Guadalupe: Undocumented Youth in Search of the American Dream

Approximately 2 million undocumented children are educated in American schools, hold American values, know only the U.S. as home and who, upon high school graduation, find the door to their future slammed shut. As a follow up to the screening of the film Papers: Stories of Undocumented Youth on K-State in September, 2010. The film explores the challenges that face undocumented youth and the gridlock around immigration reform in the United States.

The panel was moderated by Michael Kaye, law professor at Washburn University, and included: Roberta Farrell, Immigration Attorney; Amanda Morales, Ph.D., Graduate Student Advisor K-State College of Education; Jonathan Willmouth, Immigration Attorney; Rep. Sydney Carlin, state legislator; and Erin Fleming who works extensively with undocumented youth-many of whom are actually pictured in the film. Fleming is part of the KS/MO DREAM Alliance-a local Kansas City group made up of mostly undocumented youth, as well as national projects such as The DREAM Is Coming and United We DREAM. The panel walks through the life of an undocumented youth trying to go to college and explore the roadblocks she encounters.

The panel was sponsored by Alianza, Community Cultural Harmony Week, Dorothy L. Thompson Lecture Series, and Multicultural Business Student Association.

MP3 File

Clippings for 31 December 2009

Community Bridge wishes our listeners a 2010 filled with good health, happiness,  self-fulfillment, and an end to war.

2009 - The Year in Review
John Reimann writes for The Daily Censored: "In the early morning hours of Jan. 1, 2009, a white transit cop in Oakland, California, shot and killed Oscar Grant, a young black man. Grant was lying face down on a train platform with his hands handcuffed behind his back at the time of the shooting. The cop claimed he thought Grant was going for a gun. Thus was the New Year ushered in."

Six Things to Do in 2010
Jim Hightower writes for Creators.com: "In my travels, I've heard many cries of despair from you good folks about the timorous Obama presidency. On issue after issue, it's been go-slow and don't-rock-the-corporate boat. 'Where's the "audacity of hope?"' people are asking. 'Where's the "change you can believe in?"' The answer is that in our country's democracy, audacity and change are where they've always resided: out there with you and me, at the grassroots level. For some reason, the guy who was elected by running from the outside is now trying to govern from the inside — which is where change is taken to die."

Andrew O'Hehir on the Best Movies of the Decade
Andrew O'Hehir writes for Salon.com:"A year of living one's life and watching movies can be considered in the abstract, as if it were an interesting phenomenon that happened to someone else. A year doesn't seem to matter that much. Sure, we're all that little bit older than we were last year. We've survived the tomato blight and the release of "Hotel for Dogs" and grown accustomed to the once-implausible phrase "President Obama." But it was just a year. We've lived through a bunch of them already, and most of us are hoping for a decent number still to come."

Anthony Lane to Zadie Smith: My 26 top cultural moments of the 2000s in alphabetical order.
Troy Patterson writes for Slate.com: "Anthony Lane on Her Majesty in "Battle Royal," a review of The Queen in The New Yorker, Oct. 9, 2006. Hot Brit-on-Brit action. Probably the greatest critic-on-movie match-up of all time. (It surpasses James Agee's review of The Lost Weekend, an appropriately evasive lush-on-lush spectacle.) Themes include the aristocracy of taste and the English way of death, the facade of Tony Blair, and the carriage of Helen Mirren. Divine, right?"

Recommended Audio Visual: The Best Galleries of 2009 - from Magnum Photos.

Autumn of the Republic?
Kirk Nielsen reviews some recent books on the U.S. for Miller-McCune: "Did America slip into a semiliterate, polarized, pre-fascist state over the past decade or so, allowing greedy oligarchs and corporate elites to run the government? Two books I recently read offer reasonably persuasive evidence and arguments that the country did, and a third suggests that dictatorial mindsets could besiege Americans, with an assist from the Internet, if they don't come to their more deliberative senses."

The Global War on Stealth Underware
Robert Scheer writes for Truthdig.com: "There is no “war” against terrorism. What George W. Bush launched and Barack Obama insists on perpetuating does not qualify. Not if by war one means doing the obvious and checking a highly suspicious air traveler’s underwear to see if explosives have been sewn in. If Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had put the stuff in his shoes we would have had him because that was tried before, but our government was too preoccupied with fighting unnecessary conventional wars and developing anti-missile defense systems to anticipate such a primitive delivery system."

Who's Running the TSA? No One, Thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint
Margaret Talev reports for McClatchy Newspapers: "An attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration - if there were one. The post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) has held up President Barack Obama's nominee in opposition to the prospect of TSA workers joining a labor union." 

Craving Terrorist Melodramma
Glenn Greenwald writes for Salon.com: "As dumb as our political discourse typically is, it gets dumber by many magnitudes whenever there's a terrorism-related scare (of the Islamic variety).  From The Washington Post's editorial writer Jo-Ann Armao:

Why is Obama still in Hawaii?
President Obama wants us all to know he’s taking seriously the attempted terrorist attack of Christmas Day and that his administration is doing all it can to ensure our safety.  But his words would be a lot more convincing if not delivered during time snatched between rounds of golf, swimming and sunbathing. . . ."

On Day We Will All Be Terrorists
Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig.com: "Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at Guantánamo Bay, but also at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan. Hashmi is a U.S. citizen of Muslim descent imprisoned on two counts of providing and conspiring to provide material support and two counts of making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to al-Qaida. As his case prepares for trial, his plight illustrates that the gravest threat we face is not from Islamic extremists, but the codification of draconian procedures that deny Americans basic civil liberties and due process. Hashmi would be a better person to tell you this, but he is not allowed to speak."

Eight GOP Senators Opposed Bill that Funded Airport Screening and Explosive Detection
Sam Stein reports for the Huffington Post: "Some of the same Republican lawmakers currently criticizing the President for softness on terrorism voted back in July 2007 against legislation that, among other reforms, provided $250 million for airport screening and explosive detection equipment.  The Improving America's Security Act of 2007 was a relatively non-controversial measure that effectively implemented several un-acted-upon recommendations from the 9/11 Commission. Eighty-five Senators voted in favor of the bill's passage. Seven missed the vote (several of whom were on the campaign trail, including Barack Obama, John McCain and Chris Dodd)."

The New Call for Full Body Scanners
Irene North writes for The Daily Censored: "No one really wanted full body scanners. There were numerous talks of invasions of privacy and viable cases of abuse of that privacy. Today, however, the pantsbomber has made that discussion return to the forefront, with many people readily giving up their privacy because they now feel that the government knows what they’re doing. For the skeptic in me, it all seems rather convenient."

