Sunday, June 29, 2014

With Teacher Tenure Threatened, Trouble in Every Direction for Public Education

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Sunday, 29 June 2014

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The NSA Collected Data on Millions of Americans Just to Investigate 248 People

Read the Article at The Guardian

 

Why Have 28 Years Passed Since the EPA's Last Chemical Risk Review?

Read the Article at Al Jazeera America

 

Obama to Seek $2 Billion to Curb Influx of Child Immigrants

Read the Article at Voice of America

 

In Military Care, a Pattern of Errors but Not Scrutiny

Read the Article at The New York Times

 

Watch Out, the Supreme Court's Conservatives Are Using the First Amendment as a Weapon

Read the Article at Slate

 

Conspiracy of the Plutocrats: Secrets of the Wealth-Inequality Explosion Revealed

Read the Article at Salon

 

Proposed Federal Legislation Could Weaken Secret Legal Settlements; Future Fracking Cases Could Be Affected

Read the Article at Earth Island Journal

   

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With Teacher Tenure Threatened, Trouble in Every Direction for Public Education

Bill Ayers, Truthout: The case against California's teacher tenure laws was cast as a group of poor kids suing to get rid of bad teachers. In reality, Vergara v. California is more about education privatization and weakening teachers unions, than education equality and reform.

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What They Died For

Peter Van Buren, Truthout: Of the 4,486 American military deaths in Iraq, 911 were considered "non-combat related," that is, non-accidents, suicides. In some years, more soldiers died by their own hand than in combat. They died of the war, but not in the war. What for?

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Imperial Sports: An Interview With Dave Zirin

Charlotte Silver, Truthout: Political sports writer Dave Zirin discusses his latest book, exploring the unfolding of the World Cup and the Olympics in Brazil and what we can expect and hope for in the future.

Read the Interview 

FCC Internet Proposal: The Contemporary Pillage of the Commons

Rivera Sun, Truthout: Tiered pay-to-play internet proposals repeat the cycle of historical thefts of the Commons by the rich and powerful, echoing deep roots of injustice.

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How Vermont Got a Single-Payer Health Care Bill: A Non-Electoral History

Michael Arria, Truthout: This is a crucial year in Vermont's fight to enact its single-payer health care law, with design and financing in the works, and while progressives are credited, that narrative obscures how citizens of all stripes forced their elected officials to act.

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Truthout Interviews Mike Ludwig on TISA and Julian Assange

Ted Asregadoo, Truthout: Truthout reporter Mike Ludwig talks about the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) - Financial Services Annex documents that were recently published by WikiLeaks and the current status of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.

Watch the Interview 

Five Countries Where Child Soldiers Still Exist

Lizabeth Paulat, Care2: Child soldiers and child combatants may seem like a far away problem, but you might be surprised at how common they still are. If these children survive combat, they often grow up with a unique set of psychosocial issues that are rarely addressed in their home countries.

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Andrew Bacevich: Chaos in Iraq

Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company: While armchair warriors in Washington cry "back to Iraq," former combat veteran and military historian Andrew Bacevich says no way. "Our foreign policy establishment does not take war seriously," he said. "It assumes that the creation of precision guided weapons makes war manageable."

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript 

How Stressed-Out People Impact Election Results

Kevin Mathews, Care2: Why aren't more people showing up to vote in elections? Perhaps they're too stressed out. New research has found that citizens who are most prone to anxiety are more likely to skip the polls.

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The Fight to Ban Gold Mining and Save El Salvador's Water Supply

Julia Paley, Foreign Policy in Focus: Gold-digging multinationals are fueling political violence and environmental devastation in El Salvador, but communities are fighting back.

Read the Article and Watch the Video 

The Best Reporting on Children With Post-Traumatic Stress

Lois Beckett, ProPublica: When people think of post-traumatic stress disorder, they often focus on military veterans, but there's growing evidence that PTSD is also a serious problem for American civilians, especially those exposed to violence in their own neighborhoods.

Read the Article 

This week in Speakout:

Dr. Philip Caper says Medicare should be expanded to all veterans to alleviate VA wait times; Thorsten J. Pattberg decries the hypocrisy of Tony Blair; Reprieve announces a motion to question in court a Guantánamo prison chief who allegedly took the wheelchair of a disabled hunger striking prisoner; Mitch Trachtenberg bemoans the failure of democracy in the United States to solve the looming climate change disaster; Evaggelos Vallianatos discusses legislation that will further enable industry to pollute the planet with harmful chemicals; David Krieger's poem laments the decades of war set off by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand; the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation reports that mayors of large cities across the country called on leaders to act on nuclear disarmament; and more.

