Rep. Dennis Kucinich on His Battle With the Banks

By Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Once they were as gods, but the deities of the American banking system are now in ruins, plunged from their pedestals into the maw of taxpayer largesse. Congress voted to give the banks $700 billion, lifting them temporarily out of their sepulcher of debt, while revealing a deep truth about the condition of America’s financial powers:

They never had the money they said they had as they constructed their debt-based monetary system which now lies in ruins. Their decisions on behalf of depositors, shareholders and investors were lacking in basic integrity and common sense. Green gods bailing out with their golden parachutes.

There was a time when their power was real. Come with me to Cleveland 30 years ago today.

Dec. 15, 1978, Cleveland, Ohio

I awoke to find a curt payment demand that was dropped on my front step by a grandfatherly man who supplemented his Social Security delivering the morning newspaper. The headline plastered across the front page:

Cleveland Trust: Pay Up. Bank would relent if Muny Light were sold, Forbes believes.

One of America’s largest banks, Cleveland Trust, led local banks in demanding immediate payment from the city by midnight, Dec. 15, of $14.5 million in short-term loans.

I regarded the headline skeptically. Having lived in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including a couple of cars, I had come to an encyclopedic knowledge of dun letters, sent to my parents by battalions of bill collectors seeking immediate payment for televisions, cars and a variety of household appliances that never seemed to work. I first came to regard these credit alarms with trepidation, later with impassiveness, with the expectation that as our family grew to two adults and seven children it would soon be on the move again, incurring new delinquencies with each new address. Lack of access to money, housing and credit seemed to be a permanent condition.

Now, having fought through a thicket of consequence to become America’s youngest mayor, elected on a promise to stop the privatization of the city’s electric system, I was faced with paying off loans taken out by the previous mayor, for the financing of municipal projects of dubious value.

The banks refused to extend terms of payment and connived with City Council members to block alternative payment plans, such as the sale of city land or tax revenues. The banks knew the city couldn’t otherwise pay. They demanded instead the sale of the city’s electric system, Muny Light, to an investor-owned electric company, the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. (CEI). The president of the Cleveland Council, George Forbes, had met with the head of Cleveland Trust bank, who insisted on the sale of Muny Light as a precondition for extending the city credit. This was a case of the bank blackmailing the city, pure and simple.

The alternative to accepting the bank’s blackmail was default. Cleveland could become the first city since the Depression to default on its financial obligations. Cities rely on credit for everyday operations and for meeting long-term financial obligations, such as infrastructure improvements. If banks called in their loans, the city would head toward dire straits. No one knew that better than the law firm of Squire Sanders and Dempsey, which had served as bond counsel for the city of Cleveland while the city entered fiscal peril and was simultaneously, though not coincidentally, the principal law firm for the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. Through Squire Sanders and Dempsey, CEI had access to the intricacies of the city of Cleveland’s financial records.

Under the previous administration, the city began using bond funds for general operating purposes. As mayor, I inherited $40 million worth of debt that had to be refinanced before the end of my first year in office. Under my predecessor, the city had illegally spent money it did not have, and yet it had the key to every bank in town and the confidence of the bond rating houses, at precisely the same time it was preparing for the sale of the municipal electric system to CEI.

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Cleveland Trust and another bank demanding the sale of Muny Light, National City, were principal stock owners in CEI. Several members of CEI’s board sat on the boards of local banks as interlocking directorates. There was a myriad of bank-utility business relations. Cleveland Trust bank, which handled CEI’s demand deposits, pension funds and other assets, would directly profit from the sale of Muny Light. In a way, the banks were the private utility. With the sale, CEI would have an electricity monopoly in Cleveland and would be able to name its price for electricity and get it. Everyone in the Muny Light territory would receive at least a 20 percent rate increase as the rates would be raised to CEI’s levels.

The city was self-sufficient with Muny Light for many years. Muny provided power to 46,000 homes with low electric rates, which contributed to the economic growth of the city. That was until the late 1960s and early ’70s, when a series of suspicious mechanical failures and power outages diminished the system’s reliability. At that time, under heavy lobbying from CEI, the Cleveland City Council delayed the passage of legislation for $9.8 million in repairs to Muny Light’s generators, thereby forcing the city to purchase power at a premium from its competitor, CEI. The city became increasingly dependent on an interconnection between CEI and Muny Light, a high-voltage line over which power could be transferred from CEI to the city, to ensure reliability. The city’s power system began to experience more unexplained power failures. CEI began to make public overtures to purchase Muny Light. The sale of Muny Light to CEI was soon supported by most of Cleveland’s media, business, political and labor interests.

In November 1976, the City Council passed legislation authorizing the sale of Muny Light for a fraction of its value. I was clerk of Cleveland’s Municipal Court at the time and I objected to the sale. I was advised that there was no way to stop the sale, but I saw it differently. Cleveland had a long history of municipal power. I could sense a terrible injustice was being visited upon the people of the city by its leading institutions, which were conspiring to deprive the city of its public power system.

I organized a petition drive that attracted support from city neighborhoods served by Muny Light. A full civic campaign was born with an intense effort made under brutal weather conditions to gather the signatures necessary to put the issue on the ballot. There was much at stake besides the monetary value of the system: The people’s right to own an electric system. And the historic position of Muny Light, one of America’s first municipal electric utilities, founded 70 years earlier by Cleveland Mayor Tom Johnson. Muny Light provided electricity to about one-third of the homes and businesses in the city at a peak savings of 20-30 percent over the rates charged by CEI. Additionally, Muny Light provided millions of dollars annually in savings to taxpayers by serving 76 city facilities. It also provided Cleveland’s street lighting. High electric rates and higher taxes would follow if Muny were sold. The private sector was forcing the sale for its own profit at the expense of the community.

