Truthout 7/1

Thursday 1 July 2010

Ann Jones | Counterinsurgency Down for the Count in Afghanistan
Ann Jones, TomDispatch: "President Obama's Afghanistan strategy isn't working. So said a parade of Afghanistan watchers during the flap over war commander General Stanley McChrystal's firing. But what does that phrase, so often in the media these days, really mean? And if the strategy really isn't working, just how can you tell?"
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Why Talk of Elena Kagan's "Judicial Impartiality" Is Missing the Point
Anthony DiMaggio, Truthout: "Critics of the Senate's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan are right to complain that the proceedings have degenerated into little more than political theater and grandstanding. The real tragedy behind the hearings, however, is not that they've become a bore, but that Democratic politicians and journalists are passing on a golden opportunity to challenge long-held conservative legal myths regarding the importance of judicial 'objectivity' and 'impartiality.'"
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Obama Pushes for Immigration Reform, but Neglects Specifics
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "In his first major address on immigration since taking office, President Barack Obama addressed the long-simmering tensions below the surface on both sides of the debate with candor and promised his administration would 'not just kick the can down the road,' but left some immigration advocates unsettled with his lack of definitive policy outlines."
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GOP's False Talking Point: Jones Act Blocks Gulf Help
William Douglas, McClatchy Newspapers: "From former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to Arizona Sen. John McCain to junior members of the House of Representatives, conservative Republicans have accused President Barack Obama of failing to do all he can to help clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill because he hasn't waived a U.S. maritime law called the Jones Act."
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Goldman Can't Say How Much It Made From Housing Crash
Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers: "A congressional commission pressed Goldman Sachs executives Wednesday to spell out how much their company has earned from its exotic bets against the housing market, including $20 billion in wagers that helped force a $162 billion taxpayer bailout of the American International Group."
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House Passes Financial Reform, but a Senate Hurdle Awaits
Mark Trumball, The Christian Science Monitor: "President Obama got one step closer to signing a major financial reform bill, as the House of Representatives voted Wednesday in favor of a House-Senate compromise on the measure. But the Senate must also approve the package, and that vote won't happen before mid-July, despite a recent push by Democrats to send the bill to the president by July 4."
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News in Brief: Taliban Say They Are Winning the War in Afghanistan, and More ...
Taliban tells BBC they are winning the war in Afghanistan and would refuse to negotiate with coalition forces; formaldehyde-tainted trailers redeployed to house oil spill cleanup workers; EPA approves first mountaintop removal mining permit since new guidelines; Pakistan branch of the Coca-Cola company responds to union with death threats; riots and demonstrations erupt across Iraq as citizens react to electricity shortage.
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The Politics of Death: Throwing Mumia Abu-Jamal Under the Bus
Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening: "On the evening of February 25, participants at the Fourth World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva, Switzerland had assembled from all over the globe for a dramatic Voices of Victims evening."
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The Upcoming Nuclear Peril: Worse Than the BP Oil Disaster
World Business Academy, Truthout: "How many crises will it take? The recent destruction wrought by Big Finance and Big Oil will pale in comparison to the destruction wrought by Big Nuclear if we do not use the Gulf disaster as an opportunity to end our dangerous addiction to dirty fuels and to reject the illusion that any industry will 'regulate' itself."
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Lady Godiva and the Fight for Taxation to Benefit the Middle and Working Class
Abby Scher, Truthout: "The state capitol was far from the White Plains, New York, church basement on a recent evening in May, but the 30 or so citizens gathered felt its dysfunction and talked about how to fix it. 'I thought, it's not acceptable - as property taxes go up, income taxes go down,' said Rachel Estroff, a slight, 39-year-old mom of two small children who helps lead Westchester for Change and called the meeting."
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Letter From Arizona: Immigrant Rights Youth Organizer Leilani Clark Speaks
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "For Tuscon native and immigrant rights activist Leilani Clark, there are two Tuscons. The one in her head - a desert oasis where, just a short ten-minute drive from downtown, you find yourself curving through rugged, sandy cliffs sparsely populated with wild desert plants like the scrubby-looking, coral-tipped ocotillo and green-trunked palo verde tree, all under a bright, shining moon. And then there is the one in reality - the same scene, but with a convoy of border patrol trucks cutting through the frame."
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The Real Deficit Is Jobs!
Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future: "The real deficit is jobs. That is one more of those things that everyone can see in front of their faces, but we're told it isn't what it is. There aren't enough jobs, and we're being told this is our fault because we wanted pensions and good wages and vacations and respect and dignity and please, sir, just a little slice of the pie."
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UK to Repatriate Kids to War-Torn Homes
Thea Garland, GlobalPost: "Amid immigration stresses, Britain plans to turn asylum-seekers away. Amid growing controversy over the treatment of refugees, the British government plans to begin forcibly returning child asylum seekers to Afghanistan, possibly as early as August, according to government officials."
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