contributions

By Sheila Samples
Remember the "Hey, Mikey" TV commercial with two brothers refusing to eat Quaker Oats’ new Life cereal until their little brother, Mikey, who supposedly "hates everything" tried it first? Well, I’m not saying I get up every morning and yell, "Hey, Harkavy!" to see what’s really happening in the news without all the commercial spin — but I’m not saying I don’t either...
Either way, there’s no better place to start your morning than with the peerless Ward Harkavy (…)

Expose the WHIG
Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) has introduced a Resolution of Inquiry to demand the White House turn over all white papers, minutes, notes, emails or other communications kept by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).
"This group, comprised of the President and Vice President’s top aides, was critical in selling the Administration’s case for war," Kucinich said. "We now know that the Administration hyped intelligence and misled the American public and Congress in their effort (…)

WAGGING THE DOG
By Peter Fredson
October 28, 2005
There is an old refrain about “the tail wagging the dog.” For years it seemed that George Bush was in firm control of his power base. Anything George wanted George got. The entire Republican Congress took any request George made of them, did it with applause, and practically kissed his royal butt. Their incestuous union brought up another refrain about “They must hang together or they will hang separately.”
The Republican Party itself (…)

by Steve Quinn
Exxon Mobil Corp. had a quarter for the record books. The world’s largest publicly traded oil company said Thursday high oil and natural-gas prices helped its third-quarter profit surge almost 75 percent to $9.92 billion, the largest quarterly profit for a U.S. company ever, and it was the first to ring up more than $100 billion in quarterly sales.
Net income ballooned to $9.92 billion, or $1.58 per share, from $5.68 billion, or 88 cents per share, a year ago.
Excluding (…)

The Senate decided yesterday the money was not there for a substantial spending boost for the federal home heating program, deflecting arguments that soaring energy prices could force the poor to choose between heat and food this winter.
Senators voted 54 to 43 in favor of a proposal to boost the fiscal 2006 budget for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program from $2.2 billion to $5.1 billion. A 60-vote majority was needed to approve new spending not coupled with equivalent spending (…)

by Robert M. Hayes
Robert M. Hayes, an attorney, is president of the Medicare Rights Center, the nation’s largest independent source of information and assistance on health care rights and benefits for older and disabled men and women. He led the national and New York Coalitions for the Homeless from 1979 to 1989, and has practiced law with firms in New York and Maine.
Deer hunting season is just starting up in much of the northern United States.
But the Bush administration has already (…)

by Laurie Beacham and Amber Hard Today we are appalled by the story told in "North Country," a film that chronicles the first class-action lawsuit brought for sexual harassment. The suit was led by Lois Jenson, a single mother trying to provide for her family, who became one of the first women to work at Minnesota’s Eveleth Mines.
The sexual harassment she and other women at Eveleth Mines suffered in the 1970s and ’80s was, indeed, appalling. They endured lewd jokes, taunting and (…)

Exxon, Shell net record profits
Largest publicly traded oil company earns nearly $10 billion in third quarter, with rival posting $9 billion.
By Steve quinn, Donna McWilliam
Lee Raymond is chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., which earned nearly $10 billion in the third quarter. DALLAS — Exxon Mobil Corp. rewrote the corporate record books Thursday as the oil company’s third-quarter earnings soared to almost $10 billion and it became the first public company ever with quarterly (…)

by Clayton Hallmark
Rove/Libby/Bush/Cheney got and used forgeries (shown) on Niger uranium to start the Iraq war — WHICH LED TO A COVERUP AND THE PRESENT CHARGES. The point isn’t their fate but (A) the administration is corrupt, (B) the war is based on forgeries can end now, and (C) foreign governments that aided the culprits must be exposed. The Washington grand jury of US Attorney Fitzgerald will obtain indictments in the outing of CIA’s Valerie Plame on Friday, sources say, and could (…)

by Omar Hamed
Today Pacific Island nations at the Pacific Island Forums have welcomed and endorsed the Pacific Plan, a blueprint for neo-colonialism in the south Pacific. wto-1.jpg
The Governments of Australia, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, and representatives of Palau and Tonga. New Caledonia, French Polynesia Timor-Leste and (…)