Clippings for 14 May 2009

Action Alert: CBS Pro-Drone Propaganda
Fairness and Accuracy in Report has issued the following Action Alert: "On May 10, CBS's 60 Minutes presented a remarkably one-sided report on unmanned Air Force drones firing missiles into Afghanistan and Iraq. Though the drones have been criticized for killing civilians in both countries, CBS viewers heard from no critics of the weapons. "

Pelosi the Enabler
Robert Scheer writes for Truthdig: "Nancy Pelosi is no Dick Cheney, nor a George W. Bush. She was neither the author of a systematic policy of torture nor has she been, like Cheney and most top Republicans in Congress, an enduring apologist for its practice. It is a nonsensical distraction to place her failure to speak out courageously as a critic of the Bush policies on the same level as those who engineered one of the most shameful debacles in US history. But what she, and anyone else who went along with this evil, as lackadaisically as she now claims, should be confronted with are the serious implications of their passive acquiescence."

Recommended Audio:Mark Danner and ProPublica’s Dafna Linzer Talk Torture
ProPublica senior reporter Dafna Linzer and Mark Danner, a New York Review of Books contributor and University of California at Berkeley journalism professor, discuss the details of the Red Cross torture report, what happened to some of the "ghost detainees" and whether there should be an investigation, prosecution or truth commission to sort out who is responsible for what.


First Milestone Approaches In Iraq Withdrawal Timetable
Chris Weigant writes for the Huffington Post: "America is approaching an important date for our military involvement in Iraq. By the end of next month, American combat forces are supposed to pull out of Iraqi cities. Little attention has been paid to this first withdrawal deadline in the American media, but as the date gets closer hopefully they’ll realize what is about to happen. Because the next phase of America’s military presence in Iraq could determine how fast President Obama can draw down the total number of American troops in the country."

The Politics of Escalation
Tom Hayden and Joseph Gerson write for The Nation: "Indications are that there will be no benchmarks or conditions set on the $96 billion supplemental appropriation before Congress beginning this week. The administration, which once promised no more rushed supplemental appropriation, is rolling funds for war and swine flu into one package, while not yet disclosing how much is earmarked specifically for Afghanistan."

Becoming What We Seek to Destroy
Chris Hedges writes for TruthDig: "The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We are delivering massive, sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat."

Recommended Audio: Pentagon Pundits - New York Times Reporter David Barstow Wins Pulitzer Prize for Exposing Military’s Pro-War Propaganda Media Campaign
Democracy Now: "In his first national broadcast interview, New York Times reporter David Barstow speaks about his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the Pentagon propaganda campaign to recruit more than seventy-five retired military officers to appear on TV outlets as military analysts ahead of and during the Iraq war. This week, the Pentagon inspector general’s office admitted its exoneration of the program was flawed and withdrew it."

US Rejoins UN's Human Rights Forum
Howard LaFranchi reports in The Christian Science Monitor: "The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, hailed the return to the human rights forum as part of America's determination 'to again play a meaningful leadership role in multilateral organizations.' The US will not wait for a 2011 review of the council to try to reform it, she added, but 'will be working very hard from an early stage to try to support the strengthening and improvement of this body.'"

KS GOP Fearmongers Helping Terrorists Win
Jason Croucher at Kansas Jackass writes: "Months ago I said our federal elected officials- Senator Sam Brownback and Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins in particular- were nothing more than fearmongers for trying to convince the people of Kansas they should be afraid of the very thought of moving the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to the military prison at Ft. Leavenworth."

The Future of Capitalism
Christian Chavagneux writing for L'Economie politique (reported on Truthout) and the Rocky Mountain Institute's Amory Lovins and Lionel Bony writing in Le Monde consider alternative - less unjust, less predatory - forms of capitalism.

How Free-Market Fundamentalism Brought the World to Its Knees
From The New Internationalist: "By the end of January 2009 huge losses accompanied a public ‘bail-out’ of bankrupt private banks that had reached, by some estimates, a staggering $15 trillion ($15,000 billion) worldwide – and was still growing.^2"

Social Security: Downturn Does NOT Affect Long-Run Picture
Dean Baker reports for The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "It is not surprising that Social Security's annual financial picture deteriorates in a downturn. This is entirely predictable and in fact desirable. Social Security's tax revenues fall as workers lose their jobs. Almost two-thirds of the reduced surplus this year is due to an unusually large cost-of-living increase for 2009. The latest adjustment accounts for last year's rise, but not the fall in oil prices. Though continuing benefits are automatically adjusted for inflation, this year Social Security will be paying a 6.9 percent larger real benefit to retirees, disabled workers and their families."

