Mikel Weisser's new band, Here, will be performing live at Kingman Arizona's Beale Street Brews Friday Sept. 5th, from 7-10. Mikel will sing lead and play guitar with longtime Kingman favorite, Pep Hagan, accompanying on bass. Lead guitarist, Dennis Groves might possibly be sitting in. About 1/3 of the songs Here are expected to play will be Weisser originals, many coming from his early days as a struggling vocalist in the 1980s Austin music scene. Weisser, the son of 60s era vocalist Patti Weisser, only learned to play guitar three years ago and has since pursued his life long dream of putting together his own band.
Weisser claims the clever band name comes from the phrase, "They need some practice, but at least they're here."
Call Mikel at 928-234-5633, or Beale Street Brews at 418 E. Beale Street, (928) 753-4004 for more details
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Capitalists are Un-American
At a time when the biggest news on everybody radar screen should be the Ron Suskind book, The Way of the World, with its powder keg of accusations against President Bush including, but not limited to, the Whitehouse ordering forged documents to lie to America about 9/11 with--as big a deal as that is, I am going to try to write about something else.
Even when the last week’s political news main feature showed McCain and Obama having to genuflect to the Religious Right’s Rick Warren and quote bible verses to get elected on CNN’s first semi-debate hosted by Pastor Warren at his Saddle Back Forum Church on Saturday Aug. 16th, there is something even more insidiously threatening America than this blurring of church and state.
I tell ya, folks, this problem is big, big news for liberals. And for conservatives too, true conservatives who expect to get their money’s worth and everyone to pull their fair share of the load. Especially big news for the kind of conservatives such as those in Warren’s audience who chuckled at McCain belittling of a 3 million dollar study of bears at the same time they unhesitatingly send another 10 Billion a month to Iraq for Halliburton to squander.
Here is the big news, this just out: capitalists are Un-American. This tidbit comes from Democracy Now’s August 13th’s evening news show, a factoid so outlandish one has to read it fully to comprehend the magnitude of its impact: “A new government study shows most corporations pay no income taxes in the United States. According to the Government Accountability Office, 72 percent of foreign-owned companies went at least one year without paying taxes over an eight-year period. 55 percent of US-based companies also went at least a year without paying.” That’s right, despite all the tax cuts and tax breaks the wealthy have always given themselves, the majority of American businesses are going that extra mile, saying “Screw America,” and not paying their taxes at all.
Forget what you think your greedy little pocketbook is telling you, not paying taxes is so very not-cool. If you are not doing your daily best to make America work, the least you can do is pay on your tab. Paying taxes is as all-American as it gets. Paying taxes is doing your part to show you actually care about America more than to $2.50 you spent on that yellow ribbon you bought a couple of years ago which is now so sun faded it’s unreadable.
Paying taxes makes roads, operates school, and cops and firemen and soldiers and a host of other things you would seriously rather not live without. Paying taxes is the gift that gives back. But not so you could tell from the GOP, who have routinely tried to bribe the public with tax cuts when they had no real ideas to promote the general welfare, only to line their own pockets.
That’s right and sad to say it but this means that a lot of Republicans are Un-American too and yet they are audacious enough to brag about it. They smile in your face and tell you, you would rather have a hundred bucks off your taxes than a decent school for your daughter, or clean water to drink. Some people, including McCain, squawk that we shouldn’t have to pay taxes because government’s too big. He is convinced that what we really need to fix America is still more tax cuts for the rich. McCain explains that it will be no problem to afford the tax breaks if we only cut back on the quality of government a little more. You know, just anywhere, VA hospitals, Social Security, whatever, just as long as it’s not on the military or domestic surveillance.
Interestingly enough these words of tax cut come from McCain’s lips the same week it’s discovered that the CEOs of America’s biggest companies have donated ten times more campaign dough to McCain than to Obama. If McCain really wants to make government smaller he could quit his supposed job mis-representing AZ and just live off of his herd of lobbyists for years. Of course we could probably easily afford to pay for his salary and plenty else if he and the rest of the GOP would stop trying to help their rich friends avoid paying our taxes.
What a shame. If only they loved America.
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ.
Even when the last week’s political news main feature showed McCain and Obama having to genuflect to the Religious Right’s Rick Warren and quote bible verses to get elected on CNN’s first semi-debate hosted by Pastor Warren at his Saddle Back Forum Church on Saturday Aug. 16th, there is something even more insidiously threatening America than this blurring of church and state.
I tell ya, folks, this problem is big, big news for liberals. And for conservatives too, true conservatives who expect to get their money’s worth and everyone to pull their fair share of the load. Especially big news for the kind of conservatives such as those in Warren’s audience who chuckled at McCain belittling of a 3 million dollar study of bears at the same time they unhesitatingly send another 10 Billion a month to Iraq for Halliburton to squander.
Here is the big news, this just out: capitalists are Un-American. This tidbit comes from Democracy Now’s August 13th’s evening news show, a factoid so outlandish one has to read it fully to comprehend the magnitude of its impact: “A new government study shows most corporations pay no income taxes in the United States. According to the Government Accountability Office, 72 percent of foreign-owned companies went at least one year without paying taxes over an eight-year period. 55 percent of US-based companies also went at least a year without paying.” That’s right, despite all the tax cuts and tax breaks the wealthy have always given themselves, the majority of American businesses are going that extra mile, saying “Screw America,” and not paying their taxes at all.
Forget what you think your greedy little pocketbook is telling you, not paying taxes is so very not-cool. If you are not doing your daily best to make America work, the least you can do is pay on your tab. Paying taxes is as all-American as it gets. Paying taxes is doing your part to show you actually care about America more than to $2.50 you spent on that yellow ribbon you bought a couple of years ago which is now so sun faded it’s unreadable.
Paying taxes makes roads, operates school, and cops and firemen and soldiers and a host of other things you would seriously rather not live without. Paying taxes is the gift that gives back. But not so you could tell from the GOP, who have routinely tried to bribe the public with tax cuts when they had no real ideas to promote the general welfare, only to line their own pockets.
That’s right and sad to say it but this means that a lot of Republicans are Un-American too and yet they are audacious enough to brag about it. They smile in your face and tell you, you would rather have a hundred bucks off your taxes than a decent school for your daughter, or clean water to drink. Some people, including McCain, squawk that we shouldn’t have to pay taxes because government’s too big. He is convinced that what we really need to fix America is still more tax cuts for the rich. McCain explains that it will be no problem to afford the tax breaks if we only cut back on the quality of government a little more. You know, just anywhere, VA hospitals, Social Security, whatever, just as long as it’s not on the military or domestic surveillance.
Interestingly enough these words of tax cut come from McCain’s lips the same week it’s discovered that the CEOs of America’s biggest companies have donated ten times more campaign dough to McCain than to Obama. If McCain really wants to make government smaller he could quit his supposed job mis-representing AZ and just live off of his herd of lobbyists for years. Of course we could probably easily afford to pay for his salary and plenty else if he and the rest of the GOP would stop trying to help their rich friends avoid paying our taxes.
What a shame. If only they loved America.
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Bush the Uniter
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Bush-the-Uniter-by-mikel-weisser-080811-792.html
August 11, 2008
Bush the Uniter
By mikel weisser
When Bob Costas interviewed George Bush for NBC's Olympic coverage on Sunday August 10th, attempting to take a hard line, Costas asked Bush to comment on the problems in our country. Bush replied, "I don't see any problems with our country."-
Following the immediate crowd reaction of everyone in the room yelling "get that man a *&%&$@# pair of glasses" at the TV set, I, like many in the American public, came the realization that from his point of view things in America probably do look pretty rosy. After all, Bush does not have to see any problems. His problems are seen to.
The crowd he runs with, big oil, big Pharma, telecoms, Chinese bankers, and big arms dealers, continue to rake in massive profits and, essentially unchecked, pursue their agendas of pillaging the earth while chemically and entertainingly lobotomizing the masses. The war with Iraq has gone exactly like he wanted: rambling on with no clear purpose. Even as the masses grow who are calling for impeachment, Bush knows he is safe with mainstream media willing to distract us or mute any issue, even something as large as Bush forcing the CIA to forge terrorist documents to better lie to us with.
That's right, in case you missed it, in the Aug. 5 news cycle, Ron Suskind's new book, The Way of the World, was making huge waves with bold accusations of deceptions regarding the Iraq War, both pre- and post-invasion. The White House supposedly authorized paying an Iraqi official a cool five million dollars to draft a letter linking Iraq to alleged 9/11 mastermind Mohammad Atta. The letter enjoyed a brief turn in December '03 before being dismissed as a forgery. The purpose was to lie to the American people who were getting pissed about the lack of WMDs in this country that was supposed to be an imminent threat. It was around the time that Saddam himself popped up like a "Whack-a-Mole" in time for his capture to provide some Christmas cheer. Joy over the Saddam thing buried the controversy over the forged document, until the Pulitzer Prize winning Suskind sussed it out once more, in time for Bush bashers to get another turn at trying to dethrone King George.
If the public presses it, this could be a new beginning of the end of George Bush.
Already, echoing July's concerted, if diminutive Kucinich impeachment effort, many in the press and on the barstools around the land are calling Suskind's claim, if true, "an impeachable offense."
But that's only if our fractionated public were to unify in their reaction, and already the disinformation machine has kicked into high gear. As before when Bush was being pressed on some issue, gasoline prices suddenly start sloping down instead of up and mainstream media has chosen to emphasize the ever available Democratic dirty laundry, this time of Edwards in bed with whomever--and Condi Rice is back to rattling her saber at Iran. This would all be well and good, in fact business as usual, if not for the fact that Fox has taken to shrieking that mainstream media are Bush haters, this convergence of distraction is a clue: Suskind is onto something and needs to be buried.
I say you can tell the man by the company he keeps. Olmert of Israel is resigning in disgrace from corruption charges while creating his own Warsaw ghetto in Gaza; and Pakistan is about to impeach Musharraf for everything from killing Benazir Bhutto to bartering in bacon grease. Like Bush, both men have made shambles of their countries, created war states where none need exist, alienated their own citizenry, repressed their political opposition often at the point of a gun and been implicated in so many shady dealings they should open a sunglasses outlet.
Of course if open resistance leads to open oppression here in the US, Bush and his followers are liable to prove many resisters dead right, or at least dead. If you seriously contend this characterization is over the top, ask an Iraqi whose family has died for Bush lies. It all depends on how the public reacts to the Suskind story. If enough people react, it remains our America, not his. This accusation alone, handled properly by Bush bashers, could prove to be his tipping point. If Bush is to be a uniter one last time, this may be his chance: to be universally despised. --mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ.
August 11, 2008
Bush the Uniter
By mikel weisser
When Bob Costas interviewed George Bush for NBC's Olympic coverage on Sunday August 10th, attempting to take a hard line, Costas asked Bush to comment on the problems in our country. Bush replied, "I don't see any problems with our country."-
Following the immediate crowd reaction of everyone in the room yelling "get that man a *&%&$@# pair of glasses" at the TV set, I, like many in the American public, came the realization that from his point of view things in America probably do look pretty rosy. After all, Bush does not have to see any problems. His problems are seen to.
The crowd he runs with, big oil, big Pharma, telecoms, Chinese bankers, and big arms dealers, continue to rake in massive profits and, essentially unchecked, pursue their agendas of pillaging the earth while chemically and entertainingly lobotomizing the masses. The war with Iraq has gone exactly like he wanted: rambling on with no clear purpose. Even as the masses grow who are calling for impeachment, Bush knows he is safe with mainstream media willing to distract us or mute any issue, even something as large as Bush forcing the CIA to forge terrorist documents to better lie to us with.
That's right, in case you missed it, in the Aug. 5 news cycle, Ron Suskind's new book, The Way of the World, was making huge waves with bold accusations of deceptions regarding the Iraq War, both pre- and post-invasion. The White House supposedly authorized paying an Iraqi official a cool five million dollars to draft a letter linking Iraq to alleged 9/11 mastermind Mohammad Atta. The letter enjoyed a brief turn in December '03 before being dismissed as a forgery. The purpose was to lie to the American people who were getting pissed about the lack of WMDs in this country that was supposed to be an imminent threat. It was around the time that Saddam himself popped up like a "Whack-a-Mole" in time for his capture to provide some Christmas cheer. Joy over the Saddam thing buried the controversy over the forged document, until the Pulitzer Prize winning Suskind sussed it out once more, in time for Bush bashers to get another turn at trying to dethrone King George.
If the public presses it, this could be a new beginning of the end of George Bush.
Already, echoing July's concerted, if diminutive Kucinich impeachment effort, many in the press and on the barstools around the land are calling Suskind's claim, if true, "an impeachable offense."
But that's only if our fractionated public were to unify in their reaction, and already the disinformation machine has kicked into high gear. As before when Bush was being pressed on some issue, gasoline prices suddenly start sloping down instead of up and mainstream media has chosen to emphasize the ever available Democratic dirty laundry, this time of Edwards in bed with whomever--and Condi Rice is back to rattling her saber at Iran. This would all be well and good, in fact business as usual, if not for the fact that Fox has taken to shrieking that mainstream media are Bush haters, this convergence of distraction is a clue: Suskind is onto something and needs to be buried.
