Rep. Kucinich offers a Main Street recovery plan

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several weeks, you will know that the United States economy has continued its decline. This September 15th, Wall Street suffered its greatest losses since the September 11th terrorist attacks, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipping down 500 points in one day. Since then, the Dow Jones has fluctuated in between losses as large as 450 points and gains of over 100 points, and other major aspects of the Stock Market have behaved similarly. These economic problems on Wall Street has sent our leaders and those others in power scrambling for a solution. The “economic recovery plan” put forth by the Bush Administration was one offering a $700 billion bail-out to corporations on Wall Street. This economic recovery plan will use the tax-dollars of those working on Main Street to bail out those speculating on Wall Street, and it, in my view, demonstrates that the dynamic of corporate engagement is strong in Washington. Though this number may be cut slightly by Democrats in Congress, it is very likely that hundreds of billions of dollars will still be spent to bail out Wall Street. In opposing such a Wall Street recovery plan, Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich has been working on an alternative, comprehensive plan for a “Main Street economic recovery”, in which, it is stated, both the economy will be stimulated and a fair deal will be provided to the American people.

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Hersh: Congress Agreed to Bush Request to Fund Major Escalation in Secret Operations Against Iran

Veteran Investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh has published an article in the New Yorker Magazine that asserts that congressional leaders agreed to a request from President Bush last year to greatly increase funding, to 400 million dollars, for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran. This escalation of these covert and secret activities is meant to destabilize the religious leadership of Iran. Hersh wrote his article based upon information from “current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources.” The article notes that covert activities by the United States are not new in Iran–we have been conducting cross-border operations from Southern Iraq since last year.

The request for the $400 million was described in something called a “Presidential Finding”, signed by President Bush, and, under Federal Law, these Presidential Findings “must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees”. The article by Hersh noted later that, “In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.” This is a glaring contradiction and hypocrisy that is certainly not unfamiliar to the politics of the United States.

I hope that we all can now clearly see that the Republican Party is a war-like party of imperialists and interventionists. And I hope that we can now also clearly see that the Democratic Party is a war-like party of imperialists and interventionists, through their aiding and abetting of policies that are as such. I hope that we can now clearly see that both political parties are about policing the world, and spending huge amounts of taxpayer dollars to do so. We are spending 400 million dollars alone on trying to destabilize one single country. That money could have gone to education. That money could have gone to healthcare. That money could have gone to infrastructure. But, out of all of the needy areas of our country, our political leaders, of both parties, decided to direct the money instead towards destabilizing another country. 400 million dollars! That could not be described as “spare change”. Obviously, though, there is no “change” that our leaders can spare. And the small, superficial change that they do provide is worthless.

But Iran is not the only country targeted by the United States. According to Dennis Kucinich’s 35 Articles of Impeachment against President Bush, “On September 30, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of overturning the regime in Iran, as well as those in Iraq, Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted in then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith’s book, ‘War and Decision’.” The four other countries in the Middle East were, according to Wesley Clark, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Lebanon.

It is my opinion that the United States has been the interventionist policeman of the world for too long. And especially covert interventions, because that promotes “blowback”, defined as a term used in espionage to describe the unintended consequences of covert operations. Hatred in the Middle East towards the United States as a result of our covert operations targeting Middle-Easterners, and then Middle-Easterners demonstrating their hatred in a terrorist attack, is an example of blowback.

Is it honestly in our best interest to undertake operations such as this, especially when domestic issues are in such dire need of attention? And, ask yourself, do we even have the right to interfere in and destabilize another country, someone else’s country, as such? My personal opinion is that we have neither the right nor the obligation to try to destablize the governments of other countries and throw them into political chaos. Aside from the concerns of blowback and the misplacement of tax money, it is very important to do unto others as you would want done unto yourself.

Kucinich reads Bush Articles of Impeachment on the House floor

I flipped on my television at approximately ten-thirty Eastern time on Monday night, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) speaking on C-Span. Kucinich was talking about President Bush and his various crimes against the United States, and I soon became aware that the Representative was introducing Articles of Impeachment against President Bush (also known as House Resolution 1258).

Dennis Kucinich had begun his long trudge through the Articles two hours earlier, and he would continue his reading, to an almost empty House chamber, for nearly another three hours. There were 35 Articles in total, each one detailing a crime that Bush had committed that warranted impeachment. I congratulate Kucinich for having the courage and conviction to undertake this task.

A summary of each offense for each Article, as provided by the index of the Articles of Impeachment, reads as follows: Read more

The Strengthening American Defense At Home Act

The Republicans are very good with words. For that, they have Frank Luntz to thank. Luntz knows words. Basically, he is a political consultant and pollster who knows how to use the right words to get people to support his candidates. As I recall, Luntz was the guy who coined the term “amnesty” for illegal immigrants to put the democrats on the defensive. Nobody wants to support “amnesty.” George Bush is a big fan of this practice of manipulating words.

Laws championed by Bush like the No Child Left Behind Act, PATRIOT Act and Healthy Forests Initiative all do the exact opposite of what their names say. For example, the Healthy Forests Initiative expands logging rights inside national forests.

