Contempt Citation Replacement For Impeachment?

By- Suzie-Q @ 8:00 PM MST

Contempt order substitutes for impeachment?

by GottaLaff · Saturday March 01, 12:15 PM

There’s no substitute for a well-earned, overdue impeachment, and a contempt citation sure won’t fit the bill. That’s kind of like saying that Jay Leno is a worthy substitute for Jon Stewart… only this isn’t funny (neither is Leno, IMHO). But at least it would open a can of very sleazy, slimy, wiggly, legally worms:

Is Pelosi’s ultimatum a suitable replacement for the impeachment proceedings that [Fla. Rep. Robert] Wexler and 18 other Democrats demanded in a December letter?

“It is not a replacement. It’s not a substitute,” Wexler said. “We need to answer the question where are the Democrats? Where is the backbone? The speaker has begun to answer that question.”

Discovering backbone is one thing. Employing it is a who-ole other story.

Pelosi’s ultimatum is the closest that the pro-impeachment Democrats are going to get to full-blown congressional proceedings to remove Bush from office, barring some unforeseen scandal.

::screeeeeeeching brakes!:: “Barring some unforeseen scandal”? Like there haven’t been countless impeachmentworthy scandals up until now? Like there won’t be some unforeseen (or foreseen; read: Iraq, Iran, election fraud, U.S. Attorneygate, ad nauseum) scandal in the future? Like there aren’t a few brewing right this second?

Democratic aides involved in the progression of the contempt citation acknowledged its political benefits, notably cheering up a base demoralized by Pelosi’s inability to get the caucus to force Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. […]

[Wexler] said Democrats need to make the case they are pushing back by challenging Bush more on his use of warrantless wiretaps and claims of executive power to ignore Congress.

Pelosi, he said, “has successfully begun establishing that Democrats have a backbone and that Democrats can be bold in standing up to the president. That’s critically important both substantively but also for political purposes.”

It’s a start. But starting something that should have begun 7 years ago? Sigh. Better late than never, I suppose.

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Chavez Warns Columbia: Strike Inside Venezuela Will Be “Cause For War”

By- Suzie-Q @ 7:30 PM MST

Chavez warns of “war” if Colombia strikes Venezuela

REUTERS
Reuters US Online Report World News

Mar 01, 2008 20:44 EST

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez warned Colombia on Saturday it would be a “cause for war” if its forces struck inside Venezuelan territory as they did in Ecuador killing a top Colombian rebel commander there.

“Don’t be thinking that you can do that here … because it would be extremely serious and would be a causa belli, a cause for war, (if there is) a military incursion in Venezuelan territory. There’s no excuse,” Chavez said in his most belligerent comments to date in a diplomatic dispute with Bogota.

Colombia’s military said troops killed Raul Reyes, a leader of Marxist FARC rebels, during an attack on a jungle camp in Ecuador in a severe blow to Latin America’s oldest guerrilla insurgency. The operation included air strikes and fighting with rebels across the border.

Chavez has been at odds with U.S.-backed Colombian President Alvaro Uribe over the Venezuelan’s mediation with the FARC, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, over the release of hostages held by the rebels.

The outspoken, anti-U.S. Chavez has called Uribe a pawn of the United States in the superpower’s plans to attack Venezuela. Colombia and the United States deny the accusation from Chavez who regularly says without providing evidence that Washington is plotting his ouster.

Chavez has withdrawn his ambassador from Bogota and in recent weeks insulted Uribe during his speeches.

(Reporting by Patricia Rondon; Writing by Saul Hudson; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: Reuters US Online Report World News

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Jack Nicholson Backs Hillary Clinton With His Video

By- Suzie-Q @ 6:45 PM MST

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US Credit Card Debt Bubble Soars..

GEF @ 11:38 PM MST

Credit card market a potential disaster-in-waiting.

A new report issued recently by the Center for American Progress warned that, “as borrowing in the mortgage market slows, credit card borrowing is accelerating — a dangerous trend because borrowers still face weak income growth. That means the credit card market could eventually run into the same problems that now afflict the sub-prime mortgage market. ” Tonight, NBC News reported that credit card debt is nearing a record $1 trillion. The piece noted there is a “credit card binge across the nation as people use their plastic to stay financially afloat.”

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McCain’s Eligibility Questioned Due To Birth In Panama Canal Zone

By- Suzie-Q @ 10:25 AM MST

From Times Online

February 29, 2008

McCain’s Panama birth prompts eligibility probe by his campaign

John McCain’s nomination as the Republican candidate may be an electoral near-certainty, but his campaign is investigating whether the senator’s birth in the Panama Canal Zone may disqualify him from the presidency.

Mr McCain was born in 1936 while his father was stationed at a US military base and the Canal Zone was under American control. Although the question was examined during his first presidential bid in 2000, it has been revived as the senator heads towards the nomination.

The issue has also revived a centuries-old debate about the exact meaning of a constitutional clause laid down by the founding fathers in 1787, which declares that only a “natural-born citizen” can occupy the Oval Office.

