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A meeting of Reform Party leaders in Long Beach erupted in chaos Tuesday, with screaming, shoving matches, a walkout by loyalists to party founder Ross Perot and a declaration that social conservative Pat Buchanan is now guaranteed the fractured party's presidential nomination.

Among the candidates considered by Al Gore for the vice-presidential nomination, Joseph Lieberman is likely to accelerate the process in which the two major parties seem to be merging into one pro-business, pro-wealthy, elitist, and morally tone-deaf governing force.

I address this letter to the largest political party in the United States - the 55% of you in the voting public who are so disillusioned with politics and politicians, so sick and tired of all the broken promises, so disgusted with all the b.s. that you have absolutely no intention of voting in November.

The logic, according to Democrats and Gore supporters is that by voting for Ralph Nader, people are only taking votes away from Al Gore and helping Gov. Bush walk into the White House -- directly benefiting from Gore's loss of the traditional Democratic votes that Nader represents. But can any self-respecting Black honestly say that Blacks have benefited under Clinton-Gore -- enough to automatically extend their reign for another 4 years -- with no questions asked?

Activists organized protests against corporate greed, oil company abuses and the lack of campaign finance reform to mark Monday's opening of the Democratic National Convention.

Civil liberties groups threatened to sue the Los Angeles Police Department Tuesday, saying it shot innocent people in the back with rubber bullets as they peacefully left a Democratic Convention protest, but the city's top cop said he felt good about police actions.

While Democrats will be partying all across Tinseltown this week, these events go far beyond typical convention-week soirees. Each is aimed at the Democrat who would take over a key committee if the party managed to regain control of Congress in the November elections.

To put it mildly, the U'wa are a touchy issue for Gore. The presidential candidate owns between $500,000 and $1 million in Occidental stock and his father, Al Gore Sr., served as chair of the board for 28 years, earning an annual salary of $500,000. The elder Gore was such a close political ally of the company that Armand Hammer, Occidental's founder and CEO, liked to say that he had Gore ''in my back pocket.''

It was an odd fact of the demonstrations surrounding the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles that the only protests to get mass media coverage were those where cops moved in and arrested people.

Late last winter, when President Bush was shaping his $1.35 trillion tax cut, corporate lobbyists were told to wait, their turn would come. And now, their turn is here. The $100 billion tax-cut bill narrowly passed by the House this week and sent to the Senate has been lauded by the White House as a broad stimulus package that will pull the United States economy out of a stall made worse by the terrorist attacks.

Halliburton, the oil services giant Dick Cheney headed until his selection as vice presidential candidate, has provided services to two controversial pipelines in Burma known for the violent human rights abuses associated with their construction.

More than 500 people packed the Pompano Beach Civic Center on Monday night in a formidable display of opposition to Enron Corp.'s plans for a power plant next to Florida's Turnpike.

A Texas based oil conglomerate and four of its employees were indicted last week on 97 counts of violating federal clean air and hazardous waste laws. The charges come less than one year after the company was slapped with the largest civil penalty ever levied under federal environmental statutes.

Lawyers for Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader sought on Thursday to toss out corporate financing of the presidential debates, arguing before a federal appeals panel that such funding was illegal.

If the race for the White House was won by whoever drew the biggest crowd there would be no contest. The next president would be a gaunt man in a crumpled suit who travels on discounted senior citizen's tickets and delivers long, rambling speeches. He is Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate turned Green Party presidential candidate.

While the comment came in a light-hearted exchange with his Democratic opponent Joe Lieberman, Cheney's reply left out how closely Dallas-based Halliburton's fortunes are linked to the U.S. government. The world's largest oil services firm is a leading U.S. defense contractor and has benefited from financial guarantees granted by U.S. agencies that promote exports.

Expected price tag for Bush-Cheney inauguration: $30 million Portion coming from private contributions: 100%. Cost of a table at any of three candlelight dinners on January 18 that President-elect George W. Bush and Vice President-elect Dick Cheney are expected to visit: $25,000.