1. Congress would cite her for contempt, and she would have her life impacted forever for not testifying and this wouldnt be fair.

2. She would testify about a man she has served for six years, (pres bush) and would feel bad about it.

Ok, Please explain to me, absent of Lawyer / Client privledge, what LEGAL rational there is for someone avoiding testifying to congress about work they do on MY tax dollars? Congress writes the checks, and congress oversees what is done with the money. How is ther any basis for not testifying before congress when they are required to by law? Because they don’t want to?

Give me a break. The privledged communication exceptions we have in this country are needed, don’t get me wrong. I shouldnt be required to incriminate myself, or my spouse. My doctor or priest shouldnt be able to incriminate me. But because my boss won’t get good advise from me about what to do? That seems totally bogus, because the only way that would be true is if my advise is to break the law!

Failed to support border control today and they have still NOT passed any of the 12 remaining appropriation acts to keep our government running after 30 September.

Same congress people ran for election last fall talking about those no-good do-nothing republicans who did not get the budgets passed on time.

I believed their campaign promise and voted for some of them.

And now, they turn out to be no better than the republicans.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A special counsel should be named to investigate possible perjury by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in sworn testimony to Congress, four U.S. Senate Democrats wrote in a letter on Thursday.

ADVERTISEMENTThe senators wrote U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement asking that he appoint an independent counsel to investigate Gonzales’ testimony to Congress regarding the firing of prosecutors and President George W. Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program.

And this isn’t nearly as silly of a reason than whether someone got a blow job.

This administration is so corrupt, so bold about it…I cannot see how any true American can support them. I am ASHAMED of this country!

As proof the Eagle asks… “gosh why would a Vote No website link to the Eagle stories?

Hummm, could it be because your reporting is slanted to the Vote No hype and lies?Vote No is Operation Rescue people who have come back to continue to try to control the people of Wichita.

I’ll get my news off the web, thanks anyway.

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

“Mr. Chairman:

Earlier today, we heard the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States, “We, the people.” It is a very eloquent beginning. But when the document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787, I was not included in that “We, the people.” I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision I have finally been included in “We, the people.”

Today, I am an inquisitor; an hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate the solemnness that I feel right now. My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total; and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.

It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution, for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office.

The Constitution doesn’t say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body, the legislature, against and upon the encroachment of the Executive. The division between the two branches of the legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judges the same person.

We know the nature of impeachment. We have been talking about it awhile now. It is chiefly designed for the President and his high ministers to somehow be called into account. It is designed to “bridle” the Executive if he engages in excesses. It is designed as a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men. The framers… limited impeachment to high crimes and misdemeanors and discounted and opposed the term, “maladministration.” ….

Common sense would be revolted if we engaged upon this process for petty reasons. Congress has a lot to do: Appropriations, tax reform, health insurance, campaign finance reform, housing, environmental protection, energy sufficiency, mass transportation. Pettiness cannot be allowed to stand in the face of such overwhelming problems. So today we are not being petty. We are trying to be big, because the task we have before us is a big one.

This morning, in a discussion of the evidence, we were told that the evidence which purports to support the allegations of misuse of the CIA by the President is thin. We are told that that evidence is insufficient. What that recital of the evidence this morning did not include is what the President did know on June 23, 1972. The President did know that it was Republican money, that it was money from the Committee for the Re-election of the President, which was found in the possession of one of the burglars arrested on June 17.

What the President did know on June 23 was the prior activities of E. Howard Hunt, which included his participation in the break-in of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, which included Howard Hunt’s participation in the Dita Beard ITT affair, which included Howard Hunt’s fabrication of cables designed to discredit the Kennedy Administration.

We were further cautioned today that perhaps these proceedings ought to be delayed because certainly there would be new evidence forthcoming from the President of the United States. There has not even been an obfuscated indication that this committee would receive any additional materials from the President. The committee’s subpoena is outstanding and if the President wants to supply that material, the committee sits here. The fact is that on yesterday, the American people waited with great anxiety for eight hours, not knowing whether their President would obey an order of the Supreme Court of the United States.

At this point, I would like to juxtapose a few of the impeachment criteria with some of the President’s actions.

Impeachment criteria: James Madison, from the Virginia ratification convention. “If the President be connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there is grounds to believe that he will shelter him, he may be impeached.”

