Progressive Minds

Last week when Republicans in the Senate stalled the bill to increase the minimum wage, Sen. Ted Kennedy asked them "What is it about working people that you find so offensive?"

Today, I would like to ask a question of the Bush Administration: What is it about science and evidence that you find so offensive?

According to a survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 150 of the climate scientists within our government, reported that they have personally experienced the Bush Administration's political interference with their work.  The Administration has pressured these scientists (whose work, of course, is based on SCIENCE and EVIDENCE), to make sure that their writings on global warming, fit with BushCo's skeptical view of the topic.

Nearly half of all of the climate scientists responding to the survey, say they either perceived, or personally experienced, pressure to eliminate the words "climate change" or "global warming" from a variety of communications that they prepared.  There were 435 documented incidents of interference.

Climate scientists say White House pressured them

 

 

It was nearly four years ago, on January 31, 2003, that George Bush and Tony Blair met at the White House in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

And we must not forget what happened during that meeting.

It was at that January 31 meeting that:

- George W. Bush told Tony Blair he was determined to strike Iraq, even in the absence of a 2nd U.N. resolution, and, this is really important, even if U.N. inspectors found zero evidence of an illegal Iraq weapons program.

- Bush also told Blair "The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning."

- Bush was so concerned about the lack of any concrete evidence against Sadaam, that he considered the idea of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours." Bush rationalized that if Sadaam fired upon these reconnassance planes, he would be violating U.N. resolutions. In other words, in the abscence of evidence against Sadaam, Bush wanted to entrap him.

- During the meeting, Bush told Blair he did not think there would be "internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups."

Bush told Blair we're going to war, memo reveals

These are all issues that the new Congress should put on its purview to investigate. Let's encourage them to do so!

Today is the one year anniversary of Coretta Scott King's passing.

So I just wanted to take time and pay tribute to this outstanding human being.

My favorite story about Mrs. King, is how after her husband's death, she somehow found the strength to go to Memphis, the scene of the crime, and march with the sanitation workers (which, of course, is what Dr. King had been there to do).

As President Clinton so eloquently said during Mrs. King's funeral, she could have easily just given in to her grief and stayed home. Instead, she galvanized herself into action in the midst of her grief.

We all stand on her shoulders!