Community Bridge update for 2 September

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Did a Mississippi Raid Protect Rightwing Politicians?
David Bacon reports for Truthout from Laurel, Mississippi: "On August 25, immigration agents swooped down on Howard Industries, a Mississippi electrical equipment factory, taking 481 workers to a privately-run detention center in Jena, Louisiana. A hundred and six women were also arrested at the plant, and released wearing electronic monitoring devices on their ankles if they had children, or without them if they were pregnant. Eight workers were taken to Federal court in Hattiesburg, where they were charged with aggravated identity theft."

Yes He Can: Obama's Speech and the Decline of Political Journalism
Bill Boyarsky writes for Truthdig.com how in a speech that rose beyond the occasion, Sen. Barack Obama changed the dynamics of the presidential campaign. With fire in his eyes and politeness thankfully forgotten, he finally put Sen. John McCain on the defensive, most notably mocking the Republican’s claim that he’s best suited to be commander in chief.

Evidence of Extremist Infiltration of Military Grows
Date Holthaus writes for Hatewatch: "The racist skinhead logged on with exciting news: He’d just enlisted in the United States Army. 'Sieg Heil, I will do us proud,' he wrote. It was a June 3 post to AryanWear Forum 14, a neo-Nazi online forum to which “Sobibor’s SS,” who identified himself as a skinhead living in Plantersville, Ala., had belonged since early 2004. (Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in Poland during World War II). Two years ago, the Intelligence Report revealed that alarming numbers of neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacist extremists were taking advantage of lowered armed services recruiting standards and lax enforcement of anti-extremist military regulations by infiltrating the U.S. armed forces in order to receive combat training and gain access to weapons and explosives. Forty members of Congress urged then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to launch a full-scale investigation and implement a zero-tolerance policy toward white supremacists in the military.

US Military Keeping Secrets About Female Soldiers' "Suicides"?
Ann Wright reports for Truthdig: "Since I posted on April 28 the article 'Is There an Army Cover Up of the Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?,' the deaths of two more US Army women in Iraq and Afghanistan have been listed as suicides - the September 28, 2007, death of 30-year-old Spc. Ciara Durkin and the February 22, 2008, death of 25-year-old Spc. Keisha Morgan. Both 'suicides' are disputed by the families of the women."

McCain Running Mate Sarah Palin Misled GOP
Alex Spillius writes for The Telegraph UK: "The Governor of Alaska gave a misleading version of events over a controversial bridge project in her home state when she made her maiden speech as the presumptive nominee. Mrs. Palin told a cheering audience in Ohio that she had turned down an offer from the US Congress to build the so-called 'Bridge to Nowhere', which would have connected Gravina Island with Ketchikan International, an airport in Alaska's southeast serving just 200,000 passengers a year. Mr. McCain routinely cites the $100 million project as a symbol of wasteful central government spending."

Why CIA Veterans Are Scared of McCain
Laura Rozen writes in MotherJones: "Four years ago, the candidate called the CIA a 'rogue organization'; now he's advised by a former Chalabi promoter and Agency basher. No wonder the spooks are spooked."

What a McCain Victory Could Mean: No Money for Health Care and the End of Our Volunteer Army
Robert Parry writes for Consortiumne News: "In judging the shape of a future John McCain presidency, there are already plenty of dots that are easy to connect. They reveal an image of a war-like Empire so full of hubris that it could take the world into a cascade of crises, while extinguishing what is left of the noble American Republic."

The Christian Right's Slick Campaign to Make Abstinence Seem Trendy
Vanessa Valenti writes for Alternet how conservatives finally learned that sheer moralizing doesn't keep teens from having sex. Now they have a creepy new tactic.