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President denies he knows big donor
WASHINGTON, D.C. — (OfficialWire) — 01/08/06 — Jack Abramoff who according to several accounts including his own has collected more than $120,000 on behalf of George W. Bush and was once considered a ’pioneer’ for the Bush/Cheney election/re-election machine. Today, he’s persona-non-grata-at least at the White House.
TIME magazine reports that aides to Bush are trying to determine whether or not there are any photos of the President and the fallen (…)

By: By Josh Meyer
WASHINGTON - In a clumsy effort to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, the CIA in 2004 intentionally handed Tehran some top-secret bomb designs laced with a hidden flaw that U.S. officials hoped would doom any weapon made from them, according to a new book about the U.S. intelligence agency.
But the Iranians were tipped to the scheme by the Russian defector hired by the CIA to deliver the plans and may have gleaned scientific information useful for designing a bomb, writes (…)

By Mary MacElveen
As each New Year starts many in a “Polly Anna” fashion and with a deep abiding faith in a higher power people believe that it will be better than the last. We celebrate as the seconds pass by where we enter the New Year only for the crushing blow of reality to hit us. We are living through some sort of twilight zone or time loop that has us repeating the same year we left.
What we left was one of the bloodiest years yet in Iraq and now it is happening all over again (…)

Country slashes fuel prices to help ease heating costs among U.S. poor.
*Singer/activist Harry Belafonte has given public props to the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for providing cheap home heating oil to poor families in the United States.
"This generosity that has been offered to the United States says very much about the Venezuelan spirit," said Belafonte during a visit to the country Wednesday to meet with a delegation of civil rights activists. (…)

A statement made by the West Belfast member of Parliament and President of Sinn Fein in Belfast yesterday, on the prospects of restoring devolved government in Northern Ireland
Now is the time for all those who are genuinely interested in seeing the power-sharing government in the north restored and the peace process advanced to show leadership and make a real and genuine effort to end the political vacuum.
Last year, despite all of the short-term difficulties and obstacles placed in the (…)

By MARY DEIBEL
To most Americans, Samuel Alito remains as much a "stealth" candidate for Supreme Court as he was the day that President Bush named him to replace the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor, the justice at the center of a deeply divided court.
But Alito’s work on the federal bench for 15 years, and as a Reagan Justice Department official before that, read large on the radar screen of the Bush White House and its outside advisers.
Since Bush tapped Alito Oct. 31, outside groups and (…)

By civilrights.org staff
With Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearings scheduled to begin next week, groups opposed to President Bush’s nominee to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court are stepping up their efforts to inform the public about Alito’s record.
IndependentCourt.org, a coalition of public interest organizations, launched a new 30-second television spot Wednesday focusing on the fact that as a federal judge, Alito has more than once broken promises he made to the Senate (…)

by Katrina vanden Heuvel
It didn’t take Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s guilty plea to three felony counts of conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion to understand that the scale of corruption in the GOP-dominated Congress had risen to obscene heights. But it sure helps expose the cesspool of corruption in that GOP-dominated Congress.
"When this is all over, this will be bigger than [any government scandal] in the last 50 years, both in the amount of people involved and the (…)

By Steve James
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The blast that killed 12 miners in a West Virginia mine has given coal mining a black eye just as the long-stagnant industry had begun turning a profit after decades of red ink.
Analysts and industry experts said on Wednesday that the disaster, in which the 12 missing men were at first mistakenly reported alive, could have a negative impact on recruitment at a time when the industry is short of skilled workers.
However, they did not believe the (…)

by Rick Wolff
The US pension systems for workers are now widespread disasters. Many corporations and many cities and states lack the money to pay all the benefits they have promised and legally owe to present and future retirees. Estimates of the shortfall range around $450 billion in the private sector plus at least another $300 billion in the public sector. Retired workers with lost or reduced pensions suffer extra strain on family and household finances. Millions now working expect (…)