Saturday 11 February 2012

Who Are the Millennials?: Bill Moyers Interview With Heather McGhee (Video)
Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co.: "President Obama is campaigning rather feverishly to win back the votes of the Millennials. Who are they? Well, the Millennials are the generation of young Americans born roughly between the years of 1978 and 2000. They are coming now to political maturity. Two-thirds of Millennials voted for Obama in 2008, but a new Harvard study shows that in the last two years his approval rating among them has dropped 12 points. That's enough to decide a close election in November."
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What the Koch Brothers Say Online, but Won't Say Under Oath
Robert Greenwald, Brave New Foundation: "Why will Charles and David Koch produce a video about their position on the Keystone XL oil pipeline and not testify before Congress about it?... The Koch brothers refuse to testify in Congress about their interest in the pipeline, but they'll make a web video asserting their innocence.... We took the Kochs' video retreat and added a few facts from the historical record."
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"Good for Wall Street - Bad for Students": Confronting Predatory, Proprietary Colleges and Universities
Danny Weil, Truthout: "A cursory investigation of the for-profit higher education industry reveals striking parallels between the economics of the for-profit colleges and universities and the Wall Street financial meltdown of 2008. The matter cries out for immediate attention for the breadth and speed of the extraction of public funds and their transfer into private hands is proceeding faster than could have been imagined five years ago."
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The People's Media: Preventing Corporate Takeover of the Internet
Joseph Torres, Yes! Magazine: "AT&T spared no expense in 2011 when it sought government approval of its $39 billion deal to acquire T-Mobile. The merger would have created a duopoly, leaving AT&T and Verizon in control of nearly 80 percent of the wireless market.... Despite AT&T's massive political influence, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit in August to block the merger. Days before Thanksgiving, the FCC announced its opposition. How did a giant corporation like AT&T fail to win approval of its merger?"
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Two Security Complex Car Bombings Kill Dozens, Syria Says
Neil MacFarquhar, The New York Times News Service: "Powerful car bombs exploded outside two security headquarters in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Friday, killing 28 people by official count and signaling that emboldened forces seeking the government's overthrow can strike at the very seat of its power.... A combination of military and police personnel, as well as civilians, including children, were killed outside a military security headquarters and a police compound."
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House Puts Transportation in Partisan Crossfire
Emily Badger, Miller-McCune: "The U.S. House transportation bill released last week by Rep. John Mica contained a number of provisions that immediately alarmed transit and smart growth advocates and their Democratic supporters on Capitol Hill. The bill would cut subsidies to Amtrak, eliminate dedicated money for bike and pedestrian programs, and scrap guaranteed funding for mass transit. Throw in controversial plans to pay for some of the legislation with domestic oil drilling, and America has, yet again, a partisan dogfight."
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Want an Aisle Seat? Not for $2,000, Ralph Nader Tells American Airlines
Maria Recio, McClatchy Newspapers: "As if bankrupt American Airlines didn't have enough problems, along comes consumer advocate Ralph Nader - who's really steamed that for a flight Saturday to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the only way for a non-frequent flyer to get an aisle seat was to pay full-fare $2,680 instead of the $700 price he'd already paid. Price of American Airlines ticket: $700. Cost of aisle seat: $2,680. Potential price for alienating Ralph Nader: priceless."
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Report: By a Nearly 2 to 1 Margin, Cable Networks Call on Men Over Women to Comment on Birth Control
Faiz Shakir and Adam Peck, ThinkProgress: "President Obama's regulation mandating that health insurance plans offer free birth control is an issue that most directly affects women. And yet, the cable news chatter over this controversy has been driven mostly by men ... The leading cable news channels - Fox, Fox Business, MSNBC, and CNN - invited almost twice as many men as women onto their shows to discuss contraceptive coverage."
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It's the Sex, Stupid: An Interview With Author Nancy Cohen About How the Sexual Counterrevolution Is Polarizing America
Susan Sherman, Truthout: "American politics today - the dysfunction, the polarization, the vitriol - isn't just about a reaction to the economy or hostility to President Obama.... The key point is what drove these people, what motivated them, in the first place. It's honestly quite strange when you consider we're talking about the politics of the world's oldest democracy and largest economy. They believed that sex was destroying America. So, you could say, it's the sex, stupid."
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What $100 Million Could Do for Out of Work, Underpaid Teachers
Bryce Covert, New Deal 2.0: "President Obama is announcing a new plan to spend $100 million on training 100,000 new teachers over the next decade. Obama's plan will focus on training more STEM teachers - aka those teaching science, technology, engineering, and math. Spending more money on education is a healthy priority, but is this the right tactic? Rather than enticing and training a new army of teachers, perhaps we could start by putting the ones we've already got back to work. It would likely be a lighter lift to retrain them."
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Fifty-State, $25 Billion Mortgage Settlement: Relief for Struggling Homeowners or Bailout for Big Banks? (Video)
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!: "The U.S. Justice Department has unveiled a record mortgage settlement with the nation's five largest banks to resolve claims over faulty foreclosures and mortgage practices that have indebted and displaced homeowners and sunk the nation's economy.... 'The settlement, on the surface, does look like it's helping homeowners,' [longtime financial analyst Yves] Smith says. 'But, in fact, the bigger part that most people don't recognize is the way it actually helps the banks with mortgages on their own books.'"
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The BuzzFlash commentary for Truthout will return Monday, February 13.

If Men Got Pregnant, Congress Would Have Made Abortion Legal and Contraceptives Diverse
Read the Blog at BuzzFlash

Santorum Clarifies Remarks on Women in Combat
Read the Article at The New York Times

The Two Americas Clash at CPAC: Union Demonstrators March on the Conservative Enclave
Read the Article at Salon

We May Yet Lose Tokyo ... Not to Mention Alaska ... and Now Georgia, Too
Read the Article at Common Dreams

Natural Gas and the News: Most Messages on Fracking "Brought to You by Our Sponsors"
Read the Article at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

Eight Arrests in British Inquiry Tied to Murdoch Tabloids
Read the Article at The New York Times

The Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by a Too-Polite Left
Read the Article at The Guardian UK

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