Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery.  Thursday 15 March 2012 How We Cured "the Culture of Poverty," Not Poverty ItselfBarbara Ehrenreich, TomDispatch: "Fifty years later, a new discovery of poverty is long overdue. This time, we'll have to take account not only of stereotypical Skid Row residents and Appalachians, but of foreclosed-upon suburbanites, laid-off tech workers, and America's ever-growing army of the working poor. And if we look closely enough, we'll have to conclude that poverty is not, after all, a cultural aberration or a character flaw. Poverty is a shortage of money." Read the Article Nomi Prins Responds to Greg Smith's Goldman Resignation Nomi Prins, Nomi Prins' Blog: "Today, I have received dozens of media requests and hundreds of emails regarding former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith's gutsy, and internationally resonating, public resignation. I applaud Smith's decision to bring the nature of Goldman's profit-making strategies to the forefront of the global population's discourse, as so many others have been doing through books, investigative journalism, and the Occupy movements over the past decade since my book, Other People's Money, was written after I resigned from Goldman." Read the Article Karzai Calls on US to Pull Back as Taliban Cancel Talks Rod Nordland and Matthew Rosenberg, Truthout: "Prospects for an orderly withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan suffered two blows on Thursday as President Hamid Karzai demanded that the United States confine troops to major bases by next year, and the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans." Read the Article Truthout Interview With Marjorie Cohn: The United States Has Been Enabling Torture for Decades Mark Karlin, Truthout: "Marjorie Cohn - a law professor and past president of the National Lawyer's Guild - has assembled a compelling interdisciplinary anthology on the 'normalization' of torture as an extension of American foreign policy. This is not a new occurrence limited to the so-called 'war on terror,' but extends back decades." Read the Article Who Do You Want to Oversee Medicare? Dina Rasor, Truthout: "Once again, like the Department of Defense and the Treasury Department, a major industry person from a company that massively defrauded the government has made their way into the oversight and reform of one of our most important government programs. Political expediency rather than good governance seems to be the winning rule in this current divided government." Read the Article On the News With Thom Hartmann: UN to Weigh In on American Voter ID Laws, and More In today's On the News segment: Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for all NATO troops to be pulled out of rural areas, United Nations will weigh in on American voter ID laws, the crusade against gays and lesbians in Uganda has ties to the United States, Republicans have lost the Hispanic vote, and more. Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Sen. Barbara Boxer Claims Success With Bipartisan Transportation Bill Michael Doyle, McClatchy Newspapers: "The Senate's approval Wednesday of a two-year, $109 billion transportation bill gives Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer a prize that has sometimes eluded her: a newly polished reputation for legislative deal-making. Politically and technically complex, the 632-page bill had to overcome numerous ambushes, obstacles and slippery surfaces. Its approval was not a foregone conclusion, despite the appearance of the 74-22 final vote Wednesday." Read the Article Women Figure Anew in Senate's Latest Battle Jonathan Weisman, The New York Times News Service: "With emotions still raw from the fight over President Obama's contraception mandate, Senate Democrats are beginning a push to renew the Violence Against Women Act, the once broadly bipartisan 1994 legislation that now faces fierce opposition from conservatives." Read the Article Maurice Ulrich | Storming the Bastille Maurice Ulrich, l'Humanite: "Last week, when the Front de gauche passed the symbolic hurdle of 10 percent in polls for first round of the presidential election, it was clearly understood to be a turning point. Another poll revealed, in passing, that, for nearly half of those polled, Jean-Luc Melenchon was the candidate with the most dynamic campaign. A 'breakthrough,' for the news service Agence France press." Read the Article Paul Krugman | US Auto Industry Is Much More Than the Sum of Its Parts Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "Brian Palmer, a contributor to Slate, has a nice summary of the reasons behind the concentration of car companies in Michigan; basically, historical accident perpetuated by agglomeration economies." Read the Article Reid Forces McConnell to Compromise on Judges Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress: "As ThinkProgress previously reported, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed seventeen petitions to break Senate Republican filibusters on as many judges earlier this week. Initially, McConnell reacted to these petitions with an increasingly implausible list of reasons why the Senate could not vote on these nominees right away, before finally admitting that he was opposing the nominees because Reid made Senate Republicans 'look bad' by pointing out their obstructionism." Read the Article Infiltration of Political Movements Is the Norm, Not the Exception in the United States Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Occupy Washington, DC: "When the long history of political infiltration is reviewed, the Occupy Movement should be surprised if it is not infiltrated. Almost every movement in modern history has been infiltrated by police and others using many of the same tactics we are now seeing in Occupy." Read the Article As Obama Picks Up Union Endorsements, a Debate on Labor's Role in 2012 Campaign (Video) Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW!: "We host a debate on Big Labor's endorsement of President Obama's re-election between labor reporter Mike Elk and Arthur Cheliotes, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1180, a union that has pledged support of President Obama. This week the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor organization, endorsed Obama following earlier statements of support from several unions, including the Service Employees International Union; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the American Federation of Teachers; and the Communications Workers of America." Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Click here for more Truthout articles
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "As more than 140 sponsors have fled the Rush Limbaugh show, Rushbo is determined to put his game face on.... The most recent blow was the defection of the US Army (which brings home the question of why our tax dollars were going into Limbaugh's pockets via military advertising in the first place? Note: US Armed Forces Radio is still airing the Limbaugh show to GIs around the world, though.) " Read the BuzzFlash Commentary After Resignation Op-Ed, Goldman Sachs Loses $2.2 Billion in Stock Value in One Day Death in Afghanistan: The Spiritual Cancer of PTSD Is Spreading The Purpose of Occupy Wall Street Is to Occupy Wall Street GOP: Old, White and in Trouble, Poll Says Scott Walker Sets Up Legal Defense Fund In Michigan, a Long List of Bills Attacking Reproductive Freedom Talking Back to Rush Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines
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