If anyone can bring impeachment into the public discourse it is the very well-connected Moveon.org.

If you're impeachment-inclined please read the message below from activist/author/cab driver and Beach Impeach organizer Brad Newsham, about an effor to get MoveOn leaders to poll the membership about impeachment. With Brad's permission I am posting below an email I received from him today:

"LIKE MANY OF YOU, I am typically dubious about the usefulness of online petitions, but the one I'm about to ask you to sign is different. ...

As you probably know this Saturday is a national day of action for impeachment.
Here's what's happening in your neighborhood. Please read on for news about some fun events you can join to help build the buzz.

In San Francisco the folks at http://impeachbush-cheney.com are kicking off the weekend Friday with the launch of a 17-foot IMPEACH blimp in front of Rep. Pelosi's office.

For those who like to spell, the Beach Impeach movement is spreading all over the country. In cities from Brooklyn to Atlanta and from Seattle, Washington to Washington, D.C., activists will spell out IMPEACH NOW! and spread the message across our fair land. Follow the links to register -- it helps to have an idea of how many people to expect.

Over 900 have signed up for the San Francisco event, inspired by the action a few months ago when we lay on the beach to spell IMPEACH! (see photo) big and beautiful in the House Speaker's district. In January we had about 1000 people and a great time was had by all. Brad Newsham, the intrepid organizer is shooting for twice that many people this time, so we can have twice the fun.

Brad Newsham, the activist who organized over a thousand people for the memorable Impeach at the Beach demonstration (check the link for some pictures and video) in San Francisco a few weeks ago, is planning to spell out the message beside the Washington Monument tomorrow. The plan, as in the S.F. action, is for people to lie down in the grass to spell out the message with a photographer at the top of the Monument to document it.  

Brad is a great guy and very organized at this stuff. For the S.F. action he had alerted local news stations and we got some good coverage from copters and reporters they sent.

Below is Brad's email, just received:

Impeachment-minded pond dwellers will probably appreciate this video -- a couple of 13-year olds made this beautifully edited movie illustrating the progression of events last Saturday morning that culminated in that image we're hoping to spread across the country. Brad Newsham the instigator of Impeach at the Beach sent out the link in an email along with his budget -- less than $2,500, including supplies, permits, insurance, tape measures, tools, and both the November and January helicopters -- all the online organizing was done via volunteerforchange.org.

Brad also asked us to spread the word about the coast-to-coast Peace Train that Democrats.com "the Aggressive Progressives" are promoting from Sacramento to Washington DC on Jan. 23. Taking the train will be a fuel-saving, community-building, peace-minded way to travel to the big event in D.C. Dang what a great idea -- now I really wish I could go! (Apologies if someone else already diaried about the train...)

This morning more than a thousand people gathered at San Francisco's Ocean Beach to spell out a message to our Representative Nancy Pelosi that the criminals in the White House should be impeached. It turned out to be a clear sunny and not-too-cold day, perfect for a fun little demonstration.

The organizer, a nice cabdriver/ world traveler/ author/ activist named Brad Newsham, did a good job in putting it together. We lay down, got up, waved, walked to the seawall, walked back and lay down again, and finally filed off to the shoreline on cue while some photos and video were shot from a helicopter. Two TV stations sent news gangs including another helicopter. ABC-7 just led off with it in their evening news -- we looked great! -- and followed up with an "expert" who droned that unfortunately we can't impeach a president for incompetence. Yeah yeah yeah, what about the crimes?

The first batch of pictures are here. You can see my daughter's day-glow orange mittens about a third of the way down on the second stroke of the M!

the presser, the cutter, the wringer, the mangle, the needle, the union, the treadle, the bobbin, the bosses

-- Katherine Weber, "Triangle Oratorio", from her novel Triangle (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.)

Besides food, there's nothing more essential to daily survival than covering ourselves to keep warm. How often do we think about the clothing on our bodies - who operated the machines that spun the thread, wove the cloth, sewed the sleeves?

In many ways the story of garment manufacturing in America a century ago is all too familiar. It's a story of exploitation, "contracting out", child labor and disregard for worker safety. Most of all it's a story of women and a story of immigrants. In other words, this is real American history.

