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Dennis Kucinich

Dennis John Kucinich (October 8, 1946) is an American politician. Originally a Democrat, Kucinich served as U.S. Representative from Ohio's 10th congressional district from 1997 to 2013. From 1977 to 1979, he served a term as mayor of Cleveland, where he narrowly survived a recall election and successfully fought an effort to sell the municipal electric utility before losing his reelection contest to George Voinovich.

Considered one of the most politically liberal members of Congress during his tenure, Kucinich unsuccessfully ran for president in the 2004 and 2008 Democratic primaries. During his 2004 presidential campaign, he ran as a staunch opponent of the Iraq War, garnering him support among some anti-war activists. Despite not winning a single primary contest, Kucinich was the last opponent of eventual nominee John Kerry to drop out.

As a 2008 presidential candidate, Kucinich ran in support of single-payer health care, the impeachment of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, and the establishment of a "Department of Peace". He dropped out early during the 2008 primary contest after faring poorly in early states. During his final two terms in Congress, Kucinich at times criticized then-President Barack Obama, and argued in favor of Obama's impeachment following the 2011 military intervention in Libya.

As a result of redistricting following the 2010 census, redrawn congressional boundaries forced Kucinich to face Representative Marcy Kaptur in the newly-drawn 9th district. Kaptur defeated Kucinich in the Democratic primary, and Kucinich left office in 2013. In January 2013, he became a contributor on the Fox News Channel appearing on programs such as The O'Reilly Factor. He ran for governor of Ohio in the 2018 election, losing in the primary to Richard Cordray. Kucinich was also an unsuccessful primary candidate in the 2021 Cleveland mayoral election. He has filed to run for Ohio's 7th congressional district as an independent in 2024.

Early life and education
Kucinich was born in Cleveland's West Side Tremont neighborhood, the oldest of the seven children of Virginia (née Norris) and Frank J. Kucinich. His father, who was of Croat ancestry, worked as a truck driver and was a member of the Teamsters for 35 years; his Irish American mother was a homemaker. Growing up, his family moved 21 times and Dennis was often charged with the responsibility of finding apartments they could afford.

Kucinich graduated from St. John Cantius High School in 1965. He attended Cleveland State University from 1967 to 1970. In 1973, he graduated from Case Western Reserve University with both a Bachelor and a Master of Arts degree in speech and communication.

Early political career
Kucinich's political career began in 1967 when he ran unsuccessfully for office. In 1969, he was elected to the Cleveland City Council at the age of 23. In 1972, Kucinich ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, losing narrowly to incumbent Republican William E. Minshall Jr. After Minshall's retirement in 1974, Kucinich sought the seat again, this time failing to get the Democratic nomination, which went to Ronald M. Mottl. Kucinich ran as an Independent candidate in the general election, placing third with about 30% of the vote. In 1975, Kucinich became clerk of the municipal court in Cleveland and served in that position for two years.

Cleveland mayor
Kucinich was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1977 and served in that position until 1979. At age 31, he was the youngest mayor of a major city in the United States, earning him the nickname "the boy mayor of Cleveland". Kucinich's tenure as mayor is often regarded as one of the most tumultuous in Cleveland's history.

After Kucinich refused to sell Municipal Light (now Cleveland Public Power), Cleveland's publicly owned electric utility, the Cleveland mafia sought to murder him in a contract killing. A hit man from Maryland planned to shoot him in the head during the Columbus Day Parade, but the plot fell apart when Kucinich was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer and missed the event. When the city fell into default shortly thereafter, the Mafia leaders called off the contract killer.

In 1984, John F. Sopko, then assistant counsel to the Minority Subcommittee staff, testified to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, "Intelligence information gleaned by the Maryland State Police and Cleveland Police Department confirmed that the murder contract was, in general terms, due to the fact that Kucinich had caused considerable problems for local dishonest businessmen, politicians and criminals." Sopko said, "It was alleged that Kucinich had been impeding organized criminal activities and its ability to make money in the city. As a result, someone decided to do away with the mayor."

The Cleveland Trust Company suddenly required all the city's debts be paid in full, forcing the city into default, after news of Kucinich's refusal to sell the city utility. For years, these debts were routinely rolled over, pending future payment, until Kucinich's announcement was made public. In 1998, the Cleveland City Council honored him for having had the "courage and foresight" to stand up to the banks, which saved the city an estimated $195 million between 1985 and 1995.

Post-mayoralty
After losing his reelection bid for mayor to George Voinovich in 1979, Kucinich initially kept a low profile in Cleveland politics. He criticized a tax referendum Voinovich proposed in 1980, which voters eventually approved. He also struggled to find employment and moved to Los Angeles, where he stayed with a friend, actress Shirley MacLaine. For the next three years, Kucinich worked as a radio talk-show host, lecturer, and consultant. It was a difficult period for him financially. Without a steady paycheck, Kucinich fell behind in his mortgage payments, nearly lost his house in Cleveland, and borrowed money from friends, including MacLaine, to keep it. On his 1982 income tax return, Kucinich reported an income of $38. Of this period, Kucinich has said, "When I was growing up in Cleveland, my early experience conditioned me to hang in there and not to quit... It's one thing to experience that as a child, but when you have to as an adult, it has a way to remind you how difficult things can be. You understand what people go through."

In 1982, Kucinich moved back to Cleveland and ran for Secretary of State; he lost the Democratic primary to Sherrod Brown. In 1983, Kucinich won a special election to fill the seat of a Cleveland city councilman who had died. His brother, Gary Kucinich, was also a councilman at the time.

In 1985, there was some speculation that Kucinich might run for mayor again. Instead, his brother Gary ran against (and lost to) the incumbent Voinovich. Kucinich, meanwhile, gave up his council position to run for governor of Ohio as an independent against Richard Celeste, but later withdrew from the race. After this, Kucinich, in his own words "on a quest for meaning," lived quietly in New Mexico until 1994, when he won a seat in the Ohio State Senate.

House of Representatives
In 1996, Kucinich was elected to represent Ohio's 10th district in the U.S. House of Representatives, defeating two-term Republican incumbent Martin Hoke by three percentage points. He never faced another general election contest that close and was reelected seven times.

Committee assignments

 * Committee on Education and the Workforce
 * Subcommittee on Workforce Protections
 * Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions
 * Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
 * Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending (Ranking Member)

Kucinich served as chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus from 1999 to 2003, after founding chair Bernie Sanders, and was succeeded by Peter DeFazio.

Kucinich was one of the 31 House Democrats who voted to not count the 20 electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 presidential election, despite Republican president George Bush winning the state by 118,457 votes.

Domestic policy voting record
In 2008, Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives against President George W. Bush for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Although his voting record was not always in line with that of the Democratic Party, on March 17, 2010, after being courted by President Barack Obama, his wife and others, Kucinich reluctantly agreed to vote with his colleagues for the Affordable Care Act without a public option component.

Kucinich criticized the flag-burning amendment and voted against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. His congressional voting record was strongly anti-abortion, although he has noted that he never supported a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion altogether. In 2003, however, he began describing himself as pro-abortion rights and said he had shifted away from his earlier position. Press releases indicated that he supported abortion rights, ending abstinence-only sex education and increasing the use of contraception to make abortion "less necessary" over time. His voting record since 2003 received mixed ratings from abortion rights groups.

2004
Kucinich was criticized during his 2004 campaign for changing his stance on the issue of abortion. His explanation was, "I've always worked to make abortions less necessary, through sex education and birth control. But the direction that Congress has taken, increasingly, is to make it impossible for women to be able to have an abortion if they need to protect their health. So when I saw the direction taken, it finally came to the point where I understood that women will not be truly free unless they have the right to choose."

On December 10, 2003, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) announced the removal of its correspondents from the campaigns of Kucinich, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton. Previously critical of the limited coverage given his campaign, Kucinich characterized ABC's decision as an example of media companies' power to shape campaigns by choosing which candidates to cover and questioned its timing, coming immediately after the debate. ABC News, while stating its commitment to give coverage to a wide range of candidates, argued that focusing more of its "finite resources" on the candidates most likely to win would best serve the public.

