The Impeachment Hearing Room

Impeaching Bush and Cheney; The Question Is Not: “What If; But What Are You Prepared to Do; How Far Are You Willing To Go Before You Surrender And Accept That You Are A Fascist Slave Permitted To Continuing Living So Long As You Are Useful Fearfully Compliant And Passively Obedient To The State?”

Did Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine and Caesar Rodney surrender to the greater force of arms of England?

"The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice. I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight!"

- Emile Zola, J'accuse! (1898) –

What if there was a vote to decide if $13.5 billion in tax breaks for oil companies should go into oil alternatives, like solar and wind? What would you want your Senator to do?

Well, as you probably guessed, there was such a vote. We needed 60 votes to prevail, and 59 of them were in. But John McCain ducked the vote.

As a result, instead of powering millions of homes with clean energy and building next-generation solar technology, we’re giving ExxonMobil and other companies billions in tax breaks at a time when they’re already making record profits.

EXXON John

Big Bad John…Oil Slick Sucking Big John

Big Red McCain, McSame, McInsane Supports Big Oil Ion A Big Way

McCain: I Don’t Raise Taxes But I Do Support Tax Breaks.

John McCain let big oil companies keep $13.5 billion in tax breaks—money we could have used for solar and wind. This vote is political dynamite. If we all pitch in, we can make sure voters know about McCain's give-away to big oil. And it's a twofer—we'll run the ad in the battleground state of North Carolina to help remind voters that Senator Elizabeth Dole, who's up for re-election, voted for big oil tax breaks, too.

In my article, New Zogby/Reuters Poll: Obama Down 5, in an Almost Perfect Storm, I report Obama's troubles. I didn't say it in the article, but really, this is a case of Obama's chickens coming home to roost. If Obama doesn't show a whole lot of testicles and throw progressives some bones, he's going to be an interesting, brief note in history. I'm not the only one thinking this way.

Dave Lindorf has written Loserville: Obama Is Channelling Kerry and Gore It's not McCain or his campaign's attacks. It's Obama himself, and his loser advisers, who are to blame for Obama's slide in the polls. If he doesn't throw them out and campaign as a progressive, anti-war candidate, he'll be the Democrats' third strike out in a row.

And Kevin Gosztola has written Why is This Election So Unnervingly Close? The base that coalesced behind Obama earlier in this election providing a burst of energy that ultimately boosted Obama's campaign to the top has become extraordinarily limp lately. Whether this is indicative of the character of the progressive movement and its leaders or not, the moral fortitude to put forth an agenda that makes Obama more different than McCain is necessary.

Cindy Sheehan to Headline DNC Protest (Audio Report From Denver)
News about Denver's big August event.
PoliticsWest Democratic National... - http://podcasts.denverpost.com

Some people -- anti-Semites, mostly -- deny that oil theft motivated the decision to invade Iraq. All such "alternative" theories face one problem: The oil was, in fact, stolen -- and Cheney planned the theft well in advance.

Previously undisclosed Halliburton documents obtained by The Public Record confirm that controlling the world's second largest oil reserves was a top priority for the Bush administration. Additionally, the deal between the Department of Defense and Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown & Root to operate Iraq's oil industry saved Halliburton from imminent bankruptcy.

A March 6, 2003 internal Pentagon e-mail sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official says "action" on a multibillion-dollar Halliburton contract was "coordinated" within Cheney's office.

The e-mail says Douglas Feith, the former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, received authorization from then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to “execute” the Restore Iraqi Oil contract to Halliburton in 2002.

Feith was one of the architects of the Iraq war who operated the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans that exaggerated the Iraqi threat and provided the White House with bogus information about links between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Right there, you have sufficient grounds for immediate impeachment of Dick Cheney. Not just impeachment: A RICO suit.

Very Interesting:

Latest Poll: Majority Want Libertarian Bob Barr Included in Presidential Debates

55 percent of likely voters want Bob Barr included in the debates

Atlanta, GA – A recently released poll by Zogby International shows that a majority of American voters want Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr included in the presidential debates.

Barr, currently polling at 6 percent nationally, would need to meet the thresholds established by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a private corporation run by former chairs of the Republican and Democratic National Committees, and funded by many large corporations.

According to the CPD, to be included in the debates, candidates must meet ballot access requirements and poll nationally at 15 percent or more in at least five “selected” public opinion polling organizations.

The poll released by Zogby showed that 55 percent of likely voters want Bob Barr included in the debates. Of the respondents, 69 percent of independents felt that Bob Barr deserves a place in the debate, while 52 percent of Democrats and even 50 percent of Republicans agreed.

