Truthout Daily Digest | Monday, 27 April 2015

Suicide on the Great Sioux Nation

Jason Coppola, Truthout: A suicide state of emergency has been declared on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The Lakota Nation is coming together to deal with historical trauma, and find strength and hope for their youth.

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Now Is the Time for the Progressive Movement to Win

Leslie Thatcher, Truthout: Salvatore Babones talks with Truthout about his new book, the significance of social science in formulating social and economic policy and the urgent need for new and different US policies for everything from employment to education to health care.

Read the Interview

New York Airport Workers Strike, Telling Management “Poverty Wages Don’t Fly”

Matt Surrusco, Truthout: Airport baggage handlers and wheelchair attendants calling for higher wages, more affordable benefits and union representation rallied outside LaGuardia Airport on Thursday, accompanied by labor organizers and members of the union they hope to join.

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Confronting Brunch

Peter Frase, Truthout: When Black Lives Matter protesters chose to interrupt the comfortable Sunday tradition of brunch by reading aloud the names of police-murdered Black men to restaurant-goers, it opened the door to a serious analysis of this curious culinary phenomenon.

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Vermont Activists Battle Democratic Governor for Single-Payer Health Care

Steve Early, In These Times: Bitter recriminations over Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin’s health care retreat have morphed into broader controversies about workers’ rights, contract concessions and a state austerity budget.

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Food Stamps Are Worth Double at These Michigan Farmers Markets – Helping Families and Local Businesses

Araz Hachadourian, YES! Magazine: The USDA is putting $31 million behind a program that helps low-income families take home twice the veggies, and local farmers make twice the money.

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The Glyphosate Saga and “Independent Scientific Advice,” According to Germany, the UK and France

Staff, Corporate Europe Observatory: Germany is charged by the EU with the safety review of glyphosate, yet three scientists sitting on its scientific panel on pesticides are employees of BASF and Bayer, two major pesticides producers. Meanwhile, the UK has simply privatized its governmental Food and Environment Research Agency.

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Crisis, Opportunity and Climate Austerity in Drought-Stricken California

Kate Aronoff, Waging Nonviolence: The drought problem California is facing is a microcosm of sorts for climate change itself, and all the more reason why adequately confronting it has implications well beyond the state’s borders.

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To Defend the Environment, Support Social Movements Like Berta Caceres and COPINH

Jeff Conant, Inter Press Service: If the world is going to reduce the destructive environmental and social impacts that too often accompany economic development, we need to do all we can to recognize and support the peasant farmers, Indigenous Peoples and social movements that put their lives on the line to stem the tide of destruction.

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PETA’s Cruel and Unusual Crush

Jill Richardson, OtherWords: Joe Arpaio, the hardline anti-immigrant sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, prides himself on making jail a miserable place to be. Why would PETA ever pal around with this guy? Because Arpaio took meat off his prisoners’ menu.

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Memories of Galeano’s Fire: My Afternoon With the Late Uruguayan Writer

Danny Postel, Pulse Media: “My heart has been heavy since learning over the weekend of the death of the radical and marvelously lyrical Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, whom I had the enormous pleasure of meeting some 20 years ago,” the author writes in this tribute to the late Galeano.

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This week in Speakout:

Dean Baker highlights The Washington Post’s message to readers that the elite “will lie, cheat and steal to pass their trade deals”; Jesse Hagopian spotlights Garfield High School teacher Heather Robison’s conscientious test objector declaration; Tom H. Hastingsreflects on Earth Day as a holiday with an agenda; Jack A. Smith remembers the earthshaking lesson the United States experienced in Vietnam; Stacy Malkan examines how the media fell for a GMO front group attack; Matt Peppe explains why Cuba won’t extradite Assata Shakur; Brian Terrell celebrates how activists are making history and building a future in the Nevada desert; James Dorsey reports on Israel’s racism-related soccer woes; David Swanson analyzes the “gradual injustice” of drone warfare; Evaggelos Vallianatos memorializes Audrey Moore’s battle against the carcinogens that ultimately killed her; and more.

