It isn't about security or safety

By now you know that the House is not going to budge on immunity for telecoms, and Bush is having a hissy-fit and insisting the terrists are a-comin' and we need to immunize 'em to pertec the 'Murkan people, so he has to veto the bill if it clears the Senate, full of feckless Publicans and Bush-dog Democrats like the useless Claire McCaskill who roll over for him every chance they get.

Bullshit.

Bush wants telecom immunity to protect his own ass.

He only puts up this kind of fight when it's his ass on the line. He doesn't give a fuck about yours, or anyone elses - he's a sociopath, he only cares about himself. (Remember he ignored the daily briefing that warned bin Laden was determined to strike in the US.)

We aren't in peril because the telecoms aren't immunized, and we weren't safer because they spied on us. That is just a stupid assertion to make. He wants immunity because if lawsuits go forward, the findings will be subject to discovery, and everyone will know just how far this criminal sonofabitch went, starting as soon as he took office. He wouldn't fight this hard for anything that wasn't in his own interest. He is afraid that we might correct a mistake of the past - we didn't incarcerate Nixon - and make an example of him for the next GOP fascist mother fucker who comes down the pike determined to usurp power, violate the Constitution and take it upon himself to decide what part of the law he would follow and what he would ignore.

He is scared shitless at the prospect of civil discovery leading to criminal charges. He hasn't been this scared since he learned that drug tests would be required for pilots.

Bush was determined that government would crawl in bed with business from the outset, while destroying from within all the systems that worked by appointing lackies, hacks and incompetent fuck-ups (Justice, FEMA, the DoD, the Foreign Service, the DoJ, the Forest Service, the CDC...)

There is a word in the dictionary that describes the merging of corporate and government interests. You can find it in the "F's"...

The telecoms were all too willing to go along and listen in on our calls and archive our emails for the NSA - and they started spying on us before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

So...tell me again how safe his surveillance programs make us, and this time, be specific, and show your work.

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An Alternative Path to Impeachment

Now seems like a good time to bring this up. There is an obscure rule in the Jefferson's Manual that allows for articles of impeachment to originate outside the United States House of Representatives, and the climate is right for it to be invoked.

Jefferson's Manual, the established rules under which the House operates, allows for any one of the 50 state legislatures, no governor required, to request that impeachment proceedings be commenced against any member of the Executive branch.

In the House there are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion: by charges made on the floor on the responsibility of a Member or Delegate; by charges preferred by a memorial, which is usually referred to a committee for examination; by a resolution dropped in the hopper by a Member and referred to a committee; by a message from the President; by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State or territory or from a grand jury; or from facts developed and reported by an investigating committee of the House.

Now here is where it gets interesting.

In the past year state legislatures in four states (Vermont, Minnesota, California and Illinois) introduced, but failed to pass, resolutions to impeach. The Minnesota state senator who introduced the bill is none other than newly elected House member Keith Ellison. He is one of many sitting in the House right now biding time and waiting for the right moment to initiate impeachment. There will be a stampede of eager freshmen representatives from blue districts rushing toward the first Delegation up the Capitol steps with a passed resolution in hand.

New Mexico has been at the forefront of the Purge Scandal. New Mexico also has strong Democratic majorities in both chambers of the state house and an active and agitated electorate ready for oversight and accountability, every last one of them right now with steam coming out of their ears. New Mexico State Senator Gerald Ortiz y Peno is the guy to watch. (When he's the governor and a shining star in the national Democratic Party, remember, you heard it here first.)

Given the climate today, and the scandal of firing David Iglesias, don't be surprised if the New Mexico legislature passes the resolution. Once a resolution to impeach is passed by both chambers of any states legislature, any Representative can respond to the plea by acknowledging the states petition, and then the game is afoot. Once such a plea is acknowledged, Speaker Pelosi will then have no choice in the matter. Per the Jefferson's Manual, impeachment proceedings must start.

New Mexico is not alone in the effort to pass the resolution. New Jersey has a very strong grass-roots movement working to achieve introduction and passage of the resolution. Which state will get there first has been speculated on among political wonks and crystal-ball gazers for a couple of months now.

However, given the events of the last two weeks, New Mexico seems the most likely to emerge from the pack with a ratified resolution.

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H Con. Res. 63 - Washington's Delegation

The House earlier today passed House Concurrent Resolution 63 246-182 with 6 abstentions (including Dennis Hastert).

Here's how Washington's delegation voted:

Brian Baird (WA-3 D) Abstain
Norm Dicks (WA-6 D) Yea
Doc Hastings (WA-4 R) Nay
Jay Inslee (WA-1 D) Yea
Rick Larsen (WA-2 D) Yea
Jim McDermott (WA-7 D) Yea
Cathy McMorris (WA-5 R) Nay
Dave Reichert (WA-8 R) Nay
Adam Smith (WA-9 D) Yea

No real surprises there. All of the Democrats voted yea, with Baird abstaining (which is interesting, as he spoke so passionately on its behalf), while all the Republicans voted nay. McMorris and Reichert are both Republican light-weights who relied heavily on the Republican National Committee for their re-election bids. Doc Hastings is a total hack who was named chairman of the House Ethics committee after the former chair was sacked by Hastert for supporting the investigations into Tom DeLay, so his voted against was as predictable as the sunrise.

