A panel on stage, Allan Buchman chatting up its members.
Amy Goodman moderates. She opens by noting that the media is the most powerful tool for awareness, a sort of kitchen table that stretches across the country and globe. And is not covering impeachment.
On the panel, Marjorie Cohn, John Nichols, and Naomi Wolf.
To Nichols, Goodman asks why the Dems want to wait for another pres. election to get rid of Bush. Nichols points out that elections are easy. Impeachment is important on its own. We can't just wait for an election; we have to send a message to all future presidents about what how is not okay to govern.
To Cohn, Goodman asks about the reasons for going to Iraq and potentially Iran. The real reason, Cohn says, Bush went to Iraq became clear just recently when we made agreements with Iraq to have troops there indefinitely - to stay in Iraq and move on to Iran. Notwithstanding the new evidence that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons, Bush says he has not taken military action against Iran off the table.
Cohn notes that Congress does not have legal authority to start a "war of aggression," one that breaks a treaty, a war whose causes are falsified or blown out of proportion.
Cohn breaks down how impeachment works: The House votes to impeach the president; the Senate acts a court, presiding over the impeachment itself.
Nichols explains that Congress can impeach Cheney and Bush at once (I wrote "Nixon" instead of Cheney first, took a second to see it - Freud at work). But Nichols says to start with Cheney, then move up, exposing the dual criminality of the Dick and the Bush.
Naomi Wolf describes the step by which would-be dictators do their thing: They create vague internal and external threats; they create secret prisons; they create military not answerable to the people; they spy on their own citizens; they harass citizen's groups; they arbitrarily detain and release individuals (TSA for travelers, environmentalists, progressives); they target individuals (Bill Maher, Dixie Chicks, CEOs getting fire); they--oh--here it is--
I think this is so important I'm going to paste in the Wikipedia version, to reiterate:
The Ten Steps to Dictatorship
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
2. Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
3. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system.
5. Harass citizens' groups.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
7. Target key individuals.
8. Control the press.
9. Declare all dissent to be treason.
10. Suspend the rule of law.
Wolf points out that there was still a parliament in Italy when Mussolini took over. He talked to parliament, then he stopped talking. Then at some point later, there was no point even pretending. Bush could declare an emergency tomorrow and boot out Congress. The state is legalizing torture. We could lose democracy, de jure, at any moment. We already have, de facto (the stolen election, torture, crazy war).
Goodman reads from Wolf's The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, which begins with an anecdote of a government worker blogging (!) against torture and being fired for her morals.
Cohn says Mukase won't stop waterboarding because to do so would be to admit that Bush had broken the law. Waterboarding is so obviously torture, there'd be little point admitting it had anything to do with Bush or that torture shouldn't be legal. The only option Mukase et cronies have is to stay the course.
Cohn describes how lawyers are fighting back, protesting, making some headway against the Justice Department by not backing down on Gitmo cases.
Nichols suggests the Democratic candidates should have to debate Naomi Wolf on each point - not Wolf Blitzer and Tim Russert and those who ignore the issue of impeachment.
Wolf points out that Bush terrifies so many - libertarians, anarchists, Green Party people. "On paper," Wolf says, "it's over, it's already over. The coup is over." A bill just passed criminalizing anything against Bush as terrorism. You don't need the Long Knives, says Wolf, just these scary laws. This impeachment theater could be criminal. Her book could be criminal.
Nichols is asking Congresspeople to read his book and Wolf's, to just read the articles of impeachment.
Cohn talks about the new bill again - I'm going to look this one up in a sec - and how it criminalizes thought that "advocates force," not only violence, but, say, a protest.
Wolf compares Bush & co. to the Nazis and Stalin, but conservatively, at evidence, at facts. "No one who's read my book," she says, criticizes her comparisons. She tells Cohn, who brought up the Unamerican Activities Committee in the Fifties, that Bush's plan is much more akin to Stalin's than to McCarthy's.
Goodman asks, in closing, what we can do now.
Nichols reiterates that Wexler and others have called for impeachment hearings; write and call and go visit your Congresspeople to ask them to impeach Bush and Cheney. And write and call your local media. We have to get the media involved on a much bigger level. Forget the election for one second. Impeachment is dramatically more important. The presidency had become a pack of lies.
Cohn calls for ending the war, in addition to constantly calling on our leaders to impeach Bush and Dick.
Wolf calls for impeaching and prosecuting B&C. "The only way to save this country." Word up.
Goodman talks about the FCC ending regulations that restrain a few big companies from owning all the major media. Upside, DemocracyNow! has grown quite a bit. And the internet. Don't forget the internet. Please post and repost our videos and articles; comment; send us new leads. Contact your Congresspeople. Show them the videos.
Oh, we're not done. Buchman comes on to remind us that we're going to pursue this issue all year. I think Jackon Browne is going to sing...
Showing posts with label Bushismology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bushismology. Show all posts
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Article V Panel
Denis Moynihan again moderates. Nation writer John Nichols runs on stage, fields an immediately Moynihan question: Where are we, on impeachment, right now?
Nichols said things are as good as they've ever been, and as bad. He notes that Congress is finally moving: Florida rep. Bob Wexler is holding hearings for the impeachment of Dick Cheney. GO TO HIS WEBSITE, http://wexlerwantshearings.com/, and sing up. This is the best way to get the ball rolling, right now.
Holtzman puts the brakes on Nichols' and Wexler's vision by noting that, if the vision is partisan - if it consists of "Democrats hate Bush" - then it will fail. We need a bipartisan approach. "Let's go back to Watergate," she says. I wince. But her point is we don't need hearings. Watergate started with evidence. Bipartisan call for evidence.
Seems to me that we need something to happen, whether it's thanks to Wexler or not.
Cohn points out we need an independent prosecutor, a special investigator.
Nichols says Wexler and others have just now given us the opening to impeach Bush.
Holtzman and Nichols are getting into it a bit over the procedural differences between special prosecution and Congressional hearings. (Everyone agrees Bush should be impeached somehow, ASAP.)
Lindorff says that Republicans need to be shown that it was dumb and dangerous not to impeach Bush - that the next president probably will be a Democrat and almost definitely will not give up any power whatsoever that Bush gave the presidency.
Horton agrees. "This can only be checked effectively by the impeachment process."
Nichols: Impeachment, seriously pursued, usually succeeds in forcing leaders to step back from the brink. I love this idea. We need to impeach the sons of donkeys not simply because Hillary might win and continue to use the powers d'Bush, but because Bush and Hillary and the Republicans and Democrats need to be told, by the American people, by the voices of reason in Congress, that it is illegal to spy on Americans, to torture prisoners, to utterly ignore the poor of the South in times of crisis, to ignore laws, to start wars.
Holtzman calls it "inertia." We have to press [the Congress]. (She goes back to Watergate with each answer, each time losing some clarity on the matter: Bushiraqtorturegate simply isn't Watergate. This is a new era. Bush is a new terror. I'm sure Holtzman's suggestions are apt and her ideas useful as to how we can oust Bush. But if Bob Wexler gets it done his own way, props to Bob Wexler.)
Nichols tells us to contact our local Congresspeople and tell them to impeach Bush. Particularly Jerrold Nadler. Please do this.
Question from the audience that becomes an angry litany of Buhs's crimes.
New question asks what else we can do.
Nichols says the public is just as angry at Bush as they were at Nixon; the media has changed, however, and we have seen virtually nothing about impeachment on TV.
Cohn notes that Bush is lying about Iran, aggressive against Iran, and not going to be phased by news that Iran doesn't necessarily have nukes. Cohn says getting out of Iraq and stopping Bush before he can go into Iran should be our number one priorities.
Audience member asks/tells something amounting to, "people all over New York want to impeach Bush." Panel agrees; people everywhere want to impeach him.
Holtzman goes back to Watergate. General discussion of lack of media attention to impeachment. Where's the New York Times on this?
Horton (notice his sweet blog) says polls show people, when asked if Bush has committed serious crimes, over 60% of those polled say yes. In Jackson, Mississippi, prosperous white businessmen asked Horton why nobody was impeaching Bush's ass?
Nichols says now is the time to talk to Republicans about impeachment; they are ready; they are either sick of Bush or afraid of giving Bush-powers to Hillary.
Nichols says we can't let the upcoming election become any excuse for not holding Bush accountable.
