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Truthout Daily Digest | Sunday, 26 April 2015

Indigenous People Occupy Brazil’s Legislature, Protesting Bill’s Violation of Land Rights

Santiago Navarro F. and Renata Bessi, Truthout: Indigenous people from across Brazil recently occupied space in front of the country’s legislature, protesting a proposed constitutional amendment that would transfer the decision-making power to demarcate indigenous territories to Brazil’s legislature, which protesters fear could lead to corporate land grabs.

Read the Article and View the Photos

Racial Inequality and the Economics of Social Justice

Max Eternity, Truthout: Markers of economic and social inequality abound, so it should come as no surprise that US institutions are ripe with racial injustice, including the extrajudicial killing of Black men by police.

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John and Harriet: Still Mysterious

Cass Sunstein, The New York Review of Books: Mill and Hayek help to define the liberal tradition, but in both temperament and orientation, they could not be further apart. Mill was in some ways a radical. Hayek was not exactly a conservative, but he generally venerated traditions and long-standing practices.

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The TPP: Toward Absolutist Capitalism

Lambert Strether, Naked Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Partnership implies a form of absolute rule and enshrines capitalization as a principle of jurisprudence. The threat against sovereignty is an issue where the grassroots on left and right can unite.

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Clinton’s Weak Campaign Finance “Pillar”

Rob Hager, Truthout: Hillary Clinton’s campaign finance soundbite stirred attention, but disclosure of money in politics and constitutional amendment advocacy are well-worn diversions from the strategies needed to overcome plutocracy.

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$1.7 Billion Needed to Improve Ebola-hit Countries’ Health Care, Says Oxfam

Valentina Ieri, Inter Press Service: Oxfam urges the international community to invest in stronger public services, and to help local people to recover from the immediate psychological, social and economic impacts left by the disease.

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We’re All in This Together – Let’s Start Acting Like It

David Doody, Ensia: As we exacerbate extreme weather, plasticize and acidify oceans, clear-cut forests, pollute the air, destroy biodiversity, deplete and pollute water and more, we fail to ensure the continuation of the systems that make vibrant and healthy lives for future generations possible.

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Where’s the Justice for Glenn Ford?

Lily Hughes, Socialist Worker: The state of Louisiana stole 30 years of Glenn Ford’s life, and released him from prison with just $20 in his pocket. Now the state is fighting a measly compensation of a little over $300,000 to Ford.

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Free the Buses: Riders Say Transit Is a Human Right

Amy Roe, Equal Voices: On March 1, King County, Washington, made international headlines when it introduced a reduced fare for low-income people. The transit movement is one response to the “affordability gap” – a growing chasm between what workers are paid and what it costs to get to work.

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Official Leaks: “These Senior People Do Whatever They Want”

Marcy Wheeler, Expose Facts: CIA Director Leon Panetta decided to partner with Hollywood to write a selective version of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the rest of the CIA and DOD had to fall in line, going so far as exposing some of the SEAL team members’ identities.

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Does Fast Track Supporter Earl Blumenauer Also Support Israeli Settlements?

Robert Naiman, Truthout: Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer – who has been endorsed by J Street, spoke at the J Street conference and has been praised by J Street Portland for his support of the two-state solution, is apparently also a “Two-Stater In Name Only.”

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BuzzFlash

The BuzzFlash commentary will return soon.

Nepal Earthquake: Death Toll Exceeds 900

Read the Article at The Guardian

Two Huge Magma Chambers Spied Beneath Yellowstone National Park

Read the Article at Science News

Eight States Dealing With Huge Increases in Fracking Earthquakes

Read the Article at EcoWatch

In Stealth Move, Congress Backs Israeli Right’s War on Settlement Boycotts

Read the Article at Forward

World Group Seeks Ban on Uranium and Nuclear Power

Read the Article at Climate News Network

The Surprise Issue of the 2016 Election?

Read the Article at Campaign for America’s Future

European Officials May Be Pushing a Regime Change in Greece

Read the Article at Al Jazeera America


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Truthout Daily Digest Friday, 26 December 2014

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Climate Change 2014: What Do We Do Now?

Bruce Melton, Truthout: As we move into 2015, the latest climate science means policy must provide funds not only for just reducing future emissions but also for removing pollution that has already been released in the atmosphere.

