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Monday 27 February 2012

Newt Gingrich on Drugs
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Irina Alexander is a young activist with a college education. When she approached Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich at a New Hampshire town hall and asked if she should be arrested for being a recreational drug user, Gingrich told her, '... no, you shouldn't be arrested for being a recreational drug user, but you also shouldn't do it.' Does this mean Gingrich could support drug decriminalization and deescalating the war on drugs and people who use them? Well, no."
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Lawsuit Takes Aim at CIA's "Covert" Attacks on Transparency
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "Last September, the CIA quietly changed its long-standing policy for how it would process certain records requests by implementing a new fee structure that will essentially discourage the public from trying to get the agency to declassify secret government documents because the costs are too high, open-government advocates have charged."
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WikiLeaks: Disgraced Judge Said He Was Targeted for Investigation After Ruling Against Halliburton
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Samuel Kent, the disgraced former Texas federal judge who resigned in 2009 after receiving a 33-month sentence for lying to investigators and sexual abusing two employees, told a senior analyst for the private intelligence firm Stratfor that he believes the Justice Department may have targeted him after he ruled against Halliburton in a 'heavy case,' according to an email leaked by WikiLeaks."
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Reps. Keith Ellison and Walter Jones Stand Up for Diplomatic Engagement With Iran
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "Largely missing from the recent political debate, until now, has been a full-throated defense of diplomatic engagement with Iran toward negotiated agreements that would resolve or mitigate international concerns about its disputed nuclear program, thereby pushing back the prospect of military confrontation. But that could change. Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) and Walter Jones (R-North Carolina) are currently circulating a Congressional letter to President Obama urging the president to redouble US efforts toward a diplomatic agreement."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Worsening NATO-Afghan Security Forces Relations Threaten Withdrawal Plan, and More
In today's On the News segment: Churches continue to be some of the largest big bank defectors in the Move Your Money movement, the UK is preparing for war with Iran according to a senior British government official, Wyoming passed doomsday legislation that would allow the state to issue its own currency and form its own army, and more.
Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

WikiLeaks Publishes Intelligence Firm Emails
Somini Sengupta, The New York Times News Service: "'The material contains privileged information about the U.S. government's attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor's own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks,' the group said. 'There are more than 4,000 e-mails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.'"
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Sean Combs' New Channel: Comcast's Crumb?
Laura Flanders, The Nation: "The new 'minority' channels from Comcast are well and good, but where are the women's channels? This week's news from Comcast reveals the saggy soft underbelly of our movements, the sad state of civil rights law and the weakness of our women's organizations.... The new channels are the direct result of a private deal cut with civil rights organizations in exchange for those groups' support of Comcast's takeover of majority control over NBC Universal from General Electric last year."
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Ellen Brown | New State Bank Bills Address Credit and Housing Crises
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt: "Seventeen states have now introduced bills for state-owned banks, and others are in the works. Hawaii's innovative state bank bill addresses the foreclosure mess. County-owned banks are being proposed that would tackle the housing crisis by exercising the right of eminent domain on abandoned and foreclosed properties. Arizona has a bill that would do this for homeowners who are current in their payments but underwater, allowing them to refinance at fair market value."
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Infiltration to Disrupt, Divide and Misdirect Is Widespread in Occupy
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Occupy Washington, DC: "On the very first day of the Occupation of Wall Street, we saw infiltration by the police. We were leaving Zuccotti Park and were stopped in traffic by the rear of the park. We saw an unmarked van open, in the front seat were two uniformed police and out of the back came two men dressed as occupiers wearing backpacks, sweatshirts, and jeans. They walked into Zuccotti Park and became part of the crowd."
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What Are We Really Eating? Reporter Goes Undercover to Reveal the Real Story of Our Broken Food System
Kerry Trueman, AlterNet: '"One coworker was earning $11 an hour after working there for seven years, and she talked about how if you worked at Walmart for 15 years that's actually really good because you get a lifetime discount card. There's something really sobering when what you're aspiring to is that if you stick it out at $10, $11, $12 an hour you're going to get a lifetime 10-percent discount card.'"
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Dean Baker | Gas in US Elections
Dean Baker, Truthout: "... if the unemployment rate is falling and the economy is creating jobs at a respectable pace throughout the year, President Obama stands a very good chance of being re-elected in November. This explains the decision of the Republican Party to focus on the price of gas. The price of gas has long played a pivotal role in US politics. High gas prices will be forever a symbol of the economic malaise of the Carter presidency in the late '70s. The drop in gas prices under President Reagan was associated with a resurgence of America's political and economic power."
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"Act of Valor"? Beware Exalting Our Starship Troopers
William Astore, Truthout: "Consider the latest Hollywood exaltation of our very own hyper-capable elite, the 'real' Navy SEALs celebrated in the movie 'Act of Valor.' Consider President Obama's hyperbolic paeans of praise to America's 'generation of heroes,' members of 'the finest military force the world has ever known.' Consider our military's increasing reliance on unmanned drones (Predators and Reapers) - reminiscent of starships unleashing hellfire from orbit as in Heinlein's imagined universe - to smite the terrorist 'bugs' from a distance."
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Jim Hightower | Stealing State Parks
Jim Hightower, OtherWords: "'Sorry, we're closed.' In one of the saddest signs of the times, this message is popping up all across the country as governors and legislators are cutting off funds (and shutting off access) to one of the finest, most popular assets owned by the people of our country: state parks."
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If Men Want to Outlaw Abortions and Restrict Contraceptives, Vasectomies Should Be Illegal
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "If you are going to stop women from exercising their reproductive choice, then it is time for health insurance to stop paying for vasectomies - and time to make them illegal. That's the proposed thinking of a state representative in Georgia, who has responded to a harsh anti-abortion bill there with one that applies the same standard to men."
Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Michael Tomasky: The GOP's Michigan Giveaway
Read the Article at The Daily Beast

Washington Could Be First State to Require Abortion Coverage
Read the Article at The News Tribune

Anti-Putin Human Chain Protest Hits Moscow
Read the Article at Agence France-Presse

Republicans Have Mastered the Art of the Irrelevant Non-Answer
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

The Blurred Line Between Espionage and Truth
Read the Article at The New York Times

Occupy's Challenge: Reinventing Democracy
Read the Article at Salon

What Happens at Davos?
Read the Article at The New Yorker

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