"I Do Solumnly Swear to Support and Defend the Constitution... Against All Enemies Domestic and Foreign"

Evidence of gross abuse of power and serious crimes against George Bush and Richard Cheney have continued to mount, especially in recent months. Well documented Articles of Impeachment filed recently state that Bush/Cheney's actions put them in reach of domestic and international laws against war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues to block impeachment in a stunning dereliction of duty. John Conyers, the man who led the charge on impeachment, seems hell bent on thwarting it.

Placing impeachment out of reach drastically alters the intent of the Constitution.

Cindy Sheehan, gold star mom and congressional candidate, had some interesting answers when she was in Seattle recently. This was not political grandstanding. It was a private gathering and she was responding my questions.

According to Sheehan, Conyers still believes the Constitution is in Crisis but refuses to cross party leadership. In a recent meeting he named Pelosi the number obstacle to impeachment. A sensible answer since Pelosi has threatened Conyers with removal from the chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee if he begins impeachment hearings.

Sheehan stated Nancy and several family members are in hot water over the redevelopment of Bayview Hunter's Point, an abandoned Naval Shipyard in her district.
Shortly after assuming leadership of the House Pelosi made an agreement with the White House that if they didn't investigate her, the Democratic Congress wouldn't impeach.

A closer look reveals that Pelosi has plenty to lose if she became the subject of an investigation. The Pelosi machine has gifted nearly all of the buildable prime real estate to Lennar Corporation, a Florida in the hands of a corrupt Florida based development company: Lennar Corporation. Her Ne has plenty of reason to fear an investigation. A closer look into Bayview Hunter's Point reveals a

BVHP boasts 700+ acres of waterfront with gorgeous views. It is some of the most valuable real estate on the planet. BVHP also housed an atomic research facility is awash in military waste. The area is an industrial dumping ground with a sewage treatment plant, two power plants. The largely low-income minority community and was cut off from the rest of the city by freeway construction, years ago. The Navy, who squandered most of its clean up budget on studies and squabbling, began deeding parcels of land to the city of San Francisco in the 90’s.
Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsome, (a nephew of Nancy’s), contravened a decade of community activism and planning, activism and fiduciary responsibility and deeded the land, still dirty, to Lennar Corp. for $1.

Lennar is a sleazy, financially troubled Florida based corporation that just happened to employ Laurence Pelosi, (Nancy’s nephew and a cousin to Gavin Newsome) as president of land acquisitions. Laurence now works at Morgan Stanley as real estate advisor. Morgan Stanley has a managing interest Lennar, its parent company and a spin off. Lennar filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, leaving a similar project in Vallejo (Mare Island Naval Base) in doubt and taxpayers holding the bag. The Pelosi's are a Lennar investor and Congress is going to bail them out.

Nephew Gavin appointed Peter Pelosi, Nancy’s husband, wealthy real estate developer and investment banker to Commission for Environment. Nancy’s son, Peter Jr. is chairman. Lennar was cited numerous times for environmental violations. It was not shot down until the citizens and a local physician and science editor staged demonstrations at City Hall.

Nancy’s problems are not confined to BVHP. Her first land grab was the Presidio, former headquarters of the 6th Army; a gorgeous piece of land slated to become part of the National Parks system. Thanks to Nancy legislative prowess, 80% of the Presidio is a business park and taxpayers are left with a ragged perimeter and the bill for the Presidio Trust and upgrading and privatizing the power grid.

Pelosi & Pelosi and Newsome have slipped almost all of San Francisco’s buildable public land into Lennar’s untrustworthy hands. Nancy promotes the privatization of public land, earmarks funding and smooths the way legislatively while the family does the rest.A Pelosi investigation might bring attention to Peter Jr.s sweetheart deal with InfoUSA, the data base company that furnishes information to unscrupulous individuals who bilk the elderly. Pete Jr. also moonlights at Countrywide, the infamous loan company that guided its minority customers to land mine loans, provided sweetheart deals to members of Congress and sits only a huge portfolio of junk mortgages.

Nancy may not want her constituents to know that her support for the unions doesn’t extend to her $25,000,000 vineyard or winery in Napa Valley. Ditto for the upscale restaurant chain and luxury resort in which they are investors.
The SEC may want to know more about the Pelosi’s windfall profits on closely held IPO’s and suspiciously timed sales.

