Dec. 9, 2006

John Bolton delivered the Bush administration’s bellicose, arrogant war-first policy to the UN, and U.S. voters took him out.

Smile
Getting out of disaster
Timetable or doom
EPA: who needs science?
Free Mumia
Cartoons a plus

With a flourish, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services revealed its new test for naturalization last week. If it is implemented nationally in 2008 as planned, it will raise the bar a little higher for immigrants wishing to become U.S. citizens. And George W. Bush probably could not pass it.

Arizona made history Nov. 7 when its voters became the first in the nation to reject a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Why Arizona? How come voters in more liberal states have voted for similar hateful laws while conservative Arizona voted no?

On Dec. 4, the Supreme Court heard two cases from Louisville and Seattle that consider whether to limit public school districts’ ability to fulfill the promise of school integration enunciated in Brown v. Board of Education over a half-century ago.

Just prior to the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration sent out the word, which was echoed by most of the media, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: nuclear bombs, anthrax and poison gas. They ranted and raved that Iraq was a threat to the United States.

Attend a rally or march these days and your spirits will likely be lifted by a labor chorus singing songs, some old and well-loved, but also new ones full of fightback against Wal-Mart’s union-busting or the Bush-Cheney war on working people at home and abroad.

Actor Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” is problematic at best. Good intentions behind the film are overwhelmed by elitism and the very likely negative social consequences of the film’s popularity.