KSBOE Candidate Forum District 6

On July 23, 2012, Kansas Citizens for Science sponsored a Kansas State Board of Education candidate forum for District 6 at the Manhattan Public Library. Candidates participating in the forum included: Usha Reddi and Carol Viar, Democratic candidates, and Deena Horst, Republican candidate. After general introductory statements, questions were solicited from the audience and were asked to the candidates by forum moderator, Harry McDonald, President of the Kansas Citizens for Science Board of Directors.

Clippings for 21 February 2010

What Are We Bid for American Justice?
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship comment for Truthout: "That famous definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing has come to define this present moment of American politics. No wonder people have lost faith in politicians, in parties and in our leadership. The power of money drives cynicism deep into the heart of every level of government."

Seven Deadly Traits: Decoding the confession of the Austin plane bomber.
David Cullen writes for Slate.com: "Joseph Stack spent months on his manifesto. He was adamant about convincing us—or himself—why flying his plane into an IRS building was an act of charity. The five-page rant the software engineer wrote before his performance murder is illogical, hysterical, hyperbolic, and deeply dishonest. Stack's convoluted arguments explain nothing, and the thumbnail sketch of his impoverished life is absurd. And that's exactly why it's so revealing. The software engineer tried to con us with a deceptive self-portrait, but the real Joseph Stack reveals himself in the way he concocts it."

Terrorism: The Most Meaningless and Manipulated Word
Glenn Greenwald writes for Salon.com: "Yesterday, Joseph Stack deliberately flew an airplane into a building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas, in order to advance the political grievances he outlined in a perfectly cogent suicide-manifesto. Stack's worldview contained elements of the tea party's anti-government anger along with substantial populist complaints generally associated with "the Left" (rage over bailouts, the suffering of America's poor, and the pilfering of the middle class by a corrupt economic elite and their government-servants). "

Obama's Pentagon Rebrands Iraq War, Rolls Out PR Offensive in Afghanistan
Liliana Segura writes for AlterNet: "This week, the same week that saw the U.S. military launch a major new assault in Afghanistan -- a much ballyhooed effort that is as much a PR offensive as a military one -- the Pentagon decided to formally rebrand the Iraq War. In a one-page memo dated Feb. 17, 2010 and signed by Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense officially requested that U.S. Central Command "change the name of Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn."

DOJ Report on Torture Memo: Yoo Said Bush Could Order Civilians "Exterminated"
Jason Leopold writes for Truthout: "A long-awaited report into the legal memos former Justice Department attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee prepared for the Bush administration on torture was released Friday afternoon and concluded that the men violated 'professional standards' and should be referred to state bar associations where a further review of their legal work could have led to the revocation of their law licenses."

Bagram, Obama's Secret Penal Colony
Sara Daniel reports for Le Nouvel Observateur (English translation by Truthout.org): "It's the biggest American prison outside the United States. No journalist has ever been able to penetrate this no-law zone situated to the north of Kabul. Arbitrary detentions, humiliations, even torture, in the name of the 'war against terror' ... From Afghanistan, Sara Daniel reports horrific testimonies. After Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the next scandal to threaten America?"

A Convenient Truth
Ken Sayers writes for The Daily Censored: "How convenient it is that the Justice Department has decided the person who sent weapon’s grade anthrax to key Democratic offices, like Senator Patrick Leahey’s, is a dead person. Yes, It is Obama’s justice Department, but the people in it were hired in the last nine years. I think Obama’s Justice department is working under a bit of a handicap. Unless, of course, Obama is actually happy with the Justice Department, declaring the “torture memos” as being within the law — that it coincides with his idea of Justice. If that is the case, than we are operating under a handicap."

Private Contractors "Like Vultures Coming to Grab the Loot"
Anthony Fenton reports for Inter Press Service: "Critics are concerned that private military contractors are positioning themselves at the centre of an emerging 'shock doctrine' for earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Next month, a prominent umbrella organisation for private military and logistic corporations, the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), is co-organising a 'Haiti summit' which aims to bring together 'leading officials' for 'private consultations with attending contractors and investors' in Miami, Florida."

Anniversary of Stimulus Met with Praise and Scorn
Christopher Flavelle reports for ProPublica: "A year ago, Congress passed one of the biggest-ever attempts to spend the United States out of an economic maelstrom. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stands as one of President Obama’s signature initiatives — a mix of tax cuts, financial aid and infrastructure projects worth some $800 billion. Has the stimulus lived up to its promise? As we’ve reported before, where you stand depends on where you sit."

The Wal-Mart Counter Revolution
Adam Turl writes for CounterPunch: "Once upon a time, GM was the biggest employer in the U.S. In the historic labor battles of the 1930s, GM workers formed the United Auto Workers (UAW). During the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, they won substantial gains in wages and benefits. Of course, both GM and the UAW are now pale shadows of their former selves. Today the largest employer in the U.S. (and the world) is the anti-union behemoth Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart's 1.4 million U.S. "associates" often earn poverty or near poverty wages."

Recommended Audio: News Dissector Radio - Economic Elite Vs. The People

MediaChannel’s David DeGraw joins Danny Schechter on the weekly News Dissector Radio Show to discuss his new report on how the economic elite are at war with the American people.

Looting Social Security
Paul Graig Roberts writes for Counter Punch: "Hank Paulson, the Gold Sacks bankster/US Treasury Secretary, who deregulated the financial system, caused a world crisis that wrecked the prospects of foreign banks and governments, caused millions of Americans to lose retirement savings, homes, and jobs, and left taxpayers burdened with multi-trillions of dollars of new US debt, is still not in jail. He is writing in the New York Times urging that the mess he caused be fixed by taking away from working Americans the Social Security and Medicare for which they have paid in earmarked taxes all their working lives."

Rescuing Socialism
Jeremy Seabrook writes for The New Internationalist: "The Left is so demoralized that even in the worst recession in 70 years, it poses no threat to capitalism. Most who ‘like to think of themselves as on the Left’ (that refuge of fantasy), ritually deplore the loss of popular support, bleakly placing faith in ‘the swing of the pendulum’ or telling each other that ‘the world has changed’ and we must make the best of it."

The GOP's Mixed Medicare Message
Joe Conason comments for Truthout: "For voters listening to the Republican leadership over the past year, the most startling surprise was the shift in their attitude toward Medicare. Where faithfulness to true conservatism was once measured by fierce hostility to the popular insurance program for the elderly, as articulated by Ronald Reagan at the birth of Medicare in 1965, today the Republicans claim to be its staunchest defenders."

