I know I am opening myself up for another thrashing here but I am very curious.  Telcom immunity is, as Obama says, a deal-breaker.  It's not about getting a pound of flesh from the telcoms, it's about getting the truth about who the administration has been spying on, whose rights were violated, and putting that into evidence for post January 2009 accountability.  Saying that it's about getting a pound of flesh from the telcoms betrays a complete misunderstanding of the legal strategy behind the ACLU/EFF lawsuits, which is to put the wrongdoing of the administration on the record.  Immunity means no lawsuits.  No lawsuits, no discovery process.  No discovery, no evidence.  Obama is helping get Bush and Cheney's asses out of one of the most legally airtight slings they have managed to get themselves into, pure and simple.

My question: Where does Hillary stand on this, and is there any conceivable legal scenario under party rules in which, at the convention, a nominee can be renounced and the process thrown back to the floor of delegates, for the nomination of someone, for example, Hillary?  Or Kucinich?  I am admitting my extreme ignorance on these processes; are there any precedents in history?  Hillary was never my favorite candidate, but..

I'm getting a bit nervous about this candidate I have said so many nice things about.  Lurching to the religious right on funding for church-based initiatives I can squinch my eyes at, like the gory part in a movie.  It's pandering pure and simple, maybe worth tolerating for what I thought was his clarity on class politics, the Iraq War, and the Constitution.  But the cave on telcom immunity strikes against everything I thought he was.  This is not pandering at the margin.  This is a pillar.  

I know I'm going to raise hackles by throwing this out but extraordinary times call for extraordinary actions, and nothing less than our most fundamental constitutional rights are under attack.  We need to talk, and that's what these diaries are for, aren't they?  The only candidates swearing fealty to the Constitution are Bob Barr and Ralph Nader.  Yes, Barr was on the wrong side before with his vote for the Unpatriotic Act etc., but  one is allowed to renounce past errors and follow the true path in this country, and I believe him.  

Yes this will probably put McCain in, but I'm seeing less and less difference between he and Obama.  If Obama can flip on something as fundamental a "pillar" issue as telcom immunity, he can flip on staying a hundred years

It's quite a spectacle: a Democratic Party digging in and going for broke over a seemingly wonkish aside like telcom immunity.  There must be some reason some powerful people in both parties really, really want this in order for them to endure the harsh vilifications being thrown their way, all richly deserved.  

Two of the persistent blanks in the picture since George Bush's original brazen admission that he had "re-authorized" an NSA program of illegal surveillance on Americans are:  the breadth of the net cast, and the identity of targets who may have had nothing to do with terrorism.

Remember, Bush's drive for unaccountable surveillance powers long pre-dates 9/11, going back to nearly the day after he was inaugurated.  He began the "Total Information Awareness Program" under Poindexter then.  When that was shut down, a now-famous technician at ATT in San Francisco discovered an Internet "vacuum cleaner" operation being conducted by the NSA, which swept up billions upon billions of private emails, credit card transactions, download histories, Internet searches, anything that crossed the trunk lines and routers which are the sinews of the modern Internet.  

In my efforts to call George Bush and Dick Cheney to account one split I have noticed is the split between those favoring impeachment and those who respond: "Forget that, war criminals.  The Hague."  The surprise is, you might expect the latter to emanate from a correspondingly farther "left" side of the "looney left," as both Democrats and Republicans are fond of calling anyone longing for the rule of law.  But it doesn't.  This is what you hear from the right side of the political spectrum now peeling off from Bush.  The blunt manner of speaking in some parts of the country prevents me from reporting all that I hear, say, from small towns in West Texas.  The remarks might be construed, incorrectly, as threats against the president.

Talk about impeachment in these parts and half the time you'll draw a blank stare.  Say "war crimes" and some heads start nodding.  These are families who have made the lion's share of the sacrifices in the wars of George Bush.  You can't travel long out here before you find yourself on a  "hero flight," which means the plane you are on is bringing another mama's boy back home to her in a box...  

