Barack Hussein Obama's speech against the Iraq War - October 2002

"I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.

I Don't Oppose All Wars

I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.

I don't oppose all wars.

After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

Opposed to Dumb, Rash Wars

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

On Saddam Hussein

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

You Want a Fight, President Bush?

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that...we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."

What do Americans eat and why?

The great food debate

Come on in

Aug 29th 2002 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print edition

How bad is American food? And whose fault is it?

AMERICANS are in a pickle over food. Just as a decade of financial optimism has given way to the shocked discovery that people are poorer than they thought they were, so an era of working out in gyms and low-fat dieting has been mocked by reports of the nation's shocking chubbiness and other food-related forms of ill-health.

The figures on fat are striking. The proportion (if not the proportions) of Americans who are obese rose from 15% in 1991 to 27% in 1999. Youngsters show the same trend: 10% of them are now obese. Add in the merely overweight and you cover 60% of American adults and 25% of children. David Satcher, who retired as surgeon general in February, has estimated that obesity contributes to 300,000 of the 2m deaths each year in America. Treating diet-related conditions such as cancer and heart disease cost $117 billion in 2000.

What to do? The Bush administration has launched a $190m advertising campaign aimed at making children more energetic. This week, the Los Angeles school board moved to ban the sale of fizzy drinks in its schools. In May, a Californian state senator abandoned her bill to impose a tax of two cents on every can of pop statewide, but others are still pushing for “sin taxes” on burgers and sugary drinks.

The courts have become involved too. Last month, a New Yorker sued four fast-food chains. He had eaten their food regularly in the course of reaching 272lb (123kg) and notching up two heart attacks. The restaurants, he said, had not warned him that his diet might be harmful.

Meanwhile, another battle has broken out within the fad-crazed health industry itself. The traditional low-fat, bran-and-broccoli dieticians have been challenged by another school that advocates high-protein eating. Beef and lobster, they say, are fine, but you have to stay off carbohydrates such as pasta and bread.

Is the American stomach really in such poor shape? By the standards of most of the world, Americans are fairly healthy. Life expectancy continues to rise; it is bettered only by places that absorb far fewer immigrants from poor countries. Despite jeers from Europe about the number of additives and hormones that go into American food, there have been no health scares on the scale of Britain's mad-cow disease.

Yet Americans are surely right to be agitated about their food. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that their diet is doing many of them a great deal of harm. The “fat-acceptance” lobby is right that you can be heavy and fit; but without exercise, too much weight makes diabetes and other potentially fatal diseases more likely. Independent of the implications of being overweight, diet also plays a role in other illnesses, such as cancers of the bowel, colon and prostate.

There is also a clear social divide. Both hunger (which still afflicts 10m households in America) and unhealthy excess correlate closely with poverty and poor education. Shops in poor neighbourhoods stock less fresh food (and at higher prices), while fast-food joints proliferate. Poorer people also have fewer parks and playgrounds in which to exercise.

This sounds bad. Yet the food industry is largely giving American consumers (rich and poor) what they want. A pattern of life in which fewer families eat regular meals together, fewer parents remain at home during the day to cook, and increasing amounts of time are spent working or commuting creates demand for convenient, fast food (especially when it is as cheap as it is). Tummy size, then, is largely a side-effect of modern American life—and the choices that Americans make.

That said, there is a debate about how well informed consumers are when they make these choices. Even if you regard the case of the litigious 272lb New Yorker as absurd, America's food industry is particularly powerful and unfettered. In Europe, the most powerful bit of the food-production chain is the one closest to the consumer—the supermarkets. In America, the industry is controlled by food processors. Three facets of the food business are particularly troubling:

•Misleading information. Marion Nestle of New York University points out in “Food Politics” (University of California Press, 2002) that blurbs on packaging are highly selective. Breakfast cereals, for instance, come blazoned with information about how their added minerals and vitamins will strengthen young bones; they have less about what the coating of sugar will do to children's teeth and waistlines.

