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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.
"Congressman Dennis Kucinich is invited to go hunting with Cheney."
In addition, once this road is crossed -- impeaching for , and every time the president/vp is in office, and a different party has a majority in the senate and house, you'll see an impeachment. It's the same thing that happened once the line was crossed with judicial appointments. Partisian politics has made almost every parties' political victory a Pyrrhic one for the American people. We get the shaft, while the politicians get rich fighting each other. We need a 3rd party...
Finally, does Kucinich this this will help him get elected President?
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Woa -- I think you're off base here on two levels.
One -- If you can't win, you still have to do it. You cannot let crimes go, even if you cannot succeed in convicting. The problem is not this president/VP. The problem is the next one. To not impeach is to say "if the congress isn't dominated by the other house, you can do anything you want."
Two -- Cheny's not the target. Cheney's going to have to defend himself, and his interactions with the president will come out. It's at least possible that real solid evidence against the president will emerge.
This isn't stupid, it's both the right thing to do, and may help land the big one.
Besides, even Republicans hate Cheney. He's an easier target.
...were're just constantly amazed that it is as bad as it is, and presumeit couldn't have always been like this. History tends to disagree - politics has always been a nasty, dirty, hellhole.
As a centrist, I would prefer neither end of the spectrum in the congress - we don't need a few more far-lefts to outweight the far-rights, we need less of both!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
First, given that you dudes (i.e. the US) planned, financed and partially executed the overthrow of the first ever(!) democratically elected president in the entire third world, and that that happened to be Iran, their hostility is more than understandeable, isn't it? The direct result of the forceful institution of the Sha regime was, of course, the islamic revolution. You made your bed, now lie in it.
Two, nuclear infrastructure is no threat to the USA. Even a working nuke isn't. You still need delivery vehicles. As for that, I think the ratio of USA to Iran is roughly 20,000:0
Finally, the position in the paper I read was "Cheney lied and betrayed the public while holding an office where he swore an oath to protect and serve that same public". Iraq/Iran is merely what he lied about.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Why are Libertarians insane? Because they willfully disregard any evidence that their simplistic theories will not and do not work in the real world. The free market is not magic and infallible. It is a complex system of feedback loops that does not posses any sort of true homeostasis and therefore needs external management in order to maintain its state of freedom.
Not all Libertarians are as "bug-fuck insane" as you're making them out to be; there is a clear line between Libertarianism and economic anarchism -- Libertarians generally advocate a form of government which creates as level a playing field as possible, and then lets individual actors do the rest; this is generally summed up by saying that it is OK for government to create a framework where individuals can make decisions on their own, but not to act redistributively. Although this would not allow for conventional anti-trust regulation in the conventional sense, their stance is -- and I think they have a very good point here -- much of the danger of monopolies and trusts isn't inherent in the monopoly itself, but in the accrual of power in a single organization which is then used to influence government and suppress competition; if you removed all the corporate welfare and protective legislation that large corporations have bought themselves, they would tend to be lumbering behemoths and, excepting some special cases which tend towards natural monopolies, generally aren't as competitive as they appear to be today.
There is a lot of debate within Libertarian organizations as to how those special cases should be treated, and setting aside orthodoxy, I think the vast majority of self-identified Libertarians would support some form of minimalist interventionism in order to counterbalance the distortive effects that some monopolies have had on the government, while the laws and welfare that they have purchased are repealed or dismantled.
In short, I think you're getting dangerously close to creating a straw man when you attempt to pigeonhole Libertarians so narrowly; like it or not, they're the closest thing that the United States has to a third political party, and their views are not nearly as simplistic as you seem to think they are.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Street protests are a normal part of politics in a democracy, you dough-head. Including in the US. You just don't see it because All Your Media are belong to about 3 people.
Let's look at the articles objectively (if that's even possible). Did Cheney commit any crimes, according to Kucinich? Note that lying in a political speech is not a crime (nearly every politician in the country would be behind bars if it were). Neither is lying to Congress, unless it's under oath, and we know how fervently the Bush Administration opposes testifying under oath. It's also not a crime to break a solemn promise, like the oath of office an elected official takes. These may be reasons not to reelect somebody (except that America did), but they're not crimes.
