Am watching on C-Span.org right now, and certainly the vast majority of
the panelists are in favor of impeachment (with two notable, and
derisive, exceptions, explained below)
It's good to see the
House Judiciary proceeding as it should, finally, on this matter. If
the Democratically-controlled Congress loses its steam now, the Dems
aren't fit to govern us.
Meanwhile, it was instructive to
watch the Republican Minority fail to find any decent ground to defend
Bush-Cheney, today. The Republican Minority couldn't find a leg to
stand on, and their witnesses came across as either fascist or kooky
(more below).
These panelists, meanwhile, were absolutely fabulous:
Bruce Fein, author of Constitutional Peril (forthcoming)
Bob
Barr, former congressman, presently Libertarian candidate for U.S.
President (deserves our vote more than Obama, who proved a traitor on
FISA)
Walter Jones (R-NC)
Elizabeth Holtzman, former congresswoman, author of The Impeachment of George Bush
Brad Miller (D-NC)
Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)
Elliot Abrams, veteran and chairman of Vets for Peace
Rocky Andersen, former mayor of Salt Lake City
and of course,
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
I
particularly liked Holtzman's emphasis that there is no remedy, no way
to safeguard the U.S. Constitution and protect the American people from
the tyranny of the U.S. executive branch, than to IMPEACH, IMPEACH WITHOUT DELAY.
Fein
makes me a Constitutional fundamentalist. Our founders had predicted
this very predicament, and explicitly foresaw the need for IMPEACHMENT
of the President, in these circumstances.
Congress DECIDES what
constitutes an impeachable offense, and there are is opportunity here
to set a precedent reining in the overwrought ambitious of warmongering
presidents and vice-presidents (as well as secretaries of defense,
secretaries of state, or attorney generals, etc.)
IT IS
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT IN MY MIND TO LIMIT THE IMPERIALIST TENDENCIES of
the likes of Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Ashcroft-Gonzalez-Mukasey.
IT
IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO RE-ASSERT THE POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY that
defines limits on the executive branch, by impeaching, and then
indicting and prosecuting, when the time is ripe, the whole coterie of
executive-branch officials and administrators, starting with Bush and
Cheney, before they abscond to their hideaway in the mountains of
Paraguay.
Meanwhile, I found the witnesses called by the Republican minority to be either dangerous or laugable.
Steven
Presser, law professor at Northwester University -- fascist, pure and
simple. He would have been happy defending Goering, at the Nuremberg
trials; the Goering who eventually was hanged for crimes against
peace. Presser spoke unremitting evil from his mouth, every time he
was given the occasion.
George Rabkin, law professor at George
Mason University, muddle-headed woolly-thinking witness. His entire
defense was to claim for Bush a defense (not in law, either) that his
misdeeds are permissible in a time of war (the presumed open-ended
so-called 'war on terror' being the purported war in question).
So
simple to refute: U.S. Congress has the right to declare war; U.S.
Congress never did declare a war; if it is NOT wartime, then Rabkin's
line of thinking doesn't have any validity, and in point of fact, the
U.S. president has betrayed both Congress and the U.S. Constitution. Without impeachment, the president and vice-president's war-making will remain unchecked and unbalanced.
Unimpressive were the following:
Fred A.I. Schwarz, New York Univ, Brennan Center for Justice -- he conceded that impeachment should have already been done, and yet, despite the clamor for justice and his role supposedly working for justice, he trotted out the 'too late' argument.
If
it's really too late, viz. because of the tarrying of Pelosi and the
wavering of Conyers, then they, and the other members of the Judiciary
Committee obstructing impeachment so far in this session of Congress,
have failed to protect us from domestic enemies of the Constitution,
they have failed to protect us from zealots like the neo-cons keen on
war, and failed to protect us from the neo-absolutist imperialist view
of the presidency pursued illegally by Cheney. It's not too late, if
the Judiciary Committee would simply proceed with all due diligence in the defense of the U.S. Constitution, investigating abuses of power that seem to be incontrovertibly proven already.
And also unimpressive among the Majority members were:
Mel Watt (D-NC) - a stinker, for waffling through his alloted time. North Carolina should be embarrassed.
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA16) - does not seem to understand that Bush-Cheney provoked the confrontation in Iraq
And among the Minority:
Gohmert (R- ) - ignorant, through and through. I despair that Constitutional issues are in the hands of the likes of Gohmert.
Meanwhile, impressive among the Majority were:
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
and
Robert Wexler (D-FL)
IMPEACH, IMPEACH WITHOUT DELAY. YOU HAVE SEVEN DAYS. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CLOCK IS RUNNING.
http://impeachok1.org/SMF/index.php?topic=9255.msg11184#msg11184