Horton says for the last several years, the Republicans have been velociraptors; the Democrats, invertebrates. Democracts aren't challenging bad Republican laws. (Well, this has a lot to do with our two-party/arguably-one-class-based-party system. I yearn for a multi-party system.)
Lindorff tells us how Bush took over science programs to manufacture evidence for war against Iraq.
Holtzman reminds us that impeachment is a democratic process envisioned by the framers to be used in circumstances just such as these. We have the time. This will not divide the country; this will unify the country. Rule of law is more important than any one president or party.
Cohn says we have to elect a Democrat in 2008. Bush has done the most dangerous thing, aside from Iraq, by stacking the Supreme Court. Please vote for the Democrat.
And we're done with the articles of impeachment. I for one am convinced - my suspicions confirmed - that we need to get Bush and Cheney out.
Rebel Voices up next, then the big closing concert at 7:30.
Nichols said things are as good as they've ever been, and as bad. He notes that Congress is finally moving: Florida rep. Bob Wexler is holding hearings for the impeachment of Dick Cheney. GO TO HIS WEBSITE, http://wexlerwantshearings.com/, and sing up. This is the best way to get the ball rolling, right now.
Holtzman puts the brakes on Nichols' and Wexler's vision by noting that, if the vision is partisan - if it consists of "Democrats hate Bush" - then it will fail. We need a bipartisan approach. "Let's go back to Watergate," she says. I wince. But her point is we don't need hearings. Watergate started with evidence. Bipartisan call for evidence.
Seems to me that we need something to happen, whether it's thanks to Wexler or not.
Cohn points out we need an independent prosecutor, a special investigator.
Nichols says Wexler and others have just now given us the opening to impeach Bush.
Holtzman and Nichols are getting into it a bit over the procedural differences between special prosecution and Congressional hearings. (Everyone agrees Bush should be impeached somehow, ASAP.)
Lindorff says that Republicans need to be shown that it was dumb and dangerous not to impeach Bush - that the next president probably will be a Democrat and almost definitely will not give up any power whatsoever that Bush gave the presidency.
Horton agrees. "This can only be checked effectively by the impeachment process."
Nichols: Impeachment, seriously pursued, usually succeeds in forcing leaders to step back from the brink. I love this idea. We need to impeach the sons of donkeys not simply because Hillary might win and continue to use the powers d'Bush, but because Bush and Hillary and the Republicans and Democrats need to be told, by the American people, by the voices of reason in Congress, that it is illegal to spy on Americans, to torture prisoners, to utterly ignore the poor of the South in times of crisis, to ignore laws, to start wars.
Holtzman calls it "inertia." We have to press [the Congress]. (She goes back to Watergate with each answer, each time losing some clarity on the matter: Bushiraqtorturegate simply isn't Watergate. This is a new era. Bush is a new terror. I'm sure Holtzman's suggestions are apt and her ideas useful as to how we can oust Bush. But if Bob Wexler gets it done his own way, props to Bob Wexler.)
Nichols tells us to contact our local Congresspeople and tell them to impeach Bush. Particularly Jerrold Nadler. Please do this.
Question from the audience that becomes an angry litany of Buhs's crimes.
New question asks what else we can do.
Nichols says the public is just as angry at Bush as they were at Nixon; the media has changed, however, and we have seen virtually nothing about impeachment on TV.
Cohn notes that Bush is lying about Iran, aggressive against Iran, and not going to be phased by news that Iran doesn't necessarily have nukes. Cohn says getting out of Iraq and stopping Bush before he can go into Iran should be our number one priorities.
Audience member asks/tells something amounting to, "people all over New York want to impeach Bush." Panel agrees; people everywhere want to impeach him.
Holtzman goes back to Watergate. General discussion of lack of media attention to impeachment. Where's the New York Times on this?
Horton (notice his sweet blog) says polls show people, when asked if Bush has committed serious crimes, over 60% of those polled say yes. In Jackson, Mississippi, prosperous white businessmen asked Horton why nobody was impeaching Bush's ass?
Nichols says now is the time to talk to Republicans about impeachment; they are ready; they are either sick of Bush or afraid of giving Bush-powers to Hillary.
Nichols says we can't let the upcoming election become any excuse for not holding Bush accountable.
Horton says for the last several years, the Republicans have been velociraptors; the Democrats, invertebrates. Democracts aren't challenging bad Republican laws. (Well, this has a lot to do with our two-party/arguably-one-class-based-party system. I yearn for a multi-party system.)
Lindorff tells us how Bush took over science programs to manufacture evidence for war against Iraq.
Holtzman reminds us that impeachment is a democratic process envisioned by the framers to be used in circumstances just such as these. We have the time. This will not divide the country; this will unify the country. Rule of law is more important than any one president or party.
Cohn says we have to elect a Democrat in 2008. Bush has done the most dangerous thing, aside from Iraq, by stacking the Supreme Court. Please vote for the Democrat.
And we're done with the articles of impeachment. I for one am convinced - my suspicions confirmed - that we need to get Bush and Cheney out.
Rebel Voices up next, then the big closing concert at 7:30.
David Lindorff and the Uni-Exec
Has an awesome white beard and speaks eloquently on the topic of the "unitary executive," the very scary idea that, because we are "at war with terror" (nonsense), the American executive should have legislative and judiciary power - over the world. After one of Bush's Justice Dept. cronies used the term, Bush started using it regularly in his signing statements.
Lindorff notes that Bush wants the president to be the person who can make war, instead of Congress. (Because of "terror," everywhere, invisible, visible, we are always at war; Bush never gives up power...)
The signing statements are Bush's worst trespasses, according to Lindorff.
Lindorff notes that Bush wants the president to be the person who can make war, instead of Congress. (Because of "terror," everywhere, invisible, visible, we are always at war; Bush never gives up power...)
The signing statements are Bush's worst trespasses, according to Lindorff.
Closing Day - Article V: Expansion of Executive Power
What's going on:
2:00 p.m. Participants include Harper's contributor and human rights attorney Scott Horton, former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, author David Lindorff, National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn, and Denis Moynihan of DemocracyNow!.
Performers include Josh Hamilton, Tracie Thoms, Ned Eisenberg, Grace Zandarski, and Tom Bower. (One of these performers is wearing a Revolutionary War-style tricorner hat. I'll have to investigate this.)
7:30 p.m. Closing celebration includes performance and commentary from John Nichols, Jackson Browne, Naomi Wolf, Duncan Sheik, Steven Sater, Holly Hunter, Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow!, Peter Matthiessen, Kathleen Chalfant, Aasif Mandvi, and others.
***
Right now, Marjorie Cohn (author of Cowboy Republic) and Elizabeth Holtzman (MVP from Article IV) are recapping why Nixon was impeached and what signing statements are. In Holtzman's view, Bush's signing statements are unprecedented, and his not following the law is an impeachable offense. She gets big claps (one standing).
***
Scott Horton takes the stand. Horton explains what certain of Bush's signing statements mean ("flagrant affronts to the Constitution"). The problem is, the statements - little codas that say "Well, as George Bush, I don't have to obey this law I'm signing - are supposed to be used to clarify, not change laws and how laws are executed. Congress makes laws; the executive must enforce them. Cohn asks what Congress could do to challenge Bush. Horton says there aren't many tools available - besides impeachment.
We hear a laundry list of Bush statements. Wow. Bush has pretty much exempted himself from having to tell anyone anything. Horton adds that Bush exempted himself from having to ask permission to use torture techniques like waterboarding on Gitmo detainees. Signing statements give Bush the power to override U.S. law and just torture mothertruckers.
We hear CIA torture-master John Kiriakou in his own words: The CIA didn't torture anyone "willy-nilly;" the orders came from Bush. Period.
Horton points out that even kings have been tried successfully for allowing torture. And we don't like no stinkin kings, right?
2:00 p.m. Participants include Harper's contributor and human rights attorney Scott Horton, former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, author David Lindorff, National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn, and Denis Moynihan of DemocracyNow!.
Performers include Josh Hamilton, Tracie Thoms, Ned Eisenberg, Grace Zandarski, and Tom Bower. (One of these performers is wearing a Revolutionary War-style tricorner hat. I'll have to investigate this.)
7:30 p.m. Closing celebration includes performance and commentary from John Nichols, Jackson Browne, Naomi Wolf, Duncan Sheik, Steven Sater, Holly Hunter, Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow!, Peter Matthiessen, Kathleen Chalfant, Aasif Mandvi, and others.
