The Vatican has scolded American nuns for deviating from Church doctrine. Conservative bishops decry President Obama’s health-care reform for violating their religious freedom. But some Catholics find this heated rhetoric at odds with the gentler message of Jesus, as Catholic theologian Paul Surlis said in this excerpted sermon.
The Affordable Care Act faces a key hurdle from the U.S. Supreme Court this month and — if it survives — more attacks from Republicans this fall, with Mitt Romney promising to kill the new law if he’s elected. Yet, despite the reform’s shortcomings, its rejection could mean suffering for millions, says Don Monkerud.
Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, two veteran centrists who disdain partisan labels, finally said what nearly everyone knows to be true. In April, they penned a Washington Post article entitled, “Let’s just say it, the Republicans are the problem.” Yet, the GOP “problem” goes even deeper, says Beverly Bandler.
It seems Campaign 2012 will turn more on how Americans view President Obama and what he has done than how they view his likely Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who comes across as a conservative cipher. So, Beverly Bandler says Americans should make a fair and clear-headed assessment of Obama’s record.
Millions of Americans, when facing depression or even just anxiety, turn to powerful psychiatric drugs marketed by pharmaceutical giants, whose ads gloss over the risks in fast-talking fine print. A counter-movement warning of the dangers from an over-prescribed society is emerging, as Gary G. Kohls describes.
Exclusive: Both the mainstream U.S. press and some on the Left underestimate the danger to the Republic from having a Republican majority on the Supreme Court rendering decisions based on partisan needs not constitutional principles, a threat that surfaced in December 2000 and continues today, writes Robert Parry.
Exclusive: Many in the Washington Establishment – including key parts of the press – fancy themselves doing what’s “good for the country” by shielding Americans from painful realities, like the emerging crisis over a partisan-driven Supreme Court. But the hard truth, not easy lies, is what’s best for the nation, says Robert Parry.
Exclusive: The negative tone of the Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court suggests that the Affordable Care Act, with its individual mandate to buy health insurance, may be overturned as “unconstitutional” by a partisan 5-4 vote. But key Founders had a less hostile view toward mandates in 1792, as Robert Parry reports.
Exclusive: George Washington and James Madison, two key Framers of the Constitution, saw nothing wrong with issuing mandates to citizens (to buy muskets for a militia), but today’s Republican majority on the Supreme Court seems set on going rogue and rewriting the founding document to say otherwise, Sam Parry writes.
Exclusive: Ronald Reagan’s Solicitor General Charles Fried sees “politics, politics, politics” at play in the apparent move by the Supreme Court’s Republican majority to kill health-care reform, but the Washington Post’s neocon editors say it’s unfair to call any of those five GOP justices a “hack,” reports Robert Parry.
Thanks to You We Reached Our Spring Goal -- Donations of any size are always welcome. Thanks again.
