Jan. 21, 2006

“This is not about politics. This is about improving the lives of poor people. This is about people helping people.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Street theater drew the attention of passers-by to a demonstration Jan. 13 by 45 wheelchaired people and their supporters protesting the launching of an initiative that would deny access rights to Californians with disabilities.

The “Wal-Mart, low-wage, limited-benefit” stage of the U.S. economy is built on a foundation of unsustainable increases in debt: household debt, corporate debt, and government debt.

Still trying to reinvent himself as a moderate, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled a proposed $125.6 billion state budget Jan. 10 with more funds for transportation and education but with significant cuts for welfare recipients.

Disabled suffer irreparable harm after losing access to vital medications under new privatized prescription drug plan

I work in the field of mental health, and have managed or worked at group homes for people with psychiatric disabilities for several years. Most of my clients are able to live stable lives, outside of mental hospitals and in the community, largely due to the development of many new anti-psychotic medications that manage the symptoms of mental illness (i.e. hearing voices or hallucinations).

HOUSTON — Support for Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is dwindling in his home district even as the former Speaker of the House threatens to “sue any station” that runs advertisements linking him to corruption. A new poll conducted for the Houston Chronicle indicated that only half those who voted for him in ’04 would do so again today. Sixty percent gave him an overall unfavorable rating while only 28 percent gave him a favorable rating.

“Vietnam is a country, not a war.”

I now understand that better than ever. But I must admit I was excited to visit Vietnam this November, mostly because the war, and its opposition, had re-shaped forever my young life in the 1960s.

Faced with growing popular demand to end the Iraq war and bring American soldiers home quickly, and pressed by November elections that will decide the composition of Congress through 2008, the Bush administration has begun to talk about withdrawing some U.S. troops. “As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down, President Bush said last November. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said present U.S. troop levels would not be needed “for very much longer” because Iraqi forces were becoming more effective.

Just before Christmas, Vice President Dick Cheney, his face fixed in its perpetual Scrooge-like scowl, flew home from the Middle East to cast a tie-breaking Senate vote for a budget reconciliation bill that cuts human needs programs by $40 billion while showering the rich with another $70 billion in tax cuts.