Clippings for 11 June 2009

Recommended Audio: Jeremy Cahill on Bill Moyers Journal
From a billion dollars sought for embassies in Pakistan and Afghanistan to May's highest casualties for US forces in Iraq since September, the wars abroad are taking their toll on our nation. Bill Moyers sits down with award-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill to examine the human and financial costs of America's wars.

Global Weapons Spending Hits Record Levels
Richard Norton-Taylor reports for The Guardian UK: "Worldwide spending on weapons has reached record levels amounting to well over $1tn last year, a leading research organisation reported today. Global military expenditure has risen by 45% over the past decade to $1.46tn, according to the latest annual Yearbook on Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri)."

Study Follows the Money on Cram-Down Vote
Matt Renner writes for Truthout: "A new analysis from a government watchdog group shows senators who killed off a consumer-friendly change in law aimed at addressing the foreclosure crisis received more money in campaign contributions from the industries their vote aided. Senators who voted against the consumer-friendly amendment received $3.98 million from the financial industry during the 2008 election cycle, while proponents of the bill received $2.65 million."

A Seat at the Table for Single-Payer
Katrina Vanden Heuvel comments for The Nation: "This week, Senator Bernie Sanders has been firing on all cylinders as he continues his advocacy for real healthcare reform that controls costs while extending quality care to every American. Monday he held a town meeting in Burlington to discuss what we can learn from other countries that have developed cost effective universal health care systems. On Tuesday he met with President Obama along with other members of the Finance and Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committees responsible for drafting the Senate's healthcare legislation. Yesterday he arranged a meeting between single-payer advocates and Finance Chair Max Baucus--Baucus had previously not only denied them a seat at the table for his hearings but even had some arrested. "

Stop Being Distracted by Loudmouths Like Limbaugh: The Real Problem Is Lousy Democrats Like Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson
Chris Bowers writes for Open Left (via AlterNet): "We are done attacking Republicans until you pass a public option for health care. Until a public option is passed, I don't want to hear about the latest hate and idiocy spewing from Limbaugh, or Tancredo, or Palin, or Gingrich, or whoever. And to tell you the truth, I don't want to attack them for it, either. Because, right now, Republicans are not the obstacle to progressive governance. Instead, Democrats who refuse to support a public option are the obstacle."
Sign up now to fight for the public option

A War Against Organizing
Kate Bronfenbrenner reports for The Washington Post: "Angel Warner, an employee at a Rite Aid distribution center, sat next to me recently in a Congressional briefing room and described what happened when she and her fellow workers tried to form a union in their California workplace. She talked about the surveillance, constant threats and harassment they endured; how she and other workers were repeatedly taken aside and interrogated, one on one, about how they planned to vote; how two co-workers were fired; and how the rest lived in fear that any day they, too, might get a pink slip. The union filed numerous charges of unfair labor practices and eventually won the organizing election. But three years after the campaign began, Warner and her fellow Rite Aid workers still don't have a contract."

The American Academy Of Environmental Medicine Calls For Immediate Moratorium On Genetically Modified Foods
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) today released its position paper on Genetically Modified foods stating that "GM foods pose a serious health risk" and calling for a moratorium on GM foods. Citing several animal studies, the AAEM concludes "there is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects" and that "GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health."

Recommended Audio-Visual: "Food, Inc." Aims to Expose Dangers in US Food Industry
Christine Kearney reviews for Reuters: "Bigger-breasted chickens fattened artificially. New strains of deadly E. coli bacteria. A food supply controlled by a handful of corporations. The documentary 'Food, Inc.' opens in the United States on Friday and portrays these purported dangers and changes in the US food industry, asserting harmful effects on public health, the environment, and worker and animal rights."

Net Neutrality Gains Political Traction
The Seattle Times in an editorial states: "Free and open access to the Internet helped the technology grow and thrive. The political fight to maintain robust access for all has picked up strength in Washington, D.C. That is good news for consumers. The shorthand for the field of battle is net neutrality. Proponents argue that a network provider should not restrict users for reasons against their interests, such as to deny them the right to use certain services because those services are owned by somebody else."

O'Reilly and Fox News Will Have More Right-Wing Vigilantism to Explain
Eric Boehlert writes for Media Matters: "If Fox News is going to continue to traffic in hateful rhetoric, then folks at Fox News, as well as their apologists in the GOP Noise Machine, are going to have to come up with better talking points to spin away the atmosphere of vigilantism fomented by their words and actions."

Can Right-Wing Hate Talk Lead to Murder?
Joan Walsh writes for Salon.com: "I was on "Hardball" today talking about the climate of extreme right-wing rhetoric today, and whether it had anything to do with Wednesday's tragic shooting at Washington's Holocaust Museum, or the May 31 murder of Dr. George Tiller by an antiabortion crackpot."

AlertNet Takes on Shock Jock Michael Savage and Gets Threatened with a Lawsuit
Don Hazen and Tana Ganeva report for ALterNet: "Michael Savage, right-wing crusader against gays, immigrants, Muslims, Barack Obama, Britain, women, (and possibly puppies), may have found a new object for his wrath: groups that have the temerity to publicize the vicious talk-show host’s connection to Rockstar energy drink -- and to call for a boycott by consumers opposed to Savage's hatemongering."

The Right-Wing Media Has Unleashed a Race War that Threatens Our Democracy and Our Personal Safety
Mark Karlin writes for Buzzflash: "In more than 9 years of editing BuzzFlash, nothing has been as profoundly wounding to me since 9/11 as yesterday's act of domestic terrorism at the Holocaust Museum -- its location so tragically symbolic. Like all BuzzFlash readers, we welcomed the election of Barack Obama as a return to America's Constitutional, pro-democracy roots -- and as a step into a future filled with promise and opportunity, not the destruction, tyranny and lies of the Bush Administration."