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When Snow Melts: Vancouver’s Olympic Crackdown

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:17:45 -0500

by Dave Zirin

News Flash: Winter Olympic officials in tropical Vancouver have been forced to import snow -- on the public dime -- to make sure that the 2010 games proceed as planned. This use of tax-dollars is just the icing on the cake for increasingly angry Vancouver residents. And unlike the snow, the anger shows no signs of abating.

Soldier Faces Iraq Court Martial for Writing Angry Hip Hop Song About Stop-Loss

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:04:08 -0500

by Sarah Lazare

Any day now, Marc Hall -- a Fort Stewart soldier and Hip Hop artist -- will be whisked off to Iraq for a military Court Martial, out of reach of the public eye and his own civilian defense lawyers. His crime: writing an angry hip hop song about stop-loss.

President Obama has publicly pledged to phase out stop-loss, the practice of involuntarily extending soldiers' contracts. However, with two ongoing wars, the practice is still being used to fill the ranks, with 13,000 soldiers currently serving involuntary extensions of their contracts.

Justice Thomas' Reasoning -- Dangerous for Democracy

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:58:53 -0500

by Frances Moore Lappé

The normally closed Supreme Court opened a crack last week, as Clarence Thomas defended the 5-4 decision clearing away limits on corporate spending to influence elections.

"If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group," he said, "you'd say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association." And "if all of you formed a partnership," it would be the same.

Haiti Needs Sunlight and Accountability on Relief and Reconstruction Effort

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:23:08 -0500

by Mark Weisbrot

Last month actors and human rights advocates Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte, along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson sent a letter to Congress and the Obama administration calling attention to "serious mistakes that have unnecessarily delayed the delivery of medical supplies, water, and other life-saving materials." The letter was also signed by some 90 scholars and read more

Taking a Bullet on Wall St.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:07:17 -0500

by Derrick Z. Jackson

Superintendent Carol Johnson of the Boston Public Schools last week officially lined up at the soup kitchen of American education by announcing nearly $60 million in budget cuts. Her pared-down $810 million budget comes after she announced in November new initiatives intended to help Boston "serve as a model for every urban school district in America.'' The recession has rendered Boston as yet another district that is freezing salaries, slashing transportation and cramming kids into fewer schools.

NY Times: No Conflict of Interest - With the Conventional Wisdom

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:31:26 -0500

by Robert Jensen

The New York Times' public editor wrestled this week with conflict-of-interest charges sparked by the revelation that Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner's son had joined the Israeli army.

If Michael Moore Would Run for President

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:26:04 -0500

by Robert Naiman

If Michael Moore would run for President in 2012, it could be a game-changer in American political life. For starters, it would likely shorten the war in Afghanistan by at least six months, and the American and Afghan lives that would be saved would alone justify the effort.

Lifting the Veil on US Troops in Pakistan

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:02:22 -0500

by Laura Flanders

“The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack on Wednesday lifted the veil on United States military assistance to Pakistan.” So began a Feb 4th piece by Jane Perlez in the New York Times.

But even all these days on, it’s been a very discreet unveiling.

Fighting for Africa's Food Security

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:48:19 -0500

by Sithembile Ndema

When I was a child growing up in Zimbabwe, my grandmother used to go to the same one-acre plot of land each day and work long and exhausting hours.

When I asked her why she put herself through this, she replied: "This is how I wake up every day, this is how I survive."

I am now in my twenties and my grandmother is still out there on her plot each day.

Washington’s Greatest Afghan War Danger: Self-Deception

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:40:46 -0500

by Tom Engelhardt

Almost every day, reports come back from the CIA's "secret" battlefield in the Pakistani tribal borderlands. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles -- that is, pilot-less drones -- shoot missiles (18 of them in a single attack on a tiny village last week) or drop bombs and then the news comes in: a certain number of al-Qaeda or Tal

Haiti Numbers – 27 Days After Quake

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:34:18 -0500

by Bill Quigley

890 million. Amount of international debt that Haiti owes creditors. Finance ministers from developing countries announced they will forgive $290 million. Source: Wall Street Journal

644 million. Donations for Haiti to private organizations have exceed $644 million. Over $200 million has gone to the Red Cross, who had 15 people working on health projects in Haiti before the earthquake. About $40 million has gone to Partners in Health, which had 5,000 people working on health in Haiti before the quake. Source: New York Times.

Obama, The War President

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:07:29 -0500

by Helen Thomas

President Barack Obama does have a foreign policy. It's called war.

The President has not defined any real difference between his hawkish approach to international issues and that of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush.

Where's the change we can believe in?

Bush left a legacy of two wars, neither of which was ever fully explained or justified. Obama has merely picked up the sword that Bush left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the struggle against terrorism, one might say, "Who cares?"

Join the Climate Trial

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:02:48 -0500

by Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Terry Tempest Williams, and Dr. James Hansen

[The following was co-written by Naomi Klein, author of the #1 international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, Terry Tempest Williams, world renowned wildlife author, Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of The End Of Nature, and Dr.

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They Think We’re Stupid

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:06:44 -0500

by Sean Gonsalves
They think we're stupid. President Obama, the GOP and the Democratic Party. All of ‘em think we are d-u-m-m.