Terrorism Still Less Deadly in US Than Lack of Health Insurance, Salmonella
Blue Texan writes for the Firedodlake blog: "Since we still seem to be having a national freakout over some loser who got on a plane with a bomb in his underwear, which was apparently worthy of a presidential address, it might be a good idea to put the actual danger posed by terrorist attacks in some numerical perspective."



The Cowboys of Kabul
Daniel Schulman reports for Mother Jomes: "It was March 2002, and Del and Barbara Spier were flat broke. The Texas couple, grandparents of five and owners of a small, Houston-based private investigations firm, were more than $260,000 in debt. They carried balances as high as $18,600 on more than a dozen credit cards and were saddled with $80,000 in outstanding bank loans and a $95,000 mortgage. In their bankruptcy filing, the Spiers' company, which they founded in 1987 and named the Agency for Investigation and Protective Services, was deemed of 'no marketable value.'"

Inside the Military-Industrial-Media Complex: Impacts on Movement for Social Justice
Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff comment for Truthout: "Among the most important corporate media censored news stories of the past decade, one must be that over one million people have died because of the United States' military invasion and occupation of Iraq. This, of course, does not include the number of deaths from the first Gulf War nor the ensuing sanctions placed upon the country of Iraq that, combined, caused close to an additional one million Iraqi deaths."

US Military Is Meeting Recruitment Goals With Video Games - but at What Cost?
Jamie Holmes comments for The Christian Science Monitor: "For the first time since the establishment of all-volunteer forces in 1973, the US military has met all of its recruiting goals. This success can be attributed in part to the new video games and graphic novels aimed at America's youth. It may sound like the US military has solved a major recruitment problem, but there may be a high cost." 

Uncle Sam's Signature
Bruno Odet in an editorial and Cathy Ceibe in an interview with scholar Julio Navarro, both for L'Humanite, decry the continuing usurpation of power in Honduras: "The death squads are circulating once more. A week does not go by without atrociously mutilated corpses of militants from the various democratic organizations gathered together in the Resistance Front against the Coup d'Etat (FRCG) being found. The mutilations prove that they were tortured before being killed." -- English translation by Truthout.

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now - Anti-Mining Activists Killed in El Salvador
For the second time in a week, a prominent anti-mining activist has been assassinated in El Salvador. On Saturday, thirty-two-year-old Dora “Alicia” Recinos Sorto was shot dead near her home. One of her children was also injured in the shooting. Sorto was an active member of the Cabañas Environment Committee, which has campaigned against the reopening of a gold mine owned by the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Company.

Take Your Money Out of the Hands of the Banking Oligarchs
Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson write for Move your Money, via AlterNet: "Last week, over a pre-Christmas dinner, the two of us, along with political strategist Alexis McGill, filmmaker/author Eugene Jarecki, and Nick Penniman of the HuffPost Investigative Fund, began talking about the huge, growing chasm between the fortunes of Wall Street banks and Main Street banks, and started discussing what concrete steps individuals could take to help create a better financial system. Before long, the conversation turned practical, and with some help from friends in the world of bank analysis, a video and website were produced devoted to a simple idea: Move Your Money."

 

AIG Executives Failed to Repay Majority of Bonuses
Jason Leopold reports for Truthout: "Despite previous promises, beleaguered insurance giant American International Group (AIG) has failed to return tens of millions of dollars in bonus payments the firm doled out to executives following the company's spectacular unraveling and subsequent multibillion government bailout, according to a recent report by the special inspector general for the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)."

The Lingering Bush Legacy: What to do About Those Tax Cuts
Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers: "In the back of every Washington politician's mind is this sobering fact: Unless Congress acts, the temporary tax cuts it passed when George W. Bush was president will expire at the end of next year. If the Democrats who control Congress do nothing and let the tax rates on the highest income brackets return to their pre-2001 levels, their Republican rivals and many Americans will slam them as tax hikers."

Report Says ACORN Didn't Commit Voter Fraud or Misuse Federal Funding
Mary Susan Littlepage reports for Truthout: "The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) did not commit voter fraud, and it didn't misuse federal funding in the last five years, according to a recently released report prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan investigational arm of Congress."

The Racial Diversity of Hunger
David Bacon writes for the East Bay Express: "Everyone knows that Oakland is diverse. Probably more people from more races and nationalities live in the city than anywhere west of New York or north of Los Angeles. But before we celebrate diversity, think of its most diverse places. Some of them are surely the lines of hungry people lining up for food."

Burt's Bees, Tom's of Maine, Naked Juice: Your Favorite Brands? Take Another Look -- They May Not Be What They Seem
Andrea Whitfill writes for AlterNet: "My first introduction to natural, organic and eco-friendly products stems back to the early '90s, when I stumbled upon Burt’s Bees lip balm at an independently owned health food store in the heart of Westport, Kansas City, Mo. Before the eyesore invasion of ’98, when Starbucks frothed its way into the neighborhood, leading to its ultimate demise, Westport was the kind of  'hood I still yearn for. It was saturated with historically preserved, hip and funky, mom-and-pop-type establishments, delivering their goods people to people." This article was AlterNet's 6th most popular article in 2009.

Democracy's Baseline Need for Transparency
David Sirota comments in the Seattle Times: "This month, a British government report admitted that one of the major rationales for invading Iraq — the claim that Saddam could deploy WMDs in 45 minutes — probably came from a cabdriver. Had the public originally been told about this sketchy sourcing, there may have been a more, ahem, forceful mass opposition to pre-emptive war in the Middle East."

My Simple Fix for the Messed Up Sunday Shows
Jay Rosen writes on his blog: "Look, the Sunday morning talk shows are broken. As works of journalism they don't work. And I don't know why this is so hard for the producers to figure out. The people who host and supervise these shows, the journalists who appear on them, as well as the politicians who are interviewed each week, are all quite aware that extreme polarization and hyper-partisan conflict have come to characterize official Washington, an observation repeated hundreds of times a month by elders in the Church of the Savvy.  Ron Brownstein wrote a whole book on it: The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America."

Sunday 1 Nov. 09 - Honduras, Cornel West, & Net Neutrality

On this edition of After the Sunday Morning Talk Shows we first hear Sandip Roy interview Marcelo Ballve about the situation in Honduras for New America Media; then Tavis Smiley interviews Dr. Cornel West about Obama and his new memoir; finally Laura Flanders of GRIT TV interviews Timothy Karr of Free Press, Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge, and Karlos Schmieder of the Center for Media Justice about Net Neutrality.


