Liberal College Kid

My favorite presidential candidate, the only true progressive on every issue drafted legislation some time ago that would impeach the Vice President, Darth Cheney. Dennis Kucinich’s bill made it on to the floor Tuesday where he said:

“In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests”

Of course many thought this would be easily dismissed. Many of the Democrats in congress are from relatively moderate home states and the impeachment of the Vice President is seen by many as being too radical. Then, something rather interesting happened. Speaker Pelosi tried to allow the bill to be tabled by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. The Republicans, then, in an effort to spite the speaker voted as a bloc not to table. Kucinich’s bill already had 22 co-sponsors and as it became apparent tabling would fail other Democrats voted not to table so they wouldn’t come off looking like Cheney supporters. When it was all said and done tabling failed by 242 to 170 with 77 Dems voting not to table, in spite of the Speaker. The bill was then sent to the Judiciary committee.

Sure the bill could die there, but as the Baltimore Chronicle put it,

‘For the Judiciary Committee to sit on it now and not schedule a hearing would be a gross travesty of parliamentary procedure and custom.”

There is a bill in the House now with bi-partisan support to discuss the impeachment of the Vice President, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

<!A nice little graphic!>

This is all coming at a time when Bush has set a new record low for the Gallop poll and its strong disapproval ranking.  He is now less popular than Nixon was, and his VP is even lower.  The people of this country are finally waking up to the reality of the Bush/ Cheney regime as exploiting their office and deliberately circumventing the constitution.  Kucinich’s bill couldn’t have been brought forward at a better time.

Now I just hope that Pelosi and the nervous Democrats in congress wake up and seize this opportunity to actually represent the people of America who want to see the Vice President removed from office for violating his constitutional duties.

• Leave a comment... (0)

A video has recently surfaced of an interview Dick Cheney gave in 1994 regarding Iraq and the Persian Gulf War. The person conducting the interview asked if it would have been wise to move US troops into Baghdad to take down Sadam then. Here’s what Cheney said in response:

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we’d gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families — it wasn’t a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

Amazing how things change isn’t it? Mr. Cheney, listen to yourself and pull out now.

Here’s the video:

So what changed in the mind of the Vice President? Clearly September 11, 2001 had nothing to do with Iraq or Sadam so what on Earth changed in Cheney’s mind? This administration led us into a war that they nearly 10 years beforehand to be flawed. Cheney said it would be a quagmire and that we would be there alone. His prediction is almost ominous in its accuracy and yet he helped lead us into a military occupation he knew would not be successful and would cost American lives. This is an oppurtunity for this administration to save a little bit of face and get out of the war that Bush will be forever remembered for.
I can’t wait to hear what Cheney will say in response to this video, probably something along the lines of “I don’t recall.” But for now at least; Liberal College Kid Agrees with Dick Cheney

• Leave a comment... (3)

Last night I was able to attend Perfect Presidents or Perfect Politicians, a forum for some of the biggest names in progressive radio to come out and talk to their listeners in person about the upcoming election. The distinguished panel included Cenk Uygur and Ben Mankiewicz from the Young Turks, Mike Malloy, Big Ed Shultz, Thom Hartmann, and my favorite sugar mama; Stephanie Miller. Stephanie, actually, is the reason I was even able to go. I was unable to buy tickets, and in a city like Seattle an event like this sells out very quickly. So, I wrote to Mama telling her I was a lowly college kid with a web site who loved her and low and behold she had a ticket for me! Here’s a picture of the shirt I had her sign and my pass:

The event itself had many highlights. Thom Hartmann served as the host / moderator for the event and basically just threw out questions based on suggestions that had been submitted by local AM 1090 listeners.  To be honest, I really wished he would have participated more in the discussion because he really could be the smartest man in the country.  The rest of the panel answered questions intermittently so I thought I’d break them down the way we’ve done some of the debate debriefs.

Mike Malloy:

Mike came out wearing an ENOUGH t-shirt as part of the ENOUGH campaign seeking to impeach the Decider. Malloy’s style on his show is one that he characterizes as having “a lot of questions, not answers.” Malloy was certainly on the left side of the panel, which was of course on the left side to being with. His best points came when he spoke about the need for authenticity when it comes to a Democratic Presidential candidate. After all, that’s why Republicans love their actors so much right? They act the most presidential.

Ben Mankiewicz:

Ben got several boos throughout the course of the night, mostly for supporting a position Big Ed took on the issue of Islamic Fundamentalists. I’ll talk about that more in Eddie’s section, but Ben also had some redeeming qualities. His discussion about embracing all of the Democratic candidates as viable presidential options and talking about how strong the field on the Democratic side is made a lot of sense. His most intriguing comment of the night was on the topic of impeachment, and it actually made a lot of sense: if we start the impeachment procedure, everything else will stop and right now Iraq matters more. I’m not sure where I am on that point, but it is certainly food for thought.

Big Ed Shultz:

Big Ed received the second biggest round of applause from the crowd when he was introduced and was the only one wearing a suit. He explained that the suit was to make him look “presidential.” He also said that if given the money, he would gladly run for President. The thing is, I don’t think I could support him. Big Ed’s radio show is a great program because he really does give people an open mic to discuss the issues of the day. The thing that always upsets me about his show, though, is that Big Ed doesn’t call anybody out when they make a false statement or regurgitate a Republican talking point. To that end, last night Ed made the comment that we can’t lose sight of the fact that there are Islamic extremists who want to kill us. Of course, this was received by the crowd poorly and Eddie was subsequently booed and heckled. He tried to defend his point, but the crowd simply would not have it. Ben from the Young Turks was the only one to come to his defense on stage and Ed eventually stopped the discussion with a small pity plea of “I did not come here to be heckled, I pay my taxes, I’m an American and I have a right to my opinion.” Kind of a cry-baby move Ed… However, the rest of the night Ed was right on about a lot of different issues, providing the “political reality” about single-payer healthcare and campaign finance reform.

