Dec. 3, 2005

CRAWFORD, Texas — The rainy weather forecasts didn’t deter the hundreds of antiwar protestors from showing up here Thanksgiving weekend. Gold Star Families for Peace co-founder Cindy Sheehan joined her sister, Dede Miller, veterans, military families and others at Camp Casey II for a Nov. 26 rally, just outside of President George W. Bush’s ranch, to demand an immediate end to the U.S. occupation and war in Iraq.

WASHINGTON — The Coalition on Human Needs (CHN) denounced as a “spectacle of greed” a House vote Nov. 18 to approve $50 billion in cutbacks to food stamps, Medicaid and other vital benefits for the poor coupled with a push for $70 billion in tax cuts for millionaires.

Ken BeSaw, a 26-year volunteer worker for the PWW/Mundo, is bowling for dollars — fund raising dollars, that is. BeSaw plans to raise money for his favorite newspaper: the People’s Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo!

WASHINGTON — Would you buy a used car from Judge Samuel Alito? The question arises because of a memo he wrote to President Ronald Reagan, dated Oct. 27, 1986, urging Reagan to veto the “Truth in Mileage” Act designed to protect consumers from unscrupulous dealers who roll back the odometers on used cars they sell.

The Bush administration and the Iraqi government are once more on the receiving end of international outrage following the discovery of a torture dungeon linked to the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, and the admission that American soldiers used the deadly chemical white phosphorous in its assault on Fallujah nearly a year ago, something the Bush administration had repeatedly denied.

DETROIT (PAI) — United Auto Workers members were hit with a one-two punch in late November as bankrupt Delphi Auto Parts disclosed its latest wage proposals — which would put its lowest-paid workers’ wages slightly above Wal-Mart’s average — while GM proposed shutting plants and cutting 30,000 jobs by 2007-2008.

S. CHARLESTON, W.Va.: City says ‘bring troops home now’
DENVER: Bush seeks campaign money, finds protesters
Nationwide: End the death penalty!
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.: Pipe workers fight for retiree benefits

“Oh, I see you have no life either!” With that grim joke, Cleveland teachers greet each other when they come in to work on Saturdays without pay.”

WASHINGTON — Some details remain to be settled, but the AFL-CIO announced Nov. 16 that it will begin issuing “solidarity charters” to locals whose international unions recently disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO and joined the Change to Win Federation.

“Just as the government failed to get folks out and people were left to die, they are failing right now to give survivors decent shelter and an opportunity to return,” said William Quigley, law professor at Loyola University New Orleans Law School.

In the wake of dissolution of Israel’s parliament and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s subsequent resignation from the right-wing Likud Party on Nov. 21, a new election has been set for March 28. This will be the fifth Israeli election in the past 10 years, yet it may be the first one in a long time to have real potential for promoting peace and justice in the region.

Evo Morales, an indigenous leader and candidate of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), is favored to win Bolivia’s presidential elections on Dec. 18.

Ireland: Ferry workers protest
Haiti: UN complicit in deaths
Indonesia: U.S. military aid hit
New Zealand: Starbucks strike
Liberia: Firestone sued

PHILADELPHIA — Amtrak’s Board of Directors is engaged in union busting in order to shift the ownership of this valuable public asset over to the Bush administration’s private campaign contributors. This was the charge leveled by Mark Kenney, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) at a rally at the 30th Street Amtrak station here Nov. 16. The situation is heading toward a service shutdown of Amtrak, which would also shut down the commuters who depend upon the Northeast Corridor, according to union rail workers.

The federal deficit is becoming a central point of political struggle. Republicans in Congress are trying to enact a series of cuts in vital programs while extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. In the midst of this struggle, President Bush has been given the opportunity to make an important appointment. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed) since 1987, is stepping down in January, and Bush has nominated Ben Bernanke to replace him.

Veep hopes to secure place in history. Vice President Dick Cheney announced plans today to seek an historic sixth draft deferment, realizing a longstanding personal dream of his.

Human Rights Day: Dec. 10
Mr. Grinch, you’re a mean one
Wal-Mart employees association
Solidarity with Australia
Hold the tomato
Movement grows to de-privatize health care

WASHINGTON (PAI) — Hurricane Katrina shows the U.S. public health care system, which is supposed to handle millions of people in event of a calamity, is in great danger, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association and a former Maryland secretary of public health said.

