Progressive News Digest - April 28, 2008
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PROGRESSIVE NEWS DIGEST
The latest news, commentary & event listings
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Volume IV, Issue #47Ap Monday April 28, 2008
Welcome to another edition of Progressive News Digest, still rolling along in
its fourth year (almost at the end of Year 4, BTW, and with rare
exception this has appeared every week at some point).
This week, we're back to semi-normal, with a Table of Contents and all that.
News varies from campaign coverage to the many ways that "law
enforcement" is being used as an excuse to consolidate power and erode
individual liberty. Commentaries begin with L. Neil Smith on a sane Peace
Amendment, followed by several considerations of just how disastrous a
Hillary vs. McCain showdown in November could be, as well as analyses of
how similar both really are to the reigning emperor ... there's much more in
each category.
Meanwhile, If the impulse strikes you, we could sure use donations, both here
and at the parent-site:
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(Dec. 23st marked our FIFTH year overall in operation, without missing a SINGLE
(non-holiday) day in that span!). We still have not missed one since, but we
often wonder at the lack of support for the effort, except from a very small segment
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... enjoy and see you next week! Check the site for constant
updates each day:
NEWS
01 - NY: Sharpton promises to “close this city” over officer acquittals
02 - CA: Cindy Sheehan files to take on Pelosi
03 - AZ: Hiring law snares zero employers
04 - TN: Metro traffic stops lead to most deportations
05 - Olympic torch protests rock Korean capital
06 - AZ: Truck carrying illegals crashes, killing four
07 - Sparks fly over ethics of air travel
08 - McCain campaign violates own travel policy
09 - Limbaugh calls for “riots” in Denver
10 - Scalia: Abortion not prohibited in Constitution
11 - Wright: Controversy over sermons “unfair”
12 - Tennessee budget may shrink by $500 million
13 - Latin American leftist leaders vow to fight food price hikes
14 - MA: Bartenders serve up drinks, customs checks
15 - Grateful Dead archives go to UC Santa Cruz
16 - SC: Feds to charge student with WMD attempt
17 - SC: Bomb-plot suspect got straight As
18 - TN: Senate measure would ban lawyers from DUI advertising
19 - KY: Judge sends woman to jail for son’s truancy
20 - British ex-jihadis form ranks for tolerance
21 - A new angle on pyramid construction
22 - Feds want to require visitors’ fingerprints when leaving US
23 - UK: Five cases of lost personal data a week
24 - FL: Disabled girl to get $1.2 million from state
25 - CO: 4/20 smoke-out draws more than 10,000
COMMENTARY
26 - You go first: The Peace Amendment
27 - Hillary Strangelove
28 - What Clinton foreign policy legacy?
29 - Who needs friends like the Rev. Wright?
30 - America’s apartheid mentality toward the world
31 - Revolving doors
32 - Power Q&A: Christina Page
33 - We paid what for that virtual border fence?
34 - Anatomy of a chemical murder
35 - To cheat or not to cheat
36 - Matthews vs. McNulty
37 - Shattering the War Consensus
38 - Running on empty
39 - Attorney leading suit is veteran in battling VA
40 - News you can lose
41 - The divestment trap
42 - Connecticut’s immigration duel
43 - How to sing like a planet
44 - Clinton or Obama on top?
45 - Don’t make cops squeal on undocumented workers
46 - Iraq’s political refugees in limbo
47 - Interview with Aaron Brown on NYT “military analyst” story
48 - The other dream ticket
49 - The Greenback Effect
50 - Conservatives will always win on patriotism
51 - Forget carbon: You should be checking your water footprint
52 - The new class struggle
53 - Obama can’t close the deal
54 - Is organic food really healthier?
55 - Pay no attention to the media behind the curtain
NEWS
01 - NY: Sharpton promises to “close this city” over officer acquittals
Fox News
“Hundreds of angry people marched through Harlem on Saturday after the Rev. Al Sharpton promised to ‘close this city down’ to protest the acquittals of three police detectives in the 50-shot barrage that killed a groom on his wedding day and wounded two friends. ‘We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians,’ Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. ‘This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.’” [editor’s note: Amen! The very idea that a senseless shooting like this never even saw a JURY is abominable - SAT] (04/27/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352767,00.html
=====
02 - CA: Cindy Sheehan files to take on Pelosi
San Francisco Chronicle
“Peace activist Cindy Sheehan wants to snatch House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat from her in November, but first she’s going to need the help — and signatures — of 10,198 friends and supporters. Sheehan was at San Francisco City Hall on Friday to take out papers for her independent run for Congress, but without those signatures from voters in the district, her name won’t show up on the ballot. ‘It’s an uphill battle,’ said Sheehan, who vowed to run against Pelosi in July after the speaker refused to start impeachment proceedings against President George Bush. ‘But I’m excited about the signature-gathering process. It’s going to be an opportunity to talk to people about our campaign.’” [editor’s note: Here’s hoping she makes Nancy’s political life miserable, for as long as she can! - SAT] (04/27/08)
=====
03 - AZ: Hiring law snares zero employers
Arizona Republic
“When the Legal Arizona Workers Act passed last year, it was hailed as landmark legislation that would help law enforcement crack down on employers who illegally hired ‘unauthorized aliens.’ However, outside of Maricopa County there have been minimal complaints, with nine of the 15 county attorneys telling The Arizona Republic they have not received a single one. Meanwhile, not one civil suit has been filed against an employer. … Supporters of the law say it’s a deterrent, no matter how it’s enforced. And, they say, as long as the statute is making it less comfortable for illegal immigrants to work in Arizona, it’s working as intended.” (04/27/08)
=====
04 - TN: Metro traffic stops lead to most deportations
Tennessean
