Tag: featured

In New Strategy, Panetta Plans Even Smaller Army

From the NEW YORK TIMES: Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has concluded that the Army has to shrink even below current targets, dropping to 490,000 soldiers over the next decade, but that the United States should not cut any of its 11 aircraft carriers, according to Pentagon officials and military analysts briefed on the secretary’s budget proposals.

Obama Defies GOP Again With 3 NLRB ‘Recess’ Appointments

From NEWSMAX: President Barack Obama named three members to the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday, bypassing fierce opposition from Republicans who claim the agency has leaned too far in favor of unions. The recess appointments came just hours after Obama used a similar move to install former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency…

Top 10 Food Label Tricks to Avoid

From the HUFF POST: After overindulging during the holidays, many of us have resolved to eat a healthier diet in the new year. But doing so means choosing the right foods, and too often misleading food labels prompt us to purchase items that we think are good for us but really aren’t. Here are 10 common labeling tricks to be aware of as you beef up your diet in 2012.

Romney narrowly wins Iowa caucuses

From USA TODAY: Mitt Romney won Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses by the narrowest of margins, the state’s party chairman declared early today, finishing only eight votes ahead of Rick Santorum. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, each had a quarter of the votes cast and traded leads during a long night of counting in the improbably close finish.

Self-interest cartography

From the SCRANTON TIMES-TRIBUNE: Pennsylvania’s new map of congressional districts is as twisted as the rhetoric employed by the politicians who drew it, as they try to justify it on the basis of anything other than raw politics.

Have We Got a Convention Center to Sell You!

From the WALL STREET JOURNAL: For two decades, America’s convention center business has been declining, resulting in a nationwide surplus of empty meeting facilities, struggling convention halls and vacant hotel rooms. How have governments responded to this glut? By building more convention centers, of course, financed by debt backed by new taxes and fees on already struggling taxpayers.

What USA should resolve for 2012

NO MORE SENSELESS WARS: I look at my nineteen year old son, so full of life and eager to learn and progress, and I think of those youngsters of the same age who enter the armed forces out of patriotism or for opportunity and end up dead , maimed, or psychologically impaired. For what? Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq— For God and nation? No, for the military industrial complex and jingoism!

NO MORE GOVERNMENT BY SPECIAL FINANCIAL INTERESTS: Given the huge amounts of money elected officials have to raise to stay in office, they cannot but be influenced by major sources of contribution, each seeking advantages through contracts of tax exemptions. We need a constitutional amendment restricting how much money can be given directly or indirectly by individuals and corporations for campaigns.