As a swing state and vital win for whomever wants to be president in January 2009, Ohio took a strong step today in making sure it’s ducks are in a row for the Democratic nominee with the resignation of Attorney General and Democrat, Marc Dann at approximate 4pm. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, one of the most frequently mentioned VP possibilities for the Democratic presidential ticket, gave a more than thirty minute press conference (some of which I live-blogged here) in which he announced that the first deputy AG, Tom Winters, will be the interim attorney general until Strickland appoints someone to occupy the position until an election in November, when voters will select a candidate to fill the remainder of Dann’s term (through 12/10).
Other reports:
Video here of the press conference w/Dann and Strickland
It is now well known that when the White House needed justification for its endorsement of Nazi-like torture techniques, it turned to John Yoo.
The young attorney in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote a series of memos that he believed gave the Bush administration the legal fig leaf it needed to use torture and deny enemy combatants protection under the Geneva Conventions.
Yoo was a foot soldier in a national tragedy starring Vice President Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft and his successor, Alberto Gonzalez, Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor, Condoleeza Rice, and CIA Director George Tenet. And, of course, The Decider himself.
The administration’s embrace of torture is the most atrocious aspect of a presidency that has determinedly turned the separation of powers, due process and the Rule of Law on its collective ear.
All in service of the specious claim that the president should have unlimited powers in the post-9/11 world even if it means defecating on the very constitutionally enshrined rights that we are fighting the so-called Global War on Terror to protect.
Public reaction to this dark interlude has been underwhelming.
This is because news coverage has sucked — and can you imagine it being any other way considering the spectacle of last night’s presidential “debate”? I also suspect that many people are okay with torture so long as it isn’t their son or daughter who is being waterboarded.
Meanwhile, there has been loud flailing by those who want to punish Yoo now.
Are Venezuelans running out of patience for their demonstrative commander-in-chief, Hugo Chavez? In the opinion of Juan Carlos Sosa Azpúrua writing in Venezuela’s El Universal, ‘In the U.S., it wouldn’t occur to anyone to say that Nixon was ousted in a coup d’état because he was removed prior to the end of his term; he was deposed as soon as his ineptitude became evident, period. … It is imperative that we remove from office this immoral non-government that has destroyed everything and respects nothing (Nixon sucked his thumb in comparison).’
By Juan Carlos Sosa Azpúrua
Translated By Virginia Gillenwater
February 7, 2008
Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)
It’s imperative that we remove from office this immoral non-government that has destroyed everything and respects nothing.
The United States is a nation of institutions. To the highest offices rise those who are the most capable and who have had the most impeccable careers. The processes of selecting a judge or electing a senator are so rigorous that it’s almost beyond reason. But the golden rule is to find the individual that is the most qualified.
To study the life histories of its judges is to be challenged to keep admiration from turning into envy. The same can be said for members of Congress or those climbing the executive government ladder. And, most of all, the Presidency continues to be the most sacred institution, because the United States is a presidential Read the rest of this entry »
One of Dennis Kucinich’s most often-cited assets during his run for the Democratic nomination to be president was his wife, Elizabeth. Now, while he works to retain his seat in Ohio’s 10th congressional district (he’ll be going for his seventh term), she may be occupied with the new windmill he’s erecting, IntegrityNow.org.
The 61-year-old congressman announced the creation of a national organization, Integrity Now, which will continue to push his presidential campaign agenda of ending the war in Iraq.
Kucinich said all the energy that had gone into his presidential campaign could now be “transitioned” to the new group. He gave few details of the organization but said his wife, Elizabeth, would play a major role, and he urged people to visit integritynow.org.
The only sign of life at the site is a sign-up form.
As an Ohioan who lives one district away from Dennis and who has been following at least three of his four Democratic primary opponents for months, I’d encourage him to pay even more attention to his home turf, because the opponents are amping up.
Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the Democratic race for president.
Kucinich will make the announcement Friday at a news conference in Cleveland. In an exclusive interview with Plain Dealer editors and reporters, Kucinich said he will explain his “transitioning” tomorrow.
“I want to continue to serve in Congress,” he said.
Kucinich said he will not endorse another Democrat in the primary.
Kucinich is seeking a seventh term in Congress, but his long-shot bid for the White House has drawn four Democratic opponents.
Big news here in Northeast Ohio, if not for the rest of the country. People love him or hate him. I’ll withhold comment. I’m not in his district. But the pressure’s been amped up considerably over the last few days. This dropping out comes as no surprise. And for Kucinich constituents in Ohio, they should be breathing a sigh of relief. For his opponents, they will be holding their breath.
Oh - I forgot to write when I first composed this post: Obama, Clinton and Edwards can also breathe a sigh of relief.;)
Kucinich will be most remembered for his Department of Peace concept, his aggressive re-statement of his resistance to the war in Iraq and his lovely wife, Elizabeth (I know, that’s so catty of me - but it’s true, now, isn’t it?).