“For Ramiro Aguirre, the path to deportation began with a broken headlight. A Nashville police officer pulled him over last November, and Aguirre was arrested when he couldn’t produce a driver’s license. He went from jail to a deportation center to Mexico. All after a minor traffic violation. Aguirre is not alone. In the first year that the Nashville Police and Davidson County Sheriff’s departments have participated in a nationwide immigration enforcement program, half of the nearly 3,000 people arrested under that program were caught during routine traffic stops, many of them for driving without a license. And despite local law enforcement’s stated goal of concentrating on repeat and violent offenders, that is not the case.” [editor’s note: And the real horror of this is how more and more local traffic cops do the job of the federales! - SAT] (04/27/08)
=====
05 - Olympic torch protests rock Korean capital
Scotsman [UK]
“Chinese students clashed with anti-Beijing demonstrators at the Olympic torch relay yesterday in Seoul, South Korea, throwing rocks and punches during the latest troubled stop on the flame’s global journey.Thousands of police guarded the torch from activists protesting against China’s treatment of North Korean refugees.In an attempt to halt the torch’s progress, a North Korean defector tried to set himself on fire. Son Jong Hoon, 45, led an unsuccessful public campaign to save his brother from execution in the north, where he was accused of spying after the two met secretly in China. … Police deployed 8,000 officers to protect the relay.” (04/27/08)
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Olympic-torch-protests-rock-Korean.4024875.jp
=====
06 - AZ: Truck carrying illegals crashes, killing four
Fox News
“A truck jammed with as many as 60 illegal immigrants crashed and rolled in a remote part of central Arizona on Sunday morning, killing four and injuring many. The truck was carrying possibly 50 to 60 people, many of whom ran into the desert, said Vanessa White, spokeswoman for the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office. The driver is believed to be among them. Investigators believe the people on board were illegal immigrants, White said. our men were pronounced dead at the scene, while 27 survivors were taken to hospitals. White did not know their conditions.” (04/27/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352783,00.html
=====
07 - Sparks fly over ethics of air travel
Christian Science Monitor
“Travelers troubled by rising airfares, canceled flights, and overcrowded tarmacs are hearing yet another reason to reconsider air travel. Some say it’s unethical to fly. Earlier this month, neighborhood and environmental activists staged events across Britain to dramatize concerns about commercial aviation. Donning masks of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and waving cardboard airplanes, they called on government to keep track of carbon emissions from planes and raise fees to discourage frequent flying.” [editor’s note: If interminable waiting-lines and jackbooted strip-searches couldn’t stop folks from flying; we doubt this will - SAT] (04/28/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0428/p13s01-wmgn.html
=====
08 - McCain campaign violates own travel policy
Boston Globe
“Republican John McCain’s campaign appears to have violated its own stated policy of not using the aircraft of companies with lobbying interests in Washington for campaign travel, according to a Boston Globe review. The practice is legal, and the campaign of McCain, long an advocate of campaign finance reform, has changed its policy over the past year on use of private planes — from banning such corporate-jet travel to allowing limited use. McCain is the only remaining candidate who has flown on corporate jets during the campaign. Neither of the Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, uses private jets, and both have flown on commercial charter flights since the outset of the campaign.” (04/27/08)
=====
09 - Limbaugh calls for “riots” in Denver
Denver Channel KMGH
“Talk show host Rush Limbaugh is sparking controversy again after he made comments calling for riots in Denver during the Democratic National Convention this summer. He said the riots would ensure a Democrat is not elected as president, and his listeners have a responsibility to make sure it happens. ‘Riots in Denver, the Democrat Convention would see to it that we don’t elect Democrats,’ Limbaugh said during Wednesday’s radio broadcast. He then went on to say that’s the best thing that could happen to the country. Limbaugh cited Al Sharpton, saying the Barack Obama supporter threatened to superdelegates that ‘there’s going to be trouble’ if the presidency is taken from Obama.” [editor’s note: Ever since Olbermann began referring to him as “comedian Rush Limbaugh” … it’s all made sense - SAT] (04/24/08)
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/15980105/detail.html
=====
10 - Scalia: Abortion not prohibited in Constitution
Fox News
“The Constitution doesn’t prohibit abortion any more than it allows it, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says in a television news interview to be broadcast Sunday. Scalia told CBS News’ 60 Minutes that he may be conservative, but he is not biased on issues that come before the court. ‘I mean, I confess to being a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases,’ Scalia said in excerpts released Thursday. ‘On the abortion thing, for example, if indeed I were … trying to impose my own views, I would not only be opposed to Roe versus Wade, I would be in favor of the opposite view, which the anti-abortion people would like to see adopted, which is to interpret the Constitution to mean that a state must prohibit abortion,’ Scalia told correspondent Lesley Stahl. ‘And you’re against that?’ Stahl asked. Scalia replied, ‘Of course. There’s nothing [in the Constitution to support that view’ …” (04/24/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352501,00.html
=====
11 - Wright: Controversy over sermons “unfair”
San Francisco Chronicle
