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SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 2019
Trump May Want to Be President Forever. Take the Threat Seriously.
WILLIAM RIVERS PITT, TRUTHOUT
At the tag end of the Michael Cohen hearing, when the windbags were all aired out and the reporters were framing the lede, the star witness leaned into his microphone and dropped a dollar's worth of doom. "Given my experience working for Mr. Trump," said Cohen, "I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power." That woke me right up.
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Brazil Dam Collapse Is a Human Rights Disaster and Crime
CAITLIN SCHROERING, TRUTHOUT
The Brumadinho dam collapse earlier this year, which claimed the lives of hundreds, was, like the Samarco dam catastrophe of 2015, no accident but an example of what extreme capitalism and privatization has come to mean in Brazil. We can expect such crises to only get worse under the country's far right and anti-Indigenous president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has promised to further deregulate Brazil's extractive industries.
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When It Comes to Climate Change, Centrism Is Not the Answer
SAMANTHA BOREK, TRUTHOUT
John Feffer's Splinterlands series is an alarming, fictional account of impending ecological collapse and political fragmentation. In this interview, Feffer discusses our current climate disaster, and how his newest installment Frostlands depicts a catastrophic future ruled by corporations after the global order has long disintegrated.
Read the Interview →
Sanders Says Paycheck-to-Paycheck Youth Prepped Him for Revolution
JESSICA CORBETT, COMMON DREAMS
Bolstered by recollections from his youth, Sen. Bernie Sanders kicked off the first rally of his 2020 presidential campaign on Saturday at Brooklyn College, where he described how his childhood in New York City shaped his politics. Sanders also spoke of his desire to "transform this country" with the help of his supporters, and called for Medicare for All, ending wars abroad and transitioning away from fossil fuels.
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Lobbyists Behind Trump-Saudi Arabia Nuclear Deal Under House Investigation
RAYMOND ARKE, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform announced last week it would be probing Trump administration allies and their push to have the U.S. government share nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia. Whistleblowers to the House committee were concerned that the plans, and administration officials' links to them -- including former national security advisor Michael Flynn -- would violate U.S. law.
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Strike Wave Wins Raises for Mexican Factory Workers
PAOLO MARINARO AND DAN DIMAGGIO, LABOR NOTES
Mexican maquiladora workers in 70 factories have won big wage increases and bonuses in a strike wave that began in January. Strikes of thousands of workers in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, have primarily hit auto parts factories. Meanwhile, the López Obrador administration has promised to reform Mexican labor law to strengthen workers' rights to choose their union representatives and vote on contracts.
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What States Can Do to Reduce Poverty and Inequality Through Tax Policy
SARAH ANDERSON AND CHUCK COLLINS, INEQUALITY.ORG
States have an opportunity to act to close the loopholes that hide and protect the wealth of the top 1%, remedy the impact of the new federal tax law that lowers taxes on the wealthy, and make critical investments in infrastructure, energy systems, and programs that create broader opportunity and shared prosperity. Here is a menu of some of the most promising options.
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How Gates Foundation's Push for "High-Quality" Curriculum Will Stifle Teaching
NICHOLAS TAMPIO, THE CONVERSATION
A new initiative by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aims to advance the Common Core by getting schools to adopt "high-quality" curricula. But getting schools to use ready-made lesson plans under the guise of "high-quality" curricula will reduce teacher autonomy. Research has shown increased autonomy can lead to a sense of empowerment and make teachers more satisfied with their jobs.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Petrochemical Giants Are Slowly Killing Black Louisiana Communities
MIKE LUDWIG, TRUTHOUT
Activists in rural Louisiana are fighting a Taiwanese company's proposal to build a massive plastics plant in a region where Black communities have long struggled with environmental racism due to encroachment by the petrochemical industry. The latest struggle in an area known to activists and environmentalists as "Cancer Alley" could thrust a small community that traces its roots to freed slaves into the global debate over fossil fuels.
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Decriminalizing Sex Work Is a Matter of Survival
JORDAN N. DELOACH, TRUTHOUT
Criminalizing sex work is a dangerous practice that exposes poor, trans people of color to police brutality and deepens inequality. Yet it is sustained by views that equate sex work with trafficking and ignore sex workers' rights. This is why D.C.'s decriminalization bill could be a momentous victory for gender and racial justice as it would center the needs of people working in the industry.
Read the Article →
for complete stories checkout http://www.truth-out.org
The Duty to Disobey Unlawful Orders
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) requires that all military personnel obey lawful orders. Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice says, “A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States….” Both the Nuremberg Principles and the Army Field Manuals create a duty to disobey unlawful orders.
“Sending troops to the US border with Mexico is as immoral and illegal as sending them to invade and occupy foreign lands,” Gerry Condon, president of Veterans For Peace, told Truthout. “Donald Trump is carrying out a racist war against asylum seekers who are fleeing extreme violence, which in turn is caused by decades of US support for repressive regimes in Central America.”
Members of Veterans For Peace are fanning out along the US/Mexico border from California to Texas in order to reach out to the troops that Trump has ordered to the border.
Condon added, “Soldiers who follow their conscience and refuse to follow illegal orders will have our support. We can also put GIs in contact with legal resources to help them get honorably discharged from the military.”
see more:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-military-deployment-to-the-u-s-mexico-border-igals-ille/
This is what we’ve waited for
This is it, boys, this is war
The president is on the line
As ninety-nine red balloons go by …
— Nena, “99 Luftballons”
"That is the election in a nutshell, an amalgam of joy and sorrow. It is inspiring for what did happen and utterly galling for what might have been. Democrats handily won control of the House but lost ground in the Senate, a harrowing fact when one notes that Democratic Senate candidates collectively got 10 million more votes than their Republican opponents. Power in the Senate is further devolving to a hard-right Republican majority who only represent about 18 percent of the country. Nothing good comes from this."
Rest of Story https://truthout.org/articles/at-long-last-donald-trump-knows-true-fear/
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Monday, March 05, 2018 By Sue Sturgis, Facing South | News Analysis
Two Native American tribes in North Carolina are among the groups seeking to join a court challenge to federal regulators' decision to approve the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a $5 billion project proposed by utility giants Dominion and Duke Energy. The 600-mile pipeline would carry fracked gas from West Virginia through Virginia to eastern North Carolina, which is home to many Native Americans.
On Feb. 23, the state-recognized Haliwa-Saponi and Lumbee tribes along with 17 public-interest groups led by climate watchdog NC WARN formally asked to join an appeal of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) approval of the pipeline issued last fall. The appeal was originally filed in January with the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates on behalf of 11 conservation nonprofits.
The tribes' move came one day after the Lumbee Tribal Council held an emergency meeting where it unanimously passed a resolution calling on FERC to formally consult with it about the pipeline's impacts.
"North Carolina tribes have been left out of the Environmental Impact Study," said Jan Lowery, chair of the Lumbee Tribe's Health Committee. "The study did not include the concerns of tribes, and the goal is to get a structured consultation."
The Lumbees' resolution noted the tribe's concerns about how the pipeline could affect unmarked ancestral burial grounds, sacred places, and the environment. It also pointed out that the National Congress of American Indians -- the oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaskan Native tribal governments -- passed a resolution calling on all regulatory agencies to engage in meaningful consultation with the Indian tribal nations that would be affected by the proposed pipeline's construction and operation.
