27 minutes of Cheney impeachment in House of Representatives

Was this a foretaste of Congress in the coming months? A reasonable person will see grounds for impeachment in our vice president’s conduct over the past five years. Will it actually happen? Could it be true that many Republicans are ready to impeach?

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, one of the eight Democrats running for the presidential nomination, had the floor for 27 minutes Tuesday and laid out all his wherases to the effect that Cheney’s actions warrant “impeachment and trial and removal from office.” He claimed support of 21 colleagues in putting forth his resolution.

The crawl on the bottom of the C-Span screen said that President Bush wanted Congress to act on the trade agreements with Peru and others. Would it be that trade matter? Or a couple of months of debate on Cheney, then Bush, and whether they remain in office? Or would it be the stuff the Democratic leadership wants – health care and vetoes etc.?

The immediate following step was to bring up the next speaker and next subject, and business as usual in the People’s House.

But about an hour and a half after Kucinich spoke, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) got up and moved to table (kill) the draft impeachment resolution.

Kucinich was heard shouting no amid the voice votes.

The acting speaker, Jose Serrano of New York, declared the motion had been killed by the voice vote, but Kucinich demanded votes be recorded.

Surprise (to Kagro over at DailyKos, who said, Expect it to be killed): the House voted strongly to keep the resolution alive. It remains to be certain what the final vote was.

The C-Span announcer said at one point the result “was unexpected by many on the House floor here today.”

There was a lot of vote-switching along the way. At one point my running tally had the kill motion winning 290-102, but as the “15-minute vote” stretched over an hour, more and more Republicans came over to Kucinich’ side, while most Democrats remained with Hoyer’s kill motion.

Hoyer rose again after his kill vote failed and, looking nervous, moved to refer the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee.

“We are on the threshold of another war,” Kucinich said in a phone interview with C-Span as the tally was being recorded. Cheney misled the country into the Iraq war and now the administration “is doing the same thing with respect to Iran.”

“It’s not about me,” Kucinich told C-Span as the tally was being recorded. It’s to show “who’s on the side of the Constitution.”

Asked about the Republicans voting with him, he asserted that it wasn’t a partisan issue, and he said he was setting up a “national town hall” meeting in the coming days – on the internet and by phone – to advance what he called “a growing movement.”

Meanwhile, back here in Florida, some of our friends have been moving impeachment before the public eye whenever possible. Increasing frustration is their lot.

On Sunday Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, spoke at the University of Miami, and a crowd of my political friends held signs and tried to raise questions to demand movement toward impeachment.

Here are some of their notes and impressions.

Diane Lawrence: “Yesterday with Conyers was very frustrating for us … Conyers started by saying that ‘Impeachment is off Nancy Pelosi’s table, but it’s not off mine [applause].’ Then he proceeded to talk about the 14 months they have left to get legislation passed [oh, please]. He mentioned the threat that impeachment would fail and this it would do the Democrats harm – the corporate media would have a ball making fun of their mistake. … Of course, his standard excuse is not enough votes in the House or Senate, the Blue Dog excuse, blah blah blah. God damn it, BRING THE CHARGES, HAVE THE INVESTIGATIONS, DO YOUR DUTY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. …

“The Republicans know the Democrats to be fools. The Republicans totally expected the Dems to impeach after taking office. Lincoln Diaz-Balart’s (R-FL-21) aide mentioned that at the beginning of our lobbying session when a constituent and I met with him. He said, ‘We couldn’t believe impeachment wasn’t started in February. We kept talking about it.’ As horrible as the Rethugs are, they are simply smarter than the Dems in their own evil way.”

Bonnie Daniels: “Conyers started by saying that never in history have there been so many people who are impeachable. The problem is that we don’t have the votes or the time. The legislative process would totally shut down and the corporate press would call us vindictive. Then he said, It’s ‘not a bad idea’ and ‘my mind is open.’ [yeah, right].

“Question asked: what if the people would rather have impeachment than any other legislation? C[onyers]: An impeachment that fails will do more harm than good. It will stop all legislation and the corporate media would turn the president into a victim and imperil the ’08 election. …

“Bush is ‘the most unconstitutional president in the 20^th and 21^st centuries bar none.’”