Post-Katrina Shootings by Police Get Federal Attention
A.C. Thompson, ProPublica, Laura Maggi and Brendan McCarthy Times-Picayune, report for ProPublica: "Federal agents have broadened their investigation of the New Orleans Police Department and are now looking into three post-Katrina police shootings detailed in a news series published by ProPublica, The Times-Picayune and the PBS series “Frontline” in December. Assistant Superintendent Marlon Defillo of the NOPD confirmed that the FBI has subpoenaed documents relating to the shootings—which included police investigative reports, as well as other related files—in the past two months."

Recommended Audio: Countdown Special Comment - Racial discrimination inherent in the Tea Party movement

On Presidents Day, Keith Olbermann makes a special comment about racial discrimination and its inherency in the tea party movement. Olbermann once again show his great ability of articulation and right on examples. The essay not only enlightens the listener, but shows that we, as a country, have a lot of work to do.



Here's to You Glenn Beck
Samuel Jacobs writes for The Daily Beast: "Conservative America crowns a new king this Saturday night, when Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck gives the keynote address to 10,000 activists at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC. The Washington confab is a must-attend event for any right-winger worth his salt, and Beck’s address—last year’s was given by Rush Limbaugh—is yet another sign of the talker’s ascendancy."

Defying Progressives, Obama Revives Nuclear Power
Randy Shaw writes for CommonDreams.org: "Those who continue to insist that President Obama would implement progressive measures if he only had 60 Senate votes (ignoring that he had this for most of 2009) will have a hard time explaining his move this week to launch the first nuclear power plants built in the United States since the 1970's. Anti-nuclear power activism, coupled with the Three Mile Island near-meltdown, doomed the nuclear power industry, and major environmental groups have long opposed new plants. But as with Obama's dramatic escalation of the war in Afghanistan (and the covert sending of troops to Pakistan), there was little outcry from progressives in response to an action that would have brought thousands into the streets if initiated by a Republican President. Is it not becoming clear that President Obama uses the 60-vote filibuster Senate threshold to justify inaction on progressive goals, while almost consistently acting against progressive interests when the 60 votes are not a factor?"

Book Review: The Food Wars by Walden Bello

Tom Fawthrop writes for The New Internationalist:

According to the gospel of corporate globalization, only large-scale farming methods can feed the world. Well, just as the real-estate mess burst one capitalist bubble, so The Food Wars shows that another has already exploded. Agribusiness and supermarkets control an unprecedented extent of the food chain, yet hunger and food prices have soared. Filipino activist-academic Walden Bello traces the causes of today’s food crisis back to the World Bank’s strategy of structural adjustment, which was applied to around 90 countries in the South. Small farmers and local producers were marginalized as export-orientated food production was promoted and foreign corporations privileged. The result: loss of food security in many parts of the South.
Bello’s is a convincing critique. The alternatives he proposes centre on the notion of food sovereignty – prioritizing local food production, harnessing new technology and meshing it with traditional knowledge. Exactly how this can be elevated from a local and regional alternative to a global one is less clear. Bello seems to assume that all countries can and should be self-sufficient in food production, as if they all had an equal capacity and land fertility. Nonetheless, The Food Wars is a valuable contribution to the urgent debate on how to thwart further Tesco-ization of the world and land-grabbing from small producers. If we don’t move in this direction, food riots – such as those that erupted in Egypt and Haiti – will surely escalate into food wars.

The President's Budget: A Mixed Bag for Women's Health
Susan Cohen reports for RH Reality Check: "On February 1, President Obama sent his proposed budget for the fiscal year starting October 1, 2010 to Congress. On the domestic front, the administration's top priority for reproductive health and rights is teen pregnancy prevention, for which the administration is recommending a significant boost in funding. With the abstinence-only-until-marriage approach of the bygone era defeated, the new initiative will emphasize an evidence-based approach to reducing teenage pregnancy and the underlying factors that put teens at risk."

ACLU Sues USAID: Are We Exporting US Taxpayer-Funded Religion?
Amie Newman writes for RH Reality Check: "The ACLU has waited long enough. On Thursday, February 18th, they filed a lawsuit against USAID for refusing to comply with their Freedom of Information Act requests from July and September 2009, for documents related to USAID-funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs abroad. The ACLU has patiently awaited documents that may help shed light on an audit completed last year suggesting USAID is dispersing money, unconstitutionally, for religiously-based HIV prevention programs."

The '70s: Wichita Women Change the World
Diane Wahto writes for the Kansas Free Press: "During the 1960s, while male activists were out in the streets protesting the war, the draft, the CIA, Dow Chemical, or what have you, their female counterparts often complained that they were left behind to brew the coffee and tidy up the meeting rooms. By the beginning of the decade that started Jan. 1, 1970, however, the ferment that had started to percolate in the '60s erupted into a movement that eventually became a feminist tsunami of marches, political appointments, laws, and legal decisions that changed forever the lives of women and the men who lived and worked with them."

Outraged Citizens Campaign Forces History Channel to Rethink Miniseries About the Kennedys
Daniela Perdomo reports for AlterNet: "Media observers are abuzz with talk of a History Channel mini-series called The Kennedys.  While the scripts for the eight-part show, slated to air in 2011, are still unfinished, that hasn't stopped 40,000 people from signing a petition calling the series "right-wing character assassination" and "politically motivated fiction."

Facing Our "Crisis of Jourmalism"

Christopher Renner writes for the Kansas Free Press: "In 2005, I attended the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis sponsored by Free Press. While I had always been an "activist," this conference change my outlook on US culture and society like nothing else I have even been involved in. In particular, Bill Moyers's speech (you can watch it here) articulated much of the frustration I had and have with the direction our nation has taken since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980."

Charging for Content Elicits Strong Objections among Bloggers
The Pew Reserch Center's Project for Excellence in Jourmalism reports: "Social media last week dove into the debate of free versus pay online content. Sparked by Warner Music's plan to favor Web sites that charge users, bloggers answered in force: It's free or we flee. Twitter users also joined voices last week-in this case to criticize the privacy settings on Google's new social networking tool, Google Buzz. And Google, for its part, quickly responded. In the blogosphere, the top subject was the news that Warner Music was no longer going to support free online music streaming services such as Spotify, We7 and Last.fm. From February 8-12, this topic received 19% of the week's links according to the New Media Index produced by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism."

