Clippings for 3 April 2011

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
Joseph Stiglitz writes in Vanity Fair: "It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow." Illustration: Mother Jones

The superrich have grabbed the bulk of the past three decades' gains.

Debt, Austerity and How to Fight Back
Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West comment in The Nation: "Wall Street Banks, American corporations and their political allies have declared a one-sided war on the American people. This war is being waged at our schools and colleges, the workplace and in our communities. Today, Americans are working harder and earning less while corporate profits soar. As homeowners, consumers and students we see our wealth being stripped away by banks."

Return to Wisconsin: The Beginning or the End?

Community Bridge guest Andy Kroll writes for TomDispatch: "In the February weeks I spent in snowy Madison, Wisconsin, that line of Didion's, the opening of her 1967 essay "Goodbye to All That," ricocheted through my mind as I tried to make sense of the massive protests unfolding around me. What was I witnessing? The beginning of a new movement in this country -- or the end of an existing one, the last stand of organized labor? Or could it have been both?"

Extensive Outsourcing Leads to Trouble
Paul Krugman, Krugman and Co.: "There's a new article in the March/April edition of the Washington Monthly making the point that the United States needs federal bureaucrats to manage spending, including spending on private contractors, and that understaffing the government - which we're doing already, and will do more of if the right gets its way - actually increases the deficit. I agree. 'In practice, cutting civil servants often means either adding private contractors or ... resorting to the belief that industries have a deep capacity to police themselves,' John Gravois writes."

Behind Michigan's "Financial Martial Law": Corporations and Right-Wing Billionaires

Andy Kroll writes for Mother Jones: "Last week, Michigan's Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed into law a fiercely contested bill giving unelected "emergency financial managers" unprecedented power to shred union contracts, privatize city services, and consolidate or dissolve local governments, all in the name of saving struggling cities and school districts. Dubbed "financial martial law" by one approving state GOP lawmaker and "disaster capitalism" by critics, Snyder and his bill have become a target for Wisconsin-like protests. Several thousand demonstrators marched on the Michigan Capitol in the days before Snyder signed the bill. But gone unmentioned is a little-known Michigan think tank that for years has been pushing for the most controversial provisions in Snyder's bill—and that's bankrolled by some of the same right-wing millionaires and billionaires that backed Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his anti-union legislation."

Firefighters, Cops Warn Republicans Anti-Union Stance Has Consequences
Andrea Stone writes for the Huffington Post: "Leaders from two unions known to support the Republican Party warned of serious repercussions for GOP candidates in the 2012 elections, saying the onslaught of anti-labor bills in state capitals has shifted their political allegiances. 'Our political principles are pretty straightforward. We’ll support those that support us,' Harold Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, told HuffPost. 'We tend to stick with those who stick with us.'  'There is a distinct possibility that the pro-labor candidate in the next election will be looked at much more favorably than their overall record,' Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, told HuffPost. 'The vast majority of our membership will put other issues aside.'”

American Workers Got What They Deserve
Ray Buursma comments for the Holland (MI) Sentinel: "Are you an American employee? If so, today’s column will likely offend you. If you’d rather not be offended, read no further. If you continue and then complain, I’m sorry, but that simply proves you’re, well, stupid. But then again, stupidity plays a large role in today’s topic. Still reading? OK. You’ve had fair warning.  So you’re an American employee. Maybe you make car parts. Maybe you’re an engineer or designer. Maybe you’re an accountant, store clerk or tradesman. Whatever you do, you’re probably stupid or lazy. Yes, I wrote it, and I mean it. You are either stupid or lazy. Maybe both."

The War on Child Labor Laws

Ian Millhiser reports for ThinkProgress: "Maine State Rep. David Burns is the latest of many Republican lawmakers concerned that employers aren't allowed to do enough to exploit child workers.... Rep. David Burns, R-Whiting, is sponsoring the bill, which also would eliminate the maximum number of hours a minor over 16 can work during school days. Burns' bill is particularly insidious, because it directly encourages employers to hire children or teenagers instead of adult workers. Because workers under 20 could be paid less than adults under this GOP proposal, minimum wage workers throughout Maine would likely receive a pink slip as their twentieth birthday present so that their boss could replace them with someone younger and cheaper."

The Collapse of Globalization
Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig: "The uprisings in the Middle East, the unrest that is tearing apart nations such as the Ivory Coast, the bubbling discontent in Greece, Ireland and Britain and the labor disputes in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio presage the collapse of globalization. They presage a world where vital resources, including food and water, jobs and security, are becoming scarcer and harder to obtain. They presage growing misery for hundreds of millions of people who find themselves trapped in failed states, suffering escalating violence and crippling poverty. They presage increasingly draconian controls and force - take a look at what is being done to Pfc. Bradley Manning - used to protect the corporate elite who are orchestrating our demise."

Open Letter to the New Governor of Kansas: Looking for Economic Opportunities
Paul Johnson writes for the Kansas Rural Center: "Congratulations Governor Brownback on your election as the 46th Governor of the great state of Kansas. In the midst of a very serious economic recession and the highest unemploy-ment in decades, Kansas should use this situation to reassess certain fundamental infrastructures in our state – food, energy and affordable housing. In remembrance of our 150 years of pioneering self-reliance, Kansas can rediscover an economic independence that will boost our economy, create more local employment and leave us less vulnerable to future food and fuel price hikes. The State of Kansas has developed and funded several 10-year transportation plans but that model has not been applied to our systems of food, energy and affordable housing. You could provide such guidance."

Why I Called Bradley Manning's Treatment 'Stupid'

PJ Crowley writes for The Guardian UK: "Earlier this month, I was asked by an MIT graduate student why the United States government was "torturing" Private First Class Bradley Manning, who is accused of being the source of the WikiLeaks cables that have been reported by the Guardian and other news outlets and posted online. The fact is the government is doing no such thing. But questions about his treatment have led to a review by the UN special rapporteur on torture, and challenged the legitimacy of his pending prosecution.  As a public diplomat and (until recently) spokesman of the department of state, I was responsible for explaining the national security policy of the United States to the American people and populations abroad. I am also a retired military officer who has long believed that our civilian power must balance our military power. Part of our strength comes from international recognition that the United States practises what we preach. Most of the time, we do. This strategic narrative has made us, broadly speaking, the most admired country in the world."

FBI Spied on Little Kids for Days at a Time, Documents Reveal

Eric Doaln writes for the Raw Story: "The digital rights advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced Thursday it had discovered violations stemming from the FBI's use of expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. Documents obtained by the group as the result of pending Freedom of Information Act litigation suggest that abuses of surveillance powers granted by the PATRIOT Act had been flagged by the FBI...Among the heavily-redacted documents obtained by the EFF is a report [PDF] showing that the FBI monitored young children for five days, despite the fact that none of the voices being monitored matched the language of the target. The report concluded that the roving wiretap violation occurred as a result of an inadequate review of the wiretap renewal application."

