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May 9, 2008 - In anticipation of Amtrak National Train Day on May 10th, Delegate David J. Toscano
(D-Charlottesville) today announced several significant rail initiatives that will likely affect the Charlottesville/Albemarle area. First, the recently passed state budget includes $2.2 million in new money per year for major roadbed improvements to the CSX railroad lines operated by the Buckingham Branch, which serve passenger rail from Washington to Chicago through Charlottesville. "If we can improve the roadbed, we can increase the speed and efficiency of trains, thereby providing a higher level of customer service to Amtrak passengers," Toscano said. "This funding represents a major investment in this process." The Rail Enhancement Fund, created by Governor Warner, will receive $26 million in fiscal year 2009 and continuing appropriations in the future. This fund directs investments to freight and passenger rail improvements that will have significant public benefits. The Rail Preservation Program, which benefits Short Line carriers, will receive $3 million.

Take 1 Minute to End the Killing:

Congress Members have received thousands of phone calls, and some of them are committing to voting no on Iraq funding. The vote won't happen until next week, so keep the calls coming: Call your Congress Member now at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote No on the war funding.

More Detail:

Pelosi does not have the votes to pass the Rule, a procedural vote that must pass prior to votes on each of the three amendments (1. war money, 2. a nonbinding "timeline goal," re-banning of torture and permanent bases, redundantly banning a Bush-Maliki treaty without consent of Senate or both houses of Congress, and forcing Iraqis to pay for the reconstruction, 3. other spending including military spending and veterans spending).

She doesn't have the votes because of Republican opposition to the whole maneuver (which will involve amending a bill that's already passed in order to avoid a vote on the whole package - except for the Rule vote), and because of "blue dog" (right-wing) Democratic outrage over spending some $11 billion on something useful when they want to stay focused on wasting over $100 billion on killing. Democrats who do plan to vote No on the war funding have not threatened to vote No on the Rule. But they should if they want to block this thing.

If Pelosi buys off the blue dogs somehow, progressives could still step in and block the war money by blocking the Rule. There may be some progressive resistance to the Rule anyway, because Lee and Kucinich both want to be permitted to bring up amendments. (Lee's would resrict funding to a withdrawal. Kucinich's would ban the use of funds for attacking Iran, Syria, etc.)

So, call your Congress Member now at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote No on the war funding and on any Rule that would bring it up for a vote! And tell them to make their position clear to the Speaker. Tell them that you will REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER. Make clear to them that voting for either of the other two amendments will be no excuse for voting for the war funding amendment. You can remind them (92 of them) of this letter in which they committed to voting No.

As Congress considers President Bush's request for another $100 billion for Iraq, 68% of Americans want Bush to bring U.S. troops home within 6 months, according to a Democrats.com telephone poll of 628 adults conducted from May 1-4, 2008 by ICR ( http://www.icrsurvey.com ).

The poll marks a 14% increase from 54% in September. Most of that increase (11%) came from those who want Congress to require Bush to use existing funds to bring our troops safely home, bringing that total to 51% - a majority of Americans.

Broken down by party, 85% of Democrats want our troops home within 6 months, as do 78% of Independents. By contrast, only 32% of Republicans want our troops home soon.

Democratic support grew by 15% since September, and Independent support grew by 20%. By contrast, Republican support was unchanged.

The new poll differs slightly from last September's poll because Congressional Democrats have proposed giving President Bush $70 billion more than he requested in order to avoid another unpopular funding vote before the November election.

The new poll asked: "President Bush wants Congress to spend 100 billion dollars more in tax dollars this year to keep U.S. troops in Iraq." The comparison data below is only for the identical questions, with last September's data immediately below in italics.

HERE ARE THE RESULTS:
http://democrats.com/iraq-poll-2

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi to Answer Your Questions Online
By David Swanson

Shirin Ebadi (Persian: شیرین عبادی - Širin Ebâdi) is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of the Children's Rights Support Association in Iran. On October 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's and children's rights. She is the first Iranian, the first Shia and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. She is currently visiting the United States, and is focusing her energies on opening lines of communication and preventing war between the United States and Iran.

Here's a chance to ask Ebadi questions about Iran and the United States that are on your mind. I'll be interviewing her live, and she'll be taking your questions, between 3 and 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 1, 2008.

Go to http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live to listen live. You'll find instructions there to enter a paltalk chat room where you can post questions. We will not be taking questions by telephone during this interview. Following the show, the audio file will be posted at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/audio/2008

Media covers plans for wedding between Jenna and Henry:
Click:

Let's start treating the world's 6 billion non-Americans as equals.
By Helena Cobban, Christian Science Monitor

Washington - What kind of relationship do Americans want to build with the world's 6 billion other people in the years ahead? This question is urgent, since the past seven years have seen an unprecedented drop in our country's global favorability rating. In today's hyper-connected world, that has huge consequences for Washington's ability to protect American interests.

