posted April 06, 2006 03:21 PM
CYNTHIA MCKINNEY Congresswoman representing the 4th District of Georgia, DeKalb County
Member of the radical Progressive Caucus
Voted to legalize the killing of babies after they are born
Voted against a resolution supporting Israel in the War on Terror, but refused to vote for a resolution condemning the anti-Semitic statements of a disciple of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan
Told a Saudi prince she would accept his offer of $10 million that New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani rejected because it came with anti-Semitic strings attached
Provided propaganda for Communist FARC guerrillas in Colombia
Voted against school vouchers for black parents in Washington, D.C.
"We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11. What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?….What do they have to hide?" -- Rep. Cynthia McKinney
"Ms. McKinney is a racist and anti-Semite of the first rank. If she were white and male, she would be David Duke." -- Peter Swartz, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University
Two staff aides to Rep. Sam Farr (D-California) will testify today (April 6) in a grand jury hearing that could determine whether charges will be filed against Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the six-term Georgia Democratic congresswoman, for allegedly striking a Capitol Police officer. The incident in question occurred Wednesday, March 29, when McKinney, who was not wearing an identification badge, bypassed a metal detector as she entered the Longworth House Office Building. An officer twice asked her to go back through the checkpoint, but McKinney ignored him. The officer then reached out and grabbed her arm, and McKinney allegedly turned around and beat the officer's chest numerous times.
An angry McKinney later characterized the officer's actions as an example of racial profiling and part of a larger pattern of Capitol Police mistreating blacks. "What I have suggested and what many other people have, quite frankly, suggested is that the issue of racial profiling needs to be one that is discussed and dealt with by the American people," she said. In a press conference following the incident, no fellow House members stood with McKinney as a gesture of support. Instead she was accompanied by two prominent black activists, actor Danny Glover and singer Harry Belafonte.
Cynthia McKinney is a Democratic Member of Congress who represents the Fourth District of Georgia. In 2002, after serving 10 years in Congress, she was swept out of office by controversy and lost the 2002 Democratic primary election. She was then hired by Cornell University to work a few weeks each year over the ensuing three years as a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor. She was recommended for the Rhodes professorship by Prof. James Turner, who had invited her to give a speech at the Africana Studies Summer Institute in the summer of 2003. Her appointment was approved by a committee of thirteen faculty members and deans. McKinney's visits to Cornell were sponsored by the university's Africana Studies and Research Center. She taught in the same program as the radical Australian journalist and documentary-maker John Pilger. McKinney had previously taught at Spelman College and Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta and at Agnes Scott College in Decatur.
In 2004 McKinney won 51 percent of the votes as one of six candidates in that primary and went on to regain her congressional seat, winning almost 64 percent of the vote in the November general election.
McKinney's political career began in 1988, when she was elected to the Georgia state legislature. With the help of her father - who was a member of the state legislature's House of Representatives - she was given a seat on the redistricting committee that in 1991 re-drew congressional districts, some of which were gerrymandered to elect African-Americans. In 1992 McKinney ran and won in one of those districts she helped design.
Congresswoman McKinney became an outspoken member of the radical Progressive Caucus. The group Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) rated her voting record 95 percent on the left side of legislation. She also joined the Congressional Black Caucus.
McKinney has had a 100 percent pro-union voting record, according to the AFL-CIO. She has also had a solidly "pro-education" voting record, according to the National Education Association (NEA), which shares her ideology. McKinney earned this honor in part by voting in 1998 to deny vouchers to the 70 percent of African-American parents in Washington, D.C. who want to liberate their children from inferior, unionized public schools.
McKinney opposed the tax cuts proposed by President George W. Bush, endorsing instead the Progressive Caucus' "American People's Dividend," a payment of $300 to every person in America, the same for all whether a person paid $1 million in taxes or $0.
Although nominally a Roman Catholic, McKinney had a 100 percent pro-choice voting record, according to the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), a group that strongly backed her for re-election in 2002. In 2000 she voted against legislation to ban partial-birth abortions.
In 2000 Cynthia McKinney was one of only 15 Members of Congress to vote against the "Born-Alive Infants Protection Act." This measure provided that if during the procedure commonly called a "partial birth abortion" a nearly-born infant slipped entirely out of its mother before its brains were vacuumed out, it would acquire the human rights of a person already born.
In 1999 she voted against banning physician-assisted suicide. In 1994 she voted to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment.
In 1998 McKinney voted against ending racial preferences in college admissions.
During the 2000 presidential campaign, wrote journalist Michael Barone, "following a complaint by black Secret Service agents, [McKinney's] office issued a statement attacking [Democratic candidate] Al Gore's low 'Negro tolerance level' and accused him of rarely having more than one black agent with him."
In 2001 she voted for legislation to impose nationwide same-day voter registration on election days. This would have eliminated most checks and safeguards that prevent fraudulent voting.
In 1994 McKinney refused to vote for a resolution condemning the anti-Semitic speeches of Khalid Muhammad, a firebrand disciple of Nation of Islam leader Rev. Louis Farrakhan.
Beginning in 1997, McKinney voted repeatedly to cut U.S. aid to Israel.
