While vocally supporting passage of the Act, President Bush and his administration have refused to effectively enforce it ?

“The passage of the Voting Rights Act reauthorization today is good news for all Americans who care about the integrity of our democracy. More than 60,000 People For the American Way members, supporters and activists had signed petitions urging the Act’s passage and opposing right-wing efforts to undermine its effectiveness. Their activism has helped preserve one of the most important accomplishments of the civil rights movement.

“President Bush’s decision to support the legislation was the right one. But the law has little real meaning if it is not enforced. And the sad truth is that the Bush administration has abandoned its responsibility to enforce the law.

“In fact, the Bush Justice Department has brought important Voting Rights Act litigation to a grinding halt. Repeatedly the recommendations of career civil rights attorneys have been overturned by political appointees who seem committed to a ‘see no evil’ approach when minority voters are being left behind.

John Dean, former legal counsel to Richard Nixon, is 95% recovered from a long bout of conservatism, and he doubts that many others can make the same recovery, but I don't.

Dean's published two excellent books on the Bush-Cheney administration's abuses of power.  The first was "Worse Than Watergate."  The new one is "Conservatives Without Conscience."  The title is a play on former Senator Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative," and Dean originally intended to co-write it with Goldwater.

In the new book, on pages 70 and 71, Dean lists in two columns the beliefs and characteristics of "Conservatives Without Conscience" and "Conservatives With Conscience".  From my earliest memories, I have been disgusted by the very idea of conservatism, but – with the exception of one of the characteristics – I turn out to be a Conservative With Conscience.  That is to say, a "Conservative With Conscience", as defined by Dean, turns out to be a progressive, a leftist, or even a – dare I say it? – liberal, or at least not in disagreement with those people.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The CIA's saturation bombing of Laos killed thousands of people and reduced the tiny country to ruin three decades ago, but 4,500 men, women and children now hope America's failed "secret war" will result in free air tickets to the United States.

The communist regime in Laos, the pro-American government in Thailand, and US officials are investigating the group's problem, but cannot agree who is responsible for their crisis.

Thailand's Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) spent Thursday (July 20) preparing to send the 4,500 people to Laos, after Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra ordered the ISOC to quickly solve the problem.

The communist government in Laos, however, said it suspects some in the group did not originate in Laos, or might be faking their CIA-linked role to get to America.

The 4,500 people claim they, or their relatives, supported a CIA-backed Lao general, Vang Pao, during America's so-called "secret war" in Laos from 1961 to 1975.

Auora owns two feedlot dairies (factory farms), and are developing two others, and is widely viewed in the organic community, by both farmers and consumers, as a "bad actor", attempting to profiteer at the expense of the livelihood of truly ethical family farmers. Now they are attempting to "calm consumer concerns" by purchasing the blessing of a corporate-friendly alternative to the organic label. If you can't meet the organic standards why not go out and find or invent some other standards that you can meet? Money talks but the flatulence of the thousands of cows, on unhealthy, high-production diets, managed by Aurora is drowning out their propaganda.

After getting out of Lebanon, writer June Rugh told Reuters: "As an American, I'm embarrassed and ashamed. My administration is letting it happen [by giving] tacit permission for Israel to destroy a country." The news service quoted another American evacuee, Andrew Muha, who had been in southern Lebanon. He said: "It's a travesty. There's a million homeless in Lebanon and the intense amount of bombing has brought an entire country to its knees."

Embarrassing. Shameful. A travesty. Those kinds of words begin to describe the alliance between the United States and Israel. Here are a few more: Government criminality. High-tech terror. Mass murder from the skies. The kind of premeditated action that the U.S. representative in Nuremberg at the International Conference on Military Trials -- Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson -- was talking about on August 12, 1945, when he declared that "no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."

The United States and Israel. Right now, it's the most dangerous alliance in the world.