Kucinich: “I'm Talking About Impeachment” | The Nation [blog]

[helderheid]

Nancy Pelosi's attempt to keep impeachment off the table has already been upset outside the District of Columbia, as grassroots campaigns in states across the country have begun raising the prospect of Constitutionally sanctioning President Bush, Vice President Cheney and members of their administration. More than three dozen Vermont town meetings endorsed impeachment resolutions in early March, and legislators in Vermont, Washington state and New Mexico have mustered efforts to dispatch articles of impeachment from state Capitols to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Now, Pelosi's moves to silence this discussion in the Congress are being upset by a fellow Democrat, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Last week, after meeting with pro-impeachment activists, Kucinich delivered a speech on the House floor in which he said:

This House cannot avoid its Constitutionally authorized responsibility to restrain the abuse of Executive power.

The Administration has been preparing for an aggressive war against Iran. There is no solid, direct evidence that Iran has the intention of attacking the United States or its allies.

The US is a signatory to the UN Charter, a constituent treaty among the nations of the world. Article II, Section 4 of the UN Charter states, "all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. . ." Even the threat of a war of aggression is illegal.

Article VI of the US Constitution makes such treaties the Supreme Law of the Land. This Administration, has openly threatened aggression against Iran in violation of the US Constitution and the UN Charter.

This week the House Appropriations committee removed language from the Iraq war funding bill requiring the Administration, under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, to seek permission before it launched an attack against Iran.

Since war with Iran is an option of this Administration and since such war is patently illegal, then impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran.

Now, Kucinich, a contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nod, has begun contacting supporters to ask if he should embrace impeachment as a candidate and an active member of Congress.

"For four years I have been working to end this war, including leading the effort to cut off continued funding for the war. There is enough money to bring our troops home and we should do that. But the Bush administration, with the help of some in Congress, wants to pour more money into this war. Worse than that, the Bush administration now is signaling its intention to wage war with Iran. We cannot allow that to happen," writes Kucinich.

"So I'm asking you: Do you think it's time?" he adds. "I'm talking about time for impeachment."

Noting that "we are now have a condition in this country where we are told to take impeachment off the table, and keep on the table a U.S. military attack against Iran," Kucinich concludes: "This situation calls for us to reconsider very deeply the moment that we're in –- where our Constitution is being trashed, where international law is being violated, where our hopes and dreams for the education of our children, for the health of our people, for housing, for our veterans, are being set aside as we go deeper and deeper into war."

Kucinich's analysis is right. Impeachment is an appropriate tool, not only for sanctioning Bush for past wrongs, but also as a threat to prevent the president from engaging in new wrongs.

There will be those who suggest that, as a long-shot presidential contender, the former mayor of Cleveland and veteran peace activist is the wrong messenger. But the initial champions of impeachment are often political outsiders: like the abolitionist Whigs – including a young Abraham Lincoln and an old John Quincy Adams -- who sought to sanction pro-slavery Presidents John Tyler and James K. Polk in the 1840s.

"Radical" foes of the Vietnam War, such as New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug and Father Robert Drinan, a congressman from Massachusetts, were among the first to call for impeaching Richard Nixon. They were eventually joined by a Republican, California Congressman Pete McCloskey, who had mounted an quixotic anti-war primary challenge to Nixon in 1972.

The first members of Congress who dare raise the subject of impeaching any errant executive are invariably dismissed as premature and intemperate. But history tends to view them kindly, just as it tends to view poorly the subjects of their proposed sanctions.

The bottom line is that Kucinich is right when he says: "This House cannot avoid its Constitutionally authorized responsibility to restrain the abuse of Executive power." The congressman deserves credit for recognizing that "impeachment may well be the only remedy" for the Constitutional crisis Bush has created, and for the crises he now schemes to create. And if his fellow anti-war Democrats in Congress are honest with themselves, they will recognize that it is time for the House to start talking about impeachment.

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John Nichols' new book is THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic that combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=177541

[jarnocan]

1. Support him every way you can! thanks!

http://www.impeach07.org/

[Dhalgren]

2. The idea that impeachment would be off of the Democrats table, but war with Iran

is kept on that table is a shame to the Party. The old way of thinking is just going to ruin what little is left of our nation. Brzezinski is right, that the new way of thinking should focus on not being strong as apposed to weak, not aggressive as oppose to appeasing, but smart as opposed to dumb. We have to say in a clear voice that we have no intention of starting a war with Iran. War is off the table completely. At the same time, for an opposition party to tell an administration which is widely viewed as being both corrupt and secretive, inept and dishonest, that impeachment is off the table is the dumbest thing I have ever heard...

[coznfx]

3. We're WAAAAY past time to TALK about impeachment

Impeachment is literally the only response available if Bush / Cheney instructs Rove / Miers / etc. to ignore Congressional subpeonas. Myelf, I think Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and others need to be included in the subpeona handouts

Consider his situation. Ever since stealing office, Bush has been about positioning the executive branch as more powerful than, and not accountable to, Congress. Using signing statements, he regularly ignores laws and congressional directives. For political gain, he doesn't hesitate to BREAK the law and/or command subordinates to do so.

In the current situation, Bush knows the reckoning is nearing no matter what he does.

1) They appear and tell the truth - it would be an open admission of guilt for the massive criminal activity we all discuss here. Time to impeach.
2) They appear and lie, - each would soon be tripped up by each other's testimony and the information gleaned from the document dump. Truth will out, time to impeach.
3) They don't appear.

I trust its plainly obvious that Shrub would rather cut off his :scared: and eat it on a cracker than be outed for his treason. So, they obviously cant testify. Since the witnesses have no valid grounds themselves to refuse Congress, Bush would have to order them not to go. Contempt of Congress charges would logically follow. Who prosecutes such case? DOJ. (Not. You know Bush will put the kibosh on such silliness.)

Congress is forced to fish or cut bait.

If Congress does not immediately meet such publicized, arrogant, blatantly illegal tactics with their last remaining trump card, impeachment, they will be viewed as being the lesser branch, ineffective and weak, unable to preserve the Constitution from even a miserable bumbling tyrant like King George. This would set a dangerous precedent and define the future relationship between the Unitary Executive and the Lesser Legislative branches. Not a good thing, and probably the end of constitutional rule

No matter what Bush does now, whether or not they respond to subpeona, no matter if they testify truthfully or not, the only outcome possible is impeachment, imho. Therefore, Congress should know that it has no choice but to demand the witnesses to appear VERY, VERY soon before the committee (say, on Monday, March 26). Give Gonzo the Contempt of Congress charges on Tuesday, demanding arrests of said witnesses by, say, Monday April 2nd. Begin impeachment procedings on April 3rd. Maybe some wishful thinking on the timeline, but no investigations would be needed - charges would be based on widely broadcast, irrefutable, undeniable events of the prior couple of weeks.

I want to say, however, that I have a bad feeling about this. When Congress impeaches, what is to prevent Bush from declaring martial law, claiming threats to national security? He would, of course, suspend Congress, claiming that Congress is using impeachment as a tool to steal for itself the powers reserved for the Unitary Executive branch. Thinking back on the lies, crimes and evil workings of the last six years, I see this outcome as very likely. I'm scared.