CALIF INDEPENDENT VOTER NEWS - - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's quest to convince the federal government to put-up-or-shut-up by paying California an additional $6.9 billion he says the state needs to carry out Washington D.C. imposed mandates is just one high-profile example of states increasingly asserting their rights.

The battle over when states rights trump federal government edicts is as old as the constitution, waxing and waning in favor of each camp for nearly 225 years. But recently, an increasing number of states are standing up to the federal government and asserting their independence through legislation, resolutions or rhetoric.

"It's widespread. We're seeing states all across the republic with different resolutions or legislation. Some deal with health care, some firearms some light bulbs. Civil resistance against federal drug policy began here in California. In a way, we're leading the charge, " said Bryce Shonka, California state coordinator for the Tenth Amendment Center, a Los Angeles-based clearinghouse and advocacy group for states rights issues.

As Shonka says, while Schwarzenegger's chief focus is securing money to balance California's budget, other states are declaring their independence differently. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 23 states have followed Montana and introduced legislation saying if a gun is manufactured in that state and stays in that state, then federal regulation, such as registration, doesn't apply. On March 12, Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican, signed such a bill into law. Wyoming's governor signed a similar bill the day before.

Idaho's GOP Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed a law March 17 ordering the state attorney general to sue if Congress approves health care legislation. Similar bills are pending in 37 other states although its unlikely any would survive a court challenge. . .

While some say the push for states rights is largely a Republican, red state, Tea Party phenomenon, Shonka doesn't agree. He points to Oregon, Wisconsin, Maryland and New Hampshire – all states won by President Obama in 2008 – where resolutions were introduced last year aimed at bringing members of the National Guard home from Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's not at all a partisan issue. Having decisions made closer to home, everyone appreciates that sort of thing, " said Shonka. "Centralization was in full gear all throughout the last decade under Bush just as it is under Obama. When Obama was elected, the people on the right naturally were the ones more eager to oppose the federal government. "

One of the most common manifestations of states rights is passing legislation that exceeds federal law. "The governor has always said, under Presidents Bush and Obama, we're not going to wait for Washington to act," said Aaron McLear, Schwarzenegger's press secretary. "And that's why the real action has been happening in the states. "

Schwarzenegger and California's Democratic majority Legislature have passed laws stronger than federal statutes routinely, particularly on environmental matters. AB 32, the landmark 2006 measure designed to ratchet down state greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 is the most visible example. More recently, California approved stricter tailpipe emission standards. Twenty other states followed California and passed the same law. The Obama administration has now adopted the same emission standards for the country.

It's unclear what ultimate impact many states rights measures will have. Much of the legislation tracked by the Tenth Amendment Center is resolutions, which are non-binding and don't carry the force of law. A large percentage of the states' rights bills, regardless of subject, don't win legislative approval let alone a gubernatorial signature.

At the center of the arguments made by states' rights advocates is the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. "

That amendment is a weaker version of a similar sentence in the earlier Articles of Confederation:

"Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

Over the past century, federal court rulings have expanded the federal government's reach – largely by applying the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause: Congress shall have the power "to regulate commerce. . . among the several states." . . .

The court subsequently shifted its stance on the Commerce Clause. A key 1942 Supreme Court ruling, Wickard v. Filburn, involved a farmer, Roscoe Filburn, who grew wheat to feed his chickens said the limits on wheat production imposed by the federal government to increase the price shouldn't apply to him because he sold none of the extra wheat. Using the Commerce Clause, the court reasoned that the extra wheat Filburn grew reduced the amount of wheat he would otherwise buy for chicken feed on the open market. Because there was a national trade in wheat, Filburn's extra production affected interstate commerce, allowing federal regulation.

Citing the Wickard ruling and the Commerce Clause, the courts struck down California's medicinal marijuana law in 2005. Growing marijuana for personal or medical use would "frustrate " the federal interest in ending commercial transactions in the interstate market, the court said. "In both cases, the regulation is squarely within Congress' commerce power because production of the commodity meant for home consumption, be it wheat or marijuana, has a substantial effect on supply and demand in the national market for that commodity, " the majority opinion says.

