Congressman Conyers Meets with Impeachment Advocates

Congressman Conyers Meets with Impeachment Advocates
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2008-07-10 05:19.

By Lisa Kaiser, Express Milwaukee


Milwaukee’s active advocates for impeachment were surprised last week when the one man who could move forward impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives —Michigan Congressman John Conyers, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee—agreed to meet with them for an hour the next day. The impeachment advocates had protested Conyers’ attendance at a fund raiser last Monday for Rep. Steve Kagan (D-Green Bay). But Conyers spoke with the protesters, and then invited them to discuss impeachment the next morning.

“We gave him a lot to think about,” said Debbie Metke, who attended the meeting. Conyers has sent mixed signals about his willingness to act on impeaching President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the administration. While House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi had promised that impeachment was “off the table” prior to the 2006 election, Conyers has shown some support for it over the years.

At the 2005 Fighting BobFest, Conyers promised that if Democrats won a majority in the House, he’d act on impeachment. In May, Conyers sent a letter to the president warning that if the United States attacked Iran without congressional approval, he would begin impeachment proceedings. Yet Conyers has not acted on the 35 articles of impeachment introduced by his colleague, Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, in June.

In his Milwaukee meeting last week, Conyers didn’t make any promises, although he did say that while Pelosi took impeachment off the table, he did not.

more...

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34672

************************************

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34673

Congress Members' View of Impeachment Improving Dramatically
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2008-07-10 10:47.


National Impeachment Network, http://nationalimpeachment.org


A spokesperson for a National Impeachment Network (NIN) lobbying delegation, which has been meeting with Congress members in Washington DC this week, said "There is clear evidence that the mood of Congress has shifted. Impeachment hearings could start this month. It appears that hearings will likely focus on impeachable offenses not requiring testimony and lengthy investigations because evidence is on the public record -- the administration's refusal to honor subpoenas, the nearly 800 signing statements used to alter the intent of legislation passed by Congress, and the deliberate misinformation given to Congress to get approval for going to war. We are very optimistic that Cheney and Bush are finally going to be held to account and investigated."

Said another member of the NIN delegation, "The reception we've received has been positively amazing. Every Representative we've met with supports impeachment strongly. Our team is working hard and will continue lobbying efforts through the month of July. We'll be there tomorrow when Kucinich introduces his new resolution for impeaching Bush for the deliberate intelligence deceptions leading to the Iraq War.And Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers invited the group to sit in on the Judiciary Committee hearing where Karl Rove is expected to be cited for contempt of Congress. Conyers told the group that he would like to deliver the inherent contempt citation to Rove himself. This is incredibly exciting. The majority of Americans favor impeachment and want the Democratic Party to listen to the grassroots. Congress members are going to insist on restoring their oversight authority. We should take heart that the breakthrough we've been seeking appears to finally be happening."

it is nothing but a show.

It's kind of like the guy who promises the girlfriend that he's going to leave his wife and get a divorce. Sooner or later, he just gets another girlfriend.

there is no intention of leaving the wife - just as the complete lack of intention to pursue impeachment.

These legislators just want to get to the next phase of the "rape of Americans".

that could show how corrupt many of them are. Maybe the latest strategy of pushing one article concerning the Iraq War is a good strategy.

I'd like to note, after watching some of the investigatory sessions how the footdragging is simply part of the process. Conyers works with the GOP to try to get witnesses to come forward that would point to the right directions. Failing that or flopping up against the same stonewall by the WH those hard wrung summons come right back to the "What now?" stage to begin the negotiations with the GOP committee members, then slower negotiations with the witnesses played off with the WH.

Now, granted that one short cut to the heart of the matter is to impeach the WH itself, imagine the process of getting THAT underway with plenty of time for Pelosi to undercut the effort in many many ways before even getting to the GOP Congress, the WH, etc. Short of Conyers and allies breaking out guns or trying to ramrod things through just a bit more quickly, his position in the process is crystal clear.
There is no legitimate ground in the system to stand on to bring about the redemptive process. The only position they face vis a vis all the crime, illegitimacy, compromised party ties(guilty or just by hopeless association) is to soldier on toward November. If the process won't worm out one withheld secret, one palpable witness, one decisive Congressional action, why throw all the frustration into one typically doomed impeachment attempt? It would only get as far as the GOP would allow. Or- why not?

So, they are right in a substantive way that only the end of the current administration at the polls will resolve anything at all short of a much less imaginable insurrection. We, the existential progressives, would rather begin the process now, no matter how bad our position will remain, because it is very very likely to remain so after a massive Dem victory because of all the tangled knots in the web so easily thrown over them. Bush appointments,. Bush damage to the economy and the impossibility of quick extraction from Iraq, Bush law precedents, Bush crimes in place and uninvestigated, Dem involvement in all of that. There will remain Dem DINO's and GOP stalwarts to again ruin process even though, on the face of it, the position seems better.

In other words, the real ugliness lies ahead, determined by a hapless now, predetermined by a long path of mistakes and surrenders and thwarted process- always with the same balance determined by coup traitors that we must trudge through a hopeless mire of compromised law or the illusion we can vault toward quick resolutions by force. War protests came and continued for Iraq yet falter before the danger of a repeat performance in Iran even less defensible and even more threatening. Just so, impeachment fever will wane as the clock runs down and it will take time to realize the "failing" will continue into the next administration as everyone becomes preoccupied with the heady perils of real government. All the evils will be looped, the knot denied, even if the end result means worse avboidable and even more critical danger for mankind facing material crises beyond the pale of all world policy.

Grit your teeth for the long haul and don't get too carried away by enthusiasms of angers of the moment. First goal: solve real world crises by restoring some positive government and democratic influence, make progress constantly on the political front. The Enemy of all this meanwhile cannot live to blight another day. The priorities of the first cannot be simply used to escape the need to deal with an ever recurring past. It is all of a piece and it might just begin- as it has not yet with the party and its MSM face- with the whole truth.

I bet one of the reason he won't do anything about impeachment is because of his wife. Monica Conyers is on the Detroit City Council and is a real piece of work. She is currently being investigated by the feds for taking bribes in exchange for a sludge deal. This story is so big here and even one of our local tv anchors has been suspended for going to one of the meetings with the man doing the bribing( who happens to be her boyfriend). I swear Monica is going to bring John down right with her.