MP3 File

Clippings for 8 October 2009

An ACORN Amendment for Pfizer
Jeremy Scahill writes for The Nation: "In the wake of the Congressional witch hunt against the community organization ACORN, initiated by Republican minority leader John Boehner and supported by all but seventy-five Democrats in the House and ten in the Senate (Independent Bernie Sanders also voted no), a small number of Democratic lawmakers are pushing back. Last week, in response to the Defund ACORN Act, which seeks to prohibit federal funds to the community group, Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced an ACORN act of her own. It is titled the "Against Corporations Organizing to Rip-off the Nation Act of 2009," also referred to simply as the ACORN Act. HR 3679 seeks to 'prohibit the Federal Government from awarding contracts, grants, or other agreements to, providing any other Federal funds to, or engaging in activities that promote certain corporations or companies guilty of certain felony convictions.'"

Eight Years Is Long Enough: What You Can Do to End the War in Afghanistan
Robert Rothberg writes for the nation (via AlterNet): "Within a matter of months a majority of Americans have shifted from supporting to opposing the Afghanistan war as we approach the eighth anniversary of the start of the conflict. According to recent polls, a solid 57 percent of Americans now object to the military effort. At the same time, Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for additional troops to prosecute the war is being studied by the White House, which will soon make a decision that could define the Obama presidency, as The Nation's editorial laying out the case against escalation, notes."

Are Pentagon Contracts Funding the Taliban?
Jean MacKenzie reports for GlobalPost: "It seemed like such a good idea at the time. At a staff meeting in 2006, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who was then commander of Combined Forces Afghanistan, took a sip of bottled water. Then he looked at the label of one of the Western companies that were being paid millions of dollars a year to ship bottled water by the container load into Afghanistan."

What Is Not Being Discussed in the Iran Nuclear Story
Bill Fletcher Jr. writes for The Black Commentator: " Last week's announcement of the discovery of a previously unknown but suspected nuclear research and production site became a major story in the Western media. The Obama administration, along with its allies in Europe, saw this as evidence of Iranian duplicity on the matter of its nuclear intentions. Though Iran admitted the existence of this facility, the manner in which it did so seemed to be directed at heading off the expose' from other sources."

Honduran Coup Regime in Crisis

Greg Grandin writes for The Nation: "How long can the Honduran crisis drag on, with President Manuel Zelaya, ousted in a military coup more than three months ago, trapped in Tegucigalpa's Brazilian Embassy? Well, in early 1949 in Peru, Víctor Haya de la Torre--one of last century's most important Latin American politicians--sought asylum in the Colombian Embassy in Lima, also following a military coup. There he remained for nearly six years, playing chess, baking cakes for the embassy staff's children and writing books. Soldiers surrounded the building for the duration, with Peru's authoritarian regime ignoring calls from the international community to end the siege, which was condemned by the Washington Post as a 'canker in hemisphere relations.'"

Recommended Audio - Republican Gomorrah: The Shattered GOP, Taken Over by Authoritarian Radicals, Is Incapable of Compromise

Terry Gross interviews author Max Blumenthal.  In his new book Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party, investigative reporter Max Blumenthal theorizes that a culture of "personal crisis" has transformed the Grand Old Party — and threatened its future.

Not All Vets Are Treated Equally Under the Post-9/11 GI Bill
Phillip Crystal writes for Truthdig.com: "The GI Bill was created in 1944 to help veterans returning from World War II not only to integrate back into society but also to give them a leg up in furthering their education. The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 was hailed by various media outlets and veterans organizations as the GI Bill of the future. However, through my own experience in dealing with Veterans Affairs regarding the GI Bill, I have found that the help is far less than what we were led to believe."

Goofing Up Health Care Reform
Jim Hightower writes for Truthout: "America's shouting match over health care reform has turned completely goofy - and I'm not talking about confused seniors at teabag rallies getting red-faced with anger after being told by the right-wing scare machine that 'government is trying to taker over Medicare.' No, I'm talking about our United States senators. Take Max Baucus. Please! He's the lightweight Montana Democrat to whom President Obama entrusted the heavy job of shepherding health care reform through the upper chamber. It was like asking Tweety Bird to lift a bowling ball."

Corporate Media Performing Miserably in Health Care Debate

Peter Dreier and Todd Gitlin write for AlterNet: "No one packed heat, no one screamed at a member of Congress, no one called anybody a Nazi, no fistfights broke out. So—no story.  All that happened was that on Thursday, Oct. 1, a moving van pulled up in front of the largest house in a Main Line neighborhood just outside Philadelphia—the home of H. Edward Hanway, CEO of CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies—and eight demonstrators from Health Care for America Now (HCAN) got out. One was Stacie Ritter, a former CIGNA customer whose twin girls were afflicted with cancer at the age of four. Their treatment left permanent damage. CIGNA refused to pay for the human growth hormones that her doctor prescribed to help her daughters grow properly. When her husband was briefly unemployed, they were bankrupted."

Rural Health Care, the Public Option and the Opt Out Compromise
Christopher Hayes writes for The Nation: "The latest health care legislative compromise being floated is one in which states would be allowed to opt out of offering a public option. Chris Bowers lists the problems with the proposal here. Ezra's more sanguine.  I suppose if someone put a gun to my head and the options were no public option or an opt-out compromise, I'd opt for the latter. (I should point out we're not at the gun-at-the-head stage yet). But it's also important to point out just how perverse the results of this compromise would be."


White House Religion Adviser Trying to Hijack Health Care For Anti-Choice Cause
Adele Stan writes from Mother Jones: "The Rev. Jim Wallis is sitting pretty these days. He's the evangelist the media love—so much so that Democrats kow-tow before him. He says he's progressive, and has some credentials to back up the claim: anti-poverty work and opposition to the Vietnam War. But he's opposed to legal abortion and same-sex marriage. Nonetheless, eager for an evangelical partner, President Obama named Wallis to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, giving Wallis the ideal platform from which to try to subvert the debate over health-care reform for his anti-choice cause."

Painful Lessons in the Pedagogy of School Violence
Henry A. Giroux writes for Truthout: "On May 20, 2009, Marshawn Pitts, a 15-year-old African-American boy, who is also a special needs student, was walking down the corridor of the Academy for Learning High School in Dolton, Illinois. A police officer in the school noticed that the boy's shirt was not tucked in and started shouting and swearing at him. Pitts claims that he immediately started to tuck in his shirt, but it was too late. Within seconds, the police officer pushed him into the lockers, repeatedly punched him and then slammed him to the ground and pushed his face to the floor."

