Other Sources (Scroll down for my current postings.)

• Common Dreams News Center (Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community)
• Cursor.org
• Democracy Now!
• Pacifica Radio
• FAIR,the national media watch group
• MotherJones magazine online
• From the Wilderness Publications (News & Views from the left)
• InformationTimes.com (America's Daily International Newspaper)
• TomPaine.commonsense(mostly commentary)
• T R U T H O U T  (news, politics)
• CounterPunch("the stories that the corporate press never prints")
• Al-Jazeerah in English
• Howard Zinn (commentary)
• Independent Media Center
• What Really Happened ("The history the government hopes you don't learn." A great source for news, updated frequently.)
• INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE ("News you won't find on CNN or Fox.")
• Keystone Report (The real alternative news source for the people of Pennsylvania)
• AlterNet.org
• "BuzzFlash provides headlines, news, and commentary for a geographically-diverse, politically-savvy, pro-democracy, anti-hypocrisy web audience, reaching a million visitors a month and growing."
• Spin of the Day ("Daily reporting on public relations, propaganda and media spin.")

Junemoonspoon 30

Baseball's over; I'm just slow!--Kayly

Quote-apalooza
• "Do you think anybody in Washington has any idea what people on a limited income have to do to live?"--ED HUMAN, 68, on legislation in Congress to add prescription drug benefits to Medicare.
• "It's kind of contradictory for them. You bomb them and three roads over you're fixing the school."

CARLEIGH McCRORY, of the Army Reserves, on the Iraqis.
• "I'd be lying there for hours every night. I would see scenes. I would hear voices. I kept hearing one of the squad leaders tell my team leader to help him ID the bodies of his guys."

CHRISTOPHER L. LABIER, a private who suffers combat stress reaction from the Iraq war.
• "And I said on my program, if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again." ---Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, on Good Morning America, March 18
• I've always said that in politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you.--Ann Richards
• Ann Richards on How to Be a Good Republican: "1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault. 2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own. 3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time...."
• You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.Charlotte, "Charlotte's Web"
• In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.--Martin Luther King, Jr.
• I have no trouble with my enemies. But my goddam friends,...they are the ones that keep me walking the floor nights.--Oscar Levant
• Well behaved women rarely make history.--Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
• We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.--Anais Nin
• Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.--Albert Einstein
• Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.--James Thurber
• A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.--William James
• If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.--Rachel Carson
• I'm repeating a few from the June 9th page:
• No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.--Alice Walker
• If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.--Charles Kettering
• Things do not change, we change.--Henry David Thoreau
• Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.--John F. Kennedy
• Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.--Leo Tolstoy
• Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.--Robert F. Kennedy
• If you want to make enemies, try to change something.--Woodrow Wilson
News
 
• Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Banning Gay Sex

Texas Law Called Homosexual Sex 'Deviate Intercourse'
POSTED: 10:14 a.m. EDT June 26, 2003
UPDATED: 1:10 p.m. EDT June 26, 2003
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the Texas law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.
• Officials Worried By Predatory Fish In Susquehanna

Flathead Catfish Measured 27 Inches
POSTED: 10:24 a.m. EDT June 20, 2003
UPDATED: 10:59 a.m. EDT June 20, 2003
YORK, Pa. -- A woman caught a 27-inch flathead catfish in the Susquehanna River, but the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission isn't happy because the flathead is a predatory fish that's not native to the area.
• The League of Conservation Voters Releases the

2003 Presidential Report Card
"Under the Bush administration, corporate polluters have been allowed to write the laws."--LCV President Deb Callahan
• Milwaukee to Host Green Party's 2004 Presidential Nominating Convention.