Taking the side of states rights, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote:

"The court has endorsed making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use. This overreaching stifles an express choice by some states, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently. Whatever the wisdom of California's experiment with medical marijuana, the federalism principles that have driven our Commerce Clause cases require that room for experiment be protected in this case."

MORE ON THE DEVOLUTION OF POWER_______________________________________________________

-- Sad, sad, sad. Those people actually on Medicare know that there were no excesses that needed elimination. Actually Medicare is woefully inadequate as anyone actually on it can tell you. Cutting it back as part of "fixing" healthcare is nothing short of hateful and will lead to thousands of deaths which Congress and the President will be personally responsible for.

-- Translation of your latest disgusting coward's gibberish on this pure-poison healthcare bill: let's provide proof positive to the wealth-power giants and those who carry their water for them that there is no line in the sand they cannot cross with our bovine acquiescence ensured.

And to think i used to respect you. What a fool I was! What kind of brain looks at a bill that prevents states from pursuing single-payer and concludes we can pass this bill then pursue single-payer at the state level?

-- We know that Obama made many statements on his campaign website and throughout the campaign favoring the public option, and also that he made a back-room deal after his election to dump the public option. So what now? Smith/Kucinich argue to get the current terribly deficient bill passed and fight on from there. There is much to be said for this strategy, and surely some of the immediate measures, such as prohibiting refusal of insurance because of pre-existing conditions, will help some people. But Howard Dean pointed out on MSNBC that this provision only applies to young people (mostly healthy) and a few other groups, but not to older people.

Other provisions of the bill won't take effect until 2014 or later, but congressional elections are coming up in less than a year. How will the public view this bill once (or if) it is passed? Private insurance rates are already taking quantum jumps - I can attest to that. Will these jumps and a seemingly business-as-usual approach convince the public that Obamacare is an expenditure of public funds without any concrete results? If so, the Reps get the House and the longer-range strategy that Smith and Kucinich hope for will be stopped in its tracks.

If Obamacare can't make it through the Congress, then what? Are he and fellow Dems viewed as incompetent or will the Reps take it on the chin in November? Hard to say. I for one don't know, but I suspect that the only way the Smith/Kucinich hopes can be realized is if there are enough immediate improvements in health care/insurance to keep the public interested in continuing with it in November. - Frank Munley

- Sorry, but I can't possibly support an idea like this until they go back and "fix" the Medicare prescription program that was passed with this same argument. Since it passed, there has been no attempt to correct the problems in that bill despite the statements from both legislators and AARP telling us that we had to pass "something" right then and the flaws that were being left in could be fixed later.

It won't matter how many people complain about a bad health care bill. The response from Congress will be that we already spent too much time on the issue, we passed a bill, and there are more important things we need to do now._______________________________________________________

SUSAN O'HANIAN - Vermont has identified ten schools as their "lowest 10%." Since we don't have charters, I hope President Obama comes to Vermont and personally hands out the pink slips.

Students at these schools undoubtedly perform better on standardized tests than many students across the country. Nonetheless, they are the lowest in Vermont. Some will always be the lowest in the state. So under the Obama/Duncan plan, some schools will always be stripped of their leadership and faculty. It is likely to be the same schools over and over losing the people who know anything about the students and the community.

A large percentage of students at one of the "low" schools in Vermont are immigrants, speaking something like 50 languages. 99% of the student population are eligible for free and reduced lunch.

Under the federal threat of imminent firing, what teacher will volunteer to work in a troubled school?

Right now, the solution is for states to refuse the federal money._______________________________________________________

JAMES RIDGEWAY, UNSILENT GENERATION - As Congress equivocates over health care the numbers of uninsured middle class people keep on growing.The numbers are doubtless increased due to the recession–which the press announces daily is at an end.

