Kucinich’s Impeachment Resolution

Know why the US is broke and hated? Kucinich lays out the deep doo-doo in his move to impeach G.W. Bush.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-Ohio) 35-article resolution to impeach President George W. Bush is being read into the record this evening, June 10, by the House Clerk. It began at 8:25pm ET, and may be watched live on CSPAN-TV. Kucinich read his resolution into the record on Monday. It took five hours. Watch the archived video here. Hat tip to V4Hill.

He had spoken eloquently on the floor of Congress leading up to the Iraq War Powers Vote. I haven’t been able to locate that speech, but here’s his A Prayer for America Speech given on February 17, 2002 in Los Angeles.

From Kucinich’s Wikipedia entry:

Kucinich voted against the authorization of military force against Iraq in 2002. He has also voted consistently against funding the war.^[27]

Kucinich cited the war as one of his primary reasons for entering the 2008 presidential race. He said that the 2006 mid-term elections were a message that Americans were unhappy with the situation in Iraq. “Instead of heeding those concerns and responding with a strong and immediate change in policies and direction,” Kucinich said, “the Democratic congressional leadership seems inclined to continue funding the perpetuation of the war.”^[28]

The “Kucinich Plan” for Iraq includes an immediate withdrawal of all US troops and contractors, as well as the closing of military bases, to be replaced with a UN peacekeeping force. He would also work towards rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure and economy, and “repair[ing] our relationship with Iraqis and with the world”.^[29]

He defies Nancy Pelosi and his his party’s leadership by moving forward with his Impeachment Resolution. A vote may take place on Wednesday, June 11. (His 2007 resolution to impeach VP Dick Cheney did not fly.)

The 20-page Impeachment Resolution can be downloaded here (PDF): bush_impeach. You can also read it as text right on Dennis’ website. It covers topics ranging from the illegally-declared war to gold-plated gyms; from torture, graft and falsified records to waste and imprisonment of children in Guantanamo; from the murdering of Iraqi citizens to permanent military bases in Iraq; from secret laws, illegal wiretaps and executive orders to military espionage being used to collect information on US citizens, and capturing of their private emails and phone numbers by telephone companies, from the illegal political firings of US Attorneys to the purging of voter rolls, voter fraud, and voter suppression in Ohio’s 2004 Presidential elections; from a plan to dissolve Medicare by making it inviable — to the willful failure, despite multiple warnings to protect life and property, prior to, during, and following Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1282 people and caused undue violence to the people and their environment. Failure to heed alarming warnings in the PDB article that Bin Laden would soon attack the US. The article told the who, what, and possible where of the terrorist attacks. Much more.

Dennis Kucinich

OH Office: 440-845-2707

DC Office: 202-225-5871

“The Hillary Democrats Will Determine The Election”

Pat Buchanan, on MSNBC’s The Verdict with Dan Abrams, June 10, 2008.

The MSM is just falling over themselves about the “Hillary effect” and how Obama can win over her voters.

Notice how the rampant, revolting misogyny has miraculously disappeared from TV? It’s as if the MSM and DNC and Obama campaign never hoid ‘o such a thing. All’s peachy, forgiven and forgotten, right? Sure. I’ll call you later.

In fact, we’re all friends now. Barack even dropped me a line today telling me how much he admires Hillary for offering her support to his campaign, and me for my hard work:

Hillary Clinton was very gracious in offering her support to my campaign over the weekend. I admire her and her supporters for their hard work, courage, and tenacity. And I’m grateful for everything they’ve done to build our party.

I also got a letter from Obama’s Campaign Manager, David Plouffe:

People like you have been the heart of Chairman Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy to rebuild our party and empower Democrats to compete everywhere. We’ve all seen the energy and enthusiasm at the grassroots level impact races up and down the ballot over the last three years.

I’m honored that Chairman Dean considers ME to be at the heart of his 50-state strategy. I guess he hasn’t read all the emails I’ve sent to him protesting his Party’s treatment of the Clintons, and the 2.3 million Florida and Michigan voters. And I guess that somebody’s got to hold down the fort for the heart aspect of the DNC — it might as well be me, and people like me:

Caucuses Fatally Flawed

In his May 16, 2008 article, “Comparing ‘Apples to Apples’ Clinton and Obama Are Much Closer in Pledged Delegates,” Jay S. Jacobs, Nassau County, NY, Democratic Chairman and “Pledged” Delegate for Hillary Clinton, decodes the convoluted Democratic Primary and Caucus system. Although you may think it’s a moot point with how it all turned out, Jacob’s explanation makes clear by the numbers that the caucus system is not a true reflection of the voters. (The article was written from the perspective of three weeks before the race concluded on June 3, 2008 with the last primaries.)

