Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., may have been hoping to rally the liberal base and give a boost to his possible presidential bid, but his proposal to censure President Bush over the eavesdropping program is a godsend to the right wing, The New York Times reported. Conservatives have been worried that their base, which has been demoralized on several issues, lacked motivation to turn out in the fall election. But now they are using the threat of censure and a possible impeachment as reason why conservatives need to go to the polls. “Impeachment, coming your way if there are changes in who controls the House eight months from now,” conservative organizer Paul Weyrich is warning. Nothing like manufactured fear to motivate people.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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The GOP – party of Fear.
Posted this on a different thread, but worth re-posting here:
Censure capers: In a Times article today there was discussion of the Republicans attempting to use the censure planned against Bush in a martial arts sort of way. Meaning, they will use it against the Democrats and feel that it will rally their base. Any sense of how well this strategy might work? Did the Republicans really suffer much from the Clinton impreachment -sic?
Thanks.
Jim VandeHei: I think the “strategy” is party the result of having little else to rally around. Republicans are divided over immigration, spending, taxes, the Iraq war so the censure resolution gives the base something they can agree on. I don’t see how a resolution with two sponsors will somehow magically cure the party’s problems.
Remember the issues that really motivate the base are big tax cuts, abortion restrictions, limits on immigrations and national security. Unless the censure becomes a democratic issues, it will likely fade away like other so many other efforts before it.
Rage, You wondered about my shift: Zionist hardliners are draining the “peace pond” dry with moderates and peacniks even being shot. They’re flocking to the billions being dumped by Bushco trying to move them far enough to the right to support an attack on Iran. Crude is responding by moving upward and that is troubling. The attack on the jail was to prove their point.http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=79292&d=16&m=3&y=2006
And the Democrats have no base to turn out?
Not if their party doesn’t have anything to vote for.
When Clinton got censured, dozens of Dems including Harry Reid signed on.
How many Repubbies are going to vote to censure Bush? hehehe
“The group also said that it was “a dangerous deviation” to pretend that the Iranian president is an anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic personality since President Ahmadinejad, in fact, restated what the late founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini had frequently stated.
“That is, Zionism is different from Judaism and while the Zionist state of Israel must be disintegrated, the Jewish communities world wide and the religion of Judaism must be respected.”
Link below
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/235714D7-3186-4DA3-835F-3715DC03C318.htm
The number should be all of the congress- less those who are criminals. All the republican congress from Kansas are criminals for violation of their oath of office and allowing BushCo to violate the rule of law and the United States Constitution!
March 16, 2006
32 US Reps Want Bush Impeachment Inquiry
By Matthew Cardinale
This article courtesy of Atlanta Progressive News
(APN) ATLANTA – 32 US House Representatives have signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors of H. Res 635, which would create a Select Committee to look into the grounds for recommending President Bush’s impeachment, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.
Their co-sponsorships of H. Res 635 come on the heels of reports that US Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) will support US Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) bill, S. Res 398, to censure President Bush.
The two latest co-sponsors of H. Res 635 are US Rep. David Wu (D-OR) and US Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN).
“Because of my concern, and that of many of my constituents, regarding the misleading and fraudulent intelligence used by the Bush administration to present its case for war in Iraq, I decided to cosponsor H. Res 635 introduced by Representative John Conyers,” Wu said in a statement prepared for Atlanta Progressive News.
US Rep. Wu has held a series of Town Hall events focusing on the war in Iraq in his House district, the Congressman’s spokesperson said. At these events, numerous constituents brought up the bill for H. Res 635, Wu’s spokesperson noted, adding that Wu voted against the resolution for the authorization for the use of force in Iraq, and he has always questioned Bush’s justification for the US invasion of Iraq.
US Rep. McCollum was attending events in her House district and was not available for immediate comment.
“There has been massive support for House Resolution 635 from a very vigorous network of grassroots activists and people committed to holding the Bush Administration accountable for its widespread abuses of power,” US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) said in a statement prepared for Atlanta Progressive News.
“The Atlanta Progressive News has reported regularly on this bill,” Conyers wrote in an article on his blog.
Meanwhile, other mainstream media outlets are finally beginning to discover what we’ve been reporting since December 2005. Unfortunately, articles from the New York Times, Associated Press, and Boston Globe, have contained misleading or outright incorrect assertions.
