Thursday 08 March 2012
Public-Sector Banks: From Black Sheep to Global LeadersEllen Brown, Truthout: "Public-sector banking is a concept that is relatively unknown in the United States. Only one state - North Dakota - owns its own bank. North Dakota is also the only state to escape the credit crisis of 2008, and has sported a budget surplus every year since, but skeptics write this off to coincidence or other factors. The common perception is that government bureaucrats are bad business people. To determine whether government-owned banks are assets or liabilities, then, we need to look farther afield."
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On International Women's Day, Celebrate Feminist Victories of 2011
Christine Ahn, Women's Media Center: "On International Women's Day, we have a lot to celebrate. Rarely are feminist victories recognized by the mainstream media, or even for that matter, by our very own women's movements. So the Global Fund for Women decided it was time to honor some significant wins that women's groups have achieved around the world, from the courtroom to the court of public opinion. In the past year, women's organizing has led to significant progress in securing bodily rights, delivering justice to rape survivors, cementing gender equality into law, and ending violence."
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Wisconsin Judge Halts "Extremely Broad and Largely Needless" Voter ID Law
Brendan Fischer, PRWatch: "A Wisconsin judge has issued a temporary injunction against Wisconsin's new voter ID law, calling it 'the single most restrictive voter eligibility law in the United States.' Wisconsin's voter ID law, like many others introduced in 2011 and 2012, is based on an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model bill."
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The Peace Movement Needs Kucinich, With or Without Congress
David Swanson, War Is a Crime: "If Congressman Dennis Kucinich becomes simply Dennis Kucinich sans the 'Congressman' his value to the peace movement need not diminish. I admit it's been nice having someone in Congress who would say and do what he would. There have been and remain other relatively strong voices for peace, but none as strong as Kucinich's. His resolutions have forced the debates. His bills have changed the conversation. His questioning of witnesses has afflicted the comfortable while seeking to comfort the afflicted. Perhaps Congressman Norman Solomon will pick up the baton. Time will tell."
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Chicago Kicks Out G8, Prepares for NATO
Rosa Trakhtensky and Nick Burt, Occupied Chicago Tribune: "It's not you, it's me, said the White House in announcing their plan to move May's G8 summit from Chicago to Camp David. They needed their space, they explained, 'to facilitate a free-flowing discussion with our close G-8 partners.' But in reality, we all knew: It was us."
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Bill Quigley | Occupying Corporations: How to Cut Corporate Power
Bill Quigley, Truthout: "Corporations are obviously not people. But Romney is correct in the sense that corporations have hijacked most of the rights of people while evading the responsibilities. An important part of the social justice agenda is democratizing corporations. This means we must radically change the laws so people can be in charge of corporations. We must strip them of corporate personhood and cut them down to size so democracy can work. People are taking action so democracy can regulate the size, scope and actions of corporations."
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Number of US Hate Groups Is Rising, Report Says
Kim Severson, The New York Times News Service: "Fed by antagonism toward President Obama, resentment toward changing racial demographics and the economic rift between rich and poor, the number of so-called hate groups and antigovernment organizations in the nation has continued to grow, according to a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The center, which has kept track of such groups for 30 years, recorded 1,018 hate groups operating last year."
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Jim Hightower | Remembering the Lyrical Populism of Woody Guthrie
Jim Hightower, Truthout: "Where's Woody when we need him? In these times of tinkle-down economics - with the money powers thinking that they're the top dogs and that the rest of us are just a bunch of fire hydrants - we need for the hard-hitting (yet uplifting) musical stories, social commentaries and inspired lyrical populism of Woody Guthrie."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Scott Walker Turns to Millionaires to Defeat the Recall, and More
In today's On the News segment: A new SuperPAC sprung up in the Badger State this week calling itself the "Defeat the Recall" campaign; killing off the EPA means killing American jobs; Obama is taking a tougher stance against the oil barons; Wall Street's favorite, Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, has opened up a sizable lead against middle-class champion Elizabeth Warren; and more.