In the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination race, national polls consistently showed Kucinich's support in single digits. In the Iowa caucuses, he finished fifth, receiving about 1% of the state delegates, far below the 15% threshold for receiving national delegates. He performed similarly in the New Hampshire primary, placing sixth among the seven candidates with 1% of the vote. In the Mini-Tuesday primaries, he finished near the bottom in most states. His best performance was in New Mexico, where he received over 5% of the vote but still no delegates. Kucinich's best showing in any Democratic contest was in the February 24 Hawaii caucus, in which he won 31% of caucus participants, finishing second behind Senator John Kerry and winning Maui County, the only county Kucinich won in either of his presidential campaigns. He also had a double-digit showing in Maine on February 8, receiving 16% percent in the state's caucus. On Super Tuesday, March 2, Kucinich had another strong showing in the Minnesota caucus, receiving 17% of the vote. In Ohio, he received 9%. Kucinich campaigned heavily in Oregon, spending 30 days there during the two months leading up to the state's May 18 primary. He continued his campaign because "the future direction of the Democratic Party has not yet been determined" and chose to focus on Oregon "because of its progressive tradition and its pioneering spirit." He won 16% of the vote.

Even after Kerry won enough delegates to secure the nomination, Kucinich continued to campaign until just before the convention, citing an effort to help shape the agenda of the Democratic Party. He was the last candidate to end his campaign. He endorsed Kerry on July 22, four days before the start of the Democratic National Convention.

2008

On December 11, 2006, in a speech at Cleveland City Hall, Kucinich announced he would seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.

Kucinich told his supporters in Iowa that if he did not appear on the second ballot in a caucus that they should back Barack Obama.

At an October 2007 debate, NBC's Tim Russert cited a passage from a book by Shirley MacLaine in which she writes that Kucinich had seen a UFO. Asked if it was true, Kucinich confirmed it. In November 2007, Larry Flynt hosted a fundraiser for Kucinich that drew criticism from Flynt's detractors. Campaign representatives declined to comment. Kucinich was endorsed by author Gore Vidal and actor Viggo Mortensen. In January 2008, he asked for a New Hampshire recount based on alleged discrepancies between the machine-counted ballots and the hand-counted ballots. He stated that he wanted to make sure "100% of the voters had 100% of their votes counted."

In January 2008, Kucinich was excluded from a Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC due to his poor showing in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. A ruling that the debate could not go ahead without him was overturned on appeal. Later that month, Kucinich dropped out of the race and did not endorse any other candidate. He endorsed Barack Obama after Obama won the nomination.

On August 27, 2008, he delivered a speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Congressional campaigns
Until 2012, Kucinich was reelected to Congress by big margins in his strongly Democratic-leaning districts.

2006
Kucinich defeated a Democratic primary challenger by a wide margin and defeated Republican Mike Dovilla in the general election with 66% of the vote.

2008 United States House of Representatives election in Ohio's 10th District
His opponents included Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman and North Olmsted Mayor Thomas O'Grady. In February 2008, Kucinich raised around $50,000 compared to Cimperman's $228,000, but through a YouTube fund-raising campaign he managed to raise $700,000, surpassing Cimperman's $487,000.

Cimperman, who was endorsed by the mayor of Cleveland and The Plain Dealer, criticized Kucinich for focusing too much on campaigning for president and not on the district. Kucinich accused Cimperman of representing corporate and real estate interests. Cimperman described Kucinich as an absentee congressman who failed to pass any major legislative initiatives in his 12-year House career. In an interview, Cimperman said he was tired of Kucinich and Cleveland being joke fodder for late-night talk-show hosts, saying: "It's time for him to go home." A Cimperman campaign ad stated that Kucinich had missed over 300 votes, but the actual number was 139. It was also suggested that Kucinich's calls for universal health care and an immediate withdrawal from Iraq made him a thorn in the side of the Democrats' congressional leadership, as well as his refusal to pledge to support the eventual presidential nominee, which he later reconsidered.

Kucinich took part in a debate with the other primary challengers. Barbara Ferris criticized him for not bringing as much money back to the district as other area legislators and authoring just one bill that passed during his 12 years in Congress. Kucinich responded: "It was a Republican Congress and there weren't many Democrats passing meaningful legislation during a Republican Congress." He won the primary with 68,156 votes out of 135,589 cast, beating Cimperman 52% to 33%.

Kucinich defeated former state representative Jim Trakas in the November 4 general election with 157,268 votes, 57.02% of those cast. Trakas received 107,918 votes (39.13%).

2010 United States House of Representatives election in Ohio's 10th District
Kucinich defeated Republican nominee Peter J. Corrigan and Libertarian nominee Jeff Goggins in the November 2 general election with 101,343 votes, 53.1% of those cast.

2012 United States House of Representatives election in Ohio's 9th District
Redistricting after the 2010 census eliminated Kucinich's district. The new map shifted the bulk of Kucinich's territory, including his home, to the Toledo-based 9th District, represented since 1983 by fellow Democrat Marcy Kaptur. Kucinich had been endorsed by another House member, Barney Frank of Massachusetts. The two competed in the Democratic primary on March 6, with Graham Veysey, a small-business owner from Cleveland, also on the ballot. Kaptur won the primary with 56% of the vote to Kucinich's 40%. The redrawn district contained roughly 60% of Kaptur's former territory.

In the general election, with 73% of the vote, Kaptur won a 16th term against Republican Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher and Libertarian Sean Stipe.

Kucinich had been mentioned frequently as a possible 2012 candidate for Congress in Washington's newly created 10th district, but he decided to retire from Congress when his term ended in January 2013.

2024 campaign to represent Ohio's 7th Congressional District
In 2024, Kucinich announced his campaign for Ohio's 7th Congressional District as an independent.

2018 gubernatorial campaign
In January 2018, Kucinich announced his candidacy for governor of Ohio in the 2018 election. He was criticized for working as a Fox News contributor. Tara Samples, an Akron city councilwoman, was his running mate. Our Revolution, a grassroots progressive organization founded by Bernie Sanders, endorsed Kucinich, but Sanders did not. Kucinich lost the primary to Richard Cordray, 62.3% to 22.9%.

2021 Cleveland mayor campaign
In December 2020, Kucinich announced his candidacy for mayor of Cleveland in the 2021 election. Though seen as likely to qualify in the seven-way nonpartisan primary for the two runoff spots, Kucinich finished in third place with 16.54%.

2024 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presidential campaign manager
In May 2023, the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 2024 presidential campaign announced that Kucinich had been selected as its campaign manager. He served until October 2023, shortly after the campaign switched from Democratic to independent.

Television pundit
In January 2013, Kucinich joined Fox News Channel as a regular contributor. He appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and other Fox News shows. Kucinich quit Fox News in January 2018 as he announced plans to run for governor. Since running for governor, Kucinich has reappeared on the network, in 2019 discussing Democratic primary debates, and has appeared on Larry King's PoliticKING program, speaking against the Democrats' push to impeach President Trump.

Political positions
After being elected to Congress in 1996, Kucinich began to position himself on the left. Based on his voting record in Congress, the American Conservative Union (ACU) gave Kucinich a conservative rating of 9.73%, and for 2008, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) gave him a liberal rating of 95%. He was often regarded as one of the most liberal members of the United States House of Representatives. Describing his views in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he said, "I'm from the universal-health-care wing of the Democratic Party. I'm from the Roe v. Wade-litmus-test wing of the Democratic Party. I'm from the abolish-the-death-penalty wing of the Democratic Party."

Abortion
Until 2002, Kucinich's voting record was strongly anti-abortion, but he maintained a pro-abortion rights stance thereafter. In 1996, he was quoted as saying that "life begins at conception", and he voted in favor of banning partial birth abortion and preventing the transport of minors to undergo abortion procedures. He said in a 2003 interview that he had a "journey" on the abortion issue that "caused me to break from a voting record that had not been pro-choice".

Attempted impeachment of George W. Bush
On June 10, 2008, Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush on the floor of the House of Representatives. On June 11, the resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Calling it "a sworn duty" of Congress to act, co-sponsor Robert Wexler said, "President Bush deliberately created a massive propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq to the American people, and the charges detailed in this impeachment resolution indicate an unprecedented abuse of executive power." On July 10, 2008, Kucinich introduced an additional article of impeachment accusing Bush of misleading Congress into war. On July 14, 2008, Kucinich introduced a new resolution of impeachment against Bush, charging him with manufacturing evidence to sway public opinion in favor of the war in Iraq. This resolution was also sent to the judiciary committee.

