Segal: Sure. There are some that deserve credit for it, but it's just clear that leadership is not going to let it happen, and, we can help them in their efforts by agitating as such from the outside and all those reasonable Washington consensus types will swoop in if we get to the point where enough states are supporting a Con Con and say, "OK, don't worry, guys. Actually we'll do this on our own," and do right by us out of fear that if they do not a constitutional convention will actually happen.
Swanson: You know, I not only want better people, candidates like yourself in Congress, but I want Congress to have more power because just about all power has moved to the White House as well as to the two parties. And if I could ask you about one other area if you have time, a lot of us worked very hard to try to impeach Bush and Cheney and said, "If we don't, then the presidents are going to have even more powers." And of course, the president does now have even more powers, but he's a president from the other party, and so just as the Republicans never engaged in any oversight with Bush and the Democrats very little themselves, now the Democrats are not engaging in any oversight with Obama and no, aside from Joe Lieberman, nobody has subpoenaed anybody for a year-and-a-half, nobody has proposed to impeach anybody for a year-and-a-half, and you have committee hearings on lawyers who've put forth memos on who you can torture and how, people like John Yoo and Jay Bybee, without John Yoo or Jay Bybee there because you can no longer ask anyone to show up for a hearing. I'm wondering what your position is on the powers of Congress and Congress' long-forgotten powers to use its own police force to compel people to attend, to hold people in contempt itself and fine them as they refuse to testify, and otherwise assert its presence in Washington as the first branch in our Constitution.
Segal: And as the most democratic branch.
Swanson: Would you, if you saw someone like Jay Bybee who authored memos authorizing not just torture but aggressive war at presidents' whims sitting there as a lifetime judge, would you consider the possibility of submitting Articles of Impeachment for someone like that?
Segal: Yes, of course. I don't think it needs to be said, but yes, of course, I think that Congress should make broader use of its oversight power, something I wish had happened here around the state of Rhode Island more readily. But I, yes, I, we, there's no reason to tolerate the abuses of power that defined the Bush administration. And I would have signed on to efforts by Dennis and by others, by you and your organization, to try to compel testimony under oath and to compel impeachment where proper.
Swanson: So what can people do to help you? When is your primary? What are you up against? And how can people help?
Segal: It's a September 14 primary, four-way race, clearly winnable. We have a really robust field after we had our first daylight canvass on Saturday and had more than 50 volunteers out. Sorry, first district-wide canvass, I should have said, had more than 50 volunteers out throughout the district. And we'll be doing a regular rhythm of such canvasses throughout the campaign. And the field is really going to be the lifeblood of this effort as it's been for my elections to the statehouse and to the city council. But we still need money to help fuel those efforts. We need to pay for literature, we need to pay for food and water for our volunteers, we need to, ideally, accrue enough funding to go up on TV and compete in that venue as well. So people can donate at segalforcongress. We've raised a hundred some thousand dollars in the first few weeks of my campaign in small increments and want to raise money in a democratic way and want to win this election in a democratic way through a genuinely grassroots effort. So even a modest donation of $5, $10 would be incredibly helpful.
Swanson: Terrific. I will let everyone know that I can. I think the House of Representatives is where we're going to get any control, if we are, in Washington. And having people there willing to take a stand even if they're not from our own district is what's going to make a difference. Anything else we should know?
Segal: No. I would, thanks so much for speaking with me. And I'm, there's contact info up on the web site of anybody has a more detailed question. I've written about a thousand articles over the years for Huffingtonpost and for more mainstream papers, for CommonDreams and Truthout, and so on, and there's a lot of info out there. But if people have questions they should feel free to get in touch with the campaign directly.
Swanson: Wonderful. David Segal, S-E-G-A-L, Segal. SegalforCongress.Com or VoteSegal.com. Thanks for speaking with me.
Segal: Thanks so much, David.
Transcribed by Linda Swanson.
David Segal's website: http://votesegal.com
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