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Not Even a Fig Leaf: The Blatant Self-Dealing of Chairman McKeon
Dina Rasor, Truthout: "In past years, it has not been surprising that the chairmen of the House of Representatives of the Armed Services Committee have taken many large campaign contributions from defense contractors. It has happened through many sessions of Congress and included both Republican and Democratic chairmen. So, an article on the current chairman of the Armed Services Committee taking campaign contributions from defense contractors would seem to be an obvious and redundant read. However, Chairman Howard 'Buck' McKeon (R-California) has taken self-dealing to new heights and is having those same contractors contribute to his wife's campaign for the California legislature."
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Coming to a Bankster's Mansion Driveway Near You: Occupy Our Homes
Amy Dean, Truthout: "As one of the more promising offshoots of the Occupy movement, Occupy Our Homes - the grassroots effort to prevent evictions and foreclosures - has continued to organize throughout the winter.... For this installment, I spoke with a West Coast activist who is both a leader in anti-foreclosure activism in Los Angeles and a participant in national coalitions organizing around this issue. Amy Schur is executive director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE)."
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Obama Unveils "Clean" Vehicle Initiative
Tim Funk, Jim Morrill and Celeste Smith, McClatchy Newspapers: "Mixing politics with policy, President Barack Obama returned to North Carolina on Wednesday to step up his wooing of this key election-year swing state and to propose new federal incentives to spur 'clean energy' vehicles."
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Ann Jones | Playing the Game in Afghanistan
Ann Jones, TomDispatch.com: "In short, Afghan history is a sobering antidote to the relentless optimism of the American military. Modern Afghan history indicates that no Afghan National Army of any size or set of skills has ever warded off a single foreign enemy or done a lick of good for any Afghan ruler. As for those Afghan guys who whipped the British three times and the Soviet's Red Army, they were mostly freelancers, attached to the improvised militias of assorted warlords, fighting voluntarily against invaders who had occupied their country."
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Forced Ultrasound, "Informed Consent," and Women's Health in Texas: The Sad State of the State
Andrea Grimes, RH Reality Check: "Last month, when news spread that Virginia legislators were considering a forced trans-vaginal ultrasound bill, the uproar was loud, clear and immediate: women would never stand for this invasive and unnecessary law. Politicos and pop-culture icons alike spoke out against the Republican-led legislation. What kind of world are we living in, reasonable people wondered, when 'informed consent' is tantamount to state-sanctioned rape?"
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Widow of Anthony Shadid, on Her Husband's Life and Posthumous Memoir, "House of Stone"
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!: "We speak with Nada Bakri, the widow of Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony Shadid, about her husband's passion for covering the Middle East and his posthumous memoir. 'House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East' chronicles Shadid's rebuilding of his family's ancestral home in Lebanon."
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES
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Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "Considering that, as BuzzFlash noted yesterday, Limbaugh's fourth wife is more than 25 years his junior and a beautiful blonde, the sugar daddy web site may finally be just the right fit as a sponsor. As for his audience, Amanda Marcotte finds Ashley Madison's making bucks off arranging adulterous encounters appropriate for Limbaugh's male following in that 'some companies tacitly acknowledge that central defining characteristics of their customers is that they're jerks.'"
Read the BuzzFlash Commentary
Springtime for Occupy: Movement's Plans for Coming Weeks and MonthsRead the Article at ABC News
The Tax Hypocrisy of the Wall Street JournalRead the Article at BuzzFlash
Sen. Carl Levin Says Limbaugh Should Be Dropped From Armed Forces NetworkRead the Article at ThinkProgress
Judge Blocks Report on UC Davis Pepper-Spraying AttackRead the Article at The San Francisco Chronicle
Soldier Suicides, Mental Health Woes Soar Since Start of Iraq WarRead the Article at ABC News
Inside That New Anti-Occupy BillRead the Article at Salon
Dennis Kucinich: Conscience of the CongressRead the Article at Truthdig
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