presidency, so be it. We must question authority. And we must restore our system of checks and balances. Write, call, scream, do whatever it takes to let our elected congressional representatives that they must look past their personal ambitions, and ask themselves what they can do for their country. It is time to take a stand.

Here we go again.....and again....

Rules Lay Out C.I.A.’s Tactics in Questioning - New York Times

WASHINGTON, July 20 — The White House said Friday that it had given the Central Intelligence Agency approval to resume its use of some severe interrogation methods for questioning terrorism suspects in secret prisons overseas.

I REALLY hope that there will be a media outcry over this....but I doubt it!!

Peggy Noonan dead on? What's the world coming to?

From DL Olympia regular Warren:

Peggy Noonan, who seemed to effectively give up on Bush’s presidency six weeks ago, during the immigration debate, wrote one of her less-annoying columns today.

In fact, she raises a good point about the president’s demeanor.

As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president’s seemingly effortless high spirits. He’s in a good mood. There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush? Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure. His Iraq leadership has failed. His standing is lower than any previous president’s since polling began. He’s in a good mood. Discuss.

Is it defiance? Denial? Is it that he’s right and you're wrong, which is your problem? Is he faking a certain steely good cheer to show his foes from Washington to Baghdad that the American president is neither beaten nor bowed? Fair enough: Presidents can't sit around and moan. But it doesn't look like an act. People would feel better to know his lack of success sometimes gets to him. It gets to them.

You know, that’s true. This president has had more calamities, of greater consequence, than any president should be allowed. And yet, he brags about how well he sleeps, he takes more vacation time than any president in history, and he’s constantly smirking, as if he hasn't a care in the world.

The president has the weight of the world on his shoulders. How about showing some signs of stress?

AlterNet: Blogs: Video: Will Ferrell as George W. Bush on 'Global Warmings'

AlterNet: Blogs: Video: "Will Ferrell as George W. Bush on 'Global Warmings' [VIDEO]
Posted by Adam Howard on July 14, 2007 at 2:35 AM."

This is another great satire on the President and his new focus on "global warmings." It's hilarious. Take a minute to watch

Nick Anderson: Feel Good, Inc.

Nick Anderson: Feel Good, Inc.

Houston Chronicle's Editorial Cartoonist Nick Anderson has come out with a great animation on the "feel good" presidency.

TPM: The REAL Reason?

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall July 2, 2007 09:35 PM:

"TPM Reader PT notes what many others have also flagged ...

I havent seen this noted but i think the reason for the commutation is that a pardon would mean that Libby was no longer exposed to criminal sanctions and thus had no Fifth Amendment privilege. As it stands he has a fine and probation at stake during the pendency of the appeal which inulates him ( and Bush and Cheney) from havaing to answer questions before Congress."

Makes sense. Now he is still insulated from testifying to Congress. Congress REALLY needs to act upon this. They need to find out the REAL reasons we invaded Iraq.

Another one for the list!

Shrub did it again!  Today, he commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence.  In his commutation statement, Bush says the sentence was "excessive."

Interesting action for someone who holds the all-time record for executions held as governor.  The next question is "What's he hiding?"  I bet you know without being told!  But the answer is something to do with Ass-ets.

Just think, in just over a week, the Bush administration has exempted the Vice-President from being a part of the Executive branch of government, and exempting members of the executive branch from responding to subponeas.  How many laws have they broken in just one week?

Just will next week bring?  And will our so called Democratic-elected Congress take any kind of action.....As I said before, I doubt it!