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would pass through the territories of four tribes in North Carolina. In addition to the Lumbee and Haliwa-Saponi, Coharie and Meherrin communities would also be affected. In a letter that appeared last year in Science magazine, NC State University professor Ryan Emanuel documented the flaws in FERC's environmental justice analysis that obscured the disproportionate impact the project would have on Native Americans:
The nearly 30,000 Native Americans who live within [1 mile] of the proposed pipeline make up 13.2% of the impacted population in North Carolina, where only 1.2% of the people is Native American. Yet, the [draft environmental impact statement] reported that fewer than half of the areas along the proposed route had minority populations higher than county-level baseline proportions. The discrepancy stems from the DEIS's failure to account for large differences in population size in the studied areas; large minority populations in some places were masked by much smaller nonminority populations elsewhere. The analysis also failed to account for large differences in baseline demographics among counties, where minority populations range from less than 1% to nearly 70%. These large differences prevented meaningful comparisons among areas in different counties. Together, these flaws rendered FERC's analysis incapable of detecting large Native American populations along the route, leading to false conclusions about the project's impacts.
Similar concerns that FERC's environmental assessment ignored Native Americans were raised in recent years over the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners that carries crude shale oil from North Dakota to Illinois, and sparked mass protests near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. While the Obama administration halted construction in order to prepare a more comprehensive environmental assessment, the Trump administration reversed that decision. The pipeline began operating commercially last June.
Atlantic Coast Pipeline opponents are shifting their focus back to the federal government following North Carolina's January decision to grant a water quality permit to the project. That decision is mired in controversy because a $58 million mitigation fund financed by the pipeline's developers was announced the same day the permit was granted. Republicans state lawmakers and some pipeline opponents have accused Gov. Roy Cooper (D) -- who recently hired as his legislative director a former lobbyist for Dominion and the American Petroleum Institute -- of engaging in quid-pro-quo politics with the fund's creation.
Many of the groups seeking to join the lawsuit at the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals are part of an alliance that filed a rehearing request with FERC following the agency's October approval of the project. The request said FERC made a mockery of the legal process by allowing Dominion and Duke to supplement their application numerous times after the comment period ended, leaving the public with no avenue to respond to the companies' claims.
In addition, the groups' request charged FERC with cutting corners on assessing the need for the pipeline, its cumulative health impacts, and environmental justice implications. The pipeline will also have a disproportionate effect on African-American communities in eastern North Carolina, as was documented in a 2017 report by the NAACP and Clean Air Task Force.
Furthermore, the request pointed to FERC's failure to consider the pipeline's climate effects. Pipelines are a major source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas pollutant. The agency's neglect to consider the climate when evaluating pipeline proposals is in the spotlight following a federal court's ruling last year that has put construction of the Sabal Trail Pipeline in Florida -- another project involving Duke Energy -- in question.
But rather than grant or deny the request for a rehearing within the allotted 30 days, FERC issued what's known as a "tolling order," which allows it to delay the decision indefinitely while construction is allowed to proceed.
"FERC has this habit of just delaying stuff," said John Runkle, an attorney for NC WARN who filed the rehearing request as well as the motion to intervene in the federal lawsuit. "We want to make sure we will be heard."
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Sue is editorial director at the Institute for Southern Studies, which she joined in November 2005 as director of the Institute's Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, a project to document and investigate the post-Katrina recovery. A former staff writer for the Raleigh News & Observer and Independent Weekly (Durham, North Carolina), Sue directs and regularly contributes to the Institute's online magazine, Facing South, with a focus on energy and environmental issues. Sue is the author or coauthor of five Institute reports, including "Faith in the Gulf" (August/September 2008), "Hurricane Katrina and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement" (January 2008) and "Blueprint for Gulf Renewal" (August/September 2007). Sue holds a master's degree in journalism from New York University.
Indigenous Peoples Are Fighting to Save the Earth for All of Us
By Pamela Jacquelin-Andersen, IC Magazine | News Analysis
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
By Juan González, Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
In the Midst of Worldwide Water Scarcity, an Artist Reminds Us, "We Are Water"
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: As anthropogenic climate disruption and human development progress, rivers are drying up and water scarcity has become the new norm. In this interview, author, poet, sculptor and installation artist Basia Irland, whose work and activism eloquently weave together the critical threads of conservation and education, speaks of her reverence for water and its role on Earth.
Read the Article
The Arctic Is Melting Down as the Antarctic Food Chain Is Breaking
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: Arctic sea ice levels are at record lows for this time of year, northern Greenland saw temperatures 63 degrees Fahrenheit above average for February, and the Antarctic food chain is vanishing. While these off-the-chart climate disruptions have scientists aghast, Trump, who never lets facts stand in his way, is seeking massive cuts to the US's climate research infrastructure in his budget proposal.
Arming Teachers, Killing Education: Why Trump's Proposal Has Nothing to Do With Safety
Benjamin Balthaser, Truthout: Arming teachers will do very little to stop the epidemic of school shootings in the US, but will do a great deal to change the teacher-student relationship and end the progressive role of education and educators. The right does not imagine teachers wielding weapons so much as weapons remaking teachers into violent representatives of the state with the legal right to take someone's life.
Trump's Budget: Fiddling as Capitalism Burns
Richard Wolff, Truthout: The Trump/GOP budget marks another step in shifting the costs of capitalism's insatiable drive for profit onto the working poor, following four decades of growing inequality with measures that will exacerbate that inequality. But where is the large-scale attack against this unjust budget? Why aren't the Democrats, the self-proclaimed friends of working people, stepping up?
From Coal Miners to Teachers: West Virginia Continues to Lead Radical Labor Struggle in the US
Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy Now!: For decades, West Virginia has been at the forefront of labor activism in the United States. As the state's teachers continue their historic strike, which has shut down every single West Virginia school, we look at the history of labor activism in the Mountain State.
Watch the Video and Read the Transcript
Mueller Is Going After Documents From Trump and Nine Named Campaign Associates
Staff, AlterNet: Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation appears to be zeroing in on President Donald Trump. New details have leaked about a subpoena requesting wide-ranging information about the president and his associates going back to 2015.
The Leaked Rule That Could Ban Immigrants Based on Income, Explained by Experts
Rebecca Vallas, TalkPoverty.org: In February, leaked documents revealed that the Trump administration is preparing new rules that would effectively end the United States' family-based immigration system. If implemented, the regulation would prevent low-income and working-class immigrants from entering the country by denying legal status to those considered "likely" to become a so-called "public charge."
Why Is the FDA Banning Kratom?
Coco Smyth, Socialist Worker: The Food and Drug Administration's dangerously unscientific decision to classify the herb Kratom as an opioid will do nothing whatsoever to stop the US's opioid crisis. The danger today is not Kratom, but a social system that criminalizes the only means millions of people have to cope.
The False Case Against "Foreign-Born Terrorists"
Arnold R. Issacs, TomDispatch: The Trump administration has been promoting a dangerous cocktail of xenophobia and Islamophobia by making misleading comments about terrorism for the past year. In truth, homegrown fanatics have killed many more Americans on US soil than foreign-born terrorists have.
