Dear Friends,

Even with all the good will it seems as if the peace movement is stuck. Here’s a great new strategy that UFPJ can bring in all its members states. (See below) Congresswoman Betty Hall is working with her local citizens to have the New Hampshire state legislature call for impeachment. She says she is “ready to die for it.” As for me and Patrick Henry, “Give me liberty or give me death!” C-c-c-courage!!! Let’s work legislatively locally by getting all our state capitals to vote for impeachment, if things are so stuck in DC. And let’s study David Swanson’s proposal for what to do in Congress as Robert Jereski has urged us to do. www.downingstreet.org We should stop supporting any members of Congress—whichever party-- except the ones who won’t vote to fund the war. This has nothing to do with Democrats and Republicans. And we have to bring all the others on. This will have to be done locally by visiting our Congress critters (as Jim Hightower refers to them) at their home offices. Right now we are planning sit-ins at Jerry Nadler’s office in NY because he sits on the Judiciary Committee and has taken impeachment off the table! What a nerve he has!! Didn’t he read the Constitution lately!! He should know better, coming from the most liberal district in NY City, and being a lawyer, presumably well versed in the beauty of our laws and precious human rights. It’s impossible for us to act from Washington, given the “inside-the-beltway” culture. The lobbying must occur at home where you can collar your Congresscritter, look ‘em in the eye, and demand that they not vote funds for war and that they preserve our Civil Liberties.

We have to broaden the frame. Right now Bush is trampling on the Chinese-Russian UN initiative to ban weapons in space. Instead he and his cowboys are going to try to shoot something out of the sky, using a flimsy excuse when what they really want to do is try out all that multigazillion dollar anti-missile hardware. It was all built illegally when we pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, even thought it was part of the underlying bargain that was made at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty to achieve consensus for moving forward on Nuclear Disarmament. After the gavel fell at the 2000 NPT conference, one day late after the conference was supposed to have ended, the UN Delegates “stopped the clock” in diplomatese and met through to dawn. They came back at 11 AM the next day and worked till the late afternoon to seal the deal on the Conference Document. One of the hard-won promises was to “maintain the strategic stability of the Anti--Ballistic Missile Treaty”, which Clinton undercut by continuing to fund star wars research, and Bush destroyed when he peremptorily pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Putin is threatened by us and is expressing his anger in no uncertain terms. Now we are planting anti-ballistic missiles right under his nose in Poland and the Czech Republic (even though we promised Gorbachev, after the wall fell, that if he didn’t object to a reunified Germany in NATO, we would not expand NATO!! No fooling! This was a genuine promise we made to Russia immortalized in an op-ed in the NY Times by Jack Matlock, our Ambassador to Russia who was there and reported on it. Russia took a tremendous beating from Germany, losing 20 million people during World War II, and they were still very wary of a unified and empowered Germany.)

Bush and our candidates, every last one of them, are also ignoring the powerful statements coming out of Russia, their Foreign Minister calling for negotiations this week to eliminate nuclear weapons. Did you know that was happening? If you can’t say you’re aware of this news, then you are a living example of how the media is destroying democracy and common sense in America. Don’t you think that’s news we need to know—at least as much as the latest Britney, Lacey, OJ-- weapons of mass distraction?

We should be demanding of all the candidates that they take a position on banning weapons in space, ending missile defense and restoring the ABM Treaty, and immediate discussions on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. What does this have to do with Iraq? It’s an end run around Iraq. We can walk and chew gum at the same time but banning missiles and nukes will break the logjam with Iraq, and there are extraordinary offers on the table from China and Russia. Even England has been making positive noises and we can always count on India, Pakistan and Israel and even France to go along with us as soon as we decide to take matters up with Russia and China. Just for the record, there are 27,000 nukes on the planet and 26,000 are in the US and Russia, about 5,000 of them primed to go off in minutes. You can see where the problem lies. Anything else, like Iran, North Korea, Israel, are all distractions. If we keep our eye on the ball, everyone is bound to come along. It’s us and Russia first—and Russia is willing.