On Jan. 4, 1977, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB), in an antitrust review required of any company applying to operate a nuclear power plant, ruled that CEI had conspired to put Muny Light out of business. CEI tried to force Muny Light into price-fixing and blocked Muny expansion, stopped the installation of Muny Light pollution-abatement equipment and forced the city to buy power it didn’t need. In addition, the ASLB uncovered a CEI budget planning report for 1971 that spoke of a five-year plan “to reduce and ultimately eliminate” Muny Light.

The ASLB determined that CEI deliberately caused a Christmas-season blackout on the Muny Light system and sent salesmen into Muny Light territory offering “reliable CEI service.” The private utility illegally tripled the cost of purchased power, thereby driving up Muny Light’s operating costs. CEI illegally blocked Muny Light’s access to power from other companies, all in violation of federal antitrust law. As a condition of receiving its license to operate a nuclear power plant, CEI had to provide Muny Light with access to cheap power. Documents showed that CEI executives believed the purchase of Muny Light would increase CEI’s earnings by $2.732 a share, eliminate a competitive threat, and push the company’s growth rate to 10 percent, further enhancing investment.

Documents in the case also demonstrated CEI’s successful attempts to subvert media editorial policy through cunning use of the company’s large advertising budget. Over the years, several local reporters lost their jobs after writing reports unfavorable to CEI, and CEI bragged internally about placing verbatim company-written propaganda as general media editorial content.

Confronted with the federal finding that bolstered a previously filed $330 million antitrust damage suit, the Cleveland city administration’s response was incredible: “Now CEI has to buy Muny Light!”

At the same time the campaign to sell Muny Light accelerated, a high-powered rifle shot ripped through my house, just missing my head.

A cavalcade of media editorials commenced favoring the transfer of Muny Light to CEI.

During an ensuing legal battle over the validity of the referendum petitions, I became a candidate for mayor. I promised that if elected I would save the system. I won the election. My first act in office was to cancel the sale of Muny Light. I next had to pay off a $14 million CEI electricity bill that the previous administration owed and wanted to satisfy through the sale of the light system.

I had been in the mayor’s office barely a year, facing a municipal horror story of huge snow storms, massive water main breaks and a police strike. I had cut city spending by 10 percent through eliminating corrupt contracts, payroll padding and attritional cutbacks. Through the year, I struggled with a recall attempt for firing a police chief. The recall was backed by banks, utility and real estate interests with a last-minute appeal printed by the Plain Dealer to sell Muny Light. Credit rating agencies, which had looked the other way while CEI was attempting to gain Muny Light in the previous administration, downgraded the city’s finances.

Another Muny Light-related attempted assassination was averted when I was rushed to a hospital vomiting blood from a profusely bleeding ulcer. Some years later, a congressional investigation produced information from an undercover agent of the Maryland State Police that the assassination attempt was to occur while I was the grand marshal in a local parade. A local television investigative report claimed the assassin’s services were purchased because I refused to sell the electric system.

One month later, I was back at work trying to find a way to save Muny Light. The utility’s financial difficulties, though contrived largely through interference with the system by CEI, were depicted as so overwhelming that only the sale of the electric system itself would save the city from financial catastrophe. I held several meetings with bank officials. and it became clear we were heading for trouble on the question of refinancing. The banks were going to try to force me to sell the electric system. I went public with a plea for an income tax increase to protect the city’s solvency.

On Dec. 15, I made a last-minute appeal to Cleveland Trust. It was 8 o’clock in the morning. I met with Brock Weir, the chairman of Cleveland Trust, Council President Forbes and our host, a local businessman. I had the intention of protecting Muny Light and avoiding a default.

“There’s just one thing you’ve got to do,” said the Council president, who strongly favored the sale.

Weir, the bank CEO with the stern visage: “If you sell Muny Light, we’ll roll over the notes. I can get you $50 million in new financing. We’d get other banks to participate.” It was a bribe.

My thoughts went to the street just outside the boardroom. Some 20 years earlier, a few blocks from where this meeting was taking place, I slept with my brothers and sister and parents in a car, homeless. I remembered an apartment where my parents sat underneath the pale yellow light of a kitchen wall lamp, counting their pennies on an old porcelain-topped table. The pennies dropped, click, click, click. Pennies to pay the utility bills.

It matters how much people pay for electricity. It matters if the public owns its own system and has political and financial control over rates. I could hear the pennies dropping, click, click, click, as Mr. Weir insisted on the sale of Muny Light. I remembered my family and the struggles of people like them. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sell. Not for $50 million, not for anything.

“I’m not going to sell, even if it means my career,” I said, as Council President Forbes looked on in surprise.

“Why do you want to end your career? Sell the system. Get rid of it!” he said.

“Is there some other way we can work this out?” I asked Brock Weir.

He shook his head “No.”

Throughout that day, every media outlet in Cleveland echoed the sentiment of Cleveland Trust’s chairman, including the morning newspaper headline, with such depth of coverage and intensity that it seemed the city itself would crumble unless I agreed to the sale, which also included a provision dropping the $330 million antitrust damage suit.