Note: the diarist acknowledges that this post is replete with factual errors on how union PACS work.  But the comments are instructive, so I'll leave it up for now.

Rank-and-file Democrats have a few more levers to pull to help the Bush-Cheney house of cards go tumbling down, and one that hasn't been worked nearly enough is questioning why, if you are in a union, your dues should be a major source of support Democrats who absolutely refuse to do their constitutional duty to impeach Cheney and Bush.  This is your money, and while there isn't much you can do about a Conyers if you are in his district  except yell and maybe run against him, you sure as hell don't have to sit still while the union PAC gives him your money.  

Here is a list of major union contributors to the hold-outs in Judiciary on impeachment.  Links to the union websites are here, to make it easy to shoot  an email to the PAC committee asking for a meeting on the PAC's criteria for contributions, which, as your money, you have a say in. Or if you march with labor on the picket line as a matter of principle, bring up the idea to the brothers and sisters of threatening to withhold contributions.  Candidates are adopted by a vote of the PAC committee, and these are your co-workers.

The big news is for the first time print, brick-and-mortar newspapers are reporting on impeachment action in the House, unlike last Nov. 6th when Kucinich's resolution to impeach Cheney went down like a tree in the forest with not even a squirrel around to hear it.  So far the Baltimore Sun, the LA times, the Kansas City Star, the Houston Chronicle, and today even the Boston Globe (a New Your Times company paper) saw fit to report House action on one of the most important events that can happen in a democracy.  Any others? This is how the dam breaks.  Poeple who are not pale creatures of the Internet (like us) start to have hope, and pick up the phone.

Patience on impeachment, folks, now both Bush and Cheney have their asses lined up in Judiciary Committee, and Scott McClellan is yet to testify.  Keep up the drumbeat.  I favor asking our friends in labor why they keep donating to the campaigns of these scoundrels in the "Democratic" party.  Hoyer gets money from Carpenters & Joiners Union, International Assn of Fire Fighters, Laborers Union, and Service Employees International.

UPDATE: AfterDowningStreet.org says that tonight, TUESDAY EVENING, the Clerk of the House is expected to read the articles of impeachment, which should take about 5 hours, at the conclusion of which Rep. Kucinich will make a motion. WatchSpan.
Call your congressman.

Nothing unexpected here, Hoyer just doing his job as most congressmen now see those jobs: to keep the money flowing to their bosses.  No, we're not talking about the constituents who actually vote for them and put them into office.  We're talking about the campaign contributors who shovel the gold into these enterprises called congressmen, so they can watch it come out the other end multiplied miraculously in the form of legislation which makes them rich.  The chink in the armor is labor...

We should put all this talk about Hillary for VP to rest.  Hillary would drag Obama down in the red states like a ton of bricks, where as of Super Tuesday Obama swept with Colorado, North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Alaska, while Hillary took only Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma (then had the nerve to say she'd be the better red state candidate.)  Further, Obama's victories included such margins as 80% over Clinton in Idaho and 74% in Kansas.   In no state did Clinton poll better than 60% over Obama on super Tuesday.

This was of course before the Clinton campaign played the Farrakan card on Obama to scare white people, tarring him with an old firebrand he might have liked because his rants put him to sleep, for all we know.

Clearly many of the people in independent and Republican-rich states who wouldn't vote for a Clinton in a thousand years are willing to give Obama a chance.  His most inspired choice would be a military man and vigorous Iraq War opponent like Sen. Jim Webb, who alone in the Senate has a son who actually deployed to Iraq.  Plus Webb is a great speaker...

On July 22, 2005, Special Forces Colonel Patrick Lang said before a congressional committee that, as a result of the exposure of Valerie Plame, our ability to know when terrorists would "carry 10-pound bags of explosive in subway stations" would "go right down the drain."  The media never reported this.  Instead it was chasing the spin that Plame was not "really" a covert agent.  It was crucial to the White House that Plame's job description be fogged up.

