Wasn’t able to follow things live, as David Swanson did, so still trying to unravel what specifically happened today on the floor of the U.S. House, where Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) used a “privileged resolution” to try and force a vote on his measure to begin Impeachment proceedings of Dick Cheney.
But as best as we can tell, and if we’re reading this correctly, it seems the Republicans are playing a very interesting game of chicken here. From RAW:
“Midway through the vote, with instructions from the GOP leadership, Republicans one by one changed their votes from yes — to kill the resolution — to no, trying to force the chamber into a debate and an up-or-down vote on the proposal,” reports the Washington Post.
And then from WaPo…
…
Democrats countered by offering a motion to refer the proposal to the House Judiciary Committee for further study, effectively preventing a debate on the House floor. That motion passed by a largely party-line vote of 218-194.
So, in trying to summarize: While the Democratic House Leadership had initially tried to table Kucinich’s resolution to Impeach Dick Cheney, the Republicans voted against that, presumably after making some sort of calculation (an incorrect one, in our opinion, but it’s just our opinion) that a debate on whether he should be Impeached would somehow benefit Republicans. They would seem to share that calculation with the Democratic House leadership.
The effort to table discussion of the matter thus failed. But Hoyer’s next attempt to dispatch with the measure (for the moment) was his call for a vote to send the matter to Committee for further consideration, instead of debating it on the floor of the House.
Which, if we’ve got our analytics correct here, means the ball gets tossed over to HJC Chairman, John Conyers for now…
UPDATE: Statement just in from a U.S. House Judiciary Committee spokeswoman, in response to the referal of the Impeachment resolution to the committee…
Which means they will all be invited to tea.
Accurately assessing the cowardice of the Democrats
the R’s tossed the ball back into their court; however, the man in charge of “further study” is John Conyers, a courageous man who won’t back down. I’m glad to see someone had some balls to introduce this desperately needed measure of impeachment against the war criminal, Cheney. He should be kicked out of Wyoming.
I can’t help but think it will remain in the committee.
Conyers has had all of these meetings and investigations, subpoenas etc. and nothing has yielded any results.
I’ve lost hope!
Conyers is the one who helped Pelosi clear the fucking table!
Who’s hallucinating that he’ll put it back where it should have been all along?
Conyers seems to be afraid of Pelosi for some reason. I think Pelosi could remove Conyers’ Chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, but it seem to go deeper than that — as if Pelosi has the power to assign Conyers to pushing a broom in the basement. My gut feeling is that Conyers doesn’t dare buck Pelosi, but I don’t know if that is true.
For now, I think the best bet is to put pressure on Pelosi. Conyers wants impeachment, but seems to be dependent upon a go/no-go order from Pelosi.
The Democrats in Congress now have a 22% approval rating among DEMOCRATS, and when you add in the Republicans Pelosi caters to, it still only comes up to about 25%. How much lower does Pelosi want to make it?
Conyers was only able to get about a half million signatures on his Downing Street petition a few years ago. He should be able to get at least a couple of million signatures supporting impeachment now if he asks. But there might be something more to this. Maybe Bush, Pelosi, and the CIA have threatened to kill his grandkids or something — who knows what genocidal maniacs like this bi-partisan fascist regime will stoop to?
It appears that Pelosi has threatened to remove Conyers from his chairmanship if he pursues impeachment. See article from Bruce Fein in Slate in August.
Pelosi needs to be removed.
Why did my post get deleted ???
What post, JoJ? All your posts seem to be still there from my end….
Hahah. The Dem money wing wants Kucinich to go away. Any attempt to impeach Cheney or Bush will be answered by impeachment of President Hillary in ’09.
Plans to impeach any Dem that may win the white house in 2008 are being
drawn up as we speak . . . . . If they have not been drawn up already . . .
Cheney must be impeached and we must start talking about getting Secret Service protection for all of our Congresspersons.
The self-abnegation of Rep. Pete Stark was frightening and reminescent of the tears of Sen. Biden after he courageously called the photographs of the atrocities of torture at Abu Ghraib like that of the nazis and Pol Pot then recanted – other officials have recanted in humiliating scenes since bush had the residency stolen for him.
Whatever the expense, we need to get real protection for our members of Congress. Don’t forget Wellstone and Carnahan and many others who were assassinated including the Congressperson who was an expert on Social Security just before bush’s attempts to destroy it by a sudden strange disease and the recent bludgeoning death of a Congressperson in charge of financing after the claim that he fell in his home – like the strange fall of SC Roberts. We need to start talking about the obvious threats that congress is receiving and how to get them some real protection ASAP.
… and down the rabbit-hole it went …
Conyers? Conyers has had enough evidence to start impeachment on a number of crimes, just like Waxman, and what have we seen so far?
Most of you must be living under the impression we have representatives in our government that actually represent the people, instead of their corporate masters.
I really hate to bust any one’s bubble but outside of a very few the rest of these so-called representatives of the people wish “the people” would all just go away and die, for all they care.
Want change? This April send your tax form back with nothing but a bloody hand-print (fake, of course) on it. It’s all they care about is the money. If 20 to 30 million sent that kind of Boston Tea Party on steroids message I’d bet you’d see some action!
DeepPeace, #11
The Secret Service has been moved to DHS from Treasury, and I have an 8 X 10 color glossy of Chertoff providing that protection. There’s no way they could even ask for it, let alone get it.
