Feb. 10, 2007

On Feb. 1 Exxon Mobil announced the largest profits ever earned by a U.S. company — $40 billion in 2006. A day later, the UK Guardian reported that the Exxon-funded Bush-connected American Enterprise Institute sent letters to scientists and economists offering them $10,000 each to write articles that undermine the UN-sponsored report on global warming.

WASHINGTON — The antiwar movement voiced outrage that the Republican minority in the Senate voted Feb. 5 to block debate on a bipartisan resolution condemning President Bush’s plan to send an additional 48,000 troops into the bloody Iraq quagmire.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Feb. 1, Zbigniew Brzezinski blasted the “U.S. war of choice in Iraq” calling it a “historic, strategic and moral calamity.”

A report released last week by the California Legislative Black Caucus titled “The State of Black California” reveals the glaring inequalities faced by the state’s African Americans and Latinos in overall economic well-being, housing, health, education and treatment by the criminal justice system.

WASHINGTON — President Bush sent a $2.9 trillion “guns not butter” 2008 budget to Congress Feb. 5, loaded with goodies for the rich, for corporations and the war-makers, but bare bones for working people, senior citizens, children and the poor.

When the public schools in New Orleans reopened after the winter holidays, 300 students were without a school to attend. These students have returned from other cities and towns where they were forced to relocate after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005.

RICHMOND, Va.: Immigrant workers protest state crackdown
RALEIGH, N.C.: NAACP marches for people before profits
PORTLAND, Ore.: Grannies go to jail
BALTIMORE: Homeless workers fill shelters

The Senate voted 94-3 last week to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 over two years from the current $5.15 per hour, but in a maneuver by Republicans it tied the hike to corporate tax breaks and delayed passage of the bill into law.

The AFL-CIO and the Change to Win unions have launched a full-court press to restore workers’ rights to join a union and bargain a contract.

Texas progressives mourned the death of columnist and author Molly Ivins, who succumbed to cancer Jan. 31. Even the people she antagonized most — corporate bigwigs and greedy politicians — made public lamentations about the loss of our true Texas satirist.