I say you can tell the man by the company he keeps. Olmert of Israel is resigning in disgrace from corruption charges while creating his own Warsaw ghetto in Gaza; and Pakistan is about to impeach Musharraf for everything from killing Benazir Bhutto to bartering in bacon grease. Like Bush, both men have made shambles of their countries, created war states where none need exist, alienated their own citizenry, repressed their political opposition often at the point of a gun and been implicated in so many shady dealings they should open a sunglasses outlet.
Of course if open resistance leads to open oppression here in the US, Bush and his followers are liable to prove many resisters dead right, or at least dead. If you seriously contend this characterization is over the top, ask an Iraqi whose family has died for Bush lies. It all depends on how the public reacts to the Suskind story. If enough people react, it remains our America, not his. This accusation alone, handled properly by Bush bashers, could prove to be his tipping point. If Bush is to be a uniter one last time, this may be his chance: to be universally despised. --mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ.
Impeachment Efforts ARE Worth It
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Impeachment-Efforts-Are-Wo-by-mikel-weisser-080805-701.html
August 5, 2008
Impeachment Efforts Are Worth It
By mikel weisser
You hear it all the time: “What are you wasting your time on Impeachment for? You now it’s not going to get anywhere. You’re just going to make yourself trouble.” So many pundits have cast their negative spin on the idea by asking, “Is it worth it?” that I purposefully titled this piece to answer in the affirmative. It was not an easy yes to get to, but yeah, Neil Young and CSNY, sure, let’s do impeachment the president. Of course, recently, the Impeachment Movement (and me personally, perhaps not coincidentally) have had some hard times and that certainly makes it harder to keep one’s spirits up. Following the Hearings on July 25th many of us who had worked for years to see that moment, leapt up as if our excitements alone could compel Congress through our sheer collective force of will. And it hasn’t happened. So, you see you have to keep working, but eventually, the question comes around: Is This All Worth It? But you push on.
Of course I say push on, not fight on, as if what we do could be called a "fight," next to what actual soldiers have had to go through, but fight on. It has taken a elaborate and enormous machinery to cloud the truth from the public, but I still say that truth, in and of itself needs to be treated as if it were the champion of the people and pushed for at all turns. We who know must work in still more ways and 1 on 1 with even more citizens, until so many are calling for justice the apparatus itself responds, even as the lackeys who work for it continue to drone out their disinformation.
Accept this isn’t going to get easy. Loyal GOP and Fox heads will continue to spout their talk, it's what they're paid for. We just have to talk more and more directly and get the seed of truth spread to the point the people demand to hear it.So you try to press on. Then on Friday, Aug. 1st in a phone interview I personally was told by an insider at Judiciary nothing’s doing, and nothing’s going to be done. Over this same period of time a reader could readily find massive amounts of new material on how Pelosi’s 2002 involvement in the Congressional “Gang of 8” briefing on torture makes her complicit and so she won’t press for impeachment because she’s an accessory. Of course you know that everything has its tipping point, put enough weight behind an icon and it will topple, but it’s likely to take an immense amount of weight.
Are we there yet? Not even close. And still the question: Worth it? For many of us who have been running this marathon we thought we were entering the homestretch and found out we hadn’t even made it to the starting gate yet. And yet, both on a personal level and as a citizen, I still say yes. To me the Bush administration has grown to such a monstrosity it is every citizen’s duty to resist and work towards awareness and arrest. It is the basic issue of liberty and freedom for America itself. To spend one's time working for the cause, or even merely the call, of freedom is not a waste. Even if you never achieve the freedom yourself, or if the world is not freed from your trying, your soul and the souls of those you touched will be that much freer and that is certainly worth the time.With a problem the scope of the Bush Dynasty, there are so many disasters it’s occasionally incapacitating just trying to figure out where to start. You’ve got to do something. Of all the different topic to pursue, impeachment ties so many together so beautifully. Like many, many Americans I have strong suspicions on 9/11, am aware of Bilderbergs, Alex Jones, the Federal Reserve, etc. All of it incredibly overwhelming and prima face, undefeatable. That is why I tend to work on more mainstream issues: if we can get the torture to stop then we can do this, if we can unravel the secrecy then we can do that, etc, all of which are handily addressed in impeachment.I will not get my neighbor to accept the network of secret detention facilities around the country waiting for the names on the terrorist watch list until I can get him to see WMDs were a lie, refusing congressional subpoenas is a crime, and war in general, and this war in specific, is an abomination.As Rep. Mel Watt and Ms Holtzman both strongly noted: The American People need to act behind the impeachment for it to work. The public awareness and outcry has increased through our efforts so far, but not enough, until Congress hears Watergate-size thunderous disgust from Americans we need to stay in hard-pressed PR mode and publicize the ambiguity out of this issue. Bush succeeds because though people don't like what he's doing they keep being told, it's OK. Well, what he's done is not OK and it is our job to make sure that everyone knows it.So I call us all back to action. Several writers have urged increased agitation and this sounds great to me. I’ll march for a cause, but I don't like being beaten for a cause, especially if we can outsmart the tyrant. One of the posters on OpEdNews Mr. M is right, outlandish activism in civil disobedience is the key right now. We have to out shout the media, both in spectacle and sincerity. Not just write or call Congress on a regular basis or have gripe sessions with friends. We have to confront the enforced ignorance. Make and hand out flyers yourself. “Street corner” it whenever you have 15 minutes. In addition to occasional street corner standing with protest signs I have also incorporated using disposable "Impeach Bush" signs and stapling them to abandoned buildings with high visibility. One person with a sign on a busy street can affect 100s in an hour. The more the more impact, but ONE alone does make a difference. This is a saturation thing. Why did the Bush admin lie 944 times about WMDs? Because repetition works.
Here's an idea I read in an op-ed out of Florida and have adopted: Hand write an Impeach Bush flyer on a sheet of typing paper and tape it to your car. Make it gaudy, let it be ugly. The more of these on the streets the more the general public has to think about impeachment. And this thought that came from our family's discussion of how to best dramatize the impeachment is that instead of, as typical, one large protest in DC, we need 100s of protests at cities around the country. Small ones add up, like yesterday I got contacted about a vacant lot with posts available for activist content. Today by noon on a main thoroughfare in Kingman, AZ is a 4 X 8 sign that reads "Impeach Bush Now! Call Congress." I also have spent a half hour or so a day over the last couple of days sidewalk protesting for impeachment right in front of the local Repug headquarters. ALSO, harass the press for their lack of accountability. They are less likely to be true believers than GOP politicians and need to be called to account when they propagandize. Here is a link for FAIR's media contact list. They deserve the attention as much as congress.Just be sure: While I am not advocating violence, I believe this is a time for hostility, or at least to push beyond silence even when it’s uncomfortable. This is a time for purposeful confrontation of the Bush propagandists, even when that means one-on-one in the grocery store with someone wearing Bush/GOP propaganda. The people need to confront for themselves what the Bush admin has been proven to stand and what their alliance to the junta says about their personal character. For to endorse Bush is to endorse tyranny, lying, torture, greed, heartlessness, etc., even to the personal level of still having a red white and blue "W '04" sticker on your SUV.
Surely a vast number of the people who once believed in Bush now know the ashes and anger the rest of us have known for years. You could be the one to help them get to that anger and then they could help us get our country back. Without a massive outpouring of public outcry, the kind ImpeachBush.tv calls the “Nixon Flood,” we won’t have an impeachment. And if we don’t do something soon, we won’t have a country. Sure you will get some nasty looks, cuss words and other unpleasantries, you may find yourself having a tense conversation with someone you’ve half known for years or with someone you just met but need to depend on; and you may find yourself out of a job over this. Believe I speak from experience.
But remember this, especially when you contemplate the ever spreading network of detention centers Alex Jones keep trying to warn us about: With the terrorist watch list now spreading to over one million names we have to wonder just how low the standards have gotten to make it on the list? What does it mean to be the eight hundred and seven-five thousand, four hundred and thirty-fifth angriest person at Bush? Do you have to know how to make bombs, some protest you went to, or column you wrote, or is it because of a bumper sticker on your car?
Let’s face it, if the US actually had one million terrorists running around actively working on the destruction of our country, an army of a million fanatics? We’re all screwed. If Al Qaida has secretly infiltrated one million dedicated soldiers inside our borders we are occupied by the sixth largest army on the planet. So who is the enemy Bush is trying to secure America from? Ourselves?
Maybe like Nixon’s Enemies List before, perhaps the majority of those million people aren’t so much enemies of the state as enemies of Bush and Bush is not the state … yet.
Is Impeachment worth it? I say Yes What do you think?--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of Arizona
August 5, 2008
Impeachment Efforts Are Worth It
By mikel weisser
You hear it all the time: “What are you wasting your time on Impeachment for? You now it’s not going to get anywhere. You’re just going to make yourself trouble.” So many pundits have cast their negative spin on the idea by asking, “Is it worth it?” that I purposefully titled this piece to answer in the affirmative. It was not an easy yes to get to, but yeah, Neil Young and CSNY, sure, let’s do impeachment the president. Of course, recently, the Impeachment Movement (and me personally, perhaps not coincidentally) have had some hard times and that certainly makes it harder to keep one’s spirits up. Following the Hearings on July 25th many of us who had worked for years to see that moment, leapt up as if our excitements alone could compel Congress through our sheer collective force of will. And it hasn’t happened. So, you see you have to keep working, but eventually, the question comes around: Is This All Worth It? But you push on.
Of course I say push on, not fight on, as if what we do could be called a "fight," next to what actual soldiers have had to go through, but fight on. It has taken a elaborate and enormous machinery to cloud the truth from the public, but I still say that truth, in and of itself needs to be treated as if it were the champion of the people and pushed for at all turns. We who know must work in still more ways and 1 on 1 with even more citizens, until so many are calling for justice the apparatus itself responds, even as the lackeys who work for it continue to drone out their disinformation.
Accept this isn’t going to get easy. Loyal GOP and Fox heads will continue to spout their talk, it's what they're paid for. We just have to talk more and more directly and get the seed of truth spread to the point the people demand to hear it.So you try to press on. Then on Friday, Aug. 1st in a phone interview I personally was told by an insider at Judiciary nothing’s doing, and nothing’s going to be done. Over this same period of time a reader could readily find massive amounts of new material on how Pelosi’s 2002 involvement in the Congressional “Gang of 8” briefing on torture makes her complicit and so she won’t press for impeachment because she’s an accessory. Of course you know that everything has its tipping point, put enough weight behind an icon and it will topple, but it’s likely to take an immense amount of weight.
Are we there yet? Not even close. And still the question: Worth it? For many of us who have been running this marathon we thought we were entering the homestretch and found out we hadn’t even made it to the starting gate yet. And yet, both on a personal level and as a citizen, I still say yes. To me the Bush administration has grown to such a monstrosity it is every citizen’s duty to resist and work towards awareness and arrest. It is the basic issue of liberty and freedom for America itself. To spend one's time working for the cause, or even merely the call, of freedom is not a waste. Even if you never achieve the freedom yourself, or if the world is not freed from your trying, your soul and the souls of those you touched will be that much freer and that is certainly worth the time.With a problem the scope of the Bush Dynasty, there are so many disasters it’s occasionally incapacitating just trying to figure out where to start. You’ve got to do something. Of all the different topic to pursue, impeachment ties so many together so beautifully. Like many, many Americans I have strong suspicions on 9/11, am aware of Bilderbergs, Alex Jones, the Federal Reserve, etc. All of it incredibly overwhelming and prima face, undefeatable. That is why I tend to work on more mainstream issues: if we can get the torture to stop then we can do this, if we can unravel the secrecy then we can do that, etc, all of which are handily addressed in impeachment.I will not get my neighbor to accept the network of secret detention facilities around the country waiting for the names on the terrorist watch list until I can get him to see WMDs were a lie, refusing congressional subpoenas is a crime, and war in general, and this war in specific, is an abomination.As Rep. Mel Watt and Ms Holtzman both strongly noted: The American People need to act behind the impeachment for it to work. The public awareness and outcry has increased through our efforts so far, but not enough, until Congress hears Watergate-size thunderous disgust from Americans we need to stay in hard-pressed PR mode and publicize the ambiguity out of this issue. Bush succeeds because though people don't like what he's doing they keep being told, it's OK. Well, what he's done is not OK and it is our job to make sure that everyone knows it.So I call us all back to action. Several writers have urged increased agitation and this sounds great to me. I’ll march for a cause, but I don't like being beaten for a cause, especially if we can outsmart the tyrant. One of the posters on OpEdNews Mr. M is right, outlandish activism in civil disobedience is the key right now. We have to out shout the media, both in spectacle and sincerity. Not just write or call Congress on a regular basis or have gripe sessions with friends. We have to confront the enforced ignorance. Make and hand out flyers yourself. “Street corner” it whenever you have 15 minutes. In addition to occasional street corner standing with protest signs I have also incorporated using disposable "Impeach Bush" signs and stapling them to abandoned buildings with high visibility. One person with a sign on a busy street can affect 100s in an hour. The more the more impact, but ONE alone does make a difference. This is a saturation thing. Why did the Bush admin lie 944 times about WMDs? Because repetition works.