Read the Articles

BuzzFlash

The BuzzFlash commentary will return soon.

Nepal Terrorized by Aftershocks That Stymie Relief Efforts

Read the Article at The New York Times

Dallas Cops Killed a Man Within Seconds of Arriving at His Door; They Won’t Face Criminal Charges

Read the Article at ThinkProgress

“Freddie Gray Was Me”: Frustration With Police Simmers After Death in Baltimore

Read the Article at The Guardian

Declassified: Report on NSA Surveillance Flares Up Battle for Privacy

Read the Article at RT

Federal Appeals Court Dismisses Lawsuit in Border Patrol Shooting of Mexican Teen

Read the Article at El Paso Times

For-Profit Corinthian Colleges to Shut Down More Than Two Dozen Remaining Schools

Read the Article at the Los Angeles Times

Glenn Greenwald: The Key War on Terror Propaganda Tool – Only Western Victims Are Acknowledged

Read the Article at The Intercept

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.

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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

Truthout Daily Digest | Monday, 20 April 2015

Dahr Jamail | Gulf Victims Suing BP Disaster’s Compensation Czar

Dahr Jamail, Truthout: Five years after BP’s oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, those suffering physically and financially from it are suing Kenneth Feinberg, the attorney chosen by BP and the US government to administer compensation funds, alleging he misled claimants in order to limit BP’s financial liability.

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Gulf Fishermen Still Struggling Five Years After the BP Spill

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: Five years after BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Truthout goes onboard a small fishing boat in the Gulf to find out how the catastrophic spill is still impacting families and the local economy.

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The Canadian Ministry of “Truth”: “Reality Is Whatever We Say It Is”

Fred Guerin, Truthout: In George Orwell’s dystopian novel1984, the phrase “reality control” describes how the powerful create logic-denying, fact-free realities that happen to suit their interests. We now live in that world.

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So Far, 2015 Is On Pace to Set Abortion Restriction Records

Katie Klabusich, Truthout: Only 12 percent of counties have an abortion provider, and state-level, anti-abortion provisions are being introduced at a record pace this year – 332 in 43 states. We are past the emergency point where every restrictive law costs people – especially the poor and already marginalized – their right to bodily autonomy.

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A Foreclosure Conveyor Belt: The Continuing Depopulation of Detroit

Laura Gottesdiener, TomDispatch: Detroit residents are fighting against the worst iniquity imaginable: a Detroit where once inhabited streets have been submerged in the silence of water retention ponds, where longtime residents have been scattered and displaced by the foreclosure conveyor belt.

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Dean Baker | A Simple Progressive Economic Agenda for Hillary Clinton (or Anyone Else)

Dean Baker, Truthout: While many policies will be needed to improve the situation of the poor and middle class, there are three simple ones that could make a big difference: a more competitive dollar, a Federal Reserve Board committed to full employment and a financial transactions tax to rein in Wall Street.

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This 4/20 Should Be a Wake-Up Call to End the Racist “War on Drugs”

The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: The war on drugs decimates communities of color, breaks apart families and brings violence into already poverty-stricken neighborhoods. It also makes problems associated with drug abuse worse because it passes the buck on to a prison system that doesn’t know how to deal with addiction.

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How the Federal Reserve Is Destroying Your Economic Future

Lynn Stuart Parramore, AlterNet: Economist Gerald Epstein and his colleague sought to find out who in the economy tends to benefit from the Fed’s actions. They conclude that wealthy Americans are the big winners from policies like quantitative easing, while the rest see little improvement in their economic lives.

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FBI Informant Exposes Sting Operation Targeting Innocent Americans in New(T)ERROR Documentary

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: A new film shines a bright light on the FBI’s shadowy use of informants in its counterterrorism sting operations. These undercover operatives are meant to root out would-be terrorists before they attack, but critics argue they often target the wrong people.

Watch the Video Interview and Read the Transcript

Protesters Bring Ongoing “Situation” to New FERC Chairman

Anne Meador, DC Media Group: At his first meeting as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Commissioner Norman Bay gave the cold shoulder to demonstrators who repeatedly interrupted him to protest what they say is FERC’s rubber-stamp approach to regulation.

