In the land of my exile I praise the Lord of righteousness,
and show His power and majesty to a sinful nation.
Tobit 13: 7
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LATEST at
http://www.conyersblog.us/archives/00000124.htm
Blogged by John Conyers on 06.03.05 @ 06:16 PM ET
Over 110,000 and Counting: Website Overwhelmed
We are well over 110,000 Signatures on the Downing Street Letter. I
cannot begin to thank you enough. Let's press on until we hit 250,000. I
have enlisted some new allies to help us and I am confident we will
reach our goal in no time.
In the coming days, I will be moving ahead on this letter and other
efforts surrounding this issue. Also, keep an eye on the Sunday London
Times this weekend, I hear they will continue their string of breaking
news about this.
In the meantime, my website has been overwhelmed. At times, I am
receiving ten emails a minute. To reduce traffic to the site, I am
taking down the email box for the time being and starting this open
thread, where email traffic will be redirected.
If you want to give me your two cents, feel free to do it here. Please
keep it respectful, however.
[read 99 comments posted - as of 7:40 pm PST 6/3/05]
----------
[earlier message:]
Congress: DSM Letter Update: 86,000 and Counting
By Congressman John Conyers
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/2/15274/55931
Thu Jun 2nd, 2005 at 12:27:04 PDT, DailyKos
I wanted to update you about the Downing Street Minutes letter. Late
last week, just before the holiday weekend, I asked for your help in
getting 100,000 signatures on a letter to the President asking for
answers about the Downing Street Minutes. (For those who have not yet
heard about the minutes, they detail a meeting between British Prime
Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers, during which Blair and his
advisers reveal details about pre-war conversations with their American
counterparts. These details cast substantial doubt on the honesty of
contemporaneous claims made by the Administration to Congress and to the
American people about the Iraq war. For more information go here
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com and here
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org .)
The response has been outstanding. To date, I have relied on hardworking
volunteers to maintain my website and, frankly, the response has
overwhelmed them. Over the holiday weekend, there was so much activity
on the letter that my website froze, and we are still in the process of
compiling the data. I thank you for your continued patience.
I do have some preliminary results, however. As of Wednesday, in five
days, we had at least 86,000 signatures on the letter. This would not
have happened without your help and hard work. This is so important that
I have concluded that it is time to do more. My new goal is a quarter of
a million signatures and I once again must ask for your help.
If you haven't already ask your friends to sign on at
www.johnconyers.com (Use that link instead of the interior link -
because of another web glitch, it is rotated while data is compiled),
post this on any websites you visit, and if you have your own blog,
please post this link conspicuously.
For my part, I am recirculating the letter to the President from
Congress to my Congressional colleagues on Monday to give them another
opportunity to sign on. Many who missed the opportunity to sign on the
first time around have contacted me about doing so.
I have already sent one additional letter to the President adding
several names and requesting that they be considered as original
signatories. I have attached an updated list below of members who have
signed on thus far.
This is by far the most important issue we are faced with. The most
serious matter for the Congress and the President is the decision to go
to war. It is the sole constitutional responsibility of Congress to
decide whether to declare war. The President has a constitutional
responsibility to be straightforward and candid with the Congress in
providing it with the information it needs to evaluate the case for war.
If that decision is skewed or corrupted by false or misleading
information, it raises the most serious Constitutional questions and
substantial issues about abuse of power.
The tragic reality is that over 1600 of our men and women in uniform are
dead in a war that was entered into under false premises. Tens of
thousands have been severely injured. Many more innocent Iraqis have
been killed or injured as well.
If, as the Downing Street Minutes appear to clearly indicate, the
falsehoods that led us into war were deliberate manipulations of the
public and Congress, we deserve to know and we deserve answers. More
importantly, we need to hold this President accountable for a very grave
abuse of power.
LIST OF CONGRESSIONAL COSIGNERS
Neil Abercrombie
Brian Baird
Tammy Baldwin
Xavier Becerra
Shelley Berkley
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Sanford Bishop
Earl Blumenauer
Corrine Brown
Sherrod Brown
G.K. Butterfield
Emanuel Cleaver
James Clyburn
John Conyers
Jim Cooper
Elijah Cummings
Danny Davis
Susan Davis
Peter DeFazio
Diana DeGette
Bill Delahunt
Rosa DeLauro
Lloyd Doggett
Sam Farr
Bob Filner
Harold Ford, Jr.
Barney Frank
Al Green
Raul Grijalva
Louis Gutierrez
Alcee Hastings
Maurice Hinchey
Rush Holt
Jay Inslee
Sheila Jackson Lee
Jessie Jackson Jr.