“The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to Barack Obama, said that publicizing sound bites of sermons in which he condemned U.S. policies was ‘unfair’ and ‘devious,’ and done by people who know nothing about his church, according to excerpts of a PBS interview released Thursday. Wright said that, as an activist, he is accustomed to being ‘at odds with the establishment,’ but the response to the sermons has been ‘very, very unsettling.’ The interview, scheduled for broadcast Friday night, is the first the pastor has given since video of his preaching gained national attention in March, putting Democratic presidential hopeful Obama on the defensive.” (04/24/08)
=====
12 - Tennessee budget may shrink by $500 million
Tennessean
“Next year’s state budget could face as much as $500 million in cuts as tax revenues continue to slow with the nation’s weakening economy, Gov. Phil Bredesen said on Wednesday. The state’s gloomy revenue figures mean that ‘I’m going to have to trim my sails everywhere’ in next year’s budget, Bredesen said, estimating that his $27.9 billion budget proposal from earlier this year would have to be slashed by $400 million to $500 million. ‘You don’t do that without some pain. I’m gonna do some sail-trimming, and maybe tossing some baggage overboard here to keep the ship afloat,’ he said.” [editor’s note: Given that when I moved to Nashville in late 1993, the entire state budget was well under $20 billion, this doesn’t say much for “frugality” … and now we must watch out for the end run with yet another push for a state income-tax to cover the “revenue shortfall!” - SAT] (04/24/08)
=====
13 - Latin American leftist leaders vow to fight food price hikes
Christian Science Monitor
“Leftist leaders from four Latin American countries vowed to work together to grow more food Wednesday, blaming capitalism and speculation for soaring world prices that are hurting many poor nations. The presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and Cuba’s vice president, launched a $100 million fund for staples such as rice, beans, and corn to mitigate sharp rises in world grain prices. The leaders said high prices, which have sparked riots from Egypt to Haiti, were largely caused by a United States policy to make ethanol fuel from corn.” [editor’s note: Unintended consequences? Gad, we can only hope so, given the track-records of the empire-builders! - SAT] (04/25/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0425/p05s01-woam.html
=====
14 - MA: Bartenders serve up drinks, customs checks
Boston Globe
“All the 33-year-old illegal immigrant wanted was a beer. After nearly a decade in this country, the Irish national knew to steer clear of police and federal agents. But he was stunned this month when a bartender at the Orpheum refused to serve him because his passport lacked a US Customs stamp. The Boston Culinary Group is now checking for US customs stamps if patrons present passports as ID. The man grabbed his passport and fled, abandoning a $60 orchestra seat at a Ray Davies concert and igniting a debate over a new policy that one of the country’s largest concessionaires imposed at the Orpheum and at another popular live-music venue in Boston. Officials at the Boston Culinary Group said they started checking for customs stamps last year to ensure that passports are authentic, not to enforce immigration law. But critics of the policy say that the stamp is no guarantee of validity and that checking for it is frightening to immigrants.” (04/24/08)
=====
15 - Grateful Dead archives go to UC Santa Cruz
San Francisco Chronicle
“The Dead will live on at UC Santa Cruz, in a way. On Thursday, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart are scheduled to announce that the archives of the legendary band — 30 years worth of correspondence, business records, merchandise and memorabilia, including stage backdrops, a large ‘Blues for Allah’ stained-glass artwork a fan gave the band in 1978 and some of the life-size skeletons of the band members for the 1987 ‘Touch of Grey’ video shoot — will be donated to the UC Santa Cruz archives. UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal is also scheduled to be on hand for the announcement, which, appropriately enough, will be made at the Fillmore in San Francisco, one of the most storied venues in Bay Area music history.” (04/23/08)
=====
16 - SC: Feds to charge student with WMD attempt
Raw Story
“An 18-year-old accused of planning to bomb his high school will be charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, which carries a possible life sentence, the top federal prosecutor in South Carolina said Tuesday. Ryan Schallenberger also will face two lesser federal charges stemming from what authorities say was a scheme to detonate explosives in a suicide attack on his high school in the small town of Chesterfield. The straight-A student will be charged in federal court in Florence on Tuesday afternoon, said Kevin McDonald, the acting U.S. attorney for South Carolina. McDonald said the federal charge comes into play mostly because Schallenberger ordered materials that can be used for bombs through the mail.” (04/22/08)
=====
17 - SC: Bomb-plot suspect got straight As
Arizona Republic
“A young man accused of plotting to bomb his high school is a straight-A student whose parents sought help from mental-health experts when he slammed his head into a wall last week, authorities said Monday. Ryan Schallenberger’s parents took him to a hospital three days before his Saturday arrest after he made a 4-inch indentation in the wallboard, prosecutor Jay Hodge said at a court hearing. Schallenberger, 18, was not badly injured, but his parents also called a local mental-health clinic that offered no help, Hodge said.” [editor’s note: One could comment about how the pressures of perfection, perhaps from parents or teachers, led this poor soul to snap … a few years earlier than many do in the middle of college … but we’ll refrain - SAT] (04/22/08)
=====
18 - TN: Senate measure would ban lawyers from DUI advertising
Tennessean
“Defense attorneys would be banned from advertising their expertise with drunken driving cases under a bill advancing in the Senate. Sen. Rosalind Kurita, a Clarksville Democrat, successfully added the provision to a bill that would create an online registry of repeat DUI offenders in Tennessee. Kurita says officials have a hard enough time convicting drunken drivers without lawyers advertising their expertise in the field and offering discounts to DUI defendants. Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle, a Memphis attorney, argued that Kurita’s proposal would violate commercial free speech rights.” [editor’s note: But this is unlikely to stop Sen. Kurita, who’s been a champion of authoritarianism throughout her sordid career; a libertarian challenge to fools who actually drive impaired would involve persuasion, arbitration … and legal action as the last resort - SAT] (04/22/08)