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Climate Change Threatens More Than Two-Thirds of Rabbit Species

Katie Leach, The Conversation: Climate change will have major effects on the ecology and distribution of many animal species. Now new research suggests that rabbits will be particularly hard hit as climatic changes alter their habitat over the coming decades.

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Strategies of the 1% Revealed

George Lakey, Waging Nonviolence: We often fail to notice the strategy game of the 1%. Knowing some of the favorite moves they make to achieve their goals will assist us as we stand up for justice, equality and life itself. Even in the United States, the 1% has lost some battles.

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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Workers Join the “Fight for $15” Movement, and More

In today‘s On the News segment: Thousands of workers across the United States took part in mass protests in more than 200 cities; in the European Union, regulators are actually standing up to corporate monopolies; in the richest nation on earth, the number of homeless children has grown by 60 percent in the last six years; and more.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

BuzzFlash Walmart Heir Does Not Deserve Assets It Would Take a Worker a Million Years to Earn Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: Don’t be fooled by Walmart’s announcement that it is raising its lowest wage to $10 per hour for full-time workers by 2016. Read the BuzzFlash Commentary Green Activist Killings Up by a Fifth Read the Article at BBC Another Fight for 15: A $15,000 Dividend for Every US Family Read the Article at BuzzFlash Antarctica Blows Hot and Cold – for Now Read the Article at Climate News Network Ignoring the Terror Within Read the Article at The Kansas City Star Don’t Let Conservatives Continue to Ban and Censor Library Books Read the Article at BuzzFlash A City Goes Renewable, but Raises Questions About the Impact of Biomass Power Read the Article at Al Jazeera America Undocumented Migrant Children Have Become Big Business for Extortionists Read the Article at The New Yorker

Truthout Daily Digest | Friday, 17 April 2015

Fighting a Low-Intensity War, Indigenous Tupinamba Recover Their Land in Brazil

Santiago Navarro F., Renata Bessi and translated by Miriam Taylor, Truthout: While Brazilian state forces were sent to Tupinamba territories to guarantee law and order, the indigenous people became determined to do something the government refused: demarcate the borders of indigenous land. After self-demarcation, the Tupinamba reclaimed and occupied their territory.

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Jordan Downs: Toxic Cleanups Underway, but Many Fear It’s Too Little, Too Late

Daniel Ross, Truthout: Jordan Downs, a subsidized housing project in Watts, Los Angeles, sits in one of the most heavily polluted regions in California. Although three separate toxic cleanups in and around Jordan Downs are underway, environmentalists, community advocates and residents fear the worst of the damage has already been done.

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Diversifying the Environmental Movement Isn’t Enough

Olivia Aguilar, Truthout: Recent calls to diversify the environmental movement often ignore the racist complexities associated with the history of the movement. Environmentalists don’t have a diversity problem, they have an identity problem. And it’s rooted in a racist history and unchecked biases.

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A Trade Rule That Makes It Illegal to Favor Local Business? Leak Shows TPP Would Do That and More

David Korten, YES! Magazine: A leaked document substantiates claims by opponents that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a corporate-rights agreement designed to facilitate the export of US jobs, allow corporations to sue governments for enacting labor and environmental protections and make it illegal for governments to favor local businesses.

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Reparations in Chicago: The Homestretch

Kelly Hayes, Transformative Spaces: Tuesday was a historic day in Chicago. The movement for reparations for survivors of police torture is on the brink of a tremendous victory, as Chicago’s City Council now stands ready to pass the first legislation in US history that provides reparations for police violence.

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What Did Democrats Win in the Cardin Compromise on the Corker Bill?

Robert Naiman, Truthout: Democrats supported the amended Corker bill not because they think the bill is perfect, but because the “coach blew the whistle on the play.” You don’t want to be like a soldier who thinks he’s still fighting a war after his government has already signed a deal.

