March 22, 2008

Soldier Camilo Mejia, who spent nine months in prison for refusing to return to Iraq combat, appealed for an outpouring of resistance to the Iraq war as it enters its sixth year with no end in sight. Mejia spoke at the concluding session of the four-day “Winter Soldier” hearings, March 13-16, sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War. Mejia in IVAW’s national chair.

WASHINGTON — Thousands at the “Take Back America” conference here March 17-19 cheered as speakers called for a concerted get-out-the-vote drive to end 30 years of right-wing Republican dominance and open the way for progressive change.

Cuba: Literacy milestone reached

UN: Women paid less

South Africa: Death penalty discussed, again

Malaysia: Winds of change

Israel: Land grab threatens negotiations

Guatemala: Violence continues

Most Americans are having no trouble figuring out whether or not we are in a recession. Certainly not the 100,000 workers tossed onto the jobless pile in January and February, or the millions living an economic nightmare following last summer’s bursting housing bubble, the subprime mortgage crisis, and the resulting credit crunch.

Everywhere Republican presidential candidate John McCain goes these days he is finding union activists confronting him on economic issues and demanding that he speak to working families’ concerns. Since March 1, union members have held actions at McCain events in Ohio, Missouri and New Hampshire.

On March 11, Republican Rep. Thelma Drake of Virginia filed a “discharge petition” on the SAVE Act, HR 4088, to bring it directly to the House floor for debate, bypassing several committees. Immigrants’ rights advocates are warning that there is a real danger the bill could pass, and are calling for intensified lobbying against it.

WASHINGTON — The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is such a cliffhanger it has taken the national spotlight off an equally intense struggle: the battle for control of the House and Senate in the 2008 elections.

Seventy-six years ago, in the depths of the Great Depression, with jobless workers selling apples on street corners and millions turned out of their homes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt accepted the Democratic presidential nomination calling for a New Deal for the “forgotten” American people.

As preparations pick up steam for this summer’s Beijing Olympics, the world has looked with growing dismay at the violence associated with protests seeking independence for Tibet.

McCain and the moderate myth

$200 billion? Not for us

Free Mumia

Fences