This new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ... shows that the number of middle-income earners who obtained health insurance from their employers dropped by 3 million people from 2000 to 2008. Just 66 percent of people in families earning roughly $45,000 to $85,000 are now insured through their employer—a drop of seven percentage points from 2000 to 2008.

Employer-sponsored insurance has long been the mainstay of health coverage for middle-class families, who typically do not qualify for government insurance programs. Among middle-income Americans, only about half of the decline in employer-sponsored coverage from 2000 to 2008 was offset by government insurance programs. For people who earned less money, declines in ESI were even steeper, but those numbers were mostly offset by increases in coverage through government insurance programs like Medicaid.

The result is that America's middle-class became uninsured at a pace faster than those with less or more income. In total, 13 million middle-income earners were uninsured in 2008—about 2 million more than in 2000. . .

The report - Barely Hanging On: Middle-Class and Uninsured - chronicles state-by-state health coverage trends. In the first decade of this century, nearly every state has seen increased numbers of uninsured residents, greater costs for individual and family policies for health insurance and significant erosion in private coverage._______________________________________________________

CHICAGO TRIBUNE - All airline passengers in the U.S. will eventually be required to undergo a full-body scan before boarding planes, just as metal detectors became a standard and accepted part of the screening process at airports decades ago, the federal transportation security chief in Chicago said Monday.

The Transportation Security Administration plans to send hundreds of the scanners, which cost between $130,000 and $170,000 each, to all major U.S. airports. The scanners use low-dose X-ray to go underneath clothing and display weapons, explosives and other objects that might be hidden on the body, above the skin.

EPIC - In testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security, EPIC President Marc Rotenberg urged Congress to halt the plan to deploy body scanners in the nation's airports. "Based on the documents we've obtained, the views of experts, the concerns of  American, and the extraordinary cost, Congress should suspend the program," said Mr. Rotenberg. In a recent letter to President Obama, EPIC and Ralph Nader recommended an independent review to assess health impacts, privacy safeguards, and the actual effectiveness of the devices. Through FOIA litigation, EPIC has obtained technical specifications, vendor contracts, and hundreds of complaints from US air travelers about the body scanners. A recent report from the GAO has also raised questions about the effectiveness and cost of the devices. For more information, see EPIC Whole Body Imaging and EPIC Air Travel Privacy._______________________________________________________

MSNBC FIRST READ - How did the Eric Massa mess dominate the news for an entire week, while the latest allegations surrounding John Ensign -- which include an ACTUAL FBI investigation -- have registered just a blip on the media radar? (Yesterday, it was reported that a grand jury has issued subpoenas for an inquiry into whether Ensign broke laws by financially helping the husband of his ex-mistress.) As the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen recently wrote, "Sen. John Ensign (R) of Nevada is caught in a truly humiliating sex scandal -- and remember, the media generally loves political sex scandals -- involving a shameless hypocrite, who ran on a 'family-values' platform, committing adultery with one of his own aides, who happens to be married to another aide. The scandal involves the immediate affair, plus alleged ethics violations, hush money, and official corruption. And yet, no media frenzy. No reporters staked out in front of Ensign's home. No op-eds speculating about the need for Ensign to resign in disgrace."_______________________________________________________

SEVEN out of ten Israelis have a positive view of Obama, about twice as many as think Netanyahu should continue running the country. As Netanyahu's own brother-in-law implies, this is clearly a sign of anti-Semitism. According to Haaretz, "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's brother-in-law Dr. Hagai Ben-Artzi called U.S. President Barack Obama an anti-Semite in an interview with Army Radio. 'It's not that Obama doesn't like Bibi,' he referring to Netanyahu using his nickname. 'He doesn't like the nation of Israel.'" When you get this all figured out, let us know._______________________________________________________

SEATTLE TIMES - Walgreens will stop taking new Medicaid patients in Washington state as of April 16, saying it loses money filling their prescriptions. The company, which operates 121 stores in the state, will continue filling Medicaid prescriptions for current patients.

