The Impeachment Hearing Room

Tell local elected officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul:Put the guns away! Freedom of speech now!


August 30, 2008 -- Today, for the first time in my life, I had guns pointed at me. One of the police officers told me over a loud-speaker: "Get out of the line of fire or we will shoot!" I can't believe the cops said they'd shoot me! In Minneapolis!


CLICK HERE to read an account of this and several other police raids and arrests that have targeted suspected anti-Republican activists in Minneapolis-St. Paul where demonstrators have gathered to protest the Republican National Convention.


Then, please call Minneapolis-St. Paul's local elected officials to ask them to put the guns away and let there be freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.


Phone numbers for elected officials:

Minneapolis Hennepin County St. Paul Ramsey County



MINNESOTA RESIDENTS ONLY: CLICK HERE to send a single email to all of the local elected officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul asking them to put their guns away and let peaceful protesters exercise our constitutionally protected rights of free speech and peaceful assembly.


[Video] Police Seize Journalists Notes About RNC Protest PlansBy Jodin Morey more at http://www.theuptake.org/ A trio of journalists who have a track record of documenting police abuse at political conventions were stopped and searched during the early morning hours in Minneapolis. ...Impeach Bush For Peace - http://impeachforpeace.org/impeach_bush_blog



Heard Around The Impeach Bush & Cheney Block


MCCAIN’S FRONTIER WOMAN

Here we are in the 21st century, but John Sidney McCain clearly has a hankering for the past. McCain talks almost incessantly about being a POW in Vietnam. His policies hue to the laissez-faire rugged individualism me first tradition of Republican reactionary politics. It's a politics that comes down to a might is right philosophy. If you've got a military, solve differences with military responses. You steer government policy to benefit corporations and the rich. You oppose freedom of choice for women.


So we have a somewhat ironic selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate. If a woman were selected for the right reasons, I would at least give a favorable nod to McCain for that. But this is a selection that has "pandering" written all over it. Palin is virulently anti-choice, which appears to be her major appeal.


She will enthuse the evangelicals who haven't been thrilled with McCain. She believes in what Mike Malloy has called "the talking snake theory of creation."


She's anti-environment and doesn't believe human activity is causing global warming.


She's a NRA member and hunter.


Her history doesn't suggest someone who is in tune with the challenges of the 21st century. But neither does McCain's history, for that matter.


I can almost see Palin wearing bandoliers of bullets for a rifle and clutching a big hunting knife, still dripping from a fresh kill. I wonder if she churns her own butter and takes on grizzly bears bare-fisted.


This shows McCain's ultimate contempt for the American people and especially for women.


This column by Gail Collins is at http://www.nytimes.com/:


John McCain has a low opinion of the vice presidency, which he’s frequently described as a job that involves attending funerals and checking on the health of the president.


(Happy 72nd birthday, John!) There’s a lot we don’t know yet about Palin, and I am personally looking forward to deconstructing her role in the Matanuska Maid Dairy closing crisis. But at first glance, she doesn’t seem much less qualified than Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota who most people thought was the most likely pick.


Unlike Joe Lieberman, Palin is a member of the same party as the presidential candidate. And unlike Mitt Romney, she has never gone on vacation with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car.


However, I do feel kind of ticked off at the assumptions that the Republicans seem to be making about female voters. It’s a tad reminiscent of the Dan Quayle selection, when the first George Bush’s advisers decided they could close the gender gap with a cute running mate.


The idea that women are going to race off to vote for any candidate with the same internal plumbing is both offensive and historically wrong. When the sexes have parted company in modern elections, it’s generally been because women are more likely to be Democrats, and more concerned about protecting the social safety net. "The gender gap traditionally has been determined by party preference, not by the gender of the candidate," said Ruth Mandel of the Eagleton Institute of Politics.


Mccain=Cold War Again

About all that John Sidney McCain has going for him is his record as a POW in Vietnam. Prior to getting shot down and captured, McCain dropped bombs from several thousand feet. He wasn't there on the ground to see the blood and carnage he created. That distance from blood and carnage is a part of his foreign policy. He can joke blithely, "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" without considering all the innocent civilians who would be slaughtered. McCain is part of the whole neocon cabal that wants endless war against any perceived enemies, whether they be terrorists, Russians, or Chinese.


This article by Robert Parry is at http://www.consortiumnews.com/ :

Another casualty of McCain’s endless Middle East wars, which soon could include Iran, would almost surely be America’s volunteer army. Though McCain officially opposes a restoration of the draft, it is nearly impossible to envision how his multiple wars could be waged without one.


