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.

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Podcast Special: Non-Violence, Self-Defense, and Justice for Palestine

On May 31 Kenneth O’Keefe was on board the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the flotilla delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza in defiance of Israel’s blockade. Israeli commandos attacked the ship, killing nine flotilla members. He spoke on the campus of Kansas State University on October 5, 2010. The event was sponsored by the Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice, K-State Amnesty International, and K-State Departments of Philosophy, and Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work. Photo: Susan Oviatt

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July 15 Pt 2 - An Interview with Michael Ramsdell

For our second hour we welcome director Michael Ramsdell in a discussion of his film Anatomy of Hate; Dialogue of Hope, which screened earlier this spring here in Manhattan. The film reveals the shared narratives found in individual and collective ideologies of hate, and how we as a species can overcome them. The DVD is available for check out from the Manhattan Public Library.

Ramsdell states: "Standing amidst anti-gay picketers and Nazi rallies, dodging stones and rubber bullets in the West Bank, riding combat patrols outside of Baghdad, and working amidst the bodies of dying and deceased soldiers in the CASH, I was provided the opportunity to explore humanity's inclusionary and exclusionary divisions to a significant degree. What I found was, for me, life changing."

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Clippings for 14 March 2010

The Senate's Lesson About Democracy
David Sirota writes: "When you look past the craziness, chaos and confusion of politics these days, you still find roughly two major schools of thought that aim to explain What's Fundamentally Wrong. The first says America is paralyzed by a political system that is too democratic — too responsive to citizens' whims. This is the religion of almost everyone in the permanent Washington elite, regardless of party. Its canon mixing paeans to noblesse oblige with shrill authoritarianism is most clearly articulated by high priests like The Washington Post's David Broder and The New York Times' Tom Friedman. The former has said democracy threatens to make "official Washington altogether too responsive to public opinion"; the latter dreams of Chinese-style dictatorship."

War in a Box
Norman Solomon, Truthout: "The event on the House floor Wednesday afternoon was monumental - the first major Congressional debate about US military operations in Afghanistan since lawmakers authorized the invasion of that country in autumn 2001. But, as Rep. Patrick Kennedy noted with disgust on Wednesday, the House press gallery was nearly empty. He aptly concluded, 'It's despicable, the national press corps right now.'"

What Torture Is and Why It's Illegal and Not "Poor Judgment"
Andy Worthington provides the following analysis for Truthout: "It's now over two weeks since veteran Justice Department (DOJ) lawyer David Margolis dashed the hopes of those seeking accountability for the Bush administration's torturers, but this is a story of such profound importance that it must not be allowed to slip away."

Rachel Corrie Case Stirs Fresh Pain and Hope

Ashley Bates, GlobalPost: "Shortly before Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer on March 16, 2003, she said in a video interview that she marveled at Palestinians' ability to 'hold onto their humanity as much as they have.' Seven years later, Corrie’s friends in the Gaza Strip are planning a remembrance ceremony in her honor. They are also following news of the civil court trial under way in Israel."

Congress Votes for Treason: 356-65 to levy more unlawful war against US soldiers in Afghanistan
Carl Herman writes for the LS County Nonpartisan Examiner: "My headline is legally accurate, and the side of history you want to be on when America finally recognizes our government and corporate media’s fascism. The definitions of political terms, relevant laws, and facts are simple; the problem is American’s cognitive dissonance to recognize the “Big Lie” at home rather than in a history book of some other place in some past time. This article, after the following four paragraphs of context, will explain these simple high school-level definitions of political terms of treason and fascism, relevant laws of war, and relevant facts of war with Afghanistan. I’ll conclude with ~5-minute video clips of Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul’s House floor statements on the Resolution to end the war in Afghanistan, and a 5-minute clip of news coverage."

Why Are We Afraid to Tax the Super Rich?

Les Leopold writes for AlterNet.org: "Our nation is already deeply in debt. How can we possibly afford to invest in our infrastructure, renewable energy, health care, our schools — and create the millions of jobs that our unemployed desperately need? We are told that we’re already living well beyond our means — that entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security will bankrupt us. Forget the solar panels, the smaller classes and the new jobs — we’ve got to cut back on government programs at all levels."

Recommended Audio: Global Pulse - Chimerica: U.S., China and the Global Economy

This week Global Pulse revisits China and its relationship with the US and the world.  This overview of China's changing role in the turbulent global economy includes an interview with Wayne Shilby, chair of the board of Calvert Social Investment Foundation, and an unusually deep look at how China is portrayed by CCTV, Chinese state television.


Ask the Chamber of Commerce: Why Is Too Much Not Enough?
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship comment for Truthout: "Living in these United States, there comes a point at which you throw your hands up in exasperation and despair and ask a fundamental question or two: how much excess profit does corporate America really need? How much bigger do executive salaries and bonuses have to be? How many houses or jets or artworks can be crammed into a life?"

Ponzi Nation: How Get-Rich-Quick Crime Came to Define an Era
Andy Kroll writes for TomDispatch.com: "Every great American boom and bust makes and breaks its share of crooks. The past decade - call it the Ponzi Era - has been no different, except for the gargantuan scale of white-collar crime. A vast wave of financial fraud swelled in the first years of the new century. Then, in 2008, with the subprime mortgage collapse, it crashed on the shore as a full-scale global economic meltdown. As that wave receded, it left hundreds of Ponzi and pyramid schemes, as well as other get-rich-quick rackets that helped fuel our recent economic frenzy, flopping on the beach."

The Sham Recovery
Robert Reich writes on RobertReich.com: "Are we finally in a recovery? Who's 'we,' kemosabe? Big global companies, Wall Street, and high-income Americans who hold their savings in financial instruments are clearly doing better. As to the rest of us – small businesses along Main Streets, and middle and lower-income Americans – forget it."

Recommended Audio: The Video that Will Put Geithner Behind Bars

Mike Whitney writes for the Smirking Chimp: “You gotta see this! If this doesn't convince you that the Timothy Geithner knew about the securities shenanigans that were going on at Lehman, than I don't know what will. Keep in mind, that Geithner ran Lehman through 3 'stress tests' prior to bankruptcy; all of which Lehman failed, and yet, nothing was done. Anton R. Valukas--the examiner who wrote the 2,200 page investigative-report which was released on Thursday-- has provided plenty of information detailing Lehman's 'materially misleading' accounting and 'actionable balance sheet manipulation.'”



Six Democratic Senators Poised to Kill Student Loan Reform
Chris Kromm reports for Facing South: "Reforming the for-profit student loan system, which allows finance giants like Virginia-based Sallie Mae to make virtually risk-free returns thanks to government subsidies, was a top priority of President Obama. His idea, supported by most Democrats, was to take out the middle man: Instead of subsidizing private lenders, the feds would completely take over origination of student loans."

