By David Swanson

Next weekend in Andover, Mass., a group of attorneys, academics, and activists will gather to plan the prosecution of Dick Cheney, George Bush, and the lawyers and advisors who, together with them, are responsible for war crimes. The conference is open to the public and expected to be well attended: http://war-crimes.info

AGENDA FOR THE “JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON CONFERENCE”: PLANNING FOR THE PROSECUTION OF HIGH LEVEL AMERICAN WAR CRIMINALS

September 13 – 14, 2008
Andover, Massachusetts

Registration details available at:
http://war-crimes.info

By David Swanson

Robert Fisk's "The Age of the Warrior" collects 500 stupendous pages of his columns from the past several years. Fisk is, of course, the Middle Eastern correspondent for the Independent (UK) based in Beirut. He writes about Iraq, Turkey, Palestine, the United States, literature, cinema, genocide, whatever grabs his interest, and he does so with a great deal of honesty and courage. I couldn't recommend the book more highly. It lives up to its rather epic title. But I have one point of disagreement, or at least divergent perspective....

By David Swanson

Here it is: Fifty Pages of Fluff. Jonathan Tasini, among others, has posted a draft of the AT&T Democratic Convention Party Platform: Here's a PDF. It's not all fluff, but it's packaged that way, and you have to plow through 8 pages of stomach-turning platitudinous cowardice before getting to anything worthwhile. There is, in the end, a good deal of worthwhile stuff in here, and a good deal of head fakes in the right direction with no substantive detail.

Dear Congress,

Many of you, including both of your nominees for the throne and your Speaker and Minority Leader, claim to believe that George W. Bush and gang have not committed any crimes. To reward your perceptiveness, courage, and integrity, I would like to offer to contribute to your campaigns for reelection (in 2010 or later) if Bush does not issue any pardons for any of the crimes found in Congressman Kucinich's articles of impeachment. I'm making this easy on you, because you've already pardoned Bush himself and all of his accomplices, through legislation, for violations of FISA and for illegal detentions. You have time remaining to legislatively pardon everything else. Plus, by failing to uphold the old laws (such as the Constitution) on spying and election fraud you are setting us up for a "victory" by John McCain, who could be counted on by Bush to issue pardons. Nonetheless, I am willing to bet you that Bush issues pardons. He may even attempt self-pardons, but what I am predicting are pardons of others or blanket pardons of anyone (perhaps including himself) involved in particular crimes. To claim a contribution to your reelection campaign, you have to publicly commit right now to making a contribution to AfterDowningStreet.org if Bush DOES issue pardons of any of the crimes found in the articles of impeachment. I am confident you will make this commitment given your refusal to impeach and the absurdity of thinking that someone might issue pardons for crimes his administration is not guilty of.

Sincerely,
David Swanson

By David Swanson

Last August, a group of Congressman Henry Waxman's constituents met with him and urged him to make use of inherent contempt. They were then obliged to explain to him what inherent contempt is. While the current (110th) Congress has probably seen more requests, subpoenas, and contempt citations ignored than all previous Congresses combined, Waxman has certainly endured more such insult than all other committee chairs combined in the current Congress. He's single-handedly destroyed whole forests with the flood of letters and requests and subpoenas he's sent down Pennsylvania Avenue, and yet he was apparently unaware of a procedure commonly used by Congress through most of this nation's history that would actually compel people to show up and answer questions and produce documents.

By David Swanson

In the evolving neocon scheme of unconstitutional US governance, the job of running the country may belong to the office of the Vice President, while the primary duty of the president (other than following orders and acting like he's in charge) may be to pardon the Vice President and all of his henchmen for their crimes.

By David Swanson

Last week two judges encouraged me to look to courts to help us recover from the damage done by an outlaw executive and a spineless corrupt legislature. The first was Bush-appointed federal Judge John Bates who ruled that people must comply with Congressional subpoenas even if they used to work for the president, and this because - you know - the law requires it. The second was Judge William Price in Iowa who was hearing the case of citizens arrested for trying to make a citizens' arrest of Karl Rove. When told what they had been trying to do, the judge said "Well, it's about time!"