Koch Operative May Have Deceived Officials to Take $2.7 Million in Taxpayer Money for Governor's Race
Steve Lebowitz and Lee Fang report for ThinkProgress: "In 2008, Steve Lonegan, the New Jersey state director for David Koch's Americans for Prosperity group, announced a campaign to run for governor. Running as a Republican, Lonegan lost to Chris Christie (R-NJ) in the Republican primary, and Christie went on to win the general election later in 2009. But recent tax disclosures examined by ThinkProgress reveal that Lonegan, who used $2.7 million in taxpayer matching funds for his gubernatorial campaign, may have deceived public officials in order to collect the public money used for his campaign."

Representative McDermott: GOP Cuts to Anti-Poverty Programs Are "Morally Wrong" and "Fiscally Stupid"
Pat Garofalo reports for ThinkProgress: "The current continuing resolution under which the federal government is operating expires on April 8, and at the moment, it seems that budget talks between House Republican leadership and Senate Democrats have broken down. Republicans want their spending bill - H.R. 1 - to 'serve as a starting point for all negotiations' (even though Democrats have now upped the amount of spending cuts they're willing to pass, alongside zero concessions from Republicans)."

Recommended Audio: Rachel Maddow - Maddow Gets Radio Silence On Michigan FOIA Questions

Evan McMorris-Santoro writes for Talking Points Memo: "On her show last night (March 28), MSNBC's Rachel Maddow followed up on our story about the labor studies professor FOIAs in Michigan. She found the conservative donors who fund the think tank asking for emails from Michigan professors about, among other things, Maddow herself, less than willing to talk about where they sent their money. Quick refresher: the Mackinac Center, a Michigan think tank funded by big names in the conservative movement ranging from the Kochs to the Wal-Mart Waltons to the family that founded Blackwater, used the Freedom Of Information Act to request copies of every email sent or received by labor studies professors at state universities that mentioned Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), the city of Madison and Maddow. The universities have not decided how to respond, but the professors say the FOIAs suggest Mackinac is trying to catch them in illegal political advocacy. Mackinac has declined to speak on the record about the requests."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Poll: Unfavorable View Of Tea Party Hits Record High
John Turnbush writes for Talking Point Memo: "The percentage of Americans who hold an unfavorable opinion of the Tea Party movement rose to an all-time in a new CNN poll released today. CNN found the Tea Party ranked nearly as unpopular as both the Republican and Democratic parties. In the poll, 47% of adult Americans said they viewed the Tea Party unfavorably, compared to 32% who said they viewed it favorably. The latest finding continues a trend of the Tea Party losing popularity as it has became more well known."

The Chambers Genie

Faiz Shakir, Benjamin Armbruster, George Zornick, Zaid Jilani, Alex Seitz-Wald, Tanya Somanader, and Ian Millhiser write the Progress Report for Think Progress: "Ever since Chief Justice Roberts joined the Supreme Court, corporate America has treated his Court as its personal genie, and Roberts has been eager to  grant even many of their most outlandish wishes. As soon as Roberts and his fellow conservative Justice Alito joined the high Court, the Chamber of Commerce's win rate before the justices spiked eight percentage points above its already very high levels under his conservative predecessor William Rehnquist. Nor is Roberts alone in his willingness to go the extra mile for wealthy corporations. A recent study found that every single justice is more likely to side with the Chamber than the just ice who held the seat 25 years ago. As one of the Chamber's top Supreme Court litigators bragged, "except for the solicitor general representing the United States,  no single entity has more influence on what cases the Supreme Court decides and how it decides them than the National Chamber Litigation Center." This week, corporate America made three especially large wishes to the justices, and the Court's conservatives once again appear eager to grant them."

Recommended Radio: TruthdigRadio - Helen Caldicott, Mr. Fish on Ice

Truthdig Radio airs every Wednesday at 2:00 PM in Los Angeles on 90.7 KPFK. If you can’t listen live, look for the podcast and transcript of each week’s show Wednesday nights  on Truthdig. On this week’s show Helen Caldicott says “the French are ignorant” and “the English are nuts,” Dr. Alan Lockwood discusses Japan, Loretta Napoleoni calculates the terror economy, Marcia Dawkins measures misogyny and Mr. Fish finds his inner princess. Click to listen to the show, or continue reading the full transcript below.
Listen Now.

The Lessons of Fukushima

Hugh Gusterson writes in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: "More to the point, what lessons will we learn from the nuclear accident at Fukushima, an accident thought to be impossible just two weeks ago?.. We now have a government captured by special interests, paralyzed by partisanship, and confused by astroturfing political groups and phony scientific experts for sale to the highest bidder. Our democracy and our regulatory agencies are husks of what they once were. It is unclear that such a system is capable of learning any lessons or indeed of doing anything much beyond generating speeches and passing the responsibility for failure back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball between our two yapping political parties." Image: DigitalGlobe

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now - "Prescription for Survival": A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy Between Anti-Coal Advocate George Monbiot and Anti-Nuclear Activist Dr. Helen Caldicott

The crisis in Japan has refueled the rigorous global debate about the viability of nuclear power. Japan remains in a "state of maximum alert" as the experts scramble to contain radiation that is leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Nuclear energy remains a controversial topic in climate change discourse, as environmental activists argue how to best reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere—often the debate pits one non-renewable energy against another as renewable energy technology and research remains underfunded. Democracy Now! hosts a debate today about the future of nuclear energy between British journalist George Monbiot and Dr. Helen Caldicott. Monbiot has written extensively about the environmental and health dangers caused by burning coal for energy, and despite the Fukushima catastrophe, stands behind nuclear power. Caldicott is a world-renowned anti-nuclear advocate who has spent decades warning of the medical hazards posed by nuclear technologies, and while agreeing about the dangers of burning coal, insists the best option is to ban nuclear power.



Casino of Hunger - Wall Street Speculators and the 2008 Food Crisis

Food and Water Watch has published a new report that examines how speculation on the commodity markets – which include agriculture – drove up prices. In the spring of 2008, huge jumps in food prices – up nearly double in the previous two years – triggered food riots around the world. Was that caused by a bidding war that pitted food processors and agricultural companies against investment firms that had no intention of ever taking delivery of a load of corn, beans or wheat? The global food crisis is an overlooked symptom of the broader global economic crisis. The food crisis shares many characteristics of the financial meltdown ‚ it was exacerbated by the deregulation of the commodity markets (including agriculture) that encouraged a tidal wave of Wall Street speculation‚ leading to further increases in already rising food and energy prices.

House to Vote on Overturning Net Neutrality Laws
Nadia Prupis, Truthout: "Armed with an ideological agenda, House Republicans took aim at net neutrality again this month, quietly introducing a Congressional 'resolution of disapproval' to overturn recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) laws prohibiting anti-competitive behavior among Internet providers. H.J. Res. 37 passed 30-23 on March 15, and will now go to the House of Representatives for a vote, which House Speaker John Boehner said in late February could happen 'as early as next month.'"

