Madam Speaker,

My arm may be getting a little tired, but I will not put down my pocket copy of the Constitution until you fulfill your constitutional duty to impeach the President and Vice President. As I pointed out when I first posted this picture of me holding the Constitution in your face during your appearance at Netroots Nation last July in Austin, since your elevation to Speaker after the 2006 elections, you have been the one person in the world in the best position to put an end to the war crimes carried out by Bush and Cheney.

If you had started in January of 2007, Bush and Cheney would be in jail now.

If you had started even last July, they would be out of office and no longer inflicting their damage on the globe. The torture and murder of prisoners in US custody continues, with another murder reported this week. Because you did not act in the face of ample evidence of crimes, the blood of this and many other victims is on your hands.

There simply is no disputing that war crimes have been committed at the behest of Bush and Cheney. The Senate has confirmed it. Dick Cheney now taunts us by openly admitting on network news that he committed war crimes.

It’s not too late. Start impeachment proceedings now. Uphold your oath to the Constitution, or step aside for someone who will.

At a bare minimum, if Congress chooses the cowardly route of a "commission" to investigate the multiple crimes of the Bush regime, such a commission should, under no circumstances, be empowered to confer immunity from prosecution in return for testimony. It should, however, be empowered with full subpoena powers backed up by criminal sanctions for failing to appear. Finally, the commission must refer every single crime it documents for the fullest prosecution under the law.

As the shoe-throwing incident in Baghdad demonstrated, the United States is now the target of the strongest forms of disrespect in Iraq and many other parts of the world. Only by calling for full accountability for war crimes can we begin the process of re-entering the realm of civilized nations.