While the party identifiers, by an large, indicated how a given Representative would vote (within the Washington delegation and otherwise), it's important to note that a good deal of the Washington delegation originally supported to war. I believe Norm Dicks, Brian Baird, and Jim McDermott were the only Washingtonians in the House to vote against (Murray voted against the war in the Senate, while Cantwell voted for it). To their credit, Larsen and Inslee came out as critics of the war pretty early, before it was absolutely safe to do so. Both of their districts (WA-1 and WA-2) have large military communities, so I imagine they were playing to those constituencies (no excuse).

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385-23: If Democrats don’t have backbone for a plane flight …

They sure won’t have backbone to do anything beyond nonbinding resolutions on Iraq, let alone taking pre-emptive action to pre-empt pre-emptive action by BushCo and its eminence grise on Iran.

I’m sure some of the vast majority of Democrats in the House who joined Republicans on the bill requiring production of alternative fuels for large aircraft are spinning it as purely an environmental measure. Please.

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Roy Blunt: WATB

Hard Times in the Congressional Dining Room

Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO) has fallen on hard times. How else to explain why the man is insisting on a raise of his already significant Federal salary $165,000 per year?

Mr. Blunt...said the raises were crucial for members of Congress who are not independently wealthy and must operate two households on the current $165,200 salary. The annual raise for this year was set at 1.7 percent, about $2,760.

Shorter Blunt: $165,200 per year, bad; 167,960, good. In all fairness, Blunt is one of the, ahem, poorer members of Congress, with a reported net worth of between $118,000 - $345,000, making him the 315th most affluent member of Congress. Lest we forget, however, Mr. Blunt is married to a high-powered lobbyist for Altria (formerly Phillip Morris Management Group), who still lobbies members of Congress. Why is it I doubt his pleas of poverty?

Abigail Pearlman Blunt and Rep. Roy Blunt smiling in the face of adversity

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Watching Those We Depose

Though this post actually involves a member of the previous Congress, I simply had to make note of this. Former Congressman of Ohio, Bob Ney, received a sentence of 2 1/2 years incarceration, 2 years probation & was fined $6,000 for his acceptance of bribes from former all-star GOP lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.

'You violated a host of laws that you as a congressman are sworn to enforce and uphold,' said U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, who recommended that Ney serve his time at a federal prison in Morgantown, W.Va., about an hour-and-a-half drive from his birthplace in Wheeling.

Not hard time, to be sure (the "federal correctional institution" is minimum security, of course) but quite the fall from grace for one of the beneficiaries of the '94 "Republican Revolution." Tough times are ahead for the former "Mayor of Capitol Hill."

But, just as no good deed goes unpunished, the inverse seems to be true, that no bad deed goes unrewarded: current law will allow Ney to receive his full Congressional pension. He will be eligible for payments in as little as four years. Though there is legislation pending before the new Congress which "would deny pension payments to lawmakers convicted of crimes like bribery or fraud" the law would not be retroactive.

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Michigan: The 100-Hour Agenda

I ran across this tidbit from the Associated Press from a few days ago:

Michigan's congressional delegation showed divisions over proposals to increase the minimum wage, expand stem cell research and implement more of the anti-terror measures offered by the 9/11 commission.

This is Michigan's delegation to the House of Representatives:

Democrat (6)	Republican (9)
Bart Stupak, Dale Kildee, Sander Levin, Carolyn Kilpatrick, John Conyers, John Dingell	Peter Hoekstra, Vern Ehlers, Dave Camp, Fred Upton, Tim Walberg, Mike Rogers, Joe Knollenberg, Candace S. Miller, Thaddeus McCotter

So here's the voting breakdown:

- Minimum Wage: Six Democrats and four Republicans (Ehlers, McCotter, Upton, and Miller) voted for the measure to increase the minimum wage to $7.25/hour. Comment:

Upton said the move was long overdue, noting that someone working 40 hours a week on a minimum wage job would earn less than $11,000 a year. "I have always considered the minimum wage to be a starting wage and one that will not suffice for a 'head of household,'" Upton said.

Note that Michigan already has a minimum wage increase in place, rising to $7.40/hr in mid-2008, possibly meaning that the few R's voting against the measure did so for partisan or other reasons, such as trying to include pro-business amendments.

- Stem Cell Research: Six Democrats and one Republican (Upton) voted for the law. Comments:

"We need to focus on exploring alternatives to the only method of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human life," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra..

Funny thought, considering that Bart Stupak is a pro-life Dem who supported the measure.

- 9/11 Commission Recommendations: Six Democrats and five Republicans (Camp, McCotter, Miller, Rogers and Upton. Knollenberg didn't vote.) Comment:

Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the bill "was in no way about national security and intelligence, it was a heavy-handed effort to check a box on a campaign promise that remains unfulfilled."

Umm, sure thing, Pete....

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