In a news release, Walgreens said its decision to not take new Medicaid patients stemmed from a "continued reduction in reimbursement" under the state's Medicaid program, which reimburses it at less than the break-even point for 95 percent of brand-name medications dispensed to Medicaid patents.

Walgreens follows Bartell Drugs, which stopped taking new Medicaid patients last month at all 57 of its stores in Washington, though it still fills Medicaid prescriptions for existing customers at all but 15 of those stores._______________________________________________________

Sam Smith

The healthcare legislation is one of the most corrupt, inadequate, and cynical bills of purportedly noble purpose to move through Congress in the past 50 years. It greatly increases the public subsidy of the totally unnecessary health insurance industry. It does so in part by requiring a form of pizzo - mandatory payments to the health industry from lower income citizens not fortunate to have employer based insurance. It purports to end Medicare excesses but does little about the huge waste of private insurance or to restrict the overcharging for drugs by large pharmaceuticals.

The government's new subsidy to health insurance companies (either through helping people pay for their insurance or through the mandatory purchase of insurance) would be among the greatest government pork ever, similar to that in the bank bailout or in the subsidy of the defense industry by our military budget.

What is promised in return, as with the Mafia, is added protection. It lets you, a friend, your mother or millions others get treatment they could not otherwise afford.

This is what is so cynical, corrupt and rotten about the bill: when it does good it does it in the worst possible way.

But what would defeating the bill accomplish? How long would we have to wait for the godfathers of the Democratic Party even to propose another measure? This is the problem with living in a Mafia neighborhood. Even principle doesn't work the way it should.

A wiser course would be to let this sick measure wend its way to fruition and then strike it on other fronts. This is not giving up the battle, but choosing new battlegrounds.

Here are a few things that could happen:

- Joining with conservatives in some 36 states that are working to strike the clearly unconstitutional mandatory payment provision. If the Supreme Court knocks this provision down, the case for single payer immediately becomes stronger.

- In the words of Dennis Kucinich, "We can continue the discussion about comprehensive healthcare reform at the state level, because that's really where we're going to have to have a breakthrough in single payer."

- We can create state or national health insurance cooperatives, bearing in mind that surveys find that one of the most highly regarded businesses in America is an insurance cooperative: the United Service Automobile Association.

- We can work for single payers or for sensible steps in its direction, such as lowering the age of Medicare or letting people buy into the program. 

- Progressives can finally dump Barack Obama and start looking for a better candidate in 2012. Obama has not only been dead wrong on many issues, on this one he has been dishonest - making backroom deals to kill the public option he claimed to like.

The primary message after the passage of this legislation should be that Obama and the Democrats may have won a battle, but the war goes on._______________________________________________________

ABC NEWS - Girls are reading better than boys, according to a new study by the Center on Education Policy, and the pattern is giving girls a life-long advantage, experts tell ABC News.

Boys are lagging behind girls on standardized reading tests in all 50 states, the research suggests. In some states, the boys are trailing girls by as much as 10 percentage points.

While girls best boys in reading throughout the country, the genders are evenly split when it came to proficiency in math.

In past years, boys had a decided advantage over girls in math.

The study looked at trends beginning in 2002 and ending in 2008.

"The cause for concern is that this is an unmistakable and clear trend, a national trend," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy. "Mainly, we found no state in which boys did not lag behind girls in reading at the elementary level, the middle level and the high school level. So it's pretty clear: Boys are not doing as well as girls in reading."_______________________________________________________

GUARDIAN UK - The Co-operative Group has seen profits surge as it attracted thousands of bank account customers disillusioned with Britain's big banks.

The Co-op is paying its 5 million members - up 1.5 million over the last year - a dividend of L55m, 16% higher than in 2008. . . .

The group, which traces its roots to the founding of the co-operative movement in Rochdale in 1844, today reported a 38% jump in new current accounts as consumers deserted the bigger banks in droves in the wake of the financial crisis. It gained 140,000 new customers, taking the total to 1.2 million, and doubled its share of the current account market to 4%.