FCC Proposes Turning Federal Buildings into Broadband Anchor Institutions
John Eggerton writes for Broadcast and Cable: "The FCC said Feb. 18 that it would propose using federal buildings as anchor institutions for broadband service, saying federal assets have 'not [been] used effectively to spur local adoption and deployment of broadband.'  That was one in a series of proposals the FCC signaled will be part of a national broadband deployment and adoption plan due to Congress March 17."

Sen. Feingold Doesn't Like Cable Industry's Bundling Habits
Joe Flint writes for The LA Times: "Looks like Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) isn't a fan of bundling. In written questions to Comcast and NBC Universal about their $30-billion merger proposal, the senator, a member of the Judiciary Committee, asked: "Is it common practice now to require a television distributor ...  to carry several less popular channels in order to get a cable channel that they and consumers really want?" He then wondered whether Comcast and NBC would stop the practice, according to people familiar with his letter."

Recommended Audio: Media Matters - Right-wing media promote, give platform to "anti-government extremist" Oath Keepers

Media Matters reports: "Over the past several months, right-wing media have promoted the Oath Keepers, a group established in 2009 and identified by the Anti-Defamation League as 'encourag[ing] members of the military and law enforcement to pledge not to follow certain hypothetical 'orders' from the federal government' that 'echo longstanding conspiracy theories embraced by anti-government extremists.' On February 17, Bill O'Reilly said that he intended to host a member of the group on his next show to 'give forth their point of view.'"

Town Hall on Sex Education

On November 17, 2009, Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri held a community meeting to discuss sexuality education in the public school system. In particular they discussed Comprehensive Sexuality Education. This approach teaches about abstinence as the best method of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unintended pregnancy. It also teaches about condoms and contraception to reduce the risk of unintended pregnancy and of infection with STDs including HIV.

Comprehensive Sexuality Education teaches skills for making responsible decisions about sex, including how to avoid unwanted verbal, physical, and sexual advances. It teaches interpersonal and communication skills and helps young people explore their own values, goals, and options.

Following a general introduction by Jen LaBarbera of Planned Parenthood, a panel of experts and youth give testimony to the importance of comprehensive sexuality education in public schools.

Rev. Kevin Snow, Resident Pastor of Community Christian Church, acts a facilitator of the panel that includes: Sarah Gillooly, organizer for PROMO; Eden McKissick-Hawley, student at Shawnee Mission East High School; Vannella Halsall, community education; George Turner LCSCW/LCSW, mental health professional; Pam Western, nurse practitioner; and, Wendy Crim, parent.

MP3 File

Clippings for 31 January 2010

A Memory of Howard
Daniel Ellsberg writes for Truthdig.com: "I just learned that my friend Howard Zinn died today. Earlier this morning, I was being interviewed by the Boston Phoenix, in connection with the February release of a documentary in which he is featured prominently. The interviewer asked me who my own heroes were, and I had no hesitation in answering, first, 'Howard Zinn.'”

Howard Zinn: A Public Intellectual Who Mattered
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: "In 1977 I took my first job in higher education at Boston University. One reason I went there was because Howard Zinn was teaching there at the time. As a high school teacher, Howard's book, 'Vietnam: the Logic of Withdrawal,' published in 1968, had a profound effect on me."

Recommended Audio: Bill Moyers - Haiti's Problems Are Rooted in Its Colonial Legacy

Bill Moyers comments on Bill Moyers Journal: "Even some of the most hardened reporters I know, old hands at covering famine, disaster, and war, are shaken by the carnage in Haiti. Over my own long life in journalism I've had my share of the sounds and smells that linger in your head long after you have left the scene. But I've found it especially hard this past week to absorb the pictures coming from Haiti."

Haiti’s Tragedy: A Crime of US Imperialism
Bill Van Auken writes for the World Socialist Website: "The immense death and suffering inflicted upon the people of Haiti by the January 12 earthquake has laid bare a massive international crime by US imperialism, which prepared this catastrophe with a century of oppression and is now attempting to exploit the disaster for its own ends."

Recommended Audio: Haiti Untold - Nonviolence and Humanization at the Grassroots

Randall Amster writes for Waging Nonviolence: "A number of commentators have questioned the accepted logic that disasters bring out the worst in people, directly challenging the pervasive “looters run amok” imagery often perpetuated by the media and held out by lawmakers as a rationale for military occupation. Having done relief work following Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina, I have found that people are more likely to work together – even if only out of necessity – when severe hardship strikes. In fact, it is precisely the isolation and individualism of ordinary daily life that tap into our worst instincts, while the removal of these impediments can actually liberate our better qualities." Read more here.



Obama's Secret Prisons: Night Raids, Hidden Detention Centers, the "Black Jail" and the Dogs of War in Afghanistan
Anand Gopal comments for TomDispatch.com: "One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town's bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost's dust-doused streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaar-goers for ransom."

Obama Ignores Key Afgan Warning
Ray McGovern writes for Consortium News: "No longer is it possible to suggest that Obama was totally deprived of good counsel on Afghanistan; Eikenberry got it largely right. Sadly, the inevitable conclusion is that, although Obama is not as dumb as his predecessor, he is no less willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for political gain."

Regardless of Polls, Afghans Say Mood in Country is Worsening
Jean MacKenzie reports for GlobalPost: "There is a loud sound of head-scratching in Kabul these days as Afghans and foreigners alike ponder the results of a poll conducted jointly by ABC News, the BBC and German television company ARD."

Justice Department Clears Torture Memo Authors John Yoo, Jay Bybee of Misconduct
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "A long-awaited Department of Justice watchdog report that probed whether John Yoo and his former boss Jay Bybee violated professional standards when they provided the Bush White House with legal advice on torture has cleared both men of misconduct, according to Newsweek, citing unnamed sources who have seen the document."

Democracy Inc.
The Nation comments in the following editorial: "The Citizens United campaign finance decision by Chief Justice John Roberts and a Supreme Court majority of conservative judicial activists is a dramatic assault on American democracy, overturning more than a century of precedent in order to give corporations the ultimate authority over elections and governing. This decision tips the balance against active citizenship and the rule of law by making it possible for the nation's most powerful economic interests to manipulate not just individual politicians and electoral contests but political discourse itself. As such, it demands a vigorous response, uniting progressive activists and good-government reformers of every stripe along with those conservatives who are also troubled by the decision. We must now fight for legislative and constitutional remedies to this threat to the American experiment."

