A year ago, Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich called for the House to consider the abuses of executive power when he said:

This House cannot avoid its Constitutionally authorized responsibility to restrain the abuse of Executive power.

The Administration has been preparing for an aggressive war against Iran. There is no solid, direct evidence that Iran has the intention of attacking the United States or its allies.

The US is a signatory to the UN Charter, a constituent treaty among the nations of the world. Article II, Section 4 of the UN Charter states, "all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. . ." Even the threat of a war of aggression is illegal.

Article VI of the US Constitution makes such treaties the Supreme Law of the Land. This Administration, has openly threatened aggression against Iran in violation of the US Constitution and the UN Charter.

This week the House Appropriations committee removed language from the Iraq war funding bill requiring the Administration, under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, to seek permission before it launched an attack against Iran.

Since war with Iran is an option of this Administration and since such war is patently illegal, then impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran.Veep Dick Cheney a year ago or go./ Guess it was GeeBee's turn, so last night, in defiance of Dem Party leadership, called for President Bush's impeachment in a proposal the outlines over two dozen charges.

So, when I flipped by C-Span (I was on my way to the Comedy Channel...I admit it) and saw Rep. K. say the words "guilty of an impeachable offense punishable by removal from office" I was hooked.

The Ohio representative, in the next two hours or so, outlined his intention to propose thirty-five charges against Bush on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. At the heart of his talk, which, if nothing else was a stunning indictment of a failed administration, he accused our President of executing a "calculated and wide-ranging strategy" to deceive citizens and Congress into believing our war (and the follow-on dismissal of international and Constitutional law and the public trust) was just.

I couldn't move. (Look here for the transcripts, which I'll post when they become available.) I did, though, find several pieces of Rep. Kucinich's presentation and put them together in one player:

In conversations with other bloggers, there was a wide variety of opinion from "tit for tat" for President Clinton being impeached for messing with...um, illicit rather than approved tits to "too little, too late."

Of greater concern for me is the fact that other than a snippet from the AP and Reuters, there has been no mention of this...really anywhere. Not sure why the mainstream media has hit the snooze-button on this story. According to the Raw Story;

Kucinich supporter John Kusumi responded angrily at OpEdNews, writing, "The most important thing going happened on Monday night. An event that matters greatly to the course of history and to all Americans. Did you hear about it? Did ABC, CBS, and NBC break into normal programming with special coverage? Are there special alerts and bulletins on the cable news networks, where people can see them? No, no, and no!"

Many of the blogs lit up last night and this morning over the story...or lack thereof by the traditional media. NewsHounds was scathing in their attack, while over at HuffPo, political political historian Joseph A. Palermo, who penned Robert F. Kennedy And the Death of American Idealism, said:

Kucinich's lengthy and detailed indictment of this wayward president is the most thorough and powerful case made to date. He outlined a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors and showed without a shadow of a doubt that George W. Bush deserves to be impeached and removed from office. Kucinich made clear that Bush has violated his oath of office and his Constitutional duty that the laws be 'faithfully executed.'

Alex Koppelman over at Salon.com dismissived Rep. Kucinich's presentaion saying;

Some liberals in the blogosphere are complaining about the dearth of coverage of Kucinich's resolution. I have to disagree -- as I've pointed out before, when discussing complaints of liberal bias from the right, the media is in the business of covering news. This barely qualifies; if it deserves mention in the mainstream media at all, it certainly doesn't deserve to be accorded the status of something big and breaking. I'm sorry, but the action of a lone congressman who's widely considered something of a laughingstock, especially when it's clear that action will never come to anything, just isn't especially newsworthy.

Laughingstock? He smoked his competitor in a reelection bid 52 - 33. Seems like they're not laughing near the Lake. But this is a continuations of the generally dismissive stance the media took on Kucinich. Mr. Koppelman's slant on the business model of the Free Press is quite different from what our Framerss hand in mind when press freedom became the very First Amendment to the US Constitution. Thomas Jefferson said of the formation of this country "No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all avenues of the truth." Being open to dissenting ideas is paramount--not just interesting news notes that sell.

Hence the rise of the blogs and the fall of the press.

I've had a day to think over where I am in all of this and here's what's what chez Lalita: Even if we start impeachment on 19 January, we need to send a clear message that our Constitution and system of checks and balances will not be messed with--ever again...that fear and expediency will no longer cause us to succumb to shortcutting the values that made us, well, us.

A country slides into despotism by degrees and silence.

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