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How to Make the Super Congress Open and Accountable

How to Make the Super Congress Open and Accountable

The hurriedly passed Budget Control Act raised the nation’s debt ceiling and made some efforts to reduce the deficit. The law also demands that Congress reduce the deficit another $1.2 trillion through spending cuts and additional revenue. The power to choose how those reductions will be made will be concentrated in the hands of the 12 members of the Joint Select Committee on Debt Reduction, nicknamed the “Super Congress.”

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Truckers Play a Key Food Safety Role

Truckers Play a Key Food Safety Role

Food safety is running afoul in Springdale — in more ways than one. First, meat and grain agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. recalled 36 million pounds of ground turkey linked to a salmonella outbreak and temporarily shut its turkey processing plant in the Arkansas city in early August. Then, a Tyson Foods driver died after being pinned between two truck trailers outside a Springdale poultry plant.

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Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?

Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?

With the economy foundering like a man overboard in heavy seas, we’ve attempted to rescue it by throwing it an anchor. We’ve put productive public workers on the street in the name of fiscal prudence. We’ve backed away from the building of the roads, bridges, and other public works vital to a vibrant economy. We’ve cut back on our investment in public education, stunting the best hope for future prosperity.

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We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, Since 1776

We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, Since 1776

National Public Radio presented a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July. It properly honored the brilliance, perseverance, and clarity of the document’s authors and the people they represented in challenging the British Empire. Yes, the colonists admitted wanting to exterminate the “savages” whose land they coveted, which was dead wrong. But their powerful phrasing could easily resonate today in Sudan, Afghanistan, Palestine, or East Timor.

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