Buzzflash Daily Headlines

Thursday 11 November 2010

Bill Quigley | Bush Pens True Crime Book
Bill Quigley, Truthout: "In his memoir (which some wise people have already moved in bookstores to the CRIME section) George W. Bush admitted that he authorized that detainees be waterboarded, tortured, a crime under US and international law. Bush's crime confession coincides with reports that no one will face criminal charges from the US Department of Justice for the destruction of 92 CIA videotapes which contained interrogations using waterboarding."
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Camillo "Mac" Bica | No Cause for Parades
Camillo "Mac" Bica, Truthout: "We have just begun the tenth year of occupation in Afghanistan. Despite the declared 'end' to combat operations, American soldiers are still dying in Iraq as encounters with insurgents increase. Meanwhile, covert and drone operations are escalating in Pakistan and Yemen. As we mark Armistice/Veterans Day 2010 with parades and sales at the mall to 'honor and recognize' the sacrifices and service of veterans and of our troops, perhaps we might consider postponing these celebrations and marketing strategies until a more appropriate occasion and shifting our focus from mythologizing war to understanding its realities and consequences as it impacts our soldiers and veterans and our economy. So let us lower the flags and the volume of the inspiring hymns and anthems and pay some attention, for a change, to the facts of war."
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Bernie Sanders Wants NBC-Comcast Merger Stopped Following Olbermann Suspension
Nadia Prupis, Truthout: "After MSNBC suspended Keith Olbermann from 'Countdown' for making contributions to political campaigns, activists and pundits on both sides of the aisle used the occasion to speak out on journalistic integrity and freedom of the press. On November 5, Politico reported that Olbermann had given $2,400 to Arizona Reps. Gabrielle Giffors and Raul Grijalva and Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway; later that day, MSNBC President Phil Griffins announced that he would be suspending Olbermann indefinitely to be 'mindful of NBC News policy and standards.'"
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Dean Baker | Deficit Commission Co-Chairs Ignore Economic Reality
Dean Baker, The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "Senator Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles appeared to have largely ignored economic reality in developing the proposals they presented to the public today. The country is suffering from 9.6 percent unemployment with more than 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or who have given up looking for work altogether. Tens of millions of people are underwater in their mortgage and millions face the prospect of losing their home to foreclosure."
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Paul Krugman | For Lenders, the Name of the Game Is Extend and Pretend
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "I'm finding it difficult to write about the recent foreclosure mess in the United States. Amid the revelations in October that so many mortgage lenders might have been sloppy when processing foreclosure paperwork, attorneys general in all 50 states have now announced they are investigating lenders' foreclosure practices. It's clear that there has been massive malfeasance on the part of the banks (again), but it's less easy to decide what should be done about it."
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Obama in Asia: Meeting American Decline Face to Face
Juan Cole, TomDispatch: "Blocked from major new domestic initiatives by a Republican victory in the midterm elections, President Barack Obama promptly lit out for Asia, a far more promising arena. That continent, after all, is rising, and Obama is eager to grasp the golden ring of Asian success. Beyond being a goodwill ambassador for ten days, Obama is seeking sales of American-made durable and consumer goods, weapons deals, an expansion of trade, green energy cooperation, and the maintenance of a geopolitical balance in the region favorable to the United States. Just as the decline of the American economy hobbled him at home, however, the weakness of the United States on the world stage in the aftermath of Bush-era excesses has made real breakthroughs abroad unlikely."
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Top of Agenda at Clinton-Netanyahu Meeting: New Rift Over Settlements
Howard LaFranchi, The Christian Science Monitor: "The Obama administration is once again at odds with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and once again the issue is construction of Jewish settlements on Arab lands. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to meet Thursday in New York with Mr. Netanyahu to try to smooth over a new rift that emerged between the United States and Israel after Israeli authorities recently announced the construction of 1,300 more housing units in Arab East Jerusalem."
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News in Brief: Pentagon Study Shows Repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Is Not Dangerous, and More ...
A new Pentagon study will show that allowing openly gay people to serve in the military has limited risks; Veterans Affairs reports that the number of female war veterans who have become homeless has doubled to 6,500 over the past decade; rioting erupted in London yesterday as 50,000 students protested proposed education spending cuts, and today, the British government announced proposed welfare cuts, stirring fears that more violence could fill the streets; the EPA has issued a subpoena to Halliburton requiring the company release information on its hydraulic fracturing procedures; new Republican leaders in the House of Representatives have poor voting records on environmental issues compared to the Democrats they are replacing.
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Few Big Fish Land in Immigration Dragnet
William Fisher, Inter Press Service: "Putting local police on the 'front lines' of immigration enforcement is distracting federal agencies from their objectives by turning over people with no criminal history, or those who have committed minor or non-violent crimes, and setting them on a course toward unnecessary deportation. This is one of main findings in a study by the Immigration Policy Center, the policy arm of the American Immigration Council, presented in a new report, 'ICE's Enforcement Priorities and the Factors that Undermine Them,' by Dr. Michele Waslin, IPC senior policy analyst."
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What Laila Sees: A Kandahar Woman Tells Her Story
David Smith-Ferri, Truthout: "'We live in constant fear of suicide attacks,' said Laila, an Afghan woman who lives in Kandahar city and who visited with us yesterday. 'When will the next one strike and where?' 'Twelve days ago,' she continued, 'a good friend was walking home from the mosque. A four-minute walk. An IED was detonated, and my friend lost half his face. Another man lost his leg, and his son lost his leg, too. We live with that kind of uncertainty, when you don't know what is going to happen from one moment to the next.'"
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Stanley Aronowitz: "An Immense Malaise Torments American Society"
Interview excerpt from Bruno Odent of L'Humanite's interview with Professor of Sociology Stanley Aronowitz: "The underlying problem in all of this is that citizens have discovered - thanks to the management of the financial/economic crisis - that their powers are reduced, that the oligarchy, that Wall Street, continues to dispossess them ever more. That has been exacerbated by the bailout of the financial system, of the big banks and insurance companies. People feel they've been swindled. Everything happens above their heads without their getting a word in. They feel, without being able to articulate it more precisely, that they don't have the democratic political system they need. They can't express that because all the parties are in on the swindle ... so, they follow those who deliberately depart from the accepted script and play on their emotions by throwing them the red meat of "too much government,' the Washington establishment or more classical scapegoats such as immigrants.'"
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Olbermann's Support for South Dakota Tribe Points Way to More Inclusive Indian Country Coverage
Rose Aguilar, Truthout: "All it took was a one-minute commentary. On February 9, 2010, Keith Olbermann told his viewers about a humanitarian crisis affecting 50,000 people. It was so bad, college basketball fans were being asked to share their soles. 'Haiti?' he asked. 'South Dakota. The shoe donations are being sought at the University of South Dakota and they are for the residents of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.'"
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Veterans Day 2010: Honor the Consciences of Our Veterans (Video)
Rethink Afghanistan, Brave New Foundation: "The war in Afghanistan is now in its tenth year, with no end in sight. Al Qaida isn't in Afghanistan anymore, and the war doesn't meet the criteria for just war. We need to end this war, and honor the consciences of those troops who say, 'I can't fight this war. My conscience won't allow it.'"
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter who helped craft the Disneyesque aura for Ronald Reagan, wrote a book, "What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era." It lavished praise on the "Gipper."

