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Friday 13 April 2012

Michael Winship and Bill Moyers | The Rich Are Different From You and Me - They Pay Fewer Taxes
Michael Winship and Bill Moyers, Truthout: "So, what do these big moneyed nabobs have to complain about? Why are they whining about reform? And why are they funneling cash to super PACs aimed at bringing down Barack Obama, who many of them supported four years ago? Because, writes Alec MacGillis in The New Republic - the president wants to raise their taxes. That's right - while ordinary Americans are taxed at a top rate of 35 percent on their income, Congress allows hedge fund and private equity tycoons to pay only 15 percent of their compensation."
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Eight Major Corporations Divest From ALEC
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "ALEC's claim to be working toward, 'a more transparent, accountable government' is also at odds with how the council function in reality, says Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorofChange. 'I think that the reason why ALEC has been so successful is because it does its work behind the scenes; it's not really a public-facing company,' said Robinson. 'To the extent that these companies benefit from having a relationship with a behind-the-scenes vehicle, it's important that corporations that want to associate are no longer able to do it behind the scenes'."
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Save Our Clinics: Chicago Activists Occupy to Save Mental Health Services
Joe Macare, Truthout: "In the latest of a series of small but powerful overnight occupations, activists in Chicago barricaded themselves inside Woodlawn Clinic in the Englewood neighborhood late on Thursday afternoon in protest at its closure along with five other mental health clinics. The closures are part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's 2012 budget, and will cut the number of mental health clinics in the city by half."
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Bill Ayers on the Coming Revolution
Karen Rybold Chin, Truthout: "I'd interviewed Bill Ayers many times over several years, mostly about public education policy and school and classroom reform. When Bill came to Madison in early fall 2011, Occupy was just beginning, and the seizure of the Wisconsin Capitol still lay ahead. We met in the album archive room of WORT Community Radio, and I asked Bill to reflect a bit about 'revolution'."
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War on Iran: America's Next Catastrophe in the Middle East?
Emanuel Stoakes, Truthout: "Little has been said about how a war with Iran - at present seemingly urged into near outbreak by Binyamin Netanyahu and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) - could be averted, with the Islamic Republic's nuclear program completely halted in 2003. We can thank the architects of the Iraq war for rejecting this wasted opportunity ... Also underreported have been statements made by former senior figures at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) alleging 'pro-western bias, over-reliance on unverified intelligence' at the organization."
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Vermont Senate Resolves to Abolish "Corporate Personhood"
David Swanson, War Is A Crime: "The Vermont State Senate voted today calling for an amendment to the Constitution that would make clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech and can be regulated in political campaigns. The vote was 26-3. State Senator Virginia Lyons spearheaded the effort, working with Move to Amend in 2011 to introduce a resolution that came back this year."
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Fracking in Los Angeles? Test Wells at Urban Oil Field Spark Water Worries
Ngoc Nguyen, InsideClimate News: "But PXP wasn't fracking in the much-touted Marcellus Shale on the East Coast, where much of the controversy over fracking has centered. It was fracking two test wells in urban Los Angeles, where 300,000 people live within a three-mile radius. The drilling was done less than a year after community and environmental groups reached a settlement with PXP, after complaining for years about pollution from the site."
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Military Judge Hears Arguments Over Constitutionality of Charges Against USS Cole Bomber
Nicholas Stratton, Truthout: "In the military commission hearing of Abd al-Rahim Hussayn Muhammad al-Nashiri, there waits a potential death sentence. Al-Nashiri is the alleged al-Qaeda operative said to be responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000. He is also one of fourteen high-value detainees currently being held in the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay."
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The Story of Mario, a Tijuana Cop