“We’re very pleased to hear the results of the poll and are heartened to learn that most voters don’t buy into the ’spoiler’ argument being espoused by partisan talking heads,” states Russell Verney, campaign manager for Bob Barr and former campaign manager for Ross Perot. “People want real change and they know that they are not going to get it from a Republican or a Democrat. America’s only hope for change is by allowing more competition in the political process and that means opening the debates to any candidate who can meet the ballot access criteria.”

The Barr campaign supports opening the presidential debates to any candidate who is on the ballot in enough states to mathematically win the vote of the Electoral College.

“In 1992, Ross Perot was polling at seven percent nationally and was included in all three debates. It’s time to go back to those more inclusive times,” continued Verney.

Wednesday August 20 2008 | FBI terror rules 'must be delayed'

NEW rules on FBI investigations of US national security cases should be delayed because of the danger of innocent ethnic or racial groups being targeted, top Senate Judiciary Committee members said yesterday.

In a letter to attorney general Michael Mukasey, the senators demanded congressional hearings on the rules before they are finalised. Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, and Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel's top Republican, said the guidelines raised "potential civil liberties concerns''.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Cindy Sheehan & Mary Morello Blog from 7/10/08

Cindy: I want to talk about the FISA modernization Act that house of representatives passed about 10 days or so ago.

The foreign intelligence surveillance act was passed in 1978 and it was passed because Richard Nixon took great liberties with his position as president to spy on enemies in America they called him and so that was in direct violation of the 4th amendment right against the legal search and seizure. So congress passed the foreign intelligence surveillance act, which is ironic because back in 1978 all of the civil liberty lawyers and constitutional experts were fighting against it because it wasn't necessary because we already have the fourth amendment. Well now the FISA act provided for a FISA court so if the president or anybody wanted to spy on somebody's telephone calls or their papers or whatever they just had to go to the FISA court and the FISA court would approve a warrant for this tapping this wire tapping

Mary: where is the FISA court located?

Cindy: The FISA court is, the FISA court I don't think so much was a location, is as an entity. So since 1978 the administrations have routinely asked the FISA court for warrants and they've only been turned down 4 times since 1978 and presidents can even do it retroactively this isn't even a sense of national security the President or one of the President's agents knows or feels like it's a national security emergency then they can do the spying and they can ask for a retroactive warrant and that's never been turned down either .

So then we get George Bush and George Bush just does all of this warrant less wire tapping, spies on peoples phone calls their emails and their other communication and the telecom companies, not all of them but most of them, just willingly gave the records over and I'm sure this telephone call right now is being listened to.

But now congress has so called "modernized" the act and given telecom companies immunity because many people were suing them for billions of dollars for an invasion of privacy. That says to me that just means the death of our fourth amendment. They've already killed the eighth amendment against cruel and unusual punishment, they've already killed our rights to habeas corpus and the first amendment is basically a joke anymore: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, separation of church and state.

This country in increasingly becoming a Christian country and Barack Obama even has to prove that he's some kind of super Christian to win the presidency and I think that is unconscionable because in a free society like we use to have that there is this clear separation of church and state. We shouldn't even talk about religion in the political realm and I'm running here for congress and I refuse to talk about my religious beliefs or my lack of religious beliefs are nobody's business in this era. I am just so worried about the condition of this country.

Mary: Everybody I meet is worried.

Cindy: Were becoming a police state and people in America are so sound asleep as they don't even care that we're rapidly becoming a fascist police state.

Mary: They should be asleep instead all they talk about movie stars and singers. The news is horrible. I look in the front page of the Chicago papers to see if there is anything about Iraq and it's never on the first page, never.

Cindy: That's gone down even appreciably this year with them talking so much about the Presidential you know the democratic primaries which are only a farce. You know this because you are in the heart of where Jeremiah was and he absolutely told the truth and Obama denounced Jeremiah Wright, which I think that, is a sellout. So they don't talk about the issue they just talk about things that are superficial. I could blame the American people for being so sound asleep, for being so apathetic, but now people are basically fighting for survival.

The gas is so high, and food is so high and they're losing their homes. This is a very devious situation we've been put into and people either are giving up their freedoms for security or they don't care because they have other priorities that they're worrying about. Their jobs, people are losing their jobs because they can't afford to go to work because of the gas prices.

Mary: and because of the corporation layoffs.

Cindy: I know the outsourcing because of these so called "free trade" agreements. The Bush administration has just been a disaster. My opponent, Nancy Palosi, her and her congress passed this FISA modernization act . To me what they did is treasonous because you don't give up the rule of law or your founding documents as they did. And its just really really sickening. That's about all I wanted to talk about this morning.