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
June 20th, 2003
As attention turns to the Green Party in the upcoming presidential election, the Green Party of the United States has determined that Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will be the site of its 2004 Nominating Convention.
• Rush Limbaugh:

We're Looking at a 2004 Landslide
June 19, 2003
I kick off the audio link below by passing on the news that the Green Party's 2000 presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, is thinking of throwing his hat back in the ring. Meanwhile, Bush is going to collect $200 million by the time he's done fundraising - and he has no primary opponent or federal limits. He raised more in one night this week than the nine Democratic candidates collected the first three months of 2003. A landslide of Reagan-Mondale, Nixon-McGovern proportions is in the cards for Bush 2004. There is the caveat that anything can change overnight in politics, but it would have to be something so dramatic that we can't conceive of it.
• 'I just pulled the trigger'

By Bob Graham, Evening Standard, in Baghdad
19 June 2003
At first glance they appear to be the archetypal Band Of Brothers of Hollywood myth, brave and honest men united in common purpose.
• The Bulletin's Frontrunner; June 20, 2003

WASHINGTON D.C.: NADER CONSIDERING ANOTHER WHITE HOUSE BID.
CNN's "Inside Politics" (6/19), "Former Green Party presidential
candidate Ralph Nader is flirting with another run for the White House. But might he run as a Republican? If Nader doesn't get the Green Party nod again, he's quoted as saying he might choose to run as an independent or even a Republican, pitting him against President Bush in the primary. Nader asks, wouldn't that be interesting? Stay tuned."
• Cost of Insurance for Work Injuries Soars Across U.S.

By JOSEPH B. TREASTER
SACRAMENTO, June 19 — Across the country, the cost of workers' compensation insurance is soaring at the highest rate in nearly a decade, adding yet another heavy burden on businesses and the struggling national economy.
• Assemblyman's Study Finds Flaws in Primary Health Education

By PATRICK HEALY
More than 60 percent of New York school districts violate state or city rules regulating the way students learn about drug abuse, AIDS and sex education, according to a study of the city school system's health programs for kindergarten through eighth grade.
• Gifts to Charity in 2002 Stayed Unexpectedly High

By STEPHANIE STROM
Charitable giving held up last year, in spite of an uncertain economy, international turmoil, increased unemployment and other factors that might have put a damper on it.
• Democratic Candidates Court Black Voters

By MONICA DAVEY
CHICAGO, June 22 — As the Rev. Jesse Jackson looked on from the front row, center, most of the Democratic candidates for president courted his followers in a hotel ballroom this afternoon, presenting the image of a group generally united behind issues of social justice and racial equality and against a single man, President Bush.
• Senator Questions Security at Nuclear Arms Laboratories

By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, June 22 — The Department of Energy has reneged on a promise to investigate security problems cited by two investigators at its Sandia National Laboratories says a senator, who also says Sandia's management punished the investigators.
• Labor Standoff at Baltimore Sun Gets Serious

By JACQUES STEINBERG
The protracted labor wars that famously divided so many big daily newspapers throughout the last century have lately gone the way of hot type and the manual typewriter.
• Gap in Surveillance Tape at Issue in Abuse Suit by New Jersey Inmates

By JOHN SULLIVAN
TRENTON, June 20 — A surveillance videotape, shot with the jerky intensity of a police reality television show, has raised troubling new questions about a 1997 prison lockdown in which more than 600 inmates claimed they were beaten by guards and the state did nothing about it.
• Atlanta's First Black Mayor Dies At Age 65

POSTED: 10:59 a.m. EDT June 23, 2003
ATLANTA -- Former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson has died.
Democratic party officials say Jackson, who was the first black mayor of Atlanta, died Monday in Washington at the age of 65.
• Former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson dead at 65

Jacques Couret, Meredith Jordan and Walter Woods
Staff Writers
Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first black mayor who a former mayor called "the strongest black politician in Georgia," died Monday of a heart attack while on a business trip in Washington, D.C.
• 'Apocalypse Now' Music Fires Up U.S. Troops for Raid

