Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment of Cheney pass first hurdle!
Explained by Kos:
' So Dennis Kucinich offered a privileged resolution to impeach Dick Cheney. His motion entitled him to read his articles of impeachment into the record and on C-SPAN.
That gave the House leadership two days to figure out what to do, and when to schedule consideration of the motion. But they decided to act almost right away, by moving to table (kill) the resolution. In order to move to kill it, it had to be read by the clerk first. So the articles of impeachment got read into the record and on C-SPAN again.
Then Steny Hoyer, in his capacity as Majority Leader, moved to table the resolution. Everyone expected this to pass easily, as the Democratic leadership remains opposed to considering impeachment, and Republicans... well, they're Republicans.
So they held the vote on tabling the resolution, and the vote was held open past the 15 minutes allotted for it, which is not that unusual. Only it stayed open longer, and longer, and longer. And then Republicans got mischievous. They started switching their votes from yes to no, figuring on embarrassing Democrats by forcing them to debate impeaching Dick Cheney, right on national TV in front of everyone.
Republicans believe everything is good for Republicans.
But for some unknown reason, the House leadership kept this vote open longer and longer and longer. Over an hour, in fact. During which time, more and more Republican votes migrated into the no column, until in the end, the motion to table was defeated by a vote of 170-242. '
It doesn't end here of course... but maybe, just maybe, it has begun.
(Kos points out that this is the second attempt - Kucinich put one through other channels in April - and the first is still languishing in Judiciary Committee... but this one was much louder.)
' So Dennis Kucinich offered a privileged resolution to impeach Dick Cheney. His motion entitled him to read his articles of impeachment into the record and on C-SPAN.
That gave the House leadership two days to figure out what to do, and when to schedule consideration of the motion. But they decided to act almost right away, by moving to table (kill) the resolution. In order to move to kill it, it had to be read by the clerk first. So the articles of impeachment got read into the record and on C-SPAN again.
Then Steny Hoyer, in his capacity as Majority Leader, moved to table the resolution. Everyone expected this to pass easily, as the Democratic leadership remains opposed to considering impeachment, and Republicans... well, they're Republicans.
So they held the vote on tabling the resolution, and the vote was held open past the 15 minutes allotted for it, which is not that unusual. Only it stayed open longer, and longer, and longer. And then Republicans got mischievous. They started switching their votes from yes to no, figuring on embarrassing Democrats by forcing them to debate impeaching Dick Cheney, right on national TV in front of everyone.
Republicans believe everything is good for Republicans.
But for some unknown reason, the House leadership kept this vote open longer and longer and longer. Over an hour, in fact. During which time, more and more Republican votes migrated into the no column, until in the end, the motion to table was defeated by a vote of 170-242. '
It doesn't end here of course... but maybe, just maybe, it has begun.
(Kos points out that this is the second attempt - Kucinich put one through other channels in April - and the first is still languishing in Judiciary Committee... but this one was much louder.)