Truthout: 20 March 2012

Henry A. Giroux | Gated Intellectuals and Ignorance in Political Life: Toward a Borderless Pedagogy in the Occupy Movement
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: "A group of right-wing extremists in the United States would have the American public believe it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of a market society. Comprising this group are the Republican Party extremists, religious fundamentalists such as Rick Santorum and a host of conservative anti-public foundations funded by billionaires such as the Koch brothers, whose pernicious influence fosters the political and cultural conditions for creating vast inequalities and massive human hardships throughout the globe."
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Fracking Fight: Activists Cry Foul on the EPA's Dimock Water Test Announcement
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Anti-fracking activists lashed out at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week after the agency released partial results of water tests taken from private wells in rural Dimock, Pennsylvania, where residents and activists are locked into an ongoing dispute with a gas drilling company accused of contaminating several families' wells while fracking in the area."
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Nine Strategies to End Corporate Rule
Robert Weissman, YES! Magazine: "The last few years have seen a series of corporate catastrophes, for which the perpetrator companies have escaped any meaningful accountability. Big banks and giant Wall Street firms tricked and ripped off homeowners and investors, and crashed the national and global economy. BP's reckless operations poisoned the Gulf of Mexico in one of the worst oil disasters in history. Massey Energy's cost-cutting led to the Upper Big Branch coal mine collapse that killed 29 workers."
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Justice Department Investigating Florida Killing After Outcry
Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times News Service: "The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the fatal shooting last month of an unarmed black Florida teenager by a crime watch volunteer, a case that has set off a national outcry. In a statement released Monday night, the Justice Department said its Civil Rights Division, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would investigate the death of the teenager, Trayvon Martin, who was shot as he was walking to the home of his father's girlfriend from a convenience store in Sanford, just north of Orlando, on Feb. 26."
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Health Insurers: We'll Deny Coverage for Pre-Existing Conditions if Health Mandate Is Repealed
Fatima Najiy, ThinkProgress: "Health insurers and supporters of the Obama administration's health-care reform law are currently in the midst of drawing up possible contingency plans in case the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate."
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Paul Krugman | In the US, the News May Be Good, but Problems Remain
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "Steve Pearlstein, the columnist at The Washington Post, is a good guy. That's why an article he recently posted online fills me with such despair. 'There are some on the left who also cling to the view that the economy is stuck in a depression - lest it undermine their critique about the woeful inadequacy of fiscal stimulus and the desperate need for more,' Mr. Pearlstein wrote on March 4."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Republicans in Congress Release Budget Blueprint, and More
In today's On the News segment: Republicans in Congress released their budget blueprint today, new bill in Florida would require all state workers to submit to random drug testing, legislation introduced would bail out students from their debt, and more.
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Robert Reich | Wall Street Greed: Why Greg Smith's Critique Is Way Too Narrow
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Greg Smith, a Goldman Sachs vice president, resigned his post Wednesday with a stinging public rebuke of the firm on the oped page of the New York Times - accusing it of no longer putting its clients before its own pecuniary goals."
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Army Threatens to Fire Whistleblower for Talking to McClatchy
Marisa Taylor, McClatchy Newspapers: "The military's embattled crime lab is trying to fire an outspoken whistleblower who's spotlighted its problems. Earlier this month, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory warned its firearms branch chief, Donald Mikko, in a memo of its plans to fire him, in part for talking to a McClatchy reporter."
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New Toxic Sludge PR and Lobbying Effort Gets Underway
Sara Jerving, PR Watch: "A trade association known for using the terms 'compost,' 'organic,' and 'biosolids' to describe sewage sludge is investing in a new public relations campaign to influence policymakers and the public. The US Composting Council (USCC), which was founded by the disposable diaper industry, will be expanding its long-standing efforts to 'rebrand' sewage sludge, which is increasingly disposed of on agriculture crops and through garden centers without telling the public that their food is being grown in medical, industrial, and human waste."
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Police State Blues
Phil Rockstroh, Consortium News: "The New York Police Department reacted quickly against Occupy Wall Street activists who returned to Liberty Square (or Zuccotti Park) six months after the original occupation began. But the confrontation marked one more milepost in a longer and surely more painful journey."
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Let the Lizard Brain Bigots in Mississippi Start Their Own Country, on Mars
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "You got to wonder what swamp fever can cause a guy to claim, 'I don't care for the government, they don't show me anything,' while admitting that he lives on food stamps. Of course, he's different because he 'deserves' them. It must be because he's a white male and only has a couple of teeth."
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The Rich Evade Taxes and We End Up Paying Their Share
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Election Poll: "Cavernous" Gender Gap Gives Boost to Obama
Read the Article at The Christian Science Monitor

US Economic Model Broken, Say Majority
Read the Article at The Financial Times

Grassroots Citizen Action Is Shutting Down the Nuclear Power Industry
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

All Major News Outlets Cover Trayvon Martin Tragedy, Except Fox News
Read the Article at ThinkProgress

Archie Comics Defies Religious Extremists and Celebrates Gay Marriage
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Job Seekers Getting Asked for Facebook Passwords
Read the Article at The Associated Press

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