OntheWilderSide

The only way that the Green Party can regain ballot status in NY is to get 50,000 votes for their Governor candidate in 2010. This opportunity comes only once every four years, and it only applies to the Governor’s race. Gaining ballot status will enable the Green Party to run more peace candidates, more single-payer candidates, more anti-fracking candidates, and more sustainable energy candidates. The last time that the Green Party of New York State had ballot status it set the record for running the most Green candidates of any state.

Green Party‘s Colia Clark Compares Obama Plan to Bush’s “Mission Accomplished”

Civil Rights veteran Colia Clark, the Green Party’s candidate for the US Senate seat currently held by Sen. Chuck Schumer, today challenged the Administration’ s claim that the last of US combat troops has left Iraq.

“I got a sense of deja vu today, as if it were May 1, 2003 all over again,” Clark said, referring to George Bush’s speech announcing the end of combat operations on that date.

“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” announced the former president that day, adding that “in the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed, and now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.”

Nearly six years and more than 4,000 killed US troops later, on February 26, 2009, when advised of President Obama’s intent to leave 50,000 troops in the country after the so-called withdrawal he had promised during the presidential campaign, Schumer said “Fifty thousand is more than I would have thought; we await the justification for why that would be.”

But Clark pointed out that this statement was contradicted by the Senator’s own vote last month to provide another $33.5 Billion for the Iraq and Afghan wars, the second such vote by Schumer since he asked for “justification. ”

“We still don’t know how this is being justified, although the sounds which come out of the White House and Congress sound remarkably like the noise that issued from the Bush Administration, ” Clark said.

Clark also chided Schumer over his receipt of b to the tune of some $220,000, according to a report issued today by TrueMajority. She suggested that the generosity of oil companies to Schumer may be linked to his willingness to spend taxpayer money to continue the occupation of oil-rich Iraq.

“Chuck Schumer has received far more money from oil companies than most in the Senate, and that’s saying something – the average Senator got about $35,000 from oil – and yet no one is asking about the fact that he continues to squander our money and our military in what is clearly an imperial war for oil,” said Clark.

“While the people of this country face the worst employment situation in nearly a century, while the real economy of the people of this country teeters at the precipice, Chuck Schumer and his cohorts in Congress have given a blank check to the Pentagon to make war on poor people around the world,” she said, adding “that’s not sustainable, that’s not right, and we are not going to allow it to continue.”

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• US Senate cand Clark & Lawrence (G-NY): Underfunded Child Nutrition Is Outrageous, Will Increase Hunger (www.onthewilderside.com)
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• Guv cand Hawkins (G-NY) and Statewide Slate on Ballot for Green New Deal (www.onthewilderside.com)

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