Truthout: 28 March 2012

Matt Taibbi: Bank of America Is a "Raging Hurricane of Theft and Fraud"
Matt Taibbi, Foreclose the Banks: "There are two things every American needs to know about Bank of America. The first is that it's corrupt. This bank has systematically defrauded almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship...It is a giant, raging hurricane of theft and fraud, spinning its way through America and leaving a massive trail of wiped-out retirees and foreclosed-upon families in its wake. The second is that all of us, as taxpayers, are keeping that hurricane raging."
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Maddow Writes on America's Love Affair With War
Rachel Maddow, The Crown Publishing Group: "It's not just the small-potatoes post-9/11 Homeland spending that feels a little off mission. It's the big-ticket stuff too. Nobody ever made an argument to the American people that the thing we ought to do in Afghanistan would be to build a brand-new neighborhood in that country's capital city full of narco-chic McMansions and buildings with giant sculptures of eagles on their roofs ... But that is what we built."
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How the Koch Brothers Spent at Least $3.9 Million in Unreported Partisan Attack Efforts During the 2010 Election
Lee Fang, Republic Report: "On the Federal Election Commission disclosure website, you won't find any big checks written to super PACs by David or Charles Koch. That's because the brothers prefer nonprofit 501(c) organizations to hide their donations and their political spending. By evading the spirit of campaign disclosure laws, the attacks go on with little accountability from the public."
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Organized Money From Cities, Unions and Churches Moving Out of Big Banks
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "A growing number of cities around the country have passed, introduced or drafted responsible banking ordinances that hit big financial institutions where it hurts most - the pocketbook.... The movement to divest from banking institutions continues to gain ground, as cities with large amount of capital join individuals, unions and congregations in pulling their money out of banks, or looking more carefully at the conditions a financial institution must meet to hold their money."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: The Newt Gingrich Campaign Is Sinking, and More
In today's On the News segment: The Newt Gingrich campaign is sinking, austerity is hurting the British economy even more than previously thought, more bad news is coming out of Afghanistan, and more.
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Can Health Care Win by Losing at Highest Court?
Michael Fitzgerald, Miller-McCune: "As day two of the U.S. Supreme Court's epic three-day examination of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act came to a close, the general consensus seems to be that the government's lawyer failed to convince any of the five right-of-center justices to uphold the individual mandate alongside the court's four left-of-center justices So is it time for supporters of the healthcare overhaul to abandon hope and revisit the Government Accounting Office's comprehensive survey of experts for alternatives to the mandate for encouraging enrollment? Not necessarily."
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Voter Suppression in 2012, Past Is Prologue
Dr. Wilmer J Leon III, Truthout: "After years of struggle in the courts, legislatures and the streets, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ... Today, this ugly part of America's past has once again become its present. As a result of Republicans taking control of statehouses after the 2010 mid-term elections, a number of states such as Alabama, South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi (sound familiar?), and others have enacted laws imposing new restrictions for voter ID, voter registration and early voting."
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Worker Ownership for the 21st Century?
Laura Flanders, The Nation: "On Monday, this country's largest industrial labor union teamed up with the world's largest worker-cooperative to present a plan that would put people to work in labor-driven enterprises that build worker power and communities, too. 'The union co-op model embraces the idea ... that treating workers well and with dignity and sustaining communities are just as important as business growth and profitability.' It might not sound like big news to members of their local food coop but it's revolutionary stuff in the context of industrial production."
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GOP National Labor Board Relations Member Passed Sensitive Information to Romney Campaign
Mike Elk, In These Times: "Congressman George Miller ... complained that House GOP members were blocking the release of a National Labor Board Relations Inspector General's report. The report shows that GOP NLRB Member Terence Flynn funneled sensitive information to Mitt Romney's labor policy co-chair - former GOP NLRB member Peter Schaumber, who left the independent federal agency 2010 - to be used in political attacks on the Board. And it recommends the Department of Justice investigate his actions."
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Sgt. Robert Bales and the Trauma of Repeat Deployments (Video)
Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co.: "Does Robert Bales, the army staff sergeant who allegedly killed 17 Afghan civilians on March 11, symbolize a larger problem in our military ranks? In this web-exclusive video, Vietnam veteran and military scholar Andrew Bacevich talks with Bill Moyers about Bales' accountability, the stress of repeated tours on soldiers, and how war itself 'compromises our humanity.' This weekend on public television, Moyers and Bacevich explore the futility of 'endless' wars, and provide a reality check on the rhetoric of American exceptionalism."
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Health Care Jujitsu
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "[The] Supreme Court argument over the so-called 'individual mandate' requiring everyone to buy health insurance revolved around epistemological niceties such as the meaning of a 'tax,' and the question of whether the issue is ripe for review. Behind this judicial foreplay is the brute political fact that if the Court decides the individual mandate is an unconstitutional extension of federal authority, the entire law starts unraveling.... Here's how."
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The Truth About the US Postal Service
Jim Hightower, Truthout: "Each day, six days a week, letter carriers traverse 4 million miles toting an average of 563 million pieces of mail, reaching the very doorsteps of our individual homes and workplaces in every single community in America ... The U.S. Postal Service literally delivers. All for 45 cents. The USPS is an unmatched bargain, a civic treasure, a genuine public good that links all people and communities into one nation. So, naturally, it must be destroyed."
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David Bacon on US Policies and the Great Mexican Migration
Thorne Webb Dreyer, The Rag Blog: "Noted journalist, author, documentary photographer, and long-time labor organizer David Bacon ... Discussed the role of companies like Smithfield Foods in immigrant displacement, environmental abuse, and the struggle of oppressed workers fighting to overcome intolerable conditions - especially in the Perote Valley of the Mexican state of Veracruz, and in Smithfield's plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, the world's largest pork slaughterhouse. And he shows how the struggles in Veracruz and North Carolina are critically interrelated."
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TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Don't Want Health Insurance? Then Sign "Let Me Die" Legal Document
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "It's really just common sense what Norris proposes: if a person doesn't want to pay for health insurance, they simply exercise his or her cherished freedom by signing a document that legally says (to paraphrase) 'let me die if I cannot afford to pay for my medical care. I, being of sound body and mind, promise that I will not become a financial burden on the state, charitable hospitals, or federal government.'"
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Congressman Gets Kicked Off House Floor for Wearing Hoodie for Trayvon
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The New York Times: The Supreme Court's Momentous Test
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Farm Workers Get Beat Up in Florida Fields and the US Senate
Read the Article at Mother Jones

Study: Four Hundred Afghan Women Jailed for "Moral Crimes"
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Student: Congress, Don't Let My Loan Rates Double
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Katrina vanden Heuvel: Republicans Are Causing a Moral Crisis in America
Read the Article at The Washington Post

Report: Farming Must Intensify Sustainability, Cut Waste and Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Sake of Future Generations
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