Simon Rose: “I love that analogy that someone made that it’s as if the police and firemen sat idly by as a gunman randomly shot people and a fire raged. The fact that our elected reps need to be reminded to do their jobs that they swore to do is outrageous. Do we need to remind the police and firemen every day to do their jobs? This lawless administration is running fast and loose over the ultimate law of the land, the Constitution. And now more and more politicians use this lawlessness as cover to perpetrate their own crimes.”

OJ case gets impeachment on the air

Diane Lawrence and friends in OJ's driveway

Quick thinking, gang, way to go! It was early Thursday morning and Diane Lawrence’s daughter called and said there were a lot of TV trucks at O.J. Simpson’s house in Miami. Diane is passionate about impeachment, and in less than two hours she was out there in OJ’s driveway waving a sign demanding impeachment of Dick Cheney (Bush, too).

And a half-dozen of her friends from Democracy for America and related Democratic clubs were with her, also waving signs such as “OJ killed two, Bush killed 1,000’s” and “Cover the real story -- Iraq.” A passing car stopped and two girls got out and joined the demo for over an hour, Lawrence said.

This inspired protest has been on local radio and television in Miami, and did anyone see it on MSNBC? Some say yes. There's a snip of it in this report on Channel 4 CBS.

Lawrence said one of the broadcast reports included her juiciest comment: “The real criminals are in the White House.”

Her view of OJ: “A trashy story.” A lot of people honked in agreement with her.

UPDATE: Cross-posted on DailyKos, where the comments so far are admiring of this action.

Miami protests getting some coverage

There is a sea of right-wing media around here, but sometimes we manage to get a few syllables of protest into the local news. This weekend was one such example, and the MainStream Media were not immune to our charms.

The local CBS outlet, Channel 4, covered two anti-war protests Saturday with considerable Democratic input, one on South Beach, the other a march to the office of Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. Here’s a link to the video, which wrapped in protests in Washington and the president’s radio address.

A lively rally to kick off a drive to impeach President Bush got a few lines in the Miami Herald in the local news briefs, but that wasn’t bad considering that NBC Channel 6 sent a crew but didn’t broadcast a report. That event was sponsored by the South Florida Impeachment Coalition with local speakers and featuring a stemwinder by David Swanson, a cofounder of AfterDowningStreet.org.

“Who will do for Bush what Monica did for Clinton?” Swanson asked the full-house crowd in the Unitarian Universalist Church, and nine people volunteered to help.

Swanson ticked off all the reasons people give for saying impeachment is impossible and argued persuasively that the reasons were bogus.

Not enough time, for instance: It took three months to approach impeachment of Richard Nixon, two months for Bill Clinton, he said. Plenty of time. Transcript of his speech and more photos available at the Downing Street link above.

Activist Diane Lawrence vowed to lead protests at Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ office, up to refusing to leave. “If that’s what we need to get attention, that’s what we will do,” she said.

Swanson was introduced by Nicole Sandler of WINZ 940 AM. She has taken over the early-morning time slot where she formerly worked with Jim DeFede, who has left WINZ. Sandler said her news director has given her the go-ahead to feature impeachment, so expect that topic with your granola and progressive tea.

New Cap came in the mail

Source was the People's email network. I forget who sent the link.

DEC Unanimous: Impeach Cheney

If the DEC had its way, the vice president would be on the way out. We proved it at the June 11 meeting by passing a resolution backing House Resolution 333, proposed by Dennis Kucinich, to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. It was put forward by the tenacious Charlotte Kleiman, who gave an impassioned speech urging the overflow crowd to back the resolution. On a motion by Cindy Lerner, it passed unanimously.

For more information on the resolution, there's a Wikipedia link.

News of the Veep

I didn’t see the debate last night, and I was wondering whether they brought up the impeachment resolution Dennis Kucinich has filed against Dick Cheney. Didn't find it in the Miami Herald. The New York Times has it in the national briefs section, with an additional mention that Brian Williams asked the other candidates if they agreed with Kucinich that Cheney should be impeached. No one raised a hand.

So much for impeaching the vice president. Well, there's a resolution drafted now in the House Judiciary Committee, and we'll see. Meanwhile, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported it the other day, so at least the people of China have had a chance to hear about it.

Curious how the big media do not understand why people are moving to the internet for their news, huh?

Well, if you do a Google search of the internet for “impeach cheney” you’ll see lots of hits. One of the most rewarding is the YouTube video of Cheney cartoons, to the tune of the song “Bang Bang.”