Here's an idea I read in an op-ed out of Florida and have adopted: Hand write an Impeach Bush flyer on a sheet of typing paper and tape it to your car. Make it gaudy, let it be ugly. The more of these on the streets the more the general public has to think about impeachment. And this thought that came from our family's discussion of how to best dramatize the impeachment is that instead of, as typical, one large protest in DC, we need 100s of protests at cities around the country. Small ones add up, like yesterday I got contacted about a vacant lot with posts available for activist content. Today by noon on a main thoroughfare in Kingman, AZ is a 4 X 8 sign that reads "Impeach Bush Now! Call Congress." I also have spent a half hour or so a day over the last couple of days sidewalk protesting for impeachment right in front of the local Repug headquarters. ALSO, harass the press for their lack of accountability. They are less likely to be true believers than GOP politicians and need to be called to account when they propagandize. Here is a link for FAIR's media contact list. They deserve the attention as much as congress.Just be sure: While I am not advocating violence, I believe this is a time for hostility, or at least to push beyond silence even when it’s uncomfortable. This is a time for purposeful confrontation of the Bush propagandists, even when that means one-on-one in the grocery store with someone wearing Bush/GOP propaganda. The people need to confront for themselves what the Bush admin has been proven to stand and what their alliance to the junta says about their personal character. For to endorse Bush is to endorse tyranny, lying, torture, greed, heartlessness, etc., even to the personal level of still having a red white and blue "W '04" sticker on your SUV.
Surely a vast number of the people who once believed in Bush now know the ashes and anger the rest of us have known for years. You could be the one to help them get to that anger and then they could help us get our country back. Without a massive outpouring of public outcry, the kind ImpeachBush.tv calls the “Nixon Flood,” we won’t have an impeachment. And if we don’t do something soon, we won’t have a country. Sure you will get some nasty looks, cuss words and other unpleasantries, you may find yourself having a tense conversation with someone you’ve half known for years or with someone you just met but need to depend on; and you may find yourself out of a job over this. Believe I speak from experience.
But remember this, especially when you contemplate the ever spreading network of detention centers Alex Jones keep trying to warn us about: With the terrorist watch list now spreading to over one million names we have to wonder just how low the standards have gotten to make it on the list? What does it mean to be the eight hundred and seven-five thousand, four hundred and thirty-fifth angriest person at Bush? Do you have to know how to make bombs, some protest you went to, or column you wrote, or is it because of a bumper sticker on your car?
Let’s face it, if the US actually had one million terrorists running around actively working on the destruction of our country, an army of a million fanatics? We’re all screwed. If Al Qaida has secretly infiltrated one million dedicated soldiers inside our borders we are occupied by the sixth largest army on the planet. So who is the enemy Bush is trying to secure America from? Ourselves?
Maybe like Nixon’s Enemies List before, perhaps the majority of those million people aren’t so much enemies of the state as enemies of Bush and Bush is not the state … yet.
Is Impeachment worth it? I say Yes What do you think?--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of Arizona
Recent news articles
Following the success of my article on the July 25th House Judiciary hearings on Dennis Kucinich's call for the Impeachment of George Bush i went on the publish a series of short news articles with OpEdNews. Here they are compiled.
OpEdNews
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/One-Week-Later--Kucinich---by-mikel-weisser-080801-361.html
August 5, 2008
One Week Later: Kucinich, Judiciary, Franks and the Whitehouse Silent
By mikel weisser
With additional reporting by Nancy Holt and Amanda Lang
One week after the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the "Imperial Presidency," where many congressional members and expert witnesses called out for the immediate impeachment of President George Bush, none of the offices of three of the congressional major players in the hearings, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), John Conyers (D-MI), or Trent Franks (R-AZ) has issued any public statements on the results or public response.
"One week follow-up" calls on August 1 to all three offices showed staff very busy trying to keep up with increased public calls for information on the impeachment, despite what Kucinich District Office staffer, Marian Carey, characterizes as "minimal media reaction." Carey did however a share her excitement over the wave of citizen action the hearings have generated, calling it "very positive" and urged all citizens to continue calling their congressman. Kucinich's office also commented on the importance of the new July 30th ruling by Federal District Court Judge John Bates, one of the pro-GOP Bush appointed judges, that Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton are not exempt from complying with congressional subpoenas. "It's two ahead of Rove, so it is really good news," Carey noted.
Over at Judiciary, staff called this week's citizen call volume "tremendous" and confirmed citizen reports that there will be an official Judiciary Committee statement on the hearings released on August 15th. Even after a double check that date held firm. For those keeping track, the confirmation of a soon-to-be-released public statement by the committee is a backpedal from an earlier mid-week backpedal, when Judiciary staff denied their earlier claim of an upcoming public statement.
Trent Franks' office also had no public statement, but also allowed that their office had experienced a marked increase in citizen phone calls on impeachment. "There have been a quite a few calls this week on that," the staff member acknowledged. Franks had been one of the major GOP players in the hearings, condemning and insinuating that those calling for impeachment hearings were friends and/or agents of the terrorists.
Upon Franks' office request, the following list of questions was submitted via email to Franks' press staff member, Bethany Barker:
1. Has the Representative issued any public statements or have plans to issue public statements regarding the July 25th hearings?
2. Does he have a position on the role party politics has played in giving the accusations made in the hearing fair light?
3. Does he have reassurances for either constituents, or Americans in general, who are concerned with hearing witnesses' extensive claims of criminal behavior by the Whitehouse and congressional GOP complicity?
We await their reply. Meanwhile at the Whitehouse, Press Secretary Dana Perino's office acknowledged that the presidential website and press office had not released any public statements thus far, though promised to look into press accounts of the hearings and the public response to them and get back to this reporter for a statement.
**
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Judiciary-Backpedals-on-Re-by-mikel-weisser-080731-6.html
July 31, 2008
Judiciary Backpedals on Reports and Transcripts from "Non-Impeachment" Hearings
By mikel weisser
Claiming an intern error, the House Judiciary Committee has retracted Monday statements regarding updates on the July 25th hearing on alleged presidential abuses, AKA the “non-impeachment” hearings.
A late Wednesday afternoon call showed the Judiciary Committee now claiming congressional procedures will require the official transcripts of the six hour hearing to be held for 90 days, meaning the official transcripts will not be made available to the American public until just before the November elections. A staffer who declined to give her name claimed that Monday’s statement that the transcripts would ready for the public on Aug. 3rd was an “intern error,” explaining that there are “new people in the office and they don’t know.”
The same explanation of “intern error” was given for the retraction of another, even more critical, earlier statement that an official committee report, or announcement of the findings from the hearing would be made available in “two weeks.” “There are no plans for any report or statement regarding the findings from those hearings. They are completed. We do not make press releases on hearings that have already happened.”
When asked to clarify, the staffer did acknowledge that the latest press release posted on the Judiciary’s website [dated 7/28/08—post hearing] was indeed a report of findings from a hearing, but the staffer explained it was actually a report of another committee’s hearing.
“To clarify then, you will post reports on the hearings of other congressional committees, but not of your own hearings?”
“We do not make press releases on hearings that have already happened,” the staffer replied.
While the Judiciary anticipates no plans to release a report concerning the July 25th hearings, the staffer says the committee chair, John Conyers D-MI, would not rule out potential future committee actions based on voluminous evidence introduced on the 25th by Constitutional law experts Bruce Fein and Elizabeth Holtzman, among others, but the staffer would not specify what any further actions might be, only that none have been planned.
When questioned for further information on the transcripts, the staffer claimed that those in the DC area could come to the committee office to view the current draft edition of the transcripts. Interested citizens would be allowed to examine the document and even take notes, but not allowed to make photocopies.
In an additional, though unrelated, example of backpedaling by Judiciary staff, when asked about the volume of calls making inquiries after Friday, the unnamed staffer, at first replied “There’s just been a couple a day.” Since this call was made after 4:30 DC time, the caller clarified to be sure, “The phrase ‘a couple literally refers two, as in a married couple for example; and while the term can be construed to include as many as four, are you trying to imply that besides this call, counting as one, only one other person in America called today to ask about Friday’s hearings?”
After a pause the staffer clarified, “No sir, several called today.”
Given the significance of these backpedals. It might prove helpful for those pressing for impeachment to independently call the Judiciary and ask the same simple questions: 1) When will the committee release the transcripts to the public? 2) When will the committee announce a report to the full house from the hearings? 3) What kinds of actions is the committee preparing in light of the numerous charges of criminal behavior laid out for the public record in the hearings?
The House Judiciary Committee public phone number is 202-225-3951. Readers who make calls themselves could compile the results in the comments below.
**
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Code-Pink-Collects-Signatu-by-mikel-weisser-080731-557.html
July 31, 2008
Code Pink Collects Signatures for Kucinich's Congressional Record
By mikel weisser
In a widely circulated e-mail entitled "You Put Impeachment on the Table," celebrating its memberships' years-long efforts opposing the Bush regime, Code Pink has given its mailing list an unusual opportunity to participate in the historic moment by signing a petition that Kucinich is purportedly to add into the Congressional Record on Friday, Aug. 1st, the last of the five days the Judiciary Committee agreed to keep the record open before finalizing the transcripts of the July 25th "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limits" hearing, which the committee had earlier announced on July 17th as a hearing on the "Imperial Presidency," now widely known as the "Non-Impeachment Hearings."
Signers are asked to support the following text:"We the People:WHEREAS, in his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed abuses of power.THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States and that he be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Sincerely," etc.
The collected signatures will be an example in the Congressional Record of the public response to activist groups' efforts toward impeachment. The petition is operated by the online activist organizational website, Democracy in Action. By clicking a link in the email the viewer is linked to the Code Pink website's petition page. With less than 24 hours to go till the posted deadline, the one day blitz email had collected more 3400 signatures, by 2am AZ time, including mine at # 3406. ""yzur--
**
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Judiciary-Committee-to-Ann-by-mikel-weisser-080728-899.html
July 28, 2008
Judiciary Committee to Announce Results of "Non-Impeachment" Hearing in 2 Weeks
By mikel weisser
A Monday mid-day call to the House Judiciary offices of John Conyers provided a wide variety of info that a trip to their website does not, including news the official report from the hearings expected to be released "in two weeks" a term used by two different staffers though no names were given. Transcripts of the hearing will be made public on Aug. 3rd. Off the record, one staffer acknowledged that there was talk of further hearings regarding the numerous charges of impeachable offenses, principally those leveled by former representative Elizabeth Holtzman and former Reagan Attorney General's office staffer, Bruce Fein.
Incidentally, a Monday mid-day call to the House offices of "terror propagandist," Trent Franks, revealed new staff members answering phone. Whether and what kind of victory that might be is anyone's guess.
OpEdNews
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/One-Week-Later--Kucinich---by-mikel-weisser-080801-361.html
August 5, 2008
One Week Later: Kucinich, Judiciary, Franks and the Whitehouse Silent
By mikel weisser
With additional reporting by Nancy Holt and Amanda Lang
One week after the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the "Imperial Presidency," where many congressional members and expert witnesses called out for the immediate impeachment of President George Bush, none of the offices of three of the congressional major players in the hearings, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), John Conyers (D-MI), or Trent Franks (R-AZ) has issued any public statements on the results or public response.
"One week follow-up" calls on August 1 to all three offices showed staff very busy trying to keep up with increased public calls for information on the impeachment, despite what Kucinich District Office staffer, Marian Carey, characterizes as "minimal media reaction." Carey did however a share her excitement over the wave of citizen action the hearings have generated, calling it "very positive" and urged all citizens to continue calling their congressman. Kucinich's office also commented on the importance of the new July 30th ruling by Federal District Court Judge John Bates, one of the pro-GOP Bush appointed judges, that Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton are not exempt from complying with congressional subpoenas. "It's two ahead of Rove, so it is really good news," Carey noted.
Over at Judiciary, staff called this week's citizen call volume "tremendous" and confirmed citizen reports that there will be an official Judiciary Committee statement on the hearings released on August 15th. Even after a double check that date held firm. For those keeping track, the confirmation of a soon-to-be-released public statement by the committee is a backpedal from an earlier mid-week backpedal, when Judiciary staff denied their earlier claim of an upcoming public statement.
Trent Franks' office also had no public statement, but also allowed that their office had experienced a marked increase in citizen phone calls on impeachment. "There have been a quite a few calls this week on that," the staff member acknowledged. Franks had been one of the major GOP players in the hearings, condemning and insinuating that those calling for impeachment hearings were friends and/or agents of the terrorists.
Upon Franks' office request, the following list of questions was submitted via email to Franks' press staff member, Bethany Barker:
1. Has the Representative issued any public statements or have plans to issue public statements regarding the July 25th hearings?
2. Does he have a position on the role party politics has played in giving the accusations made in the hearing fair light?
3. Does he have reassurances for either constituents, or Americans in general, who are concerned with hearing witnesses' extensive claims of criminal behavior by the Whitehouse and congressional GOP complicity?
We await their reply. Meanwhile at the Whitehouse, Press Secretary Dana Perino's office acknowledged that the presidential website and press office had not released any public statements thus far, though promised to look into press accounts of the hearings and the public response to them and get back to this reporter for a statement.
