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Robert Reich, Op-Ed: As Alexander Hamilton pointed out when the Constitution was being written, the Supreme Court is the "least dangerous branch" of government because it has neither the purse (it can't enforce its rulings by threatening to withhold public money) nor the sword (it has no police or military to back up its decisions). It has only the trust and confidence of average citizens. If it is viewed as politically partisan, that trust is in jeopardy. |
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Anthony Gucciardi, News Report: What will be the end of Monsanto? Could it be lawsuits, new legislation, or perhaps even a tiny insect that is less than 0.10 mm in length. A new report reveals that rootworms may ultimately be what ends Monsanto's crops, despite the biotech giant's rampant success within the United States legislative system. Amazingly, western corn rootworms have virtually no problem gobbling up Monsanto's modified maize crop, as they have developed a serious resistance to the very crops designed to kill them. |
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Nan Levinson, Op-Ed: Our warriors today are all volunteers who signed up and are apparently supposed to put up with whatever comes their way. As professionals, they're supposed to be ready to fight, but as counterinsurgents they're supposed to be tender-hearted and understanding -- at least to kids, those village elders they're fated to drink endless cross-cultural cups of tea with, and their buddies. |
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Paul Kleyman, News Report: This highly controversial part of the decision by the conservative justices throws into question 70 years of Supreme Court decisions affirming the government's right to regulate interstate trade on such concerns as product safety, the clean air act and some worry the 1964 Civil Rights Act.. Seemingly obscure to most Americans, it was hotly argued by the White House and public advocates. |
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Robert Scheer, Op-Ed: All the Obama campaign needs to do is play that video clip from April 12, 2006, when Romney signed into law a Massachusetts mandate, justifying his tax penalty on those who failed to comply by saying it would help "hundreds of thousands of people ... have healthier and happier lives." President Obama could claim correctly that he added 30 million Americans, not blessed to be living in Massachusetts, to the healthy and happy category. |
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Laura Flanders, Video Report: As for the individual mandate – forcing the public to buy from a for-profit company – she's called it "crony capitalism on steroids." It would be no small thing to move health reform through the legislature again, she agrees. Three years ago, Democratic leaders in Washington foreclosed on single payer, and went on to betray their commitments to single-payer-lite -- the so-called public option. |
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Christy Goldfuss, News Report: First, the "Accelerated Decision Making" section of the transportation bill does what has never been done before — fining agencies up to 7% of their fiscal year budget if they do not meet established deadlines for environmental analyses. On the one hand, that means taking more money away from financially strapped agencies trying to accelerate their decision making process about the impacts of a project. |
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John Cavanagh and Robin Broad, Op-Ed: By 2007, polls showed close to two-thirds of Salvadorans opposed gold mining. In 2009, Salvadorans elected a president who promised he wouldn't issue any new mining permits during his five-year term. He has kept this pledge. But Pacific Rim didn't sit idly by as democracy worked its way from El Salvador's northern communities to its national government. |
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Charles Ornstein, News Report: The act, signed by President Obama in March 2010, required "states to extend Medicaid coverage to non-elderly individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty line, or about $30,700 for a family of four," according to a March 2012 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. The extension was expected to cover nearly 16 million people by 2019, one of the law's main ways of reducing the ranks of the uninsured. |
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Thomas Magstadt, Op-Ed: Another fact that can't be overemphasized: to target elections with the intention of predetermining the outcome it to strike at the very heart of the republic. Republics are not democracies in the strictest, purest sense. A true republic is always based on a "scheme of representation" to borrow a phrase from Madison's Federal #10. |
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Research: During the June 28 edition of his "Fox News and Commentary" radio segment, Fox News Radio's Todd Starnes reacted to the Supreme Court's decision by claiming that "we are now living in occupied America" and telling "freedom-loving Americans to mobilize and reclaim our nation." Starnes headlined a post accompanying audio of the segment "A Dark Day for Freedom." From Starnes' "Fox News and Commentary" radio segment: |
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Froma Harrop, Op-Ed: Still, it may have been no coincidence that shortly after the headlines hit, an actor mostly known for gangster roles starred in the most over-the-top patriotic movie musical of all time, "Yankee Doodle Dandy." There he played George M. Cohan, another Irish-American showman from an earlier generation and composer of such upbeat Americana as "Give My Regards to Broadway," "You're a Grand Old Flag" and, of course, "The Yankee Doodle Boy." |