Truthout Headlines Jan 22

Saturday 22 January 2011

An American Suicide Terrorist
William John Cox, Truthout: "As we evaluate the cause and effects of the Tucson murders, assign responsibility and seek solutions, we must continue to uphold the freedom of speech while taking reasonable steps to avoid violent consequences. Political speech has always been inflammatory in the United States, but perhaps due to the increasing militarization of the nation, politicians and commentators have come to routinely talk about 'hunting' and 'targeting' political opponents.... As best we can, given the Second Amendment as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court, we must do everything we can to legally ensure that mentally disturbed people, including those under the influence of highly-charged, political speech, cannot purchase, possess and carry concealed firearms, particularly those with combat capabilities."
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Kabul Showdown: Afghan Lawmakers Threaten to Defy Karzai
Saeed Shah, McClatchy Newspapers: "President Hamid Karzai will meet with Afghan lawmakers Saturday in a last-ditch attempt to resolve their differences over a disputed election and avert a clash that could spiral into constitutional chaos. A large number of those elected in last year's parliamentary elections have vowed to inaugurate the new parliament unilaterally on Sunday and start proceedings, in defiance of an order by Karzai issued this week to delay the opening by another month."
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Let's Not "Reform" Public Education
Adam Bessie, Truthout: "The word 'reform' itself is a linguistic trap. At face, it assumes that something is profoundly wrong with our public schools, a commonplace belief in the wake of 'Waiting for Superman.' Further, it suggests a way to fix this wrongness - discipline.... Who can disagree with reform? Who can be against helping children stuck in a bad school system? What the corporate reformers have done well is to essentially trademark 'reform,' branding in the public mind their diagnosis of what's wrong with schools and the harsh, chemotherapeutic remedy."
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Keith Olbermann: "This is the Last Edition of Countdown" (VIDEO)
Matt Renner, Truthout: "Keith Olbermann announced tonight that his show 'Countdown,' a mainstay of progressive media, would end after Friday's broadcast. In a statement, MSNBC said the network and Olbermann 'have ended their contract'.... Olbermann, who has been a fixture at MSNBC since 2003, extended his contract in 2008 for an additional four years for an estimated $30 million. This announcement that Olbermann would be leaving MSNBC comes two days after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) gave final approval to a controversial merger between NBC Universal, MSNBC's parent company, and Comcast."
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In Israel/Palestine, Occupation Has No Future
"In the Fall of 2009 I had the privilege of following a delegation of US veterans and war resisters traveling to Israel/Palestine to meet with their Israeli counterparts in an effort to strengthen connections between the US and Israeli anti-militarist movements and to share their experiences of refusing to be part of an occupying army.... My latest film, Occupation Has No Future: Militarism + Resistance in Israel/Palestine, is the result of dozens of exchanges and encounters during the month that [I] spent in Israel/Palestine.... Through conversations with Israeli conscientious objectors, former soldiers, and civil society activists ... the consequences of Israeli domestic policy are revealed in stark terms, not only for the Palestinian people, but for Israeli civil society as well."
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GOP's State of the Union Responder Would Set Higher Taxes on Middle-Class Than Millionaires
Pat Garofalo, Think Progress: "House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) was announced today as the Republican who will be responding to President Obama's State of the Union address next week. Ryan has gained a (largely unearned) reputation as a fiscal hawk due to his radical Roadmap for America's Future, under which the U.S. budget will eventually be balanced (after federal debt surpasses 100 percent of GDP), mostly via privatizing Social Security and Medicare. According to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, the Roadmap would raise taxes on 90 percent of Americans, while dramatically lowering them for millionaires. In fact, a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that Ryan's plan would ultimately translate into middle-class tax rates being higher than those for millionaires."
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The Case for Controlling Capital Outflows
Stephany Griffith-Jones, TripleCrisis: "Emerging countries, and even some low-income ones, are being flooded by short-term capital flows which they do not need; much of this money originates via the carry trade from the second wave of US quantitative easing (QE2). The intent of the US Federal Reserve is to expand the supply of credit in the US, so as to support the recovery and to lower long-term interest rates in the US. So the impact of the carry trade is negative both for the US (as it undermines the aims of QE2) and for developing countries, which see their exchange rates become overvalued and their asset prices increase excessively."
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China-US Summit: Which Country Gained the Most?
Howard LaFranchi, The Christian Science Monitor: "While it may be too soon to gauge the full impact of Mr. Hu's state visit on bilateral ties, it does seem that each country's leader got a 'win' from their meetings. President Obama came off as more assertive with a rising China – certainly more than he had during what some critics viewed as a weak performance when he visited Beijing in late 2009. Mr. Obama put human rights on the table, insisted on a two-way street between the two countries in terms of economic access, and apparently pressed successfully (though in private) for increased Chinese pressure on North Korea. For his part, Hu got all the pomp and stature of a state visit – very important to the Chinese. And he was seen as having enhanced his legacy as a pillar of China's domestic economic transformation and its rise as a global power."
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Here's One for the Birthers: Is GE's Jeffrey Immelt Really an American?
Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening: "What are we to make of the actual announcement, that the president has named Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE Corp., to chair the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness? Immelt heads a company that has for years topped the list of transnational corporations as ranked by the size of their foreign asset holdings. More significantly, GE is a company that for years has also received more of its revenues and its profits from abroad than from its US operations.... What this means is that in very real terms, GE is not an American company. It is a foreign company that happens to be headquartered in the US, and that happens to have a chairman/CEO who was born in the US, and holds a US passport."
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