The Democratic leadership made a huge mistake in handing the Speaker’s gavel to Pelosi. A mother always defends her young. The family businesses that prospered from her position in Congress have left her vulnerable to manipulation.

Their decision to allow Bush to remain in office has threatened the economy, stripped the nation of assets and sets us up for an expanded Middle East militarism.Her unseemly activities taint the Democratic Party with the same stench of unethical cronyism and criminal greed as the GOP.At the very least, Pelosi has shown that she is unworthy of her office and unfit to lead.
At the worst, she may have been compelled her to dishonor herself and betray her country.

Carol DW

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The Truth About Torture

The truth is that torture doesn’t save lives, it wastes them.
As early as 2004 at least 37 US prisoner’s deaths were suspected of being caused by torture. The US has secret prisons across Europe and Asia. We cannot know how many victims there really are. Many innocent Iraqis are killed or wounded and their property destroyed because of the US military acts on intelligence extracted by torture

Torture damages both perpetrator and victim. The suicide rates among members of the military who have served in the Middle East is soaring. We cannot know how many of these self inflicted deaths are the result of being ordered to commit acts of cruelty or torture.

Engaging in torture does not help the US it harms it. Our credibility as a nation has been severely damaged. We have lost our ability to influence other nations to move toward more just societies. We have exposed our military to reprisals from those we have damaged.

The victims of US torture are not “bad guys”. They are military prisoners who have had no access to any recognizable legal process to determine their innocence or guilt. Many were swept up indiscriminately. Guilty or innocent, it is a violation of domestic and international law to engage in torture.

Torture is not a form of interrogation; it is the worst form of cruelty. Unlike interrogation, it does not produce accurate intelligence. The victims of torture have no power to defend themselves. It can easily escalate to murder.

Torture began at the top. Bush administration aides have been linked to torture. Bush issued a memo authorizing torture and while denying that the US tortures has publicly defended incidents of torture. Cheney has openly advocated torture.

Mercenaries are linked to torture. Wherever we find contract interrogators or mercenaries, we find incidents of torture. Many were untrained and inexperienced. Congress has no control over them and and they cannot be prosecuted under military or US law.

Engaging in torture is a form of psychotic behavior. It is an intimate relationship between torturer and victim. Torture is often the result of misdirected psychosexual energy and situational causes. Members of the Bush administration chose to torture over other more effective methods of developing intelligence and engaged in inappropriate deceptive and manipulative behavior in order to do

No society that has engaged in torture on foreign soil has escaped torture intruding on domestic society. The use of torture produces a class of people who are accomplished and enjoy it. They become a permanent problem to the society.

Propaganda by the military and mainstream media has normalized the idea of torture and in some cases may have provoked it. The Pentagon manufactures propaganda incorrectly assigning blame to Iraq for 9-11 and WMDs and restrict other news sources to the members of the military. Mainstream media under report the reality of US torture and are uncritical of the justifications for torture.

Torture doesn't defend democracy, it destroys it. The engagement of our government in torture has a chilling effect on political activism. When the government has complete power over the bodies of its citizens, justice and democracy die.

Torture is forbidden by the Constitution, Congress had no right to ratify torture by passing the Military Commissions Act. A law that conflicts with the Constitution has no legitimacy and should never have been proposed by Congress or the president.
Changing the Constitution requires approval by 2/3 of the the States.

The Geneva Conventions governing the behavior of countries engaged in warfare is both international and domestic law. They were instituted after the horrors of two world wars by a world sickened and disgusted by the depravity that marked those conflicts. The US was a leader in creating the Geneva conventions. Torture is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Failure to prevent torture, when you are aware of it and have the power to do so, is a war crime.

Carol DW

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America’s Difficult Adolescence

Nothing shows the immaturity of our nation more than the way we select our leaders. The majority of our power rests on this simple act of citizenship yet we permit it to be treated like an episode of American Idol.

We allow entrenched power to narrow our choices and even determine which qualities the men and women we allow the power to make decisions over our lives are important.

In the sixties and seventies, populist leaders were assassinated outright. Today their careers are destroyed by a White House spy network that would have been the envy of the Kremlin. Their commandos in the media hypocritically fan the fires of outrage of a 15th century morality, destroying the careers of dedicated public servants.

