Cheney Impeachment News

[davidswanson]

I'm Interviewing Rep. Robert Wexler About Impeachment on Wednesday 3:15-3:45 p.m. ET

http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/30340

LISTEN HERE:

http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live

And here's some news: Wexler is now accepting non-Judiciary Committee members signatures on his letter to Conyers urging Cheney impeachment hearings.

That means that no matter where you live, you can ask your congress member to contact Wexler and sign his letter!

TAKE 30 SECONDS TO EMAIL YOUR CONGRESS MEMBER:

http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/125

HERE'S TEXT OF LETTER:

John Conyers, Jr., Chairman
House Judiciary Committee
2138 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Conyers:

You have been a tireless champion of providing oversight to an Administration that has run roughshod over our constitution, that operates with s no limits on executive branch authority and one that has repeatedly flouted the investigations and oversight the 110th Congress has tried to provide over the past year. We have the greatest respect for the work you have done and believe that impeachment hearings pertaining to Vice President Cheney are the best way to move that work forward.

Impeachment hearings will allow for the exact kind of oversight that you and the Democratic leadership have provided regarding the actions of the Administration but without the opportunity for the Bush Administration to ignore lawful requests for information, refuse subpoenas and effectively limit its own oversight.

Impeachment hearings can provide the opportunity to cut through the executive privilege defenses and force this Administration to answer a Congress it has clearly chosen to ignore. We know you would agree that as Members of Congress, we can not allow legitimate oversight to be thwarted or such a dangerous precedent to stand.

The charges against the Vice President relate to the core actions of this Administration, its unlawful behavior and its abuse of power. We are concerned with alleged crimes that are central to his duties of Vice-President, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution. As you know, the charges against Vice President Cheney include providing Congress and the American people false intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

We trust that you will hold a sober investigation and let the facts determine the outcome as you have as Chairman this past year. We sincerely believe that impeachment hearings are the appropriate and necessary next step given what we have seen of this Administration. Chairman Conyers, we are respectfully asking you join us and concerned citizens around the country in supporting impeachment hearings.

Sincerely,

Robert Wexler


GET INVOLVED:

http://impeachcheney.org

[madokie]

1. a little friendly kick to keep this up there to be maybe read

[bdamomma]

2. kick

[rateyes]

3. I've done this over and over again...

and Pelosi and Conyers don't move an inch. Today we are being told that contempt citations for Miers and Bolton will not move forward, either.

The.leadership.does.not.listen.to.us. They are complicit.

[EFerrari]

4. Kick

[midnight]

5. Conyers was one of the first impeachment letters I signed.

Now he doesn't take that issue seriously as something else. I don't get him.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Signed, kicked and recommended

!!

[Hatchling]

7. I've written my congressperson.

All I get back is that "there are too many more important things to do and that impeachment is just too divisive and can't we all just get along?"

When she asks for my vote next time I will surely remember that.

[verges]

19. Why...

Why were hearings on Baseball steroid use more important? Seriously?

[pingzing58]

8. Can Pelosi be removed as speaker of the house? I think a thread should be started here since she

does not listen and has been coopted by the Bush administration.

[catmandu57]

15. We've had this arguement already

I don't think she would have the support this time that she enjoyed last time, but, to answer your question if we want pelosi gone then someone will have to run for her seat and dislodge her, or someone in the house will have to try to dislodge her in 2010.
I must have tired eyes, I read cheap impeachment hearings at first.

[davidswanson]

16. someone is

but if i tell you who, my post will be deleted

[warren pease]

21. I think they've got her in a very hot corner of legal hell...

Giving her that "virtual tour" back in 2002 of the CIA's offshore black sites and revealing the use of waterboarding as a standard interrogation method was a genius move.

By not immediately going public and condemning the CIA's routine use of torture, she tacitly agreed to ignore gross violations of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, which made her an accessory after the fact to the Bush administration's war crimes.

By her silence, Pelosi's also complicit in BushCo's daily violations of worldwide bans on torture, a breach of Article VI of the Constitution that requires the US to comply with international treaties to which it's a signatory and, yes, that's another war crime.

She's also failed to uphold her oath of office to support and defend the Constitution which, at the very least, robs her of any personal honor or credibility and turns any attempts she might make to claim the moral high ground into laughable hypocrisy and pure horseshit.

All the above put her right in the administration's deepest pocket and completely eliminated her as a political threat.

And any time she might have considered killing a military appropriations bill or actually putting impeachment on the table, she might get a quick phone call or email from some untraceable source who would remind her that her continued cooperation would be much appreciated and, by the way, she could be busted at any moment as a war criminal and be doing serious time in a supermax federal pen by the next full moon.

This is all just one way to connect the dots, of course, but it makes a lot of sense in light of revelations in the Post and elsewhere. And if true, or even close to it, then why in hell is she still there? Why hasn't she simply resigned her speakership on some vanilla pretext -- panic over the botox shortage maybe -- and handed the job over to somebody not completely under BushCo's thumb? I have no idea, and that's probably another conversation anyway.


wp

[HCE SuiGeneris]

9. K & R

[L. Coyote]

10. 213,406 and climbing wexlerwantshearings.com

http://www.wexlerwantshearings.com/

There was a big spike yesterday for another program.

