Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery.  Thursday 19 July 2012 William Rivers Pitt | Mitt's Kampaign Klown KarWilliam Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "When run through the Universal Republican Bullshit Translation Device I built in my basement, that plaintive cry becomes, 'McCain vetted me for the VP slot in 2008, saw my financials, and went with Palin instead ... my tax records would be lethal to my campaign, and I am terrified of releasing them ... Obama is being mean to me ... O God, I hope my ill-advised blurt about Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax returns doesn't inspire anyone to ask about my wife Ann's returns ... c'mon, America, I'm the white guy in the race, this was supposed to be easier ...'" Read the Article Mexican Student Movement Confronts Vote Buying and Media Bias in Wake of Contested Election Results Andrew Kennis, Truthout: "Angelina García Acevedo did not tell a living soul who she was voting for before Mexico's controversial presidential election. But like well over one million others across the country, she received a prepaid debit card valid for purchases at the national grocery chain Soriana in exchange for her vote." Read the Article Three Ploys the Department of Defense Uses When Their Budget Is at Risk Dina Rasor, Truthout: "Lockheed and other companies continue to make threats on jobs and affect the election by sending out pink slips right before the election. These companies claim that they have to send out these pink slips right before the election according to the law - a charge that has been called bogus and a scare tactic. This could affect the election because areas with high defense jobs could be thrown to vote for the Republican candidates. This is especially true in Northern Virginia, especially the defense-job-laden Fairfax county, which is seen as crucial to winning the state." Read the Article The True Costs of Mass Incarceration Theresa Riley, Moyers & Company: "One of the Supreme Court rulings you may have missed in the din of its Affordable Care Act decision considered the constitutionality of mandatory sentencing to life in prison without parole for minors. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the majority, determined that 'requiring that all children convicted of homicide receive lifetime incarceration without possibility of parole, regardless of their age and age-related characteristics and the nature of their crimes' is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment." Read the Article Occupy National Gathering: Perspectives on Police Zachary Bell, Zacharyabell.com: "In the era of Occupy-evicted, the movement has emphasized national reunions to stay connected, such as the anti-NATO protests in Chicago, for which Occupiers were bused in from around the country. This nationalization process culminated in the Occupy National Gathering, June 30-July 4 in Philadelphia. Three Occupy Caravans traveled across the country in the three weeks leading up to 'NatGat,' bearing activists from San Diego, Tucson, Wichita, Atlanta, Boston, and many other cities. Roughly 1,000 Occupiers attended the gathering's marches, workshops (with speakers like Chris Hedges and organizer Lisa Fithian), and theatrical protest (like a 99 Percent versus Tax Dodgers baseball game). The event concluded with the daylong production of a Vision for a Democratic Future, listing the attributes of a society that those at NatGat wanted to see." Watch the Video and Read the Article Total System Change: A Real-Life Look at Regional Governance and Public Ownership Gar Alperovitz, Democracy Collaborative Press: "The various institutions, from co-ops to land trusts, and including municipal enterprise and state investing, all also challenge dominant ideologies which hold that private corporate enterprise offers the only possible way forward; and they help open new ways of conceptualizing practical approaches to meaningful larger scale democratization. Ultimately the steady illumination of this principle has important political implications both locally and nationally. New wealth-building forms may also contribute directly to building progressive political power." Read the Article Second Judge Finds Wisconsin's Voter ID Law Unconstitutional Brendan Fischer, PR Watch: "A Wisconsin judge has found that the state's American Legislative Exchange Council-inspired voter ID restriction imposes an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, writing that the law 'tells more than 300,000 Wisconsin voters who do not now have an acceptable form of photo identification that they cannot vote unless they first obtain a photo ID card.'" Read the Article On the News With Thom Hartmann: A Half-Million Eligible Voters Will Find It Virtually Impossible to Get the Necessary ID to Be Able to Vote in November, and More In today's On the News segment: A new study reveals just how damaging Republican-backed voter suppression ID laws will be to hundreds of thousands of Americans, the worst drought in more than fifty years and scorching hot weather are killing agriculture crops and pushing food prices to record highs, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defended his 2010 Citizens United decision in an interview on Wednesday, and more. Watch the Video and Read the Transcript Military Industry Descends on Capitol Hill to Fight for Their Perceived Right to Profit Robert Greenwald and John Amick, Brave New Foundation: "The US House of Representatives is scheduled to address the 2013 Defense Appropriations bill beginning Wednesday, which will go a long way in framing the later debate on automatic cuts to defense set to happen on January 2, 2013. The 'sequester' was set into law - via the Budget Control Act - last year in an effort to compel Congress to reach a deficit-reduction plan. The automatic cuts would take the Pentagon's requested FY 2013 budget of $526 billion to $469 billion, reducing Department of Defense spending by around $1 trillion over the next decade." Read the Article Guantanamo Judge's Rulings, Comments Favor Prosecution in USS Cole Bombing Case Eric Harris, The Public Record: "In the first of three days of military commissions this week at Guantanamo, Judge James Pohl made quick work of the defendant, accused terrorist Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri's motions. Al-Nashiri, waterboarded while detained at a CIA black site prison and, according to an investigation conducted by the CIA's inspector general, interrogated at the point of a gun and a power drill, is accused of orchestrating the attack of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 and faces a possible death sentence at trial." Read the Article The National Security Complex and You Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: "The official figure for documents classified by the U.S. government last year is - hold your hats on this one - 92,064,862. And as WikiLeaks managed to release hundreds of thousands of them online a couple of years ago, that's meant a bonanza of even more money for yet more rigorous protection. You have to feel at least some dollop of pity for protection bureaucrats like Fitzgerald." Read the Article Click here for more Truthout articles
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "Being even associated with the word felony sent the Romneys into high dudgeon, since they consider that they have double impunity: they are Mormons chosen by God and also endowed with the divine anointment of being extravagantly wealthy. This arrogance and sense of entitlement was on full display when Ann Romney, in an ABC morning show interview, went into full Marie Antoinette mode." Read the BuzzFlash Commentary Are Bachmann and Sununu Attacks Part of a New McCarthyism? Why You Should Be Frightened by Romney's Core Entitlement Values Krugman: California Represents the Worst of Current US Economic Crisis Shell Seeks to Weaken Air Rules for Arctic Drilling The HSBC Scandal Shows the Time for Politicians to Act on Bank Reform Is Now Romney's London Fundraisers Will Take Him to Heart of Scandal-Plagued Banking Industry Beyond Foxconn: More Dirt on the Factories Making Your iPhone Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines
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