The Fall & Rise of American Liberalism
Media, Race, Religion & Bruce Springsteen

WEDNESDAY, April 30, 2008
12 Noon - 1:30pm (book signing to follow)
Harrison Institute Auditorium
Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia

American 20th-century liberalism may be poised for a comeback. Attacks from aggressive conservatives and trenchant criticism from the multicultural left have rendered consensus liberalism a shell of a political movement and a label that liberal candidates tend to shun. But is all this changing? This panel discussion will ask the following questions: What aspects of 20th-century American liberalism are inappropriate for the 21st century? Is the United States a fundamentally conservative nation? Can our fractured and hyperactive media environment foster a sense of common purpose or tolerate the deliberate temperament of liberalism? Can liberalism thrive in an increasingly diverse United States - i.e., can it contain multitudes?

Panelists:

* Angela Dillard is an associate professor of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan and author of Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit (University of Michigan Press, 2007) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Now?: Multicultural Conservatism in America (NYU Press, 2001).

* Eric Alterman is a Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is the media columnist for The Nation and the author of seven books, most recently Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America (Viking, 2008).

* Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in communications at Columbia University, is a sociologist, cultural analyst, and award-winning novelist. He is the author of 12 books, most recently The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals (John Wiley and Sons, 2007).

Moderated by Bruce A. Williams, professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and the co-author (with Michael X. Delli Carpini) of the forthcoming book, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Eroding Boundaries Between News and Entertainment and What They Mean for Mediated Politics in The 21st Century

CCPJ marched in the Dogwood Parade on Saturday and was enthusiastically cheered by onlookers.

Here is a list of the sponsors of this Virginia sporting event. Is this OK with you?

By David Swanson

Here is the perfect Mother's Day gift for your mother, your mother in law, your grandmothers, and in fact for the men in their lives as well - who ought to be shamed into action. Joan Wile has published a book called "Grandmothers Against the War: Getting Off Our Fannies and Standing Up for Peace." As far as I know, this is her first book. It is very much an account of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. If more people did the same, we would put an end to war.

Peace Studies
By 16 Blocks

The future of Norris Hall as the home of Virginia Tech's new center for peace studies and violence prevention.

Professor Jocelyne Couture-Nowak was one of the 32. Her daughter's inspired reaction to a question from the press helped change the fate of Norris Hall.

"The history was very simple. Our middle daughter, Francine, arrived from the University of British Columbia. She handled the press," said Professor Couture-Nowak's husband, Dr. Jerzy Nowak of the Department of Horticulture at Virginia Tech.

Swami Beyondananda says he is not out to change the world. He intends to toilet train the world and never have to change it again. According to the Swami, if it's an abomination for two men to lie together, a bunch of them lying together to bomb a nation should be worse. And wait till you hear about the guy who consumes no liquids, named - of course - Pierre. Puns always intended. The Swami performed in Charlottesville recently and had them rolling in the aisles. Check him out: http://www.wakeuplaughing.com

Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight
Bill Delahunt (D-MA), Chairman
You are respectfully requested to attend the following OPEN hearing of the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building.
Date: Thursday, April 24, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM
Subject: War Powers for the 21st Century: The Executive Branch Perspective
witnesses:
The Honorable Brian Atwood
Dean
Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
(Former Administrator for U.S. Agency for International Development)

The Honorable Stephen G. Rademaker
Vice President
BGR International
(Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control)

Robert F. Turner, Esq.
Professor, General Faculty
Associate Director, Center for National Security Law
University of Virginia School of Law

By Stephen Lendman

For regular readers of this site, Al-Arian needs no introduction. For others, here's a brief snapshot of his case before updating his current status:

-- Al-Arian is a Kuwaiti-born son of Palestinian refugees who fled during the 1947-49 Nakba catastrophe;

-- he came to America in 1975 and was denied citizenship because of his faith and ethnicity; ever since, he's been an award-winning scholar, community leader and civil activist;

-- he was a distinguished University of South Florida (USF) computer science professor until being unjustly fired for his human rights efforts for Arabs and Muslims;

-- now he's one of hundreds of political prisoners doing hard time in US prisons and treated no differently than others like him at Guantanamo;

CLICK FOR PDF.

You can print the PDF flyer and post it around town!

By David Swanson

Citizens in a number of school districts around the country have dramatically reduced military recruitment through simple procedures that anyone can do. No marching or civil disobedience is required. You might, however, have to chat with a principal at a football game or write a couple of letters. Why aren't more of us doing more of this?

By David Swanson

The collateral damage in Iraq is most of the damage, and intentionally producing it is most of the mission. This is one of the conclusions I take away from an important new book by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian called "Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians."