Last night someone, I think it was here, was looking for a topographical map of Lebanon. This morning I found the great online map resource guide put together by some government documents librarians in Texas. (I really should download one of those doohickies that lets you look at your bookmarks on different computers.) Here's a Lebanon topo map from the C.I.A. Below are a few really good online sources of different kinds of maps.

I was really bugged by George Stephanopolous talking about how politically polarized we are in the U.S. Catnip mentioned it in PsiFighter's Obama diary, and provided a link to the 20/20 video Our Country Divided. Did anybody else see it? I thought the piece was a perfect example of big media sensationalizing, simplifying, and mischaracterizing evidence to create more controversy to sell more advertising. And it worked! The promos sucked my daughter and me in to watch it.

Sex education has been an issue for me recently and it bears directly on the issue of the right wing's war against women. I'd like to ask the opinion of the smart women and men here.

There's an excellent diary by nyceve at the top of the rec list at the orange place right now, about the must-read lead article in the New York Times Magazine by Russell Shorto this morning. It took my breath away to read about the expanding, and increasingly successful focus of the anti-woman lobby from anti-abortion to anti-contraceptives. Well we knew it was coming and I confess I should have realized before now that they have made so much headway. It's pretty damn depressing.

And parenthetically I find it amusing, in a sad way, that the diary's hundreds of comments appear to be exclusively from pro-choice women. The voices of the (mostly) men who think women's control over their own bodies should be somehow curtailed, are strangely silent, at least at this writing.

I am an abortion absolutist. I think any restriction on safe and legal abortion (or, of course, on access to birth control) is an assault on fundamental civil rights of approximately half the population.

But I want to bring up a piece of the argument that's more problematic, from my point of view.

A: The San Francisco Bay Area!

We here in the Bay Area live a bubble of diverse, open-minded liberalism. I don't think there's a Republican parent at my daughter's school. So this morning's "Two Cents" column was an eye-opener. I don't know how long it took the San Francisco Chronicle to find a whole string of people who voted for George W. Bush, but here they are in all their mind-bending glory. Here then is the answer to the question: who are the loyal 28% (or whatever the latest number is) and what are they thinking? Except for one Hillary fan, these voters back Bush because he is a man of steadfast conviction who will never back down from Islamofascist terror. The economy is booming and unemployment is the lowest ever. Democrats are weak-kneed liberals who want to be "nice" to terrorists. <sigh> What does it take?

My coworker forwarded this to me and I just had to share!

With apologies to Joan Baez
and to Bootribbers if someone else already posted this

THE NIGHT THEY TOOK OLD CHENEY DOWN

Scooter Libby's the name and I helped them to out Ms. Plame
'Til Fitzgerald's indictments came and with it a lot of the blame
By November of twenty '05
Our polls sucked that ain't no jive
By next spring it all goes to hell
It was a time I was on crutches 'cause I just fell

CHORUS

The night they took old Cheney down
And the GOP hands were wringing
The night they took old Cheney down
And the Democrats were singing, they went
La la la la la la, la la la la la la la la, la

Mr. Cheney came before me and said I want the Iraqi land
And like Mr. Bush above me he had no post-war plan
We couldn't find Osama in his cave
More than 2000 young men have gone to their grave
It now seems the insurgents can't be beat
You can't raise your polls up when you're in defeat

Chorus

Back with my lawyer in DC when one day he called to me
Scooter, act quick, you've got to cop a plea
Now I don't mind moppin floors
And don't care if it's behind iron-gated doors
We took a big chance and flunked the test
Soon they're gonna get Karl Rove and the rest

Chorus

Do you want to try for a BooTrib contingent? The rally is at 11 a.m. at Dolores Park, march supposed to take off at noon. (Some info here.)

SanJoseLady has posted a diary at Kos with some useful info about sending supplies directly to people at the Astrodome: what's needed and how to send and address packages. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/3/203740/3260 (Pertinent info reposted below with her permission)

What Would You Ask Judge Roberts? is a new website from seven of our eight women Democratic Senators where we can submit our questions. Apologies if this has already been diaried...