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This article appears in the August 3, 2012 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

LaRouche: Congress Must Stay,
Act on Glass-Steagall, Obama

by Jeffrey Steinberg

[PDF version of this article]

July 31—Lyndon LaRouche has called on the Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to postpone the August recess until some vital tasks are accomplished—tasks that will decide the very fate of this Republic.

The first order of business is the immediate passage of Glass-Steagall, currently before the House (H.R. 1489—The Return to Prudent Banking Act) with nearly 80 co-sponsors, which is picking up political momentum in the wake of the stunning shift by former Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill in favor of the bank separation. LaRouchePAC is engaged in an all-out, on-the-ground mobilization in Washington—fed from around the country—to ram it through.

The second, more challenging order of business, is the issue of the U.S. Presidency. The nation's political leaders in Congress must squarely face the fact that President Obama's continued tenure in office—and his nomination as the Democratic Party standard-bearer in November—is a clear and present danger to the nation. That reality must be discussed, and viable alternatives found—which include eliminating the miserably unqualified current Republican front-runner as well.

The Threshold of Impeachment

President Barack Obama has committed a number of documented high crimes and misdemeanors, which rise to the threshold of qualification for impeachment, but have yet to be taken up by Congress. To mention just a few of the most obvious:

The issue of the White House leaks of national security secrets, in particular, has gained traction in recent days. In mid-July, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke at the World Affairs Council of Washington, D.C. and openly pinned the national security leaks on the White House. This followed closed-door sessions of the Senate Select Committee, in which top officials from both the Pentagon and the intelligence community reported that their own investigations had ruled out any possibility that the leaks came from their services.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has written to President Obama, demanding permission to interview seven current and former White House staffers who are among a list of a dozen suspects in the leaking. So far, the White House has not been forthcoming.

In a scathing attack on the President and his White House team on July 29, Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell wrote that former White House political director David Axelrod must be interrogated on his knowledge of the sources of the leaks, based on a recent TV interview, in which he denied that President Obama was responsible for the leaks, but did not exclude the possibility that White House staff did the leaking. Axelrod, who allegedly left the White House 18 months ago, must answer the questions, "What does he know, and how does he know it?"

LaRouche Warning

LaRouche explained his demand for Congress to remain on the job for as long as it takes:

"We're approaching, in fact, the condition in which developments, first in England, on Glass-Steagall, and secondly, an outburst, including from Sandy Weill, here in the United States, have now made it clear that the security of the United States can no longer tolerate a continuation of the present kinds of policy under this Administration! And therefore, it is necessary that we postpone these [Congressional] vacations, in order to get at this issue. Because, obviously, if the facts as shown are true, and they can be shown to be true, then this President has to be thrown out of office, for the sake of the future existence of the United States.

"But that case has to be proven. We can not throw people out of the Presidency, simply on impulse, on emotion. We have to test the question, adequately, to satisfy everybody who's reasonable, that it was necessary to throw the bum out. It may take the form simply of suspending him, in some way or other, by proceedings, that is, the impeachment process, but we will have to have a new candidate for Democratic nominee for President, in the coming weeks....

"And it certainly is worth a couple of weeks of further discussion, in preparation for Sept. 3. By Sept. 3, we should know whether we want this President or not! But we have to have a fair shake at it."

Sept. 3 is the starting date of the Democratic National Convention, which is being treated by the Obama machine as a gigantic rubber stamp, despite increasing unrest among Democratic constituencies. These include sections of the AFL-CIO, which has announced that it is not giving its traditional monies to fund the Convention (being held in non-union Charlotte, N.C.), and holding a pro-labor rally on Aug. 11 in Philadelphia.

But, if Congress can be forced to do its job now, Democrats need not re-nominate Obama. Nothing but cowardice prevents the party from returning to the practice of an open convention, where the selection of a nominee who is not under threat of impeachment, nor a danger to the nation, is chosen on a platform to rescue the United States, starting with Glass-Steagall.

Any honest, and somewhat intelligent Democrat figure, chosen on that basis, could uncork the political process for the good, and deal with the emergency the nation faces, LaRouche argued. It can and must be done.

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