imprisonbush.com

Why is the Democratic Congress so unpopular? It isn’t because the Democrats in Congress are taking strong stands that anger Republican voters. Rather, it is because most Democrats in Congress are failing to act on the majority, mainstream view in America: That George W. Bush and Dick Cheney must be impeached.

Dennis Kucinich has introduced a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, but Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has tried to destroy that resolution even before Congress has the chance to debate the resolution’s merits.

The editors of the Battleboro Reformer, a Vermont newspaper, rightly identify Pelosi’s opposition to impeachment as “a perfect illustration of why Congress has a lower approval rating than President Bush.” They write,

“A Democratic majority was elected to Congress last year to end the war in Iraq and rein in the Bush administration. Neither thing has happened. On issue after issue, the Democrats have caved in to Bush. And impeachment remains off the table.

Under House rules, Kucinich or any other member could introduce a motion for impeachment every day that Congress is in session. We think that sounds like a good idea. The administration has committed many crimes that rise to the level of impeachment — chief among them lying about the need to invade Iraq and sending this country into war based upon those lies. But Congress will not carry out its constitutional duties.

Bush and Cheney must not be allowed to leave office without being held accountable for their behavior. History will not look at the current members of Congress kindly if they fail to do what is right and necessary to preserve our democracy.”

Read the complete editorial here.

Yesterday, Dennis Kucinich brought a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney to the floor of the House of Representatives.

In what is certainly a disappointment, but is no longer surprising, the Democratic Party leadership tried to have the impeachment resolution eliminated even before it could be considered and debated in Congress. They tried to squelch the popular Democratic support for impeachment.

Some Democrats had enough integrity to break away from their leaders’ treachery against Democratic voters. 86 Democrats voted against eliminating the impeachment resolution. They succeeded. The resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney remains alive, to go to John Conyers in the House Judiciary Committee.

Call Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers today, to tell him you want that impeachment resolution to be approved by his committee. His office’s number is (202) 225-5126.

The following are the 86 Democrats in the House of Representatives who voted to preserve the resolution to impeach Cheney. If your Representative is among them, give a call of thanks today.

Abercrombie
Allen
Baca
Baldwin
Braley (IA)
Capps
Capuano
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Cohen
Conyers
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
Dicks
Doggett
Doyle
Ellison
Farr
Filner
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hare
Hinchey
Hirono
Hodes
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Inslee
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Johnson (GA)
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kilpatrick
Kucinich
Lee
Loebsack
Maloney (NY)
McDermott
Meeks (NY)
Michaud
Moore (WI)
Moran (VA)
Napolitano
Ortiz
Pallone
Pascrell
Perlmutter
Price (NC)
Rangel
Richardson
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Slaughter
Solis
Stark
Stupak
Sutton
Thompson (CA)
Towns
Velazquez
Waters
Watson
Watt
Weiner
Welch (VT)
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn

If your Representative is not on this list, give a call today and ask them to change their position.

At the end of last week, the right wing played Nancy Pelosi like a marionette.

The right wing got outraged. Nancy Pelosi cowered. The right wing demanded action. Nancy Pelosi obeyed.

Why was the right wing so angry? A Democrat in Congress dared to call it like it is. Congressman Peter Stark criticized George W. Bush for keeping American troops in Iraq to “have their heads blown off for the President’s amusement”.

It sounds harsh, but is it not so? Is the Iraq War not an amusement for President Bush? Wasn’t the war unnecessary from the start, with President Bush’s knowledge that there was no real threat from Iraq to any other nation? Isn’t it equally unnecessary for the Iraq War to continue? Isn’t the Iraq War continuing so that George W. Bush can avoid feeling bad about himself, so that he can continue to feel amused by his power?

Maybe Congressman Stark’s exact words were undiplomatic, but so what? After all these years of profound failure from the Bush Republicans and the Pelosi Democrats, isn’t it about time that a member of Congress stood up spoke plainly, without the soft tones of diplomacy? Isn’t it time we stop pretending that reasonable people can disagree about the crimes of the Bush presidency?

Reasonable people cannot disagree any more on this subject. The facts are out there, and anyone who says that George W. Bush has not broken the law is in severe denial.

I might have more sympathy for Nancy Pelosi’s rebuke of Peter Stark if she had ever directed one fraction of the wrath she has shown to Congressman Stark to the person who really deserves it: George W. Bush.

How can Nancy Pelosi rebuke Peter Stark for saying something not nice when she has refused to even consider holding George W. Bush accountable for his high crimes against the Constitution and federal law?

How can Nancy Pelosi rebuke Pete Stark and not even support censure for George W. Bush?

Shame on you, Nancy Pelosi.

Instead of attacking those who would hold George W. Bush accountable to the law, Pelosi ought to aiming her fire at the White House.

The latest from Nancy Pelosi: She is complaining that it’s just too darn hard for her to sit in her posh home and see Americans protesting outside. Oh, the poor, poor dear.

Memo to Pelosi - Get used to it. For as long as you continue to fail the American people, you will continue to see protesters on the sidewalk outside your breakfast window. The American people elected a Democratic majority to the House of Representatives in order to end the Iraq War, restore liberty to America, and impeach Bush. They have done none of this. Instead, they’ve helped make things worse, playing footsie with Bush and helping him to get the Protect America Act passed.

