Sept. 8, 2007

On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedy, as ceremonies are planned to commemorate nearly 3,000 lives lost in the terrorist attacks that day, a question looms in the minds of many Americans: Has the Bush administration’s response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon made the world a safer place?

A federal judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking the Social Security Administration from sending revised “no-match” letters to 140,000 employers, potentially covering the records of approximately 8 million workers. Many feared the letters would create massive economic disruption and injustice.

Great Labor Day quote
Nursing home reform
End poverty!
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Has South Africa’s fledgling democracy entered its own version of a lame-duck season? With Thabo Mbeki constitutionally unable to stand for a third term as South Africa’s head of state and the presidential season just over a year away, some pundits have begun speculating that the leading figure in South African politics for the past decade is a spent force.

So far, Texas’ pleas for mercy have met stony silence from the other 49 states. Discredited Bushites, driven from their power perches in Washington, shamed before the nation and barely ahead of indictment, are flocking into the Lone Star State. Not one single other state has offered to take them!

In July 2007, nine members of the Young Communist League USA joined 51 other Americans on the 38th Venceremos Brigade to Cuba. Since 1969, Venceremos (“We shall overcome”) Brigades have been a way for Americans to show solidarity with the Cuban Revolution by working side by side with Cuban workers and challenging the U.S. economic blockade and travel ban.

While it’s true that many parents would like to see their children become a bit more enthusiastic about household chores, they probably wouldn’t want to see them in the kind of world depicted in “Kid Nation,” the new CBS reality TV show. The show debuts Sept. 19.

Did the Bush administration kidnap former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, or did Aristide leave office voluntarily on Feb. 29, 2004, as the administration alleges? Randall Robinson, in “An Unbroken Agony,” argues persuasively that the United States kidnapped Haiti’s president. He also explains the reasons for Aristide’s ouster.

“Never Turning Back: The World of Peggy Lipschutz” is a film about 88-year-old artist and political activist Peggy Lipschutz of Evanston, Ill.