Sen. Sanders Gathers Economists for his Planned Fed Overhaul Bill

Friday, October 21, 2011 by The Hill

by Peter Schroeder 

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday unveiled a dozen economists he has tapped to help draft a plan to overhaul the Federal Reserve he says is "riddled" with conflicts of interest, among other problems.

Headlining the group are Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner and former top adviser to President Clinton, and Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and special adviser to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. 

Other economists agreeing to offer their recommendations include Lawrence Mischel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute; Nomi Prins, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns; and Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The outspoken senator announced Wednesday he would be consulting economists as he put together legislation to overhaul the Fed, which he has long complained is opaque and overly beholden to the financial industry. He has been particularly critical of the Fed's actions during and after the financial crisis, as it loaned out trillions to financial institutions — including some whose top executives also sit on boards of Federal Reserve banks.

While the economists have agreed to offer their thoughts to Sanders, it is not clear exactly how those recommendations will come back, according to Sanders's office. They may come together for a meeting, or simply each offer a list of recommendations.

Sanders announced he was tapping economists for advice on reforming the Fed after a study from the Government Accountability Office said that the Federal Reserve banks should be more transparent about directors who have ties to the financial sector.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), another left-leaning critic of the Fed, got in on the action Thursday, using the report to criticize the central bank.

"The Federal Reserve operates with brazen disregard for the best interests of the American economy and with very serious conflicts of interest,” he said.

Kucinich on how to create jobs in America

Debt Political Theater Diverts Attention While Americans' Wealth Is Stolen

Friday, July 15, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
by Dennis Kucinich

The rancorous debate over the debt belies a fundamental truth of our economy -- that it is run for the few at the expense of the many, that our entire government has been turned into a machine which takes the wealth of a mass of Americans and accelerates it into the hands of the few. Let me give you some examples.

Take war. War takes the money from the American people and puts it into the hands of arms manufacturers, war profiteers, and private armies. The war in Iraq, based on lies: $3 trillion will be the cost of that war. The war in Afghanistan; based on a misreading of history; half a trillion dollars in expenses already. The war against Libya will be $1 billion by September.


Fifty percent of our discretionary spending goes for the Pentagon. A massive transfer of wealth into the hands of a few while the American people lack sufficient jobs, health care, housing, retirement security.

Our energy policies take the wealth from the American people and put it into the hands of the oil companies. We could be looking at $150 a barrel for oil in the near future.

Our environmental policy takes the wealth of the people -- clean air, clean water -- and puts it in the hands of the polluters. It's a transfer of wealth, not only from the present but from future generations as our environment is ruined.

Insurance companies, what do they do? They take the wealth from the American people in terms of what they charge people for health insurance and they put it into the hands of the few.

We have to realize what this country's economy has become. Our monetary policy, through the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, privatized the money supply, gathers the wealth, puts it in the hands of the few while the Federal Reserve can create money out of nothing, give it to banks to park at the Fed while our small businesses are starving for capital.

Mark my words -- Wall Street cashes in whether we have a default or not. And the same type of thinking that created billions in bailouts for Wall Street and more than $1 trillion in giveaways by the Federal Reserve today leaves 26 million Americans either underemployed or unemployed. And nine out of ten Americans over the age of 65 are facing cuts in their Social Security in order to pay for a debt which grew from tax cuts for the rich and for endless wars.

There is a massive transfer of wealth from the American people to the hands of a few and it's going on right now as America's eyes are misdirected to the political theater of these histrionic debt negotiations, threats to shut down the government, and willingness to make the most Americans pay dearly for debts they did not create.

These are symptoms of a government which has lost its way, and they are a challenge to the legitimacy of the two-party system.

Reps. Kucinich, Jones to File Suit Against Obama on Libyan War

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 by The Hill
by Pete Kasperowicz

Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Walter Jones (R-NC) on Wednesday are expected to file a complaint in federal court that is presumably related to the failure of the Obama administration to seek congressional authority for military action in Libya.

