PDHblog
This is a place for members of Progressive Democrats of Hawai‘i to express their thoughts
and exasperations about political happenings. The opinions and views are not necessarily
those of PDH's steering committee or membership as a whole.

A lot is happening. The Peace/Anti-War movements are coalescing with the Impeachment movements on a national basis because the Peace group sees that the ONLY way Bush’s war-making is going to be stopped is to remove him and the President of Vice Cheney from office. Nothing else will work. An alliance among groups is building. What follows is an edited summary of what is being planned on a national basis by a number of alliances.

Impeachment Spring 2007

• April 28 is now being billed as National Impeachment Day
• Massive anti-war actions throughout the country on March 17-19 will loudly raise the impeachment demand
• The objective of this national alliance of groups is to begin an impeachment investigation via John Conyers’ Judiciary Committee by May or June

Ted Glick, in Future Hope column, Feb. 25, 2007, wrote that

Impeachment is a perfect example of a good offense being the best defense. We saw how this worked in 1973 and 1974 when Richard Nixon’s Watergate troubles and the investigations into White House-directed criminality made it impossible for Tricky Dick and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger to do anything of substance to prevent the on-going withdrawal of U.S. troops from the southern part of Vietnam and the eventual collapse of the U.S.-created government in Saigon. Key to this was the existence of a loosely-connected, national grassroots movement, the National Campaign to Impeach Nixon, which came together in the fall of 1973. Through demonstrations, lobbying and various kinds of street heat, it kept up the pressure and helped keep the impeachment issue in the news until, on August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned. In hindsight people may think that this result was not surprising given the 1972-74 revelations of White House illegality and solid Democratic control of both houses of Congress. But there were liberal Democrats like Washington Post columnist Nicholas Von Hoffman who were taking the position during this time that it would be good for the Democrats if a weakened Nixon remained in office. This view was shared by many other Democrats.

Does this sound familiar? It should. Sounds like today’s news.

Also, state legislatures in Washington, New Mexico, and Vermont have moved forward with joint legislative resolutions, based on Rules of the House penned by Thomas Jefferson, calling on the US. House of Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney, (other states, including Rhode Island, New Jersey, and California, may also see bills submitted). Under Thomas Jefferson’s Rules of the House, any one of those resolutions, if passed and forwarded to the House of Representatives, could start the process of impeachment.

On top of all this, if any additional evidence was needed, the trial of Scooter Libby has provided much additional evidence of the illegal and nefarious activities of President of Vice Cheney that seem rife with possibilities for impeachment. Many who are following that trial see the trail of cookie crumbs leading directly to the Office of the President of Vice, and are hopeful that some kind of new indictment will swiftly follow the announcement of the verdict on the Libby trial.

Bob Schacht