Cenk Uygur:

Cenk was on fire all night. Without question, Cenk stood out among many more well known radio personalities and I think many in the crowd were ready to anoint him the new leader of the progressive movement. His discussion of life and death issues was especially great. I’m paraphrasing a little bit here but,

The police and fire departments are socialized because they deal with life and death issues. Healthcare is a life or death issue.

Boo yah! He continued to say that, as die-hard capitalists we should be outraged by our spending in healthcare. We spend more than any other country, yet we are ranked 37th in the world.  It just doesn’t make financial sense, so why are so many on the right, who love money, not embracing a change in policy? His best point, though, came when he said that what the Democrats really need is a dynamic leader that won’t accept “Republican talking points.” He said that Democrats accept Republican notions of things like values, when all the Republicans care about are Republican values. Paying people a living wage, giving mothers time off to be with their babies when they become new mothers, providing people with healthcare: these are real values and it’s past time Democrats stand up and reject the Republican talking points.  Cenk Uygur, my vote for leader of the coming revolution…

Stephanie Miller:

Of course, I’m saving the best for last.  Stephanie received the largest round of applause when she was introduced and did what she does best for much of the night: make us laugh at smart liberal jokes.  Several times her comments kept the conversation from becoming too heavy, and other times she provided great commentary about the Democratic party and the candidates themselves.  My favorite serious comment of hers was when she said the Republican values consist of gay bashing and blaming brown people if they don’t have a job.  She quoted Barry Goldwater who apparently said, “It doesn’t matter if you are straight, so long as you can shoot straight,” in regards to gay people serving in the armed forces.  Her comment about Democratic causes, though funny in nature, also contained a great point.  She was talking about an Anti-War rally and that because Democrats are the party of tolerance there were people there representing all kinds of unrelated topics, like “Save the Turtles.”  “Focus People!” was her direction, but she illustrated a great point: we are such a big tent party on the left that we can have difficult times really moving on the larger issues when there are people who value the smaller ones more.  My favorite comedic moment of Mama’s came when she commented on Dick Cheney’s use of power in this administration “Sure, when he’s not killing puppies and pushing old ladies down the stairs.”  I love Mama, and the fact that she signed my t-shirt just solidifies her goddess stature in my heart.

There were virtually no people my age there, which I guess wasn’t that surprising, but is slightly discouraging.  I am, after all, one of my only friends who regularly listens to progressive talk radio but I have introduced Stephanie to several folks.  The event was incredible and it was so reassuring to see a packed Town Hall full of people who think like I do.  Thanks again for the ticket Mama, and thanks to 1090 for bringing out some of the truly big names in progressive radio to the Emerald City.

• Leave a comment... (8)

Ok, from my handle you can tell I fully support Dennis Kucinich for President. Now, here’s the only reason you should need to as well: he wrote a bill to impeach Cheney. Yeah, I know, he has proposed legislation to impeach the Vice President, Darth Cheney, the Dark Lord, etc. Since so few people have actually heard about it, I thought I’d talk about it here. <My hero…>

The bill is quite simply a demand for the impeachment and removal from office of the Vice President. To this end, in the opening passage it states:

In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests:

The resolution continues on to site numerous accounts of the Vice President openly lying about Iraq. There is no real need to repeat those here, but if you are in need of some good Cheney quotes that prove he’s evil you can read the entire resolution at kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/int3.pdf The next two assertions made in the bill are that the Vice President lied about a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda and that he has openly threatened the country of Iran, a country who has never attacked us.

The question then becomes whether these things warrant impeachment. For my boy Dennis, of course they do and he says on this matter in the closing of the bill:

The Vice President’s deception upon the citizens and Congress of the United States that enabled the failed United States invasion of Iraq forcibly altered the rules of diplomacy such that the Vice President’s recent belligerent actions towards Iran are destabilizing and counterproductive to the national security of the United States. In all of this, Vice President Richard B. Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Vice President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

The entire resolution is the political equivalent of:

Dear Mr. Vice President,

You have jeopardized our country’s safety and directly contributed to the deaths of more than 3,300 American soldiers and more than 650,000 Iraqi civilians.  You have made open and hostile threats to a partner country in the United Nations and have further asserted your positions to deepen the United States’ involvement in this illegal war.  You have used false evidence and manipulated facts to create the illusion of a tie between Sadam Hussein and Al Qaeda.  Thanks to your actions, there is now a strong presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq, one that did not exist before our involvement there.  You have not protected the constitution, but instead trounced on it as you and your administration stripped Americans of their rights in the faulty name of defending their freedom.  We need defending from you Mr. Cheney.  You have failed the American people and failed as Vice President.

Heart,

Dennis

Boo yah!  Let’s use that Democratic majority to push this through and actually make the Bush administration face up for all of their misdoings.  Contact your congress persons, post on your facebook or myspace page, do whatever you can to see that this resolution sees the light of day and comes to pass.  Oh, and support Dennis Kucinich for being the only real progressive in the race.

• Leave a comment... (0)