"We're already seeing a flight to trust," said Peter Marks, the chief executive. "People are weary of big business, especially in the financial services sector. They want to feel confident about where they're putting their hard-earned savings."_______________________________________________________

MILES MOGULESCU, HUFFINGTON POST - For months I've been reporting in The Huffington Post that President Obama made a backroom deal last summer with the for-profit hospital lobby that he would make sure there would be no national public option in the final health reform legislation. I've been increasingly frustrated that except for an initial story last August in the New York Times, no major media outlet has picked up this important story and investigated further.

Hopefully, that's changing. On Monday, Ed Shultz interviewed New York Times Washington reporter David Kirkpatrick on his MSNBC TV show, and Kirkpatrick confirmed the existence of the deal. Shultz quoted Chip Kahn, chief lobbyist for the for-profit hospital industry on Kahn's confidence that the White House would honor the no public option deal, and Kirkpatrick responded:

"That's a lobbyist for the hospital industry and he's talking about the hospital industry's specific deal with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee and, yeah, I think the hospital industry's got a deal here. There really were only two deals, meaning quid pro quo handshake deals on both sides, one with the hospitals and the other with the drug industry. And I think what you're interested in is that in the background of these deals was the presumption, shared on behalf of the lobbyists on the one side and the White House on the other, that the public option was not going to be in the final product."

Kirkpatrick also acknowledged that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina had confirmed the existence of the deal to him.

Even while President Obama was saying that he thought a public option was a good idea and encouraging supporters to believe his healthcare plan would include one, he had promised for-profit hospital lobbyists that there would be no public option in the final bill._______________________________________________________

WASH POST - The number of people living with several generations under one roof in the United States is at its highest point in 50 years, as families cope with ruinous job losses and foreclosures, researchers said.

During the first year of the recession, the number of Americans living in such multi-generational families rose by 2.6 million, or more than 5 percent, from 2007 to 2008.

The trend to bring extended families together in one home has been growing since 1980, driven by an influx of new immigrants as well as other social and cultural changes, according to the report. But the trend accelerated as the economic crisis sent many families reeling.

Now 49 million Americans -- 16.1 percent of the population -- live in homes with multiple generations. Many include adult children in their 20s._______________________________________________________

JUAN COLE - The tiff between the US and Israel is less important than the worrisome growth of tension between Palestinians and Israelis as the Israelis have claimed more and more sites sacred to the Palestinians as well. There is talk of a third Intifada or Palestinian uprising.

I [have] mirrored a map of modern Palestinian history that has the virtue of showing graphically what has happened to the Palestinians politically and territorially in the past century. . .

It begins by showing the British Mandate of Palestine as of the mid-1920s. The British conquered the Ottoman districts that came to be the Mandate during World War I (the Ottoman sultan threw in with Austria and Germany against Britain, France and Russia, mainly out of fear of Russia).

But because of the rise of the League of Nations and the influence of President Woodrow Wilson's ideas about self-determination, Britain and France could not decently simply make their new, previously Ottoman territories into mere colonies. The League of Nations awarded them "Mandates." Britain got Palestine, France got Syria (which it made into Syria and Lebanon), Britain got Iraq.

The League of Nations Covenant spelled out what a Class A Mandate (i.e. territory that had been Ottoman) was:

"Article 22. Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory [i.e., a Western power] until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory."

That is, the purpose of the later British Mandate of Palestine, of the French Mandate of Syria, of the British Mandate of Iraq, was to 'render administrative advice and assistance" to these peoples in preparation for their becoming independent states, an achievement that they were recognized as not far from attaining. The Covenant was written before the actual Mandates were established, but Palestine was a Class A Mandate and so the language of the Covenant was applicable to it. The territory that formed the British Mandate of Iraq was the same territory that became independent Iraq, and the same could have been expected of the British Mandate of Palestine. (Even class B Mandates like Togo have become nation-states, but the poor Palestinians are just stateless prisoners in colonial cantons).


