Just something the "Decider" decided to do

A handwritten note (above) from VP Dick Cheney seems to indicate
the Plame outing came on orders from the president himself.

Has to happen today.

Call out to key press saying same thing about Scooter as Karl.

Not going to protect one staffer & sacrifice the guy this Pres. that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.

I never believed that the president was ignorant of the etiology of the Plame leak. Never. But the note above sure makes it look like the decision to out a covert operative and compromise intelligence assets was the idea of the president himself.

Which just confirms that he is truly every bit as vile and evil as I have been convinced he is since he was governor of Texas.

Compromise an undercover intelligence officer for petty, political reasons? Par for the course.

Just something the Decider decided to do.

Can we get our impeachment on yet?

An Alternative Path to Impeachment

The buzz is gaining momentum that within weeks an obscure rule from the Jefferson's Manual that allows for articles of impeachment to originate outside the United States House of Representatives.

Jefferson's Manual, the established rules under which the House operates allows for any one of the 50 state legislatures, no governor required, to request that impeachment proceedings be commenced against any member of the Executive branch.

The internets are buzzing with the possibility that the New Mexico State Legislature will initiate the proceedings and then petition the House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Speculation is that one of New Mexico's delegation will take it up if and when it makes it to Washington, although the rules do not dictate that it must be a legislator from the state of origin. Any Representative can respond to the plea by acknowledging the states petition and the impeachment proceedings start.

In the past year state legislatures in four states (Vermont, Minnesota, California and Illinois) introduced, but failed to pass, resolutions to impeach. The Minnesota state senator who introduced the bill is none other than newly elected House member Keith Ellison. He is one of many sitting in the House right now biding time and waiting for the right moment to initiate impeachment

New Mexico is not alone in the effort to pass the resolution. New Jersey has a very strong grass-roots movement working to achieve introduction and passage of the resolution. Which state will get there first, seems to be the tenor of the buzz. New Mexico has strong Democratic Majorities in both chambers of the state house and an active and agitated electorate ready for oversight and accountability.

Speaker Pelosi may be prompted to put impeachment back on the table if public demand and disgust with the presidents proposal to get the next three thousand Americans killed much quicker and more efficiently than the first three thousand.

The tension between the House and the president is palpable over the war and the abrogation of the constitution and the apostacy of the "unitary executive" doctrine.

Should Bush initiate hostilities with Syria or Iran - or both - without Congressional approval, or if the escalation goes forward unchecked, Congress may start to fight back, before he makes the body completely obsolete with signing statements and by flat-out spurning the legislative branch, and bragging about ignoring laws that he doesn't feel like obeying. He has ordered declassified information in the public domain and available under FOIA reclassified. (I'm pretty sure that al Qae'da isn't going to build a 144-foot Titan II missile with a 10 megaton warhead). This administration is obsessed with secrecy, hiding information from Congress and refusing requests for information - yes even information tht should be provided under FOIA. When he does deign to communicate with congress, he lies. Especially about his pet war.

remember that Cheney said flat-out that he would ignore subpoenas and refuse to appear before Congress. The White House would probably refuse to acknowledge subpoenas of any sort, as the executive branch openly touts the "unitary executive" meme.

as an example of the hubris that exemplifies this administration, White House spokesperson Tony Snow said the following on January 8th:

"The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way."

this makes my blood boil. We had an election in November and apparently the president thinks we "voted wrong" and he will just continue on his merry way, skipping towards Armageddon.

We now know that the war against Iraq was launched in secret, some time before the invasion, using funds pilfered from the effort in Afghanistan and other spending priorities without the requisite prior approval (or even awareness) of congress.

It has never been so clear as it was on Wednesday night that this president has no intention of allowing the war to end. It is up to us. The first step is obvious - expose the crimes of the Cheney-Bush administration to the harsh light of day.

In a short period of time, everyone will know the name of New Mexico State Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino of Albuquerque, who will be the driving force behind impeachment of this criminal regime.

Now THAT"S a parting shot...

Cynthia McKinney is not going back to Georgia quietly. As a final official act, she introduced a bill containing Articles of Impeachment against President Bush.

It is a purely symbolic act, standing a snowballs chance in hell of passing, but sometimes symbolism is important, and the parting shot she took wasn't just against the administration, it was against the moderate leadership of her own party that has been so quick to take impeachment off the table.