The Supreme Coup
Jim Hightower writes for Truthout.org: "Despite 234 years of progress toward the American ideal of equality for all, we still have to battle unfairness. How happy, then, to learn that a handful of our leaders in Washington took bold and forceful action last week to lift another group of downtrodden Americans from the pits of injustice, helping them gain more political and governmental power. I refer, of course, to corporations."

10 Ways to Stop Corporate Dominance of Politics: It's Not Too Late to Limit or Reverse the Impact of the Supreme Court's Disastrous Decision in Citizens United v. FEC
Fran Korten writes for Yes! Magazine: "Pro-democracy groups, business leaders, and elected representatives are proposing mechanisms to prevent or counter the millions of dollars that corporations can now draw from their treasuries to push for government action favorable to their bottom line. The outrage ignited by the Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission extends to President Obama, who has promised that repairing the damage will be a priority for his administration."

Nice Speech. Now What?
Bill Boyarsky writes for Truthdig.com: "If words alone could do the trick, President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech worked. But this time, words were not enough. Words won’t put people to work. Not even Obama’s eloquence—and he did reach that point on occasion—will be enough to inject courage into the gutless Democrats running from a mild heath care reform bill. Nor will words turn Republicans away from the unrelenting opposition they think will bring down the Democrats."

Two Cheers for Obama on Foreign Affairs
Robert Dreyfuss writes for The Nation: "Make no mistake -- to use one of President Obama's favorite phrases -- the United States faces a difficult and daunting foreign policy challenge over the next three years of Obama's first term. Still, it was a pleasure to listen to a State of the Union address, especially after eight years of his predecessor's alarmist warnings and warlike thundering, in which war, terrorism, and 'rogue states' went almost unmentioned."

How to Reform our Financial System
Paul Volcker comments in the New York Times: "PRESIDENT OBAMA 10 days ago set out one important element in the needed structural reform of the financial system. No one can reasonably contest the need for such reform, in the United States and in other countries as well. We have after all a system that broke down in the most serious crisis in 75 years. The cost has been enormous in terms of unemployment and lost production. The repercussions have been international."

Obama Needs to Teach the Public How to Get Out of the Mess We're In
Robert Reich writes on RobertReich.org: "The President wants businesses that hire new employees this year to get $5,000 per hire, in the form of a tax credit. That will come to about $33 billion. It's good step. He's also supporting a cut in the capital gains tax for small businesses. That makes sense; after all, small businesses generate most jobs."

HealthCareFAIL: How The Dems Botched Their Signature Legislation
Brian Buetler writes for Talking Point Memo: "Talk about fits and starts. A year ago Democrats committed to passing comprehensive health care legislation; six months ago, it became clear that their project wouldn't go smoothly; one month ago it was full speed ahead; and a week and a half ago it all fell apart. Health care reform is now on life support. To mix metaphors, it's on life support and the back burner at the same time. How the Democrats' signature agenda item went from a foregone conclusion to a prospect in peril is a tale of missteps and bad luck. No single player or event brought us to where we are today. But if any of the below episodes had gone...more smoothly, this might've been a done deal"

Rep. Grayson: Obama Needs to Push Health Care In Earnest -- With a Public Option
Adele Stan writes for AlterNet: "Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., has a message for Senate Democrats: Pass health care with a public option -- and pass it quickly. On Wednesday, Grayson joined Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Jim Dean of Democracy for America in delivering some 225,000 petitions to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that demand the Senate leadership use a procedure it has avoided so far in the health care fight in order to pass a bill that contains a public health insurance option. CREDO Action also co-sponsored the petition."

Obama Orders Cut in Federal Government's Greenhouse-Gas Emissions
Mark Clayton, The Christian Science Monitor: "President Obama Friday told federal agencies to cut energy use to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 28 percent by 2010. Agencies are taking measures ranging from using more solar energy to switching from gasoline vehicles to hybrid vehicles."

Coalition of Women's Groups Protests Focus on the Family Super Bowl Ad
National Partnership for Women and Families writes: Some national women's groups on Monday told CBS not to broadcast a Super Bowl commercial featuring former University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother that is expected to include an antiabortion-rights message, the AP/Washington Post reports. Tebow and his mother, Pam, will appear in the 30-second commercial on behalf of the Christian group Focus on the Family. They are expected to discuss Pam's personal story of falling ill while in the Philippines when she was pregnant with Tim and ignoring doctors' recommendations to have an abortion."

Rise in Teen Pregnancy Rate Invigorates Debate Over Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Programs
National Partnership for Women and Families writes: "The recent release of a new study by the Guttmacher Institute showing a 3% increase in the U.S. teen pregnancy rate from 2005 to 2006 is "likely to intensify the debate over federal financing for abstinence-only sex education," the New York Times reports. The Guttmacher study showed higher pregnancy rates for white, black and Hispanic teens, as well as the first increase in the teen abortion rate in more than a decade."

Recommended Audio: The Nation - Tony Kushner on LGBT Rights and Obama's Agenda 

Clarissa León writes for The Nation: "Eighteen years after Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America explored the controversial themes of sexuality and religion, Kushner continues to be one of the country's leading voices on gay rights. With President Barack Obama celebrating his first year in office, we asked Kushner to reflect on Obama's tenure so far and his progress in regards to LGBT issues."



The Most Hated Name in News: Will Al Jazeera English Revolutionize America's TV News Landscape?
Deborah Campbell writes for The Walrus: "There are three forces shaping the world, an Arab reporter I met in the Gaza Strip once told me: money, women, and journalism. On the first and third counts, he might have been thinking of Qatar, where I pass by luxury shopping malls, glittering real estate developments, and, in a spirit of reasonableness, traffic signs that advise caution when driving the wrong way down one-way streets. Over the past decade, this tiny desert emirate of a million and a half people -- a bump on the rib cage of Saudi Arabia, directly across the Persian Gulf from Iran -- has asserted itself on the world stage in large measure by pouring money into, of all things, journalism. Since 1996, it has been funding Al Jazeera (Arabic for "the island"), the network that revolutionized the Arab media and is poised to do the same for the English-speaking world."