Americans may be great innovators but we do not produce many great leaders. In the decades since the assasinations of the Kennedy’s and King, there has been a dearth. Can we really afford to throw away those those rare individuals that can inspire and act effectively because they do not live up to a moral code that at its heart is at odds with human biology; a code that most of us at some point in lives fail to live up to.


The same right wing tarts that preach an America as a Christian nation experience amnesia of when confronted with living Christian values; love, tolerance and forgiveness.
These people do not deserve our trust. Their concerns are not spiritual but rather the pursuit of personal power. They take an unholy pleasure in destroying anyone who stands in their way.
No one but a naïve child, mesmerized by their frightening single mindedness, would surrender their future to them.

The US Constitution makes no mention of political Parties yet today they wield far more power than any group should in a true representative democracy. They are private corporations who operate corrupt machines that shut out voters, steal elections and stand between us and the candidates we need and deserve. Yet we continue to give them our money, our energy even though they betray us time and again.

War is an anathema to ordinary citizens. Our children, our brothers and sisters are stolen from us and their lives thrown away on useless military adventures decade after decade. We pay crippling taxes to fund these debacles and endure ruinous inflation. We still haven’t learned to turn our backs on those who would lead us toward disaster. We listen when the client press laughs at Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich’s Department of Peace.

A just society cannot exist unless there is economic justice. We allow a system of legal bribery to buy the services of our representatives. We shake our heads at the personal indiscretion of men like Eliot Spitzer and allow him to be driven out of office while the real evil doers who they are pursuing; the men and women who abused their power, profited from the housing bubble and left tax payers footing the bill, go free.

We have to stop thinking that the gross injustices that exist in our society are not our problem. They are our problem and to the extent we don’t act, our fault.

We are settling for a child’s bargain. Everyone is bigger and powerful than we are. We sell them our vote for the promise of safety and security that is never delivered. And why should it be, the powerful only retain their privilege by keeping us fearful of each other and our global neighbors; by insisting the way to solve our problems is to annihilate anyone that stands in our way.

We cannot continue to let to wander in a perpetual spring of childhood and hope to live our lives in dignity. If we do not grow up and take on our adult responsibilities right now, the lives of our children and grandchildren will be unspeakable.

Carol DW

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Congressional Responsibility for War Crimes

The Congressional Democrats stubborn insistence that Bush and Cheney leave the White House through the front door, like honorable men who served their nation with distinction, is baffling.
The Democrat’s elaborately concocted explanations (laying a finger aside the nose and winking) that this is smart political strategy have done little to dissuade a healthy majority of Americans that the nation is not being well served. Their transparent and morally reprehensible excuses have convinced few.

Even stalwarts like John Conyers, who during the days of the Democratic minority held hearings in the basement of the Capitol so the crimes of Bush and Cheney would be part of the public record, has collapsed. Conyers is refusing to budge even with three prominent members of the Judiciary Committee breathing down his neck and publicly demanding impeachment hearings.

Democrat Nancy Pelosi has gone Bush one better on the hubris scale by sidestepping the need for ratification by 50 states to amend the Constitution. She has given us a "unitary" congress as a bookend to the“unitary” president. When she says, “impeachment is off the table” what she really means is that she has decided all by her little self to remove impeachment from our Constitution.

When angry constituents confront Congressional Democrats, they resort to the parental line of last resort, “it’s not going to happen”. Did they think we wouldn’t notice that the reason it isn’t happening is that they are not doing their jobs? Do they think we won’t mind that they are misrepresenting us?

State Legislatures have the power to compel to Congress to take up impeachment. The Democrats have worked overtime to suppress bills in a number of states. Here in the Washington State, they have done it twice. Last year Patty Murray and Jay Inslee put the fear of God into the state legislature who like the lapdogs they are ignored a public outcry and walked the Party line. This year only Patty came out to put the squeeze on House Chairman Frank Chopp who is refusing to even hold hearings on a separate House Joint Memorial filed by Rep. Maralyn Chase.

Why are Democrats so belligerent about impeachment? Their collective whine that it will hurt their chances in the next election has no precedent. Nine out of nine times impeachment has benefited "them that does the impeaching", whether or not it is successful.
Just ask Georgie. How else could a fifty-some-year-old troubled teenager garner enough votes to cheat his way into the White House? Bush would be clearing brush full time at his ranch without the humiliating and inappropriate impeachment of Bill Clinton. Hell, he campaigned on "returning decency" to the White House.

