Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery.  Thursday 03 May 2012 Department of Homeland Security Releases Another Batch of OWS Files to TruthoutJason Leopold, Mike Ludwig and Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) turned over another batch of documents to Truthout Monday morning in response to our wide-ranging Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request pertaining to the agency's role in monitoring the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest movement. We've just started to scrutinize the files and we intend to publish a series of reports later today highlighting our findings." Read the Article America's Top Prison Corporation: A Study in Predatory Capitalism and Cronyism Dina Rasor, Truthout: "This week, I will tackle the largest private prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and its unprecedented proposal to buy prisons from money-strapped states, as well as how CCA has gamed the system with trips through the revolving door, self-dealing and influence peddling. Just to set the stage as to how large the prison population is in the United States: our prison population is the highest in the world; one out of 100 US residents are in prison." Read the Article Seventy-Five Thousand People Demand Bank of America End Its Political Donations Zaid Jilani, Republic Report: "Bank of America will be holding its annual shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 9th. A group of shareholders led by Trillium Asset Management will be introducing a resolution calling on the megabank to cease all political donations, as these 'contributions can backfire on a corporation's reputation and bottom line.' For example, retail giant Target took a hit in the stock market for spending cash on anti-gay politicians." Read the Article The Department of Homeland Security Was Out of Bounds - for Two and a Half Hours J.A. Myerson, Truthout: "The latest installment in Truthout's FOIA of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) involvement in law enforcement's response to Occupy Wall Street (OWS) shows considerable coordination between various agencies regarding the December 12, 2011, West Coast-wide OWS protest aimed at shutting down seaports in Anchorage, Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, Portland, Houston, Seattle and Tacoma. A request from DHS's Network Operations Center (NOC) went out on December 6 to Customs and Border Patrol (CPB), the US Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)." Read the Article Noam Chomsky: Cartagena, Beyond the Secret Service Scandal Noam Chomsky, Truthout: "Though sidelined by the Secret Service scandal, last month's Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, was an event of considerable significance. There are three major reasons: Cuba, the drug war, and the isolation of the United States." Read the Article Koch-Funded Mackinac Center Brings Wisconsin Act 10 Provisions to ALEC Brendan Fischer, PR Watch: "With the recent publication of additional American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) documents, new questions are being raised about the source of certain provisions in Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's controversial collective bargaining legislation. Some of those provisions may be adopted by ALEC for introduction in other states." Read the Article Austerity, the Path to Prosperity? Alan Barber, Truthout: "When a country is experiencing economic weakness, deficit spending is one policy tool that can help boost the economy by spurring demand and saving or creating jobs. In fact, President Obama's stimulus package was effective in slowing the economy's free fall in 2009. The stimulus could have been larger - and thus, even more effective - but very few economists would argue that the stimulus did not create jobs and help stabilize the economy. Simply put, deficits aren't a problem in a downturn. On the contrary, deficits are a key part of jump-starting a recovery. Calls to reduce deficits by cutting spending and further reducing government revenue during difficult economic times will actually impede recovery." Read the Article Quebec Students Ignite the Popular Imagination Stefan Christoff, rabble.ca: "Despite repeated incidents of police brutality, strikingly hostile mainstream media coverage and a sustained refusal by the Quebec Liberal government to negotiate in good faith, popular support and energy toward the strike is growing. Beyond surveys, or poll numbers, the Quebec student strike is historic in nature, a sustained mass protest movement creating political space to debate not only rising tuition fees but also fundamental questions of social justice. A clear shift is occurring on the streets, as protests are now expanding to highlight environmental justice and the growing economic inequities in Quebec at a time of austerity-driven economics." Read the Article Across New York City, People Honor May Day (Part II) J.A. Myerson, Truthout: "May Day was a success by the account of everyone I spoke to. However, the people in power seem increasingly interested in responding not by addressing the