William Jefferson
Marcy Kaptur
Patrick Kennedy
Dale Kildee
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Dennis Kucinich
William Lacy Clay
Barbara Lee
John Lewis
Zoe Lofgren
Donna M. Christensen
Carolyn Maloney
Ed Markey
Carolyn McCarthy
Jim McDermott
James McGovern
Cynthia McKinney
Martin Meehan
Kendrick Meek
Gregory Meeks
Michael Michaud
Juanita Millender-McDonald
George Miller
Gwen S. Moore
James Moran
Jerrold Nadler
Grace Napolitano
James Oberstar
John Olver
Major Owens
Frank Pallone
Donald Payne
Charles Rangel
Bobby Rush
Bernie Sanders
Linda Sanchez
Jan Schakowsky
Jose Serrano
Ike Skelton
Louise Slaughter
Hilda Solis
Pete Stark
Ellen Tauscher
Bennie Thompson
Mike Thompson
Edolphus Towns
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Tom Udall
Chris Van Hollen
Nydia Velazquez
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Maxine Waters
Diane Watson
Melvin Watt
Robert Wexler
Lynn Woolsey
David Wu
Albert R. Wynn
----------
Conyers reaches, extends signature goal; creates tip line 6/3/2005 by
RAW STORY
The office of Representative John Conyers (D-MI) believes it has
surpassed its stated goal of 100,000 signatures requesting an
investigation into the Downing Street Memo, minutes of a British Prime
Minister's meeting on July 23, 2002.
"Right now, we are going through signatures to verify the number," said
Danielle Brown, Conyers' spokesperson. Brown currently puts the number
of signers at an, "estimated 110,000 and growing." With Conyers' web
site receiving about 5,000 unique visitors every 4 to 5 hours, the
Congressman has made his revised goal 250,000 signatures.
Conyers also hopes to attract prospective whistleblowers through a new
tips line on the Democrats' House Judiciary web page. "There remain many
unanswered questions regarding President Bush's lead up to the Iraq war
that suggest a serious abuse of power," Conyers stated in a press
release. "I am hopeful there are people who have leads and information
that will bring us closer to the truth.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Conyers_reaches_extends_signature_goal;_cr
eate
s_t_06_03_2005_0503pm.html
----------
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE THAT HAVEN'T SIGNED (4.00 / 2)
My Congressman, Rep. Pascrall (D-NJ), missed the boat last time around.
I've called his office and emailed info on the letter at their request.
PLEASE DO THE SAME! Let's get ALL the DEMS in the HOUSE to sign this
letter. Feel free to take part of my letter for your own use:
Hi Chris [Pascrell's Aide],
Here is info on the letter that I am asking Rep. Pascrell to sign:
First, the letter, signed by Rep. Conyers and 89 colleagues from the
House, is here:
http://johnconyers.com/index.asp?Type=SUPERFORMS&SEC={2D3EADF2-4048-4374
-809
4-A21711A8C964}
In it, John Conyers asks the President to respond directly to the
troubling disclosure from the "Downing Street Minutes"--minutes of a
highly secretive meeting held in the UK where it was noted that, months
before Bush went to Congress and while he was saying the exact opposite
publicly, the Bush Administration had agreed with the British to invade
Iraq and was "fixing the intelligence to the policy". For a complete
copy of the minutes and a discussion of its importance, look here:
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/ . The implications of this are
enormous as it is clear evidence of this administration's calculated
deception of both the American people and Congress who, as you know,
solely hold the constitutional power to declare war.
As I mentioned on the phone, I've just learned, from a diary posted on
dailykos (link here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/2/15274/55931),
that Rep. Conyers will be re-circulating this letter to his colleagues
in the House, as many have asked to add their signatures.
I was terribly disappointed the Rep. Pascrell did not sign the first
pass of this letter. He now has a second chance. I hope he will redeem
himself, because, quite frankly, I cannot support him in future
elections if he doesn't understand the importance of this letter.
For what it is worth, I am fairly active locally--I am part ...(then
went on to detail the policital groups I am active with, etc)
----------
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Bay Area Contacts: (4.00 / 3)
Nancy Pelosi (The City)
(415) 556-4862
(202) 225-4965
Tom Lantos (Peninsula)
(650) 342-0300
(202) 225-3531
Anna Eshoo (South Bay)
(650) 323-2984
(202) 225-8104
by AnthonySF on Thu Jun 2nd, 2005 at 14:45:39 PDT:
Pelosi -- she hasn't signed any of the letters that Congressman
Conyers has drafted that we all feel are crucial.
Makes ya kinda wonder, ya know?