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps Knocks ATandT/T-Mobile Deal
Kim Hart reports for Politico: "Michael Copps, the senior Democrat at the FCC, has some serious concerns about ATandT’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile. In an interview on C-Span’s “The Communicators” series, which will air Friday, Copps says the transaction is an even steeper climb for him than Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal. He also said the deal could negatively impact other proceedings at the agency."

On NBC, the Missing Story about Parent Company General Electric
Paul Farhi reports for the Wshington Post: "It’s the kind of accountability journalism that makes readers raise an eyebrow, if it doesn’t raise their blood pressure first. General Electric Co., reported the New York Times last week, earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, including $5.1 billion in the United States — and paid exactly zero dollars in federal taxes.

Censorship Made in America
Tim Karr writes for Free Press: "March has been a stormy month across the Arab world as the hope for new democracy faces the harsh reality of despots armed with guns, tanks and the tools of censorship. In Libya, the Gaddafi regime plunged the nation into digital darkness during the first week of March, turning off Internet access to keep Libyans from organizing one another and documenting Gaddafi's crimes for the world to see. In Bahrain, the kingdom reacted to democracy demonstrators by blacking out websites where locals shared cell phone videos, blocking YouTube pages containing videos of street protests, and taking down a large Facebook group that called for more demonstrations. It doesn't end there."

Clippings for 19 March 2011

Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, Public Servants, and the Threat to Rights and Security

Political Research Associates's comprehensive investigation, Manufacturing the Muslim Menace details a systemic failure to regulate content in nationwide counter-terrorism training. Myths perpetrated by trainers may put the rights of millions of Muslim Americans at risk from the very public servants who have sworn to protect them. Downland the complete report here (PDF file). Photo: Flickr, Asterix611

Islamophobia Can Create Radicalization
James C. Zogby comments for Arab American Institute: "Let me state quite directly: Islamophobia and those who promote it are a greater threat to the United States of America than Anwar al Awlaqi and his rag-tag team of terrorists. On one level, al Awlaqi, from his cave hide-out in Yemen, can only prey off of alienation where it exists. Adopting the persona of a latter-day Malcolm X (though he seems not to have read the last chapters of the 'Autobiography' or learned the lessons of Malcolm's ultimate conversion), he appears street-smart, brash, self-assured and assertive - all of the assets needed to attract lost or wounded souls looking for certainty and an outlet for their rage. Like some parasites, al Awlaqi cannot create his own prey. He must wait for others to create his opportunities, which until now have been isolated and limited - a disturbed young man here, an increasingly deranged soldier there."

CBO: Obama Understates Future Budget Deficits By $2.3 Trillion

The Associate Press reports via the Huffington Post: "A new assessment of President Barack Obama's budget released Friday says the White House underestimates future budget deficits by more than $2 trillion over the upcoming decade. The estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that if Obama's February budget submission is enacted into law it would produce deficits totaling $9.5 trillion over 10 years – an average of almost $1 trillion a year. Obama's budget saw deficits totaling $7.2 trillion over the same period." Photo: Jehlum Post

9 Million Laid-Off Americans Lost Health Insurance In Last Two Years: Study
Laura Bassett reports for the Huffington Post: "During the last two years, 57 percent of Americans who lost a job that provided them health insurance -- nearly 9 million people -- could not afford to regain coverage, according to a new study published by the Commonwealth Fund, a longtime advocate of health care reform. In addition, 19 million Americans who tried to buy a health plan in the individual insurance market between 2007 and 2010 were either rejected due to a prior health condition or unable to find affordable coverage that fit their needs, according to the Commonwealth Fund report.

REPORT: In 12 States, GOP Plans To Slash Corporate Taxes While Increasing Burden on Working Families

Paul Breer and Kevin Donohoe report for Think Progress: "ThinkProgress has been documenting conservative efforts to shift the burden of record budget shortfalls onto middle-class Americans, while simultaneously doling out tax cuts to corporations. While progressive governors have proposed raising revenue from those who can afford it, alongside painful cuts to programs, Republican governors have unveiled budgets that cut taxes for corporations and raise them on the middle-class and working poor. In this report, ThinkProgress evaluates the priorities conservatives have set in twelve states..."

Afghanistan MIA From Deficit Debate
Bill Boyarski writes for Truthdig.com: "While Republicans race to cut spending, including outlays for education, health care and social services, they never mention one of the real reasons for the deficit: the cost of the war in Afghanistan and the mess we’ve made in Iraq. President Barack Obama ignores it, too, as he cautiously moves to the right, proposing minor reductions, letting the Republicans control the debate. Aiding and abetting them are cable news, Internet news outlets and most of the print media."

Ex-Goldman Banker Behind WSJ 'Smear Campaign' Against Elizabeth Warren
Zach Carter reports for the Huffington Post: "A Wall Street Journal editorial writer who has been closely involved with the paper's recent attacks on Elizabeth Warren is a former Goldman Sachs banker. The same editorial writer, Mary Kissel, is readying another piece critical of Warren and the new consumer agency, according to a source familiar with the coming article. Like most major newspapers, the Journal does not disclose the authors of its editorials. Kissel recently appeared on the John Batchelor radio show as a representative of the Journal's editorial board to discuss Warren, and repeated the main arguments used in the editorials."

US Chamber of Commerce: Shoot the Messenger Whatever the Cost

R.P. Segel writes on Triple Pundit: "Bill McKibben wrote a piece last week in which he looks past the Koch brothers, who are finally getting the scrutiny they deserve, to the number one enemy of climate action: the US Chamber of Commerce. According to McKibben, the US C. of C. 'spent more money lobbying in 2009 than the next five biggest players combined; they spent more money on politics than either the Republican or Democratic National Committees.'  And while they claim to represent 3 million businesses, the majority of their funding comes from just 16 companies. Given the fact that the Chamber has been expending so much effort attempting to thwart any attempt to control carbon emissions, it’s not hard to guess who has been filling the Chamber’s pot."

Who Is Bankrolling A Lawsuit To End The Ban On Foreign Money In US Elections?
Ian Millhiser reports for  ThinkProgress: "When President Obama warned that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision 'will open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our election,' conservatives began damage control literally before the President could even finish his sentence. Justice Sam Alito infamously mouthed the words 'not true' while Obama was speaking. Of course, we subsequently learned the Chamber of Commerce was raising money from foreign corporations and then placed this money in the same account which funds their political attack ads. Someone is now bankrolling a lawsuit to undermine the longstanding ban on political contributions by non-U.S. citizens."

UN Reported Only a Fraction of Civilian Deaths From US Raids
Gareth Porter and Shah Noori report for Inter Press Service: "The number of civilians killed in U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids last year was probably several times higher than the figure of 80 people cited in the U.N. report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan published last week, an IPS investigation has revealed. The report also failed to apply the same humanitarian law standard for defining a civilian to its reporting on SOF raids that it applied to its accounting for Taliban assassinations."

