While he may be dead in the corporal sense, the spirit of Simon Bolivar continues to wage the struggle for freedom from oppression. Hugo Chavez is perhaps the most familiar incarnation of Bolivar's élan vital as he defies the neocolonial policies of the United States, a nation which has supplanted the European colonial empires as looters of Latin American bounty. Bolivar's spiritual essence also burns brightly in Evo Morales, another leader of the poor and oppressed in Latin America. Barring a CIA-orchestrated assasination or sabotage of the election process, in December Morales will be the next democratically-elected president of Bolivia. And deservedly so.

The only thing they have to fear is fear itself....or is there something more?

$51 billion in budget cuts affecting, primarily, the neediest among us? $60 billion in tax cuts affecting, primarily, the wealthiest among us? What is Congress thinking? And who are they working for?...Because it's surely not their constituents.

That tax cuts would even be considered in a time of war, with the Bush administration's support, indicates the true level of concern shared by the Congressional leadership and the White House for the "war on terrorism"...Very little indeed. Should we not be sharing, in some small way, the sacrifices our troops are making as they have been sent into harm's way? Can we not pay, in the form of higher taxes, to support the war effort? Instead Congress and the Administration choose to borrow from foreign governments thus weakening our position abroad as well as putting our economic future at risk?

"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." - Matthew 25:40

Words which our nominally Christian elected officials would do well to remember.

Yet again, Congressional leadership has failed their

When he announced the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald included a homily on the importance of truth. And, in truth, it sounded a bit quaint, like someone trying to recite the Sermon on the Mount on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. But, of course, Fitzgerald was right. When lying becomes the accepted currency, you haven't got the rule of law but a criminal conspiracy.

All governments lie, but Ronald Reagan and his crew truly raised the bar. From about 1978 on, when the drive to put Reagan in the White House gathered speed, lying was the standard mode for Reagan, his handlers and a press quite happy to retail all the bilge, from the Soviet Union's supposed military superiority to the millionaire welfare queens on the south side of Chicago.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Today's fun challenge is "Spot the Next Brownie." In this fab game for the whole family, review a list of Bush administration cronies in office and see if you can pick the next Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown, another disaster waiting for a hurricane to happen.

Scope out the Bird Flu Czar from Amtrak. Stewart Simonson is now in charge of "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies," according to his government biography. He is also in charge of ensuring the country has adequate vaccines and antiviral meds to combat an avian flu epidemic. This would be peachy-keen if Simonson had any experience in public health, bioterrorism, epidemics or even management. Unfortunately, he's a political lawyer. As he recently told a congressional subcommittee, "We're learning as we go."

A rare moment of truth – several of them, actually – occurred at last week’s meeting of the Toledo Board of Education’s Policy Committee when school officials, peace activists and military recruiters assembled to discuss a draft policy to control recruiters in public schools. 

Thanks to the federal No Child Left Unrecruited Act, kicking the snake oil salesmen out altogether was not on the table (frankly, I think the vast majority of school board officials around the country are glad “No Child Left Alone” gives them the political cover to tell peace activists “gee, we’d love to ban recruiters altogether, but the federal law, blah blah blah…”).    

So before the discussion fixated on how many pounds of Pentagon refuse per square foot of cafeteria space would be permitted on alternate Tuesdays, I asked to speak.  Board President, Larry Sykes, who prefers to go by his first name, nodded in my direction.