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Sailing on the Voucher Boat

AUSTIN, Texas -- Gosh, we are having such a swell time here in Texas. For starters, once again the speaker of the Texas House is under investigation by a grand jury. We're so proud. We have nothing against this guy personally, we're just rooting for an indictment as a matter of Texas tradition. This would make five out of the last six House speakers indicted for one thing or another, and you must admit, that's some record.

            (As a matter of strict accuracy, I should note that there was one speaker in there who was not indicted, but rather was shot to death by his wife. However, she was indicted -- although not convicted, because in Texas we recognize public service when we see it.)

Understanding the world with Paul Sweezy

I'm an optimist by disposition, but some weeks it's hard to find evidence of progress in human affairs. There on the TV screen was Secretary of State Colin Powell smoothly fulfilling his designated function as the Empire's prime dispenser of official lies. That particular morning, Powell was ladling unctuous bilge about the U.S.-sponsored coup in Haiti, even as the renaissant Tonton Macoutes, under the tolerant gaze of USMC officers, swarm across Port au Prince.

            And here was Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nomination in his grasp. Having made his own extremely zestful contribution to the body count in Vietnam during the Phoenix sweeps, Kerry knows where many of the Empire's bodies are rotting. In his first senate term he even led useful hearings into the BCCI scandal and the arms-for-cocaine shuttle in Central America. Then the Elders of Empire told him to mind his manners and shut up, which he promptly did.

Ohio Libertarians Hire Executive Director

What would happen if Libertarian candidates got the same type of training as the big parties and enough money to get out their message? Ohio is about to find out.

The Libertarian Party of Ohio hired Robert Butler as executive director, and he started work last Monday, March 1st. He's had experience fundraising for the Republican National Committee and the Libertarian Party of Indiana. He's also run his own businesses in Taiwan and most recently, an English-language school near Cancun, Mexico.

Butler anticipates the inevitable question: "You left sunny Cancun for Ohio? Willingly?"

"There's just one reason I'm here in Ohio, and that's to help more Libertarians win their races. The Libertarian Party is the future of America, and only the Libertarian Party has the solution for the new economy and the new world we live in," Butler said.

When Butler lived abroad, he learned an uncomfortable truth: It?s often easier to start a new business in countries such as Taiwan and Mexico than in the United States.

"We have such a high burden of regulations," Butler said. "Small

Protest the restarting of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant!

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and FirstEnergy just can't seem to learn the most important lesson, safety-first.  Despite safety problems and an ongoing criminal investigation, the NRC on Monday signed-off on FirstEnergy restarting the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant.

Ohio PIRG will continue to be a watchdog of FirstEnergy and the events at Davis-Besse.   Demonstrating to our state and local officials that we expect them to stand-up to powerful special interests like FirstEnergy is an important step. Thank you to the over 400 activists who sent letters last week asking state officials to oppose restarting Davis-Besse.

Please send an e-mail to the NRC and express your disappointment in their decision.  Then, ask your friends and family to help by forwarding this e-mail to them.

To take action, click on this link or paste it into your web browser: pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=590&id4=OHFreep

For more information on the Davis-Besse nuclear plant, visit:

Another culture

Protect Medicaid and America's uninsured!

Late Wednesday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles (R-OK) put forward a budget resolution that, if enacted, would cut Medicaid by at least $11 billion over five years.  

If enacted, this will result in an increase in the number of uninsured and even more severe cuts to Medicaid than we have seen over the past few years.  In addition, this comes at a time when most states are still suffering from the recession and the increased federal relief is scheduled to expire on June 30, 2004.  The inclusion of this provision in the budget resolution will make the extension of temporary fiscal relief (or FMAP) even more difficult.

We must move quickly on this issue as the full Senate is scheduled to debate and vote on the Budget Resolution this week (week of March 8.)  

I know what I like

Evil Liberalism

(Another update from my friend John, who had this interesting and telling observation. I personally, am left with the profoundly obvious realization that Sean Hannity is nothing other than, quite simply stated, an idiot).

I was at the Wright-Pat BX yesterday and I looked at the new "nonfiction" book section. Lots of neocon war-against-evil stuff there, including Richard Perle's "An End to Evil". But the most ridiculous title was Sean Hannity's (sp?) book called...

Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism

Wow. Interesting axis of evil he identifies there. If you defeat both despotism and Liberalism, what remains?

LIBERALISM - Webster's Dictionary....

"A political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of man, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties"

Sounds despotically treacherous to me. I'm glad ol jacked up frat boy Sean Hannity is doing his part to remove it from our planet. - A

VP Cheney Helped Cover-Up Pakistani Nuclear Proliferation In '89 So US Could Sell Country Fighter Jets

When news of Pakistan's clandestine program involving its top nuclear scientist selling rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, blueprints for building an atomic bomb was uncovered last month, the world's leaders waited, with baited breath, to see what type of punishment President Bush would bestow upon Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaff.  

Bush has, after all, spent his entire term in office talking tough about countries and dictators that conceal weapons of mass destruction and even tougher on individuals who supply rogue nations and terrorists with the means to build WMDs. For all intents and purposes, Pakistan and Musharraf fit that description.

  Remember, Bush accused Iraq of harboring a cache of WMDs, which was the primary reason the United States launched a preemptive strike there a year ago, and also claimed that Iraq may have given its WMDs to al-Qaeda terrorists and/or Syria, weapons that, Bush said, could be used to attack the U.S.  

Burn the Maps and Get Lost in the Territory: Review of Jeffrey St. Clair's Been Brown So Long...

Politics leaves its boot-print on almost every aspect of our lives. From our schools to health care, jobs and the environment, it seems we can never win when up against the powers that be. Casting our votes for the evil of two lessers, as dutifully citizens do every election cycle, surely leaves us with a lesser by the end of the day. So you would think "hope" should be brushed to the waste side as naïve optimism, clamored to by only the most stubborn of idealists.

If this is how you feel, you have yet to pick up the latest book by environmental writer Jeffrey St. Clair, Been Brown So Long it Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature, where St. Clair masterfully shatters the myth that all hope should be abandoned. Perhaps the most clairvoyant writer of our times, St. Clair understands the environmentalist plight like no other living writer. He recognizes that neither major political body in the US sides with those that seek to protect our diminishing natural landscapes. He dutifully dissects the "Big Green" cabal, which claims to be the voice of nature, but instead drools at the feet of their foundation

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