NEW YORK — Wall Street and much of this city’s renowned financial district were built on the burial ground of African slaves. New York’s prosperity stems in large part from the grotesque profits of the African slave trade and African enslavement.

President George W. Bush is continuing his lies to justify the unjustifiable. In a Nov. 30 speech crafted to contain a brewing rebellion against his failed Iraq policy, he led off with a long-discredited whopper, alluding to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and linking them to the Iraq “battlefront.” As we know, there was no Iraqi involvement in 9/11. But since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, terrorist attacks have increased worldwide, especially against Iraqi civilians.

It is appalling and cruel that anti-democratic anti-abortion forces, including the Bush Justice Department, are attacking the rights of young women, often the victims of rape and incest.

Hurricane Wilma appeal
Looking for Gulf Coast contacts
Sports skills
Drug plan ripoff
A real drug plan
Different take on 50 Cent
Older than we thought

When and where will the horrors of the Cheney-Bush administration finally end? What will they not stoop to? In the very midst of the excruciatingly public dispute about whether we should allow our leaders to use torture, and whether in fact they have been sending prisoners all over the globe to be tortured, the United States now admits to chemical warfare. What’s next, the use of bird flu as an antipersonnel weapon?

Forget about the hurricanes. Put them out of your mind. We’ll never know for sure that any particular hurricane is caused by global warming, so just don’t think about them. Instead, concentrate on the other evidence for climate change that’s appeared recently:

Each year Bill Meyer reviews movies shown at the Toronto International Film Festival for the PWW. The following is the first in his Progressive Cinema series.

The Nov. 16 CBS special, “I Walk the Line: A Night for Johnny Cash,” featured everybody from Sheryl Crow to Martina McBride, from Dwight Yoakam to U2, performing some of Cash’s most famous songs. It was a night of extraordinary music and yet it only spotlighted the fact that Cash was unique. No one else can “do” Johnny Cash. It’s got to be the real deal.

The USA Patriot Act, major parts of which have to be reauthorized by Congress before the end of the year, has run into unexpected trouble, with both Democrats and some Republicans balking on conceding powers desired by the White House.

Routine administrative and legal procedures are often subject to manipulation, never more so than when Cuba’s enemies manipulate them.

WASHINGTON – La Coalición por las Necesidades Humanas (CNH) denunció el “espectáculo de avaricia” que dicen fue el voto el 18 de noviembre en la Cámara que aprobó recortes de $50 mil millones en fondos para cupones de alimento, Medicaid, y otros beneficios vitales para los pobres durante los próximos cinco años, mientras que el liderazgo republicano busca recortes de lo que los ricos pagan en impuestos de $70 mil millones.

CRAWFORD, Tejas — La noticias de lluvia no detuvo a los cientos de gente antiguerra que llegaron aquí el fin de semana del Día de Acción de Gracias. Cindy Sheehan, fundadora del grupo Familias de Estrellas Doradas por la Paz, se unió a su hermana, Dede Miller, veteranos, familias militares y otros en el Campamento Casey II para una manifestación el 26 de noviembre, afuera del rancho del presidente George W. Bush, para exigir un fin inmediato a la ocupación y guerra en Irak.

El Nuevo Herald, de Miami, reveló que, según “un testigo del gobierno de Venezuela en la investigación de la muerte del fiscal Danilo Anderson”, el ex director del FBI de Miami, Héctor Pesquera, que orientó, organizó y realizó el arresto de cinco cubanos que convirtió en espías en un gran show mediático, participó en una reunión en Panamá en la que se planeó el asesinato del alto funcionario venezolano.

SANTIAGO DE CHILE (Agencia de Noticias Mundo Posible) – Luego de que el juez Carlos Cerda, quien está a cargo del caso Riggs, resolvió procesar a Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, tras la declaración que el ex dictador realizó, las declaraciones de alegría no se hicieron esperar.

PITTSBURGH — “Big John” Murtha, congresista en la Cámara de Representante por el distrito 12 de Pennsylvania, y es un tipo que no le gustan los disparates de un distrito que tampoco le gustan los disparates.