Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Cheney Impeachment being debated in House

By

A call for the impeachement of Dick Cheney is currently being debated on the floor of the House.  C-span link here.  Resolution info here.

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  1. unfortunately i was out of the room when Kucinish finished, so I’m not sure where the resolution stands.

  2. A speech by Kucinich, followed by a ruling by Rep. Serrano stating that a ruling by the chair on the chance to debate the resolution would come later.

  3. They hold these periodically, but none can move forward until a Senator – yes, a SINGLE Senator – co-signs the resolution.

    <

    p>
    Ted?  J. Forbes?  Car 54?

    • These impeachment hearings are show trials, staged periodically for fundraising purposes.

      <

      p>
      I reitierate – where are our Senators?  Afraid to put their money where their mouth is?

      • Q. What is the role of the House of Representatives in impeachment under the Constitution?

        A. Article 1, Section 2, of the Constitution specifies that “the House of Representatives…shall have the sole power of impeachment.” This means that it has the power to bring charges against an official. 

        Q. What is the Senate's role under the Constitution?

        A. Once impeached, high officials are tried by the Senate. Article 1, Section 3, specifies, “The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.”

         http://faculty.lls.e…

      • But Cheney and his lawyer, Addison, and the lawyers that they have embedded throughout the executive branch–e.g., John Yoo provide ample ground for impeachment, which would do much to recover the institutions bequeathed to us by the founding generation.  By ample ground I mean- greater than that presented by the 17th, 37th, and certainly the 42nd Presidents of the United States.

        • Which makes it more of an outrage that Steny led the charge to put HR333 on ice.

          • THAT’S what I get for reading a site run by Maxine Waters!  Senate concurrance is NOT needed, apparently, so Speaker Pelosi’s refusal is even MORE mystifying.

            <

            p>
            UNLESS, of course, as Speaker she has been given intelligence briefings to which NONE of us have access, and she realizes there are no legal grounds…

            <

            p>
            OR, she jsut enjoys fruitless show trials.

            • It's Hoyer and the others.

              Pelosi seems to be reluctant to support an effort that could plant her in the WH for a few months.  It's selfish of her, but understandable.  Things are a mess.  It seems she doesn't want to be responsible for it.  

              Nonetheless, the call for a return to constitutional integrity has been taken up by a large number of voices left and right, and any movement back toward constitutional integrity includes by its very nature  consideration of impeachment. 

  6. The motion to table (by Hoyer) is going down to defeat.

    <

    p>
    Yea:  170
    Nay:  242

    <

    p>
    The Republicans are voting to defeat the motion to table:

    <

    p>
    Dems:  142-78
    Reps:  28-164

    •  

      It's a prime opportunity to throw an extremely unpopular VP under the bus and create some distance for house R's.

      I wonder if the Dems will have the spine to capitalize on this.  God knows the potential is there.

  8. of where things stand at the moment can be found here.  as far as i can tell, the report i linked to is correct.  but i’m not really up on the import of various parliamentary maneuvers in play, so if anyone would like to chime in with another take…

    • Laurel, here’s my understanding of where things are:

      <

      p>
      1. After the Democrats unexpectedly lost their motion to table the impeachment resolution, Hoyer moved to refer the resolution to the Judiciary Committee in order to avoid a debate on the House floor (the House is required to debate a privileged resolution that is neither tabled nor referred to committee).

      <

      p>
      2. In order to prevent any debate on the motion to refer, Hoyer then moved the previous question, i.e., called for a vote.

      <

      p>
      3. The House approved the motion for the previous question, which led to an immediate vote on the motion to commit. The House then approved the motion to refer.

      <

      p>
      So the current status is that the resolution is referred to the Judiciary Committee, where I’m sure Chairman Conyers will try to make sure it dies a quiet death. The Democratic leadership were outplayed today–they didn’t count on the Republicans opposing the motion to table. As a result, they failed to kill the impeachment resolution outright. It remains to be seen what will happen to it in committee. I suspect it will never make it back to the floor.

      <

      p>
      TedF

      • They're acting like they need to clean up a mess before Mom comes home.

         

        What's up with that? 

  9. …Conyers doesn’t want Cheney impeached.  Cheney, if removed, would be replaced with a nitwit like Gerald Ford.  Quite frankly, if the Congress really wanted to sock it to Cheney, they would totally defund the Office of VP in the next budget-go-round.

    <

    p>
    Conyers wants Cheney in office so that he can do his investigations.

    • I would even accept the actual Gerald Ford, or whatever is left of him– a photograph, say, in order not to be gruesome, as an improvement.

      • …Ford wasn’t actually a bad guy, and, unlike Agnew, he wasn’t vile.  But someone like him would only be useful as a VP if we could get rid of GWB.

        <

        p>
        Count the days to 20 Jan 2009 when we can get rid of the lunatics currently in power.

  10. Then they wonder why their “mandate” has turned into a dismal
    22% approval rating Approval laugher
    This is a laugher.. the question is ..will the fringe lunatics still be trying the impeachment thing in 2010 after Bush Cheney have been out of office for 2 years? This is so ridiculous it’s laughable. Is their Bush hatred and lust for revenge that sick? No wonder this joke Pelosi led Congress is the worst in 20 years and has accomplished NOTHING . Americans  are really tired of Democrat partisan vendettas

    • I realize you deny being Asa over at RMG, but you are Asa over at RMG. One give away is the punctuation mark “..”. Most everyone produces ellispses with three dots. However both you on BMG and Asa on RMG are unique in the frequent use of the two period ellipsis. There are numerous other lexical and usage characteristics that make it clear that the two accounts are held by the same person.

      <

      p>
      “..” is just one.