•Poor regulation. The power of the food lobby extends to Washington. The agriculture department has a huge conflict of interest. It is responsible both for promoting the interests of farmers and for disseminating nutritional information. The Food and Drug Administration has been restrained by Congress, at the behest of food interests, in its efforts to regulate dietary claims.

•Schools. Eating habits formed by children are hard to shake in adulthood: 60% of obese children grow up into obese adults. Fast-food firms often serve as official caterers, while soft-drink firms have installed numerous snack dispensers in schools (especially poor ones), in exchange for providing things like TVs.

Far from representing something new, the current debate about carbohydrates reflects the confusion created when science and marketing mix. While the 1990s fads concentrated on fatty foods and their link to cholesterol, the high-protein dieticians blame starchy carbohydrates. These, they say, produce a rush of sugar in the blood that destabilises the body's regulation of appetite and so lead to overeating.

This does help to explain one mystery of the past 20 years: why “low-fat” food did not work. The low-fat meals that Americans guzzled down were often packed with refined flour and heavily sugared to give them flavour (which the customers also wanted); people who tucked into them kept on wanting to eat more. The food industry did not rush to alert them to this point; nor did its packaging mention the sugar as clearly as the “low fat”.

Yet the more you delve into the issue, the more nuanced it appears. Just as some fatty foods, such as avocados and peanuts, are now thought to protect the heart (not harm it), there are also some sorts of carbohydrates, such as those found in whole grains, that don't encourage appetite. And the newest research seems to imply that people's genetic disposition might matter more than all these things. Variations in the apOE gene, for example, may determine your blood cholesterol level more than your diet. And all that is before you consider things like the amount of exercise people take.

Over the past 25 years or so, Americans have repeatedly jumped at quick-fix solutions for their fast-food habits. In the late 1990s there was a craze for anti-fat drugs, which inevitably led to lawsuits. But in the end nearly all the arguments about food come back to the choices that consumers make.

Americans have got larger because they have chosen (mainly consciously) to eat the way that they do. Millions of them actually eat rather well: these tend to be the richer and better-educated sorts, who go to gyms and buy their vegetables from organic farmers' markets. Their buying power is having an effect: one of the fastest-growing supermarket chains in America is Whole Foods Markets, based in Austin, Texas, which mixes organic vegetables and free-range chicken with a sorcerer's array of vitamin tonics. But, for the moment at least, they are in a clear thin minority.

My recommendation? Go vegetarian!

Wither Congress, Wither America?

Crushing Congressional Dissent: The Fall of Hilliard, Barr and McKinney

by Wayne Madsen

[Reprinted With Permission]
08/22/02

Historians will one day write that the 107th Congress was the last to stand up to the constitutional encroachment by the military and monarchist policies of the Bush II administration. Just as with the Roman Senate, the Congress of the United States is becoming an elite club of pathetic assenters and global elitists. Once the domain of great orators and dissenters like Cato and Cicero, the Roman Senate was eventually subsumed by the Roman Army when the Emperor took on dictatorial powers. The Roman Senate could say nothing as the Roman

dictatorship annexed Macedonia, Spain, Greece, the Middle East, and North Africa. By the time Emperors Tiberius and Septimius Severus took power, the Senate, which had grown to an elite club of 600, was a rubber stamp body that had no choice but to go along with the military's continued usurpation of power.

The United States Congress stands on the same precipice as its Roman ancestor. If Bush pulls another electoral coup in 2004 and we see the presidential election thrown into the House of Representatives, the future for the country appears very dim.

