Top Senator And 10 States Attack VA for Banning Voter Registration Drives
Steven Rosenfeld writes for AlterNet: "The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), has called on the Department of Veterans Affairs to reverse its new policy barring voting rights groups, "partisan or otherwise," from holding voter registration drives on campuses where injured veterans are living or receiving medical care. "Veterans receiving care at VA facilities risked life and limb to defend the freedoms we enjoy, including the right to vote," Akaka said in a July 10 letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary James B. Peake. "Current VA policy makes it unnecessarily difficult for some veterans to participate in the electoral process." Akaka said the VA's most recent explanation for barring registration drives -- that they would violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in political activities on official time or federal property -- made no sense."

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John McCain Hates Social Security
Bill Scher writes for The Campaign for America's Future: "Sen. John McCain, I'm one of your friends, right? The kind of friend who can handle some of your special brand of Straight Talk. So why won't you just tell me you hate Social Security?"

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Obama and the Progressive Base
Norman Solomon, writing for Truthout, questions the "progressive" image Senator Barack Obama has cultivated: "These days, an appreciable number of Obama supporters are starting to use words like 'disillusionment.' But that's a consequence of projecting their political outlooks onto the candidate in the first place."

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US Environmental Agency Lowers Value of a Human Life
The Guardian UK reports: "It sounds like a spot of gallows humour, but the numbers are no joke: the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has lowered the value of a human life by nearly $1 million under George Bush's administration. The EPA's estimate of the 'value of a statistical life' was $6.9 million as of this May - down from $7.8 million five years ago - according to an Associated Press study released today."

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U.S. Seeks Data Exchange Including Sexual Orientation of Foreign Visitors
Ellen Nakashima writes in the Washington Post that under agreements being negotiated with European countries, the U.S. would be able to swap fingerprint and DNA information -- and in some instances data on race, ethnic origin, political and religious beliefs, and sexual orientation -- in exchange for EU member states to gain or maintain the right to visit the U.S. without a visa. Some privacy advocates question whether appropriate safeguards for the sharing of the data are being included in the agreements.

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The Death of Reaganomics
E.J. Dionne write on Truthdig.com: "The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades. Since the Reagan years, free-market clichés have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing."

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Why big business no longer pays any mind to AFA, similar groups
Noting the complete flop of the American Family Association's recent boycott of McDonald's over its joining a gay business group, columnist Mark Morford believes the AFA's failure to generate any outrage is a sign that its days of influence are over.

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