Attempted impeachment of Dick Cheney
On April 17, 2007, Kucinich sent a letter to his Democratic colleagues saying that he planned to file an impeachment resolution against Dick Cheney, then Vice President of the United States. Kucinich planned to introduce the impeachment articles on April 24, 2007, but in light of Cheney's visit to his doctor for an inspection of a blood clot, Kucinich postponed the press conference "until the vice president's condition is clarified."

Kucinich held a press conference on April 24, 2007, revealing House Resolution 333 and the three articles of impeachment against Cheney. He charged Cheney with manipulating the evidence of Iraq's weapons program, deceiving the nation about Iraq's connection to al-Qaeda, and threatening aggression against Iran in violation of the United Nations charter. Kucinich opened his press conference by quoting from the Declaration of Independence, and said, "I believe the Vice President's conduct of office has been destructive to the founding purposes of our nation. Today, I have introduced House Resolution 333, Articles of Impeachment Relating to Vice President Richard B. Cheney. I do so in defense of the rights of the American people to have a government that is honest and peaceful."

On November 6, 2007, Kucinich used special parliamentary procedure and moved for a vote on impeaching Cheney. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Speaker Pelosi opposed the measure and stood by previous comments that "impeachment is not on our agenda", and they initially moved to table the bill. When that attempt failed, Hoyer moved to refer the bill to the House Judiciary Committee. That motion succeeded.

Barack Obama
In March 2011, Kucinich said that President Obama's decision to approve air strikes against Gaddafi's forces in the Libyan Civil War was an "impeachable offense."

Cannabis
During his 2004 presidential campaign, Kucinich expressed support for a drug policy that "sets reasonable boundaries for marijuana use by establishing guidelines similar to those already in place for alcohol". He stated: "Most marijuana users do so responsibly, in a safe, recreational context. These people lead normal, productive lives–pursuing careers, raising families and participating in civic life." Kucinich also released a detailed plan for cannabis policy reform during his 2018 campaign for Ohio governor.

Civil liberties
Kucinich has opposed the USA PATRIOT Act since its inception. He voted against the act in 2001, and against its renewal in 2006. He voted for an amendment to the constitution outlawing flag burning and desecration, but later took the opposite stance, voting against a similar amendment in 2005.

In 2007, Kucinich voted to require the Department of Defense to present a detailed plan for transferring prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Donald Trump
Kucinich has praised and defended President Donald Trump in Fox News appearances. He praised Trump's inaugural speech, calling it "GREAT" and a "message of unity"; others characterized the speech as dark and "white nationalist".

According to The Washington Post, Kucinich "was a rare left-wing voice attacking 'the deep state' for undermining the president." On Sean Hannity's show, Kucinich said he believed that a deep state intelligence community worked against Trump and that it was "very dangerous to America", "a threat to our republic" and "a clear and present danger to our way of life." In February 2017, Kucinich defended Michael Flynn, saying that the intelligence community had treated him unfairly; in December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Kucinich defended Trump's claims that he was being wiretapped, saying that he himself had been wiretapped. He also defended Trump's efforts to improve relations with Russia.

Kucinich criticized some House Democrats for attempting to start impeachment proceedings against Trump. He said, "The Democratic Party had best be identified with something more than impeachment." He said that efforts to assess Trump's mental and physical fitness to be president were "destroying the party as an effective opposition."

After the January 6 United States Capitol attack that attempted to overturn Trump's defeat, Kucinich denounced the storming as "an affront to the U.S. Constitution".

Environment and energy
Kucinich had a 100% rating during 2005 and 2006 from the League of Conservation Voters, indicating pro-environment votes. He has said that clean water is "a basic human right".

As mayor of Cleveland, Kucinich favored the city's existing Municipal Light System and opposed construction of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant and Perry Nuclear Power Plant on Lake Erie. He opposed a planned regional radioactive waste dump, and has long advocated renewable energy and efficient energy use.

Fairness Doctrine
Kucinich was involved in efforts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, requiring radio stations to give liberal and conservative points of view equal time, which he and other critics of talk radio argue is not presently the case. Fellow Democrat Maurice Hichney, Vermont's independent Senator Bernie Sanders, and others have joined him in this effort. Conservatives have criticized these plans, alleging that what they believe to be a liberal-dominated Hollywood, academia, new media, and mainstream media would not be subject to these regulations.

Foreign policy
Kucinich is a supporter of a non-interventionist foreign policy and has called war a profitable racket.

Kucinich voted against the authorization of military force against Iraq in 2002. He also voted consistently against funding the war.

In a visit to the rest of the Middle East in September 2007, Kucinich said he did not visit Iraq because "I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation."

Kucinich objected to the 2011 military intervention in Libya missile strikes and suggested they were impeachable offenses. He also asked why Democratic leaders didn't object when Obama told them of his plan for US participation in enforcing the Libyan no-fly zone. He said Obama's action in Libya was "a grave decision that cannot be made by the president alone", and that failing to first seek Congress's approval was unconstitutional.

On August 31, Al Jazeera reported that a document had been found in the Libyan intelligence agency's headquarters that according to the author appeared to be a summary of a conversation between Kucinich and an intermediary for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in which Kucinich asks for information about the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council (NTC), possible links between it and al-Qaeda, and evidence of corruption, to lobby US lawmakers to put an end to NATO airstrikes and suspend their support for the NTC. It also listed information necessary to defend al-Islam against International Criminal Court war crimes charges. Kucinich defended himself in a message to The Atlantic Wire, saying that the document was simply a summary of Kucinich's public positions on the Libyan campaign by a Libyan bureaucrat who never consulted Kucinich. "Al Jazeera found a document written by a Libyan bureaucrat to other Libyan bureaucrats. All it proves is that the Libyans were reading The Washington Post... Any implication I was doing anything other than trying to bring an end to an unauthorized war is fiction."

In March 2011, Kucinich criticized the Obama administration's decision to participate in the NATO intervention in Libya without Congressional authorization. He also called it an "indisputable fact" that Obama's decision was an impeachable offense since he believes the U.S. Constitution "does not provide for the president to wage war any times he pleases", but he did not introduce a resolution to impeach Obama. In response, Libyan officials invited Kucinich to visit that country on a "peace mission", but he declined, saying that he "could not negotiate on behalf of the administration."

Kucinich was criticized for his visit to Syria in 2007 and praise of President Bashar al-Assad on Syrian national TV. He praised Syria for taking in Iraqi refugees. "What most people are not aware of is that Syria has taken in more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees," Kucinich said. "The Syrian government has actually shown a lot of compassion in keeping its doors open, and being a host for so many refugees."

Kucinich has met with Assad on several occasions. He has supported Assad, citing him as a lesser evil in the Syrian Civil War. Asked by Tucker Carlson how he could defend a war criminal, Kucinich said the choice was to let ISIS take over Syria or "try to stabilize the region and let the people of Syria make their own decisions about who their leaders are going to be". He helped Fox News get an interview with Assad.

In October 2016, Kucinich warned against a prospective United States military intervention against Russia in Syria. He argued that "a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering, propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation, with Russia in Syria" and said that Russia was being demonized as part of a "calculated plan to resurrect a raison d'être for stone-cold warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world domination."

Guns
Kucinich is graded "F" by the NRA Political Victory Fund, indicating a pro-gun control voting record. He also received a 100% lifetime rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Health care
Kucinich believes that health care is a "right in a democratic society". He is a critic of the for-profit health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and is concerned about the large number of uninsured and underinsured in the United States. He contends that if the for-profit insurance system's overhead, such as "stock options, executive salaries, [and] advertising", were used for medically necessary care, there would be enough money in the system to cover everyone at no extra cost.

In July 2009, the House Education and Labor Committee approved an amendment by Kucinich to its version of the unsuccessful America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 by a vote of 27-19, with 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans voting for it. The amendment empowers the Secretary of Health and Human Services to waive the federal law that preempts state law on employee-related health care, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, in response to state requests. It has been speculated that the amendment's bipartisan support was for its appeal to states' rights in supporting progressive legislation. In the past, states attempting to enact single-payer reforms had been sued and stopped under ERISA. It has also been speculated that the law would open up vital new avenues for promoting and implementing a single-payer system, as newly unbound states would show single-payer's success, just as Saskatchewan did for Canada. But the Kucinich Amendment was stripped from the merged House bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that it would have violated Obama's promise that Americans who liked their health insurance could keep it.