The August 20 defeat of two Georgia Representatives, one Democrat, the other Republican, is a bellwether event that bodes ill for this November's elections. Rep. Cynthia McKinney was successfully challenged by a Republican-turned-Democrat for her Fourth District seat. Before a cleverly contrived political operation was launched under the aegis of Georgia's other quasi-Republican, Senator Zell Miller, no one outside of Georgia had ever heard of former state judge Denise Majette, a self-described supporter of fringe lunatic GOP presidential candidate Alan Keyes in 2000. Majette will join in Congress fellow Ivy Leaguer Artur Davis, who beat Alabama Democratic Representative Earl Hilliard in that state's primary because of the latter's outspoken support for a more even-handed Middle East policy. Hilliard and McKinney join a long list of politicians who were defeated after advocating an independent U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East: Senators Charles Percy, James Abourezk, James Abdnor, and J. William Fulbright, and Representatives Paul Findley and Paul McCloskey. The careers of Adlai Stevenson and William Scranton were similarly ended after they supported a Middle East policy less tied to the interests of Israel. Only Michigan's veteran Representative John Dingell was able to stave off a recent assault from the powerful

American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) in a match off with fellow Representative Lynn Rivers in a redrawn congressional district.

However, Dingell's National Rifle Association ally, Georgia Representative Bob Barr, was not as fortunate. Barr was also a target of Miller's political operation. An opponent of the more draconian elements in Bush's and John Ashcroft's USA-PATRIOT Act and Homeland Security Department bill, Barr was a target of opportunity for the extreme right that favors turning the United States into a version of East Germany or North Korea. Moreover, Barr's chairmanship of the House Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law gave him real gavel power to block Bush and Ashcroft on critical civil liberties and privacy infringements, a power Barr has not hesitated to wield. And after supporting Steve Forbes in the 2000 GOP primary, Barr did not fit into Bush's binary and simplistic world: "If you're not with me, you're against me." Therefore, Miller, who, according to a former aide, is targeting fellow Senator Max Cleland and Georgia Governor Roy Barnes for defeat by conservative Republicans, figured out that if Barr supporters in Gwinnett County, which straddles McKinney's Fourth District and Barr's Seventh District, could be coaxed into crossing over party lines and voting for Majette, it would kill two birds with one stone. Barr would lose votes to his opponent John Linder and McKinney would get trounced by Majette in a low turnout (25 per cent) election with a high GOP crossover vote. The gambit paid off. McKinney and Barr were both defeated handily, McKinney with the help of 25,000 crossover votes. Of course, the fact that people not authorized to vote in the Fourth District may have voted anyway would fall into the category of election fraud. But after the Florida debacle, the Ashcroft Justice Department sees such electoral machinations as a way to remain in power a la any totalitarian regime parading around before the world as a democracy.

That McKinney and Barr were on the same neo-conservative hit list was exemplified on August 21 by a second-tier conservative radio talk show host in Washington, DC. Speaking on WTNT-AM, Oral Roberts University graduate, Pat Buchanan political adviser, and Tom DeLay- style Republican talk show host Michael Graham said it was great news that two "kooks" had been beaten in Georgia. He then stated he was talking about "Cynthia McKinney and her photo negative twin, Bob Barr." The statement was clearly racist in nature and a not-so-veiled reference, through a warped attempt at humor, to Barr's long rumored African-American heritage. But for the extreme right that dominates the GOP, such incendiary ethnophobic comments are the rule and not the exception.

McKinney had incurred the wrath of the White House by her question about what George W. Bush knew in advance about the September 11 terrorist attacks. But that was only the tip of the iceberg for the Republicans and their major campaign contributors. While it true that McKinney has championed the cause of Palestinian statehood and self- determination, thus inviting the enmity of major Jewish organizations in the United States, it was her long-time opposition to the trade of

blood diamonds and other strategic minerals in Africa that earned her a major challenge from multinational corporations, including Barrick Gold, on whose board President Bush's father serves as an international adviser. Among its other misdeeds, Barrick has been accused of helping to cover up the 1996 burying alive by one of its subsidiaries of over 50 Tanzanian gold miners in Bulyanhulu, in the northwest part of the country. Of course, when it comes to the lives and welfare of non-white people, the Bushes have never really held any soft spot, whether they are blacks in Africa or America's inner cities, Afghan or Iraqi children, or even a troubled half-Hispanic daughter/niece/granddaughter in Florida.

