A prime example of complicity by inaction and duplicity by design. I was at the Board meeting of VFP when the organization became the first national organization to call for impeachment. This was many years ago. At that time, John Conyers, was all for it and was ready to protect the U.S. Constitution. Now it appears that Nancy Pelosi has put the muzzle on Conyers and his chairmanship in the next Congress is dependent upon him shutting up as per Pelosi dictum. shame on your John Conyers and shame on your Nancy Pelosi. Shame on you Barack Obama. And shame on you Democrats. The vitriol you have been hearing lately is well earned and understandable.

Johnny, yure gutless and yure one of the boys. WELL DONE you grandchild of Slaves. You are part of the Big Boys club now. You serve Master VERY WELL. A good slave who bettered himself at the expense of the American people to become one of Masters best Overseers. Keep waffling baby, you do it almost as well as the grandchild of the Gender Slave who runs the House (aka The Big Brothel). You have both done very very well for Master. Keep up the good work. Yes, they will call you both traitors. Never mind that. Master will take care of you. Master knows exactly where your loyalties lie, and lie, and lie. Like I said, you done real good.

Last time I was in John's office, I was hauled out in handcuffs with 48 other people demanding impeachment...that was almost a year ago...and the reason we decided to sit in is because John was talking about more meetings and more teach-ins about impeachment.

How many people have died in this past year that could have been avoided with some accountability? This has been a bad year for humanity, and I fear it will only get worse before it even begins to get better. I am afraid for my grandson and the rest of the children in the world.

The light is still there, we have to fan the flicker so it becomes a flame to dispel the darkness...but the current crop of criminals in DC are not going to do it. John and 99% of the others have sold out to the totalitarian Military Industrial Complex...it is difficult to distinguish between the two (cyst)ems now.

xoxo
Cindy
by the way: Rove called me a "clown" once...who looks like a clown?

Impeach all the clowns.

Something is seriously wrong. All do respect to Cindy Sheehan and Ralph and others who are trying to work within the system, but I think that voting may now be irrelevant.

Why does anyone expect the Democrats to impeach? Haven't they made it very, very, very clear by now that they regard protecting Bush and Cheney and making sure they serve out the remainder of their term is a very high priority of the Democrats?

The Democrats made it clear well BEFORE the last election that they would not impeach. Anyone who voted Democrat believing that a Dem majority would lead to impeachment, was wasting their vote because they had clearly said they would not impeach.

If you wanted impeachment, voting for Green Party candidates was the correct vote.

Pretty much the same now. If you want the next administration to prosecute criminal charges on the crimes of this administration, DON'T VOTE DEMOCRAT! They won't do it. The Dems will give a speech about how divisiveness is bad (one of Obama's favortie themes), and how we need to look to the future and not the past, and then they'll let every criminal in this administration walk off scott free.

The Democrats have refused to impeach when there is clear evidence demanding at least a serious investigation.
They've given 'retroactive' immunity on both torture and illegal domestic spying to protect people in this Administration from charges.

Isn't it very clear by now that the role of the Democrats is to PROTECT the Bush administration?

If you want these crimes to be investigated and prosecuted, DON'T VOTE DEMOCRAT! Voting for the Green Party up and down the ballot is the way to get those prosecutions.

PS ... or voting for fine independent candidates like Cindy will work too. :)

"We hungry but them belly full, the structure is set, you'll never change it with a ballot pull!"
- Rage Against the Machine, Down Rodeo

Conyers=democrat=SHIT.

...honestly you have to hand it to the Republicans: THEY are the movers and shakers in Washington DC...democrats are like little children who do as Mr. Bush and Cheney tell them...Pelosi, Reid, Conyers, Kerry, Kennedy: all spineless, worthless shit and scum. They never fail to FAIL in their race to the bottom. They are irrelevant, and will continue to be irrelevant for many years to come.

democrats (lower-case 'd' typed deliberately here) are in fact WORSE than Republicans. Republicans at least stand for something, are effective, and deliver--even if what they stand for and deliver is most contemptible and bad.

Washington DC, and the United States for that matter will always be owned, run and operated by Republicans--for decades to come. Get used to it. By stark contrast a democrat is a worthless sack of shit spouting methane gaseous nonsense....what it says is just hollow rhetoric, like a little child with delusions of grandeur in the sandbox. Conyers is such an emasculated eunuch child democrat: "impeach! impeach! he bellowed a couple of years back....