**
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Judiciary-Backpedals-on-Re-by-mikel-weisser-080731-6.html
July 31, 2008
Judiciary Backpedals on Reports and Transcripts from "Non-Impeachment" Hearings
By mikel weisser
Claiming an intern error, the House Judiciary Committee has retracted Monday statements regarding updates on the July 25th hearing on alleged presidential abuses, AKA the “non-impeachment” hearings.
A late Wednesday afternoon call showed the Judiciary Committee now claiming congressional procedures will require the official transcripts of the six hour hearing to be held for 90 days, meaning the official transcripts will not be made available to the American public until just before the November elections. A staffer who declined to give her name claimed that Monday’s statement that the transcripts would ready for the public on Aug. 3rd was an “intern error,” explaining that there are “new people in the office and they don’t know.”
The same explanation of “intern error” was given for the retraction of another, even more critical, earlier statement that an official committee report, or announcement of the findings from the hearing would be made available in “two weeks.” “There are no plans for any report or statement regarding the findings from those hearings. They are completed. We do not make press releases on hearings that have already happened.”
When asked to clarify, the staffer did acknowledge that the latest press release posted on the Judiciary’s website [dated 7/28/08—post hearing] was indeed a report of findings from a hearing, but the staffer explained it was actually a report of another committee’s hearing.
“To clarify then, you will post reports on the hearings of other congressional committees, but not of your own hearings?”
“We do not make press releases on hearings that have already happened,” the staffer replied.
While the Judiciary anticipates no plans to release a report concerning the July 25th hearings, the staffer says the committee chair, John Conyers D-MI, would not rule out potential future committee actions based on voluminous evidence introduced on the 25th by Constitutional law experts Bruce Fein and Elizabeth Holtzman, among others, but the staffer would not specify what any further actions might be, only that none have been planned.
When questioned for further information on the transcripts, the staffer claimed that those in the DC area could come to the committee office to view the current draft edition of the transcripts. Interested citizens would be allowed to examine the document and even take notes, but not allowed to make photocopies.
In an additional, though unrelated, example of backpedaling by Judiciary staff, when asked about the volume of calls making inquiries after Friday, the unnamed staffer, at first replied “There’s just been a couple a day.” Since this call was made after 4:30 DC time, the caller clarified to be sure, “The phrase ‘a couple literally refers two, as in a married couple for example; and while the term can be construed to include as many as four, are you trying to imply that besides this call, counting as one, only one other person in America called today to ask about Friday’s hearings?”
After a pause the staffer clarified, “No sir, several called today.”
Given the significance of these backpedals. It might prove helpful for those pressing for impeachment to independently call the Judiciary and ask the same simple questions: 1) When will the committee release the transcripts to the public? 2) When will the committee announce a report to the full house from the hearings? 3) What kinds of actions is the committee preparing in light of the numerous charges of criminal behavior laid out for the public record in the hearings?
The House Judiciary Committee public phone number is 202-225-3951. Readers who make calls themselves could compile the results in the comments below.
**
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Code-Pink-Collects-Signatu-by-mikel-weisser-080731-557.html
July 31, 2008
Code Pink Collects Signatures for Kucinich's Congressional Record
By mikel weisser
In a widely circulated e-mail entitled "You Put Impeachment on the Table," celebrating its memberships' years-long efforts opposing the Bush regime, Code Pink has given its mailing list an unusual opportunity to participate in the historic moment by signing a petition that Kucinich is purportedly to add into the Congressional Record on Friday, Aug. 1st, the last of the five days the Judiciary Committee agreed to keep the record open before finalizing the transcripts of the July 25th "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limits" hearing, which the committee had earlier announced on July 17th as a hearing on the "Imperial Presidency," now widely known as the "Non-Impeachment Hearings."
Signers are asked to support the following text:"We the People:WHEREAS, in his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed abuses of power.THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that President George W. Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and Commander in Chief, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States and that he be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Sincerely," etc.
The collected signatures will be an example in the Congressional Record of the public response to activist groups' efforts toward impeachment. The petition is operated by the online activist organizational website, Democracy in Action. By clicking a link in the email the viewer is linked to the Code Pink website's petition page. With less than 24 hours to go till the posted deadline, the one day blitz email had collected more 3400 signatures, by 2am AZ time, including mine at # 3406. ""yzur--
**
Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Judiciary-Committee-to-Ann-by-mikel-weisser-080728-899.html
July 28, 2008
Judiciary Committee to Announce Results of "Non-Impeachment" Hearing in 2 Weeks
By mikel weisser
A Monday mid-day call to the House Judiciary offices of John Conyers provided a wide variety of info that a trip to their website does not, including news the official report from the hearings expected to be released "in two weeks" a term used by two different staffers though no names were given. Transcripts of the hearing will be made public on Aug. 3rd. Off the record, one staffer acknowledged that there was talk of further hearings regarding the numerous charges of impeachable offenses, principally those leveled by former representative Elizabeth Holtzman and former Reagan Attorney General's office staffer, Bruce Fein.
Incidentally, a Monday mid-day call to the House offices of "terror propagandist," Trent Franks, revealed new staff members answering phone. Whether and what kind of victory that might be is anyone's guess.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
CURRENT COMEDY: The Not Really Transcripts of the Not Really Hearings
AKA, "Notes from the Non-Impeachment:
A Not Particularly Complete Transcription of the Judiciary’s “Imperial Presidency”/Don’t Say “Impeachment” Hearings July, 25th 2008"
Briefly, some time around Monday evening, June 9, there was a giddy moment when it seemed that justice was still possible in America. On the Friday before, the Senate Intelligence committee had issued their report condemning the Bush propaganda machine efforts to kick-start the Iraq War as intentional deception. As folks had been saying along Bush lied, Thousands Died. Impeach.
And by that following Monday, Dennis Kucinich stood before the assembled might of the US Congress and read 35 different, verifiable, reasons George Bush could at last be removed from office. All across America millions of citizen finally exhaled our sighs of relief and waited for history to happen.
And of course it didn’t.
As planned. With Speaker Pelosi sternly disapproving and Steny Hoyer dutifully leading his majority away from the topic with all post haste, it turned out the Republican party were the ones who championed hearing for impeachment, hoping to easily out debate and embarrass Dem leadership. They actually pressed to have the thing heard right there, but it wound up in committee, presumably to die.
And so we waited through June, recurring calls to the Judiciary gave no clue that their stance on why impeachment should not be discussed and when challenged as ineffective against Bush, Conyers office would refer to the ousting of Alberto Gonzales, who was embarrassed out of office over the Attorney General firings.
So true to the promise he made to Congress and to the American people, when Congress failed to act for more than 30 Days, on July 11th, Kucinich again introduced impeachment but this time focusing on one charge: the deceptions of imminent threat regarding Hussein in the fall of ’02.
And somehow an amazing thing happened: on the 17th Conyers Judiciary Committee announced hearings. While the bombshell flashed through the online progressive community, it remained a non-starter for mainstream media. Unlike either the Nixon Hearings over Watergate or Clinton’s BJ impeachment, no mainstream media outlet had plans to cover the hearing live for the public to decide. In fact when called in a July 24th survey of the major TV news networks, NBC backpedaled through 6, count ‘em, 6 different viewer service reps who didn’t even know who to ask to find out if the network was covering it. And the guy who answered the phone in the ABC national news newsroom, not only had not heard about the hearings and but did not even know how to check on the Judiciary committee’s schedule of upcoming hearings. When finally guided to the public notice, he grudgingly allowed they’d “do something on it, I’m sure,” and hug up.
Of course not wanting to draw too much attention to the hearings in advance, the ever meek Conyers originally billed the hearing as “The Imperial Presidency” and later milded down even that, to “Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations.” In fact when the hearings finally started after a good twenty minutes of live glad-handing, Conyers duly admonished the crowd they were not allowed to show any reaction to any statements made and both witnesses and committee members were neither allowed to speak of impeachment nor in the pejorative in general of the president or name him directly in any accusatory fashion.
A faux rule which easily fell to the wayside once the testimonies started. At first I was so dazzled by the fact that the hearings were even happening, that my wife and daughter and I got up early and gathered in front of the TV at 7am AZ time for the opening gavel on CSPAN and just stared open mouthed.
The line that eventually got me to realize I could be taking notes was, “Informed criticism, as annoying as it may be to those in positions of power, is the stuff of democracy”—Brad Miller D-NC in his opening remarks.
What follows is an attempt keep up live with the pace of the action over the nearly six hour hearing. I am not a stenographer and so many of the issues discussed required a certain amount of background info to contextualize that the quotes are few and the summaries many. However since the chances are good mainstream media may never present much coverage of this hearing historic hearing, here’s my best shot:
Following Conyers gentle often befuddled sounding opening remarks, which included the lines, “the politicization of the Department of Justice, the misuse of signing statements, the misuse of authority with regard to detention, interrogation and rendition, possible manipulation of intelligence regarding the Iraq war, improper retaliation against critics of the administration… and excessive secrecy,” several committee members also made opening remarks with GOP loyalists uniformally outraged over the very essence of the hearings Ranking Repug Lamar Smith hissed loudly the mantra of the GOP objections: congressional consideration of the numerous lies, deaths, unjust imprisonments, and misspent billions of President Bush amounts to “the criminalization of political partisanship.” In other words the problem is not that Bush and his supporters committed these heinous acts, but that they were members of the Republican Party and those complaining about their actions are members of the Democratic Party.
Trent Franks (my own representative, woe is me) gave the most offensive anti-hearing address complaining that the terrorists were winning because the hearings were taking up time that Congress should have been working to further restrict and invade rights in the War on Terror. Franks contended that though the president has only has a 30% approval rating Congress’ approval rating is in single digits due largely to its despicable hounding of the poor president. Coincidentally later that same day MSNBC showed the latest poll which had the numbers at Bush 23%, Congress 15%.
Walter Jones D-NC complained about the signing statements which Bush has repeatedly used to, in some cases, completely undo the purpose of the legislation, noting that though signing statements go all the way back to Monroe, all presidents before Bush only totaled to 600 that Constitutionally damaging or violating and Bush alone has generated over 800 alone.
After several Dem reps talked about the various areas of neglect and abuse of the Bush admin and the bills they’ve introduced to try to combat these abuses, Elizabeth Holtzman, author of the book, The Impeachment of President Bush and former US rep. from New York laid out a forceful case on numerous legitimate sounding “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
It is worth remembering that Bob Barr, the 2nd public witness before the committee, is a strident conservative and had been one of the key players in the Clinton impeachment process. He said there are “legions of instances … where, to be most generous, the understanding of liberty are lacking.” Barr, speaking with purposefully dispassion, clarifies that the Bush usurpations of presidential power and Constitutional abuses did not start with Bush, but his administration has taken it to new extremes. And further this is first the first step for future presidents who, he noted, typically use the excesses of previous presidents “not as a ceiling, but as a floor.” Unlike the vast majority of the actual testimony in the hearing, Barr’s testimony was available online within hours of the hearing and can be found here.
Former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson focused the way the extensive secrecy the Bush admin has invoked suggesting that the sheer number of things we don’t know due to the intensive secrecy of the Bush Admin is perhaps the scariest part of the matters at hand. Due to that secrecy, without Congress pressing for investigation the world may never on the possible scope of “the monstrous human rights abuses” of the Bush admin.
Noted Conservative, Stephen Presser, the Northwestern University law professor who had provided the definition for the Constitutional concept of impeachment during the Clinton Impeachment in 1998, served the same role in these hearing and, in order, threw out the all 6 of the major issues that those calling for impeachment had championed: including signing statements, willful defiance of congressional subpoenas, the politicalization of the Justice Dept., the whole signing statements debate, the misrepresentation of WMDs, misuse of authority and even torture.
Assertions which the next witness, Bruce Fein, former Reagan Deputy Attorney General also a Constitutional law expert, intensely disputed, claiming the executive branch has pillaged our Constitution and civil liberties as thoroughly “as the barbarians sacked Rome.”
Next celebrity DA/author, Vincent Bugliosi, whose current bestseller is called The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, attempted to summarize his whole book in a short five minute time limit and focused on the now widely documented lies the Bush Admin used in the run-up to the Iraq War, opened by saying at this stage of his career he doesn’t have time to mess around: the lies that Bush has told have led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. At this the crowd in the hearing room burst into applause. Rep. Lamar Smith returned to his role as designated killjoy asked the room be cleared. Conyers, ever polite, declined to do this, but admonished the crowd politely.
As if brought in to be a balancing act to Bugliosi’s vitriol, Jeremy Rabkin, a George Mason University law professor, acknowledged he had been called in by the minority contingent, even though he didn’t want to be put in a position of defending the Bush Admin. He then quite clearly dismissed the efforts of various witnesses to bring in additional issues such as FISA and signing statements, since those lesser abuses pale in comparison to the charges of lying to the public and Congress on WMD. That charge alone is enough though he personally rejects it to the point of treating it as laughable. (Coincidentally the 2nd round of Kucinich’s impeachment attempt took that very other same approach and whittling the initial 35 charges to one: liar us into war.) In conclusion Rabkin condemned the hearings themselves as disloyal and out of touch with the vast majority of Americans, noting “the rest of the country is not in this bubble to think it is OK to refer to the president as Caligula.”
