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Buy your gas at Citgo: Join the BUY-cott!

Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations.

And tell your friends.

Of the top oil producing countries in the world, only one is a democracy with a president who was elected on a platform of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit the poor. The country is Venezuela. The President is Hugo Chavez. Call him "the Anti-Bush."

Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company. Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas stations in the US. (http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/StoreLocator.jsp to find one near you.) By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.

I'm SO proud to call her my Senator

Just have to share. I'm so happy to have people like Senators Feinstein and Boxer representing me and all Californians. They are both (perhaps Boxer even more so than Feinstein) willing to stand up against popular opinion, bringing to light such controversial issues as we see in Senator Feinstein's address to the Senate regarding prison standards for "enemy combatants" and others held in the name of the "war on terror" (which I hear both in the media and from "president" Bush more frequently than the "war on terrorISM" as quoted by Senator Feinstein). Take a moment and read her statements. It gives me a small glimmer of hope.

-Paul

Statement of Senator Dianne Feinstein on Detention of Enemy Combatants at Guantanamo Bay
June 15, 2005

Washington, DC - At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today said that she is concerned that America's policy on the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is failing. The following is the text of her statement:

"I want to begin by thanking Chairman Specter and

The Supreme Court's jackboot liberals

So much for the right to die in your own home, smoking a joint to take your mind off the pain. Thanks to the liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court, the feds can haul you to prison from your death bed for smoking medical marijuana, and any local authority can raze your house and give the land to Walmart for a parking lot.

On June 6, by a vote of 6-3, the Court ruled that federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke pot on doctors' orders. The court's apex liberal, John Paul Stevens, wrote the majority decision. The conservative Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the dissent, saying that the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use."

Voting problems and uncounted votes in Lucas County, Ohio

I wish to acknowledge the work of Pat Lent, Brian Taylor and Cindy Darrah who contributed research and ideas for this paper. Dan Kornacki converted the data from Lucas County into an Excel Spreadsheet.

This report contains overwhelming evidence of voter suppression in Lucas County, Ohio.

A list of voters who voted provisionally was obtained from the Lucas County Board of Elections. The report listed name, address, precinct voted in and reason for the vote being invalidated. Voter turnout data by precinct was obtained from the Lucas County Board of Elections website. Other information was obtained over the telephone from the Lucas County Board of Elections and the Wayne County City Clerk’s office. 

A large number of citizens voted by provisional ballot in Lucas County on November 2nd and most of the uncounted provisional votes were cast in Toledo.

Lucas County Provisional Votes

Total Provisional Votes               4,469

Votes Not Counted                     3,123

Provisional Votes Counted             1,346

With a limp election theft report, Dems prove why they're unworthy

In an astonishingly limp report on the stolen 2004 election, the Democratic Party has once again proven why it is unworthy to lead this country and incapable of mounting significant resistance to the far-right GOP juggernaut.

The Democrats much-vaunted "investigation" entitled “Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio” could well have been conducted by a high school class in elementary polling. It consists almost entirely of post-election phone interviews. It says nothing about the devastating discrepancies between exit polls and the highly improbable and virtually impossible vote total that gave George W. Bush a second term. It makes no case about precinct-by-precinct illegalities including unguarded ballots, election machine tampering, an unexplained bogus Homeland Security alert, the firing of whistle-blowing election board officials, and much more.

This July 4, let's enshrine the Ten Amendments, not the Ten Commandments, as America's true Patriot Act

The Supreme Court's mixed rulings on displaying the Ten Commandments on public buildings and property offer us the perfect patriotic step forward for this coming July 4: let's post the first Ten Amendments, i.e. the Bill of Rights, instead.

As we approach our nation's birthday, its core values are under attack. Religious fanatics, who are profoundly unAmerican, are trying to impose their particular theology on us all.

A cult of Christian Ayatollahs and their jihad GOP are using the Ten Commandments as a wedge to force mandatory, tax-sponsored religion into every corner of American life (not to mention the rest of the world).

But it is the Bill of Rights, not the Ten Commandments, that embodies the true core of our national existence.

First and foremost, these amendments guarantee separation of church and state. Remembering the witch trials of the 1690s, a ban on theocracy was very first freedom this nation's founders enshrined.

The liberal straw man

AUSTIN, Texas -- The first thing I ever learned about politics was never to let anyone else define what you believe, or what you are for or against. I think for myself.

I am not "you liberals" or "you people on the left who always ..." My name is Molly Ivins, and I can speak for myself, thank you. I don't need Rush Limbaugh or Karl Rove to tell me what I believe.

Setting up a straw man, calling it liberal and then knocking it down has become a favorite form of "argument" for those on the right. Make some ridiculous claim about what "liberals" think, and then demonstrate how silly it is. Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and many other right-wing ravers never seem to get tired of this old game. If I had a nickel for every idiotic thing I've ever heard those on the right claim "liberals" believe, I'd be richer than Bill Gates.

Big Food Strikes Back; Ag industry aims to strip local control of food supplies

Legislation aiming to prevent counties, towns and cities from making local decisions about our food supply is being introduced in states across the nation. Fifteen states recently have introduced legislation removing local control of plants and seeds. Eleven of these states have already passed the provisions into law.

These highly orchestrated industry actions are in response to recent local decisions to safeguard sustainable food systems. To date, initiatives in three California counties have restricted the cultivation of genetically modified crops, livestock, and other organisms and nearly 100 New England towns have passed various resolutions in support of limits on genetically engineered crops.

Will you die for him?

None of the recent speculation about armed service recruitment failures speaks to fundamental questions, which are increasingly being answered in the negative:

Will you die for George W. Bush?  Are you willing to kill for him?

Are you eager to send your daughter or son to die for Bush in a war based on lies and invented connections to September 11? Are you ready to assume responsibility for the torture, maiming and death of innocent citizens of a formerly sovereign nation that had nothing to do with the death of 3000 American citizens on that day of infamy? Can you possibly think it wise, can you justify in any way, sacrificing your child to the arrogance and dishonesty of one man of flawed judgment and nonexistent moral sensibility? Are Bush’s political ambitions worth more than your own life, or the life of your family member?

Will you die for him?

Counter-Recruitment: Preventing the Military from Getting More Youth for their Wars: An Interview with Counter-Recruitment Activist Clint Coppernoll

The Army and National Guard have been failing to meet their recruiting goals for the last four months. Summer is typically the time they have their greatest success in recruiting and they are counting on this summer to make up for their shortcomings in the previous months. They are increasing their efforts and making more promises to get America's youth to sign up for war. As a result those of us who oppose the war need to step up our efforts in counter-recruitment as well. Below is an interview with a counter-recruitment activist from Washington State that provides directions on how to get started and documents to assist in your efforts.

Clint Coppernoll is the father of two, a son who is a lawyer and a daughter who is an activist and student in San Francisco. He is the husband of an activist organizer and midwife, Belinda Coppernoll. He has been a peace activist and organizer since 1969 and has worked with many organizations on a range of issues including immigrant and farm workers rights, prison reform, and open access to the political system for all Americans.

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