Truthout: November 9, 2011

Ohio Labor Movement Defeats Anti-Union Bill and Its Wealthy Supporters
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Ohio's labor movement is celebrating today after voters dealt a hefty blow to Republican Gov. John Kasich on Tuesday by overwhelmingly voting to repeal an anti-collective bargaining law he championed during the past year. Ohioans voted to repeal Senate Bill 5 (SB 5) by a margin of 61 to 38 percent. SB 5 would have limited collective bargaining rights for more than 350,000 public workers in Ohio and increased health care and pension costs for some workers."
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Mississippi Voters Reject Anti-Abortion Measure
Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times News Service: "Voters turned a skeptical eye toward conservative-backed measures across the country Tuesday, rejecting an anti-labor law in Ohio, an anti-abortion measure in Mississippi and a crackdown on voting rights in Maine."
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Former Narcotics Detective Admits Drug Planting Common
Allison Kilkenny, Truthout: "Stephen Anderson, a former New York Police Department (NYPD) narcotics detective, recently testified that he regularly saw police plant drugs on innocent people as a way for officers to meet arrest quotas. While the news may shock many civilians, the custom is so well known among officers that it has a name: 'flaking.' This practice has reportedly cost the city $1.2 million to settle cases of false arrests."
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"Should Cost" vs. "Did Cost": How the Military-Industrial Complex Swindles Billions of Our Dollars
Dina Rasor, Truthout: "Changing the way we price weapons could cut billions, but will the entrenched Department of Defense bureaucracy allow it? 'Forget about what it does cost or what it will cost, we're talking about what it should cost,' said Shay Assad. With that bold quote, Department of Defense (DoD) Director of Defense Pricing Shay Assad, claimed in an interview last week to truly change the DoD's traditional way of pricing weapons - historical costs that have allowed weapons to be grossly priced for years."
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Occupy Movement Inspires Unions to Embrace Bold Tactics
Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times News Service: "Organized labor's early flirtation with Occupy Wall Street is starting to get serious. Union leaders, who were initially cautious in embracing the Occupy movement, have in recent weeks showered the protesters with help - tents, air mattresses, propane heaters and tons of food. The protesters, for their part, have joined in union marches and picket lines across the nation. About 100 protesters from Occupy Wall Street are expected to join a Teamsters picket line at the Sotheby's auction house in Manhattan on Wednesday night to back the union in a bitter contract fight."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Voters Reject the Radical Right-Wing Takeover of America, and More
In today's On the News segment: Yesterday, voters rejected the radical right-wing takeover of America; Italy is the next European nation on the verge of economic disaster; "Gang of 12" runs up against their deadline to cut $1.5 trillion out of the deficit; Occupy Wall Street and Occupy DC might soon be combing forces; last weekend's Bank Transfer Day was a success; and more.
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This Modern World: GOP Primary on Parallel Earth
Award-winning cartoonist Tom Tomorrow on why voters are unenthused about the field of presidential candidates.
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The Koch-Cain Connection: IRS Urged to Probe Ties Between Cain Campaign and Billionaire Koch Brothers (Video)
Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW!: "The campaign of Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain took another hit on Monday when a fourth woman emerged to accuse him of sexual harassment in the 1990s. But the allegations of sexual harassment are not the only controversies surrounding Cain. Also on Monday, the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy filed a complaint asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether one of his top aides has used tens of thousands of dollars from a tax-exempt nonprofit organization to fund Cain's political activities."
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Robert Parry | An Iraq-WMD Replay on Iran?
Robert Parry, Consortium News: "The US press corps and 'independent' American weapons experts got almost everything wrong about Iraq's purported WMD before the US invasion in 2003. Now, much the same cast is returning to interpret dubious intelligence about Iran's nuclear program, reports Robert Parry. The American public is about to be inundated with another flood of 'expert analysis' about a dangerous Middle Eastern country presumably hiding a secret nuclear weapons program that may require a military strike, although this time it is Iran, not Iraq."
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Occupy Northwest: Bellingham and Tacoma
David Bacon, Truthout: "Grassroots people and political activists occupy parks in Bellingham and Tacoma, Washington, to support the New York City demonstration, Occupy Wall Street. Occupiers erect and live in tent camps to protest economic inequality and its impact on working people, students, the poor and the young, calling it a protest by the 99 percent of the people who are exploited by a system that only benefits the top 1 percent."
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Why Is Africa Falling Apart?
Evaggelos Vallianatos, Truthout: "In 1769, J. H. Bernardin de Saint Pierre, a French royal officer, said he was not so sure that coffee and sugar were 'really essential to the comfort of Europe.' But he was certain that these two crops 'have brought wretchedness and misery upon America and Africa. The former is depopulated, that Europeans may have a land to plant them in and the latter is stripped of its inhabitants, for hands to cultivate them.'"
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TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

On Tuesday, America was occupied by sanity.

In a major pushback to the assault on collective bargaining and unions, a unified coalition of organized labor and progressives beat back Ohio Senate Bill 5. This legislation that would have severely restricted union rights - already signed into law by Tea Party Gov. John Kasich - was nullified by a landslide margin of almost two to one. The reverberations will be felt far and wide, including in the upcoming effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

And although even Keith Olbermann was predicting its passage on "Countdown," even the reddest of regressive states, Mississippi, defeated Initiative 26 that would have legally endowed a fertilized human egg with the attributes of a person. This would have had widespread horrendous impact, such as making any woman taking a morning-after pill a murderer.

There were other less touted victories for democracy and progress. In Maine, voters resoundingly defeated - again through a citizen initiative - a GOP Tea Party effort in that state to eliminate same-day voter registration. This GOP law was part of the broader nationwide GOP effort to reinstall Jim Crow laws and variations thereof to limit non-Republican voters.

In Arizona, there was a huge political upset. GOP State Senate President and Republican power house Russell Pearce - the prime political strategist behind the state's draconian anti-Mexican immigration law - was defeated in a recall election.

There were less noted victories for social progress, but still significant. In Iowa, Democrats held onto their two-vote majority in the state Senate. This ensures that there will be no legislation in the state, for the near future, to ban gay marriages.

If you are looking at party politics, the Republicans certainly won some elections and initiatives. But taking a broader perspective, one can argue that the Occupy movement cleared the air of the GOP dominance of the national media debate for several weeks.

Perhaps that - and this is just conjecture - allowed voters some breathing room to look at issues without the emotional pummeling and distortion that comes with Republican control of the media "frame."

Perhaps, the refusal of the Occupy movement to get tied down in electoral details is, ironically, having an electoral impact. It could be providing a buffer zone for sanity to once again creep into debates over public policy, which then has an impact at the polls.

Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout

The Waffle House Senior Citizen Gun Nut Terrorist Plot
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Chief Proponent of Draconian Anti-Immigration Measures Defeated in Arizona Recall Election
Read the Article at The Christian Science Monitor

Occupy Movement Inspires Unions to Embrace Bold Tactics
Read the Article at The New York Times

Right-Wing Truth Really Isn't Truth at All
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Democratic State Senate Win Ensures Gay Marriage Not Outlawed in Iowa
Read the Article at The Des Moines Register

Maine Voters Restore Same-Day Voter Registration
Read the Article at WMTW

Romney Robo-Caller's White Nationalist Controversy
Read the Article at Mother Jones

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