        • Yes, that one:
          Sept 25 at 8:00 pm
          http://www.bluemassg…
          Sept 25 at 8:16 pm
          http://www.redmassgr…

          <

          p>
          But there is another amusing time coincidence. May I offer you a crumpet, Laurel?  You could have had one on RMG on Monday, July 23, 2007

          Care for a crumpet, Knight ?

          Right on sir!  I’m with you although you (we) must show respect for Mr. Clipper. As best I can figure out, it’s his and Patrick’s s show here and you can’t walk into somebody’s house and crap on the living room rug.

          That act is reserved for visiting liberals from BMG ( you know who you are).

          Asa

          The crumpet cart was wheeled over to BMG the next day Tuesday, July 24, 2007:

          Garcon ! a round of tea and crumpets 

          for all here please ! And Garcon, make sure that Bock III and his friends correctly extend their pinky finger when sipping their tea or it’s out the door for them! Do you understand!!

          by: Toms opinion

      • First, nobody cares about your ridiculous and childish attempts at handwriting analysis that are totally meaningless and useless
        I haven’t read any Asa posts on RMG for over a month.Where is this mythical Asa you are obsessed with?

        <

        p>
        RMG is loaded with BMG posters in aliases ( including you I’m sure.) so who cares?
        Please. Grow up and find something better to occupy your time with than wasting bandwidth and disk space like your totally useless F word rant after Bob told you to STFU.

        <

        p>
        I consistently adhere to the posting rules here which is more than can be said for you. Just STFU and mind your own business

        • The consistent use of “People’s Republik” referring to Massachusetts is also one of your unique trademarks on both sites. To the left, you will see a box marked “Search”. Choose the drop down for Comments. Enter “Republik”. That works on both sites and it shows lots of TO here, lots of AB there.

          <

          p>
          So one doesn’t just have to do “handwriting analysis”. Usage works, too.

          <

          p>
          I say this because, on that site, you have written ugly things about a number of us there. Does it surprise you that that might concern me, or even be “my business”?

          • I, too, frequently refer to “The People’s Republik”

            <

            p>
            ..that’s right! I am Asa whatsisface!

            • 18 cases on this site. Aside from quotations of TO, no one uses it. On RMG 22 cases from AB and just one from South Shore Republican.

              <

              p>
              Would you like crumpet?

                • Neither AB nor TO uses italics or bold face. (Why bother when there’s a caps lock?) Here you’ve used them, er, liberally. You’ve even reverted, as I knew you would once unmasked, to the full, three-dotted ellipsis.

                • …about a dozen years ago, it was reported in Der Spiegel, that a thief and abductor in Germany commandiered a car, took a woman hostage, demanded a cell phone, and went off.

                  <

                  p>
                  The thief was obviously too stupid to know that they could track his movements from cell site to cell site, because, with the phone on, the sites had to do hand-off from one site to the next in order to handle incoming calls.  He was captured in short order.

          • That’s not even good Amerikanische Sprache, much less German.

            <

            p>
            Amerikanisch: Peoples’ Republik (note the position of the apostrophe).

            <

            p>
            German: maybe Volksrepublik, but there’s no obvious translation.

            • If we accept (and we shouldn’t), German notions of Volk, a peoples’ republic would be a multi-ethnic state like Belgium or the Lithuanian-Polish Confederation. A people’s republic would in fact be a single ethnic state.

              <

              p>
              So I think the apostrophe is correctly placed.

              <

              p>
              Not so the other identifying punctuation mark. Can you guess what it is?

        • The F-word on that exchange came from tblade not me who followed up with a very interesting discussion of the linguistics of invective.

  11. The old axio goes, “be carefull what you wish for—you might get it”. Ms. Pelosi and Sen. Reid have been the answer to the Republican Party’s prayers!

      • Actually, I think it means he is paying attention to what is going on in congress. Congress has almost completely failed to do anything meaningful with the two of them leading. Pelosi and Reid have allowed the Republicans to prove that Democrats have no ideas and no conviction to follow through on any ideas they do have. What have the Democrats accomplished in congress? Raising the minimum wage and ???

        <

        p>
        Bush is being given free reign to destroy the army in Iraq at whatever cost he wants. Bush is being given all the unconstitutional powers he asks for. Congress is allowing the administration to ignore their requests for testimony and information. When the Republicans don’t like a bill and threaten to filibuster, the Democrats give up. When some Democrats don’t like a bill and try to put a hold on it, Reid tells them he doesn’t care and the bill will proceed anyway (as shown with the telecom amnesty bill).

        • Congress has been bedlam. Zero is being accompished(a double edged sword) Congress hnow enjoys the lowest alleged approval ratings in recorded history and has now become almost farcial: Dennis Kucinich and his antics.

          <

          p>
          Being in the RNC and having essentially no money and having half of registered republicans PO’d at you, this is like manna from heaven. Sit back and watch Reid and Pelosi implode before God and C-Span.

  12. As suspected, it seems the Judiciary Committee is unlikely to do much if anything with the impeachment resolution. Here is Chairman Conyers’s statement.

    <

    p>
    TedF

  13. The daffy Rep. Kucinich is privileged to submit whatever nonsensical bills he wishes. And he is also entitled to the opportunity to present it to the body.

    <

    p>
    The Republican leadership effortlessly outplayed and embarrassed the Speaker, who, knowing what a political millstone this misbegotten impeachment nonsense is, desperately wanted to wish it into the cornfield.

    • Kucinich:  I have a great hand.

      <

      p>
      Dems:  Yeah, we’re behind you.  Go Elfman.

      <

      p>
      Republicans:  Yeah, us too. We’re behind you.

      <

      p>
      Kucinich:  Crap..I was just kidding. My hand sucks. 

      <

      p>
      Dems:  …

Archives