The objective condition of the city’s finances received no honest review. The sale of Muny Light was depicted as the only way the city could avoid fiscal disaster. The majority leader of the City Council held a news conference live on the 6 o’clock news. He declared that if I sold Muny Light, “the chairman of the Cleveland Trust bank has informed the council that his bank will purchase $50 million worth of city bonds. So, in effect, we have a plan sitting on the mayor’s desk that will absolutely end the city’s financial problems, if he will put his signature on it.”

The $50 million bribe had been brought out into the open in a manner that now suggested it was a legitimate offer, a fake solution to a fake crisis. I refused to sell.

As Cleveland television stations covered the event live, with a countdown clock that looked like a twisted version of New Year’s Eve, midnight struck. Television networks of several countries recorded the grim event: The city of Cleveland became the first American city to go into default since the Great Depression. The default was over just $14.5 million dollars in credit.

When I called for a congressional investigation a few days later, Cleveland Trust denied it wanted Muny Light, CEI denied it wanted Muny Light, the council president denied the chairman of Cleveland Trust wanted Muny Light, and the majority leader said he was mistaken when he said live on the 6 o’clock news that the bank chairman offered $50 million in credit for Muny Light. Muny Light was no longer the issue. It was the mayor and his obstinacy that caused the crisis. So went the waltz into a netherworld devoid of truth, justice, reality or morality.

Though the people of Cleveland supported keeping Muny Light by a margin of 2 to 1 in a referendum a few months later, and passed an income tax increase by the same margin in order for the city to pay off the defaulted bond anticipation notes, the state of Ohio intervened and put the city into fiscal receivership. I lost the mayor’s race in 1979. The banks renegotiated the defaulted notes, at a profit. The city lost its antitrust suit against CEI in 1981, in a hung jury. An appeal failed.

I was out of major public office for almost 15 years until, in 1993, Cleveland announced an expansion of Muny Light (now called Cleveland Public Power). At that time, the City Council and others decided that I had made the right decision in refusing to sell Muny Light. The city and its residents had saved hundreds of millions of dollars through Muny Light’s reduced electric rates and the savings the taxpayers enjoyed from Muny’s lower-cost power for street lighting and city buildings.

I attempted another political comeback and this time succeeded, getting elected to the state Senate with the motto: “Because he was right.” My campaign literature showed a radiant light bulb behind my name. Two years later, I was elected to Congress, with the slogan “Light up Congress.” Today I am the chairman of the House Government Oversight Domestic Policy Subcommittee, which has broad jurisdiction over most government departments and agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and electric utility matters generally.

The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. is now a subsidiary of First Energy Co., which was fined by the NRC for various safety violations and, a few years ago, was found to have primary responsibility for the 2003 blackout that left 50 million people throughout the northeastern United States without electricity.

Cleveland Trust no longer exists. No other bank involved in the default survives, except for National City, which next week faces extinction through shareholder approval of a takeover by PNC bank. I have spent much time trying to save National City.

One newspaper, the Cleveland Press, which advocated that CEI be Cleveland’s sole electricity provider, ceased publication. The other strong proponent of the sale of Muny Light, the Plain Dealer, struggles to survive.

The city’s electric system endures and this past year celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Kucinich Says Unidentified Foreign Official Wants to Speak at Impeachment Talks

By Molly K. Hooper, CQ Today.

An unidentified government official of a U.S. ally wants to participate if and when Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich makes his case to impeach President Bush before the House Judiciary Committee, according to the Ohio Democrat.

The House voted, 238-180, on Tuesday to send Kucinich’s latest impeachment effort (H Res 1345) to the Judiciary Committee.

Chairman John Conyers Jr. said he will hold a broad hearing on the general topic of abuses of power by the Bush administration.

“There’s never been one [hearing] that accumulated all the things that constitute an imperial presidency,” Conyers said, explaining that the anticipated hearing would review more than a year of committee inquiry into such matters as the firing of U.S. attorneys, the leak of the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame and the information provided to Congress in the run-up to the Iraq War.

Kucinich contends that President Bush ought to be impeached for allegedly lying to Congress in order to get approval to invade Iraq.

Conyers does not intend to specifically debate or hold a committee vote on Kucinich’s article of impeachment, though issues important to Kucinich would get a public airing.

A ‘New Angle’

No matter how the eventual hearing is framed, Kucinich said he would like to be joined at the witness table by a foreign official he would not name.

“I’ve been contacted by representatives of a U.S. ally who are seeking an opportunity to appear before the Judiciary Committee,” he said in an interview.

“Legislative leaders of a foreign capital” have a “new angle that I haven’t thought of before but is relevant,” he said. “This interest in whether we’ve been told the truth has extended to other countries.”

Kucinich would not provide further detail.

And in any event, the power to control the witness list of any congressional hearing rests with the committee chairman — in this case, Conyers.

The article of impeachment that was referred to committee on Tuesday was the fourth introduced by Kucinich.

He also introduced a broader version against Bush (H Res 1258) and two against Vice President Dick Cheney (H Res 333, H Res 799).

Gore Vidal: “The United States is not a republic anymore”

Source: Tehran Times. Why doesn’t the New York Times have the balls to print something like this?

TEHRAN (Press TV) — An interview with legendary American essayist, author, social and political critic.

Press TV: We hear that Michael Mukasey is going to become the latest of the President’s Attorney-Generals to be subpoenaed, this time over his conversations with Bush and Cheney — does this show that Congress is serious about calling the executive to account?