Atlantic Coast Pipeline Faces Native American Resistance
Sue Sturgis, Facing South: Two Native American tribes in North Carolina are among the groups seeking to join a court challenge to federal regulators' decision to approve the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a $5 billion project proposed by utility giants Dominion and Duke Energy.
The Lessons of Mass Incarceration for Child Welfare
Chris Gottlieb, Amsterdam News: The platinum anniversary of the most important shift in American child welfare policy in a generation just passed without notice or public discussion. The Adoption and Safe Families Act, touted during the Clinton administration as a victory for children, has instead put the US first in the world in the legal destruction of families.
Truthout Archives http://www.theportlandalliance.org/truthout/archive/index.html
Campaigns Promising the "Restoration" of the Middle Class Accept Poverty as Inevitable
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: A campaign promise to rebuild a "robust" middle class leaves an impoverished class below it.
Reverse Robin Hood: $6 Billion Businesses Preying on Poor People
Women of the Amazon Defend Their Homeland Against New Oil Contract on International Women's Day
Read the Article at Women's Earth and Climate Action Network
Supreme Court: Alabama Must Recognize Out-of-State Same-Sex Adoptions
Read the Article at RH Reality Check
The Electric Age: How the "Super Battery" Can Save Us From Mass Extinction
Living Behind Cardboard Walls in Orange County, California
Read the Article at Capital & Main
The Thirty-Year Economic Betrayal Dragging Down Generation Y's Income
Read the Article at the Guardian US
Veterans Urge Presidential Candidates to Say No to Militarism
Candice Bernd, Truthout: Republican presidential candidates have embraced Islamophobia and the use of torture (either subtly or overtly) as they call to expand the role of the US military. However, many veterans disagree with these positions, and they're holding candidates accountable on the campaign trail.
A New Strategy to Address Climate Change: Suing for Community Rights
Dana Drugmand, Truthout: The climate crisis cannot be fixed using traditional legal or political tools. Deeper, structural changes are necessary, such as a new system of political economy or a new legal framework based on the public trust doctrine, or both.
On Foreign Policy, Bernie Sanders Could Learn From UK's Jeremy Corbyn
Usaid Siddiqui, Truthout: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has a golden opportunity to shift the debate on many of the United States' dubious foreign and military relationships. On drone policy and Israel-Palestine, specifically, Sanders could learn a few things from UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
"Broken Promises": How Congressional Democrats Are Pushing the TPP to the Brink
Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, The District Sentinel: It is a lasting tribute to Washington's cynicism that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) might die, not because it is a bad deal for working families, but because it wouldn't grant rights to tobacco companies. The TPP has never been more in doubt than it is at this stage.
New Teflon Toxin Causes Cancer in Lab Animals
Sharon Lerner, The Intercept: The chemical introduced by DuPont in 2009 to replace the toxic surfactant PFOA causes many of the same health problems in lab tests that the original chemical did, including cancer and reproductive problems. However, the Environmental Protection Agency has not further evaluated these concerns.
Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org: Both candidates still standing in the Democratic Party primary race have proposed tax plans that would, if enacted, slow the top 1% wealth express. But the rates of slowdown the two candidates are proposing vary significantly.
Henry Giroux: Trump's Popularity Can Be Attributed to Culture of Fear, Racism and Hate
Dwight Drummond, CBC News Network: Henry Giroux explains that Donald Trump's popularity can, in part, be attributed to at least three issues. By feeding off widespread anger, Trump makes clear that he is, in exaggerated form, symptomatic of a larger problem, which is an assault on democracy itself.
Koch-ALEC Right-to-Work Power Play Exposed in a Small Illinois Village
Kim Haddow, PR Watch: How did a town with a population of 7,280 become a front line in the national fight to destroy unions? Because Lincolnshire, Illinois, is in the vanguard of the latest localized scheme to dismantle unions drawn directly from the Koch playbook.
In today's On the News segment: If Republicans have their way, soon it may be much harder for states to take on massive industries; China is waging a war on coal; in some areas, almost half of the insect pollinator species have disappeared; and more.
Watch the Video and Read the Transcript
Energy Wars of Attrition: The Irony of Oil Abundance
Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch: Just as the peak oil theorists failed to foresee crucial technological breakthroughs in the energy world and how they would affect fossil fuel production, the industry and its boosters failed to anticipate the impact of a gusher of additional oil and gas on energy prices.
Here's to Flint: An Unprecedented Look at the Battle for Clean Water in Flint From the ACLU
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: As voters head to the polls in four states today, with Michigan seen as the top prize, the ongoing Flint water crisis has become a major campaign issue for Democrats. A new film tells the inside story of how local residents, journalists and scientists organized to uncover the water contamination emergency.
Watch the Video and Read the Transcript
Bipartisan Bills and Civil Protests Mount Against Duke Energy's Obstructionism
Alex Kotch, DeSmogBlog: Duke Energy, the largest utility in the United States, has so far succeeded in keeping third-party solar illegal in North Carolina, but conservative and liberal factions alike are trying to change that, using different strategies.
Students Assert Their "Right to Dissent" in India
Bhavana Mahajan, Waging Nonviolence: A new era in public debate has dawned in India over the last few weeks, following the government's crackdown on students and universities across the country under the guise of protecting "nationalist sentiment."
State of the Union Reveals Obama's Failed Vision of "Hope and Change"
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: It has been grassroots advocates who have demanded transformative change through passionate, savvy and uncompromising actions, not members of the Obama administration.
These California Nuns Grow Medical Marijuana, but Their City Wants to Shut Them Down
Civil Disobedience Often Leads to Jail, but Now, Protesters Can Explain Themselves
Read the Article at the Guardian US
Prominent Evangelical Christian Leader Accused of Sexual Abuse and Harassment
Welfare Hypocrisy: Red States Are the Real Freeloaders
Watch the Ring of Fire Video at BuzzFlash
High-Tech Manufacturing's Disposable Workers
Read the Article at The Nation
More Than a Heckler: My Commitment to Fight for Liberation
Read the Article at The Advocate
Anti-Obama March Organizer Fatally Shoots Right-Wing Militant Buddy in Drunken Dispute Over Gun
Obama Counters GOP Pessimism With Hope and Hard Truth
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: By tradition, the opening aria of a president's State of the Union address always includes the line, "The state of our union is strong." President Obama saved that line for the end, a muted huzzah. This was not a pep rally in the common fashion. This was candor.
Mosquito-Borne Illness Fueled by Climate Change Linked to Spike in Birth Defects in Brazil
Brian Moench, Truthout: As the earth warms and grows more humid, virulent infectious diseases spread by insects are on the rise. Last year, more than 3,000 babies in Brazil were born with a congenital condition of the brain, which may be linked to a mosquito-borne illness called Zika.
FDA's Ban of Three Toxic Chemicals in Food Packaging Comes Too Late, Say Critics
Sharon Kelly, Earth Island Journal: The Food and Drug Administration has banned three chemicals from food packaging materials known to be associated with health risks. However, the chemical industry has already replaced the banned chemicals with new compounds that have received little scientific scrutiny.