Sat June 21, 2003 07:25 PM ET
By Alistair Lyon
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops psyched up on a bizarre musical reprise from Vietnam war film "Apocalypse Now" before crashing into Iraqi homes to hunt gunmen on Saturday, as Shi'ite Muslims rallied against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
• And in the good riddance department:
Segregationist Lester Maddox dead at 87
ATLANTA, June 25 (UPI) -- Former segregationist and one-time governor of Georgia, Lester Maddox is dead in Atlanta at the age of 87.
• Study Finds People Would Use Cell-Number 'Portability'

Wireless Industry Says People Don't Want Rule
POSTED: 10:00 a.m. EDT June 23, 2003
New York Sen. Charles Schumer has released a study from a telecom research firm that found almost one-third of the people with mobile phones would switch to a different company if they could keep the same phone number.
• Transparency, yes. Accountability, no

UK firms say they are behaving responsibly overseas, but they don't want their activities examined in US courts
Conal Walsh
Sunday June 22, 2003
The Observer
To applause from Downing Street, Shell agreed last week to publish details of its payments to Third World politicians. Sir Philip Watts, chairman of the oil giant, is a vocal supporter of Tony Blair's drive to crack down on international bribery. He is less keen, though, on another measure that aims to hold the world's corporate bogeymen more firmly to account.
• False war beliefs 'striking'

BY FRANK DAVIES
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. And 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons.
• Brits Push To Outlaw Spanking Children

Parents Might Be Prosecuted For Mild Smacks
POSTED: 7:33 a.m. EDT June 24, 2003
LONDON -- There's an effort in the British Parliament to "spare the rod."
• Judge Quits, Calls Judicial System Unjust

by LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer
June 24, 2003, 7:53 PM EDT
NEW YORK -- A federal judge said Tuesday he is quitting what he called an unjust criminal justice system, fed up with Congress' quest to boost prison sentences and prevent judges from deciding how long someone is imprisoned.
• Court: Porn-filters law legal

Tuesday, June 24, 2003
From staff and wire reports
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said yesterday the government can require public libraries to equip computers with anti-pornography filters, rejecting librarians' complaints that the law amounts to censorship.
 
 
Articles(new ones in red)
• Daily Show: Bush vs. Bush
• Sick puppies like me will find this funny.
• Not an article, but an interesting website: Blackbox Voting
• Senator Rick Santorum Is A Great Christian Patriot!

A satire
• Fifty-Five Ways for Board Members to Raise $500

The Board of Directors Grassroots Fundraising Journal Reprint Collection by Stephanie Roth and Kim Klein
• Flash animation comparing Hitler & W.

Funny, scary & sad.
• A Historical Look at African Americans in Politics

by Charles Brooks, Political Writer
Part 1
Part 2
• Bush's Resume

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Emails (Forwards/Actions)
 
