News From The Left

2003-07-03T07:17:00.000-07:00

BUSH WILL NOW BE RESPONSIBLE FOR IRAQ DEATHS - President Bush today egged on Iraqi resistors by taunting them into attacking U.S. soldiers by saying, "Bring it on!" This is so irresponsible, it's infuriating. And within hours of making that statement, eight soldiers in Iraq were injured in attacks. What good is a commander in chief who taunts the enemy into injuring and killing his own soldiers??!! If President Clinton had said something like that, the right-wing machine would be apoplectic. There would be howls from Republicans in Congress and from Rush Limbaugh, banging the drums for impeachment. There would be hearings, press conferences, floods of press releases from every conservative group. If I were a soldier in Iraq or one of their family members or friends, I would be horrified that this taunt was made. I'm horrified as a citizen. Bush has shown his true colors as a little wise-ass overgrown college boy who is way out of his league. American soldiers are going to get killed now and the blood will be on Bush's hands.

2003-07-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

LEGAL KICKBACKS - George Bush has raised $34 million the in last two weeks for his "election" campaign. Where do you think he got that money? From wealthy donors, of course. And why would these wealthy donors give the president large campaign donations? Hmmmm, let's see........Could it be because they just got an average of a $30,000 tax cut from the guy. So let's look at what's happening here. If you're wealthy the president gives you a $30,000 - $60,000 (or more) tax cut and you then funnel several grand back into his election campaign. Those in law enforcement who prosecute RICO cases have a name for this. It's called a kickback and you don't need to be in organized crime or a Sopranos junkie to know that it's corrupt. But that's what Republican politicians do all the time. It's a legal way to get a campaign kickback. The fact that it's currently legal doesn't make it right. As some will tell you: it's not what's illegal that's shocking, it's what is legal that will blow your mind.

2003-06-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

So much hullabaloo about gay marriage lately. Who really cares? Is it the role of the government to tell you who you can marry? Right-wingers are always so paranoid of the government and don't want "social engineering" in the form of forced bussing, telling you where to live, excessive taxation, freedom in the martketplace - and to an extent, they're right. But they have no problem with the government telling people who they can and cannot marry. The role of government is only to document who is married to who for legal and census purposes. The government has no right telling one grown adult they can't marry another consenting grown adult. People base their "protection" of marriage on the Bible. The only references in the Bible concerning this are from the Old Testament, the same scripture that says to stone people who cheat on their spouses and that a woman who has a menstrual cycle or a man who has a nocturnal emission needs to be shunned from community for three days because they are "unclean." Besides, if you call yourself a Christian, the New Testament supercedes the Old Testament just as the Constitution supercedes the Articles of Confederation. A new law negates an old law. And as far as Christians go, the "New" Testament is the new law. There is no mention of a definition of marriage in the New Testament. Jesus doesn't address it.

2003-06-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

US, UK Lies on Iraq Coming Out (from the German website Duetche Welle) - Britain's parliamentary inquiry into justifications for the invasion of Iraq in March has been told by two former ministers that intelligence was "tampered" to fit a decision already made. Robin Cook, who resigned from the cabinet in protest at the Iraq war, said that in one dossier, partially copied from an academic paper, the phrase "opposition groups" had been deleted and replaced with the words "terrorist organisations". Mr. Cook, a former foreign secretary said it was now "plainly the case" that Iraq had not had weapons of mass destruction. Claire Short, the former development minister who also resigned over the war, told the committee that she believed Prime Minister Tony Blair had knowingly mislead the public in the matter.

2003-06-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

Gee, let's see if there's a connection here. Three stories in the news in one day: First, Bush pushes the FTAA, the Free Trade Area of America, which like NAFTA, will cost America jobs; Story number two: Unemployment in America reaches a nine-year high; Story number three: on CBS Evening News, a piece on a manufacturer of hats in New York who once had 300 workers. Now he has 50 and is struggling to keep them employed. Why? Because he's losing work to companies overseas who pay their workers $1.85 an hour. You decide if this is coincidence.

2003-06-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY SAYS IRAQ HAD NO WEAPONS - A story published by the Associated Press today disclosed that the Pentagon's own intelligence agency said as far back as last September that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction, giving further proof that the Bush administration twisted the truth in its quest to paint Bush as a wartime president. Bush knows he has no domestic policy skills. That is why he is hell bent on being nothing but a war president. The only thing he knows how to do is pinpoint who the thugs are (something any third grade student can do) and then send the bombs flying. He knows the cynical truth of the American people - that most of them blindly rally behind any excersize of America's miltary strength, which is portayed to them through the santized "video game" coverage of the media. No weapons of mass destruction have been found by anyone. And some people wonder why the rest of the world hates us? With the right administration, the U.S. should stand for peace-making and justice in the world, promoting progress in technology and health, not play the world's bully policemen. The American people get what they vote for (or not, as in the case of the 2000 election).