David Stockman, who was Reagan's budget director, has gone in another direction. He's renouncing deficit-building tax cuts, calling for their rollback.

"We've had a 30-year spree of really phony prosperity in this country," Stockman recently told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes."

Stockman derided the "anti-tax religion" of the GOP.

"Well it's become in a sense an absolute. Something that can't be questioned, something that's gospel, something that's sort of embedded into the catechism and so scratch the average Republican today and he'll say 'Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts,'" Stockman told Stahl. He added, "To stand before the public and rub raw this anti-tax sentiment, the Republican Party, as much as it pains me to say this, should be ashamed of themselves."

In short, tax cuts provide the illusion to the American public that Social Security, Medicare, military spending and government funded public expenditures - such as highways - can be had without citizens paying a fair share.

As for the wealthy, Stockman was loaded for bear in another appearance, this one on ABC News: "Two years after the crisis on Wall Street, it has been announced that bonuses this year will be $144 billion, the highest in history. That's who's going to get this tax cut on the top, you know, 2 percent of the population. They don't need a tax cut. They don't deserve it."

When Stockman declares, "We're now becoming the banana republic [of] finance," wise men and women should listen.

After all, he was the person who put together the largest tax cuts in US history. He knows of what he speaks.

Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout

Report: White House Gives in on Bush Tax Cuts
Read the Article at The Huffington Post

Sen. Bernie Sanders Denounces Proposed Cuts on Social Security and Medicare
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

The State We're in: Estimated California State Budget Deficit Reaches $25.4 Billion
Read the Article at The Los Angeles Times

Many Deficit Commission Staffers Paid by Outside Groups
Read the Article at The Washington Post

Massachusetts: The State That Forgot to Turn Red
Read the Article at Stateline

Hillary Clinton: US "Disappointed" With Israel's Settlement Decision
Read the Article at CNN

More Graphic Warnings and Picture to Appear on Packs of Cigarettes
Read the Article at AP

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