How many people in the government does it take...

This isn't a light bulb joke. I was wondering how many people in the government does it take to get our troops out of Iraq? Would you believe the number is 285?

Here's the break down:

• 217 members of the House of Representatives to pass Articles of Impeachment against Bush and Cheney.
• 67 Senators to vote for convictions.
• Nancy Pelosi to order the troops home.

And since Nancy Pelosi could be one of the 217, the number is really only 284.

News From New Mexico

On February 16, 2007 the Rules Committee of the New Mexico Senate met to debate and vote on Senate Joint Resolution 5, petitioning congress to commence the investigation of and impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney.

Unfortunately, there was no debate since the Republicans on the Committee boycotted the meeting. But would you have shown up if you were a Republican? The President's record is impossible to defend. I guess they felt it better to simply consent by their silence.

The resolution has passed the first step, and will now go to the full Senate for debate and a vote.

Not on the Table?

Nancy Pelosi said that impeachment is not on the table.

We have a President who has consistently violated his oath of office, who has shredded the Bill of Rights, who has committed fraud on the American people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Yet impeachment is not on the table?

We have a President who has consistently ignored the advice of his military. And now that the American people have seen through his lies he is ignoring their will about his illegal and immoral war. As an imperial President he believes that he can also ignore what Congress says about the war. Yet impeachment is not on the table?

At the risk of stating the obvious, the war in Iraq requires a political solution: impeachment. Yet impeachment is not on the table? Who died and made Nancy Pelosi Martha Stewart?

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Call for a Counter-Coup

So, Nancy Pelosi says that impeachment is off the table. From a personal angle I can see why she would want to take that stand. If you impeach Bush you have two choices as to who becomes President. You get either Cheney or, if you impeach Cheney, too, you get Pelosi. Given everything that Bush has done to run up the national debt, destroy good will toward the U.S. throughout the world and entangle us in a quagmire of at least Viet Nam proportions, why would Pelosi want the job?

The good news for Nancy is that she doesn’t have to take the job. She can resign as Speaker and let someone else wear the crown of thorns. Who, you might ask, would we then get as President? The truth is that we could have any American born citizen 35 or older except Bush or Cheney.

Think about this and how it could work. Say the House passes the Articles of Impeachment against both Bush and Cheney on February 14 as a Valentine to the country and the world. The Senate would then hold the trial and vote to remove Bush and Cheney from office. This could happen before the ides of March. But in the time it takes the Senate to act, a Representative could resign and be replaced by an appointee. Pelosi could resign as Speaker and the Democrats could choose the new appointee as the Speaker. Once the Senate removes the less than sexy Bush and Dick act, the newly chosen Speaker becomes President. Pelosi can have her job back as Speaker and the Rep who resigned can even get the appointment to complete his/her original term. In other words, we have status quo ante in the House, but a New President who can then select a VP for confirmation by the Senate.

One obvious choice for the position of appointee/Speaker/President is Al Gore. After all, we already elected him to the job. You could look on this as a completely legal, by the books, i’s dotted t’s crossed, absolutely Constitutional, bloodless counter-coup.

Nancy Pelosi has already secured a place in history by becoming the first female Speaker of the House. History will judge her by what she does in that position. Ms. Speaker, we beseech you to lead us in restoring this country, either as President beginning in 2007 or as a leader of a counter-coup.

Back from the Holidays

Yeah, I took a couple of weeks off for Thanksgiving, but I'm back. That however is not what the title of this post is really about. It really refers to the January, when Congress comes back from the holidays. Then the fun begins.

Over my holiday I came across a few things that deserve mention here. The first was a question by a reporter on NPR of whether or not the Democrat would use their new majority to block the nomination of Robert Gates as the new Secretary of Defense. I expect better from NPR. The Democrats do not have a majority in either house until January, when the new Congress is sworn in.

That brings up the next point. Rep. Henry Waxman (D - California) has been trying for years to subpoena the records and other documentation and testimony on the Halliburton contracts with the Pentagon and what influence Dick Cheney may have had on the process. The Republicans have blocked him every time. Come January he will chair the committee, issue the subpoenas and hold the hearings. For what it's worth, a question from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D –Vermont) about the Halliburton contracts is what triggered Cheney’s, “Go f*** yourself!” response. Could it be there is something there worth investigating?

I would not be surprised if Cheney is gone by July. And once Congress wakes up and realizes they can take on the administration, Bush won’t be far behind.

One more point – Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D - Ohio) will chair a subcommittee that may “reopen” the investigation into 9/11 (i.e., may do a real investigation, not just a whitewash). Given his level of integrity, I hope it happens. If it does, it will be worth watching. Any true investigation will supply even more fuel to an impeachment firestorm.

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Impeachment as a Matter of Principle

As I noted in my first post, “I may still do full on articles from time to time.” I have just posted a new article dealing with impeachment as a matter of principle; it was just too long for the blog. I can imagine the article will upset both Democrats and Republicans. I question whether either party has what it takes to stand on and/or for principles and impeach anyone.

Those who haven’t checked the archives yet might also want to read the article on impeachment and wiretapping. It does a good job of laying out the legal arguments.

[If you are looking for more shameless self-promotion for the shop, there are links in the articles.]

Getting Down to Business

So the blog is up and running. The template has survived the first round of edits. It's time to get busy.

An interesting observation came out in Amy Goodman's interview with Elizabeth Holtzman. (For those who don't know, Ms. Holtzman served on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon administration.) Ms. Holtzman noted: "He [Nixon] had won by a landslide, and impeachment was off the table then. Nobody -- no Democrat was pushing for it. And, in fact, as the revelations came out, it still wasn't on the table. It took the American people, after the Saturday Night Massacre, sending a clear message to the Congress --"

Sound familiar? Everything but the Saturday Night Massacre, huh? Ms. Holtzman went on to explain that the Saturday Night Massacre involved the firing of Archibald Cox, the Special Prosecutor investigating the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

Lest we forget, we have a Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, who still has an active grand jury looking into the Valerie Plame issue. The grand jury still has a half year to go before it expires and a lot can happen in that amount of time. Hmmm...

As Ms Holtzman said, "It took that clear signal from the American people, who said, 'Enough is enough. We are not a banana republic. A president cannot be above the law... And we want Congress to hold him accountable.' So it came from the American people. It didn't come from the Congress."

Ah, but once it got to Congress there was an interesting dynamic at work. I was in college during the impeachment hearings, and one of my political science profs (who was very active in the Republican party) gave me a real insight into what was happening. He explained that Nixon had to resign because two factors had lost him any support he might have had in the House and Senate:

1. he had lost the war in Viet Nam.
2. CREEP (the Committee to Re-Elect the President - that really was its name; I couldn't make this up) had spent all of its money, energy and time working to get Nixon re-elected without helping any menmbers of Congress.

Bush's record in Iraq cost the Republicans the House and the Senate. Hearings into how he and Cheney have behaved while in office would erode what little support they might still have in either chamber. The Republican controlled Congress would never let such hearings happen. While the top Democrats have said that "impeachment isn't on the table" they have promised hearings.

I think "President Pelosi" has a nice ring to it.

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