The two members are expected to announce the details of their action at noon Wednesday. Kucinich released a statement late Tuesday night that said other members of Congress would join the suit.

Both members have argued that the Obama administration has failed to seek congressional authority for Libyan military actions under the War Powers Resolution. The House earlier this month approved a resolution asking for details and justification about the intervention by the end of this week, which many believe is the deadline by which U.S. troops must withdraw, or the administration must obtain congressional approval.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday warned that the administration would be in violation of the War Powers Resolution by the end of the week.

After Years of War, House Holds Votes to Check Military Action

Monday, May 30, 2011 by The Hill

by Russell Berman 

 

An increasingly war-weary House will vote this week on legislation that would halt the U.S. military intervention in Libya. The vote comes just days after lawmakers nearly approved a measure to expedite the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Friday the House would take up a resolution introduced by anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) that directs the president to remove U.S. armed forces from Libya. The liberal Democrat is acting under authority of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which enables legislators to force a vote on troop withdrawal measures under certain conditions.

Kucinich has used the mechanism to force votes on withdrawing forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, most recently in March, but this will be the first such vote on the two-month-old Libya mission.

The measure is not expected to pass, but a significant number of votes in favor could send a sobering message to the White House, which has struggled to win congressional support for the military intervention in Libya. Both Republican and Democratic leaders criticized Obama for a lack of consultation with Congress in the run-up to the military deployment, and the House has ignored his request for a resolution supporting the mission.

Obama has also come under criticism for not providing enough clarity on the goals of the bombing campaign – whether it is merely to protect Libyan civilians from a crackdown by Moammar Ghadafi or whether it is to drive Ghadafi from power.

The House last week overwhelmingly voted to add amendments to a Defense authorization bill to bar the president from deploying ground troops to Libya and stating explicitly that Congress was not, as part of the legislation, authorizing the military mission.

Kucinich seized on those votes to declare increased momentum for ending the U.S. involvement. “Congress is not satisfied with the blank check that this administration has written for itself to conduct the Libyan war,” Kucinich said. “Congress has made it clear that the Libyan war has not been authorized as required by the Constitution and the War Powers Act.”

Aides said Democrats felt comfortable voting to prohibit ground troops in Libya because Obama has already deemed it U.S. policy.

An aide to Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democratic leaders would not whip their members on the Kucinich resolution.

In a separate vote, the House came surprisingly close to approving an expedited withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. The bipartisan measure, authored by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.), failed 215-204 after drawing 26 Republican votes and all but eight Democrats.

During the debate over that resolution, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Americans wanted to end the war. “Each time I go there, I say, ‘The American people are growing tired of war,’ ” Pelosi said on the floor.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)

Why the Democratic Party is Corporate Lickspittle

Numbers Racket
By DAVE LINDORFF

A new Gallup Poll conducted for USA Today earlier this week reports that a majority of Americans (52%) say that they would prefer a third party instead of the two parties, Republican and Democrat, that have dominated American politics for nearly centuries.

The poll shows that one third of Democrats say there's a need for a new political party, while 52% of Republicans say the same thing. Meanwhile, 68% of independents say they have no use for either Democrats or Republicans and would prefer another option (no surprise there--that's why they are not registered with either of the two major parties).

Of course, the Third Party envisioned by these various groups is hardly the same. Most of the dissatisfied Democrats are almost certainly in the party's left wing, and are people who would prefer a more left-leaning, socialist party. Most of the reluctant Republicans are probably either libertarians who can't stomach the Republican Party's corporatist stance and its fondness for police state tactics and invasion of personal freedoms, or else they are the rabid right that prefers the kooky conspiracy-driven politics of the Becks, Limbaughs, Bachmans and Palins. As for the independents, there are certainly leftists, rightists, isolationists, globalists, libertarians and kooks among them enough to populate ten new parties.