Gore Vidal: No, Congress has never been more cowardly, nor more corrupt. All Bush has do is to make sure certain amounts of money go in the direction of certain important congressmen and that’s end of any serious investigation. After all, one of the bravest members of Congress is De[n]nis Kucinich who brought the article of impeachment in to the well of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives must then try the president, and then after that it goes to the Senate for judgment. However, none of these things will happen because there’s nobody there except for Mr. Kucinich who has the courage to take on a sitting president who is kind of a Mafioso.

Press TV: How can it just be one person among so many hundreds of Congressmen who wants the impeachment of George W. Bush in these circumstances?

Gore Vidal: Well it’s because we no longer have a country. We don’t have a republic any more. During the last 7 or 8 years of the Bush regime, they’ve got rid of the Bill of Rights, they’ve got rid of habeas corpus. They have got rid of one of the nicest gifts that England ever left us when they went away and we ceased to be colonies — the Magna Carta — from the 12th century. All of our law and due process of law is based on that. And the Bush people got rid of it. The president and little Mr. Gonzales who for a few minutes was his Attorney General. They managed to get rid of all of the constitutional links that made us literally a republic.

Press TV: You have often written about the United States’ superpower status in terms of the history of previous superpowers. Do you think we’re witnessing the end of U.S. power as some suggest. Will the White House be seen like Persepolis?

Gore Vidal: Well it won’t make such good ruins, no. It’ll be more like the tomb of Cyrus nearby. They managed to destroy the United States — why? Because they’re oil and gas people and they’re essentially criminals. I repeat that this is a criminal group that’s seized control of the country through what looked like an ordinary election. But there’s some very nice films and documentaries about what happened in the year 2000 when Albert Gore won the election for president and they saw to it that he couldn’t serve. They got the Supreme Court — which is the Holy of Holies ordinarily in our system – to investigate and then accuse the thieves of being absolutely correct and the winners — Mr. Gore and the Democrats — of being the cheaters. It’s the first law of Machiavelli, whatever your opponent’s faults are, you pick his virtues and you deny he has them. That’s what they did when Senator Kerry ran a few years ago for president. He’s a famous hero from the Vietnam War. They said he was a coward and not a hero. That’s how it’s done. When you have a bunch of liars in charge of your government you can’t expect to get much history out of that. But later on we’ll dig and dig… and we will dig up Persepolis.

Press TV: Senator Obama talks about change but of course he has courting Wall Street as well as the Israeli lobby — do you see any prospect of change with him as president?

Gore Vidal: Not really. I don’t doubt his good faith, just as I do not doubt the bad faith of Cheney and Bush. They are such dreadful people that we’ve never had in government before. They would never have risen unless they were buying elections as they did in Florida in 2000, as they did in the State of Ohio in 2004. These are two open thefts of the Presidency. When I discovered that this did not interest the New York Times or the Washington Post or any of the press of the country I realized our day was done. We are no longer a country we are a framework for crooks to go in and steal money. Knowing that they’ll never be caught and they’ll be admired for it. Americans always take everybody on his own evaluation. You say I’m a state and they say “oh, yeah yeah yeah, he’s a state, isn’t that great.” And you accuse the other people of your crimes before you commit them. It’s an old trick which was known to Machiavelli who wrote about it in his handbook, The Prince.

Press TV: Finally that issue which is exercising so many minds in the Middle East and beyond. You, yourself have written about so many Imperial wars of the United States. Do you think Bush and Cheney would risk another war in what Mohammad ElBaradei of the IAEA calls a fireball?

Gore Vidal: They are longing to but they have spent all of the money. They have got it in their own private companies like the Vice-President and a company called Halliburton which is stealing more money and should be on trial sooner or later before Congress. But perhaps not, who knows? But it’s well known in Washington, these people are leaking away the money of the country. Well there’s no more money. They are longing for a war with Iran. Iran is no more a harm to us than was Iraq or Afghanistan. They invented an enemy, they tell lies, lies, lies.

The New York Times goes along with their lies, lies, lies. And they don’t stop. When the public that’s lied to 30 times a day it’s apt to believe the lies, is not it?

Never too late to impeach – It’s the Law

Comment from Signs Of the Times with a link to an article about the Protect America and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acts. Perhaps the Democrats’ passiveness stems from Bush using the acts to secretly spy on and blackmail them? It makes sense:

One wonders at this impeccable record of failure by the Dems, considering the numerical majority they hold in Congress. The Constitution is remarkable clear about the course of action Congress is to pursue regarding the Bush Reich, yet they have sidestepped it at every turn. It is as if there is a collective stranglehold on them.

Source: Stephen Dick, The Herald Bulletin.

“The president, vice president and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” – Article II, Section 4, U.S. Constitution

There’s really no equivocation in this simple statement. It doesn’t say impeachment will be considered, but it “shall be.”

Articles of impeachment are drawn up in the House of Representatives, which, if approved, move over to the Senate for trial.

In the face of the most lawless administration in U.S. history, what are we to make of a House that refuses its duty to impeach? Just a decade ago, fire-breathing Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for lying under oath about an affair. Now, manipulating intelligence to go to war and illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens rate not even the lift of an eyebrow in the House. Maybe that’s because the House is complicit in those crimes.

