25 Feb
The 2013 Hypocrisy Oscars
Gun-Crazed
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 ThomasMagstadt, Op-Ed: What hunter needs 15 bullets to bring down a deer or eight shells to pop a partridge? Assault weapons have nothing to do with the Constitution: when the Second Amendment was passed, they were still using muskets and powder horns. So anyone who argues there was some “original intent” to allow citizens to possess lethal weapons that did not exist when the Bill of Rights was drafted is disingenuous. Meanwhile, the NRA, ALEC, and the gun-crazed extremists, who back and bankroll them, would have us believe that placing any limits whatsoever on gun ownership is the first step toward tyranny; that the right to amass a private arsenal of deadly weapons is absolute. |
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Republican
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 ScottKeyes, News Report: Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is the latest Republican considering legislation to strengthen gun laws, despite his history of opposition to gun control. In a handful of town halls throughout southern Iowa this week, Grassley was repeatedly asked his views on stronger gun laws. He made clear that he would oppose an assault weapons ban, but said he’d consider legislation on extended magazine clips and universal background checks. “I’m going to see what the language of the amendment is,” Grassley told a constituent on Wednesday in Indianola when asked about a poll showing 88 percent of Iowans supporting universal background checks. |
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‘I
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 NickTurse, Op-Ed: The practice of water torture became widely known in the U.S. after it was disclosed that the CIA had been subjecting suspected terrorists to it in the wake of 9/11. More recently, cinematic depictions of waterboarding in the award-winning film Zero Dark Thirty and questions about it at the Senate confirmation hearing for incoming CIA chief John Brennan have sparked debate. Water torture, however, has a surprisingly long history, dating back to at least the fourteenth century. It has been a U.S. military staple since the beginning of the twentieth century, when it was employed by Americans fighting an independence movement in the Philippines. |
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Seafood
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 AnthonyGucciardi, News Report: The new genetic testing campaign kickstarted and funded by the nonprofit organization known as Oceana, a group whose mission statement involves protecting the world’s oceans, reveals that 59 percent of tuna is not only mislabeled but is almost entirely compromised of a fish once banned by the FDA. Sushi restaurants were the worst offenders by far, but the tests spanned throughout restaurants and grocery stores alike. Altogether, the findings oust over half of tuna fish as fraudulent. |
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Washington’s
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 Richard(RJ) Eskow, Op-Ed: The president is once again boasting of past spending cuts, even as their harmful effects ripple throughout our economy. He’s giving immediate deficit reduction a higher priority than much-needed investment. And he’s proposing two dollars in spending cuts for every dollar in revenue, which is a pretty right-wing way of going about it. It’s a game—a stupid and destructive game whose cheerleaders are vapid and flippant thugs like Alan Simpson or pampered and self-satisfied hedge-funders like Erskine Bowles. The president could demand an end to the game. |
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Israeli
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 JimLobe, News Report: In a potential new source of contention between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has reportedly granted a U.S. energy firm with heavyweight political connections to explore for oil and gas in the occupied Golan Heights. The company is a local subsidiary of New Jersey-based Genie Energy Ltd. The Strategic Advisory Board of another subsidiary, Genie Oil and Gas, includes former Vice President Dick Cheney, media magnate Rupert Murdoch and former Republican Rep. Jim Courter. |
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New
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 TarSands Blockade, Video Report: Blockadia Rising: Voices of the Tar Sands Blockade is an hour-long documentary film written and directed by Garrett Graham in collaboration with the Tar Sands Blockade and features exclusive video footage shot by the blockaders during the course of more than six months of sustained resistance. Blockadia Rising is just the opening chapter in this ongoing movement to stop this pipeline and halt the extraction of the Canadian tar sands, but the blockaders see themselves as a part of a larger struggle against the consequences of runaway climate change caused by unchecked extraction of natural resources by industry at the expense of both human and non-human communities. |
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The
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 PaulBuchheit , Op-Ed: The best actors in America are the business and government leaders who impersonate job creators and makers of prosperity. For their stellar performances over the past year, they deserve to be considered for the special awards such as Best Score, Leading Actress, Best Self-Supporting Actors etc. And THE WINNER IS…the Financial Industry. The acceptance speech might go a little something like this: I’d like to thank Congress and the SEC and the Glass-Steagall repealers and the ratings agencies and all my friends at the Federal Reserve, and everyone who came through the revolving door of my life. And to you, America: You dislike me, you really dislike me! |
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Limbaugh’s
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 JoelS. Hirschhorn, Op-Ed: It is time for people, especially decent Republicans, to condemn Rush Limbaugh for all of his many failures, especially his new attempt to mask racism with the cloak of information deficits. If Republicans ever want to appeal to a broad cross section of Americans, they should have the courage to disown and openly condemn the appalling strategy of bloviate Limbaugh to cater to the most stupid and biased Americans. They may, indeed, be seen as the core constituency of the Republican Party, but they are the heavy anchor pulling it down. |
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