Doctors ask: Why such poor coverage of single-payer?
Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein write for Nieman Watchdog: "On May 5, eight protesters, including three physicians, were arrested during a public roundtable led by Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a leader of the health reform effort in the Senate. "

Health Reform Debate Turning into Bailout of Insurance Industry
Jamie Court writes for the Huffington Post: "It's hard not to read the new US Senate Finance Committee paper laying out policy options for health care reform as anything but a bailout of the HMO and insurance industry. The paper has lots of policy options for the pivotal Committee, the architect of reform, to consider -- like whether there should be a public option to the private market and whether employers should be required to pay for health care. But there's one given for which there's no choice. Every American will have to show proof they have a health insurance policy on their tax returns by the year 2013. Convenient, isn't it, that's one year after the presidential election."

To Run the World, Power Up Feminism
Gloria Feldt writes in On the Issues Magazine: "Were you thinking we were done with elections and could take a few minutes to celebrate a pro-woman administration and a Democratically controlled Congress that appears ready to embrace pro-choice and pro-equality measures? Sorry, my Sisters. Elections are never over when they are over."

Recommended Audio: Parenting Advice from Palin: Wait!
King Anyi Howell produced this commentary for Youth Radio: "When newly appointed spokesperson for the Candie's Foundation, Bristol Palin, went on the morning television circuit urging teens to 'wait to have sex,' my first thought was, 'Till when? Tuesday?'. Palin, daughter of Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin, became the object of national focus during the governor's ill-fated campaign for the White House in 2008 for getting pregnant at age 17 by then boyfriend, Levi Johnston. Since Candie's launched the Candie's Foundation in 2001, their mission has been to 'educate America's youth about the devastating consequences of teenage pregnancy.'

A Woman at the Edge: Tough Times, Domestic Violence and Economic Abuse
Nick Turse writes for TomDispatch.com: "When 'domestic violence' is mentioned, people usually think of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, but experts say that another form of domestic violence has been on the increase since the global financial meltdown hit. They call it 'economic abuse.'"

Time to Repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers report for The Progress REport: "During his campaign for the White House, President Obama pledged that he would push to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) -- the military's policy that bars gay men and women from serving openly. Since taking office, however, Obama and other officials serving in his administration have pushed the issue to the back burner. When asked about addressing DADT in March, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, 'I feel like we've got a lot on our plates right now and let's push that one down the road a little bit.' Ret. Gen. Jim Jones, Obama's national security adviser, told the President recently 'not to add another controversy to his already-full plate.' On ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopolous asked Jones if the policy would be overturned. "I don't know," he replied. In fact, the White House website recently watered down language on repealing the policy, replacing the administration's commitment to 'repealing" DADT with a commitment to simply "changing Don't Ask Don't Tell in a sensible way.' (The more definitive 'repeal' language has since been reinserted.) At the same time, Obama has indicated that he remains committed to repealing the policy. Sandy Tsao, an Army officer who told her superiors last January that she is gay, wrote to Obama urging him to act on repealing DADT. Last week, Obama personally responded to Tsao, writing, 'I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete. ... I intend to fulfill my commitment!'"

David Simon, Arianna Huffington and the Future of Journalism
JOhn Nichols writes for The Nation: "We who still practice the journalistic craft in the shattered remains of American newsrooms have developed a particularly high regard for David Simon, the former Baltimore Sun reporter and creator of the HBO series The Wire."

America’s Internet Recovery Plan
Tim Karr writes for Save the Internet: "Today, Free Press released Dismantling Digital Deregulation: Toward a National Broadband Strategy, a comprehensive analysis of the failed policies at the root of America’s broadband decline."

FTC Chairman: Agency May Enforce Net Neutrality
Grant Gross reports for IDG News Service, published in PCWorld: "The Federal Trade Commission may start enforcing Net Neutrality rules and take action against bad network management practices when broadband providers don't live up to the promises they make to consumers, the agency's chairman said."

Recommended Audio: Investigative Journalism Gains Unlikely Champion
National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday: "Newspapers across the country continue to lay off journalists and columnists, and investigative reporting is rapidly becoming a thing of the past for many media outlets. Now an unexpected player — the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank — is looking to fill the void."