Saturday, July 17, 2010

Truthout 7/17

Democrats Avoid Budget Vote, Risk Losing Future Clout
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "As the federal deficit hits the $1 trillion mark, Democrats are attempting to avoid electoral fallout by approving an enforcement resolution instead of a full budget. By doing so, they disallow the use of budget reconciliation next year. Critics fear that the loss of this key legislative tactic may hammer the final nail into the coffin of a comprehensive jobs bill and other crucial legislative efforts."
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Taking Financial Reform into Our Own Hands
Stacy Mitchell, Yes! Magazine: "With the passage of the financial reform bill, giant banks see a golden opportunity to finally put the financial crisis, along with their culpability for wrecking our economy, in the rearview mirror."
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GOP's Jobs Ideas: Keep Bush Tax Cuts, Freeze Regulations
Gail Russell Chaddock, The Christian Science Monitor: "Employers won't create jobs until they have a clear sense of what comes next in taxes and regulation, say Republicans. House GOP leader John Boehner proposes a moratorium on new government regulations for a year and keeping the Bush tax cuts."
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BP Continues Tests, but Can't Guarantee Cap Will Succeed
Erika Bolstad, McClatchy Newspapers: "BP will proceed with its delicate testing of its containment cap that could continue to keep oil from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from its failed well, but the team monitoring the testing isn't 100 percent confident the cap will be successful."
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American Corporations Want More Consumers, Fewer Workers
Robert Parry, Consortium News: "A hard truth about the US economy is that corporations don't need as many of us as workers but still need us as consumers. That dilemma helps explain why unemployment is stuck near 10 percent and why the economic recovery is stumbling toward a double dip."
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Blessed Are the Peacemakers ... But Not in America
James E. Jennings, Truthout: "Last month's 6-3 Supreme Court decision in the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project found that humanitarian groups can be judged guilty of aiding and abetting terrorism merely by holding peaceful dialog and engaging in political discussions with proscribed organizations. This ruling disallows such contacts, even if the intent is peaceful. Blessed are the peacemakers, but not in America!"
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Congress Wants More Scrutiny of US Spending in Afghanistan
Reid Davenport, McClatchy Newspapers: "Members of a House subcommittee drilled three US agencies Thursday for not tracking billions in US money invested in the rebuilding of Afghanistan since 2002. After reports of more than $3 billion being smuggled out of Kabul's airport since 2007 and that Afghanistan ranks as the second-most corrupt country in the world, lawmakers demanded to know where their constituents' money is going."
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In the Midst of a Coal Field War (Video)
Laura Flanders, GRITtv: "Yet another coal miner was killed on the job this week, and journalist and author Jeff Biggers says that the situation has reached crisis level - that it's a war on miners. He also notes that abuse of the land and abuse of the people who work on it has always gone hand in hand, so as pressure for mountaintop removal and new coal mines mounts, so do safety violations - the latest being a story broken by NPR, that a methane gas monitor at the Little Big Branch mine, where 29 workers died in an explosion in April, had been deliberately shut down."
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