Clippings for 9 August 2009

Is the US on the Brink of Fascism?
Sara Robinson comments for The Campaign for America's Future: "In tracking the mileage on this trip to perdition, many of us relied on the work of historian Robert Paxton, who is probably the world's pre-eminent scholar on the subject of how countries turn fascist. In a 1998 paper published in The Journal of Modern History, Paxton argued that the best way to recognize emerging fascist movements isn't by their rhetoric, their politics, or their aesthetics. Rather, he said, mature democracies turn fascist by a recognizable process, a set of five stages that may be the most important family resemblance that links all the whole motley collection of 20th Century fascisms together ... It's odd that I haven't been asked for quite a while; but if you asked me today, I'd tell you that if we're not there right now, we've certainly taken that last turn into the parking lot and are now looking for a space."

Inside Story on Town Hall Riots: Right-Wing Shock Troops Do Corporate America's Dirty Work
Adele Stan reports for AlterNet: "The recent spate of town hall dustups may look like an overnight sensation, but they've been years, even decades, in the making. Since the days in the late 1970s, when the New Right began its takeover of the Republican Party, it has cultivated a militia of white people armed with a grudge against those who brought forth the social changes of the '60s. These malcontents have been promised their day of retribution, a day for which they are more than ready. Few seem to understand that they are merely dupes for a corporate agenda that will only worsen the conditions in which they live."

But Seriously, Folks: Obama Death Panels?
Joan Walsh writes for Salon.com: "I've been writing about "town hells" and anti-health care reform hysterics, as well as the crazy Birthers, for a few weeks. Every few days, I think: Maybe we're giving these fringe folks the oxygen they need; maybe we should ignore them. But it all got even loonier today, and it can't be ignored."

What are the Birthers Really After?
Joe Conason comments for Truthdig: "On Aug. 4, President Barack Obama celebrated the anniversary of his birth, an event that occurred 48 years ago in the state of Hawaii. This is an indisputable fact, as sane critics on the right, such as the editors of the National Review and the veteran pundit Patrick Buchanan, acknowledge. And yet there is a significant minority, especially within the Republican Party, that fervently insists otherwise."

Senators Block Obama Nominees, Protest Guantanamo
Lolita C. Baldor reports for The Associated Press: "Kansas' two U.S. senators are blocking 10 of President Barack Obama's nominees for senior administration posts at the Pentagon and Justice Department in protest over a proposal to house Guantanamo detainees at the Fort Leavenworth prison. The list of blocked nominees includes a fellow Republican member of Congress - Obama's pick for Army secretary, Rep. John McHugh of New York."

US Still Paying Blackwater Millions
Jeremy Scahill reports for The Nation: "Just days before two former Blackwater employees alleged in sworn statements filed in federal court that the company's owner, Erik Prince, 'views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,' the Obama administration extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for 'security services' in Iraq, according to federal contract data obtained by The Nation. The State Department contract is scheduled to run through September 3. In May, the State Department announced it was not renewing Blackwater's Iraq contract, and the Iraqi government has refused to issue the company an operating license."

Recommended Audio: GRIT TV - Will Blackwater Founder Face Charges?
Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army writes in the Nation that Blackwater founder Erik Prince “may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company,” according to the sworn testimony of a former Blackwater employee and an ex-US marine. Scahill discusses the story and its implications for Prince and Blackwater itself. You can read Scahill’s blog, Rebel Reports, here.

You're Wrong, Eric Cantor: The Stimulus Is Working
Isaiah J. Poole writes for the Campaign for America's Future: "It's surprising that it took a full 69 minutes from the moment the Bureau of Labor Statistics July jobs report was released for the condemnatory news release from House Republican Whip Eric Cantor to reach my inbox. No doubt it was written hours of even days before, the message being so predictable - and wrong."

Bundled Mortgages Pose Problems for Housing Program
Karen Weise reports for ProPublica: "Seventy-year-old Barbara Harris can’t help crying when she walks around her neighborhood. She says she hates seeing possessions piled up on front lawns — the remnants of foreclosure. Three times, the Harrises received foreclosure notices and thought they’d be next. For two years, the Harrises have been trying to get Wells Fargo to modify their mortgage to something they can afford. But they face one big catch: Though Wells Fargo services their mortgage and is participating in the federal modification program, it doesn’t actually own their loan. And the investors that do own the loan, Wells Fargo told the Harrises, won’t allow the modification."

Honduras Is Only Part of the Story: The Conservative Counter-Attack in Latin America
Miguel Tinker Salas writes for Counter Punch: "I would submit that events in Honduras are not isolated, but rather part of a conservative counterattack taking shape in Latin America. For some time, the right has been rebuilding in Latin America; hosting conferences, sharing experiences, refining their message, working with the media, and building ties with allies in the United States. This is not the lunatic right fringe, but rather the mainstream right with powerful allies in the middle class that used to consider themselves center, but have been frightened by recent left electoral victories and the rise of social movements. With Obama in the White House and Clinton in the State Department they have now decided to act. Bush/Cheney and company did not give them any coverage and had become of little use to them. A "liberal" in the White House, gives conservative forces the kind of coverage they had hoped for. It is no coincidence that Venezuelan opposition commentators applauded the naming of Clinton to the State Department claiming that they now had an ally in the administration. The old cold-warrior axiom that the best antidote against the left is a liberal government in Washington gains new meaning under Obama with Clinton at the State Department."

Recommended Audio: Truthdig Podcast Featuring Thom Hartmann
The Truthdig panel talks to radio host and author Thom Hartmann about his new book, “Threshold,” the need for serious financial regulation and his trip to Darfur.

The Me-First, Screw-Everybody-Else Crowd
David Sirota writes for Truthdig: "I know I should be mortified by the lobbyist-organized mobs of angry Brooks Brothers mannequins who are now making headlines by shutting down congressional town hall meetings. I know I should be despondent during this, the Khaki Pants Offensive in the Great American Health Care and Tax War. And yet, I’m euphorically repeating one word over and over again with a big grin on my face."

You Do Not Have Health Insurance
James Kwak writes for The Baseline Scenario: "Right now, it appears that the biggest barrier to health care reform is people who think that it will hurt them. According to a New York Times poll, '69 percent of respondents in the poll said they were concerned that the quality of their own care would decline if the government created a program that covers everyone.' Since most Americans currently have health insurance, they see reform as a poverty program - something that helps poor people and hurts them. If that's what you think, then this post is for you. You do not have health insurance. Let me repeat that. You do not have health insurance. (Unless you are over 65, in which case you do have health insurance. I'll come back to that later.)"

Health Insurance Executives Undermine Insurance Lobbyist’s Pledge to Reform Insurance Market.
Igor Volsky writes for Think Progress: "Yesterday (August 5th), during an interview with Bloomberg Radio, Karen Ignagni — the President and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — reiterated insurers’ commitment to reforming the health insurance marketplace:

That’s what people want. They want to be in. They don’t want to be rejected because of preexisting conditions, and they want to make sure they have continuity of care. We’ve committed to that. That’s what our industry is doing. We are one of the first to step up and offer real change that affected our industry. And we’re still committed to that."