David Bacon, Truthout: "Mario had been a policeman for 21 years the last time we drove through downtown together. He was a member of the Grupo Beta, and says, when he started, he believed that those crossing the border without papers were just criminals. 'I thought they deserved to be caught and punished because they were breaking the law,' he says. 'But after a while, I began to understand that immigration and undocumented people exist in many countries - that it's a global phenomenon. After that, I began to look at myself as their protector, rather than as their enemy'."
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In Cash Push, Two Campaigns Likely to Reject Public Funds
Nicholas Confessore, The New York Times News Service: "Aides and leading donors to Mitt Romney are preparing a major expansion of the campaign's fund-raising efforts to prepare for a general election contest against President Obama, with the goal of raising up to $600 million, according to several people involved in the discussions. Republican-leaning outside groups and Democratic-leaning unions are planning to spend hundreds of millions more. And Mr. Obama, who raised $750 million in 2008, is likely to meet or exceed that this year."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Court Rules in Favor of Allowing Political Ads on Public Television, and More
In today's On the News segment: Multinational firms' tax loopholes are hurting small businesses, freak wildfires are resulting from our unseasonably warm spring weather, Pakistan demands end to US drone strikes, and more.
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Jim Hightower | GOP Presidential Contenders' Goofy Greed
Jim Hightower, Creators Syndicate: "But who needs actual voters to be a presidential player these days? Gingrich's entire campaign consists of six men: Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas of the Supreme Court, and Sheldon Adelson of the Sands Casino empire in Las Vegas. The five Supremes are the ones who unleashed the plague of democracy-destroying corporate cash on our elections, and Adelson is the multibillionaire Republican extremist who has taken rich advantage of the Court's 2010 ruling and foisted Newt upon us."
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Millions Against Monsanto: The Food Fight of Our Lives
Ronnie Cummins, AlterNet: "For nearly two decades, Monsanto and corporate agribusiness have exercised near-dictatorial control over American agriculture, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and regulatory agencies, supermarket chains, giant food processors, and the so-called 'natural' products industry. Finally, public opinion around the biotech industry's contamination of our food supply and destruction of our environment has reached the tipping point. We're fighting back."
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AFL-CIO President Trumka "Personally Outraged" by Obama-Backed JOBS Act
Mike Elk, In These Times: "'President Trumka is personally outraged by the JOBS Act and the implication that this administration thinks that it's going to be good for the country to re-inflate a stock market bubble,' a top AFL-CIO official told In These Times Monday night, speaking only on condition of anonymity. Developed by the Jobs Council ... the JOBS Act would rollback many of the measures enacted to protect investors and stockholders in the wake of the dot-com bubble and Enron scandal."
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Patients Rarely Considered in Press Coverage of Medicare
Amy Poe, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: "Lack of press scrutiny during the scramble for a payroll tax compromise meant typical Medicare users learned nothing about billions of dollars in program reductions slipped into the package bill to pacify deficit hawks. The reductions offset the cost of shielding Medicare physicians from an automatic 27 percent pay cut this year - and they mean those doctors' neediest patients could find it harder to get co-payment debts forgiven, or be treated at some hospitals."
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It's Perfectly Legal for Drug Companies to Profit From Addiction
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "In Washington State, Sen. Adam Kline (D-Seattle) is trying to hold Big Pharma accountable by imposing a drug company fee for helping to safely dispose of excess medications and narcotics. Kline bluntly told Truthout that the reasons Big Pharma gives for opposing the bill are 'bullshit.'"
Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Does Mitt Romney Support the Violence Against Women Act?
Read the Article at ThinkProgress

How Freedom of Speech Is Abused by Fanatics
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Yes, Virginia, This Is Obama's JOBS Act
Read the Article at Rolling Stone

The Man the State Department Wants Silenced
Read the Article at Salon

Barney Frank Unloads on the "Great Scam" of Paul Ryan
Read the Article at Talking Points Memo

Thawing Permafrost Wreaks Havoc in the Arctic
Read the Article at Care2

Kucinich Still Mulling Congressional Run From Washington State
Read the Article at King 5 Television

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