Proceeding where Kucinich fears to tread?

Is there anyone besides Dennis Kucinich who's still interested in impeachment at this late date in the second Bush term? I doubt it. Besides, prosecution in the courts is the new rage.

Normally, in our country, a prosecution is conducted by the government in a criminal case. I suppose one can say that one "prosecutes" a civil action by pursuing it toward completion. There is, after all, a concept known as "failure to prosecute" as a result of which a civil case that's not being pursued is dismissed.

But somehow, I don't think that's what the criminally insane people at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover had in mind when they announced they were holding a conference to plan the "prosecution" of the President, Vice President, and other current and former administration officials:

A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

"This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

"We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice," Velvel said. "And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s."

The blog Above the Law wonders: "Hangings? C'mon, Dean Velvel -- shouldn't a liberal like yourself view that as violating the Eighth Amendment?" And Legal Blog Watch says: "Three citizens of Andover -- the town where MSL is situated -- were among those hanged for witchcraft as part of the 17th century Salem witch trials. These days, however, the town is a chichi Boston bedroom community known as home to equally chichi Phillips Academy. No doubt, any proposal to erect a gallows on the MSL campus might not make it past the local planning board."

But the folks at the MS of L at A are apparently dead serious.

The conference will take up such issues as the nature of domestic and international crimes committed; which high-level Bush officials, including Federal judges and Members of Congress, are chargeable with war crimes; which foreign and domestic tribunals can be used to prosecute them; and the setting up of an umbrella coordinating committee with representatives of legal groups concerned about the war crimes such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, ACLU, among others.

No post on such looniness would be complete without some mockery of the institution itself. I'll leave that to Above the Law, which notes:

Since the Massachusetts School of Law isn't even ABA-accredited, one would expect its alums to have an especially tough time finding legal employment. They're immediately eligible to sit for the bar exam in just two jurisdictions. For more details, see here.

Well, if they can't find employment elsewhere, maybe they can go prosecute President Bush. Do you need to be admitted to the bar for that?

I don't think so. All you need is a furlough from St. Elizabeth's.

UPDATE: Point of Law has more background on the school and its dean, Larry Velvel, while the ABA Journal has a long quotation from the man:

Velvel tears into President Bush as well, writing: “The man ultimately responsible for the torture had a unique preparation and persona for the presidency: he is a former drunk, was a serial failure in business who had to repeatedly be bailed out by daddy's friends and wanna-be-friends, was unable to speak articulately despite the finest education(s) that money and influence can buy, has a dislike of reading, so that 100-page memos have to be boiled down to one page for him, is heedless of facts and evidence, and appears not even to know the meaning of truth.”

And DUmmie FUnnies has a long laugh about it.

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Impeachment is in the House

This is the day I've been waiting for since before the last elections: The Lunatic Wing of the Democratic Party is feeling sufficiently empowered to introduce an impeachment resolution in the House.

OK, I admit it's not to impeach Bush. That's a real disappointment. It's only Dick Cheney, because, you know, you can't just go and impeach Bush first if that would make Cheney president.

And I realize it's only Dennis Kucinich, D-Fruitcake, who introduced it and currently has no co-sponsors.

Here's the text of the resolution. Kucinich delayed his press conference because of reports that Cheney was having emergency medical treatment for his blood clot. It turned out to be routine.

He ended up holding the press conference late Tuesday afternoon. Did you know that his resolution was "deeply researched"? Did you realize it's "not . . . partisan"? If you didn't, you should thank me for actually reading the transcript.

A reporter at the press conference (do they get paid extra to attend these things?) told Kucinich he had spoken to Nancy Pelosi, who said this was going nowhere. Which is really a big disappointment to me. Come on, Nancy, make our day!

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Impeachment goes to Washington -- the other one, that is

Last month, I wrote about efforts in the New Mexico legislature to force the U.S. House of Representatives to consider impeachment. This month, the impeachniks have gone to Washington state.

There's an interesting post at a Seattle Times blog describing an attempt by Democrats Patty Murray and Jay Inslee, a senator and congressman from Washington, respectively, to stop the state legislature from considering an impeachment resolution. (via HotAir) As I noted last time, these impeachniks think, based on a manual written by Thomas Jefferson, that they can force the House to start impeachment proceedings by having state legislatures pass resolutions.

I hate to be judgmental, but these people are totally nuts. The key segment of the blog post is this, toward the end: "Murray's vote against the Iraq war doesn't seem to mean much today to anti-war activists. Last week, while Murray was meeting with a group of local police chiefs in Bellevue, protesters asked the chiefs to arrest the senator for war crimes." David Postman, the blogger, adds that the Occupation Project people said, "They [the police] didn't do it, but in a just world they would have."

And here's another guy, author of "Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal," among other things, who describes how 900 people supporting impeachment attended "an event organized by the Citizens Movement to Impeach Bush/Cheney, a local ad hoc citizens' organization in this little burg that had convinced the local city council to make the 1000-seat [performing arts center] auditorium available for a hearing on impeachment." Not to be outdone by Al Gore, he and two other anti-war leaders were treated "like rock stars."

Who were those two? First, Ray McGovern, the guy who has testified "that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration 'neocons' so 'the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.'" Second, "former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega," who's now the author of United States v. George W. Bush et al., which "presents her argument in transcript form as a hypothetical weeklong presentation to a grand jury, including extensive testimony from three fictional investigative agents."

