Keith Ellison, who introduced a resolution to impeach Bush and Cheney into the Minnesota state legislature in 2006, was subsequently elected to Congress.
With Bush and Cheney in office we've seen polling companies refuse to poll on impeachment because it's not in the news or expected to happen, at the same time that other polling companies find a majority in support of impeachment. Bush and Cheney have broken Nixon's and Truman's unpopularity records, and the Congress that refuses to impeach them is even more unpopular.
Is a failed impeachment necessarily a failure?
Not always. Nixon's resignation was a success for the rule of law. The effort to impeach Truman led to a reigning in of his abuses. Impeachment hearings even short of an impeachment vote in the House have a tremendous educational and political value.
I'd like to get a gauge of who I'm talking to. Can you please raise your hand if you consider yourself more than any other designation including independent, to be a Democrat? A Republican? A Green? A Libertarian? An Independent?
I suspect the show of hands from Independents would give hope to the founders of this nation if they could see us. They tended to fear greatly the acquisition of power by political parties, which they called factions. They did not write political parties into the Constitution, and they did not expect impeachment to be understood as in any way partisan. We've come so far now, however, in the direction of the rise of Factions, that Congressman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat from New York who chairs the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, says that impeachments are no longer possible because of party loyalties. In other words, unless the Senate suddenly becomes two-thirds Democratic in order to make possible a conviction without a single Republican vote, Nadler won't bother to support even an impeachment inquiry in the House, although he did so in 2006. And nonprofit organizations routinely and mistakenly tell their members that they cannot advocate for impeachment because their tax status won't allow them to do partisan work. Of course we saw Republicans support the impeachment of Nixon, and Democrats support the impeachment or conviction of Clinton, but partisan madness today does not get distracted by mere facts. Neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party supports impeachment, but the first thing an impeachment advocate is called is partisan.
The founders of the country may be partly to blame for the rise of partisanship. They gave us a system modeled on the old British system, not the new one. They replaced a king with a president, but did not make the president the leader of the majority in the legislature. Instead the president is elected independently, and the election is winner-take-all. As more power shifts from the Congress to the president, this fact takes on greater importance, third parties are seen more than ever as spoilers, and two major parties begin to demand the loyalties that properly ought to belong to a branch of government. Most congress members today have almost no concern for what powers the Congress maintains as against the White House, but have extreme concern for whether the next president will be a Democrat or a Republican. This mindset facilitates the transferring of still more power from the legislature to the now misnamed executive, with the danger of dictatorship on the horizon.
The weakness of our system of government is winner-take-all presidential elections. The strength of it is the checks that each branch can impose on the others. But without impeachment, that all falls apart. So, the question arises: Can impeachment be taken out of the Constitution temporarily and be restored to it?
Please raise your hand again if you are a Republican or a Libertarian or a right-leaning independent.
Now please keep your hand up if you would like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to have the power to spy without warrants, to detain without charges, to torture, to murder, to mislead Congress and the nation into wars, to rewrite laws, and to violate laws with no consequences?
Now please put your hand back up if you oppose impeaching Cheney and Bush.
You guys want to have your cake and eat it too, and I don't think you can.
Here's another question: Can the impeachment process be abused and then be restored to its proper role?
Please raise your hand if you are a Democrat or a Green or a left-leaning Independent.
Now please keep it up if you think that the Bill Clinton impeachment was appropriate and that digging into a president's sex life is what the founders intended Congress to work on.
Now please put your hand back up if you oppose impeaching Cheney and Bush.
DAVID SWANSON 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.
imprunement might be better for our constitutions.
don't waste my time with facts. they are just too time consuming. and when it comes to time, it justs ticks and tocks and gives me a head-ache. let's reminisce about the good ol' days and how wonderful it's going to be when Johnnie comes marching home.
but now- forgeddiboutit! i'm too busy, i can't find the time to tell you, Emerson.
go tell it on a mountain. call out to nancy and harry. tell conyers, too. this train is gonna stop for no-one.
let me count the ways ( and means). and I do mean being a meany, minie, moe.
so get it off the table, open up wide and stuff the imprunement where it was intended to travel. impeaches and herb, maybe. but real live congressional representatives are now being replaced by virtual un-reality.
wolfie is no owl, but he does give a hoot!
by
Wolfie (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 1034 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 6:06:56 PM
A couple of things we can do to ensure impeachment
Darn right it does.
The problem is how do we get the House Democrats to hold Impeachment Hearings? We tried about everything.
The answer we think is GET TOUGH WITH THEM! SOON!!!!
We have a To To List for Today and Tuesday.
Item-1: Send preprepared messages to the Democratic New Hampshire House Representatives to urge them to support Rep. Betty Hall's resolution to push the US House to start Impeachment Hearings. The suggested letter and the comma separated email lists are HERE
Item-2: In Colorado we have after much trial and error come up with a plan we think will force the Colorado Congressmen to call for impeachment hearings. We are having enough of an effect on the Udall campaign that one of the prominent Udall supporters contacted us and asked us to back off. Udall is an incumbent Congressman in CD2 that is running for the Senate in a tight race.
