June, 25 2019, 12:00am EDT
More Than 75 Members Of Congress Now Calling For an Impeachment Inquiry Against Donald Trump
"In the face of overwhelming evidence of obstruction of justice and Trump's publicly-stated willingness to rely on illegal foreign assistance in the 2020 election, as he did in 2016, every day more members of the House are calling for impeachment proceedings. These patriotic members recognize that it is time to do what the Constitution, their consciences, and their constituents demand, despite the resistance and pressure from the Speaker of the House," said Ben Clements, Board Chair of Free Speech For People.
WASHINGTON
"In the face of overwhelming evidence of obstruction of justice and Trump's publicly-stated willingness to rely on illegal foreign assistance in the 2020 election, as he did in 2016, every day more members of the House are calling for impeachment proceedings. These patriotic members recognize that it is time to do what the Constitution, their consciences, and their constituents demand, despite the resistance and pressure from the Speaker of the House," said Ben Clements, Board Chair of Free Speech For People. "Now it's time for Speaker Pelosi to decide whether she will heed that call or go down in history as the person who blocked an impeachment investigation of the most corrupt and impeachable president in our nation's history."
"You can draw a direct line from Congress's failure to hold President Trump accountable for taking unconstitutional payments from foreign governments on the first day of his presidency, to detention camps for children with no soap or toothpaste," says Ron Fein, Legal Director of Free Speech For People. "Congress needs to stop dithering and start the process of considering whether to impeach President Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors."
"Members of Congress have a sworn duty to defend the Constitution in the face of the occupant of the White House shredding it every day," says John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People. "We applaud the more than 75 Members of Congress who have upheld that oath and called for an impeachment inquiry of this president. We urge all other Members of Congress who remain standing on the sidelines at this critical hour for our nation to enter the field and protect our republic."
In 2017, Free Speech For People co-launched a campaign calling for impeachment proceedings with an initial focus on President Trump's violations of the emoluments clauses of the Constitution based on his refusal to divest fully from his business interests prior to taking the oath of office. The campaign has since expanded to include eleven legal grounds for impeachment proceedings, and more than 1.4 million Americans have signed on to support their call. On May 9, 2019, Free Speech For People and allied organizations delivered more than 10 million petition signatures to Congress urging that it start an impeachment inquiry of the president.
Ron Fein, John Bonifaz, and Ben Clements are the co-authors of a new book, The Constitution Demands It: The Case For The Impeachment of Donald Trump, published in August 2018 by Melville House, detailing the legal case for impeachment hearings. The book presents a legal analysis based on the text, structure, and history of the Constitution and federal law, and legal and political precedent. The case for an impeachment investigation includes: violating two of the anti-corruption provisions of the US Constitution (the emoluments clauses); obstructing justice; conspiring to solicit and then conceal illegal foreign assistance for his presidential campaign; abusing the pardon power; undermining the freedom of the press; recklessly threatening nuclear war against foreign nations; directing or seeking to direct law enforcement, including the Department of Justice and the FBI, to prosecute political adversaries for improper purposes; advocating illegal violence and undermining equal protection of the laws; ordering the cruel and unconstitutional imprisonment of children and their families at the southern border; conspiring to illegally influence the 2016 election through a series of hush money payments; and abusing emergency powers to fund and build a border wall that Congress has explicitly refused to fund.
Free Speech For People is a national non-partisan non-profit organization founded on the day of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that works to defend our democracy and our Constitution.
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Cori Bush Demands Repeal of 'Zombie Statute' Weaponized by Anti-Abortion Zealots
"The Comstock Act must be repealed," said the Missouri Democrat.
Mar 27, 2024
Rep. Cori Bush on Tuesday called for the repeal of a long-obsolete law that anti-abortion activists, lawmakers, and judges have worked to revive as part of their nationwide assault on reproductive rights.
"The Comstock Act must be repealed," Bush (D-Mo.) wrote in a social media post on Tuesday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case brought by a group of anti-abortion doctors aiming to curtail access to mifepristone—a medication used in more than 60% of U.S. abortions.
"Enacted in 1873, it is a zombie statute, a dead law that the far-right is trying to reanimate," Bush warned. "The anti-abortion movement wants to weaponize the Comstock Act as a quick route to a nationwide medication abortion ban. Not on our watch."
Bush's office said she was the first member of Congress to demand the law's repeal since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the summer of 2022.
The Comstock Act, which hasn't been applied in a century and was repeatedly narrowed following its enactment, prohibits the mailing of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that "may, or can, be used or applied for producing abortion." Legal experts have described the dormant law as the "most significant national threat to reproductive rights."
Given that "virtually everything used for an abortion—from abortion pills, to the instruments for abortion procedures, to clinic supplies—gets mailed to providers in some form," a trio of experts wrote earlier this year, the anti-abortion movement's "interpretation of the Comstock Act could mean a nationwide ban on all abortions, even in states where it remains legal."
"Enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."
The Biden Justice Department has argued that the Comstock Act "does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully."