Not-so-Breitbart and the Story of James O'Keefe
Karl Frisch writes for Media Matters: "Back in September, right-wing activist James O'Keefe told Fox News host Glenn Beck that he was "willing to serve prison time" for his work. That just may happen. According to an affidavit from the FBI, O'Keefe and three others were arrested on Monday in connection with an alleged plot to "interfer[e]" with the phone system in Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office. O'Keefe is perhaps best known for the heavily edited and misleading undercover videos he and Hannah Giles shot of low-level ACORN employees while the right-wing duo were dressed as a pimp and prostitute, an escapade that itself may have violated state criminal statutes."

Report Details Long History of Government Support of Journalism
FreePress reports: "A new report released today examines the history of the U.S. government's role in subsidizing the gathering and distribution of news and information. The report, Public Policy and Funding the News, by David Westphal and Geoffrey Cowan, was published by the University of Southern California's Center on Communication Leadership and Policy."  Download full report.

As Murdoch and Sulzberger Dream of Paywalls, Consider Poor Newsday's Example
David Weir writes for BNET: "Perhaps the only way to figure out what is actually going on in the media industry these days is to not get too mired in the daily, weekly, or even monthly details, because the pace of news has quickened to the extent that even the small army of us here at BNET could never hope to cover everything of interest to the average media exec. Take the issue of paywalls. Everyone knows about Rupert Murdoch’s threats, and the The New York Times’ plans, but while those industry leaders prepare their well-publicized initiatives, what is the actual experience of the publications that are out ahead of the curve on this?"

RESEARCH: "Bolshevik plot": Right-wing media declare Obama a radical who threatens America
Media Matters reposts: "Urging that 'we've got to close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality,' President Obama stated during his January 29 question and answer session with House Republicans that 'if you were to listen to the debate' over health care reform 'you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.' Throughout Obama's administration thus far, conservative media have embraced such rhetoric, routinely attacking Obama's agenda as socialist, communist or fascist and telling audiences that Obama and health care reform are a threat to America itself."

Why Media and Journalism Scholars Support Network Neutrality
Bill Herman reports for DaveTheInternet.com: "Academic associations tend to be politically conservative.  I don't mean that they revere Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman, though plenty of scholars do. Rather, each group – representing a field's professors and graduate students – tends to evade controversy, rarely taking a public stance on an issue that might divide the membership. Thus, it is remarkable that the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has declared its support for Network Neutrality."

Why the Opinion Industry Hates 'Most People'
Timothy Karr writes for the Huffington Post: "They've called us pirates, pigs, lunatics and communists. They've funneled their money to PR firms that spin the media about the "evils" of Net Neutrality -- the principle that protects our online freedom. Because nearly two million people have stood up for an open Internet, they're trying to knock us down."

Clippings for 26 December 2009

The Christmas Truce of 1914
Paul J. Magnarella writes for Truthout: "Although World War I ranks as one of the most horrific in history, causing about 40 million casualties and up to 20 million military and civilian deaths, it also included a famous and spontaneous peaceful interlude inscribed in chronicles as the unofficial Christmas truce of 1914."

In Romania, Ceausescu's Death Haunts Christmas
Sinziana Demian reports for GlobalPost: "Twenty years ago, as Romanians were celebrating their first free holiday in decades, they rejoiced at the news that dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena had been shot dead on Christmas day. It was the ultimate proof that the communist regime had crumbled irrevocably and that the late-December revolution had indeed succeeded."

A Holiday Season of War
Tom Engelhardt writes for TomDispatch.com: "Excuse the gloom in the holiday season, but I feel like we're all locked inside a malign version of the movie Groundhog Day. You remember, the one in which the characters are forced to relive the same 24 hours endlessly. Put more personally, TomDispatch started in November 2001 as an email to friends in response to the first moments of our latest Afghan War. More than eight years later ... well, you know the story."

Stunning Statistics about the War Every American Should Know
Jeremy Scahill writes for Rebel Reports: "A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense’s total workforce, 'the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history.' That’s not in one war zone—that’s the Pentagon in its entirety. In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. According to a memo [PDF] released by McCaskill’s staff, 'From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan.  During the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000.'"

Foreign Interpreters Hurt in Battle Find US Insurance Benefits Wanting
T. Christian Miller reports for ProPublica and The Los Angeles Times: "After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the U.S. military discovered that rebuilding the country and confronting an insurgency required a weapon not in its arsenal: Thousands of translators.  To fill the gap, the Pentagon turned to Titan Corp., a San Diego defense contractor, which eventually hired more than 8,000 interpreters, most of them Iraqis. For $12,000 a year, these civilians served as the voice of America’s military, braving sniper fire and roadside bombs. Insurgents branded them collaborators and targeted them for torture and assassination. Many received military honors for their heroism."

Recommended Audio: Bill Moyers Journal December 18 - Washington For Sale

Amidst fading hopes for real reform on issues ranging from high finance to health care, economist Robert Kuttner and journalist Matt Taibbi join Bill Moyers to discuss Wall Street's power over the federal government.

Top 10 Ethical Scandals for 2009
Evan Jones reprots for Mother Jones: "Christmas came early today when Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington revealed their "Top Ten Ethics Scandals" of 2009. It’s their third annual list, and is jam-packed with titillating/depressing breaches of ethics in both the legislative and executive branches. A must-read for all observers of crooked ambition and unchecked hubris in the political sphere."

To download the complete report (PDF file), click here. 

Reclaiming Public Values in the Age of Casino Capitalism
Henry A. Giroux writes for Truthout: "This is a difficult time in American history. The American people have every right to demand to live in peace, enjoy the comforts of economic security, have access to decent health care, be able to send their children to quality schools and live with a measure of security. And yet, at a time when public values are subordinated to the rationality of profits, exchange values and unbridled self interest, politics and the institutions and culture that support it become corrupt, devoid of agents and reduced to empty rituals largely orchestrated by those who control the wealth, income, media and commanding institutions of American society."

Wall Street's Fingerprints Evident on Financial Reform Bill
Gail Russell Chaddock reports for The Christian Science Monitor: "Since the near meltdown of Wall Street in late 2008, Congress has pledged to tighten regulations on the finance industry. That exercise is now half over, with the House approving a reform package Dec. 11."