FOIA Eyes Only: How Buried Statutes Are Keeping Information Secret
Jennifer LaFleur reports for ProPublica: "Anyone can request information from U.S. officials under the Freedom of Information Act, a law designed to allow people to know what their government is up to. When a government agency withholds information from a requester, it typically must invoke one of nine FOIA exemptions that cover everything from national security to personal privacy. But among that list is an exemption-known as b(3) for its section in the FOI Act-that allows an agency to apply other statutes when denying information requests. New data compiled by the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coalition of journalism and transparency groups, shows that agencies have applied more than 240 other laws in withholding information over the last decade."

Bradley Manning's Torturous Treatment Met By Growing Resistance

James Ridgeway reports for Mother Jones: "The solitary confinement of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, is now approaching its tenth month. In addition to sporadic on-the-ground protests, a growing chorus of media and activist voices is calling for an end to Manning’s appalling treatment. Implicitly or explicitly, they link the accused WikiLeaker’s fate to that of tens of thousands of other US prisoners held in solitary, and shed new light on a widespread and torturous practice. Yesterday the ACLU sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, charging that the 'gratuitously harsh treatment" of Manning "violates fundamental constitutional norms.'"

Nuclear Experts: Japan Nuclear Disaster Unprecedented -- No Way to Know About US Impact
Joshua Holland writes for AlterNet: "In the days after a massive earthquake battered Japan – triggering a deadly tsunami, shifting the earth several inches off its axis, and most frighteningly, damaging one of the most powerful nuclear power plants in the world – many nuclear engineers sought to reassure the American public that while the crisis was a serious one for Japan, there was no cause for Americans to be alarmed. But experts interviewed by AlterNet cautioned that the events taking place in the Fukushima No. 1 power plant are simply unprecedented, and noted that the situation appears to be deteriorating.
"

Saying No to the Nuclear Option

Sarah Laskow reports for The Media Consortium: "Faced with the nuclear crisis in Japan, governments around the world are confronting the vulnerabilities of their nuclear energy programs. And while some European countries, such as Germany and France, are already considering more stringent safety measures - or backing off of nuclear development altogether - in the United States, the Obama administration is pushing forward with plans for increased nuclear energy production. Ultimately, these questions are the same that the country faced after last summer's Gulf Coast oil spill. As we search for more and more clever ways to fill our energy needs, can we write off the risk of disaster? Or are these large-scale catastrophes so inevitable that the only option is to stop pursuing the policies that lead to them?" Photo: Farm4static/Flickr

Fracking Debate Heats Up as New Jersey Seeks Ban
Mike Ludwig reports for Truthout: "New Jersey lawmakers advanced legislation last week that would make their state the first to ban the controversial and largely unregulated practice of hydraulic fracturing, aka 'fracking,' used to drill for natural gas. The New Jersey Senate Environment Committee approved the legislation amid a public debate over proposed regulations for an estimated 10,000 fracking wells that could soon be established in the Delaware River Basin."

NPR: The Saga Continues

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship comments for Truthout: "There’s no more scrupulous or versatile broadcast journalist than NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling. He is one of those reporters who keeps his eye on the sparrow – that is, on small details from individual lives that add up to significant issues of public policy. As he described in a special report this week how the United States Army is clarifying guidelines 'that should make it easier for soldiers with traumatic brain injuries from explosions to receive the Purple Heart,' it was mind-boggling to think that right wingers in Congress were at that very moment voting to eliminate the modest federal funds that make such essential and authoritative reporting available to anyone in America who cares to tune in."

NPR Defunding Vote: Don't diminish Democracy to Settle a Political Score
The Christian Science Monitor comments: "Republicans in Congress have wanted to defund public broadcasting for decades. Now, after former National Public Radio fundraising executive Ronald Schiller was caught saying that NPR would be “better off in the long run without federal funding,” they’re on the verge of making that happen. A vote could happen this week.  Last week’s video sting certainly makes it easier to repeat the talking point that public radio doesn’t deserve public support. But careful research of public media in other democracies shows the opposite is true."

Senator Al Franken to Introduce Bill Making Net Neutrality Violations a Crime

Eric W. Dolan reports for the Raw Story: "While House Republicans push to eliminate new net neutrality regulations adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) announced Monday he will introduce legislation to make violations of net neutrality a crime. 'I'm introducing a new bill that would call violations of net neutrality out for what they are - anti-competitive actions by powerful media conglomerates that represent violations of our anti-trust laws,' Franken said at this year's South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas."

A Fox Alert for Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB
Ilsey Hodge reports for The Guardian: "In the 7 March issue of the Tribune, Mark Seddon reported on the threat that Glenn Beck, 'as a sort of hired gauleiter on Fox News', poses to American democracy. The article hit the nail on the head when it comes to Beck's paranoiac propaganda. Seddon, however, misses the broader danger of the Murdoch-owned Fox News: the media outlet's audience is growing even as its programming veers away from broadcast journalism and shapes instead a rightwing political operation. Consider the facts: more than twice as many Americans watch Fox News as watch CNN, the next most popular cable news channel, and almost five times as many as watch MSNBC. Fox's audience cuts across age, gender, race, education, and income level. The average Fox News viewer is a male between the ages of 30 to 49 – far from most people's perception that mostly seniors watch Fox. So where Seddon pointed to a fabled minority audience of 'not-so-bright … American citizens', Fox is instead popular among a wide swath of well-educated, contributing members of society. Fox's audience includes your neighbour, your cousin and the guy in front of you in line every morning at Starbucks."

Julian Assange Tells Students that the Web Is the Greatest Spying Machine Ever
Patrick Kingsley reports for The Guardian UK: "The internet is the 'greatest spying machine the world has ever seen' and is not a technology that necessarily favours the freedom of speech, the WikiLeaks co-founder, Julian Assange, has claimed in a rare public appearance. Assange acknowledged that the web could allow greater government transparency and better co-operation between activists, but said it gave authorities their best ever opportunity to monitor and catch dissidents. 'While the internet has in some ways an ability to let us know to an unprecedented level what government is doing, and to let us co-operate with each other to hold repressive governments and repressive corporations to account, it is also the greatest spying machine the world has ever seen,' he told students at Cambridge University. Hundreds queued for hours to attend."

Study: Majority of Consumers Obtain News From Online Sources
Nadia Prupis reports for Truthout: "For the first time, 21st century consumers are reading the news online more than in print, according to the 'State of the News Media 2011' report by the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism. Only television remains the most-used resource for news among American adults, but the gap is closing. In fact, most sectors of the American news industry began to recover in 2010 after two difficult years - but technological advances present old and new media alike with increasingly complex challenges."

