Duty to Warn

I remember John Perkins.  He was a real jerk.  A gold-plated, super-slick lying little butthole shill for corporate gangsters; a snake-oil salesman with a movie-star grin, shiny loafers, a crooked calculator and a tooled leather briefcase full of high-blown bullshit.  

This was two decades ago.  The early 1980s. I wore sandals, uncombed hair down to my cheap collar and carried a busted ring-binder filled with honest calculations and sincere analysis.  It was Economic Hit Man Perkins vs. Economic Long-Hair Palast.  I didn't stand a chance.  The EHM was about to put a political bullet hole through me wider than a silver dollar.

CNN allowed the eight Democratic presidential campaigns to vote: Should CNN continue to place its preferred candidates together in the center of the stage in order to keep the candidates it ignores off camera at the edges, or should it follow the model PBS used last week and choose candidate positions on the stage by random drawing? Dodd, Gravel, and Kucinich were joined by Hillary Clinton in opting for the random drawing. Edwards and Obama were joined by Richardson and Biden in opting to stick Edwards, Clinton, and Obama in the middle. The vote was four to four. What to do? Appeal to the public? You're kidding, right? CNN cast the deciding vote itself and will stick with the podium positioning that suits its stance of choosing our elected officials for us.

Many of America’s most prominent journalists want us to forget what they were saying and writing more than four years ago to boost the invasion of Iraq. Now, they tiptoe around their own roles in hyping the war and banishing dissent to the media margins.

The media watch group FAIR (where I’m an associate) has performed a public service in the latest edition of its magazine Extra. The organization’s activism director, Peter Hart, drew on FAIR’s extensive research to assemble a sample of notable quotations from media cheerleading for the Iraq invasion.

One of the earliest quotes to merit special attention came from ace New York Times reporter -- and chronic Pentagon promoter -- Michael Gordon. In a CNN appearance on March 25, 2003, just a few days into the invasion, Gordon gave his easy blessing to the invaders’ bombing of Iraqi TV.

George Mason (1725-1792), the father of the Bill of Rights (1791-2002), argued at the Constitutional Convention in favor of providing the House of Representatives the power of impeachment by pointing out that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection."

James Madison (1751-1836), the father of the U.S. Constitution (1788-2007), added that "if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."

The official list of cosponsors of H Res 333 to impeach Dick Cheney cannot be updated until July 10 when Congress gets back to Washington.  But Congress Members can contact Dennis Kucinich's office in the meantime and sign on.  And citizens can encourage them to do so.  In fact, this is the week in which you should visit your Congress Member's district office and demand that he or she sign onto Kucinich's articles of impeachment or introduce their own.  And they should not just sign on, but make a public statement in support.  Here's everything you need to know: http://impeachcheney.org

The official count of cosponsors, including Kucinich, is at 10.  But Rep. Jim McDermott spoke on the floor of the House last week and committed to signing on.  That makes 11.  Congressmen Bob Filner and Jim Moran now also say that they are signing on.  That's 13.  And Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has spoken out in support of impeachment.  He is clearly either signing on or introducing his own articles of impeachment or both.  That makes probably 14. 

For all the noise and carnage of war — especially this unnecessary war, which seems to possess a life of its own as it barrels forward uninterrupted on two fronts — our language of condemnation remains remarkably polite.

Thus a new CBS news poll shows that Americans are “increasingly dissatisfied” with the Iraq operation, with 77 percent telling pollsters they think it’s “going very badly” — as though the public were turning thumbs down on a reality TV show. Our formerly bellicose media now seem to be doing their best to reduce the national mood to a whisper. Shhh! We don’t want to hurt the president’s feelings, do we?

Meanwhile, the headlines scream “Incoming!”

About the same time that a thundering yet strangely irrelevant majority of Americans were telling CBS they want this war to stop, the U.S. military and NATO were churning up evil publicity in both Iraq and Afghanistan — and in the process ensuring that the war on terror will not run out of enemies — simply by waging the war they have waged from the start.

CHICAGO - The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., founder and President of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, issued the following statement on President Bush's action to commute the sentence of Lewis Libby:

While no surprise, President Bush’s move to commute the 2 ½ year prison sentence of White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby is an affront to justice and fairness.

Libby, chief aide to Vice President Cheney, was convicted on felony charges of perjury and obstruction of justice – caught concealing and lying about the actions of the White House regarding the “outing” of CIA operative Valerie Plame, and its manipulation of “evidence” to justify invading Iraq.

Reverend Jesse Jackson said something recently that I'd like you to repeat after me:

Bush spied.
Cheney lied.
Far too many people have died.
It's time they were tried.
It's impeachment time.

I love coming to Maine, because the people here remember how democracy is supposed to work and what it takes to overthrow a King George.

I spoke on a national radio show yesterday about impeachment, and the host asked people to phone in and argue with me, but every single caller supported impeachment.

In October 2005, when King George's poll ratings were higher and a dozen scandals had yet to break, AfterDowningStreet.org sponsored a poll question by Ipsos Public Affairs: 50% of Americans said "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."

In January 2006, Zogby found that 52% of Americans said "If Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

A former member of U.S. military intelligence has decided to reveal what she knows about warrantless spying on Americans and about the fixing of intelligence in the leadup to the invasion of Iraq.