The Democrats should start trying these tricks. I have a suggestion for Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler. A new bill to introduce into the House of Representatives. I call this bill the Strengthening American Defense At Home Act. This bill includes a reference to strength, America, defense and another reference to America.

What would the SADHA include in its text? Well, first, it would have to be very long. Long enough that nobody would ever read the entire thing. In the text, there would have to be lots of things like giving more money to homeland security and establishing a new database of terror suspects in a way that somehow doesn’t infringe on civil liberties. It’s bound to pass. Anybody voting against it would be labeled an unpatriotic supporter of terrorism. And then we would play a little trick on those lazy politicians who vote for whatever bills the public tells them to vote for…

Hidden in the middle of the bill there would be a tiny little sub-clause bringing about the impeachment of Dick Cheney. Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against Cheney have been doomed to committee hell, and they need to be brought back. Maybe this is the way. We’ve seen time and time again that politicians vote for bills with pretty names no matter what is inside the bill just because they can’t be seen voting against a bill with a name like the PATRIOT Act.

Now, I know this might sound a little underhanded, but we can do it. We need to impeach Cheney and the rest of them, and hiding their articles of impeachment in the middle of a super-patriotic bill like the SADHA is the only quick and sure-fire way to do something so controversial.

Corporate Control

It is a well-known and unfortunate fact in the United States that businesses, corporations, and special interests play a much greater role in our politics and government than we would certainly like it to. There has been, for decades, if not centuries, the element to our politics that is the corrupting influence of money. It has become particularly pronounced in recent years, especially in this 2008 Presidential Election, where candidates of both political parties are raising millions and millions of dollars each in campaign cash. In fact, this could be the first billion-dollar presidential campaign in our country’s history. That is, assuredly, not a positive sign.

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Who Is Afraid of a Security Threat? That would be Rudy Giuliani

Our strong on crime and terrorism man canceled a trip to an office building when his security team was informed of an unspecified threat. On the other hand a headline like “Anti Terrorism Strongman, Giuliani Injured in Blast” wouldn’t look to good for his campaign. Let’s just hope the bomb would cause more than just an injury.

Anyways by running on a hate filled platform Giuliani only increases the odds of a terrorist incident happening to him or America. There’s a reason why most international terrorism occurs during Republican terms, and that’s because foreigners understand that Republicans are aggressive nationalists that will invade a nation, even just for financial gain.

No one wants wimpy foreign policy, but Americans should be especially fearful of bully based foreign policy, for that causes far more people to want harm to befall America. That’s why candidates that haven’t bullied other nations like Iraq, by declaring wars and then funding them without questions should be challenged for their positions.

Candidates like Kucinich and Obama have shown they are against the Iraq war and other needless violence, while others (including leading Democrats) have admitted to not being able to withdraw all troops from Iraq before 2012.

Dennis Kucinich: Blame the Media?

Dennis Kucinich’s recent barring from Saturday’s Democratic debate has infuriated some of his most ardent supporters. They are suspect of the media, and it’s role in the nomination of the Democratic candidates for president. Is the media choosing our nominees? Or is Dennis Kucinich’s failure to create a name for himself in the national political landscape only leave the blame on himself?
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Why Dennis Kucinich Should Be the next President

In the mid 1800s with slavery at it’s peak few actively spoke out against it. Now we consider the Quakers, John Brown, and others who championed the cause of captive peoples as heroes. Their simple ideology was that all people are equal. Dennis Kucinich embraces these same views of equality and he is unafraid to speak up about it. Read more

Impeachment: the biggest research subject ever

A big issue right now is the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, and I think it’s time we role up our shirtsleeves and do some heavy investigating into their political careers. Read more

Manufactured Populism

Let’s play “Guess the candidate!”. I’ll write a few lines about different 2008 presidential candidates (all facts, no opinion, although I am selective about my information), Republican and Democrat, and then you guess who it happens to be. Most of my information comes from whitehouseforsale.org, opensecrets.com, or vote-smart.org (I recommend these websites; you should definitely take a look at them if you would like to know more about the current state of our government).

#1: This first candidate that I will mention has the most money bundlers out of all of the candidates: he or she has 543 money bundlers (or people who funnel large amounts of money to campaigns), one of which is a lobbyist. He or she has raised less than $30 million dollars, but he or she has raised over $8 million of that money from lawyers or law firms.

#2: The second candidate has raised the most from Lobbyists (over $500,000), and he or she has also raised the most from lawyers and law firms as well, at over $9 million dollars. He or she has taken the largest amount from commercial banks ($919,000), the second largest amount from Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms ($970,000), and the first largest amount from the Pharmaceuticals/Health Products industry ($269,000). He or she has 322 money bundlers, 18 of which are lobbyists.

#3: The third candidate has taken over $70,000 from lobbyists, has taken the second largest amount from the commercial banks ($879,000), has taken the third largest amount from Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms ($950,000), and has taken the second largest amount from the Pharmaceuticals/Health Products industry ($261,000). He or she has 314 money bundlers, eight of which are lobbyists.

