Sleeping security guards are criminal, Impeachment is off the table

Sunday, September 9, 2007 Impeachment back on the table Gosh, you leave the country for the weekend and all hell freezes over. (I blame global warming - and Canada!) Congress got an earful last month as our senators and representatives (and the Iraqi government) took time off the spend the hot August nights back home. Where our leaders had the courage to hold public forums, their constituents kept reminding them of an inconvenient truth. When the President so willfully breaks the law, defies the Constitution and takes powers unto himself befitting a king or a dictator, impeachment isn't merely an option, it's a must. We rejected Nancy Pelosi's assessment that "impeachment is off the table" and that message must have gone back to DC with the dogged Dems. In near simultaneous statements last week, Representative's Blumenauer and Hooley from Oregon have both put impeachment back on the table. [more...]

Thursday, September 6, 2007 Drinking Merkally I asked the Speaker simply if he had a plan to bring Bush and Cheney to justice. It was the candidate who brought up the I-word (not Iraq). A month ago, Merkley said he would "continue to be educated [regarding impeachment]" but said his "energies have to go into bringing [the troops] home from Iraq." To those who were listening carefully, the first fruits of Jeff Merkley's education could be sensed. While not wanting to call for impeachment "hearings" in Congress he did go so far as to say that "investigations" into possible impeachable offenses are warranted. As with the gay marriage debate, i don't really care what you call it. This should be signaled as a major point of progress now that Oregon's Speaker of the House is getting in behind thousands of Oregonians he hopes to represent by voicing support for bringing the Commander in Thief to justice. [more...]

Monday, September 10, 2007 Blumenauer Clarifies Stance Earl Blumenauer: Part of what concerned me in the conversations... The accountability of this administration is something that is on virtually everybody's mind, that I talked to this summer. And one of the things that concerned me was the notion that it wasn't quote "on the table" at this moment. Somebody at some point said the phrase quote "off the table" - I wanted to clarify it because it's not, and I'm very serious about this notion of a "get out of jail free card." It's not in my viewpoint that the check and balance, having the accountability that these tools represent, should be abandoned and forgotten. [more...]