=====
19 - KY: Judge sends woman to jail for son’s truancy
Fox News
“A judge in western Kentucky has sent a woman to jail because her son wouldn’t go to school. Samantha Kinney of Earlington pleaded guilty to failing to keep her son in middle school classes. The court in Madisonville sentenced Kinney to a week on jail on her second offense. She had pleaded guilty to a like charge in December. Records show the boy had 16 unexcused absences this school year, besides medical absences. Hopkins County Attorney Todd P’Pool said sending a parent to jail is the final alternative in a chronic truancy case. He said the case marks the first time it’s happened in Hopkins County.” (04/22/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352186,00.html
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20 - British ex-jihadis form ranks for tolerance
Christian Science Monitor
“They once plotted insurrection in Britain. Young, middle-class, and angry, they were the vanguard of a generation of disaffected Muslims that, at its most extreme, gave rise to the July 7, 2005, transportation bombers. But now, in one of the most visible assaults on political Islam from within the British Muslim community, a network of ex-radicals launched on Tuesday a movement to fight the same ideology that they once worked to spread. The Quilliam Foundation — named for a 19th-century British convert to Islam — aims to propagate a tolerant and pluralistic view of Islam among young Muslims who are the most vulnerable to radicalism.” (04/23/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0423/p01s09-woeu.html
=====
21 - A new angle on pyramid construction
Boston Globe
“It’s a theory that gives indigestion to mainstream archeologists. Namely, that some of the immense blocks of Egypt’s Great Pyramids might have been cast from synthetic material — the world’s first concrete — not just carved whole from quarries and lugged into place by armies of toilers. Such an innovation would have saved millions of man-hours of grunting and heaving in construction of the enigmatic edifices on the Giza Plateau. ‘It could be they used less sweat and more smarts,’ said Linn W. Hobbs, professor of materials science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ‘Maybe the ancient Egyptians didn’t just leave us mysterious monuments and mummies. Maybe they invented concrete 2,000 years before the Romans started using it in their structures.’” [editor’s note: And MAYBE, just maybe, the alleged tyranny of the Egyptians over their Hebrew slaves has been … umm, severely exaggerated for effect — just like so much of so-called “sacred history” from which we are supposed to deriv
e all our beliefs? - SAT]
=====
22 - Feds want to require visitors’ fingerprints when leaving US
Yahoo! News
“The Bush administration would require commercial airlines and cruise-line operators to collect information such as fingerprints from international travelers and send the information to the Homeland Security Department soon after the travelers leave the country, according to a proposed rule. … Airlines and cruise ship operators must already provide the department with biographical information on international passengers before they leave the country. But this rule would require biometric information — such as fingerprints — to be collected and then transmitted within 24 hours of a visitor leaving the U.S., according to a Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not yet been made.” (04/22/08)
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23 - UK: Five cases of lost personal data a week
Telegraph [UK]
“Five security breaches a week have been reported to the privacy watchdog since the loss last year of two government discs containing details of 25 million families. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, said he had been notified of 94 data breaches over the past five months. Two thirds — 62 — were committed by government and other public sector bodies. The material included a wide range of personal details, including health records. The data was recovered in only three of the 94 cases.” (04/22/08)
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24 - FL: Disabled girl to get $1.2 million from state
Sun Sentinel
“A girl left permanently disabled because of a botched child abuse investigation would be guaranteed only a fraction of a $26 million jury verdict against the state under a bill that will now go to the House floor. Marissa Amora, now 9, would get only $1.2 million this year under a bill that was approved by a House panel Monday. The Department of Children & Families, however, has promised to make the amount $18.2 million over 10 years, but the Legislature annually would have to put each payment in the state budget. Marissa had been hospitalized as a toddler because she couldn’t walk. A Miami hospital notified child welfare officials after discovering an unexplained broken collar bone, but she was returned her to her mother in Palm Beach County. Less than a month later she was severely beaten and now will require constant care for the rest of her life.” (04/22/08)
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25 - CO: 4/20 smoke-out draws more than 10,000
Boulder Daily Camera
“‘Nine, eight, seven …’ A crowd of about 10,000 people collectively began counting down on the University of Colorado’s Norlin Quadrangle just before 4:20 p.m. Sunday. Yet the massive puff of pot smoke that hovers over CU’s Boulder campus every April 20 — the date of an annual, internationally recognized celebration of marijuana — began rising over the sea of heads earlier than normal this year. … Although it’s become an annual and renowned event at CU, this year’s 4/20 celebration was different in some ways than in many previous years: The crowd was so large it migrated from the long-traditional site of Farrand Field to the larger Norlin Quad; festivities kicked off earlier than normal with daytime concerts; and CU police handed out zero citations.” (04/20/08)