That's one reason why we still have just two parties winning all the elections. Some of these dissatisfied citizens just hold their noses and vote for the party that is less likely to make them projectile vomit in the voting booth. Others, unable to vote for either major party's candidates without soiling the equipment, just don't vote. And then there are a few stalwarts who insist on doing their civic duty, march in and vote for the Constitution Party or the Libertarians or the Greens or the Socialist Workers, or they write in Mickey Mouse. The rest just don't vote, which is why the US has one of the lowest participation rates in elections of nearly any of the world's nominal democracies.

It's possible that this latest poll could be signaling some kind of tectonic political event ahead. Perhaps the incongruous collection of Republicans, the Chamber of Commerce crowd and the bible thumpers, racists, misogynists and neo-fascists who populate the Republican voter rolls will finally turn on each other and split into two or three smaller units.

But what about the Democrats? What will it take for the 33% of party stalwarts who think the party is the pits to give up hope of reforming it and pulling it to the left? What will it take for the working class that has for generations given its votes to the party's smarmy candidates, hoping against hope for the best, to finally walk away from the stinking corpse that is the Democratic Party and form the base of an American Labor Party?

Maybe a closer look at who's really buying the Democratic Party and its candidates would do the trick.

Year after year, the country's labor unions collect money from their members and give it to candidates for Congress -- candidates who pretend to be the working man's and working woman's friend, but who after election do the bidding of Wall Street and Main Street.

Here's why. Even most of the the most liberal members of the Democratic Congressional delegation get most of their campaign swag not from the unions, but from large corporate interests, and that tidal wave of corporate cash simply washes away any good that the union donations might have done.

Check it out.

Take Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich), the ranking minority member and former chair of the House Judiciary Committee. A leading member of the House Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus, and surely one of the most liberal members of Congress, Conyers according to the website OpenSecrets.org, in the latest reporting cycle, didn't list one union among his top five contributors. Instead, occupying those top spots were the National Beer Wholesalers Assn. ($56,000), the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos ($33,600), the corporate law firm of Akin, Gump ($15,102) and Intellectual Ventures LLC ($12,500) a venture capital firm. Over all, the top five corporate donors to Conyers were: lawyers and law firms ($129,102), the entertainment industry ($84,591), the Computer/Internet industry ($78,283), the Beer, Wine and Liquor industry ($77,699) and various industry lobbyists ($52,680).

Labor's PAC donations to Conyers (a total of $107,520) shrink to almost insignificance compared to the $335,000 donated by various industry PACs, including $140,524 from the Communications industry alone.

Or check out Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif), the House minority leader and former Speaker, portrayed as practically a Bolshevik by the country's right-wing punditry. There's only one labor organization in her list of top-10 contributors, and that's the AFL-CIO, which is Number 10 with $10,000, behind Law Offices of Peter Angelos ($43,200), Bryan Cave LLP ($34,950), Johnson & Johnson ($22,200), Gallo Winery ($12,000), Microsoft Corp. ($12,000), Blue Cross/Blue Shield ($11,500), Google ($11,000), and New York Life ($11,000). Unions only represent two of Pelosi's 20 top contributors. Looking at the former Speaker's PAC money by sector or industry, labor and working people only come in at rank number five and nine, with retirees contributing $107,150 and public sector unions donating another $78,500. The other 10 big donating sectors are: Health Professionals ($253,700), Lawyers ($203,600), Lobbyists ($125,350), Securities and Investment Industry ($109,200), Real Estate ($105,800), the Pro-Israel Lobby ($89,700), Pharmaceutical Industry ($86,300) and Hollywood ($76,950). Just focusing on Pelosi's biggest contributors, once again, that's $1,050,000 from big industries and the rich vs. $185,650 from the people -- a ratio of almost 6:1.

