Truthout 6/25

Lawmakers Move to Curb Risky Trading by Commercial Banks
Kevin G. Hall and David Lightman, McClatchy Newspapers: "Rushing to deliver the broad strokes of an overhaul of the financial regulatory system before leaders of the world's major economies meet in Toronto over the weekend, lawmakers Friday morning partially reinstated a ban on risky betting by commercial banks."
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Ray McGovern | Obama Misses the Afghan Exit Ramp
Ray McGovern, Truthout: "Has it occurred to President Barack Obama that Gen. Stanley McChrystal might actually have wanted to be fired - and, thus, rescued from the current march of folly in Afghanistan, a mess much of his own making?"
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Gutting Public Education: Neoliberalism and the Politics of Opportunism
Anthony DiMaggio, Truthout: "America's political and economic elites have declared a war on working, middle-class and poor Americans. Now that war is coming to a head with the draconian cuts in education, among other vital services, under the economic recession. Progressive critics of Republicans and Democrats have attacked the return of 'Hooverian economics' in recent years - understood as the do-nothing approach to dealing with the economic crisis and declining state budgets."
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US Congress Approves Strong Unilateral Sanctions on Iran
Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service: "Escalating Washington's growing confrontation with Iran, both houses of Congress Thursday approved a sweeping unilateral sanctions package designed to pressure Tehran into curbing its nuclear program."
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Gulf Oil Spill's Wildlife Toll: Sharks Near Shore, Turtles Incinerated
Patrik Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor: "A sunbathing family spots a beached baby dolphin covered in oil from the Gulf oil spill. The family tries to scrape off the oil until a wildlife officer, jaw hard-set, carries it to shore. On its way to a sea mammal rescue center in Panama City, the dolphin dies."
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Chicago Youth Work to Decrease Violence in Schools
Anne Elizabeth Moore, Truthout: "Chicago's international reputation for its violent youth population was sealed when, last fall, 16-year-old Southsider Derrion Albert was repeatedly struck with a board, punched, and kicked until death a few blocks away from his high school, in an incident caught on video that stunned the world, and possibly cost the city the 2016 Olympic bid. It wasn't news to local youth, though: we all know violence begets violence."
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Eugene Robinson | Leave the Nation-Building to Afghans
Eugene Robinson: "The good news? Nobody has to pretend anymore that Gen. Stanley McChrystal knew how to fix Afghanistan within a year. The bad news? Now we're supposed to pretend that Gen. David Petraeus does."
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Full Employment: The Golden Age Is in Us
Benjamin Kunkel, n + 1: "Of all classic capitalist problems - income inequality, imperialism, the class character of the state, and so on - mass unemployment has probably been the one to trouble living Americans least. From the establishment of FDR's war economy through the end of the so-called golden age of capitalism in the early 1970s, the US matched other major economies in functioning at close to full employment (at least as the term is defined by economic orthodoxy, on which more later)."
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More Stimulus Needed to Reduce Unemployment
Mark Weisbrot, The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "It is sad to see that the U.S. Congress is having trouble even passing just $24 billion for unemployment insurance at a time when the economy is weak and unemployment is at nearly 10 percent. This shows the power of right-wing ideology in this country: Even the simplest, smallest and most obvious steps to relieve economic misery can be held back."
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Elena Kagan: Would She Turn Supreme Court Into We the People?
Mike Sacks, The Christian Science Monitor: "They are fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, opera lovers and salsa dancers, long-winded pedants and quick-witted conversationalists, cancer survivors and nonagenarian swimmers, West Coasters and East Coasters, Winnebago drivers and airplane pilots. Aside from being nine of the most powerful men and women in the United States, the Supreme Court justices are also a lot like We the People."
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A Doctored History: An Interview With William F. Pepper
Calvin Sloan, Truthout: "The shot fired off and it would not be long before 4,00 members of the National Guard were drafted into Memphis, Tennessee, where a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed to stave off an uprising. That night, and in the days that followed, more than 100 American cities erupted in riots."
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Silicon Sweatshops: More Workers Fall Ill in China
Kathleen E. McLaughlin, GlobalPost: "Chemical poisoning is suspected in nine more cases in southern China. Months after on-the-job chemical poisoning left dozens of workers at an electronics factory in China with nerve damage, nine employees of a sister factory hundreds of miles away have fallen ill from chemical exposure, according to a labor group and sources in the plant."
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G20 Protests Focus on Canada's Mining and Tar Sand Industries
Ron Johnson, Earth Island Journal: "It is 3:30 EST in Toronto and the aggressive, anti-establishment sounds of hip hop groups Testament and Illogic are entertaining protesters gathered in front of the University Courthouse, the last stop in a three-hour march through the city's downtown core and financial district."
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Immigration Reform Hits Milestone
Deb Weinstein, Truthout: "It was a bilingual event with a common cause: pass immigration reform this year. Leading the call was Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois), who, speaking in both English and Spanish, gathered immigrant families, members of the community group Casa de Maryland, members of the activist group Campus Progress and fellow lawmakers to announce a milestone: the support of 100 members of Congress for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform ASAP Act."
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As Risks for Oil and Gas Grow, USSF Offers Change
Sarah Laskow, The Media Consortium: "BP oil has been spilling into the Gulf of Mexico for more than two months, and while attention has focused there, deepwater oil drilling is just one of many risky methods of energy extraction that industry is pursuing. Gasland, Josh Fox's documentary about the effects of hydrofracking, a new technique for extracting natural gas, was broadcast this week on HBO. In the film, Fox travels across the country visiting families whose water has turned toxic since gas companies began drilling in their area."
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Marion Brady | Education Reform: An Ignored Problem, and a Proposal
Marion Brady, Truthout: "The 'standards and accountability' education reform effort began in the 1980s at the urging of leaders of business and industry. The reform message preached by Democrats, Republicans, and the mainstream media is simple. 1. America's schools are, at best, mediocre. 2. Teachers deserve most of the blame. 3. As a corrective, rigorous subject-matter standards and tests are essential. 4. Bringing market forces to bear will pressure teachers to meet the standards or choose some other line of work."
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