Don’t Buy Conyers’ New Book Unless He’s Held an Impeachment Hearing
By David Swanson
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers could impeach Bush and Cheney in an hour if he chose. They have refused to comply with subpoenas and contempt citations, making a laughingstock of his so-called “oversight.” They have rewritten laws with “signing statements” and proceeded to violate the laws. They have openly admitted violating FISA. They’ve obstructed justice, punished whistleblowers, politicized the Justice Department, and lied us into a war, among many other abuses.
Conyers could take up Kucinich’s Article XXVII, hold a real impeachment hearing just on the refusals to comply with subpoenas, and be done in under an hour, passing the matter on the the full House and fulfilling his oath of office at last. And, remember, the full House has already voted for Conyers’ committee to hold impeachment hearings on Kucinich’s resolutions. Conyers has no excuse not to.
Three years ago, Conyers’ staffers on the Judiciary Committee produced a book about Bush and Cheney’s impeachable offenses. Some of us helped them do it. After all, they were in the minority and couldn’t do much more than write books.
But now? In the majority? Now, should they be accepting that Congress no longer has subpoena power? Now, should they be accepting that Congress no longer has the power to legislate? Now, should they be accepting that Congress has no power of the purse? Now, should they be devoting tax dollars to the pointless vanity of doing what anyone else can do: writing yet another book on Bush and Cheney’s latest impeachable offenses.
If anyone buys Conyers’ staffs’ new forthcoming book, it will be because Conyers is (or at least was) chair of the Judiciary Committee. And yet, the book’s existence will demonstrate and it will document that Conyers was never any such thing, that in fact he’s just a professor who uses public funds to pay his teaching assistants to write books in his name. Why should anyone buy them? We have books aplenty. We need action.
We need a DON’T BUY CONYERS’ LINES, DON’T BUY CONYERS’ BOOKS campaign. Please post a comment below if you can commit to never again buying a book by John Conyers unless he holds a real impeachment hearing for Bush and/or Cheney.