Apr 23, 2005

LAS VEGAS — It was the fire from below that powered up the merger convention of the USWA and PACE, held here April 11-14. Five thousand workers, their families and guests shared stories of battles on picket lines and in battleground state polling places. Many conversations started with, “Let me tell you what that son of a Bush did in Ohio …” or Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Indiana or Southern California.click here for Spanish text

WASHINGTON — The downfall of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) may come from his crony ties to Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, DeLay’s former chief of staff. Over a three-year period, they allegedly fleeced six Native American Indian tribes of $82 million by pretending to represent their casino interests.

With a newly launched web site, the Communist Party USA is inviting broad discussion on how Americans can defeat the Bush agenda and build a bigger and stronger movement for peace, democracy, jobs and equality.

NEW YORK — U.S. peace activists will have a chance to interact with their counterparts from around the world at a May Day friendship and solidarity reception here sponsored by the Communist Party USA and the People’s Weekly World newspaper. The reception will take place after the May 1 nuclear disarmament rally in Central Park.

NEW YORK — The Bush administration — not the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Iran, or any other “rogue state” — is most responsible for the threat of nuclear proliferation, say organizers of the March and Rally for Peace in Iraq and Nuclear Disarmament Worldwide set for May 1 at the United Nations.

LOS ANGELES — With less than a month to go before the May 17 vote in the heated mayoral runoff here, there are strong signs that City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa could become the city’s first Mexican American mayor since 1872.

When the hawk advises the chicken that its eggs are better off in the hawk’s nest, it makes sense to be suspicious.
Perhaps with that proverb in mind, NAACP chairman Julian Bond and other African American leaders kicked off a nationwide lobbying initiative and cross-country campaign against President Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security.

TUCSON, Ariz. — The Statue of Liberty made a quick trip to Tombstone, Ariz., on April 1, welcoming all new immigrants coming to America in search of jobs and freedom. She also came to have her say about the Minuteman Project, a group of armed civilians invading Arizona in the month of April who claim the U.S. government hasn’t done enough to “secure” the Mexican-U.S. border.

BILLINGS, Mont.: Legislature condemns Patriot Act; SPRINGFIELD, Ill.: Protest weakening of lead standards; THREE RIVERS, Texas: Hometown honors hero; BIRMINGHAM, Ala.: Deaths blamed on privatized jails

ST. LOUIS — I am one of roughly a dozen students at Washington University who walked into the admissions office of our school April 4 carrying food, commitment, clothes, books, nerves and a passion for economic justice for the workers on our campus. We’ve been sitting in for 15 days and conducted a hunger strike for six of those days. We won’t be leaving until justice — in the form of a living wage for campus workers — is achieved.