"So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

    ... former First Lady Barbara Bush at Huston Astrodome during interview on American Public Media's "Marketplace" program, Sept. 5, 2005

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"No one comes to the Bible without bringing his life and his attitudes.  Bush comes to the Bible having run a human slaughterhouse in Texas for many years.  He obviously seeks out parts of the Bible that allow killing.  But I don't know what he does with the Sermon on the Mount."

     ... Father Daniel Berrigan, "The Progressive" magazine, March 2004

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"I have never met anyone in Vermont who thinks it's a good idea to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut back on health care and education.  Nobody."

   Rep. Bernie Sanders (Ind - VT), "In These Times" magazine, June 20, 2005

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"I wear my flag tonight.  First time.   Until now I haven't thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic cuties, speak my mind, and do mybest to raise our kids to be good Americans.

"...The flag belongs to the couuntry, not to the government. And it reminds me that it's not un-American to think that war -- except in self-defense -- is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and piplomacy.  Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country."

 ... Bill Moyers in May 15 '05 speech at National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis. full text at www.freepress.net/news/8120   +++++++++++

"The evidence is overwhelming that George Bush wanted to invade Iraq at all costs and the lack of intelligence giving him a reason for going to war didn't stop him. Iraq posed no threat to the United States, but this didn't get in the way of Bush's and Blair's plans. The Downing Street Memo is the smoking gun that proves the intelligence was 'fixed around the policy.' Tens of thousands of innocent people, including my son, Spc. Casey Sheehan, are dead because of these deceits."

Cindy Sheehan, co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, a member organization in the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition. , June 8 '05.   scindy121@aol.com, ttp://www.gsfp.org,   http://www.afterdowningstreet.org

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"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

  "Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies."

George Galloway, the independent British member of parliament, May 17 '05, testifying before the U.S. Senate  

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Dr. Seuss, in "The Lorax"

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"A macabre "Peter Pan" syndrome has driven the Iraq War from the start, with George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers acting as if happy thoughts about an easy victory and some pixie dust of propaganda would let them soar over the realities on the ground. This wishful thinking has turned Iraq into a death trap for American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis."

Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com

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  "There have been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second."

Farnaz Fassihi, a Middle East correspondent, Wall Street Journal

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"To admit a mistake is more evil than anything in the eyes of this Administration."

Gary Wills, author/historian, on Book TV, C-Span, Jan. 2, 2005

"You do not generate peace through violence.  What the nations of the world need is dialogue, not a clash of cultures."

Dr. Peter Makari, Middle East and Europe Common Global Ministries board of the United Church of Christ, in speech at Schomburg Auditorium, Defiance College, as reported in The Crescent-News, Apr 13 '05

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"For the sake of argument, let's even posit that the many other similar accounts of Koran desecration (with and without toilets) by American interrogators over the past two years are fantasy - even though they've been given credence by the International Committee of the Red Cross and have turned up repeatedly in legal depositions by torture victims and in newspapers as various as The Denver Post and The Financial Times. Let's also ignore the May 1 New York Times report that a former American interrogator at Guantánamo has corroborated a detainee's account of guards tossing Korans into a pile and stepping on them, thereby prompting a hunger strike. Why don't we just go all the way and erase those photographs of female guards sexually humiliating Muslims (among other heinous crimes) at Abu Ghraib?

"Even with all that evidence off the table, there is still an overwhelming record, much of it in government documents, that American interrogators have abused Muslim detainees with methods specifically chosen to hit their religious hot buttons."

Frank Rich, The New York Times, May 22 '05

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"Bush's first term in office entailed all kinds of transgressions against decency and the rule of law. Now, during his second term, aside from his social security and count nominations campaigns, he seems primarily intent on intimidating the press into whitewashing his effort. But in Frank Rich's words, the White House finally seems to have "crossed a bridge too far" with its incredibly cynical Newsweek attack, and you of the NYT seem to be spearheading an effective press reaction. "

Edward Jayne, Professor Emeritus at Western Michigan University, in ltr to NY Times re Frank Rich column "It's All Newsweek's Fault"

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"Where principle is involved, be deaf to expediency."

Commodore Matthew Maury, 1849

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   "In these tough economic times, when the wages of America's working families are not even keeping up with increases in the cost of living, I can't tell you how downright inspiring it is to see the White House and Congress taking bold action to provide relief.

   "Yes, our government has decided it will no longer deduct estate taxes from your multimillion-dollar inheritance, leaving you and all other rich heirs free to grab every dime left by your Daddy Bigbucks when he kicks the bucket. What? You don't have a Daddy Bigbucks? You're not getting a multimillion-dollar inheritance? Well tough luck, sucker, for Washington's relief package does nothing for you.

   "Fewer than 1% of people who died last year paid any estate tax at all. Indeed, half of the revenue generated by this tax comes from estates valued at more than $10 million. This is why Washington's repeal of the tax has been dubbed the 'Paris Hilton Benefit Act.'"

Jim Hightower, June 2005 issue of "The Hightower Lowdown"