Barack Obama’s estimated 163 “pledged” delegate lead, when fairly analyzed, is not what it appears to be. Out of his delegate lead margin only 12 delegates were earned in primaries while a full 151 delegates, fully 93% of his lead, were earned through caucuses. That is important because of the assumption that “pledged” delegates were elected “democratically,” a premise which is fatally flawed based on the disparity of voter representation between primary-elected and caucus-elected delegates.

So how, actually, were the “pledged” delegates, up to this point, “elected”? According to CNN’s breakdown of overall pledged delegates, Obama has 1608 with a lead of 163, over Clinton’s 1445. In the 33 primaries, Obama has accumulated 1278 delegates to Clinton’s 1266, a margin of 12. Through 17 caucuses held to date, as well as the Texas caucus, Obama has garnered 330 delegates to Clinton’s 179, a margin of 151.

Only 1,086,494 voters participated in all of the caucuses, while 31,161,414 voted in primaries. Obama captured 63% of the caucus-goers but only 49% of all primary voters. Clinton won 36% of all caucus attendees and more than 48% of all primary voters. Immediately, that would suggest that there is either something very seriously different about the voters in caucus states or something seriously wrong in the representation of voters’ interests coming out of the caucus process in those states.

Worse yet is the impact on the delegate count. While 2549 delegates earned in the primaries represent an average of 12,225 voters, in the caucuses each of the 515 delegates elected represents a mere 2,110 votes. Each caucus vote, then, is weighted 5.8 times greater than each primary vote when it comes to allocating delegates.

The obvious conclusion is that there is something very unfair with the caucus process. And, if there were any doubts about the fairness of the system, just look to the one state that divided delegates using both – on the same day – Texas. I was an observer at one of the Texas “precinct conventions.” While mine was relatively well-organized, many others were not. Reports of verbal and physical fights were rampant. Complaints of a lack of checks on participant qualifications are widespread. There is a reason why only 41% of the precincts had reported two weeks after the event.

Once again, the results in Texas speak for themselves. In the primary, over 2.8 million people voted, giving Clinton 51% of the vote and 65 delegates. Obama received 47% of the vote and 61 delegates. However, the results from the caucuses – done on the very same night – yield a very different result. Obama earned 38 delegates from the “precinct conventions” to Clinton’s 29 – yielding him a margin of 9 votes in caucuses that saw a fraction of the voters who participated in the primaries where Clinton’s margin was only 4 delegates. In effect, the winner of the popular vote (Clinton) is the ultimate loser in Texas (sound familiar?).

To further make the point: in Nassau County 109,721 Democrats voted in the New York Primary. That represents 10% of the total of ALL voters who voted in ALL of the 16 caucuses to date – from just my county! If we add the 89,490 Democrats who voted in Suffolk, we can see that although Long Island’s vote was more than 18% of the total of ALL caucuses combined, our 22 delegate delegation will be only 4.4% the size of the total delegates (515) elected in all of the caucuses. Why don’t Long Island’s voters count as much as Wyoming’s?

The result is that Obama’s current delegate lead is almost entirely based on the less-democratically run caucuses which turn-out proves exclude many voters and which grants attendees disproportionately greater voter power than that granted to primary voters, exaggerating delegate allocations. For those that argue that Super Delegates must follow “the will of the people”, let’s at least be fair and compare “apples to apples” by discounting the value of delegates chosen in the caucuses giving them the same per-vote weight earned by delegates in the primaries. That democratic adjustment alone would reduce Obama’s caucus delegate lead from 151 to 26, reducing his overall lead from 163 to just 38 – certainly within reach of being overtaken by Clinton in upcoming primaries, even without Florida and Michigan.

* Reprinted with permission of the author. Previously published in Newsday.

Deja AP All Over Again: Delegates NOT Released (UPDATE)

Several versions of rumors have been circulating about the conference calls which occurred last night, June 9. 2008 between Hillary Clinton, Harold Ickes and her delegates. Both TexasDarlin on No Quarter and commenter and elected delegate captsfufp at The Confluence, who was on the call, have posted ear-witness reports that Hillary has not released her delegates. captsfufp writes:

Ickes spoke about how the delegates would still be coordinated by the campaign (that may be the only part of the campaign that’ll probably have jobs until August, I guess!). And, I thought this was interesting…he stated that the reason that Hillary technically ’suspended” her campaign was so that she could still receive the superdelegates votes from the other primaries. I don’t know which ones he was referring to specifically, but he said that if she had conceded (I forget what word he used), those 190 delegates (don’t ask me where this number comes from) would have gone to … him. But by merely suspending her campaign, those Clinton votes would be reflected by those 190 delegates

But he reiterated that she would do whatever it takes to support … him. This was also interesting: He said in the coming weeks there would be discussions with … his campaign and her about how her issues would be reflected and how Denver would be treated. This is just me speaking, and I may be wrong, but what he seemed to be alluding to was making a decision about whether she would be a candidate for nomination or not. But there should be some talks and decision in a few weeks about how she “will come to Denver.” But she’ll (obviously!) be taking a break from such things for the next few weeks.

