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.

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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."

Clippings for 14 February 2011

Obama Budget Seeks Deep Cuts in Domestic Spending

Jackie Calmes reports for The New York Times News Service via Truthout: "President Obama, who is proposing his third annual budget on Monday, will say that it can reduce projected deficits by $1.1 trillion over the next decade, enough to stabilize the nation’s fiscal health and buy time to address its longer-term problems, according to a senior administration official. Two-thirds of the reductions that Mr. Obama will claim are from cuts in spending, including in many domestic programs that he supports. Among the reductions for just the next fiscal year, 2012, which starts Oct. 1, are more than $1 billion from airport grants and nearly $1 billion from grants to states for water treatment plants and similar projects. Public health and forestry programs would also be cut."

House Republicans to Propose Deeper Budget Cuts
Lisa Mascaro reports for the L. A. Times: "On the heels of an uprising by rookie Republican lawmakers, House leaders Friday will unveil a new budget proposal that instructs appropriators to slice deeper to reduce the 2011 budget by the $100 billion the GOP promised voters last fall. The new proposal is expected to produce steep cuts and may require job losses in government agencies, putting some elected officials in the difficult position of choosing between fiscal austerity or employment opportunity as the nation continues to struggle with high unemployment during the economic recovery."

G.O.P. Ignores Jobs Crisis, Targets Theoretical Crisis

Zachary Kolodin writes for New Deal 2.0: "Millennials have spent their entire political lives waiting for America to get over the culture wars of the 1970-1990s and deal with our urgent problems. President Obama took a big step in the right direction by addressing America’s health care access problem through major reform. Now, the Republican Congress has taken its turn by announcing that it will attempt to avert a crisis through $2.5 trillion in spending cuts with H.R. 408. Unfortunately, faced with two “crises,” the GOP chose theory over reality. On the one hand, the US has a long-term budget problem — over the next thirty years or so, the rising costs of Medicare and Medicaid will cause unprecedented national debt, which will impair growth and stability. On the other hand, the US has an urgent jobs crisis right now. Millions of Americans find themselves out of work and completely strapped. An entire generation of young people trying to start families finds itself without stability and without an outlet for their remarkable energy."

Blueprint: Ensuring Job Security by Protecting Workers

Progessive States Network writes: "Ask voters in any state what single issue concerns them the most, and the answer is likely to be the same: the economy and jobs. More than two years removed from a crisis that caused the greatest economic downturn in generations, Americans with a job still feel as vulnerable as ever, while those out of work through no fault of their own worry every day about finding an increasingly scarce commodity: a good job that will allow them to provide for their families." Graphic source: Institute for Policy Studies

Obama Assertion: FBI Can Get Phone Records Without Oversight
Marisa Taylor reports for McClatchy Newspapers: "The Obama administration's Justice Department has asserted that the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the U.S. without any formal legal process or court oversight, according to a document obtained by McClatchy. That assertion was revealed — perhaps inadvertently — by the department in its response to a McClatchy request for a copy of a secret Justice Department memo. Critics say the legal position is flawed and creates a potential loophole that could lead to a repeat of FBI abuses that were supposed to have been stopped in 2006."

More Troops Lost to Suicide

John Donnelly writes for Congress.org: "For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reasons are complicated and the accounting uncertain — for instance, should returning soldiers who take their own lives after being mustered out be included? But the suicide rate is a further indication of the stress that military personnel live under after nearly a decade of war."

Why Hershey's Chocolate Isn't My Valentine
Titania Kumeh reports for Mother Jones: "As far as sweet confections go, chocolate tops my list. But the sourcing reality of some mass-produced chocolate's main ingredient, cocoa, is a bitter pill to swallow. Six years ago, children who had been trafficked from Mali to Cote d'Ivoire to work on cocoa plantations filed a lawsuit in US courts against Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Nestle. The children described being beaten and forced to work for 12 to 14 hours a day without pay, given little food and sleep. The lawsuit is ongoing."