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Khalil Muhammad: To Stop Police Killings, Transform the Political Culture That Threatens Black Lives

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: Protests were held from coast to coast Tuesday in a day of action against police violence and racial profiling. Amy Goodman is joined by Khalil Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry Speaks at a San Fransciso McDonald’s Protest for $15 an Hour

Staff, Labor Video Project: Protests of fast-food workers were held throughout the US and globally April 15. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry called on Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton and other candidates to support the $15 an hour campaign.

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Four Reasons Why the Transition From Fossil Fuels to a Green Energy Era Is Gaining Traction

Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch: Don’t hold your breath, but future historians may look back on 2015 as the year that the renewable energy ascendancy began, the moment when the world started to move decisively away from its reliance on fossil fuels.

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Five Corporations That Probably Didn’t Pay Taxes This Year

Kevin Mathews, Care2: While the average US taxpayer tends to dread April 15, not every person needs to get upset about Tax Day. These people (or, well, “people”), better known as corporations, have found that the existing tax rules actually work in their favor.

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The Storm Is Over

Kathy Kelly, teleSUR: Just about everyone longs to raise their children in a world where drought, storms and brutal want won’t loom as insoluble, inevitable catastrophes. But other storms will come, and we will have to see how we weather them. What if our terrible fear of each other could pass us by?

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It’s Not Easy for Obama to Prove He’s Green

Emily Schwartz Greco, OtherWords: Just as cutting back from two packs of cigarettes a day to one pack won’t do away with your personally inflicted cancer risks, all President Obama’s great steps toward a lower-carbon future won’t paint his legacy green.

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BuzzFlash

A Fourth of All Part-Time College Instructors Require Government Financial Aid

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: The populist protests for livable wages have spread far beyond the most visible recent public actions that were focused on the fast-food sector.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Loretta Lynch Supporters Stage Hunger Strike to Urge Confirmation

Read the Article at Politico

We Need to See Realistic LGBT People on Our Screens, Not Toxic Caricatures

Read the Article at The Guardian

Petcoke in Chicago: A Toxic Gift From the Koch Brothers

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

House Votes to Repeal Estate Tax

Read the Article at The Hill

Small Aircraft Lands on Capitol Hill Lawn, Pilot Taken Into Custody

Read the Article at Huffington Post

Overfished Stocks at All-Time Low

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Marines Set for New Mission in Troubled Central America

Read the Article at Marine Corps Times

Truthout Daily Digest | Thursday, 16 April 2015

Doing the Unthinkable: Giant Gas Pipeline to Flank a New York Nuclear Power Plant

Ellen Cantarow, Truthout: The federally approved Algonquin Pipeline expansion will come so close to the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester, New York, that experts say a rupture could cause a Fukushima-like catastrophe, making the entire region uninhabitable for generations.

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Drug Reform Is About Animal Rights, Too

Andrew Gargano, Truthout: While drug raids have become known for the human casualties they claim and their infringement on the Fourth Amendment, they also contribute to an inordinate number of animals killed.

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Tom Hayden: Cuba Has Stood Up to US Hegemony for 55 Years

Mark Karlin, Truthout: In this interview, activist and author Tom Hayden discusses his new book, Listen, Yankee! Why Cuba Matters, and explains the changing nature of Cuban-US relations and the legacy of the Cuban Revolution.

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Tax (Break) Day

Jasmine Tucker, Truthout: Each year, the US loses out on billions of dollars in revenue due to corporate tax breaks. Every dollar the government spends on a tax break is a dollar it can’t spend elsewhere, yet few Americans are aware of how much corporate tax breaks cost the government.

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Transnational Companies Driving Deadly Conflict in Guatemalan Indigenous Territory

Jeff Abbott, Truthout: As privatized hydroelectric projects – part of “Plan Mesoamerica” – have rapidly expanded in Guatemala, so too have conflicts with indigenous populations. The plan would interconnect the infrastructures of all Central American countries.

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Hotel Industry Spins Wage Hikes as Extreme While CEOs Rake in Millions

Mary Bottari and Jody Knauss, PR Watch: The little-known trade association representing the $163 billion hotel industry is a major force fighting behind the scenes on Capitol Hill and in statehouses and courtrooms across the country to keep workers’ wages low.