Health Care Reform: Politics and Prejudice
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout: "In the wake of last week's summit on health care insurance reform, President Obama demonstrated his willingness to compromise by making some incremental concessions to Republicans in a speech from the White House. President Obama proposed strengthening efforts to limit waste and abuse, extending dependent coverage to age 26, allowing automatic enrollment in health insurance and an exchange for small businesses to pool and purchase affordable insurance. He may also consider a plan to rework the way malpractice claims are adjudicated."

Moving Toward the Limelight
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Andrea Nill, Zaid Jilani, and Alex Seitz-Wald write the Progress Report for Think Progress: "Yesterday, the White House hosted three separate meetings on immigration with President Obama, one with grassroots immigration advocates, another with Latino lawmakers, and a meeting with the two senators who have been crafting an immigration bill for the past year: Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Following the meeting, Schumer indicated that everyone agreed that 'passing comprehensive immigration reform this year is very important to our nation' and announced that Obama would be reviewing the agreed-upon framework in the coming days. Roll Call reports that 'while [Obama] couldn't commit to making it happen, he vowed to work with Senate leaders to bring a bill to the floor in April.' Graham, however, made a 'political squeeze play' when he released a statement indicating 'in no uncertain terms' that "immigration reform could come to a halt for the year if health care reconciliation goes forward." Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal's Jerry Seib predicted that immigration reform could be the 'sleeper issue' that moves "toward the limelight." Given the fact that both the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and grassroots advocates maintain an undiminished commitment to pushing for immigration reform in 2010, it's certainly an issue fighting its way up to center stage. However, Graham's remarks added to the growing unlikelihood that the immigration reform saga will play out on the Senate floor, but it has already captured the attention of the White House and two senior Senators and it certainly won't go down without a fight."

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now! - Judge Instructs Fed Agencies to Resume ACORN Funding

A federal judge has reaffirmed her earlier ruling blocking the congressional effort to defund the anti-poverty group ACORN. On Wednesday, Judge Nina Gershon cemented a decision from last year that such action amounted to an unconstitutional “bill of attainder.” Judge Gershon has asked all federal agencies to allow ACORN funding without delay. Democracy Now speaks with National Housing Institute president John Atlas, author of Seeds of Change: The Story of ACORN, America’s Most Controversial Anti-Poverty Community Group

The New McCarthyism
Joe Conason writes for Truthdig.com: "The national madness known as McCarthyism began 60 years ago in Wheeling, W.Va., when Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy held up a scrap of paper that supposedly listed the names of 57 State Department officials he said were actually Communists and traitors. Eventually, America learned that the Wisconsin Republican’s famous list was a fabrication, that he was a liar and a demagogue as well as an alcoholic—and that his authoritarian appeals to fear were worse than useless in defending our security. But by then, McCarthyism’s self-serving and fundamentally unpatriotic promoters had inflicted grave damage on the body politic and international prestige of the United States. "

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change
James C. McKinley Jr. reports for the New York Times: "After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light."

The People's Nuclear Posture Review

Peter G. Cohen writes for Truthout: "Who decides our national and nuclear policy? (a) REQUIREMENT FOR COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW. 'In order to clarify United States nuclear deterrence policy and strategy for the near term, the Secretary of Defense shall conduct a comprehensive review of the nuclear policy of the United States for the next 5 to 10 years.' So says Section 1070 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008. This clarification of our policy is to be prepared primarily by the Defense Department, in spite of its vested interest in the outcome.'" (Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Pierre J., Vermin Inc)

International Women's Day
Peter Rothberg and Chantal Flores writes for The Nation: "The world has been celebrating International Women's Day since 1911 when it was established largely thanks to the efforts of activist Clara Zetkin. The idea was to create a global forum for celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future."



Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Office of Legal Counsel Nominee Johnsen for Second Time
National Partnership for Women and Familues writes: "The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted 12-7 along party lines to approve the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to be assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, CQ Today reports. The committee had already approved Johnsen nearly one year ago, but her nomination was never brought to the full Senate. President Obama re-nominated Johnsen in January after the first nomination expired at the end of 2009."

Gay Rights Tops the Bloggers’ News Agenda

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism reports: "Last week, bloggers returned to the hot-button subject of gay rights, a topic that has repeatedly proven to be of more interest to commentators online than to the mainstream press. From March 1-5, 16% of the week's links in the blogosphere were about gay rights issues in the news, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. This is the second time in a month when the topic has been among the most discussed subjects. During the first week of February, gay issues including the military's policy of "don't ask, don't tell" were a major subject of discussion. It is also the sixth time the subject finished in the top five since PEJ began its New Media Index in January 2009."

Second Mistrial for Shock Jock Hal Turner
Roy O'Connor writes for The Media Channel: "Internet shock jock and F.B.I. confidential informant Hal Turner beat the rap again when his second federal “Death-Threat Trial,” ended in yet another mistrial. Turner, charged with threatening the life of three federal judges who issued rulings supporting gun control, claims federal agents encouraged his seemingly dangerous rants over the years, and told him to “ratchet up the rhetoric” while asking for help in identifying a white supremacist killer. Government officials admit using him as an informant (beginning in 2004 and culminating in 2007) for intelligence on members of white supremacist groups, among whom he had a devoted following. Turner’s background as a paid F.B.I. informant has now become the main issue in the thus far unsuccessful prosecution."

Turn of Your TV
M.S. comments for The Economist: "KEVIN DRUM reminds us that the outsized influence of cable TV news is bizarre, since its ratings are abysmal. Average Americans simply don't watch it. They watch 'American Idol'. As Matthew Yglesias points out, the only people who do watch cable TV news all the time are political professionals. But what's truly absurd is that those political professionals don't watch it because they think they'll learn something substantive. (It is physically impossible to learn anything substantive by watching cable TV news. It's like trying to grow muscles by drinking Coke.) Rather, they watch it because they think it will keep them in touch with what average Americans are watching."

Mainstream Press Ignores Monumental House Debate on Afghan War
Norman Solomon writes for the Media Channel: The event on the House floor Wednesday afternoon was monumental — the first major congressional debate about U.S. military operations in Afghanistan since lawmakers authorized the invasion of that country in autumn 2001. But, as Rep. Patrick Kennedy noted with disgust on Wednesday, the House press gallery was nearly empty. He aptly concluded: 'It’s despicable, the national press corps right now.' Sure enough, the Thursday edition of the New York Times had no room for the historic debate on its front page, which did have room for a large Starbucks ad across the bottom."

U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy has a withering assessment of news media coverage: ‘despicable.’ The Democrat says reporters are focusing ‘24/7′ on sexual harassment allegations against a New York lawmaker while ignoring the war in Afghanistan.

Action Alert - Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: NYT and the ACORN Hoax - Why can't paper admit its mistakes?

Ignoring calls from numerous critics, the New York Times refuses to own up to mistakes in the paper's coverage of the now-famous right-wing videotapes attacking the community organizing group ACORN. Instead, the paper's public editor, Clark Hoyt, is relying on an absurd semantic justification in order to claim the paper does not need to print any corrections.