The Environment as Our Common Heritage

James K. Boyce comments for TripleCrisis: "What does it mean to say that the environment is our 'common heritage'? On one level this is a simple statement of fact: when we are born, we come into a world that is not of our own making. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the natural resources on which our livelihoods depend, and the accumulated knowledge and information that underpin our ability to use these resources wisely - all these come to us as gifts of creation passed on to us by preceding generations and enriched by their innovations and creativity."

Taking Climate Denial to New Extremes
By Kate Sheppard reports for Mother Jones: "The spending plan the House GOP was supposed to roll out on Thursday included a number of cuts meant to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from doing anything about climate change. But Republicans had to take that plan back to the drawing board Thursday night after tea party members claimed the package of cuts didn't go deep enough. And if a trio of House members get their way, we won't ever have to worry about the climate—since we won't know what's happening with it, anyway."

John Hanger, PA’s Former Environmental Chief, Talks About Challenges of Keeping Gas Drilling Safe

Nicholas Kusnetz reports for ProPublica: "John Hanger, who led Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection until January, recently talked with ProPublica about the challenges of trying to regulate the expanding drilling industry. Hanger joined the DEP in 2008, when gas drilling in the state's Marcellus Shale formation was ramping up. During his tenure, the department tightened drilling regulations by limiting the discharge of certain pollutants into rivers and streams, strengthening standards for new wells, banning development within 150 feet of certain waterways and requiring drillers to include water-use and waste-disposal plans with their well permit applications. Before he joined the department, Hanger was president and CEO of PennFuture, an environmental organization. He left the DEP when Tom Corbett took over as governor." Photo: Philadelphia Independent Media Center

REPORT: At Least 13 States Have Introduced Bills Guarding Against Non-Existent Threat Of Sharia Law
Zaid Jilani reports for Think Progress: "This past November, Oklahoma voters by a 70-30 percent margin passed a ballot question that barred “state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.” The new law — which was widely considered as unfairly targeting the Muslim community and blaming it for the non-existent threat of Sharia law in the United states — was blocked by an injunction issued just a few weeks later by federal judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange. The judge argued that the Sharia ban was unconstitutional because it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment and unfairly singled out Muslims."

Arizona Sues Feds for Not Being Tough Enough on Immigration
Julianne Hing writes for ColorLines: "Arizona is sick of being a defendant in lawsuit after lawsuit challenging the state’s harsh anti-immigration policies. On Thursday Gov. Jan Brewer announced that the state is turning the tables and suing the federal government in a countersuit to the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against SB 1070. Brewer accused the federal government of failing to enforce federal immigration laws, failing to control the Arizona-Mexico border and failing to protect the state from violence."

Pelosi: GOP Offers The ‘Most Comprehensive And Radical Assault On Women’s Health In Our Lifetime’

Igor Volsky writes for Think Progress: "On a conference call with reporters and bloggers this afternoon, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) characterized the GOP’s recent legislative effort to restrict access to abortion and contraception as “the most comprehensive and radical assault on women’s health in our life time,” promising to wage a campaign against the effort. Pelosi was referring to the Republican-backed H.R. 3 “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” and H.R. 358, “Protect Life Act,” as well separate measures to eliminate federal funding for family planning."

'Forcible Rape' Language Remains In Bill To Restrict Abortion Funding
Amanda Terkel writes for the Huffington Post: "After significant public blowback, House Republicans last week promised to drop a controversial provision in their high-priority No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act that would redefine rape. But almost a week later, that language is still in the bill. Last week, a spokesman for the bill's principal sponsor, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), said, "The word forcible will be replaced with the original language from the Hyde Amendment." The Hyde Amendment bans taxpayer dollars from being used for abortions, except in cases of incest and rape -- not just "forcible rape," as the Smith bill, H.R. 3, would have it."

