contributions

Cindy Sheehan called After Downing Street moments ago at 10 p.m. ET to report that the Secret Service is trying to intimidate her and members of Gold Star Families for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Veterans for Peace into leaving their protest near Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch.
This morning Cindy led dozens of protesters as close as they could get to the ranch; they were stopped by local police about five miles away. Cindy and others plan to stay there throughout Bush’s (…)

By Nick Assinder
The death of Robin Cook not only deprives the Labour Party of one of its greatest figures, it will also diminish the House of Commons.
The former foreign secretary was one of the very few MPs - on either the back or front benches - who demanded attention when he spoke in the chamber.
His piercing intellect and ability to go to the very core of an issue, combined with a devastating ability to take his enemies to pieces was never better displayed than during the debate (…)

The Lone Star Iconoclast is covering Saturday’s journey to Crawford by several groups, including Veterans For Peace, Military Family Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Code Pink, Crawford Peace House, and others.
Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, is seeking a meeting with President Bush, who is vacationing in Crawford, to have some of her questions answered about the war. Several busloads of interested individuals are expected in Crawford to support (…)

A Brief Dispatch from the 20th Annual Veterans for Peace Convention
How one Vietnam vet from North Texas is looking forward to Saturday, when he will join Cindy Sheehan’s protest visit to Crawford.
“That’s Cindy Sheehan,” points the Vietnam War veteran from his seat at the table. “She lost her son Casey in Iraq. And I’m going to follow her to Crawford. You coming?”
Looking up from my plate, I take the vet’s direction and turn to see Sheehan standing on the grass, stage left, mixing (…)

Lack of Election Reform Threatens to Make All Progress Irrelevant.
by Anthony Wade
August 6, 2005
The good fight has been fought for some years now. Progress has indeed been made. There are rumblings of indictments from the Valerie Plame incident, that may exceed Karl Rove. With each passing death in Iraq a nation begins to realize that this is just not worth it, despite the bravado of Bush, a man who knows nothing about sacrifice. The Downing Street Memos are still out there, waiting (…)

Tom Flocco was warned by a U.S. Intelligence source that a contract FBI Division 5 operative had compromised his website without his knowledge.
He made the decision to immediately move the site to a new server since the site was unstable and experiencing intermittent availability. The recent stories "Financial Terrorism Towers Over 9.11" and "Bush and Cheney Indicted" will both be placed up online with his archive shortly, while his website is restored. Tom was locked out of the (…)

BUSH RANTS ABOUT IRAQ By Peter Fredson August 7, 2005
NEWS ITEM: “COLOMBIA’S PRESIDENT MEETS BUSH
“U.S. President Bush met with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez at the Bush ranch near Crawford, Texas on Thursday, August 4, 2005.”
After a talk about democracy in Colombia, Bush was asked about the status of his Iraq war. For dramatic effect the President’s standard ranting is capitalized, while my comments are not.
REPORTER Q: THANKS, SIR. AL QAEDA’S NUMBER TWO, DR. AL-ZAWAHIRI, (…)

By HOPE YEN
WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite his view that death penalty appeals are clogging the courts, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts provided free legal help to an inmate languishing on Florida’s death row for two decades.
The 25 hours of legal assistance that Roberts reported to the Senate Judiciary Committee are minuscule compared with thousands of hours contributed by dozens of other attorneys in the case of John Ferguson, who was convicted in 1978 of killing eight people in one of (…)

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Israeli businessman who conspired to ship controlled nuclear technology to Pakistan was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina on Thursday imposed the sentence on Asher Karni, who pleaded guilty last year to helping ship devices that could be used to test, develop and detonate nuclear weapons.
Karni, who was based in South Africa, admitted routing sophisticated oscilloscopes and high-speed electrical switches through South (…)

By Heather Sharp
As part of a series about young people in the Middle East, the BBC News website reports on views about democratic reform in a city where change does not seem high on the agenda.
"We live in the best democracy ever," says Samir Marzouqi, 19, who lives in a country where citizens never vote.
As a national of the United Arab Emirates, he lives in what is now the only country in the Gulf which has no elected bodies. Political parties are banned.
But he points out that (…)