The Democrat's dodge that they are too busy turning the ship of state around hasn't born any fruit. Allowing alleged criminals to have veto power certainly has cramped their style. They've huffed and they've puffed and accomplished little.

Despite their protestations, impeachment is very much in the interests of the Democratic Party. Yet there can be no doubt that the Democrats as well as the Republicans do NOT want to have this conversation.

My first hunch was that a serious investigation might implicate the Democrats. Perhaps they had their hands in the cookie jar, profiting from the dead bodies of a million Iraqis as well as our own sons and daughters. Perhaps they were in on the plan to snatch our civil rights. But if the Democrats would assert their power to question the legality of the debacle in Iraq and move to restore the Constitution, they would certainly be granted popular immunity if indeed they have sinned.

When the Democrats say impeachment would threaten the election of a Democrat to the Wbite House they might be referring to the hundreds of millions of dollars they are raking in from the industrial war machine and coddled corporate bad actors. But if they honored the voter’s mandate for accountability and ending the war, they wouldn’t need to outspend the GOP to prove to us they are competent to lead. It would be self-evident.

My second hunch is that it’s all about the war crimes. It' s a long and winding road, but there are some serious implications for congress if an investigation is launched. The illegality of the Iraq invasion is going to be front and center.
The head of the UN declared the invasion of Iraq illegal. Waging illegal war is the most serious war crime there is. It’s a capital crime. This isn't just international law, it's domestic law as well.
The way the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been conducted is rife with additional war crimes; the use of illegal weapons, human right’s violations, torture, destruction of civilian infrastructure, seizing resources, collective punishment (Fallujah), failure to protect civilian life are all war crimes. Even the failure to count “enemy” dead is a war crime.

But it isn’t just the perpetrators who take the fall in the case of war crimes. Failure to prevent a war crime when you have knowledge of them is in itself a war crime.
The German Minister of Information was hung for just such crimes. He didn’t send anyone to concentration camps or invade any nation. His activities made those things possible. He was fully aware of what was going on.
Every member of Congress that has voted for the war (there is no preemptive war that isn’t a war crime) and to continue the military occupation of Iraq is implicated. They are the ones making the war crimes possible by funding them and they are fully aware of their illegality.

The Geneva Conventions are not “quaint” they are US law. It appears that not only have the president and vice president violated domestic statutes, so have congress. An investigation is certain to highlight these uncomfortable truths. Isn’t it just possible that members of Congress, many of whom are lawyers, are very aware that they bear responsibility for Iraq.
The conflict of interest in asking a Congress who overwhelmingly voted to launch this war and have continued to support it in the face of incontroveritble evidence of its illegality is a staggering conflict of interest.

You might be able to kick crimes like abuse of power, graft, gross negligence, pervasive corruption and fraud under the carpet and still have sort of a country.
But war crimes are not something you can shrug off and still claim legitimacy. The door is wide open for other nations to follow in our footsteps. The perceived injustice of not prosecuting such horrific crimes will fuel terrorists for generations.
Any future leader that is serious about curbing terrorism must make certain that justice is served. Restoring the nation’s credibility demands it.

I believe congress hopes to wind the war down quietly, preferably without upsetting any of their donors and go on their way hoping no one notices. Members may console themselves with the self serving lie that domestic order is preserved.
But what kind of domestic order do you have when the worst kind of crimes, mass murder of the innocent, have no consequences?

War crimes may be a problem that even in the best of circumstances may be too big, too close to the bone and too far-reaching for Congress alone to handle. The DOJ has been so politicized that it refuses to honor congressional subpoenas.
What may be needed is a separate body that is immune from political pressure and that has absolute authority to see that justice is done.
If we don’t provide an effective check on something as hideous and the destruction of an entire nation, then we are back to barbarism, this time on steroids. Mutual assured destruction becomes not only probable but inevitable.

Carol DW

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Bush’s Good Right Hand

Very few will argue that Bush years have been a disaster. The nation is weaker in every way; militarily, economically and morally. Our international influence has waned and we are at odds with practically everyone. The national frustration level is surging. That anger is being directed at the usual suspects.

