Duty to Warn

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to dissolve the political and economic bands which have connected them with an industry and a bureaucracy that have held sway over their lives, and to assume an equal station among the peoples of the earth, living free from permanent war in an equal station to people of other nations as the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

June 28th marked an important day in history for women’s health. The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act enables millions of women, who previously were ineligible or did not have the economical means, to have access to quality and affordable healthcare. This includes full coverage of birth control and other preventative services, such as cancer screenings. The ACA also ensures that healthcare premiums for women, which have been significantly higher than men in the past, will be much lower and affordable. Given the recent outpour of conservative political dogma against women’s healthcare and rights in general, the passing of this act is a huge step forward for women and other groups that have neglected by the government in the past. Access to affordable healthcare is a vital basic human right and I am proud that the U.S. is taking steps to offer medical justice for all citizens.

It's just possible that the space of 236 years and a truckload of fireworks are obscuring our vision.
It's hard for us to see what should be obvious.
Many nations -- including Canada as the nearest example -- have gained their independence without wars. We claim that a war was for independence, but if we could have had all the same advantages without the war, would that not have been better?

Back in 1986, a book was published by now Virginia State Delegate and Minority Leader David Toscano, the great nonviolent strategist Gene Sharp, and others, called "Resistance, Politics, and the American Struggle for Independence, 1765-1775."

The Department of Energy wants to give the Southern Company a nuclear power loan guarantee at better interest rates than you can get on a student loan. And unlike a home mortgage, there may be no down payment.

Why?

The terms DOE is offering the builders of the Vogtle atomic reactors have only become partially public through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

We still may not know all the details.

SACE has challenged the $8.33 billion loan guarantee package announced by President Obama in 2010.

The documents show the DOE has intended to charge the Southern a credit subsidy fee of one to 1.5%, far below the rates you would be required to pay for buying a house or financing an education.

We've become a nation that callously kills. Meticulous researchers have documented that U.S. drones are killing many innocent civilians in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Drones are making the world less stable and creating new enemies. We must end the use of weaponized drones. Add your name now.
Take Action Now

I am writing to express my support for the Department of Health and Human Services’ birth control mandate and the Affordable Care Act. Recently across the nation and in Ohio, there have been many efforts to limit women’s access to birth control. Birth control is more than a sex issue: it is also a health issue. Women do not only take birth control for the purpose of preventing pregnancy, but also to help with endometriosis, severe cramps, heavy and debilitating periods, extremely irregular periods, ovarian cysts, and a number of other conditions. Birth control is a necessity for many women. To oppose birth control without copays is to oppose women’s access to healthcare. Within religious institutions, women still need birth control for conditions previously listed. Franciscan University’s decision to eliminate their health insurance in order to avoid birth control coverage is an attack not just on women, but now all of their students. Although many students will still be covered under their parents’ health care, a large number will not be—those with unemployed or disabled parents will not have such a benefit. Independent students will have to go elsewhere to acquire health care.

To what extent will progressive morality be a factor in the looming presidential election? Is it simply a nuisance? Will mainstream Democrats (yet again) cringe in its presence, disavow it, spout mostly Republican-lite platitudes about tough-guy patriotism -- and, positioning themselves, as ever, as the Lesser of Two Evils, count the progressive vote as theirs?

The election season, which ought to be more about promoting values than candidates, is barely about values at all, except as weaknesses to manipulate.

Ah, democracy! In post-modern America, the political establishment has quietly uncoupled the word from its definition even as it affects to promote democracy around the world. Campaigns celebrate and dismantle candidates’ personalities and stand for no more than variations of the status quo.

Editor's Note: The Know Drones Tour will be at the Free Press Second Saturday Salon on July 14.
The purpose of the 2012 Know Drones Tour is to do sidewalk public education, working with other groups to help generate a citizens movement to stop US drone attacks and to stop further development and sale of killer drones and spy drones.

The first phase of the tour was conducted between April 12 and May 27, when the tour team visited the home districts of five members of Congress who are on the Congressional Unmanned Systems (Drone) Caucus.

Here are observations based on street corner conversations with hundreds of people over the last month and a half in Brooklyn, southern New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore and northern Maryland as well as at a national convention of the Islamic Circle of North America held in Hartford last weekend.