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A New Year’s Resolution: Don’t Call the Police

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: Resolving not to call the police is not just a protest against a racist and corrupt criminal justice system; it’s the beginning of a dream that challenges us to build a free and just world.

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Ellen Brown | Russian Roulette: Taxpayers Could Be on the Hook for Trillions in Oil Derivatives

Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog: The sudden dramatic collapse in the price of oil appears to be an act of geopolitical warfare against Russia. The result could be trillions of dollars in oil derivative losses, and depositors and taxpayers could be liable, following repeal of key portions of the Dodd-Frank Act signed into law on December 16.

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Increasingly Dangerous Guns Endanger US Communities

Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout: As Tom Diaz reports in The Last Gun: How Changes in the Gun Industry are Killing Americans and What It Will Take to Stop It, the NRA, in concert with gun manufacturers and conservative advocates of law and order, has successfully stoked fear of crime and terrorism to ramp up domestic weapons sales.

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A Suitable Donor: Harvesting Kidneys in the Philippines

Ray Ventura, Japan Focus: Along the coast of Manila Bay in the Philippines, there is a slum district called Baseco. Describing it as “a place where the people of damned souls sell their kidneys to survive,” Baseco brought to public attention the scandal of what is essentially a human organ farm.

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Living With a 10 Billion Euro Bailout – the Story From the Streets of Cyprus

Christina Ionela Neokleous, The Conversation: The president of the Republic of Cyprus tells a story that says that lending schemes like the one imposed on the people of Cyprus are simply the mechanisms to achieve neocolonialism and that the IMF would do better to be more open about its new set of objectives. It is certainly a story that makes sense.

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Amy Goodman | How the Pentagon Papers Came to Be Published by the Beacon Press, as Told by Daniel Ellsberg and Others

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: In 1972 Beacon Press lost a Supreme Court case brought against it by the US government for publishing the first full edition of the Pentagon Papers. We hear the story from three men at the center of the storm.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: The Nuclear Zero lawsuits, initiated by the Marshall Islands, are about the law, but they are about much more than the law. They are also about saving humanity from its most destructive capabilities. They are about saving humanity from itself and about preserving civilization for future generations.

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Do Cubans Really Want US-Style Internet Freedom?

Sujatha Fernandes and Alexandra Halkin, North American Congress on Latin America: Although Obama has pledged offers of internet technology, Cubans are likely to be suspicious. Given the revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden about the United States using the internet to spy on its citizens, it is unlikely that Cubans will feel comfortable with this arrangement.

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Faiths United Against Nuclear Weapons

Julia Rainer, Inter Press Service: “Never was there a greater need than now for all the religions to combine, to pull their wisdom and to give the benefit of that combined, huge repository of wisdom to international law,” said Christopher Weeramantry, addressing a session on faiths united against nuclear weapons at the civil society forum.

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Richard D. Wolff | Economic Update: Signs of Deepening Inequality

Richard D. Wolff, Truthout: This week’s episode provides updates on the successful Oregon teaching assistants’ strike, evicting the homeless, a law that limits unpaid internships to four weeks and universities becoming businesses. We respond to listeners’ questions on the economics of war and the military, and on political corruption in the new budget.

Listen to the Audio Segment

BuzzFlash

The BuzzFlash commentary for Truthout will return soon.

Refusing to Wage War Is Possible

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Female Vets Fight “The Second Battle”: Sexual Trauma

Read the Article at The Washington Post

Charles P. Pierce | Seasons Greetings From Your Friends at the NSA

Read the Article at Esquire

Social Movements Didn’t Kill the NYPD Officers. A Man With Untreated Mental Illness and a Gun Did

Read the Article at The Nation

Sen. Bernie Sanders: I’ll Decide on Presidential Run by March

Read the Article at the Associated Press

Let’s All Screw the 1%: The Simple Move Obama Could Make to Strengthen the Rest of Us

Read the Article at Salon

Regulations for Pissing on Cheney’s Grave Announced (Satire)

Read the Article at Memegop.com


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Truthout Daily Digest Sunday, 26 October 2014

Want the Truth About New York’s Human Trafficking Courts? Ask a Sex Worker

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: A New York State prostitution court model of treating defendants as “trafficking victims” needing social services is gaining popularity. However, sex workers claim the human trafficking narrative is based on an unreliably narrow view of the sex trade, which should be decriminalized altogether.