But the law has nevertheless been cited with growing frequency by far-right advocacy groups and judges following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In 2023, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas, Matthew Kacsmaryk, invoked the Comstock Act in a decision suspending the Food and Drug Administration's 2000 approval of mifepristone. In 2021, the FDA said it would allow patients to receive abortion medication by mail—which Kacsmaryk claimed the Comstock Act "plainly forecloses."
That case, which has massive implications for abortion rights nationwide, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
During oral arguments on Tuesday, Justices Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas "repeatedly invoked the Comstock Act," The Washington Postreported, "pressing lawyers about whether the 1873 federal law should apply to abortion drugs sent through the mail today."
The justices' comments raised concerns that they could try to resurrect the Comstock Act in their coming ruling in the mifepristone case.
"While the Biden administration has issued guidance saying that the federal government
will not enforce the laws," the Post noted, "a future administration seeking to restrict abortion could choose to do so."
Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee, has expressed support for a national abortion ban.
Jezebel's Susan Rinkunas wrote Tuesday that "enforcing a Victorian-era law would be deeply unpopular and Democrats have a chance to sound the alarm, take action in both chambers, and run on it."
"We definitively have one lawmaker on board," Rinkunas added, referring to Bush. "Who's next?"
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The mega-container ship that lost propulsion before toppling Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in a Tuesday morning collision was involved in a previous crash, and was cited last year for propulsion-related problems.
Newsweekreported that the Maersk Line Limited-chartered MV Dali—which crashed into the Interstate 695 Patapsco River crossing just before 1:30 am, causing the span to collapse and sending a construction crew into the water—collided with a wall in the harbor at Antwerp, Belgium in 2016. The accident, which was reported by Vessel Finder and other outlets at the time, was attributed to errors made by the ship's master and pilot.
The 9-year-old Dali was also detained by port officials in San Antonio, Chile last June after inspectors discovered a problem related to the vessel's "propulsion and auxiliary machinery," according toThe Washington Post, which cited records from the intergovernmental shipping regulator Tokyo MOU.
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Maersk was also sanctioned last year by the U.S. Labor Department for allegedly stopping employees from reporting safety concerns, documents published by The Lever revealed.
According to a July 14, 2023 Labor Department letter to Maersk regarding an Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation, the Danish company "suspended and then terminated" a worker "in retaliation for reporting unsafe conditions and contacting the U.S. Coast Guard."
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"The Department of Defense should declare its opposition to the development and deployment of autonomous weapons."
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The watchdog group Public Citizen on Tuesday led a letter urging Pentagon leaders "to clarify that the Replicator Initiative will not involve the development and deployment of autonomous weapons systems," also known as "killer robots."
Last September, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks "asserted that the development of all-domain, attributable autonomy systems (ADA2) is an essential way for the Pentagon to maintain its comparative cutting-edge and keep up with the technological advancements of other states," notes the letter, which was addressed to her and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
"However, those comments failed to specify whether or not supporting autonomous weapons systems is one of the key focuses of this initiative," the letter stresses. "When addressing whether or not 'ADA2 means weapons systems,' Secretary Hicks stated: 'That's a serious question to be sure. They are not synonymous. There are many applications for ADA2 systems beyond delivering weapons effects.'"
"Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
Public Citizen and the 13 other organizations argued that "this is no place for strategic ambiguity. Autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
Deploying lethal weapons that rely on artificial intelligence (AI) "in battlefield conditions necessarily means inserting them into novel conditions for which they have not been programmed, an invitation for disastrous outcomes," the groups warned. "'Swarms' of the sort envisioned by Replicator pose even heightened risks, because of the unpredictability of how autonomous systems will function in a network. And the mere ambiguity of the U.S. position on autonomous weapons risks spurring a catastrophic arms race."
"We believe the Department of Defense should declare its opposition to the development and deployment of autonomous weapons," the coalition concluded. "However, even if you are not prepared to make that declaration, we strongly urge you to clarify that the Replicator Initiative will not employ autonomous weapons."
In addition to Public Citizen, the coalition included the American Friends Service Committee, Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network, Backbone Campaign, Demand Progress Education Fund, Fight for the Future, Future of Life, National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, RootsAction.org, United Church of Christ, the Value Alliance, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom U.S., Win Without War, and World Beyond War.
The letter comes on the heels of Public Citizen releasing a report about the rise of killer robots, AI Joe: The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence and the Military.
The February report addresses the Pentagon's AI policy, the dangers of killer robots, the need to ensure decisions about nuclear weapons aren't made by automated systems, how artificial intelligence can increase not diminish the use of violence, risks of using deepfakes on the battlefield, and how AI startups are seeking government contracts.
The publication concludes with recommendations that Public Citizen president Robert Weissman echoed in a statement Tuesday.
"The United States should state plainly that it will not create or deploy killer robots and should work to advance global treaty negotiations to ban such weapons," Weissman said. "At minimum, the United States should commit that the Replicator Initiative will not involve the use of autonomous weapons."
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