An Alternative State of the Union: Progressives on Obama's Legacy and Their Hopes for His Final Year
Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy Now!: A panel of guests analyzes President Obama's last State of the Union address. "I think this message that President Obama came in with eight years ago around hope and change is a message that I think people are still looking for," says guest Alicia Garza, cofounder of Black Lives Matter. "How are we going to accomplish that?"
Watch the Video and Read the Transcript
The Rise of Shadow Banks and the Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act
Deena Zaidi, Truthout: While the total number of shadow banks decreased immediately after the 2008 financial crisis, their numbers have picked up in recent years. Unlike traditional commercial banks, shadow banks are unregulated and not subject to traditional banking regulations. Therein lies the risk.
Water Tanks Are a Way of Life in California Community During Drought
Joanna Lin and Emmanuel Martinez, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting: What began as an emergency response to California's four-year drought has become a way of life. Water tanks are now the primary source of water for more than 540 households in Tulare County, the epicenter of the drought.
Huge US Coal Company Declares Bankruptcy
Elizabeth Shogren, High Country News: One of the nation's largest coal companies, Arch Coal, filed for bankruptcy on Monday, making it the second company with large Western mines to seek Chapter 11 restructuring in recent months. Is this a harbinger of things to come for the fossil fuel industry as a whole?
SCOTUS v. Public Sector Unions and Sanders v. All GOP Opponents
Brad Friedman, TheBradBlog: New polls reveal Bernie Sanders far outpacing Hillary Clinton in head-to-head matchups against all potential Republican challengers, and constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser discusses the US Supreme Court case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association.
Read the Article and Listen to the Interview
Jeb Bush, Please Educate Yourself About Food Stamps
Robert Greenstein, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Presidential candidate Jeb Bush recently called for an end to food stamps. However, politicians who issue proposals in the area of poverty should make sure they have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the basic facts and research - especially on programs they propose to abolish.
The Blood of the Earth: Agriculture, Land Rights and Haitian History
Ricot Jean-Pierre and Beverly Bell, Other Worlds: January 12 marked the sixth anniversary of the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti. It is the inequitable control of land, however, that has devastated the vast majority of Haitians throughout history, from enslavement to today.
Worker Protests in Ciudad Juárez Shine Light on Workers' Rights Violations
Cathy Feingold, AFL-CIO Blog: Just across the border with Texas, workers in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, have been launching actions against global manufacturing giants to improve working conditions. In response to these actions, these companies have engaged in mass firings, targeting those who have engaged in union activity.
Why Is a Hedge Fund Acquiring a Nonprofit Hospital System? Not Out of Good Will
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: We might look at it as a hospital system; BlueMountain Capital Management fund might view it as a carcass.
Jim Hightower: Exxon's Weapons of Mass Confusion on Climate Change
Former Gitmo Detainee Alleges Torture, Rape Threats
This US Town Plans to Disconnect From the Grid and Go 100 Percent Renewable
Freddie Gray: Judge Declares Mistrial in Case Against Baltimore Police Officer
Read the Article at the Guardian US
Six Signs the NRA Is Losing Its Stranglehold on Gun Policy
Read the Article at Mother Jones
New York State Agrees to Reform Solitary Confinement in Prisons
Read the Article at The New York Times
There Is a New Form of Climate Denialism to Look Out For
Read the Article at the Guardian US
How Many Children Could You Kill? The GOP Debates in Brief
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: The Republican presidential candidates were in a Las Vegas casino last night for a twin-bill CNN debate slate that bent the fabric of morality into bold new shapes. A debate moderator sought to test a candidate's qualifications on the basis of how many children that candidate is willing to kill.
Corporate Media Ignore Economic Justice in the 2016 Election
The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: What really keeps most Americans up at night is money, or the lack of it. But you wouldn't know that from the corporate media's election coverage, particularly the scant attention they've given Bernie Sanders.
The Struggle for Hawaiian Education
Sarah Rosenblatt, Truthout: The movement for Hawaiian education is agitating for Native Hawaiian self-determination; for the Hawaiian language to be allowed in public schools; and for the creation of independent schools based on philosophies and politics of Hawaiian culture, land and resilience.
Global Populism Takes a Blow as a Neoliberal President Takes Office in Argentina
Michael Meurer, Truthout: For more than a decade, Argentina has been the largest economic power in the world holding out against financial capitalism. Now, the country has elected a multimillionaire businessman as president and is set to begin welcoming multinational corporate investors and banks.
Major Summit Could Put World's Poorest Inhabitants on Corporate Chopping Block
Deborah James, AlterNet: After 20 years of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) corporate model, and the massive displacement of farmers, increased inequality, financial crises and massive climate crises, civil society is clear: The current WTO cannot be allowed to continue in terms of business as usual.
Reinventing Banking: From Russia to Iceland to Ecuador
Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog: The catastrophic failures of the Western banking system mandate a new vision. Countries like Ecuador and Iceland are working to eliminate the risks that have devastated individuals and governments, to democratize money and to promote sustainable and prosperous economies.
The Market Has Spoken: Funders Flee "Free-Market" Climate Denial Group
Nick Surgey, PR Watch: Funding for climate change denial is drying up. The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a US climate change denial group that espouses the "free market," has lost more than two-thirds of its funding in the past two years.
Will Washington Greenlight Another Coup in Haiti?
Natalie Miller, Foreign Policy in Focus: Haitians voted on nearly 5,000 political positions, including the presidency, in October. However, a runoff vote is scheduled this month, and evidence of fraud has discredited the earlier election. Haiti could have yet another US-backed president with a weak democratic mandate.
Decolonizing Our Minds and Our Lands: Reviving Seeds, Culture and African Strength
Gathuru Mburu, Other Worlds: Recolonization is happening, not just in Africa, but across the global South. Agricultural corporations are leading the effort this time around. We need to battle this assault collectively. We first have to decolonize our minds because we are still carrying the shame of our ancestry. Unless we are able to shed this, our efforts are futile.
Democracy Is Being Dismantled Before Our Eyes: Bob Herbert on Sheldon Adelson-Backed GOP Debate
Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy Now!: Last night's debate was held in Las Vegas at the Venetian casino, owned by billionaire Republican backer Sheldon Adelson. Adelson and fellow billionaire Donald Trump held a private meeting before the event. The only thing debated last night, says former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, was how we can erode our democracy further.
Watch the Video and Read the Transcript
Tom Tomorrow, This Modern World: In the quantum Republican universe, the traditional laws of cause and effect no longer apply, and some inhabitants are able to construct entirely self-contained realities through the sheer power of their verbiage.
Candidates for 2015's "Hypocrite of the Year"
Illinois School District Reaches Decision to Allow Transgender Teen to Use Locker Room That Matches Her Gender Identity
Read the Article at RH Reality Check
Native Americans' Sovereignty Is at Risk, and the High Court Must Help Save It
Read the Article at the Guardian US
With Cunning, Fear of the "Other" and Pandering to Evangelicals, Cruz Is Moving to the Front of the GOP Clown Car
China Pollution: Beijing Issues First Red Smog Alert
What President Obama Didn't Address: Who's Funding the Hate Campaign Against Muslims?
