stop the backdoor attack on ANWR

R's in Congress are trying once again to open the Arctic Nat'l Wildlife Refuge to Oil & Gas drilling. As we all, extractive industry development could destroy this priceless habitat. Visit the wilderness society's site for more info and to take action.

Email Your Members of Congress

If you haven't already taken action by emailing your members of Congress about this time-sensitive issue, click here to visit our Arctic Action page.

bushisms

visit slate.com for more!

"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table."—Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005

oh great.

The new cure for PTSD?

As combat veterans continue to trickle home, many face increasingly bleak futures. A study undertaken last year by the military found that 1 in 8 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)—and this percentage may well have risen since then, with the increasing frequency of attacks in Iraq.

The study found that more than half of PTSD sufferers don't seek out mental health assistance. Even more disturbing, however, is reporter Mark Benjamin's report in Salon today, noting that the premier military medical facility, Washington DC's Walter Reed Medical Center, is failing to provide adequate PTSD treatment, which has resulted in worsened conditions and even suicide among inpatient soldiers. The hospital is also charging some wounded veterans hundreds a dollars a month for their meals there, all while the Army prevents soldiers with PTSD from receiving adequate disability payments.

But hey, things may be finally looking up for those shell-shocked combat veterans struggling with terrifying flashbacks, debilitating insomnia, paranoia, and urges to inflict violence upon others. The Food and Drug Administration has recently authorized soldiers to participate in a clinical study on the use of ecstasy in treating PTSD—sure to work wonders on the mental damage caused by witnessing death or having killed others in combat.

- Lygia Navarro

lynne stewart info

The Lynne Stewart Trial
By David Cole
The Nation

07 March Edition

On February 10, a jury in New York City convicted longtime activist attorney Lynne Stewart and two others on all counts in one of the Bush Administration's most heralded terrorism trials since 9/11. Stewart, a 65-year-old who has never committed a violent act, now faces twenty to thirty years in prison. Do you feel safer?

Perhaps more than any other, this case illustrates how out of hand things have gotten in the "war on terrorism." To inflate its successes in ferreting out terrorism, the Justice Department turned an administrative infraction into a terrorism conviction that, unless reversed, will likely send Stewart to prison for the rest of her life. To make sure the charges would stick, the prosecution tried the case in the most inflammatory and prejudicial way possible, introducing as "background" reams of evidence of terrorism that had nothing to do with Stewart's actions.

more on the comments....

bush's assault on the poor

this is no surprise, eh?

washingtonpost.com

Poorest Face Most Risk on Social Security
Bush Plan's Success May Hinge on Perceived Safety

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 19, 2005; Page A01

No group of Americans would be affected more by President Bush's Social Security plan than those earning the least. Just ask 46-year-old Brent Allen.

Allen, who recently lost his job at a Massachusetts paper mill, faces a retirement financed exclusively by the money he has been paying into the Social Security system for the better part of 30 years. Like nearly half the U.S. population, he has no pension or savings to speak of. And his brief flirtations with the stock market have largely flopped.

So Allen, who lives on less than $15,000 a year in disability payments from Social Security and income from his live-in girlfriend, is distrustful of Bush's plan to allow workers to divert a portion of their payroll taxes into personal investment accounts.

"I have had stocks, and have had them for six years, and I have lost money continually," Allen said this week. "What's going to happen to people when they retire when the market is down? There is no guarantee [Bush] can make. There is a guarantee now," under the current system.

More than 60 million Americans 25 to 64 years old reported incomes of less than $25,000 in 2002, the latest year for which government figures are available. Like Allen, most of these workers have small or no pensions, scant savings, and serious concerns about their retirement years, according to government statistics and polling results.

Bush sees personal accounts as the gateway to their financial security -- giving them a chance to join tens of millions of Americans with significant investments in stocks and bonds for their retirement. But unless he can convince Democrats and skeptical Republicans that the personal accounts would be a wise and relatively safe investment option for low-income workers, his proposal is likely to fail, many lawmakers agree...... for more visit http://www.washingtonpost.com

bush's assault on the bill of rts

From Press Conference in Boston, 2/17/05
Statement by Michael Avery, President, National Lawyers Guild
(Michael Avery is a Constitutional Law professor at Suffolk Law School in Boston)

The National Lawyers Guild is outraged about the prosecution and conviction of Lynne Stewart and has called for a national day of outrage today to protest the prosecution. We are holding press conferences and protests in cities across the country, including Boston, New York, Minneapolis, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, OR, Bellingham, WA, Austin, TX, Miami, FL, Birmingham, AL, Durham, NC, Tucson, AZ and Washington, DC. We will be joined in other cities, as we are here in Boston, by other lawyers and activists who are concerned about the right to be represented by legal counsel.

We believe that Lynne Stewart was unfairly targeted by the Bush government in order to deter lawyers from representing politically unpopular clients, particularly individuals charged with terrorism-related crimes. Ms. Stewart was prosecuted on five felony charges and faces a possible twenty-year prison sentence, for violating administrative measures concerning the conditions of confinement of her client Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. The evidence against her was that she openly gave to the press information that her client personally opposed a ceasefire in hostilities in Egypt in June, 2000. This action, which Ms. Stewart has never attempted to hide, should have been punished, if at all, with administrative sanctions, not a lengthy prison sentence. In fact, her actions should have been viewed as protected by constitutional principles, including the Sixth Amendment right of her client to counsel and the First Amendment right of freedom of speech.

The Bush government has attempted in a wide variety of ways to interfere with the rights of people in detention to be represented by lawyers and, even more ominously, has attempted to disrupt the constitutional process of checks and balances by cutting off access to the courts altogether in an increasingly large category of cases. These efforts by the executive branch of the government to operate outside the Constitution are detailed in a fact sheet which we have distributed with these remarks. The most well known of these measures are the claims of the government to be able to hold so-called “enemy combatants,” including American citizens, in indefinite detention, incommunicado, without access to lawyers, without making criminal charges against them. But the government has also asserted a right to secretly monitor attorney-client conversations of other prisoners; has sent some detainees to third countries, without any due process, where they have been tortured; and has refused to afford the protection of the Geneva Conventions to prisoners of war held by America. A number of the provisions of the Patriot Act, and other administrative measures, provide for secret searches, electronic surveillance, and the collection of personal information concerning American citizens and others lawfully in this country, all without access to adversary proceedings in court. Indeed, a federal judge in New York held last year that it could be considered a felony under the Patriot Act for a business person who receives a National Security Letter from the FBI, seeking information about a client, to consult with his attorney before responding to the request. On top of this we have trials against immigrants using “secret evidence” that neither the person, nor her attorney, have access to.

The fact is that the Bush government has waged a war on the Bill of Rights since the beginning of his first administration and plans to continue to do so. This effort to hijack our constitutional rights must be opposed by all Americans who care about civil liberties and our traditional freedoms. The members of the National Lawyers Guild will not be intimidated by the prosecution of Lynne Stewart and across the country today will publicly vow to continue to provide zealous advocacy to secure due process of law for all prisoners in detention and all people who are charged with crimes. In particular, we will continue to stand up for those who exercise their rights to oppose the policies of the government, and we will continue to support Lynne Stewart.