With regard to the environment, McKinney joined with such radical eco-activist groups as the Rainforest Action Network and the Earth Island Institute in endorsing the Heritage Tree Preservation Act, which seeks to ban all logging in old-growth forests.
In 2001 the United States withdrew most of its diplomatic participation in the United Nations' World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia And Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa after it became clear that the gathering would give prominence not only to anti-American but also to anti-Israel and anti-Semitic leaders. Despite this, seven members of Congress including Congresswoman McKinney attended, and they, plus another seven congressional Democrats, lent their prestige to what became an anti-Jewish hatefest.
In May 2002 McKinney was one of 17 House Democrats who voted against a House Resolution (HR 392) expressing support for Israel as it faced terrorist attacks that killed more than 600 civilians. The resolution she opposed stated that, "the United States and Israel are now engaged in a common struggle against terrorism."
In 2002, after McKinney lost her bid for the Democratic nomination to her seat in Congress, her father offered the media a four-letter word as explanation: "The Jews, J-E-W-S." McKinney lost to a more moderate African-American woman, Denise Majette.
Many Jewish leaders had given support to her opponent after it came to light that McKinney had taken huge political campaign contributions from radical Muslims, including some with links to terrorist-supporting organizations. McKinney also had the support of Minister Louis Farrakhan.
"McKinney has enjoyed strong support from the Arab and Muslim community, which views her as a prime backer of a Palestinian state," wrote investigative reporter Matthew E. Berger in 2004. "A review of her Federal Election Commission filings shows a slew of Arab surnames, and she received $1,000 from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee."
And McKinney in exchange was willing and eager to speak out in concert with such views. When a Saudi prince tried to use his $10 million 9-11 charity donation as a platform from which to criticize U.S. support for Israel, New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani returned Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's check. Congresswoman McKinney then immediately wrote to the Prince to offer her services in helping him spend his $10 million.
"A growing number of people in the United States," McKinney wrote sycophantically to the Prince, "recognize, like you, that U.S. policy in the Middle East needs serious examination."
A member of her congressional staff, Raeed Tayeh, wrote to the Capitol Hill magazine Roll Call to criticize "these pro-Israeli lawmakers [who] sit on the House International Relations Committee despite the obvious conflict of interest that their emotional attachments to Israel cause…. The Israeli occupation of all territories must end, including Congress."
On Berkeley Pacifica Radio station KPFA, McKinney even implied that President George W. Bush knew in advance that the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were coming — declaring that the President let thousands of innocent people die because this would somehow profit the Bush family's wealthy friends.
"We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11," said McKinney. "What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?….What do they have to hide?"
Pressed to retract or substantiate this blood libel, McKinney weaseled: "I am not aware of any evidence showing that President Bush or members of his administration have personally profited from the attacks of 9-11. A complete investigation might reveal that to be the case…. On the other hand, what is undeniable is that corporations close to the Administration have directly benefited from the increased defense spending arising from the aftermath of September 11.
"America's credibility, both with the world and with her own people," added McKinney, "rests upon securing credible answers to these questions."
Her hatred of Jews and the Bush Administration also apparently includes a hatred of white people here and abroad. Of Marxist President Robert Mugabe's racist policy of confiscating all white farms in Zimbabwe, McKinney said: "To any honest observer, Zimbabwe's sin is that it has taken the position to right a wrong, whose resolution has been too long overdue — to return its land to its people."
McKinney also wants to confiscate the property of American whites (most of whose ancestors never owned slaves, or who were not even here when slavery existed) via tax-supported reparations to black Americans. "Eight generations of African-Americans," she said last April, "are still waiting to achieve their rights — compensation and restitution for the hundreds of years during which they were bought and sold on the market."
During her two years out of office, as noted earlier, McKinney held the position of Visiting Professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "The selection of Cynthia McKinney as a Class of '56 professor is an affront to the intellectualism of Cornell University," wrote Professor Emeritus Peter Swartz. "Ms. McKinney is a racist and anti-Semite of the first rank. If she were white and male, she would be David Duke. It is unfortunate that the selection committee was so open minded that its collective brain fell on floor."
"I'm attracted to fights," McKinney has said. In 2004 she ran and won in a Democratic primary, the outcome of which determines the winner in this heavily-gerrymandered district. One of Congresswoman McKinney's biggest campaign contributors had been the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), whose members are wealthy tort lawyers. She has voted against legislation that would limit their profits. In 2001 she voted No on a bill to put lawsuits against HMOs under federal regulation.
Roughly 41 percent of McKinney's 2001-2002 Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions came from organized labor. Two of her biggest contributors were the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA), with its long history of corruption, as well as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Teamsters Union. More than 37 percent of her PAC donations came from single issue or ideological groups, such as the gay Human Rights Campaign.
McKinney has supposedly represented the 4th District of Georgia. But in 2001-2002, 73 percent of her campaign contributions came from outside the state of Georgia. She pocketed almost as much cash just from California donors ($ 131,250) as she did from her fellow Georgians in and around Atlanta ($ 140,669).
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Lindaland
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posted March 31, 2006 03:25 PM
posted April 06, 2006 03:21 PM
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