On the floor of the House of Representatives a few months back, Iowa Republican Steve King declared: "On this side of the aisle are the people that believe in free enterprise, the invisible hand, Adam Smith's vision, Adam Smith's dream. You folks," he told his Democrat colleagues, "do not."
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Murder Capital of the World

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:11:09 -0500

by Laura Carlsen
On January 31, an armed commando unit pulled up to a house in a working-class neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side of the border with the United States. Inside the house, 60 teenagers were celebrating a friend's birthday. Wielding high-caliber weapons, the commandos opened fire on the kids, robbed the house, then drove away from the scene — amid human cries, the scent of gunpowder, and the total absence of law enforcement officials.
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What to Say to Those Who Think Single Payer Advocates Are Wacko

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:30:10 -0500

by Paul Hochfeld
What do we say to our more conservative friends, who genuinely think that the Single Payer solution to our health care crisis would be a disaster? Try what follows. In the end, you may simply agree to disagree. That's O.K., but what follows may give them pause to think.
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Globalization Is Killing the Globe: Return to Local Economies

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:23:41 -0500

by Thom Hartmann
Globalization is killing Europe, just as it's already wiped out much of the American middle class.
Spain and Greece are facing immediate crises that many other European nations see on the near horizon: aging boomer workers are retiring with healthy benefit packages, but the younger workers who are paying for those benefits aren't making anything close to the income (or, therefore, paying the taxes) that their parents did.
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The Sex Ed Bait and Switch

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:45:26 -0500

by Amanda Marcotte
Big news last week for the "sex is evil and should be avoided" crowd -- big media organizations all over the country trumpeted that abstinence-only education "works". Naturally, I was skeptical that the sex-phobes had actually produced a curriculum that convinced young people to put off sex for the 15 years between the onset of puberty and getting married, and indeed, a quick perusal of the story demonstrated that the program in question only delayed the onset of sexual activity for 2 y
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Political Prayer Breakfasts Are Bad Religion

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:08:41 -0500

by James Carroll
There are only three things wrong with the National Prayer Breakfast: the past, the present, and the future. Last week, President Obama presided at the annual Washington event before what the New York Times called “a bipartisan array’’ of national and international figures. “I assure you,’’ he told them, “I’m praying a lot these days.’’ The president went with the flow of public piety, singing prayer’s praises as a source of calm, strength, and civility. It “can touch our hearts with humility,’’ he said.
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America Is Not Yet Lost

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:53:00 -0500

by Paul Krugman
We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.

What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.
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A Worthy Goal: Feeding All Our Children

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:43:40 -0500

by Laura Rubin
The Obama administration has pledged to end childhood hunger in the U.S. by 2015. Meeting that goal will depend on whether Congress expedites or undermines this ambitious endeavor. And it has to act soon.
The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act (CNR) is up for renewal, probably by May. As its name suggests, the bill funds all federal programs that feed children and eligible adults, including school breakfast and lunch, the summer feeding program, the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program, and the Child and Adult Care Feeding Program (CACFP).
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Operation Breakfast Redux

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:24:34 -0500

by Pratap Chatterjee
Sitting in air-conditioned comfort, cans of Coke and 7-Up within reach as they watched their screens, the ground controllers gave the order to strike under the cover of darkness.
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The Terror-Industrial Complex

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:02:36 -0500

by Chris Hedges
The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security does not come from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe.
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I'm So Proud of You, Robin Cook

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:55:36 -0500

by Margaret Cook
For nine weeks, they have been making their solemn way to the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in Westminster to account for their actions - or inactions - in the build-up to war.
More than 70 witnesses have given evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry; among them the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and many of his closest ministers and acolytes.
One by one they have sought to justify their own role in what many regard as the greatest foreign policy failure of the modern era.
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Journalists Examine Teapot Tempests as Real Glaciers Melt

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:10:55 -0500

by Jim Naureckas
Curtis Brainard of CJR's Observatory blog (1/29/10) complains about the lack of coverage of what he calls "Glaciergate":
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Hey Congress - Stand up to Wall Street!

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:21:21 -0500

by Robert Reich
Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, scolded Wall Street representatives at a hearing Thursday for sending "an army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms" needed by the public. "The fact is," Dodd said, "I am frustrated, and so are the American people." He charged that Wall Street's intransigence was the reason for Congress's failure to pass any bill to regulate the Street.
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Why Food Inc. Should Make Us All Retch

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:57:03 -0500

by Charles Clover
A two-year-old boy called Kevin ate a hamburger on holiday with his family. Ten days later he died, his organs overwhelmed by a mutant form of the E coli bacterium found mostly in feed lots or so-called concentrated animal-feeding operations - vast animal-fattening centres, without a blade of grass, where cattle stand up to their ankles in muck all day. These are where America now produces much of its beef.
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Wars Sending US into Ruin

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:33:09 -0500

by Eric Margolis
U.S. President Barack Obama calls the $3.8-trillion US budget he just sent to Congress a major step in restoring America's economic health.
In fact, it's another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug - debt.
More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion. The latest example was the Soviet Union, which spent itself into ruin by buying tanks.
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Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:28:29 -0500

by Frank Rich
A funny thing happened after Adm. Mike Mullen called for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military: A curious silence befell much of the right. If this were a Sherlock Holmes story, it would be the case of the attack dogs that did not bark.
John McCain, commandeering the spotlight as usual, did fulminate against the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." But the press focus on McCain, the crazy man in Washington's attic, was misleading. His yapping was an exception, not the rule.
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Just Gimme Some Truth

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:25:35 -0500

by David Michael Green
The layers of the American political pathology are so multiple and so deep, it's sometimes hard to know where to start.
It's not so much that we're a country with problems. Every country has its challenges, and compared to much of the rest of the world I'd take our particular batch hands-down. It's just that so many of ours are self-inflicted.
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