Having used Latino and labor votes to recapture control of the US Congress, some influential Democratic Party power brokers now seem intent on attacking the very base that produced their victory.

In the culmination of a four year legal battle, a federal judge has ruled that the US government discriminates against blind and visually impaired persons by issuing currency that looks and feels the same.

With the General Elections in Georgia only days away, an elections integrity advocacy group has issued a controversial endorsement of a Republican candidate for Secretary of State (SOS), Karen Handel.

With the recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision to mandate equal rights to gay couples, same-sex marriage is once again taking the spotlight in an election year where voters in eight states will vote on constitutional amendments to ban it.

Religious leaders representing churches, synagogues, and mosques throughout Michigan have come together to voice their strong opposition to Proposal 2, a ballot proposal to ban affirmative action and equal opportunity initiatives in state contracting, education, and employment in the state.

About 100 people gathered earlier this week at Soho, a gay bar in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale, to express their opposition to Proposal 2, a measure that would ban affirmative action programs in the state of Michigan.

Yesterday, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to the same state benefits, protections, and obligations as different-sex couples. The court split, however, on how to remedy current state law.

With polling data indicating that voters are increasingly discontented about the aimlessness, human and financial cost, and endlessness of the war, Republicans have become paranoid about their chances of holding onto power in Congress.

Will a new balance of power in hotels make housekeepers and cooks the inheritors of the San Francisco's waterfront labor tradition, and lead to the kind of rise in the standard of living that longshoremen experienced decades ago?

Hazleton, PA is a former steel town of 31,000 people about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia. In early July, Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta passed one of the most draconian anti-immigrant laws our nation has ever seen, the "Illegal Immigration Relief Act".

The conduct of the Republican leadership of Congress, in collaboration with the Bush administration, has been disgraceful. They have shown that they will do whatever it takes to pass legislation that benefits the privileged few.

Change Congress on November 7th

Election 2006: Doomsday for the GOP Agenda

In this print edition...

• Election 2006: Doomsday for the GOP Agenda by Joelle Fishman
• Why Charles Barkley Should be President, by Karin S. Coddon
• Health Matters: Thoughts on Universal Health Care, by Phil E. Benjamin
• Current Letters (updated 10-02-06)
• Current Poetry (updated 10-02-06)

Grape workers and union organizers at a rally at the "Forty Acres," the historic home of the United Farm Workers.

The free enterprise system, aka the free market, aka capitalism, is an economic system, as we all know, that is dedicated to maximizing profits at any cost.

An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have reached an agreement Sept. 11 to form a national unity government.

Pope Benedict XVI is not having a good week and yet doesn’t seem to mind. Upsetting one out of every five people living today may be of no concern for the His Holiness—made evident by his half-hearted, “sorry my infallible words offended you” apology.

Just weeks after reluctantly re-authorizing the Voting Rights Act (VRA), a major provision of the Civil Rights era aimed at eliminating discrimination against certain groups of voters, the Republican-controlled House moved to nullify some of the VRA’s major provisions by approving a new "poll tax" bill (H.R. 4844).

Several hundred Pennsylvanians joined local residents in a Sept. 3 rally here organized by labor, Latino and religious groups to oppose a city ordinance that would make it illegal to sell goods or services to, rent to, hire or aid undocumented immigrants.

A march of 5000 people in San Francisco, protesting bills in the US Congress which would criminalize immigrant status and violate the rights of immigrants, and calling for legalization of the undocumented.

One year after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the commercial media will allow Bush his photo opportunities; they will do a few feel good human interest stories about rebuilding New Orleans for a day or two, leaving the impression that the people are being taken care of; but they will not tell you the story that most needs to be told. They never do.