Nation Topics - Labor | The Nation

The article discusses the indictment of United States Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, for allegedly lying to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents or grand jurors about his role in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) leak. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has not focused on which Administration official outed CIA agent Valerie Plame. It is claimed that Cheney had a role in undermining Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had challenged the Administration's reasons for the Iraq War.

The article discusses the problems and scandals facing the administration of United States President George W. Bush. The public is losing its support for the U.S.-led Iraq War. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, has been indicted. The article discusses whether the Bush Administration willfully misled the public in regards to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction. Bush is criticized for his lack of planning prior to the Iraq War as well as for his lack of political planning in the United States on issues such as crisis management and Social Security.

The article reports that U.S. Democrats rose up as an opposition party in the Senate after the indictment of Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Democrats called for an investigation into the President George W. Bush Administration's misuse of intelligence before the Iraq War. Republicans in the Senate have not been used to facing a minority opposition leader. The Senate has established a committee to examine charges that Intelligence Committee chair Pat Roberts stalled the investigation.

Presents a satirical letter regarding the judicial nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. Reasons why Bush should have chosen the author instead of Miers; Suggestion that the author is a woman and is not a Christian, and therefore should be nominated; Lack of experience of the author as a lawyer; Criticism of people who claim they do not know where Miers stands on the issue of abortion.

Presents news briefs related to politics and current events. Report that the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats decided to form a coalition government in Germany with Angela Merkel as chancellor; Reference to the book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" by Tom Frank, which argues that the working-class in the U.S. are voting Republican against their economic interests because the party is conservative on social issues; Reasons why U.S. President George W. Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

Presents the author's views on the split within the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Defection of the Teamsters and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) from the union; View that no political vibrancy or meaningful debate has resulted from the defections; Questions regarding the inclusion of minorities in the AFL-CIO; Question of whether the factions that split from the union will be able to initiate growth and reform within their unions.

Presents the author's views on the political situation in Haiti and the exile of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When United Nations troops kill residents of the Haitian slum Cité Soleil, friends and family often place photographs of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on their bodies. The photographs silently insist that there is a method to the madness raging in Port-au-Prince. Poor Haitians are being slaughtered not for being "violent," as we so often hear, but for being militant; for daring to demand the return of their elected president. A few weeks ago I visited Aristide in Pretoria, South Africa, where he lives in forced exile. I asked him what was really behind his dramatic falling-out with Washington. He offered an explanation rarely heard in discussions of Haitian politics--actually, he offered three: "privatization, privatization and privatization." And the war continues. On June 23 Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, called on UN troops to take a more "proactive role" in going after armed pro-Aristide gangs. In practice, this has meant a wave of Falluja-like collective punishment inflicted on neighborhoods known for supporting Aristide. Yet despite these attacks, Haitians are still on the streets--rejecting the planned sham elections, opposing privatization and holding up photographs of their president.

The article presents the author's views on how Democratic legislators will react to forthcoming nomination of a replacement for Chief Justice Sandra Day O'Conner on the United States Supreme Court. Will George W. Bush nominate a conservative or a moderate to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor? Will he name his friend Attorney General Alberto Gonzales? Will he move with dispatch, or draw out his deliberations in order to shorten the window available for a contentious nomination? Instead of holding our collective breath, we should use this pause between O'Connor's resignation and Bush's nomination of a successor to pose one eminently answerable question in a different direction entirely: to Senate Democrats. Will the future of the Supreme Court inspire greater unity than the war on Iraq, greater energy than tax cuts for the wealthy, more nerve than the recent compromise over lower-court filibusters? How those Democratic senators--most of whom have never faced a Supreme Court nomination--reply may well define their careers.

Reviews the books "George Washington: The Founding Father," by Paul Johnson, and "Thomas Jefferson: Author of America," by Christopher Hitchens.

Reports on efforts of Bill Moyers to contest Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) Kenneth Tomlinson, who tries to use the CPB to the advantage of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Comments from Moyers on how Tomlinson has crossed the line, and urging a renewed commitment to principles of journalism; Details of Tomlinson's "partisan meddling," including the hiring of Bush supporters.