...and what became of the big talk from this sad little eunich of a man from Detroit's impeachment bellowings???? Nothing. Nothing at all. With his little, rat-like tail stuffed between his legs he crawled under a rug somewhere and stays there hiding. Yep. He's a classic example of a democrat. All gaseous banter, but NEVER any action, and least of all NO RESULTS. EVER.

I would love to see the democratic party go utterly extinct like the Whig party of the 19th century. We'd be better off with only a republican party. Or, maybe that's what we already have anyways? I mean, the democrats are really republicans in all but name already....

ACLU : www.aclu.org
Green Party : www.gp.org
Amnesty : www.amnestyusa.org

DO SOMETHING! Join and support. Your life depends on resisting America's criminal government.

Conyers is a piece of crap. When he was in the minority, he held the Downing St. Memo hearings and pledged that he would do all he could to hold Bush accountable for his high crimes and misdemeanors. He also solicited campaign contributions to win election based on this position of rule of law and holding criminals accountable.

The dems win in '06 he is now Chair of the committee and he does nothing showing himself to be the old eunoch/pelosi lap dog that he is. This is despicable.

By the way, what is with all these supposedly liberal black candidates carrying water for the GOP and Bush?

Goddamn Disgrace!

Conyers won't do anything. I heard someone say he's blackmailed and threatened and they did say what he possibly/allegedly be blackmailed with.

I tihnk he was serious at first but not after knowing what they had. Now if you'll excuse me, its back to my cups.

One of the only things I've seen in decades that could possibly make me feel at all proud to be an American is the strength and determination that young soldier had when speaking to Conyers' obvious lack of spine. As far as I'm concerned, as much as I love the idea of a Black President and so on, if we don't impeach this son of a bitch then we deserve whatever chump ends up in the White House. Frankly, we deserve John McCain if we can't at least hold the President responsible to the same damn laws any one of us would be held to.

Clearly Conyers has no sense of his place in history, and apparently he simply doesn't give a damn about that, nor apparently does Nancy Pelosi. This is as sorry a bunch of so-called "representatives" as we have ever seen in the House. I think the theory that the Republican smear machine must have dirt on these figures from their past lives to keep them from taking action probably holds water, though I think the main issue is their fundamental lack of courage and ethics. The republic is slipping away.....and fast.

.
If Rep. Conyers and Speaker Pelosi don't bring Bush and Cheney up for Impeach; then they both should be removed from elective office !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't agree with this statement. I was at the meeting and am on the national board of directors of VFP (also DC-area chapter president). Here is my rap...
25 to 30 of us (almost all veterans) met with Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers and his staff today for 90+ minutes. A panel of Elliott Adams, Adam Kokesh, Tony Teolis, Joe Attamante, Tarak (last name?) and Ron Fisher spoke. Conyers answered written and spoken questions from the audience, and invited us back for a noon meeting on Friday, July 25th.There is a subcommittee meeting (hearing?) prior to that, and he wants us to attend.

Many were unhappy with Conyers, feeling that he should commit himself more to impeachment. I hold a minority opinion for two reasons. I didn't expect much, knowing that most of the Democratic majority are of the invertebrae species, and that 'the wheels of injustice grind slowly'. More importantly, I had to ask myself, "Why did he invite us back so quickly?'

There are 36 co-sponsors of the impeachment resolution at this time, and he said that we need to grow that number to help push this thing forward. He also said that while impeachment is not on Pelosi's table, it could be on his. (He was the original sponsor of the Nixon impeachment proceedings.)

Conyers also believes that impeachment (after the current wars) is perhaps the 2nd most important issue before Congress. He believes that his legacy will be determined by how he acts on this issue, and that our passion is not going to move him. What will move him is coherent argument, more co-sponsors of the resolution, and heightened public awareness and movement on the issue.

I wonder if something might be about to break. One can pound away at a wall and not see a crack. Then the next hammer hit becomes a breakthrough. We should proceed with this as possibility. I say, all out for noon on Friday, July 25th!

P-Mac

They said before it was a waste of time. What changed?

Something must have changed. Did they find the "Minute Rice" version of Impeachment under Barney Frank's desk?

rebelnow July 10th, 2008 1:22 pm

"...but I think that voting may now be irrelevant."

Let the next american revolution begin.

Impeach those who refuse to Impeach.

And spill a drink on your Diebold voting machine, next election day.

No, they aren't going to impeach, they never intended to impeach no matter how many sit-ins, protests, letters, emails or blatant outrages from the Bush thugs that the whole world sees in plain view daily. Look at Conyers in this video and try telling yourself this is someone in touch with the real world at all. He always seems rather dim-witted at best, not just in this video, but his problem may be that he's just not a very good actor, trying to pretend he even cares about what Vets for Peace want him to do. He doesn't care because neither he nor his useless party are going to impeach ANYONE. We have nothing to do with it; it's a closed system and we're on the other side of the locked doors. We no more have a democracy than we live in Paradise.