COMMENTARY
26 - You go first: The Peace Amendment
The Libertarian Enterprise
L. Neil Smith
“The third clause is the meat of the amendment. Having voted to declare war, every Congressman who voted “aye” will immediately get up from his seat and march right out the door, where he will be handed a uniform and a weapon and be conveyed directly to the front, defined as that area of military activity that is producing the highest number of casualties. No excuses. Practicing politicians will be denied Conscientious Objectorhood. As long as they voted to subject yet another generation of Americans to war, their age, sex, prior service, or state of health won’t keep our valiant congressional warriors from going with the 'boys.' If they can’t march, they’ll be given knobby tires for their wheelchairs. ” (04/27/08)
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle465-20080427-05.html
=====
27 - Hillary Strangelove
Boston Globe
staff
“Americans have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the rhetoric in a campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be crossed. Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC’s Good Morning America that, if she were president, she would ‘totally obliterate’ Iran if Iran attacked Israel. This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world. Responding with understatement to a question in the British House of Lords, the foreign minister responsible for Asia, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, said of Clinton’s implication of a mushroom cloud over Iran: ‘While it is reasonable to warn Iran of the consequences of it continuing to develop nuclear weapons and what those real consequences bring to its security, it is probably not prudent in today’s world to threaten to obliterate any other
country and in many cases civilians resident in such a country.’” [editor’s note: If this doesn’t expose the imperialist tyrant beneath the blonde coif … maybe nothing will - SAT] (04/27/08)t
=====
28 - What Clinton foreign policy legacy?
The Nation
Barbara Crossette
“That Hillary Clinton has apparently found success in talking tough about foreigners and sinking to Bush-like ‘politics of fear’ only illuminates how little American foreign policy has been seriously debated in the Democratic presidential nominee race, and how little voters know or remember about Bill Clinton’s international legacy. Against the background of Hillary Clinton’s repeated claims to cosmopolitan experience, her scores of foreign stopovers (not unlike the travels of Laura Bush) and her meetings with a lot of world figures, the record of the 1992-2000 period bears more scrutiny than it is getting, beyond the NAFTA flip-flop. This is nowhere more urgent than in the discussion about how the United States goes about getting back into the world after years of offending friends and enemies alike, and whether the Clintons failed at grasping coming threats to America.” [editor’s note: Any analysis that begins with a comparison of Hillary to Shrubbo hisself … and then reminds us
that Bubba’s reign was only slightly less autocratic (just less malign motives?) … truly deserves a passing glance! SAT] (04/26/08)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/crossette
=====
29 - Who needs friends like the Rev. Wright?
Fox News
Susan Estrich
“At a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician, Reverend Jeremiah Wright told Bill Moyers in their well-publicized interview last week. I continue to be a pastor. He’s a politician. I’m a pastor. As my mother used to say, with friends like these. … If anyone thought that the Barack Obama campaign had any control over Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the controversial former pastor and ‘uncle figure’ whose fiery speeches reeking of anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment provided at least a jolt to the Obama campaign, the pastor has proven conclusively in his weekend burst of publicity that it just isn’t so.” (04/27/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352782,00.html
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30 - America’s apartheid mentality toward the world
Christian Science Monitor
Helena Cobban
“What kind of relationship do Americans want to build with the world’s 6 billion other people in the years ahead? This question is urgent, since the past seven years have seen an unprecedented drop in our country’s global favorability rating. In today’s hyper-connected world, that has huge consequences for Washington’s ability to protect American interests. To fix this problem, many experts — and even the presidential candidates — are promoting agendas to rebuild America’s position of world leadership. They are right to try to repair our image abroad. But their focus on ‘American leadership’ is misplaced. A smarter approach would be for us to build a new relationship with the world that embraces the key principles of human equality and mutual respect among all peoples. Starting to see themselves as ‘merely’ equal to everyone else may seem slightly scary to some Americans. But history should assure them.” (04/25/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0425/p09s01-coop.html
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31 - Revolving doors
Slate
Fred Kaplan
“Gen. David Petraeus’ promotion — from commander of multinational forces in Iraq to the head of U.S. Central Command, encompassing American military missions in all of central and south Asia, including Iraq and Afghanistan — is by now old news, though it was announced only on Wednesday. So is the elevation of Petraeus’ deputy, Gen. Raymond Odierno, to take his place in Baghdad. But in some ways, the more intriguing — and perhaps significant — announcement was the move to pin a fourth star on Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli’s shoulders and make him the Army’s vice chief of staff.” (04/24/08)
http://www.slate.com/id/2189901/
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32 - Power Q&A: Christina Page
Mother Jones
Justin Elliot
“Yahoo’s first director of climate and energy strategy explains the green screen in the cafeteria and how the company achieved carbon neutrality last year.” (04/21/08)
=====
33 - We paid what for that virtual border fence?
