Friday, May 14, 2010

Truthout 5/14

William Rivers Pitt | Out of Iraq? Don't Hold Your Breath
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "President Obama will not get the United States out of Iraq in his first term. If he wins a second term, it is highly unlikely he will get us out of Iraq before he finally leaves office."
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Eugene Robinson | Outlawing Latinos' Heritage
Eugene Robinson: "At least we don't have to pretend anymore. Arizona's passing of that mean-spirited new immigration law wasn't about high-minded principle or the need to maintain public order. Apparently, it was all about putting Latinos in their place."
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Marjorie Cohn | Kagan's Troubling Record
Marjorie Cohn, Truthout: "After President Obama nominated Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, he made a statement that implied she would follow in the footsteps of Justice Thurgood Marshall, the civil rights giant and first black Supreme Court justice. Kagan served as a law clerk for Marshall shortly after she graduated from Harvard Law School."
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Obama, Karzai Still Split on Peace Talks With Taliban
Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service: "U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought to portray a united front on the issue of a political settlement with the Taliban in their joint press conference Wednesday. But their comments underlined the deep rift that divides Karzai and the United States over the issue."
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Gulf Rig's Owner Invokes 1851 Law to Limit Liability
Scott Hiaasen, Miami Herald: "Transocean, Ltd., the Switzerland-based offshore contractor that owned the Deepwater Horizon floating drilling rig, has asked a federal court in Houston to limit its liability from the oil spill to less than $27 million."
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Round One to the Banks, More to Come
Robert Weissman, Truthout: "On the Wall Street reform bill, the Senate, late last Thursday, rejected probably the most important measure proposed to reduce Wall Street power, strengthen financial stability and fortify our democracy: breaking up the banks."
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News in Brief: Facebook Under Fire for Privacy Measures and More ...
Facebook holds company-wide meeting to deal with mounting criticism over privacy measures; protests in Thailand escalate with government troops killing and wounding protesters; euro slides to 18-month low against the dollar; Iraqi election recount finds no evidence of fraud.
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Ruth Marcus | Women's Limited Choices
Ruth Marcus: "She's not gay, OK? Actually, the all-too-public discussion about the ought-to-be private topic of Elena Kagan's sexuality would be easier if the Supreme Court nominee were gay. From my (straight, married mother) point of view, a gay justice would be a benefit to the country and the court. To the country because it would speed up the inevitable: acceptance of gay Americans in all walks of life."
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International Prosecutor in Kenya to Press Charges
Tristan McConnell, GlobalPost: "Kenya's shaky democracy is facing a defining struggle as the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court begins an investigation into political violence that is expected to lead him straight to Kenya's wealthy and educated ruling elites."
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A New Antiwar Voice From Hawaii ... Don't Count On It
Jon Letman, Truthout: "In a week, voters in Hawaii's First Congressional District will select the woman or man who will replace former Democratic Congressman Neil Abercrombie, who stepped down in February to run for governor. Over two decades representing Hawaii's urban center, Abercrombie was given a ranking of 67/100 ('pretty darned progressive') by Irregular Times. He was rated a 'hardcore liberal' by the ontheissues.org web site, in part, for a voting record that often opposed the use of American military force in other countries."
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The Predictable and Inevitable Blowback
David Sirota, Truthout: "Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe. Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using on-board missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors."
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Forty Years Ago: Police Kill Two Students at Jackson State in Mississippi, Ten Days After Kent State Killings
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy NOW!: "Four decades ago, on May 4, 1970, four students were killed at Kent State University when National Guardsmen opened fire on hundreds of unarmed students at an on-campus antiwar rally. The killings received national media attention and are still remembered forty years later across the country. But the media has largely forgotten what happened just ten days after the Kent State shootings."
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The Urgency of Housing in Haiti: Government Destroys Refugee Camps
Beverly Bell, Truthout: "'Everything we owned got smashed. We lost everything.' Getro Nelio was not referring to the devastating earthquake of January 12. The unemployed, 24-year-old Haitian was speaking about losing his home a second time in three months, on this occasion due to the government."
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The Nazis Defeated in Berlin
Victor Grossman, Truthout: "To believe the boulevard rags, it was to be a day of revolutionary riot, bloody battles with the police and violent standoffs between extremists of the left and right."
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The Politics of Disaster: Will Gulf Tragedy Bring Real Change?
Chris Kromm, Facing South: "The disaster has clearly changed the offshore oil debate. After two years of 'drill, baby, drill,' the Obama administration announced just last March that it was opening vast new expenses of water along the Atlantic coast, Gulf of Mexico and north coast of Alaska to oil and gas projects."
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Los Angeles vs. Arizona: Who Wins in Immigration Law Dust-Up?
Daniel B. Wood, The Christian Science Monitor: "Two recent high-profile actions - the Los Angeles City Council voting to boycott Arizona, and a United Nations statement condemning the state's new illegal immigration law - raise the question: what are the potential impacts of these moves?"
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Florida GOP Candidates Back Arizona Immigration Law
Beth Reinhard, The Miami Herald: "The Republican Party's front-runner for governor, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, threw his support Thursday behind a tough new immigration law in Arizona that he criticized as 'far out' just two weeks ago. The law makes it a crime for immigrants not to carry legal papers and gives local police the power to question people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally."
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Don't Ask Gays About Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Julie Hollar, Extra!: "After months of pressure from activists to make good on his campaign promise, Barack Obama called for a repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' in his January 27 State of the Union address. Less than a week later, Adm. Mike Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee hearing on February 2 that repealing the policy that prevents gay men and lesbians from serving openly was 'the right thing to do.'"
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