Even if Conyers does move to impeach, when's that supposed to happen? In a month? Nothing happens in August in Washington. In September or October, when the election madness is at fever pitch? Not bloody likely. It's TOO FUCKING LATE, and they knew if they waited forever, undecided, terrified to commit, waiting for 300 million Americans to show up in Washington on the same day demanding it, they'd never have to do a damn thing. Conyers and the rest have dragged their feet so long that it's too late to take this seriously at all. We know what they're made of, and it doesn't include vertebra. Conyers can keep taking his quaaludes or whatever he's on and stay calm until November. They gave up 6 years ago believing they could stop a single thing Bush has demanded doing, signing off on all his crimes. Don't vote for any of them. What recourse do we have? Just keeping the same idiot cycle going eternally?

Pelosi Says House Judiciary May Hold Hearings On Kucinich Impeachment Resolution 10 Jul 2008 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning that the House Judiciary Committee may hold hearings on an impeachment resolution offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). Kucinich is expected to offer a "privileged resolution" this afternoon calling on the House to look at whether President [sic] Bush should be removed from office for lying to Congress and the American public when he sought congressional approval back in 2002 for taking military action to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Pelosi has said previously that impeachment "was off the table," so her comments this morning were surprising, and clearly signaled a new willingness to entertain the idea of ousting Bush.

P-Mac - 5:03 pm

Conyers also believes that impeachment (after the current wars) is perhaps the 2nd most important issue before Congress. He believes that his legacy will be determined by how he acts on this issue, and that our passion is not going to move him. What will move him is coherent argument, more co-sponsors of the resolution, and heightened public awareness and movement on the issue.
_______________________________________________

P-Mac, with all due respect-- have you checked to see if you still have your wallet after meeting with Conyers?

This is pretty much the same approach he used with Cindy Sheehan et al with he met with them; you may recall that he finally had them arrested when they refused to accept his noncommittal platitudes.

Both he and Obama are working this patented "I'm able; I'm willing; I'm READY to be MOVED to do the right thing!" gimmick. I refer to it as a "gimmick" because it's a slick way to put the onus back on YOU-- the collective you, that is.

"Coherent argument"? a series of BOOKS written by well-regarded prosecutors and politicians have been written, published, and remaindered. There's enough impeachment jurisprudence on the Internet to impeach a hundred president. The notion that grounds for impeachment remain dubious or nonexistent is ludicrous.

And when legislators who once seemed relatively considerate of We the People-- Conyers, Barney Frank, Barbara Mikulski-- either run away from or angrily reject the need for impeachment, where is this groundswell supposed to come from?. Does Conyers see Congress as one big "Devil's Advocate", sitting on its hands and consistently deflecting the call for impeachment until it is sufficiently refined to its standards?

Not a chance that they're, well, TEMPORIZING on the question, is there?

And the supercilious caveat that Conyers won't be moved by "passion" strikes me as utterly disingenuous, condescending, and dismissive. It's a touch of the Critical Parent, insinuating that impeachment advocates are simple-minded, even irrational, hot-heads. You must trust the grownups-- keep up the good work, now! We BOTH want the same thing, and we'll never GET it if we don't work TOGETHER...

Well, just because Conyers has been piecing off one group after another doesn't mean that THIS time won't be different. I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised, but I don't expect to be.

Conyers is physically looking more like a rat each time I see him.

Conyers and Pelosi are dragging their feet at the behest of their corporate owners. There is a timetable and they are being faithful to it. Whatever dirty news or device that is being used to control these sorry people is very effective.

It has to go beyond sheer avarice and greed.

here is a nice little piece out of MICROSOFT NETWORK NEWS!!!

DALLAS - Police didn't have to go far to find $400,000 worth of cocaine — it was in an undercover car they'd been driving for two months.

An officer cleaning the car at a patrol station Wednesday discovered the nearly 50 pounds of cocaine carefully hidden in hydraulically controlled compartments.

"These compartments have recently been more and more popular with drug operations," said Deputy Chief Julian Bernal, commander of the narcotics division.

Story continues below ↓
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Dallas police put the two-door 2004 black Infiniti into police service on May 7 after seizing it at a drug house. It had been found at a drug house earlier this year along with a 1999 Honda.