AlterNet
Stephen Pizzo
“If someone asked me to design a virtual border fence I’d begin by finding a top-of-the line Web cam, one that can be operated (moved and focused) remotely over the web able to see in both daylight and total darkness. Then I’d find the best ruggedized laptop on the market, design a weather-proof, secure box for it. So, let’s see how much under the $20 million (failed system) they choose, I can come …” (04/26/08)
http://www.alternet.org/rights/83580/
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34 - Anatomy of a chemical murder
Fox News
Steven Milloy
“Wal-Mart announced last week that it would stop selling baby bottles made with the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA. In the past, I would have laid the blame for this junk science-fueled shame at the feet of anti-chemical environmental jihadists, their pseudo-scientist henchmen at universities and government regulatory agencies and Wal-Mart’s knuckleheaded executives, who seem to be more interested in appeasing eco-pressure groups than reassuring consumers the products the retailer has sold for decades are safe. But the banning of baby bottles made with BPA is so mind-bogglingly baseless that I just have to lay the blame where it truly belongs — with the lame-o chemical industry, which utterly failed to defend its product against activist claims and a regulatory process so specious it would cause voodoo practitioners to shudder.” (04/24/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352478,00.html
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35 - To cheat or not to cheat
Christian Science Monitor
Michael Laser
“It’s rare these days to read a newspaper or watch the evening news without hearing about an athlete who used steroids, a team that spied on another team’s training camp, or kids who cheated on a standardized test, sometimes with the aid of teachers trying desperately to meet their No Child Left Behind benchmarks. According to one survey, 60 percent of high school students admitted to cheating on a test over the past year. We’re swimming in a sea of cheating — so I decided recently that I’d better talk to my kids about it, before they get the idea that everyone in the world cheats and it’s pointless to resist.” (04/28/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0428/p09s02-coop.html
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36 - Matthews vs. McNulty
In These Times
David Sirota
“If television is the nation’s mirror, then no two TV characters reflect the intensifying ‘two Americas’ gap better than Chris Matthews and Jimmy McNulty. A recent New York Times Magazine profile of Matthews describes a name-dropping dilettante floating between television studios and cocktail parties. The article documents the MSNBC host’s $5 million salary, three Mercedes and house in lavish Chevy Chase, Md. Yet Matthews said, ‘Am I part of the winner’s circle in American life? I don’t think so.’ That stupefying comment sums up a pervasive worldview in Washington that is hostile to any discussion of class divides.” (04/25/08)
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3654/matthews_vs_mcnulty/
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37 - Shattering the War Consensus
Common Wonders
Robert Koehler
“Why, for God’s sake, does nothing change? The war goes on, the money flows, the blood flows, the lies stay exactly the same. Have you noticed? Have you ever wondered, with a stab of transcendent confusion, why a self-correcting rationality hasn’t kicked in by now, why a saner awareness hasn’t made itself evident in the macro-affairs of the nation by now?” (04/24/08)
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38 - Running on empty
The Nation
Mark Hertsgaard
“It used to be that only environmentalists and paranoids warned about running out of oil. Not anymore. As climate change did over the past few years, peak oil seems poised to become the next big idea commanding the attention of governments, businesses and citizens the world over. The arrival of $119-a-barrel crude and $4-a-gallon gasoline this spring are but the most obvious signs that global oil production has or soon will peak. With global demand inexorably rising, a limited supply will bring higher, more volatile prices and eventually shortages that could provoke — to quote the title of the must-see peak oil documentary — the end of suburbia. If the era of cheap, abundant oil is indeed coming to a close, the world’s economy and, paradoxically, the fight against climate change could be in deep trouble.” (04/24/08)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/hertsgaard
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39 - Attorney leading suit is veteran in battling VA
San Francisco Chronicle
C.W. Nevius
“Gordon Erspamer, the attorney who brought the lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs that went to trial this week in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, is a big, unresponsive government agency’s worst nightmare. He’s a rainmaker attorney for a major firm in the city who has set aside time to take legal action that doesn’t earn a penny. And besides that, he’s got a compelling and personal back story and a chip on his shoulder to prove it. Erspamer’s cause since the late ’70s has been the rights of armed forces veterans, and this week’s trial has the VA squirming over a shocking rate of suicides among vets and has captured the national spotlight. The trial led the CBS Evening News this week, and Erspamer says he’s getting thousands of e-mails and calls from veterans and media outlets.” (04/24/08)
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40 - News you can lose
In These Times
Susan J. Douglas
“Brace yourselves. The real presidential campaign — the kind the news media have forced us to get used to — has begun, with the twin uproars over remarks by Geraldine Ferraro and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as the inaugural moments. The way the talking heads on CNN and Fox flogged these stories made you want to outlaw 24-hour cable news. And it makes you cringe in anticipation of what’s to come. Aren’t most of us desperate for a different kind of political coverage? Aren’t we really sick of the ‘horse race coverage,’ the emphasis on the symbolic, superficial and idiotic? Remember how Dubya got kid-glove treatment during the 2000 debates and campaign coverage while the press ridiculed Al Gore — who is a hundred times smarter and more principled — for allegedly claiming to have invented the Internet? Well, here we go again.” [editor’s note: Smarter? Perhaps. More principled? Like calling him the “kinder, gentler tyrant” … AlGore never once showed anything but contempt for individual lib
erty! - SAT] (04/24/08)
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3607/news_you_can_lose/
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41 - The divestment trap
Boston Globe
