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Title: Excuse Us, Nancy Pelosi: We Were There for You, But You've Let Us Down
Source:
CounterPunch
URL Source: http://counterpunch.com/lindorff08202007.html
Published: Aug 20, 2007
Author: DAVE LINDORFF
Post Date: 2007-08-20 19:16:19 by aristeides
Keywords: None
Views: 145
Comments: 9
Excuse Us, Nancy Pelosi We Were There for You, But You've Let Us Down By DAVE LINDORFF It's not just the Constitution that's suffering because of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's nutty and unprincipled "impeachment-off-the-table" position blocking any effort to impeach President Bush or Vice President Cheney for their many crimes and abuses of power. Her position on impeachment is helping to kill the Democratic Party too, by driving away not just progressive members of the party, but independents who voted for Democrats last November expecting some action in defense of the Constitution as well as stopping the war. I see this anger welling up among progressives and independents everywhere I travel, as people say they've simply had it with the Democrats. The support of the party for a bill continuing funding for the war through September was terrible. The Democrats' rush to pass a bill granting Bush the authority to spy without a warrant on Americans, and to expand the power to spy domestically well beyond phones and internet to even include break-ins was a last straw. My own little call for people to sign an "I Quit This Party" petition has seen a jump from 300 to now 400 signers. When it gets to 500 I'll be sending the list off to Pelosi, as well as to the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean. Four or five hundred party defectors may seem like small loss, but it reflects a larger trend across the country. Here's a letter I got from the head of a group of active Democrats in central Pennsylvania--the very kind of heartland area that Democrats will need if they are going to win the presidency and hang on to or make gains in Congress next year. Here's Kathy Ember, a Democratic Committee member in Pennsylvania, and president of the Kutztown Democratic Club: EXCUSE me Nancy, but we have been working our butts off out here for years trying to do just that. WE are the ones that put that Democrats back in power in Congress. We've been there for you, but you have let us down by not holding the current administration responsible for their crimes. Not only are you losing us...you are making it impossible for us to "build the grassroots". Do you know how people look at you now when you ask them to join the Democrats? They laugh in your face. Why, they want to know, should we join or support a party that has done nothing toward getting out of Iraq or impeaching this president? I am in contact with other Democratic clubs across PA. Some have recently changed the word "Democrats" in their name to a lower case "d". Others have abandoned their association with the Democrats altogether and have formed instead "citizen action groups." When will the Democrats in Washington wake up and realize that it's not impeachment that will hurt the party...it is the lack of it. I believe that the aptly named Ember is just one spark in a prairie fire that is going to sweep away the conservative Democratic establishment in 2008. Whether it is by turning to third party candidates, or just sitting out the next election, these angry and frustrated Democrats are showing that they've been betrayed one too many times by the Democratic Party. Either Pelosi--who is facing an election challenge by Cindy Sheehan in her own San Francisco district--better do an about face and open the path to impeachment of Bush and/or Cheney. Otherwise, she and her fellow party leaders are going to find themselves either ousted in primaries, or back in the position of minority "leaders" in 2009. Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His n book of CounterPunch columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press. Lindorff's newest book is "The Case for Impeachment", co-authored by Barbara Olshansky. He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
I am the president of a very active grassroots Democratic club just outside Philadelphia in PA. Recently, I got an email from Nancy Pelosi, asking all of us to help build the grassroots.
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#1. To: All (#0)
An awful lot of callers in to Air America express sentiments similar to those of Kathy Ember. Those sentiments are also now widespread on sites like Daily Kos.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
Very fundamental error Miss Ember. A lot of people make the same mistake. "There is only one party, so wake the hell up".
Would it really be wise for Pelosi, next in line for the presidency, to be screaming for impeachment? The progressive democrats have so much hate for their own party these days, they better wise up and back Ron Paul or STFU.
"We shall have world government whether or not you like it - by conquest or consent." - International financier and CFR member James Warburg Feb. 7, 1950
There's a difference between screaming for impeachment and backing down from the pledge that impeachment is off the table.
To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.
Amen... Remember the dems loud calls for troop redeployment? One party, they were not about to change course.
This was posted the other day, but you might not have seen it. Ms. Pelosi, I want to donate $100,000 to your re-election campaign. I don't have that much money on me, but I could raise it very quickly. In the last year of the Clinton administration Susan Gaffney, the Inspector General at HUD, admitted to Congress that she had to write $59.6 billion off the books. Catherine Austin Fitts, the former managing partner at Dillon Read, said she found one block in San Diego with 10 HUD guaranteed loans on buildings that never existed and did not even have postal addresses. Would you give me a $2.1 million dollar loan on a building that does not exist? That way I could give you a substantial campaign contribution. Those spoil sports at the Grace Commission in 1981 said we should audit the federal books and save $100 billion dollars a year. With inflation and today's budget that is more than $200 billion dollars a year or more than $4 billion a week. Yeah, I know that $200 billion is enough to give us National Health Care, but the Congress and Senate have decided to stall auditing the books for another decade or two. That is fine with me because $2 million will buy me all the medical care I need. I figure you and Senator Reid don't want to audit the books, because you want your friends on Wall Street to continue to skim the Treasury just like the Clintons and the Bushies did on their watch. That is okay as long as I get my fair share. So will you please loan me a few million on an apartment building that does not exist? If you won't help me, can you put in a good word with Senator Reid? Or maybe you could get be a contract supplying body armor for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? Excerpted fron Save America: Ask A Question at http://openingmind.blogspot.com/
The Truth of 911 Shall Set You Free From The Lie
I especially liked that part. This is a true story about HUD... After a hurricane, HUD people came to survey the damage to my home. The HUD agent was BLIND, his secretary described the damage to him and he made the assessment. The secretary was a real dumb bimbo. I called Washington and pitched a bitch, they saw nothing wrong with it.
I wonder what deal Pelosi made and why.
Ron Paul for President - Join a Ron Paul Meetup group today!
Ms. robin, Israel wants US troops there. Impeachment would allow mainstream Americans to discuss our "middle east policy", the machinations that brought about the invasion, the incredible waste of lives, equipment and money and the pro-Israelis couldn't just sit it out and not defend themselves and distort the truth so they'd be exposed above the trench line, and that is to be avoided at all costs. (including the blood of young Americans) Right now it's still political hari kiri to speak what everyone knows but cannot not say. Israel went to a lot of trouble to gain control of the US Govt and the media, and anyone who rolls the dice and opens the door for critics to expose the extent of Israeli control is the enemy. And, Speaker Nancy knows on which side her bagel is cream cheesed.
#2. To: aristeides (#0)
EXCUSE me Nancy, but we have been working our butts off out here for years trying to do just that. WE are the ones that put that Democrats back in power in Congress.
#3. To: aristeides, Cynicom (#1)
Her position on impeachment is helping to kill the Democratic Party
Conyers and his committee would have to bring about the impeachment proceedings for Pelosi to be safe to QUIETLY approve of impeachment.
#4. To: j.sulli (#3)
#5. To: aristeides (#4)
There's a difference between screaming for impeachment and backing down from the pledge that impeachment is off the table.
#6. To: j.sulli, aristeides, Cynicom (#3)
#7. To: Horse (#6)
Catherine Austin Fitts, the former managing partner at Dillon Read, said she found one block in San Diego with 10 HUD guaranteed loans on buildings that never existed and did not even have postal addresses
#8. To: aristeides (#0)
#9. To: robin (#8)
I wonder what deal Pelosi made and why.
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