Recommended Audio: GRIT TV - Summer Swiftboaters: The Healthcare Battle Heats Up
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and political consultant Karen Finney discuss healthcare reform and Washington politics. As members of congress head home for the summer, are the astroturf tactics of the opposition working? And what can single payer advocates do to fight for healthcare reform in August? Finney says that this may be the single best opportunity for real reform and that what happens over the next month will be decisive.


MoJo Interview: The Cove's Louie Psihoyos and Ric O'Barry
Kiera Butler writes for Mother Jones: "There's something fishy about the coastal town of Taiji, Japan: Statues and murals of dolphins line the streets, yet every year, the town's fishermen kill thousands of dolphins and sell their meat. That’s a whole lot of dead dolphins—you'd think some enterprising activist journalist would have blown Taiji's cover long ago. They tried, but no one could penetrate the heavily guarded cove where the killing takes place. Until now. When photographer Louie Psihoyos heard about Taiji, he teamed up with marine mammal activist (and former Flipper TV dolphin trainer) Ric O'Barry. Together, the two launched a high-tech espionage mission to infiltrate the cove and expose the slaughter. We spoke with O'Barry and Psihoyos about making The Cove, assembling an Ocean's Eleven-style team, and why a little paranoia can be a good thing."

Coal Lobby's 'Purest Form of Gressroots' Delivered by GOP Voter Fraud Company
Think Progress reports: "The coal industry lobbying outfit the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is pressing forward with an aggressive astroturfing campaign going after U.S. senators — despite the recent revelation that it was responsible for forged “grassroots” letters to lawmakers, attacking the American Clean Energy and Security Act:"

The Clock is Ticking on DADT
Paul DeMigilo writes for The Bilerico Project: "The time to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is long overdue. Service members are being fired -- almost two per day -- because they are gay or lesbian. So far, 13,000 have been kicked out under DADT. The experience of Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach is a painful reminder of how this law harms qualified patriots and denies LGBT Americans the freedom to serve. A highly decorated, F-15E combat aviator, Fehrenbach has earned nine Air Medals, including one for Heroism, throughout his 18-year career. He was hand-picked to protect the airspace over Washington, D.C. after the Sept. 11 attacks."

FOX News Directs Viewers to Town Halls Hosted By Democrats
Nate Carlile reports for Think Progress: "Earlier today, Fox News publicized the time and location of “gladiatorial” town halls hosted by Democrats — but not Republicans. With “heated” and increasingly confrontational town halls now dominating news coverage, Washington correspondent James Rosen announced he had “obtained a large Excel spreadsheet showing the schedule of town halls for Democratic members of Congress.” Rosen reported the time and location of several town halls, including those for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA). To explain why Fox wasn’t reporting on town halls hosted by Republicans, Rosen assured viewers that if he 'had the spreadsheet for the Republican members,' he would 'share' that as well:" View video here.

FCC Wants Real Answers from ISPs on Broadband Investment
Nate Anderson writes for Ars Technica: "Yes, we know—when the FCC puts out a press release (PDF) titled "Columbia Institute for Tele-Information to Conduct Independent Review of Telecom Capital Expenditures to Assist FCC," the eyeballs begin to glaze and the limbs feel suddenly heavy. But this one's worth rousing the brain for, because the FCC announcement means that the agency is taking a close look at just how much investment ISPs make in their broadband lines."

Why Murdoch, the Old Media Reactionary, Is Wrong to Charge for Content
Roy Greenslade writes for the Guardian UK: "I have never received so many calls from so many places across the world to talk about the momentous decision by Rupert Murdoch to charge people for access to his newspaper websites. As so often with statements by the world's most famous media mogul, the announcement is being treated as the word of god. Where Rupert goes, said several TV and radio presenters, others are sure to follow."

Clippings for 2 August 2009

Pay to Play Is Washington's Sport of Kings
Michael Winship comments for Truthout: "This week, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that in the second quarter of this year alone, the pharmaceuticals and health product industries spent $67,959,095 on lobbying, and the insurance industry $39,760,477. Another $25,552,088 was spent by lobbyists for hospitals and nursing homes. That's a total of $133,271,660 in just three months, and that's not even counting the lobbying money spent to fight health care reform by professional associations like the US Chamber of Commerce."

Right-Wing Harassment Strategy Against Dems Detailed in Memo
Lee Fang reports for Think Progress: "This morning, Politico reported that Democratic members of Congress are increasingly being harassed by 'angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior" at local town halls. This growing phenomenon is often marked by violence and absurdity. The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress."

Battle over Labor Law Reform Shows True Power of the Right
Abby Scher writes for PublicEye.org: "Some people may enjoy watching the Right thrash around trying to find its way in the Obama Age, but I take the election results and their aftermath as a sign of a country dangerously divided. There really was a stark difference in the major party candidates, and 46 percent voted for the guy who lost. 59,946,378 is a lot of people. This political force isn’t going away."

Bush, Rove Far More Involved in Attorney Firings Than Previously Revealed
Jason Leopold comments for Truthout: "George W. Bush and his former top adviser, Karl Rove, were far more involved in the firings of nine US attorneys in 2006 than they had previously let on, according to internal Bush administration documents and interviews Rove gave to two major newspapers earlier this month."

It’s Time for the U.S. to Declare Victory and Go Home
Truthdig Editor’s note: Col. Timothy R. Reese is a senior U.S. military adviser to the Iraqis in Baghdad, at the flash point of the transition of power. Reese penned the memo below, which challenges the timetable championed by President Obama and Gen. Ray Odierno, the senior American commander in Iraq. Leaked text by way of the New York Times.
Col. Timothy R. Reese reports on Truthdig: "As the old saying goes, “guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose. Today the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are good enough to keep the Government of Iraq (GOI) from being overthrown by the actions of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the Baathists, and the Shia violent extremists that might have toppled it a year or two ago. Iraq may well collapse into chaos of other causes, but we have made the ISF strong enough for the internal security mission. Perhaps it is one of those infamous paradoxes of counterinsurgency that while the ISF is not good in any objective sense, it is good enough for Iraq in 2009. Despite this foreboding disclaimer about an unstable future for Iraq, the United States has achieved our objectives in Iraq. Prime Minister (PM) Maliki hailed June 30th as a “great victory,” implying the victory was over the US. Leaving aside his childish chest pounding, he was more right than he knew. We too ought to declare victory and bring our combat forces home. Due to our tendency to look after the tactical details and miss the proverbial forest for the trees, this critically important strategic realization is in danger of being missed."

