Truthout: 16 April 2012

The War on Public-Sector Workers
Dean Baker, Truthout: "Politicians across the country are using heaping doses of the politics of envy to try to arouse the anger of workers... The targets of these politicians' wrath are school teachers, firefighters, and other public-sector workers... They are outraged that many of these workers still earn enough to support a middle-class family. Even more outrageous, many of these workers have traditional defined-benefit pensions that assure them a modicum of comfort in retirement."
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Community Radio Poised for a Big Comeback as Activists Free the Airwaves
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "After a decade-long grassroots campaign waged by community radio advocates, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is preparing to make room on the airwaves for hundreds of new low-power stations across the country. Avila said the opportunity comes at a crucial time. His community has suffered while living under the watch of rogue Sheriff Joe Arpaio and dealing with the harsh realities of tough anti-immigrant laws recently passed in Arizona."
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Arizona Is the "Petri Dish" for ALEC's Corporate-Influenced Legislature
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "Arizona, with 49 out of 90 legislators with membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council, is a darling of the bill drafting body and home to several bills modeled on the council's legislation targeting workers compensation, unions and public education."
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Chris Hedges | First They Come for the Muslims
Chris Hedges, Truthdig: "Tarek Mehanna, a U.S. citizen, was sentenced Thursday in Worcester, Mass., to 17 1/2years in prison. It was another of the tawdry show trials held against Muslim activists since 9/11 as a result of the government's criminalization of what people say and believe. These trials, where secrecy rules permit federal lawyers to prosecute people on 'evidence' the defendants are not allowed to examine, are the harbinger of a corporate totalitarian state in which any form of dissent can be declared illegal."
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CISPA (aka SOPA 2.0) Pushed Forward by For-Profit Spying Lobby
Lee Fang, Republic Report: "A cyber security bill moving swiftly through Congress would give government intelligence agencies broad powers to work with private companies to share information about Internet users. While some critics are beginning to organize online against the legislation, defense contractors, many already working with the National Security Agency on related data-mining projects, are lobbying to press forward."
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Israel Denies Entry to Hundreds in Day of Action
Lia Tarchansky, The Real News Network: "Dozens arrested in an international day of solidarity where 1500 activists tried to land in Israel's Ben Gurion Airport to travel to the occupied Palestinian territories."
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Pink Slime Controversy Recalls Long History of Mishandling Mad Cow Outbreaks
Martha Rosenberg, Truthout: "There is an upside for the beef industry and industry-friendly federal food safety officials when people talk about pink slime. The burger extender, known as lean, finely textured beef and made from beef fat scraps treated with ammonia to kill germs, was recently found to be posing as 'normal' ground beef in the National School Lunch Program, fast food outlets and grocery stores."
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Frackers Outbid Farmers for Water in Colorado Drought
Rebecca Leber, ThinkProgress: "Colorado is facing drought not seen since 2002, following the fourth-warmest and third-least-snowy winter in US history Colorado State University scientists report that 98 percent of the state is facing these drought conditions. Colorado's hydrofracking boom - a technology that heavily relies on water - only adds additional strain as farmers and drillers bid for a scarce resource...."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Buffett Rule Vote Faces Likely Filibuster in Senate, and More
In today's On the News segment: The Buffett rule is up for a long-shot vote in the Senate today, bankrupt Hostess wants employees to accept a more than 75 percent pension cut, Spain threatens Argentina for its plans to nationalize a Spanish energy company, and more.
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World Bank Supports Harmful Water Corporations, Report Finds
Johanna Treblin, Inter Press Service: "People in many developing countries often lack access to clean water, but the approach to remedy this problem has shifted in recent years to rely more on the private sector. Yet, as this new report and several other watchdog groups have shown, the change has been more harmful than helpful."
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Economic Update | How Our Economic System Impacts Our Psychology
Richard D. Wolff, Economic Update/Truthout: "Economics Professor Richard D. Wolff and guests discuss the current state of the economy, both locally and globally in relation to the economic crisis. In the latest segment Wolff discusses the huge fines for major pharmaceutical firms, the long-standing and huge wealth redistribution from richer to poorer states by Washington, and the funding crisis in public higher education. The main interview features Dr. Harriet Fraad discussing the profound psychological costs of capitalism's instability."
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Bill Moyers | Angela Glover Blackwell on the American Dream
Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company: "'I'm not discouraged, and I wouldn't even dream of giving up, because we're at a moment right now where I think we have more possibility than I've seen in my adult lifetime,' Blackwell tells Moyers. 'Part of what I've been feeling is that all the issues are finally on the table.... So many people who are being left behind are now in places where they have voice, and influence, and they're forcing their way into the conversation.'"
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TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

The Ill Wind of Death That Races Across the Mexican Border Into the US
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "The statistics are almost certainly an undercount, because a lot of bodies are never found, but data reveals that hundreds of undocumented migrants each year die seeking economic refuge in the United States."
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Leading Illinois Official Tells White House to Put Excessive Deportations on Ice
Read the Article at The Chicago Tribune

Celebrating Jackie Robinson's Breaking of the Race Barrier in Baseball
Read the Article at The Grio

New Climate Strategy: Buy the Damn Coal and Keep It in the Ground
Read the Article at Grist

Miami Herald, Other Media Outlets Sue to Unseal George Zimmerman Court Documents
Read the Article at The Miami Herald

US Consumers Are Purchasing More Electric and Hybrid Vehicles
Read the Article at My Desert

Racist Mass Murderer of 77 Young People Goes on Trial in Norway
Read the Article at The Los Angeles Times

The Obama Administration Wants You to Stop Worrying and Love the Bailouts
Read the Article at Mother Jones

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