10 Greedest People of 2009
Sam Pizzigati author of Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality writes for AlterNet: "Has picking a year’s greediest "top ten" ever been easier? We don't think so. We could, this year, fill an entire top ten just with bankers from Goldman Sachs -- or JPMorgan Chase or any of a number of other Wall Street giants. All sport executive suites packed with power suits who fanned the flames that melted down the global economy, then helped themselves, after gobbling down billions in bailouts, to paydays worth mega millions -- at a time when, in over half our states, over a quarter of America’s kids are living off food stamps. Now that’s greed. But that’s also not the whole picture. The Great Recession’s greedy don’t just sit on Wall Street. They occupy perches of power throughout the reeling U.S. economy. So we’ve tried, in this our latest annual ranking of avarice, to survey that bigger picture."

Modern-Day Slavery in Mexico and the United States
Megan McAdams reports for Council on Hemispheric Affairs: "On December 3, Mexico City police freed 107 human trafficking victims who were forced to manufacture shopping bags and clothespins under 'slave-like' circumstances. Officials reported that the victims exhibited signs of physical and sexual abuse, and were also malnourished, as they had been given only chicken feet and rotten vegetables. Twenty-three individuals were arrested and charged with human trafficking after one of the workers escaped and informed the authorities about the dire situation."

America's Secret ICE Castles
Jacqueline Stevens reports for The Nation: "'If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear.' Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present was Amnesty International's Sarnata Reynolds, who wrote about the incident in the 2009 report Jailed Without Justice (PDF download) and said in an interview, 'It was almost surreal being there, particularly being someone from an organization that has worked on disappearances for decades in other countries. I couldn't believe he would say it so boldly, as though it weren't anything wrong.'"

Climate Discord: From Hopenhagen to Nopenhagen
Amy Goodman writes for Truthdig.com: "Barack Obama said, minutes before racing out of the U.N. climate summit, 'We will not be legally bound by anything that took place here today.' These were among his remarks made to his own small White House press corps, excluding the 3,500 credentialed journalists covering the talks. It was late on Dec. 18, the last day of the summit, and reports were that the negotiations had failed. Copenhagen, which had been co-branded for the talks on billboards with Coke and Siemens as 'Hopenhagen,' was looking more like 'Nopenhagen.'”\

For Obama, No Opportunity Too Big to Blow
Naomi Klein writes for The Nation: "Contrary to countless reports, the debacle in Copenhagen was not everyone's fault. It did not happen because human beings are incapable of agreeing, or are inherently self-destructive. Nor was it all was China's fault, or the fault of the hapless UN.  There's plenty of blame to go around, but there was one country that possessed unique power to change the game. It didn't use it. If Barack Obama had come to Copenhagen with a transformative and inspiring commitment to getting the U.S. economy off fossil fuels, all the other major emitters would have stepped up. The EU, Japan, China and India had all indicated that they were willing to increase their levels of commitment, but only if the U.S. took the lead. Instead of leading, Obama arrived with embarrassingly low targets and the heavy emitters of the world took their cue from him."

Copenhagen Decoded
Kate Sheppard writes for Mother Jones: "Late on Friday at the climate summit in Denmark, President Barack Obama announced the Copenhagen Accord, an eleventh-hour deal with the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa that broke a seemingly intractable impasse in the negotiations. But after the president boarded Air Force One—hoping to reach Washington before an approaching snowstorm—negotiators for 193 countries fought bitterly about the agreement through the night. In the small hours, a handful of nations—including Venezuela, Bolivia, Sudan, and Nicaragua—refused to sign the pact. Exhausted negotiators, some looking ready to keel over at any minute, railed and pleaded to no avail; a Venezuelan delegate even cut her hand to emphasize her opposition to the deal. In the end, the holdouts could not be won over, and so the summit’s final statement does not adopt the Copenhagen Accord, but merely "takes note" of it. What does this nebulous pact actually mean—and what happens next?"

End to the Abstinence-Only Fantasy
The New York Times editoralizes: "The omnibus government spending bill signed into law last week contains an important victory for public health. Gone is all spending for highly restrictive abstinence-only sex education programs that deny young people accurate information about contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. The measure redirects sex-education resources to medically sound programs aimed at reducing teenage pregnancy."

Judge Denies Request for 'Necessity Defense' in Trial of Accused Tiller Shooter
The National Partnership for Women and Families reports: "Sedgwick County, Kan., District Judge Warren Wilbert ruled Tuesday that Scott Roeder, the man accused of fatally shooting Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, cannot use a "necessity defense" to argue that he believed the murder was justified to save the lives of fetuses, McClatchy /Los Angeles Times reports. Wilbert did say, however, that he would "leave the door open" for Roeder to present other evidence and arguments that he killed Tiller because he believed he was saving fetuses. According to McClatchy/Times, that might make it possible for Roeder's attorneys to argue that he committed the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter, which is defined under Kansas law as an 'unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.' Roeder is charged with first-degree murder (McClatchy /Los Angeles Times, 12/23)."

Women
Ellen Goodman writes for Truthdig: "It is one of those moments when I feel like a time-traveler. I look out the airplane window and watch a young woman on the tarmac directing our jet to its gate. As she waves the signals, I fall into a silent, familiar reverie: “I remember when.” What I remember, of course, is a time when no woman would have been hired for this “man’s job.” What I remember is when my generation opened the door for hers. If I talked to her about the old days, I wonder, would she listen as politely as if I were talking about walking four miles in the snow to school?

Moyers, Moore and Maddow are the Most Influential Progressives
Don Hazen writes for AlterNet: "The three M's -- Bill Moyers, Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow -- scored highest in a recent AlterNet survey* asking more than 5,000 readers to rate the most influential progressive media figures. Moyers, who scored 67.5, and Moore, with a 66.2 score, were very close. Maddow was a tad behind at 63.5. It's no surprise that Moyers, the moral sage, and Moore, the rabble-rouser, are ranked at the top. They have been popular with AlterNet readers for years. Moyers' current show, "Bill Moyers' Journal," gets at the heart of our many social ills with long-form exploration and probing interviews. Recently, Moyers spent an episode on the Lyndon Johnson Vietnam tapes, drawing a connection to Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan. The show was a television masterpiece."

