EDITORIAL: Still more torture revelations
Mounting evidence is making it clear that torture and a pattern of human rights abuse is standard operating procedure for the Bush administration and its surrogates in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where over 600 people of about 38 different nationalities are still being held.
Veterans and military familes say: 'Bring troops home now - and care for them'
ST. LOUIS — “Those in the armed services right now can speak the truth about Iraq because we’ve been there, we’ve seen with our own eyes the disaster we’ve created in Iraq. And we can tell you that the only way to cope with this disaster is to bring the troops home now — and care for them when they return!”
Medicaid is the heart of health care
Medicaid, a state and federal partnership forged in the 1960s, provides care for 50 million poor men, women, and children in the United States who would otherwise have no access to health care. Medicaid takes care of children whose parents work at places like Wal-Mart that don’t provide health insurance. It pays for nursing home care for our elders. It covers treatment for disabled children and buys medications the poor and elderly would otherwise have to do without.
Mother Jones, union organizer and hell-raiser
Mother Jones was born Mary Harris in Cork, Ireland, in 1836. As a child, she immigrated to North America with her family to escape the Irish famine. In her early 20s, she moved to Chicago, where she worked as a dressmaker, and then to Memphis, Tenn., where she met and married George Jones, a skilled iron molder and staunch unionist. There tragedy struck. A yellow fever epidemic in 1867 took the lives of Mary’s husband and all four of her children.
AFL-CIO urges stronger state and local councils
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Key to dramatically ratcheting up labor’s power is improving the performance of state and local labor organizations, said a statement from the AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting here March 2. The role of the federation’s 51 state and 543 local central labor councils (CLCs) has been an important part of the discussions about strengthening the labor movement.
Kentuckians propose single-payer plan
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — “They have outsourced the jobs, but they did not outsource the diseases and the conditions from which the people suffer,” said Dr. Syed Quadri at a Feb. 2 health care forum here sponsored by the Kentucky Long Term Policy Research Center. The center held hearings in 15 Kentucky area development districts on the problems of people with little or no insurance.
Lies, the U.S. budget, and democracy
When “Wanted: An Honest Budget” is Business Week’s headline, you know something is wrong. “White House budget writers of both parties have a long history of fiscal gimmickry,” Business Week complained after the new Bush plan was issued. “But [past trickery] hid mere billions of dollars. Bush’s new spending plan will mask trillions, [largely skipping over] the costs of Bush’s own top priorities, including Iraq, restructuring Social Security, and taming the Alternative Minimum Tax.”
WORLDNOTES
Lebanon: Thousands rally for democracy and peace, Canada: Help for Wal-Mart workers, France: Massive protest vs. gov’t ‘reforms,’ Turkey: Protest attack on Labor Party headquarters, Guatemala: Protest passage of CAFTA, Zambia: Public workers protest wage freeze
Momentum builds for world youth festival
An “invasion” is about to engulf Caracas, Venezuela. An estimated 20,000 progressive and radical youth will be pouring into the Venezuelan capital Aug. 7-15. The occasion? The 16th World Festival of Youth and Students.
CPUSA condemns anti-Semitism
In January 2005, some 500 prominent Russians calling themselves “Orthodox Christian patriots” signed a letter calling on the Russian prosecutor general to launch proceedings to ban all religious and ethnic Jewish organizations as “extremist.” Among the signatories to the letter were six members of the Russian parliament from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF).
