Truthout: 29 March 2012

Is There More to Sen. Snowe's Resignation Than Congress's "Crumbling Center"?
Danny Weil, Truthout: "Snowe is hardly a moderate. Casting the conservative senator from Maine as such exemplifies how far to the right this country has moved ... Snowe's announcement she will not seek another term in the Senate may have little to do with 'civility' or 'loss of the center' within contentious politics and more to do with the fact her husband is knee-deep in controversy over an educational for-profit college chain know as Educational Management Corporation or Wall Street ticker (EDMC)."
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CEO Pay: Money Well Earned?
Salvatore Babones, Truthout: "The idea that corporations should seek to maximize shareholder value - and nothing else - was born in the 1980s and rose to dominance in the 1990s. Before the 1990s, many people believed that corporations existed to produce useful goods, provide important services, generate meaningful employment and support vibrant communities. How quaint that sounds today."
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Robert Scheer | The Supreme Court's Five Hypocrites
Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "The Supreme Court is so full of it. The entire institution, as well as its sanctimonious judges themselves, reeks of a time-honored hypocrisy steeped in the arrogance that justice is served by unaccountable elitism. My problem is not with the Republicans who dominate the court questioning the obviously flawed individual mandate for the purchasing of private-sector health insurance but rather with their zeal to limit federal power only when it threatens to help the most vulnerable."
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Few Minds Are Changed by Arguments in Court
Susan Saulny, The New York Times News Service: "The morning arguments before the Supreme Court had grown tense just as the lunch crowd was packing into the food court at a downtown Atlanta office complex to watch news coverage of the hearing. Over a meal of fast food, Bebee Dillard, a cleaning business owner, could not have been more pleased with the conservative justices, who were asking tough questions about the constitutionality of President Obama's Affordable Care Act, the law intended to overhaul the nation's health system."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Radiation Levels at Fukushima Have Reached Their Highest Point Yet, and More
In today's On the News segment: The Supreme Court has finished hearing arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare, new study finds only 56 percent of students who enter American universities are able to graduate within six years, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan received a 600 percent increase in his salary from the year before, radiation levels at Fukushima have reached their highest point yet, and more.
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War With Iran? Sen. Rand Paul Calls the Question
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "Before we have a war with Iran, shouldn't the Senate and the House have at least one debate and vote on it? Isn't that what the Constitution demands? ... If you agree to the principle that Congress should debate and vote on a war with Iran before any such war takes place (which also happens to be the Constitution and the law), when do you think a good time would be for the Senate and the House to start taking up the question?"
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Why the Huffington Post Needs to Immediately Retract Mark Benjamin's Afghanistan Massacre Report
Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout: "A March 25 article by Mark Benjamin at The Huffington Post seriously misled readers about a link between the controversial antimalarial drug mefloquine and the mass murder in Afghanistan attributed to Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. Relying on a document he wrongly identified, and with zero evidence backing up his claims, Benjamin's headline stated 'Military Scrambles to Limit Malaria Drug Just After Afghan Massacre.' As a matter of journalistic ethics, Benjamin should apologize to his readers and retract the story."
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Generals Who Don't Just Fade Away: The Newest in Self-Dealing Maneuvers
Dina Rasor, Truthout: "As I mentioned in an earlier Solutions column, it was a tradition for ex-generals to enter the civilian business world. It was even considered unseemly for a retired general to go work for a military company after World War II, but unfortunately, a large percentage of current retiring generals go to work for defense companies, giving 'advice' and claiming not to lobby."
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District Court Permanently Blocks Oklahoma Ultrasound Law, Expect a Supreme Court Battle
Robin Marty, RH Reality Check: "The 10th Circuit Federal Court has just issued a permanent injunction on a 2010 Oklahoma law that would require all women terminating their pregnancies to first undergo a mandatory ultrasound. The news, which is no doubt welcome to the women in and around Oklahoma who will no longer have to endure the added financial stress and emotional pressure of an unwanted, medically-unnecessary ultrasound, also sets up what is likely to be the next big battle - this time, before the Supreme Court."
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The Right Wing's Election-Year Islamophobia
John Feffer, TomDispatch: "Those who fervently believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim generally practice their furtive religion in obscure recesses of the Internet. Once in a while, they’ll surface in public to remind the news media that no amount of evidence can undermine their convictions."
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Michael Dawson on the Biggest Gulf in American Life
Rakim Brooks, Truthout: "Whether we're talking about what the role of the government is, what you think of the United Nations, political leaders - Ronald Reagan, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, President Obama - or how to respond to [Hurricane] Katrina and whether it had anything to do with race, across a wide variety of issues we see differences between mainstream black and white American opinion that dwarfs anything in American public opinion, period. Democrat versus Republican, men versus women, conservative versus liberal, the black/white divide is the biggest, one of the biggest in the world, and certainly the largest gap in the United States."
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Maxwell's Hammer Redux: Syracuse University and the Effort to Break Down the Rule of Law
Linda Ford, Truthout: "In the wake of President Obama's new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which does away with habeas corpus for those who are labeled 'terrorists,' it really shouldn't be all that surprising to see academic institutions race to provide intellectual backdrop to justify the end to such basic American constitutional rights. But I was a little surprised and a lot appalled to see my alma mater at it again."
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Unlike Trayvon Martin, Gun Lovers Can Carry More Than Skittles in Their NRA Hoodies
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "The National Rifle Association (NRA) never misses a beat on capitalizing on paranoia or profiting from the gun industry. Call it utterly tasteless and macabre, but as ThinkProgress points out, the NRA sells hoodies in its online retail store that are specially designed to hide handguns."
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In House Speech Defending Violence Against Women Act, Rep. Gwen Moore Recounts Being Raped
Read the Article at Raw Story

Jailed Climate Hero Tim DeChristopher Thrown in the Hole
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Rick Santorum Tells Boy Not to Use Pink Bowling Ball
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Occupy Wall Street Affiliates Chain Subway Gates Open for Fare Strike
Read the Article at The Village Voice

Limbaugh, Santorum, Sex, and the Origins of the Roman Catholic Church
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Craigslist Founder Jumps Into Voting Rights Fight
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Scalia Says Court Can't Be Bothered to Read Obama's Health Care Bill: "You Really Want Us to Go Through These 2,700 Pages?"
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