The first map thus shows what the League of Nations imagined would become the state of Palestine. . . The Mandate of Palestine also had a charge to allow for the establishment of a 'homeland' in Palestine for Jews (because of the 1917 Balfour Declaration), but nobody among League of Nations officialdom at that time imagined it would be a whole and competing territorial state. There was no prospect of more than a few tens of thousands of Jews settling in Palestine, as of the mid-1920s. . . . As late as the 1939 British White Paper, British officials imagined that the Mandate would emerge as an independent Palestinian state within 10 years.

In 1851, there had been 327,000 Palestinians and other non-Jews, and only 13,000 Jews. In 1925, after decades of determined Jewish immigration, there were a little over 100,000 Jews, and there were 765,000 mostly Palestinian non-Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine. . .

The rise of the Nazis in the 1930s impelled massive Jewish emigration to Palestine, so by 1940 there were over 400,000 Jews there amid over a million Palestinians.

The second map shows the United Nations partition plan of 1947, which awarded Jews (who only then owned about 6% of Palestinian land) a substantial state alongside a much reduced Palestine. . .

The third map shows the status quo after the Israeli-Palestinian civil war of 1947-1948. . .

The final map shows the situation today, which springs from the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967 and then the decision of the Israelis to colonize the West Bank intensively (a process that is illegal in the law of war concerning occupied populations)._______________________________________________________

Sam Smith
I have just received my census form and I don't seem to count for much. I guess I was living in the past, thinking of that time when the friendly woman sat in our living room and asked about our plumbing, the age of our house and so forth. It was fun reducing a whole life down to a few key numbers.
Now, it appears that the Census Bureau is only interested in my age, my race and whether I sometimes live or stay somewhere else. It verges on the insulting. Do they no longer care how many toilets I have and whether they're inside or out?
I realize that on that earlier occasion I had lucked out and had become a surreptitious sample of six or so other people's lives. The fact that they might have found this insulting never occurred to me.
But surely, the government could pretend to have slighty more curiosity about me. They don't even want to know whether I live in a mobile home, only whether I own it or not.
As for the race thing - which takes up about 25% of the part Person 1 fills out, and 50% of the forms for others in the house - I get a sense that the Census is more interested in stereotyping me than in counting the ways I might be the same or different from 300 million other Americans.
Besides, having been an anthropology major, I don't believe in race. It's a concept invented by racists and the sooner we dump it for the cultural and non-biological term ethnicity the better off we will be.,
But wait: it turns out that Latinos (or Hispanics or those of Spanish origin) are counted by ethnicity: you can describe yourself as a Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano, Puerto Rican, or Cuban.
And Asians get to call themselves Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, or Cambodian. The Census Bureau calls these groups races, which suggests that the educational defects of  No Child Left Behind are already affecting the adult community.
Whites and blacks, however, get no such right. You can be black, African Am [a term I've never heard; is that like Pan Am?] or Negro. But you can't be Caribbean, African or Harvard Law School grad black. And if you're white, that's it. All whites are the same.
It's weird, but it reflects the absurdity of our definitions.
For myself, I plan to scratch out the word race, write in ethnicity, and insert the phrase "Anglo Irish."
Maybe it will upset them enough that will send someone around to count the number of toilets that we have. _______________________________________________________

DAILY MAIL, UK - Fresh fears were raised over GM crops yesterday after a study showed they can cause liver and kidney damage.

According to the research, animals fed on three strains of genetically modified maize created by the U.S. biotech firm Monsanto suffered signs of organ damage after just three months.

The findings only came to light after Monsanto was forced to publish its raw data on safety tests by anti-GM campaigners.

They add to the evidence that GM crops may damage health as well as be harmful to the environment.

The figures released by Monsanto were examined by French researcher Dr Gilles-Eric Seralini, from the University of Caen.

Yesterday he called for more studies to check for long-term organ damage.

