john conyers

Some quick sound clips from this morning's hearings on the NSA spying
conducted by house Democrats. First it should be noted that the Republicans have
once again forced the Democrats to hold the hearings in the basement. They said
no committee rooms were available and as John Conyers pointed out, "it is odd
for them to all be in use when the House is in recess."

Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland brought up some interesting points
in his opening arguments. First he said this action raises serious questions
about the seperation of powers. He then addressed the DOJ argument they released
last night. "Making it longer does not make it better" was his opening argument
of the newly released report. He said that "any first year law student would
find this wrong" and that "if any attorney gave this advice to a client they
would be sued for malpractice".

The first witness to speak has been Bruce Fein who was a deputy Attorney
General under Reagan. He started off by saying this issue is so critical because
we are "in a permanent state of hostilities in regards to terrorism". This means
that the wiretapping, if proven legal, will most likely occur for the rest of
our lives and even the lives of our children. Another issue was the fact that
the program does not distinguish who is being spied on. It does not say if they
are tapping calls from the U.S. to foreign countries or from the U.S. to the
U.S. As he said the 9/11 hijackers were already in the country so to use the
argument of using this power to tap on them would mean tapping calls solely in
the country.

CensureBush.org has been launched in
conjunction with
afterdowningstreet.org to support new legislation introduced to the House
today to censure President Bush and Vice-President Cheney when it comes to the
pre-war intelligence on Iraq. It also supports legislation which was also
introduced to set up a committee to investigate rather or not impeachable
offenses were committed by the high office.

Today, Rep. John Conyers introduced
the measures (which can be viewed
here) at the same
time he released his report "Constitution in Crisis" (viewable
here). The report is the efforts of his investigation into the Downing
Street Memos and other intelligence failures that lead us to war.

In turn, Rep. Conyers is asking people to help push these items forward with
an action form, which you can find

here or on the left side under Get Active. More actions will be released
throughout the day on this very important story which is developing rapidly. I
will keep you updated as new actions emerge.

From

Raw Story

Landmark hate crimes legislation passes
House

09/14/2005 @ 5:36 pm

 In an unexpected 223-199 vote, the House of Representatives passed
sweeping hate crimes legislation Wednesday, including protections for
minorities and gays who are the subject of hate crimes.

The bill, authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), was a rider on another
bill -- the Child Safety Act. Thirty moderate Republicans joined the
Democratic caucus in supporting the amendment; the bill now goes to the
Senate, where its fate is uncertain.

Conyers was elated about the measure's passage.

"The passage of this legislation is an historic event that has its basis
in the anti-lynching efforts of the 1930's," the Michigan Democrat told RAW
STORY. "This has truly been a bipartisan effort that was year in the
making."

Conyers said it was the first criminal law-based civil rights legislation
to pass in decades.

In 2003, the most recent data available, law enforcement agencies
identified 9,100 victims arising from 8,715 separate criminal bias-based
offenses. Reporting by law enforcement is voluntary and it is widely
believed that hate crimes are seriously under-reported.

Current law limits federal jurisdiction over hate crimes to incidents
against protected classes that occur only during the exercise of federally
protected activities, such as voting. Such statutes do not permit federal
involvement in a range of cases where crimes are motivated by bias against
the victim's perceived sexual orientation, gender, disability or gender
identity.

From

Raw Story

Since the loss of her son, Ms. Sheehan and other families have been
committed to helping family members of other soldiers who have been lost in
Iraq. Ms. Sheehan, in fact, founded Gold Star Families for Peace, a support
organization for families of fallen soldiers. For several days now, she has
been waiting outside your ranch, hoping to meet with you about the loss of her
son and the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Ms.
Sheehan has indicated that she is planning to continue her vigil for the
entirety of your vacation at your Crawford complex if necessary.

Given the recent tragic loss of American lives in Iraq, and the many deaths
and injuries American troops have sustained since the beginning of the war, we
hope that you can appreciate why the family members believe it so important
that they exercise their rights as citizens to petition their government. We
believe it would send an unfortunate message to other relatives and soldiers
if grieving parents were arrested while exercising their constitutional
rights.

