LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – Conservative politicians often portray the United Nations as a powerful monster, poised to gobble up the United States and other countries and put them under alien rule. The reality, of course, is quite different.
Not Another Rabbit Hole!
IAN HRRIS – When Alice went down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carol’s novel, Alice and Wonderland, she experienced all kinds of unpleasant surprises. What kind of surprises will we Americans face if our government bombs Iran?
Government Health Care OK For Politicians But Not Us
JESSE JACKSON – Republicans on the campaign trail denounce Obama’s health-care reforms as a virtual threat to the Republic. It’s “socialized medicine,†“a job killer,†“a government takeover of health care.†All the Republican candidates for president promise to repeal it, and Republican legislators are virtually united in trying to do so.
The Big Money Behind State Laws
NY TIMES EDITORIAL – It is no coincidence that so many state legislatures have spent the last year taking the same destructive actions: making it harder for minorities and other groups that support Democrats to vote, obstructing health care reform, weakening environmental regulations and breaking the spines of public- and private-sector unions. All of these efforts are being backed — in some cases, orchestrated — by a little-known conservative organization financed by millions of corporate dollars.
Keystone XL Pipeline Will Cost 20,000 Jobs Per Year
MARK WIGG – Canada has a surplus of crude oil and the US is pretty much their only market. About 20% of our oil now comes from Canada. According to today’s Toronto Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/crude-glut-in-us-suppresses-canadian-oil-prices/article2330013/) , we are paying $30 less per barrel for tar sands oil because they have no place else to sell it. This is why oil companies want the Keystone XL Pipeline. They want to export oil from Texas.
ALEC Education “Academy” Launches on Island Resort
DUSTIN BIELKE – Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an “island” resort on the coast of Florida to a unique “education academy” sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise. (ALEC has claimed no corporate reps will be there but it has refused to let the press attend to see this claim for itself.)