It’s our fellow Americans fault for not voting or being too stupid, superstitious or lazy to vote their own interests.It’s the fault of the GOP for crossing the line between criminality and politics as usual and for their cultish adherence to outmoded ideology. It’s the PNAC neocons, egged on by AIPAC, that have dragged the country into senseless wars that suck the treasury dry. The plutocrats are despised for their pathological greed. Lobbyists are blamed for polluting the political process and slanting the playing field toward the narrow, dissolute interests of their employers. The corporate media are blamed for bundling the sacking of America into deceptive sound bites and entertaining lies.

But even a cabal as muscular as this might find it difficult to install an unpopular, felonius administration and implement an agenda that hundreds of millions of people reject. It takes a great deal to overwhelm the fundamental decency of most Americans. Enter the Democratic Party leadership and senior Congressional Democrats. The devolutionary, right wing owe their success to these unlikely allies. The Bush administration if it would have existed at all, has exceeded their wildest dreams because of the unflagging support of the Democrats.

It's a matter of public record starting with the 2000 election. Can anyone imagine the GOP or any reasonably robust political party walking away from a presidential election they won? Can you imagine them silencing their own membership to enable the theft? Twice? Do you think a real political party would stress over looking like “sore losers”? Can you imagine the GOP voting for legislation that gave control of vote tabulation to Democratic partisans? Can you imagine another political party not acting to remove the imposter when their victory was confirmed? The Democrats could not have more helpful toward the GOP if they were working for them.

When Bush came out of hiding after 9-11, the Democrats failed to ask any of the important questions. Why did all four agencies charged with our defense stand down? Where were our jets and why? Since when do Vice Presidents play war games and issue orders to shoot down passenger jets?The Democratic Senate even agreed not to have an independent investigation!

When pressure from concerned citizens and survivors became impossible to ignore, the Democrats allowed the Bush White House, a target of the investigation, to help select the panel, limit the scope of the investigation, withhold information and testify off the record. The complete report, such as it is, has yet to be released. The actions of the Democrats have shielded the White House from the consequences of the bloodiest screw up in our history, allowing them to remain in office and do their worst. The Democrats are continuing to shield them to this day by refusing to impeach, not only for the criminal neglect of 9-11 or worse but for the crimes and gross abuse of power committed in the wake of 9-11.

The Democrats just can’t do enough for the Bush White House. They enabled unconstitutional legislation that legalizes the criminality of the administration and their supporters. At the same time they are issuing get out of jail free cards to confessed felons, they are working to restrict our civil liberties in an unprecedented way. The Dems vote en masse for the fascistic Patriot Acts and the Democratic controlled House thinks it should be a crime to think bad thoughts about your government, effectively criminalizing most of the nation.

The GOP could never have ratified torture and extraordinary rendition, suspended Habeas Corpus and Posse Comatatis or ripped half of the Bill of Rights out of the Constitution unless the Congressional Democrats helped them. And help they did; front, right and center.

The Democrats didn’t have to give away the Supreme Court to corporate interests and religious zealots. They promised not to but they did it anyway. Very helpful, indeed.

It took about a year for the deception of the invasion of Iraq to be exposed and for support for the war to evaporate. Did the Democrats do as the Geneva Conventions and domestic law require and do everything in their power to end the illegal war? Did they filibuster, call up the Hague, take their case to the people and vote no in protest? Nope. They shielded the perpertrators in the White House and put the war on steroids. They voted for every appropriation the bloated the Pentagon's budget and lined the pockets of war profiteers, cheats and mercenaries. The only criticism leveled at the GOP by the Democrats was that Bush/Cheney and their assorted generals have failed to secure Iraq and steal their resources quickly enough and inexpensively enough. Since the Democrats have taken over both Houses of Congress there has been no investigation into criminal acts that pushed the country into war and no real effort to stop the bloodshed. It's a monstrous betrayal.

The Democrats response is unnatural in the extreme. Real political parties spend most of their energy jockeying for power. The Democrats helped their opponents increase theirs. The steppingstone to the executive mansion and legislative majorities is the exploitation of the other guy’s screw-ups. When a huge majority of voters are screaming for action, it is unheard of for a political party to put their noses in the air and walk away. Garden variety instincts of self preservaton have kept the nation from going off the deep end for several hundred years. There has been no cogent explanation for what appears to be self destructive behavior.

