Articles Posted by Ralph E. Stone
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End California’s Budget Madness:
Yes on Proposition 25Why do we have an annual budget crisis? Primarily because California is one of only three states – Arkansas and Rhode Island are the others – to require a supermajority to adopt a budget. Thus, each year at budget time, the Republican minority is able to exercise disproportionate control over the budget process because passing a budget requires a two-thirds vote in both houses.
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U.S. Hypocrisy of Sanctions on Iranian Officials
According to Iranian opposition activists, detainees were tortured and raped while imprisoned. Iranian officials denied the charges. Whether the charges are true or not, what right does the United States, who has acted wrongly, either morally or legally – that is, who has ‘unclean hands’ – to complain about the human rights abuses of Iran, or any other country?
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Proposition L: Nevius Makes Case
Against Sit/Lie Proposition?Putting aside the legality and fairness of a sit/lie law, the past failure to prosecute quality of life citations raises the question as to why we need Proposition L, now on the November ballot. If passed, who says those citations would be prosecuted any differently. Or put another way, if quality of life violations were prosecuted now, what is the rationale for a sit/lie law?
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Iraq War Hoax
George W. Bush and his minions intentionally built a case for war with Iraq without regard to factual evidence. They took advantage of the public’s hysteria over the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to authorize an invasion and occupation of Iraq with no evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Remember Scott Ritter, a chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, who publicly argued that Iraq possessed no significant WMDs? Similarly, Hans Martin Blix, the head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission from March 2000 to June 2003, searched Iraq for WMDs, ultimately finding none.
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Ratepayers on the Hook for PG&E’s Neglect
Remember the 2003 record bankruptcy bailout that put ratepayers on the hook to pay PG&E’s creditors and resuscitate the corporation? It added to the $8 billion in previous bailout funds already paid to PG&E by its ratepayers since 1998, bringing the bailout total to over $16 billion. The bailout plan was approved by the Public Utility Commission despite accusations that PG&E’s officers siphoned $4 billion to its unregulated holding company, PGE Corporation, out of the $8 billion in “Competition Transition Surcharge” funds already paid to PG&E by its ratepayers between 1998 and 2000.
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Racism and Bigotry Alive and Well in America
The controversy has been inaccurately dubbed the “Ground Zero mosque.” Actually, the building will function as an Islamic cultural center, not a mosque. It will include a prayer room, but not a single-purpose house of worship for Muslims. Furthermore, the cultural center will not be built at Ground Zero. It will be near Ground Zero.
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WRAP’s 2010 “Without Housing” Update Has Arrived
WRAP concludes that ending homelessness in the United States will require a serious re-commitment by the federal government to create, subsidize and maintain truly affordable housing. It notes that the root cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing.
The Hunger Site
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