 Saturday 21 January 2012 Citizens United: A Tsunami of Secret Corporate Cash Is Drowning Our DemocracyIsaiah J. Poole, Campaign for America's Future: "Today is the two-year anniversary of the infamous Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court that allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns. Since then, our democracy has been drowning in a tsunami of corporate special interest money. Our government is under the thumb of the Koch brothers and other corporate moguls instead of the hands of the people. And citizens are uniting in their disgust." Read the Article Jason Leopold | Military Attorney Accused of "Smuggling" Anti-Guantanamo Literature to Detainee Jason Leopold, Truthout: “Early last month, Air Force Capt. Michael Schwartz was summoned into the office of Rear Adm. David Woods, the new commander of Guantanamo, and was allegedly accused of ‘smuggling’ into the detention facility an anti-Guantanamo pamphlet that featured the photographs of two Kuwaiti detainees, Fayiz al-Kandari and Fawzi al Odha…. If ‘incendiary’ reading material was the true catalyst behind Woods’ order, then it’s likely the interrogators who work at Guantanamo are to blame, a former prison guard said.” Read the Article Henry A. Giroux | Remembering Etta James Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: "I never stopped listening to Etta James, not only because her music reminded me of some of the most memorable moments of my youth, but because she flaunted her cultural capital without apologies, combined passion and desire and lived on the edge merging her body and music into a constant reminder of what it meant to ground one's life in real struggles, disappointments, and hopes. She knew how to affirm rather than compromise both her music and the pathos and hope it embodied." Read the Article Mandate Transparency on the Anniversary Lisa Gilbert, Huffington Post: "Mandating transparency is well within the SEC's authority, and there is no time like the 2 year anniversary of this game changing decision to set the wheels in motion. The SEC should shine a light on corporate spending in politics and enable the public and shareholders to hold CEO's accountable when they spend in politics. Otherwise, I fear the recap I will be giving of this election at next year's anniversary." Read the Article Gingrich Surges With Old, Familiar Ploy: Racist Attacks on Poor People Seth Freed Wessler, ColorLines.com: "Newt Gingrich has done as much to wreck the federal safety net and translate the Southern Strategy into the post-racial era as anyone in Washington. His chances of gaining the Republican nomination are slim, but the war against poor people that Gingrich has lead is well entrenched. Regardless of who wins the GOP nomination, Gingrich’s legacy will carry on." Read the Article 100% Unverifiable Statewide E-Voting in South Carolina's 2012 GOP Primary Brad Friedman, The Brad Blog: "The voting systems in use for the nation's first three all-important electoral contests in the 2012 primary - from Iowa to New Hampshire to Saturday's South Carolina Primary - go from pretty great to intolerably horrible.... now we come to the ‘First-in-the-South’ Republican primary in South Carolina, where all evidence of how voters vote disappears entirely as the voters will be forced across the entire state to vote on easily-manipulated, oft-failed, 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems made by the nation's largest voting machine company, ES&S." Read the Article Blacks Face Bias in Bankruptcy, Study Suggests Tara Siegel Bernard, The New York Times: "Blacks are about twice as likely as whites to wind up in the more onerous and costly form of consumer bankruptcy as they try to dig out from their debts, a new study has found. The disparity persisted even when the researchers adjusted for income, homeownership, assets and education. The evidence suggested that lawyers were disproportionately steering blacks into a process that was not as good for them financially, in part because of biases, whether conscious or unconscious." Read the Article From CEO to Candidate, Romney Flip-Flops on Debt Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica: "Are there private equity executives anywhere in the world who would counsel their companies not to borrow at such extremely low rates? I haven't had the privilege of meeting one. Their mantra is, borrow now, for tomorrow the Mayans might turn out to be right. Few indeed are the companies that could borrow that cheaply and not make some kind of return on essentially free money." Read the Article Study Challenges Supreme Court’s Image as Defender of Free Speech Adam Liptak, The New York Times News Service: "The Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the conventional wisdom goes, is exceptionally supportive of free speech. Leading scholars and practitioners have called the Roberts court the most pro-First Amendment court in American history. A recent study challenges that conclusion. It says that a comprehensive look at data from 1953 to 2011 tells a different story, one showing that the court is hearing fewer First Amendment cases and is ruling in favor of free speech at a lower rate than any of the courts led by the three previous chief justices." Read the Article A Look Behind the Drop in Undocumented Immigration Michelle Mittelstadt, New America Media: A recent New York Times op-ed by Dowell Myers argues that we need to shift from an “immigration policy,” focused on border enforcement, to an ‘immigrant policy’ focused on the integration of those who are already here. The argument is based on reports that illegal immigration to the United States has dropped dramatically. Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications for the Migration Policy Institute, takes a closer look behind the numbers in the context of global migration trends. Read the Article Click here for more Truthout articles
The BuzzFlash commentary for Truthout will return Monday. I Will Believe in Corporate Personhood When One of Them Is Executed in Texas. Top Justice Officials Connected to Mortgage Banks Arab League Should Make Syria Report Public, Says Human Rights Watch Newt Gingrich and the Politics of Personal Destruction Yemen Rescinds Full Immunity for Government Shattering the Class Warfare Taboo In South Carolina, The Cain Train Collides With Colbert’s Super PAC Satire Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines
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