Read the Article at Wall Street On Parade
Ronald Reagan Meets Donald Trump: The Great Communicator of Fabrications
Does the US Government Actually Regulate Pipelines?
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: A natural gas pipeline project in far west Texas is generating an emotionally charged grassroots resistance among ranchers, artists, environmentalists and residents. Yet the federal agency charged with overseeing potential environmental impacts has, technically, never blocked the construction of a proposed pipeline.
Critical Exposure: Cameras in Hand, Palestinian Women Document Daily Abuses
Michelle Chen, Truthout: Co-directors Emmy Scharlatt and Judith Montell discuss their documentary, In the Image, which features the work of Palestinian women who have been documenting routine human rights abuses by filming the actions of Israeli soldiers and civilians in the occupied West Bank.
The Fed Competes With Robots for Taking Our Jobs
Dean Baker, Truthout: While folks worry that at some point in the future, large segments of the workforce will be unemployed because technology has displaced them, the Federal Reserve Board is about to raise interest rates with the explicit purpose of keeping people from getting jobs.
What's in a Frame? The Perils of "Domestic Terrorism"
Kay Whitlock and Michael Bronski, Beacon Broadside: "Terrorism" and its handmaiden, "domestic terrorism," have been used against the very communities progressives seek to protect - to squelch justice movements that authorities find troublesome. With that frame, authorities don't look for racial, gender and economic justice; they look for terrorists.
COP21: A Rallying Cry - No Climate Justice Without Full Indigenous Rights
Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine: Indigenous peoples and their allies have been calling for policies that result in real emissions reductions by those who are creating the pollution, and rejecting approaches that undermine the livelihoods of the people who live in the world's most biologically diverse places.
Jan Susler, Truthout: After visiting Oscar López Rivera, a Puerto Rican independentista who has been incarcerated for 34 years in US prisons, two New York civil rights attorneys articulate a greater sense of action and urgency in struggling to free him.
Welcoming Refugees Is the Best Strategy Against ISIS
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: French journalist and author Nicolas Hénin spent 10 months as an ISIS hostage. "Welcoming refugees is not a terror threat to our country," he says. "It is like a vaccine to protect us from terrorism, because the more interactions we have between societies, between communities, the less tensions [we will have]."
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Obama's Terrorism Speech, Translated Into Candor
Norman Solomon, Norman Solomon's Blog: Following the San Bernadino shooting, President Obama addressed the issue of terrorism on Sunday night from the Oval Office. Here is a condensed version of the president's speech, unofficially (and satirically) translated into plain English.
Why Counting Mass Shootings Is a Bad Way to Understand Gun Violence in the US
Lois Beckett, ProPublica: According to recent articles, there has been an average of one mass shooting every day in the United States: 355 so far this year. It's a jarring statistic, but it glosses over the broader reality of who is most at risk of being murdered with guns.
Koch-Funded Special Interest Groups and Utilities Bankrolling ALEC Meeting
Jamie Corey, PR Watch: Koch-funded groups and utilities are bankrolling the American Legislative Exchange Council's closed-door winter meeting. The gathering is bringing together lobbyists and legislators to plan their bill agenda for the upcoming legislative session. Here are the known funders of this meeting.
On the News With Thom Hartmann: Credit Checks Are Discriminatory, and More
In today's On the News segment: Using credit scores to deny people homes or work is simply wrong; Marco Rubio thinks that women don't need a law mandating equal pay for equal work; Senate Democrats are outraged over the US Justice Department's weak settlement deal with a predatory, for-profit college; and more.
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Advancing Food Sovereignty to Transform Economies
Mamadou Goïta, Other Worlds: Food sovereignty can transform markets and allow us to create wealth, both in production and knowledge. We have established the principles and a declaration for food sovereignty, but there's a lot of research to do on the conditions required to make it a reality.
Emperor Weather: Turning Up the Heat on History
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: For the moment, it seems, humanity still has the chance to write its own history in a fashion that would allow for a perhaps less welcoming but still reasonably palatable world for our children and grandchildren to live in. But successful negotiations in Paris can only be the start of something far more sweeping.
US-Backed Forces in Syria Accused of Human Rights Violations
Read the Article at Mother Jones
Conservatives Abandon Children in Need While Forcing Women to Have Children
Embattled University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe Resigns After Mishandling Racial Tensions
Read the Article at The Huffington Post
Will Colorado GOP Fund Successful Contraception Program at Half the Cost?
Read the Article at RH Reality Check
A World at War Displaces 60 Million People With a Shrug
Catalonia Makes It Official: They Want Out of Spain by 2017
Read the Article at The Associated Press
Reporters Shouldn't Be Literally Snuggling Up to Candidates Such as Donald Trump
Prisons and Jails Put Transgender Prisoners at Risk
Read the Article at The New York Times
Manufacturing Suspense: Big Money's Corporate Media Gatekeepers and the Primary Debate Spectacle
Candice Bernd, Truthout: Whether or not corporate media outlets are biased against Bernie Sanders, big money's influence is changing how corporate media outlets report on elections. These outlets often favor intellectual property interests and profits over civic-minded considerations in election coverage.
Released Without Charges, Former Guantánamo Detainees Continue to Face Stigma
Aisha Maniar, Truthout: Getting released from Guantánamo Bay does not free one from persecution. A number of former detainees who were never charged have experienced serial harassment - and even imprisonment - simply for boarding an airplane.
Why Rand Paul Called Hillary Clinton a Neocon
Michael Corcoran, Truthout: Rand Paul accused Hillary Clinton of being a "neocon" on MSNBC. This allegation will make many of her supporters cringe, but the conversation it starts about Clinton's hawkish foreign policy record - and what it says about the United States' imperial ambitions - is an important discussion for progressives to have.
US Government Asks Native Hawaiians to Legitimize Occupation With Vote
Sonali Kolhatkar, teleSUR: If Hawaii's current election was truly about independence and sovereignty, then Natives would be voting on whether their islands should remain a US state, or become their own sovereign nation. That democratic choice has never been offered by the federal government and likely never will be.
Greece and Creditors at Loggerheads Again; Troika Wants More Foreclosures
Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism: Creditors appear united to cram yet another set of punitive reforms - including increasing foreclosures and tax collections - on the already prostrated Greeks. If the US crisis is any indication, foreclosing on homes leads to higher losses than keeping the homeowner in place.
Black Student Revolt Against Racism Ousts Two Top Officials at University of Missouri
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: African-American students have staged weeks of demonstrations against what they called a lax response to bigotry and vandalism at the University of Missouri. Black student football players also protested, vowing to boycott games and other team activities until the university president resigned.
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New York City Landlords Flout Rent Limits, but Still Receive Lucrative Tax Breaks
Cezary Podkul and Marcelo Rochabrun, ProPublica: Thousands of new rent-stabilized apartments are coming onto the market in New York City, giving developers a share of $1 billion in property tax breaks. However, some renters are getting overcharged as government officials fail to enforce rent limits.
The Mothers of Mexico's Disappeared Organize in the Face of State Violence
Nidia Bautista, CIP Americas Program: In the face of chronic government apathy, inefficiency and even attacks, the mothers of Mexico's missing residents have become the leaders of grassroots organizing against a criminal state responsible for the disappearances of their children and thousands of others.
