Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Truthout 3/23

Obama Signs Health Care Overhaul Into Law
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "Following a year of fierce partisan debate that deeply divided Republicans and Democrats, President Barack Obama signed a $940 billion health care bill into law Tuesday that will extend coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans and outlaw some of the health insurance industry's most controversial practices, such as dropping individuals from their plans when they get sick."
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Benjamin Netanyahu the Intransigent
Melvin A. Goodman, Truthout: "Former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban once said that the Palestinians 'never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.' Well, the same can be said for the Israelis and particularly their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. For the first time, the Israelis are confronting a Palestinian leadership on the West Bank that genuinely wants to pursue a political settlement and a two-state solution."
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Right-Wing Attacks, Manufactured Scandal Force ACORN to Shut Down for Good
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "Following months of relentless attacks by Republicans over a manufactured scandal alleging employees doled out illegal advice to a right-wing filmmaker and his conservative colleague, the poor people's advocacy group ACORN announced Monday that it will permanently shut its doors."
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Tens of Thousands March on Washington, DC, for Immigration Reform
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Washington, DC, on Sunday to pressure President Obama to work toward reforming the nation's immigration system and giving legal status to the estimated 12 million undocumented people currently living in the United States."
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Testing Phobia: Texas Set to Possibly Execute Another Innocent Man on Wednesday
Dave Lindorff, Truthout: "The bloody-minded, death-obsessed state of Texas, which has already demonstrably executed at least one innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham (who was falsely accused and ultimately killed by the state for the alleged arson 'murder' of his two little children when in fact they'd died because of a fire caused by an electrical fault), may be about to execute yet another innocent man."
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Collateral Damages of Smart Sanctions
Ali Fathollah-Nejad, Truthout: "In contradistinction to war, sanctions are widely portrayed as necessary, almost a healthy medicine to bring about change in the opponent’s policies. However, as the history of the West–Iran conflict proves, sanctions have kept the crisis alive rather than contribute to its resolution. Nonetheless, Western governments do not seem to have lost their dubious fascination for them."
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Google Departs China: The View From Beijing
Kathleen E. McLaughlin, GlobalPost: "Google has finally made its move, shifting searches from China to Hong Kong more than two months after threatening to quit China over hacking and censorship. But the big questions remain unanswered, in particular Beijing's next move and how the internet giant's shift will affect access to information for the world's biggest net population."
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Ignore Your Local Pundit
Robert Goldsmith, Truthout: "That the Democratic Party will lose seats in the Senate and the House is now received wisdom across the political spectrum. Forget received. It's been filed, stamped, indexed and displayed."
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PTSD Claims Rise Among Veterans Treated at VA, New Research to Study PTSD and TBI
Mary Susan Littlepage, Truthout: "New statistics show that the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veteran patients being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and who have had PTSD claims approved increased. Also, new research projects are in the works to treat PTSD and traumatic brain injuries (TBI)."
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How the People in My District Got Stupak to Change His Mind - and Thus Saved the Health Care Bill
Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com: "Friends, Well, our full court press on my congressman, Bart Stupak, worked! Hundreds of my neighbors here in his Michigan district spent the weekend organizing thousands of voters to get busy and save the health care bill. We called Stupak's congressional office non-stop and we got thousands of people up here to flood his email box."
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"Avatar" Hits the Campaign Trail in Brazil
Juan Arias, El PaĆ­s (Translation: Ryan Croken): "The Green Party candidate for president of Brazil, environmentalist Marina Silva, is seeking the support of filmmaker James Cameron, winner of three Oscars for his film 'Avatar,' in her bid for the executive office. The two might have the opportunity to meet one another, along with former Vice President Al Gore and biodiversity expert Thomas Lovejoy, at the International Forum on Sustainability, which will be held in the city of Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, on March 27."
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Stewart Udall, RIP
Dave Lindorff, Truthout: "I cannot claim to be an expert on Stewart Udall, the Arizona Congressman, conservationist, supporter of environmentalist Casandra Rachel Carson, and interior secretary under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson who died this week at the age of 90."
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Are Greedy Water Bottlers Siphoning Your City's Drinking Water?
Tara Lohan, AlterNet: "It took six years for residents of tiny McCloud, California, to give Nestle Waters North America its walking papers. The water bottler had hoped to build a 1 million square-foot facility in the town of less than 2,000 and was given a backroom 50-year contract (renewable for an additional 50 years) to annually take 1,250 gallons per minute of delicious spring water from the town, hunkered in the shadow of Mount Shasta, and unlimited groundwater. But after years of opposition from community and environmental groups, Nestle scrapped its plans and left with its tail between its legs."
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India: Protective Laws Fall Short for Women Charged With Witchcraft
Shuriah Niazi, Women News Network: "Mita Bai, 34, will never forget the morning of May 6, 2005. It was 8 a.m. in the morning when a group of three men and six women came to her house with their allegations, branding her as, 'a witch.' As an attack against her broke out, she cried out for help, but no one heard or heeded her pleas. Instead, she was dragged from her home, stripped of all her clothing, and nearly hung from a tree."
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Is Mass Violence Justified If It Brings About a Better World?
Peter Y. Paik, Truthout: "From Utopia to Apocalypse is a study of political upheaval and revolutionary change, as they are portrayed in works of speculative and science fiction. It is my contention that science fiction and speculative narratives, by virtue of their fantastic character, enable us to imagine in vivid terms the experience of sweeping political change and social transformation."
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E.J. Dionne Jr. | Will True Conservatives Stand Up?
E.J. Dionne Jr.: "Every nation needs an intelligent and constructive form of conservatism. The debate over the health care bill, which mercifully came to a close on Sunday night, was not American conservatism's finest hour."
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