Cynthia McKinney is embarking on a tour of the UK

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http://www.confrontingtheempire.org.uk/

Cynthia McKinney UK Tour
Cynthia McKinney is embarking on a tour of the UK , where she will share her uncompromising and sometimes controversial views with a live audience.

McKinney , the first African-American woman to represent Georgia in the House, is well known for her outspoken stance on issues of human rights, civil liberties and US foreign policy. Throughout her time in office she has been a strident and forthright critic of the Bush administration. Now out of office, McKinney is taking the opportunity to share her views with a wider global audience.

At the end of the 2006 legislative session, McKinney introduced articles of impeachment against George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Condeleezza Rice with charges of manipulating intelligence and lying to justify the war in Iraq, failing to uphold accountability and violating privacy laws with his domestic spying program, while the impeachment articles were not passed they remained symbolic of genuine political opposition to the massively unpopular policies of the Bush White House from within a US Democratic party otherwise accused of political cowardice at a time when an opposition was most needed.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, McKinney referred to a news story in which the owners of a nursing home had been charged with negligent homicide for abandoning 34 clients who died in the flood waters, asking Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff: "Mr. Secretary, if the nursing home owners are arrested for negligent homicide, why shouldn't you also be arrested for negligent homicide?

There was no silencing McKinney on 9/11 either and she remains one of the few elected officials in the US to voice widespread public questions over the events which the 9/11 Commission failed to address, famously asking:

“We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11 ... Those engaged in unusual stock trades immediately before September 11 knew enough to make millions of dollars from United and American Airlines, certain insurance and brokerage firms' stocks. What did the Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?”

McKinney’s views are bound to divide opinion, but no one would deny that she has never baulked at asking the difficult questions, raising the unpopular issues and has remained steadfast in her resolve to provide a counterweight to the runaway policies of the US Government post 9/11. Her speaking dates in the UK are bound to court controversy, but unlikely to bore.


http://www.confrontingtheempire.org.uk/politics/node/1

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