With only seven months to go in this rogue administration, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, spent four hours on the House floor last week reading 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Kucinich, whose presidential aspirations went nowhere, was nothing if not exhaustive.

The articles begin with a secret propaganda campaign to manufacturing a false case for war with Iraq to endangering the health of 9/11 responders. In between, there are accusations of conspiracy to violate voter rights, Katrina failure, secret laws and failing to comply with congressional subpoenas. Each article is detailed with evidence, and each article is grounds for impeachment.

Kucinich read his articles on June 10. The next day, I received a call from a reader baffled why there was nothing in the paper about it. The wire services barely bothered with it. The media considers it a nonissue and so does the House.

According to a short Associated Press story on June 11 (one that concerned itself more with Kucinich than his charges), the House voted to move the articles to a committee, “a procedure often used to kill legislation.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was clear when the Democrats regained the House in 2006 that there would be no talk of impeachment. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, sniveling behind Pelosi’s skirt, uttered his agreement.

The reasoning was that the Democrats had better things to do than waste time on the partisan battle of impeachment. They had to right the wrongs of Bush.

A year and a half later, what have the Democrats done? Absolutely nothing. They’ve caved in repeatedly to all of Bush’s demands. As Reid recently told Rolling Stone, there’s nothing the Democrats can do until a Democratic president is elected. How utterly pathetic is that?

Kucinich and Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, filed impeachment articles against Vice President Dick Cheney last November. Republicans then, as the AP wrote, saw “a chance to force Democrats into an embarrassing debate (and) voted to bring up the resolution.” The Democrats scuttled the bill, but what would’ve been embarrassing about it?

Democrats had the law on their side, which used to trump politics. Using the law to expose the criminality of government officials is not partisan. It’s the House’s duty.

I’m glad Kucinich got the articles into the congressional record. At least someone had the chutzpah to do so despite the spineless Democratic leadership, which will continue its abysmal appeasement of an administration out of control.

Just last week, Bush, speaking in Europe, upped the bellicose rhetoric about how terrible Iran is. Even the mainstream media was speculating that Bush will invade Iran before his watch is up to tie the hands of a (possibly) more peaceful successor.

What will the Democratic-led Congress do if Bush decides to invade? Will Democrats, as Reid suggested, roll over and give Bush what he wants while they await their savior? It would be ironic if Reid and the other cowards found themselves dealing with yet another war as a Democratic president came to office. Would the Democrats, as Reid insists, get what they want then, or would they still be dealing with Bush as he returns to his slacker ways in Crawford?

Stephen Dickwrites for The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Ind. He can be reached at steve.dick@heraldbulletin.com.

Gore Vidal’s Article of Impeachment

It’s not just Le Monde, but even t.v. coverage of U.S. events in other countries is better than it is here. They aren’t afraid to show graphic images of the Iraq War either. No wonder the U.S. is so unpopular.

Source: Gore Vidal, Truth Dig.

On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberties and the Constitution itself.

I wish to draw the attention of the blog world to Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment presented to the House in order that two faithless public servants be removed from office for crimes against the American people. As I listened to Rep. Kucinich invoke the great engine of impeachment – he listed some 35 crimes by these two faithless officials – we heard, like great bells tolling, the voice of the Constitution itself speak out ringingly against those who had tried to destroy it.

Although this is the most important motion made in Congress in the 21st century, it was also the most significant plea for a restoration of the republic, which had been swept to one side by the mad antics of a president bent on great crime. And as I listened with awe to Kucinich, I realized that no newspaper in the U.S., no broadcast or cable network, would pay much notice to the fact that a highly respected member of Congress was asking for the president and vice president to be tried for crimes which were carefully listed by Kucinich in his articles requesting impeachment.

But then I have known for a long time that the media of the U.S. and too many of its elected officials give not a flying fuck for the welfare of this republic, and so I turned, as I often do, to the foreign press for a clear report of what has been going on in Congress. We all know how the self-described “war hero,” Mr. John McCain, likes to snigger at France, while the notion that he is a hero of any kind is what we should be sniggering at. It is Le Monde, a French newspaper, that told a story the next day hardly touched by The New York Times or The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal or, in fact, any other major American media outlet.

As for TV? Well, there wasn’t much – you see, we dare not be divisive because it upsets our masters who know that this is a perfect country, and the fact that so many in it don’t like it means that they have been terribly spoiled by the greatest health service on Earth, the greatest justice system, the greatest number of occupied prisons – two and a half million Americans are prisoners – what a great tribute to our penal passions!

Naturally, I do not want to sound hard, but let me point out that even a banana Republican would be distressed to discover how much of our nation’s treasury has been siphoned off by our vice president in the interest of his Cosa Nostra company, Halliburton, the lawless gang of mercenaries set loose by this administration in the Middle East.

But there it was on the first page of Le Monde. The House of Representatives, which was intended to be the democratic chamber, at last was alert to its function, and the bravest of its members set in motion the articles of impeachment of the most dangerous president in our history. Rep Kucinich listed some 30-odd articles describing impeachable offenses committed by the president and vice president, neither of whom had ever been the clear choice of our sleeping polity for any office.

Some months ago, Kucinich had made the case against Dick Cheney. Now he had the principal malefactor in his view under the title “Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush”! “Resolved, that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate.” The purpose of the resolve is that he be duly tried by the Senate, and if found guilty, be removed from office. At this point, Rep. Kucinich presented his 35 articles detailing various high crimes and misdemeanors for which removal from office was demanded by the framers of the Constitution.

