May 26, 2007

WASHINGTON — President Bush will churn out shopworn platitudes about the sacrifices of the nation’s brave soldiers this Memorial Day. But many of the soldiers, active duty and retired, are not listening. Instead, they want Bush to stop ducking and answer some hard questions.

The Senate-White House compromise bill on immigration reform was no sooner submitted than it ran into a storm of opposition.

The Communist Party’s African American Equality Commission will hold a conference in St. Louis on June 8-10.

The scandal that led to the forced resignation of Iraq war guru Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank “is just the tip of the iceberg,” Nadia Martinez, who co-directs the Institute for Policy Studies’ Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, wrote earlier this month.

DETROIT — The restructuring taking place in the auto industry took a dramatic turn May 15 when Cerberus, the New York private equity investment firm, acquired an 80.1 percent controlling share of Chrysler and renamed it Chrysler Holdings. Daimler, formerly DaimlerChrysler, will retain a 19.1 percent share.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — In most of the country, the housing boom is past. Not in New York City. Apartments, office towers, hotels, luxury entertainment facilities and mixed-use complexes rise to 70 stories. In recent years, housing costs were 30 percent of family income, but now in Manhattan they are 50 percent for many families.

PORTLAND, Maine: Impeach Bush/Cheney drive gets boost
LOS ANGELES: Jewish Americans petition to end Iraq war
ENDICOTT, N.Y.: IBM workers fight outsourcing

Thinking about the war dead on Memorial Day, “the most important thing is the people who are still there — caring for them, bringing them home,” said Toby, an Army vet from Indiana who served 15 months in Iraq, as he staffed the phone at the Iraq Veterans Against the War office in Philadelphia.

Earlier this month, filmmaker Michael Moore announced that he had received a letter from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) accusing him of illegal travel to Cuba, and threatening prosecution.

PHILADELPHIA — Lawyers for Mumia Abu-Jamal told a federal appeals court here May 17 that Abu-Jamal should get a new trial because prosecutors illegally excluded Blacks from the jury that convicted him in 1982.