Clippings for 13 March 2011

Scott Walker's Real Agenda in Wisconsin

Michael Hudson and Jeffery Sommers report for the Guardian UK: "On Wednesday evening, in a veritable Night of the Long Knives, Wisconsin's integrity was brutally murdered on the floor of the state Capitol in Madison. On 9 March, integrity and trust built up over a century was obliterated as Wisconsin state senators quickly reversed course and cleaved its budget "repair bill" in half. Financial items require a quorum, thus, collective bargaining was split off from the budget repair bill and voted on separately so as to permit its being voted on now. Even so, this still broke the state's open meeting law requiring 24 hours' notice to ensure transparency. Instead, the Wisconsin senate Republicans pulled out this new legislation without advance notice and began voting, leaving only a stunned Democratic legislator, Peter Barca, to read the open meeting law out loud to prevent the senators from voting. The senate voted over his objections anyway."

Governor Walker’s Coup D’Etat
Robert Reich writes on his blog: "Governor Scott Walker and his Wisconsin senate Republicans have laid bare the motives for their coup d’etat. By severing the financial part of the bill (which couldn’t be passed without absent Democrats) from the part eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees (which could be), and then doing the latter, Wisconsin Republicans have made it crystal clear that their goal has had nothing whatever to do with the state budget. It’s been to bust the unions."

'America Is NOT Broke': Michael Moore Speaks in Madison, WI -- March 5, 2011
Michael Moore writes on his blog: " America is not broke. Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich. Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined."

Recommended Audio: New Deal 2.0 - Is the US Broke?

Bryce Covet writes for New Deal 2.0: "With the budget battle raging on, cries that the US’ finances are ruined are growing to a fever pitch. So Marshall Auerback bravely headed into the lion’s den (aka Fox News) to explain some basic accounting rules. Is the US broke? Marshall says no: 'We’re not really broke because the US government, by constitutional mandate, is the sole issuer of the currency. It can always create dollars.'"

Wisconsin Senate Leader Admits Union-Busting Bill Is about Defeating Obama

Megan Carpentier reports for Raw Story: "State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R), the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader, must have forgotten his talking points while appearing on Megyn Kelly's Fox News show. This afternoon he admitted on-air what many liberals have long-suspected: rescinding collective bargaining rights from state workers is Wisconsin is as much about the 2012 presidential election as Wisconsin's 2011 budget shortage."

Wisconsin Firefighters Spark "Move Your Money" Moment
Mary Bottari writes for PR Watch: "On the day that the bill passed the Wisconsin Assembly effectively ending 50 years of collective bargaining in Wisconsin and eviscerating the ability of public unions to raise money through dues, a new front opened in the battle for the future of Wisconsin families. Bagpipes blaring, hundreds of firefighters walked across the street from the Wisconsin Capitol building, stood outside the Marshall and Ilsley Bank (M&I Bank) and played a few tunes -- loudly. Later, a group of firefighters and consumers stopped back in at the bank to make a few transactions. One by one they closed their accounts and withdrew their life savings, totaling approximately $190,000. After the last customer left, the bank quickly closed its doors, just in case the spontaneous 'Move Your Money' moment caught fire."

The Corporate/GOP Attack on America's Middle Class

Jim Hightower comments for Truthout: "The most revealing comments by politicians are rarely revealed. This is because they're made in unrecorded conversations, when politicos let their guard down. However, in a recent sting, blogger Ian Murphy recorded a revealing phone call he made to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Murphy pretended to be David Koch, the far-right-wing billionaire who pumped more than a million dollars into Walker's election last year. The governor is very busy, but he spent 20 minutes regaling the fake David Koch with details of his effort to kill the collective bargaining rights of state workers."

Simon Johnson: "A Healthy Financial System Cannot Be Built on the Expectation of Bailouts"
Simon Johnson blogs on The Baseline Scenario: "The financial crisis is not over, in the sense that its impact persists and even continues to spread. Employment remains more than 5 percent below its pre-crisis peak, millions of homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages, and the negative fiscal consequences - at national, state, and local level - remain profound."

Military Cutbacks Won't Fix Deficit
Paul Krugman, Krugman and Co.: "I am baffled by the argument that the United States can incur big savings by ending the war in Afghanistan and, more generally, by cutting bloated defense budgets. I've mostly been hearing this from liberals, and indeed this is a variation of a debate that has continued for years. Now, I am not endorsing our current levels of defense spending. The nation's military buildup following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was outrageous. The United States was hit by a handful of men wielding box-cutters (or something similar - I am aware that's not certain), and we responded by buying a lot of heavy tanks and later invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack."

Rasmussen Poll: Majority Want U.S. Troops Out Of Afghanistan Within A Year
Amanda Terkel reports for The Huffington Post: " On the same day that Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that America would continue to have a military presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014, a new poll finds that the majority of Americans want all U.S. troops withdrawn within one year. The polling firm Rasmussen, whose surveys are often accused of having a decidedly conservative tilt, finds that for the first time, a majority of likely voters want the U.S. government to set a timetable to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan within one year. Within that group, 31 percent want troops to come home immediately. In September 2010, just 43 percent of likely voters wanted a one-year timeline."

GOP Budget Cuts Would Lead to Furloughs at Tsunami Warning Centers, Undermining Their "Ability to React"

Kevin Donohoe, ThinkProgress: "Congressional Republicans' 2011 budget would slash funding for government agencies directly responsible for issuing tsunami warnings and severely reduce the government's capacity to track and respond to these disasters, the president of the union that represents employees of the National Weather Service told ThinkProgress today in the wake of the tragic tsunami in the Pacific. The House Republican budget, which was rejected by the Senate this week, would have cut funding to NOAA - the agency directly responsible for tsunami monitoring and warning - restricting the government's ability to respond."

Anti-Nuclear Groups Warn of Fallout at Japanese Plant
Suvendrini Kakuchi reports for IPS: "Heightened tension on Saturday after a blast at a nuclear facility in Fukushima, 150 kilometres north of Tokyo, eased off after the government reported that the danger had been overstated. But anti-nuclear experts continued to express concern. 'There are many areas that remain unclear in the government's explanation, which is why we cannot accept that the coast is clear,' Professor Hiroaki Koiwa from the Research Reactor Institute at the national Kyoto University told IPS."

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now - Naomi Klein: “My Fear is that Climate Change is the Biggest Crisis of All”

Award-winning journalist Naomi Klein has been reporting on global warming and the climate justice movement for years. “My fear is that climate change is the biggest crisis of all,” Klein says. “If we don’t come up with a positive vision of how climate change can make our economies and our world more just, more livable, cleaner, fairer, then this crisis will be exploited to militarize our economies, to create fortress continents. And we’re really facing a choice. What we really need now is for the people fighting for economic justice and environmental justice to come together.”



Palin Falsely Claims Domestic Drilling Is "The Solution" To High Gas Prices
Media Matters for America provides the following research: "Fox News contributor Sarah Palin claimed that "the solution" to rising gas prices is "to drill here and drill now" and argued that recoverable oil and natural gas in the Arctic could make the U.S. "energy independent." In fact, experts have said expanding domestic production of fossil fuels would not shield the U.S. from volatility in the global price of oil."