Update: On Wednesday, the House voted by 251 to 166 to send Rep. Kucinich’s articles of impeachment to a committee which probably won’t get to the matter before Bush leaves office, a strategy that is “often used to kill legislation,” as the Associated Press noted later that day.

Kucinich Vows New Round of Impeachment Articles Against Bush If Measure Dies

I’m glad there’s someone in the Democratic Party with balls.

Source: Jason Leopold, The Public Record.

Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio Congressman and former 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate, said he would continue to introduce resolutions calling for the removal of President George W. Bush from office if the articles of impeachment against Bush that he presented to the House Monday is not taken up within 30 days or dies in committee.

On Monday, Kucinich introduced the articles of impeachment against President Bush in the form of a privileged resolution, a procedural maneuver requiring Congress to take up the measure within two legislative days. Kucinich spent four-hours reading 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush, accusing the commander-in-chief of a wide-range of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors,” such as lying to Congress and the public to win support for the Iraq war.

Congressman Robert Wexler, (D-Fla.), agreed to co-sponsor of the measure Tuesday.

Congress voted 251-166 Wednesday to send the articles of impeachment to a House Judiciary Committee for review where it’s expected to die.

But Kucinich said if that happens he will just introduce another resolution until lawmakers vote on the measure.

“Leadership wants to bury it, but this is one resolution that will be coming back from the dead,” Kucinich told the Washington Post Wednesday. “Thirty days from now, if there is no action, I will be bringing the resolution up again, and I won’t be the only one reading it. We’ll come back and many of us will be reading this [on the House floor], and we’ll come back with 60 articles, not 35.”

In a statement Wednesday, Kucinich urged the House Judiciary Committee to “begin a review of the 35 articles” and said he “will be providing supporting documentation to the committee so that it can proceed in an orderly manner.”

Kucinich said he expects to meet with Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers within a week to for the committee to vote on the measure. A resolution Kucinich sponsored last year to impeach Cheney was sent to Conyers’ committee but was not debated.

Conyers, as well as others in the Democratic leadership, has opposed initiating impeachment proceedings against President Bush. Conyers has said the House simply does not have enough votes to support impeachment and therefore pursuing it would be a waste of time.

He did, however, state in a letter sent to President Bush on May 8, that he would pursue impeachment if the president were to launch a military strike against Iran without first receiving approval or consulting Congress about the matter.

“Late last year, Senator Joseph Biden stated unequivocally that “the president has no authority to unilaterally attack Iran, and if he does, as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, I will move to impeach” the president.

“We agree with Senator Biden, and it is our view that if you do not obtain the constitutionally required congressional authorization before launching preemptive military strikes against Iran or any other nation, impeachment proceedings should be pursued,” Conyers’ letter says.

Kucinich said the articles of impeachment against President Bush are a way for lawmakers to “create an historical record of the misconduct of the Bush administration.”

“The weight of evidence contained in the articles makes it clear that President Bush violated the Constitution and the U.S. Code as well as international law,” Kucinich said in a prepared statement.

“It is the House’s responsibility as a co-equal branch of government to provide an effective check and balance to executive abuse of power,” Kucinich continued in the statement. “President Bush was principally responsible for directing the United States Armed Forces to attack Iraq.”

“I believe that there is sufficient evidence in the articles to support the charge that President Bush allowed, authorized and sanctioned the manipulation of intelligence by those acting under his direction and control, misleading Congress to approve a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq,” he added.

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is “off the table” because it would hinder the Democrats’ chances of securing a bigger majority in Congress come November and could result in a public backlash and cause the party to lose the November presidential election.

“Speaker Pelosi will continue to lead legislative efforts to find a new direction in Iraq but believes that impeachment would create a divisive battle, be a distraction from Congress’s efforts to chart a new course for America’s working families and would ultimately fail,” Pelosi’s spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer Tuesday.

Congress has not considered impeachment because the Democratic leadership believes it will hurt their party’s chances of securing the White House in November’s hotly contested presidential election between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain.

Comment: That’s a lame excuse! There’s no chance in hell of McCan’t winning the election.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence agreed. Last week, the committee released a long-awaited report on prewar Iraq intelligence that concluded President Bush and Vice President Cheney knowingly lied to the public and to Congress about Iraq’s links to al-Qaeda and the threat the country posed to the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11.

That would be an impeachable offense, according to former Nixon counsel John Dean.

“To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked,” Dean wrote in a June 6, 2003 column for findlaw.com.

“Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be “a high crime” under the Constitution’s impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony “to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose.

The Existentialist Cowboy: Liberty Betrayed!

This goes to show how much we need viable third parties.

http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/06/liberty-betrayed.html

Et tu, Democratic Party?

The American people have now suffered what must surely be the ultimate betrayal! Those elected to represent and serve their interests in Congress have ‘winked and nodded’ to Bush’s heinous crimes, abuses, usurpations of unconstitutional power, aggressive war and villainy. Democrats in Congress have quashed a move by Dennis Kucinich to impeach the usurper who still occupies the White House.

In a single act of cowardice and betrayal, if not treason, the US congress has ‘scuttled’ the Articles of Impeachment drawn up and carefully researched by Dennis Kucinich. The US government, therefore, may no longer assert or claim legitimacy. By turning a blind eye to the numerous specific crimes that Kucinich outlined and proved in some 35 Article of Impeachment, the people are left adrift. There is no rule of law!