10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan

Alex Seitz-Wald reports for Think Progress: "Tomorrow (February 6th) will mark the 100th anniversary of President Reagan’s birth, and all week, conservatives have been trying to outdo each others’ remembrances of the great conservative icon. Senate Republicans spent much of Thursday singing Reagan’s praise from the Senate floor, while conservative publications have been running non-stop commemorations. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee and former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich are hoping to make a few bucks off the Gipper’s centennial.  "

Clarence Thomas Gets Away With Breaking the Law; Ginny Thomas Shills for Right-Wing Interests
Nancy Goldstein reports for AlterNet: "When it comes to the financial and ethical improprieties of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, there is only bad news and worse news. That's true not only in terms of what they've done but because there's so little reason to believe they'll ever be held accountable for their active role in tainting our judiciary with the money and influence of their wealthy, conservative GOP patrons."

Backward, Christian Soldiers

Mikey Weinstein

Stephen Glain reports for The Nation: "Late last summer, Mikey Weinstein broke up a fight between Crystal and Ginger, the guard dogs trained to protect him and his family from a violent reckoning with Christian zealots. For the 55-year-old civil rights activist committed to ridding the US military of religious intolerance, it was a refreshingly secular and evenly matched bout. Weinstein is, after all, famously combative, both pugnacious and profane, with the bearing and sensibility of a mastiff. In the end he prevailed and peace was restored, though at the price of some bad scratches on his arms and a hole in his right hand where a well-aimed canine had struck." Photo: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t

10 Historical 'Facts' Only a Right-Winger Could Believe
Roy Edroso reports for AlterNet: "As you may have noticed by following their writings, conservatives are not sticklers for historical accuracy, especially when they have a point to defend and not a lot of evidence to support it. Get a load, for example, of John Podhoretz explaining how the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani reduced abortions in New York City (though, um, not really) because he cut crime, which is one of "the spiritual causes of abortion."

ENDA: The Longest Journey

David Mixner comments on his blog: "The Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) has had a long and frustrating journey. The original legislation was introduced by Congresswoman Bella Abzug (D-New York) and then Congressman Ed Koch (D- New York) on May 14, 1974. Called the "Gay Rights Bill" it would have added sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Senator Paul Tsongas and Senator Edward Kennedy became big champions of the legislation in the United States Senate."

Fox News Insider: "Stuff Is Just Made Up"

Eric Boehlert reports for Media Matters for America: "A former Fox News employee who recently agreed to talk with Media Matters confirmed what critics have been saying for years about Murdoch's cable channel. Namely, that Fox News is run as a purely partisan operation, virtually every news story is actively spun by the staff, its primary goal is to prop up Republicans and knock down Democrats, and that staffers at Fox News routinely operate without the slightest regard for fairness or fact checking."

High-speed Wireless Access for Entire US will Spark Innovation, Obama says
Mark Guarino reports for the Christian Science Monitor: "Emphasizing a goal he set out in his State of the Union address, President Obama promoted a plan Thursday for 98 percent of Americans to have high-speed wireless Internet access within five years.  In remarks given at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Mr. Obama said his proposal, titled the National Wireless Initiative, would boost small-business development and would be of particular use in rural areas. He likened high-speed wireless access to the transcontinental railroad, which united both coasts of America. 'This isn’t just about faster Internet or being able to find a friend on Facebook. It’s about connecting every corner of America to the digital age,' he said."

Recommended Audio: Media Matters Feb 13th - Interview with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps

Copps served until January 2001 as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Trade Development at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where he was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Basic Industries. Copps came to Washington in 1970, joining the staff of Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) and serving for over a dozen years as Chief of Staff. He has also held positions at a Fortune 500 company and at a major trade association. Before coming to Washington, Copps was a professor of U.S. History at Loyola University of the South. Copps received a B.A. from Wofford College and earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

FCC Chairman Genachowski 'Out of Touch' with Broadband Reality
Free Press writes: "FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski delivered a speech to the Broadband Acceleration Conference touting the value of broadband and the need for continued investment in its infrastructure. He promised to cut the "red tape" that stands as "a significant obstacle to broadband deployment." Genachowski's statements are further evidence that he's more interested in appeasing the giant phone and cable companies than in solving the real problems in the American broadband market."