As conventionally reported in the Times and elsewhere, right-wing activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles dressed up as a pimp and a prostitute and visited several local ACORN offices, where office workers gave the duo advice on setting up a brothel, concealing a child prostitution ring and so forth. But many of the key "facts" surrounding the videos are either in dispute or are demonstrable fabrications.

Though O'Keefe appears in various scenes in the videos wearing a garish and absurd "pimp" costume, he in fact did not wear the outfit when he appeared in the ACORN offices (Washington Independent, 2/19/10); he was dressed in a button-down shirt and slacks. This fact undermines one of the key contentions of the ACORN smear--that the group is so hopelessly corrupt that they would dispense advice to an obvious criminal.

What's more, the "advice" that they received, according to the transcripts released by O'Keefe and Giles, does not appear to be as incriminating as it was portrayed in the videos--and echoed in outlets like the New York Times.

A review of the Times coverage:

--In an early piece (9/16/09), readers were told of the "amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and a pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to ACORN offices.... Conservative advocates and broadcasters were gleeful about the success of the tactics in exposing ACORN workers, who appeared to blithely encourage prostitution and tax evasion." The Times explained:

The undercover videos showed a scantily dressed young woman, Hannah Giles, posing as a prostitute, while a young man, James O'Keefe, played her pimp. They visited ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington, Brooklyn and San Bernardino, Calif., candidly describing their illicit business and asking the advice of ACORN workers. Among other questions, they asked how to buy a house to use as a brothel employing underage girls from El Salvador.

The paper also reported that O'Keefe "was dressed so outlandishly that he might have been playing in a risque high school play. But in the footage made public--initially by a new website, BigGovernment.com--ACORN employees raised no objections to the criminal plans. Instead, they eagerly counseled the couple on how to hide their activities from the authorities, avoid taxes and make the brothel scheme work."

--Three days later (9/19/09): "Their travels in the gaudy guise of pimp and prostitute through various offices of ACORN, the national community organizing group, caught its low-level employees in five cities sounding eager to assist with tax evasion, human smuggling and child prostitution."

--New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt weighed in (9/27/09), chiding the paper for not being more aggressive in promoting the ACORN videos--lamenting that Times readers weren't as up-to-speed on the story as "followers of Fox News," who already knew "that a video sting had caught ACORN workers counseling a bogus prostitute and pimp on how to set up a brothel staffed by under-age girls, avoid detection and cheat on taxes."

--The following week (10/4/09), Hoyt was on the ACORN case again: "To recap: Two conservative activists with a concealed video camera, posing as a prostitute and her pimp, visited offices of ACORN, the community organizing group, and lured employees into bizarre conversations about how to establish a bordello, cheat on taxes and smuggle in underage girls from Central America."

--After O'Keefe was charged in January with attempting to tamper with the phone system in Sen. Mary Landrieu's office, the Times reported under the headline, "After Arrest, Provocateur's Tactics Are Questioned" (1/28/10): "Mr. O'Keefe is a conservative activist who gained fame last year by posing as a pimp and secretly recording members of the community group ACORN giving him advice on how to set up a brothel."

---On January 31, 2010: "Mr. O'Keefe made his biggest national splash last year when he dressed up as a pimp and trained his secret camera on counselors with the liberal community group ACORN--eliciting advice on financing a brothel on videos that would threaten to become ACORN's undoing.

--On March 2, 2010, under the headline, "ACORN's Advice to Fake Pimp Was No Crime, Prosecutor Says, "the Times reported: "The ACORN employees in Brooklyn who were captured on a hidden camera seeming to offer conservative activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute creative advice on how to get a mortgage have been cleared of wrongdoing by the Brooklyn district attorney's office."

But the story the Times continues to tell is wildly misleading, as a review of the publicly available transcripts of his visit (BigGovernment.com) makes clear. O'Keefe never dressed as a pimp during his visits to ACORN offices, seems to never actually represent himself as a "pimp," and the advice he solicits is usually about how to file income taxes (which is not "tax evasion"). In at least one encounter (at a Baltimore ACORN office), the pair seemed to first insist that Giles was a dancer, not a prostitute.

In the case recounted in the March 2 Times story, the transcripts show that O'Keefe did not portray himself as a pimp to the ACORN workers in Brooklyn, but told them that he was trying to help his prostitute girlfriend. In part of the exchange, O'Keefe and his accomplice seem to be telling ACORN staffers that they are attempting to buy a house to protect child prostitutes from an abusive pimp.

Throughout the months the Times covered the story, it made a major mistake: believing that Internet videos produced by right-wing activists were to be trusted uncritically, rather than approached with the skepticism due to anything you'd come across on the Web. O'Keefe and the Web publisher Andrew Breitbart refused to make unedited copies of the videotape public, and with good reason: A more complete viewing, as the transcripts show, would produce a much different impression.

While the Times decide to skip the standard rules of journalism, ACORN commissioned an independent investigation led by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger (12/7/09), which noted that the

unedited videos have never been made public. The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms.Giles' comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

So what has the Times done in response? As reported extensively by blogger Brad Friedman (Brad Blog), several Times staffers have been asked to justify the paper's lack of accountability. In the most remarkable exchange, public editor Clark Hoyt--who had criticized the paper for not doing enough reporting on the tapes--wrote that the paper had made no errors that merited a correction (Brad Blog, 2/23/10). He explained that the January 31 story "says O'Keefe dressed up as a pimp and trained his hidden camera on ACORN counselors. It does not say he did those two things at the same time."

It is hard to believe that Hoyt actually believes what he's saying here. The obvious implication from the language of the article (and the others documented above) is that ACORN was dispensing advice to someone dressed up in an absurd pimp outfit. The Times chose to believe that O'Keefe's work was journalism that didn't need to be treated skeptically. The videos were in fact a hoax, and the Times was duped. Its readers deserve to know as much--and ACORN, which suffered serious political damage as a result of the false stories, deserves an apology.

In his September column criticizing the paper for being slow to report the ACORN videos, Hoyt wrote: "Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like the Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself." Worse than looking partisan, though, is being wrong.

ACTION: Encourage New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt to recommend that the paper investigate the ACORN videos and produce a report that clarifies the record.

CONTACT:
New York Times
Clark Hoyt, Public Editor
public@nytimes.com
Phone: (212) 556-7652

Clippings for 14 February 2010

Democracy and the Threat of Authoritarianism: Politics Beyond Barack Obama
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: "With the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, there was a widespread feeling among large sections of the American public and its intellectuals that the moment and threat of authoritarianism had passed. And, yet, there are many troubling signs that, in spite of the election of Obama, authoritarian policies not only continue to unfold unabated within his administration, but continue outside of his power to control them."

The Economic Elite Have Engineered an Extraordinary Coup, Threatening the Very Existence of the Middle Class
David DeGraw writes for AlterNet: "We all have very strong differences of opinion on many issues. However, like our founding fathers before us, we must put aside our differences and unite to fight a common enemy. It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99 percent of the U.S. population no longer has political representation. The U.S. economy, government and tax system is now blatantly rigged against us."