Cindy Sheehan expresses her outrage as follows:

“I cannot speak for every Democrat, Independent, Green, or disenchanted Republican (and there are many) in America, but the consensus from my travels all over this country is that we put Democrats back in power in both Houses of Congress to be an opposition to the Bush Regime and to stop the annoying “bobble-headed, rubber-stamping” approval of all things criminal and murderous. We did not wish to keep heading in the same direction but desired to go another way, which would have required the Dems to finally step up and forcefully counter and stop the high crimes of BushCo. They have failed.

We are sick of excuses. We are tired of the blame being diffused on the Senate, the Blue Dog Dems, the Republicans, or even, incredibly, the people of Iraq. A true leader accepts responsibility in ways that are not even dreamed of by BushCo or Congress, Inc. A true leader would stand up and do what is intelligent and what is right and if he/she were a leader, then people would follow. A leader does not wait idly by for a crowd of sycophants to gather around her before she does her job with integrity and courage; a leader leads the way and the Democratic Congress with an approval rating even lower than George’s had better wake up to whom they need to follow: us!”

Cindy Sheehan is right. Nancy Pelosi is no leader. Pelosi betrayed the promise of 2006. She doesn’t even have enough backbone to stand up to a President with a 30 percent approval rating.

It’s time for Nancy Pelosi to go, and to be replaced with a real leader - Cindy Sheehan for Congress!

From Cindy Sheehan’s speech announcing her independent campaign for Congress, challenging Nancy Pelosi in 2008:

“A great majority of citizens in California’s 8th congressional district want the Bush regime impeached and want our troops home from the Middle East. I believe Ms. Pelosi has lost touch with the people of this district and America and it’s time for our reps that aren’t doing their jobs by upholding their sworn oaths to the Constitution to receive a wakeup call!”

Nancy Pelosi’s best response to this criticism is that she would be for impeachment if only she were not Speaker of the House. How convenient for Representative Pelosi. She’s only for doing something that matters when she doesn’t have the power accomplish much. What a useful excuse for submitting to the corrupt power of the Bush Administration.

If I were living in the 8th congressional district of California, I’d vote for Sheehan.

If you’re for impeachment, support Cindy Sheehan for Congress. Cindy Sheehan is running for Congress against Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi is best known, among activists struggling for the impeachment of George W. Bush for declaring that “impeachment is off the table”. Single-handedly, without bothering to investigate the alleged crimes of George W. Bush, or even taking a formal look at the evidence already available, without democratic debate in the Congress among all the members, Pelosi decided she would do whatever she could to prevent the impeachment of George W. Bush from happening.

Yesterday, “with a a heavy heart,” Cindy Sheehan declared,

“I announce my candidacy against Nancy Pelosi in California’s 8th. If anybody would dare think that I am not serious, I would hope that they would look back at the last three years of my life and everything that I have sacrificed to restore our nation to one that obeys the rule of law and can be looked up to with respect once again in the international community and not as the hated laughingstock on the block.”

There is not yet an official Cindy Sheehan for Congress web site. When it comes up, we’ll link there.

In the meantime, we’re adding a Cindy Sheehan for Congress section to our Imprison Bush shop, so that you can start to show your support for Sheehan as yet another way of moving toward the impeachment and imprisonment of George W. Bush

There’s a lot of damage that George W. Bush can do over the next year and a half, and a huge amount of damage that he has already done over the last six years. So, what are the Democrats in Congress going to do about it? Nothing much. They need George W. Bush, after all.

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold has introduced a new resultion of censure against George W. Bush. The resolution is not impeachment, and it certainly would not result in imprisonment, but it would at least put Congress as on the record as noting the profound damage that President Bush has done to America.

The Democratic Party leadership is steadfast in refusing to support Feingold’s censure resolution. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid says, “The President already has the mark of the American people that he is the worst president we’ve ever had. I don’t think we need a censure resolution to prove that.”

Isn’t it amazing how Harry Reid turns the situation around 180 degrees? The majority of the American people support impeachment. As Harry Reid himself says, the American people already recognize George W. Bush as the worst President in American history, even worse than Richard Nixon, who at least had the one scrap of decency necessary to resign in shame. The Congress is supposed to follow the will of the people. The Congress ought to impeach the President, or at least censure the President. But Harry Reid says that, if the American people despise George W. Bush, that’s enough for him.

In fact, Harry Reid knows that if the Democratic leadership in Congress allowed for the impeachment of George W. Bush, it would be a political misstep. The Democrats, after all, wouldn’t have George W. Bush to kick around any more. Censure, impeachment, and imprisonment of George W. Bush is the right thing to do, but Harry Reid cares more about politics. He wants to keep George W. Bush around as a political tool, somebody to keep the Democratic voters motivated.

In the meantime, America suffers. Harry Reid and his ilk in Congress could end the suffering, but they find it too useful for their purposes. How sad.

George W. Bush is running out the clock. He has one and a half years left to exercise the power of the President of the United States, and is hoping that the Democrats will just let him ride it out with no trouble.

Sure, the Democrats issue subpoenas for second-tier White House officials, but the White House just refuses to allow those officials to comply with the subpoenas. No information is obtained, and the Democrats don’t even try to subpoena George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. They sit, and huddle, and the time runs down.

Of course, there’s one thing that Congress can do that George W. Bush has no power to withstand: Impeachment. Yet, the Democratic politicians seem afraid of impeachment. The Democrats in Congress are like a football team in the Superbowl, with two minutes left in the fourth quarter, that has decided just to stop trying to win. “We’ll try again next season,” they say.

It’s pathetic, and the Democratic base of activists is furious. Even Senator Russ Feingold is getting blasted. Rightly so.

The Democrats in Congress are sacrificing what’s right for America in favor of what will help them get more power in 2008.