***
Right now, Marjorie Cohn (author of Cowboy Republic) and Elizabeth Holtzman (MVP from Article IV) are recapping why Nixon was impeached and what signing statements are. In Holtzman's view, Bush's signing statements are unprecedented, and his not following the law is an impeachable offense. She gets big claps (one standing).
***
Scott Horton takes the stand. Horton explains what certain of Bush's signing statements mean ("flagrant affronts to the Constitution"). The problem is, the statements - little codas that say "Well, as George Bush, I don't have to obey this law I'm signing - are supposed to be used to clarify, not change laws and how laws are executed. Congress makes laws; the executive must enforce them. Cohn asks what Congress could do to challenge Bush. Horton says there aren't many tools available - besides impeachment.
We hear a laundry list of Bush statements. Wow. Bush has pretty much exempted himself from having to tell anyone anything. Horton adds that Bush exempted himself from having to ask permission to use torture techniques like waterboarding on Gitmo detainees. Signing statements give Bush the power to override U.S. law and just torture mothertruckers.
We hear CIA torture-master John Kiriakou in his own words: The CIA didn't torture anyone "willy-nilly;" the orders came from Bush. Period.
Horton points out that even kings have been tried successfully for allowing torture. And we don't like no stinkin kings, right?
Monday, December 10, 2007
Surveillance Panel
Okay, Denis Moynihan of Democracy Now(!) is filling in for Amy Goodman as moderator; that's fine, we'll roll with it.
Holtzman fields a question about the nature/balance/ease of impeachment. Nixon's was bipartisan, Clinton's partisan.
Kadidal fields a question... (I miss most of it, reading about Moynihan and Goodman and Hustler magazine. Interesting but sort of psycho. Seems like Moynihan and Goodman are against exploitation, so, go them.)
Now we go to Valeriani, who says Nixon, if alive, would ask, regarding Bush's surveillance and its extraordinary success, "Why the hell didn't I do it?"
(Some thoughts on this very humorous older fellow - Valeriani in a Huffington Post blog post: "Bin Laden tape rants against capitalism. Yo, Osama, where did you get your millions? Tape also urges Americans to convert to Islam. No thanks, we prefer the 21st Century."
Huq quite ably defends Muslim-Americans in another H.F. post.
But don't worry, V. skewers everybody: "Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego announces $198 million settlement with plaintiffs who claimed they were sexually abused by priests. Big Bucks for Buggery.")
Valeriani is a journalist. He contacted Russians and worked in Cuba, back in the Cold War days, and had his phones tapped. The FBI called him routinely to ask him to help get Russians to give away sensitive information. When he didn't respond to FBI phone messages for two days, they showed up in front of buildings where he was headed. He had his records with the FBI checked - he was listed as "turned," a friendly informant. Lol.
Holtzman gets a round of vigorous applause for defending the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, no matter how hard such a process would be. (She's responding to V. and his assertion that - because, in the event of a successful B&C impeachment, Nancy Pelosi would become president - some might see an impeachment as an attempt at a "Democrat coup," which does sound silly, typing it.
She points out that a successful impeachment must be bipartisan; if Republicans don't want to impeach Bush, Democrats won't be able to do it alone.
Huq very smartly brings the whole question around to what will happen with the next president, regardless of her party? Will the next president not only abandon but help dismantle and prevent from being reinstated the illegal, warrantless surveillance programs? The extraordinary renditions to secret jails in Syria and Egypt? He defines the "Cheney version of the Constitution," which is that whenever the executive feels it needs to extend its powers in the name of national security, it simply can, no questions.
Don't think, Huq counsels, that a Pres. Obama or a Pres. Hillary won't use the Republican programs of domestic terror that Culture Project, Democracy Now(!), the CCR, the ACLU, and so many others are fighting against.
Valeriani speaks on "scar tissue," how we're no longer shocked by Bush's evils.
Audience Q1: Pressures on the election...
Holtzman says we need the president to be brought to justice, to show that Congress can do its thing(s) - pass laws and remove tyrants from office.
Audience Q2: If Pelosi hadn't taken impeachment off the table...
Kadidal, Holtzman, and Valeriani note that the American people and Dennis Kucinich want to impeach Bush; keep the pressure on, Pelosi will have to. It wasn't a problem (for the Speaker of the House - third in line for pres. after pres. and VP - to bring the pres. to justice) during Watergate.
Audience Q3: Cheney = brains of operation...
Valeriani: He lied about WMDs.
Huq: There's a great deal of public evidence about Cheney's aide's roles in setting aside FISA, torture laws, and the Geneva Conventions. You'd subpoena [Cheney's aides].
Audience Q4: How would ordinary people get Congress to listen, seriously...?
Holtzman: When was the last time you contacted your Congressperson? Get a meeting. Email. Get your block to sign a petition.
Moynihan has a show of hands for who gets the "Saturday Night Massacre" reference. (The audience, educated and in many cases old enough, gets it.)
Holtzman: The tapes were critical. Elliot Richardson appointed a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who looked for the tapes. The tapes got Nixon impeached. (People got fired, hence the massacre.) "We would have seen a similar event" - Ashcroft would have resigned. It's not clear what they changed to make their program compliant with FISA.
Audience Q5: 200,000 phone calls, that night, Saturday Night Massacre, to the Congress. We had 200,000 phone calls. You heard from us.
Audience Q6: Should we impeach Cheney first, because people seem to favor that, in polls? Then impeach Bush?
Holtzman (again): It will take a while to do two. It took a while for us to do one. We had to hire lawyers. The Democrats hired a Republican lawyer, and the Republicans hired a Republican lawyer. It hadn't been done in a hundred years - these things had to be studied. It took about nine months. So there's really enough time, to do it still. But there's not enough time to do Cheney and Bush. We have Bush's fingerprints on it. My whole view is to start the proceedings against Bush; we will accumulate evidence against Cheney.
One of the articles against Nixon was that he stonewalled us for information, and that was voted on by a bipartisan base. So there's a precedent. There's a lot of sentiment around the country for impeachment.
(Have any Congresspeople - Dems or Reps, candidates or not - seen our videos, site, blog? Do they know about this event? Shouldn't we, CP, tell them? Shouldn't we all?)
Huq: The Congress can hold court on its own. (Holtzman: We have our own jail!) The Congress can specifically subpoena the president and hold him in contempt if he doesn't show.
Qs-Final, there's a short storm of them.
Kadidal notes that other forms of government have Justice Departments that can go after corrupt executives. We do not have this. Certainly not in Mukasey...
Holtzman: What happened not only to Congress, but to the ACLU? I still believe it can be done, has to be done. With all the defects in the impeachment process, this is what the framers had exactly in mind. They were freaked about the misuse of power. They knew there was gonna be a Richard Nixon, a George Bush. There's too much misunderstanding about it. Even Obama said it's not democratic - it's in our Constitution, it's exactly democratic. What's the shape of our country going to be? No one else can make that decision for us?
***
This has been live blogging on surveillance; I'm back for one more live-blog-impeachy event on Sunday... (And, yes, for those who have read some of my earlier posts, I still like Obama but disagree with Obama on impeachment and wish Kucinich was as popular.)
Holtzman fields a question about the nature/balance/ease of impeachment. Nixon's was bipartisan, Clinton's partisan.
Kadidal fields a question... (I miss most of it, reading about Moynihan and Goodman and Hustler magazine. Interesting but sort of psycho. Seems like Moynihan and Goodman are against exploitation, so, go them.)
Now we go to Valeriani, who says Nixon, if alive, would ask, regarding Bush's surveillance and its extraordinary success, "Why the hell didn't I do it?"
(Some thoughts on this very humorous older fellow - Valeriani in a Huffington Post blog post: "Bin Laden tape rants against capitalism. Yo, Osama, where did you get your millions? Tape also urges Americans to convert to Islam. No thanks, we prefer the 21st Century."
Huq quite ably defends Muslim-Americans in another H.F. post.
But don't worry, V. skewers everybody: "Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego announces $198 million settlement with plaintiffs who claimed they were sexually abused by priests. Big Bucks for Buggery.")
Valeriani is a journalist. He contacted Russians and worked in Cuba, back in the Cold War days, and had his phones tapped. The FBI called him routinely to ask him to help get Russians to give away sensitive information. When he didn't respond to FBI phone messages for two days, they showed up in front of buildings where he was headed. He had his records with the FBI checked - he was listed as "turned," a friendly informant. Lol.
