imprisonbush.com

Once, we linked to a web site called Impeach Bush Now, which was found at impeach-bush-now.org

When they said now, I guess they meant later, or maybe never. They just gave up, and shut down their shop. Now, if you go to visit that domain, you’ll find a filler generic web site that has been automatically generated, and includes such repulsive material as a link promising free articles written by Ann Coulter from the right wing resource site Human Events.

This is what happens when you give up the fight – it’s worse than just a subtraction of your efforts. In the place of your work to hold George W. Bush to account, advertisements for right wing radicals are erected.

We’ll no longer link to Impeach Bush Now. If you’re a member of a pro-impeachment group that would like a link, however, give us a holler.

I’ve spent the last six years thinking that the Democrats in Congress were collaborating with the Republicans only because they weren’t in power, and thus didn’t have the power to do what’s right, and stand up to the Republican right wing agenda. I’m starting to see that I was wrong, and that the Democrats’ wimpy demeanor was genuine expression of their political identity all along.

Now that they’ve been elected to majority control of Congress, the Democrats are falling all over themselves to show that they won’t stand up to the Republicans. Witness Congressman Charles Rangel, who declared this weekend, “We don’t want really a fight with the president. What we want to do is to prove we can govern for the next two years.”

The Democrats don’t want to fight George W. Bush? What the hell do they think that they were elected to do, to have tea parties with the Republicans?

What is the use of having the Democrats in power in Congress if they aren’t willing to fight a President gone out of control? What does balance of power mean if they won’t stop a President who has openly flouted the basic laws of war that have been legally binding in the United States? What good are the Democrats if they are willing to allow the President to remain above the law?

When the President of the United States is throwing people into prison without criminal charge and torturing them, taking away habeas corpus, and spying on peaceful, law-abiding Americans who dare to be political dissidents, impeachment is not a radical option. The truly radical choice in this situation is to refuse to impeach the President, as the Democrats in Congress have done.

These Democrats are wimps.

Once upon a time, impeachment activists said that if only we could re-elect a Democratic majority to Congress, then we’d see some accountability and oversight of the Bush Administration. Now, we see that the new Democratic leadership of Congress is declaring that they just plain refuse to consider impeaching President Bush, no matter what crimes he has committed. The Democrats in Congress are saying that, mostly, they don’t want to bother investigating what crimes and abuses George W. Bush has committed in the past. They just want to talk about the future.

In other words, the Democrats in Congress don’t want to take any strong actions that could jeopardize their re-election. Accountability and oversight are being sacrificed for the sake of power.

So, in November 2006, we are faced with the surprising situation of having to struggle against the Democratic leadership in Congress, and attempt to create a grassroots effort to convince members of Congress, one by one, that it is their duty to work to impeach Bush.

The time for accountability is running short, but such a grassroots network is beginning to form. Over at Democrats.com, there’s a list of people in in 58 congressional districts across the country who are willing to form the kernels of grassroots lobbying groups dedicated to persuading members of Congress representing those districts to stand for impeachment.

I love the irony of an organization that promotes unity and loyalty to the Democratic Party realizing that it has to confront Democrats and try to compel them to support the values that Democratic voters believe in. At least, however, they are giving it a try, and not abandoning impeachment. Good for them for that.

The irony of the threat posed by the new Democratic majority in Congress to the movement to impeach President Bush has not been lost on many bloggers.

The consequences of the paranoid worship of fear promoted by the Department of Homeland Security are this: Police are now electrocuting students for studying in school libraries without proper identification. You think I’m exaggerating? Watch the video you see below, which was captured by a witness with a cell phone video camera:

The student did nothing violent. He did not break the law. He was just trying to study in his own university’s library, when a security sweep of the library by armed police officers took place. There was no reason for the police officers to believe that any crimes were being committed in the library. No one had complained about any suspicious activity in the library. But, police officers started blustering through the library on the UCLA campus anyway, demanding that all students show them identification or be kicked out of the library.

The student you’ll hear screaming in pain in this video, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, refused to show his ID, because he didn’t believe that the police had the legal right to search him without cause. So, the police told him to leave. Tabatabainejad gathered his things into his backpack and was walking toward the exit, but the police followed him anyway, grabbed him, and started to electrocute him with a taser stun gun. The police electrocuted the student at least four or five times, even though Tabatabainejad did nothing violent.

Then, the police threatened other students who were witnesses, telling them that they would be shocked with the stun gun if they didn’t leave the scene of the brutality.

All this took place because the police said that they needed to establish security… in a library where students were peacefully reading books and writing term papers. This is an all-too-telling example of what the paranoid terror of Homeland Security has done to America. The war on terror has promoted terror right here in the United States of America.

What will the new Democratic Congress do to stop this new reign of terror? So far, it looks as if they will do nothing.

People didn’t want to believe it. When we wrote here last month that John Conyers had promised Nancy Pelosi not to seek the impeachment of George W. Bush, people were skeptical. Surely, the Democrats would impeach Bush. Surely, if we would just vote the Democrats into a majority control of Congress, they’d work seriously to make things right.

One of our readers, Markus Q, doubted that John Conyers would really back away from H.Res. 635. He asked, “Do you actually have any evidence that he (as you put it) has promised not to bring any action before the House of Representatives that would lead to impeachment?”

Is this evidence enough for you? In an email sent out to his supporters today, Conyers wrote, “As many of you also know, I have agreed with Speaker-to-be Pelosi that impeachment is off the table.”

If that’s not enough evidence for you, call the office of John Conyers yourself at (202) 225-5126. Ask the staff there. They’ll confirm it for you. John Conyers is now against impeaching Bush.

It seems that the prospect of impeachment was just a tease the congressional Democrats used in order to get back into the majority control of the House of Representatives. Just imagine John Conyers as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, they said. It was hard to imagine Congressman Conyers would not use his new power to seek impeachment. But that’s what’s going on.

Bait and switch. We’ve been used by Conyers, and Pelosi, and the House Democratic leadership.

John Conyers is going to use his new powers as chair of the House Judiciary Committee to exercise oversight in areas such as patent and
copyright laws. Much, much, more important than restoring the rule of law, right?

I admit that I’ve stolen this graphic from the front web page of the New York State Greens, where I found it this evening. But come now, and forgive me for this theft. After all, you’ve got to admit that this photograph is worth seeing. Besides, I’ve given the Greens a link back, and happy traffic to them.

I want merely to observe this tonight: It has now fallen to the likes of the Green Party to speak strongly of impeachment for George W. Bush in response to his many crimes. It is now regarded as an ethic of that far left in America to hold people in power responsible when they break the law and betray their Oath of Office.

The Democrats, led by collaborationists Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, have declared that they will not impeach President Bush, no matter what it is discovered Bush has done. Impeachment, they say “would be a waste of time”.

Yes, maintaining the rule of law in America takes time and effort. That does not, however, make it a waste of time.

The real waste occurs when our politicians allow the rule of law to fall by the wayside because it has become politically inconvenient.

Here’s an interesting twist in the 2006 congressional elections: Nancy Pelosi has promised to keep impeachment of George W. Bush off the table. Pelosi says that impeachment would be a “waste of time”. Under Pelosi’s leadership in the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party will become the second political party dedicating to obstructing the impeachment of George W. Bush.

The campaign of Krissy Keefer for Congress offers an alternative for the voters of California’s 8th congressional district. She’s for impeachment. Check out her energetic message in the video below: