OTHER BUSINESS, AND MORE DETAILS ON THE FLOOR FIGHT ON IMPEACHMENT:
There was some other stuff before the impeachment question came up. Rules changes were adopted adding to the SDEC new members from the Environmental Caucus and the Asian American Dems.
I'm told they just passed a resolution for getting troops out of Iraq gradually. I have no more details. Sounds rather modest, if so.
After those rules changes, a woman delegate raised a point of order that they had a resolution on impeaching Bush (later claimed to have 1350 signatures of delegates -- don't know if I'm one; I signed several things, but don't specifically remember this one), and that under the rules, that had to be the next order of business. Slagle worried us whether a fix was in (paranoia strikes deep....) when he said he couldn't take it up because he hadn't seen it yet.
As they started up to bring him a copy, he introduced the next speaker, Molly Beth Malcolm, former state chair, who introduced a speaker from Democrats Abroad, Michael Lang (sp?), who urged people to spread the word about their activities. Slagle sat there reading something, and we waited not really listening.
Lang was in fact a very good traditional speaker, but sort of like the Nancy Kerrigan of our speakers. For you non-skating fans, that means he was technically flawless, but you couldn't tell if there was any soul there. We fretted, like Anna had on her committee -- was there an effort to delay this resolution?
When Lang finished, a man made the point about the resolution again. Slagle said he was standing there with it in his hand about to consider it, that it would take days for the staff to verify all these signatures, so he would take their word that these were delegates, but don't push him when he's trying to be cooperative. And he was, with results I put up in the previous post here. This or something like it has been passed by ten other states already, a speaker said, and Slagle asked, so you're saying we're competing with Mississippi again on being last?
Anyway, it failed. They went on to consider others resolutions, since the platform report wasn't yet copied enough to give one to each senate district, a tradition Slagle says he started and would hate to break, so we went on with resolutions while waiting on more copies.
A reporter (I think it was Wayne Slater) writing on his laptop asked us if the one that failed had used the term War Crimes. We assured him it had, and pointed out that another version might come up from the committee report; he said he understood that.
The petition-initiated resolution did indeed refer to War Crimes as part of a long list of reasons to impeach Bush for breaking the law and violating the Constitution, such as ordering NSA to violate an act of 1978, violating the 4th amendment, torture, holding American citizens and others without charges filed, violating the Geneva convention which the war crimes act of 1996 made a felony, and so on. I haven't seen the committee version, which supposedly includes Cheney as well.
There was some other stuff before the impeachment question came up. Rules changes were adopted adding to the SDEC new members from the Environmental Caucus and the Asian American Dems.
I'm told they just passed a resolution for getting troops out of Iraq gradually. I have no more details. Sounds rather modest, if so.
After those rules changes, a woman delegate raised a point of order that they had a resolution on impeaching Bush (later claimed to have 1350 signatures of delegates -- don't know if I'm one; I signed several things, but don't specifically remember this one), and that under the rules, that had to be the next order of business. Slagle worried us whether a fix was in (paranoia strikes deep....) when he said he couldn't take it up because he hadn't seen it yet.
As they started up to bring him a copy, he introduced the next speaker, Molly Beth Malcolm, former state chair, who introduced a speaker from Democrats Abroad, Michael Lang (sp?), who urged people to spread the word about their activities. Slagle sat there reading something, and we waited not really listening.
Lang was in fact a very good traditional speaker, but sort of like the Nancy Kerrigan of our speakers. For you non-skating fans, that means he was technically flawless, but you couldn't tell if there was any soul there. We fretted, like Anna had on her committee -- was there an effort to delay this resolution?
When Lang finished, a man made the point about the resolution again. Slagle said he was standing there with it in his hand about to consider it, that it would take days for the staff to verify all these signatures, so he would take their word that these were delegates, but don't push him when he's trying to be cooperative. And he was, with results I put up in the previous post here. This or something like it has been passed by ten other states already, a speaker said, and Slagle asked, so you're saying we're competing with Mississippi again on being last?
Anyway, it failed. They went on to consider others resolutions, since the platform report wasn't yet copied enough to give one to each senate district, a tradition Slagle says he started and would hate to break, so we went on with resolutions while waiting on more copies.
A reporter (I think it was Wayne Slater) writing on his laptop asked us if the one that failed had used the term War Crimes. We assured him it had, and pointed out that another version might come up from the committee report; he said he understood that.
The petition-initiated resolution did indeed refer to War Crimes as part of a long list of reasons to impeach Bush for breaking the law and violating the Constitution, such as ordering NSA to violate an act of 1978, violating the 4th amendment, torture, holding American citizens and others without charges filed, violating the Geneva convention which the war crimes act of 1996 made a felony, and so on. I haven't seen the committee version, which supposedly includes Cheney as well.
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