Holtzman gets a round of vigorous applause for defending the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, no matter how hard such a process would be. (She's responding to V. and his assertion that - because, in the event of a successful B&C impeachment, Nancy Pelosi would become president - some might see an impeachment as an attempt at a "Democrat coup," which does sound silly, typing it.
She points out that a successful impeachment must be bipartisan; if Republicans don't want to impeach Bush, Democrats won't be able to do it alone.
Huq very smartly brings the whole question around to what will happen with the next president, regardless of her party? Will the next president not only abandon but help dismantle and prevent from being reinstated the illegal, warrantless surveillance programs? The extraordinary renditions to secret jails in Syria and Egypt? He defines the "Cheney version of the Constitution," which is that whenever the executive feels it needs to extend its powers in the name of national security, it simply can, no questions.
Don't think, Huq counsels, that a Pres. Obama or a Pres. Hillary won't use the Republican programs of domestic terror that Culture Project, Democracy Now(!), the CCR, the ACLU, and so many others are fighting against.
Valeriani speaks on "scar tissue," how we're no longer shocked by Bush's evils.
Audience Q1: Pressures on the election...
Holtzman says we need the president to be brought to justice, to show that Congress can do its thing(s) - pass laws and remove tyrants from office.
Audience Q2: If Pelosi hadn't taken impeachment off the table...
Kadidal, Holtzman, and Valeriani note that the American people and Dennis Kucinich want to impeach Bush; keep the pressure on, Pelosi will have to. It wasn't a problem (for the Speaker of the House - third in line for pres. after pres. and VP - to bring the pres. to justice) during Watergate.
Audience Q3: Cheney = brains of operation...
Valeriani: He lied about WMDs.
Huq: There's a great deal of public evidence about Cheney's aide's roles in setting aside FISA, torture laws, and the Geneva Conventions. You'd subpoena [Cheney's aides].
Audience Q4: How would ordinary people get Congress to listen, seriously...?
Holtzman: When was the last time you contacted your Congressperson? Get a meeting. Email. Get your block to sign a petition.
Moynihan has a show of hands for who gets the "Saturday Night Massacre" reference. (The audience, educated and in many cases old enough, gets it.)
Holtzman: The tapes were critical. Elliot Richardson appointed a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, who looked for the tapes. The tapes got Nixon impeached. (People got fired, hence the massacre.) "We would have seen a similar event" - Ashcroft would have resigned. It's not clear what they changed to make their program compliant with FISA.
Audience Q5: 200,000 phone calls, that night, Saturday Night Massacre, to the Congress. We had 200,000 phone calls. You heard from us.
Audience Q6: Should we impeach Cheney first, because people seem to favor that, in polls? Then impeach Bush?
Holtzman (again): It will take a while to do two. It took a while for us to do one. We had to hire lawyers. The Democrats hired a Republican lawyer, and the Republicans hired a Republican lawyer. It hadn't been done in a hundred years - these things had to be studied. It took about nine months. So there's really enough time, to do it still. But there's not enough time to do Cheney and Bush. We have Bush's fingerprints on it. My whole view is to start the proceedings against Bush; we will accumulate evidence against Cheney.
One of the articles against Nixon was that he stonewalled us for information, and that was voted on by a bipartisan base. So there's a precedent. There's a lot of sentiment around the country for impeachment.
(Have any Congresspeople - Dems or Reps, candidates or not - seen our videos, site, blog? Do they know about this event? Shouldn't we, CP, tell them? Shouldn't we all?)
Huq: The Congress can hold court on its own. (Holtzman: We have our own jail!) The Congress can specifically subpoena the president and hold him in contempt if he doesn't show.
Qs-Final, there's a short storm of them.
Kadidal notes that other forms of government have Justice Departments that can go after corrupt executives. We do not have this. Certainly not in Mukasey...
Holtzman: What happened not only to Congress, but to the ACLU? I still believe it can be done, has to be done. With all the defects in the impeachment process, this is what the framers had exactly in mind. They were freaked about the misuse of power. They knew there was gonna be a Richard Nixon, a George Bush. There's too much misunderstanding about it. Even Obama said it's not democratic - it's in our Constitution, it's exactly democratic. What's the shape of our country going to be? No one else can make that decision for us?
***
This has been live blogging on surveillance; I'm back for one more live-blog-impeachy event on Sunday... (And, yes, for those who have read some of my earlier posts, I still like Obama but disagree with Obama on impeachment and wish Kucinich was as popular.)
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Sean Penn Rocks the Mic
For serious. Give this speech, delivered last night at San Francisco State, a read.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
In the News:
Bush's abstinence programs don't work;
the Guantánamo detainees get a day in (Supreme) court, sort of - says the NYTimes, "A majority of the court appeared ready to agree that the detainees [at Guantánamo Bay] were entitled to invoke some measure of constitutional protection," which sounds positive given the last few years of absolutely nada on the matter;
and I agree with Roger Cohen (creepy, I know) that Der Bush could learn from the quasi-humility displayed by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in accepting defeat-by-democracy, earlier this week. (Also, if you're interested in South American politics, check out UpsideDownWorld.)
Check out this from Cohen:
the Guantánamo detainees get a day in (Supreme) court, sort of - says the NYTimes, "A majority of the court appeared ready to agree that the detainees [at Guantánamo Bay] were entitled to invoke some measure of constitutional protection," which sounds positive given the last few years of absolutely nada on the matter;
and I agree with Roger Cohen (creepy, I know) that Der Bush could learn from the quasi-humility displayed by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in accepting defeat-by-democracy, earlier this week. (Also, if you're interested in South American politics, check out UpsideDownWorld.)
Check out this from Cohen:
Bill Clinton’s latest whining about press coverage of his wife, Mitt Romney’s latest broadside on immigration, the various spins of the Iran intelligence volte-face, and the sterile who’s-got-more-God competition between candidates, look like the machinations of a disoriented power.
The United States needs a new beginning. It cannot lie in the Tudor-Stuart-like alternation of the Bush-Clinton dynasties, nor in the macho militarism of Republicans who see war without end. It has to involve a fresh face that will reconcile the country with itself and the world, get over divisions — internal and external — and speak with honesty about American glory and shame.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Alec Baldwin moderates the Katrina Panel (long)
Alec Baldwin notes that, if you care, you think about "why" and "how it [everything Bush] got to this level" all the time. You have to train yourself to stop asking why, how...
At a dinner party, Alec Baldwin asked Bill Clinton about how spending by the government is prioritized. Clinton just gave him a look as if to say, "Don't go there." Baldwin discusses in general how we are all tied to the idea that government just gets to spend tons of money, gets to hire nepotistically... Very disturbing, discussed much by Lapham in books (why we are always at war).
Baldwin wonders what impeaching Bush with only one year left.
Baldwin to Cynthia Cooper: Can Bush be impeached for Katrina?
Cynthia Cooper and a prominent Watergate lawyer looked intensely at the question. Cooper says the president is supposed to uphold the law and take care. She says the Stafford Act very clearly is Bush's purview; he failed to uphold his duty to mobilize the government according to the Stafford Act. The president was specifically told that lives were on the line. He did nothing, prayed for a good outcome. He failed to live up to a presidential standard of upholding the law and Constitution.
Baldwin to Gardner: What do you think Bush should have done? What could have been done in two days?
Gardner: He could have stopped his vacation. He was on vacation. He could have show, on a basic level, compassion. Should have evacuated right away - helped those with no transportation get away from the [ginormous] hurricane. Judith Browne-Dianis says the administration just didn't care, figured the hurricane would literally blow over; people would forget that some citizens had been screwed over. The city's evacuation plan relied on buses, and the bus drivers left.
Erica Hunt points out that there was a yard full of buses only blocks from the Super Dome, unused...
Baldwin: Were there any heroes, of Katrina?
Cooper: National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield. He tried to personally motivate Bush.
Lapham: The government behaved exactly how it was supposed to, according to Republican ideologues - who want the smallest possible government. Two nations, divisible by magnitude. The more poor that can be eliminated, the better. The government has no purpose for the rich. They don't need the government. (More privatized cops now than public.)
Baldwin: The fraud and waste of the welfare system is minuscule compared to the fraud and waste of the defense system. Do you think Republicans hate the poor more because of what they cost the system, or more because they vote for Democrats?
Lapham: It's George Bernard Shaw. If you're poor, you deserve to be punished.
