Friday, May 28, 2010

Truthout 5/28

Ex-EPA Officials: Why Isn't BP Under Criminal Investigation?
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "Why hasn't the government launched a criminal investigation into BP? That's the question several former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials have been asking in the aftermath of the catastrophic explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig last month that killed 11 employees and ruptured a newly drilled well 5,000 feet below the surface that has spewed tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf if Mexico."
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Eighteen Senators Back Timetable for Afghanistan Withdrawal
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "On Thursday, 18 senators voted for Senator Feingold's amendment to the war supplemental requiring the president to establish a timetable for the redeployment of US military forces from Afghanistan. This could be a turning point in US policy on the war in Afghanistan."
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House Votes to Repeal Military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Policy
William Douglas and David Lightman, McClatchy Newspapers: "The House of Representatives voted 234 to 194 Thursday night to repeal the military's 17-year-old policy that prohibits gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the nation's armed forces."
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News in Brief: Senate Approves $60 Billion War Funding and More ...
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "The Senate has approved continued funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan amounting to $60 billion, reported Democracy Now!. This will include full funding for the 33,000 additional troops that will be deployed for President Obama's escalation of the Afghan war. The Senate also rejected an amendment from Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, which would have made President Obama put forward a timetable for US withdrawal from Afghanistan."
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Hubris: Techoil, Techweapons
Winslow Myers, Truthout: "As I write, a plume of crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon explosion is moving toward Cuba, our purported enemy - but an enemy surrounded by the healthiest coral reefs in the Caribbean, a breeding ground for fish that eventually come to populate vast reaches of the single interconnected ocean that surrounds all continents."
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"The Lost Soul of Higher Education: Corporatization, the Assault on Academic Freedom and the End of the American University"
Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout: "Ellen Schrecker, a history professor at New York City's Yeshiva University, starts 'The Lost Soul of Higher Education' with a blunt assessment: 'In reacting to the economic insecurities of the past forty years, the nation's colleges and universities have adopted corporate practices that degrade undergraduate instruction, marginalize faculty members, and threaten the very mission of the academy as an institution devoted to the common good.'"
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Welcome to Arizona: "It's a Dry Hate ..."
Randall Amster J.D., Ph.D., Truthout: "First, it was legally-sanctioned racial profiling, with a touch of totalitarian 'Show me your papers' thrown in for good measure (SB 1070). Next, we were delivered a new law banning Ethnic Studies programs or any teaching that promotes 'ethnic solidarity' (HB 2281). Then, the state's school superintendent announced a policy whereby teachers with 'heavy accents' would be prevented from being in classrooms in which instruction was being given in English."
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Truth Spill: Gulf Disaster Brings Home the Real Costs of Fossil Fuels
James K. Boyce, TripleCrisis.com: "'An upside-down faucet, just open and running out.' That's how an oil-spill expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute describes the massive release of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico that began April 20th at British Petroleum's Deep Horizon oil rig off the coast of Louisiana."
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Alexander Cockburn | Vietnam MIAs: Ghosts Return to Haunt McCain
Alexander Cockburn, Truthout: "The ghosts that haunt Sen. John McCain are about 600 in number and right now, they are mustering for a final onslaught. McCain, one of America's foremost Republicans and President Barack Obama's opponent in 2008, is currently locked in a desperate bid for political survival in his home state of Arizona."
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Eugene Robinson | Case for a Moral Imperative
Eugene Robinson, "In June of 1969, the stretch of the Cuyahoga River that runs through Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire. Time magazine described the Cuyahoga this way: 'Chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows.'"
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Taliban Attacks Two Muslim-Minority Mosques in Pakistan
Issam Ahmed, The Christian Science Monitor: "Gunmen stormed two separate mosques in the eastern city of Lahore during Friday prayers, killing at least 80 worshippers of the minority Ahmadi sect. The Pakistan Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, says a senior Pakistan intelligence officer, who asked to remain anonymous. If true, it represents the first instance of a highly-coordinated attack against the Ahmadi Islamic sect, which many human rights activists regard as the most persecuted of Pakistan's minorities."
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David Sirota | The Michael Jordan of Bailouts
David Sirota, Truthout: "Based on John Kerry's 2004 declaration that 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,' you could credibly argue that the Massachusetts Democrat is the founder of modern political flip-flopping - the James Naismith of the political world's most dazzling sport. By that metric, though, you would also have to acknowledge that Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is the game's Michael Jordan."
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