I've been able to draw only one conclusion from all of this: Nancy Pelosi is a tool of the neocons.

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Fat, aging hippies

Earlier this month, when discussing the "impeach on the beach" event and other protests, I used the term "fat, aging hippies" to refer to the participants, and I said they were Nancy Pelosi's base.

One commenter took me to task, saying:

Aging and fat describes a good percentage of the population, you fool! If you want to disrespect someone for being a hippy, I suppose that's your choice, but you're not going to make any friends putting down old or fat folks.

Guess what? YOU'LL BE OLD ONE DAY! And it's amazing how even the skinniest folks get fat when they get older.

I responded that the Post's front-page article on the anti-war protest in Washington began thus: "A raucous and colorful multitude of protesters, led by some of the aging activists of the past, staged a series of rallies and a march on the Capitol yesterday to demand that the United States end its war in Iraq."

Now, I have even more evidence that my characterization was fair. From Human Events:

"A man could make a fortune selling Geritol to these people."

Capitalist stooge that I am, that was my first reaction upon reaching the Washington Mall last Saturday to observe tens of thousands of demonstrators rally against the war in Iraq.

Expecting a healthy turnout of idealistic youths, I was surprised to find that the crowd was comprised predominantly of middle-aged '60s throwbacks looking to recapture the glory days of the jarring folk music, campus occupations, and general social chaos that accompanied the Vietnam War. When the Raging Grannies showed up, it was hard to distinguish them from the rest of the crowd.

(Via HotAir)

So, sure, there's aging and hippie, but where's my proof of "fat"? Just my one protester. But I don't need proof, since my commenter has conceded that "even the skinniest folks get fat when they get older."

As I am painfully aware, myself.

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The state of impeachment

Nancy Pelosi says impeachment is "off the table," because she's smart enough to know that impeachment would bog Congress down for the next two years, to little purpose. All it would do is show America how loony the Democrats are. Which is why I've been focusing on it -- in my own little effort to get the Dems to bite.

The nutroots are, understandably, angry that the congressional Democrats are dismissing the idea, and they're looking for ways of pushing the process themselves. The latest idea is to have a state legislature submit a petition to Congress asking for impeachment. It all goes back to Thomas Jefferson, a guy the Left usually dismisses as a dead white male slaveowner. John Nichols explains in the Nation:

The New Mexico impeachment initiative, one of several currently moving forward in state legislatures around the country, is designed to force members of Congress to take seriously the increasingly-popular demand that the president and vice president be held to account for misleading Congress over the Iraq war, supporting torture, engaging in illegal spying on U.S. citizens and using their offices to punish critics. "I am an American citizen that believes that the Constitution is a sacred document and that the Bush administration clearly does not share this sentiment," explains Grubesic, while Ortiz y Pino says, "We're simply doing what all elected officials should be doing. That is, listening to the voice of the people and trying to carry it out as best we can."

The New Mexico legislators have taken their cue from Thomas Jefferson, who in a manual of congressional procedures written more than two centuries ago affirmed that state legislatures could petition the House to impeach federal officials. The third president explained in Section 603 of his Manual on Parliamentary Practice and Rules of the House of Representatives, a volume that is still referred to by House leaders for precedents and guidance, that: "there are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion": 1) By charges made on the floor by a member of the House; 2) By charges preferred by a memorial filed by a House member; 3) By charges contained in a Resolution introduced by a House member; 4) By a message from the President; 5) By charges transmitted by a State legislature, or a grand jury; 5) By facts developed and reported by an investigating committee of the House."

Not that this necessarily is going anywhere, even in New Mexico. The resolution was immediately referred to three committees, which, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, "generally is thought of as the kiss of death for legislation." The reason: "Not only are there three chances to kill a measure before it gets to a floor vote, it also increases the chance that time will run out in the 60-day session before a measure can make it through both chambers." The New Mexican adds that Republicans in the legislature are all against it, and that it's "not openly supported by either of New Mexico's congressional Democrats."

The text of the resolution may be found here.

I've noticed that the dextrosphere is almost entirely silent on the matter. All I've found is a brief posting at Free Republic and one at The Influence Peddler. Why that should be I don't know. It's at the very least a fascinating look at BDS on a local level.

But the sinestrosphere is going wild with it. Take a look at the Google Blogsearch results. Even Michael Moore, though his post simply copies an AP article about it.

One New Mexican writer says there's uncertainty about what happens if the resolution is passed:

What exactly that means is still under discussion. Does it mean such a resolution has to be introduced in the U.S. House if it's approved by a state Legislature? Does it mean the House has to debate impeachment?

Since he’s the lone Democrat from New Mexico in the U.S. House and might have a role to play in the process, U.S. Rep. Tom Udall’s staff has been looking into the situation in recent days.

"We are looking into it, and Congressman Udall will continue to closely monitor the progress of the resolution in the state Legislature," said Udall press secretary Marissa Padilla.

I have no idea, but I suspect the House wouldn't have to do anything at all, unless it wanted to. Article I, section 2, clause 4, of the Constitution provides: "The House of Representatives * * * shall have the sole power of impeachment."

What it certainly will do, however, is bring to House Democrats the precise problem they've been trying to sweep under the rug. And it will keep the rest of us busy watching their antics.

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