The Associated Press updated one article after a call from Atlanta Progressive News, where it had erroneously reported the content of H. Res 635. The New York Times today and Boston Globe yesterday reported inaccurate or misleading counts of the number of co-sponsors. The Times had said “about two dozen,” which is not a very good way to describe 32. The Globe made an understandable error, citing 29 supporters, when there had been in fact 29 co-sponsors, plus Conyers, the original sponsor, made 30, at the time.
The New York Times piece was also highly slanted, focusing on the likelihood that calls for looking into the grounds for Bush’s impeachment–or for Bush’s censure–would rally the Republican base. The Times neglects to mention the possibility of rallying the Democratic base. It also opts out of discussing the possible merits of the bill.
Meanwhile, at least eight (8) US cities, including Arcata, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco, each in California; and Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro, Newfane, and Putney, each in Vermont, have passed resolutions calling for Bush’s impeachment.
Almost 16% of US House Democrats now support the impeachment probe; over 7% of all US House Representatives now support the probe. In December 2005, there were 231 Republicans in the US House, 202 Democrats, 1 Independent, and 1 vacancy, a clerk for the US House of Representatives told Atlanta Progressive News.
The best represented states on H. Res 635 are California (7), New York (6), Massachusetts (3), Minnesota (3), Georgia (2), and Wisconsin (2).
The current 30 total co-sponsors are Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA), Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Rep. John Olver (D-MA), Rep. Major Owens (D-NY), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN), Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA), Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), and Rep. David Wu (D-OR).
“What a lot of activists group want is the next step, which is Articles of Impeachment. You don’t have to pass this type of bill first. I think there’s a fair chance that if the list of co-sponsors grows dramatically, Conyers and others will take that next step of introducing articles of impeachment,” David Swanson of ImpeachPAC told Atlanta Progressive News.
At least two members of Congress are prepared to sign Articles of Impeachment if they were to be introduced, sources tell Atlanta Progressive News. One of the members is US Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), whose office clarified earlier Associated Press reports, by saying Lewis would indeed sign such a bill, assuming that any bill of impeachment would of course be introduced as a result of a thorough process, such as one including the investigation called for in H. Res 635.
Dave Lindorff wrote in The Baltimore Chronicle that he and Barbara Olshansky (an attorney at The Center for Constitutional Rights) will reveal in an upcoming book that “members of Congress–even firebrands like Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)–have been strong-armed behind the scenes by the Democratic National Committee not to introduce an impeachment bill in the House.”
Conyers’s bill was initially referred to the US House Rules Committee, which has not taken action. None of the US House Democrats on the Rules Committee have signed on as co-sponsors. The Ranking Democrat on the Committee is US Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY). Democratic members of the Committee are Alcee Hastings (D-FL), Doris Matsui (D-CA), and James McGovern (D-MA). Republicans currently outnumber Democrats on the committee by about a two-to-one ratio.
The US House Rules Committee would need to take action on H. Res 635 because it calls for the creation of a Select Committee, in other words the creation of a new committee that is not a standing committee, Jonathan Godfrey, Communications Director for US Rep. Conyers, told Atlanta Progressive News. Such a Committee would need to be staffed, Godfrey noted.
If the Democratic Party is able to retake the US House of Representatives, Rep. Conyers would become Chairman Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee, whereas he is currently the Ranking Democrat on the Committee. The Judiciary Committee would oversee any actual impeachment investigation.
If not acted on this session, the bill would have to be reintroduced next session. It is possible that a new bill could include new language regarding Bush’s approval of illegal NSA domestic wiretapping.
For now, however, sources in Washington DC tell Atlanta Progressive News that H. Res 635 is a venue for coalition among members of Congress who are willing to consider impeachment for a variety of reasons.
Even though H. Res 635 does not specifically reference the NSA domestic wiretapping issue, some Members of US Congress have found the wiretapping issue to be a compelling reason to sign on as a co-sponsor, sources say.
In other words, why introduce separate legislation to address a single issue when momentum has been built with H. Res 635?
The thing about H. Res. 635 is, it deals with impeaching Bush over a cluster of issues from misleading the public to go to war, to authorizing torture. Wiretapping was not listed as one of the reasons to investigate the grounds for Bush’s impeachment in the bill because the existence of the secret, illegal wiretapping had not come to light yet when the bill was being prepared.
US Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) withdrew her name from H. Res 635 last month, whereas she had been listed as a cosponsor throughout January 2006. Lofgren cited a clerical error for her name having been listed in the first place. Lofgren’s Office told Atlanta Progressive News the Representative learned of her being listed as a co-sponsor after reading an exclusive article by Atlanta Progressive News issued January 01, 2006.
H. Res 635 reads as its official title: “Creating a select committee to investigate the Administration’s intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) also just released a book, Articles of Impeachment Against President Bush. The Center is extremely influential in high-profile court fights over issues such as wiretapping, the treatment of detainees by the US, and felon voting rights.
“We have the book, we are calling for the impeachment of the President, and we’re supporting Conyers’s resolution,” Bill Goodman, CCR Legal Director, told Atlanta Progressive News.
Atlanta Progressive News has provided near-exclusive–and during many times, exclusive–coverage of the progress of H. Res 635. We will continue to follow this story and any related developments.
Resources:
Find Out More About The Center for Constitutional Rights
Find Out More About ImpeachPAC
Find Out More About The Honorable John Conyers
About the author:
Matthew Cardinale is the Editor and National Correspondent of Atlanta Progressive News. He may be reached at matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com
Syndication policy:
This article may be reprinted in full at no cost where Atlanta Progressive News is credited.
Authors Website: http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com
Authors Bio: Matthew Cardinale is Editor of Atlanta Progressive News. He has written previously for the Sun-Sentinel Newspaper, Shelterforce Magazine, The Advocate Magazine, The San Francisco Bay View, and the Berkeley Daily Planet Newspaper. He has also written for numerous online publications including OpEdNews, BuzzFlash, CommonDreams, AlterNet, RawStory, and TruthOut. He may be reached at matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com
Bush is murdering children for the sake of Israeli politics, not American safety.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-03-16-bush-national-security_x.htm
Bush is basically a lame duck president now. His time and whatever supposed currency he had after 2004 elections has been used up. Impeaching him is stupid, but then again Repubs impeching Clinton was stupid too.
Wow. Check out the polling numbers: 46% of folks polled in an American Research Group poll feel that George Bush should be censured. 42% think he should be IMPEACHED, and when the sample is limited to voters, 48% favor censure.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Poll_Americans_slightly_favor_plan_to_0316.html
I hope the GOP thinks that attacking Feingold as a ‘traitor’ is a good move to rally Republican voters. Given these numbers, doing so promises to boomerang on them. Yet another sign of the GOP’s disconnect with the electorate–and with reality.
As for Senator Feingold’s resolution, I ask all you ‘big guvmint’ hating Repukes: given that the President’s actions contradict FISA, shouldn’t he be prosecuted?
SOMEBODY has to stand up for the rule of law if you Repukes aren’t going to. Kudos to Senator Feingold.
I believe the bums should be thrown out. But the only reason is the same one some others have said to just leave it alone. Three more years, he has three more years and what can he did?It is what he can do in three more years that makes me desire him out even more then what he has done.
Intelligence Failures
Thursday, March 16, 2006 – Bangor Daily News
The Senate Intelligence Committee stands in the middle of some of the most important work Congress will do this year. It also stands in the way. Not only has it failed to complete its work on investigating how the White House used intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq, it has offered only a weak response to the administration’s warrantless wiretaps. The committee’s seeming lack of direction at precisely the time intelligence is the focus of the war on terrorism and at the heart of the debate over the reach of executive powers is inexcusable.
Committee Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas defended its work the other day, saying that the second phase of its report on intelligence leading to the Iraq war “has been ongoing since we began the effort shortly after the committee released its unanimous report on the Intelligence Community’s prewar assessments on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.”
The second report was expected in the fall of 2004 and was to examine, among other things, whether statements made by officials were substantiated by the intelligence. It was also to look at the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, a former intelligence unit that reportedly disagreed with conclusions of the CIA.
In the March 4 edition of the National Journal, reporter Murray Waas points to important instances when the president disregarded the intelligence. In one, the president was given a one-page summary of the National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002 that stated the Energy Department and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence believed the much-disputed aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were “intended for conventional weapons.”