Baldwin: Do you think Bush should be literally impeached?
Browne-Dianis: I don't think it would happen now. We're going into an election year. I think he has done enough to show that he should be impeached.
Cooper: Absolutely. Even if on his last day in office. He has many more months to screw up this country.
Gardner: Totally. There was a growing movement to impeach him; the Dems won Congress; Pelosi took it off the table. Kucinich introduced it again.
Jackson: Yes. Bush has continued Reagan's campaign against the poor.
Hunt: Yes, impeachment may be in order, but she's concerned about the symbolism of impeachment and how it might obscure the root causes (of the crimes that led to impeachment). Off course Pelosi took it off the table - she doesn't believe in a common wealth, a common good, any more than most Republicans.
Lapham: Yes, on two grounds - Iraq, a criminal fraud. Second, it's the Constitutional task of the Congress to preserve the balance of power, to assert the legislative authority - unless it does that, it destroys the principle on which this country was set up. (I.e., not just Bush, but any president will be too powerful.)
Baldwin: What happened with Pelosi?
Lapham: Conyers made the grounds for impeachment clear; Pelosi didn't see it as politically useful and abandoned it.
Baldwin: Most people don't want to impeach a president at war, whether or not the war was just to start. Baldwin goes into a long story about Reagan - old-school, against taxes, in favor of letting people admit that they'd rather have a new swimming pool than social programs elsewhere - and how different Bush is. Bush sees Iraq as money to be made. The economy has to be in perpetual debt in order to cut useful social programs. He goes into the racket of war. (You can and should read the book War Is A Racket.)
Baldwin: Lewis, are these people [B&C] the same as we've seen before, and they've just been emboldened by Clinton-fatigue and 9/11? Or are they the worst you've ever seen?
Lapham: These guys are the worst I've ever seen. I see Bush the way I see Britney Spears. Spoiled rich kid adolescents. How do spoiled rich kids show their power? They break things. They spend money.
Baldwin: Goes off about how empty the Texas governorship was, even under Bush. He was a ribbon-cutter.
Baldwin: What can people do now? I don't want people to come into this room and have the "awareness orgasm" where they learn some facts, go home, and have completion. What should they do?
Browne-Dianis: I represent N.O. residents in class-action suits. People are getting kicked out of FEMA trailers. Rents are going up all over. Bulldozing public housing. The federal government runs the housing authority of New Orleans. They're demolishing brick public housing built to survive hurricanes (that did survive hurricanes - they just need new flooring and mold removal). But the plan is to keep the poor out. The right to return does not exist. We have tried ever legal way to stop the bulldozers. We have been denied. Local authorities don't want to be on the side of their constituents, the developers, in case the poor come back and vote somehow. But they don't want to be on the side of the poor. December 15th, let's do something to stop the bulldozers. (She leaves the stage to massive applause.)
Cooper: Let's get major media to look at impeachment. Call the public editor of the NYTimes.
Gardner: We have to stop the assault on the poor; public housing is being demolished all over. The Gulf Coast Recovery Act is being held up by a Republican senator from Louisiana, this jerk. We have to contact Sen. Charles Schumer and get him to pass the bill.
Jackson: December 10th, come to New Orleans. Get organized to stop the bulldozing on the 15th. Contact Jackson at jackson-action@hotmail.com. Help us get the GCRA bill passed. Fight that jerk Vitter; call Schumer.
Gardner: Go to http://www.peopleshurricane.org/.
Baldwin: Have a banner on the website to list everything. (Okay, note to self - I think I've just had my first freelance job request from Alec Baldwin.)
Hunt: Two great sites that can help you keep up with news and events are: Color of Change and Katrina Information Networkth.
Audience1: There's a rally in New York on the 10th. (Send CP info on this, please.)
Audience2: How/why can anyone respect the U.S. if it lets its president defraud us? We must impeach Bush.
Cooper: Bush won't turn over emails; his staff refuse to testify. Same as Watergate (but worse). The people have to stand up in larger and larger numbers and demand impeachment.
Audience3: During the 70s, we had more alternative news, a free press. How do we get the average Joe to know about the impeachment movement?
Cooper: Demanding it can only help; media activism is necessary.
Audience4: Barbara Jordan pointed out that unless we use impeachment, we might as well shred the Constitution. We have to make sacrifice to make change - stop shopping, go down to New Orleans. Buy a ticket, go down there, stand with the residents against bulldozers.
Audience5: I'm not really so sure whether Bush should be impeached. If we impeach Bush and the Dems win the next presidential election, the Reps will use impeachment against the Dems. (?) (Murmuring of dissatisfaction with question.)
Baldwin: Impeachment is a very difficult thing, on purpose. Long aside about Tom Delay. (More murmurs.)
Lapham: (Too quiet to hear, I think he said "it's necessary.")
Audience6: If you don't have time to go to New Orleans, I'm sure one of us displaced New Orleanians (sp?) would be willing to go in your place. (Applause.) If culture is demolished, what is the future of New Orleans?
Jackson: We had doctors, lawyers, musicians in public housing, not just drug-dealers. Really, public housing in New Orleans was not like they said (the media?).
Gardner: Now they're asking for expensive funeral permits. More about the destruction of culture in N.O.
Baldwin thanks everyone; we're out of time.
Cue zydeco. Cue applause.
At a dinner party, Alec Baldwin asked Bill Clinton about how spending by the government is prioritized. Clinton just gave him a look as if to say, "Don't go there." Baldwin discusses in general how we are all tied to the idea that government just gets to spend tons of money, gets to hire nepotistically... Very disturbing, discussed much by Lapham in books (why we are always at war).
Baldwin wonders what impeaching Bush with only one year left.
Baldwin to Cynthia Cooper: Can Bush be impeached for Katrina?
Cynthia Cooper and a prominent Watergate lawyer looked intensely at the question. Cooper says the president is supposed to uphold the law and take care. She says the Stafford Act very clearly is Bush's purview; he failed to uphold his duty to mobilize the government according to the Stafford Act. The president was specifically told that lives were on the line. He did nothing, prayed for a good outcome. He failed to live up to a presidential standard of upholding the law and Constitution.
Baldwin to Gardner: What do you think Bush should have done? What could have been done in two days?
Gardner: He could have stopped his vacation. He was on vacation. He could have show, on a basic level, compassion. Should have evacuated right away - helped those with no transportation get away from the [ginormous] hurricane. Judith Browne-Dianis says the administration just didn't care, figured the hurricane would literally blow over; people would forget that some citizens had been screwed over. The city's evacuation plan relied on buses, and the bus drivers left.
Erica Hunt points out that there was a yard full of buses only blocks from the Super Dome, unused...
Baldwin: Were there any heroes, of Katrina?
Cooper: National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield. He tried to personally motivate Bush.
Lapham: The government behaved exactly how it was supposed to, according to Republican ideologues - who want the smallest possible government. Two nations, divisible by magnitude. The more poor that can be eliminated, the better. The government has no purpose for the rich. They don't need the government. (More privatized cops now than public.)
Baldwin: The fraud and waste of the welfare system is minuscule compared to the fraud and waste of the defense system. Do you think Republicans hate the poor more because of what they cost the system, or more because they vote for Democrats?
Lapham: It's George Bernard Shaw. If you're poor, you deserve to be punished.
Baldwin: Do you think Bush should be literally impeached?
Browne-Dianis: I don't think it would happen now. We're going into an election year. I think he has done enough to show that he should be impeached.
Cooper: Absolutely. Even if on his last day in office. He has many more months to screw up this country.
Gardner: Totally. There was a growing movement to impeach him; the Dems won Congress; Pelosi took it off the table. Kucinich introduced it again.
Jackson: Yes. Bush has continued Reagan's campaign against the poor.
Hunt: Yes, impeachment may be in order, but she's concerned about the symbolism of impeachment and how it might obscure the root causes (of the crimes that led to impeachment). Off course Pelosi took it off the table - she doesn't believe in a common wealth, a common good, any more than most Republicans.
Lapham: Yes, on two grounds - Iraq, a criminal fraud. Second, it's the Constitutional task of the Congress to preserve the balance of power, to assert the legislative authority - unless it does that, it destroys the principle on which this country was set up. (I.e., not just Bush, but any president will be too powerful.)
Baldwin: What happened with Pelosi?
Lapham: Conyers made the grounds for impeachment clear; Pelosi didn't see it as politically useful and abandoned it.