Reid and Obama Abandon the Jobs Front
Matthew Rothschild writes for The Progressive: "What planet are Harry Reid, Barack Obama, and the Democrats on? Obama's own economic advisers say that unemployment is going to average 10 percent this year and 9.2 percent next year. And yet all that Harry Reid now is proposing to spend on a new jobs bill is $15 billion over the next decade, which is peanuts. And most of those peanuts are going directly to businesses, which is the least efficient way to stimulate the economy. There is no money to extend unemployment benefits. There is no money to extend health care coverage to the unemployed. There is no money to support state governments, which are having to make vicious cuts to balance their own budgets. There is no money to create a federal jobs program."

Questions Raised About Role of Military Chaplains
John Lasker reports for Truthout: "While the US military continues to aggressively recruit Roman Catholic priests as chaplains, some Catholics question whether the military seeks priests as spiritual guides or as 'force-multipliers.' Within the US Armed Forces there are a large number of Catholics: of 1.2 million military personnel, nearly 400,000 are Catholic, not counting an estimated 800,000 dependents, according to Catholicmil.org, a Web site for chaplains and military personnel."

Our Human Rights vs. The Others
Glenn Greenwald writes for Salon.com: "Ten American Baptists were arrested two weeks ago in Haiti on charges that they exploited the chaos in that country by attempting to smuggle 33 young Haitian children across the border without permission -- either to bring them to a life of Christianity or (as some evidence suggests) to filter them into a child trafficking ring.  National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez is deeply upset by the plight of at least one of the detained Americans, Jim Allen, whom she contends (based exclusively on his family's claims) is innocent.  Lopez demands that the State Department do more to "insist" upon Allen's release, and -- most amazingly of all -- complains about the conditions of his detention.   She has the audacity to cite a Human Rights Watch description of prison conditions in Haiti as "inhumane."  Lopez complains that Allen was waterboarded, stripped, frozen and beaten has "hypertension," was shipped thousands of miles away to a secret black site beyond the reach of the ICRC and then rendered to Jordan allowed to speak to his wife only once in the first ten days of his confinement, and was consigned to years in an island-prison cage with no charges denied his choice of counsel for a few days (though he is now duly represented in Haitian courts by a large team of American lawyers)."

Recommended Audio: Rachel Maddow - Maddow Calls Out GOP Rep For Flubbing Facts Of Abdulmutallab Case

On Meet The Press yesterday (14 February), Rachel Maddow challenged Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) on the issue of the Miranda warning read to the attempted Christmas bombing suspect, correcting Schock's assertion that Abdulmutallab stopped talking after he was read his rights.

Read complete story at Talking Points Memo.

Recommended Audio: Real News Network - The Goldstone Report Returns

The three month deadline the United Nations General Assembly gave Israel and the Palestinians to begin investigations into allegations of war crimes in last year's attack expired last week. Now, the Secretary General was expected to issue his conclusions regarding sending the Goldstone's recommendations for implementation by the UN Security Council. Because the five member organization has indicated it will not pursue it further and the investigations the Israelis and Palestinians conducted were "inadequate," and "disappointing" The Real News' Lia Tarachansky asks what alternatives exist.



Revisionaries: How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids’ textbooks.
Mariah Blake reports for Washington Monthly: "Don McLeroy is a balding, paunchy man with a thick broom-handle mustache who lives in a rambling two-story brick home in a suburb near Bryan, Texas. When he greeted me at the door one evening last October, he was clutching a thin paperback with the skeleton of a seahorse on its cover, a primer on natural selection penned by famed evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr. We sat down at his dining table, which was piled high with three-ring binders, and his wife, Nancy, brought us ice water in cut-crystal glasses with matching coasters. Then McLeroy cracked the book open. The margins were littered with stars, exclamation points, and hundreds of yellow Post-its that were brimming with notes scrawled in a microscopic hand. With childlike glee, McLeroy flipped through the pages and explained what he saw as the gaping holes in Darwin's theory. 'I don't care what the educational political lobby and their allies on the left say,' he declared at one point. "Evolution is hooey." This bled into a rant about American history. "The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation," McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. 'But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan -- he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.'"

Republicans Send Out a ‘Census’ Form—That’s Really a Fundraiser

Ryan Knutson reports for ProPublica: "An editor here at ProPublica received this "Census" form [1] in the mail last week. In big, bold letters at the top it announces, '2010 CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT CENSUS.' The form even has a 'Census Tracking Code.' But it's not from the Census Bureau."

Senate Republicans: Filibuster Everything to Win in November?
David Lightman reports for McClatchy Newspapers:  "Senate Republicans are using the filibuster to limit and often derail Democrats' initiatives, paralyzing the Senate and making it nearly impossible to accomplish even the most routine matters. The filibuster strategy 'makes the Senate dysfunctional,' said Mark Strand, the president of the Congressional Institute, a nonpartisan research group. That, in turn, blocks the Obama administration's agenda, but it also sours public opinion on Washington, with polls showing clear public disdain for Congress in particular. Republicans think voters will reward them for that in November."

Money and Love
Cheryl Hudspeth writes for the Kansas Free Press: "The doorbell rang. Of course I was washing my hair and my husband was out in his man-cave. Forget it, I'm not answering the door. Of course then I was trying to figure out who had been at the door. Ah, its the day before Valentines. Hopefully, the flowers will be on the porch after I dry my hair."

A Union That Made Black History
Dick Meister writes for Truthout: "Few of the groups that we should honor during Black History Month are more deserving than the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a pioneering union that played a key role in the winning of equal rights for African-Americans."

No Nukes
Ralph Nader writes for CommonDreams.org: "A generation of Americans has grown up without a single nuclear power plant being brought on line since before the near meltdown of the Three Mile Island structure in 1979. They have not been exposed to the enormous costs, risks and national security dangers associated with their operations and the large amount of radioactive wastes still without a safe, permanent storage place for tens of thousands of years."

Indigenous Peoples Fight for Rights, Buoyed by New Report
Betwa Sharma reports for the GlobalPost: "Climate change isn't the only hazard described in the report entitled 'State of the World's Indigenous Peoples,' out this year. Its researchers find indigenous peoples trapped between the bottom rungs of all the main human development indexes like poverty, heath and education across 90 countries.... The startling revelation of the study is that while indigenous peoples make up around 370 million (5 percent) of the world’s population, they constitute around one-third of the world’s 900 million extremely poor rural people."

Climate Change: The Day After Tomorrow Might Have Been Yesterday
Matthew Berger reports for Inter Press Service: "Dubbed the 'snowpocalypse' - or sometimes 'snowpocalypse II' in deference to the previous storm that blanketed Washington in December - the scenes on the streets this past week have actually seemed eerily post-apocalyptic. Silent, monochrome and empty, they have, for some, forebode a world in which no action is taken to stem the effects of climate change. Others, though, see the wintry landscape as undermining the direness - or even the reality - of the threat posed by climate change, which they prefer to refer to as global warming, thus underscoring what they see as the incongruences between the phenomenon and the snowy spell."

