Search














Archive for May, 2009

Solving Rhode Island’s Budget Crisis: What Should be Done?

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

We are at a critical point for Rhode Island’s fiscal health. The newest update from the Revenue Estimating Conference shows Rhode Island’s deficit grew by $200 million to a total deficit of $590 million for FY 2010. Since 2004, the structural deficit has grown each year, despite the repeated claim that tax cuts will generate [...]

How Americans Think About Torture – and Why

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

by: Roy Eidelson, Cognitive Policy Works
In recent weeks, new revelations about the harsh interrogation and torture of detainees during the Bush administration years have made headlines and stirred controversy. The positions of prominent advocates and opponents on each side are clear. But what do we know about how the American people in general have come [...]

American Kills 5 Fellow Soldiers at Clinic in Iraq

Monday, May 11th, 2009

By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD – An American soldier opened fire at a counseling center on a military base Monday, killing five fellow soldiers before being taken into custody, the U.S. command and Pentagon officials said.
Although it was unclear what prompted the shooting, the incident draws attention to the issue of combat stress [...]

Draft Letter Calling for a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Financial Collapse

Friday, May 8th, 2009

RIPDA Position Statement on the Economic Crisis
The current economic crisis threatens to be worse than the Great Depression, yet our federal government hasn’t shown any indication that it will thoroughly investigate how it happened and why. Instead, we’ve only been told that our economy will collapse unless we give unprecedented amounts of public money to [...]

Maine, Fifth State to allow Gay Marriage

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro, FirstRead MSNBC.

Maine’s Gov. John Baldacci signed a bill into law allowing same-sex marriage in his state. Maine becomes the fifth state to do so. The other four: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts and Vermont.
 

 

“In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions,” Baldacci said in a statement. ”I have come [...]

Health Care Activists Disrupt Senate Finance Committee Hearing

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

by Carrie Budoff Brown, Common Dreams.org.
Health care activists disrupted a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday, standing up one after the other as Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) tried to restore order.
As soon as police escorted one protester out of the room, another would stand up, criticizing the committee for convening a panel of 15 experts and [...]

Specter against key part of health care reform plan

Monday, May 4th, 2009

By Jed Lewison, the DailyKos.
Today, Sunday Loon Watch focuses on former Republican (edit: and now Democratic) Senator Arlen Specter’s interview on Meet the Press.
In the interview, Specter came out clearly and unambiguously against a key part of President Obama’s health care reform plan, the establishment of anoptional public health plan. (Democratic Senator Ben Nelson also doesn’t support the president’s [...]

U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan ‘backfiring,’ Congress told

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

by Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times.
David Kilcullen is no soft-headed peacenik.
He’s a beefy, 41-year-old former Australian army officer who served in Iraq as a top advisor to U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. He’s one of the counter-insurgency warrior/theorists who designed Petraeus’ successful “surge” of troops into the streets of Baghdad.
But a few days ago, [...]

.