Speaker Nancy Pelosi may have taken impeachment "off the table," but House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI) is about to put it back on the menu.

Conyers may have been blocked by a timid Pelosi from initiating impeachment hearings immediately into President Bush's crimes against the Constitution, but he's taken the first step anyway, with the anouncement of plans to hold hearings into what is surely the President's gravest abuse of power.

The congressman, a veteran of the Nixon impeachment hearings who recently published a book on Bush's crimes, today announced plans to have his Judiciary Committee hold hearings on Bush's rampant use of so-called "signing statements." These are the documents the president has claimed give him the power, as a commander-in-chief, to ignore laws duly passed by the Congress.

Bush has used this bogus claim to ignore all or parts of some 1200 laws passed by Congress. He has done it willfully, and he has done it deceptively, often adding the signing statement saying he will be ignoring a law after having first hosted a friendly photo-op signing session at which he offer no indication that he had any problem with a measure.

The first Judiciary Committee hearing is set for January 31.

Hopefully this will be followed by more Judiciary hearings into the president's other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Readers should encourage Conyers in his efforts, and urge him to follow through, by sending messages of support to: john.conyers@mail.house.gov

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). His writing is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

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