No one is in greater need of forthright new year’s resolutions than big media outlets. In a constructive spirit, therefore, here are some resolutions for them in 2006.

* Daily newspaper editors:
Just about every paper has a “Business” section, where the focus is on CEOs, company managers, profit reports and big-time investors. But a lot more readers are working people -- and a daily “Labor” section would be a welcome addition to the newsprint mix.

* Public radio executives:
As a counterpoint to the daily national program “Marketplace,” public radio can widen its news repertoire by developing a show called “Laborplace.”

* Editors of the Wall Street Journal editorial page:
Take another look at “The Wealth of Nations,” where your hero Adam Smith shared the kind of insights that you often scorn. “It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased,” he wrote. And consider what Smith observed about manufacturers and merchants, the kind of special interests your editorials routinely tout as synonymous with the public interest --

AUSTIN, Texas -- My theory is that they don't tell him anything, that's why the president keeps sounding like he doesn't know what he's talking about.

There he was at Brooke Army Medical Center over the weekend, once again getting it wrong: "I can say that if somebody from al-Qaida's calling you, we'd like to know why. In the meantime, this program is conscious of people's civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited program ... I repeat, limited. And it's limited to calls from outside the United States, to calls within the United States."

So then the White House had to go back and explain that, well, no, actually, the National Security Agency's domestic spying program is not limited to calls from outside the United States, or to calls from people known or even suspected of being with al-Qaida. Turns out thousands of Americans and resident foreigners have been or are being monitored and recorded by the NSA. It's more like information-mining, which is what, you may recall, the administration said it would not do. But now Bush has to investigate The New York Times because Bush has been breaking the law, you see?

ImpeachPAC today announced the formation of a Citizens Impeachment Commission to make 2006 the "Year of Impeachment."

"We are honored by the broad support for impeachment from this distinguished group of true American patriots," said Bob Fertik, President of ImpeachPAC. "Impeachment is not a 'fringe' position, as the Bush Administration would like Americans to believe. With a recent Zogby poll showing Americans support impeachment hearings by a solid majority of 53%-42%, there is far more support for impeachment than there is for the War in Iraq," Fertik said.

"Despite three rounds of Iraqi elections, 845 brave young Americans died in Iraq in 2005, only 3 fewer than the 848 lost in 2004. Also 30,000 to 100,000 innocent Iraqis have been killed in the wake of the U.S. invasion. George Bush and Dick Cheney are personally responsible for each of those deaths, because they deliberately lied to Congress and the American people to start this disastrous and never-ending war," Fertik added.

In Dayton, Ohio each year there is a celebration commemorating  the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords which ended the war in Bosnia, one of 6 republics of Yugoslavia. That  U.S.- brokered agreement has been praised because it stopped the killing in Bosnia. While that is true, less well known but vastly more important, is the fact that the U.S. was mainly responsible for starting that war. This connection is somewhat analogous to destroying Iraq and then seeking praise for plans to rebuild it.  The word “Dayton” is now ensconced in the annals of U.S. imperialism.

Outside military intervention in Bosnia started in 1992 when NATO, controlled by the U.S., sent a group of about 100 personnel to Bosnia to establish a military headquarters. A NATO diplomat at that time let the cat out of the bag about the real reason for that action when he said that this operation was “a very cautious first step and we are definitely not making much noise about it.  But it could be the start of something bigger…you could argue that NATO now has a foot in the door.”  

Talk of censure and impeachment has begun swirling around President Bush.  Can Vice President Cheney come to the rescue?  He will do so if enough of Bush's opponents adopt the position of this Philadelphia Daily News op-ed writer http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/13513578.htm -- the position that impeaching Bush would be a mistake, since Cheney is worse than Bush.

That position is already fairly widespread on the left in the United States, and is typical of the left in the United States.  Why must we get five steps ahead of ourselves in order to fantasize about defeat, precisely at the moment when we should be on the attack? 

The Republicans impeached Clinton over his sex life without any hesitation.  They did not remove him from office, of course.  No one has ever (nonviolently) removed a president from office.  But the impeachment of Clinton destroyed most of what little was left of a Democratic Party.