A Faster Iraq Withdrawal
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, and Nate Carlile write in The Progress Report by Think Progress: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates made headlines earlier this week when he said conditions in Iraq have improved to the point that the U.S. 'may accelerate' the withdrawal of American forces, despite increased instability. 'I think there is at least a chance of a modest acceleration' in the drawdown schedule, Gates said while traveling with key members of President Obama's national security team in the Middle East. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and Iraq that President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed to late last year mandated that U.S. forces turn over responsibility for security inside cities and villages to Iraqi security forces on June 30. Iraqi forces now have the main responsibility for Iraq's internal safety, with U.S. troops acting in an advisory partnership role. Gates said that 'another brigade of about 5,000 troops could leave by the end of December on top of the two brigades, or 10,000 troops, now scheduled to pull out this year.' Gates added that Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander of all forces in Iraq, agrees, and conditions on the ground have improved "quicker than expected." A day after Gates' remarks, an 'unusually blunt memo' authored by Army Col. Timothy R. Reese was published. Reese argued that 'Iraqi forces are competent enough to hold off Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias and other internal threats to the Iraqi government.' Reese went even further, saying that American military presence in Iraq beyond 2010 will do little to improve the Iraqis' military performance while fueling growing resentment. "As the old saying goes, 'Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,' Reese wrote, declaring that it is time 'for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.'"

Three Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire
Chalmers Johnson writes for TomDispatch.com: "However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union."

Honduran Coup Over?
Greg Grandin writes for CounterPunch: "Bloomberg is reporting that Honduran coup leader, Roberto Micheletti has accepted the Arias plan, which means -- if true -- that Manuel Zelaya will be, with conditions, as president. Though Micheletti is still begging for time, saying he needs Arias’s help in convincing his co-coup leaders to agree. The terms are unclear about what is covered in the Arias’ amnesty, but it is doubtful there will be any investigation or prosecution of the human-rights violations that have taken place, including nine, perhaps ten murders, all against Zelaya supporters, over the last month.

Restoring Democracy in Honduras
Mark Weisbort writes in the Guardian UK: "The mediation effort that US secretary of state Hillary Clinton arranged to try to resolve the crisis in Honduras, which began when a military coup removed Honduran President Mel Zelaya more than four weeks ago, has failed. It is now time – some would say overdue – for the Latin American governments to play their proper role."

Recommended Audio: Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Speaks from Nicaraguan Border on Who’s Behind the Coup, His Attempts to Return Home, the Role of the United States and More
In a Democracy Now! national broadcast exclusive, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya joins us from the Nicaragua-Honduras border for a wide-ranging interview on his attempts to return home, who’s behind the coup, the role of the United States, and much more. “I think the United States is going to lose a great deal of influence in Latin America if it does not turn the coup d’état around,” Zeleya says. “It will not be able to put forth its idea about democracy. It won’t be credible before anyone.” On his message to the Honduran people, Zelaya says they should “maintain their resistance against those who want to take their rights away…so that no one will be able to disrespect them, which is what the coup regime is doing today.”

The Real Battle for the Federal Judiciary
Eric R. Haren comments on Law.com: "After President Barack Obama wins confirmation of his first Supreme Court nominee, the Court will still lean conservative. And it will still decide only a handful of cases each year. The lower courts, in contrast, will have the final word in more than 99 percent of federal cases. These courts are up for grabs, and Obama's impact on them could be sweeping. Indeed, Obama may be able to completely reshape a conservative-dominated judiciary to one largely controlled by Democratic appointees -- even in a single term."

Schwarzenegger Cuts 100% of Funding for Domestic Violence Centers
Tonie Scott reports for the Oroville Mercury-Register: "Butte County domestic violence victims will face a sharp reduction in the services provided to them by Catalyst Domestic Services, as a result of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's blue pencil cuts to the state budget."

Why Isn't Single-Payer "Uniquely American"
Timothy Noah writes for Slate: "On July 30, single-payer advocates staged a rally on Capitol Hill to demand why Congress wasn't even considering enacting a single-payer health system. The usual answer you hear from Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and others is that the United States requires a solution to its health care crisis that's 'uniquely American.'"

Health Care Tyranny by 13 Obstructionists
David Sirota writes for Truthdig: "For those still clinging to quaint notions of the American ideal, these have been a faith-shaking 10 years. Just as evolutionary science once got in the way of creationists’ catechism, so has politics now undermined patriots’ naive belief that the United States is a functioning democracy."

Senate Dems Blame Media for August Health Deadline
J. Taylor Rushing reports for The Hill: "Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday blamed Capitol Hill media for setting an August deadline for health reform and Republicans for blocking the bill's progress. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Conference Secretary Patty Murray (D-Wash.) also acknowledged that critics will 'pour it on' during the coming August recess and they plan to respond in kind."

Single-Payer System Cuts Barriers to Care
Beth Cardosi comments in The Sun News: "I'm a physician in South Carolina. I have firsthand experience regarding our broken, wasteful health care system. On a daily basis I care for the uninsured who have no jobs (often because of layoffs or illness) and have no money or access to health care providers. These people often come to the emergency departments with minor issues that could be handled simply as an outpatient if there were a place for them to be treated, or they are seen with life-threatening illnesses because they couldn't receive the proper treatment for their chronic illness (i.e. high blood pressure and diabetes) or couldn't receive preventive care and now have untreatable cancer. These people show up where the care is the most expensive because they won't get turned away."

Are Liberal Netroots Groups Helping Obama Fail?
Jeff Cohen comments for Truthout: "I've started deleting them as spam. I'm not talking about the enlarge-your-penis emails or 'You've Won the Lottery' notices. I'm talking about the increasingly urgent emails coming for weeks from liberal netroots groups calling for a 'public option' for health care - a government insurance plan citizens could choose to PAY FOR instead of private insurance. Never has so much passion been so misdirected."

Harvey Milk among Medal of Honor Honorees
Carla Marinucci reports for the San Francisco Chronicle: "President Obama said Thursday he will bestow the nation's highest civilian honor on slain San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, making him the first openly gay civil rights leader to receive the award and drawing praise from activists who have criticized Obama for shortchanging their cause."

Friendly Fire on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
Ben Smith writes for Politico: "A report due out later today from the Palm Center, a California think tank working to end the ban on gays in the military, blames Washington gay rights activists and their allies in Congress for dropping the ball on repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The center has made the case for pressing President Obama for an executive order ending the ban on gays in the military, arguing that those facts on the ground -- gays openly serving -- would be irreversible, and could be followed later by Congressional action. But other gay rights advocates, led by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network and Human Rights Campaign, and members of Congress like Rep. Patrick Murphy have argued that a legislative repeal should be the primary goal, as an executive order could be reversed by a new president."