Engaging the Muslim World

For our second hour we will broadcast Carolyn Benton Cockefair Chair in Continuing Education lecture given by Juan Cole on Nov. 15, 2010, at the University of Missouri - Kansas City entitled “Engaging the Muslim World."

Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His most recent book is Engaging the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan, March, 2009). As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the United States Senate. He has published several peer-reviewed books on the modern Middle East and is a translator of both Arabic and Persian. Since 2002, he has written a weblog, Informed Comment.

MP3 File

Nov. 18 - Andy Worthington on GITMO

Community Bridge opens with British journalist Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and co-director with Polly Nash of the documentary film, Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.

Having spent several years looking at the undercurrents of post-war British social history — in particular the clash between the state and some of its most outspoken critics (protest movements, travellers and alternative communities) — Worthington turned his attention to the “War on Terror” in 2006. Like many decent-minded citizens of the world, he had been deeply concerned, from the moment Guantánamo opened in January 2002, that the US administration’s response to 9/11 was both cruel and misguided, but although Worthington conducted some research in the years that followed, it was not until March 2006, when he read Enemy Combatant by the released British prisoner Moazzam Begg, that he asked himself the fateful question, “Who’s in Guantánamo?” The quest to answer this question consumed over a year of his life, and led to the creation of "The Guantánamo Files."

The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, published by Pluto Press, and distributed in the US by Macmillan, includes reviews by released Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, lawyers Clive Stafford Smith, Marc Falkoff and Candace Gorman, authors Michelle Shephard, Stephen Grey and Peter Bergen, film-maker Ken Loach, and film producer Marty Fisher. The book is available from Amazon.

MP3 File

What Every Kansan Needs to Know about Kris Kobach

The Republican's nominee for the job of Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, is a well know nativist extremist who makes a living by drafting anti-immigrant laws and, after they are adopted, trains officers to enforce them. If the laws are challenged, he goes to court to defend them. Quite the racket since the laws are always rule unconstitutional and in the mean time he lines his pockets with tax-payer dollars from the legal fees he racks up.

Immigration lawyer Angie Williams and UMKC law student Raymond Rico join us for a frank discussion of Kobach and his anti-immigrant crusade.

MP3 File

Clippings for 22 August 2010

Recommended Audio - Obama: No Corporate Takeover of Our Democracy

In his weekly address the President calls out Republicans for blocking campaign finance reforms that would address the Supreme Court decision opening the floodgates of corporate money into elections.

Transcript available at Truthout.org.



What Will Become of Us, of America, If We Continue on this Path?
Lorraine Berry writes for Common Dreams: "In 2006, David Grossman addressed a crowd that had gathered on November 4. November 4 is the date that Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. It is important to note, if you read through the entire speech (and please, please do so), that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in the crowd."

Housing Crisis a Symptom of Capitalism's Failure

Rick Wolff comments for Truthout: "This capitalist crisis resembles a certain kind of serious disease. Different symptoms keep flaring up at different locations. It began with subprime mortgages in residential housing. Then, sequential flare-ups hit the private banking system, forced millions out of their jobs and homes, drastically cut world trade, and undermined the public services and national debts of several European countries. Meanwhile, another symptom festered in the credit freeze crippling so much private borrowing. Now, yet another symptom matures, as government subsidies and supports to our crisis-ridden private housing industry add rising billions to the deficit." Photo: woodley wonderworks / Flickr

10 Common Sense Principles for a New Economy
David Korten writes for Yes! magazine: "I find hope in the fact that millions of people the world over are seeing through the moral and practical fallacies underlying the Wall Street economy and—by contributing to the creation of a New Economy—are taking charge of their economic lives."

Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty Inc. - How the Working Poor Became Big Business

Brittany Shoot reviews Gary Rivlin's book for Truthout: "If you're familiar with the Midwest, you'll likely recognize these names: Check Into Cash, Check 'n' Go, Advance America, National Cash Advance. Organizations less familiar to you may be the Home Defense Program and Center for Community Self-Help, two organizations dedicated to fighting predatory loans and high-interest subprime mortgages."

Five Years Later: How Katrina changed New Orleans and the way I think about my hometown.
Josh Levin writes for Slate.com: "It's been a long time since I thought about Katrina every day. As part of the New Orleans diaspora, I'm never confronted by visible reminders of the destruction—the abandoned buildings and the empty lots and the houses that still have death tolls spray painted across their front doors. When I put on my gold Saints cap, I think about the Super Bowl, not the team's near-departure for Los Angeles or San Antonio the year after the storm. But a fleur-de-lis isn't just a fleur-de-lis. A week ago, a man sitting by himself on the bus spotted my hat, took off his headphones, and told me he left New Orleans as the hurricane tore through—that he's desperate to move back but hasn't been able to make it happen. He thinks about Katrina every day."

Obama's Healthcare Achievements

Theda Skocpol comments for The Nation: "Eric Alterman is thoughtful and eloquent as he describes progressive disappointments with Obama's first eighteen months in the presidency and probes the huge obstacles to progressive change built into our divided and institutionally cumbersome system of governance. I don't disagree with many specific points he makes. But the bottom line he draws could not be more wrongheaded. Against huge counterwinds, President Obama and his unwieldy party have managed to enact major reforms: they took higher education loans away from bankers and enhanced funding for lower- and middle-income students; they created a regulatory framework that will start to rein in Wall Street financial shenanigans; they have used regulations where legislation was impossible to further workers' rights and prod environmental improvements; and they achieved comprehensive healthcare reforms that are the most far-reaching and economically redistributive social accomplishments since the New Deal."

Ground Zero Mosque Iman

Brad Gooch writes for The Daily Beast: "Over the last decade, I occasionally experienced the trompe l’oeil kick of watching a familiar face (and voice) on TV. “I know that guy,” I’d think, catching Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf on Sunday morning talk shows. The tickle of recognition began to turn to shock, though, about a month ago, when Rauf, as imam of the proposed Cordoba House (also called the “ground zero mosque”), morphed from talking head to the hot topic itself. As the story popped from a page 3 item on a Community Board 1 meeting in The New York Times to the cover of the New York Post to the cover of Time, from Bloomberg’s comments to Obama’s (three times, and counting), Feisal Rauf is suddenly a household name. For once, everyone was debating about something I knew firsthand. But I have been having trouble connecting their dots with the dots I know." Photo: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf delivers a Friday sermon at the Al-Farah Mosque in New York City. (Christian Science Monitor / Getty Images)

Fallout of Hate Is Spreading Across America from "Ground Zero"
Joshua Holland writes for AlterNet: "Scientists building the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos referred to the coordinates where a test device was detonated as “point zero.” When the horror of nuclear warfare was unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the term “Ground Zero” entered our lexicon. The expression has come to mean the epicenter of a catastrophic event, be it a nuclear detonation, a disease epidemic or an earthquake. It is the point from which damage spreads, whether it’s radioactive fallout or a deadly contagion."

Fire Department Blocks Florida Church's Plan To Burn Korans

Evan McMorris-Santoro reports for Talking Points Memo: "Remember that Florida 'church' with the plan to torch a pile of Korans in commemoration of 9/11? Turns out there's one thing they weren't counting on: a local Fire Department that's stingy with outdoor fire permits. According to the Gainesville Sun, fire chief Gene Prince told the church 'that under the city's fire prevention ordinance, an open burning of books is not allowed.' Turns out town code 10-63, a 'General prohibition on outdoor burning and open burning,' specifically outlaws the burning of (section 6) 'Newspaper' and (7) 'Corrugated cardboard, container board, office paper.'" Photo: Nazi officials burning books in 1933; Illinois Holocaust Museum.