We have heard time and time again that the evidence reflects payment to the defendants of money. The President had knowledge that these funds were being paid and that these were funds collected for the 1972 presidential campaign. We know that the President met with Mr. Henry Petersen twenty-seven times to discuss matters related to Watergate, and immediately thereafter met with the very persons who were implicated in the information Mr. Petersen was receiving… The words are, “If the President is connected in any suspicious manner with any person and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter that person, he may be impeached.”

*****

James Madison, again at the constitutional convention: “A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.”

The Constitution charges the President with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, and yet the President has counseled his aides to commit perjury, willfully disregarded the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, concealed surreptitious entry, attempted to compromise a federal judge while publicly displaying his cooperation with the processes of criminal justice. “A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.”

If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that eighteenth century Constitution should be abandoned to a twentieth century paper shredder.

Has the President committed offenses and planned and directed and acquiesced in a course of conduct which the Constitution will not tolerate? That’s the question. We know that. We know the question.

We should now forthwith proceed to answer the question.

It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

I yield back the balance of my time.”

http://www.massachusettsobserver.com/barbarajordan.htm

God, I wish the Democratic leadership were that smart.

However, I’ll take these subpeonas. Given my postings above, this is clearly a fight that Democrats can and should undertake.

After all, if Senate Republicans want to obstruct any and all Democratic legislation from being voted on, much less passed, they have only themselves to blame when a bunch of bored committee chairs fill up their otherwise empty days by issuing subpeonas.

The Phantom,

Yeah, I think Gonzo went a bit far this time by effectively calling a bunch of Senators liars. And if CF2K is not mistaken, filing charges would be the first step in impeaching Gonzo–something a number of Republican Senators would probably sign on for.

Bush has been spoiling for a Constitutional showdown for six years now. Fine. Let him bring out his make-believe legal rationales and see whether his handpicked Supreme Court is willing to go all the way.

CF2K, for one, doesn’t think they’ll take too kindly to these absolute claims of Executive Privilege.

Congressional Oversight was meant to be directed towards the agencies which make the country go, not witch hunting individuals.”

Remember Ken Starr? Newt Gingrich? PAYBACKS ARE HELL AIN’T THEY!?

That’s exactly the attitude we don’t need in this country. This isn’t “tag” or some other game. This involves peoples’ lives.

The Democratic Congress is spending way too much time on this investigation stuff when they should be attending to the people’s visit.

Congressional Oversight was meant to be directed towards the agencies which make the country go, not witch hunting individuals.

Complaining about eight attorneys who got fired who already served several years in a temporary job is a total waste of everyone’s time and is contemptuous of the trust the American People give them.

This is a pissing contest and that’s all it is.

Proving the essential elements of said tampering would be outside of the venue of that Court because the defendants would be represented by their own counsel.

The motion to dismiss from the D.C. Courts would be by the defendants Counsel and not the President.

And there is nothing illegal about that.

… how did congress get John Dean to testify? Wasnt he also White House Council?

If lawyers break the law in “service” to their client, you mean they are above investigation and prosecution?

I understand lawyer client privelege, but they sure made John Dean dance. Are you telling me he “testified” voluntarily?

Trouble is, the political animals that call themselves Congressional Democrats aren’t going to impeach.

They saw how the American people turned against the Republicans when they tried to burn Clinton at the stake.

Thanks to their mindless vengance against all things Clinton, Bill left office more popular than REAGAN (yes, that’s right–facts don’t lie) and Hillary is now the front-runner.

Way to not only shoot themselves in the ass but shoot America in the ass at the same time . . .

Why impeach when you can just watch GW like the Wicked Witch melt before your eyes.

They aren’t interested in holding these two pawns responsible for contempt. They want the big guns.

So…

Step 1 – File contempt charges against the pawns.

Step 2 – Bush tells the D.C. prosecutor to back off or else.

Step 3 – D.C. prosecutor backs off.

Step 4 – Bush is now guilty of witness tampering (ordering the peons to not testify) and obstruction of justice (ordering the D.C. prosecutor to ignore a lawful order.)

Step 5 – Impeachment on 2 charges that Bush openly committed and admitted to.

“Like every good authoritarian, Yoo’s only real principle, his only True Conviction, is that the Leader is Good and Right.”

Indeed. Bush and Cheney knew very well this was coming down the pike, and that even if they couldn’t make their claims of the Unitary Executive stick with the Supreme Court, that they needed to run out the clock to stay in office and out of jail.

Hence, to quote The Muppet Movie, they brought in the “hired frog killer from the coast”–Fred Fielding.