I was on Clout on Air America with guest host Christiane Brown and host Richard Greene tonight for over two hours, mostly about impeachment, and Christiane played clips of interviews she'd done with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The podcast is here:

Christiane Brown from KJFK in Reno is filling in for Richard Greene on Clout on Air America tonight, and I'll be on with her at 9 p.m. ET: http://airamerica.com/listen

By David Swanson

Almost every time House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explains why she won't impeach Bush or Cheney she says that the Republicans want impeachment and that therefore she must oppose it.

She originally took impeachment "off the table" in response to a May 2006 Republican National Committee announcement that (contrary to all existing evidence) talk of impeachment would benefit Republicans in the November 2006 elections. (In fact polls showed a majority believing that electing Democrats would mean impeachment, and we elected 30 new Democrats and not a single new Republican.)

Pelosi made the same claim in this week's Time Magazine:

"I think the Republicans would like nothing better than for us to focus on impeachment and take our eye off the ball of a progressive economic agenda."

She also made the same claim in this week's Nation Magazine:

"You know who wanted us to impeach the President...it was the Republicans."

Over and over again she argues that the Republicans want impeachment.

Turns out the speaker hasn't checked her facts. I just phoned the RNC to ask whether they support impeachment, and they told me they definitely do not. Here's the audio. Do you suppose that if Pelosi finds out about this she'll put impeachment back in our Constitution?

Catch Dave Lindorff, Dave Waldman (Kagro X), and Dave Swanson discussing subpoenas, contempt, inherent contempt, and impeachment, not to mention disgusted contempt, on KPFA on Friday at noon PT, 3 p.m.

By David Swanson

There are still people alive in the United States who support the continued occupation of Iraq, and in many cases the same people are open to supporting an aggressive attack on Iran. While they inhabit a very different worldview from my own, they are able to recognize basic facts if made aware of them. If you should meet one of these war supporters, I would recommend making them aware of the two most jarring facts least likely to fit with their preconceptions. One of these facts became known to a certain segment of the population in February 2006, but remains unknown to most consumers of American news media. The other fact was just revealed this month and is certain to remain equally unknown.

By David Swanson, http://ConvictBushCheney.org

Dear Italy, I consider you a second home and some of your citizens a second family. I have spent more days on your beautiful soil than anywhere else in the world other than my home in the United States of America. Many of my fellow Americans will, I am sure, join me in asking you to lend us, your friends, a much needed helping hand. In doing so, I think you will be coming to the aid of yourselves as well, and of the rest of the world.

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Showtime: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

Go to http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live to listen live.

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Following the show, the audio file will be posted at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/audio/2008 and you can find there now the recordings of numerous shows with amazing guests, including Cindy Sheehan, Lincoln Chafee, Brad Friedman, Shirin Ebadi, Phil Donahue, Mark Crispin Miller, William Odom, Byron DeLear, John Dean, Elizabeth Kucinich, Elizabeth de la Vega, etc.

To support The People Speak Radio please donate at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/donate

Ambassador Edward Peck is a retired career United States diplomat who served thirty-two-years in the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as Chief of Mission in Baghdad (Iraq 1977 to 1980) and later held senior posts in Washington and abroad. He also served as a Foreign Service Officer in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, and as Ambassador in Mauritania. He served as deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan Administration. He is president of Foreign Services International, a consulting firm that works with governments, businesses and educational institutions across the world.

Edward Peck argued against invading Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion. He argued, in part, “when you take out Saddam Hussein, the key question you have to ask then is, what happens after that? And we don’t have a clue. Nobody knows, but it’s probably going to be bad. And a lot of people are going to be very upset about that, because that really is not written into our role in this world is to decide who rules Iraq.”