Peter King's Radicalization Hearings, Explained

Tim Murphy reports for Mother Jones: "On Thursday (March 10), Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, will hold hearings on what he calls the "radicalization" of members of the American Muslim community. King, who has previously called for the New York Times to be tried for treason and for WikiLeaks to be listed as a terrorist organization, has never shied away from confronting terrorist threats wherever he sees them—but this time he's struck a nerve. He's been denounced by the ACLU and Democratic rivals—who have compared him to Joseph McCarthy. His own party, meanwhile, has been conspicuously silent. So who's going to speak on Thursday? And what are they going to say?" Photo: Pete Marovich/Zuma

Muslim-American Terrorism Down in 2010
Emily Badger reports for Miller-McCune: "The number of Muslim Americans involved in terrorist threats declined in 2010 from the previous year, although you wouldn't know that from the tone of a congressional hearing scheduled for Thursday on 'the extent of radicalization of the American Muslim community.' Committee chairman Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, has been planning the hearing for months, partly as a response, he says, to the lack of cooperation some law enforcement officials have complained of within the Muslim-American community. Civil liberties groups and Muslim leaders, meanwhile, are decrying what looks like the singling-out of a minority group in a congressional setting that recalls McCarthyism."

Recommended Audio: Rachel Maddow - Pulling Back the Curtain on Political Puppetmasters
AlterNet reports: "Monday (March 7), Think Progress released a video that showed Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown slavishly fawning over David Koch and begging him for money. "Your support during the election, it meant a ton. It made a difference and I can certainly use it again," said Brown on the tape.  Brown's gross display of subservience is only the latest reminder of the right-wing billionaire brothers' shockingly outsized influence on our politics. Over the past year, progressive journalists, including AlterNet's Adele Stan, have documented the Koch brothers' role in promoting the conservative agenda, from helping fund the Tea Party movement to supporting Gov. Walker's union-busting efforts in Wisconsin. Thanks to a prank in which blogger Ian Murphy posed as David Koch in a phone call to Governor Walker, the Koch brothers have become more visible than ever. Signs calling Walker a "Koch-conspirator" and, more bluntly, a "Koch-whore" have proliferated at pro-labor rallies in Wisconsin and throughout the country. "  Read complete article here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Koch Brothers Increased Wealth by $9 Billion Last Year As They Fund Laws to Make Working Class Poorer

Mark Karlin reports for Buzzflash at TRUTHOUT: "Based on a recent Forbes survey, Rachel Maddow revealed that while Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is stripping away the financial security of workers, the Koch brothers increased their wealth by $9 billion last year. Together, Maddow notes, they would rank as the fourth-wealthiest person ($44 billion) in the world."

Conservative Corporate Advocacy Group ALEC Behind Voter Disenfranchisement Efforts
Tobin Van Ostern reports for Campus Progress: "The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative organization linked to corporate and right-wing donors, including the billionaire Koch brothers, has drafted and distributed model legislation, obtained by Campus Progress, that appears to be the inspiration for bills proposed by state legislators this year and promoted by Tea Party activists, bills that would limit access of young people to vote."

Recommended Audio: Senator Waxman - 'All That Seems To Matter Is What Koch Industries Think'

Anti-Gay State Senator’s Secret Gay Life Is Revealed In Bribery Indictment
John Cook reports for Gawker: "Carl Kruger is a Democratic state senator from Brooklyn. His vote against gay marriage last year was crucial in stopping the measure in New York. Funny thing: He lives with his gay lover, who's the bagman in their bribery racket. Yesterday, a criminal complaint against Kruger was unsealed in federal court in the southern district of New York, lifting the veil from what must be one of the most satisfyingly convoluted and brazen cases of self-loathing gay political figures in our time."

Marking 100 Years of International Women's Day

Katrina vannden Heuvel comments for The Nation: "With right-wing assaults on women’s rights and reproductive health growing fiercer (and more sensational) by the day, we can all draw strength from the committed struggle women from around the world have waged in pursuit of full gender equality. The Nation has a long history of championing woman-friendly policies and standing firmly behind the feminist principles that have revolutionized the role of women in our society. That’s why today at The Nation we are proud to mark the 100th International Women’s Day by not only highlighting the achievements of women, but also reflecting on ways we can effectively face the many challenges that still lie ahead."

In Defense of NPR
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write for Truthout: "Come on now: let's take a breath and put this National Public Radio (NPR) fracas into perspective. Just as public radio struggles against yet another assault from its longtime nemesis - the right-wing machine that would thrill if our sole sources of information were Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and ads paid for by the Koch Brothers - it walks into a trap perpetrated by one of the sleaziest operatives ever to climb out of a sewer."

Merchants of Doubt

Naomi Oreskes is one of the world's leading historians of science. Her research focuses on consensus and dissent in science. Her 2004 essay The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change was cited in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth and led to op-ed pieces in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

In Merchants of Doubt, Oreskes discusses how science can be misconstrued to create doubt. Her research highlights the disconnect between the state of scientific debate and the way it is presented in the mass media and perceived by the public. Specifically, Oreskes looks at public beliefs -- or disbelief -- about climate change.

Dr. Oreskes’ visit to Kansas is a jointly sponsored effort made possible by the interinstitutional collaboration of Kansas State University, University of Kansas, and Fort Hays State University.

MP3 File

Clippings for 28 March 2010

We Are in the Middle of Transformational Change: It's Time the Debate Matches up with the Huge Challenges Ahead of Us

Frank Joyce writes for ALterNet: "A better world is possible. So is a worse one. Which will we get? Finding the proper focus is itself a challenge. For example, much of the conversation these days among well-meaning people about the state of our economy and what the president (or somebody) ought to do about it centers on jobs. Do we need more jobs? The conventional answer is of course we do, so let’s keep on having the old arguments about tax breaks versus government stimulus, big business versus small business, blah, blah, blah."

The Difference Between Liberalism and Progressivism
David Sirota writes for Truthdig.com: "As a progressive, I’m often asked if there is a real difference between progressivism and liberalism, or if progressivism is merely a nicer-sounding term for the less popular L-word. It’s a fair question, considering that Democratic politicians regularly substitute progressive for liberal in news releases and speeches. Predictably, Republicans call their opponents’ linguistic shift a craven branding maneuver, and, frankly, they’re right: Most Democrats make no distinction between the two words."

Globalization Marches On
Noam Chomsky writes for the New York Times Syndicate (via CommonDreams.org): "Shifts in global power, ongoing or potential, are a lively topic among policy makers and observers. One question is whether (or when) China will displace the United States as the dominant global player, perhaps along with India. Such a shift would return the global system to something like it was before the European conquests. Economic growth in China and India has been rapid, and because they rejected the West's policies of financial deregulation, they survived the recession better than most. Nonetheless, questions arise."