How Lou Dobbs Scared Rush Limbaugh off the Birther Story
Eric Boehlert writes for Media Matters: "It's true that Dobbs irresponsibly mainstreamed radical right-fringe players by championing their half-baked claims that Barack Obama isn't a natural born citizen and is ineligible to serve as president of the United States. Dobbs, at least indirectly, lent the birther movement some fleeting credence as he dragged its misbegotten detective work into the spotlight. And it's still vitally important to monitor Dobbs and call out CNN management for its dreadful hypocrisy on the birther issue (i.e. The story is 'dead' but it's OK for Dobbs to keep flogging it on national TV)."

GE's Silencing of Olbermann and MSNBC's Sleazy Use of Richard Wolffe
Glenn Greenwald comments for Salon.com: "The New York Times this morning has a remarkable story, and incredibly, the article's author, Brian Stelter, doesn't even acknowledge, let alone examine, what makes the story so significant. In essence, the chairman of General Electric (which owns MSNBC), Jeffrey Immelt, and the chairman of News Corporation (which owns Fox News), Rupert Murdoch, were brought into a room at a 'summit meeting' for CEOs in May, where Charlie Rose tried to engineer an end to the 'feud' between MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox's Bill O'Reilly. According to the NYT, both CEOs agreed that the dispute was bad for the interests of the corporate parents, and thus agreed to order their news employees to cease attacking each other's news organizations and employees."

NAACP-Forgery Group, Bonner & Associates, Has A Decades-Long History Of Astroturf Tactics
From Daily Censored: "A DC-based consulting firm has been exposed for forging letters in opposition to the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The letters, replete with letterhead and made-up identities, purported to be from Virginian minority organizations including the NAACP. Rep. Tom Periello (D-VA) received multiple letters pressuring him to vote against clean energy reform. According to the Charlottesville Daily Progress, Periello staffers discovered that the letters were actually forged by Bonner & Associates. Going through past correspondence regarding ACES, staffers found at least six forged letters purporting to be from Cruciendo Juntos, a nonprofit hispanic group, and the NAACP. ThinkProgress has acquired the forged letters. See them here. Bonner & Associates has a long history of shady tactics and big business corporate associations..."

Taboo News and Corporate Media
Peter Phillips writes for Daily Censored: "The corporate media in the United States are ignoring valid news stories, based on university quality research. It appears that certain topics are simply forbidden inside the mainstream corporate media today. To openly cover these news stories would stir up questions regarding 'inconvenient truths' that many in the US power structure want to avoid."

Fake News Has Got to Go
Erica Hertz Southerland writes for SavetheNews.org: "Have you heard? The economic crisis is solved. The health care reform bill passed and everyone is satisfied with it. There is no more violent crime anywhere. All the wars in the world have stopped, and our politicians are finally acting in our best interest. Everyone everywhere is happy; there is no news left to report. Or at least I assume that’s why news stations are airing advertisements disguised as news segments instead of real news."

Big Radio's Attacks on Me Aren't Surprising
Dionne Warwick writes for the Huffington Post: "I was surprised when Radio One's Cathy Hughes added my name to the list of African American artists and civil rights activists she's attacked in her vicious campaign against fairly compensating musicians for their work. Then again, since smearing African American leaders to protect her profits has become Ms. Hughes siren song, maybe I shouldn't be surprised at all. "

Leap of Faith: Inside the movement to build an audience of citizens
Megan Barber writes for the Columbia Journalism Review: "Smiling—beaming—in the back of the classroom during the press-conference-in-reverse is Alan Miller, a former Los Angeles Times reporter—he won a 2003 Pulitzer for his series on the defective Marine Corps’ Harrier attack jet—who is also responsible for today’s class. In early 2008, Miller founded the News Literacy Project, a program that mobilizes journalists both practicing and retired to share their profession with young people—to get them excited about journalism, and to help them navigate through the sea of news and sort the good from the bad. 'I spoke about journalism to my daughter’s sixth-grade class,' Miller explains, 'and was really surprised by what they didn’t know about the basics of journalism.' Positive student feedback from that talk convinced Miller of the need to teach students what standard history and civics classes generally don’t: how to be savvy consumers of news."

Broadband -- So What? Here's What (pdf download)
Doug Adams, Knight Center of Digital Excellence writes that while President Barack Obama and Congress have made it clear how important broadband is to our nation by putting billions of dollars in stimulus funding behind broadband initiatives, there still seems to be a perception gap among many non-adopter citizens. In short, there is a lack of understanding of the value broadband connectivity can bring to their lives.

Clippings for 30 July 3009

Better Balance Between Climate and Military Spending Urged
Marina Litvinsky and Jim Lobe report for Inter Press Service: "Despite its conviction that climate change represents a serious threat to national and global security, the administration of President Barack Obama has proposed spending one dollar on addressing the challenge for every nine dollars it intends to spend on the US military, according to a new report by the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)."

Casualties of War, Part I: The Hell of War Comes Home
Dave Philipps reports for The Colorado Springs Gazette: "Before the murders started, Anthony Marquez's mom dialed his sergeant at Fort Carson to warn that her son was poised to kill. It was February 2006, and the 21-year-old soldier had not been the same since being wounded and coming home from Iraq eight months before. He had violent outbursts and thrashing nightmares. He was devouring pain pills and drinking too much. He always packed a gun. 'It was a dangerous combination. I told them he was a walking time bomb,' said his mother, Teresa Hernandez."

Report Finds Advantages in Gov’t Takeover of Care for Injured Contractors
T Christian Miller reports for ProPublica: "The Congressional Research Service has found that the Defense Department was paying far higher premiums to insure civilians working in war zones than either the State Department or the U.S. Agency for International Development. The insurance is required by the Defense Base Act [1] and provides medical care and disability benefits for those injured while working under U.S. contracts overseas. Pentagon contractors negotiate rates individually with insurance firms, while the other agencies use a bidding process to set a blanket rate."

Happiness Consultants Won't Stop a Depression
Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig.com: "Anthony Vasquez, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, worked at FedEx Kinkos for about two years. His store’s slogan was: 'Yes we can.' 'It meant that if a customer asked us to do a job for them, no matter what it was, we were to say "Yes we can!"' he said. Posters of the slogan were posted on telephones and in the backroom. Corporate auditors enforced the slogan by 'Yes we can' call audits. Employees would be punished as a group for failures, and individuals could be fired. Other slogans at the Santa Cruz, Calif., FedEx Kinkos included 'Winning by engaging the hearts and minds of every team member' and 'I promise to make every FedEx experience outstanding.'”

