Ultra K, Back In Play

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeThe corporate overlords back in the Star Chambers of MSNBC must not be happy with a new ruling from Judge Thompson of Nevada, denying MSNBC the right to ban Dennis Kucinich from the Democratic debate. NBC News said Monday it will appeal a judge's ruling rather than include Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich in a candidates' debate in Nevada. ''We disagree with the judge's decision and are filing an appeal,'' said a statement provided by Jeremy Gaines, a vice president for MSNBC, sponsor of Tuesday night's debate. Gaines said the parent network would seek an immediate hearing before the Nevada Supreme Court. Hours earlier, Senior Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson ruled that Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, must be allowed to participate. If he is excluded, Thompson said he would issue an injunction to stop the televised debate. Kucinich's lawyer had argued that MSNBC at first invited him to participate, then last week reversed course and told him he could not. This explains why Chris Matthews was particularly moody yesterday! This is good news for the Ultra K camp and for democracy in general, especially since Kucinich's positions make a whole lot more sense than the rest of the Democratic field combined. I have always said we as a Nation are in such sorry, sad shape that half measures and slow routes to rationality will not cut it. The longer we wait to make serious changes, the more we will slide down hill. I have read the position papers of all the candidates and Kucinich comes out on top is rationality and effectiveness. Edwards is close on his heels. The front-runners, Clinton and Obama, have weaker and much less effective ideas to save America from our downward spiral. I know people who are voting for Obama because he is Black and I know people for are voting for Hillary because she is a woman. I just wish we would vote for people because the candidate wants to make college free for all Americans, or decriminalize drugs, or do away with insurance companies and nationalize healthcare. We will continue to get the government we deserve.

Kucinich: Bulletproof Monk

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge This is Part 5 of the series "I No Longer Fear The Kucinich Revolution." Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 This strip isn't really about the mafia assassin that was sent to murder Kucinich, Grassy Knoll style during the Columbus Day Parade while he was Mayor of Cleveland. This strip is about the shield that grows around a person when they lead a life of honest work and wholesome living. I am not claiming Kucinich is perfect - but he does his job, and he does his job well. You have never seen Kucinich giving Masonic-level secret handshakes under the bathroom stall. You will never hear Kucinich say, "I spread my legs when I pull my pants down." He will never say it to a vice cop nor will he say it to a lobbyist. Kucinich has put everything on the line, and I do mean everything, for We the People. He did is as Mayor when he protected the assets of the people of Cleveland and he does it every day with his seat in Congress. If we, as progressives, keep voting for the person we think we can win, we are abject and total failures as Citizens. We are betraying everything Paine, Jefferson and Henry stood for - honesty, equality and freedom. Those three Americans had a vision for America that has yet to be fully realized. During the Bush Administration, we have taken many, many steps backwards from this vision. Under previous administrations, we took small, baby-steps forward. Lincoln did, however, suffer through a gusher of forward movements but the rest of American History is littered with small steps forward, until now. The other candidates in the field I believe will be better than Bush, way better, but I don't see anything in their policy speeches, voting records or position papers that illustrate a path to move us back to where we should be in 2009 after Clinton/Gore dropped us off in 2001. Most of the candidates only have plans on repairing barely half of the damage Bush has done... with the exception of Kucinich. His record, plans and policies all reflect quantum leaps in government, bringing us to a position of being able to manufacture goods in this nation again. Allowing us to feed our families, educate our kids and stay healthy. Baby step measures - do you really think they will do any good? Do you think they will even bring us back to where we were in 1992? Bush must own a time machine because he has wound back the hands of time to place this nation in the deep past. This nation is totally unrecognizable to me - the United States is at the bottom of the list in damn near anything. We had a better literacy rating in 1877 when Laura Ingalls Wilder was living in a Little House On The Prairie. Hell, my grandmother took Latin in 5th grade as a requirement back in the early 1900's and that was PUBLIC SCHOOL IN WEST VIRGINIA! And Obama's baby-steps are supposed to be some foundational culture shift for the American future? I don't think so. He got the beat down when he just mentioned talking with rogue states might be a good idea - then he backtracked like Louis and Clark. Oh yeah, that must be that spine we hear so much about. I'll take Ultra-K any day.

