Bush Declares War on Labor

Bush is officially seeking a Taft-Hartley injunction in the dockworker lockout.

Update: It turns out that Bush’s own mediator had negotiated a 30-day extension of the union contract, which the ILWU had agreed to. Management had not, so Bush rewarded them with a Taft-Hartley injunction. On CNN, AFL-CIO’s Rich Trumka declared that this was the first time in American history that a Taft-Hartley injunction had been issued during a lockout. He condemned the Bush administration’s collusion with management.

Here are some actions you can take in support of the dockworkers:

a link to send a message to retailers who have promoted the injunction

ILWU’s activist toolkit of sample support letters and resolutions.

Vote in this online poll against Bush injunction

More

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Harvard Bailed Out Bush’s Energy Firm.

“Newly unearthed documents show that when the energy firm that helped make Bush a multimillionaire teetered on the brink of bankruptcy in 1990, Harvard University, headed by a Bush political supporter, charged to the rescue,” the Wall Street Journal reports. One of the deals that was “critical to the company’s survival” involved “a partnership used to move troubled assets and large debts off the company’s balance sheet — much like the controversial investments that Enron… [Taegan Goddard's Political Wire]

Now why would Harvard, which has multi-billion dollar investments, buy into a failing money-losing Texas oil company?

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After long drought, Bill Simon shoots self in foot again

Simon’s credibility sinks as fund-raising exposé on Davis collapses

That gurgling sound you heard Tuesday was Bill Simon’s political credibility going down the toilet, along with his big exposé on Gov. Gray Davis that the governor illegally accepted a campaign contribution in the Capitol.

It was supposed to be the smoking gun that supported Republican Simon’s assertions that Democrat Davis has hung a “for rent” sign on his governorship. But a photo purporting to show then-Lt. Gov. Davis accepting a $10,000 campaign check inside his Capitol office complex four years ago didn’t hold up to media scrutiny.

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Toilet improvements: flush with success

Japan’s toilet wars started in February, when Matsushita engineers here unveiled a toilet seat equipped with electrodes that send a mild electric charge through the user’s buttocks, yielding a digital measurement of body-fat ratio. <Whoa, I think I’ll let our Japanese friends beta-test that>

Unimpressed, engineers from a rival company, Inax, counterattacked in April with a toilet that glows in the dark and whirs up its lid after an infrared sensor detects a human being. When in use, the toilet plays any of six soundtracks, including chirping birds, rushing water, tinkling wind chimes, or the strumming of a traditional Japanese harp.

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Sen. Byrd shows talons

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., a fierce opponent of the President Bush’s Iraq war resolution, indicated he would use delaying tactics in an effort to block the measure. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said that could easily put off a final vote until next week.

Byrd, who has been criticizing the Iraq war resolution daily since the Senate began its debate on the measure last Thursday, told colleagues at a party luncheon that he planned to make full use of Senate rules to try to derail the legislation, participants said.

CIA Director George Tenet told lawmakers Tuesday that Saddam Hussein might not use his weapons of mass destruction unless provoked by an imminent U.S.-led attack.

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Is the American empire already over?

“The United States has been fading as a global power since the 1970s, and the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks has merely accelerated this decline.” So says Immanuel Wallerstein, the Yale University political scientist

In a forthcoming book, to be titled Decline of American Power,he describes his country as “a lone superpower that lacks true power, a world leader nobody follows and few respect, and a nation drifting dangerously amidst a global chaos it cannot control.”
…
A Japanese CEO told me this in blunt terms the other day: “It was Clinton’s sole great success that he kept the world economy in dollars for 10 years longer than anyone thought he would. But nobody’s staying in dollars any more.”

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Over ninety UN resolutions are currently being violated.

Israel is the worst offender, followed by Turkey and Morocco and, oh yeah, Iraq.

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Belafonte slams Colin Powell as race sellout

Via Drudge Report

Singer Harry Belafonte took to the AM radiowaves on Tuesday morning to slam Secretary of State Colin Powell as a sellout to the black race!

Belafonte, appearing on San Diego’s 760 KFMB, told host Ted Leitner that Powell was like a plantation slave who moves into the slave owner’s house and only says what his master wants him to say.

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Brazil Lula Wins Backing of Rival Before Vote

Reuters is confirming what we reported here yesterday from NarcoNews - that Lula got an endorsement of a key party.  NarcoNews was a full day ahead of the mainstream media on this, and oh yeah, as is usual, some media, like the LA Times denied it was true.

Leftist candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the endorsement of a defeated rival on Tuesday, which could give him the decisive votes needed to win Brazil’s presidency in an Oct. 27 runoff.

By the way, NarcoNews is now predicting a Venezuela coup attempt real soon now.  They have a way of being 1) correct, and 2) scooping everyone else on breaking political news from South America.

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