I thought one was supposed to negotiate from a position of strength - keeping the pressure on makes more sense than 'bipartisan unity.' More and more I wonder what Lord Cheney has on the Democratic leadership.

Contempt is what I am starting to feel for the Democratic Congress.

WTF does it take?

Nancy, if the business of America stops for an impeachment or congressional hearings that is the nature of the constitution.

The continuing degradation of the constitution and the rule of law in this country will destroy our way of life.

If this country is suppose to be anything it is to be a nation of laws. Laws that only you are responsible for enforcing. Only the speaker can move this foreword.

I greave for my country that we are led by such gutless people.

Leadership Dems are false hope politicians so they will continue to let you down

MEMO TO PELOSI/REID/HOYER KEEP MY 800 BUCKS AND USE IT TO PROSECUTE THESE CRIMINALS! NO JUSTICE NO RE-ELECTION YOU GUTLESS TRANGULATORS

And they'll NEVER return to this topic. Once this vote opportunity passes, Congress will just let it die.

Just you watch.

What an incredible bunch of shits. One would have to be a complete fool to believe this bunch would ever do anything. No time!!!! Can't they come up with a better excuse...how about their grandmother is sick.

Cheney has read Harry and Nancy their rights. "You are under duress (in trying to convince the U.S. taxpayers that you are doing anything at all to act in their interest and hold me and my servile puppet...errh, superior and his henchpersons accountable). You have the right to remain docile and cowed as well as silent (except for strongly worded letters and toothless subpoenas). If you give up that right, anything you actually accomplish by way of holding BushCo accountable can and will be used against you, the DLC, the Democratic candidates and eventual nominees as spin fodder in the 2008 election campaign, regardless of how certifiably nonsensical that use is. Now, do you understand these rights as I have described them? Ooops, sorry for spraying spittle all over your face and clothing while speaking. I was just trying to drive home the seriousness of your predicament and the raw power you apparently still believe Bushco has despite all real evidence to the contrary."

i have expressed my disgust by contributing to Cindy Sheehan's congressional campaign against Pelosi. I encourage others to do the same.

cindyforcongress.org

The Dems have let the GOP set the agenda and control the language to such an extent, they've forgotten what the word "partisan" means.

There is nothing partisan about investigating a crime! There's nothing partisan about demanding that subpoenas be respected! Bi-partisanship does NOT mean turning a blind eye to someone's lawlessness because he happens to be from the other party!

I think it is an excuse and an informal agreement not to use legal action to campaign yet, this will come back up as the election in Nov. nears. The same thing happens in ethics investigations.

But the need to get a stimilus package together is urgent.

I'm of the belief that unless there is a 5 to 8% reduction in oil imports, or efficieny, or transformation to renewables, that the economy globally is toast. Immediately there is a need to stave off systemic defaults and to stop foreclosures so that intra-institution NPL's do not exceed the remaining percent that the fed has to cut.

Lets say that 5 out of every one hundred people default, that 5% contagion can make the ability of the fed to act limited.

I watch the markets closely, and really feel that short-term liquidating the economy is the correct move, however, not coupled with lending reforms and energy policy that deals with the trade surplus, the budget and the amount of 'pushing the string' that the FED can evoke will fail.

In the final analysis growth is predicated upon the access to inexpensive energy.

The failure to transform to electricity as an ubiquitous source, with an existing distribution system, and capping PVC solar residental growth to .02 percent will cause the long term recession to make this a major issue irrespective of party affiliation.

Watch closely to see who mirrors the 2004 Bob Graham energy infrastructure proposals, or the lack of them, and you will see if an economic revival is even rational.

But short term there is a need to liquidate the markets to offset NPL's and stave of systemic default.

It's not a good time for a food fight and the DEMS can wait until the public is really angry when the recession is realized to cite contempt, buggary, voter supprssion, adultrey, and the like.

This is pathetic. Same ol crap. Our nation is dead.

Now we can vote for a slow sodomy(dems) or a fast slap and kick all out rape(repugs). Hooray.

Pelosi is a shill.

Will the House and Senate ever vote contempt citations? Probably right around September 08 (just before leaving to campaign), and they will say that they did their job.

Anyway, Bush can pardon anyone for anything, including uncharged crimes, and there will be a blanket pardon for all on January 19!

Since last Nov. the Dems have offered multiple wimpy excuses for not doing ANYTHING to change the status quo.
Are we still honestly debating that there is any difference between the parties????
After all this time, and all the in your face proof, can there be any serious debate about the existence of differences?
Who ya gonna believe..the Dems or your lying eyes???

I'm upset about this. So upset, that I'm thinking about going to go register as a Republican, then take the Metro to downtown DC, trot over to the Judiciary Comittee, drop my trousers and take a giant peanut-filled shit on their witness desk.

I figure they won't issue a contempt citation, because it wouldn't be in the 'interests of bi-partisanship'. I will stroll out of the hearing room un-arrested, because Dem leadership are a bunch of spineless, unprincipled losers that are incapable of acting against a Republican, no matter what he does.

pathetic useless pussies.The good news is that every single house seat is up for reelection this year. I say we send every one of them home, permanently.

I'm confused about the continued usage of the term "Democratic Leadership".
Leadership requires courage.

If the stakes are high enough, if the issues are too important, a leader has the courage to "fall on his sword" for his principles.

Either Speaker Pelosi and her "leadership" cohorts don't hold the principle that maintaining the legitimacy of the integrity of the Separation of Powers is a Constitutional imperative. Or, if they do, they don't have the sufficient courage to do what they believe is right.