In today's On the News segment: Radiation levels at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan may be increasing; the Trans-Pacific Partnership is even worse than we previously thought; the Volkswagen emissions scandal is shaping up to be one of the biggest corporate crimes in recent history; and more.
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The Malaysia Problem John Kerry Can't Escape
Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, The District Sentinel: This podcast discusses lawmakers honing in on John Kerry for more answers, following an annual State Department human-trafficking report politicized to preserve the president's trade agenda, and more.
Emily Schwartz Greco, OtherWords: Big Oil is scaling back its fossil fuel-extraction efforts in the era of cheap oil to protect its bottom line. Anyone who sees the industry's stocks as a perpetual source of investment income should take note.
Splinterlands: The View From 2050
John Feffer, TomDispatch: Writing in the year 2050, the author looks back on our planetary fate from what turns out to be a distinctly dystopian future, in which the glue that once held us together - namely, solidarity across religion, ethnicity and class - has lost its binding force.
After White House Rejects Keystone XL, Battle Against Larger Texas Pipeline Intensifies
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: A massive natural gas pipeline project in far-west Texas is generating an emotionally charged grassroots resistance among ranchers, artists, environmentalists and residents.
The TPP's Children's Table: Labor Rights and Currency
Dean Baker, Truthout: The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement has two classes of issues. There are the issues that really matter to the drafters of the deal, like the protection of patents, copyrights and other forms of investment. The children's table is for issues that are of concern to labor rights, human rights and environmental rights activists.
New Film Chronicles Life of Transgender Trailblazer Miss Major
Toshio Meronek, Truthout: A veteran of one of the most significant protest actions in LGBT history, New York City's 1969 Stonewall riots, Miss Major became politicized while in prison soon after the 1971 Attica Uprising. In this interview, Major talks to Truthout about her experiences, and filmmaker Annalise Ophelian discusses her film about Major's life.
"You Can't Be Scared of Death": Colombian Refugees Recount Effects of War
Kimberley Brown, teleSUR: Keli did not leave Colombia voluntarily. Neither did Luis. Neither one of them grew up thinking they would one day be labelled a refugee. The two of them fled very different situations of violence in Colombia, what together epitomize the complexities of the ongoing war in the country.
Trans-Pacific Partnership Text Released - a Look at What's Inside
Shannon Young, Free Speech Radio News: Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, a group best known for its advocacy of an open and neutral internet, discusses how the TPP agreement would affect the internet and what access to redress would look like under the corporate-driven agreement.
Listen to the Audio Segment and Read the Transcript
Bush 41 Finally Speaks on Iraq War
Ray McGovern, Consortium News: A dozen years too late, President George H.W. Bush has given voice to his doubts about the wisdom of rushing into the Iraq War, putting much of the blame on President George W. Bush's "iron-ass" advisers, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
Rejecting US Claims, Doctors Without Borders Demands War Crimes Probe
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: Doctors Without Borders continues to demand an independent war crimes probe of the US bombing of its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, after releasing its own preliminary investigation. The US airstrike on October 3 killed at least 30 people.
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House Anti-Science Committee Attempts to Suppress Climate Change Studies
Brian Palmer, onEarth: The House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology has subpoenaed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, asking for all emails and other records from US scientists involved in a recent study showing that the so-called "pause" in global warming is a myth.
The Distortion and Death Behind Israel/Palestine Coverage
Abby Martin, teleSUR: A crisis in Palestine is again all over the headlines. From stabbings and Molotov cocktails, to killing of protesters and anti-Arab lynch mobs - how much of the mass media coverage can we really trust?
Kissinger, the Bombardier: How Diplomacy by Air Power Became a US Tradition
Greg Grandin, TomDispatch: Henry Kissinger invokes today's endless, open-ended wars to justify his diplomacy by air power in Cambodia and elsewhere nearly half a century ago. But what he did then created the conditions for today's endless wars, both those started by Bush's neocons and those waged by Obama's liberals.
In today's On the News segment: All over the country, massive corporations buy up or buy off their competition; Seattle has proven itself to be a leader for new, progressive policies; President Obama wants to help former prisoners transition back into society; and more.
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A Pro-Prison Backlash in New York City
Lichi D'Amelio, Socialist Worker: The contradiction, ironically pointed out by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, between the violence engendered by profound social inequality and the non-solution of mass incarceration - which only exacerbates the problem - will continue to sharpen in the months and years ahead.
Department of Education Demands Greater Accountability From College Accreditors
Annie Waldman, ProPublica: The US Department of Education announced new transparency measures for college accreditors Friday, encouraging the organizations to focus more on student outcomes such as graduation rates. The agency also called on Congress to give it the power to set standards for how accreditors measure student achievement.
Beyond Dystopian Visions in the Age of Neoliberal Authoritarianism
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: Democratic principles are withering under a social order marked by a hardening of the culture and the emergence of an unprecedented survival-of-the-fittest ethos. Casino capitalism has created a predatory class of unethical zombies who are producing dead zones of the imagination that even Orwell could not have envisioned.
Sen. David Vitter's Campaign Called Out for Racism, Again
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: Reeling from several high-profile scandals, Sen. David Vitter's campaign for governor of Louisiana is running a racist attack ad that features his Democratic challenger alongside President Obama and "dangerous thugs." The ad is not the first of Vitter's to be called out for racism.
Election Day 2015: GOP Takes Kentucky, Ohio Rejects Pot Monopoly and Houston Shuns LGBT Equality
Amy Goodman and Juan González, Democracy Now!: Tuesday was Election Day in the United States as voters across the country decided ballot initiatives and elected city and state leaders. John Nichols, political writer for The Nation, discusses the outcomes of major races and measures that captured public consciousness.
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The "War on Terror" and Gay Marriage: How a Generation Turned Against Religious Extremism
Nicholas Powers, Truthout: During the "war on terror," the LGBT community has gone from social pariah to a symbol of global progress. An unseen feedback loop has propelled millennials toward a type of progressivism: The more evangelicals demanded holy law in public spaces, the more they reflected Al Qaeda.
EPA Slow to Halt Use of Deadly Pesticide
Viji Sundaram, New America Media: The pesticide endosulfan, known as "DDT's cousin," is still being used in the United States, despite evidence of its toxic effects. Just how many farmworkers suffer from pesticide exposure is hard to know because there is no nationwide mandatory pesticide poisoning reporting system.
Who Keeps Billions of Taxpayer Dollars Flowing to For-Profit Colleges?
Annie Waldman, ProPublica: Accreditation agencies are supposed to make sure that colleges are putting students in a position to succeed. That’s not happening at schools overseen by one accreditor in particular: The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. It oversees hundreds of mainly for-profit schools where students struggle at remarkably high rates.
As State Politicians Resist Obama's Climate Plan, West Virginians Build Renewables Anyway
Mary Hansen, YES! Magazine: West Virginia's politicians are pushing back against President Obama's Clean Power Plan, saying fossil fuels are essential to the state's economy. However, residents are not waiting for the state to step up, and instead are initiating investments in renewable energy, moving the state closer to a transition away from fossil-fuel dependence.