McKinney long advocated a halt in the pilferage of blood diamonds out of African war zones. She cited, on numerous occasions, the result of such commerce: the hacked off limbs, hands, and ears of small children in Sierra Leone; the permanent crippling from land mines of children in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and over 2.5 million deaths from civil wars in the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. The diamond profiteers from this mayhem and death are largely the Hasidic diamond dealers of Antwerp, Amsterdam, New York, and Tel Aviv. These dealers and their lobbyists often circled in and out of House hearing rooms and McKinney's office when issues relating to stemming the flow of ill-gotten African diamonds came up for discussion. These diamond merchants also have a powerful ally in long- time Democratic Party fundraiser and diamond cartel magnate Maurice Tempelsman.

The 108th Congress, lacking the consciousness of Cynthia McKinney and the skepticism of Bob Barr, will be a far more dangerous place. I have had the pleasure of working and knowing both of them over the years - fighting battles, in the case of McKinney, against U.S. human rights offenses in Africa and elsewhere and in the case of Barr, against rampant U.S. government surveillance of the private lives and activities of American citizens. The next Congress will be full of complacent African-American parlor servants like Majette and Davis, dangerous extreme rightists like former cockroach exterminator DeLay and former sportscaster J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, pitiful morons like Florida's former Secretary of State and chief election rigger Katherine Harris, Republican moles and sleepers like Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman, and Democratic spineless amoebas like Richard Gephardt and Tom Daschle. They will stand ready to back Bush's military campaigns into Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Colombia, or wherever Bush's economic interests are at stake. The country stands on the brink of disaster. But we cannot count on the future Congress to save us. Lacking a spine or any guts, it will surely help to bury us.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington-based investigative journalist. He testified before Cynthia McKinney's hearing on the genocide in the DRC in May 2001 and has worked with Bob Barr on privacy legislation in the past. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com

Source

Nader vs. Floridian Republican Party

THE REPUBLICANS: THE GREEN PARTY; Nader Crashes, And Bashes, G.O.P.'s Party

By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: August 03, 2000

Finally, with pedestrian traffic at a complete stop, Al Cardenas stepped forward and said: ''Excuse me, Mr. Nader. I'm the chairman of the Florida delegation, and this is our area.''It took the presence of Ralph Nader consumer advocate, professional gadfly and himself a candidate for president of the United States -- but something finally happened here tonight that, one assumes, was not in the Republican Party script. 

Right in the middle of the presidential nomination roll-call, Mr. Nader charged onto the convention floor, plopped himself in front of the Florida delegation and began tearing into the Republican Party and George W. Bush.

''Why am I here?'' he said, crushed amid a throng of delegates and reporters. ''I wanted to observe this thing in action. This is the most spectacular display of cash-register politics in the history of our country.''

''The message,'' he continued, patiently answering questions from any reporter who had one, ''is to go home and rethink what they're doing to the country when they sell the political system to corporate interests.''

As a rule, Green Party candidates for president are not allowed onto the tightly guarded floor of the Republican National Convention, where everyone, even Republican leaders, wears credentials strung around the neck. Mr. Nader was displaying broadcast media credentials, courtesy of a reporter from WBAI, a Pacifica Radio station in New York, who took him out onto the floor for an interview.

Although polls show that Mr. Nader's campaign has cut into support for Vice President Al Gore*, his venture tonight out among the Republicans was met with something less than an enthusiastic reaction from the Florida delegates, who seemed a bit shocked. First there were chants of ''Go, Bush! Go, Bush!'' Then Mel Martinez, a delegate from Orlando, stepped forward to thrust a Bush-Cheney sign into Mr. Nader's hands. Mr. Nader courteously thanked Mr. Martinez for the souvenir and promised to relish it.