John Tirman
“Divestment from enterprises in countries beset with politically noxious regimes is a well-regarded and popular impulse. … But not all divestment ideas are created equal, nor have equal merit. A bill to divest from Iran, now before the Massachusetts Legislature, is an empty gesture and likely to be counterproductive. … Where divestment and similar campaigns (such as boycotts) work best is when the major states are reluctant to criticize, much less punish, bad behavior on the part of the target regime. … The bill on Beacon Hill would remove all state pension funds from investments in Iran’s energy industry as a means of punishing Iran for bad behavior. … [U]nlike the case of South Africa, the US government has been the leader in imposing sanctions. Unlike South Africa, the sanctions are supported by few of our allies, including countries in the Persian Gulf. And, unlike South Africa, there is no evidence that sanctions are changing the behavior of the Iranian state.” (04/24/08)
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42 - Connecticut’s immigration duel
In These Times
Melinda Tuhus
“Two Connecticut cities have taken opposite approaches to dealing with undocumented immigrants. Last summer, New Haven became the first city in the country to issue municipal IDs regardless of immigration status. (See ‘Despite Raids, IDs For All,’ August 2007.) Meanwhile, in February, Danbury deputized some of its police officers to act in concert with agents of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On March 12, the mayors of the two cities met in the capital of Hartford for a ticketed debate in front of an audience of about a hundred, whose opinions on the issue reflected a similarly divergent range. New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, a Democrat, and Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, a Republican, agreed that the United States benefits from the work of undocumented immigrants.” (04/23/08)
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43 - How to sing like a planet
San Francisco Chronicle
Mark Morford
“This is the kind of thing we forget. This is the kind of thing that, given all our distractions, our celeb obsessions and happy drugs and bothersome trifles like family and bills and war and health care and sex and love and porn and breathing and death, tends to fly under the radar of your overspanked consciousness, only to be later rediscovered and brought forth and placed directly in front of your eyeballs, at least for a moment, so you can look, really look, and go, oh my God, I had no idea. The Earth is humming. Singing. Churning out a tune without the aid of battery or string or wind-up mechanism and its song is ethereal and mystifying and very, very weird, a rather astonishing, newly discovered phenomena that’s not easily analyzed, but which, if you really let it sink into your consciousness, can change the way you look at everything.” (04/23/08)
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44 - Clinton or Obama on top?
Fox News
Susan Estrich
“I hate pundits who remind you when they were right, and conveniently forget all the times we’re wrong. Half the fun of being a pundit is that it really doesn’t matter; that unlike the situation when you’re running a campaign, our mistakes don’t count for anything but amusement. Even so, when I turned my computer on at 5 p.m. EDT on Tuesday and saw, on my favorite such source, the Primary Day Drudge report, the report that the exits were closer than expected, I couldn’t help but start laughing. My students thought, probably not for the first time, that I had gone slightly nuts.” (04/23/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352369,00.html
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45 - Don’t make cops squeal on undocumented workers
Christian Science Monitor
Nik Steinberg
“Imagine living in a state where local cops can stop anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally, and arrest them if they lack proof of citizenship. Last month, Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri signed an executive order directing state police to enforce federal immigration law, which will let them do just that. The order is designed to relieve a financial burden on Rhode Island’s residents. But few reforms could make residents less safe. From Phoenix, Ariz., to Prince William County, Va., from big-city mayors to small-town councilmen, lawmakers like Governor Carcieri are starting to use local police to root out undocumented residents. The laws are grounded in a 1996 immigration reform act that lets federal officers train local police to help catch undocumented immigrants.” (04/24/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0424/p09s01-coop.html
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46 - Iraq’s political refugees in limbo
Boston Globe
Saleh al-Mutlaq
“There is so much tragedy in Iraq that some stories go underreported — eclipsed by other negative news. This one requires attention: Inside Iraq, 20 kilometers west of the Iranian border and 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province, stands Camp Ashraf where members of the Iranian opposition — known as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq — have lived for more than two decades. Today, some 3,500 residents live in Ashraf. In another bizarre turn in Iran-Iraq relations, these arch-opponents of Iran’s theocratic regime, who are now a valued part of an Iraqi community, find themselves in danger of expulsion. Caught in a geopolitical quandary, they are being told by Iraqi officials that their refuge is no longer safe.” [editor’s note: The MEK, or “Rajavi Cult,” is hardly “the” Iranian opposition. It’s a Marxist-Leninist terror group that’s been in eclipse for the better part of 20 years - TLK] (04/23/08)
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47 - Interview with Aaron Brown on NYT “military analyst” story
Salon
Glenn Greenwald
“The severe problems created by using retired U.S. Generals as military analysts to comment on American wars have long been brought to the attention of the establishment media — long before Sunday’s NYT story. Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman had a rather contentious interview all the way back in 1999 with then-CNN anchor and vice-president Frank Sesno regarding the use of these retired Generals to comment (in an almost uniformly pro-Government/pro-war manner) on the Clinton administration’s bombing campaign in Serbia …. Even back then, Goodman repeatedly asked CNN’s executive why anti-war voices were excluded almost entirely from CNN’s coverage of that war and whether CNN was concerned about the obvious conflicts and propaganda risks in ‘putting retired military generals on the payroll as military analysts.’” (04/23/08)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/23/brown/
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48 - The other dream ticket
