Things to Know - 30 March

1.  Apparently there is more to the resignation from the Senate by Olympia Snowe than we were originally thinking or told:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8160-why-olympia-snowe-really-resigned?tmpl=component&print=1

2.  Robert Scheer always has something bold and factual on what irritates him.  This piece is on the arrogant conservatives on the Supreme Court:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8188-the-supreme-courts-five-hypocrites

3.  Islamophobia and other overt claims about Obama mostly lurk on the internet.  However, they occasionally surface in the presence of the Wannabees, and get some other theological slams thrown in for good measure.  The Wannabees contribute to the action by not taking the position that McCain did in the last election by the bad/big hair woman at one of his campaign appearances:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8194-creating-the-muslim-manchurian-candidate-the-right-wings-election-year-islamophobia

4.  The Senate rejected the resolution that would have stopped subsidies to the oil industry.  The Big Energy lobbyists and their bags of money, raised from our purchases at the gas pump, once again proved that money is the monther's milk of politics:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/03/29/454853/senators-who-voted-to-protect-oil-tax-breaks-received-23582500-from-big-oil/?mobile=nc

5.  There is a rising sense that the Supreme Court will trash Obama's Affordable Health Care Act.  Then what?    30 million no longer have any health insurance.  Eugene Robinson provides a scenario on what could happen:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/supreme-court-could-open-door-for-single-payer-health-care/2012/03/29/gIQAyNJtjS_story.html

6.  Steve Lopez takes a serious look at the deal that Frank McCourt got the Magic Johnson team to buy into.   It's not a pretty assessment.  The game is going to be a lot more than "peanuts and cracker jacks" now.   How about ticket prices on the scale of a Laker game and big parking fees, and that is just for starters:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/steve-lopez-how-frank-mccourt-made-out-like-a-thief.html

6.  So, Apple's manufacturing plant in Shenzen, China has been found to be lacking in workers' rights, work safety, compensation, and just about every working condition.   Yes, attention has been focused on this Apple supply-chain provider, and yes, things will probably improve.  However, I think this is all just a public relations reaction associated to a company that is immensely successful and profitable.  We need to look inward at our own supply-chain processes and companies in the USA on what we buy and eat, and are hidden by powerful lobbyists.  It takes a whistle-blower to start the process.  Does anyone remember Karen Silkwood?  She was most-likely murdered for her activism 38 years ago:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-apple-factory-20120330,0,4316360,print.story

7.  David Brooks is as uncomfortable as George Will on the placement of the Republican Party these days (decades?).  A former conservative Republican is no longer a moderate on the spectrum - too far to the left.  The situation is causing the young and gifted to question the ideology of the party.   Read here about one example in San Diego:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/opinion/brooks-a-moderate-conservative-dilemma.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

8.  Closing up with the theme that Scheer and Robinson (above #2 and #4) started, Paul Krugman provides his slant on the Supreme Court:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/opinion/krugman-broccoli-and-bad-faith.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

--
Juan

"An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it."
       -- Laurence J. Peter

"The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible."
       -- Jean Kerr

"Nothing fails like success."
       -- Gerald Nachman

"Anarchy - it's not the law, it's just a good idea."
       -- Unknown
"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation." 
       -- George Bernard Shaw