Truthout: 1 March 2012

A Tale of Two Protests: Shut Down the Corporations in Portland and Tucson
Alissa Bohling and Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Protesters in Portland, Oregon, and Tucson, Arizona, faced very different weather when they hit the streets yesterday, but they had one thing in common: they were among 70 cities nationwide where Occupy activists and others spoke out against members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), whose decades-long history of authoring and pushing pro-corporate legislation through the nation's statehouses has been criticized for strangling political and economic participation across the country."
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Are the Koch Brothers Funding Rush Limbaugh?
Robert Greenwald and Jesse Lava, Brave New Foundation: "Just in time for the release of Brave New Foundation's new film, Koch Brothers Exposed, Rush Limbaugh has thrown in with Charles and David Koch in their letter war with Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. No surprise there; Rush has made his fortune defending the rich and powerful against the 99%. But does Rush actually have a vested interest in the Koch brothers' success?"
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Drone-Strike Survivors Ask, "What Kind of Democracy Is America?"
Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence: "One question Fazillah cannot answer for her son is whether anyone asked the question at all of whether to kill his father. Forbes Magazine reports that the Air Force has sixty-five to seventy thousand analysts processing drone video surveillance; a Rand review states they actually need half again that number to properly handle the data. Asked to point to the human who actually made the decision to kill her husband, she can only point to another machine."
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Robert Reich | Stop Starving Public Universities and Shrinking the Middle Class
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Over just the last year 41 states have cut spending for public higher education. That's on top of deep cuts in 2009 and 2010.... Rising tuition and fees are making up the shortfall.... The children of middle- and lower-income families are hardest hit. Remember: The median wage has been dropping since 2000, adjusted for inflation."
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Recently Released Autopsy Reports Heighten Guantanamo "Suicides" Mystery
Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout: "Autopsy reports released last year by the Department of Defense raise stark questions about the circumstances surrounding the deaths of two prisoners at Guantanamo. Both deaths - of Abdul Rahman Al Amri in May 2007 and Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi in June 2009 - were labeled suicides by Department of Defense (DoD) investigators."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Republicans Are Losing the Obamacare Debate, and More
In today's On the News segment: President Obama quietly won a huge foreign policy victory in North Korea yesterday, Homeland Security keeping a close eye on the Occupy Wall Street movement, a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows more Americans trust President Obama than Republicans to handle health reform, and more.
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Nine More Dirty, Aging Coal Plants Set to Close
Stephen Lacey, ThinkProgress: "Today was a big milestone for people who care about public health and a livable climate. Two utilities announced the planned closure of nine coal plants in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, bringing total retirements (executed and planned) since January 2010 past the 100 mark to 106."
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Ron Paul on Drugs
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Rep. Ron Paul's outspoken opposition to the war on drugs and federal drug prohibition sets him far apart from his opponents in the Republican primaries and President Obama. Paul's frank libertarianism - and his willingness to boldly step outside the Washington status quo - has not translated to primary victories, but has earned him a legion of young followers of all political stripes who want to see a change in the Republican Party and the way government deals with drugs."
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E.J. Dionne Jr. | The Two Cadillacs Fallacy
E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post Writers Group: "Maybe Rick Santorum is helping Mitt Romney after all: Santorum's wacky statements about college and snobbery, along with his upset stomach over a 52-year-old John F. Kennedy speech, are distracting attention from Romney's extremist economic ideas."
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A Window Into the Future: The Plea Bargain of Majid Khan
Chrystal Loyer, Truthout: "At 9 AM Wednesday morning, after a decade in detention, Majid Khan was given his day in court. Nongovernmental organizations, media and victims of the Jakarta bombing waited anxiously for Khan's plea in the observation gallery. The gallery was positioned in the back of the commission's courtroom, insulated by double-paned glass and outfitted with five flat-screen monitors and speakers broadcasting the proceedings on closed-circuit television. These speakers would act as our ears - reaching through the soundproof barrier separating observers from court participants."
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Bill Moyers and Michael Winship | The Vaccination Nation
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Co.: "We haven't even turned the page on the controversy over contraceptives, health care and religious freedom, when another thorny one arises involving personal conscience and public health. A flurry of stories over the past few days coincided with seeing a movie that inspires more than passing interest in their subject."
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Self-Dealing in Government: No. 1 Impediment to Reform
Dina Rasor, Truthout: "Now, we are entering what Washington calls 'the silly season,' a presidential election year where serious governance falls by the wayside. Any credible column on reforming a part of the federal government would fade away as the news media discusses the latest in verbal gaffes and who is up and who is down in political process stories. Therefore, the Solutions column will spend the rest of this year, until the election, following the money that keeps realistic reform from succeeding and concentrate on exposing and explaining how self-dealing is the No. 1 problem that is preventing our government from working."
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Postal Workers Need Support From the 99 Percent
Paul Felton, Labor Notes: "A week before Christmas, Oregonians occupied post offices that were slated to close in 17 rural communities. Carrying Christmas cards, cookies, and gifts of appreciation for postal workers, the occupiers collected signatures on petitions to Congress to change the laws that caused the Postal Service's $8.5 billion budget deficit."
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Paul Krugman | The Sociology of Economics: Rational People, Irrational Decisions
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "David Brooks is unhappy with the turn the conversation over the white working class has taken in the United States; that's his right, although I think he's caricaturing my position. But I do want to make a point about the nature of social explanation."
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How Empires Fall: A TomDispatch Interview With Jonathan Schell
Andy Kroll, TomDispatch: "When Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World, a meditation on the history and power of nonviolent action, was published in 2003, the timing could not have been worse. Americans were at war - and success was in the air. U.S. troops had invaded Iraq and taken Baghdad ('mission accomplished') only months earlier, and had already spent more than a year fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Schell's book earned a handful of glowing reviews, and then vanished from the public debate as the bombs scorched Iraq and the body count began to mount."
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TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Fox News Is Rooting Against the Economic Interests of the United States
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "Jon Stewart made a pretty air-tight case proving that Roger Ailes' Fox propaganda channel is basically a fifth column cheerleading for economic failure in America - as long as a Democrat is president. BuzzFlash at Truthout recently noted the irony that if Obama is indeed a 'socialist' (which he is not), he should be the hero of capitalism given recent economic developments - particularly a soaring stock market, which is the key economic indicator to the top 1 percent."
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Capitalism Will Gladly Sell the Rope Used to Hang Itself
Read the Article at Market Watch

Will Sensible Gun Laws Ever Prevail in This Country?
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Inquiry Leader Says Murdoch Papers Paid Off British Officials
Read the Article at The New York Times

Guatemala's Former Leader Charged With Genocide. Pat Robertson Enabled It
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Republican Congressional Candidate Says "Holocaust Never Happened"
Read the Article at OakLawnPatch

Obama the "Socialist" Saved Capitalism by Giving Welfare to Wall Street and Red States
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Ben & Jerry's Backs Occupy Wall Street Protesters
Read the Article at Crooks & Liars

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