Baldwin: Most people don't want to impeach a president at war, whether or not the war was just to start. Baldwin goes into a long story about Reagan - old-school, against taxes, in favor of letting people admit that they'd rather have a new swimming pool than social programs elsewhere - and how different Bush is. Bush sees Iraq as money to be made. The economy has to be in perpetual debt in order to cut useful social programs. He goes into the racket of war. (You can and should read the book War Is A Racket.)
Baldwin: Lewis, are these people [B&C] the same as we've seen before, and they've just been emboldened by Clinton-fatigue and 9/11? Or are they the worst you've ever seen?
Lapham: These guys are the worst I've ever seen. I see Bush the way I see Britney Spears. Spoiled rich kid adolescents. How do spoiled rich kids show their power? They break things. They spend money.
Baldwin: Goes off about how empty the Texas governorship was, even under Bush. He was a ribbon-cutter.
Baldwin: What can people do now? I don't want people to come into this room and have the "awareness orgasm" where they learn some facts, go home, and have completion. What should they do?
Browne-Dianis: I represent N.O. residents in class-action suits. People are getting kicked out of FEMA trailers. Rents are going up all over. Bulldozing public housing. The federal government runs the housing authority of New Orleans. They're demolishing brick public housing built to survive hurricanes (that did survive hurricanes - they just need new flooring and mold removal). But the plan is to keep the poor out. The right to return does not exist. We have tried ever legal way to stop the bulldozers. We have been denied. Local authorities don't want to be on the side of their constituents, the developers, in case the poor come back and vote somehow. But they don't want to be on the side of the poor. December 15th, let's do something to stop the bulldozers. (She leaves the stage to massive applause.)
Cooper: Let's get major media to look at impeachment. Call the public editor of the NYTimes.
Gardner: We have to stop the assault on the poor; public housing is being demolished all over. The Gulf Coast Recovery Act is being held up by a Republican senator from Louisiana, this jerk. We have to contact Sen. Charles Schumer and get him to pass the bill.
Jackson: December 10th, come to New Orleans. Get organized to stop the bulldozing on the 15th. Contact Jackson at jackson-action@hotmail.com. Help us get the GCRA bill passed. Fight that jerk Vitter; call Schumer.
Gardner: Go to http://www.peopleshurricane.org/.
Baldwin: Have a banner on the website to list everything. (Okay, note to self - I think I've just had my first freelance job request from Alec Baldwin.)
Hunt: Two great sites that can help you keep up with news and events are: Color of Change and Katrina Information Networkth.
Audience1: There's a rally in New York on the 10th. (Send CP info on this, please.)
Audience2: How/why can anyone respect the U.S. if it lets its president defraud us? We must impeach Bush.
Cooper: Bush won't turn over emails; his staff refuse to testify. Same as Watergate (but worse). The people have to stand up in larger and larger numbers and demand impeachment.
Audience3: During the 70s, we had more alternative news, a free press. How do we get the average Joe to know about the impeachment movement?
Cooper: Demanding it can only help; media activism is necessary.
Audience4: Barbara Jordan pointed out that unless we use impeachment, we might as well shred the Constitution. We have to make sacrifice to make change - stop shopping, go down to New Orleans. Buy a ticket, go down there, stand with the residents against bulldozers.
Audience5: I'm not really so sure whether Bush should be impeached. If we impeach Bush and the Dems win the next presidential election, the Reps will use impeachment against the Dems. (?) (Murmuring of dissatisfaction with question.)
Baldwin: Impeachment is a very difficult thing, on purpose. Long aside about Tom Delay. (More murmurs.)
Lapham: (Too quiet to hear, I think he said "it's necessary.")
Audience6: If you don't have time to go to New Orleans, I'm sure one of us displaced New Orleanians (sp?) would be willing to go in your place. (Applause.) If culture is demolished, what is the future of New Orleans?
Jackson: We had doctors, lawyers, musicians in public housing, not just drug-dealers. Really, public housing in New Orleans was not like they said (the media?).
Gardner: Now they're asking for expensive funeral permits. More about the destruction of culture in N.O.
Baldwin thanks everyone; we're out of time.
Cue zydeco. Cue applause.
Tiffany Gardner
IEM - Innovative Emergency Management - a private "risk management" firm. A client of the Livingstone Group, a P.R. lobby based in D.C. founded by a Louisiana Republican. IEM was brought on to work on Katrina but did not confer with LSU scientists who'd long been saying the city and levies were not prepared for a category 4 or 5 hurricane.
"Science was ignored" said on LSU scientist.
The evacuation - woefully inadequate - was called a complete success at the time.
Gardner echoes Jackson's report that no plans were made to help poor people with no transportation. Keep in mind that Louisiana is one of the poorest states in America; Orleans one of its poorest parishes (counties). One Lower Ninth Ward resident did try to evacuate his family, but his car was too small to accommodate his whole family; he stayed behind.
Q: Does the blame go all the way to the top?
A: Definitely. The Stafford Act is Bush's to carry out. The statement that the levies were not supposed to fail was a lie. Bush knew they would fail; scientists had briefed him.
"Science was ignored" said on LSU scientist.
The evacuation - woefully inadequate - was called a complete success at the time.
Gardner echoes Jackson's report that no plans were made to help poor people with no transportation. Keep in mind that Louisiana is one of the poorest states in America; Orleans one of its poorest parishes (counties). One Lower Ninth Ward resident did try to evacuate his family, but his car was too small to accommodate his whole family; he stayed behind.
Q: Does the blame go all the way to the top?
A: Definitely. The Stafford Act is Bush's to carry out. The statement that the levies were not supposed to fail was a lie. Bush knew they would fail; scientists had briefed him.
Judith Browne-Dianis
...reads a detailed, specific article of impeachment against B&C.
Basically, the Stafford Act says that the government - FEMA - will help out after such giant disasters as Hurricane Katrina. Bush is ultimately responsible. (Here's an argument about whether or not the Act is outdated.)
Now a discussion of what we knew beforehand, what was done about it.
Bush was briefed that the levy system would be breached. Then he lied about it later, saying "no one expected" the levies to break at all. He had an opportunity pre-storm to make changes, didn't do it. Nuh-unh.
Budgets for hurricane protection were actually slashed before Katrina, ostensibly in order to fund the War on Terror, elsewhere...
The court calls Sam Jackon to the stage...
Basically, the Stafford Act says that the government - FEMA - will help out after such giant disasters as Hurricane Katrina. Bush is ultimately responsible. (Here's an argument about whether or not the Act is outdated.)
Now a discussion of what we knew beforehand, what was done about it.
Bush was briefed that the levy system would be breached. Then he lied about it later, saying "no one expected" the levies to break at all. He had an opportunity pre-storm to make changes, didn't do it. Nuh-unh.
Budgets for hurricane protection were actually slashed before Katrina, ostensibly in order to fund the War on Terror, elsewhere...
The court calls Sam Jackon to the stage...
Monday, November 26, 2007
Torture Panel
Moderated by Vincent Warren, senior staff counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation. Carol Gilligan joins Warren, McKelvey, Fein, and Hafetz.
Fein compares U.S. power binge to Rome. I also think about Pakistan, as the situation there comes to a head - executive privilege versus public consensus that wants anything but. We are, of course, still a more free nation than Rome or Pakistan (as Fein says, "We, the people, still rule"), but "the disease of executive omnipotence is one" that will snowball into the future. More about Nixon. [Applause.]
Gilligan brings up the stolen (pres.) election. (I think many of us agree there was at least one.) We had trouble feeling pride when our votes didn't turn out to count. (Author concurs.) The elections aren't slated topics for impeachment debate in this series - though as David Swanson pointed out last time, there's so much to impeach them for - but I wonder if they wouldn't be worth including in a draft of impeachment articles. "We think you stole the election, Bush."
McKelvey, Ratner, and Hafetz are unfortunately too quiet for me to hear at all (the video will fill in). Actually, most of the rest I can't hear. The audience is packed, attentive, quiet, asking long questions. This panel isn't as fast and conflicted as the last, but .
In the booth, I have several video monitor views as well as a long natural view of the stage. (The video aspect of this event is exciting and reminds me of my favorite deepthinking site, TED.)
Gilligan brings back the election, and the gender gap between female votes for Gore and male votes for Bush. "Are you a real man?" She indicts men in general for violence, which is fair I suppose historically, given that men have pretty much run all the armies until now (Nancy Pelosi, Indira G., A. Markel, Sharkosky's wife).
