Wednesday 07/25/2008 - 10:00 AM
2141 Rayburn House Office Building
Full Committee
By Direction of the Chairman
The first panel Friday morning will include Congressman Dennis Kucinich making a case for impeachment based on the articles of impeachment he has drafted against Cheney and Bush.
The Cheney/Bush links takes you to the pages over at After Downing Street.org where Diavid Swanson has the pertinant links to much more information.
The rest of that first panel will include: Hon. Maurice Hinchey U.S. House of Representatives 22nd District, NY, Hon. Walter Jones U.S. House of Representatives 3rd District, NC, And Hon. Brad Miller U.S. House of Representatives 13th District, NC.
Then the second panel convenes and will include: Hon. Elizabeth Holtzman Former U.S. House of Representatives 16th District, NY Department of Justice, Hon. Bob Barr Former U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 7th District, GA, Hon. Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson Founder and President High Roads for Human Rights, Stephen Presser Raoul Berer Professor of Legal History Northwestern University School of Law, Bruce Fein Associate Deputy Attorney General, 1981-82 Chairman, American Freedom Agenda, Vincent Bugliosi Author and Former Los Angeles County Prosecutor, Jeremy A. Rabkin Professor of Law George Mason University School of Law, Elliott Adams President of the Board Veterans for Peace, Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr. Senior Counsel Brennan Center for Jutice at NYU School of Law.
The links above will give you each persons testimony, in PDF, after the hearings are over and they are posted to the House Judiciary Committee site.
Elliott Adams, President of Veterans for Peace, and a descendant of American revolutionary Sam Adams, will deliver this prepared testimony, in it he will tell America:
Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention of 1787 –
Ben Franklin was asked: “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”
Dr. Franklin replied: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
He will tell them who Veterans For Peace are:
Veterans For Peace has members from every war our country has fought back to and including World War II. VFP is 23 years old, has over 120 chapters spread around the country, has an NGO seat in the UN, and a small share in the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Our members help 85,000 Iraqis get safe drinking water, gave 54,000 free phone cards to patients in 148 VA hospitals, help Agent Orange victims both US soldiers and Vietnamese civilians, aided Hurricane Katrina victims, supports schools and orphanages in Afghanistan & Vietnam, have worked extensively in Central American for freedom and fair elections, and bought appropriate body armor for soldiers in Iraq when the government could not supply it.
But many of our members have set aside all these other important works to defend our democracy by calling for impeachment.
He will also let America know:
"For us veterans, when our time came, we volunteered our very lives for this republic; for the principle of freedom for all, for equal opportunity for all, to defend the Constitution and the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, and to guarantee the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, Congressmen, it is your time, and I hear there is not enough time! Now is your time, and I hear it will not be good for one party or the other party! Now is your time, and I hear there is not enough political will around you! When our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence they were not worried about political will, or how much time there was, or about any parties' political future, they were just worried they were going to be hanged by the neck. But they did what was right. Now it is your time to standup. Einstein said – 'The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.'"
Upon joining the United States Military Branches we take an Oath, and in that oath we say these words: "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.", as veterans we still take oath very seriously!
Unless you came here as an immigrant from another country, the greater majority of the citizens of this country aren't required to take an oath, most will say the Pledge of Alligence to the flag, but even that is not a required oath. Your oath is the written Bill of Rights and the Constitution and in those it lays out the what this country was founded on and what it must do when these are violated.
We are supposed to be a Land of Law and when our Laws are Violated and Broken we must take the nessary actions to uphold the Constitution and the Qualities this Nation strives for and lead by the example we set for ourselves!
Bruce Fein, Associate Deputy Attorney General, 1981-82, in his testimony will than tell the American people:
"If President George W. Bush had knocked to enter the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787, presiding convention president George Washington would have denied him admission. Thereby hangs an alarming tale. The executive branch has vandalized the Constitution every bit as much [sic] the barbarians vandalized Rome in 410 AD. The executive branch has destroyed the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances and raced the nation perilously close to executive despotism. The executive branch rejects the basic philosophical tenets of the United States. It does not accept that America was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that sovereignty in a republican form of government lies with the people; that there are no vassals or serfs in the Constitution's landscape; that every man or woman is a king or queen but no one wears a crown; and, that the rule of law is the nation's civic religion. The Founding Fathers fashioned impeachment as a remedy for attacks against the constitutional order."
Many of you have been right along side those who threw Impeachment, that should have occurred long ago, off "the table", and the only reason is your fear that the political party letter you follow will not gain the control of power, for your hired representatives, you crave.
We Veterans have served this Country in times of relative Peace but especially in those times of War and Occupation, right or wrong, that you have sent us into.
Reason; We Took An Oath to Defend and Protect the Constitution of this Country and to serve Honorably, and we have, and once that Oath was taken it was never forgotten, like our experiances in service to.
It's long past time for the Citizens to stand up and Defend their Constitution and Country, it's time You Did Your Service and hold those destroying the Constitution and Country, from within, Accountable for the Laws Covered, and Broken, by that Extremely Important Document, the document we live by and leads us above others as to the example we should be setting for all to see!
The day before the hearing, some of those impeachment advocates gathered at the National Press Club, David Swanson, Ray McGovern, Bruce Fein, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia Papermaster, and Crystal Kim. Videos of what they had to say, and their questions and answers with the media, are posted at YouTube
Over at After Downing Street
David has a post up now for Live Blogging from the Hearing on Impeachment!
You can go over and leave any comments, and he'll probably be giving updates from the hearing chamber when it begins!
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