And McCain also had made clear that he favors a neo-Cold War confrontation with Moscow over another part of the neocon agenda – the encircling of Russia with pro-U.S. regimes and the placement of strategic missile systems near Russia’s borders.


The fencing in of Russia fits with the goals of the neocon Project for the New American Century that envisions an endless era of U.S. military dominance that tolerates no potential rivals, whether an emerging China or a resurgent Russia. The recent Russian-Georgian conflict underscores the risks from this neocon concept.


Containing Russia in this way ultimately would require dangerous brinkmanship. And the McCain/neocon belligerence – like McCain’s melodramatic declaration “we are all Georgians” – would guarantee that one of these swaggering showdowns eventually would push the world to the brink of a nuclear confrontation.


McCain The Reactionary


Nostalgia is a powerful thing. You can easily get caught up in the idea that things just aren't the way they used to be, that somehow that past was better. I will grant there are things about the past I like better.


But there are many things about the past we would not want again. We don't want the Cold War back. We don't want racial segregation back. We don't want women forced into back alley abortions. We don't want the Gilded Age, although we've been living through a version of the Gilded Age in the past eight years. John McCain represents all the bad things about the past.


We need a country without a chasm existing between the rich and poor. We need a country that uses diplomacy to solve problems and not military responses. We need a country that cares about the environment and about providing for the needs of all its citizens.


This column by Frank Rich is at http://www.nytimes.com/:


How we dig out of this quagmire is the American story that Obama must tell. It is not a story of endless conflicts abroad but a potentially inspiring tale of serious economic, educational, energy and health-care mobilization at home. We don’t have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars. (In China, they’re too busy exploiting scientific advances for competitive advantage to reopen settled debates about Darwin.)


Americans must band together for change before the new century leaves us completely behind.


The Obama campaign actually has plans, however imperfect or provisional, to set us on that path; the McCain campaign offers only disposable Band-Aids typified by the “drill now” mantra that even McCain says will only have a “psychological” effect on gas prices.


Even as it points to America’s future, the Obama campaign also has the duty to fill in its opponent’s past. McCain’s attacks on Obama have worked: in last week’s Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll, Obama’s favorable rating declined from 59 to 48 percent and his negative rating rose from 27 to 35. Yet McCain still has a lower positive rating (46 percent) and higher negative rating (38) than Obama. McCain is not nearly as popular among Americans, it turns out, as he is among his journalistic camp followers. Should voters actually get to know him, he has nowhere to go but down.


Defiance: Coming Soon: A Must See By Ed. Dickau(Ed. Dickau) DEFIANCE is directed by Edward Zwick (BLOOD DIAMOND, GLORY) from a screenplay by Zwick and Clayton Frohman, based on Nechama Tec’s non-fiction book of the same name. The producers are Zwick and Pieter Jan Brugge. ...The Impeachment Hearing Room - http://theimpeachmenthearingroom.blogspot.com/


Kucinich Brings Them To Life: Wake Up America! By Ed. Dickau(Ed. Dickau)
Up with education for all. Up with home ownership. Up with guaranteed retirement benefits. Up with peace. Up with prosperity. Up with the Democratic Party. Up with Obama-Biden. Wake up, America. Wake up, America. Wake up, America. ...The Impeachment Hearing Room - http://theimpeachmenthearingroom.blogspot.com/


An Open Letter to God, from Michael MooreBy Ed. Dickau(Ed. Dickau)
An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore. Sunday, August 31st, 2008. Dear God,. The other night, the Rev. James Dobson's ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in ...The Impeachment Hearing Room - http://theimpeachmenthearingroom.blogspot.com/


DAVE LINDORFF is speaking for than just a few of us when it comes ...
By Ed. Dickau(Ed. Dickau)
DAVE LINDORFF is speaking for than just a few of us when it comes to the fear that has paralyzed this nation and permitted the shredding of the Constitution and the public Rape of our legal system and institutions of Justice. ...The Impeachment Hearing Room - http://theimpeachmenthearingroom.blogspot.com/


Denver Is Over. The Theater In The Hall and In The Streets Is Over.By Ed. Dickau(Ed. Dickau) World Ends In OctoberBy jeepndesert You had the chance to impeach the fucker. But no, you’re too scared to impeach Bush and Cheney for destroying the US Constitution and killing 3000 Americans on 9/11. Yes, Hillary is a psychopath ...The Impeachment Hearing Room - http://theimpeachmenthearingroom.blogspot.com/