'What we've shown is clearly not proof of toxicity, but signs of toxicity,' he told New Scientist magazine. 'I'm sure there's no acute toxicity but who's to say there are no chronic effects?'_______________________________________________________

GUARDIAN, UK - Leading doctors are demanding a complete ban on the use of man-made fats found in thousands of foodstuffs such as biscuits, ready meals and margarine, because they can damage health.

The UK Faculty of Public Health is urging ministers to eradicate artificial trans fatty acids, known as trans fats, from the British diet. The move is needed to reduce people's risk of suffering a heart attack or a stroke, says the faculty, which represents 3,300 doctors and public health specialists in the NHS, local government and medical research.

Trans fats, found in many cakes, pastries, pies, chips and fast foods, are chemically altered vegetable oils used to bulk up foods and increase their shelf life. They have no nutritional value and boost levels of "bad" cholesterol, thereby increasing the chances of a heart attack. Trans fats also occur naturally in meat and dairy products, but these pose no risk.

The World Health Organization believes artificial trans fats are harmful to health and wants them to be minimized or eliminated altogether. They have also been blamed for causing fertility problems in women.

The UK should follow the example of Denmark, New York, California, Switzerland and Austria in banning trans fats, said Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, the faculty's president. Other countries and regions are planning to take similar action._______________________________________________________

MORE CARDS & HOW TO PLAY_______________________________________________________

OPEN CONGRESS - One of Congress’s most notoriously hawkish duos, Sen. John McCain [R, AZ] and Sen. Joseph Lieberman [I, CT], recently introduced legislation in response to President Obama’s decision to try Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day airplane bomber, in a criminal court. Their proposal, which they are calling the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act, would empower the U.S. military to arrest anyone, U.S. citizen or otherwise, who is suspected of terrorist associations and detain them indefinitely, without right to a trial.

Terrorist suspects would be given over to military custody for interrogation:

(a) Military Custody Requirement- Whenever within the United States, its territories, and possessions, or outside the territorial limits of the United States, an individual is captured or otherwise comes into the custody or under the effective control of the United States who is suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners through an act of terrorism, or by other means in violation of the laws of war, or of purposely and materially supporting such hostilities, and who may be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, the individual shall be placed in military custody for purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status in accordance with the provisions of this Act.

People would have to be given over to the military within a “reasonable time” (undefined) of their initial arrest. Miranda rights would be specifically waived, denying the detainee a right to a lawyer and a right to refuse to cooperate:

(3) INAPPLICABILITY OF CERTAIN STATEMENT AND RIGHTS- A individual who is suspected of being an unprivileged enemy belligerent shall not, during interrogation under this subsection, be provided the statement required by Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436 (1966)) or otherwise be informed of any rights that the individual may or may not have to counsel or to remain silent consistent with Miranda v. Arizona.

Once in custody, suspects would be interrogated by a “high-value detainee interrogation group” to determine whether the person is, in fact, “an unprivileged enemy belligerent” according to any of the criteria below:

(2) CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION OF INDIVIDUALS AS HIGH-VALUE DETAINEES- The regulations required by this subsection shall include criteria for designating an individual as a high-value detainee based on the following:

(A) The potential threat the individual poses for an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the United States or upon United States citizens or United States civilian facilities abroad at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States.

(B) The potential threat the individual poses to United States military personnel or United States military facilities at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States.

(C ) The potential intelligence value of the individual.

(D) Membership in al Qaeda or in a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda.

(E) Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.

If there is any disagreement about a person’s unprivileged enemy belligerent according to the above criteria, the final determination goes to the President. Once determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, a person, regardless of citizenship status, can be detained indefinitely, without trial, until terrorist threats against the U.S are determined to be over:

SEC. 5. DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF UNPRIVILEGED ENEMY BELLIGERENTS.

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3( c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

So far, the bill has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. It currently has nine co-sponsors, including the newly-elected Sen. Scott Brown [R, MA]. We’ll update on this blog if it gets a hearing or a mark-up in the committee._______________________________________________________

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