Here’s the perfect example of American corporations destroying our country to ratify their own greed. The following letter was sent to Directors of Dow Jones & Company by Wall Street Journal war correspondents because their letter to the board three years ago has been ignored.  Dow Jones’ CEO Rich Zannino’s compensation is going up while he’s cutting the health care benefit for reporters doing high risk work in war-zones. Unbelievable and yet typical of American corporate executives.  — Geoff

The letter

April 18, 2007

Board of Directors
Dow Jones & Company

Directors,

We write to you and your fellow board members as a group of Wall Street Journal reporters who have covered the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere.

Since September 11, 2001, we’ve all spent long months away from our families. We have slept in the dirt, patrolled in the rain, trudged in heavy flak vests in the desert heat. We have taken enormous risks for the paper. To give you an idea, here's what happened last month alone: Pentagon reporter Greg Jaffe's Humvee was blown up by a roadside bomb in Iraq, where he was reporting several front-page stories. A sniper’s bullet missed Yochi Dreazen's head by less than an inch ...   more »

If I could choose the president from among the Democratic contenders, I’d choose Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee & Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Watch this video, look at his voting history and tell me. Should Joe Biden be president. What say you?

— Geoff Staples

Project Vote Smart Ratings

Abortion Issues

2006  Senator Biden supported the interests of the Planned Parenthood 100 percent in 2006.

2005-2006  Senator Biden supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 0 percent in 2005-2006.

2005  Senator Biden supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 100 percent in 2005.

2004  Senator Biden supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 100 percent in 2004.

2003-2004  Senator Biden supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 17 percent in 2003-2004.

2003-2004  Senator Biden supported the interests of the Democrats for Life of America 33 percent in 2003-2004.

2003  Senator Biden supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 36 percent in 2003.

2001-2002  Senator Biden supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 0 percent in 2001-2002.

2001  Senator Biden supported the interests of ...   more »

Think Progress

Former U.S. AID director Randall Tobias, who resigned yesterday upon admitting that he frequented a Washington escort service, oversaw a controversial policy advocated by the religious right that required any US-based group receiving anti-AIDS funds to take an anti-prostitution “loyalty oath.”

Aid groups bitterly opposed the policy, charging that it “was so broad — and applied even to their private funds — that it would obstruct their outreach to sex workers who are at high risk of transmitting the AIDS virus.” But President Bush wouldn’t budge. He signed a 2003 National Security Presidential Directive saying prostitution “and related activities” were “inherently harmful and dehumanizing.”

Several groups and countries had their funding cut due to the policy. Brazil lost $40 million for “one of its most successful anti-AIDS strategies, persuading sex workers to use condoms or other measures to stop spreading the disease.”

During an “Ask the White House” online chat in 2004, Tobias defended the policy, saying the U.S. was “partnering with communities” to begin “fighting sex trafficking and prostitution, while still serving victims of these activities.” Tobias added that he was overseeing several “highly successful” relationship programs “aimed at men ...   more »

On CSPAN’s call in program this morning, they played a tape from a Republican woman who was whining about how CSPAN needed to have military family members call in so that we could see that the people actually fighting the war support it and that we have an obligation to support them because they want to finish the job.

So, CSPAN dedicated an hour this morning to calls from the parents of the troops in Iraq, just returned home, or preparing to be deployed.

By my count, at least 90% of the parents thought the war should be over and the troops brought home. When asked about their children in the armed forces, the parents reported that at least 80% of them are now opposed to the war.

One of the parents said that her son had served two tours of duty in Iraq and now says he will go to jail before he will go back to Iraq.

A father said his son had been killed in Iraq, that the war was started on false premises, and the troops should be brought home before any more are killed or injured in a war we never should have started in the first place.

Another ...   more »

Media Matters for America

During the April 25 broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann noted that Fox News host Bill O'Reilly attacked Media Matters for America during the April 23 edition of his television show. Olbermann stated: "Bill O'Reilly has issued another fatwa -- this time against the journalism watchdog website, Media Matters, proving, without the slightest fear of contradiction, that he has a flow chart and the access to the color red." Olbermann observed: "Nothing Media Matters has ever posted about Bill O'Reilly has failed to withstand independent vetting -- not a missing comma, not a missing context." He added: "In an age in which we rightly fear being inaccurately quoted or misinterpreted, it would seem that Bill-O's real anger and real fear rests in the dread that someone is quoting him correctly."

During his show, Olbermann displayed the flow chart O'Reilly had used on his April 23 show -- as Media Matters documented -- to accuse progressive financier George Soros of, in O'Reilly's words, influencing "the political process" by funneling money through his "complicated political operation" to Media Matters, which then "feeds its propaganda to some mainstream media people." Olbermann asserted: "In the Fox ...   more »