I have the video of Dennis reading his articles of impeachment on the House floor here.
Playing chicken with reid and pelosi is like playing chicken with sheep . . .
This is an admittedly speculative thought, but it seems to me that the peculiar behavior of the House Democrats and Republicans today indicates to me that there may be some “skeletons” in Democratic “closets,” too, that Pelosi and Hoyer are anxious to keep closed. As the Party leaders, they would know in which closets those skeletons are hidden and through their power of position, they hold the “keys” to keep them closed. I have to wonder whether the ploy of the Republicans to switch their votes to oppose tabling the impeachment debate was a threat of possible retaliation if Democrats continued to pursue impeachment against Cheney.
The corrupt Republicans would know of the particular Democrats who share responsibility with them, and the GOP leadership would be more than willing to expose them in retaliation if other Democrats unaware of these relationships (such as Kucinich) continue to press for a floor debate on the substance of why Cheney should be impeached. That debate would inevitably lead to discussion of Cheney’s treasonous outing of Plame and his activities to try to start a war in Iran. The debate might well get into the nefarious influence AIPAC has among many Democratic and Republican members of Congress alike, and its criminal activities (which resulted in the conviction Larry Franklin, BTW, and other convictions of AIPAC officers are still being vigorusly pursued).
Perhaps some of the important information Sibel Edmonds is also seeking to share with the public and Congress about treasonous activities of certain powerful members of Congress would also become a hot topic of an impeachment debate among them and expose some of them to criminal prosecutions. The extremely serious crimes of state involved here very likely cross party lines, and this is a game of “chicken” which is being played, IMHO.
This is the explanation that makes most sense of the facts to me, and explains the determination by Democratic Party leaders to scuttle discussion of impeachment, even if it makes them look weak and spineless to much of the electorate. They may be more interested in protecting some corrupt fellow Dems than exposing corrupt Republicans.
I have long suspected that the taint of corruption is not entirely with the Republican Party, but must also lie with at least some powerful Democrats or their financial supporters to explain the total lack of interest in their body to investigate the ethical (and criminal) conduct of their own members. There has been remarkably little Congressional reaction in the way of “housecleaning” after the convictions of Duke Cunningham and Robert Ney and their sentencing to lengthy prison terms. One would think they would want to sweep the “dirt” away and not let the public think that they approve of corrupt behavior. We hear only silence on that front.
Good one Ewa, but isn’t it more they’re afraid of the smear machine than anything else ?
Dennis got ripped pretty good this morning on C(ertified) B(ull) S(hit), though they let him speak on it (all with negative lead ins to every question the interviewer asked).
It seems the media is putting out feelers first to see what the sheeples response is.
We’ll see.
Nancy pelosi needs to go home and do somthing useful like bake brownies or vacuum . . .
Harry reid should go home and do something useful like bake brownies or vacuum . . .
The funniest thing no one’s thinking about…if Cheney got impeached he wouldn’t leave office! They need to impeach him to prove that he thinks he’s above the law!
He either won’t step down, or there will be a “terrorist attack”!
I know it is probably very likely gw and dicky will get away with their crimes. I want impeachment on the record though, so someday if they try to rewrite history, maybe future generations won’t be snowballed.
As any good healer will tell you, the path to a cure, not just a masking of the symptoms, is PAINFUL. Anybody thinking the corruption doesn’t cut across pary lines is living on Venus! Do we want our country back for all Americans, or just the window dressing of democracy?
The Democrats are like children in adults clothes. The clothes don’t fit and the impression made is one of parody not seriousness.
When the Republicans wanted to impeach Clinton they found a prosecutor to charge him with crimes and to send a referral over. Then they formed a special group of lawyers to build the case. They read the laws and found alleged crimes that technically qualified.
Meanwhile the Dems once again show that they are not serious about anything. A serious effort would not be led by Rep. UFO. It would not be based on policy disagreements, which fall far outside the scope of what is an impeachable offense. They would be specific, like any other accusation of crime.
The only person who has put a dent in the Bush administration in Fitzgerald. Look at what he investigated, and what he finally charged. It might make you happy to indict Chenney for “war crimes” but without specifics it’s just noise.
Mostly Pelosi’s house has been about noise which is why the Dems are setting themselves up for a short run in the majority. Given their incompetence I can’t say I will miss them.
Dennis is on the ED Schultz Show Now !
Maybe now’s the time for Conyers to be the hero. Dems with congresspersons on the Judiciary Com. should be writing letters like mad citing their sworn oath to protect the nation from all threats foreign AND DOMESTIC.
Cheney’s verbatim lies/quotes are enough to seal his fate. Let the investigation begin..no duty is more vital than a pursuing a hearing regarding resolution that passes agaiinst all odds.
Hilarious. The Repubs even tried to force a debate on it and the fake opposition Dems couldn’t circular file it fast enough!
They roll over on Iraq funding, wringing their hands impotently when all they have to do to end the war is to refuse to vote on supplementals and surely they know that. They immediately took impeachment “off the table” as soon as Pelosi got her speaker’s gavel. They parrot the Repubs’ official bullshit line on 9/11 and the war for resource dominance. Now this.
Anybody still think these guys are a genuine opposition party? Anybody still think they are going to try to actually DO anything other than empty posturing and playing grabass with the Republicans?