If you don't think Keith Olbermann was fired from MSNBC due to Comcast's impending takeover - whatever cover story comes from NBC Universal - I have an igloo I want to sell you in the Mojave desert.
Comcast is a right-leaning, big media entertainment corporation that is about to control content, television, telephone and Internet service, all through one giant portal. Its interests are in dictating what consumers pay, see and hear by owning the delivery system and what it delivers.
Its acquisition of NBC Universal will accelerate an already-monopolized big media presence on television to include content control that extends even to the Internet.
Anybody who thinks that a company that is the epitome of Pac-Man corporate growth is going to tolerate liberal programming on MSNBC that is critical of corporate governance – well, you're floating down the river of "de-Nile."
When Olbermann was suspended for a couple of personal political donations, even though it is hardly an uncommon practice among millionaire broadcasters -especially on FOX - there was a lot of Internet chatter about the role of Philip Anschutz, a billionaire Christian financier of fundamentalist causes, who is allegedly a big shareholder of Comcast.
But whether or not Anschutz is a big shareholder, his Anschutz Entertainment Group (and other large holdings) could be considered, like Comcast, a kindred spirit to the Koch brothers brand of tilting America to the right.
Just as a small example of what we are in store for has to do with a Comcast subsidiary in its home base of Philadelphia: Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers, as well as other sports properties.
According to James Wolcott of Vanity Fair the chairman of Comcast Spectacor, Ed Snider, is funding a right-wing cable channel/Internet site called "RightNetwork." Wolcott sniffs at "RightNetwork" as a "pseudo-populist operation" starring an array of right-wing freaks.
Ominously, Wolcott notes "that it was Snider who invited Sarah Palin to drop the hockey puck at the Flyers' season opener in 2008, and Palin's been dropping pucks ever since."
There's little reason to doubt that Olbermann's abrupt exit from MSNBC was the first puck to drop as Comcast slap shots MSNBC away from being a progressive beachhead.
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Failed to Report Wife's Income, Watchdog Says
Read the Article at The LA Times
Obama to Push New Spending in State of the Union
Read the Article at The Wall Street Journal
Maker of Anesthetic Used in Executions Discontinues Production of Drug
Read the Article at The LA Times
Iran Nuclear Talks Collapse With Lack of Progress
Read the Article at The New York Times
Relatives of Pakistani Drone Victims to Sue CIA
Read the Article at Der Spiegel
Statute of Limitations Keeps Chicago Police Officer From Being Charged With Torture; Only Gets 4 1/2 Years in Prison
Read the Article at Chicago Reader
Protesters Say Ruling Party in Tunisia Must Dissolve
Read the Article at The New York Times
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