Maybe it’s time for McCain to throw another barbecue for the press!

It’s just too bad Germans are unable to vote in U.S. elections. If we could convince Karl Rove to support Obama maybe he could arrange that.

This hearing on “alleged” (choke) misconduct by the Executive branch in the run up to the invasion of Iraq should have started just after we worked our asses off to get the Dems in.. in 2006

Gore Vidal writings about Kucinich
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..71779.html

Dennis Kucinich

By Gore Vidal
http://www.informationclearing…..e18790.htm

http://www.truthdig.com/report….._republic/

Gore Vidal’s Article of Impeachment
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Posted on Jun 11, 2008
Kucinich
AP photo / Stephan Savoia

Fightin’ words: Rep. Dennis Kucinich brandishes his pocket Constitution on the campaign trail in New Hampshire last January.

By Gore Vidal

Listen to the author read this essay.

On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberties and the Constitution itself.

Well. Conyers is starting off quite grandly. Separation of powers, civil liberties, Jefferson. Yes!

I’m enjoying the attempt to say “but you Dems complained about Clinton’s impeachment as not being warranted … this is no different!” But then I think about how the majority of Americans will perceive these hearings and I cease to have fun.

Rep Lungren so concerned about whether these are impeachment hearings

High crimes and misdemeanors. I would think that Lungren would consider 0ver 4000 dead Americans, 1 million dead Iraqi people, 4 million Iraqi refugees and tens of thousands of injured people … all a direct consequence of an unnecessary war based on a “pack of lies” high crimes and misdemeanors ? But heh what do I know

I counted 10 of 22 d’s and 5 of 17 r’s in attendance, but I could have missed some.

Not exactly a house full of committee members.

Second panel up. No questions, apparently — everyone just registers statements.

Elizabeth Holtzman — yay! Memories of the summer of ‘74. She looks terrific.

Wow. “Rocky” Anderson is new to me, but he’s great. Outraged by rendition programs and detainee treatment, but now he’s just running through every other offence.

Asks Congress to forbid by statute any attack against Iran except as authorized by UN, etc. And I’m not getting his whole list of advice to Congress, but we should find this from a transcript. It’s a great list.

Stephen Presser “impeachment should not be at the pleasure of the house” The President must cause a grave offense.

Dismissal of U.S. attorneys for political purposes….”not impeachagble

abuse of unitary executive theory “not impeachable

over use of signing statements “not impeachable”

Manipulation of intelligence “not impeachable”

Misuse of authority “not impeachable”

I don’t believe Presser said anything about torture.

LYING UNDER OATH ABOUT A BLOW JOB …IMPEACHABLE

oY VEY

Same Repub meanie (aha — King) who cut Holtzman off is telling Conyers to cut Fein off. Sniffy person.

Fein was great. Declaring the GWOT means a Sword of Damocles permanently hanging over citizens’ heads. I was just listening in admiration. Ended with a tribute to Dean for relating Oval Office conversations to Congress.

Bugliosi — total rhetoric, over teh top, but big burst of applause.

Smith wants the room cleared because of the outburst. *major eyeroll*

Jeremy Rabkin (George Mason U): trying to make it sound as though everything except Iraq invasion only of secondary concern — mocking other charges as undisciplined. Quoting Rehnquist on war-time presidents — they don’t worry much about the Constitution. (Hey — some of us have noticed!)

Mood in this room, the tone — I think it’s slightly demented. (This is hilarious.) People in rest of country don’t think it’s reasonable to describe president as if he were Caligula. (No? Well, it’s true he has yet to appoint one of his horses a senator.)

PS: My second para is paraphrase of Rabkin — that’s not me.

Damn, but Fein is good. Quoting Robert Jackson from Nuremberg now. “If we do not now rebuke these powers, they will lie around like loaded weapons.” (His paraphrase.)

Did he say “Shehan, you’re out”? Cindy Shehan?

Thank you Cindy. I hope somebody there is holding up a copy of the Constitution in the audience.

Barr very good on Congress making matters worse — by passing amendments to FISA.

I just can not get over that Rabkin was put on a Peace commission.

articles by Jeremy Rabkin
http://www.dfme.org/archives/000045.html

A Treaty the Senate Should Sink

By Jack Goldsmith and Jeremy Rabkin

http://www.aei.org/books/bookI…..detail.asp
The Case for Sovereignty goes beyond slogans and catchphrases to engage one of the most contested concepts in contemporary international politics: the sovereign rights of nation-states. Jeremy A. Rabkin defends the concept of sovereignty against common misunderstandings and distortions, and shows how the American Founders (and subsequent generations of statesmen) relied upon sovereignty as the most basic principle of international affairs. Contemporary Europeans, however, have derided sovereignty and sought to drag other states into institutions of global governance that deprive states of their right to make their own decisions. It is this line of thinking, for instance, that underpinned European opposition to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq on the argument that such a war could not be “legitimate” without United Nations sanction.
Monday, July 2, 2007; Page A19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..00934.html

Just to be sure…

Go here and take a look at Rabkin’s CV…AMAZING affiliations! It’s a pdf worth having a copy of…Federalist Society…Surprise.

http://www.law.gmu.edu/faculty…..kin_jeremy

Lungren is making this very weird argument about criminalizing political disputes. (He’s just noticed that that has happened in the past?) The Bush administration is in the same situation as Japanese-American internees? etc etc.