In March 2010, Kucinich announced that he supported the Affordable Care Act, after previously indicating opposition. According to The Washington Post, his switch was the first in a vital flurry of holdout representatives switching to yes votes.

LGBT rights
Kucinich supports same-sex marriage. He voted for the expansion of hate crime laws in the United States and against banning LGBT adoption in Washington, D.C.

Trade
Kucinich has consistently opposed free trade, claiming that it costs American jobs and enables abusive working conditions in other countries.

Youth rights
In a Democratic debate during the 2008 Presidential Election, Kucinich and Mike Gravel were the only two candidates to favor lowering the legal drinking age to 18. Kucinich also supported lowering the voting age to 16.

Recognition
In 2003, Kucinich received the Gandhi Peace Award, an annual award bestowed by the Religious Society of Friends-affiliated organization Promoting Enduring Peace. In 2010, he was awarded the US Peace Prize by the US Peace Memorial Foundation “in recognition of his national leadership to prevent and end wars.”

After Kucinich lost to Marcy Kaptur in the 2012 Democratic primary, Representative Keith Ellison said of Kucinich, "At the end of the day, we're really going to miss Dennis. Dennis is a transformative leader. He stood up and spoke eloquently, passionately about Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran. He was a consistent voice for peace... He almost didn't vote for the health care bill because it wasn't good enough."

Personal life

Kucinich was baptized a Roman Catholic. He married Sandra Lee McCarthy in 1977; they had a daughter, Jackie, in 1981 and divorced in 1986. He married his third wife, British citizen Elizabeth Harper, on August 21, 2005. They met while Harper was working as an assistant for the Chicago-based American Monetary Institute, which brought her to Kucinich's House of Representatives office for a meeting. Kucinich, a vegan since 1995, is an advocate of veganism, like Elizabeth.

Kucinich was raised with four brothers and two sisters. Perry Kucinich, the youngest brother, died in December 2007. His youngest sister, Beth Ann Kucinich, died in November 2008.

In 2011, Kucinich sued a Capitol Hill cafeteria for damages after a 2008 incident in which he claimed to have suffered a severe injury biting into a sandwich and breaking a tooth on an olive pit. The broken tooth became infected, and complications led to three surgeries for dental work. The lawsuit, for $150,000 in punitive damages, was settled with the defendant agreeing to pay Kucinich's costs.

title: Dennis Kucinich


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Muriel Humphrey

Muriel Fay Humphrey Brown (née Buck; February 20, 1912 – September 20, 1998) was an American politician who served as the second lady of the United States from 1965 to 1969, and as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota in 1978. She was married to the 38th vice president of the United States, Hubert Humphrey. Following her husband's death, she was appointed to his seat in the United States Senate, serving for most of the year 1978, thus becoming the first woman to serve as a senator from Minnesota, and the only Second Lady of the United States to hold public office. After leaving office, she remarried and took the name Muriel Humphrey Brown.

Early life and marriage
Humphrey was born Muriel Fay Buck on February 20, 1912, in Huron, South Dakota, daughter of Andrew E. Buck and his wife, the former Jessie Mae Pierce. She attended Huron College and met her future husband; Hubert Humphrey in 1934, when she was twenty-two years old and working as a bookkeeper. They married on September 3, 1936, saying, "It was love at first waltz". After living with their daughter in South Dakota, she moved to the South to join her husband when he pursued a graduate degree at Louisiana State University, where she found work in the Department of Government as a typist.

She had four children: Hubert III, Nancy, Robert, and Douglas. The Humphreys built a home and moved to Waverly, a small village west of Minneapolis, in the mid-1950s and maintained it as their primary residence until Hubert Humphrey was elected vice president in the U.S. presidential election of 1964.

Political life
Muriel served as an informal adviser to her husband after he entered politics. His first office was mayor of Minneapolis. From there, he served three consecutive terms as senator from Minnesota. It was during his second Senatorial campaign that Muriel began making campaign appearances alongside her husband.

Hubert Humphrey ran for his party's nomination in the Presidential primaries of 1960, losing to John F. Kennedy; during this campaign, Muriel made speeches for him in Wisconsin. Humphrey remained in the senate and President Lyndon B. Johnson chose him as his vice-presidential running mate in 1964. With Muriel often campaigning alongside her husband and being profiled favorably in US media, the ticket won the election. Hubert thereafter served as Vice President of the United States from January 1965 to January 1969.

As Second Lady of the United States, Muriel had a busy schedule of travel and involvement in various causes. A catalogue of her papers at the Minnesota Historical Society gives a clear sense of the breadth of activities. She served as a member of the President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities from 1966 to 1969, convened many meetings of women associated with the Democratic Party, and travelled extensively.

During her husband's subsequent run for president in 1968, Muriel made a number of public appearances, garnering praise from President Johnson. After Hubert lost the 1968 election to former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, he made a decision which would ultimately lead to Muriel's entry into politics: He chose to run for a US Senate seat from Minnesota in the 1970 elections. Hubert won the election and returned to the Senate in January 1971.

Hubert Humphrey died of bladder cancer on January 13, 1978. He was 66. Muriel was nominated by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and subsequently appointed to the Senate vacancy by Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich, serving from January 25, 1978, to November 7, 1978, in the 95th Congress. She was the first spouse of a former vice president to serve in Congress as well as the first woman to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate, preceding the Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.

Muriel had years of experience as a public speaker, and was an active senator. According to Karina Karr, Humphrey was ostracised by the all-male Senate, but served on the Foreign Relations Committee and voted reliably to support the foreign policy of the Jimmy Carter administration. According to an official Congressional biographical summary, "Muriel Humphrey pursued her own interests during her brief tenure, supporting an extension of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratification deadline and advocating several programs to benefit persons with mental disabilities."

Among the issues which she championed was public visibility for Down Syndrome, a topic she had become passionate about due to her granddaughter Victoria Solmonson's condition. During her husband's presidential campaign in 1967 and 1968, she visited facilities for people with Down Syndrome in Long Island and was featured by the New York Times. In 1970, she gave a speech on this topic which was reprinted in a prestigious medical journal. As a senator, she sponsored the Mental Health Advocacy Act of 1978.

After consulting with President Jimmy Carter, Muriel chose not to stand as a candidate for the 1978 United States Senate special election in Minnesota for the remaining term. "It was the most challenging thing I've done in my whole life," she said.

Looking back at her political life, Humphrey reflected "There's something I've been wanting to say for a long time. I'm a liberal and I'm proud of it. In fact, I was probably a little more liberal than Hubert was. I just wanted to say that." While in office, and after, she pressed for the right for women to choose to have an abortion and worked towards legislation for the rights of the mentally disabled.

Second marriage
In 1981, Humphrey married Max Brown, a friend from childhood. "I don't live a life of politics any more," she said after her second marriage. "Max and I have so much fun. We have a wonderful companionship that Hubert and I didn't have, couldn't have. We were so busy and it was so official almost all the time." Max Brown died in 2004 at the age of 93.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Muriel Humphrey


text:
User:Kostasge~enwiki

Hello

I live in Athens, Greece and work as a translator. My interests include linguistics, computers, history and Greek literature.

title: User:Kostasge~enwiki


text:
John Wayne Airport

John Wayne Airport is an international commercial and general aviation airport that serves Orange County, California, and the Greater Los Angeles area. The airport is located in an unincorporated area of Orange County, and it is owned and operated by the county. John Wayne Airport is surrounded by the cities of Irvine, Newport Beach, and Costa Mesa, although its IATA airport code is registered to Santa Ana, the county seat. Originally named Orange County Airport, the Orange County Board of Supervisors renamed the airport in 1979 in honor of actor John Wayne, who lived in neighboring Newport Beach and died that year. A statue of John Wayne was installed at the airline terminal in 1982.