Slate
Bruce Reed
“When John McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination back in February, the odds against picking Romney looked long indeed. The two spent the entire primary season at each others’ throats. Romney trashed McCain over ‘amnesty’ for illegal immigrants; McCain joked that Romney’s many flip-flops proved he really was ‘the candidate of change.’ Even Rudy Giuliani, not known for making peace, chimed in from Florida that McCain and Romney were ‘getting kind of nasty,’ implying that they needed to come chill with him at the beach. Sure enough, after a little time off, Romney felt better — good enough to begin his vice-presidential audition.” (04/21/08)
http://www.slate.com/id/2189589/
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49 - The Greenback Effect
Mother Jones
Bill McKibben
“Since I spend most of my time haplessly battling global warming, I encounter a fair number of climate-change skeptics. They’re usually clutching some tattered study about tropospheric temperatures from six years back, or muttering about sunspots, but they’re almost never carefully weighing the actual current science. The wellspring of their skepticism lies not in chemistry or in physics but in ideology, and their syllogism goes something like this: Markets solve all problems; Markets are not solving global warming; QED, global warming is not a problem. This proof has certain logical shortcomings, beginning with the fact that it’s illogical. But it is emotionally comforting.” [editor’s note: Never mind that so far, the market has been responsible for 100% of emissions reductions - TLK] (for publication 05/08)
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50 - Conservatives will always win on patriotism
The Free Liberal
Micah Tillman
“The onslaught Obama endured on ABC over patriotism was not so much an attack by Gibson and Stephanopoulos as preparation for a battle that will always be Conservatives’ to lose. Progressives need to be prepared, but simply appealing to their own brand of patriotism isn’t working. Instead, it highlights four major weaknesses: cognitive dissonance, elitism, the future’s weightlessness, and the specter of nihilism.” (04/23/08)
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/003311.html
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51 - Forget carbon: You should be checking your water footprint
AlterNet
Amol Rajan
“The concept of water footprints — or ‘virtual water’ — will tell consumers the amount of precious H2O that has been used in the manufacture of products they buy. As with carbon footprints, a ‘virtual water’ figure will indicate the extent to which a particular product has cost the earth. And, as with carbon footprints, the message is clear: less is better. A new website run by the University of Twente in the Netherlands, waterfootprint.org, gives ethically minded consumers a chance to work out the hidden implications of their shopping habits. Common commodities including groceries, clothes, stationery and electrical goods are evaluated according to a water footprint calculator. In each case, the water footprint covers both the manufacture and transport of the goods. The results are striking.” (04/23/08)
http://www.alternet.org/water/83205/
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52 - The new class struggle
The Libertarian Enterprise
A.X. Perez
“Years ago Marxists spoke of the Class Struggle, the fight between the drones who enjoyed society’s wealth and the workers who created it. Communism collapsed nearly two decades ago, even the nations controlled by nominal communists practice de facto capitalism to various degrees. The concept of class struggle should have been swept into the ‘dustbin of history.’ The American Democratic and Republican Parties missed the memo. Actually, it’s more like they refused to accept delivery. The result is that the Democrats keep promising to use the tax and welfare system to ‘take from the rich and give to the poor.’ The Republicans aver that they will keep the poor from stealing the wealth of the upper classes. They promote antagonism between rich and poor, and act to do everything they can to assure that a privileged elite continues to run America.” (04/20/08)
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2008/tle464-20080420-03.html
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53 - Obama can’t close the deal
Salon
Walter Shapiro
“What’s a weary, befuddled superdelegate — desperate for clarity — to do? Instead of providing a definitive answer, the Pennsylvania primary ended up as an old-technology carbon copy of the Ohio vote seven weeks ago. Once again, with her back to the wall, Hillary Clinton won a Rust Belt contest by a 10-point margin, leading Barack Obama 55-to-45 percent in Pennsylvania with 99 percent of the precincts reporting. Demographics may be destiny in the Democratic presidential race — and almost nothing else matters. Despite the overwrought controversies swirling around visits to Bosnia and bitter blue-collar voters, despite one of the most plug-ugly debates in recent history, despite a late-breaking onslaught of negative ads, virtually every subcategory of the Democratic electorate performed in expected fashion.” (04/23/08)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/23/pennsylvania/
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54 - Is organic food really healthier?
AlterNet
Deborah Rich
“Don’t ask the US federal government whether there are any health benefits to eating organic food. It won’t tell. No mere coincidence, then, that no pictures of farmers or farms (or fertilizers or pesticides) appear in the USDA food pyramid logo. The federal government encourages the consumption of more fruits, vegetables, and grains, but stops short of evaluating the farming systems that produce these same foods. An apple is an apple regardless of how it has been grown, the USDA food pyramid suggests, and the only take-home message is that we should all be eating more apples and less added sugars and fats. But this message may be too simplistic.” (04/23/08)
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/81773/
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55 - Pay no attention to the media behind the curtain
The American Prospect
Paul Waldman
“‘We may not like it,’ wrote the New York Times‘ David Brooks, rising to the defense of Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos after last Wednesday’s Democratic debate, ‘but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall.’ … But don’t let him fool you — Brooks likes it just fine. He and his compatriots would find nothing more boring than a campaign consumed by discussions of individual mandates and redeployment plans, some kind of dreadfully tedious policy wonk-fest where issues of ‘culture’ take only a supporting role.” (04/22/08)
Peace, Love and Liberty
Steve Trinward, Editor