Inspections at Immigration Detention Centers Conceal Human Rights Abuses
Jonah Newman, The Chicago Reporter: A new report says US Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspections of immigration detention centers overlook serious deficiencies, from sexual assaults to lack of medical care, and appear designed to give the detention facilities a pass.
Duke Energy Seeks $120,000 Fine Against Nonprofit for Challenging Its Solar Monopoly
Sue Sturgis, Facing South: Duke Energy is seeking a $120,000 fine against a nonprofit organization for trying to undermine the company's solar power sales monopoly in North Carolina. The state is one of only four in the US that do not allow third-party sales of solar power, requiring instead that electricity be sold through a handful of regulated utilities granted monopoly status.
Inside the Indigenous Movement to Protect India's Commons
Pushpa Achanta, Waging Nonviolence: Indian government policies are implemented without the knowledge of indigenous communities whose lives, livelihoods and ecosystems will be worsened by such decisions. However, indigenous groups are organizing to protect their communities from "development" that would displace thousands of local residents and destroy the environment.
GOP Wants Pay-to-Play Press Coverage: Bad Idea
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: When the announcement came that the Republican National Committee intends to charge the media a $150 fee for the privilege of covering the GOP convention in Cleveland, I was frankly astonished. News services have never before been required to pay for access to a convention.
"We Cannot Remain Silent" on Palestine, Says Activist From Jewish Boat to Gaza
Mark Karlin, Truthout: Author Lillian Rosengarten discusses her personal history as a Jewish woman whose family escaped Nazi Germany, how her political consciousness developed in the US, and what brought her to sail on the Jewish Boat to Gaza in an effort to break the Israeli siege.
Sunday, 25 October 2015 00:00 By Mark Karlin, Truthout | Interview
Young men watch the sunset from a destroyed building situated near the Mediterranean Sea in the Gaza Strip, May 29, 2015. (Photo: Wissam Nassar / The New York Times)
In Survival and Conscience, Lillian Rosengarten tells her story, and it's a remarkable one: escaping Nazi Germany and fleeing to the United States in 1936, overcoming the toll which the legacy of Nazi oppression took on her family's health, and becoming a strong advocate of Palestinian rights. Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss calls this book "a brave and wrenching account that is also deeply necessary."
Truthout recently interviewed Lillian Rosengarten about what brought her to sail on the Jewish Boat to Gaza in an effort to break the Israeli siege.
Mark Karlin: What is the central issue of justice for you that, ironically, draws a line from the Nazi attempt to annihilate the Jews of Europe to the brutality of the Israeli government toward the Palestinians?
Lillian Rosengarten: First, it is vitally important to make a distinction between traditional Judaism and political Zionism. Although Zionism began as a liberation movement, it is now a racist, nationalistic and criminal state that operates in the name of Jews. This is a catastrophe. Israel's Zionist goal is a Judaization of Israel that denies the existence of Palestinians. I am opposed to all nationalistic racist regimes that occupy and disenfranchise another people.
How did your family escape the Nazis?
My father saw the handwriting on the wall after he was beaten by the "brownshirts." In the early years of Hitler's rule, when some Jews were still allowed to leave, he attempted twice to get a visa for his family from the US. The visa was difficult to get because there was a strict quota system in the US. One was required to have a "sponsor," a secure job and housing to be allowed to enter the United States. Fortunately, he finally succeeded.
Your parents, you write, spoke German to you, and you were raised in "a strict Germanic home." How did you handle the dichotomy of growing up in the US culture and being educated in US schools while living within a German-Jewish environment with your family?
It was difficult. I felt rootless and for a long time tried to identify as American while pushing my German-Jewish identity underground. I never felt I was a part of anything; I felt alone, lonely and always different. It took many decades for this to change.
Lillian Rosengarten. (Photo: Courtesy of Lillian Rosengarten)You write in chapter four of your "personal liberation" as the counterculture precipitated by the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam War campaign grew. Can you discuss this evolution?
The women's liberation movement provided me with an identification as a woman. It also made me aware that other women were struggling with similar issues of identity, voicelessness and unhappiness - both in their marriages and unfulfilled professional goals. This was for me a personal revolution that brought me to a growing awareness of the path I wished to pursue for myself. The Vietnam War gave me tools for dissent and protest as well as the courage to stand up for human rights and against war with the support of an antiwar protest movement.
William C. Anderson, Truthout: On the one-year anniversary of Reyhaneh Jabbari's execution by the Iranian government, it's important to remember her through her own words and question a world that allows this sort of injustice.
New Survey Uncovers the Experiences of LGBTQ Prisoners
Verónica Bayetti Flores, Feministing: A groundbreaking new report from Black & Pink gives us stark new data on the incarceration of those who are most marginalized. The findings paint a grim picture of criminalization of and violence towards LGBTQ people - particularly those of color.
Israeli Settlers Want New York Police Tactics in Jerusalem
Rebecca Pierce, The Electronic Intifada: In an attempt to crush Palestinian resistance, Israeli settlers want to see a "zero tolerance" policy pursued, under which stiff penalties would be imposed on anyone defying Israel's orders. Israel's policing techniques already bear many similarities to those of the United States.
Return Gitmo, Pay Reparations?
Mark Weisbrot, Philly.com: The Cuban government says that for relations to be normalized, the United States must not only end its embargo, but pay compensation for the damage it has caused to Cuba and its people over the past 54 years. Cuban President Raúl Castro also calls for Guantánamo Bay prison and military base to be closed and the land returned to Cuba.
Climate Stories: Environment, Colonial Legacies and Systemic Change
Anna Lau, openDemocracy: The continuance of colonial narratives hinders action on climate change. Meet the people working with diverse communities to build a movement, who highlight avenues of hope and offer the perspectives, processes and innovations making it possible to imagine the weaving of a different kind of collective story.
Annie Leonard, OtherWords: When the people of Baltimore got organized, they won a fight against an incinerator. Now they're building bridges between movements that too often are pitted against one another, particularly workers and environmentalists.
Jessica Bernstein examines how Lyme disease could be a game changer in the 2016 election; Daniel Faris looks at cyber liability and the future of US tech policy; Stephanie Van Hook reflects on the White Helmets - unarmed peacekeepers and first responders in Syria; Ann Wright analyzes a lawsuit over Gaza flotilla deaths filed in a US court against the former Israeli prime minister; David Shorter explains how academic freedom is coming under attack; and more.
Reclaiming Labor History: How Domestic Workers Resisted Racism in the '60s and '70s
Mark Karlin, Truthout: Premilla Nadasen, author of Household Workers Unite, discusses how relatively isolated Black women domestic workers organized in the 1960s and 1970s for higher wages, better labor conditions and respect and dignity in the workplace. The domestic labor movement they built offers lessons on how marginalized workers can organize today.
How Media Reports Exacerbate Rape Culture
Claudia Garcia-Rojas and Sharmili Majmudar, Truthout: When media outlets cover the issue of sexual violence, they often produce oversimplified accounts that reinforce rape myths. These narratives minimize survivors' experiences of violence and expose them to more danger.
The Boom and Bust of the CIA's Secret Torture Sites
Crofton Black and Sam Raphael, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Between 2002 and 2008, at least 119 people disappeared into a worldwide detention network run by the CIA and facilitated by its foreign partners. This account fills in the gaps found in the Senate torture report.
