, - Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Stephan: In my view responsibility for the downgrading of American creditworthiness should be placed at the feet of three groups, largely overlapping: 1) The Republican Party which was pushed way to the Right by the Tea Party; 2) The Tea Party; 3) Evangelical White Protestants. Here is the Pew Research organization's assessment of the Tea Party making this point.
The Tea Party movement clearly played a role in rejuvenating the Republican Party in 2010, helping the GOP take control of the House and make gains in the Senate. Tea Party supporters made up 41% of the electorate on Nov. 2, and 86% of them voted for Republican House candidates, according to exit polls. But the precise nature of the Tea Party has been less clear. Is it solely a movement to reduce the size of government and cut taxes, as its name – some people refer to it as the Taxed Enough Already party – implies? Or do its supporters share a broader set of conservative positions on social as well as economic issues? Does the movement draw support across the religious spectrum? Or has the religious right ‘taken over
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ERIC W. DOLAN, - The Raw Story
Stephan: Part of the corruption of American healthcare produced by the Illness Profit System. It shows once again that the whole point of this structure is profit not the health and wellbeing of the populace.
Academics who lend their names to medical and scientific articles ghostwritten by the pharmaceutical industry should be charged with fraud under the the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), according to two University of Toronto Faculty of Law professors.
The pharmaceutical industry often conducts research, but allows academic experts to submit it to scientific journals under their own name. Although medical professionals and academics have called for these ‘guest authors’ to be sanctioned by journals, academic institutions and regulatory agencies, their recommendations have not been widely embraced.
‘It’s a prostitution of their academic standing,’ Professor Trudo Lemmens said. ‘And it undermines the integrity of the entire academic publication system.’
In an article published Tuesday in PLoS Medicine, Professors Simon Stern and Trudo Lemmens argued that, ‘guest author’s claim for credit of an article written by someone else constitutes legal fraud, and may give rise to claims that could be pursued in a class action based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.’
‘Guest authorship is a disturbing violation of academic integrity standards, which form the basis of scientific reliability,’ they claimed. ‘Pharmaceutical sponsors borrow the names of academic experts precisely because of the value and prestige attached to the presumed integrity and […]
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, - Agence France-Presse (France)
Stephan: Although there was a post in the colonial period, the post office as an entity tying the country together is a creation of Benjamin Franklin. And now, like so much of our infrastructure, it is fading slowly away.
The US Postal Service warned on Friday that it could default on payments it owes the federal government, just days after the US government itself narrowly averted a default.
The government’s mail service said it lost $3.1 billion in the period from April to June, blaming ‘the anemic state of the economy’ and the growing popularity of electronic communications over old-fashioned letters.
As a result of its mounting losses, the US Postal Service said it would not be able to make a legally required $5.5 billion payment in September to a health-benefits trust fund.
‘Absent substantial legislative change, the Postal Service will be forced to default on payments to the federal government,’ it said in a statement.
Dating back to 1775, the US Postal Service was once a crucial branch of the federal government, but in recent years it has come under increasing fire from critics who consider it bureaucratic and inefficient.
In July, it unveiled plans to identify nearly 3,700 under-used post offices around the United States for possible closure. The Post Office has been hemorrhaging billions of dollars in recent years.
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PATRICIA MURPHY, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: This shabby sleight-of-hand of turning it over to a super committee is just another way to let corporations dictate what will happen. In their greed they are going to destroy us.
Hopelessly twisted in a deadlock and faced with taking the blame for forcing the first financial default in the nation’s history, congressional negotiators blinked and created a special 12-member super-committee to do what the House and Senate could not-find $1.5 trillion worth of additional savings in the federal budget within the next six months.
Days after President Barack Obama signed the compromise deal to avert U.S. default, Capitol Hill staff and Washington lobbyists now describe the anticipated onslaught of lobbying targeting the supercommittee as something between a military invasion and the quest for the holy grail. It will be a full-court press by K Street to push their clients’ agendas and protect their interests when every line of the federal budget is up for the ax.
‘It’s like putting a big honey pot in the middle of a forest,
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Saturday, August 6th, 2011
MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and MARY FOSTER, - Seattle-Times
Stephan: When this story first surfaced six years ago I ran it, and have kept track of what has happened since then. It has taken an unconscionably long time for justice to be achieved, but it has finally happened, and I consider this good news.
NEW ORLEANS — A federal jury on Friday convicted five current or former New Orleans police officers of civil-rights violations in one of the lowest moments for city police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: the shooting deaths of a teenager and a mentally disabled man as they crossed a bridge in search of food and help.
The case was a high-stakes test of the Justice Department’s effort to rid the police department of corruption and brutality. A total of 20 current or former New Orleans police officers were charged last year after a series of federal investigations.
Most of the cases center on actions during the aftermath of the Aug. 29, 2005, storm, which plunged the city into a state of lawlessness and desperation.
Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen, Officer Anthony Villavaso and former Officer Robert Faulcon were convicted of civil-rights violations in the shootings that killed two people and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after the storm. They face possible life prison sentences.
Retired Sgt. Arthur ‘Archie’ Kaufman and the other four men also were convicted of engaging in a cover-up that included a planted gun, fabricated witnesses and falsified reports. The five men were […]
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