John Wayne Airport is the sole commercial airport in Orange County. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a primary commercial service airport since it has over 10,000 passenger boardings per year. Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 4,584,147 enplanements in calendar year 2014, an increase from 4,450,628 in 2013. In 2014, John Wayne Airport was the second busiest airport in the Greater Los Angeles area (by passenger count) with over 9 million total passengers. , the largest airlines at John Wayne Airport were Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Alaska Airlines.

In addition to the airline terminal, several facilities at the airport serve the general aviation and corporate aviation community. General aviation operations outnumber commercial operations. The only other general aviation airport in Orange County is Fullerton Municipal Airport.

John Wayne Airport has two runways. The main runway, 2L/20R, at 5700 ft in length, is the shortest runway in the United States that operates regular international flights, and passenger jetliners operating from the airport have never been larger than the Boeing 757 (although some larger cargo aircraft fly from SNA, such as the widebody Airbus A300 operated by FedEx). Runway 2R/20L is 2887 ft long and serves general aviation aircraft. No widebody passenger jetliners have ever been operated into SNA in scheduled airline service.

History

The first airstrip in the area was constructed in 1923, when Eddie Martin signed a five-year lease with James Irvine to operate a flying school on land owned by the Irvine Company. It was purchased through a land swap by the County of Orange in 1939 and remains under the county's ownership and management.

Martin added the first hangar to his airfield in 1926. In 1935 Howard Hughes staged his world speed record-setting flight from the Eddie Martin Airport.

At some point between 1940 and 1941, the new Orange County Airport was established on land adjacent to Martin Field, to the south.

The two fields were not located on the same property, as has been repeated elsewhere.

But flight operations at the new Orange County Airport probably resulted in the closure of Martin Field at this point.

After serving as a military base during World War II, the Santa Ana Army Airfield was returned by the federal government to the county with the stipulation that it remain open to all kinds of aviation uses.

In addition to continuing to serve aviation, the field became an important drag racing center. From 1950 to 1959, C.J. "Pappy" Hart and Creighton Hunter operated the Santa Ana Drag Strip, credited for being the world's first commercial drag strip, on the airport runway every Sunday, when it was closed to air traffic.

The original single runway was 4800 ft long, on a magnetic heading of 210 degrees (Runway 21) and 30 degrees (Runway 3). In 1964 the airport was rebuilt, with its present two parallel runway configuration, oriented 190/10 degrees magnetic. The longer runway, 19R (now 20R), at 5701 ft, is only 901 ft longer than the old Runway 21 but long enough to accommodate jet airliners. A full instrument landing system (ILS) was also installed.

In the 1950s, the only airline flights were Bonanza's few flights between Los Angeles and Phoenix, via San Diego. In 1963 Bonanza started nonstop F27s to Phoenix, and to Las Vegas in 1965; in 1967 Air California started Electra nonstops to San Francisco, 48 flights a week each way. The first scheduled jet flights were Bonanza DC-9s later in 1967. From 1967 through 1980, Air California (later renamed AirCal) and Bonanza and its successors, Air West and Hughes Airwest, had a duopoly at the airport, until the FAA ruled this illegal.

In 1967, the 22000 sqft Eddie Martin Terminal was built to accommodate 400,000 annual passengers. Remodeling added two passenger holding areas in 1974, a new baggage claim area in 1980 and a terminal annex building in 1982, bringing the facility to 29000 sqft.

Nonstop flights reached Salt Lake City in 1976–77 (Hughes DC-9s), Denver in 1982 (Frontier MD-80s), Dallas/Fort Worth in 1983 (American MD-80s), Chicago–O'Hare in 1986 (AirCal 737-300s), and New York–Kennedy in 1991 (America West 757-200s).

After the Orange County Airport was renamed John Wayne Airport on June 20, 1979, the John Wayne Associates commissioned sculptor Robert Summers to create a bronze statue of "the Duke". The 9 ft statue, created at Hoka Hey Foundry in Dublin, Texas, was dedicated to the County on November 4, 1982. Today, the bronze statue is in the Thomas F. Riley Terminal on the Arrival Level.

In 1990, the Thomas F. Riley Terminal opened. The aging 29000 sqft Eddie Martin Terminal was replaced with a modern 337900 sqft facility. The new facility included 14 loading bridges, four baggage carousels, wide-open spaces and distinct roadside arrival and departure levels. In 1994, the then-unused Eddie Martin Terminal was demolished. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a new, larger airport was proposed for the nearby site of the then recently closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. However, after a series of political battles, combined with significant opposition from residents in the vicinity of El Toro, the proposal was defeated, and no new airport was built.

In 2011, additional terminal space was added and existing terminals were refreshed as part of a $543 million expansion project. A new Terminal C with six additional gates was built along with dedicated commuter gate areas in the new Terminal C and new commuter facilities in Terminal A. A new parking lot C was added along with additional support facilities such as a Central Utility plant.

In June 2020, an airport name change was requested, due to comments John Wayne made, believed to be in support of white supremacy to Playboy in a 1971 interview.

In September 2020, Orange County officials have planned to end all of JSX operations at SNA on January 1, 2021, stating it is "no longer welcomed". This announcement prompted the airline to seek support from customers, encouraging them to contact the Orange County officials for reconsideration in order for the airline to continue operations at Orange County. Since December 2020, the airline has filed a lawsuit against the airport, stating that it has "refused to offer any accommodations" to the airline. It stated that the airport "discriminatorily chose" to terminate the airline's operations at SNA "in favor of two large airlines [Spirit and Allegiant Airlines]..." which the former already operates the same flights to Las Vegas, Reno, and Oakland. Shortly afterwards, the airline won a temporary restraining order, preventing the airport officials from terminating the airline's operations in which a spokeswoman said the airport will comply.

Terminals
There are 22 gates in total. The main passenger terminal, the Thomas F. Riley Terminal, is named for the late county supervisor who lobbied for the airport's expansion in the 1980s. The Thomas F. Riley Terminal is divided into three terminal areas, A, B and C, with dedicated commuter gate areas at the north end of Terminal A and south end of Terminal C.

All three terminals, A, B and C, are within the same Thomas F. Riley building and security screened passengers can move "airside" between all terminal areas. Security screening lanes exist in all three terminals adjacent to check-in. All security screening areas also have a "fast track" lane for first-class and elite frequent fliers along with full TSA PreCheck availability based on TSA defined schedules. Switching between terminals indoors before security "landside" is also possible, the check-in counter areas between all three terminals have connecting walkways to allow access between all terminals. Complimentary Wi-Fi is provided in all three terminals.

Terminals A and B
Terminals A and B were built in 1990 to replace the former Eddie Martin Terminal which was closed upon the new terminals' opening. In November 2011, Terminal A added a dedicated commuter gate area, along with refreshed gates, signage and information displays at both Terminals A and B.

Terminals A and B were designed by Gensler & Associates, Leason Pomeroy Associates, and Thompson Consultants International. They contain restaurants, bars and shops, with a themed restaurant located in the airside connecting area of both terminals. In the upper rotunda above the themed restaurant is an American Airlines Admirals Club (operating out of Terminal A) and a United Club (operating out of Terminal B). The two lounges lie adjacent to each other on the mezzanine level. Terminal A has gates 1–8, and Terminal B has gates 9–15.

Terminal C
Terminal C opened in November 2011 and added seven new gates, a dedicated commuter gate area and new eateries and retail.

Terminal C also provides a U.S. Customs and Border Protection FIS/Federal Inspection Service for international flights that do not have pre-clearance. Two arrival gates feed into the FIS and passengers once cleared exit at the south end of the Terminal C arrivals area. The FIS facility has Global Entry kiosks for registered users to shorten processing time. The FIS facility was designed by Gensler. Terminal C has gates 16–22.

Arrivals level
The Arrivals level is on the lower level of the airport and provides seven baggage claim belts, two in Terminal A, two in Terminal B and three in Terminal C. Baggage Claim 7 is for international arrivals. Immediately outside the baggage claim is the curbside arrivals pickup area. Rental car offices are between Terminal A and B baggage claim areas with most rental agencies on-site in the lower levels of the parking facility across the arrivals pickup area between Terminal A and B. Across the roadway from the arrivals pickup area between Terminal A and B is an island for public transportation, including taxis and buses.

