Group items tagged

Americans of both parties overwhelmingly oppose a Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations and unions to spend as much as they want on political campaigns, and most favor new limits on such spending, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

On the stimulus, the correct story is the big story - the macroeconomic story. According to private forecasters -- not talking Obama administration folks, but private firms that are paid by other private companies to accurately analyze the market -- the stimulus worked.

>'With unrealistic expectations of our ability to prolong life, with death as an unfamiliar and unnatural event, and without a realistic, tactile sense of how much a worn-out elderly patient is suffering, it's easy for patients and families to keep insisting on more tests, more medications, more procedures. >Doing something often feels better than doing nothing. Inaction feeds the sense of guilt-ridden ineptness family members already feel as they ask themselves, "Why can't I do more for this person I love so much?" >...At a certain stage of life, aggressive medical treatment can become sanctioned torture. When a case such as this comes along, nurses, physicians and therapists sometimes feel conflicted and immoral. We've committed ourselves to relieving suffering, not causing it. A retired nurse once wrote to me: "I am so glad I don't have to hurt old people any more." '

Teacher describes reunion with former students in Tanzania. "Mountains can never meet, but people can meet again." - Swahili proverb

Growing, young, innovative society has economic advantages over contracting societies of Europe & Japan

But only 1/8 very familiar with Tea Party, with favorable ratings split. Sarah Palin has lost popularity.

Republicans attack Obama for seeing US as no more (intrinsically) exceptional than other nations, & suggesting that what is exceptional is the goals citizens strive for, not a pre-ordained status.

Niece defends JFK's 1960 speech to Houston ministers as better defining 1st Amdmt's meaning & application than Sarah Palin's recent critical construction.

Palin is undermined by questions about her qualifications

Julian E. Zelizer, author of "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism," is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He points out that accusations of "soft on defense" are not new - they have existed since WW II. And he argues that they had very bad effects on US policies in the 1950s & 1960s.

J.M.Phillips (former NYT reporter) attacks columns by M.Dowd, F.Rich & P.Krugman about menace of evangelical "jihadism."

Ensuring the continuation of slavery was, overwhelmingly, the chief cause of Southern states' secession and the Civil War.

Excommunication of Phoenix nun, & ejection of St. Joseph's Hospital, for allowing an abortion to save a mother's life; prohibitions of tubal ligations in Texas & Oregon.

Justifying economic beliefs by religion. Does Christianity require special care for poor?