Amb. Peck has been highly critical of U.S. policy toward Israel, arguing through the Council for the National Interest (CNI) in which he plays an active role, that the U.S. should be more even handed in its Middle East policy. He claims that in 2000, at the Camp David talks, Israel offered the Palestinians “12 little Bantustans.” His speech was publicized in a documentary produced by an organization, If Americans Knew, a non-profit organization that focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict and United States foreign policy regarding the Middle East.

Pelosi Drafts 2009 Response to Calls to Impeach President McCain
By David Swanson

Found hanging out of the door of a limousine in San Francisco:

Draft Response to Calls to Impeach President McCain

By David Swanson

Congress has sent contempt citations and seen them ignored. Congress has taken the matter to court and seen it stalled for many months or years. Congressional committees have passed contempt citations that have never been sent, because what's the point? The House Judiciary Committee has now passed yet another, this one against Rove. And why will Congress not impeach his boss? You'll have to ask Nancy. And why will Congress never ever put Rove in jail on Capitol Hill through inherent contempt and hold him until he testifies? Well, here's what Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren tells one of her constituents:

By David Swanson

From The Nation:

Katrina vanden Heuvel: "On balancing politics and staying true to values... If the book's subtitle is A Message to America's Daughters, what is your message to those daughters who will ask what our representatives did to hold this President and Administration accountable for grave abuses of power? By not allowing impeachment 'on the table,' aren't you failing to protect democracy and the rule of law for future generations of our children and grandchildren?"

Don't Buy Conyers' New Book Unless He's Held an Impeachment Hearing
By David Swanson

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers could impeach Bush and Cheney in an hour if he chose. They have refused to comply with subpoenas and contempt citations, making a laughingstock of his so-called "oversight." They have rewritten laws with "signing statements" and proceeded to violate the laws. They have openly admitted violating FISA. They've obstructed justice, punished whistleblowers, politicized the Justice Department, and lied us into a war, among many other abuses.

By David Swanson

Imagine being so angry that you couldn't find a job that you were able to decide, as a man in Tennessee just did, that the way to solve your problems was to attack liberals - the people who support (albeit ineffectively) workers' rights, union rights, and fair trade, who oppose NAFTA, oppose tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, support investing in job creation at home rather than wars abroad, and want to tax corporations and the super-rich rather than small businesses and working people.

By David Swanson

Last Friday one of two things indisputably happened. Either a dozen senior Congress members and several well-known expert witnesses went certifiably and collectively insane, or charges of the most extreme executive abuses of power ever heard in the history of this nation were backed up by overwhelming evidence during a six-hour hearing of the House Judiciary Committee focused on the possible need to impeach the President and the Vice President. Either way, a nation with a public communications system worthy of a democracy would have learned the news.

I'll be discussing impeachment on the following shows:

Monday, July 28:
7:00 a.m. ET Nicole Sandler Show 940 WINZ Miami, Florida.
9:30-9:45 a.m. ET on KPOJ Portland, Oregon.
10:00 a.m. ET KPFA Berkeley, California.
7:05 p.m. ET Head On Radio Network.
9:30 p.m. ET Between the Lines on WPKN Bridgeport, Connecticut, and WPKM Montauk, New York, and 45 other stations.

Tuesday, July 29:
9:30 p.m. ET Evie's Talk Show, Ventura, California.

Wednesday, July 30:
10:30 p.m. ET Liberal Pro.

By David Swanson

The House Judiciary Committee today, Friday, July 25th, will put impeachment squarely back "on the table" and restored to its prominent place in our Constitution.

Elliott Adams, President of Veterans for Peace, and a descendant of American revolutionary Sam Adams, will deliver this prepared testimony, in which, if his 5 minutes allow him to reach his conclusion, he will say:

Best Selling Author and Award-Winning Federal Prosecutor

Showtime: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - 8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

Go to http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live to listen live.

You'll find instructions there to enter a paltalk chat room where you can post questions.

You can also phone in and ask your questions on the air. Call in tollfree from anywhere in the United States or Canada at 888-228-4494 or anywhere else in the world at 877-489-6350.