Former President Jimmy Carter called Tony Blair “compliant and subservient” to President Bush. “I think that more than any other person in the world,” Carter said, “the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington. He has not.”
“The majority of U.S. service members charged in the unlawful deaths of Iraqi civilians have been acquitted, found guilty of relatively minor offenses or given administrative punishments without trials,” the Washington Post finds.
The 2006 elections “already hold a place in the history books: More black candidates from both major parties are mounting serious campaigns for upper-tier office — senator or governor — than ever before.”
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) said yesterday in Israel that he would block the $230 million in humanitarian aid President Bush has promised Lebanon “and free the funds only when Beirut agreed to the deployment of international troops on the border with Syria.”
The inflation-adjusted median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, the NYT reports, while “wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947.”
Former Vice President Al Gore said Sunday ever-tighter political and economic control of the media is a major threat to democracy. … “Democracy is under attack,” Gore said in Scotland. “Democracy as a system for self-governance is facing more serious challenges now than it has faced for a long time.
The Bush administration plans to “move rapidly” to impose international economic sanctions on Iran after a Thursday U.N. deadline passes. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen said sanctions are necessary or the risk of war in the region will increase. Russia has rejected talk of sanctions.
“Analysts across the political spectrum say the Bush Doctrine — preventive war, choking the roots of terrorism by planting democracy, and brandishing power to force others into line — has failed.”
And finally: Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) says “she did not intend to exclude Jews and other non-Christians from public office when she told a Baptist magazine that unless ‘tried and true’ Christians were elected, those in power would ‘legislate sin.’”
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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