Truthout 2/26

National Archives, Watchdog Demand DOJ Probe Destruction of John Yoo's Emails
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "The National Archives and a watchdog group sent letters to the Justice Department (DOJ) Thursday demanding an investigation into the destruction of John Yoo's emails in the summer of 2002, when he and other government attorneys prepared and finalized legal memoranda for the CIA that redefined torture and authorized interrogators to brutalize war on terror detainees."
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Jim Hightower | Fighting the Subversion of Our People's Sovereignty
Jim Hightower, Truthout: "As you've probably heard, corporations are now 'people' - humanoids that are equivalent to you and me. This miraculous metamorphosis happened on January 21. Accompanied by a blinding bolt of lightning, and a terrifying jolt of thunder, five Dr. Frankensteins on the Supreme Court threw a judicial switch that endowed these pulseless paper entities with the human right to speak politically."
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Skewing the Health Care Debate
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "President Obama met on Thursday with the glitterati of Capitol Hill in a much-ballyhooed confab on health care reform, and more specifically, the health of his current health care reform proposal. I was supposed to use this space to describe the details of that conference, to get into the nitty-gritty details of who said what, who made the most sense and What It All Means in the end."
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Rachel Corrie Gets Her Day in Court
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "On March 10, in the Israeli city of Haifa, American peace activist Rachel Corrie will get her day in court. Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, are bringing suit against the Israeli defence ministry for Corrie's killing by an Israeli military bulldozer in Gaza in March 2003."
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CREW Files Lawsuit, Alleges the VA Underreported Number of PTSD Cases
Mary Susan Littlepage, Truthout: "The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) after the VA admitted to destroying documents responding to CREW's May 2008 Freedom of Information (FOIA) request. CREW's FOIA request called for documents related to the VA's policy of underdiagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)."
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Marjah: Success for the Military, Hell for the Residents
Jean MacKenzie and Mohammad Ilyas Dayee, GlobalPost: "The dusty squares of Marjah are empty; there is no life, the soul of the place seems to have disappeared. Those residents who are left cower in their homes, afraid of bullets or mines if they venture out, even for food."
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How Big Banks' Greek-Style Schemes Are Bankrupting States Across the US
Mike Elk, Truthout: "Just when you thought Wall Street couldn't get any more clever in their attempts at predatory lending, they have. Big Banks have created an exotic financial instrument that is the equivalent of a payday loan for cash-strapped state and local governments, innocently labeled an 'interest rate swap.'"
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What Do Republicans Stand for?
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout: "This past weekend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held its annual conference in Washington, DC. Many Republican Party stalwarts and presidential hopefuls, such as Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck and former Vice President Dick Cheney, were in attendance."
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All Teachers Fired at Rhode Island School. Will That Happen Elsewhere?
Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, The Christian Science Monitor: "A small, high-poverty school district in Rhode Island is now ground zero for some of the most explosive debates over reforming America's worst-performing schools."
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"Flirting With Disaster"
On the occasion of the paperback release of Marc Gerstein's, "Flirting with Disaster," reviewed here last year, Truthout's Leslie Thatcher corresponded and spoke with Dr. Gerstein in mid-February about his book and about our society's continuing penchant for producing avoidable disaster ...
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Alexander Cockburn | The Bogus Crime Wave
Alexander Cockburn, Truthout: "Nothing more easily elicits roars of assent across a good slice of the political spectrum than the hoarse alarums that wave after wave of brown-skinned illegals continually flood across the border, plunging neighborhoods and whole cities into an inferno of crime, overwhelming cops and prosecutors, clogging the justice system, cramming the prisons."
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David Sirota | It Is Happening Here
David Sirota, Truthout: "Let's pause and give thanks to Glenn Beck. No, seriously - because that's what he's due. We owe this talk-show-host-turned-political-leader gratitude for using his televised keynote address to the Conservative Political Action Conference to so frankly outline what the conservative movement has become - and why it repulses so many Americans."
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Connie Schultz | Maybe If Teens Talk About Sex, Adults Will Listen
Connie Schultz, Truthout: "On Monday night, two teenagers in the Midwest stood before their city's school board and essentially pleaded that the grown-ups in charge change how sex education is taught in their district."
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