Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Dennis Kucinich: Thanks to You, Impeachment Will Be Heard

Bob Fertik reports:
Tell your Representatives to support impeachment by cosponsoring H. Res. 1345:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/142

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has led the fight for impeachment since April 2007, when he defied Speaker Pelosi and courageously introduced 3 Articles of Impeachment (H.Res. 333/799) against Vice President Cheney. On June 10, Kucinich defied Speaker Pelosi again and introduced 35 Articles of Impeachment (H.Res. 1258) against President Bush.

When Pelosi refused to allow hearings on any of the 38 Articles of Impeachment, Kucinich returned to the floor of Congress to introduce one more Article of Impeachment against President Bush (H.Res. 1345).

Thanks to massive pressure from Democrats.com and our pro-impeachment allies, Speaker Pelosi finally allowed Chairman Conyers to hold a hearing this Friday. Kucinich will finally get a few minutes to argue for impeachment, along with Rep. Robert Wexler, former Rep. Liz Holtzman, and former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson. Kucinich made a video to thank us for our efforts.

H.Res. 1345 focuses on Bush's ultimate crime - invading Iraq on the basis of lies. The evidence is overwhelming that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Karl Rove, Andy Card, and other top officials deliberately manufactured those lies to "sell" an invasion whose real purpose was to gain control of Iraq's oil and establish military bases in the heart of the Middle East.

This was the agenda of the Project for a New American Century that Bush adopted after stealing the 2000 election. And it's the reason Bush and John McCain are determined to stay in Iraq forever, even though Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki supports Barack Obama's plan to remove all our troops by 2010.

When Kucinich testifies on Friday, he will naturally face hostile questions from rightwing Republicans who impeached President Clinton. But Kucinich will also face hostile questions from key Democrats who oppose impeachment.

Some of these Democrats supported the invasion of Iraq: Howard Berman (CA28), Rick Boucher (VA09), Adam Schiff (CA29), Brad Sherman (CA27), and Anthony Weiner (NY09).

But most of these Democrats oppose impeachment because they are cowering in fear of a counterattack from the White House and FOX News: John Conyers (MI14), Artur Davis (AL07), Bill Delahunt (MA10), Zoe Lofgren (CA16), Jerry Nadler (NY08), Linda Sanchez (CA39), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL20), Bobby Scott (VA03), Betty Sutton (OH13), and Mel Watt (NC12).

Only a few Judiciary Democrats understand that the Founding Fathers gave Congress the power of impeachment as the only way to stop a President from defying the Constitution and becoming a dictator, as Bush has done: Robert Wexler (FL19), Tammy Baldwin (WI02), Steve Cohen (TN09), Keith Ellison (MN05), Luis Gutierrez (IL04), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX18), Hank Johnson (GA04), and Maxine Waters (CA35).

If anti-impeachment Democrats get their way, Friday's 2-hour hearing will be the only "impeachment" hearing for this entire Congress - and then Bush will try to pardon himself and everyone else before leaving office next January, just as his father pardoned six Iran-contra criminals.

So it is crucial for all of us - now over 500,000! - to tell our Representatives today to support impeachment by cosponsoring Kucinich's H. Res. 1345:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/142


And if you can do more, please make free calls to every Judiciary Democrat who opposes impeachment through CauseCaller:
http://www.causecaller.com/causes.php?c=House_Judiciary_Democrats_Impeachment
Simply enter your phone number and click the "Start Calling" button. (Click "Call me back if I accidentally hang up" in case you hang up by mistake.) In a few seconds, your phone will "magically" ring and CauseCaller will say the name of the first Representative on the list. Listen carefully for the name of each Member so you can repeat the name to the receptionist - or just say "The Representative." Don't hang up between calls - let the receptionists hang up and CauseCaller will dial the next Representative.

If you want to do even more, call your favorite radio or TV talk shows and tell them how important Friday's hearings will be, and how strongly you support impeachment for whichever reasons are most important to you. Prepare your thoughts in advance so you sound informed and determined.

And if you're near Washington DC, join Veterans for Peace to lobby Congress on Thursday and hold a pro-impeachment rally on Friday:
http://www.democrats.com/node/17211

Lots more details and actions here:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34943

Thanks for all you do!

Update 1: The evidence of Bush's war crimes and other impeachable offenses grows daily. Investigative reporter Jane Mayer's new book The Dark Side provides more evidence that Bush authorized torture. The British Parliament accused Bush of torture.

Yet Attorney General Mukasey told Congress he won't prosecute anyone who followed Bush's illegal torture orders. Even worse, Bush's rightwing supporters have begun a propaganda campaign for blanket pardons of everyone in the Bush administration!




TRANSCRIPT:
I want to thank you for the support which you have given to my efforts to hold this administration accountable for taking us into a war based on lies and for the destruction of the rule of law and the destruction of cherished constitutional principles.Because of your support, this Friday in Washington, DC, I will make a presentation before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives at which time I will make the case that this president has violated his oath of office, violated United States law and international law, has separated our nation from our constitution, and has taken us on a course that has been so profoundly anti-democratic that it has threatened the core of our nation.Because of your support, I have been able to advance this series of matters right to the table of the Judiciary Committee.Because of your support, I have been able to create an opening so we’re finally getting a chance in Washington to discuss the abuses of power, to discuss a war based on lies, to discuss the whole architecture of constitutional principles that have been taken down.Every serious matter that faces the people of this country today can be linked to an administration which is not accountable.For example, the price of gasoline. You know that Vice President Cheney with the permission and blessing of President Bush held secret meetings with leaders of the oil industry where they laid out maps of Iraq far in advance of the attack on Iraq. You know and I know the war was about oil, and if we can force the vice president of the United States to have to testify, we can get the information that is necessary to be able to prove that not only has US law been violated, but that the public trust has been under a continuous assault by an alliance between the White House and the oil companies.You look at the sub-prime lending fiasco with millions of Americans having the dream of home ownership threatened, and you look at an administration that took the cops off the beat at the Securities and Exchange Commission that enabled the Fed to look the other way when they should have been disciplining the banks. The American people had a right to expect the government would protect their interests.When you look at the shakeout in the stock market and all these small investors who are losing their life savings, again the Bush administration and their alliance with interest groups, violating an oath of office, enabling these interest groups to steal from the American people, over and over and over again.For the first time we are going to have a chance to raise these issues in the Judiciary Committee in the context of a hearing at which I am going to present the Articles of Impeachment so that the Committee cannot say, well, they just didn’t know. We are going to force this issue because of you.We are in danger of losing our country to war based on lies, to destruction of our civil liberties, but it is your commitment and your willingness to stand up and speak out that has enabled me to take a stand and to say not only are we going to save what is right and save what is dear to us, but we are going to hold this administration accountable so that it never happens again.This is truly our moment. Friday is the beginning. Thank you for supporting this effort with signing petitions, with your emails and your letters and your phone calls.I pledge to you that I will continue my efforts to defend a way of life that the American people have a right to expect – to expect to have a government they can call their own – to expect to have a government that will tell them the truth – to expect to have a government that is worthy of the tradition of democracy.Thank you.
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