Military Commissions Debate Rages On in Senate
Daphne Eviatar reports in The Washington Independent: "Last week, President Obama's detention policy task force issued its preliminary recommendations on the prosecution of Guantanamo detainees. But as a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday afternoon revealed, there's little consensus in Congress over where and how to prosecute terror suspects, or the likely consequences of the various alternatives."

US Pressure Urged on Coup Regime in Honduras
Robert Naiman writes for Truthout: "It's been a month since Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was deposed in a military coup. Negotiations on restoring democracy supported by the United States broke down when the coup regime refused to accept a compromise that would allow Zelaya to return."

US Citizens Wrongly Detained, Deported by ICE
Tyche Hendricks reports for the San Francisco Chronicle: "The son of a decorated Vietnam veteran, Hector Veloz is a US citizen, but in 2007 immigration officials mistook him for an illegal immigrant and locked him in an Arizona prison for 13 months. Veloz had to prove his citizenship from behind bars."

Obama Accused of Continuing Bush's Racial Profiling of Immigrants
Roberto Lovato writes for AlterNet: "Can a president who is, by any measure, far more forthright and lyrical than his predecessors about the pernicious effects of racism simultaneously promote and expand the racist policies of past administrations?"

Infamous Astroturf Lobbying Firm Behind New Anti-Health Reform Group
Lee Fang reports for Think Progress: "The new anti-health reform front group known as the Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights, is being managed by the lobbying firm known as the DCI Group. After being contacted by ThinkProgress this afternoon about its sponsorship of CPPR’s press conference last week, DCI Group staffers acknowledged that they coordinate PR for the front group. Not be confused with Conservatives for Patients’ Rigths, another front group opposing health reform, CPPR has been organizing lobbying efforts against health reform and publishing op-eds across the country with misinformation about the public option."

Health Care - Sorting Myth from Reality
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, and Nate Carlile write in The Progress Report for Think Progress: "Congress may be moving one step closer to reforming health care, as the Senate Finance Committee nears agreement on a bipartisan compromise. Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) vowed that the committee would wrap up its work by the end of next week. This deal, however, will most likely not contain a public option or a mandate for employers to provide employees with health insurance. While many progressives are upset with this outcome, it's important to remember that this is not the final legislation: After the bill passes the Senate Finance Committee, it will still need to be reconciled with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and House bills, both of which include a public option. While these lawmakers continue to hammer out the details, many Republicans, conservative activists, and industry lobbyists continue to spread misinformation and push for indefinite delays in the hope of killing any chance at change. Yesterday in a "tele-town hall" sponsored by AARP, President Obama addressed this obstruction, underscoring that no one is talking about 'socialized medicine,' despite what conservatives are charging. 'I think that we've been so accustomed to hearing those phrases that sometimes we can't sort out the myth from the reality,' Obama said."

Recommended Audio: Incredible Shrinking Health Reform
Real News Network reports that Republicans, conservative Democrats and the medical industry continue to chip away at President Barack Obama’s health care reform, leaving doubts that the final product will make much improvement at all. The Real News Network interviews New School economist Richard Wolff says the industry and its supporters in Congress are determined to permit “reform” only if the end result means more money or at least not a decline in profits for the industry. That means Americans would still be stuck with a remarkably inefficient health care system, Wolff says.

Nine More Go to Jail for Single Payer
David Swanson writes for After Downing Street: "Following a pattern of civil resistance in Washington D.C. and around the country, citizens in Des Moines Iowa on Monday risked arrest to press for the creation of single-payer healthcare, the establishment of healthcare as a human right, and an end to the deadly practices of Iowa's largest health insurance company, Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield."

Birther Whack Jobs: Citizens of Idiot America
Dan Kennedy writes for Comment Is Free in the Guardian UK: "Just because there are people who believe some mighty peculiar things doesn't mean I'm obliged to pay them any attention. After all, there are folks who are convinced that the moon landing was a hoax, that Israel was behind the World Trade Center attacks and that the US government has been covering up the truth about the crash of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico, for the past six decades. Not every ludicrous notion is worth the mental energy it would take to debunk it."

Recommended Audio: Huffington Post asks Republicans if Obama is American-born
Michael Tomasky watches the 'birthers' video from Huffington Post.


Recommened Audio: Jon Stewart Eviscerates The 'Birther' Movement
From the Huffington Post: "In a lengthy opening segment, Jon Stewart took on "birthers" last night, mocking their internal leadership and the media figures and politicians who support them. If you don't know by now (which is totally possible as a rational adult who does not engage with the lunatic fringe) "birthers" think that our president is not an American citizen, but instead a citizen of Kenya, who, through a massive government and familial conspiracy, tricked the American people into electing him.

Despite OVERWHELMING evidence that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen, "birthers" have created a media frenzy of late that has prompted conservative representatives to introduced the so called "birther bill" that would call for presidential candidates to provide their birth certificates before running. There has been some very responsible reporting on the subject, if you can ever call engaging crazy people responsible, by Rick Sanchez, Chris Matthews and others who called these people crazy and showed copies of the president's birth certificate amongst other documents proving he was born in Hawaii."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Born Identity
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

America the Great ... Police State
Gore Vidal writes for Truthdig.com: "For those of us who had hoped that the Obama administration would present us with a rebirth of the old republic that was so rudely erased a few years ago by that team of judicial wreckers, Bush and Gonzales, which led, in turn, to a recent incident in Cambridge, Mass. that inspired a degree of alarm in many Americans. But what was most alarming was the plain fact that neither the president nor a “stupid” local policeman seemed to understand the rules of behavior in a new America, where we find ourselves marooned as well as guarded (is that the verb?) by armed police who have been instructed that they are indeed, once armed, the law and may not be criticized verbally or in any other way and are certainly not subject to any restrictions as to whom they arrest or otherwise torment."

The Dominance of Rich, White Men Is Eroding -- It's Time to Truly Fight for Diversity
Cortney Martin writes for AlterNet: "With crisis, comes opportunity. It’s a cliché that has soothed the displaced, the bankrupt, and the lovesick for generations. Our own moment of transition is certainly no exception. We’ve got an economy in shambles, multiple ill-conceived wars fumbling violently on, a dangerously warming climate, and broken healthcare and education systems. It’s enough to make even the powerful quake in their proverbial boots…which is precisely where the opportunity now lies."

Recommended Audio: How Monsanto and Fox News Prevented Americans from Learning About Bovine Growth Hormone


GMOs' Questionable Global Conquest
Truthout provides a translation of Antoine de Ravignan's article in Alternatives Internationales that surveys the main issues involved in the regulation and spread of genetically modified food crops, while in ZNet, Marie Trigona reports in Study Released in Argentina Puts Glyphosate Under Fire on an Argentine findings that criticizes the GMO soy model from a variety of perspectives.