Here are the five current excuses for Democratic Party abandonment of the vital and irreplaceable role of Congress in establishing minimum standards of Constitutional conduct by highranking members (present and future) of our Executive Branch of government:

After a brief discussion of the subject of our [6/5/08] meeting (IMPEACHMENT), [John Conyers] asked us all to write down [his] list of 5 reasons explaining why impeachment is not possible. We complied by writing down what he said, and then he went on to annotate the list (annotations in parentheses).

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1. The majority does not want impeachment. (While the majority of people in this country dislike, hate and/or are just waiting out the last days of this Administration, they do NOT want impeachment.)

2. The corporate media. (They will slay us. If we aren't successful in our impeachment effort they will say we didn't have the evidence to back-up the charges.)

3. No time. (Congress is scheduled to adjourn Sept. 26, and the process would be long and involved.)

4. No votes. (We do not have enough votes in Congress to be successful.)

5. Election defeat. (If Obama lost the election because of an impeachment effort, it would be devastating and I wouldn't want that on my conscience.)

[Conyers] then said we were welcome to argue against these points.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/33936

My response to the five excuses of Conyers:

1. The majority of Americans are desperate for accountability for this administration, once they learn of the crimes and abuses committed. The learning is probably the most important service of impeachment hearings - to educate, and to expose the factual details of what has been done in our names. Are the leaders of our Executive Branch of government to have no standards whatever to which our Congress - when the same political party leads both branches, and never under Democratic control of Congress - will insist (upon penalty of enforcement) they be held??

2. It is deception worthy of Bush and Cheney to pretend that impeachment charges will precede the evidence in a proper impeachment proceeding. Obviously a careful investigation comes first, and exposes the damning details (Holt's "Bill of Particulars") before the House (or committee) must vote to officially adopt (or not) articles of impeachment. To pretend, as Conyers does, that "votes" could be counted before hearings are held is using one's insider knowledge to obscure the deliberate process involved so as to mislead the American people. The only vote needed for the process to begin is for a majority of the House to authorize impeachment hearings in the Judiciary Committee (or in a select committee). Are Conyers and his excuse-makers actually claiming that the House (or at least its Speaker) won't even authorize impeachment hearings about torture, about lies for war, about obvious violations of the Constitution? Let the corporate media blame the Congress for unearthing the facts which that media has tried to suppress. That, more than anything, will expose our so-called "watchdog" media for the domestic enemy of our Constitution that it has become.

3. Yes, there's time, despite the purposeful slow-walking. There won't be time next year, obviously, if four idle months this year don't constitute "time" enough for fully exposing ongoing war crimes. Furthermore, a years-long investigation - and all its evidence - is already finished and available to an impeachment investigation of this Congress. Under a grand jury secrecy exception to Federal Criminal Procedure Rule 6(e) - for "judicial proceedings" - and under Article I's inherent powers, the scrupulous Fitzgerald Plame spy outing investigation is waiting, upon the requesting and granting of permission from one judge, for an IMPEACHMENT committee of Congress to obtain it. And then to start to hold public follow-up hearings to expose any offenses against the Constitution (not limited to criminal statutes) that have been committed by the highest-level actors in this administration.

4. Again - are they pretending that the votes of jurors should be counted before the trial? Who the hell is doing "head counts" of votes based on undocumented, unitemized, unrevealed "evidence" at this stage? Stop MISLEADING and SPECIFY: "Votes" for what, Mr. Conyers and staff? Not enough votes for impeachment INVESTIGATIONS which will end "Executive Privilege" and "State Secrets" claims? Are you really saying that the DEMOCRATIC Congress just 'doesn't want to know' and therefore can't even muster a majority in the House to open impeachment hearings? If not, your argument is meaningless because no one can predict the outcome of honest, good faith investigations before they even commence. As this administration comes to a close, FAR, FAR more valuable than the prospect of an eventual Senate conviction will be the accumulated EVIDENCE and EXPOSURE of what this administration has done - which is entirely within the power and province of the House Judiciary Committee alone to produce (upon a single majority vote of the House to allow them to do it).

5. Election prospects trump the Constitution? Good for the voters to know about the Democratic Party BEFORE November's election. And if a defeat for supporting the Constitution is the result, so be it. Because that will simply prove that the PEOPLE, in addition to corrupt and pampered elites like John Conyers and Nancy Pelosi, now categorically reject our Founders' Constitutional Republic, in favor of a Constitutional Dictatorship, in which all and everyone - led by the pseudo-dictatorships of the political parties - is subservient and in service to the presidency, which has reverted to Kingly Rule over our Congress and thus our nation. I KNOW that the American people don't want their liberties trampled, and their voices silenced in their government, as Conyers and Pelosi pretend that they do. But IF they do, I would want to know that [by witnessing defeat of those principled legislators in Congress who uphold their oaths of office and demand the truth about our government, without fear or favor], and thus see confirmation that this nation is affirmatively no longer what it pretends to be: a democratic Republic governed by the rule of law. So BRING ON impeachment hearings.