The Democrats didn't stop at throwing elections and helping the GOP to establish an imperial presidency and launch imperialistic wars. They joined the GOP in everything from reviving the worst polluters on the planet, the nuclear power and oily carbon crowd, to rescuing the feared military industrial complex from well deserved extinction. They gave corporations with bigger budgets than many countries more wealth in subsudies and tax relief. They gave them more rights than the people they exploit and poison. They participated wholeheartedly in Bush's drunken fiscal irresponsponsibility that dwarfed even Reagan's improvidence. They helped off shore your job even when the robotic GOP declined to do so. Sometimes they all joined the party, like the AUMF, the Patriot Act and Medicare D (a huge subsidy to big pharma) and sometimes they worked in small rotating cadres who pushed the steaming pile of legislation across the finish line. CAFTA, the draconian bankruptcy bill and the worst of Bush's nominees fall into that category.

Don’t buy the election rhetoric that feeds on the manufactured nostalgia for the prosperous Clinton era. Don't believe that all our troubles will be over if we put a Democrat in the White House and put more Democrats in Congress. Many of the worst transgressions of the Bushies had their inception in the Clinton White House while the new Democratic congress hasn’t been worth the powder to blow it up.

We don’t need any more Democrats like Lieberman, Landrieu, Emmanuel, Pelosi or turncoats like John Conyers. We certainly don’t need a president who is in bed with the military industrial complex or who thinks their Congressional oath to uphold the Constitution doesn’t matter. We don’t need a president that thinks corporations will solve global warming or that white-collar crooks don’t really harm anyone.

This year voters must step nimbly step over old party loyalties and the reject the well-funded corporate darlings. Rather than vote for a Party, voters must be highly selective. A candidate that doesn’t walk the talk, that hasn’t demonstrated they are willing to stand up for what’s right does not deserve your vote, no matter who they are running against. Unless we make it very clear to Party leadership that we refuse to help them be the instruments of our destruction, they are going to keep on playing us for suckers.

The Constitution made no provision for political parties. Right now all they do is stand between us and the candidates we want and government we deserve. Political parties are not part of the government. They are private businesses that have monopolized elections and left us out in the cold. I think we'd be better off without them. Across the board public funding would do a lot more to change the direction of the country than anyone with donkey or an elephant on their lapel ever did.
Carol DW

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Polling Rep.Inslee on Impeachment

The recent revelation in an NIE report that Iran had shelved its nuclear weapons program as long ago as 2003 has added fuel to the fires of impeachment.
According to Sy Hersh this report has been "in circulation" for almost as long as the Bush and Cheney have been lying to us about Iran’s non-existent weapons program. Hersh believes that Cheney kept "foot on the neck" of the report because he didn’t “like” the conclusions reached in the report.

We’ve been here before. Tampering with intelligence and feverish images of Middle Eastern madmen with nuclear weapons are what shoved a reluctant nation into an unnecessary and disastrous war in Iraq. Then as now, all roads lead to the door of the Vice President’s office.

The national outrage has been pushed to the breaking point.

Last week Rep. Grijalva of Arizona become the 23rd co-sponsor of Rep. Kucinich's HR 333, Articles of Impeachment against Dick Cheney.
Rep. Wexler polled his Florida constituents and found 61% favor impeaching Cheney. Wexler is recommending to Nancy Pelosi and the House Judiciary Committee that hearings regarding the charges against Cheney go forward.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have Jay Inslee (D-WA) who went back to DC this fall with his ears burning. His constituents made it uncomfortably clear that impeachment was on their table. All but one of the Legislative Districts he represents have passed independent impeachment resolutions.

Inslee not only refuses to respond to his constituent’s demands but has actively worked to capsize grassroots efforts to kick start impeachment from the State Legislature.

Rep. Wexler is a man with a good understanding of just what his job entails. He is the people's representative in Congress. He asks for their input and implements it. He’s not their parent and they are not his children. He is a public servant not their better.

Inslee operates by a different sort of logic. At a town meeting this fall he told us he believes his judgment trumps his constituents desires. That fact that his constituents are unlikely to have their judgment clouded by personal ambition, party politics or the siren song of “K” Street didn’t seem to interest him. That his judgment and his oath of office are conflict didn’t interest him.

He fills his days pushing an energy agenda that cannot pass because he is shielding the obstacles; Bush and Cheney. He talks about domestic violence, a Japanese Memorial on Bainbridge Island, (his home) and about holding our “soldiers close to our hearts” while he votes for the fund an illegal occupation that keeps them in the Middle East.

