JohnConyers: Playing it Cool

[blogslut]

Conyers endorses national effort to impeach Bush, Cheney

DETROIT -- U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said Tuesday he supports a national effort calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, but stopped short of pledging to take action to back it.

"I've been supportive of that movement," said Conyers, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. "I encourage that nationwide."

link: http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=6583653&nav=0Rcd

This is the guy and they all know it. In the past fifty years, there have been only two instances where articles of impeachment were written up against a president and Mr. Conyers was the man that held the pen. There is no doubt he can do the deed. Personally, I'm betting he's got a rough draft for Bushco within reach at all times. This is the man that knows the game better than anyone. He tested the impeachment waters in the last term when noone else would touch the subject. He was not cowed and now he's in control of his own court.

Remember:

"I've been supportive of that movement," said Conyers, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee that would lead impeachment hearings. "I encourage that nationwide."

You have your marching orders -

http://www.house.gov/writerep/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

[babylonsister]

1. Mr, Conyers, very respectfully, could you

shit or get off the pot already?! If you lead, many more just might follow!

[blogslut]

3. There are a lot of pots

And only one John Conyers. Looks to me like he's multi-tasking over many messes made by our unhousebroken president. It's up to us to screw our courage to the sticking point and forge ahead.

[bigtree]

4. Is he just being coy, do you think?

or, could there be a good, acceptable reason he hasn't pressed forward yet, lending his committee's investigations to that effort?

one clue from Conyers:

"The goal is whether to impeach or follow up on the defects and disabilities of an administration" that has shut out Congress, he said.

[babylonsister]

5. Sounds like his frustration is showing; if this admin keeps ignoring

subpoenas, that might be the straw to get him off the pot, to mix metaphors.:crazy:

[blogslut]

6. I wouldn't say coy

I imagine there are ethical/regulatory boundaries at play. Can the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee come right out in a public forum, in favor of impeachment, before he brings the issue before his fellow house members? As well, there are his many investigations. I would guess there are facts that can't be made public until indictments are issued. In the end, I think he's just waiting to grok teh fullness. :)

[ProSense]

2. I don't want Bush impeached

I want him tried, convicted and sentenced to hard labor! But that's just me.

[SharonRB]

8. Me, too

I'd rather see them tried and convicted on criminal charges with life in prison than have them thrown out of office with so little time left.

[yurbud]

7. I thought Congress was holding off on impeachment to end the war

since that is not the case, they better get off their dead asses.

[SharonRB]

9. I was at the town hall last night

I spoke to Conyers briefly before the event and then he had to leave to go to his town hall on gas prices. He said he'd be back, but it looks like he never made it. I, and a lot of others, left at about 7:30 when he hadn't come back yet. I was actually surprised he was going to be there. I heard him speak a couple of weeks ago, and I know his feelings about impeachment. He said then it won't get through his committee. I don't think he's trying to discourage people from pushing for it, but he gave the usual reasons against it: more harm than good, not enough votes, too many other things to do, etc. However, I think that if the Republicans start pushing for it, a la Nixon, and it looked like we had the votes, that he would go for it. But that's just my feeling.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

10. I couldn't care less if he were carved from ice.

The blood of every soldier and every Iraqi civilian that is killed is now on his hands.

Don't "encourage". DO.

[L. Coyote]

11. Were George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Bradford Berenson, Karl Rove, and/or Susan Ralston involved

Were George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales, Bradford Berenson, Karl Rove, and/or Susan Ralston involved in quashing investigation of fellow Bush team member, Jack Abramoff?
FROM: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x995236

-----------------------
Published by The Nation
Can Justice Be Trusted? by Ari Berman

Now that Jack Abramoff's dealings with members of Congress have drawn criminal indictments, the disgraced lobbyist's ties to the Bush Administration are starting to get attention........... Little notice has been paid, however, to the Justice Department, charged with prosecuting Abramoff. Evidence has emerged that the department played an active role in shutting down an investigation of Abramoff's dubious lobbying activities in Guam in November 2002. The story raises questions about whether Justice can be trusted with this historic investigation--and whether top White House officials actively abetted Abramoff's shady dealings as early as 2001. ....