But why single out a couple of these supposed people's tribunes? Why not check out the whole Democratic Party? In the 2010 election cycle, OpenSecrets.org reports that the Democrats raised $210 million in funds subject to disclosure, and another $9.2 million, the sources of which it does not have to disclose. The top four PAC donors to this stash were not labor unions. They were the National Assn. of Realtors ($3.8 million), Honeywell International ($3.7 million), the National Beer Wholesalers Assn. ($3.3 million), and AT&T ($3.3 billion). Only at number five do we find a labor union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ($3.0 million). Rounding out the top 10 PAC donors to the "party of working people," we have the American Bankers Assn. ($2.9 million), the American Trial Lawyers Assn. ($2.8 million), the Operating Engineers Union ($2.8 million), and the National Auto Dealers Assn. ($2.5 million). Unless you count the American Trial Lawyers Assn. as "working people," this means that among their top ten donors, the Dems took in $22.3 million from corporate interests and lawyers, and $5.8 million from workers' unions. So whose interests is a party like that going to be serving.

Not all the members of Congress are on the hook to American corporate interests and the rich. But the number who aren't probably can be counted on one or two hands. People like Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (independent socialist-Vermont) show what true working people's candidates ought to look like. Kucinich's top five contributors are all labor unions, and looking at a breakdown by interest group or industry, the largest contributor is retirees, followed by three labor unions and then by lawyers. Kucinich did take in some money from PACs representing the Finance, Real Estate and Insurance industry ($7000), Healthcare ($3500), lawyers ($7500) and the Transportation industry ($1,000), but their combined contributions are dwarfed by the $114,000 contributed to Kucinich by labor PACs. That's a ratio of 1:5.

Similarly, the socialist Sanders counts three labor unions among his top five contributors, these being the International brotherhood of Electrical Workers ($18,500), the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union ($17,000) and the Communications Workers of America ($16,250). The other two contributors rounding out Sanders' top five list were eScription Inc. ($25,200) and Baron & Budd ($18,500).

Not surprisingly, both Rep. Kucinich and Sen. Sanders have been unwavering backers of the interests of working people and their labor unions.

In what could perhaps be a hopeful sign of the future, the 11th biggest donor to the Democrats, the International Association of Fire Fighters, which last year gave the party $2.4 million through its PAC, announced that it was no longer going to be a campaign contributor to the Democrats, having decided that the Party was not defending the firefighters' interests. Saying that the firefighters and "all public workers" were under attack by "Tea Party politicians," this union, in a public announcement, said, "Too few Democrats are standing up and fighting for us." As a result, it is "turning off the spigot." If other unions, like the two big teachers unions, the AFT and the NEA, would take similar action and pull away their financial support for the Democrats, perhaps we could see a real Labor Party spring up as a political alternative to the two corporate parties. If that ever does happen, we could also see the Democratic whither away and die a deserving and long-overdue death.

Meanwhile we're kind of stuck. Voters will keep telling pollsters they're sick of both parties, and both parties will continue to run the country into the ground in the interests of the rich and powerful.

Kucinich: Vote or surrender to the ‘forces of nihilism’

By Sahil Kapur - Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

WASHINGTON – As Democrats fear a wave of losses in next Tuesday's elections, due in part to a lack of enthusiasm within their base, one progressive champion made an impassioned plea for liberals to head to the polls and and vote.

"We can get out there and make our voices heard, or we can let the forces of nihilism take over," Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) told Raw Story in an exclusive interview late Tuesday afternoon.

The Cleveland Democrat warned progressives that a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives – a likely scenario, according to election experts – could surrender the levers of power to "megalomaniacal neoconservatives who are more in need of mental attention."

"There's no question about it," he said. "We have to vote."

Kucinich, a seven-term congressman who seems to be in no danger, sympathized with liberals who are disenchanted with the Democratic Party, but insisted they must "work within the system" to achieve the results they want, arguing that tuning out wasn't a better solution.
Story continues below...

"I would never try to minimize their concerns. I understand them," he said. "I wish we had broader options. I certainly don't like our political system, but I'm not prepared to walk away."

If there's anyone in Congress who shares liberal misgivings about the Obama administration, it's Kucinich. From health care to the economy to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, he has been outspoken about his criticisms. "But this election is a choice," he said.

