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A new left-wing party has sprung up in Quebec, and it could cut into the Parti Quebecois’ base of support.
Quebec Solidaire is being born of a union between two left-wing groups in the province — L’union Des Forces Progressives and Option Citoyenne.
The two groups say they will provide the true leftist voice in Quebec politics.
"We bring a new alternative. We bring values like solidarity, ecology, equality between men and women and I think we are the only party that brings that," said (…)

By Harold Meyerson
Everybody talks about globalization; nobody ever does anything about it. The world labor market looms over every horizon with its promise of cheaper goods and lower pay. The public is skeptical, rightly, about the benefits of globalization, but the process of harnessing it, of writing enforceable rules that would benefit not just investors but most of our citizens, is hard to even conceive. And so globalization is experienced by many Americans as a loss of control. (…)

By Eugene Robinson
Was his insolent claim that "George Bush doesn’t care about black people" the reason Kanye West didn’t win the prestigious album of the year and record of the year awards he deserved at the Grammys the other night? That’s just part of the story, I think, and we’ll get back to it after we first survey the Big Picture.
I’ve always thought the Grammy Awards offered a better, more finely detailed portrait of the American zeitgeist than either the Oscars or the Emmys. The (…)

An anti-globalization activist who was sent back to France after arriving at an airport here accused the U.S. government Thursday of conspiring against his cause and trying to protect big business.
Jose Bove, best known for ransacking a McDonald’s restaurant in France in 1999, arrived Wednesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport, planning to speak at an event sponsored by Cornell University, but was denied entry by customs officials.
Bove was not eligible to enter the U.S. under a (…)

By Christopher Hayes
It’s a week before the holidays in New York City and there’s a transit strike. A strike? In 2005? It seems an anachronism, like meat rations or air raid drills. There’s a frisson of excitement in the air mixed with logistical dread and disbelief.
The morning the strike begins, billionaire mayor Mike Bloomberg accuses the largely black and Latino union of acting "thuggishly" and then proceeds to class-bait the transit workers. "You’ve got people making $50,000 and (…)

by Russ Feingold
As Prepared for Delivery From the Senate Floor
Listen to my Statement From the Senate Floor
Mr. President, last week the President of the United States gave his State of the Union address, where he spoke of America’s leadership in the world, and called on all of us to “lead this world toward freedom.” Again and again, he invoked the principle of freedom, and how it can transform nations, and empower people around the world.
But, almost in the same breath, the (…)

By REGINA MEDINA
LAST TUESDAY, peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested, handcuffed and removed from the U.S. House gallery shortly before President Bush’s State of the Union Address.
She was wearing a T-shirt alluding to her anti-war sentiments - "2245 Dead. How many more?"
Yesterday, Sheehan had the same basic message, but wore a long black dress with a large photo of her fallen son, Army Spec. Casey A. Sheehan, hanging from a ribbon around her neck.
This time, her 250-strong (…)

By Murray Waas
Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration’s use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.
Libby specifically claimed that in one (…)

By Lakshmi Chaudhry
We have no interest in being anti-establishment,” says Matt Stoller, a blogger at the popular Web site MyDD.com. “We’re going to be the establishment.”
That kind of flamboyant confidence has become the hallmark of blog evangelists who believe that blogs promise nothing less than a populist revolution in American politics. In 2006, at least some of that rhetoric is becoming reality. Blogs may not have replaced the Democratic Party establishment, but they are certainly (…)

By Ellen Goodman
WHEN THE news came of Betty Friedan’s death on her 85th birthday, I remembered Aug. 26, 1970, the Women’s Strike for Equality. I remembered Betty Friedan parading down New York’s Fifth Avenue, with tens of thousands of exhilarated women behind her.
I also remembered the afternoon edition of my paper illustrating that march with two front-page photos. On the left was the pretty, blond, smiling figurehead of some unknown group of Happy Homemakers. On the right was Betty (…)