Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations

http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/34943

By David Swanson

That’s the latest title that Chairman John Conyers has given the hearing his House Judiciary Committee will hold on Friday, July 25th. The previous title had been “The Imperial Presidency of George W. Bush and Possible Legal Responses.” The idea that had preceded that one was to hold a hearing on Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s latest article of impeachment: “DECEIVING CONGRESS WITH FABRICATED THREATS OF IRAQ WMDs TO FRAUDULENTLY OBTAIN SUPPORT FOR AN AUTHORIZATION OF THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ.”

The problem with that initial idea, of course, was that impeachment is opposed by Nancy Pelosi who recently explained that she’s against it because she’s “bipartisan”, and by Barack Obama, who says it should be “reserved for exceptional circumstances”, and by John Conyers who claims that if he upheld the Constitution Fox News would call him mean names, not to mention Harold Ford who alleges that “The Constitution doesn’t poll well,” and Cass Sunstein who argues against ever holding Bush or Cheney to account for anything, and Chuck Schumer who insists that voters don’t care about detentions and torture and such things.

On top of that problem with impeachment, there was the problem of the war. The Congress that was elected in 2006 to end the war, expose the truth of its origin, and hold people accountable for it has very carefully avoided holding any hearings on the topic. During the previous Congress, Barbara Lee led a push along with Kucinich to investigate the White House Iraq Group. I asked her early in 2007 why she wouldn’t do the same in the majority, and she claimed, rather half-heartedly, that she would do so, but never has.

The problem with the second name for the hearing was perhaps what I pointed out last week: it’s oxymoronic. If you’re going to have an imperial presidency, why not a presidential emperor? And since when has it become acceptable to acknowledge the empire in the halls of Congress? People could begin questioning why we pay to maintain a half million soldiers in 1,000 bases in 150 countries at great expense and to the serious endangerment of ourselves, generating resentment and hatred around the globe.

So the third title was arrived at: “Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations.” This handily avoids any reference to Bush or Cheney or impeachment or war or empire. And yet it’s that much more absurd, since we have no executive and really do have an imperial co-presidency. And then there’s the Constitution problem. The Constitution brings up impeachment in six places but never once mentions censure. Never does the Constitution propose a remedy of redundantly recriminalizing crimes once a criminal president is out of office. Never does the Constitution mention political parties or loyalty to them. Never does the Constitution place the election of an excutive ahead of the importance of maintaining an executive rather than a king. It’s very hard to imagine how several of the speakers Conyers hopes to have on Friday, on the topics he wants them to discuss, are going to be able to fit the Constitution into their remarks.

Here’s the lineup, give or take:

Rumor has it there are two (maybe three) panels being planned for the hearing, one consisting of Kucinich and four other members of Congress (Jane Harman, Walter Jones, Brad Miller, and Maurice Hinchey), and the other consisting of non-Congress Members (Elizabeth Holtzman, Bruce Fein, Frederick Schwartz, John Dean, Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, Rocky Anderson).

These speakers can be expected to favor impeachment:
Dennis Kucinich
Elizabeth Holtzman
Ralph Nader
Maybe Bruce Fein

These speakers can be expected to favor impeachment and other supposed solutions:
Maurice Hinchey
Rocky Anderson
Maybe Walter Jones

These speakers can be expected to spit on the Constitution:
Jane Harman
Brad Miller
Frederick Schwartz
John Dean
Bob Barr

These members of the House Judiciary Committee can be expected to speak for impeachment:
Robert Wexler
Sheila Jackson-Lee
Tammy Baldwin
Keith Ellison
Steve Cohen
Hank Johnson
Maxine Waters
Luis Gutierrez
Anthony Weiner
Maybe Zoe Lofgren

But, all of the above is subject to change and subject to public pressure as well as pressure from Pelosi-Conyers. If you know any of the scheduled speakers, please urge them to renounce good-Germanism, please urge them to read the Constitution on which they are being asked to testify.

And please contact the members of the Judiciary Committee and insist that they be there on Friday the 25th and that they speak up for impeachment:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/judiciarycommittee

And please get in line very early Friday morning to attend the hearing! (Rayburn Room 2141, 10 a.m) or join us in front of the Rayburn Building at 9 a.m. Bring impeachment shirts and posters! For more information contact ningroup@gmail.com

If you can’t be there on Friday, please freeway blog the word IMPEACH everywhere you can that day:
http://www.freewayblogger.com

In Telling One Story, A Novelist Speaks For a Country

V.V. Ganeshananthan writes in the Outlook section on the struggle to discuss all of Sri Lanka’s complex history while talking about her novel, a story of one family’s experience. Hear her read an excerpt from her book “Love Marriage.”

By V.V. Ganeshananthan

Sunday, July 13, 2008; Page B02

Yalini, the protagonist of my novel “Love Marriage,” turns 25 this month. “I was born in the early hours of the morning, on a day in late July,” she says in the book. “And as I entered this new world, my parents’ old one was being destroyed.” Moments after she is born, her Sri Lankan father watches on television as the country he left erupts into violence — the anti-Tamil riots known as “Black July.” With the anniversary of those 1983 riots, Sri Lanka’s war also turns a quarter-century old this month — and I find myself still debating how to describe it.

In practically every interview I give about the book, I am asked an unanswerable question. This morning, in San Francisco, the interviewer is Aimee Allison of radio station KPFA. We’re live, talking about Sri Lanka.

“Can you lay out what the landscape is there, and what is the source of the conflict?” she asks.

I never have more than a few minutes to capture decades — centuries? — of labyrinthine history. In recent years, especially following the 2004 tsunami and the collapse several months ago of a tattered cease-fire between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist militant group, Sri Lanka has appeared in the news slightly more than usual. But even this isn’t very much, so I can understand why the question is asked. Who’s willing to give it more than those few minutes?

I’m never sure, and so I find myself wrestling to construct responsible boilerplate that at least suggests Sri Lanka’s historical and political complexity. Of course, when I wrote the book, this was not a job I aimed to do. More…

Chauncey Bailey - iconoclastic, caring, involved - was working on two stories when he was murdered. One was on the misdeeds of Your Black Muslim Bakery and the other was corruption in the police department. Those stories cannot die, because Chancey’s life meant more than that. In fact, the last time I saw him was at my house, when I was holding a large event for the organization Silence the Violence (that is trying to cure the street violence that is tearing Oakland apart). I was in Mexico studying Spanish when I got the email that he’d been killed - and fell to the floor of the computer room with shock. Thanks to a small group of local investigative reporters, the story continues and pressure is mounting to continue the investigation. So, my small contribution is to have the story on my show on KPFA.

On my way out of the studio this morning, the reporters commented to me that many news outlets aren’t continuing to cover this investigation. They thought maybe racism has gotten in the way of the story getting out. Well, let’s all stay on this.

For Chauncey.

Join me Thursday, June 26th at 7pm at USF’s McLaren Hall with the accomplished poets, novelists and essayist of this year’s Voices of Our Nation Foundation summer writers’ workshop. I have the honor of hosting this evening, which features Faith Adiele, Ruth Forman, Thomas Glave, Gregory Allen Howard, Diem Jones, Elmaz Abinader with musician Tony Kalife. More info at www.voicesatvona.org.

Download this episode (right click and save)

Download this episode (right click and save)