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Resolution To Impeach VP Cheney Submitted
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has submitted a resolution, HR 333, to impeach VP Dick Cheney on charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors." The charges were submitted on 24 April 2007. Congressman Kucinich has posted his supporting documents online, including a brief summary of the impeachment procedure (PDF), a synopsis (PDF), and the full text (PDF) of the impeachment resolution.
Now that is an impeachment worth reading. The synopsis alone is a solid piece of attack.
Let's see if your congresscritters have enough spine left to do follow the facts. Though I fear we will soon find out how much money Haliburton is willing to throw around in order to keep their sock puppet in office.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"It's an interesting play because the Dems do have enough votes to impeach Cheney -- but the Senate would never find him guilty by a 2/3rd majority. This is of course the same brilliant strategy that the dems have been using for the last 12 years [...]"
It's worth noting that Mr. Kucinich ain't exactly part of the Democratic leadership. He's as far off the Democratic reservation as Ron Paul is off the Republican reservation. Whether this reflects prudence or cowardice among the leadership is left as an exercise for the reader.
"Finally, does Kucinich this this will help him get elected President?"
He's playing to his national base, which is solidly anti-war* and pro-impeachment. This action may not be sufficient for him to win the Presidency, but it is necessary for him to do this to have any chance at all.
[*: It's worth noting also that Kucinich has been against this war right from the start. And if I recall correctly, he's one of a very, very small number of people to have voted against the mis-named patriot act.]
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
You really really don't want that to happen. Most likely, U.S. politics will end up being just like France's, where street protests are a normal part of politics, and where extermists can get quite far (e.g. Le Pen). Worse, you could end up with politics like Italy's or Israel's.
A change to the voting method might be a good idea, but not instant runoff.
It's easy to demonstrate mathematically, and easy to see in the places that have implemented IRV, that IRV doesn't reduce the political value of parties, nor does it effectively enable more than two parties to compete or allow voters to safely choose their preferred party rather than one of the big two. As soon as a third party gains enough votes to threaten one of the major parties, voters risk putting the major party candidate they hate most in office if they vote for the the third-party candidate.
To see intuitively how that happens, you just need to note that the rising third party will draw its support from the ranks of the major party that is most similar to it, thus effectively strengthening the major party that is most different from it. Yes, voters who vote will the third party will rank the closer major party as their second choice, but if the third party gains enough power, it will knock this major party out of the running in the first round, then lose in the instant runoff to the other major party.
What IRV does do is allow third parties to rise in power and prominence to the point that they can have a say in the debate, even though it doesn't allow them to actually win. That's a good thing, but the effect is limited by the fact that the third party is unlikely ever to win unless it can so thoroughly defeat the more similar of the major parties that it effectively becomes one of the two top parties. And during the transition era, from third party to major party, it strengthens the major party most different from it.
But assuming we could muster the political will to change the system, there are options other than IRV that don't suffer these weaknesses. The best known voting methods use the Condorcet pairwise evaluation method, and it can be shown mathematically that those methods do an excellent job of reflecting voter will in elections. Condorcet methods can even satisfy a slightly-weakened form of Arrow's Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives axiom, which means that if you can accept that weakening of IIA, they're perfect voting systems.
The downside to pairwise evaluation is that while it's actually straightforward to understand and implement (simpler, in fact, than IRV!), it's conceptually complex. IMO, the best of all possible options is also the very simplest: Approval voting. In approval voting, you have a list of candidates and you mark all you find acceptable. Whoever gets the most marks wins. In some formulations if no candidate gets at least 50% approval then the election must be run again with a new slate, but that's optional. The weakness of approval voting is that it doesn't allow voters to rank their preferences, so there's information that is lost. The strengths are that approval voting does a perfect job of reflecting the information it is given, without any ambiguities or paradoxes; does not support a two-party system; does not penalize individuals for supporting other parties; and is dead simple to understand.
The other approach that seems to work reasonably well for empowering more parties is the proportional representation system. The downside to that is that it means you are truly voting for a party rather than for a person, and I and many other Americans prefer to vote for the man, not the party (excepting where they both suck, which is increasingly the norm).
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I've been following this story since last week when the plan was leaked and then through Wednesday's postponement due to concerns about Cheney's physical status and through yesterday's news conference. What blew me away was the total lack of coverage it was getting in any press. In particular NPR really made me feel let down. I listened to Morning Edition and All Things Considered non-stop for days and did not even hear the slightest mention of this while I sat through literally hours of interviews with neocon assholes like freaking William Kristol.
What a sad indictment of what has become of the broadcast media. The above posts that mention the re-alignment of the "center" way off to the right is clearly evidenced by this example. NPR has no time to even mention the beinning of an impeachment of Cheney but, on the other hand, there's plenty of time for a pleasant chuckling interview with Billy Kristol on the brighter side of McCane's chances on this so-called left leaning media outlet.
The problem isn't that the general public isn't supporting it.