International service
John Wayne Airport offers international flights to Mexico and Canada. The airport did not have any regularly scheduled international service up until 2010 when Air Canada began operations to Toronto, Canada. Flights from Canada complete immigration and customs formalities in Canada via United States border preclearance.

Southwest Airlines is operating international flights to Puerto Vallarta and San José del Cabo in Mexico as of March 11, 2021. Prior to resumption, it previously served flights to Puerto Vallarta from June 18, 2015, until March 2017. Southwest has also served flights to Cabo San Lucas until March 2020, alongside terminating other destinations at the time due to passenger limitations following a 1985 settlement agreement.

Canadian airline WestJet provides non-stop year round service to Vancouver since May 2011. It is also serving direct flights to Calgary; it previously served that route from June 2011 to 2013 before ending operations up until its resumption on November 4, 2021.

Air Canada also provides daily non-stop flights to Vancouver, Canada since October 2, 2021. It was set to start flights in June 2020, and then delayed to September 8, 2020, and then to May 2021, which would have marked its return to service to Orange County after 10 years. It previously operated flights to Toronto, Ontario, Canada from April 8, 2010, becoming the first-ever international airline to serve Orange County, until it ceased flights later that year.

Alaska Airlines was scheduled for international service to Vancouver in 2002. However, a stop in Seattle (or change of planes) was required shortly after launch as John Wayne Airport was not authorized for pre-clearance or international flights by U.S. agencies at the time.

Southwest Airlines' then-subsidiary AirTran Airways began a new service in June 2012 from John Wayne Airport to Cabo San Lucas and Mexico City. This was the first international service to use the new FIS in Terminal C. After its merger with AirTran was completed in 2014, Southwest continued to operate the Mexico flights under its original brand. However, Southwest then ended its service to Mexico City (MEX) from SNA in January 2017 before completely discontinuing all flights to MEX in March 2019.

Mexico's low-cost carrier Interjet began a new service in October 2012 from Orange County to Guadalajara and Mexico City. It ended both flights in July 2014; the airport officials are seeking a replacement.

Alaska Airlines began a Mexico service in October 2015. The airline began offering non-stop flights from John Wayne Airport to Los Cabos on October 8 and Puerto Vallarta on the following day, October 9. Alaska Airlines has continued this service to each airport on an every-other-day rotation. Since August 2019, the airline has discontinued flights to Mexico.

Airline officials have also been in negotiations with Mexican low-cost airline Volaris, which has applied for an Orange County slot.

Aircraft noise abatement and curfew
A 1985 settlement agreement defined the scope of operation for John Wayne Airport in how it affects the local community. The area that lies directly south of John Wayne Airport is considered a noise-sensitive area. The agreement in conjunction with a Phase 2 Commercial Airline Access Plan and Regulation controls the number of noisier operations (mainly commercial aircraft) allowed from the airport. Noise abatement enforcement is carried out with the aid of 10 permanent noise monitoring stations. These stations are placed in areas that exceed a community noise equivalent level (CNEL) of 65 dB. Noise reports are published by the airport and are available to the public.

The takeoff procedure at John Wayne Airport is unique because of the local noise restrictions and short runway. When using the typical traffic pattern (departures from runway 20R) most commercial airliners cycle to full power (95–97%) while holding at the end of the runway then release the brakes when engines are fully spooled up. Pilots must make a steep 25 degree climb to 500 to(-), where engine power is reduced to reduce noise. Pilots must also make a left turn after departure to 175 degrees to enter a corridor over the city of Newport Beach where the noise was deemed to be the least disruptive. These procedures have led passengers to rate John Wayne Airport as one of the nation's scariest.

Departures from 2L (normally during Santa Ana wind conditions) are not affected by these noise abatement procedures. Landings are also typically on runway 20R and almost always include full flap extensions and the use of full reverse thrust. Extension of the runway is almost impossible, as both ends are bounded by freeways along with numerous residences and businesses.

The county prohibits commercial departures between 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM (8:00 AM on Sundays) and commercial arrivals between 11:00 PM and 7:00 AM (8:00 AM on Sundays). Exceptions can be made for an emergency, mechanical, air traffic control, or weather delay, which is beyond the airline's control. Curfew exceptions by carrier are published by the airport and are available to the public.

Settlement amendments
In 2003, the settlement agreement was amended to increase operations but only for aircraft meeting the lowest noise signatures. The amendment increased the annual passenger limit to 10.8 million, up from the original 8.4-million limit.

In 2014, the Orange County Board of Supervisors set the airport restrictions for 2021 at 11.8 million passengers per year. This limit was to be an increase from 10.8 million annual passengers previously.

In 2026, the annual passenger limit is expected to increase to 12.2 or 12.5 million through 2030. The higher limit will be allowed only if the number of passengers reaches 95% of the annual limit in each year between 2021 and 2025.

Passenger
The following airlines offer scheduled passenger service. All international arrivals (excluding flights from destinations with U.S. border preclearance) are processed in Terminal C. JSX operates from space within the ACI Jet building, an adjacent separate facility from the main passenger terminal.

Runways
John Wayne Airport covers 504 acre. The airport has multiple general aviation facilities, an airline concourse building split into three terminal areas, and 2 paved runways.
 * Runway 2L/20R: 5700 x, used by commercial aircraft and general aviation serving most incoming and departing traffic to the west of the airport. This runway is ILS equipped.
 * Runway 2R/20L: 2886 x, used by smaller general aviation aircraft and light aircraft.

General aviation
The airport is the home base for approximately 450 general aviation aircraft.

The General Aviation Master Plan adopted in the early 1990s limits John Wayne Airport to two FBOs (fixed-base operator). Effective January 1, 2021, these two fixed-base operators are Clay Lacy Aviation and ACI Jet. In addition to supporting fuel sales and other aircraft services, these companies lease facilities to flight training, charter, and aircraft maintenance businesses.
 * FBOs:
 * ACI Jet
 * Clay Lacy Aviation
 * Airport businesses
 * Clay Lacy Aviation
 * Martin Aviation Aircraft Maintenance
 * HeliStream
 * OC Helicopters
 * Orange County Flight Center
 * Regency Air
 * Sunrise Aviation
 * Western Avionics

Law enforcement operations
Orange County Sheriff's Department

John Wayne Airport has been the main base for the Orange County Sheriff's Department's Air Support Unit since 1985 when the county's board of supervisors approved the purchase of two Hughes MD 500E aircraft nicknamed "Duke I" and "Duke II". In 1998, the OCSD traded their MD 500E helicopters for newer McDonnell Douglas MD 600N helicopters, becoming the first law enforcement agency to operate the MD 600N. These helicopters were faster, quieter, and safer than the MD 500E.

The Air Support Unit currently operates of fleet of Eurocopter AS350 AStar helicopters, with a Bell UH-1 Iroquois used for search and rescue purposes.

Costa Mesa Police Department

The Costa Mesa Police Department operated an aviation unit out of John Wayne Airport for 41 years. The division was called "ABLE" for Airborne Law Enforcement. ABLE disbanded in 2012; the unit's helicopters at the time of the disbandment were three Eurocopter EC120 Colibris.

Roads and highways
John Wayne Airport is located next to the interchange between I-405 (San Diego Freeway) and MacArthur Boulevard. The airport is also near I-405's interchange with SR 55 (Costa Mesa Freeway). Heading south on MacArthur Boulevard from the airport provides access to SR 73 (Corona del Mar Freeway), which becomes the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor (toll road) southeast of MacArthur Boulevard.

Bus
The airport is served by Orange County Transportation Authority ("OCTA") route 76, which runs only on weekdays from 6 am to 6 pm.

Car rental
On-site car rentals are available in the basement level of the Parking A2/B2 garages. Off-site car rental shuttles are available at the Ground Transportation Center.

Parking
The airport has four parking garages open in the main terminal area: A1, A2, B2 and C. Valet parking is available between at a drop off/pick up area Terminals A and B, and between Terminals B and C. An off-airport parking lot (Main Street Parking) is also available at 1512 Main Street in Irvine, with free shuttle service to the terminals.

Irvine iShuttle
The City of Irvine's iShuttle route A serves the airport and Tustin station. The iShuttle service runs only during weekday rush hours.

Taxis and private shuttles
Taxis and private shuttles are available from the Ground Transportation Center located outside the lower level between Terminal A and B.

