Truthout: 16 January 2012

Chris Hedges: Why I’m Suing Barack Obama
Chris Hedges, Truthdig: "Attorneys Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran filed a complaint ... on my behalf as a plaintiff against Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as embedded in the ... National Defense Authorization Act ... While my battle may be quixotic, it is one that has to be fought if we are to have any hope of pulling this country back from corporate fascism."
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SPECIAL: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in His Own Words (Video)
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: "Today is the federal holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.... While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People's Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic of US foreign policy and the Vietnam War. We play his 'Beyond Vietnam' speech ... as well as his last speech, 'I Have Been to the Mountain Top,' that he gave on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated."
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Romney's Bain Made Millions as South Carolina Steelmaker Went Bankrupt
David Wren, McClatchy Newspapers: "Boston-based Bain Capital LLC more than doubled its money on GS Industries Inc. - the former parent company of Georgetown Steel - under Mitt Romney's leadership in the 1990s, even as the steel manufacturer went on to cut more than 1,750 jobs, shuttered a division that had been around for 100 years and eventually sank into bankruptcy."
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A Voters' Rights Amendment as a Focus for Dissent
William John Cox and Helen Werner Cox, Truthout: "Unification of the Tea Party and Occupy movements for a common goal - a Voters' Rights Amendment - will re-establish the United States as a democratic republic and will restore control of its government to the voters. Although the corporate and wealthy elite is doing everything in its power ... to convince Occupiers and Tea Partiers that each is an enemy of the other, it is becoming increasingly clear that the two groups have much in common."
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Fukushima's Owner Adds Insult to Injury - Claims Radioactive Fallout Isn't Theirs
John LaForge, Truthout: "Tepco owns the six-reactor Fukushima complex that was wrecked by Japan's ... earthquake and smashed by the resulting tsunami. It faces more than $350 billion in compensation and clean-up costs, as well as likely prosecution for withholding crucial information ... So, when the company was hauled into Tokyo District Court ... Tepco lawyers tried something novel. They claimed the company isn't liable because it no longer 'owned' the radioactive poisons that were spewed from its destroyed reactors."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Jon Huntsman Drops Out of the Presidential Race, and More
In today's On the News segment: Jon Huntsman drops out of the Presidential race, the Fed predicts more than 3.6 million foreclosures over the next two years, the Department of Homeland Security confirms it monitors internet activity, and more.
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US Ranks 27th in Social Justice
Jim Hightower, Other Words Blog: "'USA: We're No. 1!' Oh, wait - Iceland is No. 1. But we did beat out Poland and Slovakia, right? Uh...no. But go on down the rankings and there we are! No. 27, fifth from the bottom. So our new national chant is, 'USA: At Least We're Not Last!' ... Our bottom-of-the-heap ranking in social justice confirms the economic and political inequality that the Occupy movement is protesting."
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The Crash and Burn Future of Robot Warfare: What Seventy Downed Drones Tell Us About the New American Way of War
Nick Turse, TomDispatch: "The Predator, one of the Air Force's workhorse hunter/killer robots, had been obliterated. An account of the spectacular end of that nearly $4 million drone in November 2007 is contained in a collection of Air Force accident investigation documents recently examined by TomDispatch. They catalog more than 70 catastrophic Air Force drone mishaps since 2000, each resulting in the loss of an aircraft or property damage of $2 million or more."
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Time Is On Our Side: The Survival of Social Security
Dean Baker, Truthout: "As we approach budget time we can look forward to another burst of handwringing by the Washington elites, who will once again tell us about the need to cut Social Security and Medicare.... They have been pushing this line for the last twenty years, yet during this period there have been no substantial cuts to either Social Security or Medicare. This is a great victory for the vast majority of the country, the 99 percent, over the One Percent."
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Why Development Aid is Not Enough
Erik Solheim, Project Syndicate: "Poverty is not only about not having enough money. It is also about exploitation and oppression, and about armed conflicts and wars that make it impossible to run a business, visit the doctor, or send children to school. In short, poverty is about politics, and the need to devise political solutions to its underlying causes, which involves more than providing money."
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The Foreclosure Crisis: A Government in Denial
Bruce Judson, New Deal 2.0: "As we start the New Year, the executive branch and Congress continue to pretend the gravest risk to our economy and social stability does not exist: the ongoing foreclosure crisis. The financial crisis began with the housing crisis and it will not end until we resolve housing. Government policymakers who seemingly ignore this basic fact are leading the nation to another potential catastrophe."
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The Straits of America
Nouriel Roubini, Project Syndicate: "Macroeconomic indicators for the United States have been better than expected for the last few months. Job creation has picked up. Indicators for manufacturing and services have improved moderately. Even the housing industry has shown some signs of life. And consumption growth has been relatively resilient. But, despite the favorable data, US economic growth will remain weak and below trend throughout 2012. Why is all the recent economic good news not to be believed?"
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Asserting Its Sovereignty, Baghdad Detains US Contractors
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Huntsman Calls It Quits, Endorses Romney
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Donors Gave as Santorum Won Earmarks
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Ten Reasons the US Is No Longer the Land of the Free
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The Five Most Outrageous Examples of Hidden Charges Companies Pass off on Consumers - And How to Fight Back
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Arizona's Ban on Ethnic Studies Proscribes Mexican-American History, Local Authors, Even Shakespeare
Read the Article at Salon

The New York Times Public Editor's Very Public Utterance Has Permanently Altered Readers' Expectations
Read the Article at The Guardian UK

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