Whichever is the driving force behind their decision to weakly accede to the demands of the President, Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic "Leadership" have abdicated their responsibilities and should resign, or be forced from office.

Fuck the "stimulus package" it won't help anyone other than line corporate pockets with more of the peoples monies.

Not only has the Reed /Pelosi led Congress failed in their oversight duties they pander to Bush and the Republican jerk offs by passing bills to help Bush and the Republicans get out of messes they created.
WTF!?!

>> 2. If they are not cited for contempt, then does that mean that they have not been charged with a crime and therefore can't be pardoned? <<

Well, Richard Nixon had not been cited for anything or charged with any crime (only named as an "unindicted co-conspirator"); Ford issued him a pre-emptive pardon. Not an encouraging precedent.

Lieberman may be the key player in all this. He has the Democratic Party over a barrel - as soon as he formally completes his defection to the GOP the Dems will lose majority status and all that comes with it.

(One example: pro forma sessions of the Senate to stymie recess appointments - only the majority party has that power.)

While I certainly wouldn't put it past Cheney to blackmail the Dem leadership, he doesn't have to as long as Joe is willing to do it for him.

What Lieberman wants, Lieberman gets. And what I suspect he wants all about his own ego and not so much about the good of his country, much less his (former) party's interests.

This is absurd to celebreate: ["Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) promptly got a contempt citation passed in his committee for both Miers and Bolten in late _July_,']

"promptely got a contempt citation" -- get real. July was fully 4 months after the bad news started to surface.

For those who missed "the memo," it's 2008, fully a _year_ after these issues surfaced.

Let's have Pelosi removed as Speaker -- now, before the election -- to make way for someone marginally interested in enforcing Geneva, and asserting power against an alleged war criminal in the Oval Office. Either you enforce Geneva, or the ICC could conclude the Members of Congress failed to do what they should have done -- fully enforce Geneva.

"All these hearings" is a circular argument to do nothing, and show no results. A _single_ hearing -- in the form of an impeachment investigation -- would _focus_ the Congress. This Congress is using the illegalities of the President as the smokescreen to their incompetence.

"Right now, the votes are just not there,” " -- Congress "doesn't have the votes" to confront the President's confrontation of the Constitution or rule of law. No reason why the public should continue voting for this government, and cast new votes for a new sytem of oversight of this failed US government.

The DNC is the majority party in Congress. If the DNC "can't get the votes", then Pelosi isn't leading anything. This is a leadership problem. If Pelosi was serious about "getting the votes" -- as she was to support her Speakership -- she could do it. She doesn't want to. Time for a new Speaker. One that will get the votes: "Either vote to support this effort, or you are not in the DNC."

it's like that scene in the movie where you go to the cops to report on a crime, and the cops are in on it. hmm.

kind of ironic that as HRClinton attacks Obama for stating the obvious that Reagan was able to shift the country in a direction that WJClinton never did, the Dems cave over and over again (contempt, FISA, Iraq, etc).

the Republicans are still in control and a Dem majority in Congress seems to mean very little for that quaint old term "progressivism" that WJClinton supposedly heralded

Who has time for contempt?

That would be the American people. You remember them Congress, the people who pay you to write the laws. The very same people you are telling you do not have the time to follow the laws you wrote. Well now, if your laws are meaningless, so is your being in Congress to legislate.

"Step on their bipartisan message"? Hmm, I think I stepped in their bipartisan message and I can't seem to get the stink off my shoe.

bobswire wrote on January 23, 2008 1:52 PM:

Fuck the "stimulus package" it won't help anyone other than line corporate pockets with more of the peoples monies.

Well.. hmmm.. I think that there is an agreement between Paulson and company to actually do something, or somebody bought the spoos, or there is an agreement for some infrastructure and corporate pork..... but the need to act is urgent and I was glad Paulson tipped the hat to stave the market, I think that the FED and Treasury can but do so much, and really both sides of the aisle need to get off their asses and do something yesterday.

This has to be broad based enough that everybody with a SSN has an opportunity, from Pell Grant debt dissolution to pensioners who paid no tax getting a check. If that indirectly bails out the moral hazard then you have to accept that the economy is not a zero sum game, even though you have been taught to think that way.

Think Nash equilibrium

But express a thought

So why hasn't Obama taken care of this through consensus legislation to hold these obstructionists accountable?

After all, that's supposed to be his great skill and promise.

So, where is it?

When did it pass?

When will it pass?

Will it ever even be filed?

What better way to demonstrate his consensus-building skills, touted by his supporters and the primary reason to vote for him, than to bring his vast array of heretofore silent GOP supporters, moderate Dems, liberal Dems, and independents together to bring these reprobates to justice?

Waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting . . .

I'm not particularly jazzed about playing nicey with bank robbers and murderers.

These Republicans need to go to prison. Send them there. That's your job.

So, from the time this article was posted at 11:48 a.m. to now has been more than 10 hours. Enough time for the "leadership" to reconsider and
DO SOMETHING for a f*#^ing change.
As someone said before, there is no partisanship in the truth and demanding that the law be followed. There is, however, capitulation when you let one side thumb their nose (or raise their middle finger) at the law.
Thursday should see some action or we should just put a tent on this circus.

The proof is in the pudding. I think it is high time that we wake up and realize that we no longer have a representative government. No taxation without representation.

Nancy - Your Re-election is "Off the Table"