Transportation network companies
Transportation network companies, Lyft, Uber and Wingz, are available. Drop-offs can be made at the departure level outside each terminal; pickups are allowed only in designated parking structure areas assigned for pickups for transportation network companies (No pickups are allowed on the arrivals or departures level.)

Accidents and incidents
On February 17, 1981, Air California (AirCal) Flight 336 (a Boeing 737-200), with 105 passengers and five crew members, was flying from San Jose, to John Wayne Airport and crashed upon initiating a go-around. The crew was cleared for a visual approach to Runway 19R while the controller had cleared a smaller plane to take off from 19R. Upon realizing that the landing aircraft might overtake the departing one, the controller ordered the flight to go around and the other aircraft to abort its takeoff, which it did. The captain of the landing Air California aircraft delayed the go-around then initiated a gear up procedure before a positive rate of climb was achieved, causing the plane to stall. The 737 then banked left at low altitude causing the left wingtip to make contact with the runway. Then the nose came down, striking the ground, and the airplane spun around and skidded down the runway before coming to rest in the margin. A fire started, but the passengers and crew exited the plane. Of the passengers, four sustained serious injuries, and 29 suffered minor injuries. The aircraft, registered N468AC, was damaged beyond repair and was written off.

On December 15, 1993, a chartered IAI Westwind business jet carrying two flight crew members and three passengers (including Rich Snyder, president of In-N-Out Burger), crashed while on approach to John Wayne Airport. All five occupants were killed in the crash. The aircraft, which departed Brackett Field, 30 miles to the north in La Verne, followed a Boeing 757 for landing, became caught in the 757's wake turbulence, rolled into a deep descent, and crashed near the intersection of State Route 55 and Edinger Avenue. The crash investigation led to the FAA requirement for an adequate period between heavy aircraft and following light aircraft to allow wake turbulence to diminish.

On February 13, 2017, Harrison Ford accidentally landed his Aviat Husky on taxiway C, to the left of runway 20L. A Boeing 737 was holding short of 20L on the taxiway when Ford overflew them.

On June 30, 2017, a Cessna 310 twin-engine aircraft crashed short of a runway into a highway median on Interstate 405. The pilot made a mayday call shortly after taking off from John Wayne Airport and attempted to land after being cleared for emergency landing on runway 20R. Two people on board were injured in the crash.

On August 5, 2018, a Cessna 414 scheduled to land at John Wayne Airport crashed into a Staples parking lot a few blocks north of the airport in nearby Santa Ana, killing at least five people.

On January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter took off from John Wayne Airport at approximately 9:06 am PST carrying retired NBA basketball player Kobe Bryant along with his 13-year-old daughter, and 7 others bound for Camarillo Airport for a basketball event in Thousand Oaks. En route, the helicopter crashed into a hillside in Calabasas south of U.S. Route 101, killing everyone on board. The helicopter had been seen in distress under heavy fog, according to witnesses. The cause of the crash was pilot error and spatial disorientation.

On the evening of August 20, 2021, an unauthorized person bypassed security and gained access to the tarmac near Terminal C, prompting a lockdown of the airport. The suspect took control of a ground crew vehicle and drove it around before abandoning it and re-entering the terminal. Police later discovered the suspect hiding in an attic space inside the terminal and took him into custody.

On August 20, 2023, Alaska Airlines Flight 1288, a Boeing 737-800 under the registration N516AS suffered landing gear damage after a rough landing upon arrival at John Wayne Airport during Tropical Storm Hilary. The flight, AS1288, originated from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. A video of the landing filmed from inside the cabin and posted online showed a commotion among the passengers and sparks on the runway from the plane. No injuries were reported.

On November 20, 2023, a Cessna 172 taxiing on a runway was flipped over on its high wings by the Santa Ana winds. The pilot was just outside of the plane when it flipped over and was not injured. The airfield was closed for 20 minutes while the plane was being towed away.

Lyon Air Museum
Lyon Air Museum, founded by Major General William Lyon in 2009, is located in a hangar on the west side of the airport. It focuses particularly on World War II military aircraft and vehicles. The museum hosts the Collings Foundation, an annual flight experience program, every spring, allowing the public the opportunity to fly in a historic Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress or Consolidated B-24 Liberator. The air museum features a rotating selection of antique cars from General Lyon's personal collection every year for a limited time. Past features include a collection of the General's Duesenbergs and Packard collections.

Climate
The area around John Wayne Airport has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb) characteristic of coastal Southern California.

title: John Wayne Airport


text:
Talk:The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel

Untitled
Hello, fellow Wikipedians. I would appreciate some proof-reading, as my English is not the best possible. Thank you in advance. Kostasge

 * I did a quick proof-read, fixed some small grammar mistakes and reworked some sentences for clarity and simplicity. This article still should have some more work done to make it into a cleaner read --Rab V

title: Talk:The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel


text:
Potassium bromide

Potassium bromide (KBr) is a salt, widely used as an anticonvulsant and a sedative in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with over-the-counter use extending to 1975 in the US. Its action is due to the bromide ion (sodium bromide is equally effective). Potassium bromide is used as a veterinary drug, in antiepileptic medication for dogs.

Under standard conditions, potassium bromide is a white crystalline powder. It is freely soluble in water; it is not soluble in acetonitrile. In a dilute aqueous solution, potassium bromide tastes sweet, at higher concentrations it tastes bitter, and tastes salty when the concentration is even higher. These effects are mainly due to the properties of the potassium ion—sodium bromide tastes salty at any concentration. In high concentration, potassium bromide strongly irritates the gastric mucous membrane, causing nausea and sometimes vomiting (a typical effect of all soluble potassium salts).

Chemical properties
Potassium bromide, a typical ionic salt, is fully dissociated and near pH 7 in aqueous solution. It serves as a source of bromide ions. This reaction is important for the manufacture of silver bromide for photographic film:

Aqueous bromide Br- also forms complexes when reacted with some metal halides such as copper(II) bromide:

Preparation
A traditional method for the manufacture of KBr is the reaction of potassium carbonate with an iron(III, II) bromide, Fe3Br8, made by treating scrap iron under water with excess bromine:

Medical and veterinary

The anticonvulsant properties of potassium bromide were first noted by Sir Charles Locock at a meeting of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1857. Bromide can be regarded as the first effective medication for epilepsy. At the time, it was commonly thought that epilepsy was caused by masturbation. Locock noted that bromide calmed sexual excitement and thought this was responsible for his success in treating seizures. In the latter half of the 19th century, potassium bromide was used for the calming of seizure and nervous disorders on an enormous scale, with the use by single hospitals being as much as several tons a year (the dose for a given person being a few grams per day). By the beginning of the 20th century the generic word had become so widely associated with being sedate that bromide came to mean a dull, sedate person or a boring platitude uttered by such a person.

There was not a better epilepsy drug until phenobarbital in 1912. The British Army has historically been claimed to lace soldiers' tea with bromide to quell sexual arousal and in the Victorian era prisoners in England were compulsorily dosed with the chemical.

Bromide compounds, especially sodium bromide, remained in over-the-counter sedatives and headache remedies (such as the original formulation of Bromo-Seltzer) in the US until 1975, when bromides were outlawed in all over-the-counter medicines, due to chronic toxicity. Bromide's exceedingly long half life in the body made it difficult to dose without side effects. Medical use of bromides in the US was discontinued at this time, as many better and shorter-acting sedatives were known by then.

Potassium bromide is used in veterinary medicine to treat epilepsy in dogs, either as first-line treatment or in addition to phenobarbital, when seizures are not adequately controlled with phenobarbital alone. Use of bromide in cats is limited because it carries a substantial risk of causing lung inflammation (pneumonitis) in them. Why bromides should cause such inflammation in cats, but not in dogs is not clear.

The use of bromide as a treatment drug for animals means that veterinary medical diagnostic laboratories are able as a matter of routine to measure serum levels of bromide on order of a veterinarian, whereas human medical diagnostic labs in the US do not measure bromide as a routine test.