Bernal said the narcotics division searched both vehicles and found nothing unusual after the seizure. The Honda was sold at auction.

Bernal said police plan to contact the person who bought the Honda to find out if drugs are hidden in that car, too. And, they are also trying to find out who owned the cocaine they have been secretly driving around with.

Wtf!?!

our government holds no credibility! time to reign in the elites!!!!!!!

RichM July 10th, 2008 12:31 pm
Contrast the abject cowardice displayed by Conyers with the arrogant boldness displayed by Rove, in the preceding article, where he openly defied a Congressional subpoena
-well said

My contempt for Democrats and their defenders knows no natural bounds. They are beneath contempt. The Republicans must have put something into the water the Democrats drink that make them utterly pathetic, uncertain, gutless, powerless, impotent, enfeebled pansies and pushovers waving white flags.

How could any self-respecting person call themselves a Democrat? If it were up to people like me the Democratic Party would cease to exist and a hard-core, hardball, take-no-prisoners opposition party would spring up in its place to eagerly take these crooks to task.

Hey P-Mac
And when Conyers said he needed to be convinced by a logical argument, did you tell him to READ HIS OWN BOOK,
titled:
THE CONSTITUTION IN CRISIS...

I always asked him that and the last time we were together in Detroit (I was getting an award, and he introduced me), I actually brought the book and read part of it in my speech.

You can show him chapter and verse of the Constitution and US Code of Law and he won't do shit...he wants his chairmanship and like he told me last May: Electing a democratic president (even if it's Hillary) was his main focus and he wasn't going to let impeachment or ending the war distract him at all.

You should be focusing on the one who took impeachment off the table, not that she'll budge, but Conyers will not do anything until she gives it the green light.

Since CODEPINK activists have been camping out in her front yard demanding impeachment and not funding the war, I think there is little chance of her green lighting anything. And btw, this town voted over 60% for an impeachment resolution in the same election that Pelosi became Speaker.

I think her "may" start investigations statement today is in direct response to the momentum that my campaign is picking up.

Cindy

while i share much of the frustration and anger in these comments, i am struck by the absence of discussion on CLEAN ELECTIONS and the removal of the Electoral College. A full Clean Elections process is the only way to remove the corporate money/influence in political elections. it is the only way that
'regular' folk can afford to run for office.

the electoral college has to go and we need to have a straight up popular vote.

and lastly, we need a representative system where multiple parties can gain a voice by garnishing a minimum percentage of the vote--as they do in most of the industrialized nations.

otherwise, we are left with the corporate control (read fascism) and people are not even considered.

Rove had all the political pundits genuflecting at his enormous intellect and genius. Why is this prissy mommas boy afraid to talk to Congress now that he has installed that permanent Republican majority?

Pundits thought deception, lies, bribes, incompetence, and corruption by the neocons in general and Rove in particular were genius.

!+?=$

On 9/11 of 2001 was the first terrorest attack that our government perpatrated on us US citizens and then a few months later commited another act of terrosim against us and especially the congress in the ANTHRAX attack closing down the congress and threatening all representatives that wouldn't go along with the program of complete controle of America ,helped along with the passage of the Patrate Act to accomplish their plans.
Cetrainly the illigal spying without accountability was used to find anything that would help them in blackmailing the congress and anyone who protested the US terrorists plan for the complete theft of the Us treasury and their insaciable greed and power lust.To facilatate this they started a war that was just another attack against the citizens of our nation to drain our treasury through no bid contracts,secret budgets and of course oil revenues through fake shortages and future outright theft,with no questions asked as these are millitary secrets SHHHHHHHH !!!!!
All this at a cost of thousands of us lives and millions of middle easterners lives and civilizations,and the carnage is not about to be abbated,there seems to be no end in sight of the crimes being commited by these monsters,TORTURE,RENDITION ,DESTRUCTION OF THE STRONGEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD,TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE CONSTITUTION AND ALL OF THE NUMEROUS CHECKS AND BALLANCES WITHIN.
There seems to be no end to the inhumanity exhibeted by these beasts perhaps that's why even if their are some [few for sure]members of congress ,how many Davids could go against this kind of Goliath ?
Still congressman Congers having walked a path cleared and fought for you and by you,how can you having achieved all that you did stand on the doorstep of history and turn around and go back into the basement and clean the latrines after all those who have sacroficed before you how can you betray them in such a manner,What is the purpose of the power you have achieved if you don't use it ?????????
Congers you have the power to stand with giants,stand up for the people of the world,tha people of the united states,and along side of Martin Luther King as a true world citizen and go down in history as the man who brought down the greatest tyrants in modern history.
IMPEACHMENT - THE WORLD DEMANDS IT.