The authors published a related cover story in the Nation magazine's July 30 / Aug. 6, 2007 issue called "The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness." The book is quite short by book standards, but longer and more useful than the article. The authors interviewed 50 U.S. veterans of combat in Iraq over a period of seven months. The book does not just record these veterans' statements. It synthesizes what the authors learned.

RVA4Peace Urges Democratic Senators to Shift funding from war crimes and support food banks
By Rev. Greg Thomas

While Democratic Senators gathered at the posh Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Va., for a fundraising event and weekend retreat, a group of vocal protesters were there to urge them to stop funding war crimes in Iraq and concentrate more resources on those in need here in this country.

Friday evening, RVA4Peace gathered 30 or more citizens collecting 225 pounds of food for the Central Virginia Food Bank as they called on Senators to recognize the negative effect that spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the war has had on the economy. Prior to the event, the offices of attending Senators were contacted, asking them to make donations to the Food Bank. Though their staffs said that they would consider it, no donations were made.

The Democrats in attendance, which included Senators Webb, Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid, Charles E. Schumer, Patrick Leahy, and several others, have been outspoken critics of the War in Iraq, yet they have failed to follow through by using the power of the pursestrings that they control to put an end to the occupation. As one member of Fridays protest put it, they need to stop talking and take action. “Democrats are in the majority now and they have the ability to stop the funding, which in turn, would stop the war.”

By David Swanson

The guards at Guantanamo are terrified. Even a man with no legs (amputated after being intentionally exposed to extreme cold by American guards in Afghanistan) is treated as a horrifying threat:

"The bandages wrapped around Abdul's stumps were never changed. When he took them off himself, they were full of blood and pus. He showed the bandage to the guards and pointed to his open wounds. The guards ignored him. Later I saw how he tried to wash the bandages in his bucket of drinking water. But he could hardly move his hands, so he wasn't able to. And even if he had, where would he have hung them up to dry? He wasn't allowed to touch the fence. He wrapped his stumps back up in the dirty bandages.

"When the guards came to take him to be interrogated, they ordered him to sit with his back to the door and put his hands on his head. When they opened the door, they stormed in as they did with every other prisoner. They hit him on the back and pushed him to the ground. Then they handcuffed and bound him so he could no longer move. Abdul howled in pain."

Presented at George Mason University on April 14, 2008
Dedicated to Betty Hall and the New Hampshire State Legislature.
By David Swanson

John Adams, who was later the second president of the United States, wrote some words in the Constitution of Massachusetts that have been quoted approvingly by the U.S. Supreme Court and every state supreme court in the United States. He described a separation of powers among three branches of government and said that this would be done

"to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men."

By David Swanson

On Friday outside the gates of Stratcom, the strategic command center outside of Omaha, Nebraska, that controls U.S. nuclear weapons and military space technology and from which the next war of aggression will be run, a group of activists gathered from all over the world. A number of people gave speeches in the freezing bone-chilling wind and snow. This was mine:

By David Swanson

During an endless airplane trip from hell yesterday that included an extended stay in Chicago's scenic O'Hare airport, I had the misfortune to read one book about where our tax dollars go and another book that was, indirectly, about where they do not go.

Nick Turse has done something pretty amazing in producing an entertaining account of the almost limitless variety of ways in which our money is wasted by what he calls the military industrial technological entertainment academic media corporate matrix, or "The Complex" for short, and that's the book's title. This mammoth beast is funded by about half of your tax dollar combined with the borrowing of trillions of dollars, largely from China, a nation which - incidentally - represents the closet thing to a military rival to the United States and which as late as September 10, 2001, was being hyped by right-wing pundits as the Enemy, and which is about as much a threat to the so-called American "homeland" as Switzerland is.

I'm looking for folks who are either already involved in cross-disability rights activism or are interested in becoming involved in cross-disability rights activsims in the C'ville/Albemarle area. You can contact me at AlisonHymes@spamex.com

I have a blog that is mostly about psychiatric disability rights advocacy in Virginia here: http://hymes.wordpress.com

At http://www.thebridgepai.com

Check it out! And check out the other work of The Bridge.

Linda Bilmes is a full-time faculty member at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has testified a number of times before Congress on the cost of the occupation of Iraq. Together with Joseph Stiglitz, she has authored "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict." Bilmes will be speaking live this evening, April 9th, and taking your questions, between 8 and 9 p.m. ET. Go to: http://thepeoplespeakradio.net to learn more. Go to http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live to listen live. You'll find instructions there to enter a paltalk chat room where you can post questions. You can also phone in and ask Bilmes your questions on the air. Call in tollfree from anywhere in the United States or Canada at 888-228-4494 or anywhere else in the world at 877-489-6350. It's a tollfree call, and I try my best to get every caller on the air. Following the show, the audio file will be posted at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/audio/2008 and you can find there now the recordings of numerous shows with amazing guests. To support The People Speak Radio (and we need the support badly!) please donate at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/donate