Why the President's Next Big Thing Should Be Jobs

Robert Reich, RobertReich.com: "Few presidents get a second honeymoon of their own making. (George W. got one when terrorists attacked the United States.) Barack Obama's victory on health care reform has breathed new life into his administration, recharged the Democratic base, and given the rest of America a sense of someone who fights for average working people. The question now is: What does he do with his second honeymoon?"

The Most Vital Ingredient in Wall Street Reform Goes Missing
Pam Martens writes for CounterPunch: "Last Fall, it was all about the wall: financial bigwigs like former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker, former Citigroup co-CEO John Reed, Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, all espoused reestablishing the legal barrier between the derivatives casino that masquerades today as Wall Street and commercial banks holding insured deposits."

Derailing Help for Consumers
Bob Herbert comments for the New York Times: "Why should there be any significant opposition to the creation of an independent agency with strong powers of enforcement to protect consumers from exploitation by banks, mortgage companies, auto dealers and other purveyors of credit? The dragons lurking in the fine print of some credit agreements are enough to give you heart failure. Payday loans, for example, typically carry annual interest rates in the vicinity of 400 percent. Or look at the lineup of fees, penalties and interest rates on your credit cards and overdraft privileges. Don't even start on mortgage abuses. That would take too long, and it's too depressing."

Kansas Chamber for Wall Street, Not Main Street
Marty Keenan writes for the Kansas Free Press: "The Kansas Chamber of Commerce scolded 14 local chambers of commerce on Thursday for supporting a tax increase to fix the yawning Kansas budget deficit. The starkly differing constituencies of the KCCI (Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and local chambers of commerce can no longer be papered over."

Coburn Pulls The Trigger: Jobless Benefits Extension Blocked By GOP
Evan McMorris-Santoro reports for Talkign Points Memo: "Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) promised that he'd be the next Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) if he had to be. And last night, he made good on his threat. Coburn is blocking unanimous consent on extension of unemployment benefits, just as Bunning did a few weeks ago. Only this time, Coburn's not alone -- the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other members of the Republican caucus have joined with Coburn, promising to block billions in unemployment benefits just as the Senate is set to leave on a two-week recess."

Counterfactual: A curious history of the C.I.A.’s secret interrogation program.

Jane Mayer writes for The New Yorker: "On September 11, 2006, the fifth anniversary of Al Qaeda's attacks on America, another devastating terrorist plot was meant to unfold. Radical Islamists had set in motion a conspiracy to hijack seven passenger planes departing from Heathrow Airport, in London, and blow them up in midair. Courting Disaster (Regnery; $29.95), by Marc A. Thiessen, a former speechwriter in the Bush Administration, begins by imagining the horror that would have resulted had the plot succeeded. He conjures fifteen hundred dead airline passengers, televised "images of debris floating in the ocean," and gleeful jihadis issuing fresh threats: 'We will rain upon you such terror and destruction that you will never know peace.'"

Pentagon Wants $33 Billion More for War in Afghanistan
Gordon Lubold, The Christian Science Monitor: "The Pentagon wants $33 billion in additional funding to pay for the war in Afghanistan this year and train the Afghan military, but members of Congress want to make sure they're not writing a blank check."

Obama Appoints New Chief for War Court at Guantanamo

Carol Rosenberg reports for the Miami Herald and McClatchy News: "In the clearest sign yet that the Obama administration is re-energizing tribunals for captives at a Guantanamo it wants closed, the Pentagon this week installed a retired three-star admiral with national security and international law experience to run the war court."

Obama Gives Up: The era of bipartisanship is over, at least until November.

John Dickerson writes for Slate: "President Obama's allies have occasionally been irritated that he won't do away with all his bipartisan talk and treat his opponents as they deserve to be treated. These allies/critics must be happy with his speech today in Iowa City, the same place he unveiled his health care proposal in December 2007 and where today he mocked his opponents with the thoroughgoing enjoyment he displayed during the campaign. 'Leaders of the Republican Party, they called the passage of this bill Armageddon.' Obama told the audience, to laughter. 'End of freedom as we know it.' So after I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there [were] any asteroids falling or some cracks opening up in the Earth. It turned out it was a nice day. Birds were chirping. Folks were strolling down the Mall. People still have their doctors.'"

Recommended Audio: GRITtv - Gearing up for Battle on Immigration Reform

Last weekend's 200,000-person-strong march on Washington for justice on immigration was spared from too much violence and anger because the press was largely focused on health care reform. But as that bill was signed into law Monday, immigration will again find itself at the top of the list for political action--and the passions that it inspires are certain to flare.  Joining Laura Flanders to talk about whether the Obama administration and this Congress will have the will, vision, and political capital to get anything done on immigration--and whether the legislation being considered at the moment will do more harm than good--are Seth Freed Wessler of the Applied Research Center and ColorLines, and Roberto Lovato of New America Media.

Recommended Audio: Bill Moyers - John Nichols and Terry O'Neill on Health Care Reform

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is now law — but the battle over health care reform is far from over. Already at least 14 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits in state courts charging that the mandate for individuals to buy health insurance is unconstitutional. The Republican Party has vowed to make health care reform the central issue in their bid to gain Democratic seats in the mid-term elections. Stalwart advocates of a single-payer system are also unhappy with the outcome — calling the bill "a false promise of reform" and "wimpy."

On Pop Clarity: Public Intellectuals and the Crisis of Language
Henry Giroux comments for Turhtout: "The presupposition that academics no longer function as critical public intellectuals willing to connect their knowledge and expertise to larger public issues is now pervasive. Many factors have contributed to this alleged withdrawal from speaking to public issues, ranging from the demands of academic professionalism and the suppression of dissent to a simple lack of time to address such work. What is indisputable is that the voices of progressive academics have become increasingly irrelevant when it comes to assuming the role of engaged intellectuals interested in sharing their ideas, research and policy recommendations with a broader public. All the better for those neoliberal and conservative critics, who insist that academics must remain neutral, apolitical and professional, disavowing that politics has a place in the classroom or in the pursuit of research that speaks to broader public concerns. Sadly, the most pronounced voices critical of academics as public intellectuals come from the general public (who may or may not agree with right-wing portrayals of the university as a hotbed of left totalitarianism), who unite in their dismissal of ivory tower elites for speaking and writing in a discourse that is as arcane as it is irrelevant."

The Horrible Prospect of Supreme Court Justice Cass Sunstein
Glenn Greenwald writes for Salon.com: "A media consensus has emerged that the retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the 90-year-old Ford-appointee who became the leader of the Court's so-called "liberal wing," is now imminent.  The New York Times' Peter Baker has an article today on Obama's leading candidates to replace Stevens, in which one finds this strange passage:

The president’s base hopes he will name a full-throated champion to counter Justice Antonin Scalia, the most forceful conservative on the bench. . . . The candidates who would most excite the left include the constitutional scholars Harold Hongju Koh, Cass R. Sunstein and Pamela S. Karlan."

