JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Can we eat and drink oil after it poisons our food supply?

The other day I received a letter from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) written by senior attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. which asked for contributions to overturn the White House's decision to allow Shell to drill off the fragile coastline of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this summer.

I received the NRDC letter after reading Dahr Jamail's report at Truthout.org on the ongoing health problems from the BP Gulf oil spill: "The 4.9million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf last year was the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, affecting people living near the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Seemingly compounding the problem , BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic dispersants, which are banned by many countries, including the UK. According to many scientists, these dispersants create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil."

ANN DAVIDOW FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

You have to wonder if the American electorate will be able to keep its mind on the inner workings of its government or if it will be lulled into the label wars that are so popular among the day's commentators and so meaningless?

There are precious few in-depth discussions of the country's most pressing problems and a plethora of garbage grinding debates about sexual preferences and religion. For starters,religion has assumed far too great a role in today's political discussions. It is mind-numbing to be subjected to ponderous conjectures about candidates' church attendance, accusations that Obama is a Muslim or that the Mormon religion is a cult. That we have descended to this level is disturbing in itself, that we actually engage in debate about such non-concerns is even more distressing. Is the mental effort required to examine things of importance so daunting that the national fallback position is to rely on divisive personal preferences that have little to do with governing?

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The last we heard from the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), it was embroiled in the Jack Abramoff scandal. And before that, it was caught up in Tom DeLay's ethical problems. Now, the Texas-based public policy institute has volunteered to pinch hit for the American Exchange Legislative Council after that beleaguered organization declared that it was dropping its efforts at voter suppression.

HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The future of nuclear power now hangs on a single decision by President Obama---and us.

His Office of Management and Budget could cave to the unsustainable demands of reactor builders who cannot handle the standard terms of a loan agreement.

Or he could defend basic financial procedures and stand up for the future of the American economy.

You can help make this decision, which will come soon.

DEE EVANS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Okay, I know it's, as some say, "silly season in politics" but I am highly disturbed that much of the mainstream media seems to be giving has-been rocker Ted Nugent a slap on the wrist for his vile, disgusting and very threatening comments about President Obama.

As most know by now, Nugent was speaking recently at an NRA convention when he said, "if Obama is re-elected, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year." I guess the bottom line premise of that being that either he will be killed in the process or dead by the process. Who knows?

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Richard Hayne, a Santorum donor, is under fire from the Christian Right for allowing a photo of two young women kissing in his new Urban Outfitters catalog.

The Broadway tune goes "Love Makes the World Go 'Round." For the Christian Right, "Controversial ads make the cash registers sing."

Less than two months after launching its pathetically unsuccessful campaign to get the retailer JC Penney to dump Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson, the American Family Association's OneMillionMoms is attacking Urban Outfitters for its April catalog featuring an image of two young women kissing.

ANN DAVIDOW FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

If William Shakespeare were alive today he'd be working on a new play called "Much Ado About Nothing, Part II. That is what our campaigns have come down to, a strident never-ending indictment of the system itself.

In the sixties some political factions began to call all opponents Communists or Pinkos. Today wild-eyed political fanatics suggest, once again, that Congress is filled with Commies, and worse, people who are enemies of the state and in effect, committing treason - - sometimes rather oddly called Fascists. It never seems to occur to critics that Fascism is a form of government not a term that describes one person or another in the abstract. Apparently it appeals to certain dissenters to label the current administration or its supporters with such terms, but it is a mindless effort that muddies the waters without accomplishing anything meaningful in terms of a realistic approach to actual policy.

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In early March, the organization, Invisible Children, burst onto the world stage with its KONY 2012 video promoting its "Stop Kony" campaign. The video focused on Joseph Kony, the Uganda warlord and leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, a guerrilla group with a long and violent history that includes turning the kidnapped children into child soldiers. The KONY 2012 video went mega-viral; surpassing 100 million views in six days and breaking previous records set by Susan Boyle's April 2009 appearance on the television program "Britain's Got Talent" which hit that mark in 9 days, and Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video, which took 18 days to surpass 100 million views.

Not too long after the organization became a social media phenomenon, its co-founder, Jason Russell, suffered a public mental breakdown caught on a video - which garnered over 1 million views -- showing him running naked along a busy San Diego street, cursing and ranting about the devil.

While the video, and Russell's mental breakdown, have been extensively reported on, Invisible Children's broad connections to the Religious Right have not received much media attention. Invisible Children has adopted the stealth campaign approach of other Christian Right campaigns.

PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The wealthiest Americans believe they've earned their money through hard work and innovation, and that they're the most productive members of society. For the most part they're wrong. As the facts below will show, they're not nearly as productive as middle-class workers. Yet they've taken almost all the new income over the past 30 years.

Any one of these five reasons should reinforce the belief that the rich should be paying a LOT more in taxes:

STEVEN JONAS, MD, MPH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

On April 8, 2012, our esteemed Editor/Publisher at BuzzFlash@Truthout, my good friend Mark Karlin, published a column entitled "The US War on Drug Cartels in Mexico Is a Deadly Failure" (1). In his column he noted that: "Approximately 50,000 or more Mexicans have been killed since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched a so-called war on drug cartels. (In a recent appearance in Toronto, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta claimed 150,000 people have died in the drug war in Mexico, but the timeline Panetta was referring to was unclear, as was the origin of the figure he cited.)." Mark went on to say: "Here is the US policy in a nutshell: we pay Mexicans to kill Mexicans, and this slaughter has no effect on drug shipments or prices." Nor on the use of those drugs in the United States, which has generally not significantly changed over the 40-plus years of the "War" (2).