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Petro Wins Tainted Endorsement

"To regulate what the people are allowed to hear about in an election is worryingly reminiscent of communistic behaviors not American freedoms."

Cleveland, OH – Jim Petro's receipt of the Delaware County GOP endorsement isn't all that it could be.  It is tainted by the exclusion of one republican candidate for Governor.

The Delaware County Republican party specifically excluded Pete Draganic from speaking at the June 6th event.  Perhaps they are afraid of the impact that a grassroots candidate with people appeal will have on the primary election.  Maybe they are insipidly content with the establishment candidates who have been at the helm while Ohio has remained beached.

Pete Draganic has spoken and will speak at other such events alongside the other gubernatorial candidates.  It is only Delaware County that has intentionally and systematically excluded him from participation in their event.

The Pete Draganic campaign, supporters of Draganic and other GOP party leaders had urged the Delaware County GOP to reconsider their decision to not fairly include their candidate but to no avail.

Former Army Sec, Enron VP, Thomas White Wants Gov't Funding For New Energy Project

Beware. This could be your tax dollars at work.

The federal government may guarantee hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to help a former energy executive who publicly admitted he had no idea that the division he once ran cooked its books and who is now trying to secure funding for a new energy company he started with three ex-colleagues.

Yes, Thomas White, the former vice chairman of Enron Energy Services and one-time Secretary of the Army, who testified before the U.S. Senate more than two years ago that he was clueless about the tactics the employees who worked for him used to manipulate electricity prices in the California power market in addition to the massive losses EES—under his leadership—hid in an effort to keep its parent company, Enron Corp, temporarily afloat, is back in the energy business and this time he’s looking for a handout. The federal government may guarantee hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to help a former energy executive who publicly admitted he had no idea that the division he once ran cooked its books and who is now trying to secure funding for a new energy company he started with three ex-colleagues.

Ohio State Students Support Plaintiff in Case Alleging University Wrongdoing in Rape Case

On June 6, members of a student organization at The Ohio State University sent the president of the school over 500 letters requesting that the university admit to failing to respond appropriately to a rape case in 2002.

"You, like a person, should have the integrity to stand up and admit when you've made a mistake," said Jennifer Yoder, co-chair of Women and Allies Rising in Resistance, a student organization dedicated to fighting violence against women.

Yoder addressed a group of around 30 at a press conference held for the letter send-off. University officials hovered in the back of the room, and a camera was sent from university relations to record the event. University spokeswoman Elizabeth Conlisk asked for a copy of Yoder's speech, and headed to a back room to speak off the record to reporters, declining comment on the lawsuit.

In 2002 on OSU's campus, a student named Jeremy Goldstein sexually violated another student. OSU's response, after finding him in violation of OSU's sexual misconduct policy, was simply to move him to another dorm, alerting no one in the new or old dorm as to the reason

Friedman's imaginary India

Duck and cover, fellows, Thomas Friedman's back in India, and the mysterious subcontinent exercises its usual sorcery on the wandering pundit, eliciting paragraphs of ecstatic drivel, as it has from so many New York Times men.

My favorite remains a post-Christmas dispatch, published on Dec. 27, 2002, by Keith Bradsher, the New York Times' resident correspondent in India at the time. It was a devotional text about neoliberalism's apex poster boy at the time, Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh, Time's "South Asian of the year."

After composing a worshipful resume of Naidu's supposed achievements, Bradsher selected for particular mention a secret weapon that the canny reporter deemed vital to Naidu's political grip on Andhra Pradesh. "Naidu and his allies," Bradsher disclosed to NYT readers, "speak Telugu, a language spoken only in this state and by a few people in two adjacent states." What Bradsher was saying was that Naidu spoke the same language as the 70 million other inhabitants of Andhra Pradesh. It was as though someone ascribed Tony Blair's political successes in Britain to his command of English.

The Hyper Rich

AUSTIN, Texas -- David Cay Johnston, the invaluable New York Times reporter who specializes in our tax system, has come up with some staggering figures on what he calls "the hyper-rich," the wealthiest one-thousandth of the population, and their taxes.

-- "The share of the nation's income earned by those in this uppermost category has more than doubled since 1980. ... The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell."

-- "Under the Bush tax cuts, the 400 taxpayers with the highest income -- a minimum of $87 million in 2000, the last year for which the government will release such data -- now pay income, Medicare and Social Security taxes amounting to virtually the same percentage of their incomes as people making $50,000 to $75,000."

-- "Those earning more than $10 million a year now pay a lesser share of their income in these taxes than those making $100,000 to $200,000."

New Book: Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election?: Essential Documents

Did George W. Bush Steal
America’s 2004 Election?
ESSENTIAL DOCUMENTS
Edited by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
Preface by Rev. Jesse Jackson

“In contrast to the deadly silence of the media is the silent scream of the numbers. The more you ponder these numbers, and all the accompanying data, the louder that scream grows.”
—Robert C. Koehler, Tribune Media Services

PLACE YOUR ORDER TODAY!!!

Indians pay conservative lobbyists to meet with Bush

AUSTIN, Texas -- A jaw-dropping article in The Texas Observer (www.texasobserver.org) shows that two lobbying clients of Jack Abramoff paid $25,000 to Grover Norquist's group for a lunch date and meeting with President George W. Bush in May 2001. Abramoff brought the Indian chiefs to the White house at the request of Norquist, a leading "movement conservative" in Washington. In addition, Abramoff obtained $2.5 million in contributions from the Indians for a nonprofit foundation run by his wife and himself.

The White House guests were the chiefs of two of the six casino-rich Indian tribes represented by Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon, former top aide to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. The $25,000 check from the Coushatta tribe of Louisiana is made out to Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax group founded and directed by Norquist.

Torture News



http://mattbors.com

Harvey Wasserman's 6/3/05 article-CORRECTION

Dear Mr. Wasserman,

I am a long time reader of your work and the progessive/indy media in general and while I whole heartedly endorse your analysis of the revisionist history of the religious right visa vie our founding fathers. You are incorrect to characterize Thomas Paine as an atheist. I quote from Ch 1 of Paine's "Age of Reason" --

"I believe in one God and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I belive the equality of man and I believe that religious duty consist in doing justice, loving mercy and evdeavouring to make our fellow creatures happy" -Dover Publications 2004.

I think it is important to note that Paine and the other diests problems were not with God per se - rather with the instutions of organized religion and church- which, much like today can be turned against people's well being. For Paine, a freethinker, God was a God of Reason and therefore amenable to science, the enlightenment and democracy.

Thank you for your time.
J. Ward Regan

Support John Conyers' inquiry into Downing Street Memo

Help Rep. John Conyers investigate and expose the criminal behavior of George W. Bush and his lies about the reasons to attack Iraq. Sign the letter and contribute! Conyers Website

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