dissidents' concerns, but by violently containing their activities. Stay tuned for news coming from the courts in the weeks and months ahead - if Occupy produces its first political prisoners, we will have reached a new chapter." Read the Article Paul Krugman | The Rise of Orwellian Economics Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "These past few years have been lean times in many respects - but they've been boom years for agonizingly dumb, pound-your-head-on-the-table economic fallacies. The latest fad - illustrated by a recent commentary article in The Wall Street Journal - is that expansionary monetary policy is a giveaway to banks and plutocrats generally. Indeed, that screed, titled 'How the Fed Favors the 1 Percent' and written by the hedge-fund founder Mark Spitznagel, actually claims that the whole 1 versus 99 thing should really be about reining in or maybe abolishing the Federal Reserve." Read the Article CUNY Brooklyn College Students Roughed Up by Police for Demanding Fairer Treatment Sarah Jaffe, AlterNet: "Every gate at the City University of New York's Brooklyn College had doubled security - no one was getting in without a student ID. That and the rain might have dampened turnout for a mass student day of action calling for increased access to higher education and supported by the likes of Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, but it didn't dampen the spirits of the student activists who rallied on the quad and then marched into Boylan Hall, chanting, '1, 2, 3, 4, tuition fees are class war! 5, 6, 7, 8, students will retaliate.'" Read the Article Bored With Occupy - and Inequality John Knefel, FAIR: "Occupy Wall Street is rightly credited with helping to shift the economic debate in America from a fixation on deficits to issues of income inequality, corporate greed and the centralization of wealth among the richest 1 percent. The movement has chalked up other victories as well, from altering New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's tax plan to re-energizing activists and unions, but bringing some discussion of class into the mainstream dialogue has been one of its crowning achievements." Read the Article On the News With Thom Hartmann: Big Corporate Money Is Heating Up in Wisconsin, and More In today's On the News segment: Battle between grassroots organizing and big corporate funding heats up in Wisconsin, new study from the Commonwealth Fund shows why the nation needs comprehensive health reform, the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that former Bush legal adviser John Yoo can't be sued by victims of torture, and more. Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Bill McKibben | Too Hot Not to Notice? Bill McKibben, TomDispatch: "New data released last month by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities show that a lot of Americans are growing far more concerned about climate change, precisely because they're drawing the links between freaky weather, a climate kicked off-kilter by a fossil-fuel guzzling civilization, and their own lives. After a year with a record number of multi-billion dollar weather disasters, seven in ten Americans now believe that 'global warming is affecting the weather.'" Read the Article Rupert Murdoch in "Unprecedented Firestorm" as UK Panel Finds Him Unfit to Run Global Media Empire (Video) Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW!: "A British parliamentary report has issued a scathing report that finds Rupert Murdoch is 'not a fit person' to run a major international media company because of how News Corp. handled its phone-hacking scandal. The Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport said Murdoch and his son, James, showed 'willful blindness' about the scale of phone hacking at the News of the World tabloid. The panel's finding has prompted a U.S. watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, to call on the Federal Communications Commission to revoke News Corp.'s 27 Fox broadcast licenses in the United States." Watch the Video Click here for more Truthout articles
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "Despite the vast lobbying force arrayed against the legalization of marijuana (as detailed in an article recently posted on Truthout.org), the days of wasting resources arresting and imprisoning pot smokers are numbered. That's because, with each new generation, America has a higher and higher percentage of citizens who have smoked or who are smoking marijuana. It's just a matter of time and numbers." Read the BuzzFlash Commentary Water Guns Banned, Handguns Allowed at GOP Convention Taking on the Banks and Preserving an Independent Occupy Movement "Don't Say Gay" Bill Prompts GOP Lawmaker to Come Out Federal Judge Threatens Sanctions Against Oakland Police for "Military-Type Response" to Occupy Protests Right-Wing Multi-Billionaire Is Out to Frack Your World Ron Paul's Delegate Antics Could Spell Trouble for GOP Convention Walmart to Pay More Than $4.8 Million in Back Wages for Overtime Wage Theft Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines
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