Friday, July 9, 2010

Truthout 7/9

William Rivers Pitt | Too Big to Fail
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "The phrase 'Too big to fail' entered the modern American lexicon with a terrible vengeance a couple of years ago, after billions of tax dollars were deployed as spit and mortar to hold up failing companies which, if they actually did fail, would have sent the US and the rest of the world spiraling into some kind of mega-ultra-super depression. That's what we were told, anyway, and it may well be true, but that hardly gets rid of the rancid taste the phrase leaves behind when spoken."
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Coast Guard Blocks Out Media at the Gulf; Activists Demand Answers
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Journalists and independent observers of the oil cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico could be fined up $40,000 and be charged with a felony if they get too close to booms and oil cleanup areas, and activist group Seize BP wants to know how authorities can justify such a muzzle on independent information gatherers."
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Protesters, Waxman Urge Clinton to Vote No on Tar Sands Pipeline
Deb Weinstein, Truthout: "Sweltering heat was not enough to keep away the 60 to 70 protesters who pulled on 'Oil Spill Prevention Team' t-shirts over their already-damp clothing. For the protesters who massed next to the Canadian embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue, the issue at hand was the neighbor up north and next door: Canada. More specifically, its tar sand mines, which provide bitumen-based fuel that is converted to conventional petroleum. The protesters gathered in the mostly empty plaza at noon because the Obama administration is poised to approve or veto a 1,700-mile pipeline that would ferry oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico."
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Scientists Urge US to Move Quickly to Study Gulf Oil Spill
Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers: "Frustrated with limited data on the BP oil gusher, a group of independent scientists has proposed a large experiment that would give a clearer understanding of where the oil and gas are going and where they'll do the most damage."
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The Military-Industrial Complex's Win, Part II
Melvin A. Goodman, Consortium News: "Barack Obama's crippling inheritance as President of the United States is the near-five-decade failure of the nation's political leadership to heed President Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning that 'in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.'"
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News in Brief: Bomb Attacks in Pakistan and Iraq Shake the Region, and More ...
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: Suicide bomber has killed 65 and wounded over 100 in Pashtun region of northwest Pakistan; a suicide bomber kills at least five people at checkpoint in Baghdad; federal appeals court rejects Obama administration effort to reinstate ban on deepwater drilling in the gulf; federal judge in Boston rules part of same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional; more than one in seven home loans over a million dollars are "seriously delinquent"; Russia and US swap spies; China renews Google's license to operate a web site; and more...
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"Inside Out" Tells It Like It Might Be
David Swanson, Truthout: "It's quite a pleasure to spend a morning sitting in Charlottesville, Virginia, where all the bookstores display thrillers by local boy John Grisham, and read a thriller as good or better than any of Grisham's and written by one of us - a blogger who supports what is now a strictly left wing concept: the rule of law."
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David Sirota | Are Low Taxes Exacerbating the Recession?
David Sirota, Truthout: "As the planet's economy keeps stumbling, the phrase 'worst recession since the Great Depression' has become the new 'global war on terror' - a term whose overuse has rendered it both meaningless and acronym-worthy. And just like that previously ubiquitous phrase, references to the WRSTGD are almost always followed by flimsy and contradictory explanations."
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Russia-US Swap Brings Spy Scandal to a Close
Miriam Elder, GlobalPost: "The spy scandal of the decade may soon come to a swift close, as Russian and U.S. officials negotiate a deal to swap the alleged Russian sleeper agents caught on American soil last month for a host of men jailed in Russia on charges of spying for the West."
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Washington Still Has Problems With Democracy in Latin America
Mark Weisbrot, The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "Imagine that Barack Obama, upon taking office in January 2009, had decided to deliver on his campaign promise to 'to end business-as-usual in Washington so we can bring about real change.' Imagine that he rejected the architects of the pro-Wall Street policies that had led to economic collapse, such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and the stable of former Goldman Sachs employees that runs the U.S Treasury Department, and instead appointed Nobel laureate economists Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz to key positions including the chair of the Federal Reserve."
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BP Exploiting Workers in the Gulf (Video)
Laura Flanders, GRITtv: Michael Whitney, who has been following the struggle of workers and Gulf Coast natives affected by the disaster, joins Jordan Flaherty to discuss ongoing problems for workers in the Gulf.
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