Thank you very much for you assistance with this matter. We hope that you
will be able to make time to meet with Ms. Sheehan and her colleagues and also
ensure they are treated fairly while awaiting this important appointment.

Sincerely,

Reps. John Conyers; George Miller; Maxine Waters; Corrine Brown; Dennis
Kucinich; Carolyn Maloney; Jim McDermott; Jim McGovern; Barbara Lee; Zoe
Lofgren; Peter Oberstar; John Lewis; Bernie Sanders; Bob Filner; Micheal
Honda; Raul Grijalva

It has been almost a week since the rumors started
surfacing on the internet that Karl Rove is indeed the person who ousted former
CIA agent Valerie Plame. Ironically this was not questioned once this week at
any of the White House press briefings.

The silence could only be a sign of keeping a lid on it due
to pending litigation. Rove’s lawyers have already been stating that he did not
“knowingly” disclose the identity of Valerie Plame. Coincidently that is the
same language that appears in the very law that protects their identity, which
could mean that Karl Rove did reveal her identity but didn’t know he was doing
so.

This case is going to get very interesting in the next week
or so. Rep. John Conyers has already prepared a letter to the White House
demanding that Karl Rove either answers the allegations or resigns. I can not
help but agree with that statement. If an officer of the law is under a criminal
investigation, he is placed on a paid administrative leave. Should this not be
more important for someone who has access to information pertinent to national
security, especially in this time of war?

The blogosphere has been on a constant chatter of this
story. The right wing is defending him by saying at most all he did was commit
an act of perjury. The hypocrisy in that is perjury was the same crime leading
to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. It was an intolerable crime when a Democrat
was in the White House, but now that the Right has control, perjury is not that
horrid of a crime. Goes to show you that lying is ok if they are the ones doing
it.

If you missed the hearing today on the Downing Street Memo you missed some of
the most compelling and interesting testimony in the capital since Iran-Contra.
The stories ranged from heart-breakers of soldiers who have given the ultimate
sacrifice up to our vice-President over seeing the intelligence to make sure it
fits the administrations agenda.

Even if you were a skeptic the testimony today should at least make you want
to hear the administrations defense on it. This is probably why the Republican
controlled Congress tried every thing they could to block the hearing or
interrupt it. Not only was it a total shame to the American people that we had
to hear about how our soldiers gave their life from a tiny room in the capital
basement, but in order to prevent the members of the House from keeping in full
attendance numerous votes and hearings were also scheduled for the same time.
This just proves the ironic portrayal the right gives the left when they
question the war by dubbing them unpatriotic. In all actuality the fact that the
right tried everything within their power to interrupt this hearing proves they
are afraid of what might come out.

This is also evident in the White House press briefings. For a small example
read how Scott McClellan answered two separate questions today regarding the
Downing Street Memo.

Q Scott, on another topic, has the President or anyone else from the
administration responded to the letter sent last month by Congressman John
Conyers and signed by dozens of members of the House of Representatives,
regarding the Downing Street memo? Has the President or anyone else
responded?

McCLELLAN: Not that I'm aware of.

Q Why not?

In a push to get answers to the Downing Street Memo, Rep. Conyers wrote a letter to the President demanding he answer for it. As of yesterday, June 3, Rep. Conyers has received over 110,000 signatures on this letter, which can be view and electronically signed here.

When asked by members of Congress about the Downing Street Memo, the President has repeatedly refused to comment. Rep Conyers is one of the initial members of Congress to ask the President about the memo. He has taken the Presidents refusal to a whole other level. He is showing him that the people who make the decisions in this country, the ones who enter that sacred polling place, demand the leader they elect answer to allegations of his unethical conduct.

We need more representatives in office that stand behind the people the way John Conyers does. In a time when the mainstream media seems to be hiding a story that could lead to a scandal that rivals Watergate, John Conyers is focusing his efforts on keeping the story alive.

Hats off to you John Conyers, you are truly a man of the people.