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Why Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage Is a Sign of Things to Come

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Saturday, 28 June 2014

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Confronting the Central American Refugee Crisis

Read the Article at Center for International Policy Americas Program

 

Seven States Running Out of Water

Read the Article at USA Today

 

Aaron Swartz's Father: He'd Be Alive Today if He Was Never Arrested

Read the Article at CNN

 

Deportation Separated Thousands of US-Born Children From Parents In 2013

Read the Article at the Huffington Post

 

GOP Runoff Shows New Angle to Minority Voting

Read the Article at The Washington Post

 

Iraq: The War Card

Read the Article at Moyers & Company

 

Investors Who Bought Foreclosed Homes in Bulk Look to Sell

Read the Article at The New York Times

   

Truthout is unique - our independent journalism has been funded by readers like you for over a dozen years. You have consistently supported the writers and editors who do this work, but we need you again. We are still over $29,000 short of meeting our fundraising goal, and only you can get us there. Will you help us with a tax-deductible donation today?

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"People Make Up Our City": Why Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage Is a Sign of Things to Come

Amy B. Dean, Truthout: Seattle's recently-passed minimum wage of $15 an hour - the highest in the nation - is the latest in a string of grassroots efforts to establish living wages at the local and regional levels.

Read the Article 

Education Undressed: An Interview With Author Ruth Fowler

Daniel Falcone, Truthout: Author, critic and screenwriter Ruth Fowler advocates free education for all, a reimagined, less white feminism and the dethronement of creative writing MFA programs.

Read the Article 

What We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Company: In the 1920, T.E. Lawrence wrote an unsettling and prophetic article about Iraq. He decried the money spent, the number of troops and loss of life, and warned that his countrymen had been led "into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor... We are today not far from a disaster."

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Hamster-Wheel Economics 101

Emily Schwartz Greco and William A. Collins, OtherWords: Joblessness is down because new jobs are being created, but lots of new jobs don't pay enough to support a small family. Given this bleak outlook, there's momentum for raising the minimum wage to livable levels.

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Locking Out Financial Regulation

Jayati Ghosh, TripleCrisis: The world of international trade negotiators is an increasingly secret one. A current example is a secretive, pending "trade" deal called the Trade in Services Agreement being negotiated among 50 countries.

Read the Article 

Nicaragua's Mayagna People and Their Rainforest Could Vanish

José Adán Silva, Inter Press Service: More than 30,000 members of the Mayagna indigenous community are in danger of disappearing, along with the rainforest which is their home in Nicaragua, if the state fails to take immediate action.

Read the Article 

Marking 50 Years of G77

Martin Khor, Triple Crisis: Political leaders of developing countries gathered in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz last week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Group of 77 and discuss the environment, human rights and other topics.

Read the Article 

The World Bank's Dam Dilemma in Tajikistan

Francesca Corbacho, Foreign Policy In Focus: The Tajik government says it desperately needs Rogun, which will be one of the world's tallest dams, to meet its electricity needs. But its reservoir will displace over 42,000 people from small mountain villages upstream from the dam site.

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Will Anyone Stop Charter School Corruption?

Jeff Bryant, Campaign For America's Future: Real evidence of "the good charters" remains mostly anecdotal, as financial corruption and poor education results from "bad ones" continue to mount with every passing month.

Read the Article 

Pro-Marijuana Canvassers Strike Over Unpaid Wages

Shane Burley, Labor Notes: Workers at the Oregon Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp had been refused paychecks they were owed, so they walked off the job and aim to form a union.

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Friday, June 27, 2014

The Ultra-Right-Wing State Nobody Mentions

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Friday, 27 June 2014

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BuzzFlash

Police SWAT Teams in Massachusetts Claim They are Nonprofit Organizations and Unaccountable

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: An ACLU report about a SWAT team standoff bears an ominous title: "Militarization of Police in Massachusetts Is Shrouded in Secrecy." It certainly sounds like more evidence of an emerging police state, one that is evading transparency and accountability.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

 

Eugene Robinson | The Useless, Feckless, Dangerous Reality of United States' Drone War

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

 

Ted Koppel Skewers Bill O'Reilly to His Face

Watch the Video at Fox News

 

Boston Ramps Up Police Presence Around Abortion Clinics After Supreme Court Ruling