Frederick A. O. Swartz, who had serious objections to the Bush Admin, repeatedly referred to torture and the suspension of habeas corpus among other things, noting that the “US should not adopt the methods of our enemies,” called for further investigation before America completely loses her “moral luster.” Still, despite his concerns with Bush’s abuses, he explained that he does not support impeachment, because of the timing, not enough time before the election and the regrettable invariability of the process becoming even further political.
Lastly Elliot Adams, president of the Noble Prize winning Veterans for Peace, opened by recounting the famed Benjamin Franklin quip from the Constitutional Convention that America now had a republic, “if we can keep it.” After listing the various good works of his organization, he explained he had to break away from that stuff to focus on the war crimes of the Bush Admin, and as a soldier, he was outraged.
When given a chance to restate or give additional comment, Holtzman again called for the rejection of lesser measures because the president has been able to evade all lesser efforts to rein him in. Bob Barr comically had a heavily redacted version of the Bill of Rights warning that if we don’t stop Bush we won’t be able to stop some later president.
Rocky Anderson addressed points brought forward by Presser and Pence went so far as to use the word “Fraud.” Presser, while complimenting the process, flatly dismissed the suggestion that the 944 false statements the Bush admin made were intentional lies. There was no proof, he contended that the president acted “with lack of good will.”
Bruce Fein warned that the shape of the war on terror and the expansion of presidential powers are timeless, timeless threats to America. Following Bugliosi’s second reiteration of the lies Bush told and the contention that all subsequent deaths based on those lies, Americans and Iraqis alike, audience member Cindy Sheehan got herself ejected, in the new round of audience applause.
Rabkin simply yielded his time saying that he was not impressed with people repeating their alarmist statements with greater emphasis, so he did not intend to repeat telling them “to calm down.” Frederick Swartz’s second reminded us of the importance of action.
Next, came the committee members turn to ask questions. When ranking Republican Lamar Smith, R-TX, cross-examined he focused, too little surprise, on Presser and Rabkin, the witnesses that supported his assertions that the whole thing was an overblown waste of time and stain on the great Republican Administration of George Bush. Presser was focused on the non-criminal nature of Bush abuses of power. Rabkin simply listed other presidents who had led the country into wars on less than truthful statements (such as McKinley, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson) doubted that the public would take accusations against those presidents either.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler D-NY flat out rejected Presser’s and Rabkin’s defense of Bush lies as innocent unintentional mistakes based on good intentions and pointed out that there is considerable proof (such as the Senate Intelligence Committee report of June 4th or the Center for Public Integrity’s exhaustive listing of 935 documented “false statements.”) that Bush consciously lied to Congress in Oct. of ’02, and so it doesn’t matter what his intentions were, a lie is a lie.
Next, cross examining Bruce Fein, Nadler explored possible future Constitutional remedies for presidential abuses and ways to limit presidential pardon powers, to which Fein replied that the necessary and proper clause, our friend from Article I, Section , 8, paragraph18. Nadler, feeling very enthused, then moved on to Holtzman to compare the current process to her role in Nixon’s aborted impeachment. Again animated Holtzman exclaimed the process started with the Saturday night massacre and the American people.” She further noted that back in the day, parties were more willing to address the issues of the president’s behavior, not their own party loyalties. “Maybe I’m a cockeyed optimist … Impeachment inquiry itself handled fairly with the full participation of the minority party … with everyone participating … with Constitutional scholars there so no one has feel that we’re out to get someone ... it can work, we have to make it work for the good of the country.”
Rep. Steve King, R-IO, noted Holtzman’s call for non-partisan participation of both parties. He then scolded that if the shoe were on the other foot, the Dems wouldn’t play along well, either. He then focused on the famous 16 words from the 2003 State of the Union address, you remember the whole Nigeria yellow cake issue, noting that Joseph Wilson’s original debriefing from his fact-finding trip to investigate the claim Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa appears to support the contention, though it is worded as heresay. He later showed a previously secret report claiming that in 2007 the US army shipped 550 tons of yellow cake uranium from Iraq, showing that the government was just in their claims. He then attempts to use the old Republican ruse of pointing out all the Dems who signed on the Bush wagon including Obama back in 2004.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA, asked if there were available measures short of impeachment since there are clear abuses that should be redressed. Scott also dismissed Presser and Rabkin’s dismissals of the importance of Bush’s abuses, especially torture issues and the politicalization of the Justice Dept. and used a variety of witnesses, including Fein, Barr and Holtzman, to show they are important after all. First Fein clarified that during discussions in the Watergate hearings, the Justice dept. concluded that a president couldn’t be criminally prosecuted while in office, impeachment was the only recourse. Holtzman agreed and further went on to note that on the issues of torture, or any deaths resulting from that torture, there are “no statutes of limitations for any US national including the people at the highest rung of our government.” She concluded, “The real remedy for a president who continues to act as if he believes he were above the law is impeachment and there is no running away from that.” Bugliosi stepped in to remind all present that though Bush is protected from prosecution while in office, the Jan. 20th he is fair game and America has the right to start pursuing the prosecution now.
Trent Franks stuck to his message of dismay that the terrorists are winning and that there were many notable Democrats who also called for a War on Iraq based on claims of WMDs. He also did a rousing review of quotes to demonstrate how much the terrorists hate us for our freedom. “And somehow we’re going after this president you has done everything in his power to protect us.” Of course, in putting together his terror routine, Franks failed, as so many GOP leaders do, to mention that the American public and politicians were operating on intelligence supplied by Bush in the first place. When Swartz tried to comment Franks concluded his turn rather than let him speak. He also mentioned that by focusing on “fairytales” instead of terrorists, all there that morning should be ashamed.
Mel Watt, D-NC, asked who was protecting us from those who claimed they were protecting us from the bad guys. After a quick shout out to his old buddy Bob Barr, Watt stated he would not lead a call for impeachment, having been through the Clinton impeachment. Watt felt it wasn’t worth attempting to impeachment when there could be no nonpartisan investigation, even though “this is the most important issue I believe this Congress could be pursuing ... I am convinced the Republicans were wrong when they did it, I’m not saying we would be wrong to try it … but I’m not sure it would be a practical matter ... it’s clear to me we would not have the votes …I wish we could raise the standard for the president … If somebody brings the resolution I’ll be right here … I want the American people to ‘impeach’ this president in November of 2008 and this whole administration … and the idea that a president can protect me from terrorists by doing whatever the hell he wants.”
Rep Louie Gohmert R-TX condemned most of the witnesses, reminding them that if misleading to congress is a criminal offense they should consider their “brash allegations.” Gohmert focused on Clinton’s earlier failures and poor President Bush who “naively” “accepted” “Clinton’s lies” about Iraq WMDs. He further claimed that Joe Wilson started speaking out to protect his friends in France who were scamming the UN oil for food deal. He also added, like Franks that the focus of the day should have been on the terrorists, not the innocent, though naïve president. The biggest problem right now is that the Supreme Court had just voted to “release terrorists on American soil.”
Zoe Lofgren D-CA, who also was on hand for the Watergate hearings, hoped to use the current hearings to “curb future abuses.” Lofgren reflected on watching when, Chuck Wiggins, a major Nixon supporter on the Watergate committee finally realized that Nixon had been lying and “his faith and his president had been betrayed.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to support impeachment as a practical matter considering the time available, but was unsure of other means of address. She still laments when Congress abdicated habeas corpus because the president said he was trying to make us safer.
Swartz, finally getting to comment, laid out some precepts of how a commission could created to investigate the Bush admin after they’ve left office. Barr got a nod to champion his proposed methods of redress if he should become president. “It’s hard to know where to start,” Barr chuckled. He talked about repairing a variety of abuses including revising the “doctrine of state secrets,” FISA and signing statements.
Dan Lungren, R-CA, addressed Holtzman and Bugliosi and returned to the popular Republican phrase, the criminalizing of political difference of opinion. He looked back to earlier presidential abuses including the little mentioned tale of Wilson having political cartoonists imprisoned for unfavorable cartoons..He also likened Japanese Internment to Nixon’s post-presidential tax investigations and said the Democrats were “tantamount to overcharging the case.” He asked if impeachment is the proper tool.
Turning to Rabkin and Presser for support, Lungren interrupted Presser and himself to complain that people in the audience were holding signs. Aides and security then circulated through the crowds until members of the crowd broke out in loud, but unfocused protests, including, of all things, paper throwing. After a couple of minutes of chaos, Conyers asked upset audience members to just leave. King again recessed for a recess. Then Presser pressed on despite the background noise. “Do you have a president who acted in good faith or do you have a president who just wasn’t interested in doing that?” Rabkin disputed the assertion that there were no other recourses other than impeachment. He further suggested that if we were to impeach the president, there are numerous others who should also get the boot.
Sheila Jackson Lee, D-TX, echoed Barbara Jordan (who had the same congressional seat, and seat in the Judiciary during Watergate) that the role of the hearings was to protect the rights of “simple people.” Jackson Lee briefly returned to the issue of signing statements then explained, while she wouldn’t call directly for impeachment, she “believes we have a very firm basis for suggesting high crimes and misdemeanors,” but she did call for other lesser commissions to look into abuses, though timing is an issue.
She asked Fein, to clarify the president war powers of congress, as opposed to the powers of the president. Fein noted that the founding fathers asserted that a president who either lies or conceals information from Congress, thus preventing Congress from acting properly, ahs committed a great crime against the country and that is an impeachable offense. “A popular government without popular knowledge is a farce.” Bush concealed information from Congress, thus impairing Congress’ ability to responsibly act on their power to declare war.
Jackson likened Bush Iraq run-up to the current Whitehouse effort towards Iran. Fein also took the opportunity to note the president’s limitation of WMD info in 2002-2003 set the tone for the whole nations’ interpretation of the issue at the time. Jackson Lee also gave Bugliosi a chance to expand on the Bush concealment of dissenting opinions by 16 different US agencies who each said Hussein was not an imminent threat as Bush and company continued to insist that he was and needed to be stopped by force. According to Bugliosi, the WMD issue is less important than the Bush charge of imminent threat.
Mike Pence, R-IN, choose to use his time to prop up the credentials of Steven Presser, presumably to reinforce Presser’s legal opinions as law, Pence, “fascinated with [Presser’s] analysis,” also lauded Madison and Mason at length, noting the founding fathers’ rejected “maladministration” as an impeachable offense because we couldn’t have presidents impeached over policy issues. Pence then, tossed off a couple of props for of all people Dennis Kucinich, then revisited the distinction between the obstruction of justice charges against Clinton and those against Bush. Presser again asserted Bush had not pursued personal interests.
Robert Wexler, D-FL, one of the co-sponsors of the Kucinich’s impeachment measures, refuted that torture, among other offenses, are not simple “policy issues, they go to the issue of abuse of presidential power.” No matter what else Congress looked at, wasn’t the president’s repeated instructing his staff to refuse to cooperate with Congressional investigations. That is not a policy issue, it is a Constitutional action.” After reiterating that the president cannot put himself above the law, he gave the floor to Rocky Anderson who also listed a litany of ways where the president and his staff have clearly and repeatedly refused to even appear despite numerous congressional subpoenas while Congress “cavalierly ignored” it. Fein weighed in that all by itself Bush’s refusal to cooperate with Congress is all enough for a quick, clear-cut, impeachment. Holtzman adamantly concurred, noting that refusing to appear on congressional supeonas ‘subverts the Constitution” which is, all by itself, an impeachable offense.
Steve Cohen D-NY asked first if Holtzman was sure Bush had committed clear impeachable offenses; then if the vice-president is impeachable and could be actually done at the same time, despite the Whitehouse assertions that the vice president cannot be impeached because of his Constitutional, though underserved, role as president of the Senate. Holtzman smiled as she explained they could “do a two-for.” Cohen concluded, “There’s not a method to their madness, just madness.”
Bruce Fein came back on to discuss whether disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales himself had committed impeachable offenses and then built on the idea that there was still plenty of time for a full-scale impeachment since many of Bush’s clear actions on FISA, habeas corpus, and other “blatant” refusals to follow US law are widely documented, would be easily proven, and “rise to the standards of high crimes and misdemeanors.” Fein further explained that an impeachment on various Bush actions which were clearly in violation of Congress are indeed crimes where Bush has already confessed. “You don’t need an archeological investigation.”
Rep. Hank Johnson, D-GA, brought Presser back to clarify the difference between impeaching Clinton for lying and impeaching Bush for lying and, despite Presser’s repeatedly saying that he “didn’t see the facts the same way.” “It seems to me that you take the position that we shouldn’t even be looking at the facts. Is that it?” Johnson eventually got Presser, through extensive use of double negatives to eventually acknowledge that the gravity of the issues at hand and the possibility of “probable cause” showed it would be responsible to further investigate, which is the purpose of an impeachment in the first place. Johnson then asked the same question to Holtzman who said Congress would be shirking their responsibility if they did not hold impeachment hearings.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-CA, opened by lamenting that “Congress has become an advisory board to the president;” then made some sort of joke about Jesse Jackson and his threat to the nuts of Barack Obama. When no one laughed along, Sherman focused in on the Bush Admin’s “nonfeasance” to see if that was an impeachable offense. Bruce Fein started to give a long answer, which Sherman helped him summarize as “yes.” He talked further on how to protect future congresses from future signing statements.
