The lack of oversight characterizing both the Bush administration and crony capitalism have bankrupted the U.S. and created the need for perpetual war. With Cheney stirring up trouble over Iran, we can't wait until November 2008 to fight back.

Toxic economy

Take the Fed's recent $30 billion bailout of Bear Sterns. Why throw taxpayer dollars at a company with massive amounts of "toxic waste" on its books, created largely through reckless behavior chasing short-term profits?

The Pentagon is slated to release a suspected toxicant in Crystal City, Virginia this week, ostensibly to test air sensors.

The operation is just the latest example of the Defense Department’s long history of using service members and civilians as human test subjects, often without their consent or awareness.

Gas chambers in Maryland

Wray C. Forrest learned about the US military’s human-testing program the hard way. In 1973, the Army sent then 23-year-old Forrest to its Edgewood Arsenal chemical-research center in Maryland, promising patriotic service and a four-day work week.

Instead, he became one of roughly 6,720 soldiers used as Edgewood Arsenal test subjects between 1950-1975.

There’s a time bomb ticking over here in Europe, and it’s completely off the radar where it will hit the hardest: the US.

The Bush administration is pushing for radical new regulations on airline travel including:

- Armed guards on all US-airline flights from Europe to the US
- More personal data on all air passengers FLYING OVER (not even landing in) the US
- Europeans will need new permits and a lengthier permission-application process before even booking a ticket to the US
- "Washington is also asking European airlines to provide personal data on non-travellers - for example family members - who are allowed beyond departure barriers to help elderly, young or ill passengers to board aircraft flying to America, a demand the airlines reject as ‘absurd’".

The Facebook group called "I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush!" will reach one million members very soon, and to help them celebrate this milestone, I’m giving away books!

Digital versions of the two-volume series The Progressives’ Handbook: Get the Facts and Make a Difference Now are being offered for the next two weeks, along with hyperlinked excerpts of the books’ targeted-activism pages. Both books hit Amazon’s political activism Top Ten bestseller list in December 2007, with Volume One going to #1.

Dennis Kucinich, who has been locked out of the NBC presidential debates, is pushing for a New Hampshire Vote Recount.

As The Associated Press reports on the recount:

In a letter dated Thursday, Kucinich said he does not expect significant changes in his vote total, but wants assurance that "100 percent of the voters had 100 percent of their votes counted."

Kucinich alluded to online reports alleging disparities around the state between hand-counted ballots, which tended to favor Sen. Barack Obama, and machine-counted ones that tended to favor Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also noted the difference between pre-election polls, which indicated Obama would win, and Clinton's triumph by a 39 percent to 37 percent margin.

A number of sites are reporting odd discrepancies in the New Hampshire results. When the effect of voting machines is factored into the end count, then the polls would have been right and Obama would have won. We need to look at this BEFORE another primary…   

Here is what Democracy for New Hampshire had to say:

“If we cut the Pentagon budget 15%, $75 billion will go into a universal pre-kindergarten program so our children ages 3, 4 and 5 will have access to full-time day care and more money would go into elementary and secondary education. Our college-age students need to know that with a Kucinich administration they're guaranteed a two- or four-year college, tuition free, and it'll be paid for by the government investing in our young people. That's the kind of approach I'll take to education.” - Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Oct 30, 2007, Democratic debate at Drexel University

The Vatican’s recent snub of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is only the latest salvo in the battle between Pope Benedict XVI and President George W. Bush. This tug of war has profound implications for both U.S. foreign policy and the critical Catholic vote in 2008's presidential race.

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Overlapping Agendas

Things haven't always been tense between Bush and Benedict. They share similar views regarding abortion, gay marriage, and other hot-button conservative issues. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (as Benedict was known before becoming Pope in April 2005) even helped Bush secure the White House for a second term.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." - George W Bush

Much in the same way that US investors were “steered” into rip-off mortgage loans, the entire country has been “steered” into an economic crisis. The question is how to get out of it.

In the subprime loan scandal, unscrupulous brokers conned home buyers with poor credit histories into deals designed to profit lenders and bleed borrowers. Contract “teasers” hid ballooning monthly payments while a lack of regulation allowed the scam to continue unabated. Millions more Americans now face losing their homes.

"...the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other." - Benjamin Franklin, 1787

They say that if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water it will immediately jump out, but that if you raise the pot's heat gradually, the frog won't react.

The US public has been on a slow boil since 2001. This administration's rollbacks have been so consistent and so egregious that it's no surprise many Americans feel apathetic.

And that begs the question: What exactly would it take to get the US public spurred into action?

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1. Protest war, lose your property?

On July 17th, The White House quietly announced an Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq." Among other developments, it gives Bush the power to "block" the property of people in the US found to "pose a significant risk of committing" an act of violence which might undermine "political reform in Iraq."

“The point now is how do we work together to achieve important goals. And one such goal is a democracy in Germany.” – George W. Bush, May 2006

There’s an unexpected front in the Bush administration’s “war on terror” – Germany. And the roughly 68,000 US troops stationed across the country often find themselves in the center of controversy over US foreign policy.

Take Agustín Aguayo, a Mexican-American conscientious objector (CO) formerly based in Bavaria. Aguayo unsuccessfully applied for CO status before deploying in 2004, and citing non-violence, even refused to carry a loaded weapon during his year as a combat medic in Iraq.

Few expect the G8 summit taking place in Heiligendamm, Germany from June 6-8 to yield positive results. The main question is how much damage Bush will do to US international standing during these three days.

At last year’s G8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, Bush made headlines by groping German Chancellor Angela Merkl as she spoke with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

This year, demonstrators have filled the streets near Heiligendamm, a seaside resort in northern Germany, to protest the Bush administration’s policies as well as the annual G8 meeting (of government heads from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy Japan, Russia and the United States).

The Pentagon has a disturbing pattern of withholding information on the impact of chemical/biological weapons and other toxins on US service members. As a result, veterans are often told that their debilitating symptoms are “in their head” and can go decades without receiving medical help. That’s not supporting our troops.

A classic example occurred when US forces destroyed a chemical munitions dump in Khamisiyah, Iraq in March 1991. The US Defense Department (DoD) initially denied the dangers but backtracked in 1997 after a UN Special Commission investigation proved that sarin gas had been released during the demolition.

“We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation … If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.” - Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967

Agustín Aguayo might not be a household name, but his struggle pierces the core of the US anti-war movement.

Aguayo, a 35-year-old Mexican-American from Los Angeles, joined the Army in 2003 yet soon realized he couldn’t take part in violence. He applied for conscientious objector (CO) status in February 2004 but was sent to Iraq anyway, where he refused to load his weapon even while on guard duty and patrols.