Okay here it is, a look under the hood of what makes our political system work, the muscles and sinews that will make impeachment happen if it ever does.  This is a full list of the top 3 or 4 major campaign contributors to every House Judiciary Committee member who refuses to get on the impeachment train, with a link to contact that contributor.  It's all in the hands of 40 people now, a manageable number.  Forget it if you are a mere constituent.  These are who gets their phone calls returned.  

Some of them are a lot richer than you or me, but they are still Americans who were born with the same rights that are now being taken away, and the same interest in the rule of law.  Bush could have been a good "Republican" president, mere pillaging and looting the treasury for corporate friends.  That we expect, hell, Democrats too.  But he started messing with our rights, and bankrupting the country in a way that hurts nearly everyone.  If your writing hand is sore writing letters to congressmen who just throw them in the trash, let's write to the people they HAVE to listen to.

The goal is to persuade contributors to tell these guys they aren't getting another dime until they do their duty to impeach Cheney first, then Bush.  This works in a couple of ways.  First, there are patriots everywhere, and we can't assume that because someone is a captain of industry, is loaded, and is hooked into the system, he isn't pissed about what has been happening too.  Over Thanksgiving I talked with four or five former hardcore Bush supporters, invited to the inaugural and everything, who now say they don't care if he's impeached and probably deserves it.  The reasons they want him impeached are different from the reasons I do, but the effect is the same.  We had a good laugh and actually agreed on something.  The iron is hot.

The other level on which this works is that this is interesting reading.  I initially thought I was in for hours of drudgery putting these links together, but I found myself intrigued at who is giving money to whom.  Sometimes it makes sense, like a the big defense contractor in town is obviously going to ante up when the congressman comes a-calling.  But why would a real estate developer in Arizona be giving the max to a congressman in Indiana (Pence)?  By the time I was done, I think I had a pretty good idea of how the machine works, with LOTS of questions.  Ordinary people poking around these reports, and asking questions, is what congressmen DO NOT want.  

The broad outlines don't surprise me.  Defense, finance and real estate, oil and gas, telecommunications, all seem to pop up with predictable regularity.  But then you'll see a company that makes you wonder what kind of business they could possibly have before the government, like McWane Co., cast iron pipe fittings (Artur Davis, Alabama, Democrat.)  You google a bit and viola!  Turns out McWane has been having some serious problems with OSHA, one of the "most dangerous places to work in America."  These guys aren't congressmen; they're enterprises.

For my money the best bet is to focus on the unions.  They give enormous sums, and if they said "dance," the Dems would dance.  

Write nice letters and emails asking these organizations to put impeachment on their agendas when it comes time to discuss which candidates they will support.  Being on the "inside," a union or professional association member, or the holder of a few shares who asks to speak about the company PAC at a shareholder's meeting, is best.  But as many impassioned pleas to your fellow Americans as you can manage, about our disappearing rights, about how everyone wants impeachment but it just won't start, may be the shove that undoes the logjam.  We found out the hard way the congressmen don't give a rat's ass what we think.  In our Massachusetts 1st, Congressman John Olver acknowledged that an "overwhelming majority" of his district wanted him to co-sponsor Kucinich's H.Res.333 for the impeachment of Cheney, and even said he was concerned Bush would attack Iran from the air, declare a national emergency upon the inevitable retaliation of terror attacks here, and cancel the 2008 elections (why is it Americans are the only people who get offended if folks don't hold still while we bomb them?)  These fantastic, surreal things came out of his mouth, and still he is against impeachment.  He now has a primary challenge from attorney Bob Feuer of the Northeast Impeachment Coalition.

They keep spinning along about elections and bills which, once passed, Bush will ignore with a signing statement anyway.  He can put in his signing statement that THAT wasn't the bill, THIS was.  Right now everything, the rule of law itself, is at stake.

These are the folks who helped get these congressmen elected.  They will bear some responsibility in the eyes of history.

HERE IS THE LIST OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTORS AND LINKS STRAIGHT TO THEIR CONTACT/EMAIL INFORMATION.  BOOKMARK THIS PAGE AND PASS IT AROUND!  DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT!

Links to help you compose your letter/email (cutting and pasting is fine):

Impeach Investiations?  Here, They're Done! The Public Evidence for Impeachment

The President Himself

Enormous thanks to the patriots at the non-profit opensecrets.org, who did the real work of putting this info online.  It has no value until we USE it.