Sherman also visited Holtzman asking if it was proper for a prosecutor to press for a trial when they knew they couldn’t get a conviction, but she wouldn’t bite and declined a clear answer.
Tammy Baldwin, D-WI, addressed the concerns of Bush’s expansion of the presidential powers with a metaphor based on Washington building a toolbox out of the cherry tree he did not actually chop down, and then asked about Congress’s lack of action to prevent it. Once again Bruce Fein was brought in explain that the Congress has its own self to blame. Fein contended “the founding fathers would be shocked to find one man claiming the power of war.”
Baldwin further noted that she has no reason to trust Bush to behave during these the last six months of his term and wonders if we should use an impeachment proceeding to contain him. Rocky Anderson said nothing short of “criminal sanctions” could stop Bush from attacking Iran and Bugliosi when called on to expand, declined to speculate.
Adam Schiff, D-CA, called for an investigation, a Church-style inquiry, and not one limited to this term of Congress and asked “what steps can we take today?”
He further wanted to focus on the issue of signing statements and the Office of Legal Counsel and their use of legal opinions to protect Bush staff from accountability. “is there legal accountability? If not how do we instill legal accountability?” He brought back Frederick Schwarz to clarify that the secretive nature of the OLC and Bush’s use of signing statements.
Schiff, then worried about running out of time, asked if Schwarz felt that suit could be brought against members of the Bush admin to get them to release more info. Schwarz, referring to the district court efforts to get Harriet Miers to stop refusing to cooperate with Congressional subpoenas. Fein explained that he had been in the OLC earlier, and all the earlier work of that office was public, and Congress should insist on a return to that practice “shoddy scholarship is so embarrassing they change their mind … Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL, revisited the GOP complaints about the 45 different hearings the committee, noting that “members on the other side of the aisle are lamenting” the massive workload had to do with the backload from the first six years of the GOP dominated Congress ignored Bush abuses. She then asked for an opinion on the degree of egregiousness of Bush’s use of singing statements. Schwarz explained that the breadth of the president’s use of signing statements to contradict and often negate Congressional laws (nearly 1100 so far and still counting). Schwarz contended the president’s use of signing statement could be, by itself, sufficient cause for impeachment and “unprecedented in its audacity.” Wasserman Schultz then asked if signing statements could be removed altogether. Schwarz was unsure, but Bruce Fein suggested that Congress simply cut the purse strings for any law a president countermands the intent of with his signing statement. Wasserman Schultz quipped, “This president has no shame.”
The next questioner, Keith Ellison, D-MN, got Fein to clarify that even if Congress were to pass a law restricting the use of signing statements, Bush could still write a signing statement refusing to follow the law. Fein wryly grinned and acknowledged it could happen.
Ellison then brought Kucinich back to the microphone, to reiterate his initial claims he made of purposeful deceptions on the Bush Admin’s part regarding WMDs, a Hussein/ Al-Qaida link, and other claims Bushies made that contradicted existing intelligence. Kucinich started to slowly explain to how he had analyzed the two versions of the Oct 2002 in which Congress passed its war-making powers over to the president. Ellison hurried him along. Kucinich laid out the list of claims Bush was making in the laws that the Whitehouse already knew was untrue even as they were pressing for war. Kucinich compared the existing prewar intelligence compared to the claims that Bush was making at the time.
Ellison then asked Stephen Presser to whether or not Kucinich’s assertions, if accurate, “would form the basis for an inquiry for impeachment.” Presser agreed; but Jeremy Rabkin would not accept Kucinich’s charges enough to even consider whether or not if true, they were impeachable, though if Kucinich was correct it would justify an impeachment inquiry. “The only reason I’m here is to get to the truth. Let’s get to the truth.”
The last to committee speak, Dan Lungren, R-CA, came back to the microphone to say that “there is an essential difference between an misstatement of facts and an intentional misstatement;” and as a former prosecutor he knows such allegations are easily made and hard to prove, it’s “a long road;” only to find himself cross-examined by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, on whether or not the faulty and misleading intelligence reports Bush gave to Congress rises to the level of lying.
Again Lungren used the opportunity to complain about the crowd behavior. Conyers apologized for the crowd’s behavior and said disrupters would not be invited back to this chamber. After that, citing Eisenhower’s memoirs, he justified Bush’s choice to have faith in the intelligence we had and we should accept his good will and intentions. Like Eisenhower, Bush merely “made a decision based on the best intelligence he had.”
“The way this has been portrayed as a president chomping at the bit to violate the Constitution is just unreasonable,” Lungren concluded. Nadler countered that the issue wasn’t about the quality of the intelligence Bush had, but that prima fascia Bush selected the information he wanted to use and hid the rest from the world community. Lungren stuck to his guns despite a final effort to challenge him by Rep Scott.
Conyers concluded the hearings by echoing Mel Watt in calling the hearings the most important that the committee had held. Immediately following the hearing CNN continued to broadcast an interview with John McCain that did not address the hearings. Headline News cut away from a fluff piece on salmonella in Mexican jalapenos, to dismiss briefly the hearings and erroneously report that the Judiciary had held “hundreds of hearings and none had lead to any action.” Obviously ignoring the committees own count of 45 hearings, which among other things, have led to the ouster of Alberto Gonzales.
Later that evening when CSPAN ran the hearings a second time I was able to fine tune some of the notes and check on the majors coverage of the hearings. As expected, none of them actually interrupted ad time TV to do the public service of covering the hearings, though Keith Olbermann ran a segment in the 3rd slot of Countdown, disparaging the sincerity of the hearings and mostly giving Bob Barr who left the hearings early a chance to campaign.
An occasional scan of various network scrolls showed no evidence of the hearings whatsoever, EXCEPT by 11:16pm AZ time (after 2am in DC) a brief scroll “Kucinich Presses for Bush Impeachment, Republicans Scoff.” A final check of the major network websites showed ABC had the hearings in the lower portion of their homepage, while CNN had it as their lead article thought, their rendition discussed nothing more than the opening two remarks by Conyers and Smith. There was no mention at all on CBS, NBC or MSNBC.
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ
A Not Particularly Complete Transcription of the Judiciary’s “Imperial Presidency”/Don’t Say “Impeachment” Hearings July, 25th 2008"
Briefly, some time around Monday evening, June 9, there was a giddy moment when it seemed that justice was still possible in America. On the Friday before, the Senate Intelligence committee had issued their report condemning the Bush propaganda machine efforts to kick-start the Iraq War as intentional deception. As folks had been saying along Bush lied, Thousands Died. Impeach.
And by that following Monday, Dennis Kucinich stood before the assembled might of the US Congress and read 35 different, verifiable, reasons George Bush could at last be removed from office. All across America millions of citizen finally exhaled our sighs of relief and waited for history to happen.
And of course it didn’t.
As planned. With Speaker Pelosi sternly disapproving and Steny Hoyer dutifully leading his majority away from the topic with all post haste, it turned out the Republican party were the ones who championed hearing for impeachment, hoping to easily out debate and embarrass Dem leadership. They actually pressed to have the thing heard right there, but it wound up in committee, presumably to die.
And so we waited through June, recurring calls to the Judiciary gave no clue that their stance on why impeachment should not be discussed and when challenged as ineffective against Bush, Conyers office would refer to the ousting of Alberto Gonzales, who was embarrassed out of office over the Attorney General firings.
So true to the promise he made to Congress and to the American people, when Congress failed to act for more than 30 Days, on July 11th, Kucinich again introduced impeachment but this time focusing on one charge: the deceptions of imminent threat regarding Hussein in the fall of ’02.
And somehow an amazing thing happened: on the 17th Conyers Judiciary Committee announced hearings. While the bombshell flashed through the online progressive community, it remained a non-starter for mainstream media. Unlike either the Nixon Hearings over Watergate or Clinton’s BJ impeachment, no mainstream media outlet had plans to cover the hearing live for the public to decide. In fact when called in a July 24th survey of the major TV news networks, NBC backpedaled through 6, count ‘em, 6 different viewer service reps who didn’t even know who to ask to find out if the network was covering it. And the guy who answered the phone in the ABC national news newsroom, not only had not heard about the hearings and but did not even know how to check on the Judiciary committee’s schedule of upcoming hearings. When finally guided to the public notice, he grudgingly allowed they’d “do something on it, I’m sure,” and hug up.
Of course not wanting to draw too much attention to the hearings in advance, the ever meek Conyers originally billed the hearing as “The Imperial Presidency” and later milded down even that, to “Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations.” In fact when the hearings finally started after a good twenty minutes of live glad-handing, Conyers duly admonished the crowd they were not allowed to show any reaction to any statements made and both witnesses and committee members were neither allowed to speak of impeachment nor in the pejorative in general of the president or name him directly in any accusatory fashion.
A faux rule which easily fell to the wayside once the testimonies started. At first I was so dazzled by the fact that the hearings were even happening, that my wife and daughter and I got up early and gathered in front of the TV at 7am AZ time for the opening gavel on CSPAN and just stared open mouthed.
The line that eventually got me to realize I could be taking notes was, “Informed criticism, as annoying as it may be to those in positions of power, is the stuff of democracy”—Brad Miller D-NC in his opening remarks.
What follows is an attempt keep up live with the pace of the action over the nearly six hour hearing. I am not a stenographer and so many of the issues discussed required a certain amount of background info to contextualize that the quotes are few and the summaries many. However since the chances are good mainstream media may never present much coverage of this hearing historic hearing, here’s my best shot:
Following Conyers gentle often befuddled sounding opening remarks, which included the lines, “the politicization of the Department of Justice, the misuse of signing statements, the misuse of authority with regard to detention, interrogation and rendition, possible manipulation of intelligence regarding the Iraq war, improper retaliation against critics of the administration… and excessive secrecy,” several committee members also made opening remarks with GOP loyalists uniformally outraged over the very essence of the hearings Ranking Repug Lamar Smith hissed loudly the mantra of the GOP objections: congressional consideration of the numerous lies, deaths, unjust imprisonments, and misspent billions of President Bush amounts to “the criminalization of political partisanship.” In other words the problem is not that Bush and his supporters committed these heinous acts, but that they were members of the Republican Party and those complaining about their actions are members of the Democratic Party.
Trent Franks (my own representative, woe is me) gave the most offensive anti-hearing address complaining that the terrorists were winning because the hearings were taking up time that Congress should have been working to further restrict and invade rights in the War on Terror. Franks contended that though the president has only has a 30% approval rating Congress’ approval rating is in single digits due largely to its despicable hounding of the poor president. Coincidentally later that same day MSNBC showed the latest poll which had the numbers at Bush 23%, Congress 15%.
Walter Jones D-NC complained about the signing statements which Bush has repeatedly used to, in some cases, completely undo the purpose of the legislation, noting that though signing statements go all the way back to Monroe, all presidents before Bush only totaled to 600 that Constitutionally damaging or violating and Bush alone has generated over 800 alone.
After several Dem reps talked about the various areas of neglect and abuse of the Bush admin and the bills they’ve introduced to try to combat these abuses, Elizabeth Holtzman, author of the book, The Impeachment of President Bush and former US rep. from New York laid out a forceful case on numerous legitimate sounding “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
It is worth remembering that Bob Barr, the 2nd public witness before the committee, is a strident conservative and had been one of the key players in the Clinton impeachment process. He said there are “legions of instances … where, to be most generous, the understanding of liberty are lacking.” Barr, speaking with purposefully dispassion, clarifies that the Bush usurpations of presidential power and Constitutional abuses did not start with Bush, but his administration has taken it to new extremes. And further this is first the first step for future presidents who, he noted, typically use the excesses of previous presidents “not as a ceiling, but as a floor.” Unlike the vast majority of the actual testimony in the hearing, Barr’s testimony was available online within hours of the hearing and can be found here.
Former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson focused the way the extensive secrecy the Bush admin has invoked suggesting that the sheer number of things we don’t know due to the intensive secrecy of the Bush Admin is perhaps the scariest part of the matters at hand. Due to that secrecy, without Congress pressing for investigation the world may never on the possible scope of “the monstrous human rights abuses” of the Bush admin.
Noted Conservative, Stephen Presser, the Northwestern University law professor who had provided the definition for the Constitutional concept of impeachment during the Clinton Impeachment in 1998, served the same role in these hearing and, in order, threw out the all 6 of the major issues that those calling for impeachment had championed: including signing statements, willful defiance of congressional subpoenas, the politicalization of the Justice Dept., the whole signing statements debate, the misrepresentation of WMDs, misuse of authority and even torture.
Assertions which the next witness, Bruce Fein, former Reagan Deputy Attorney General also a Constitutional law expert, intensely disputed, claiming the executive branch has pillaged our Constitution and civil liberties as thoroughly “as the barbarians sacked Rome.”
Next celebrity DA/author, Vincent Bugliosi, whose current bestseller is called The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, attempted to summarize his whole book in a short five minute time limit and focused on the now widely documented lies the Bush Admin used in the run-up to the Iraq War, opened by saying at this stage of his career he doesn’t have time to mess around: the lies that Bush has told have led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. At this the crowd in the hearing room burst into applause. Rep. Lamar Smith returned to his role as designated killjoy asked the room be cleared. Conyers, ever polite, declined to do this, but admonished the crowd politely.