Scott McClellan now says not only Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told him to lie about their involvement in the Plame betrayal but Vice President Cheney, presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card and President Bush himself.

At the time of the leak even right-wing talkingheads were saying this was one scandal from which the administration might not recover.  Playing hardball with critics like Joe Wilson was one thing.  Exposing an undercover informant network was another...

I know it, Barack, you just can't win lately.  You stand up for Wright and you get slammed, you renounce him and you get slammed.  You're sounding like it's really getting to you, which is only human, which means you've got to fall back to the plan.  Why you are doing this.

The pundits and networks are trying to Dean-Scream you with this Wright thing.  Pretty amazing, isn't it?  The guy says the US has killed innocent civilians and everyone acts shocked.  Wright could have put it differently, but you mean to tell me thousands of Iraqi civilians haven't been killed by US bombs and firing into cars at checkpoints?   But you're trying to win an election, and that's a downer.

That means, to stop from veering off in all directions, giving a history lesson on one hand and telling white America they're not all evil on the other, you need to pull back to message.  You need to say, Look, this is what always happens whenever someone gets too close to the real problem, the disappearance of the middle-class and all the bridges that used to let Americans go from one class to another, just working hard and not needing to be a financial genius.  Bridges like college affordability...

UPDATE: email from Rep. Jim Splaine below.

The historic vote on New Hampshire State House Resolution HR 24, introduced by 87 year old State Representative Betty Hall, will be coming to a vote tomorrow, Wednesday, April 16th.  If adopted, New Hampshire will not only be the first-in-the-nation presidential primary but the first-in-the-nation on impeachment, employing Jefferson's Manual rules, whereby a single state legislature may direct Congress to initiate hearings.  This avenue has never before been employed for a president or vice president, and so legal ramifications are not clear.  What is clear is that legal scholars would have to get to work to decipher the meaning.  In addition, a resolution like this coming from flinty New Hampshirites rather than hippie Vermonters casts an different pale on impeachment.  

The vote follows a day-long event in Concord, which was reported to have standing-room-only, in support of HR24.  It featured Daniel Ellsberg, Dr. Robert Bowman, John Nichols, and others as speakers, and the "Paul" of Peter Paul and Mary as part of the entertainment.  

UPDATE: AP AND YAHOONEWS ROLLLING THE DRUMBEAT: Iran testing advanced centrifuges in push for nuclear power.  Time to call congressmen, this is getting reeelly reeelly scary.  Focus on your own and Judiciary, who can impeach.  This MF has gone absolutely batshit crazy, and is going to start WWIII.  Iran has one of the youngest populations in the world, meaning, the most children.  The centrifuges are scattered all over the place.  God help us.

From Portland Indymedia, unconfirmed, but Major Fox's and Capt. May's credentials are well-known. If Iran retaliates as promised, Bush declares martial law, as Reaganite Paul Craig Roberts has speculated, then democracy dies now.

Two military officers of high conscience and courage, Marine Major William B. Fox...

For those following the drama of New Hampshire residents using "Jefferson's Manual" to force the Congress to take up the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, here's the dirty little secret: it's really easy. All you need to do is print out a version of the below resolution, walk it to an amenable state representative (or assemblyman/woman), and have them enter it into State House business. Now you have an active impeachment resolution in your state.

Is it effective? From a legal standpoint, no one knows, since no presidential impeachment has ever been commenced through Jefferson's Manual, Section 603 of the Manual of the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives, which provides for impeachments to be initiated on a motion based on charges transmitted from a state legislature. But from a political standpoint, 50 states having impeachment resolutions in the works would make Congress's I-See-Nothing position untenable. So far California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas (YES TEXAS!),...