• Hello Kayly,

The Organic Consumers Assocation is emailing you this important action
as you have offered to help with legislation.
The meat industry lobby is working to kill the Country of Origin
Labeling (COOL) law.  Contact Congress and tell them to Protect the COOL law!
The 2002 Farm Bill requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to write rules for "country of origin" labeling of beef, lamb, pork, fish, fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, and peanuts. The label would be found on foods sold in grocery stores, and would state the food's country of origin (for meat, the animal would have to be born raised and slaughtered in the U.S. to get the "Product of U.S." seal.)
Organic Consumers Association supports the COOL law because it helps
shoppers select domestically grown food, and prevents undercutting of local
farmers by cheaper, unlabeled imports. Also, by tracking the origin of cattle,
it would prevent an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease in the U.S. from imported
animals. If a diseased animals was found, it could easily be tracked back to
its country of origin, and imports from that region or country could be suspended.
(see http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/greger052303.cfm)
Nevertheless, on June 17, the House Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee voted to stop all funding for the implementation of COOL for meat. (Is that crazy or what?)
The full House Appropriations Committee will take up the bill next. They can restore the COOL funding by eliminating the Bonilla amendment. The House Appropriations Committee vote may occur as early as the week of June 21-25, 2003.
ACTION: Call the Commitee members in your state.
MESSAGE: 1. Tell them that you want them to oppose Rep. Bonilla's amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill that will prevent the US Department of Agriculture
from implementing the COOL law. Say you strongly support the Country of Origin Labeling law. 2. Also tell him or her to vote against the Bonilla amendment when the Agriculture Appropriations bill comes before the Appropriations Committee and the full House. (The Agriculture Appropriations bill could be voted on in the next week or two.)
Scroll to the bottom for background on this issue.
Thank you,
Organic Consumers Association
contact: danila@organicconsumers.org
Members of the House Appropriations Committee
Pennsyvania                   Chaka Fattah      202-225-4001
                              John P. Murtha    202-225-2065
                              John E. Peterson  202-225-5121
                              Don Sherwood      202-225-3731
********************
Background:
The 2002 Farm Bill requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to write rules for "country of origin" labeling of beef, lamb, pork, fish, fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, and peanuts. The label would be found on foods sold in grocery stores, and would state the food's country of origin (for meat, the animal would have to be born raised and slaughtered in the U.S. to get the "Product of U.S." seal.)
The mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) are supposed to go into effect in September 2004. Small farmers and ranchers have given the agency lots of ideas for making COOL a simple process that will help them distinguish themselves in the market, and give concerned consumers information they need to buy food produced
closer to home.
But unfortunately, USDA seems to be taking its lead from big agribusiness, with industry players like Tyson Foods and the American Meat Institute whining that COOL is too expensive. Opponents of COOL don't want consumers to know where their food comes from or to give ranchers and farmers a desperately-needed way to identify their crops and livestock as products of the U.S. They seem to be nervous that consumers won't agree with their vision of shifting food production to the developing world, where labor and land are cheap, and environmental, worker safety, and pesticide rules are more lenient.
• Fight Over Dangerous Immunity Law Continues-You Can Help!

We continue to battle the National Rifle Association and their cohorts in the Senate over the dangerous immunity bill, S.659, that would give unprecedented legal immunity to the gun industry and bar shooting victims from suing reckless gun dealers and manufacturers who supply the illegal gun market.
Your immediate action to help us stop this bill becomes even more critical this week. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) has joined on as a co-sponsor of the bill. The bill now has 54 supporters signed on, and if the NRA gets to 60, we won't have the votes to defeat the bill, even with a filibuster.
We must stop this legislation or the court doors will be slammed shut and gun violence victims will never have their day in court. Victims like the families who lost loved ones in the Washington, DC area sniper attacks, and the two New Jersey police officers, Ken McGuire and David Lemongello, who are seeking to hold a negligent West Virginia pawnshop responsible for its role in fueling the illegal gun market in New Jersey. That's why we need your help TODAY!
TAKE ACTION:
PLEASE CALL OR WRITE YOUR SENATORS.
URGE THEM TO:
1) Oppose S. 659 and
2) Support a filibuster of the bill.
E-MAIL your Senators by clicking here: http://www.bradycampaign.org and follow the directions on the Take Action banner on the right side of the page.
WRITE or FAX your Senators by clicking here:
http://capwiz.com/brady/dbq/officials/.
CALL your Senators via the Capitol Switchboard at: 202-224-3121.
Please contact your Senator today. And help us keep the rights of gun violence victims intact!
Again, we need all the help we can get. Take a moment to forward this e-mail on to your friends and family so that they too can help prevent this bill from passing.
Keep watching for more updates and ways you can help. United, we can beat this dangerous bill!
In Other News: New Study Supports Our Position in Immunity Fight
UCLA Professor Susan Sorenson and doctoral student Katherine Vittes have given us a new tool in the fight against the immunity bill. This week, they published a study documenting that American gun dealers are willing to engage in illegal sales to "straw buyers" seeking to purchase guns on behalf of others. More than 50 percent of dealers surveyed said they would sell a handgun regardless of who the end user is if a prospective purchaser says that the end user is someone who "needs" it. You can access our press release on the study at:
http://www.bradycampaign.com/press/index.asp.
Or read the New York Times article on the study at
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/17/national/17GUNS.html (free registration required)
"Thumbs up to all of you for your generous support! Together, we will build a safer America." - Jim "The BEAR" Brady
June 20, 2003
http://www.bradycampaign.org
http://www.bradycenter.org
http://www.millionmommarch.org
• Hi,