Mr. Cardenas informed Mr. Nader that he would be welcome to join the Republican Party but that meanwhile it was time for him to go. And, with a little pushing from other delegates, he did.

*In the 2000 election, more registered Democrats in Florida voted for Bush than all Florida voters who voted for Nader. 

Democrat Leadership Council

The right wing current of the Democratic party, characterized by its neoliberal economic policies, support of Israel, desire to increase defense spending, and links to heavy donors and fundraisers.

Believes that "left-wing" positions are not politically viable. Describes itself as "moderate and pro-growth". Probably responsible for erosion of the Democratic Party's historical labor and minority base due to support of treaties like NAFTA, lack of support for affirmative action and poverty programs, and their siphoning away of campaign funds from minority groups.

At the national level, the movement was founded by the Democratic Leadership Council (501c4 educational non-profit, founded 1984) and includes the House New Democrat Coalition (founded 1997), the Senate New Democrat Coalition (founded 2000), the New Democrat Network PAC (founded 1996), the misnamed Progressive Policy Institute (501c4 think tank, "Bill Clinton's idea mill", founded 1989), and the umbrella funding group The Third Way Foundation (501c3 non-profit, founded 1996).

Since coming to power within the Democratic Party with Bill Clinton's presidency, the New Democrats/DLC have worked towards "essentially the same purpose as the Christian Coalition... to pull a broad political party dramatically to the right" according to John Nichols of The Progressive.

DLC operatives actively worked to sabotage Howard Dean's candidacy for the US Presidency in 2004, claiming that the "far-left" Democrat was wrong to attack George W. Bush's tax cuts and national security policies.

Corporate contributors to the DLC and New Democratic Network include Bank One, Citigroup, Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric, Health Insurance Corporation of America, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, Chevron, Prudential Foundation, Amoco Foundation, AT&T, Morgan Stanley, Occidental Petroleum, Raytheon, and many other Fortune 500 companies.

The New Democrat Movement is sometimes referred to as the Dixiecrat movement due to the DLC's origination in the southern states, their desire to get rid of affirmative action, and their membership's overwhelming whiteness.

"[Democrats should] shift the primary focus from racism, the traditional enemy without, to self-defeating patterns of behavior [among blacks]" --Chuck Robb, 2nd DLC Chairman, Governor & Senator of the Great State of Virginia, White Man, 1986.

"I'm from the democratic wing of the Democrat Party" --Paul Wellstone, progressive Democrat, criticizing the New Democrat Movement.

"Democrats for the Leadership Class" --Jesse Jackson, progressive black Democrat, describing the DLC.