Inslee seems content to ignore the elephant in the room; that our government is illegitimate in the minds of its citizens and in the eyes of the law.

Does Inslee think that in some distant day his constituents are going to thank him for "exercising his judgment" in allowing a dishonest men to abuse our military and suck up the collective wealth of our nation?
Does he think that we are grateful that in exercising his judgment he has allowed civil rights to be ripped out of the Constitution and that the Body he sits in believes thought should become criminalized?
Does he think that we are pleased that his judgment forces our grandchildren to pay off a debt that lined the pockets of war profiteers and enabled our military to commit war crimes?

Granted there are other members of Congress equally guilty. But I didn’t vote for them. I did vote for Inslee thinking he would represent me fairly and honestly.. He is my voice in Congress and I’m tired of having my interests subordinated to his “judgment”.

Carol DW

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The Kingdom of Cheney

Last summer, the putative Vice President refused to turn over papers to Congress, stating that he was not part of the Executive Branch of government. In challenging the authority of Congress, was Cheney trying to cover up the fact that he had his hand in the cookie jar or was it an attempted coup? Did he and his legal staff attempt to create a new branch of government, more powerful than the president and accountable to no one?

According to Craig Unger, Cheney has tried pre-empting the president before. On 9-11 when Bush was pretending to promote literacy instead of tending to the nation's business, Cheney ordered the last plane to be shot down on his own initiative. Bush claims he gave him permission. Flight and phone logs do not back up Bush's story.

For that matter, what was Cheney doing playing war games with the very planes assigned to defend our perimeters while the terrorists flew into the Twin Towers?
Vice Presidents are never commanders and chiefs of the military in war or peace.
It becomes even more suspicious when we know the Saudis had advance warning of the attack and had passed it on to US intelligence. He knew the date if not the exact location.

In his blind pursuit of power, Cheney has never been a stickler for legality or accuracy. He's not one to let the Constitution, which unequivocally places the Office of the Vice President firmly in the Executive Branch of Government, deter him from his goals.
He has built an empire out of an office that is purely ceremonial. He has his own intelligence network that creates the reports he wants and sits on information he doesn't want. He awards contracts to his employers and political supporters, starts wars and runs Middle Eastern foreign policy instead of the State Department.

Last year the word was out the Bush Jr. didn't want to attack Iran. Neither did Condi. In the wink of an eye, Cheney had Bush perjuring himself in a seedly rerun of the run up to the invasion of Iraq. Whose in charge? It isn't Bush or Condi, that's for sure.

A serious argument can be made for Bush's inability to carry out the duties of the Office of the President. Bush has failed at every business venture he has tried. Running companies into the ground is hardly a recommendation for chief executive of a powerful nation. However there is a process that must be observed before power can be transferred to the Vice President. As far as we know, there has been no such abrogation of power by the President or action by Congress.

There is another scenario that might explain Cheney's behavior. Cheney is not a well man. He has arterial disease and severe heart disease. These conditions can result in a brain that is starved of oxygen. That is why we see photos of Cheney dozing in emergency meetings or during State functions. It may be the reason Cheney sees nuclear weapons under every Bush and is hell bent on murderinng brown people.

It's possible he imagines himself to be Darth Vadar, circling the planet on his deathstar, a ruler of the universe. He wouldn't be the first old man to retreat into fantasy rather than face abridged and less than pleasant future of illness and decline.
Cheney is fond of talking about the necessity of going over to the "dark side". His facial expressions are frightening enough; no mask is required. Unfortunately he has no progeny capable of challenging his illusions.

If Cheney has superceded the President, then impeachment is not a strong enough response. It’s time to send in what remains of the National Guard to physically remove him from his office and arrest him for treason. The guard could then seize the material that Congress has subpoenaed, provided it hasn't been shredded. Congress could go back to being a separate and co-equal branch of government and Bush can go back to watching Sponge Pants Bob.

The trial, whether in the Senate or in the courts, should be not be about whether Dick Cheney abused the power of his office, which he clearly has. but whether he sought to overthrow and "elected" president of the United States. That's high treason, a capital crime.

Whether Cheney is a sick old man or actively engaged in shoving Bush 2 aside, we simply cannot afford to let Vice Presidents get this uppity. Especially if they are amoral opportunists like Dick Cheney.