Studies reveal that both of the major parties are unpopular with the public – some even say Americans still prefer Democrats – but polls consistently show that Republicans are far more likely to vote next Tuesday.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey last week found that Republicans are more likely to head to the polls on Nov. 2 than Democrats by a whopping 20 percentage points.

Kucinich, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2004 and 2008, said he doesn't envision any circumstance in which he'd run again in 2012.

"I don’t see it," he said. "I think anybody who runs against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination would be handing the presidency to the other party on a silver platter."

Kucinich criticizes ‘privatization of war’ after Obama’s speech

By Eric W. Dolan | Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

A leading congressional opponent of the Iraq war welcomed the formal end of US combat operations on Tuesday but warned of the increased reliance on private mercenaries.

"The President is rightly celebrating that less American troops are in harm's way," Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said Tuesday night. "I join the President in that celebration."

"We need to dispense with the fiction, though, that this announcement in any way diminishes our financial or resource commitment to Iraq," he continued.

"Fifty thousand 'non-combat' troops will remain, and that number does not include the State Department's plan to double the amount of mercenaries through next year--whose only loyalty is to the highest bidder--and fortify numerous 'enduring presence posts' throughout the country. This fortification will include the recent State Department request for Black Hawk helicopters, mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles, and advanced surveillance systems.

Such a substantial reliance on mercenaries amounts to a privatization of war."

The State Department is planning to rely on 6,000 to 7,000 private security guards, according to The New York Times.

These private security contractors are expected to "operate radars to warn of enemy rocket attacks, search for roadside bombs, fly reconnaissance drones and even staff quick reaction forces to aid civilians in distress."

Private security firms such as Xe, formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, have received harsh condemnations from Iraqi officials for killing civilians.

Two Blackwater employees have been indicted for the unprovoked murder of two Afghan civilians in 2009 and will appear before a grand jury for trial on September 14.

A similar incident occurred in 2007, when Blackwater security workers shot and killed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

The five guards were charged with killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others during an unprovoked attack at a busy traffic circle using gunfire and grenades.

The men had faced up to 10 years in jail on each of 14 manslaughter counts, but a judge dismissed the case.

US officials have had reason to complain, too. In August, the security firm agreed to pay 42 million dollars in fines to settle 288 alleged violations "involving the unauthorized export of defense articles and provision of defense services to foreign end-users" in a number of countries between 2003 and 2009.

Kucinich warns that regardless of the official end of combat operations in Iraq, the United States will continue to spend billions of dollars "with absolutely nothing to show for it."

"We must admit that our mere presence there undermines any hope for a peaceful and stable Iraq. We need to remove all American forces - military and otherwise - and commit to working diplomatically for a viable government."

Kucinich compares Iraq 'exit' to Bush's 'Mission Accomplished'

By Ron Brynaert | Friday, August 20th, 2010

"Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today challenged the notion that removing ‘combat brigades’ but leaving 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq constitutes an end to combat operations, let alone an end to the war," a press release sent to RAW STORY on Thursday stated.

The press release continues:

“Who is in charge of our operations in Iraq , now? George Orwell? A war based on lies continues to be a war based on lies. Today, we have a war that is not a war, with combat troops who are not combat troops. In 2003, President Bush said ' Mission Accomplished ' . In 2010, the White House says combat operations are over in Iraq , but will leave 50,000 troops, many of whom will inevitably be involved in combat-related activities.

“Just seven days ago, General Babaker Shawkat Zebari, the commander of Iraq ’s military, said that Iraq ’s security forces will not be trained and ready to take over security for another 10 years. One story is being told to the military on the ground in Iraq and another story is being told to their families back home.

“You can’t be in and out at the same time. 

“This is not the end of the war; this is simply a new stage in the campaign to lull the American people into accepting an open-ended presence in Iraq . This is not an honest accounting to the American people and it diminishes the role of the troops who will put their lives on the line. This is not fair to the troops, their families or the American people.