The melodrama is in its final act, and we still don’t know if it ends with a whimper or a bang. Dubya is in a bunker, beleaguered by the demons he set loose here and abroad. Osama is in hiding too, and for all we know, may be dead.
On Meet the Press, the director of national intelligence, Admiral Mike McConnell pointed out “it’s been a year†since there was a confirmed sighting of bin Laden: “There are rumors about his illness…I believe he is in the tribal region of Pakistan, and…only speaking to a courier, staying completely removed from anything we could exploit to find him.â€
Bush is more visible, literally, but he too is in hiding–from Congressional investigators closing in on his Administration’s criminality and the growing pressure to change course in Iraq.
The Bush bang, impeachment, is unlikely even though there is growing talk of it. Osama’s crisis is clearly coming as an American consensus builds for going into Pakistan to get him.
But even as Bush and bin Laden decline, the damage they have done is all over the political landscape. The next election and the next phase of terrorism won’t change the heightened fear and distrust they created.
We can’t board a plane, go to a stadium or walk a crowded street feeling as safe as we did because of bin Laden. But, instead of giving us back some of our pre-9/11 sense of security, Bush took away more of it–we can’t assume that whoever we elect won’t break the law, spy on us or send young people to die half a world away without our consent.
The next President will not only have to end the war in Iraq but find ways to rebuild the political system that worked for more than two centuries and use it to counter terrorism rather than just speechify about it to win elections.
With any luck, when they look back at Bush and bin Laden, future generations will wonder how bad actors could have held the stage so long.
Even in the White House, he felt the whole world was a club that wouldn’t take him in as a member.
New documents and tapes released yesterday by custodians of the de-sanitized Nixon Library and Museum only add to the picture of an angry, isolated, paranoid President plotting to get everybody else before they got him and, at the same time, wanting to be perceived as a regular guy.
There is an 11-page memo from 1970 complaining that he never got credit for being “nicey-nice,†listing all his “good deeds”–calling sick people, writing to those who were experiencing hard times, giving parties for the poor. “There are innumerable examples of warm items,” he wrote, echoing his exaggerated sense of being unappreciated.
Typically Nixon wanted to manipulate an outcome without getting caught doing it. “With regard to the whole warmth business, a very important point to underline is that we do not try to broker such items,” he wrote, not wanting the White House to be seen as promoting them but letting them be “discovered.”
Somewhere under all that insecurity and misplaced guile was the man Nixon wanted to be. I got a glimpse of him in 1966 when the former Vice President and failed candidate for Governor of California was practicing law in Manhattan.
When conversation at the dinner table turned to baseball, his calculating manner gave way to enthusiastic fan talk. That led me to suggest there was a perfect job opening for him–Commissioner of Baseball.
His eyes lit up. “Can you get it for me?†he asked.
If he had gotten that job, there would be no library and museum now, but he might have had a happier life, as would we all.
After whining yesterday that there’s nothing that anyone can do to force out disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, an increasing number of Republicans are now riding to the rescue by publicly calling for his ouster, one of several developments noted by Joe in the post below.
This raises the possibility that there may be enough votes for impeachment if the AG and his boss continue to stonewall.
With more than 3 million members, MoveOn plays a vital role not only in shaping public policy, but in educating the American public about the most important political issues of the day. With this power comes a responsibility to engage with these issues in as forthright a manner as possible.
Until now, MoveOn has declined to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, citing a purported lack of interest among its membership. But, as many frustrated members have pointed out, they have not been asked. It has recently come to light that MoveOn is quietly conducting an online poll on the question among a small group of its members. We applaud this encouraging first step but hope that MoveOn will go further by soliciting feedback from its entire membership. When asked why the poll was not taken of all members, a MoveOn organizer explained:
Rarely do we send out a survey like this to the whole membership (we work very hard to send no more than one email to our members per day; the more they receive the less likely they are to open any of them, there is also an issue of bandwidth capabilities). We generally only do that when we have to act immediately or when we are acting on very specific legislation.
We feel confident that the membership of MoveOn will forgive the organization a single e-mail about a question of such urgency and importance. And we would remind MoveOn that specific legislation on impeachment already exists. H Res 333, introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), and cosponsored by Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) and Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL) calls for the impeachment of Vice-President Cheney on the grounds that he manipulated intelligence “to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq.”
Few will dispute that lying the nation into a disastrous war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and that these allegations merit serious examination by Congress. On April 28, 2007, Americans in more than 125 locations around the country took to the streets to demonstrate their support for impeachment. That same weekend, delegates to the annual convention of the California Democratic Party, the largest state chapter of the Democratic Party, overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Two days later, speaking on NPR, leading antiwar Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) pointedly said that impeachment was “on the table” in Congress.
The time has come for the Bush administration to be held accountable. We respectfully urge MoveOn to exercise leadership on the question of impeachment and to begin an open dialogue with its members about the issue. As MoveOn likes to say, “Every member has a voice.” Read the rest of this entry »
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