Read the Article at Raw Story

 

Hobby Lobby: Supreme Court to Rule in Landmark Birth Control Case on Monday

Read the Article at Talking Points Memo

 

Paul Krugman | The Incompetence Dogma

Read the Article at The New York Times

 

Obama Administration Seeking $500M to Train "Moderate" Syrian Rebels

Read the Article at The Guardian

 

Win for "Rightful Stewards of the Land": Canadian Court Sides With First Nations

Read the Article at Common Dreams

   

At Truthout, we want to build something that is here for the long-term - but without your help, we're not going to get there. There's still just over $31,000 left to raise in our current fundraising drive, and it's essential for our budget that we make it. Whether that happens is up to you - you can make the difference by making a tax-deductible donation now!

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The Ultra-Right-Wing State Nobody Mentions

Bryan K. Bullock, Truthout: Quick! Name the state that's been ground zero for privatization of public resources, voter ID laws, assaults on reproductive rights, lax environmental regulations, dismantling unions, enacting ALEC-sponsored legislation, creation of charter schools and voucher, anti-immigrant initiatives and more. It's not Texas or Arizona...

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Iraq and Detroit: Both Plundered by the Same Bandits

Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report: Very powerful people in boardrooms and government offices made decisions that turned Detroit into an Iraq in the United States' midst and now sneer at pleas for mercy. Just as Iraq's infrastructure has been destroyed, Detroit residents now live without basic services, which ought to be regarded as a human right.

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"Open Season on Reproductive Health Care Clinics": A Clinic Escort Responds to McCullen Ruling

Katie Klabusich, The Brad Blog: "I am a long-time clinic defense escort volunteer in cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York. The idea that the people standing outside clinics screaming and yelling, chasing people into the streets and threatening staff are there for First Amendment expression reasons would be laughable if the potential for violence wasn't so real."

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Robert Pollin: Why Did Economy Shrink So Dramatically During the First Quarter of 2014?

Anton Woronczuk, The Real News Network: "We're talking about roughly a 3 percent decline in GDP growth in one quarter. That is greater than the decline that occurred in the entire recession of 2001 and in the entire recession of 1970. So this is a huge number," says economist Robert Pollin.

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Red Cross: How We Spent Sandy Money Is a "Trade Secret"

Justin Elliott, ProPublica: Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy? The charity hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a "trade secret."

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A Forgotten Community in New Orleans: Life on a Superfund Site

Julie Dermansky, DeSmogBlog: Shannon Rainey's home in Gordon Plaza is part of a subdivision developed by the city in 1981 on top of the Agriculture Street landfill. No one disclosed to the buyers that their new homes were built on top of a dump that was closed in 1965.

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Fifty Years After Freedom Summer, US Faces Greatest Curbs on Voting Rights Since Reconstruction

Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy Now!: In a week marking the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, Mississippi was in the news when African-American voters crossed party lines to help Republican Sen. Thad Cochran narrowly defeat a Tea Party challenger to win his party's nomination.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript 

This Might Be the Biggest Reason to End the Tipped Minimum Wage

Emily DiVito, Campaign For America's Future: Women represent 72 percent of all workers in tipped-wage jobs - those with a federal minimum wage of just $2.13 an hour. This means women are disproportionately placed in the very compromising position of having to please customers to earn enough to have decent take-home pay.

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Judge Says Constitution Doesn't Exempt Religious from Vaccinations

Crystal Shepeard, Care2: While New York does not allow for "personal belief" exemptions, states that do are considering re-examining such policies due to the numerous outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases over the past several years. The attorney for the plaintiffs has said they would appeal the ruling.

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Zimbabwe's Unfolding Humanitarian Disaster: We Visit the 18,000 People Forcibly Relocated to Ruling Party Farm

Davison Mudzingwa and Francis Hweshe, Inter Press Service: There is great concern for displaced families settled in an area earmarked for a proposed biofuel project. The project is set to be driven by the Zimbabwe Bio-Energy company, a partnership between the Zimbabwe Development Trust and private investors.

