Sunday 8 January 2012

The Cost of Trickle-Down Government Job Creation: $1.5 Million Per Worker
Ravi Batra, Truthout: "Suppose I were to tell you that for the past two years the federal government has been spending nearly $1.5 million to create one job.... The trillion dollar question is this: where is it all going, when the annual average wage is no higher than $50,000? Obviously, it must be going to the so-called 1 percent group or what the Republican Party calls the job creators, i.e., the mostly male CEOs and other executives of large corporations."
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Mitt, Son of "Citizen's United"
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "In the last weeks before the just-completed Iowa caucuses, Romney spent over $3 million relentlessly torpedoing Newt Gingrich with negative ads - cutting Gingrich's support by half and hurtling him from first place to fourth. But Romney kept his fingerprints off the torpedo. Technically the money didn't even come from his campaign. It came from a Super PAC called 'Restore Our Future,' which can sop up unlimited amounts from a few hugely wealthy donors without even disclosing their names."
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The Year of Voter Suppression
Nancy A. Heitzeg, Critical Mass Progress: "As we enter another election cycle, our most urgent challenge will be to ensure that the right to vote and the right to have that vote counted is protected. It comes as no surprise that this 'basic right, without which all others are meaningless' has come under massive attack as we prepare to re-elect the first Black POTUS, who was swept into office by voters of color, youth and women."
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As "Right to Work" Law Looms, Indiana Occupiers Join With Limestone Strikers
Joseph Varga, Labor Notes: "An unexpected alliance is blooming seven weeks into a hard winter strike by 50 Millworkers at the Indiana Limestone Company: The participants of Occupy Bloomington in that nearby college town are rallying to their cause. The millworkers, members of Local 8093 of the Carpenters Industrial Council in Oolitic, Indiana, rejected a concessionary contract and by unanimous vote went on strike November 15."
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The Lasting Damage of Iraq
Shlomo Ben-Ami, Project Syndicate: "After ten years of war, more than a hundred thousand casualties, mostly Iraqis, and an astronomical cost of almost $1 trillion, the US leaves behind an Iraq that is neither more secure nor especially democratic.... Violently torn by religious and ethnic rivalries, Iraq is in no condition to play its part in America's vision of an Arab wall of containment of Iran."
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America's Mental Health Industry Is a Threat to Our Sanity
Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet: "How did it become within responsible professional standards for a two-year-old to get an ADHD diagnosis, for a three-year-old to get a bipolar diagnosis, and for toddlers to be prescribed multiple heavily sedating drugs? The short answer is drug company corruption of the mental health profession."
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Judy Miller Alert! The New York Times Is Lying About Iran's Nuclear Program
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "It's deja vu all over again. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is trying to trick America into another catastrophic war with a Middle Eastern country on behalf of the Likud Party's colonial ambitions, and The New York Times is lying about allegations that said country is developing 'weapons of mass destruction.'"
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Why the Tea Party Need Mitt
Thomas Frank, Tom Dispatch: "Dear Tea Party Movement, for the last few months, the world has been fascinated by your frenzied search for a presidential candidate who is not Mitt Romney.... It was quite a spectacle, your quest for the non-Romney - and I think we all know why you undertook it. In ways that matter, Romney is clearly a problem for you.... [He's] said that he approved of the TARP bank bailout, the abomination that ignited the Tea Party uprising in the first place."
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Report: 24 States Enacted 92 Abortion Restrictions in 2011
Igor Volsky, ThinkProgress: "Lawmakers across the nation pursued a record number of reproductive health and rights-related provisions in 2011, a new report from the Guttmacher Institute finds, enacting 135 measures in 36 states - 'an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.' Sixty-eight percent of the provisions - 92 in 24 states - restricted access to abortion services."
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Eugene Robinson | Hawk in a Clown-Car Field
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post Writers Group: "It's quite difficult for a president to change the nation's culture. It's quite easy for a president to start a war. Yes, the GOP's clown-car nomination battle is a source of amusement. The prospect of a Santorum presidency, though, is a source of alarm."
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Can Electric Cars Win Over Consumers in 2012?
Maria Galluci, InsideClimate News: "Electric vehicles failed to gain traction in the mainstream market last year, which saw lackluster sales for the industry's first arrivals, the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf. Will 2012 be any better? Depends who you ask, but the general consensus in the first week of this year is probably not."
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The BuzzFlash commentary for Truthout will return Monday, January 9th.

There are 5,000 Janitors in the US with Phds
Read the Article at Gizmodo

Iran to Enrich Uraniam in New Site
Read the Article at Reuters

Angry Elderly Women Close San Francisco Bank of America Branch
Read the Article at CBS

Mitt Romney Demonstrated in Favor of the Vietnam War Draft
Read the Article at The Daily Mail UK

Corporate Welfare: States Pay to Train Workers, Companies Benefit
Read the Article at The New York Times

Linguists Name "Occupy" as 2012 Word of the Year
Read the Article at CNN

Santorum Says Sick People Should Have to Pay More for Insurance
Read the Article at Addicting Info

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