IS GEORGE BUSH THE WORST PRESIDENT – EVER?
Richard Reeves, Yahoo News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20051203/cm_ucrr/isgeorgebushtheworstpresidentever

QUOTE OF THE DAY ... All history is little else than a long succession of useless cruelties. Voltaire

MESSAGE FROM MOVEON.ORG’s MEDIA ACTION TEAM
Newsday is slashing 171 people from its staff, despite large corporate profits. This means watered-down coverage of local news in the Long Island and New York City area. Politicians and corporations who should be held accountable by vigilant watchdog journalism will instead be covered by a staff that is stretched too thin.

Equally outrageous, New Yorkers are being kept in the dark about why these cuts are really happening. Despite reaping huge profits, Newsday's corporate owners in Chicago simply aren't satisfied—they want more, and they are willing to sacrifice good journalism to get it. Instead of stating this, Newsday's publisher makes veiled references to how "our 2006 goals" require finding "areas where work could be done differently or stopped altogether."

Newsday's corporate owners think they can get away with this because nobody is paying attention. But we're starting a petition to show the strong public opposition to these cuts. MoveOn Media Action is a campaign empowering regular people to fight back when news outlets abandon their journalistic duty to be a vigilant watchdog for the public.

Please sign the petition to Newsday and its corporate owners demanding they reverse the newspaper staff cuts by clicking here: http://civic.moveon.org/newsdaycuts/?id=6476-4703541-8hvz.4SAKj1kl4Q47lvPDQ&t=3

After you sign the petition, please forward this message to your friends, neighbors, and co-workers who read Newsday.

The Tribune Company is forcing many of its newspapers around the country to slash their staff. Over 550 staff cuts at eight papers have been announced this year—with nearly a third of them at Newsday alone. As a result of these cuts, two Newsday editors who helped guide Pulitzer Prize winning coverage were fired this year. One of Newsday's most celebrated reporters, Pulitzer Prize winner Laurie Garrett, resigned in March. Her exit memo to colleagues describes the priorities of the paper's corporate owners:

They serve their stockholders first, Wall Street second and somewhere far down the list comes service to newspaper readerships. In 1996 I personally confronted [top Newsday executive Mark] Willes on that point, and he publicly confirmed that the new regime was one in which even the number of newspapers sold was irrelevant, so long as stock returns continued to rise. All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions.

This issue is increasingly in the news. On CNN, media reporter Howard Kurtz addressed such staff cuts and asked, "Does this mean the papers are losing money? Don't be naive. It means their double-digit profit margins aren't high enough to satisfy Wall Street."

A former official at the Los Angeles Times, also owned by the Tribune Company, summarized the corporate owners' disregard for the quality of the paper's reporting as follows: "You've no idea how fast these folks are strip-mining the place. They care nothing for journalism."

We must defend the reporters and editors who produce the paper each day but cannot speak out against their corporate owners and managers. We can fight these news cuts by forcing Newsday's corporate owners in Chicago to pay attention to the readers they are supposed to be serving in New York. Please sign the petition to stop the news cuts at Newsday, and pass it along to others you know: http://civic.moveon.org/newsdaycuts/?id=6476-4703541-8hvz.4SAKj1kl4Q47lvPDQ&t=4

The History of Legislation to Create a United States Department of Peace
• 1792 Benjamin Banneker, noted African-American scientist, surveyor, and editor, and Benjamin Rush, doctor, educator and signer of the Declaration of Independence, suggested the blue print for an Office of Peace.
• 1935, 1937, and 1939, Senator Matthew Neely of West Virginia introduced bills calling for a Department of Peace.
• 1943 Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin spoke on the Senate floor calling for the United States of America to be the first government on the world to have a Secretary of Peace.
• 1945 Representative Louis Ludlow of Indiana introduced a bill that would establish a Department of Peace.
• 1947 Representative Everett Dirkson of Illinois introduced a bill for “A Peace Division in the State Department”.
• 1955-1968 Eighty-five bills calling for a Department of Peace were introduced in the House or the Senate.
• 1969 Senator Vance Hartke of Indiana and Representative Seymour Halpern of New York introduced legislation in the House of Representatives and the Senate to create a Department of Peace .
• 2001 and 2003 Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio introduced legislation to create a Department of Peace.
• September 2005 Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota introduced legislation in the House of Representatives and the Senate to create a Department of Peace and Nonviolence.

Peace Movement Rallies As War Support Erodes
Doug Pibel, Yes!
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1332

Department of Peace & Nonviolence
Leslie Eilel & Dough Pibel, Yes!
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1339