Although I avoid keeping up with news by not watching television or reading newspapers, during the days following the election I've listened to the radio. If what I hear there bears any relationship to what's happening, the newly elected Congress has already abdicated. The fact they've done so almost certainly means there's a reason behind it. Maybe just lack of commitment, maybe the fact they're typical Democrats, or maybe they know something we don't. Public Law 109-364, aka the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 (HR 5122)comes to mind. But whatever the reasons it can be assumed they didn't do so lightly. It would be atypical in the extreme for them not to want some blood, to revel in the hearings and the news bites and photo ops. Which is an indirect way of saying all the letters and demands a person might make will fall on deaf ears. You're not going to tell them anything they haven't already considered. Good luck J

by Jack Purcell (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 102 comments) on Saturday, Nov 11, 2006 at 9:17:41 PM

  (0+)

and spend countless hours, hours perhaps far better spent, reading and wandering the internet and "the Google", actually using far better and less limiting search engines than that one, searching out what is going on. The author states: "Thank you very much Mr. Conyers, but we are quite capable of deciding for ourselves what is good for us, as we proved to the world on Tuesday by voting your party back into control of Congress for the first time in twelve years. Well, at least we thought we were doing what was good. Apparently it was presumptuous of us to think that a new democratic majority in Congress would bring actual accountability for the most corrupt presidential administration in American history. Silly us." Silly us indeed. I would wonder at the statement that we the people are indeed capable of rational decision making and intelligent choice. It would seem to me that we are controlled rather easily for a so-called 'free people' and manipulated almost at will. Someone, somewhere, found the perfect way to use our freedoms against us and it is through the mechanism of flooding our lives with cheap, mostly made in China, crap that we find so indispensible that we not only cannot live without it we are willing to mortgage our lives to credit card companies to possess it. We have become a nation of dull witted, mindless television watchers, absorbing propaganda without even a clue that we are being so poorly used. How can we contemplate massive change to our system, however necesary, moral and righteous that change might be, when we owe our souls to the company store? Each passing year brings us a smaller middle class, a growing chasm in the distribution of wealth and less and less power actually being used by the people. We see that real democracy is still being denied minorities, over one hundred and forty years after the so-called war to free the slaves. Every statistical study shows greater poverty, less educational opportunity, poorer health, more crime and jail time for these peoples, citizens of our great democratic republic all. Instead of being outraged by all this we just change the channel.

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Sunday, Nov 12, 2006 at 9:41:47 AM

  (0+)

Congress did not start impeachment hearings against Nixon until the populace demanded it. Democrats were dead-set against it. There were investigations ongoing regarding Watergate and the Supreme Court ruled against the Whitehouse who wanted to keep Nixon's Oval Office tapes secret. The evidence precipitated a shift in public opinion which forced Congress to consider impeachment. The evidence was overwhelmingly against Nixon and he was forced to resign before he was impeached. The same thing needs to happen here. I think impeachment should be off the table while investigations of fact are ongoing. The wheels of justice turn slowly and all of that... But once the evidence is gathered against Bush (and THAT shouldnt be difficult even though it is a process) and Cheney (THAT will be difficult because he did not have to go on the record like the president has had to) then we should go where the evidence takes us. We all know the impeachment of Clinton was driven by ideologues in the Republican party. The majority of the population thought the process was a witch hunt and waste of taxpayer money. We should NOT go forward with an impeachment of only Bush and not Cheney. Cheney would not only become president but he would pardon Bush. The evidence against Cheney should be gathered even more meticulously than that against Bush. If these men leave office w/o being impeached, we can always try them for crimes against humanity in civilian courts. These indictments should be pursued anyway through the Hague and under German post-WW2 laws. If the next president is non-Republican, (s)he can be pressured to extradite the war criminals or face the same indictments later on.

by BriMan (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 17 comments) on Sunday, Nov 12, 2006 at 6:46:52 PM

  (0+)