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Virginia's Republican legislators broke into Governor's office to block ACA coverage for poor

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/25/1309586/-Virginia-s-Republican-legislators-broke-into-Governor-s-office-to-block-ACA-coverage-for-poor?detail=email

The Compelling Conclusion About Capitalism That Piketty Resists

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Thursday, 26 June 2014

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BuzzFlash

A Drone May Be Filming You Through Your Bedroom Window Right Now, Really

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: If you are doing something you don't want to see posted on YouTube or on a government or corporate computer, remember that someone may be recording you.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

 

Iraq: A Disaster Stamped "Made in the USA"

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

 

Supreme Court Curtails Obama's Recess Appointment Power

Read the Article at The Washington Post

 

The Ghoulish Trollery of Dick Cheney

Read the Article at Salon

 

Report: Accidental Shootings Kill Two Kids Every Week

Read the Article at Al Jazeera America

 

Obama Attacks Republicans for Appeasing Climate Deniers

Read the Article at The Guardian

 

Too Big to Jail: Confessions of a Goldman Sachs Brat

Read the Article at The Daily Beast

 

Charles P. Pierce | John Boehner and His Frivolous Lawsuit

Read the Article at Esquire

   

If you want to understand issues that are dense and complicated, you' re not going to get the truth from your television or from mainstream media. You will get the truth from us - but we need your help to keep telling it. Can you support Truthout with a tax-deductible donation today?

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The Compelling Conclusion About Capitalism That Piketty Resists

Fred Guerin, Truthout: The excesses of capitalism are not simply a question of bad management and a political unwillingness to properly regulate it by imposing the right sort of checks and balances, but symptoms of a fundamentally and irretrievably flawed system that tends toward destruction of human and other life.

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Water Cut-Off in Detroit Violates Human Rights, Say Activists

Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service: A severe water crisis in the financially bankrupt city of Detroit has prompted several NGOs and activists to appeal for UN intervention in one of the world's richest countries.

Read the Article 

Courage: Showing Solidarity With Whistleblowers and Defending Our Right to Know

Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Truthout: In this interview, Sarah Harrison of the Courage Foundation talks about the public's right to be informed, whistleblowers' need for solidarity and the dangerous precedents being set around the world to deny public access to information.

Read the Interview 

FreeHer: Formerly Incarcerated Women Demand an End to Mass Incarceration

Victoria Law, Truthout: On June 21, 2014, formerly incarcerated women, family members and advocates gathered in Washington, DC for the FreeHer rally to draw attention to the mass incarceration of women and to demand their freedom.

Read the Article 

Hurry Up and Wait: Bashing the VA

Douglas Jamiel, Truthout: Have national misgivings toward conflicts since World War II found their way into budgeting for the VA, the agency tasked with caring for the less-fêted soldiers who prosecuted these ill-conceived engagements, or is ideology preventing proper funding of the most efficient health care system in the United States?

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The Boehner Lawsuit: The Caucus Room Conspiracy Continues

The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: This week, Speaker of the House John Boehner emphatically announced that he was planning to sue President Obama, claiming that Obama has "exceeded his authority." This is simply a GOP tactic to prevent Obama from doing anything meaningful for the American people.

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The Next Steps for the EPA's Clean Power Plan

Mary Anne Hitt, OtherWords: Every state should concentrate its carbon-reduction efforts on truly renewable energy alternatives. Let's create more productive jobs in industries that don't pollute our air and water or disrupt the climate.

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Iraq's Depleted Uranium Threat

John LaForge, Consortium News: Over the past two dozen years, the massive damage that the United States has inflicted on Iraq's population, infrastructure and environment includes residue from American "depleted uranium" weapons, which can cause cancer and other illnesses.

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Shredding the Fourth Amendment in the Post-Constitutional US: Four Ways It No Longer Applies

Peter Van Buren, TomDispatch: Americans are told (and often believe) that they retain rights they no longer have. Citizens passively watch their rights disappear in the service of dark ends, largely without protest and often while still celebrating a land that no longer exists.

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Will German Workers Declare Independence?

John Clay, Arbeitskammer: At a time when Americans are looking abroad for alternative economic strategies to rebalance our unequal economy, some worker advocates in Germany are asking if an American form of cooperative enterprise might be the way to economic independence.

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Paul Krugman | An Innovation Lesson From Germany: Less Disruption, More Quality

Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: Germany manages to be an export powerhouse despite its very high labor costs. How do the Germans do it? Not by constantly coming out with revolutionary new products, but by producing very high-quality goods, for which people are willing to pay premium prices.

Read the Article 

Economic Update: Analyzing Incarceration

Richard D. Wolff, Economic Update / Truthout: Updates on health economics; Mississippi political lessons; and what's wrong with a Harvard economist. Wolff interviews Victor Wallis on the economics and politics of US prisons. Response to questions about the gender wage gap, real estate bubbles and the "ultra rich."

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