contributions

By Mark Weisbrot
WASHINGTON — Will the U.S. economy do as well in 2006 as it did in 2005? That may well depend on whether we can make it through another year without any of the current economy’s big imbalances and unsustainable trends coming back to bite us. The median forecast for Gross Domestic Product growth in 2006, according to Bloomberg News’ latest survey of 71 economists, is 3.4 percent. This is a little less than estimates for 2005, although a significant slowing from last (…)

by Monica Benderman
.... at the exclusion of the few courageous members who are willing to stand on their own and speak the truth... with all due respect.
What are you afraid of? That without your office you are nothing? That it is your elected office that makes you who you are, and if you lose it, you will be nothing more than a common citizen again? Perhaps that is what has to happen, for you to realize that even in office, you are a common citizen. You are failing us - time to go (…)

If anybody needs any more proof of how phony the Bushies’ war on terror is, all one had to do was go out on New Year’s Eve or watch the festivities in NY or elsewhere.
Everywhere, people were reveling, partying and generally having a grand time. What was missing from this year’s festivities were the fascist federal government’s phony terror alerts.
What, were the terrorists taking a vacation? The right-wing loonies will tell us that our beneficient federales are doing such a bang-up job (…)

Happy New Year! MSNBC Poll Says 86% Favor Impeachment MSNBC poll now, at this link, with 184,866 responses (as I write this)...... The online question: "Do you believe President Bush’s actions justify impeachment?"
The 184,866 responses:
"Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial. 86%
No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching ’high crimes and misdemeanors.’ 4%
No, the man (…)

Chad has reacted angrily to warnings from the World Bank, after its parliament voted to relax controls on the use of its oil revenues.
The government has accused the World Bank of acting like a coloniser.
The body lent Chad more than $39m (£23m) to build a pipeline with an estimated total cost of almost $4bn.
It was on condition that Chad’s churches, trade unions and non-governmental organisations monitored how oil revenues were spent.
This was meant to guaranteed that oil money was (…)

by Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Britain’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has defied the Foreign Office by publishing on the internet documents providing evidence that the British Government knowingly received information extracted by torture in the "war on terror".
Mr Murray, who publicly raised the issue of the usefulness of information obtained under torture before he was forced to leave his job last year, submitted his forthcoming book, Murder in Samarkand, to the (…)

by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, (IPS) - The George W. Bush administration has embarked on a new effort to pressure Iraq’s militant Shiite party leaders to give up their control over internal security affairs that could lead the Shiites to reconsider their reliance on U.S. troops.
The looming confrontation is the result of U.S. concerns about the takeover of the Interior Ministry by Shiites with close ties to Iran, as well as the impact of officially sanctioned sectarian violence against (…)

by JOSHUA B. FREEMAN
Editor’s Note: Bus and subway workers in New York City agreed to return to work and to the bargaining table Thursday as negotiators for the Transport Workers Union and the Metropolitan Transit Authority worked on a final settlement after a two-day strike that immobilized the city. Joshua B. Freeman examines the history and issues at stake: the fight against the lie that abstract, neutral economic necessity, not the ideas and interests of the rich and powerful, are (…)

By Beth Potter
Peace activist Bill Sulzman in Colorado Springs protests the war in Iraq by refusing to pay the federal excise tax of about 50 cents on his monthly phone bill.
Sulzman also recruits others who are against U.S. military involvement in Iraq to stop paying the tax, which was first adopted in 1898 to pay for the Spanish- American War.
The tax raises about $5 billion a year, which activists say goes to fund war efforts. The Internal Revenue Service won’t confirm that the (…)

By Scott S. Greenberger, Globe Staff
Let the politicians and lobbyists argue about copayments and premiums. The Rev. Hurmon Hamilton and Rabbi Jonah Pesner are waging their fight to expand healthcare coverage on a different, higher plane.
’’We don’t have anything in the game but the people we represent," Hamilton said on a windswept corner outside his Roxbury Presbyterian Church. ’’When we’re out there, we really are concerned about the 750,000 people without healthcare, and a large (…)