Troops Punished After Refusing to Attend Evangelical Concert
Mike Ludwig reports for Truthout.org: "Pvt. Anthony Smith is the type of guy who stands up for what he believes in. That's why he decided to hold his commanding officers accountable for punishing him and fellow soldiers after they refused to attend an evangelical Christian rock concert at the Fort Eustis military post in Virginia."

The Far Edge
The New York Times writes in an editorial: "For months, it has been clear that Republican Congressional candidates would benefit from independent voters’ dissatisfaction with President Obama. With the Republican field now largely in place, all voters might want to take a close look at who those candidates are."

History Does Not Lie - Unless It Is Being Invented by Republicans
Paul Krugman writes for Truthout.org: "When you consistently irritate the hard right in the United States as I do, you quickly get used to the steady stream of accusations that you’re lying, simply because you didn’t present the facts in a way that suits the commenter. If I write, 'The economy added 236,000 jobs a month under Bill Clinton,' the responses from conservatives will range from 'That’s a lie! Krugman doesn’t mention the dot-com bubble!' to 'That’s cherry-picking! What about Jimmy Carter?'"

How Kids Really Learn

Kevin Drum writes for Mother Jones: "Several years ago I was visiting with some friends and happened to get into a conversation with their four-year-old daughter. I don't remember why, but we got to talking about numbers, and as adults will do, I started quizzing her. Do you know what two plus two is? She did. How about four plus three. No problem. Six plus five? Nine plus four? Eight plus seven? Yes, yes, and yes. That was about as far as she could go, but I was pretty impressed. That's not bad for a four-year-old, is it?" Photo: Tom Gill/Flickr

Three Pillars of a Food Revolution
Anna Lappé writes for YES! Magazine: "A few years ago, I stumbled on a United Nations study that transformed how I think about the climate crisis. In the report, researchers pegged greenhouse gases from the livestock sector at 18 percent of total global emissions. Combine this with other aspects of our food chain-from agricultural chemical production to agribusiness driven deforestation to food waste rotting in landfills-and food and agriculture sector is responsible for nearly one third of the planet's manmade emissions. Move over Hummer; it's time to say hello to the hamburger."

Study Links Pesticide to ADHD in Children
Thomas H. Maugh II reports for the Los Angeles Times: "Children with higher levels of the pesticide malathion in their urine seem to be at an increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, researchers reported Monday. Several previous studies have linked neurodevelopmental and behavioral disorders such as ADHD to exposure to pesticides, but generally in children of farmworkers and others exposed to abnormally high levels of the chemicals."

Egg Recall: Supplier Austin 'Jack' DeCoster Has History Of Health, Safety Violations

MARY CLARE JALONICK writes for the Associated Press via the Huffington Post: "Two Iowa farms that recalled more than a half-billion eggs linked to as many as 1,300 cases of salmonella poisoning share suppliers of chickens and feed as well as ties to an Iowa business routinely cited for violating state and federal law. Food and Drug Administration investigators have yet to determine the cause of the salmonella outbreaks at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. The FDA investigation could take months, and sources of contamination are often difficult to find." Photo: Associated Press

Gulf Oil Spill Plume Stretches 21 Miles, Not Breaking Down Much
Pete Spotts reports for The Christian Science Monitor: "A plume of oil some 700 feet thick and at least 21 miles long has been detected deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico. It originated at the Deepwater Horizon blowout and consists of hydrocarbons from the well, according to measurements released Thursday. The survey, conducted by US and Australian scientists during a 10-day research cruise in late June, represents the most detailed picture yet of undersea plumes of oil and methane from the Gulf oil spill. The researchers were surprised by the plume's relative stability as well as by an apparent lack of activity on the part of microbes to break down the oil."