WASHINGTON – Democrats in the House of Representatives yesterday scuttled a colleague’s proposal to impeach President Bush on a wide range of charges, including lying to the American public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, torturing war captives, and misleading Congress in an attempt to destroy Medicare. By a 251-166 vote, the House sent the 35-count articles of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee, which is expected to let it die without further action. While the vote technically forces the measure to the committee for consideration, it also means the full House will avoid having to debate and vote on impeaching the 43d president.– Democrats scuttle proposal to impeach Bush

According to Boston. com “no Democrats [sic] voted against the resolution to send the measure to certain death in the Judiciary Committee, but 166 Republicans voted no – a tactic designed to force Democrats to address the measure publicly.” The desires, needs and aspirations of the vast majority of people had long ago been betrayed by the GOP. Now –the Democrats have simply twisted the knife in the wound. Thomas Jefferson would have had this to say:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness….

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

Clearly –as Dennis Kucinich proved conclusively and persuasively in some 35 Articles of Impeachment –the government of George W. Bush, his enablers, toadies, and the financial support that he enjoys has ‘broken the peace’ with the American people. The US Constitution is a covenant between the people and those elected to serve them. Bush has broken that covenant, thumbed his nose at it and disdained it, calling the Constitution ‘ …just a goddamned piece of paper!” The case against Bush, indeed this government was documented and proven in Kucinich’s 35 Articles of Impeachment. America, your government has betrayed you!

When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered already broken. –Guerrilla Warfare, Ernesto “Che” Guevara

What will you do without freedom? What will you do about the yoke of tyranny imposed by the war criminal and usurper who now occupies the White House illegally? The Courts have abandoned you. The ‘Presidency’ is lost, perhaps forever to the forces of totalitarianism, greed and villainy.

Americans’ last hope –the Democratic majority in Congress –has, in fact, told you to ‘fuggetaboutit’! The US government is no longer legitimate! Like Bush, your government no longer ‘cares what you think!”

ADDENDUM: I was in the process of annotating Kucinich’s ‘Articles’ when I learned of the Democrats betrayal. Here are the very few that I had assembled:

1. Senate Finds Pre-War Bush Claims Exaggerated, False
   Proof Bush Fixed The Facts
   Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
   False Pretenses
   Study: Bush Led US To War on ‘False Pretenses’
2. The Nation: Bush’s Lies About Iraq
   BBC: Bush administration on Iraq 9/11 link
   Bush Falsely Claims He Never Linked Hussein To September 11»
   Ex-Bush aides conflate 9/11, Iraq in pro-war ad campaign
   9/11 Linked To Iraq, In Politics if Not in Fact
   Mother Jones: The Lie Factory
   Pro War Ads Falsely Link 9/11 To Iraq
   Bush Misled America about the Threat from Iraq
   Buzzflash: Did George W. Bush Invade Iraq by Lying?
3. A History Of Lies: WMD, Who Said What and When
   President Delivers “State of the Union” (2003)
   Iraq WMD Lies: The Words of Mass Deception
4. Nuremberg Principles:
   

   Principle I Any person who commitsan act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

   Principle II

   The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the personwho committed the act from responsibility under international law.

   Principle III

   The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsibleGovernment official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

   Principle IV

   The fact that aperson acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility underinternational law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

   War of Aggression = War Crime
   Bush Officials Charged with War Crimes: Crimes within the Court’s Jurisdiction:

   • The crime of genocide
   • Crimes against humanity
   • The crime of aggression
   • Crimes against United Nations and associated personnel
   • War crimes
   • Other categories of crimes

Crimes within the Court’s Jurisdiction

Kucinich effort to impeach Bush kicked into limbo

Michael Rivero says: “Time to kick the entire government into limbo.”

It would be great to throw out the whole rotten crew.

From Lisa Desjardins, CNN.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – An attempt by Rep. Dennis Kucinich to impeach President Bush was kicked into legislative no-man’s land by members of his own party Wednesday.

The House voted 251-166 to send the Ohio Democrat’s impeachment resolution to committee, a maneuver that allows the Democratic leadership to freeze the measure indefinitely.

The vote largely followed partisan lines, with 225 Democrats voting on Kucinich’s request to send the measure to committee for consideration.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said she would not support a View Drafts resolution calling for Bush’s impeachment, saying such a move was unlikely to succeed and would be divisive.

All 166 votes in favor of opening up a House impeachment debate came from Republicans, apparently eager to bring up the vote immediately and paint Democrats as political creatures in a time of serious issues.

Kucinich introduced the resolution into the House on Tuesday night.

Most of the congressman’s resolution deals with the Iraq war, contending that the president manufactured a false case for the war, violated U.S. and international law to invade Iraq, failed to provide troops with proper equipment and falsified casualty reports for political purposes.

Kucinich also charges that Bush has illegally detained without charge both U.S. citizens and “foreign captives,” and violated numerous U.S. laws through the use of “signing statements” declaring his intention to do so.

Other articles address global warming, voting rights, Medicare, the response to Hurricane Katrina and failure to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Last year, Kucinich introduced a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. But the attempt failed in November, when Republicans tried to force a debate on it. Democrats voted to send the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, where the committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers, has taken no action on it.

An earlier resolution to impeach Cheney has languished in the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties since May 2007.

The House of Representatives has voted to impeach two presidents — Andrew Johnson, in 1868, and Bill Clinton, in 1999 — but both were acquitted by the Senate and remained in office. No U.S. vice president has been impeached.

