TruthOut
Goldman Plays, We Pay
The story of the financial debacle will end the way it began, with the super-hustlers from Goldman Sachs at the center of the action and profiting wildly. Never in U.S. history has one company wielded such destructive power over our political economy, irrespective of whether a Republican or a Democrat happened to be president.
Categories: Current Events
HAITI LIVE BLOG DAY 3: Obama Taps George W. Bush, Bill Clinton to Lead US Relief Efforts
Here's the link to Wednesday's live blog.
5:26 pm PDT: We couldn't leave for the day without first reporting on this development.
Categories: Current Events
Long-Awaited Cluster Bomb Ban Enters Into Force
United Nations - Thirty-eight countries will start observing the Convention on Cluster Munitions this Sunday, Aug. 1, after a rapid entry into force since the treaty was announced two years ago in Oslo.
"This new instrument is a major advance for the global disarmament and humanitarian agendas, and will help us to counter the widespread insecurity and suffering caused by these terrible weapons, particularly among civilians and children," noted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Categories: Current Events
The Missing Piece Meets the Big O
I've been trying to wrap my mind around the dispiriting sense of failure that seems to have enveloped the Obama administration on the eve of the November midterms. The right hates him because he won, because he's Black, and because he won. Their utter intransigence has completely upended Obama's knee-jerk instinct for compromise and bipartisanship, making it appear that he's not getting anything done, and so the middle of the electorate feels a deep sense of disappointment exacerbated by
Categories: Current Events
Colombia: US Military Aid May Have Sparked Civilian Killings
La Macarena, Colombia - When Colombian military units receive an increase in U.S. aid, they allegedly kill more civilians and frame the deaths as combat kills, according to a new report.
Categories: Current Events
A Second Slave Rebellion in Haiti
One of the many effects of poverty in Haiti is that desperate parents regularly give away their children in the hope that the new family will feed and educate the children better than they themselves can. Instead, the children usually end up as child slaves, or restavèk. In a country which overthrew slavery in 1804, today anywhere from 225,000 to 300,000 children live in forced servitude.[1] They work from before sunup to after sundown, are often sexually and physically abused and usually go underfed and uneducated.
Categories: Current Events
Right-Wing Pundit Phyllis Schlafly Decries Government Assistance for "Unmarried Moms"
Over the past two months, many Republican pundits and members of Congress have been calling for the end of unemployment benefit extensions for the millions of Americans who can’t find work.
Categories: Current Events
SEC Lets Citi Execs Go Free After $40 Billion Subprime Lie
What is the penalty for bankers who tell $40 billion lies? Somewhere between nothing and a rounding-error on your bonus.
Categories: Current Events
Stolen Land, Stolen Trees, Stolen Livelihoods
Imagine your livelihood is farming. You grow a variety of products that have sustained you and your family for generations. Then, imagine that the Army decides to erect a long fence that blocks you from accessing your farm. They say you will be able to get a permit to enter your own land, but when you apply, you are denied. The only person they will give the permit to is your elderly father, who cannot possible tend the land as needed and support the family. Already poor, your future is grim.
Categories: Current Events
The Right Manipulates Muslims - and Boy Scouts
I was never a Boy Scout but I was a helluva Cub Scout.
Pack 30, First Congregational Church. I rose through the ranks: Bobcat, Wolf, Bear, Lion. I accumulated Gold and Silver Arrow Points, the Cubs’ junior varsity version of merit badges. My mom was a Cub Scout den mother and spent a lot of time teaching fake Indian campfire songs and decorating various arts and crafts with poster paint.
Categories: Current Events
Despite Anger Over BP Spill, Washington Might Not Act on It
Washington As the Gulf of Mexico focuses on cleaning up the mess left by the BP oil spill, the question facing the nation's capital is: Will Washington clean up its act, too?
Congress is considering stricter regulation of oil exploration, and the Obama administration has pledged to overhaul the disgraced federal agency that oversees oil drilling.
Already, however, some of the toughest proposals are facing stiff opposition from Republicans and some Gulf Coast Democrats whose constituents rely on the oil industry for jobs.
Categories: Current Events
Arizona Injunction a Victory, but Not End of the Fight, Activists Say
A federal judge's ruling has prevented the most contested parts of SB1070, Arizona's contested immigration law, from taking effect, but protests and recrimination have shown that feelings in the state remain far from friendly.
The SB1070 legislation went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, but significant portions of the laws were enjoined by a federal court order ruling in a lawsuit
Categories: Current Events
The Angry Left Needs Hugs and Kisses
The angry left is angry with Barack Obama. It's lying on the floor kicking and screaming and holding its breath. Goodness is not being accomplished. Injustice continues sort of unabated. Bad people are doing bad things. This is obviously all the president's fault. I wish. The angry left presumes that the president is in full control of the government, when he's obviously not. Even George W. Bush learned that and he was a Republican.
Obama won the election. Lincoln won the Civil War.
Categories: Current Events
Homes Keep Falling Into Foreclosure as Programs Fail to Help
Washington - More than three years into the housing crisis that helped trigger a worldwide recession, the torrid pace of home foreclosures continues to tear at the core of the American dream.
New figures Thursday from Realty-Trac showed that foreclosure activity declined over the first six months of the year in nine of the 10 large metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates.
Categories: Current Events
Going Where Glenn Beck Wouldn't: Defining White Culture
My facebook and twitter friend @clyde_online, a community organizer in DC, has been pestering me to define U.S. white culture. Up until now, I've demurred.
Frankly, there are other things I'd rather write about. Besides, though I'm certainly aware of the status and meaning that our civilization has managed to assign to whiteness and realize that I benefit from both, I don't personally buy into either. If it were up to me, I'd get rid of whiteness altogether.
Categories: Current Events
News in Brief: Administration May Bypass Congress on Immigration Reform, and More ...
The Obama administration is considering ways to act on immigration reform without Congressional approval, reported ProPublica, including giving green cards or permanent residence status to many people living in the country with documents. Accord to a memo to Alejandro N. Mayorkas, director of the U.S.
Categories: Current Events
A Movement Rises in Arizona
Three months ago, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the notorious SB 1070, a bill that put her state at the forefront of a movement to intensify the criminalization of undocumented immigrants.
Since then, activists have responded through legal challenges, political lobbying, grassroots organizing and mass mobilizations.
Categories: Current Events
Strengthen Social Security Coalition Puts Both Parties on Notice
More than 60 organizations that represent more than 30 million Americans are banding together to deliver a straightforward message to politicians this fall: Don't mess with Social Security.
Categories: Current Events
Greek Society Begins to Crack Under Harsh Measures
Athens - Every working day, more than a hundred people crowd around the entrance of the merchant and passenger boats' reconstruction industry, well known as 'The Zone', in the southern suburb of Attiki.
Most of them are unemployed steel workers and torch welders, who wait desperately from the early hours of the morning for an announcement of jobs offered on a daily basis on the ships that dock at the port.
Categories: Current Events
Cut Tax Expenditures to Stimulate the Economy
When Federal Reserve Board Chairman Bernanke announced that the Fed was not prepared to fund additional economic stimulus at this time, the market fell, suggesting strongly that Wall Street disagrees with Republican calls to cut expenditures because deficits have gotten too large. Only when record corporate earnings were announced did the market rise.
Categories: Current Events