Ratner notes that Maureen Dowd notes that Dems are afraid to seem unmanly, that people like Obama must try to seem "hard" while admitting that, hey, they're not into the war-thing. (Disclosure: I am a bigger fan of Obama than of the other leading Democratic candidates.)
Warren points out that the president says that people who say the president is wrong are terrorists, and this is part of the big problem with the "impeach the who? no way!" mentality. Regarding the abuses of presidential power, the paranoid have been right. (War with Iran, anyone?)
Gilligan recommends focusing on the arts.
Questions wrap up; Buchman grabs the mic to give props to Howard Zinn. "Our problem today is not civil disobedience, but civil obedience." Word up.
Night Three is now one for the video archives...
Fein compares U.S. power binge to Rome. I also think about Pakistan, as the situation there comes to a head - executive privilege versus public consensus that wants anything but. We are, of course, still a more free nation than Rome or Pakistan (as Fein says, "We, the people, still rule"), but "the disease of executive omnipotence is one" that will snowball into the future. More about Nixon. [Applause.]
Gilligan brings up the stolen (pres.) election. (I think many of us agree there was at least one.) We had trouble feeling pride when our votes didn't turn out to count. (Author concurs.) The elections aren't slated topics for impeachment debate in this series - though as David Swanson pointed out last time, there's so much to impeach them for - but I wonder if they wouldn't be worth including in a draft of impeachment articles. "We think you stole the election, Bush."
McKelvey, Ratner, and Hafetz are unfortunately too quiet for me to hear at all (the video will fill in). Actually, most of the rest I can't hear. The audience is packed, attentive, quiet, asking long questions. This panel isn't as fast and conflicted as the last, but .
In the booth, I have several video monitor views as well as a long natural view of the stage. (The video aspect of this event is exciting and reminds me of my favorite deepthinking site, TED.)
Gilligan brings back the election, and the gender gap between female votes for Gore and male votes for Bush. "Are you a real man?" She indicts men in general for violence, which is fair I suppose historically, given that men have pretty much run all the armies until now (Nancy Pelosi, Indira G., A. Markel, Sharkosky's wife).
Ratner notes that Maureen Dowd notes that Dems are afraid to seem unmanly, that people like Obama must try to seem "hard" while admitting that, hey, they're not into the war-thing. (Disclosure: I am a bigger fan of Obama than of the other leading Democratic candidates.)
Warren points out that the president says that people who say the president is wrong are terrorists, and this is part of the big problem with the "impeach the who? no way!" mentality. Regarding the abuses of presidential power, the paranoid have been right. (War with Iran, anyone?)
Gilligan recommends focusing on the arts.
Questions wrap up; Buchman grabs the mic to give props to Howard Zinn. "Our problem today is not civil disobedience, but civil obedience." Word up.
Night Three is now one for the video archives...
Bruce Fein on Torture
Covers the ideas behind impeachment again, eloquently, going briefly into Nixon's offenses. We learn that Europeans have testified that torture is useless; Fein asks why then do B&C employ it. (Hubris, anyone?)
Torture doesn't have a definition ala geometry (paraphrasing); one example, though, we prosecuted Japanese soldiers who water-boarded American soldiers in WWII. Fein's quickest definition: "If you thought you would read about it in The Gulag Archipelago... [it's torture]." Nice.
Criminal intent must be present so as to prevent vagueness (the torturer must know what he/she's doing).
Extraordinary rendition - we send "bad guys" to countries that don't mind torture so much, such as Egypt. One big problem, Fein points out, is that this is a secret process; government transparency is lost; executive can act without consultation, without openness. ("The informing" power/process of Congress.)
According to Fein, if you know what is going to happen when you release a prisoner into the care of a sovereign who uses torture, than you yourself are guilty of torture according to U.S. law. Why, asks Fein, do we outsource any justice to other countries? Why don't we take command of our own justice system, top to bottom?
You can't, Fein points out, torture to save lives, just because someone may know something about, let's say, a bomb. We have to accept that bombs will go off; we will find bombers; we will not torture them, jail them sans habeas corpus.
[Applause.]
(Para:) The legal rationale [to Bush's expanded powers] is the rationale of a monarch, of a Hammurabi, who can change his mind at any time.
(Para:) You cannot have a president making claims to powers such as the right to torture, for any reason. You cannot have Bush issuing signing statements that say "yes, but... [I reserve the right to do whatever I want]."
Torture doesn't have a definition ala geometry (paraphrasing); one example, though, we prosecuted Japanese soldiers who water-boarded American soldiers in WWII. Fein's quickest definition: "If you thought you would read about it in The Gulag Archipelago... [it's torture]." Nice.
Criminal intent must be present so as to prevent vagueness (the torturer must know what he/she's doing).
Extraordinary rendition - we send "bad guys" to countries that don't mind torture so much, such as Egypt. One big problem, Fein points out, is that this is a secret process; government transparency is lost; executive can act without consultation, without openness. ("The informing" power/process of Congress.)
According to Fein, if you know what is going to happen when you release a prisoner into the care of a sovereign who uses torture, than you yourself are guilty of torture according to U.S. law. Why, asks Fein, do we outsource any justice to other countries? Why don't we take command of our own justice system, top to bottom?
You can't, Fein points out, torture to save lives, just because someone may know something about, let's say, a bomb. We have to accept that bombs will go off; we will find bombers; we will not torture them, jail them sans habeas corpus.
[Applause.]
(Para:) The legal rationale [to Bush's expanded powers] is the rationale of a monarch, of a Hammurabi, who can change his mind at any time.
(Para:) You cannot have a president making claims to powers such as the right to torture, for any reason. You cannot have Bush issuing signing statements that say "yes, but... [I reserve the right to do whatever I want]."
Monday, November 19, 2007
Bush and 9/11
9/11 - Bush called it "The Pearl Harbor of the 20th Century," a mandate for broader war. They (B/C) considered radical Islam the principal enemy to American hegemony and control of oil in the Mid-East.
"Drain the swamp" - is what they wanted to do; go in, steal the oil; remove the cancer of extreme Islam.
But, again, we return to what they said out loud to the American people: "Not only did they not talk about [oil, empire], they vehemently denied" that war would have anything to do with anything other than democracy and justice.
The live-feed, by the by, is about eight feet wide by five tall, projected on a high part of the white wall jutting up and out from above the CP box office. A dozen or fewer patrons watch, enjoying themselves (seems like). The audio could be louder, but it's definitely intelligible.
Larry Everest was being interviewed. He was very astute. I'll have to read his books. He comes out and greets (his wife?). A dapper-looking man. The producers are also around, watching.
Now here comes Ray McGovern. He studied Russian and worked in the CIA. Let me start a new post for him...
"Drain the swamp" - is what they wanted to do; go in, steal the oil; remove the cancer of extreme Islam.
But, again, we return to what they said out loud to the American people: "Not only did they not talk about [oil, empire], they vehemently denied" that war would have anything to do with anything other than democracy and justice.
The live-feed, by the by, is about eight feet wide by five tall, projected on a high part of the white wall jutting up and out from above the CP box office. A dozen or fewer patrons watch, enjoying themselves (seems like). The audio could be louder, but it's definitely intelligible.
Larry Everest was being interviewed. He was very astute. I'll have to read his books. He comes out and greets (his wife?). A dapper-looking man. The producers are also around, watching.
Now here comes Ray McGovern. He studied Russian and worked in the CIA. Let me start a new post for him...
Impeachy Night Deux, .2
Okay, FYI, here's the skinny on tonight's combatants:
Monday, November 19 - 7:00 p.m. Article I: Initiation and Continuation of Illegal War.
Participants include Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright, Elizabeth de la Vega, Hendrik Hertzberg, Ray McGovern, Larry Everest, and David Swanson.
Performers include Kristen Johnston, Willie Garson, Nana Mensah, Chris McKinney, Courtney Esser, and Scott Cohen.
My growing concern is that the attorneys (E. De la Vega is the person asking questions right now), who probably feel that B/C should be impeached, aren't going to go all apeshit hardball on the witnesses, who probably agree with the attorneys. So we're watching a three-hour (now two-hour) love-fest between two groups of smart people - one more versed in the lingo of law, one more loaded with historical and political terms.
The major villain seems to be ultra-right-wing political think tank PNAC - Project for the New American Century.