Haiti's Earthquake Was Devastating, but the Cholera Epidemic Was Worse
Fran Quigley, Foreign Policy in Focus: Haiti's ongoing cholera epidemic demonstrates that the world's most powerful nation - the United States - and its most respected international organization - the United Nations - have no intention of treating the Haitian people as fully human beings, deserving of even the most basic of rights.
Environmentalists on Both Sides of the Border Eye Canadian Election
Sarah Tory, High Country News: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has weakened Canada's environmental laws and global climate commitments in his quest to turn the Great White North into an energy superpower. Monday's federal election in Canada could change that.
Is Pro-Bush Super PAC Obscuring Spending?
Carrie Levine, The Center for Public Integrity: Super PACs are supposed to be both transparent and independent from the politicians they are supporting. But it's not clear that Right to Rise USA, the super PAC formed by Republican Jeb Bush prior to his presidential bid, is either.
Latin America Unified in Addressing Refugee Crisis
Elena Tiralongo, Council on Hemispheric Affairs: Latin America acts in unity to help refugees. However, if the region wants to succeed in providing refugees with durable solutions, asylum seekers must have a real chance to integrate and contribute to their new countries' growth.
Eric Holt-Giménez offers a tale of two food prizes and how they convey the politics of distribution versus growth; Sue Sturgis questions whether $15 an hour is actually a living wage; Ingrid Vila summarizes the resistance being waged against a proposed incinerator in Puerto Rico; Michell McIntyre reports on the largest known settlement in California criminal prosecution history for felony workplace safety violations; Aman Banerji looks at why we are living in a historic moment for criminal legal system reforms; Bruce Fries examines why the CDC is allowing a private group to determine federal policy on Lyme disease; David Zuther analyzes how US-sponsored carnage in Yemen is continuing - and impacting civilians the most; Corporate Europe Observatory staff reveal how trade deals threaten public services; and more.
Anti-Immigrant Frenzy May Not Significantly Impact Local Legislation
Erika L. Sánchez, Truthout: Many conservative politicians are lashing out against so-called sanctuary cities, accusing them of harboring criminals. Though anti-immigrant rhetoric is currently widespread, legal experts say it's unlikely to directly translate into more stringent local immigration policies.
Private Equity Asset-Stripping Strategy Meets Charter Schools to Produce Even Better Looting
Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism: A secretive consulting firm, which was previously investigated for corruption, and a local law firm are engaged in complex, high-cost bond deals to implement an asset-stripping strategy that has been called out as a private equity enrichment scheme that impairs operating businesses.
Objecting to War: The Human Conscience vs. the US Military
Maria Santelli, Other Worlds: Military conscientious objectors give us powerful insight into our own nature, and they can be strong and credible voices for peace, having fixed the opposition to war in their hearts through experiences most people will never have.
"Refugee" or "Migrant" - Which Is Right?
Adrian Edwards, New America Media: With almost 60 million people forcibly displaced globally, it is becoming increasingly common to see the terms "refugee" and "migrant" used interchangeably in media and public discourse. But is there a difference between the two, and does it matter?
Cities Are Finally Treating Water as a Resource, Not a Nuisance
Erica Gies, Ensia: Around the world - from Melbourne, Australia to coastal cities in New Jersey - urban planners are formally expanding natural stream and wetlands hydrology and ecosystems, such as dunes, mangrove forests and coral reefs, to better protect communities.
Calling Out "Activist Tourism" and the "Progressive" Mainstream
Dan Falcone, Truthout: Jared A. Ball, an author and professor of communication studies at Morgan State University, discusses "activist tourism," the mainstream press and the role of books and museums in the shaping of cultural and collective memory.
Sixty-Five Percent of Deaths Worldwide Go Uncounted - Here's How to Change That
Lucia D'Ambruoso, The Conversation: It has been described as the most critical development failure of the past 30 years, and shows no sign of improving: Many countries' systems for registering major life events like births and deaths are incomplete or absent.
Reversing Climate Change: What Will It Take?
Jeremy Brecher, Labor Network for Sustainability: Protecting the earth's climate is in the long-term interest of everyone. Yet, efforts to cut carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions to a climate-safe level have been defeated for decades in arenas ranging from the United Nations to the US Congress.
In "Call for Peace" Address, Bernie Sanders Takes on Endless War and Global Oligarchy
Jake Johnson, Common Dreams: "In country after country, what people were saying is that we need to invest in our children, in our elderly, and in health care and education and environmental protection. We do not want more and more war," Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a speech marking the 15th anniversary of the war in Iraq.
Are the Trump Tax Cuts Working and Does Anyone Care?
Dean Baker, Truthout: If the tax cuts actually did produce the sort of investment boom promised by proponents, there would be a good case for cutting the corporate tax rate. However, we now have good preliminary evidence that the investment boom exists only in the realm of political propaganda. Workers will not be getting any big dividends from this tax cut.
Fifteen Years in Iraq: There Was No Place Safe There, or Here
Robert F. Sommer, Truthout: It's been 15 years since the Bush-Cheney administration launched the US into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with an ingenious marketing campaign. Now the quagmire they created is wider and deeper by magnitudes but the US continues its pattern of self-destruction. A military father reflects on the cost of those wars to his family and to the country.
Jared Kushner, RIP: A Political Obituary for the President's Son-in-Law
Nomi Prins, TomDispatch: Let's imagine what Kushner's political obituary would look like, should he be the next Trump appointee to exit the administration. Here's one version: The political career of Jared Kushner met a slow death from unparalleled incompetence, conflicts of interest and financial sleights of hand. His generosity was second to none: He opened his arms to any financial firm that came his way.
Former Brazilian President Lula: It's Clear Marielle Franco's Assassination Was Premeditated
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: Brazil's former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is now running for president again, discusses the assassination of Marielle Franco, the 38-year-old Rio de Janeiro city council member and human rights activist who was killed last week.
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What Standing Rock Gave the World
Jenni Monet, YES! Magazine: The awakening resolve that was cultivated at Standing Rock, an Indigenous-led disruption, did not dissolve after last February. Rather, it spread in so many different directions that we may never fully realize its reach. Its spirit of resistance can easily be found in the growing pipeline battles across the United States. Beyond that, the movement amplified the greater struggle worldwide.
FEC Proposes New Rules for Digital Ad Disclosures
Megan Janetsky, The Center for Responsive Politics: The Federal Election Commission voted on Wednesday to move forward with new rules that would bump up disclosure requirements for certain political ads on platforms like Facebook and Google.
The Staggering Death Toll in Iraq
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, AlterNet: Today marks 15 years since the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003. Most American people have no idea of the enormity of the calamity the invasion unleashed. The US military has refused to keep a tally of Iraqi deaths.
New Orleans Approves Natural Gas Power Plant Despite Environmental Racism and Climate Concerns
Julie Dermansky, DeSmogBlog: Despite large-scale public opposition, the New Orleans City Council recently approved construction of a $210 million natural gas power plant in a neighborhood largely occupied by people of color. Entergy is proposing to build this massive investment in fossil fuel infrastructure in a city already plagued by the effects of climate change.