I no longer fear the Kucinich Revolution: Part 4

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge In Parts One and Two, I discussed the support Kucinich has and the irrational fear also associated with electing Kucinich. In Part Three, I discussed Kucinich's time as Mayor of Cleveland and how the GOP slander machine stating "he drove Cleveland into bankruptcy" is an out right lie. Today we are moving on to the real important stuff - issues. I have heard a lot of talk from the candidates stating "any Democrat running for President will be better than Bush." I believe that sentiment is true. But I also believe there are varying degrees of HOW MUCH BETTER they will be than Bush. In the comments in the previous parts of this series, there are claims that the changes we (The People) want to make to this country "can't be done." "The shift is too fast, these things will take time to change." Oh I hope not. We have 50 million people in this nation without health care. The rest of us have health insurance that is precarious. My wife just got a letter from our policy holder, Blue Cross, asking whether her recent yearly physical was the result of a work related injury - she has been out of the workforce for over ten years, yet we had to go through the damn motions with these chuckle-heads to get the claim paid. If it was something serious like cancer, I can't imagine the red tape that would get thrown at our face. With Americans daily needing health care that either allows them to live or die, this is not a problem we can gradually ease our way out of. We need swift, decisive legislation and leadership to get us out of this mess. Kucinich is the lone candidate that has universal health care for all as part of his platform - everyone else is offering "insurance." I have enough of insurance. Haven't you? Our jobs are being sucked out of this country at an alarming rate. A very alarming rate. When I was growing up in the real town of Dobson, NC, the town of 1,200 people was teeming with textile mills. They were everywhere. Even the gas station across from the court house had rented out one of the car repair bays to a guy who was making socks day and night. Jobs were plentiful, parents could send their kids to UNC or NC State and there was enough money to retire at 60. That was the horrible days of the Carter Administration in 1980. When Reagan got into office, the borders began to open for business and the jobs from my hometown were siphoned off and weren't replaced with new jobs. Now, the number one industry in North Carolina is logging. People in that Congressional District (NC-05) have had to go through "skill retraining" several times since then. You simply can't have a single career anymore in rural America. Hell, you can't even keep the same employer for more than four years - right about when you would receive matching funds for your 401K you find yourself out of work. Now, 27 years later, our economic base, the middle class has been pushed off a cliff and they (we) are tumbling toward a very nasty end. Our open border policies need to be clamped shut and not over the span of three decades. We need to exit NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and the WTO today, now, 10 minutes ago. Which candidate has this as a policy? Take a guess. Kucinich. And oddly enough, this actually makes him appealing to conservatives. This brings us to the mother-fucking war. BushCo wants another $50 billion on top of all the other requests. Hillary wants to keep troops there, Obama wants to take our time getting out of Iraq. Biden wants to split Iraq into three pieces and keep troops there (that means we will be fighting a six front civil war). No thanks. We need out, we need out now. Kucinich is the only one willing to state the obvious - the war was a failure and we need to get out. He was the only one in the race not snookered into voting for the damn thing to begin with. Hillary was for the war up until six months before the 2006 election. If it took her that long to figure out the war was an idiotic idea, then for me, she doesn't have the mental capabilities to get this nation out of the cesspool of despair we are in. If you look at Kucinich's voting record and his anthology of submitted legislation over the past 10 years, they read as if written by someone with prescient abilities. I am not saying he is a soothsayer or a prophet from Ohio, I am saying he is one smart guy and we need more of people like him in Congress, not less. Our nation is in serious trouble and we have long since passed the point where half-measures would make any difference. Unless we get a President that is willing to actually take, Honest-To-God bold steps, we may be seeing the last days of Jefferson's America. Hillary, Obama and Edwards would be an improvement to what we currently have in the White House, but their histories show they are ill-equipped to handle the challenges ahead of us. Only Dennis Kucinich has risked ridicule and even his political career to do the right thing. His political past has been nothing BUT a series of career-ending decisions, but every decision has been for the benefit for the citizens, never corporate interests. That is why he keeps getting re-elected. He is the only one that has ever gone out on a limb for We The People. Now, I wonder how many VOTERS will join him? How many will join the Second American Revolution?

I no longer fear the Kucinich Revolution: Part 3

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge In Parts One and Two, I discussed the support Kucinich has and the irrational fear also associated with electing Kucinich. Today, I want to focus on the secondary soundbite I have heard over the last few weeks about Kucinich. The Kucinich critics to have their work cut out for them because they need to go back THIRTY YEARS to find something to complain about. Their soundbite is "he drove Cleveland into bankruptcy." This, it turns out, is a lie. It is a Halliburton straw man with a touch of Sopranos level intrigue. Dennis Kucinich started out as the Mayor of Cleveland in 1977 - the youngest Mayor of a large city in America. The city was hip deep in trouble with it's finances and crime. Not to mention, when Kucinich was sworn in, Cleveland was in one of its worst snow storms with winds of over 100 miles per hour - a sign of things to come. He made good appointments and bad appointments for his administration and one of those, the Chief of Police, Richard Hongisto, proved to be real bad. The fiasco went so terribly wrong that a recall election was called and Kucinich won - maintaining control of the failing city. One of his campaign promises was to not sell Cleveland's public electricity utility, Cleveland Public Power to Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company - a corrupt company with a stack of federal violations of anti-trust laws held against it. When Kucinich got in office, the mafia figured out that this young Mayor was actually going to keep his word and NOT sell Cleveland Public Power to Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company so the mafia put a hit out for the murder of Kucinich. Yep, Dennis Kucinich was the target of mafioso assassins, but that was nothing compared to the EXTREME pressure of the city council and local banks had placed on Kucinich to sell the utility. In the end, Kucinich still said no. How many times have we wished for that tenacity in our politicians when dealing with Halliburton? The main city creditor, Cleveland Trust, ignored all of Kucinich's debt restructuring plans and placed the city in default of payment. Here is the kicker - the bank's board had seven members who were on the payroll of Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and they were also on that company's board. The collusion was right out of the Cheney Play Book. The bank was a major shareholder in CEI and thus the sale of the city's municipal light utility would have benefited the bank, not the citizens of Cleveland. And again, Kucinich stood his ground. He put the decision to the people, vote to sell to CEI or vote for a .5% tax increase. Cleveland voted for higher taxes. Corporate interests lost and remarkably, the mafia recalled the assassin. Cleveland never went into bankruptcy and the loan was paid and would have been paid if CEI and Cleveland Trust weren't involved in a conspiracy to rob the citizens of Cleveland of almost a third of a billion dollars, in 1970's money. CEI was later acquired by FirstEnergy, the company was responsible for the 2003 blackout. Cleveland Public Power is still cranking out the watts to the city of Cleveland. So that is the story, Kucinich is guilty of not bowing to Big Energy and ignored the deployment of assassins just to keep a campaign promise. Here is my question, which of the "leading candidates" in this race; Clinton, Obama or Edwards would have withstood that kind of pressure? Is it any wonder Ohio keeps sending Kucinich back to Congress? They know which side he is on.