Gov't Admits There's A Lot More Oil Left In The Gulf Than They Initially Said
Rachel Slajda reports for Talking Points Memo: "Earlier this month, as BP pumped cement into the ruined blowout preventer on the bottom of the Gulf, the government released a four-page, scant-on-details report that claimed that only a quarter of the 4.9 millions of barrels of oil was left in the Gulf. The rest, they said, had been cleaned up, evaporated or dispersed into nonexistence. And so the government essentially declared 'Mission Accomplished!' in the Gulf."

Shifting Attitudes Take Gay Rights Fight Across Globe, Experts Say

Eliott C. McLaughlin writes for CNN: "In signing Argentina's same-sex marriage law, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said debate over the issue would be 'absolutely anachronistic' -- archaic, out of date -- within a few years. Striking down California's Proposition 8 two weeks later, Judge Vaughn Walker was more specific, saying there was no evidence for old-fashioned stereotypes that painted gays 'as disease vectors or as child molesters who recruit young children into homosexuality.' Banning people from marrying based on sexual orientation, the President Reagan appointee explained, is 'irrational.'" Photo: Agency French Press

Verizon and Google Want to Kill the Open Internet -- Media Mogul Confirms Their Bad Intentions
Rep. Alan Grayson writes for AlterNet: "The Verizon-Google Net Neutrality Proposal begins by stating that "Google and Verizon have been working together to find ways to preserve the open Internet." Well, that's nice. Imagine what they would have come up with if they had been trying to kill off the open Internet. Actually, you don't have to imagine it. Because that's what this is. An effort to kill off the open Internet."

An Open Internet for All

MIGNON CLYBURN and MICHAEL J. COPPS write for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: "The Internet was born on openness, has flourished on openness and depends on openness for its future potential. This incredible technology intersects with just about every great challenge confronting our nation -- jobs, education, energy, the environment, news, international competitiveness, health care, equal opportunity."

Heads Knocking On Net Neutrality
Mike Magner writes for the National Journal: "While telecom lobbyists are brainstorming in Washington on strategies for preserving Internet openness, two members of the FCC are headed to Minnesota today to get some public input on the mushrooming issue of net neutrality. Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn were invited by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., to attend a public forum in Minneapolis this evening on the future of the Internet. Franken's office pointedly noted that the hearing "comes in the wake of Google's pact with Verizon to build toll lanes on the Internet," a reference to a legislative proposal floated by the two companies last week offering an alternative to stronger FCC regulation of the Internet.

New Facebook Location Feature Sparks Privacy Concerns

Jenna Worthman writes for the New York Times: "Moments after Facebook introduced a new feature called Facebook Places on Wednesday that allows its users to share their location and find their friends, advocates raised flags over online privacy. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California cited concerns over the new product, saying Facebook neglected to include several crucial privacy features."

Recommended Audio: Watch Obama's Net Neutrality Promises, Promises, Promises

Bianca Boske writes for the Huffington Post: "President Obama campaigned on net neutrality, and yet the White House has been surprisingly quiet on the issue since the breakdown of FCC negotiations and in the wake of Google and Verizon's joint policy proposal. By contrast, as the video below highlights, we heard a great deal about net neutrality from Senator Obama while he was on the campaign trail. Both before and after taking office, Obama repeatedly expressed his unwavering commitment to maintaining an open Internet."

Tea Partiers Say Net Neutrality Hurts Freedom
Evan McMorris-Santoro writes for Talking Points Memo: "The tea party, a movement whose success on the grassroots level is in many ways attributable to the power of free and open Internet communications, is joining the growing conservative crusade against the FCC's plan to enforce net neutrality on internet service providers. According to one tea partier involved in the effort, the movement is opposing net neutrality because 'it's an affront to free speech and free markets.'"