Official Website:
http://www.ndol.org

Name	Occupation	Birth	Death	Known for
Brian Baird	Politician	7-Mar-1956		Congressman, Washington 3rd
Max Baucus	Politician	11-Dec-1941		US Senator from Montana
Evan Bayh	Politician	26-Dec-1955		US Senator from Indiana
Shelley Berkley	Politician	20-Jan-1951		Congresswoman, Nevada 1st
John Breaux	Politician	1-Mar-1944		US Senator from Louisiana, 1987-2005
Maria Cantwell	Politician	13-Oct-1958		US Senator from Washington
Lois Capps	Politician	10-Jan-1938		Congresswoman, California 23rd
Russ Carnahan	Politician	10-Jul-1958		Congressman, Missouri 3rd
Thomas Carper	Politician	23-Jan-1947		US Senator from Delaware
Ed Case	Politician	27-Sep-1952		Congressman, Hawaii 2nd
Ben Chandler	Politician	12-Sep-1959		Congressman, Kentucky 6th
Bill Clinton	Head of State	19-Aug-1946		42nd US President, 1993-2001
Hillary Clinton	First Lady	26-Oct-1947		US Senator from New York
Kent Conrad	Politician	12-Mar-1948		US Senator from North Dakota
Bud Cramer	Politician	22-Aug-1947		Congressman, Alabama 5th
Joseph Crowley	Politician	16-Mar-1962		Congressman, New York 7th
Artur Davis	Politician	9-Apr-1967		Congressman, Alabama 7th
Jim Davis	Politician	11-Oct-1957		Congressman, Florida 11th
Susan Davis	Politician	13-Apr-1944		Congresswoman, California 53rd
Cal Dooley	Politician	11-Jan-1954		Congressman from California, 1991-2005
Byron Dorgan	Politician	14-May-1942		US Senator from North Dakota
John Edwards	Politician	10-Jun-1953		2004 Vice Presidential candidate
Rahm Emanuel	Politician	29-Nov-1959		Congressman, Illinois 5th
Eliot Engel	Politician	18-Feb-1947		Congressman, New York 17th
Bob Etheridge	Politician	7-Aug-1941		Congressman, North Carolina 2nd
Dianne Feinstein	Politician	22-Jun-1933		US Senator from California
Harold Ford	Politician	11-May-1970		Congressman from Tennessee, 1997-07
Dick Gephardt	Politician	31-Jan-1941		Congressman from Missouri, 1977-2005
Al Gore	Politician	31-Mar-1948		US Vice President under Clinton
Bob Graham	Politician	9-Nov-1936		US Senator from Florida
Jane Harman	Politician	28-Jun-1945		Congresswoman, California 36th
Brian Higgins	Politician	6-Oct-1959		Congressman, New York 27th
Rush Holt	Politician	15-Oct-1948		Congressman, New Jersey 12th
Darlene Hooley	Politician	4-Apr-1939		Congresswoman, Oregon 5th
Jay Inslee	Politician	9-Feb-1951		Congressman, Washington 1st
Steve Israel	Politician	30-May-1958		Congressman, New York 2nd
Tim Johnson	Politician	28-Dec-1946		US Senator from South Dakota
Bob Kerrey	Politician	27-Aug-1943		Governor and Senator from Nebraska
John Kerry	Politician	11-Dec-1943		US Senator from Massachusetts
Ron Kind	Politician	16-Mar-1963		Congressman, Wisconsin 3rd
Herb Kohl	Politician	7-Feb-1935		US Senator from Wisconsin
Mary Landrieu	Politician	23-Nov-1955		US Senator from Louisiana
Rick Larsen	Politician	15-Jun-1965		Congressman, Washington 2nd
John Larson	Politician	22-Jul-1948		Congressman, Connecticut 1st
Joseph Lieberman	Politician	24-Feb-1942		US Senator from Connecticut
Blanche Lincoln	Politician	30-Sep-1960		US Senator from Arkansas
Zoe Lofgren	Politician	21-Dec-1947		Congresswoman, California 16th
Terry McAuliffe	Politician	1957		Clinton's Chairman of the DNC
Carolyn McCarthy	Politician	5-Jan-1944		Congresswoman, New York 4th
Mike McIntyre	Politician	6-Aug-1956		Congressman, North Carolina 7th
Mack McLarty	Government	1946		White House Chief of Staff, 1993-94
Gregory Meeks	Politician	25-Sep-1953		Congressman, New York 6th
Juanita Millender-McDonald	Politician	7-Sep-1938	22-Apr-2007	Congresswoman from California, 1996-2007
Dennis Moore	Politician	8-Nov-1945		Congressman, Kansas 3rd
Jim Moran	Politician	16-May-1945		Congressman, Virginia 8th
Ben Nelson	Politician	17-May-1941		US Senator from Nebraska
Bill Nelson	Politician	29-Sep-1942		US Senator from Florida
Gavin Newsom	Politician	10-Oct-1967		Mayor of San Francisco
Sam Nunn	Politician	8-Sep-1938		US Senator from Georgia, 1972-97
David Price	Politician	17-Aug-1940		Congressman, North Carolina 4th
Mark Pryor	Politician	10-Jan-1963		US Senator from Arkansas
Chuck Robb	Politician	26-Jun-1939		US Senator from Virginia, 1989-2001
Timothy J. Roemer	Politician	30-Oct-1956		9-11 Commission member
Loretta Sanchez	Politician	7-Jan-1960		Congresswoman, California 47th
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin	Politician	3-Dec-1970		Congresswoman, South Dakota
Adam Schiff	Politician	22-Jun-1960		Congressman, California 29th
Allyson Schwartz	Politician	3-Oct-1948		Congresswoman, Pennsylvania 13th
David Scott	Politician	27-Jun-1946		Congressman, Georgia 13th
Adam Smith	Politician	15-Jun-1965		Congressman, Washington 9th
Debbie Stabenow	Politician	29-Apr-1950		US Senator from Michigan
John Tanner	Politician	22-Sep-1944		Congressman, Tennessee 8th
Ellen Tauscher	Politician	15-Nov-1951		Congresswoman, California 10th
Tom Udall	Politician	18-May-1948		Congressman, New Mexico 3rd
Anthony A. Williams	Politician	28-Jul-1951		Mayor of Washington DC, 1999-2007
David Wu	Politician	8-Apr-1955		Congressman, Oregon 1st

Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile

source: http://www.nndb.com/group/269/000093987/

OSHA must be included in investigation

By John S. DelRosario Jr.

In the continuing investigation of federal agencies who may have stepped outside the purview of pertinent federal laws, OSHA’s investigation merits, well, an investigation itself for allegedly conducting more probes of the CNMI than all related industries in the US mainland.

How interesting the fact that California’s garment industry have violated worker rights in greater magnitude and number, yet federal and state safety officials have turned their heads the other way. Yet, OSHA was able to muster up the energy and resources to head out to the CNMI to literally play lord over the safety of employees in the local apparel industry. It would be interesting to find out who ordered the stepped-up investigation of the CNMI’s apparel industry.

A recent review of OSHA statistics, for all industries in FY 1998, shows that the US has a rate of incidents of 2.6 times higher than the CNMI. If I may illustrate a case in point:
All CNMI Industries: All US Industries:
Inspections 634 Inspections 23,211
Violations 1,073 Violations 102,638
V/I 1.69% V/I 4.42%

This represents nearly 2.7 percent of all inspections in the US and 1.05 percent of all violations. What I can’t understand is the willful turn of heads away from California’s thousands of worker rights violations.

Perhaps there’s the allure of the more exotic setting of the islands where OSHA officials get to kick-back under the sun sipping their favorite drinks after work. But I would strongly recommend that the House Resources Committee ought to subpoena the OSHA boys to specifically answer who ordered the stepped-up investigation of the CNMI. I am sure the big boys would have an answer for Congressman Don Young.

Fortification mentality

As I was helping my cousins prepare a grave for a relative last weekend, I couldn’t help but notice the garden of small cement fences built by families around graveyards of loved-ones. I can understand this sentiment but it also has its own downside.

The fortification mentality has in fact resulted in wasted space between graveyards in a cemetery that is nearing full occupancy. Imagine if per chance during a November 1st ceremony someone contracts a heart attack. In the words of a doctor: "You better plan your heart attack and good luck if you ever make it to the ambulance before your last breath". You’d be stumbling all over low and high fences. I figure that by the
time the EMT team gets to you for your classiest ride to CHC, you won’t
be critically ill but dead!

I figure too that by the time I expire, the wall on the southern side of the Korean church would be the only place where they (won’t bury me), but hang my sugared body for the flies, maggots, sun and rain. But I’ll make sure my right hand is extended forward with a recorded message: "Thank you for the chenchule`!"
still can’t figure out why would families build fences as though dead loved-ones would quietly slip away while nobody is looking, huh? Well, maybe there’s a good reason though I much prefer the military graveyards that allows for neat clipping of grass on a regular basis with tiny crosses and small flowers. Perhaps it’s a bit late for rearrangement of a crowded cemetery of fences.

Source