Archive for the 'major' Category

Feingold Leads Senate Fight against Sneak-and-Peek, Other PATRIOT Act Excess

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

“[I]t’s quite extraordinary to grant government agents the statutory authority to secretly break into Americans homes,” said Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) last month at a Judiciary Committee hearing on the PATRIOT Act.80 A month after 9-11, with half its members shut out of their offices due to anthrax-powdered letters, the Senate passed the PATRIOT Act […]

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Jurassic Squid Drawn in Own Ink — Again

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Last month, Dr. Phil Wilby’s crew drew a picture of a belemnite — a Jurassic squid — with its own ink.70 “We felt … it would be the ultimate self-portrait,” Wilby said. From Dr. Wilby, and other scientists, we can tell a story of how his crew may have gotten the ancient ink: 155 million […]

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The Flint Sit-Down Strike Story

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

In 1936 & ’37, workers sat down in Chevrolet plants in Flint, Michigan, and fought to stay there for 44 days, until they won the right to have their union bargain for them.60 Soon after that union victory, a wave of sit-downs swept the country and union rolls swelled. The next year, Congress set the […]

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Reagan Spawned Bush II Catastrophes

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

While President Reagan has many highways, buildings and the Washington National Airport named after him, President George W. Bush has so far had only a try at naming a sewage plant after him — to symbolize cleaning up the mess he left.40 Yet many of the catastrophes of Bush flowed from the policies and tactics […]

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Insurance Companies Admit: Public Would Like Public Option

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

(Analysis.) Since the Democratic leadership has ignored the “Medicare for All” bill and has instead opted to keep for-profit companies in the basic medical insurance business, though in competition with a non-profit public option, those companies have focused on scuttling that public option.3031 The companies complain that, as a recent ad put it, “tens of […]

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