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Freedom of religion cannot be exclusive
Mary Shaw
In recent years, the religious right have moved even farther to the right - to the fringes. Some have even expanded their war on women's reproductive rights to where they are condemning contraception. They even held Congressional hearings on the subject. This is despite the fact that 99 percent of American women who have ever had sex have used contraception, including 98 percent of Catholic women.
When policies were passed that require insurance companies to cover contraception (which, by the way, saves the insurers money, as birth control is a lot cheaper than pregnancy and obstetric costs), they screamed that the government is interfering with their religious freedom.
Imagining the Unthinkable
by Stephen Lendman
The combination of America's rage for war, its nuclear arsenal, and global delivery systems makes the unthinkable possible - nuclear war.
On March 27, David Krieger and Daniel Ellsberg raised the possibility in their Christian Science Monitor article headlined, "For nuclear security beyond Seoul, eradicate land-based 'doomsday' missiles," saying:
"America's 450 launch-ready land-based nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are the opposite of a deterrent to attack. In fact, their very deployment has the potential to launch World War III and precipitate human extinction – as a result of a false alarm. We’re not exaggerating."
Indeed not. For decades, the threat's been real. Post-9/11, it's more than ever possible. Hundreds of ICBMs target Russia, China, and likely other countries like Iran. Launching them threatens humanity.
FRACKING: Pennsylvania Gags Physicians (Part 1 of 3)
by Walter Brasch
A new Pennsylvania law endangers public health by forbidding health care professionals from sharing information they learn about certain chemicals and procedures used in high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing. The procedure is commonly known as fracking.
Fracking is the controversial method of forcing water, gases, and chemicals at tremendous pressure of up to 15,000 pounds per square inch into a rock formation as much as 10,000 feet below the earth’s surface to open channels and force out natural gas and fossil fuels.
Advocates of fracking argue not only is natural gas “greener” than coal and oil energy, with significantly fewer carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur emissions, the mining of natural gas generates significant jobs in a depressed economy, and will help the U.S. reduce its oil dependence upon foreign nations. Geologists estimate there may be as much as 2,000 trillion cubic feet of natural gas throughout the United States. If all of it is successfully mined, it could not only replace coal and oil but serve as a transition to wind, solar, and water as primary energy sources, releasing the United States from dependency upon fossil fuel energy and allowing it to be more self-sufficient.
Legislating Greater Wall Street Theft
by Stephen Lendman
Political Washington is Wall Street's best friend. Whatever crooked bankers want they get. Their business model features grand theft. Wealth’s amassed through fraudulent double-dealing.
Lawmakers facilitate their racketeering. They're rewarded in kind. Only fleeced households, investors, communities and nations lose out.
Their dirty game continues unobstructed. New legislation enhances what's on the books. Another bill will become law when Obama signs it. Wall Street's again celebrating, and why not. Business is better than ever, courtesy of complicit lawmakers.
Ray Adams is the man in the latest Murdoch scandal
By Michael Collins
Ray Adams is a name you will hear more frequently as the latest and perhaps most fatal Murdoch - News Corp. scandal emerges.
When Murdoch was setting up his BSKYB cable network in England, he had some serious competition. ITV had a digital service called ITV Digital. The British broadcaster was prepared to go head to head with Murdoch's network. As the services rolled out, ITV Digital became subject to furious hacker attacks. The hackers broke the ITV encryption code and distributed it widely allowing so many people to get free ITV service, the venture failed, largely due to the piracy of its service, and Murdoch had a clean road to mega profits with BSKYB.
The Criminal Class in Washington is Bipartisan
by Stephen Lendman
Inside the Beltway, it's evident daily. The political news website Capitol Hill Blue says "Nobody's life, liberty or property is safe while Congress is in session or the White House is occupied."
Electoral politics also highlights its clear and present danger. It involves rogue politicians competing to be part of Washington's corrupted duopoly run system - especially the top job as president.
American Morlocks: Another Civilian Massacre and the Savagery of Our Soldiers
Nima Shirazi
The bodies of Afghan civilians loaded into the back of a truck in Alkozai
village of Panjwayi district of Kandahar (AFP)
"Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare...there was an altogether new element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks — a something inhuman and malign...I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did under the new moon."
- H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, 1895
Nearly eight years ago, on April 1, 2004, former speech writer and Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal, where she was a contributing editor. It began like this (emphasis in original):
The world is used to bad news and always has been, but now and then there occurs something so brutal, so outside the normal limits of what used to be called man's inhumanity to man, that you have to look away. Then you force yourself to look and see and only one thought is possible: This must stop now. You wonder, how can we do it? And your mind says, immediately: Whatever it takes.
Legislation to Ban Arsenic in Maryland’s Poultry Industry Derailed Again by Insider Politics
Statement of Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch
Washington, D.C.—“For the third year in a row, the Maryland State House has failed consumers and their vital resources by undermining groundbreaking legislation that would have banned the use of arsenic in the state’s poultry industry.
“At the last minute the poultry and pharmaceutical industries made changes to the bill to ban arsenic, effectively nullifying the bill’s intent. They then used their political clout to pass the gutted bill through the House of Delegates.
Books Banned in Arizona - Latinos Fighting Thought Control
By Michael Collins
Bad things are happening in Arizona … again. Good things too!
The extremist Arizona legislature enacted a law that just recently caused the banning of nearly 100 books from Tucson public schools. The list includes prominent Latino authors, plus Shakespeare, Thoreau, and James Baldwin. They even banned Zorro!
The real goal was to totally dismantle the Tucson school district's Mexican American Studies program. Mission accomplished. The program is gone. Not a class survived.
The enabling act, Arizona House Bill 2281, contains some lofty language. It requires that school districts teach students to "value each other as individuals." They cannot be instructed to "hate other races" or "overthrow the United States government." Promoting "resentment toward a race or class of people" or "ethnic solidarity" is forbidden. A bit overdone but it has some potential, right?
The law was just a smokescreen to cover ethnically based attacks on Latinos students in Tucson schools. Neither the banned books nor the dismantled Mexican American Studies program violated any of the provisions listed yet the law banned the books and ended the program.
Real Health Care Advocates Should Support Repeal of the Insurance Mandate
By Kevin Zeese
It’s Our Economy, the organization I co-direct with Margaret Flowers, MD,Single Payer Actionand 50 doctors filed anamicus brief inHHS v. Florida, the challenge to the Affordable Care Act being heard in the Supreme Court this week.
We support health care reform but oppose the insurance mandate. Merely removing two words from existing law will achieve the President's stated goals of universal, affordable and guaranteed health care. By removing the words “over 65” from the Medicare law, every American will have health care based on a proven public health care model that has been in existence since 1965. This will control costs and immediately provide health care to everyone in the United States.
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