“The Administration and the Pentagon would be wise to level with the American people about our long-term commitment to Iraq .

“The cost of the wars has been estimated to be around $1 million per soldier per year. Each year the troop levels stay at 50,000 means another $50 billion is wasted. I object to spending billions of dollars to maintain a charade in Iraq while our own economy is failing and over 15 million Americans are out of work. I object to keeping any level troops in Iraq to maintain a war based on lies. It is time that Congress sees through the manipulation and finally acts to truly end the war by stopping its funding,” said Kucinich.

Kucinich's statement doesn't mention President Obama's name once, but the president also didn't don a military jumpsuit and fly a plane onto a carrier with a gigantic "Mission Accomplished" banner.

Many of the top liberal blogs who have criticized Obama the past year went silent on the Iraq "exit" coverage (perhaps some are on August vacation).

Aside from Kucinich, RAW STORY was only able to find a scathing editorial on the World Socialist Web Site.

The White House and the Pentagon, assisted by a servile media, have hyped Thursday’s exit of a single Stryker brigade from Iraq as the end of the “combat mission” in that country, echoing the ill-fated claim made by George W. Bush seven years ago.

Obama is more skillful in packaging false propaganda than Bush, and no doubt has learned something from the glaring mistakes of his predecessor. Bush landed on the deck of the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003 to proclaim—under a banner reading “Mission Accomplished”—that “major combat operations” in Iraq were over. A captive audience of naval enlisted personnel was assembled on deck as cheering extras.

Obama wisely did not fly to Kuwait to deliver a similar address from atop an armored vehicle. He merely issued a statement from the White House, while leaving the heavy lifting to the television networks and their “embedded” reporters, who accompanied the brigade across the border into Kuwait and repeated the propaganda line fashioned by the administration and the military brass.

Three years after former President George W. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" on an aircraft carrier, MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann proceeded to mock the early propagandistic call by announcing each successive night on his Countdown show that it has been "one thousand and blank" days since "Mission Accomplished was declared," RAW STORY noted yesterday.

Chances are, three years from now, even if US troops are still caught up in a quagmire in Iraq, Olbermann won't be doing a similar signoff schtick to mock the coverage that ran on NBC and MSNBC Wednesday evening.

At The New York Times Media Decoder blog, Brian Stelter reported, "The combat mission in Iraq doesn’t officially end until Aug. 31 but viewers and readers could be forgiven for thinking it ended tonight."

In a broadcast that Brian Williams said constituted an “official Pentagon announcement,” NBC showed live pictures Wednesday night as members of the last combat brigade in Iraq drove toward the Kuwait border, symbolizing an end to fighting in the country.

“We are with the last combat troops” in Iraq, the NBC correspondent Richard Engel said at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, the same time that the military lifted an embargo that had been placed on the reporters traveling with the 440 troops, a part of the 4/2 Stryker Brigade.

The Associated Press, Fox News, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera and other news media outlets also reported Wednesday evening that the last combat troops were crossing into Kuwait. Only NBC broadcast it live, in asymmetrical image to the invasion that captured the nation’s attention on television seven years ago.

Coverage by most media outlets on the "last combat brigade" leaving Iraq paint an almost rosy picture with their headlines, which suggest that not only will the close to 60,000 troops left behind not be fighting anyone, but that there is no chance of any future surge.

"As the United States military prepares to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, the Obama administration is planning a remarkable civilian effort, buttressed by a small army of contractors, to fill the void," the New York Times reports.

However, the Associated Press and many liberal blogs instead chose to criticize Fox News for not covering the "exit" with the same gusto.

Perhaps another network could have covered the extensive coverage MSNBC was provided by the Pentagon instead.

Kucinich, Ron Paul: Get US troops out of Pakistan

By Agence France-Presse | Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Two US lawmakers -- a Republican and a Democrat -- proposed a bill this week demanding the withdrawal of all US troops in Pakistan, where they are conducting covert operations against militants.