Should You Invest in a White Roof?
Kiera Butler writes for Mother Jones: "Common sense fashion advice: When the weather's warm, light colored clothes keep you cool. Recent studies have shown that the same is true for buildings: White roofs and roads reflect heat instead of absorbing it, reducing scorching summer temperatures in cities (cities are hotter than rural areas because of the "heat island effect")—and possibly even slowing global warming."

The U.S. Christian Right and the Attack on Gays in Africa
Kapya Kaoma reports for PublicEye.org: "For two days in early March 2009, Ugandans flocked to the Kampala Triangle Hotel for the Family Life Network's "Seminar on Exposing the Homosexuals' Agenda." The seminar's very title revealed its claim: LGBT people and activists are engaged in a well thought-out plan to take over the world. The U.S. culture wars had come to Africa with a vengeance."

Recommended Audio: BBC - Open Internet Under Threat in the US
The BBC reports: "The ability to access all websites easily could come under threat if internet service providers get their way in America. Critics of "net neutrality" - the principle that all web traffic is treated equally regardless of the type or origin - face opposition from some of the largest internet companies. President Obama has joined his voice to the debate in defence of an open web which does not discriminate when it comes to data."


The Information Super Sewer
Chris Hedges writes for Truthdig.com: "The Internet has become one more tool hijacked by corporate interests to accelerate our cultural, political and economic decline. The great promise of the Internet, to open up dialogue, break down cultural barriers, promote democracy and unleash innovation and creativity, has been exposed as a scam. The Internet is dividing us into antagonistic clans, in which we chant the same slogans and hate the same enemies, while our creative work is handed for free to Web providers who use it as bait for advertising."

Oct. 28 Dr. Vandana Shiva/Pt 2 - "It's Up to Us Alone"

Community Bridge opens with an edited version (30 min) of Dr. Vandana Shiva's lecture "Soil, Not Oil: Food Security in an Age of Climate Change" given on Oct 16th at K-State. Dr. Vandana Shiva is internationally recognized as an environmental activist, ecofeminist, and champion of sustainable and organic agriculture, biodiversity, and economic justice. The complete version of the speech (62 minutes) is available on the Community Bridge website as a podcast. It is located under the "Fall 2009 Podcasts" in the right hand column of the webpage.

Following this week's Media Minutes, we air the second half of "It's Up to Us Alone" - a two-act radio drama set in the echoes of recent Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli military incursions, which had its worldwide broadcast debut on Friday, Oct. 16 on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles. Starring Ed Asner as Ari Shalom, the radio play features a full cast of actors taking on a script that looks at both the broader, international implications of war as well as the personal costs of conflict. The play's objective is to stimulate discussion on the Middle East and war in general by rolling ahead, based on the projected continued escalation of the conflict, to a point where militarism brings the entire world to the brink of destruction - to the point that the people on BOTH sides lose.

MP3 File

Clippings for 18 October 2009

A Nobel for Defeating Cheneyism
Joe Conason writes for Truthdig.com: "Outraged babble and sanctimonious tut-tutting over President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize will pour forth until the very evening he accepts the prize in Oslo, and then for years afterward. His critics are infuriated, they say, because he didn’t earn the prestigious award, or because he didn’t refuse it—or just because those left-wing Norwegians have a lot of nerve. How dare they insult us by bestowing their highest honor on the president of the United States and inviting him to deliver a lecture?"

Health, War, Hypocrisy and Taxes
Roberto Rodriguez writes for Truthout.org: "Over the past several months, conservatives seemingly made headway convincing a good portion of the US public that Congress may not be able to produce a national health care plan that will not bust the budget - something that President Barack Obama has promised not to sign. And then came Afghanistan."

The New Confederacy of Republicans
Michael Hittleman comments for Truthout: "South Carolina Sen. Jim Demint travels to Honduras to endorse the military coup. Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk tells China not to believe our government's figures. Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe will tell the upcoming Copenhagen climate summit that global warming is a hoax as he shadows President Obama. South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson shouts, "You lie!" at the president at a joint session of Congress. What do these events have in common? I believe the answer is that the Republican Party's 1968 "Southern Strategy" has morphed into the Southern Democratic Party's 1860 strategy - do not recognize the federal government as a legitimate institution and advocate policies reminiscent of the antebellum South."

Veteran Army Office Urges Afghan Troop Drawdown
Gareth Porter reports for Inter Press Service: "A veteran Army officer who has served in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars warns in an analysis now circulating in Washington that the counterinsurgency strategy urged by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is likely to strengthen the Afghan insurgency, and calls for withdrawal of the bulk of US combat forces from the country over 18 months."

The Imperial Presidency 2.0
David Swanson writes for TomDispatch: "October 7th marked the eighth anniversary of the Bush administration's invasion of Afghanistan and so of the... well, can we really call it a war?... that won't end, that American commanders there now predict could last for another decade or more. And yet, here's the weird thing: because Congress no longer actually declares war, we officially must be fighting something else entirely. Put another way, we are now heading for the longest undeclared war in U.S. history (depending on how you count up the Vietnam years)."

House Sneakly Passes Bill Banning Release of Photos Showing Detainee Abuse
Dick Baumann writes for AlterNet: "President Obama has won his fight to ensure that the Defense Department can conceal evidence of its employees' wrongdoing. On Thursday, the House passed a measure allowing the DoD to withhold essentially any photos of detainee abuse that it doesn't want the public to see. The move is a huge defeat for the ACLU, which has been fighting a years-long legal battle to obtain such photos under the Freedom of Information Act. But now an amendment  sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), makes all that moot and slashes a huge hole in FOIA. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) was a key figure in stopping Lieberman's photo suppression bill the first time around. In a floor speech Thursday, she explained that this time, the provision was slipped into the Homeland Security spending bill during the conference between House and Senate negotiators -- 'apparently under direct orders from the Administration.'"

UN Vote to Endorse Goldstone Report Increases Pressure on Israel
Joshua Mitnick reports for The Christian Science Monitor: "The United Nations Human Rights Council's decision Friday to adopt the controversial Goldstone report on the Gaza war increases the pressure on Israel to conduct its own investigation into alleged war crimes."

Financial Regulation Bill Passed Despite Financial Lobbying
Yana Kunichoff writes for Truthout: "The Obama administration achieved one small step Thursday, successfully passing legislation that would guarantee oversight of the financial derivatives market. This bill, passed by the House Financial Services Committee on a 43-26 vote, would be the first time the market would be forced to rein in this multi-trillion-dollar industry."

Replacing America’s Accountable Democracy with Unaccountable Corporatism – Privateering
Andy Hailey writes for The Daily Censored: "The following is based on chapter seven of George Lakoff’s The Political Mind:  Privateering is a special blend of privatizing and profiteering.  Privateering is the surreptitious destruction of the government’s capacity to carry out its critical moral missions of protection and empowerment.  Privateering results in the loss of public accountability and the transfer of wealth from the public coffers to corporations.   Each instance of privateering that diminishes the governments moral responsibilities damages the foundation of our American democracy."