The problem is that nobody takes Kucinich seriously, even within his own party. He's maybe not quite as ridiculous as Ralph Nader or Jesse Jackson on the list of "hopeless ideologues who continually run for President," but he's definitely on that list. Hell, he gets regularly ridiculed by Jon Stewart, who is practically the mainstream Democratic party's mouthpiece on national television. He is, in general, a loose cannon, and I doubt that earns him many friends on either side of the aisle. (Well, some Republicans might secretly like him just because of his entertainment value, and because he creates things they can point at and use to condemn Democrats in general with; e.g. his proposals to ban handguns make for great NRA campaign fodder.)
None of the real players in Congress are going to touch this, because they don't want to be associated with him. He's practically famous for introducing feel-good bills with no cosponsors, that get him a little media attention and then get tossed in the circular file in committee.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
To crib from Sorkin, there are times when we're fifty states, and there are times when we're one country solving problems that require the pooling of resources.
Your passport says "The United States of America."
You're talking about Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, first published in 1950, and there are five axioms, not seven. One of them is the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Criterion that I mentioned in my previous post, and it's the only one that pairwise evaluation fails to meet. However, many people (including me) think that IIAC is too strong, and that the Local Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Criterion is adequate. This local version basically says that the method is still immune to changes in outcome when new candidates are added that don't end up creating or modifying a cyclical preference (where more people like A than B, and more like B than C, and more like C than A). Condorcet methods satisfy LIIAC.
Until someone comes up with a new idea, our basic choice is which of the desired properties do we want to violate.That also assumes that the specified desired properties are in fact the ones we want. I think Arrow's axioms make a lot of sense, and that what his impossibility theorem points out is that there can arise situations where the populace fundamentally cannot agree, in which cases there can be no system that chooses the "correct" winner because there is no such thing. In those cases, a good method needs to have a deterministic and fair way of picking from among the cyclical preference, and that's the best you can possibly do.
Pairwise evaluation with Schwartz Sequential Dropping satisfies all of Arrow's requirements except IIAC, and satisfies LIIAC, meaning it handles perfectly all situations except the paradoxical one, and it provides a sensible heuristic for deciding in the paradoxical case. That seems to be about as good as you can possibly get, and it's vastly better than majority rules or IRV.
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Where exactly did you study the political process? Street protests are used by groups that are in the minority to bring awareness and supporters to their cause. A lack of street protests means a suppression of the minority. The abortion issue will cause street protests forever, no matter which side wins, because the other side will always be pissed. Right now the pro-life people are in a pretty sharp minority (only 30-40% of our population), notice how much they protest?
Of course the free market is unmanageable. That's the point. Free market theory states that individual actors are best at managing their own affairs, thank you very much, and don't need to be managed.
You're not much of a libertarian if you disregard fundamental economic freedom in favor of government regulation, a form of coercion.
Because of how wealth is created (through voluntary exchange), the truly free market is the most efficient method of wealth generation. A free market operates in pareto efficiency, the most efficient form a market can hope to attain. This means it operates at a level of 99.9999999999% efficiency (ten signifigant digits).
A fair criticism of the free market is that wealth distribution is not equal. This is true. But in the real world, wealth creation is spread out, and all members do benefit, although some more than others. The only way for you to advocate socialism over the free market is if you prefer market control over members of society benefiting, or if you prefer everyone to be equally poor rather than inequally rich.
Wealth is not zero-sum. It's not simply shuffled around from the poor to the rich or vice-versa: all members of a free market can benefit from the freedom of voluntary exchange.
The criticism of monopolies existing is nearly baseless. There are three ways a monopoly can form. The first, which we see in present day, is though government favor such as bailouts and tax credits. The second is in control of a limited natural resource, such as drinking water. The third is that the monopoly provides a service its customers enjoy so thoroughly no other entity can provide that service better for the same price.
The second criticism, the control of a limited natural resource, is a justifiable cause for government intervention. Another justifiable government intervention is when we come across the well-known problem, the prisoner's dilemma. The prisoner's dilemma occures when the greatest good for a group occurs not when they compete for their own self-interest above all others, but cooperate instead. This is closely tied with natural resources, and is best seen in taking care of the environment. It is no company's interest to care for the environment.
In this case, as we trust the government to ensure our lives are protected, and the environment is necessary for life, we can allow regulation of business.
I know that this has not been sufficiently condescending or poetic to be modded up on slashdot, but maybe someone will actually read it.
On a related note, was Hitler a moderate simply because he was at war with both the capitalist democracies of the West and the communist dictatorship of the East?
Short answer: No, who your external enemies and friend are do not necessarily reflect the economic stance of your own country.
Long answer: Hitler was an economic moderate because National Socialism was a semi-rightist totalitarian system that shared control of the country between government officials and industry leaders. The economy was semi-planned, but much of the planning was done by government recognized monopolies and cartels instead of by the government itself. In addition, property was assumed in general to belong to the citizen instead of to the state. That last distinction is very important between leftist and rightist totalitarian economies and is one of the few places where they don't blur together much.