Top 10 Internet Moments of 2009
Tim Karr reprots for the Huffington Post: "More than a decade ago, President Clinton pledged that every person in America would soon be able to go online 'to order up every movie ever produced or every symphony ever created in a minute's time.'  Well, we're already well into the next millennium and less than one out of every 10 Americans has a connection capable of those speeds. And it's not just the speed of our connection that's fallen behind. When we can get online in the United States, a free and open Internet is no longer guaranteed."

Google Post Manifesto on Open Internet
Cecilia Kang reports for the Wahington Post: "Google has come to symbolize a crusade by some in the high-tech sector for open Internet policies. But even within the Silicon Valley search giant, the concept of open Internet practices isn’t always clear.  Yesterday, Google’s senior vice president for product management, Jonathan Rosenberg, cleared the air. In a letter to employees posted on the company’s official blog, Rosenberg wrote what read like a manifesto of the company’s philosophy on what open Internet means to Google."

Comcast Settle Case Action Suit on Traffic Blocking
Michelle Meyers reports for CNET News: "As we close the book on 2009 and ready for 2010, a legal settlement takes us back to 2007 and 2008, when Comcast got into trouble with customers and the feds for throttling peer-to-peer traffic on its network.  Comcast has agreed to pay $16 million to end to a class action lawsuit alleging the broadband provider promised and advertised certain download and upload speeds, but blocked peer-to-peer traffic on its high-speed Internet network. 'Comcast denies these claims, but has revised its management of P2P and is settling to avoid the burden and cost of further litigation,' according to the proposed settlement, pointed out to us by Ars Technica."

So Many Bogus Stories, so Little Time
Joan Walsh comments for Salon.com: "There was plenty of news in 2009: economic near-collapse. An eight-month debate over how to remake the country's flawed healthcare system. Big elections in Iran and Afghanistan.  Yet the media spent a lot of time chasing non-stories, from Balloon Boy to Sarah Palin's death panels -- so much so that Salon felt compelled to call out the top Bogus Stories of 2009. You can find them here."

Think-Tanks and the Reporters who Heart Them
Nathan Hodge writes for Wired magazine: "The relationship between reporters and think tanks used to be, well, pretty simple. You called up defense expert X for a quote on, say, cost overruns on a stealth fighter jet, and if you were lucky, you’d get something lively. (Free tip to aspiring defense wonks: Try more pop-culture references.) You could attend one of their conferences, listen to one of their panels and perhaps pick up half a sandwich."

Clippings for 29 October 2009

War is a Hate Crime
Chris Hedges writes for Turthdig.com: "Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is wrong. So is violence against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the bizarre culture of identity politics, there are no alliances among the oppressed. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first major federal civil rights law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, passed last week, was attached to a $680-billion measure outlining the Pentagon’s budget, which includes $130 billion for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic majority in Congress, under the cover of protecting some innocents, authorized massive acts of violence against other innocents."

The War Condolences Obama Hasn't Sent
Amy Goodman writes for Truthdig.com: "U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Chancellor Keesling died in Iraq on June 19, 2009, from “a non-combat related incident,” according to the Pentagon. Keesling had killed himself. He was just one in what is turning out to be a record year for suicides in the U.S. military. In August, President Barack Obama addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, saying, “[T]here is nothing more sobering than signing a letter of condolence to the family of [a] serviceman or -woman who has given their life for our country.” To their surprise, Jannett and Gregg Keesling, Chance’s parents, won’t be getting such a letter. Obama does not write condolence letters to loved ones of those who commit suicide in the theater of combat. [After making inquiries, the Keeslings discovered that this was not because of an oversight. Instead, it’s because of a longstanding U.S. policy to deny presidential condolence letters to the families of soldiers who take their own lives.]

Why Obama's Iran Policy will Fail
Dilip Hiro writes for TomDispatch: "While the tone of the Obama administration is different from that of its predecessor, and some of its foreign policies diverge from those of George W. Bush, at their core both administrations subscribe to the same doctrine: Whatever the White House perceives as a threat -- whether it be Iran, North Korea, or the proliferation of long-range missiles -- must be viewed as such by Moscow and Beijing."

Democrats: CIA Lied to or Misled Congress at Least Five Times Since 2001
Jason Leopold reports for Truthout: "Democratic lawmakers said Tuesday that the CIA misled and/or lied to Congress at least five times since 2001 about it's intelligence programs, including one previously alleged instance in which the agency failed to disclose to top members of the House and Senate intelligence committees that the CIA tortured war on terror detainees."

Depleted Uranium Causes Cancer
HenryW reports for Project Censored: "Depleted Uranium is nuclear waste…quite literally…and it causes cancer and birth defects. Depleted uranium is extracted from spent nuclear fuel.  It is a waste byproduct of 'enriching' uranium. It is a substance with some remarkable properties.  It is denser than lead, harder than steel.   Munitions tipped with DU are extremely effective, especially when engaging enemies using armored vehicles.  These shells cut right through tank armor and then the uranium itself burns…at 500 degrees Celsius, (932 Fahrenheit).  The only tanks or fixed fortifications that can repel depleted uranium munitions are those which themselves have armor made from depleted uranium.  The use of DU on the battlefield is increasing, and it is used in “bunker buster” bombs, a variety of missiles and now in 30mm ammunition as well.  Since the early 90’s it has been associated mostly with the M1A1 'Abrams' tank."

Too Big to Fail: Why The Big Banks Should Be Broken Up, But Why The White House and Congress Don't Want To
Robert Reich writes on Robert Reich's Blog: "And now there are five - five Wall Street behemoths, bigger than they were before the Great Meltdown, paying fatter salaries and bonuses to retain their so-called 'talent,' and raking in huge profits. The biggest difference between now and last October is these biggies didn't know then that they were too big to fail and the government would bail them out if they got into trouble. Now they do. And like a giant, gawking adolescent who's just discovered he can crash the Lexus convertible his rich dad gave him and the next morning have a new one waiting in his driveway courtesy of a dad who can't say no, the biggies will drive even faster now, taking even bigger risks."

Did Hank Paulson Break the Law?
Nick Baumann writes for Mother Jones: "Did Henry Paulson, George W. Bush's Treasury secretary, break the law? According to a new book on the financial meltdown by New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, in June 2008, Paulson, who was the chairman of Goldman Sachs before joining the Bush administration, held a secret meeting in Moscow with the board of directors of his former employer. The problem for Paulson—then and possibly now—was that after he had been nominated in 2006 to the Treasury post he had signed an ethics letter vowing to stay clear of potential conflicts of interest with Goldman Sachs and promising not to take any action that might affect the firm's ability to cover his multimillion-dollar pension."