As if brought in to be a balancing act to Bugliosi’s vitriol, Jeremy Rabkin, a George Mason University law professor, acknowledged he had been called in by the minority contingent, even though he didn’t want to be put in a position of defending the Bush Admin. He then quite clearly dismissed the efforts of various witnesses to bring in additional issues such as FISA and signing statements, since those lesser abuses pale in comparison to the charges of lying to the public and Congress on WMD. That charge alone is enough though he personally rejects it to the point of treating it as laughable. (Coincidentally the 2nd round of Kucinich’s impeachment attempt took that very other same approach and whittling the initial 35 charges to one: liar us into war.) In conclusion Rabkin condemned the hearings themselves as disloyal and out of touch with the vast majority of Americans, noting “the rest of the country is not in this bubble to think it is OK to refer to the president as Caligula.”
Frederick A. O. Swartz, who had serious objections to the Bush Admin, repeatedly referred to torture and the suspension of habeas corpus among other things, noting that the “US should not adopt the methods of our enemies,” called for further investigation before America completely loses her “moral luster.” Still, despite his concerns with Bush’s abuses, he explained that he does not support impeachment, because of the timing, not enough time before the election and the regrettable invariability of the process becoming even further political.
Lastly Elliot Adams, president of the Noble Prize winning Veterans for Peace, opened by recounting the famed Benjamin Franklin quip from the Constitutional Convention that America now had a republic, “if we can keep it.” After listing the various good works of his organization, he explained he had to break away from that stuff to focus on the war crimes of the Bush Admin, and as a soldier, he was outraged.
When given a chance to restate or give additional comment, Holtzman again called for the rejection of lesser measures because the president has been able to evade all lesser efforts to rein him in. Bob Barr comically had a heavily redacted version of the Bill of Rights warning that if we don’t stop Bush we won’t be able to stop some later president.
Rocky Anderson addressed points brought forward by Presser and Pence went so far as to use the word “Fraud.” Presser, while complimenting the process, flatly dismissed the suggestion that the 944 false statements the Bush admin made were intentional lies. There was no proof, he contended that the president acted “with lack of good will.”
Bruce Fein warned that the shape of the war on terror and the expansion of presidential powers are timeless, timeless threats to America. Following Bugliosi’s second reiteration of the lies Bush told and the contention that all subsequent deaths based on those lies, Americans and Iraqis alike, audience member Cindy Sheehan got herself ejected, in the new round of audience applause.
Rabkin simply yielded his time saying that he was not impressed with people repeating their alarmist statements with greater emphasis, so he did not intend to repeat telling them “to calm down.” Frederick Swartz’s second reminded us of the importance of action.
Next, came the committee members turn to ask questions. When ranking Republican Lamar Smith, R-TX, cross-examined he focused, too little surprise, on Presser and Rabkin, the witnesses that supported his assertions that the whole thing was an overblown waste of time and stain on the great Republican Administration of George Bush. Presser was focused on the non-criminal nature of Bush abuses of power. Rabkin simply listed other presidents who had led the country into wars on less than truthful statements (such as McKinley, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson) doubted that the public would take accusations against those presidents either.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler D-NY flat out rejected Presser’s and Rabkin’s defense of Bush lies as innocent unintentional mistakes based on good intentions and pointed out that there is considerable proof (such as the Senate Intelligence Committee report of June 4th or the Center for Public Integrity’s exhaustive listing of 935 documented “false statements.”) that Bush consciously lied to Congress in Oct. of ’02, and so it doesn’t matter what his intentions were, a lie is a lie.
Next, cross examining Bruce Fein, Nadler explored possible future Constitutional remedies for presidential abuses and ways to limit presidential pardon powers, to which Fein replied that the necessary and proper clause, our friend from Article I, Section , 8, paragraph18. Nadler, feeling very enthused, then moved on to Holtzman to compare the current process to her role in Nixon’s aborted impeachment. Again animated Holtzman exclaimed the process started with the Saturday night massacre and the American people.” She further noted that back in the day, parties were more willing to address the issues of the president’s behavior, not their own party loyalties. “Maybe I’m a cockeyed optimist … Impeachment inquiry itself handled fairly with the full participation of the minority party … with everyone participating … with Constitutional scholars there so no one has feel that we’re out to get someone ... it can work, we have to make it work for the good of the country.”
Rep. Steve King, R-IO, noted Holtzman’s call for non-partisan participation of both parties. He then scolded that if the shoe were on the other foot, the Dems wouldn’t play along well, either. He then focused on the famous 16 words from the 2003 State of the Union address, you remember the whole Nigeria yellow cake issue, noting that Joseph Wilson’s original debriefing from his fact-finding trip to investigate the claim Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa appears to support the contention, though it is worded as heresay. He later showed a previously secret report claiming that in 2007 the US army shipped 550 tons of yellow cake uranium from Iraq, showing that the government was just in their claims. He then attempts to use the old Republican ruse of pointing out all the Dems who signed on the Bush wagon including Obama back in 2004.
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA, asked if there were available measures short of impeachment since there are clear abuses that should be redressed. Scott also dismissed Presser and Rabkin’s dismissals of the importance of Bush’s abuses, especially torture issues and the politicalization of the Justice Dept. and used a variety of witnesses, including Fein, Barr and Holtzman, to show they are important after all. First Fein clarified that during discussions in the Watergate hearings, the Justice dept. concluded that a president couldn’t be criminally prosecuted while in office, impeachment was the only recourse. Holtzman agreed and further went on to note that on the issues of torture, or any deaths resulting from that torture, there are “no statutes of limitations for any US national including the people at the highest rung of our government.” She concluded, “The real remedy for a president who continues to act as if he believes he were above the law is impeachment and there is no running away from that.” Bugliosi stepped in to remind all present that though Bush is protected from prosecution while in office, the Jan. 20th he is fair game and America has the right to start pursuing the prosecution now.
Trent Franks stuck to his message of dismay that the terrorists are winning and that there were many notable Democrats who also called for a War on Iraq based on claims of WMDs. He also did a rousing review of quotes to demonstrate how much the terrorists hate us for our freedom. “And somehow we’re going after this president you has done everything in his power to protect us.” Of course, in putting together his terror routine, Franks failed, as so many GOP leaders do, to mention that the American public and politicians were operating on intelligence supplied by Bush in the first place. When Swartz tried to comment Franks concluded his turn rather than let him speak. He also mentioned that by focusing on “fairytales” instead of terrorists, all there that morning should be ashamed.
Mel Watt, D-NC, asked who was protecting us from those who claimed they were protecting us from the bad guys. After a quick shout out to his old buddy Bob Barr, Watt stated he would not lead a call for impeachment, having been through the Clinton impeachment. Watt felt it wasn’t worth attempting to impeachment when there could be no nonpartisan investigation, even though “this is the most important issue I believe this Congress could be pursuing ... I am convinced the Republicans were wrong when they did it, I’m not saying we would be wrong to try it … but I’m not sure it would be a practical matter ... it’s clear to me we would not have the votes …I wish we could raise the standard for the president … If somebody brings the resolution I’ll be right here … I want the American people to ‘impeach’ this president in November of 2008 and this whole administration … and the idea that a president can protect me from terrorists by doing whatever the hell he wants.”
Rep Louie Gohmert R-TX condemned most of the witnesses, reminding them that if misleading to congress is a criminal offense they should consider their “brash allegations.” Gohmert focused on Clinton’s earlier failures and poor President Bush who “naively” “accepted” “Clinton’s lies” about Iraq WMDs. He further claimed that Joe Wilson started speaking out to protect his friends in France who were scamming the UN oil for food deal. He also added, like Franks that the focus of the day should have been on the terrorists, not the innocent, though naïve president. The biggest problem right now is that the Supreme Court had just voted to “release terrorists on American soil.”
Zoe Lofgren D-CA, who also was on hand for the Watergate hearings, hoped to use the current hearings to “curb future abuses.” Lofgren reflected on watching when, Chuck Wiggins, a major Nixon supporter on the Watergate committee finally realized that Nixon had been lying and “his faith and his president had been betrayed.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to support impeachment as a practical matter considering the time available, but was unsure of other means of address. She still laments when Congress abdicated habeas corpus because the president said he was trying to make us safer.
Swartz, finally getting to comment, laid out some precepts of how a commission could created to investigate the Bush admin after they’ve left office. Barr got a nod to champion his proposed methods of redress if he should become president. “It’s hard to know where to start,” Barr chuckled. He talked about repairing a variety of abuses including revising the “doctrine of state secrets,” FISA and signing statements.
Dan Lungren, R-CA, addressed Holtzman and Bugliosi and returned to the popular Republican phrase, the criminalizing of political difference of opinion. He looked back to earlier presidential abuses including the little mentioned tale of Wilson having political cartoonists imprisoned for unfavorable cartoons..He also likened Japanese Internment to Nixon’s post-presidential tax investigations and said the Democrats were “tantamount to overcharging the case.” He asked if impeachment is the proper tool.
Turning to Rabkin and Presser for support, Lungren interrupted Presser and himself to complain that people in the audience were holding signs. Aides and security then circulated through the crowds until members of the crowd broke out in loud, but unfocused protests, including, of all things, paper throwing. After a couple of minutes of chaos, Conyers asked upset audience members to just leave. King again recessed for a recess. Then Presser pressed on despite the background noise. “Do you have a president who acted in good faith or do you have a president who just wasn’t interested in doing that?” Rabkin disputed the assertion that there were no other recourses other than impeachment. He further suggested that if we were to impeach the president, there are numerous others who should also get the boot.
Sheila Jackson Lee, D-TX, echoed Barbara Jordan (who had the same congressional seat, and seat in the Judiciary during Watergate) that the role of the hearings was to protect the rights of “simple people.” Jackson Lee briefly returned to the issue of signing statements then explained, while she wouldn’t call directly for impeachment, she “believes we have a very firm basis for suggesting high crimes and misdemeanors,” but she did call for other lesser commissions to look into abuses, though timing is an issue.
She asked Fein, to clarify the president war powers of congress, as opposed to the powers of the president. Fein noted that the founding fathers asserted that a president who either lies or conceals information from Congress, thus preventing Congress from acting properly, ahs committed a great crime against the country and that is an impeachable offense. “A popular government without popular knowledge is a farce.” Bush concealed information from Congress, thus impairing Congress’ ability to responsibly act on their power to declare war.
Jackson likened Bush Iraq run-up to the current Whitehouse effort towards Iran. Fein also took the opportunity to note the president’s limitation of WMD info in 2002-2003 set the tone for the whole nations’ interpretation of the issue at the time. Jackson Lee also gave Bugliosi a chance to expand on the Bush concealment of dissenting opinions by 16 different US agencies who each said Hussein was not an imminent threat as Bush and company continued to insist that he was and needed to be stopped by force. According to Bugliosi, the WMD issue is less important than the Bush charge of imminent threat.
Mike Pence, R-IN, choose to use his time to prop up the credentials of Steven Presser, presumably to reinforce Presser’s legal opinions as law, Pence, “fascinated with [Presser’s] analysis,” also lauded Madison and Mason at length, noting the founding fathers’ rejected “maladministration” as an impeachable offense because we couldn’t have presidents impeached over policy issues. Pence then, tossed off a couple of props for of all people Dennis Kucinich, then revisited the distinction between the obstruction of justice charges against Clinton and those against Bush. Presser again asserted Bush had not pursued personal interests.
Robert Wexler, D-FL, one of the co-sponsors of the Kucinich’s impeachment measures, refuted that torture, among other offenses, are not simple “policy issues, they go to the issue of abuse of presidential power.” No matter what else Congress looked at, wasn’t the president’s repeated instructing his staff to refuse to cooperate with Congressional investigations. That is not a policy issue, it is a Constitutional action.” After reiterating that the president cannot put himself above the law, he gave the floor to Rocky Anderson who also listed a litany of ways where the president and his staff have clearly and repeatedly refused to even appear despite numerous congressional subpoenas while Congress “cavalierly ignored” it. Fein weighed in that all by itself Bush’s refusal to cooperate with Congress is all enough for a quick, clear-cut, impeachment. Holtzman adamantly concurred, noting that refusing to appear on congressional supeonas ‘subverts the Constitution” which is, all by itself, an impeachable offense.
Steve Cohen D-NY asked first if Holtzman was sure Bush had committed clear impeachable offenses; then if the vice-president is impeachable and could be actually done at the same time, despite the Whitehouse assertions that the vice president cannot be impeached because of his Constitutional, though underserved, role as president of the Senate. Holtzman smiled as she explained they could “do a two-for.” Cohen concluded, “There’s not a method to their madness, just madness.”
Bruce Fein came back on to discuss whether disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales himself had committed impeachable offenses and then built on the idea that there was still plenty of time for a full-scale impeachment since many of Bush’s clear actions on FISA, habeas corpus, and other “blatant” refusals to follow US law are widely documented, would be easily proven, and “rise to the standards of high crimes and misdemeanors.” Fein further explained that an impeachment on various Bush actions which were clearly in violation of Congress are indeed crimes where Bush has already confessed. “You don’t need an archeological investigation.”