As for defining them by allies, note that the Nazis and the Communists were initially allies until they turned on each other, and a sizeable portion of the wealthy and of the intelligentsia of America in the late 30s were more sympathetic to Germany than to England. Hilter wrote quite glowingly of Americans in his writing, praising them and considering them as potential fearsome rivals. The clash of powers was more pragmatic than ideological until the war got started and the propoganda started up. History largely writes it as a war against an evil power that massacred Jews, but it got started more out of a fear of the balance of power.
I mean, what kind of nation are we that is allied with both Norway and Saudi Arabia?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I like your summary and hope you get modded up for it. Regardless, I think the events of 1913 deserve some mention -- the passage of the 16th amendment and the creation of the Federal Reserve system.
Are you aware that following every cut in Federal Income Tax, revenues received by the federal government from income taxes has gone up? When tax rates are lower economic activity is greater. At some point, this increase in revenue from decreased taxes stops, but we don't know where that point is. I am confident it is at a lower tax rate than our current one. Oh yes, when the taxes were cut the last time, the percentage of income tax collected from the top quintile of earners went up. That is, the people who earn in the top 20% of incomes in this country pay a greater share of the money collected from income tax now than they did before the last round of tax cuts were passed.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
And as to deporation, no, that didn't happen. You should know more about your own ancestor: he never deported anyone under the Alien Acts. Still, in the main I think Adams - my ancestor - and his supporters were guilty of the greater sins. I can't agree in re Adams. Adams did not actually use the Alien Acts, and all the acts were pushed on him by Hamilton and the Federalists: he basically agreed to them because he needed their support for his policy in the war, and so on. That's not to say he thought them entirely bad ideas, of course, I am just saying that Adams would not have done that on his own, as he was the one person at the time (apart from Washington, now in retirement) who wanted to rise above partisanship.
His supporters, yes, were worse than what Jefferson did in some ways, although as bad as the Sedition Act was, I still find what Jefferson did more offensive. Not because it was actually worse, but because politicians still do it today -- that is, sacrifice national security for politics, attacking policies for justice peace that you agree with, merely in order to get political advantage -- whereas there are no more Sedition Acts. At least we've learned from the mistakes of the Federalists.
Please support H Res 333, the articles of impeachment of Vice President R. Cheney submitted by Congressman D. Kucinich, in the most vigorous terms possible. The invasion of Iraq was an international crime, and I do not need to describe to you the colossal human, economic, and social costs that have already accrued, and that will increase in the future with the inevitable multi-faceted blowback that will result.
Please make this your top priority and do everything in your power to recruit your colleagues in its support, and to ensure the successful impeachment of Mr Cheney.
Thank you very much!
The requirements for impeachment are not criminal. Impeachment was designed as a way to prosecute political crimes, incompetence and unethical leaders. Criminality is most certainly grounds for impeachment, but it is not required. The Federalist Papers list a number of reasons to impeach a President, included (#10) is the replacement of skilled civil servants with incompetent or corrupt ones (Ahem, "Heckuva job Brownie!" or Al "I don't recall" Gonzales). Violating the oath of office is exactly why you impeach someone. Impeachment is a political trial, not a criminal one, you're arguments have no weight.
The idea that there was a better case against Clinton is ludicrous. The Clinton impeachment was a setup funded and run entirely by dedicated professional political operatives. After 10 years of hounding the Clinton's, the best they could get was a married man lying about cheating on his wife? Whitewater, nothing, Sock's the cat's Christmas list, nothing, Travelgate, nothing, sexual harassment, nothing. The GOP congress issued over 1100 subpoenas during the Clinton administration and Clinton respected Congress' role, even allowing for a Special Prosecutor. The Bush administrations comical claims of executive privilege and the fact that Karl Rove is a walking Hatch Act violation who had a hand in leaking classified intelligence information for political purposes are grounds enough.
You are right that Kucinich won't get the job done though. This is par for the course for Kucinich, that's why I've got my bets on Waxman and Conyers in the House and Leahy in the Senate. Their investigations should provide all the proof needed for both political and criminal prosecution.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
This is not really a joking matter. Most people in the U.S. have no idea how corrupt the U.S. government is. If you knew, you wouldn't joke.
We need to help each other educate ourselves about the corruption. Here is my summary of U.S. government corruption. Where's yours?
If you've ever been elected to public office, you quickly find that the power is often weilded quite strongly behind the scenes by staff members, not elected officials. I've experienced this personally in state government.
... and before you suggest the staffer be replaced, remember two things: a) the elected official is often not the staffer's employer, and b) it is *incredibly* difficult to get someone fired in government.
The strongest argument I've heard against term limits is quite simple: staff members don't have term limits, and are willing to stonewall. A near-permanent staff member wins over an elected official with term limits.