The gist right now: Airstrikes were ordered against Iraq right away when Bush came to power, sans inciting incident. The Bush/Cheney rhetoric was isolationist in nature, but they wanted to let the world know (paradoxically) that they'd be intervening in the region. Sans inciting incident.
Monday, November 19 - 7:00 p.m. Article I: Initiation and Continuation of Illegal War.
Participants include Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright, Elizabeth de la Vega, Hendrik Hertzberg, Ray McGovern, Larry Everest, and David Swanson.
Performers include Kristen Johnston, Willie Garson, Nana Mensah, Chris McKinney, Courtney Esser, and Scott Cohen.
My growing concern is that the attorneys (E. De la Vega is the person asking questions right now), who probably feel that B/C should be impeached, aren't going to go all apeshit hardball on the witnesses, who probably agree with the attorneys. So we're watching a three-hour (now two-hour) love-fest between two groups of smart people - one more versed in the lingo of law, one more loaded with historical and political terms.
The major villain seems to be ultra-right-wing political think tank PNAC - Project for the New American Century.
The gist right now: Airstrikes were ordered against Iraq right away when Bush came to power, sans inciting incident. The Bush/Cheney rhetoric was isolationist in nature, but they wanted to let the world know (paradoxically) that they'd be intervening in the region. Sans inciting incident.
Grim News/Further Evidence
As in, the news is grim, and I find it all further cause to doubt the Bush regime's ability to ethically govern an anthill, let alone Bushlandia, er, I mean, America.
Here are some of the problems: On the same day the US military announces plans to arm tribal groups in Pakistan to combat terrorism, it also announces that attacks in Iraq have fallen to their lowest levels since... last year.
Neither of these announcements strike me as Bush triumphs. The Surge (and that insipid name - it was a soft drink! a green soft drink, I tell you!) has pushed things back all the way to the golden days of Feb., 2006, when we were all so innocent about what was happening o'er yonder in the desert.
The Pakistani tribal arms-deals worry me even more. (And why announce them? Aren't these just the sort of silly clandestine activities that we're supposed to hear about thirty years later, after all involved CIA agents have retired and bought bungalows in Havana?) With the entire nation about to crack up over its dictator/president's attempt to stay in power, should the US really be meddling, somewhere in the back of party, handing out guns and whippets to a bunch of tribal dudes who - sure, may not love al-Qaeda - but also may not love the US? And whose opinions, which we probably don't know very well, could change quickly. Especially given, you know, the whole country's cracking up...
That's 5th grade wisdom, friends: Wait until the civil war clears up to start massive militias. (The Times' article's lead picture is of a member of "the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that has about 85,000 soldiers, stood guard at a bazaar.")
In gooder news (allow my purposely lapsed grammar to indicate my disdain for all this positive Republi-statusquo "we're doin' okay!"-mongering), Bush and Rice are pushing for Mid-East peace, finally, as well as peace with North Korea. This is something of a turn-around, since B&R (hereforward "The Warriors," after the movie gang) declined to continue with Bill Clinton's Mid-East/N.K. peace plans.
A friend of Roger Cohen predicts the latest Mid-East talks will be "a unique example of failure," which strikes me as fine way to phrase the general outlook for the waning Bush presidency. Failure. And not even good ole American stealin'-shit failure, as with Nixon. Bush's failure is all his own.
Finally, our last depressing world fact comes to us courtesy the National Endowment from the Arts, which reports that children aren't reading as much as they used to. Well, thanks for that statistic. "The Surge is working" (a lie disguised to keep us happy about our state of constant war?) coupled with "kids ain't reedin no mor" (a truth revealed to depress us into inaction?).
Happy Monday.
Here are some of the problems: On the same day the US military announces plans to arm tribal groups in Pakistan to combat terrorism, it also announces that attacks in Iraq have fallen to their lowest levels since... last year.
Neither of these announcements strike me as Bush triumphs. The Surge (and that insipid name - it was a soft drink! a green soft drink, I tell you!) has pushed things back all the way to the golden days of Feb., 2006, when we were all so innocent about what was happening o'er yonder in the desert.
The Pakistani tribal arms-deals worry me even more. (And why announce them? Aren't these just the sort of silly clandestine activities that we're supposed to hear about thirty years later, after all involved CIA agents have retired and bought bungalows in Havana?) With the entire nation about to crack up over its dictator/president's attempt to stay in power, should the US really be meddling, somewhere in the back of party, handing out guns and whippets to a bunch of tribal dudes who - sure, may not love al-Qaeda - but also may not love the US? And whose opinions, which we probably don't know very well, could change quickly. Especially given, you know, the whole country's cracking up...
That's 5th grade wisdom, friends: Wait until the civil war clears up to start massive militias. (The Times' article's lead picture is of a member of "the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that has about 85,000 soldiers, stood guard at a bazaar.")
In gooder news (allow my purposely lapsed grammar to indicate my disdain for all this positive Republi-statusquo "we're doin' okay!"-mongering), Bush and Rice are pushing for Mid-East peace, finally, as well as peace with North Korea. This is something of a turn-around, since B&R (hereforward "The Warriors," after the movie gang) declined to continue with Bill Clinton's Mid-East/N.K. peace plans.
A friend of Roger Cohen predicts the latest Mid-East talks will be "a unique example of failure," which strikes me as fine way to phrase the general outlook for the waning Bush presidency. Failure. And not even good ole American stealin'-shit failure, as with Nixon. Bush's failure is all his own.
Finally, our last depressing world fact comes to us courtesy the National Endowment from the Arts, which reports that children aren't reading as much as they used to. Well, thanks for that statistic. "The Surge is working" (a lie disguised to keep us happy about our state of constant war?) coupled with "kids ain't reedin no mor" (a truth revealed to depress us into inaction?).
Happy Monday.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
The Buzz Begins...
I'm here in the maroon dimness of Culture Project, awaiting the beginning of A Question of Impeachment, a theater smorgasbord to be much blogged-about by myself (Wythe Marschall, a writer of fiction) and Isaac Butler of the ever-thought-provoking Parabasis.
I believe Mr. Butler will be giving you the thoroughly researched, annotated, conscientious version. I don't ordinarily write "non"-fiction and find the term itself highly dubious. So mine will be the Gonzo emotive highly biased version.
Disclaimers: I am a former and current employee of Culture Project, the theater that's producing A Question of Impeachment. From August 2006 to August 2007 I was their marketing director, and now I'm a roving content manager for their website and graphic designer for their programs.
Further disclaimers: I'm an ultra-progressive. I myself have no doubt that Bush and Cheney should be impeached and brought to justice. (I'm open to arguments, of course; feel free to post why they shouldn't be impeached.)
Currently, someone bald who reminds me of Rinde Eckert is singing a folk-song about the relative literal, metaphorical, and moral wealth of Americans. A decent song. He stops. Sound check is over. Almost two hundred people are crammed impossibly into the tiny Culture Project lobby, watching a huge projection of information about the President and Vice President's crimes.
The house opens...
I'm told to turn the brightness on my monitor all the way down... Okay, going ninja/ghost-mode...
Let the impeachment begin!
I believe Mr. Butler will be giving you the thoroughly researched, annotated, conscientious version. I don't ordinarily write "non"-fiction and find the term itself highly dubious. So mine will be the Gonzo emotive highly biased version.
Disclaimers: I am a former and current employee of Culture Project, the theater that's producing A Question of Impeachment. From August 2006 to August 2007 I was their marketing director, and now I'm a roving content manager for their website and graphic designer for their programs.
Further disclaimers: I'm an ultra-progressive. I myself have no doubt that Bush and Cheney should be impeached and brought to justice. (I'm open to arguments, of course; feel free to post why they shouldn't be impeached.)
Currently, someone bald who reminds me of Rinde Eckert is singing a folk-song about the relative literal, metaphorical, and moral wealth of Americans. A decent song. He stops. Sound check is over. Almost two hundred people are crammed impossibly into the tiny Culture Project lobby, watching a huge projection of information about the President and Vice President's crimes.
The house opens...
I'm told to turn the brightness on my monitor all the way down... Okay, going ninja/ghost-mode...
Let the impeachment begin!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Well, this says quite a lot
From today's White House press briefing (with Scott Stanzel in for a vacationing Tony Snow):
Question: Scott, is Scooter Libby getting more than equal justice under the law? Is he getting special treatment?Scott Stanzel: Well, I guess I don't know what you mean by equal justice under the law.
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