Rep. Hank Johnson, D-GA, brought Presser back to clarify the difference between impeaching Clinton for lying and impeaching Bush for lying and, despite Presser’s repeatedly saying that he “didn’t see the facts the same way.” “It seems to me that you take the position that we shouldn’t even be looking at the facts. Is that it?” Johnson eventually got Presser, through extensive use of double negatives to eventually acknowledge that the gravity of the issues at hand and the possibility of “probable cause” showed it would be responsible to further investigate, which is the purpose of an impeachment in the first place. Johnson then asked the same question to Holtzman who said Congress would be shirking their responsibility if they did not hold impeachment hearings.
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-CA, opened by lamenting that “Congress has become an advisory board to the president;” then made some sort of joke about Jesse Jackson and his threat to the nuts of Barack Obama. When no one laughed along, Sherman focused in on the Bush Admin’s “nonfeasance” to see if that was an impeachable offense. Bruce Fein started to give a long answer, which Sherman helped him summarize as “yes.” He talked further on how to protect future congresses from future signing statements.
Sherman also visited Holtzman asking if it was proper for a prosecutor to press for a trial when they knew they couldn’t get a conviction, but she wouldn’t bite and declined a clear answer.
Tammy Baldwin, D-WI, addressed the concerns of Bush’s expansion of the presidential powers with a metaphor based on Washington building a toolbox out of the cherry tree he did not actually chop down, and then asked about Congress’s lack of action to prevent it. Once again Bruce Fein was brought in explain that the Congress has its own self to blame. Fein contended “the founding fathers would be shocked to find one man claiming the power of war.”
Baldwin further noted that she has no reason to trust Bush to behave during these the last six months of his term and wonders if we should use an impeachment proceeding to contain him. Rocky Anderson said nothing short of “criminal sanctions” could stop Bush from attacking Iran and Bugliosi when called on to expand, declined to speculate.
Adam Schiff, D-CA, called for an investigation, a Church-style inquiry, and not one limited to this term of Congress and asked “what steps can we take today?”
He further wanted to focus on the issue of signing statements and the Office of Legal Counsel and their use of legal opinions to protect Bush staff from accountability. “is there legal accountability? If not how do we instill legal accountability?” He brought back Frederick Schwarz to clarify that the secretive nature of the OLC and Bush’s use of signing statements.
Schiff, then worried about running out of time, asked if Schwarz felt that suit could be brought against members of the Bush admin to get them to release more info. Schwarz, referring to the district court efforts to get Harriet Miers to stop refusing to cooperate with Congressional subpoenas. Fein explained that he had been in the OLC earlier, and all the earlier work of that office was public, and Congress should insist on a return to that practice “shoddy scholarship is so embarrassing they change their mind … Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL, revisited the GOP complaints about the 45 different hearings the committee, noting that “members on the other side of the aisle are lamenting” the massive workload had to do with the backload from the first six years of the GOP dominated Congress ignored Bush abuses. She then asked for an opinion on the degree of egregiousness of Bush’s use of singing statements. Schwarz explained that the breadth of the president’s use of signing statements to contradict and often negate Congressional laws (nearly 1100 so far and still counting). Schwarz contended the president’s use of signing statement could be, by itself, sufficient cause for impeachment and “unprecedented in its audacity.” Wasserman Schultz then asked if signing statements could be removed altogether. Schwarz was unsure, but Bruce Fein suggested that Congress simply cut the purse strings for any law a president countermands the intent of with his signing statement. Wasserman Schultz quipped, “This president has no shame.”
The next questioner, Keith Ellison, D-MN, got Fein to clarify that even if Congress were to pass a law restricting the use of signing statements, Bush could still write a signing statement refusing to follow the law. Fein wryly grinned and acknowledged it could happen.
Ellison then brought Kucinich back to the microphone, to reiterate his initial claims he made of purposeful deceptions on the Bush Admin’s part regarding WMDs, a Hussein/ Al-Qaida link, and other claims Bushies made that contradicted existing intelligence. Kucinich started to slowly explain to how he had analyzed the two versions of the Oct 2002 in which Congress passed its war-making powers over to the president. Ellison hurried him along. Kucinich laid out the list of claims Bush was making in the laws that the Whitehouse already knew was untrue even as they were pressing for war. Kucinich compared the existing prewar intelligence compared to the claims that Bush was making at the time.
Ellison then asked Stephen Presser to whether or not Kucinich’s assertions, if accurate, “would form the basis for an inquiry for impeachment.” Presser agreed; but Jeremy Rabkin would not accept Kucinich’s charges enough to even consider whether or not if true, they were impeachable, though if Kucinich was correct it would justify an impeachment inquiry. “The only reason I’m here is to get to the truth. Let’s get to the truth.”
The last to committee speak, Dan Lungren, R-CA, came back to the microphone to say that “there is an essential difference between an misstatement of facts and an intentional misstatement;” and as a former prosecutor he knows such allegations are easily made and hard to prove, it’s “a long road;” only to find himself cross-examined by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, on whether or not the faulty and misleading intelligence reports Bush gave to Congress rises to the level of lying.
Again Lungren used the opportunity to complain about the crowd behavior. Conyers apologized for the crowd’s behavior and said disrupters would not be invited back to this chamber. After that, citing Eisenhower’s memoirs, he justified Bush’s choice to have faith in the intelligence we had and we should accept his good will and intentions. Like Eisenhower, Bush merely “made a decision based on the best intelligence he had.”
“The way this has been portrayed as a president chomping at the bit to violate the Constitution is just unreasonable,” Lungren concluded. Nadler countered that the issue wasn’t about the quality of the intelligence Bush had, but that prima fascia Bush selected the information he wanted to use and hid the rest from the world community. Lungren stuck to his guns despite a final effort to challenge him by Rep Scott.
Conyers concluded the hearings by echoing Mel Watt in calling the hearings the most important that the committee had held. Immediately following the hearing CNN continued to broadcast an interview with John McCain that did not address the hearings. Headline News cut away from a fluff piece on salmonella in Mexican jalapenos, to dismiss briefly the hearings and erroneously report that the Judiciary had held “hundreds of hearings and none had lead to any action.” Obviously ignoring the committees own count of 45 hearings, which among other things, have led to the ouster of Alberto Gonzales.
Later that evening when CSPAN ran the hearings a second time I was able to fine tune some of the notes and check on the majors coverage of the hearings. As expected, none of them actually interrupted ad time TV to do the public service of covering the hearings, though Keith Olbermann ran a segment in the 3rd slot of Countdown, disparaging the sincerity of the hearings and mostly giving Bob Barr who left the hearings early a chance to campaign.
An occasional scan of various network scrolls showed no evidence of the hearings whatsoever, EXCEPT by 11:16pm AZ time (after 2am in DC) a brief scroll “Kucinich Presses for Bush Impeachment, Republicans Scoff.” A final check of the major network websites showed ABC had the hearings in the lower portion of their homepage, while CNN had it as their lead article thought, their rendition discussed nothing more than the opening two remarks by Conyers and Smith. There was no mention at all on CBS, NBC or MSNBC.
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of AZ
Monday, July 21, 2008
With Glee Bush Proclaims Self “World’s Biggest Polluter”
I’ve thought of that title a zillion times, but I hadn’t had the audacity till July 10th when George Bush himself officially took the words right out of my mouth. He so summed up everything I had to say about him. And if you voted for him, especially twice, his quip says something about you too. Do you know the story?
Well, it was at this year’s G8 summit. What with “Global Warming,” being this year’s favorite international boogieman, the other 7 of the G8, being the national leaders of the group of the other seven mightiest “industrialized” powers on planet, held their annual meeting in hopes of nailing down some serious environmental restraint from the US. You know the numbers—every since Bush trashed their Kyoto Accords in the early days of his presidency, these environmental alarmists have tried to draw attention to the fact that the US is but 6% of the world’s population yet using 25% of the resources, making more pollution and planet threatening greenhouses gases than most of the others combined, second only to China which has six times the people. Yet, no matter what concerns his citizens have claimed, the president of our country holds a long loud record of condemning environmental concerns in favor of energy company profits.
So, as you might expect, this year’s G8 meeting hadn’t gone particularly well, with President Bush resisting concessions to his ‘what, me worry?’ energy policies. Then, as he was leaving, he turned and waved goodbye with the following quip, duly reported in the British press: “’Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter.’ [Bush] then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.”
See? You can’t make this sort of thing up. It would be wrong. It would make our supposedly elected leader look like too much of a smug jerk to even tolerate. It would be like depicting him swaggering up to the mike and telling the terrorists who were beginning to attack our liberating soldiers in Iraq to “bring ‘em on!” while he was nestled comfy in the White House thousands of miles from the front. Oh wait, that happened.
Well, it would be like trying to make it seem that Bush was so shameless a propagandist that he would make a Thanksgiving photo-op trip that was so bogus Bush would even pose with a fake turkey. A fake turkey? It would surely be a character assassination to suggest our president would stoop that low. But wait, he did that too.
These shameful moments of Bush lore are not the kind of thing we as a people want to think about, having spent so long giving our faith and our reputations to him to wantonly trash. As Brad Reed newly released AlterNet report demonstrates, “The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency,” there’s always been plenty to complain about if Americans had cared to listen.
But be careful, it might make you wonder how he got in office in the first place. Were Americans truly so ignorant of his misdeeds and blinded by his propaganda that they followed along; or did he really cheat his way through those two elections just like so many have always complained he did?
Is there still time to join the complainers who have been out there warning us all along, or has Bush been shoved down our throats for so long that we are just no longer even capable of being sick of it? We’ve been repeatedly told that “fear of wasting time chasing a lame duck” is why Congress won’t get behind Dennis Kucinich’s recurring efforts to impeach Bush for his many documented high crimes and misdemeanors.
No longer do his supporters claim him innocence, or even good will; no longer do they deny that Bush has committed an even longer train of abuses than an earlier monarchial George; not that he hasn’t lied, cheated, stolen, tortured, and sold out America, only that the timing is wrong for complaints.
In a way, one almost envies the rest of the G8 their relationship to Bush. This was indeed their final sign-off with the self-proclaimed world’s biggest polluter. The next time they meet, a new American president will have a new chance to represent our interests. Meanwhile, a year from now, and for much, much longer, we Americans will still be struggling to clean up his many, many messes.
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of Arizona.
Well, it was at this year’s G8 summit. What with “Global Warming,” being this year’s favorite international boogieman, the other 7 of the G8, being the national leaders of the group of the other seven mightiest “industrialized” powers on planet, held their annual meeting in hopes of nailing down some serious environmental restraint from the US. You know the numbers—every since Bush trashed their Kyoto Accords in the early days of his presidency, these environmental alarmists have tried to draw attention to the fact that the US is but 6% of the world’s population yet using 25% of the resources, making more pollution and planet threatening greenhouses gases than most of the others combined, second only to China which has six times the people. Yet, no matter what concerns his citizens have claimed, the president of our country holds a long loud record of condemning environmental concerns in favor of energy company profits.
So, as you might expect, this year’s G8 meeting hadn’t gone particularly well, with President Bush resisting concessions to his ‘what, me worry?’ energy policies. Then, as he was leaving, he turned and waved goodbye with the following quip, duly reported in the British press: “’Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter.’ [Bush] then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.”
See? You can’t make this sort of thing up. It would be wrong. It would make our supposedly elected leader look like too much of a smug jerk to even tolerate. It would be like depicting him swaggering up to the mike and telling the terrorists who were beginning to attack our liberating soldiers in Iraq to “bring ‘em on!” while he was nestled comfy in the White House thousands of miles from the front. Oh wait, that happened.
Well, it would be like trying to make it seem that Bush was so shameless a propagandist that he would make a Thanksgiving photo-op trip that was so bogus Bush would even pose with a fake turkey. A fake turkey? It would surely be a character assassination to suggest our president would stoop that low. But wait, he did that too.
These shameful moments of Bush lore are not the kind of thing we as a people want to think about, having spent so long giving our faith and our reputations to him to wantonly trash. As Brad Reed newly released AlterNet report demonstrates, “The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency,” there’s always been plenty to complain about if Americans had cared to listen.
But be careful, it might make you wonder how he got in office in the first place. Were Americans truly so ignorant of his misdeeds and blinded by his propaganda that they followed along; or did he really cheat his way through those two elections just like so many have always complained he did?
Is there still time to join the complainers who have been out there warning us all along, or has Bush been shoved down our throats for so long that we are just no longer even capable of being sick of it? We’ve been repeatedly told that “fear of wasting time chasing a lame duck” is why Congress won’t get behind Dennis Kucinich’s recurring efforts to impeach Bush for his many documented high crimes and misdemeanors.
No longer do his supporters claim him innocence, or even good will; no longer do they deny that Bush has committed an even longer train of abuses than an earlier monarchial George; not that he hasn’t lied, cheated, stolen, tortured, and sold out America, only that the timing is wrong for complaints.
In a way, one almost envies the rest of the G8 their relationship to Bush. This was indeed their final sign-off with the self-proclaimed world’s biggest polluter. The next time they meet, a new American president will have a new chance to represent our interests. Meanwhile, a year from now, and for much, much longer, we Americans will still be struggling to clean up his many, many messes.
--mikel weisser writes from the left coast of Arizona.
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