In the waning days of 2006, the reality of institutional racism and aggressive imperialism were laid bare again in the U.S. The police shooting of African American Sean Bell and his two friends in Brooklyn, New York on the morning of November 25 were followed on December 6th by a report from the Iraq Study Group convened by the US government to, as the authors of the report note, "solve the problem of Iraq."

Fervently embracing a cause that she took up after her son’s death, pacifist Cindy Sheehan affirmed in Cuba that the atrocities committed by the government of George W. Bush in the world is shameful for many Americans.

Last week, two men died. One of them was an insignificant nonentity who hardly troubled people’s thoughts when he was in office thirty years ago, a man universally hailed for his “decency” and collegiality toward fellow politicians and members of his country’s political elite; the other, a brutal tyrant.

Unlike the previous majority party in Congress, the Democrats who take power today know their weaknesses.  They know they're not very good at the whole press conference thing where you're supposed to stand there and say something people care about. 

The Liberal Party leadership race which wrapped up on Dec. 2 in Montreal had all the elements of dramatic horse race, culminating in a delegate vote which saw Stephane Dion emerge from the pack to catch Michael Ignatieff at the fourth-round wire.

The parallels between the Iraqi war and the Vietnam war are evident: no clear mission, escalating casualties and no exit strategy. Another parallel is the growing number of veterans who are speaking out against this war after having fought in it, as many Vietnam veterans did after serving in that tragic war.

In his six years as President of the United States, George W. Bush has accumulated a long list of criminal activities which mark him as a dangerous criminal, enough reason to try him and expel him from the White House.

The upcoming immigration hearing for Luis Posada Carriles, the 78 year-old felon who is a self-confessed co-conspirator responsible for the detonation of a bomb which killed 73 passengers and crew members aboard a Cuban passenger airliner as it flew over Barbadian waters on October 6, 1976, represents a huge political burden for the White House and its deteriorating relations with Latin America.

Se está especulando mucho sobre la posibilidad de que se produzcan cambios significativos en la política exterior de Estados Unidos, en razón de los estruendosos fracasos que ha cosechado últimamente esta pandilla fascista del clan Bush.

Former President Jimmy Carter says by “rejecting or evading almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the past 50 years, the United States has now become the prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation.”

In violation of the U.S. Code and international law, the Bush administration is spending more money (in inflation-adjusted dollars) to develop illegal, offensive germ warfare than the $2-billion spent in World War II on the Manhattan Project to make the atomic bomb.

Another December 7th has come and gone and Americans once again are reminded how their alleged lack of military preparedness almost led to their defeat by the Japanese and Germans. Trouble is, the U.S. had been building up its military machine as never before under President Franklin Roosevelt and in 1941 it was manufacturing more warplanes than Germany, Japan and Italy combined.

Though the report presented by the Iraq Study Group (ISG) is a sharp criticism and rejection of the Bush war policy, its recommendations simply "continue the occupation in a new form," said Hany Khalil organizing coordinator of United for Peace and Justice.

Brushing aside questions about Robert Gates' past involvement in the Iran-Contra debacle, and ignoring his role in the funneling of intelligence to Saddam during the Iraq/Iran war, and overcoming their own hesitance 15 years ago to advance him to the position of CIA director, the Senate Armed Forces Committee voted unanimously for the former analyst to replace the primary architect of every aspect of Bush's military muckraking abroad and assume responsibility for Rumsfeld's war against Iraq, effective with the anticipated vote of the full Senate later this week.

Several human rights organizations, including the FIDH (Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’homme) and the American-based Center for Constitutional Rights have filed a complaint in Germany. This legal procedure became possible in 2002, when the country adopted a law of universal competence.*

Columnist George Will has found senator-elect Jim Webb (D-Va.) guilty of “careless and absurd assertions,” for writing the wealth gap between rich and poor is “the least debated issue” in American politics.

The forthcoming report from the independent Iraq Study Group, which according to press reports will possibly recommend a gradual and tentative withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq while rejecting any deadlines or timetables to carry it out, seems likely to further marginalize advocates of meaningful troop withdrawal in the media debate over Iraq.

Thousands call Congress to remind their representatives that voters issued a Mandate for Peace in the mid-term elections and expect Congress to end the war and bring the troops home now!

John R. Bolton, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, will leave that post when his recess appointment expires, the White House announced today. His action is the latest aftershock to hit the Bush administration since the Democratic party's victories in the mid-term elections on November 7.

Disturbing evidence concerning the 1968 assassination of Bobby Kennedy surfaced recently near the time of what would have been Kennedy's 81st birthday.