What’s more, none of these three candidates will pledge to have the United States out of the Iraq War by 2013, the end of their first term.

Who are these three candidates? They must be Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain? No, indeed, they are three supposedly “completely different” candidates. They, in order, are John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama. Don’t believe my facts? Check them yourself. Although, to be fair, the Republicans are just as bad (you just expect more out of the Democrats), and, notably, Rudy Giuliani took vastly more money from the Oil and Gas Industry than any other candidate.

It is a direct contradiction if you claim to run a political campaign based on populist values but finance that campaign with the money of businesses and special interests. The supposed populism of the Democratic Party is manufactured populism; it does not really exist, we just percieve it to exist because of how the Democratic Party attempts to present itself. If you broadly survey the two political parties, they look very different, but, if you look closely enough, there are few substansial differences between the Democrats and Republicans when it comes to how they operate: they are all Demoblicans.

The reality of the situation is that, if you want a good candidate the truly represents you, you must not vote solely on the basis of which political party they occupy: you must vote by carefully weighing and examining each candidate’s individual aspects, like a good and informed voter should. You should examine which candidates truly represent the people, not the businesses and special interests, and, in my opinion, the only major presidential candidates (that I know of) who even begin to fit that bill are Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Ron Paul.

You may say that “Well, the Democrats are better than the Republicans though, so I vote Democratic.” Our society presents you with a false choice between either Democrats or Republicans. You do have other choices. Not just the Independent candidates, but the Green Party, Populist Party, and countless others as well. The Democrats and Republicans, however, have made such a good effort to stamp out these smaller parties and the Independent candidates that you really see very little of them. An example of this is Georgia’s very unfair ballot access laws.

In conclusion, the Republicans and the Democrats are not so different after all; the Democrats just present us with a manufactured image of populism, while the Republicans usually don’t attempt to do so. The infighting between the Democrats and the Republicans in our society distracts us from the real fight: the struggle between those who have power and those who have none, the struggle between the people and the politicians.

Kucinich has “Jusdom”

Congressman Kucinich’s campaign has been gaining steam since last Sunday’s Iowa Democratic debate. He won the online poll, and when ABC tried to re-do the poll, he won the second time as well. But, at last Sunday’s debate Dennis Kucinich accidentally gave us the phrase “Jusdom“. A combination of Judgment, Wisdom and Maturity. Give or take Maturity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfgpZPUGDj0
A recent online survey reported that a majority of Americans agree with Dennis on most issues. I’d like to have Dennis as president. Now you tell my why you are reluctant to support him, even if you are a progressive Democrat.

Clinton gets called out

I was wondering when this was finally going to happen on a larger scale then peoples personal blogs. Dennis Kucinich was interviewed by Truthdig’s Associate Editor Kasia Anderson regarding how Kucinich felt toward Clinton’s topsy turvy nuclear stance.
Kucinich goes on to mention the responsibility you must bear with making a statement like this:

“Is she unaware of the fragility of conditions on the Asian subcontinent with respect to nuclear parity and first-strike concerns? Does she really mean what she says, and is she ready to take responsibility for potentially catalyzing a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan? Has she really thought this through? This really raises questions about whether she has the thoughtfulness to be able to lead the nation. Given her willingness to attack Iraq without any evidence whatsoever, without having read any of the documents, without having done any of the research—is she that susceptible that she’s willing to reach for the nuclear football?”(Truthdig)

So, the question then boils down to “Does she really know what she just said?” Read more

New Laws Require Millions Fired by Next Month

Bush has again circumvented the will of the American people, and their representatives in Congress by approving sweeping immigration law. He calls for the firing of all illegal immigrants within 30 days.

Now I’m truly scared for my safety, Homeland Security. Unemployed people equals bored people. It equals angry people. Angry plus bored people equals criminals. That’s what happened in Iraq, they did away with all government and military employees and now those unemployed people have become insurgents.

Then there’s the issue of what this will do to our economy. Never have we had millions of people fired from their jobs in one month. What will this do to the farms that counted on this labor when they planted their crops? What about the money that immigrants contribute to our economy, by purchasing goods in America? What will happen to the stock markets now that investors know cheap labor is gone?

Dennis Kucinich seems to be the only viable candidate who has real solutions to our economic/immigration issues. He believes in restoring America’s welcoming of immigrants - and creating ways for many, many, more to come with legal paperwork. It’s been shown that countries with open borders have a better economy. And then we don’t have worry about more American jobs being shipped off to China. I would rather see American dollars being spent in America, then our money being spent exclusively in China.

Update

According to an LA Times article, the move is going to cost the Social Security Adminstration 7 billion a year, furher hurting long time citizens.

The Human Rights Campaign-LOGO Presidential Forum Summary

The debate format was more like an individual interview forum. It was one of the more innovative and honest open debates I have seen. The only two Democratic presidential candidates not to attend were Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. Did they really think being associated with the gay community would somehow hurt their campaigns? The following is my post debate wrap up, written during the forum:
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