The restriction was most recently revisited over the possible candidacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California who was born in Austria but has lived in the United States since 1968.

There is little guidance in the US Constitution as to how the provision should be interpreted and debate has frequently centred on whether only those born on US soil can be considered “natural-born”.

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Bush Administration: Limping Toward The Finish Line…

By- Suzie-Q @ 8:50 AM MST

Today’s Must Read

By Paul Kiel – February 29, 2008, 9:59AM

More than 10 months of the Bush Administration remain, and the government is already limping toward the finish line.

You know about the crippled Federal Election Commission, the government’s campaign finance watchdog that has been crippled for two months now. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) certainly doesn’t need reminding of the situation.But that’s not all. As the Politico reports, negotiations between the Senate leadership and the White House are at such an impasse over nominees that the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Council of Economic Advisers, the National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, and the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission are all crippled.

Update: A TPM Reader reminds us that the SEC is also crippled: it currently has three Republican commissioners and no Democrats.

Now, of course, the White House points the finger at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and Reid points it right back.

But it’s funny how people get suspicious of a stridently pro-business administration when it lets half a dozen regulatory bodies go dark. From the Politico:

“It’s the worst last year of a two-term presidency since we created a two-term presidency,” said Paul Light, an expert on federal nominations at New York University. “It’s a real tribute to the problems of the Bush administration that [Bush’s] eighth year is even worse than Clinton’s.”…

Light said that Bush’s ambivalence toward government regulation plays a role in the stalemate. “If the Consumer Product Safety Commission is not able to promulgate rules, is that a bad thing for an anti-regulatory administration? Probably not,” he said. “If you’re in an anti-regulatory mood, having a regulatory commission unable to regulate is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it’s going to regulate against industry.”

So who’s to blame? In a lengthy letter to the White House yesterday, Reid laid out his rebuffed offers for compromises on nominees, offers to confirm as many as 80 Republican nominations in exchange for confirmation of eight Democratic slots on various federal boards and agencies.

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A Manchurian Candidate in the White House?

anthony @ 14:25 GMT

DAVE LINDORFF | Counterpunch | Saturday, March 1, 2008

With a viral campaign underway via email, right-wing radio, and on the street suggesting that Barack Obama is a black “Manchurian Candidate,” secretly trained as a Muslim fanatic who will insinuate himself into the White House, thence to undermine all that we hold dear, perhaps it is time to look at the Manchurian Candidate we already have in the White House, who, together with his handler over in Blair House, has pretty much done all the damage already.

George Bush came to office in 2001 promising a new era of integrity, civility and “compassionate conservatism,” an era of humble American foreign policy, and a bi-partisan approach to government.

What did we actually get?

Once in office, this chameleon president almost immediately set out to embroil the country in a major war in the Middle East against the nation of Iraq. The game plan was laid out at the president’s first National Security Council meeting, attended by Vice President Dick Cheney (the man holding Bush’s controller), Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neal (who later spilled the beans about the session).

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Government Concedes Vaccine-Autism Case in Federal Court – Now What?

anthony @ 14:15

David Kirby | Huffington Post | Thursday, February 28, 2008

After years of insisting there is no evidence to link vaccines with the onset of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the US government has quietly conceded a vaccine-autism case in the Court of Federal Claims.

The unprecedented concession was filed on November 9, and sealed to protect the plaintiff’s identify. It was obtained through individuals unrelated to the case.

The claim, one of 4,900 autism cases currently pending in Federal “Vaccine Court,” was conceded by US Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and other Justice Department officials, on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, the “defendant” in all Vaccine Court cases.

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Could Our Democracy Withstand Another 9/11?

Sudhan @09:50 CET

The Reichstag fire helped transform Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship. What can we do to avoid a similar outcome?

By David T. Z. Mindich, AlterNet. Posted February 29, 2008.

On a cold January morning in 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as chancellor of one of the world’s great democracies. While the world has duly noted its 75th anniversary last month, it is not the cold January morning but a hot February night that should command our greatest attention. It was 75 years ago this week that the parliament building, the Reichstag, was set ablaze. As the Reichstag burned, Hitler was busy converting the chancellorship into a dictatorship.

As we engage in the democratic process of picking a new president, a look back at Hitler’s dizzying rise is an instructive reminder of the fragility of democracy, then and now.

During the period of long simmering fears over an amorphous international threat — communism — German opposition forces were willing to give Hitler the chancellorship despite his capturing only a minority of votes during the recent election. But it was the Feb. 27 Reichstag fire, a fire that the Nazis accused a Dutch Communist of setting, that sent the country on a quick road to fascism. Within 60 days, Hitler had begun the process of arbitrary arrests, warrantless surveillance and searches, incarceration without charges, suspension of habeas corpus, the implementation of torture, the mustering of a private army, and was pushing through the passage of the “Enabling Act,” which gave Hitler and his henchmen the power to ignore the legislative branch and write laws themselves.

Continued . . .

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