The Mad Tea Party

Richard Kim writes for The Nation: " Leftists like to say that another world is possible, but I was never quite sure of that until I started reading tea party websites. There, a government of leftists is not only possible, it's on the cusp of seizing permanent power, having broken American capitalism and replaced it with a socialist state. Down that rabbit hole, Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel are communists, and 'The Left'--which encompasses everyone from the Democratic Leadership Council to Maoist sectarians--is a disciplined and near omnipotent army marching in lockstep to a decades-old master plan for domination called the 'Cloward-Piven strategy' or, as of January 20, 2009, 'Cloward-Piven government.'" Graphic by DREW FRIEDMAN.

Nooses And Broken Windows: A Week Of Threats And Vandalism

Rachel Slajda reports for Talking Points Memo: "As the health care debate came to its conclusion this week, the high-running emotions of many finally crested, taking the form of threats and acts of vandalism at the offices of several lawmakers, most of them Democrats. Here, a roundup: The FBI is investigating a severed gas line at the home of Rep. Tom Perriello's (D-VA) brother. A local tea party group had posted the brother's address online, thinking it was Perriello's and calling for a protest there." Photo: Clockwise, from top left: Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-SC), a broken window, the stage prop coffin used in the demonstration on Rep. Russ Carnahan's lawn, and Rep. Louise Slaughter.

Secrets of the Tea Party: The Troubling History of Tea Party Leader Dick Armey
Beau Hodai, In These Times: "As the Tea Party movement has gained momentum during the last 12 months, it seems few Tea Partiers have caught on to the troubling past of the man at the center of their movement: FreedomWorks chairman, former House Majority Leader and recently-retired lobbyist extraordinaire, Dick Armey."

Inside David Frum's Bitter Exit

Tunku Varadarajan writes for The Daily Beast: "David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, no longer works for the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank in Washington. We know this because Frum has said so and the AEI has confirmed it. All narrative similarities end there, however."

Fox News, Health Care, and the Right-Wing Nervous Breakdown
Eric Boehlert writes for Media Matters for America: "Watching Fox News personalities recently come unglued as the realization set in that (surprise!) Democrats might actually have the votes to pass health care reform -- and noting how extraordinarily loopy and dire both the attacks on the White House, and the proclamations for pending, apocalyptic doom were becoming -- I was getting nervous that one of Fox News' more unhinged hosts might finally just snap and pull a Rev. Jim Jones, beseeching viewers to make the ultimate sacrifice."

The Oxymoron of "Texas Education"
Jim Hightower writes for his blog: "love nuts. Pecans, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios – I love them all. But my favorite nuts by far are those homegrown natives on the Texas Board of Education. You just can't get any nuttier than this bunch!"

Nuclear Waste Piles Up, and It's Costing Taxpayers Billions

Mark Clayton reports for The Christian Science Monitor: "In the waning days of the Bush administration, the US Department of Energy signed contracts with more than a dozen utilities promising to permanently store nuclear waste from 21 not-yet-built reactors, nuclear watchdog groups reported Wednesday. But that "below the radar" DOE commitment was an unreasonable and unnecessary risk to taxpayers given the $1 billion dollars in contractual penalties the agency faced at the time – and the agency's 35-year failure to develop a permanent radioactive waste storage site, the groups said, citing federal contract documents they had obtained."

Kansas's Got Talent: Lisa Engelken's "Caravan"

Christopher E. Renner writes for the Kansas Free Press: "What now seems like a lifetime ago, I taught English as a Foreign Language in Naples, Italy. A young lady came into my life for the academic year 87-88. She was the younger sister of a friend, and the last child of huge German Catholic family. She was a student at the University of Kansas and had come to Naples to study the great 20th Century Neapolitan playwright, Eduardo De Fillippo."
Engelken will be our guest on the April 1st edition of Community Bridge. 

New Millennium, Same Old Backlash?

Maya Schenwar comments for Ms. Magazine: "From the climate of angry machismo that accompanied the drive toward the Iraq war, to the Bush-led campaign against contraception and abortion that has overflowed into the current Congress, this past decade has seen a host of reactionary shifts in attitudes towards women. Barbara J. Berg chronicles this current backlash in Sexism in America: Alive, Well, and Ruining Our Future (Chicago Review Press)."

Cheat Sheet: Sticking Points In Broadband Plan
Sara Jerome writes for The National Journal: "Every American should have broadband access -- that's an idea every faction in the telecom world seems to endorse. Making it so is another thing altogether. While not everyone has shown their cards yet, major telecom players are sure to air grievances soon over Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski's decade-long plan to get more Americans online. Hearings scheduled on the Hill this week and panels featuring industry lobbyists will provide forums for venting. In fact, with its aims to spark action from Congress and in the agencies, including heavy lifting at the FCC, the blueprint may also inadvertently pay many telecom lobbyists' salaries over the next few years in a sector that already spends exorbitantly on sway.

Newspaper Ads Tumbled to 1963 Levels Last Year
Ryan Chittum writes for the Columbia Journalism Review: "The New York Times reports that newspaper advertising tanked by more than 27 percent last year, shedding $10 billion from 2008. Online advertising swooned more than 11 percent, which would largely be, I suspect, because it’s so tied to print sales via upsells."

"We're At a Ground Zero Moment to Save Real Journalism"

Byard Duncan writes for AlterNet: "On March 24, 2010, the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, in Ithaca, NY announced that award-winning independent journalist Jeremy Scahill would receive the second annual 'Izzy Award.' The Izzy, which is named after the legendary muckraker I.F. Stone, celebrates outstanding achievement in independent media. Last year's winners were Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com." Photo Credit: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t

Public Knowledge and Free Press: Sprint Shutdown of Haiti Relief Effort Shows FCC Needs to Protect Text Messaging
Liz Rose writes for Free Press: "Public Knowledge and Free Press said this new incident provided fresh evidence that the FCC needs to act to prevent telephone companies from having unlimited power to shut down text-messaging campaigns they may not like for whatever reason. A petition filed by those two groups and others asking the FCC to protect text messaging from the whims of big telephone companies has been pending at the FCC since Dec. 11, 2007, after Verizon arbitrarily denied NARAL Pro-Choice America a short code for text messages to be sent to that group’s members."

Court OKs Local Media Consolidation
Ira Teinowitz reports for The Wrap: "An appellate court panel Tuesday removed its hold on a 2007 Federal Communications Commission rule that let newspapers and broadcasters buy each other in a market. But while lifting the hold, the three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said it would continue to look at the rule’s legality. The move appears to let Tribune Company and some other media companies keep their TV stations -- and could further consolidate local media."

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now! - Court Strikes Down Restrictions on Media Ownership

A federal court has lifted a key set of government rules aimed at curbing media consolidation in the United States. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit struck down the FCC's ban on ownership by a single company of both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same market. The media reform group Free Press urged the FCC to respond to the ruling.