We have a small demo underway. Mr Smith (I think) is advising that hearing should be recessed if order can’t be maintained.

Heh. Bugliosi just overdid things, but interestingly. Got public reaction, sniffy Repub reaction, just kept going. He sounds like me when I go on a rant (so don’t ask me to testify). He finally had to be cut off. Not that he was wrong, but …

I would really like to see Obama take on Bruce Fein as an adviser

Cohen just said “barnacle”!

LOL!

OK, Cohen, you’ve had your joke. Move on.

Cohen is asking Fein about his investigation of Gonzales — impeachable? Interesting question and answer.

Presser almost slumped over so far that he can lick the table

I thought the hearing was only through 2 pm.

Let’s hope Nancy ” impeachment is off the table” Pelosi is watching and listening

Here’s Debbie W-S: I like her. And she’s telling off her colleagues on t’other side of the aisle about all those 45 hearings — a backlog, eh? given that no one had done anything for a while?

1100 signing statements — stretches beyond imagination.

Schwarz: president’s power is supposed to be to veto the law, but not secretly to decide not to fulfil his obligation to see that law is faithfully adhered to.

Bush, Cheney, Feith, Wolfowitz did intentionally manipulate intelligence

Tomorrow will be a big day to make a public statement about this hearing

http://impeachforpeace.org/imp…..og/?p=1495

the same false intelligence permeated the world’s intelligence agencies. Micheal Ledeen and the team did a damn good job at sharing their false intelligence

Lundgren stressing “behind their back… behind their back” in re. audience… dogwhistle about D’s breaking some deal?

Speaker of the House Pelosi. The time to have set the table was several years ago but you must know Americans are still starving for Accountability. All we are saying is “give impeachment a chance”

Gee, EW, think DOJ still thinks it’s Karl’s duty to lead witch hunts? Ohio is wondering big time.

from the DailyKos diary cited in 227:

…And about those conflicts;

One of the more frightening aspects of Connell’s work is that his company, Gov Tech Solutions, was the first private company to be allowed to put servers behind the firewall of the Congressional computer systems. This led to him creating and managing several powerful Committee IT networks, including those for the House Intelligence Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Judiciary Committee, the Ethics Committee, and the House Committee on Rules. Of course, it is completely possible that the firewall could have been created with secret security gaps that can be exploited to hack into any congressional computer. If that has happened, every computer in any senate or congressional office is subject to hacking by Bush/Republican operatives.

How many times on the FDL blogs has someone wondered whether someone has something on various Congress-critters? Wiretapping has been mentioned, email diversion, all kinds of possibilities. Do we have a genuinely plausible explanation this time? Of course, I have no idea at all what lives on Congressional computers. It could just be dry, boring stuff. But maybe there is that occasional nugget.

It looks like Carl Levin is honing in on tax evasion by rich people. Two witnesses took the Fifth and refused to answer questions about LGT Bank. The Subcommittee on Investigations is also looking at UBS, which agreed to rat out 19,000 people who are hiding billions from the IRS. Maybe we’ll see some action:

The subcommittee is considering legislation aimed at curbing offshore tax abuses. On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on offshore banking practices in the Cayman Islands. The committee was looking at more than 18,500 companies that claim to have offices in a single building there.

Within a month Bush first took office, Connell’s GovTech became the first private corporation to gain access behind the firewall of all Congress’ computer servers.

This means that he and the GOP can basically spy on every single House committee without worry.

“All their emails. All their folders. Anything that has to do with their web technology, he knows what’s going on,” Kimberlin said.

So who helped get Connell the contract?

Bob Ney.

This is the same Republican congressman who launched paperless electronic voting in the United States with the “Help America Vote Act.”

The former representative of Ohio’s 18th congressional district has since resigned from Congress in 2006.

Why?

He pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and false claims in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal.

So Connell’s company wasn’t nicknamed the “Bell Labs of the GOP” by its employees for nothing!

“He’s received the largest percentage of money from the RNC GOP of any company — over $20 million — since Bush took office that we know of,” Kimberlin added. “We have lists of GOP websites and IT work that SmartTech handles.”

Kimberlin’s whistleblowers also connected Connell’s SmartTech with the U.S. attorney scandal.

“Karl Rove used off-the-grid servers so that he wouldn’t have to comply with saving the emails. These SmartTech servers are the same servers that run the GWB43 White House email system and that ran the Ohio election results,” he said.

It’s all according to the Republican’s corrupt plan to take over the U.S. government, Kimberlin explained.

The “visible strategy” included such tactics as congressional redistricting to maximize voter turnout for GOP candidates.

The “invisible strategy,” though, amounted to utilizing technology systems to limit voter turnout for non-GOP candidates.

Lonestaricon.