"We have known that US forces have been operating in secret inside the territories of Pakistan without congressional approval," Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich said Friday, pointing to reports the United States was stepping up its presence there.

He said the House of Representatives was expected to take up the resolution next week. The measure was introduced late Thursday.

Kucinich said the covert operations were a "violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution introduced after the Vietnam War that only allows the president to send US armed forces into military operations abroad if Congress approves the decision or if the United States is under a serious threat or attack."

"It is our constitutional responsibility as members of Congress to act," Kucinich added.

Washington is working to deepen engagement with the nuclear power across the border from war-wracked Afghanistan and overcome rife anti-Americanism after years of perceived neglect of bilateral relations.

Joining Kucinich on the bill was Ron Paul, a Texas Republican who espoused libertarian views during his failed 2008 bid for the presidency.

Paul said the US military has "significantly increased" its operations in Pakistan, without providing figures.

He also noted the increased use of unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan since President Barack Obama came to office a year and a half ago.

"This increasing US military activity in Pakistan has little to do with protecting the United States and in fact is creating more enemies than it is defeating," Paul said.

"The administration, like its predecessor, is misusing language in the original post-9/11 resolution to prosecute a wider regional war and Congress is sitting quietly on the sidelines. This must stop."

The Pentagon says only a small number of US soldiers operate in Pakistan, mostly Special Forces tasked with training Pakistani troops along the Afghan border. Those US forces are not officially engaged in combat operations.

Kucinich previously tabled a resolution demanding that all US troops withdraw from Afghanistan, but it was rejected in March.

Washington has branded the rugged tribal area along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border a global headquarters for Al-Qaeda and other militants, who use it as a base to launch attacks on US-led forces in Afghanistan.

But the presence of US troops is a sensitive issue in Pakistan due to prevailing anti-American sentiment in the country, as well as conspiracy theories about US military operations and a perception that they threaten Pakistani sovereignty.

Kucinich: "End the Wars. Bring Troops Home"

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Kucinich flips to ‘yes’ on health bill

After months of opposition, Kucinich flips to ‘yes’ on health bill with no public option

By Sahil Kapur
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Under intense fire from Democratic leaders and some reform activists, the sole remaining progressive against the health care bill has reluctantly reversed his opposition, bringing his party one crucial vote closer to its passage.

"This is not the bill I want to support," Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said at a press conference Wednesday morning. "I do not think it's a step toward anything I've supported in the past." But "after careful discussions with President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, my wife Elizabeth and close friends, I've decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation."

Kucinich's announcement comes after months of staunch opposition to the current package. In January, he told Raw Story his party's concessions to insurance and pharmaceutical companies were acts of "madness." Last week, he said he'd be willing to cast the deciding vote against it.

His refusal to support any bill that didn't contain at least a robust public option was well-received by some progressives. The liberal Web site FireDogLake reportedly raised over $17,000 for his campaign chest. Founder Jane Hamsher now says, "We’ll be asking him to return it."

Kucinich reiterated his many concerns with the bill, primarily that it does not reign in problematic insurance company practices he has persistently assailed. "I do not retract those criticisms," he said.

While maintaining his belief that a single payer system is best way to reform the system, the congressman said he'll "support it in the hopes that we can move towards a more comprehensive approach."

"I know I have to make a decision not on the bill as I would to see it, but as it is," he lamented, acknowledging the "historic" nature of the fight for universal health care in the United States.

In response to a question, the Ohio congressman alleged he received "no Nebraska or Louisiana type deal" in return for his vote. He said his support "wasn't about the kind of deal-making that is essentially self-defeating."

"I take this vote with the utmost seriousness," a somber Kucinich said before reporters, adding that "the president's visit to my district [on Monday] underscored the urgency of this moment."

CNN notes that the congressman's announcement "has reduced the bill's opponents in the House to 204, now 12 votes shy of the 216 needed to prevent President Obama from scoring a major victory on his top domestic priority."