Kucinich dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president in January to focus on his re-election bid in Ohio. He handily won the Democratic primary in his district March 4 and faces former state Rep. Jim Trakas in the general election.

Media Betrays America – Again: Impeachment “Off the Table” @ USA Corp

Source: TopCat, Thisisby.us.

“It is possible to fool all of the people all the time; when government and press cooperate.”
GEORGE SELDES (legendary investigative reporter, 1938)

“The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread… We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
JOHN SWINTON (former Chief of Staff New York Times in his toast to the New York Press Club. Quote1880)

“Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an Invisible Government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed; our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of.”
EDWARD L. BERNAYS (Sigmund Freud’s nephew and the father of psyops, mass spin control and modern propaganda. Bernay’s techniques sold WWI to Americans thru the “Committee on Public Information”. Josef Goebbels as Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda was an avid fan of Bernay’s work for the Third Reich. Bernays partnered with William Paley to run CBS. Edward Bernay’s work was also the foundation for CIA mass media manipulation via “Operation Mockingbird”. Quote: Bernay’s book “Propaganda” published 1928)

“Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”
RICHARD SALENT (President CBS “News” division 1961-64 & 1966-79)

“News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising.”
REUVEN FRANK (President NBC “News” from 1968-1972 & 1982-1984)

“You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.”
PHILIP GRAHAM (editor of the Washington Post quoting his CIA operative source as he discussed the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. Quote 1991)

Dennis Kucinich as the lone voice of a nation’s conscience gave reason and clarity to a case for impeachment of GW Bush on June 9th at the capital. Virtually no one from the moral cesspit that is Washington DC was present for the event. Certainly not GOP androids, neocon sellouts, “impeachment-is-off-the-table” Pelosi or any of the usual two-faced corporate circus masquerading as lawmakers.

It goes without saying GW Bush appears a witless rodeo clown for the corporate crime state he was evidently handpicked to gut and rape the country for. However— a Bush puppet presidency does not excuse criminal deeds of his temp stooge regime. By that measure, no representative of the national media establishment covered the historic event. No national network whether NBC, CBS, ABC, etc, carried this in any way whatever. In fact, no national news provider mentioned the Kucinich phenomenon. If carried at all by any national newspaper, impeachment news was buried as far from page one as possible. (Ditto for coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the administration’s misuse of prewar “intelligence”). So, barely a whisper to mark the act. Practically nothing and no one at the MSM recorded the event never mind reporting it for broadcast or print.

For to present the case for impeachment as national “news” would have given Kucinich’s message significance and power. A corporate monopoly rigged MSM would make such an event one to avoid at all costs.

The purpose and reason for such corrupted MSM policy? To blackout and thus trash the impeachment case accomplishes one thing above all:

To break the American will by keeping the sheep in the dark and on the plantation. So do we get a population of patsies Eveready to be gutted and raped by the next corporate crime lapdog regime. Thus are the ignorant with the gullible paralyzed, to be kept so for permanent and vast power grabs foisted at false 9/11“war on terror” of a thousand lies.

The first 8 articles of Impeachment set the stage as others follow suite…

Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.

Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.

Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.

Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.

Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.

Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.

Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.

Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.

Some would say there is an article missing in one proven and officially unchallenged criminal 9/11 coverup. With that reservation, the articles speak volumes where silence from America is deafening.

Others would say that Kucinich, former candidate for the presidential ticket is not glamorous, famous, nor handsome enough to warrant coverage for such effort. I would suggest these would be the most benighted and clueless of what passes for Americans.

Whether you ID yourself at the fictional “left” “right” or “center” under de facto Fascist rule, Dennis Kucinich presenting 35 articles of impeachment signifies real news with a capital “N”. To ignore the event as if it never occurred can mean the obvious:

The mono-channel American Mockingbird machine is manifestly corrupt, to be bought and paid for as it has been for generations. From military propaganda down – western and U.S. media has shown itself to be an instrument of organized information warfare on Americans and the world.

At USA Corp, it seems only ne[o]con charlatans or Big Oil tricksters now deny a treacherous MSM monolith sold sham 9/11 “war on terror” for the world to buy. Even so, never has the 4th estate been more clearly Fascist or transparently dirty.

Wexler Co-Sponsors Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment

Source: Meryl Ann Butler, OpEdNews.com.

On Tuesday June 10th, Congressman Robert Wexler (District 19, FL) announced that he “enthusiastically” co-sponsored Kucinich’s bill of Articles of Impeachment against President Bush, saying, ” I am grateful for Dennis’ leadership on this issue and for the steadfast support that countless Americans have given to both of our efforts to redeem our government and expose the crimes of Bush and Cheney.”

Wexler continued, “The Articles present a stunning narrative of offenses that go well beyond previous crimes committed by any U.S. chief executive. In fact, no President or Vice President in history has done more to undermine our constitution.”

Congressman Wexler serves on the House Judiciary Committee. Wexler also announced that Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers had met his call to have Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan testify under oath.

Wexler also announced on Tuesday that McClellan has agreed to testify, under oath, on June 20th at 10 a.m. Wexler notes, “This will be the first step in what we hope will be ongoing and deepening examinations of the stark evidence and charges against both President Bush and Vice President Cheney.”

Readers can support impeachment hearings at WexlerWantsHearings where the texts for Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment served to both Cheney and Bush are available.