Feds bust Twitter Tweeter, Impound Curious George and Buffy Videos in Terror Probe
Michale Niman writes for ArtVoice: "I love headlines like this—I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. This story begins last month at the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, where finance ministers and leaders from the 20 richest nations met to scheme on how to prop up global capitalism for another year. Protesters from around the world came to Pittsburgh to demand economic justice from the G-20. And New York City social worker Elliot Madison came to Pittsburgh to work with the Tin Can Communications Collective a group of anarchist communications activists providing real-time logistical reporting for, as they explain on their Web site, 'activists fighting the state and capitalism.'"

2010 Census Faces Challenges
Desiree Evans writes for Facing South: "Lawmakers and community advocates continue to work to ensure accuracy in the rapidly approaching 2010 Census. The count will play an important role in determining the amount of dollars flowing to communities across the nation and in the South over the next decade, as well as political representation. But the Census continues to face challenges on several fronts."

Charter Schools, The Repression of Free Speech and Authoritarian Autocracy: The New but Old, Educational Reform
Danny Weil writes for The Daily Censored: "You might have heard of Marisol Alba and Sean Strauss, but chances are you haven’t.  They were two courageous charter school teachers who worked at the Celerity Nascent Charter School in southwest Los Angeles until 2007.  In concert with some of their students, they tried to learn about the story of Emmet Till and participate in power and decision-making at their school in terms of what curriculum they found appropriate for student learning. That is when the two teachers were fired and the students’ resistance was suffocated.  Their story, like many other disenfranchised narratives left out of the corporate press, is simply one more in the sordid saga of surveillance and authoritarianism cropping up in the neo-liberal minds of the new charter school CEO’s; it is a reflection of the thinking deeply implicated in the need for vaulted test scores and intensely imbedded in the autocratic charter school movement in general.  But it’s a must tell story, for its rancid resonance seems to broaden each day. "

American Health Care's Big Secret
David Drumm writes for Mother Jones: "It's become sort of a truism over the years that America has the best healthcare in the world. By nearly any measure this isn't true, but that's never stopped a truism before.
   Until now. In a recent Pew poll only 39 percent of respondents rated American health care above average. The rest rated it average or below. So even if this year's health care debate has done nothing else, it's apparently convinced people of what was once unthinkable. We're not #1. We're #37. (According to the World Health Organization, anyway. France ranks #1.)
   But here's something even more interesting: When it comes to health care, the more money you make the less you know. When Pew broke out the results by income, 50 percent of those with incomes over $100,000 thought American health care was above average. That number dropped steadily with income, with only 32 percent of those reporting incomes under $30,000 giving American healthcare a positive rating. It's easy to understand why people responded this way, since the well-off get better health care than the poor. But it turns out that being well off also blinded them to the broader reality. And it's an ironic reality, too, because the well-off are the ones who pay the most for the distinctly mediocre care that most of us get. They just don't know it.

Is the Climate Bill Being Fossil/Nuked? 
Harvey Wasserman writes for The Free Press: "Is the Climate Bill morphing into an excuse to promote fossil fuels and new nuclear power plants? Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) recent promotion of a pro-nuke/pro-drilling/pro-coal agenda in the name of Climate Protection has been highlighted in a New York Times op ed co-authored with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC). The piece brands nuke power 'our single largest contributor of emissions-free power.' It advocates abolishing 'cumbersome regulations' so utilities can 'secure financing for more plants.' And it wants 'serious investment' to 'find solutions to our nuclear waste problem.'" 

National Equality March: It's Time for a Change
Christopher Renner writes for the Kansas Free Press: "The National Equality March organized by Equality Across America drew an estimated 200,000 marchers to Washington, DC, on Sunday October 11th. Included in the sea of marchers were 13 marchers from Manhattan - 11 students from Kansas State University's LGBTQ & More organization and two from the Flint Hills Human Rights Project. This was my third march for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality. At the height of the AIDS crisis, I had returned to the US in 1987 from my then home in Italy to be part of a very angry march as the LGBT community dealt with President Reagan who refused to respond to the growing AIDS crisis or even speak of it in public. By the time the NAMES Project Memorial Quilt was unfolded on the Mall at that march, I had made eight panels, including one for my former partner."

More McCarthyism: 53 Republicans Seek Ouster of Obama Schools Official
David Kirkpatrick reports for the New York Times: "Fifty-three House Republicans have signed a letter to the Obama administration asking for the ouster of Kevin Jennings, an official charged with promoting school safety, because of his career as an advocate of teaching tolerance of homosexuality."

DOMA Repeal Bill Tops 100 Cosponsors
Carlos Santoscoy writes for On Top magazine: "Sponsors of the Respect for Marriage Act said Tuesday the bill has exceeded 100 co-sponsors. Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced the bill that would repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at a Washington outdoor press conference in September. DOMA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton 13 years ago. The law defines marriage as a heterosexual union for federal agencies and allows states to ignore gay marriages performed in other states. Under DOMA legally married gay and lesbian couples cannot access federal benefits, including Social Security and pensions."

Recommended Audio: Noam Chomsky Compares Right-Wing Media to Nazi Germany

Noam Chomsky criticizes right-wing media outlets, which he describes as delivering a message of paranoia and economic populism comparable to Nazis during the Weimar Republic.

Noam Chomsky Compares Right-Wing Media to Nazi Germany - Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

Faux News
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, and Zaid Jilani write for The Progress Report at Think Progress: "In recent days, a war of words has erupted between Fox News and the White House. It began last week when White House communications director Anita Dunn told Time magazine, '[Fox News] is opinion journalism masquerading as news.' Last weekend, she told CNN, 'Fox News operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.' This set off a blustering reaction from Fox, whose senior vice president Michael Clemente responded, 'It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming. It seems self-serving on their part.' Fox News host Glenn Beck went further, comparing the White House effort to call out Fox News's partisanship to Richard Nixon's attacks on the press and compiling of an enemies list. The truth is, Fox engages in practices that a legitimate news network would never do, regularly promoting GOP talking points and misinforming its audience on key policy debates."

FCC Study: Open Access Spurs Broadband Growth
Roy Mark reports for eWeek.com: "Nations that have exceeded the United States in a number of broadband metrics embraced a policy of open access for competitors to traditional carriers. Open access was originally a policy objective of the 1996 Telecommunications Act but the FCC abandoned the idea when the United States began transitioning from dial-up to broadband. Industrialized nations that rank above the United States in broadband in a variety of metrics implemented; open access policies -- unbundling, bitstream access, collocation requirements, wholesaling, and/or functional separation -- to achieve their success, according to a study commissioned by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and conducted by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society."