......At the time Abramoff, a former member of George W. Bush's transition team, was a $750-an-hour lobbyist with access to the highest levels of the Republican Party........"Abramoff claimed he had a top political guy at DOJ he could go to ..." says a source

...strategy was "... to get Republicans to go to DOJ and the White House and say, Why have you not replaced that Democrat who's been acting US Attorney?"

Black contacted the Public Integrity Section, the unit currently heading the department's Abramoff task force,...Justice forwarded the information to the Deputy Attorney General's office and the Office of Legal Policy (OLP)...

Sources close to the probe say the information was likely passed on to then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who worked closely with Justice on such matters. "Those heads of OLP who are pretty well connected deal directly with the White House counsel," says Lee Casey, a former OLP aide under Reagan and Bush I. (Black declined to comment and Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra refused to provide details about an "ongoing criminal investigation.")

...In an e-mail dated October 1, 2001, Abramoff told ... Ashcroft's chief of staff, David Ayres, whom he hosted at a Washington Redskins Abramoff mentioned an upcoming meeting with Ashcroft and another meeting, at a pickup basketball game, between the Attorney General and an Ashcroft aide who'd become an Abramoff staffer. "We'll hope that higher ups will take some time to squash this on their own," Abramoff wrote. Sure enough, the report never came out and Justice demoted its author, regional security specialist Robert Meissner.....

Black convened a grand jury, which subpoenaed the Abramoff contract ... The next day the Bush Administration announced that Black would be replaced as US Attorney and demoted him to Assistant US Attorney, after twelve years on the job. ... "Fred was removed because he asked to indict Abramoff," says one of Black's colleagues at Justice ...

.....At the time of Black's demotion, former Abramoff aide Susan Ralston was working as a top assistant to Rove ......Black's investigation into Abramoff's activities was forceably halted. Reportedly, the FBI and the DOJ Inspector General have begun looking into Black's demotion. ...

More broadly, how can Justice be trusted to investigate a matter in which it is so deeply implicated? ....Bush nominated ... Public Integrity Section head, Noel Hillman, to a federal judgeship in New Jersey and named a temporary replacement mid-investigation. Justice can prosecute the case without any political pressure "as long as the targets are members of Congress," says former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. "If, however, you start to develop ties between Congress, Abramoff and people in the White House, it becomes problematic, especially from an appearance perspective. Because of the Deputy Attorney General's and the Attorney General's ties to the President, the need for an outside counsel becomes greater."

Otherwise, how can the public be sure that the President's man, Alberto Gonzales, will conduct an honest, thorough investigation of Abramoff when the targets might include his top deputies, his former White House colleagues, his predecessor, his boss--indeed, himself?

[donkeyotay]

12. Can justice be trusted? No.

Let's review. We had the religious right's assault on our country back when the repos took over in 1994. These guys were a minority, but suddenly started to get juice. Now it turns out that Abramoff was helping the Tom Delays and Ralph Reeds of the world use the RR. Through the miracle of the RR's entrance into politics, we end up with the born again president.

Course, none of these boys gave a rip about religion. This was about money and power. They wanted a permanent majority of their crime family running our country. The jury is still out as to whether or not they succeeded. The wheels of justice have turned so slowly that I seriously doubt they are turning at all.

So they used their non-profit fronts and moved money around, but that money is peanuts. The big money seems to be in defense/intell, medicare, media, telecommunications and datamining. These guys got a good leg-up by bribing officials and then receiving contracts. Many people fell quiet along the way, and any official who has taken a bribe can then be blackmailed with it.

Justice? Call me skeptical, but so far the Abramoff "investigation" has moved down, not up, the food chain. The freakin golf trip was in 2002. Five years later....

Oh, don't forget David Safavian and Patrick Pizzella, also associates of the esteemed and influencial Republican rainmaker, Mr. Abramoff.

Thank you, L. Coyote!

[L. Coyote]

13. Reed, Falwell, Gingrich and the "Arkansas Project" Who knows what?

Speaking of 1994 or thereabouts, who has info on this collusion and their money trails? Is this related to implacing a Rovian as the Arkansas USA? What are they covering up in AR?