Can You Understand the Republican Brain?

Tuesday 17 April 2012
The Climate Movement Takes On Fracking: Interview With Bill McKibben
Christine Shearer, Truthout: "A coalition of local and environmental organizations including 350(dot)org - the impetus behind the Keystone XL pipeline tar sands protests - are turning the nation's focus on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.... [Bill] McKibben talked with Truthout about Don't Frack Ohio, the latest developments with the Keystone pipeline and his thoughts on the next steps for the climate movement."
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Senate Falls Short in Vote on "Buffett Rule" Millionaire Tax
David Lightman, McClatchy Newspapers: "The 'Buffett Rule' - the Democratic-authored effort to impose a minimum tax on millionaires - is probably dead for awhile, fatally wounded by a largely partisan Senate vote Monday. The 51-45 procedural vote failed by nine votes, since 60 are needed to cut off debate."
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Can You Understand the Republican Brain?
Mark Karlin, Truthout: "Scientific American lauds author Chris Mooney 'as one if the few journalists in the country who specialize in the now dangerous intersection of science and politics.' Having interviewed Mooney about his first book, the highly praised, 'The Republican War on Science,' Truthout/BuzzFlash interviews Mooney about his latest release, 'The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality.'"
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Obama Announces Legislation to Combat Oil Speculation, and More
In today's On the News segment: Obama announces legislation to combat oil speculation, Harvard Professor Jim Yong Kim made head of the World Bank, the scramble for polar petroleum reserves, Julian Assange's controversial new show, and more.
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Tax Day Doesn't Belong to the Tea Party Anymore
Mark Engler, Dissent Magazine: "Over the past several years, few annual occasions have been more symbolic of the direction of political discussion in our country than Tax Day. This year, the IRS due date bears witness to the impact of the Occupy movement in American politics."
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Mitt Romney Tells Rich Donors His Secret Plan to Cut Housing Assistance
Pat Garofalo, ThinkProgress: "During comments overheard by an NBC news reporter, Mitt Romney told a crowd at a private fundraiser last night that he might eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development, scale back the Department of Education, and eliminate some specific tax provisions."
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Occupy Wall Street's Occupation of Wall Street Facing Eviction Despite Legal Protections
Sarah Jaffe, AlterNet: "When Occupy Wall Street protesters decided to take up sleeping on the sidewalks of Wall Street, they did so with the protection - they thought - of the law. Specifically, a 2000 court decision, Metropolitan Council Inc. v. City of New York, that ruled that sleeping on City sidewalks was a Constitutionally-protected form of protest."
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The Federal Reserve Turns Left
William Greider, The Nation: "Washington is lost in a snarl of confusion, cowardice and wrongheaded ideological assumptions that threaten to keep the economy in a ditch for a long time. That prospect is not much discussed in the halls of Congress or the White House. It's as though the crisis has been put on hold until after the presidential election."
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Taking Uncle Sam for a Ride: How Pakistan Makes Washington Pay for the Afghan War
Dilip Hiro, TomDispatch: "Given such strong cards, diplomatic and legal, why then did the Obama administration commit itself to releasing more than $1 billion to a government that has challenged its attempt to bring to justice an alleged mastermind of cross-border terrorism? The answer lies in what happened at two Pakistani border posts 1.5 miles from the Afghan frontier in the early hours of November 26, 2011."
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Laura Flanders | Raising Kids Is Work? Tell That to Women on Welfare
Laura Flanders, The Nation: "For all the shameful sucking up to multimillionaire mom Ann Romney after Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen accused her of never having worked 'a day in her life,' the reality is neither Republicans nor Democrats treat most parenting as work, and thousands of poor women are living in poverty today as living proof of that fact."
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Paul Krugman | In a "Crankocracy," the Rich Call the Shots
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "Timothy Noah makes an interesting point in the April 19 edition of The New Republic: at least so far, the most visible effect of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has been not so much a flood of corporate cash into politics as a flood of cash from billionaire cranks into politics."
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Activists Gather in Washington to Debate the Future of the Corporation
Keane Bhatt, Truthout: "Organized by Ralph Nader and the Center for Study of Responsive Law, more than 200 activists and scholars convened in Washington, DC, on April 2 for an all-day conference on 'Controlling the Corporation.' Nader opened the conference, outlining the growing corporate role in everyday life. 'Mega-corporations use the public's own resources against it, planning intimately and relentlessly our future,' exercised in many spheres, including 'mass media, health care, transportation, tax code, housing, trade agreements,' even 'patenting our genes.'"
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Higher Education's Role in Occupy and Related Social Justice Movements
Maura Stephens, Truthout: "As concerned citizens and as campus communities, we must get out in front and take a public stand against harassment, intimidation and violence against peaceful protesters, whether they are campus-based ... or not.... So, this is for my colleagues and for all people who work in academia around the country from preschool on up: If you have been too busy, please take some time to catch up. Your career, indeed, your very future, may depend on it."
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Get Your Boot Off My Neck: End Impunity for the Mexican Military
Kerry Kennedy, Inter Press Service: "Last weekend, my 14-year-old daughter, Michaela, and I were en route to Easter Sunday mass in Acapulco. We were stopped, harassed, threatened, and detained by eight soldiers in battle fatigues brandishing automatic weapons. At first, I was merely concerned; after all, we were travelling with RFK Human Rights Award Laureate Abel Barrera and his legal team, among the brightest lawyers in Mexico. Our attorneys immediately cited four articles of the Mexican constitution that the infantry lieutenant violated."
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

The BuzzFlash at Truthout commentary will return shortly.
New York Police Department Arrests Occupiers for "Sleepful Protest"
Read the Article at The Nation
Is ALEC on Life Support?
Read the Article at BuzzFlash
Romney Refuses to Say Whether He Would Sign Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Law
Read the Article at ThinkProgress
Mass Action Gets Results: The Arrest of George Zimmerman
Read the Article at BuzzFlash
Apple, Google, Facebook: Whose Data Centers Are the Dirtiest?
Read the Article at Mother Jones
Why Democrats Feel Joy in GOP Defeat of Buffett Rule
Read the Article at The Daily Beast
Corporations Are Sociopaths
Read the Article at Volatility
Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines

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