"Suddenly, Impeachment Hearings Are Looking Like a Strong Possibility"...

[Junkdrawer]

You wouldn’t know it if you just watch TV news or read the corporate press, but this past Tuesday, something remarkable happened. Despite the pig-headed opposition of the Democratic Party’s top congressional leadership, a majority of the House, including three Republicans, voted to send Dennis Kucinich’s long sidelined Cheney impeachment bill (H Res 333) to the Judiciary Committee for hearings.

The vote was 218 to 194.

Now the behind-the-scenes partisan maneuvering that preceded that vote was arcane indeed, with Kucinich first exercising a member’s privilege motion to present his stymied impeachment bill to the full House, only to have Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrange for a colleague (Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD) offer a motion to table it. The Republicans, anxious to embarrass the Speaker, threw a wrench into that plan, though, by voting as a bloc to oppose tabling. Since Kucinich already has 22 co-sponsors for his bill, it was clear that the tabling gambit would fail. As soon as that became apparent, rank-and-file Democrats, unwilling to be seen by their constituents as defending Cheney, rushed to change their votes to opposing the tabling motion. In the end, tabling failed by 242 to 170 with 77 Democrats supporting a pleasantly surprised Kucinich.
....

Whatever the explanation, this impeachment bill has been endorsed by a floor vote of the full House, with bipartisan support.

For the Judiciary Committee to sit on it now and not schedule a hearing would be a gross travesty of parliamentary procedure and custom.

....

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/110807Lindorff.shtml

Suddenly, the Republican's little joke may not be so funny...

[yellowcanine]

1. "For the Judiciary Committee to sit on it. and not schedule a hearing....

It may be a travesty of parlimentary procedure and even justice but custom? Actually this is done all the time so I suspect that unless the committee chair and/or a majority of the committee is prepared to go forward with this it will not happen.

[Junkdrawer]

2. "Actually this is done all the time"....

How may times is a tabling motion killed followed by a strong referral to committee followed by the committee sitting on the bill?

[yellowcanine]

23. Well the rules have changed somewhat I believe but in the past it happened a lot.

Chairs of committees had almost dictatorial power and could bottle up bills in committee whenever it pleased them. Before the 1964 Civil Rights Bill southern committee chairs did it all the time with anti-lynching bills and other civil rights legislation.

[Cleita]

3. Why the Bush administration must be impeached

even for those are part of the 25% who approve of them. This is my challenge.....

...to those think that torture is necessary, if not even cool, to save more lives than the life of the pathetic prisoner you are torturing.

...to those who are into preemptive war because if we don’t get them there, we will have to get them over here.

...to those who really don’t mind shouldering the majority of the tax burden of this country because you got $300 back at the beginning of the Bush administration.

...to those who believe that the government should be faith based, providing it’s their faith.

...to those who think that everything that the Bush administration has done to make our Constitution irrelevant is cool to them because they like a tough, strong father figure like Bush. They don’t need no stinkin’ Constitution.

...to those who believe all the above is true, Bush/Cheney must be impeached regardless because they have put the security of this country in dire jeopardy with the outing of covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame, for petty reasons of revenge against her husband, Joe Wilson.

This act alone is an act of high treason considering that she was working on nuclear proliferation, which has high priority because the safety of our whole country if not the world depends on the work that these agents do. We are more vulnerable today to nuclear attack than we ever were during the cold war because of this one action by those high up in the executive office of our government. Those two unelected leaders, Bush and Cheney should have been arrested on the spot for treason when this affair first became known to Congress.

Any Congressional warhawks and anybody else too timid to put impeachment on the table knows now that the handwriting is on the wall. They must honor their oaths to uphold the Constitution because if they don't, they are complicit in this treason.

[Junkdrawer]

4. What I want is a No Shit investigation into all the above...

To take your last example, what are Cheney's ties to those that allowed A.Q. Kahn to develop Pakistan's atomic weapon?

[Cleita]

6. Me too, but I'm not holding my breath. n/t

[Disturbed]

7. Cheney is a Criminal & Kucinich has the proof.

Kuch aint foolin' around!

[mmonk]

10. Yep.

Let the public get a whif of Cheney and the nuclear black market and the muslim bomb.

[H2O Man]

5. Nomination #5.

I think it is being taken seriously now.

[tiptoe]

8. Pelosi

is doing her best to disabuse potential critics of any notion of self-serving interests:

She'd be next in line to the Presidency, IF CHENEY WERE IMPEACHED AND CONVICTED.