Kayly visited the VoteToImpeach.org voting site, cast a ballot supporting impeachment, and is sending you this note asking you to participate by casting your vote in the campaign to impeach George W. Bush for having committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
The war in Iraq, the administration's lies and deceptions to the people and Congress, and the administration's assault on cherished civil liberties and civil rights require that the people of the United States demand action. In recent months, a mass nationwide effort has been created to use the constitutional mechanism to hold the president and other high officials accountable when they violate the law.
Please visit the site at http://www.VoteToImpeach.org, read the articles of impeachment drafted by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and cast your ballot for impeachment.
Grassroots democracy requires the direct participation of the people. Invite one (or more) friend(s) to visit the site, as part of our Each One, Reach One drive to help grow exponentially the number of people who have been introduced to, or have joined, the impeachment movement.
In the coming period, when we reach the million vote mark, the results will be publicized in full page newspaper ads and taken to the House Judiciary Committee.
VoteToImpeach.org
• Synthesis/Regeneration

c/o WD Press, P.O. Box 24115, St. Louis MO  63130
314-727-8554 (evenings, weekends)
E-mail: fitzdon@aol.com
http://www.greens.org/s-r/
June 2003
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS ON THE 2004 ELECTIONS
Dear Green or Greenish friend,
Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social Thought is soliciting
articles on the 2004 elections for the Fall 2003 issue. We invite submissions
that deal with issues such as the following:
1. What is the purpose of a Green Party presidential campaign?  Should the
Green Party run a presidential candidate in 2004?  If so, why would the best
candidate be Ralph Nader, Mumia Abu-Jamal, or someone else?
2. Why is it important to run candidates independent of the Democrats and
Republicans?  Are there parties that the Green Party should support in races
where it does not have a candidate?
3. Should the Green Party back the Democratic Party candidate for president
openly or by withdrawing in favor of the Democrats? Should the Greens do so
regardless of the Democratic Party candidate, or, should there be criteria
for overt or covert endorsement?
4. Should Greens shun national and even (except in rare favorable circumstances) state races in favor of a strategy of building from the ground up by running for local offices?
5. What is the value of independent politics and/or Green Party candidates
at the state-wide level?
6. What is the value of independent politics and/or Green Party candidates
for state legislatures or in partisan races at the local level?  What can such
races gain that cannot be accomplished by working for progressives in the major
parties?
7. What is the value of Green Party candidates in non-partisan races at the local level, or, why are such races a waste of time?
8. How does visible Green activism on controversial subjects or ballot issues help or hinder Green Party candidates?  What does this imply about what Green priorities should be?
Most articles for S/R are two pages (1400 to 1600 words), though we include
both shorter and longer pieces. We need to receive articles by July 31, 2003.  Articles receive later will be considered for the Winter 2004 issue.  Those who are
planning to submit an article should send a brief note by July 4 indicating what
they intend to cover. Please send an e-mail to this address to discuss
submissions of drawings.
Solidarity,
Don Fitz, 314-727-8554/h
• Dear Friend,

I thought you might be interested in this Planned Parenthood
Association of PA Action Center e-activism campaign.
If you go to the URL below you can check out what is
at stake and send your own message directly to the
relevant decision makers. Take action on this action
alert from Planned Parenthood Association of PA Action
Center at
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/PPPAcontraceptive_equity_campaign06?rk=n7zdX_51yc-8W
 

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