Erasto Vasquez was surprised to see a forklift appear one morning outside his trailer near the corner of East and Springfield, two small rural roads deep in the grapevines ten miles southwest of Fresno.

With the presidential primaries come to a close and the general election only months away, it seems apparent that the ultra-right forces that have enjoyed unprecedented power and influence are about to taste the bitter fruit of defeat.

The Bush-McCain offshore oil drilling proposal is taking more hits. This time from Republicans. According to the Miami Herald, Republican Florida state legislator Marc Rubio described the Bush-McCain claim that new offshore drilling would lower gas prices as "disingenuous."

Haven’t heard of the National Endowment for Democracy? Not many people have. Yet the NED is taxpayer funded and carries out foreign policy with no meaningful public oversight or transparency. In fact, it does more to undermine democracy than not.

The George W. Bush-John McCain plan to lift the ban on offshore drilling will not lower the price of gas or put gas in your car, but it will help Big Oil. This was the consensus of three current and former East Coast governors, who announced their opposition to John McCain's proposed energy policy June 18 on a teleconference with reporters.

When US forces descended on Baghdad five years ago, they seemed unstoppable. Military arrogance had reached an all time high, and it seemed only a matter of time before the same frenzied scenario took place in Teheran, Damascus, and elsewhere.

Drill. Drill. Drill. That's John McCain's solution to the U.S. (and global) energy crisis. While most of the world, including most Americans, want alternatives to oil and other fossil fuels in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, John McCain wants to mire us in the sludge of the old oil economy.

The U.S. Army’s case against 1st Lieutenant Ehren Watada remains unresolved, 2 years after Lt. Watada boldly and publicly refused deployment to Iraq with his unit in June 2006.

The New York Times recently reported on John McCain's 1974 Naval War College thesis dealing with his being a prisoner of war in Vietnam. It appears, according to the article, that McCain's thesis simply repeats what was conventional right-wing wisdom of the time – that the anti-war movement encouraged defections among prisoners, that the military must do a better job in educating its members to the anti-Communist goals of U.S. foreign policy, etc.

At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire recently Republican nominee John McCain responded to an audience question on Social Security privatization by saying, "I am not for quote 'privatization of Social Security.' I never have been, never will be.”

The Georgia Trauma Care Network Commission released its final report Monday, June 09, 2008, on allocating $58.9 million from the State of Georgia for the State’s network of 15 trauma care hospitals.

In spite of his complaints about too much partisanship instead of “bipartisan resolve” and honest politics, McCain (twice!) supported and strongly endorsed George W. Bush for president... because of “party loyalty.”

The struggle for the votes from the working class has never been more openly discussed. In the mainstream media, we've heard the phrase “working class” far more than the classless phrase “middle class” in recent weeks. This is new feature for national elections.

Plans to store the majority of our nation’s spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste at a central repository underneath Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert 80 miles from Las Vegas were first hatched in the mid-1980s.

It is customary to run into brazenly racist commentary coming out of the U.S. liberals and right-wingers alike, especially when it comes to the question of oil.

In the summer of 2005, the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago passed a groundbreaking resolution. After several speakers rose to argue vigorously for a “friendly amendment”, the convention called for the “rapid” withdrawal of US Troops from Iraq.

In the wake of the widespread U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis, speculative funds began to flow into the oil and grains markets, pushing up their prices. The trend is so powerful that it is very difficult to keep these moves under control. Observing this situation, some economic analysts are saying, “Capitalism is reaching its limits.”

The idea that John McCain will pick up women voters who backed Clinton is "mythology" and a "pipe dream," said Ellen Malcolm, president of Emily's List, a women voter's organization that had strongly endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

15 million. That, according to data complied by the Department of Labor, is the approximate number of full-time jobs needed to put unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged workers back to work in the U.S.

Unemployment rose in May, from 5% to 5.5%, the largest one month jump in over 20 years. The national average for a gallon of gas reached $4 this week, with the upward spiral expected to continue.