Pelosi --> Hoyer
Pelosi --> Conyers  <-- Kucinich
                    <-- Wexler  <-- House up-for-re-election (dems AND repugs)  <--- and these guys (who face this in '08)

"Oh, what's a poor girl 'sposed to do? My hands are gonna to be tied by Kucinich, Wexler and a bunch of House yahoos, even after I threatened Ol' Man Conyers with loss of his chairmanship!! Now what's HE 'sposed to do?! Lord knows I'm doing my damndest to stop this from happening! There's no time for any of this; there's too much 'portant legislatin' stuff needin' 'tending!"

There's no precedent for a "right way" for a Speaker of the House to proceed in this matter: A vice-president has never been impeached before.

[AllyCat]

9. Well, she's certianly shown herself the past 10 months to not be worthy

of the presidency. Spineless and kowtowing. That's Pelosi.

[tiptoe]

12. then

she's succeeding in a way, isn't she (especially if impeachment goes forward "despite her 'wishes' ")?
;)

The Dems be doin' their 'dance' 'cuz here's wha they be knowin' (and wha da Houz Repugs be knowin' too "despite their 'calling Kucinich' bluff' "):

http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm

[AllyCat]

11. What was the final list of supporters? Is there a roll call somewhere that

I can't find?

[CGowen]

14. It was H RES 799

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1037.xml


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2220817

[JMDEM]

16. I'm confused -what does Yay and Ney specify? nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Yay= yes, Nay=no

[CGowen]

20. Yay is for "table the motion", which is keeping impeachment off the table n/t

table, motion to - A Senator may move to table any pending question. The motion is not debatable, and agreement to the motion is equivalent to defeating the question tabled. The motion is used to dispose quickly of questions the Senate does not wish to consider further.





http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/11/house-tables-re.html

[AllyCat]

25. Thanks! Thank God my rep voted the right way on this.

She usually does (Baldwin-WI), but I wish she would lead a bit more.

[Yuugal]

13. I'm in shock

With all the belly-aching here yesterday I thought we lost that battle. Go Kooch!

[JMDEM]

15. Holy Shit

Wow -- the Republicans think that holding impeachment hearings will help them in a year?

Talk about shooting yourself in tbe foot with a shotgun -- it's gonna make it hard to run! But I guess it isn't your fault if Cheney was the one holding the shotgun.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. That is why yesterday I called it the greatest political mistake

in a generation

[tiptoe]

19. K & R !

[Cronopio]

21. It's like the Eddie Murphy joke about the Chicago Repubs who voted for Harold Washington.

"He fucking won?!"

[Toasterlad]

22. Actually, It Was Jesse Jackson.

"Who's that boy, Harold Washington? Said 'Fuck it'. And WON. Jesse seen that shit and said, 'Ah'ma run too, fuck it'. I hear the brothers talkin' about, 'You could win, Jesse. You could win, cause you bigger than mother-fuckin' Harold Washington! Fuck Harold Washington! Fuck it, man, run for president!' Jesse said, 'Yeah, fuck that shit.'

Jesse know that shit can happen, cause white folks like to vote for the wrong guy as a goof. White folks get all drunk and say, 'Let's vote for Jesse Jackson!' *CLICK* 'I just voted for Jesse Jackson!' The next day, they're like, 'He fuckin' WON???"

Ah, back when Eddie was funny. I miss Funny Eddie.

[KoKo]

24. I was a "contrarian" thinking Kucinich did great on that vote with Repugs Switching...

Mass Media and Dem Progessive Media said Repugs vote was all about "humiliating the Dems."

In my heart of hearts my gut told me there were MANY REPUGS who wanted Cheney Investigated...but they are Cowards and so this was the way they managed to show their disagreement with their OWN LEADERSHIP.

They voted to send it to Judicary figuring Dem Activists would get on Connor's Hide to FORCE HIM TO INVESTIGATE CHENEY! Repug Leadership doesn't want to admit how angry they are with Cheney...and want Dems to do their DIRTY WORK FOR THEM...but my gut tells me that MANY REPUGS (more than we imagine) want CHENEY INVESTIGATED AND GONE!

:shrug: this is my personal opinion...

[texpatriot2004]

26. Impeachment...it's happening nm

[EVDebs]

27. What new information could come out of the free speech on Congress' floor, eh ?

A steady drip drip drip of inconvenient truths.