We have to nip this in the bud. We can't have presidents suing for peace while their stand ins wage war. We can't have just anyone ordering the military to shoot down passenger planes.

We don't need any new branches of government. We just the need the ones we have to behave properly. The last thing we need is an self selected Vice Presidents who fancy themselves presidents. We are most do NOT need or want the United States of Cheney.

Carol DW

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IMPEACHMENT MUST HAPPEN

Clearly the nation has turned against Vice President Cheney and President George W. Bush. Their approval ratings are the lowest of any elected leaders in American history. We are weary of war and bled white from profligate spending and larceny. Our civil rights have been severely restricted and crimes have been committed. A once peaceful world stands on the brink of turmoil.

As the 2008 elections draw near, it's tempting to look upon regime change as an end to our long night. We would like to believe that a change of face in the Oval Office would repair the damage done by the current administration. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Without investigation and impeachment, electing a new president will only serve to codify the unprecedented and illegitimate power stolen from the Congress and the American people. The powers of a dictator will be passed on like an Olympic torch where they will reside with the next president like a ticking time bomb.

The nation has been wounded in its beating heart. The president is no longer obligated to uphold and defend the Constitution or obey and execute the laws of the land. We no longer have the protections afforded us in the Bill of Rights. Our elected leaders are no longer bound to tell us the truth. These wounds will continue to fester until they are cleansed by a strong dose of sunlight.

Failure to impeach is a threat to our national security. In the same way that we cannot expect our nation to be secure if we don’t understand what threatens us beyond our borders, we cannot expect the nation to be secure if we don’t understand and check what threatens us from within. The excesses of our own government can become a far greater threat than terrorism. Articles of Impeachment against Dick Cheney were filed several months ago and the majority of Americans favor impeachment. Congress has refused to act. They even turned a blind eye when Rep. Dennis Kucinich read out the well-document charges against Cheney on the floor of the House and demanded action.

The charges against Cheney are chilling. They outlined in stark relief the peril our nation faces when even one man exercises unrestrained power; even a man whose office is purely ceremonial. How could so much damage be done in such a short time? Why has no one stopped him?

Elections give us an opportunity to choose our representatives and leaders. They do not and were never meant to address the gross abuses of power, war crimes, felonies and fraud that Cheney and Bush have engaged in. Impeachment not elections gets top billing in the Constitution.

Elections will not address the tragedy of the hundreds of thousands who have died in an unnecessary war nor honor their sacrifice. Elections will not prevent your government from spying on you without cause or restore your right to privacy. They will not prevent you from being incarcerated or having your assets seized because one man, the president, says so. Elections will not prevent you from being tortured or flown to another country to be tortured. Elections will not keep your own military from being used against you. They will not restore the rule of law or the integrity of the Judiciary. They will not restore the balance of powers. Elections will not prevent this nation or any other from making war at will or stealing another nation’s resources. They will not restore the delicate balance of the global community, shattered by broken treaties and unchecked lust for domination and power.

Elections will not prevent a president Clinton from declaring you an enemy combatant and shipping you off to Guantanamo. They won’t prevent a president Obama from sweeping up Americans and holding them indefinitely on his word alone. They won’t prevent a president Guiliani from illegally and immorally murdering millions of Iranians for no legitimate reason. They won’t prevent a president Romney from seizing your home and assets because he alleges you are impeding operations in Iraq. It won’t prevent a president Thompson from exempting himself, his entire administration and his political supporters from the rule of law. It won’t prevent any president from leaving the nation unprotected by ignoring or rewriting the intelligence to suit his or her political agenda. Elections won’t guarantee that anyone you elect to lead or represent you has to tell you, the congress or the judiciary the truth.

Under the Constitution, we have the right to know if our elected leaders are doing their jobs or abusing the power of their office.
When serious allegations are made, it is our right to have public investigations that are immune to state secrets and executive privilege. We have a responsibility as citizens to act on that information.

There is no more important work for congress to do. You cannot build anything on a weak foundation. Unscrupulous men and women have damaged the very foundation of our nation; the Constitution which is the very bedrock upon which the order and legality of our nation rests. These same people have suspended the rule of law by which we govern ourselves. They assert that the government is theirs to do with as they wish. We cannot let that stand.

The genius of the Constitution is that it contains the remedy for its own healing, it’s own restoration. That remedy is impeachment. Not elections. Impeachment.

Carol DW

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