To summarize:

Get our state legislatures to vote for impeachment
Keep the heat on our individual congressmembers through home meetings to stop funding the war and support impeachment (forget about DC).
Review Swanson Strategy at www.afterdowningstreet.org
Broaden the frame: let the candidates and your members of Congress know that we want the US to take up the Russian and Chinese offers to ban weapons in space and eliminate nuclear weapons, while restoring the ABM Treaty with a missile ban.
Stop the Anti-satellite test Bush is planning if possible
No uranium mining or new nuclear reactors, no new coal plants (we need allies and this will create peace)
Remember that with this strategy we’ll be taking on the Empire, and the multibillions of dollars going to the military-industrial-academic-energy complex.
Onwards and Upwards!

Alice Slater
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, New York
446 E. 86 St.
New York, NY 10028
212-744-2005
646-238-9000(cell)
aslater@rcn.com
www.wagingpeace.org

We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire's level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet's daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us.
Buckminster Fuller

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From: Tim Carpenter for PDA [mailto:info@pdamerica.org]
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 9:36 PM
Subject: Rep. Betty Hall's Hearing on Impeachment

N.H. State Representative Betty Hall announces
Public Hearing to Petition Congress for Impeachment

Thank you for your efforts and patience as this is the third email this week. The impeachment movement is picking up momentum and we want to keep you up to date. Please attend this event if you can!

Dear Alice,

New Hampshire Representative Betty Hall announces Expert Witnesses to testify at Legislative Hearing for House Resolution 24 to Commence Impeachment Procedures in the US Congress.

Representative Hall's focus on House Resolution 24 begins the process of Impeachment for the President and the Vice President at the State level. In the State of New Hampshire, the procedure then goes to committee for a public hearing. Rep. Hall welcomes the public to attend and comment at a rally and a hearing:

Rally: 12 Noon Tuesday, February 19 at the State House Plaza.

Hearing: 1:00 pm Tuesday, February 19 at the State Legislative Office Building, Rooms 305 and 307.

Key to New Hampshire's legislative process is the strong committee's recommendation for passive in the full House vote. Because the committee level is crucial, Representative Hall has invited a number of expert witnesses to testify on five distinctive articles for Impeachment. Witness testimony will include Selectman Dan De Walt VT, Herb Hoffman ME NEImpeach.org, John Kaminski Maine Lawyers for Democracy and Paul Lehto, Lawyer representing Election Integrity.

Uniquely for NH citizens, every bill introduced and sent to committee receives a vote in the full House. In NH there are 400 House legislators from a relatively small population state. In order for HR24 to be brought to Washington DC, only House passage is needed, neither a vote in the Senate nor a signature from the Governor is needed to commence impeachment in the US Congress. In addition, The New Hampshire Bill of Rights retains since 1784, the right to revolution. No wonder the state's motto "Live Free or Die" applies to the people's trials.

The House Resolution procedure to commence impeachment procedure in the US Congress is part of a history making effort from a State level. The Founding Fathers of the Constitution, created this remedy for the people, to set impeachment in motion under Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual, by charges transmitted by a State legislature.

The State's ability to bring forth the people's voice to the Federal level, without the strong arm of Washington DC spin, may be small defined, but for imperative measures, the effort of Betty Hall's HR24 may out live this generation, yet become the ultimate duty of the people's effort as only a sampling of the Founders past.

Representative Hall has worked tirelessly to make sure the people's voice is heard in New Hampshire. The committee hearing serves as an opportunity for the public to become involved, expressing the voice of a true democracy.

Hall has declared that she will join the Code Pink hunger strike and is "willing to die for impeachment."

Members of the PDA community in New Hampshire and surrounding areas are encouraged to attend the public hearing to show support for Rep. Hall and this House Resolution.

Yours for Peace and Accountability,

Tim Carpenter,
Executive Director

Progressive Democrats of America is a grassroots PAC that works both inside the Democratic Party and outside in movements for peace and justice. Our goal: Elect a permanent, progressive majority in 2008. PDA's advisory board includes seven members of Congress and activist leaders such as Tom Hayden, Medea Benjamin, Thom Hartmann and Rev. Lennox Yearwood. More info: pdamerica.org

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