The last time the George W. Bush administration began the saber-rattling that would take the nation into war, the Democratic leadership in Congress was afraid to say a word in opposition. It was that period of fear-driven politics just after 9/11, but even then, the evidence was pretty clear that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had never attacked the United States. And every intelligent observer around the world predicted (correctly) that invading Iraq would be an expensive, bloody, and ultimately counterproductive nightmare.

Now there's talk about sending US troops to Georgia to help the Georgian army fight the Russians. (There are, according to the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, 127 military trainers and advisors already in that country.) This time, there's nothing resembling a national security threat; it's just Cold War madness bubbling up again. And once again, there's a resounding lack of protest from the leaders of the Democratic Party.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) joined the two top Republicans in the House, John Boehner of Ohio and Missouri's Roy Blunt, in issuing a militaristic and aggressive statement that reads, in part:

"The bipartisan leadership of the US House of Representatives stands united in condemning — in the strongest possible terms — the recent Russian invasion of the sovereign state of Georgia.

The United States is committed to Georgia's absolute sovereignty."

The speaker herself, according to her press office, has said nothing further on the matter. She has not, for example, said she would oppose sending US troops to the region.

The US news media has done a terrible job of covering the geopolitics of the conflict, but if you read the British press, particularly the UK Guardian and The Independent (London), and you review what progressive think tanks are saying, you get a very different perspective. This isn't simply a case of Russian aggression. As J. Victor Marshall, of the Oakland-based Independent Institute, put it in a piece that's posted on sfbg.com:

"There's no real doubt that Georgia began the latest conflict by launching an artillery barrage against South Ossetia's main city the night of Aug. 7, though it claims to have been provoked by armed militants from the tiny region's 65,000 people."

That's not to say Russia reacted properly, or that the United States shouldn't condemn the invasion. But the situation is a lot more complicated than the simple spectre of Russian tanks attacking a purported US ally.

And the prospect of the United States getting involved in that conflict — with American soldiers fighting Russians — has the potential to ignite a serious military conflagration.

Pelosi can't be allowed to duck this time. She needs to come out strongly and say that she will not support sending combat troops to Georgia and will work to cut funding for any such military adventure.

DAYTON, Ohio AP - Democrat Barack Obama batted away conservative criticism Friday over a comment he made about Americans' lack of foreign language skills. End

It is only natural that the Republicans would reject the idea of American youths getting a better education. One quick glance at those being recruited by the Republican war machine speaks volumes about their plans to control the world with uneducated whites and minorities who can't find jobs. Note how Bush and Bush Jr., a/k/a John McCain, did their best to kill the GI education bill. Putting money into education, health and welfare works against the single goal of the Republican Party.

I am often asked why I joined the Republican Party. I joined this organization because it is a perfect example of evolution. As ironic as that might sound, it's a fact.

I wanted to study up close a group of animals who George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld represented. The Republican Party today is not the Republican Party of early 1900s. This new Republican Party is an extremely dangerous group of sociopaths that will belittle, and if possible destroy, every humanitarian and virtuous plan that comes along simply because it diverts funds from their Nazi mentality of world authority by military might.

The Republican Party's belligerent mindset and lack of vision has eroded our country's reputation, devalued our dollar, and possibly taken the only known life supporting planet in our universe beyond the point of no return.

This Republican insanity could not have been possible though if not for the Democratic Party, a party overflowing with frightened little invertebrates like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She has repeatedly said she would not support a resolution calling for Bush's impeachment, saying such a move was unlikely to succeed and would be divisive. Invertebrates like Nancy Pelosi and Neville Chamberlain are the fools who men like Adolf Hitler and George W. Bush count on to help them build their empires.

I was asked this very day, "Where have all the heroes like John Wayne gone?" Pretend heroes like John Wayne are plentiful. The United States has almost 300 hundred million of them. The question is, "Where have all the men like Harry Murray (Australian) Jackie Mann (British) and Audi Murphy (American) gone?"

Science has now shown that what we in the center-right have thought true all along, that Nancy Pelosi is a lying, conniving, politician - more so than most, is correct: Liars are exposed by blinking and the best way to spot a liar is to look them in the eyes (alright, so it's not exactly about "Blinky," but she qualifies).

Looking at this "blink count" video, it seems that Madam Speaker telegraphs her lies well before she even opens her mouth:

Buckles The Cat On Chris Dodd And FISA…Dodd Would Be A Fine Veep!

Yep I Wouldn’t Mind At All.

How Many Lessons Do We Need About Bush Admin & Rule of Law?

I’m Convinced…I’m Voting Republican!

End Post…