2003-06-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

Great victory for working people today. The Republican leaders in Congress saw the writing on the wall and pulled the so-called "Family Time Flexibility Act" (HR1119) from the House calendar after they realized it would be political suicide to grant this little gem to their big business friends. The legislation would have stolen overtime pay from workers by defining overtime as hours worked more than 80 in a two-week period instead of 40 in a one-week period. Even then, you would not have gotten paid for the overtime; you would have just gotten "compensatory time" which your boss would have been able to decide was "convenient" for you to take off. This was a money grab worth tens of billions that the right-wing wanted to grant big business - just days after giving away $800 billion to the rich with their tax cuts. Unbelievable. But thanks to a grassroots uproar over these changes, even the scheming right-wing knew they couldn't get away with it. They would have paid dearly. So when you get extra money in your pocket in the future for overtime, remember that the Republican right-wing wanted to take that away from you and it was the Democrats, labor groups and ordinary citizens who protected your wallet.

2003-06-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

MIDDLE CLASS TO PAY HIGHER SHARE OF TAXES, THANKS TO BUSH - According to the Washington Post, the middle class will end up paying a higher share of all federal taxes as a result of Bush's hard-fought tax cuts for the rich, which will end up costing the people of this country $2.5 TRILLION dollars by the time added payments on the federal debt are factored in. And Bush's rationale for the tax cuts is bogus to begin with. He and his Republican lapdogs in Congress say these cuts for the wealthy are needed to "stimulate" the economy. Why then, a reasonable person would ask, have we lost 1.5 million jobs since Bush's first round of $1.3 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001? The answer is a simple one - tax cuts do not stimulate the economy. The rich take their $30,000 tax cut (which to them is pocket change) and put it away. Middle and low income people in America would SPEND that money, which would stimulate the economy. How many families are getting by on an annual INCOME of $30,000? But this is the size of the check the rich in George Bush's America get simply for bankrolling his campaign in his quest for power. And an editorial in the New London Day newspaper today makes a great point - that the true purpose of the tax cuts is to send the country in such debt that it will give the right-wing the excuse for saying we can't afford social safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare. So think about it - it's a self fulfilling prophesy. First, you bankrupt the government then you say the government is broke, so we can't afford to spend. It would be like an anorexic voluntarily reducing their own income as an excuse for saying they don't have money to buy food. George Bush and the right wing want to purposely starve government so that the only people who survive in their dog-eat-dog world are the rich. It then gives the rich more power to keep the have-nots under their boot heels. The most disturbing thing about this is that no one seems to care. They will. You bet they will, but it will be too late.

2003-06-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. According to the Financial Times of London, the Bush administration shelved a report commissioned by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill showing the U.S. faces a total national debt of $44 TRILLION in coming years as a result of baby boomers retiring, putting a strain on the Social Security and Medicare systems. Bush did this to push for his tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans. He didn't want the American people to know that our national debt - which has already increased by $1 trillion since he took office - will explode to near-bankruptcy status as a result of his tax cuts aimed at benefitting his political base. And the net result: low-income Americans get nothing from his tax cut package, the federal debt explodes, causing interest rates to go higher and future generations will have no Social Security. Thank you, Mr. Bush.

2003-05-30T12:53:00.000-07:00

This is a new blog created by someone in Connecticut. Of course, I will remain anonymous. This blog is going to offer a perspective that is being increasingly crowded out of the mainstream media by the right wing who still, laughingly, say the media is "too liberal." Ha! The fact that they would still say this after successfully taking over much of the public airwaves is ridiculous. It just shows how intent they are on brainwashing the American public into beliefs that only will travel this country down a road of fascism. Don't think a Nazi-like country could develop here? You're fooling yourself. Remember - everything Hitler did was legal. Think about it. And Hitler was elected in a democratic process as well. The biggest and most dangerous mistake we can make is to think that an out-of-control society couldn't happen here. Once we believe that, once we believe that our thinking is above that of Nazis and Fascists is exactly when we open ourselves to becoming one of them. Anyway, enjoy the blog. I will post from time to time as events occur. This blog is unabashedly from the perpective of the left, but I will touch on things I think we can all agree on. Chaio.