The Veteran who spoke was incredible--what a great analogy: metaphorizing the United States as a wounded, soon to be dead, soldier in Iraq, the Dems as treating the country's superficial wounds with band-aids while the internal bleeding is killing us. I know I won't forget it, and I certainly hope that it haunts Conyers' sleep.

Good Lord, kc, please try learning something about spelling. I've never seen (well, in fact I have) such an ineptly typed post. Also, can the hysterics. "Congers" (pretty sure you mean Conyers) isn't going to respond to your "passion," as he said he wouldn't to the Vets for Peace. He and none of the Democrats couldn't care less how worked up we all get over something they've never intended to do and will absolutely never do. Impeachment's never been anywhere near the sacred table. That table is reserved for rubber stamping everything Bush wants. Ask Cindy Sheehan, if you don't believe it.

The following from an L.A. Times obit of Cong. Peter Rodino.
I also read in a Tip O'neill bio that Rodino was reticent and dragging his feet on starting the hearings on Nixon... the House was trying to get him moving on it.
Now in 2008 it seems the House is dragging the feet for Bush.

In 1972, several men linked to the Nixon White House had broken into the Watergate office complex, where the Democratic National Committee had offices. In February 1974, the House of Representatives voted to allow the Judiciary Committee to review grounds for impeachment of the president and gave the committee unlimited subpoena power – which it used to obtain Oval Office tapes of Nixon's conversations with aides.

Rodino spoke before the House that February: "Whatever the result, whatever we learn or conclude, let us now proceed with such care and decency and thoroughness and honor that the vast majority of American people, and their children after them, will say: That was the right course. There was no other way."

On July 30, 1974, the Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against Nixon. The president resigned 10 days later, before the full House voted on whether to approve the articles for a Senate trial.

Although Rodino voted for impeachment, the outcry against him was much more muted than it might have been. He was known for letting all sides contribute to the debate but made it clear he did not want speeches.

Rodino considered himself a reluctant overseer. "People thought we would impeach Richard Nixon," he said years later. "That was the furthest thing from my mind. I was hopeful, I was prayerful that we wouldn't, that what we would find out was exculpatory."

He added that, after he voted for the third article of impeachment, he went to a back room, called his wife and cried. "And I said, 'I hope we've done the right thing.' "

If Bush is impeached now, Cheney becomes president. Cheney will pardon Bush of any wrongdoing. Dems will be accused of using impeachment as part of the campaign process.

Best now to wait until after the election and go after Bush/Cheney and their fellow terrorists after he's out of office.

Another really strange Conyers stand [if I remember correctly]: impeach Bush if he attacks Iran...

Wait until more innocent people are slaughtered and THEN impeach?

BTW there's also HR 362, pushing to blockade Iran... That would be a genuine act of war...

Ol' Johnny is probably waaay too busy trying to rein in his crazy wack-job wife on the Detroit City Council. FBI is looking at her, too. Check out the www.freep.com Detroit Free Press.

Since we all agree, what do we do? 1) contribute to Cindy Sheehan, Ralph Nader, and Cynthis McKinney (with whatever amount) to pump up their supporter numbers--3rd party strength frightens the Dems. Send a buck to that Republican Bob whoever, too. 2) contribute to ACLU. 3) Join a local activist group and be ACTIVE--they are getting discouraged with rising poll numbers indicating public frustration, but diminishing numbers at events they organize. Caution--Moveon appears to be an arm of the Democratic Party. Check out United for Peace and Justice Network instead. 4) Start your own activist group. Even 3 or 4 people can create a lot of attention, and you can do whatever you please. 5) Write letters to editors. Most papers print letters on a topic in relation to numbers received. So, get a bunch of like-minded types to write 2 or 3 sentence letters no matter what their prose skill, and mail them for them, if need be. Tell the hesitant ones theirs is unlikely to be printed, but they will make sure another one is.

You can probably think of other actions. Google freeway blogger and see what one guy did, all on his own. Suggest other ideas here and on other blogs. Don't let people tell you, "It won't do any good." Tell them that attitude is guaranteed failure for this nation.

Two points have been raised that are plausible.

#1 That the FBI has some dirt on John Conyers and has blackmailed him.

#2 That he is afraid, after what happened to Senator Paul Wellstone, he has cause to be. You may recall that Wellstone told a group of veterans just prior to being shotdown that Cheney had threatened him. He and his whole family were murdered.

It maybe either of these or both.