Potassium bromide is not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in humans to control seizures. In Germany, it is still approved as an antiepileptic drug for humans, particularly children and adolescents. These indications include severe forms of generalized tonic-clonic seizures, early-childhood-related tonic–clonic seizures, and also severe myoclonic seizures during childhood. Adults who have reacted positively to the drug during childhood/adolescence may continue treatment. Potassium bromide tablets are sold under the brand name Dibro-Be mono (Rx-only). The drug has almost complete bioavailability, but the bromide ion has a relatively long half life of 12 days in the blood, making bromide salts difficult to adjust and dose. Bromide is not known to interfere with the absorption or excretion of any other anticonvulsant, though it does have strong interactions with chloride in the body, the normal body uptake and excretion of which strongly influences bromide's excretion.

The therapeutic index (ratio of effectiveness to toxicity) for bromide is small. As with other antiepileptics, sometimes even therapeutic doses (3 to 5 grams per day, taking 6 to 8 weeks to reach stable levels) may give rise to intoxication. Often indistinguishable from 'expected' side-effects, these include:

 * Bromism These are central nervous system reactions. They may include:
 * depression,
 * lethargy, somnolence (from daytime sleepiness to coma)
 * loss of appetite and cachexia, nausea/emesis with exicosis (loss of body fluid)
 * loss of reflexes or pathologic reflexes
 * clonic seizures
 * tremor
 * ataxia
 * loss of neural sensitivity
 * paresis
 * cerebral edema with associated headache and papilledema of the eyes
 * delirium: confusion, abnormal speech, loss of concentration and memory, aggressiveness
 * psychosis

 * Acne-form dermatitis and other forms of skin disease may also be seen, as well as mucous hypersecretion in the lungs. Asthma and rhinitis may worsen. Rarely, tongue disorder, aphthous stomatitis, bad breath, and constipation occur.

Optics
Potassium bromide is transparent from the near ultraviolet to long-wave infrared wavelengths (0.25-25 μm) and has no significant optical absorption lines in its high transmission region. It is used widely as infrared optical windows and components for general spectroscopy because of its wide spectral range. In infrared spectroscopy, samples are analyzed by grinding with powdered potassium bromide and pressing into a disc. Alternatively, samples may be analyzed as a liquid film (neat, as a solution, or in a mull with Nujol) between two polished potassium bromide discs.

Due to its high solubility and hygroscopic nature it must be kept in a dry environment. The refractive index is about 1.55 at 1.0 μm.

Photography
In addition to manufacture of silver bromide, potassium bromide is used as a restrainer in black and white developer formulas. It improves differentiation between exposed and unexposed crystals of silver halide, and thus reduces fog.

title: Potassium bromide


text:
Giorgio Bassani

Giorgio Bassani (Bologna, 4 March 1916 – Rome, 13 April 2000) was an Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor, and international intellectual.

Biography
Bassani was born in Bologna into a prosperous Jewish family of Ferrara, where he spent his childhood with his mother Dora, father Enrico (a doctor), brother Paolo, and sister Jenny. In 1934 he completed his studies at his secondary school, the liceo classico L. Ariosto in Ferrara. The high school's historical archive contains many documents and photos concerning his young life, which are displayed in the atrium that they dedicated to him. Music had been his first great passion and he considered a career as a pianist; however, literature soon became the focus of his artistic interests.

In 1935 he enrolled in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bologna. Commuting to lectures by train (third class) from Ferrara, he studied under the art historian Roberto Longhi. His ideal of the "free intellectual" was the liberal historian and philosopher Benedetto Croce. Despite the anti-Semitic race laws which were introduced in 1938, he was able to graduate in 1939, writing a thesis on the nineteenth-century writer, journalist, radical and lexicographer Niccolò Tommaseo. As a Jew in 1939, however, work opportunities were now limited and he became a schoolteacher in the Jewish School of Ferrara in via Vignatagliata.

In 1940, his first book, Una città di pianura ("A City of the Plain"), was published under the pseudonym "Giacomo Marchi" in order to evade the race laws. He chose the name of Dora's brother, Giacomo Minerbi, and the surname of his maternal grandmother, Emma Marchi. During this period, along with friends he had made in Ferrara's intellectual circle, he became a clandestine political activist. His activity in the anti-fascist resistance led to his arrest in May 1943; he was released on 26 July, the day after Benito Mussolini was ousted from power.

A little over a week later he married Valeria Sinigallia, whom he had met playing tennis. They moved to Florence for a brief period, living under assumed names, then at the end of the year, to Rome, where he spent the rest of his life. His first volume of poems, Storie dei poveri amanti e altri versi, appeared in 1944; a second, Te lucis ante, followed in 1947. He edited the literary review Botteghe oscure for Princess Marguerite Caetani from its founding in 1948 until it ceased publication in 1960.

In 1953, La passeggiata prima di cena appeared and in 1954, Gli ultimi anni di Clelia Trotti. In the same year, he became editor of Paragone, a journal founded by Longhi and his wife, Anna Banti. Bassani's writings reached a wider audience in 1956 with the publication of the Premio Strega-winning book of short stories, Cinque storie ferraresi (the five stories are Lida Mantovani, La passeggiata prima di cena, Una lapide in via Mazzini, Gli ultimi anni di Clelia Trotti, and Una notte del '43).

As an editorial director of Feltrinelli, Bassani was responsible for the posthumous publication in 1958 of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo, a novel which had been rejected by Elio Vittorini at Mondadori, and Einaudi. It became one of the great successes of post-war Italian literature. Bassani's enthusiastic editing of the text, following instructions from Elena Croce (daughter of Benedetto), who had offered him the manuscript, later became controversial; however, recent editions have been published which follow the manuscript more closely.

Also in 1958, Bassani's novel Gli occhiali d'oro (made into a film in 1987) was published, an examination, in part, of the marginalisation of Jews and homosexuals. Together with stories from Cinque storie ferraresi (reworked and under the new title Dentro le mura (1973)), it was to form part of a series of works known collectively as Il romanzo di Ferrara, which explored the city, with its Christian and Jewish elements, its perspectives and its landscapes. The series includes: Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini (The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, 1962, Premio Viareggio prizewinner); Dietro la porta (1964); L'airone (1968) and L'odore del fieno (1972). These works realistically document the Italian Jewish community under Fascism in a style that manifests the difficulties of searching for truth in the meanderings of memory and moral conscience. In 1960 one of his short stories (Una notte del '43, from Cinque storie ferraresi) was adapted as the film Long Night in 1943. A stage adaptation of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by opera composer Ricky Ian Gordon is set to premiere in January 2022. It is a co-production of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and the New York City Opera.

From 1965 to 1980, Giorgio Bassani was the president of the organization Italia Nostra.

Bassani died in 2000 and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ferrara, the same place where he located the graves of the family Finzi-Contini. He was survived by his estranged wife Valeria and their two children, Paola (born 1 September 1945) and Enrico (born 29 June 1949). He had been with his companion Portia Prebys since shortly after they met in 1977. The city of Ferrara decided to commemorate his life by giving his name to the Communal Library and the Urban Park in the Northern part of the city.

Bassani received the, the Strega, the Campiello, the Viareggio and the Nelly Sachs prizes. He collaborated on several screenplays.

Awards

 * 1956 - Strega Prize for "Cinque storie ferraresi"
 * 1962 - Viareggio Prize
 * 1969 - Nelly Sachs Prize
 * 1969 - Campiello Prize for "L'airone"
 * 1983 - Bagutta Prize for "In rima e senza"
 * 1987 - Pirandello Prize
 * 1992 - Feltrinelli Prize for Prose

Publications

 * Within the Walls (Dentro le mura) – 1956
 * The Gold-rimmed Spectacles (Gli occhiali d'oro) – 1958
 * A Prospect of Ferrara (Cinque storie ferraresi) – 1962
 * The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini) – 1962
 * The Heron (L'airone) – 1970
 * Five Stories of Ferrara (Cinque storie ferraresi) – 1971
 * The Smell of Hay (L'odore del fieno) – 1972
 * Behind the Door (Dietro la porta) – 1972
 * Il romanzo di Ferrara (1974; revised 1980). The Novel of Ferrara, trans. Jamie McKendrick (2018)
 * Rolls Royce and Other Poems (extracts from Epitaffio and In gran segreto) – 1982

Film adaptations

 * Long Night in 1943
 * The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
 * The Gold Rimmed Glasses

title: Giorgio Bassani