Article I: Cheney lied about Iraqi WMDs. Reprehensible, yes. Cynical and morally bankrupt, yes. Criminal, unfortunately not.
Article II: Cheney lied about a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. But again, not a crime under any law.
Article III: Cheney's been rattling his saber at Iran. It may be foreign policy by sledgehammer rather than Xacto knife, but there's no law against this either.
So although I would really, really like to see Cheney removed from office, Kucinich's articles of impeachment don't contain any actual crimes for which he could be tried. Not that that's stopped impeachment proceedings before, but there was a better case against Clinton, because he actually testified under oath. We have some truly reprehensible people leading our country, and they should be stopped before they get us into even more trouble, but unfortunately this isn't going to do it.
Libertarians generally advocate a form of government which creates as level a playing field as possible, and then lets individual actors do the rest; this is generally summed up by saying that it is OK for government to create a framework where individuals can make decisions on their own, but not to act redistributively.
Well, the problem is that without acting redistributively, you simply can't create as level a playing field as possible. Take the inheritence tax, for example. Without the inheritence tax, you get economic dynasties where the child of a wealthy and powerful individual not only starts off with an advantage in education and political connections (that you can't really erase) but also with an entire foundation of wealth that an otherwise equally talented individual would not start with. In essence, the race is already lost. I've always been of the opinion that wealth should be earned, but a lack of inheritence tax allows for the existence of an upper class that has no need for work when they can simply let their money work for them by entrusting it to investment advisors. Most if not all Libertarians consider the Inheritence Tax to be an abomination, though it is widely considered outside of the American Right to be a necessary foundation for the creation of equality.
I think the vast majority of self-identified Libertarians would support some form of minimalist interventionism in order to counterbalance the distortive effects that some monopolies have had on the government, while the laws and welfare that they have purchased are repealed or dismantled.
The problem is that most Libertarians don't seem to believe that there's a problem with a monopoly having a distortive effect on the market or on consumers as long as they don't get the government to do them any special favors. I, too, would like to see less corporate influence on government, but until corporations are prohibited from or (by force of law) gain no profit from donating to the campaigns of politicians, you'll never see and end to special favors for industry. I find it very rare (i.e. I've never met) a Libertarian who does not consider the ability of the wealthy and powerful to spend their money as freely as they want on political donations to be a matter of their free speech rights, nor have I met a Libertarian who thinks that the idea of corporate personhood and the existence of the same free speech rights for corporations should both be abolished.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
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?
I'll bite.
Look, it's not World War II. It's also not the American Revolution, and it's not the Star Wars Trilogy. The mess we find ourselves in in Iraq is more like France's involvement in Algeria, or in Indochina, or our own involvement there. It's not an honorable thing, it's not an admirable thing, and it's one of the worst foreign policy decisions ever, right up there with Operation Ajax and the Kirkpatrick Doctrine. We're not fighting Hitler or Sauron, George Bush isn't Winston Churchill or Aragorn or Feric Jaggar, or whatever your preferred fantasy trope is. This was a stupid mess, and it cannot be made better. Our options are (a) leave, and watch the region descend into utter chaos and barbarism, (b) keep doing what we're doing until the Republicans are safely out of office and the disaster can be blamed on the Democrats, then watch the region descend into utter chaos and barbarism, and (c) roll through Iraq like the Ottoman Turks, the Roman Legions, the Golden Horde, the Germans or any other empire-builder of yore, and exact disproportionate revenge on random civilians for any act of defiance, causing them to fear us more than they fear the insurgents. (I provide option (c) only for completeness; if you find it appealing, please seek help.)
Occupying a large country and pretending that we're not invaders is a stupid idea. It was a stupid idea before it was executed, and it's a stupid idea now. No good will come of it, no matter how much better you feel when you blame the person who points out that it was a stupid idea.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
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?