CNN to Disclose Contributor's Ties to Advocacy Group
Brian Stelter reprots for the New York Times: "CNN said Thursday that it would disclose one of its contributors’ ties to an insurance industry advocacy group in the future, but did not explain why it had not done so in the past.  The cable news network was reacting to a claim by Media Matters for America, a progressive media monitoring group, that one of its regular commentators, Alex Castellanos, was tied to an advertising campaign by America’s Health Insurance Plans, an association of about 1,300 insurers. AHIP opposes a government-run plan."

National Amusements to Sell Shares of Viacom, CBS
Andrew Vanacore and Ryan Nakashima write for The Huffington Post: "Media mogul Sumner Redstone's holding company, National Amusements Inc., is selling some of its stake in CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. as well as 35 movie theaters to pay off its debts.  The stock sale will raise nearly $1 billion in cash and allow National Amusements to meet a $500 million debt payment this month, alleviating concerns that the company could lose control of the media conglomerates or run into trouble with its creditors."

In His Latest McCarthyism, Hannity Distorts And Smears Obama’s Muslim Advisor
Ellen writes for News Hounds: "So many smears, so little time! That could have been the motto for a one-minute portion of Hannity’s America last night (10/15/09). In that brief time, Sean Hannity and his producers misrepresented the background of the CEO of Britain’s The Islam Channel, attacked a member of President Obama’s Faith Advisory Council for appearing on the station and suggested she’s a terrorist-sympathizer because she expressed a willingness to accept Sharia law for Muslim-majority societies. So where was Hannity’s outrage when the Bush administration backed Islamic law in Iraq? Answer: nowhere to be seen. With video."

Clippings for 27 September 2009

G20: Leaders Agree on Reforms, Poor Still "Out in the Cold"
Eli Clifton reports for Inter Press Service: "World leaders at the two-day G20 Summit in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh agreed to work cooperatively to recover from the global economic crisis and create structural reforms with long-term growth as the goal.... 'The G20 is more representative than the G8 but there is still no seat at the table for the poorest countries,' said Oxfam senior policy adviser Max Lawson. 'South Africa is the only African country included in this club. That means when the G20 talks about growth and stability, they are leaving the poorest countries in the cold.'"

Climate Change: Off the G-20 Agenda?
Robert Eshelman writes for The Nation: "Tuesday afternoon, US District Court Judge Gary Lancaster rejected a request by the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Center for Constitutional Rights for an injunction against the Pittsburgh Police. The lawyers alleged in the suit that local law enforcement has been systematically harassing and carrying out unconstitutional searches and seizures of members of two G-20 protest groups--the Seeds of Peace Collective and the Three Rivers Climate Convergence (3RCC). The judge refused to restrain the police and suggested that if police conduct warrants damages claims, then the ACLU should file suit. The ACLU says it will pursue such claims."

Obama and Nukes: Talking the Talk, Awaiting the Walk
David Krieger reports for Miller-McCune: "The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council possess over 98 percent of the more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Today, President Barack Obama led a session of the council focusing on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. We take that opportunity to present a dialogue between David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation - an organization strident in its opposition to nuclear weapons - and Richard Falk, professor emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and the chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Falk and Krieger have written widely on nuclear dangers and are co-editors of the 2008 book At the Nuclear Precipice: Catastrophe or Transformation?"

How to Trap a President in a Losing War
Tom Engelhardt writes for TomDispatch: "Front and center in the debate over the Afghan War these days are General Stanley "Stan" McChrystal, Afghan war commander, whose 'classified, pre-decisional' and devastating report -- almost eight years and at least $220 billion later, the war is a complete disaster -- was conveniently, not to say suspiciously, leaked to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post by we-know-not-who at a particularly embarrassing moment for Barack Obama; Admiral Michael "Mike" Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has been increasingly vocal about a "deteriorating" war and the need for more American boots on the ground; and the president himself, who blitzed every TV show in sight last Sunday and Monday for his health reform program, but spent significant time expressing doubts about sending more American troops to Afghanistan. ('I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan... or sending a message that America is here for the duration.')"

Goldstone's Report: A Different Look
Dr. Elias Akleh writes for Dissident Voices: "Goldstone’s report, incriminating Israel for war crimes, has been optimistically received by many as a sign of dismantling Israel’s impunity from legal actions for her war crimes and violations of international laws. Yet, at the same time, it is full of political booby-traps that Israel could use to indemnify herself and turn the blame onto Palestinians. Besides equating the Palestinian victims with the genocidal Israeli criminals, and denying them of their moral humanitarian right of self-defense, the report also grossly ignores historical events, distorts reality, and legalizes Israeli occupation of Palestine."

Administration Won't Seek New Detention System
Peter Finn reports for The Washington Post: "The Obama administration has decided not to seek legislation to establish a new system of preventive detention to hold terrorism suspects and will instead rely on a 2001 Congressional resolution authorizing military force against al-Qaeda and the Taliban to continue to detain people indefinitely and without charge, according to administration officials."

Where Is the Defund Blackwater Act?
Jeremy Scahill writes for Rebel Reports: "Republican Congressional leaders are continuing their witch-hunt against ACORN, the grassroots community group dedicated to helping poor and working class people. This campaign now unfortunately has gained bipartisan legislative support in the form of the Defund ACORN Act of 2009 which has now passed the House and Senate."

How Green Was My Stimulus?
Michael Garbell reports for ProPublica: "The United States is lagging behind some of its peers in the percentage of economic stimulus money being spent on “green” projects, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program [1]. In all, the U.S. is spending $94 billion, about 12 percent, on programs such as renewable energy, high-speed rail and energy efficiency. But that portion pales in comparison to the 79 percent being spent by South Korea’s “Green New Deal” or the 34 percent that China is spending to address climate change. Of the $3.1 trillion in global stimulus, “the amount allocated to renewable energy falls short of the investment needed to reduce carbon emissions and keep the rise in global average temperature under 2 degrees Celsius,” or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the U.N. agency said."

The Case for Real Aid
Jonathan Glennie writes for The New Internationalist: "I knew this would happen. The intellectual initiative on African development seized by a free-market ideologue, now listed by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.  It is clear what side of the fence Dambisa Moyo is sitting on. The foreword to her book Dead Aid is written by leading conservative historian Niall Ferguson, and her write-up in Time was written by none other than (ex-President of the World Bank) Paul Wolfowitz. In her eight years with Goldman Sachs, I doubt she was a subscriber to the New Internationalist."

Recommended Audio: Naomi Klein in Conversation with Michael Moore
The Nation writes: "On September 17, fresh from the premiere of Capitalism: A Love Story at the Toronto Film Festival, filmmaker Michael Moore talked with The Nation's Naomi Klein by phone about making Capitalism; the roots of the economic crisis; and the promise and peril of the current political moment. Below, you can listen to the full audio recording of their thirty-minute conversation. How is President Obama handling the economic crisis? Who is taking on Wall Street? And who is letting Wall Street take advantage of us? Find out in this exclusive podcast conversation between The Nation's Naomi Klein and documentarian Michael Moore."

To read the transcript of the interview, click here. 