[lisainmilo]

11. recieved e mail today and done!

K&R

[calimary]

12. Earlier this month, I think I must have called about a dozen congresspeople.

AND I called Christopher Dodd in the Senate (to thank him for his candidacy and for standing up against that damned criminal FISA bill), and asked his staffer to appeal to him to lean on his pals in the other chamber - the congressmembers he knows and might encounter during the average day - to get SQUARELY behind this.

Kicked, Recommended.

We. Need. HEARINGS.

And remember, guys - as taxpayers and voters - YOU are their EMPLOYER. YOU are their boss - AND THEY WORK FOR YOU. Even if they're not in your district, your tax money funnels into their paychecks. AS THEIR EMPLOYER, you are entitled and even obligated to direct them, assign them, and dictate to them. They serve at YOUR pleasure.

[jonnyra]

13. Personally I believe Wexler

could get 500,000 signatures and it wont change a thing. Pelosi is covering crimes of her own that she knows will be expose if she goes after the criminal Bush administration. As long as Pelosi is in charge no hearings, no impeachment. Shes running cover for the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate in order to cover her lying ass. That is the only logical explanation for her bullshit.

[Vinca]

14. Cheney will not be impeached. Bush will not be impeached.

Harriet will not be held in contempt. Josh will not be held in contempt. Kudos to Robert Wexler and all of us who signed, but Pelosi (aka Queen of the House) will not allow it. It's a nightmare.

[99th_Monkey]

17. Done!! Thanks for the post. nt

[Time for change]

18. Done, thank you

[frog92969]

20. Mine's a repug

but a worthy attempt all the same.

Thanks

[Auntie Bush]

22. Done! Suggested they impeach bush too while they were at it.

[lala_rawraw]

23. thank you david...

you are one of the few people keeping this alive... and boy, do we need that guy gone before the end of Bush's term. i am convinced, just speculation to be clear, that Cheney is waiting until right before he leaves office to nuke Iran, and leave the mess for the new President - a democrat

[unapatriciated]

24. signed kicked and recommended

[eridani]

25. Email Wexler and ask him why is isn't a cosponsor of HR 333/799

He really ought to be.

[samplegirl]

26. Chain, Chain, Cheney, Chain that Fool !

[gateley]

27. Done. Thanks for the link! nt

[gateley]

28. How can we find out who signs Wexler's letter? Thanks. nt

[Blue State Bandit]

29. Thanks David!

A kick and a rec.

[Norrin Radd]

30. k+r

[caseycoon]

31. K&R n/t

[mntleo2]

32. What I wrote:

Dear Representative Inslee:

I am asking you again to please support Representative Wexler and Representative Kucinich in their initiative for impeachment. To many citizens, in spite of what your speaker declares, impeachment is *not* off the table to millions of citizens. In spite of what the media and others say, it is not too late. Furthermore, if impeachment hearings were to commence, the truth that is revealed could impel whomever takes office as president next year to formalize charges against the past administration even if impeachment was not completed. Hearings would shine the light on whatever compliance Cheney and Bush had in trampling on our sacred Constitution. Ask John Dean, who was involved in the last legitimate impeachment efforts about this (Clinton's was a joke and we all know why), I implore you and he will tell you that these hearings will show the world what the next president could and should do.

You swore to uphold the Constitution when you took office and now is the time to do so. When I became a VISTA volunteer with people of every age, national origin, and color, we did so under the eyes of Representative Barney Frank, and there were tears in our eyes. Because in spite of our differences and where we came from, we stood together as Americans proud to work together for our communities as One yet spread out all over the nation. I meant every word when I took the same oath as you did. As every American who has died for the Constitution has already done, as every sincere American who has marched for justice, as every American who has been beaten, marginalized, and reviled for taking their belief in the Constitution to heart, I too would give my life for those words! Because of my heartfelt pledge then, it is one of the reasons I write to you today again, because I meant it with all my heart and even though I am nobody to the powerful I AM a person of my word.

I have written to you more than once on this issue and have never heard back. Yet I know you are one of the most progressive congresspeople in this session. I wonder why this is, because you have to know that the outrageous and gross injustices that have been done in our name need to be investigated or the Constitution no longer has the power it should have. I wonder how you can just ignore this with the oath you took, I sure can't. So sign on with your honorable colleagues who know what needs to be done! Yes it will anger some of the most powerful in this country, but since when does standing with the Truth with a capitol "T" not make those uncomfortable who are complicit with untruths? Does this make the Truth less truthful? History proves the greatest Americans who have stood for Truth also withstood the test of time, while the ones who had great power at the time but promoted the lie, became embarrassments. This alone should tell you what you must already know in your heart you need to do.

Cat In Seattle
Name, address, phone and email included