Censure

By Brad Freidman

(Okay, it was lunch, but the title didn't scan as well that way)

I Get a Chance to Talk to the Senator about [CENSURE and] Democrats in FOXholes and about our Electoral System Mess...

URL: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002724.htm

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

WASHINGTON Apr 20, 2006 (AP)— Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush appears to have paid dividends for the senator's political action committee.

Feingold's leadership PAC, the Progressive Patriots Fund, pulled in $282,000 last month, according to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. In February, the PAC raised $105,000.

Feingold, D-Wis., announced in March that he introduce a resolution to censure Bush over the administration's eavesdropping program.

http://www.tomharkin.com/

Tom Harkin: Why I Fully Support Bush Censure

We have a President who likes to break things. He has broken the federal budget, running up $3 trillion in new debt. He has broken the Geneva Conventions, giving the green light to torture. He has repeatedly broken promises – and broken faith – with the American people. And now, worst of all, he has broken the law.

To: George Bush,

Due to the recent revelations by disgraced aide to Dick Cheney, L. "Scooter" Libby, that George Bush authorized the leak of CIA Valerie Plame's name to reporters, thus by compromising her safety, the safety of many Americans working undercover and reinforcing the lie that Saddam had WMD, the leadership and members of Gold Star Families for Peace call for the resignation of George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Published on Monday, March 13, 2006 by The Nation
by John Nichols

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold will ask the Senate today to officially censure President Bush for breaking the law by authorizing an illegal wiretapping program, and for misleading Congress and the American people about the existence and legality of that program.

If the Wisconsin Democrat's move were to succeed, Bush would be the first president in 172 years to be so condemned by Congress.

Democrats object as Frist tries to get Senate vote on Feingold resolution
By Tom Curry, MSNBC

WASHINGTON - A short, but sharp partisan skirmish broke out on the Senate floor Monday when Majority Leader Bill Frist tried to schedule a vote for Monday night or Tuesday on Wisconsin Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold’s resolution to censure President Bush.

Frist said Democratic senators ought to be on the record voting for or against the Feingold resolution.

NEW YORK, NY: New York Senate Democratic Candidate Jonathan Tasini today released the following statement on the proposal by Sen. Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to censure President George W. Bush.

“I support Sen. Russ Feingold’s proposal that the U.S. Senate censure George Bush for his illegal wiretapping of American citizens. Feingold is right when he asserts that the Bush Administration, ‘repeatedly misled the public prior to the public disclosure of the National Security Agency surveillance program by indicating his administration was relying on court orders to wiretap suspected terrorists inside the United States.’

Wisconsin Democrat Asks Senate to Rebuke the President for NSA Wiretaps
By ED O'KEEFE, ABC

March 12, 2006— - In an exclusive interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on the Senate to publicly admonish President Bush for approving domestic wiretaps on American citizens without first seeking a legally required court order.

"This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors," said Feingold, D-Wis., a three-term senator and potential presidential contender.

http://www.newsmax.com

Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday that Congress needs to censure President Bush as a possible first step towards impeachment for authorizing the wiretapping of terrorists based in America, adding that Bush's alleged lawbreaking was "much more serious, clearly, than anything Bill Clinton ever did."

"This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors," Feingold told ABC's "This Week." "What the president did, by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and the laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping, has to be answered."

Feingold Says Congress Must Condemn the President's Violation of the Public's Trust Through Illegal Wiretapping Program

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has announced that he will introduce a resolution in the U.S. Senate on Monday to censure the President of the United States. Feingold's resolution condemns the President's actions in authorizing the illegal wiretapping program and then misleading the country about the existence and legality of the program. Feingold calls the resolution an appropriate and responsible step for Congress to take in response to the President's undermining of the separation of powers and ignoring the rule of law.

By the Institute for Policy Studies, http://www.ips-dc.org

mp3 (Right click and select Save to disk to download in Windows. Warning- 55 meg file)
Listen Now! With Windows Media Player

Word Version

By DAVE LINDORFF, www.counterpunch.org

Many readers have responded to my last article about the media blackout of Rep. John Conyers' (D-Mich.) introduction of two bills to censure George Bush and Dick Cheney, and a third bill that would create a Select Committee to investigate impeachable crimes by the administration, saying I should let people know who the other seven members of Congress are who have agreed to co-sponsor the call.

INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Contact: Joia Jefferson Nuri - Cell 240-603-7905 joia@ips-dc.org

Defining The Issues Series: Should President Bush Face Censure?
Wednesday, January 18, 2006, 12:30pm-1:30pm

Here's a letter from the Department of "Defense" in response to a Freedom of Information Request from Congressman John Conyers and many other Congress Members. It includes this line:

By David Swanson, www.blackcommentator.com

Can you imagine having an opportunity to address the United Nations Security Council about a matter of great global importance, with all the world's media watching, and using it to… well, to make shit up – to lie with a straight face, and with a CIA director propped up behind you, I mean to spew one world-class, for-the-record-books stream of bull, to utter nary a breath without a couple of whoppers in it, and to look like you really mean it all? What gall. What an insult to the entire world that would be.

From Pennsylvania State Senator Jim Ferlo

Dear Congressman John Conyers,

I am a proud supporter and most appreciative of your leadership effort to proceed with legislation that would both censure President Bush and Vice-President Cheney and initiate formal proceedings to ascertain the appropriateness of formal impeachment actions by the House of Representatives. I fully endorse House Resolutions 635, 636, and 637.

By Theodore Fuller, Roanoke Times (Virginia)

Fuller is a professor of sociology at Virginia Tech.

Most of us who are old enough to remember Watergate remember that the key lesson from that crisis was that, in the United States, no one -- not even the president of the United States -- is above the law. President Bush's willful decision to approve spying on U.S. citizens without a court order indicates that he has forgotten that crucial lesson.

By Dave Lindorff

There is an bill in Congress to investigate Bush for impeachable crimes. Did you know that? If not, maybe you should be asking your local media outlets why you don’t know about it.

By Tim Wheeler, People's Weekly World Newspaper

Revelations that President George W. Bush ordered the National Security Agency to engage in massive spying on law-abiding people, in flagrant violation of federal law, have ignited a firestorm of angry demands that he and Vice President Dick Cheney be censured or even impeached.

By David Swanson

Try as I might to believe that the President accidentally got it all wrong about those weapons of mass destruction and ties to 9-11, I just can't seem to square it with the fact that the White House pressured the CIA to get it wrong or else.

By David Swanson

Listen to audio of Congressman John Conyers talking about the Bush Administration's crimes, and his efforts to censure Bush and Cheney and to create an investigation that would develop articles of impeachment. I recorded this conversation with the Congressman on December 29th. The bills and the report referred to in the conversation can be found here. The upcoming events discussed can be found here.

This mp3 is 24 minutes and 21 MB: LISTEN.

Here's an mp3 that www.chris-floyd.com reduced to 3 MB: LISTEN.

Here's a Podcast version.

By David Swanson

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that he "ghosted" a detainee, meaning that he made the decision to hold a prisoner without keeping any records of the fact.

By David Swanson

A new report looks into instances in which the Bush Administration leaked classified information to support its case that Iraq was a threat to the United States.

While that case was, of course, ridiculous and the information falsified, the leaking of it was illegal. And the leaks appear to have been part of a coordinated effort. Immediately following important leaks, top administration officials appeared on talk shows to discuss information that they could not have legally discussed had it not appeared in a newspaper that morning.

By John Nichols, Capital Times

As President Bush and his aides scramble to explain new revelations regarding Bush's authorization of spying on the international telephone calls and e-mails of Americans, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has begun a process that could lead to the censure, and perhaps the impeachment, of the president and vice president.

By David Swanson

House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff members report that the White House and the Departments of State and Defense have for six months refused to comply with a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act by 52 Congress Members – a request seeking information on the Bush Administration's reasons for going to war.

Here is a list of co-sponsors for the various Iraq Report Resolutions. Already there are seven cosponsors of a bill to create an investigation and make recommendations on impeachment, four cosponsors on a bill to censure Bush, and five cosponsors on a bill to censure Cheney.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- A leading Congressional Democrat wants to censure President George W. Bush for misleading Congress over Iraq.

Ranking House Judiciary Democrat Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has introduced a motion to censure Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for providing misleading information to Congress before the Iraq war, failing to respond to written questions and potential violations of international law, rawstory.com reported Tuesday.

By JOHN CONYERS JR., The Nation

On December 20, 2005, I issued a 273-page report outlining the Bush Administration's panoply of misconduct associated in the run-up to and since the Iraq War.

Censure and Impeachment
By David Swanson, censurebush.org

Censure is not the enemy of impeachment, any more than impeaching Bush prevents impeaching Cheney. We have a tendency to jump five steps ahead of ourselves in order to find imaginary problems.