Former Maryland State Senator and pledged Clinton delegate, Mary Boergers sent an email to No Quarter’s SusanPC, in which she urges people to contact Howard Dean to protest his statement that he hopes there isn’t a roll call at the Democratic Convention. (I hope they’ll forgive me for lifting the whole thing, but getting the word out about this is IMPORTANT!)

I was on that conference call and there was nothing in Hillary’s comments to indicate that she was releasing her delegates and urging them to vote for Obama on the first vote in Denver. In fact what Harold Ikes said was that the campaign would like to keep Hillary’s delegates together so that she can more effectively fight for issues like universal health care to make sure it is included in the party platform. This seems like deliberate misinformation. (Sound familiar!)

One of the super delegates who was in London in fact complained about the strong arm pressure from the Obama campaign to immediately (last Friday before Hillary’s speech) switch their vote to Obama.

So to me the strategy is clear. The Obama folks want to try and prevent us from nominating Hillary at the convention and voting for her at the convention. We need to STOP this. Historically losing candidates always have their names put into nomination, give a great speech and then there is a roll call vote. The presumptive nominee gets the majority and then there may be a call to make it unanimous.

We need to make sure that people are aware of this procedure. Once again the Obama people are trying to change the rule of the game, pretending that they were always the rules in order to push Hillary aside. We must keep them from succeeding.

To me this is the most important thing that we can do right now. We need to attack Howard Dean for saying that he hopes there isn’t a role call vote at the convention.

This pressure, heavy handed tactics and “shot gun” marriage effort must end. This is the fight that we need to continue

To repeat Mary’s call to action: We need to attack Howard Dean for saying that he hopes there isn’t a role call at the convention.

Contact Howard Dean:
Phone: 202-863-8000
Fax: 202-863-8174
E-mail: HowardDean@dnc.org

This calls into question Taylor Marsh’s assertion that Clinton had indeed released them.

EXCLUSIVE UPDATE: Jay Jacobs, Nassau County, New York, Democratic Chairman, and Pledged Delegate says:

I am still a Hillary Delegate and will remain so until directed otherwise by her.

It seems possible that once again an AP-type rumor has reared its Trojan head similar to the one that surfaced one week ago today, on the final day of Democratic primaries about Hillary shutting down her campaign. The AP rumor was regarded by many as a deliberate attempt to suppress voter turnout, after Clinton’s 35 point trouncing of Obama in Puerto Rico the previous day.

Obama’s Country-Wide Dilemma

I happened to see it on FOX TV this morning — the obvious discomfort in Obama’s body as he answered to reporters about his VP search committee member Jim Johnson’s questionable (I seem to be using that word a lot lately, more than in my whole life) ties to Countrywide Mortgage. Johnson received $7 million in loans from them at a very reasonable rate, but on the campaign trail, Obama had repeatedly blasted Countrywide for its lending practices.

He was sweating today. It must have been hot in the room. He didn’t have on a suit jacket correction: a necktie, while conducting his press conference at an indoor podium.

ABC Political Punch’s, Jake Tapper is relentless in his article, “Obama’s Answer on the Jim Johnson Conundrum,” labeling the presumptive Dem nominee as simply Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois.

“Well, look,” Obama said, “the, the, I mean – first of all I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages, so you’re gong to have to direct — ”

“But shouldn’t you?” asked Miller.

“Well, no,” Obama said. “It becomes sort of a, um, I mean, this is a game that can be played – everybody, you know, who is tangentially related to our campaign, I think, is going to have a whole host of relationships — I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters. I mean, at some point, you know, we just asked people to do their assignments.

You can also link to the ABC video here (pardon the commercial).

His discomfort says it all for me — his curt mood. Obama doesn’t sound all hopey-changey now, does he? All I can say is: Aarrghh — What have we been saying, people? If there’s no record, there has to at least be good judgment. Not so for Sen. “I’m the head of the Party now” Obama.

Yawn. Isn’t this man-fight between the presumptive nominees going to be the peak of excitement over the next few months? New Politics. Looks like more of the same to me. Yawn.

UPDATE: Johnson subsequently resigned on June 11, 2008.