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Brutal Crimes Don’t Justify Bad Laws

Jean Trounstine, Truthout: A true tragedy, driven by a media frenzy, often provokes a misguided need to do something as quickly as possible and leads to bad public policy – like California’s Three Strikes sentencing law.

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Greek Politics in the Age of the Euro Crisis and the Urgent Task for Left Unity

C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout: As a politically, economically and socially underdeveloped Balkan country in which corruption, cronyism and clientelism largely constitute the driving forces of “development,” “social mobility” and “social progress,” Greece’s only hope of revival from its moral and social morass is a unified left.

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Super PACs Exploit Disclosure Loophole

Dave Levinthal, The Center for Public Integrity: Thanks to a contentious quirk in federal law, at least six new super PACs may hide their funders from public scrutiny until early December, no matter how much money they raise or spend from now until Election Day.

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The Stealth Campaign to Buy US Courts

Zoë Carpenter, The Nation: With ideological groups increasingly eager to buy seats on state-level benches, judges are forced to act more like politicians, turning to lawyers and other parties who may later appear before them in court to raise campaign cash.

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Truthout Interviews William Rivers Pitt on Chemical Weapons in Iraq

Ted Asregadoo, Truthout: William Rivers Pitt discusses a recent New York Times piece on chemical weapons found in Iraq between 2004 and 2011 – and Bush administration efforts to silence news of their discovery.

Watch the Interview

The Second American Revolution Is Brewing in Oregon

Evaggelos Vallianatos, Truthout: In Oregon, the capture of local government by the timber industry results in the destruction of the natural world and the poisoning of the populace, but a Josephine County ballot initiative would ban tree spraying by corporations and government entities.

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Victims of Domestic Violence Getting Longer Prison Sentences Than Their Children’s Abusers?

Alyssa Figueroa, AlterNet: At least 29 states have failure-to-protect laws, such as injury to a child “by omission,” by “permitting child abuse” or “enabling child abuse.” Maximum prison sentences for breaking these laws vary from one year to life, and in some states, they carry the same sentence as child abuse itself.

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Japanese Wartime Medical Orderly on Army’s Role in Maintaining “Comfort Women” System

David McNeill, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Matsumoto Masayoshi, a former medical orderly with the Japanese army, has spoken out this year. In this disturbing interview, he says during World War II, Korean women were used like public toilets, with soldiers lining up to rape them.

Read the Article and Watch the Interview

Sticking Texas-Sized Hurdles on the Path to Polls

Marc Morial, OtherWords: Voter suppression and disenfranchisement far outweigh any trumped up and spurious claims of Election Day confusion. Don’t let anything keep you from the polls on November – even if you’re a Texas voter.

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This week in Speakout:

On the 25th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake, David Krause memorializes its impact on homelessness; Josephine Simmons describes corruption in Greek soccer; theDrug Policy Alliance reports that marijuana arrests in Bill de Blasio’s New York have not only increased, but also continue disproportionately to target people of color; Ann Wrightlauds the young people who have spearheaded ongoing protests over police violence and racial discrimination in Ferguson; David Swanson comes out in defense of the free speech of prisoners; Dr. Hakim discusses the heartbreaking story of Imal, an Afghan child whose father was killed by a US drone; high school senior Giovani Serrano considers the causes and impacts of poverty; Reprieve reports GCHQ has demanded the British government stay in compliance with international law on its drone program; Dean Baker criticizes The Washington Post’s efforts at downplaying crack rolled into Los Angeles streets by the CIA;John Boik and Lorenzo Fioramonti propose a framework to end poverty and maximize well-being; and more.

Read the Articles The BuzzFlash commentary for Truthout will return soon.

Law Lets IRS Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required

Read the Article at The New York Times

UK Troops and US Marines Officially End Military Operations in Afghanistan

Read the Article at Reuters

More Cities Are Making It Illegal to Hand Out Food to the Homeless

Read the Article at NPR

Indigenous Communities Take Chevron to Global Court for Crimes Against Humanity

Read the Article at Common Dreams

New Device Tracks When Cop Pulls Trigger

Read the Article at RT News

One-Third of Top Websites Restrict Customers’ Right to Sue

Read the Article at The New York Times

Desert Hawks: Paramilitary Veterans Group Stakes Out US-Mexico Borderlands

Read the Article at Al Jazeera America