Chamber Rejects Use of Term "3 Million Members"
Josh Harkinson writes for Mother Jones: "For the first time, the US Chamber of Commerce has admitted that its membership should be reported at one tenth the size that many major media outlets have listed it for more than a decade.  In an interview on Friday, Greg Marx of the Columbia Journalism Review asked Chamber spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel to comment on two competing newspaper accounts. Presented with a Wall Street Journal article that said the Chamber claims '300,000 members,' Wohlschlegel said, 'That's accurate.' Read an Associated Press article that said the Chamber claims 'a membership of 3 million,' he responded, 'That's not exactly reported correctly.'"

Health Care Hypocrites
Jim Hightower comments for Truthout: "How do you spell 'hypocrisy'? Try this: 'H-Y-P-O-C-O-N-G-R-E-S-S.' The hypocongress consists of those Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who have risen up on their hind legs in recent weeks to snarl and howl at any mention of a government role in meeting America's health care needs. 'Socialism,' they bark -- we won't allow Barack Obama and the liberals to create a Washington-run, big-government intrusion into the hallowed private market. Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, even pledged to fight so ferociously that the health care battle would be Obama's 'Waterloo.'"

The Tide Is Turning on Health Care Reform
Peter Dreier writes for The Nation: "Social movements are messy, so it is often difficult to know, in the midst of the battle, which side is winning. But in the past month, momentum on healthcare reform has unmistakably shifted as liberals and progressives have taken to the streets, the Internet, the airwaves and the halls of Congress to push for a bold public option, strong regulations on insurance abuses and a progressive tax plan to finance reform.  The Obama administration and its allies in Congress now understand that permitting the unholy alliance of insurance industry muscle, conservative Democratic obfuscation and right-wing mob tactics to defeat the president's healthcare proposal would write the conservative playbook for blocking other key components of his agenda--including action on climate change, immigration reform and labor laws. So in just the past few weeks, we've seen a change in strategy, a strong grassroots movement and markedly firmer resolve by the White House and liberal Democrats in Congress."

What's So Scary About Michael Pollan? Why Corporate Agriculture Tried to Censor His University Speech
Martha Rosenberg writes for AlterNet: "Even if agribusiness could shut Michael Pollan up, the outspoken author of Omnivore's Dilemma and a journalism professor at University of California, Berkeley, it still has the Los Angeles Times to contend with. Last week, the Times blasted California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo for downgrading a scheduled Pollan lecture because it received pressure from David E. Wood, a university donor who happens to be chairman of the Harris Ranch Beef Co."

Events In 181 Countries Urge International Action On Climate Change
Alec Sprague reports for Project Censored: "A total of 5,200 actions were held around the world to urge action on climate change, according to 350.org who sponsered an International Day of Climate Action this past Saturday. The number, 350, refers to the goal of three hundred fifty parts per million of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, which is claimed by scientists to be the safe upper limit. The current level is about 387 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere. A recent report in the Journal of Science shows that the last time levels were this high was fifteen million years ago."

Future of Abstinence-Only Programs Unclear Without Federal Funding, Newsweek Reports
Women's Health Policy Report writes: "Abstinence-only sex education programs that received substantial federal grants under the Bush administration are turning to private donors as an attempt to keep their programs running, Newsweek reports. Since 1997, the abstinence-only industry has received a total of $1.9 billion in government funding, including $1.5 billion from the federal government. However, the "next decade may well be its bust," as President Obama's 2010 budget cut federal funding for abstinence-only programs in favor of programs that have been proven effective, Newsweek reports."

A History of Failed Press Coverage of Afghanistan
Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould comment for Nieman Watchdog: "For almost 30 years – ever since we got a close-in view of it – American press coverage of Afghanistan has been simplistic, misleading, unexamining, accepting and echoing government propaganda, and just plain wrong. There have been exceptions…but not many."

Recommended Audio: Democracy Now! - House Advances Measure to Create Hundreds of New Low Power FM Radio Stations
The Local Community Radio Act of 2009 is on its way to a full House vote after sailing through the Energy and Commerce Committee with little opposition. The measure would repeal legislation which requires the FCC to protect full-power broadcasters from interference from Low Power FM stations being placed on third-adjacent channels. We speak to Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle, a co-sponsor of the bill; and Cory Fischer-Hoffman, campaign director of the Prometheus Radio Project.

Kids Watch more than a Day of TV Each Week
Matea Gold reports for the LA Times: "Reporting from New York - More than an entire day -- that's how long children sit in front of the television in an average week, according to new findings released Monday by Nielsen.  The amount of television usage by children reached an eight-year high, with kids ages 2 to 5 watching the screen for more than 32 hours a week on average and those ages 6 to 11 watching more than 28 hours. The analysis, based on the fourth quarter of 2008, measured children's consumption of live and recorded TV, as well as VCR and game console usage."

CNN's Lou Dobbs Problem
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Pat Garofalo, and Zaid Jilani write for the Progress Report at Think Progress: "Last week, CNN aired the four-hour documentary, 'Latino in America,' which explored 'how Latinos are reshaping our communities and culture and forcing a nation of immigrants to rediscover what it means to be an American.' The documentary has become a 'rallying cry for activist groups' that are attempting to get CNN to take action against nightly news anchor Lou Dobbs. As one of CNN's leading TV personalities, Dobbs has used his stature to infuse hate and vitriol into the immigration debate. Latino and immigrants' rights activists have launched several campaign -- including Drop Dobbs, Tell CNN Enough is Enough, and Basta Dobbs (Basta is Spanish and Italian for 'stop' or 'enough') -- that are aimed at pressuring CNN to hold Dobbs to journalistic standards or drop him altogether and raising awareness about Dobbs to his show's advertisers. 'Lou Dobbs is the gigantic anti-immigration elephant in the room at CNN,' said Roberto Lovato, one of the organizers of Basta Dobbs. "If CNN won't drop Dobbs, it's time that his advertisers did. It's time to do more than simply highlight the damage Dobbs does and the threat he poses," wrote John Santore of Media Matters for America, one of the organizations behind the Drop Dobbs campaign. Dobbs has responded to the efforts against him by claiming that liberals think Hispanics 'are so stupid that they'll believe that I am some sort of racist.'"

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."