But despite that conclusion the president and his cabinet continued to assert the tubes were for gas centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. It isn’t news that the White House was wrong, but it is important that the Senate investigate the facts around the president’s decision to ignore specific intelligence.
Similarly, by January 2003, reports Mr. Waas, a second classified report that included a summary of a National Intelligence Estimate stated that U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously concluded Saddam Hussein would be unlikely to attack the United States unless “ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime,” the report said. The Bush administration, through numerous speeches, press conferences and interviews, portrayed very different conditions from what its own intelligence was reporting.
The Senate committee’s capitulation on warrantless wiretapping – agreeing to have a subcommittee informed, maybe, of some National Security Agency activity and canceling a possible investigation of the wiretapping – was similarly disappointing. The full committee is supposed to have oversight responsibilities. Simply because the administration denied them that ability is no reason to surrender it in part now. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a member of the committee, said an investigation was still possible, which is better than nothing.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats have shone in the committee’s gridlock. But Congress and the nation need it to lead on difficult issues, and if a new committee membership is needed next year, both parties should consider it.
Do the symptoms described below bring a particular person to mind?
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Individuals with this Cluster B Personality Disorder have anexcessive sense of how important they are. They demand and expect tobe admired and praised by others and are limited in their capacity toappreciate others’ perspectives.
Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need foradmiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood andpresent in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) ofthe following:
(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggeratesachievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superiorwithout commensurate achievements)
(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
(3) believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only beunderstood by, or should associate with, other special or high-statuspeople (or institutions)
(4) requires excessive admiration
(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations ofespecially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his orher expectations
(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of othersto achieve his or her own ends
(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with thefeelings and needs of others
(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious ofhim or her
(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/narcissisticpd.htm
American Research group did a poll on if Americans wanted censure.
http://americanresearchgroup.com/
Do you favor or oppose the United States Senate passing a resolution censuring President George W. Bush for authorizing wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining court orders?
3/15/06 Favor Oppose UndecidedAll Adults 46% 44% 10%Voters 48% 43% 9%Repub(33%) 29% 57% 14%Dem(37%) 70% 26% 4%Ind(30%) 42% 47% 11%
looks to me like a majority of the adults are favorable to censure
Tellitasitis, you will have to be a little more specific as to your question. You may have just describe half of the bloggers here including me!
WD, First he needs to see a shrink.
I did see a shrink, he told me I should not listen to the voices in my head. They really bothered me, they kept saying “NO YOU CAN NOT KILL THEM ALL! pLEASE DON’T KILL THEM! ” Now arn’t you glad I did not listen to the shrink?
How about, the shrink told me to stop listen to that little voice in my head. So I took the earphones off!
What they should do is get rid of the whole nonsense of monogamous marriage. After all, people who see themselves as one another’s property is evil and should never be allowed in a civilized nation.
Dosvedanya comrade
I dream of a world free from the superstition and ignorance of any and all religion, and the barbaric mayhem that accompanies religious fanatics will disappear from this world! Can anyone dare say that acts of terrorism are not motivated by religious beliefs?
Damn Hegel, I didnt post that last one but I sure wish I had!!!!!
“Rage, You wondered about my shift: Zionist hardliners are draining the “peace pond” dry with moderates and peacniks even being shot.”
Sigh. . .I know. But what to do? Ideas?
By the way, here’s one of several reasons why Feingold is right, even if it’s not the (literally) politically correct thing to do.”Habeas Shmabeas” is now available in streaming audio:
http://thislife.org/ra/310.ram
Rage, Thought you’d be interested. it’s long, but good:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
Ed
Rage, A good one from Ha’aretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=690209&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1
The Israelis fight for money, so does America. If their governments really cared about their own people, then they wouldn’t be so quick to send their sons to their deaths on the battlefield. Personally, I thank your government, because the less living breathing Americans there are in the world, the less brainwashed mercenary fuddy-duddies there are for your government to exploit!
DEATH TO AMERICA!!!!
Thanks, Ed. I haven’t read them yet, but I will.
Hegel is dead, and we have killed him.
By the way, Ed, I believe the line was “moments of insane brillance,” courtesy of our friend XXX.
OMG, now I’m being quoted! I’m an icon!
Good to hear from you again, Rage.