Short Tales From Bizarro World: The GOP Primaries Edition

Sunday 11 December 2011

William Rivers Pitt | Short Tales From Bizarro World: The GOP Primaries Edition
Sunday 11 December 2011

William Rivers Pitt | Short Tales From Bizarro World: The GOP Primaries Edition
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "Speaking of Rock & Roll Mitt, Derpy Rick, Hopeless Herman and Manic Michele, let us all bow our heads in a moment of thanks to the Republican brain trust, who surveyed the field of dimwits, lunatics, ego-trippers and plain fools vying to carry the banner for their party, and said, 'You know what'd be great? Let's have these people participate in 43,212 nationally-televised debates! What could possibly go wrong?'"
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Climate Deal Struck in Durban; Critics Say It Falls Short
John M. Broder, The New York Times News Service: "The deal renews the Kyoto Protocol... for several more years. But it also begins a process for replacing it with something that treats all nations equally...'While governments avoided disaster in Durban, they by no means responded adequately to the mounting threat of climate change,' said Alden Meyer, director of policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 'The decisions adopted here fall well short of what is needed.'"
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Robert Reich | The Remarkable Political Stupidity of Wall Street
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it's busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever. The Street's biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading."
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Beyond Guantanamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates
Scott Shane, The New York Times News Service: "It is the other Guantanamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate."
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Ukraine on the Edge
Tatiana Zhurzhenko, Project Syndicate: "Seven years ago, Ukraine's Orange Revolution inspired hope that the country was moving towards genuine democracy. Since then, democratic freedoms have been curtailed, the former prime minister and co-leader of the revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko, has been imprisoned, and President Viktor Yanukovych's regimehas become internationally isolated. Ukraine is unraveling."
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Out of the Backyard: New Latin American and Caribbean Bloc Defies Washington
Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom: "They were gathering for the foundational summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a new regional bloc aimed at self-determination outside the scope of Washington's power ... Indeed, the CELAC has been put forth by many participating presidents as an organization to replace the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS), empower Latin American and Caribbean unity, and create a more equal and just society on the region's own terms."
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Peru's Top Indigenous Leader Says Industry, Traffickers Behind Shaman Slayings
Darrin Mortenson, Truthout: "It's been more than one month since Peru's government sent investigators to the Amazon to probe the brutal murders and mutilation of at least 14 shamans of the indigenous Shawi people of Peru ... But Peru's top indigenous leader and president of the country's most powerful indigenous organization... paints a more complex picture of the case, blaming cash and pressure from legal and illegal industries in the Amazon who poach natural resources from indigenous lands."
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Euro Crisis Pits Germany and US in Tactical Fight
Nicholas Kulish, The New York Times News Service: "A German-American clash over how best to manage a vast financial crisis and put the world economy back on a sound footing was set in stark relief... [Chancellor Angela] Merkel views the financial industry with profound skepticism and argues ... that real change is impossible unless lenders and borrowers pay a high price for their mistakes."
Read the Article

Three Women's Rights Leaders Accept Nobel Peace Prize
Scott Sayare, The New York Times News Service: "In a ceremony in Oslo that repeatedly invoked gender equality and the democratic strivings of the Arab Spring, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was presented to three female activists and political leaders on Saturday for 'their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights' as peacemakers."
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Quality of Air? That's as Murky as Western Sky
Kirk Johnson, The New York Times News Service: "The question of how clean the air is in the American West has never been an easy one to answer. And now scientists say it is getting harder... It is at least partly about dust, something that has been entwined with Western life for a long time, and now appears to be getting worse."
Read the Article

Click here for more Truthout articles

Climate Deal Struck in Durban; Critics Say It Falls Short
John M. Broder, The New York Times News Service: "The deal renews the Kyoto Protocol... for several more years. But it also begins a process for replacing it with something that treats all nations equally...'While governments avoided disaster in Durban, they by no means responded adequately to the mounting threat of climate change,' said Alden Meyer, director of policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 'The decisions adopted here fall well short of what is needed.'"
Read the Article

Robert Reich | The Remarkable Political Stupidity of Wall Street
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Wall Street is its own worst enemy. It should have welcomed new financial regulation as a means of restoring public trust. Instead, it's busily shredding new regulations and making the public more distrustful than ever. The Street's biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading."
Read the Article

Beyond Guantanamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates
Scott Shane, The New York Times News Service: "It is the other Guantanamo, an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate."
Read the Article

Ukraine on the Edge
Tatiana Zhurzhenko, Project Syndicate: "Seven years ago, Ukraine's Orange Revolution inspired hope that the country was moving towards genuine democracy. Since then, democratic freedoms have been curtailed, the former prime minister and co-leader of the revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko, has been imprisoned, and President Viktor Yanukovych's regimehas become internationally isolated. Ukraine is unraveling."
Read the Article

Out of the Backyard: New Latin American and Caribbean Bloc Defies Washington
Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom: "They were gathering for the foundational summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), a new regional bloc aimed at self-determination outside the scope of Washington's power ... Indeed, the CELAC has been put forth by many participating presidents as an organization to replace the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS), empower Latin American and Caribbean unity, and create a more equal and just society on the region's own terms."
Read the Article

Peru's Top Indigenous Leader Says Industry, Traffickers Behind Shaman Slayings
Darrin Mortenson, Truthout: "It's been more than one month since Peru's government sent investigators to the Amazon to probe the brutal murders and mutilation of at least 14 shamans of the indigenous Shawi people of Peru ... But Peru's top indigenous leader and president of the country's most powerful indigenous organization... paints a more complex picture of the case, blaming cash and pressure from legal and illegal industries in the Amazon who poach natural resources from indigenous lands."
Read the Article

Euro Crisis Pits Germany and US in Tactical Fight
Nicholas Kulish, The New York Times News Service: "A German-American clash over how best to manage a vast financial crisis and put the world economy back on a sound footing was set in stark relief... [Chancellor Angela] Merkel views the financial industry with profound skepticism and argues ... that real change is impossible unless lenders and borrowers pay a high price for their mistakes."
Read the Article

Three Women's Rights Leaders Accept Nobel Peace Prize
Scott Sayare, The New York Times News Service: "In a ceremony in Oslo that repeatedly invoked gender equality and the democratic strivings of the Arab Spring, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was presented to three female activists and political leaders on Saturday for 'their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights' as peacemakers."
Read the Article

Quality of Air? That's as Murky as Western Sky
Kirk Johnson, The New York Times News Service: "The question of how clean the air is in the American West has never been an easy one to answer. And now scientists say it is getting harder... It is at least partly about dust, something that has been entwined with Western life for a long time, and now appears to be getting worse."
Read the Article

Click here for more Truthout articles

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