Clippings for 20 June 2009

Memo Reveals US Plan to Provoke an Invasion of Iraq
Jamie Doward, Gaby Hinsliff and Mark Townsend report for The Observer UK: "A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein. The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action."

Agents Say DEA Is Forcing Them Illegally to Work in Afghanistan
Marisa Taylor reports for McClatchy Newspapers: "As the Obama administration ramps up the Drug Enforcement Administration's presence in Afghanistan, some special-agent pilots contend that they're being illegally forced to go to a combat zone, while others who've volunteered say they're not being properly equipped. In interviews with McClatchy, more than a dozen DEA agents describe a badly managed system in which some pilots have been sent to Afghanistan under duress or as punishment for bucking their superiors."

Recommended Audio: News Dissector, Progressive Radio Network, on "Anthrax Wars"
On the 18 June edition of News Dissector, host Danny Schechter Guests interviews Eric Nadler and Bob Cohen, producers of Anthrax War, new investigative film on Biowar.

Conservatives Choke on Persian Pretzel Logic
Leslie Savan writes for The Nation: "The democracy movement in Iran has thrown Republican ideologues into such a tizzy of circular logic that they're stepping on their own dicta. "

Firing Back on Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism
Sara Robinson writes for the Campaign for America's Future: "It's been a wild couple of weeks for those of us in the wingnutology business. Our services have been in tremendous demand as the mainstream media tries to sort out the meaning of what Scott Roeder and James von Brunn did. I've done an average of one radio show every day for the past two weeks trying to help various lefty talkers around the country make some sense of it all; and I'm generally gratified at how seriously people are starting to take this."

Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, & Scapegoating
Chip Berlet writes for Political Research Associates: "Charged with the fatal shooting of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in a church in Wichita, Kansas, Scott Philip Roeder is a regular consumer of conservative talk radio, television, and websites. But did Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck—or any other commentator whipping up an audience with overheated demonizing rhetoric—actually help pull the trigger?"

How the Wall Street Bankers Bough Congress
Petrino DiLeo writes for Dissident Voice: "You would think that causing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression might have repercussions. You would think being a major factor in the destruction of around 40 percent of the world’s wealth might get you in trouble. You would think being the cause of the worst housing crisis in history — with millions of people losing their homes because of you — might force a restructuring of how Wall Street does things."

Who Shredded Our Safety Net?
James Ridgeway writes in Mother Jones: "LIKE MOST PEOPLE whose quality of life depends upon the fluctuations of an IRA, 401(k), 403(b), or other acronym-soup retirement account, I was born long before such things existed. It's easy to forget, now that more than half of us have been made shareholders, that until well past the middle of the 20th century, most people had nothing to do with the stock market: Wall Street was for the wealthy and the reckless. It was a world most Americans didn't understand and, after 1929, didn't trust. Some lucky people had pensions, but few had the privilege of even thinking about retirement. They were too busy trying to survive the present—which in my childhood meant the Great Depression and then World War II."

Immigration - Mainstream Extremism
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, Ryan Powers, and Nate Carlile write for the Progress Reprot: "This week, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund released a new report tying the immigration debate's vitriolic rhetoric to the growing number of hate crimes against Latinos and "perceived immigrants." The report warned of a connection between hate crime incidents, extremist anti-immigrant groups and hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric's "infiltration of the mainstream media." Concerns arose late last year when FBI statistics showed another sharp increase in hate crimes targeting Latinos for the fourth year in a row. Shortly thereafter, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a controversial report warning that the frustration of right-wing extremist groups "over a perceived lack of government action on illegal immigration" might incite violence. Right-wing pundits and politicians quickly attacked the report, calling it "laughable" and "funny." Less than a month later, no one is laughing about DHS's warnings. In what appears to be a chain of hate-related violence, Shawna Forde, an Arizona Minuteman leader and head of the Minuteman American Defense (MAD) group, and two of her associates were charged this week with murdering a nine-year-old Hispanic girl and her father. The trio allegedly broke into a home dressed as law enforcement officers looking for money and drugs to finance the Minutemen group. The same week that the Leadership Fund's report issued its warnings, information arose tying Forde to prominent Republican leaders and mainstream anti-immigration organizations."

Recommended Audio: Insurers Revoke Policies to Avoid Paying High Costs
Joanne Silberner reports for NPR News: "According to a new report by congressional investigators, an insurance company practice of retroactively canceling health insurance is fairly common, and it saves insurers a lot of money. A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently held a hearing about the report's findings in an effort to bring a halt to this practice. But at the hearing, insurance executives told lawmakers they have no plans to stop rescinding policies."

UN Food Agency Says 1 Billion People Go Hungry Each Day
Alessandra Rizzo reports for The Associated Press: "The global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record one billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, UN food officials said yesterday. Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices, and poverty, hunger now affects 1 in 6 people, by the UN estimate. The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization called a 'devastating combination for the world's most vulnerable.'"

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now - Interview with Cleve Jones
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed a memorandum to extend some, but not all, benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Comprehensive healthcare, for example, is not included. President Obama’s promise to work to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, Wednesday came one week after his administration filed a controversial legal brief supporting DOMA, an action which greatly disappointed activists fighting for marriage equality. We speak with Cleve Jones, one of the giants of the gay rights and AIDS awareness movements. He is the founder of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and the co-founder of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. In the 1970s, Cleve Jones was a friend of the gay rights leader Harvey Milk.