Bipartisan Call for Food Safety Fixes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/health/policy/12fda.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=demands%20overhaul%20of%20food&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 10:28 AM
Subject: re: Bipartisan Call for Food Safety Fixes
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    In 1994, Congress carved out an exception to the Food and Drug Act. This exception now accounts for billions of dollars annually in "nutraceuticals" that are tested neither for efficacy (as if they were drugs) nor even for safety (as if they were food). To rearrange the responsibility for food testing while preserving this loophole seems a misappropriation of effort.

Barry Levine

Terror-War Fallout Lingers Over Bush Lawyers

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/washington/09lawyers.html?em

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 11:16 AM
Subject: re: Terror-War Fallout Lingers Over Bush Lawyers
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Messrs Savage and Shane blandly deny that the Nuremberg trials provide meaningful precedent for trying members of the Bush administration. They offer nothing to substantiate the distinction. While no precedent is perfect, there is credible evidence that members of the Bush administration participated in violations of our statutes and treaty obligations as German judges participated in Nazi outrages. Of course the cases are not the same; Adolf Hitler was duly elected in 1933, while George W. Bush was installed by an extraordinary intervention of our Supreme Court.

Barry Levine

Justices Erase Ruling That Allowed Detention

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/washington/07scotus.html?scp=1&sq=justices%20erase&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 7:42 AM
Subject: re: Justices Erase Ruling That Allowed Detention
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editors:

    In demurring to hear the case of Ali al-Marri, the Supreme Court invites the Executive to game the judicial system. Apparently the Executive can now hold anyone without charges indefinitely--at least until her/his court gets to the Supreme Court. At that point--and only at that point--will they require that he/she be charged. This decision may preserve fragile alliances among the justices, but it does not serve the constitutional rights of the people.

Barry Levine

Six Years In, U.S. Troops Glimpse a Path Out of Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?_r=1&hp

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 7:32 AM
Subject: re: Six Years In, U.S. Troops Glimpse a Path Out of Iraq
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   As mr. Myers observes, the Iraqi security forces require "basic intelligence [that] only the Americans can provide". Empowering sectarian militias while controlling the intelligence centrally, we have put ourselves into a position which we can never leave. If we were to leave, there would be bloody civil war. Those of us who remember Vietnam cannot be satisfied to see American troops renamed "advisers"; surely Al Qaeda won't be fooled and will cite their presence as an ongoing provocation to jihad.

Barry Levine

Future Dim for Nuclear Waste Repository

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/science/earth/06yucca.html?ref=todayspaper

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Subject: re: Future Dim for Nuclear Waste Repository
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    Fission may yet be the indispensable power-generating technology for the foreseeable future, but any comparison of costs must include a full accounting. For fission, that means putting a real cost on the long-term storage of radioactive wastes, just as for coal that includes the cost of dumping CO2 into the atmosphere and the destruction of streams by mining. These matters are too grave to leave to the politicians. Nuclear fission is not merely the province of Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and coal power is not merely the province of Robert Byrd (D-W.Virginia) They are matters of grave importance to the nation and to the planet.

Barry Levine

Memos Reveal Scope of the Power Bush Sought

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/us/politics/03legal.html?scp=2&sq=memos%20released&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Subject: re: Memos Reveal Scope of the Power Bush Sought
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:
  Many were disappointed and puzzled that president Bush demurred to
lead a broad international coalition to apprehend Osama bin Laden in
2001. Instead, he called for "crusade" and asserted extraordinary
war-time powers.  We are still learning the extent of these
extraordinary powers. The memos just released suggest that the rule of
law itself was a casualty of war.
Barry Levine

Obama’s Health Plan, Ambitious in Any Economy, Is Tougher in This One

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/us/politics/02health.html?scp=2&sq=robert-pear&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 1:16 PM
Subject: re: Obama’s Health Plan, Ambitious in Any Economy, Is Tougher in This One
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Americans have never been able to afford our current healthcare system, whether in the good times when president Clinton proposed to reform it or in the current crisis. Two big flaws make it unworkable. The first is one of priorities; we currently spend more than half of our healthcare dollars prolonging the last weeks of dying rather than in improving the health of the living. The second is one of mechanics; our system today is run for the profit of the insurance companies and their lobbyists. This is no time to timidly cling to a status quo that doesn't work. President Obama came in with a mandate for change. It's time.

Barry Levine