Obama TV: How the President Revived the Health Care Debate
Bill Boyarsky writes for Truthdig.com: "President Barack Obama has been a calming force in the debate over health care reform, bringing a tone of rationality to counter the influence of right-wing talk radio, Fox News and the Republicans’ staged “grass-roots” town hall meetings. He’s not turning the other cheek. Rather, he’s sticking it to his critics with intelligence and wit."

Health Reform Money is Aimed at Red States
Marie Cocco writes for Truthdig: "It is “a stunning assault on liberty” (Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona). It is “trying to force or foist a one-size-fits-all solution on the states” (Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah). It is a plan that “taxes too much and grows government too much” (Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas). It is also a massive shift of tax money from constituents of traditionally liberal and Democratic states to constituents of traditionally conservative and Republican states."

The Real Cost of Medical Malpractice
Kevin Drum comments for Mother Jones: In his column today, David Leonhardt makes a point about medical malpractice that doesn't get enough attention:

The fear of lawsuits among doctors does seem to lead to a noticeable amount of wasteful treatment. Amitabh Chandra — a Harvard economist whose research is cited by both the American Medical Association and the trial lawyers’ association — says $60 billion a year, or about 3 percent of overall medical spending, is a reasonable upper-end estimate. If a new policy could eliminate close to that much waste without causing other problems, it would be a no-brainer.

At the same time, though, the current system appears to treat actual malpractice too lightly. Trials may get a lot of attention, but they are the exception. Far more common are errors that never lead to any action.

After reviewing thousands of patient records, medical researchers have estimated that only 2 to 3 percent of cases of medical negligence lead to a malpractice claim.

This deserves more attention. We can argue about the costs of defensive medicine forever. But I'm willing to tentatively accept $60 billion as a conversation starter. It's never going to be possible to get a precise answer anyway since, as Leonhardt says later, virtually every incentive in our medical system is to do more. Trying to isolate and quantify the blame for each particular unnecessary test just isn't possible."

Your Electronic Vote in the 2010 Election Has Just Been Bought
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman write for The Free Press: "Unless US Attorney General Eric Holder intervenes, your electronic vote in 2010 will probably be owned by the Republican-connected ESS Corporation. With 80% ownership of America's electronic voting machines, ESS could have the power to shape America's future with a few proprietary keystrokes."

Teen Birth Rate Higher in States Where Religion is Widespread
US News and World Report states: "Teenage birth rates are higher in states with greater levels of religious belief, possibly due to strong disapproval of contraception, a new U.S. study suggests. In the study, researchers compared U.S. data on teen birth rates with data from the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscapes Survey. A state's level of religious belief was determined by averaging the percentage of respondents who agreed with the eight most conservative opinions in the survey, such as 'Scripture should be taken literally, word for word.'"

Whoops: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud
Ryan Grim reports for the Huffington Post: "Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately -- but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process. The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things."

Right-Wing Agenda-Driven Journalism Nothing New When It Comes to ACORN
John Santore write for Media Matters: "Media Matters for America recently released a report documenting the obsessive attention Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have devoted to ACORN -- due, of course, to their self-professed determination to expose taxpayer-funded waste, fraud, and abuse wherever it appears. As such, Media Matters compared the focus each host's television programs have given to the story with their coverage of well-documented political scandals involving Jack Abramoff and Bob Ney, as well as massive corruption scandals engulfing Halliburton, Blackwater, and KBR -- corporations which have received thousands of times more money from the government than ACORN ever has."

Mainstream Media and ACORN-like Video Stings
James Rainey reports for the L.A. Times: "You've got to give James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles credit for abundant chutzpah and guile. The two young political provocateurs decked themselves out as a pimp and prostitute and rocked ACORN with a series of secret videos showing the sketchy behavior of employees of the activist organization that registers voters, organizes communities and advocates for cheap housing for poor people."

What Net Neutrality Is Really All About
Karl Bode writes for Broadband Reports: "If you've paid attention, you know the modern "network neutrality" debate took off in 2005, when then AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre proudly, though dumbly, proclaimed that Google got a "free ride" on his network. According to Ed, this unfairness could only be rectified by charging companies who already pay for bandwidth money to ensure their traffic reaches AT&T consumers quickly. Such a bizarre statement obviously resulted in fear that phone companies planned to act as trolls under the metaphorical Internet bridge, grumpily extorting passers by. That created a desire by content companies and consumers for laws that would prevent this from happening."

The Moguls' New Clothes
Bruce Greenwald, Jonathan Knee and Ava Seave write for The Atlantic: "me Warner announced in May that it plans to spin off its AOL division by year end. The new AOL’s value will likely be barely 1 percent of the market price of the inflated stock that Time Warner accepted in the original $175 billion merger almost a decade ago—despite the inclusion of numerous subsequent expensive add-on acquisitions. While extreme, the Time Warner–AOL combination was no aberration. The deal represents less than half the financial damage done during an unprecedented era of excess in the media business. Since 2000, the largest media conglomerates have collectively written down more than $200 billion in assets, a record that would make even Citigroup blush. These write-downs reflect a broad-based legacy of value destruction from relentlessly overpriced acquisitions, “strategic” investments, and contracts for content and talent."

The Turth about Two Racists - Beck and Limbaugh
Joe Conason writes for Truthdig.com: "With admirable calm, President Obama has sought to deflect the supercharged politics of race by expressing his optimism about American attitudes and ignoring the most extreme statements by his critics. For his own sake, as well as the nation’s, he is wise to give a pass to the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. That is not, however, what they deserve."

Hannity’s And Beck’s Massively Disproportionate Focus On ACORN Vs. Other Scandals
Ellen at News Hounds writes: "Those America lovers, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, seem to have some serious blinders when it comes to scandals involving taxpayer money. Media Matters did a bit of research and surprise! Surprise! Despite the fact that the two self-described patriots claim to be concerned about wasting "taxpayer dollars," they have consistently overlooked or offered minimal coverage of extensive fraud at Halliburton and KBR as well as the scandals involving the private security contractor Blackwater (now Xe), lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Rep. Bob Ney. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that ACORN involves minorities and Democrats while the other scandals implicate Republicans."

Tell The Real Story about Glenn Beck
ColorOfChange.org notes that Glenn Beck is getting a lot of media attention right now (and he'll probably get more now that his latest book has been released). Unfortunately mainstream reporters have failed to confront his extremist, incendiary rhetoric, or his antics which actively stoke the fires of racial paranoia. He repeatedly makes inflammatory claims that simply aren't true. ColorOfChange is asking people familiar with Beck's racial fearmongering to write letters to the editors of their local papers asking them to call out the extremist hate mongering of Glenn Beck. Click here to participate.

Fox is the Most - and Least - Trusted
Marla Jean Tenore reports for Poynter Online: "Results from a national Sacred Heart University survey released today reveal that many news consumers believe the media played a significant role in electing President Barack Obama and that the media continue to promote his presidency.  Titled "Trust and Satisfaction with the National News Media," the national survey of 800 Americans renews attention to the issue of liberal media bias and its effect on political coverage."