Author name: davidswanson

Wrongly Convicted, Almost Executed, Awarded $2.25 Million

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Here’s an article about yesterday’s jury award of $2.25 million to Earl Washington, whom the state of Virginia came within days of killing for a crime he had been clumsily and obviously framed for. Washington is mentally retarded, poor, and black. White cops in Culpeper, Virginia, interrogated him and fed him information about the crime. They did not take notes for much of this interrogation, read more

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Atheists for Peace

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By David Swanson

With the exception of Jews and African-Americans, no demographic group in the United States voted more heavily against Bush and for Gore and Kerry than did atheists, who make up 10 percent of the electorate. Atheists tend to be disproportionately progressive. So do atheistic countries.

The Atheist Manifesto that Sam Harris has posted at Truth Dig http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200512_an_atheist_manifesto read more

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RNC Attack on John Conyers Demands Action from Democrats

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By David Swanson

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has launched an aggressive campaign to smear Congressman John Conyers.

Here’s the background: It is accepted common wisdom among reporters, pundits, congressional staffers, and a majority of Americans that Bush and Cheney lied us into a war. A new “smoking gun” piece of evidence makes the news on almost a weekly basis, and that has been going on for upwards of a year. Yet there has been no investigation in either branch read more

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An Atheist Manifesto

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By Sam Harris, Truth Dig

Editor’s Note: At a time when fundamentalist religion has an unparalleled influence in the highest government levels in the United States, and religion-based terror dominates the world stage, Sam Harris argues that progressive tolerance of faith-based unreason is as great a menace as religion itself. Harris, a philosophy graduate of Stanford who has studied eastern and western religions, won the 2005 PEN Award for nonfiction for The End of Faith, which powerfully examines read more

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J. Jill, Ann Taylor, Liz Claiborne: Made By Slaves, Backed by Congress

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By David Swanson

The Spring 2006 issue of Ms. Magazine contains an article by Rebecca Clarren about some beautiful tropical islands described by disgraced House Majority Leader Tom Delay as “a perfect petri dish of capitalism.” What’s so perfect about Saipan and the other 13 Northern Mariana Islands? Primarily this: items produced there can carry the label “Made in USA” and be sold in the U.S. without tariffs or quotas, but the scandalously low U.S. minimum wage read more

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Washington Post Blogger Makes Laughable Attempt to Defend Rumsfeld Against McGovern

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By David Swanson

WaPo’s William Arkin has posted a blog with the headline “Rumsfeld Didn’t Lie, But He Should Still Go.”

He quotes Rumsfeld’s exchange with Ray McGovern and then writes: “If the issue here is Saddam Hussein’s connection to al Qaeda and his involvement in 9/11, to the ‘bulletproof’ evidence the administration claimed, and more important for America, to the likelihood that Saddam would have ever shared any WMD with terrorists read more

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Lobbying Hitler's Legislature for Peace

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By David Swanson

There are now 37 Congress Members backing an investigation into grounds for impeachment related to the war. Rep. Hilda Solis has joined the list of cosponsors of House Resolution 635, introduced by Congressman John Conyers.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/635

This compares to 17 members backing Rep. Jim McGovern’s bill to cut off funding for the war.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/end

Why are 20 more members on one of these bills than on the other?

Well, public disapproval read more

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Voting, Organizing, and Protesting

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I voted in a local election today in Charlottesville, Va., a progressive town in a regressive state in a very backward nation. The electronic machine I voted on creates no paper trail. The friendly woman who directed me to it reassured me that they would produce a paper record later, which I could read at the registrar’s office, completely missing the concept of producing a simultaneous record that could later be compared with what the machines produce. But I did have to show an ID, so read more

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Today Is Mission Accomplished Day

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Impeachment Petitions to be Delivered to Speaker Dennis Hastert at 9 a.m., Monday, May 1

At 9:00 a.m. ET on Monday, May 1, “Mission Accomplished Day,” in Room 235 of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., Ellen Tenney of Rockingham, Vermont, will present the Speaker of the House with petitions from three towns in Vermont calling for the impeachment of President Bush. The towns each passed resolutions to send the petitions.

These are the first of many petitions from towns, read more

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Impeach Cheney First

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By David Swanson

We should impeach Vice President Dick Cheney first, and President George Bush immediately thereafter. This idea is not original with me. It’s been seen on bumper stickers for quite some time. My attention has been called to it by the fact that Congresswoman and Judiciary Committee Member Maxine Waters is talking about it. See below.

I’m persuaded of thevalue of this approach for several reasons. Among activists who very much want impeachment, one can hear a long read more

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