Immigration Reform, Constitution, National Security

There comes a time in the struggle for freedom when Americans must unite.  At times we unite with those whose priorities may not be ours, and those whom with we disagree on many things.  I launch this call because I will do anything to save my Constitution.  My call is to my countrymen in the strong Immigration Reform Movement, who believe that George Bush must be impeached for aiding and abetting a level of illegal immigration unseen at any time in our history, 13 million to 20 million illegal aliens present and an influx of a million more per year, which, differently from previous generations, now robs American workers of jobs that Americans will do, and results in unfair competition to businesses which play by the rules.  In the long term this is beyond the assimilative powers of even our nation, and thus awakens the threat that Balkanization poses to national security.

The interest of a nation in a common culture and language is clear, even if that culture is an amalgam of many other cultures, something to be celebrated and treasured as uniquely American.  Except for our citizens of Native American ancestry, we all came from someplace else..

Instead of going after Clinton's tax returns, Obama should attack Hillary on her inconsistency on withdrawal from Iraq.  The candidate started to win me over when he had the guts to run, in a $250,000 spot in the middle of the single most testosterone-laden annual event in the world, the Super Bowl, an ad which flashed upon the screen "Getting us out of Iraq."  His string of victories in red states after such a bold, unambiguous statement to the most pumped-up white male audience imaginable told me this was a man of courage, and that America was ready to pull its sons from hell.  

It's clear why the Republicans want Hillary: Her record of statements on Iraq make her perfect for a repeat of the "I was for the war before I was against it" that was used to such devastating effect against John Kerry. The minor modification will be "I was before withdrawal before I was against it."

In 2005, in an echo of a recent Bush statement, she said immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake.  Then she said Bush's pledge to stay "until the job is done" was also a mistake.  So where does she fall?  Obviously she wants to withdraw not right away, but somewhere short of having the job "done."  Great.  Republican strategists are drooling for this ad and,

They are:

  * Rep. Zoe Lofgren (202-225-3072)
   * Rep. Melvin Watt (202-225-1510)
   * Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (202-225-3816)
   * Rep. Bobby Scott (202-225-8351)

The Northeast Impeachment Coalition has targeted these folks as "most likely" to sign onto Rep. Wexler's impeachment resolution, with further pressure.  So far there are four other House Judiciary Committee members who have joined Wexler's call to begin impeachment hearings against Dick Cheney immediately.  It's time to focus the phone calls on a small number Judiciary members who can add to the momentum.  CALL, ask them to sign onto Wexler's impeachment resolution!  Bookmark and blast this to all your lists PLEASE!
The following is a release from the Fast for Impeachment folks with those brave, brave ladies at CodePink.

Impeachment news: Fasters 'Break Bread' in Congressman Conyers' Office Today, Bay Area mom goes 25 days without a meal- Conyers Refuses to put Impeachment on the Table..

I am re-posting this because of its relevance to today's Obama-McCain firefight over Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is a preview to how the Republicans plan to scare people into keeping troops there, and winning the election on national security grounds.  To sum up, Al Qaeda is hated in Iraq.  If we withdraw Iraqis will almost certainly turn on them.  Our national security is endangered by us staying in Iraq, not leaving it.  This piece is a bit on the long side, but it contains the evidence for everything Obama is saying.  Whoever wins this war of words will win the election.  Also posted at MilitaryTimes.com, for discussion within this important community.  

McCain and Obama Trade Jabs on Iraq

If there is anything George Bush can rely on to keep us in Iraq, it is the threat that we will be "handing it over to Al Qaeda" if we withdraw, and inviting civil war.  Whether you support the occupation, supported it before but now regret it, or were against it from the start, our options have dwindled to zero..

Keep ObaMOMENTUM going, circulate this essay, coming in a minute: ObaMO.org.

If the Clinton campaign believes its own press releases, it is now clear that only Obama can beat McCain in the general election .  The campaign announced primary wins in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma as proof that Clinton can "compete and win in red states."   If that's true, then Obama's red state sweep in Colorado, North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Alaska means he can compete even better.  These victories include such margins as 80% over Clinton in Idaho and 74% in Kansas.   In no state did Clinton poll better than 60% over Obama.  Obama beat Clinton by more than that time and again.  

Even more important than outright wins in red states is Obama's performance among crossovers and independents...