Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Truthout 6/22

Monsanto, Opponents Both Claim Victory in Historic, Genetically Modified Crop Case
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "In a landmark case on genetically modified (GM) crops, The US Supreme Court ruled 7-1 on Monday in favor of agribusiness giant Monsanto and overturned a lower court's decision to ban the company's GM alfalfa until the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) fully analyzed the crop's potential dangers."
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Dina Rasor | 1980s Time Warp: The Time Is Right, Again, for DoD Reform
Dina Rasor, Truthout: "There have been a series of events and reports in this past month that has sent my brain into a 1980s time warp. There is a recent report on wasteful spending on Department of Defense (DoD) spare parts, a very conservative senator is calling for a defense budget freeze, a task force is calling for the Pentagon to simply try to pass an audit, there are calls not to proceed with a weapon unless it can pass its operational tests and officials are saying that we have too many officers for our troops, planes and ships."
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McChrystal Recalled to Washington Over Rolling Stone Article
Saeed Shah, McClatchy Newspapers: "The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan was recalled to Washington on Tuesday after he was forced to make a 'sincerest apology' over a magazine article in which he and unnamed aides criticized and lampooned senior Obama administration officials."
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Louisiana Backs Oil Industry, Wants Drilling Moratorium Thrown Out
Mark Guarino, The Christian Science Monitor: "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is supporting a legal challenge that seeks to reverse President Obama's six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. While the administration has been adamant about pausing all deep-water drilling until the cause of the Gulf oil spill is determined, Governor Jindal says the economic well-being of his state hangs in the balance."
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Report Finds US Tax Money May Be Funding Afghan Insurgents
Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers: "Private security contractors protecting the convoys that supply U.S. military bases in Afghanistan are paying millions of dollars a week in 'passage bribes' to the Taliban and other insurgent groups to travel along Afghan roads, a congressional investigation released Monday has found."
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Obama Vows to End Homelessness in Ten Years
Tony Pugh, McClatchy Newspapers: "The Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious plan that aspires to end homelessness among some of society's most vulnerable groups within the next decade."
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Protecting Our Water Commons: Interview With Robert Kennedy Jr.
Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine: "Whose job is it to protect our waterways? Water quality laws and enforcement are only as strong as the popular movements that press for them. Unless we stand up, those who would privatize, pollute, or divert our waters get away with it. That's the message of Robert Kennedy Jr., founder of the international Waterkeeper Alliance and chief prosecutor of the New York-based Riverkeeper, which helped lead the successful movement for the restoration of the Hudson River."
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Prolonging the Gaza Failure
Fouad Pervez, Foreign Policy in Focus: "The recent Israeli raid on the flotilla bringing aid to Gaza - which resulted in the deaths of nine civilians, more injuries, and near-global condemnation for Israel's actions - has brought a lot of attention to Gaza in the past few weeks. Unfortunately, much of the discourse has centered on the specific incident itself (such as who fired first and whether Israeli troops were right to protect themselves), and not about the politics and conditions in Gaza overall."
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Unrest in Pakistan: Moving Beyond US National Interest
Joshua Brollier and Kathy Kelly, Truthout: "'The military is the muscle that protects the ruling elite from the wrath of the people,' says Pakistani political analyst Dr. Mubashir Hassan. 'Right now, people are out on the street; blocking roads, attacking railway stations, etc. If you read the papers, it seems as though a general uprising has started all over Pakistan.'"
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On Your Marx: Neoliberalism on the Rocks
The Editors, n + 1: "The first intellectual consequence of the economic crisis was to undermine neoliberalism - or the belief in the sufficiency of markets to secure human welfare - as the age's default ideology."
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Eugene Robinson | All Shook Up for BP
Eugene Robinson: "Joe Barton is not alone. The Texas congressman's lavish sympathy for BP - which he sees not as perpetrator of a preventable disaster but as victim of a White House 'shakedown' - is actually what passes for mainstream opinion among conservative Republicans today."
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Senate Republicans Nix Job Bill
Annie Shields, The Media Consortium: "As congress carries on with the seemingly impossible task of helping the unemployed while keeping Republicans happy, over 15,000 progressives and 1,300 organizations will convene in Detroit this week for the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) to explore alternative solutions to the jobs crisis."
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Are Napolitano's Mass Spying Powers a Greater Threat to Civil Liberties Than Under Bush?
Elliot D. Cohen, BuzzFlash: "According to a June 18 AP article, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano has defended monitoring Internet communications as a 'civil liberties trade-off the US must make to beef up national security.' In addition, she said 'it is wrong to believe that if security is embraced, liberty is sacrificed.'"
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The Question of Presidential Leadership
William Astore and William Blau, Truthout: "Two days after his meeting with President Barack Obama and one day after his front man, Tony Hayward, performed dismally before Congress, Carl-Henric Svanberg, the chairman of BP, removed Hayward as head of BP's efforts in the Gulf."
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Hearings Reveal Lapses in Private Security in War Zones
Pratap Chatterjee, Inter Press Service: "Jerry Torres, CEO of Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions, has a motto: 'For Torres, failure is not an option.' A former member of the Green Berets, one of the elite U.S. Army Special Forces, he was awarded 'Executive of the Year' at the seventh annual 'Greater Washington Government Contractor Awards' in November 2009."
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Fromma Harrop | Electrify the Roads
Fromma Harrop, Truthout: "My magic wand is on the fritz, otherwise we'd have a big, new federal program to free America from its dependence on oil. Like other environmentalists, I'm sad that the calamity in the Gulf of Mexico hasn't spurred Washington to more vigorously promote America's exit from this curse."
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