Check out the value of putting rentless uncompromising pressure on Democratic Congressmen who are in tight races. We think it might be the key to getting the "safe seat" Democrats to call for impeachment.
the Constitution and support the laws that govern the nation. When you refer to it as a "piece of paper" and issue signing statements, I would understand it to mean that impeachment is vital to protect the pillars of government.
Obviously the democrats are in too deep with the republicans on the illegal occupations profiteering, that bill as a "War on Terrorism".
by
Stanimal (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 395 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 10:28:01 PM
David, great work! It is important to remind everyone that impeachment is the means by which Congress can tell the executive and judicial branches to follow the law, but so far, only a handful of courageous members have pushed for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. Others may join in the push to require the legislative branch to do its duty and hold the executive and judicial branches accountable. The way to get that to happen is by more people taking action.
Go to campaign functions, and tell the candidates that you have two short questions. Ask the candidates whether they believe that members of our government should be required to follow the law and be held accountable if they have broken the law. They will almost certainly say yes. People inherently understand that if our governors can violate the law without consequences, then they will abuse their power. Then, ask if they support impeachment of Bush and Cheney for their numerous offenses. Videotape your Q & A, and put it up on the web.
For more information on the push to have New Hampshire’s Legislature pass legislation requiring institution of impeachment proceedings in the U.S. House of Representatives, see http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0804/S00172.htm
Our governors at all levels now routinely violate the law without consequences. The checks that the people had to hold our governors accountable have been almost completely eliminated.
Currently, we no longer get to elect our leaders or throw bad ones out of office. Our votes are "counted" in secret on computers, and these "official" secret vote counts have been proven wrong repeatedly. Not only is secret vote counting dangerous, it’s unconstitutional, and when it was put in place, it is impossible to imagine that no one bothered to look at the constitutionality of it.
My article, "Virginia’s Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL?!?!" includes a link in my comment to a video of my conversation with election officials in Virginia who pretend not to understand that computers count in secret. They say no one ever even though of that. Yeah, right!?! It also includes a link to my letters to each candidate asking them to take action to require that our elections be conducted in a constitutional manner. Naturally, not a single one took action.
My discussion with the election official in South Carolina was as laughable, but he did not want to be recorded. Any way, in my articles on Virginia and South Carolina, I point out that not only do the constitutions of both of those states specifically prohibit secret vote counting, but also, so do some U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
Everyone knows that the people are supposed to be able to peacefully remove bad leaders through elections, but what if those who control the machines, and their secret vote count, want bad leaders in power? Is there another way that citizens can prevent abuse of power without resorting to violence?
Yes, there is or was another way to hold our governors accountable without resorting to violence. If you want to find out the other civil check on government abuse of power that our Founders provided for us, then read What Happens When the People Lose the Power to Control Government and What You Can Do to Take the Power Back?http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mark_ada_080204_what_happens_when_th.htm
If Congress will not perform its duty to hold Bush and Cheney accountable, then our nation is no longer a government of law, and everyone will suffer from increasing crime, violence, and poverty, the consequences that flow from every dictatorship.
by
Mark Adams (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 90 comments)
on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 11:58:41 PM
our forefathers clearly saw the need to expel anyone who was either incompetent or abused the power of the presidency. this is clearly true with Bush & Cheney. So it's really a " no-brainer ".
by
vin agamenone (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 15 comments)
on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 11:19:44 AM
The litany of impeachable offences of which this administration is guilty should be clear to anyone with an IQ slightly above that of mud, and to any demonstrably sane person who has the ability to think for himself. But here in New Hampshire, where impeachment is currently being debated in the House of Representatives, there is little sanity on this side of the paradigm shift.
An article in the Concord Monitor today describes the rally last night in favor of impeachment this way:
"The event drew a variety of entertainment. An Ethan Allen impersonator from Vermont kicked off the show by proclaiming Cheney and Bush 'vain, arrogant, corrupt, unelected and impeachable'. Next up came a music video featuring images of Cheney in a devil suit and Bush as a vampire looming over the neck of the Statue of Libery and a song with the line: 'You lied, you lied, you lied - and because of you thousands of people have died."
With coverage like this, who needs any more facts?
Don't hold your breath waiting for the neanderthals here in New Hampshire State government to actully make a difference. I've lived here for 32 years, and the plodding mentality I see all around me is downright depressing.
by
Bill Cain (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 269 comments)
on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 11:28:25 AM
How do we get Congress to act when the bulk of the body is so guilty of corruption and complicity? My feeling is that our Reps are so dirty that they fear the investigations themselves. We have waited too long, I see no public pressure adequate to institute proceedings at this time.
But you know, doing the right thing needs not wait on surety, or even expectation of success. We must keep pushing.
by
Torus (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 12:02:27 PM
together with Bush”. You say “Impeachment is an investigation, leading to an indictment.”But nothing you say suggests you have reviewed the House Rules on Impeachment (#603 and #604) to come up with a workable plan.
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Samuel Bryan (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 108 comments)
on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 3:44:18 PM
Too bad that Nancy Pelosi does not understand her responibilities to the constitution.
Everyone who agrees with this should send Nancy Pelosi a link to this article. No doubt she lacks the time to read such a long article but perhaps her staff can read it and digest its contents for her.
You can send such a link by visiting her contact web page.
by
PrMaine (8 articles, 5 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 274 comments)
on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 5:59:04 PM