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The Chevron Tapes: Secret Videos Reveal Company Hid Pollution in Ecuador

Kevin Koenig, Amazon Watch: Recently released videos are a true treasure trove of Chevron’s misdeeds and corporate malfeasance. Chevron is seen finding its own extensive contamination – in areas the company claimed to have cleaned up in 1998 – then pre-gaming the judicial inspections to defraud the court.

Read the Article and Watch the Videos

Physical Murder and Political Asphyxiation: The Story of Danielle Hicks-Best

Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Black Agenda Report: An 11-year-old Black girl is raped twice by men and winds up jailed and institutionalized for years by a callous and predatory system. Danielle Hicks-Best was simply used to justify the salaries and maintenance of a system based on the decapitation of Black bodies.

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US Chamber of Commerce Doubling Down on Political Juggernaut

Carrie Levine, The Center for Public Integrity: The Chamber of Commerce’s new election season strategy will include a greater emphasis on recruiting the right sort of business-friendly GOP candidates and intervening in primaries as it attempts to sculpt a compliant Congress that mirrors its priorities.

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Bill O’Reilly’s Latest “White” Dream

The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: When Bill O’Reilly says that it’s “open season” on white men in this country, he’s either mind-numbingly ignorant or just not taking a good hard look at our society today. White privilege and male privilege are very real.

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Obama to Remove Cuba From Terror List After Latin American Outcry; Will the Embargo Follow?

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: While Cuba is being removed from the US terrorism list, the trade embargo remains in place. Former Cuban diplomat Carlos Alzugaray Treto discusses the dire effects US sanctions have had on the Cuban population.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

Four Election Stories That Show the GOP Is Moving Even Further Right

Robin Marty, Care2: From primaries to party leaders, Tea Partiers are becoming the predominate face of the GOP. That could mean a party ready to crumble if it becomes too extreme or, even more frightening, if today‘s Congress ends up being more “moderate” than the Congress that convenes in 2017.

Read the Article

BuzzFlash

Hillary Clinton’s Likely Planned Chipotle Moment Represents Tawdry Mass Media and Politics

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: This is the level that politics has sunk to: a likely pre-strategized nonevent – probably leaked by the Clinton campaign to The New York Times – creating an international media sensation.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Gay Marriage Still Under Attack by Religious Right Zealots

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Fracking and Big Ag Are Polluting 80 Percent of the Depleted Groundwater in California

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: Scientists May Have Found Potential Cause of the Disease

Read the Article at The Independent

How Hillary Clinton’s State Department Sold Fracking to the World

Read the Article at Mother Jones

Boston Marks Two Years Since Marathon Bombings

Read the Article at The Boston Globe

“Fight for 15” Movement: Low-Wage Workers Plan Walkouts, Protests

Read the Article at the Tribune News Service

New Bill Would Help Domestic Violence Survivors Find Shelter for Their Pets, Too

Read the Article at RH Reality Check

Truthout Daily Digest | Thursday, 2 April 2015

Ring of Snitches: How Detroit Police Slapped False Murder Convictions on Young Black Men

Aaron Cantú, Truthout: One jailhouse informant for the Detroit Police Department sent Lacino Hamilton to prison. Now, Hamilton’s fight to be released has revealed systemic corruption allegedly perpetrated by police, prosecutors and prisoner informants hoping for more lenient sentences.

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Laura Flanders | The Fight Against High-Stakes Testing: A Civil Rights Movement

Laura Flanders, Truthout: Jesse Hagopian, history teacher and editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing, talks about the fight against high-stakes testing, the roots of that testing in eugenics movement and its insidious anti-democratic and anti-labor social goals.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

Rounding Us Up, and Exposing Us All to Cancer

Brian Moench, Truthout: The World Health Organization has just declared the most widely used herbicide in the world, glyphosate, a “probable human carcinogen,” a designation long overdue. Cancer is only one of many health consequences of the growing scourge of herbicides, pesticides and GMOs.

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It’s Time to Talk About the Next System

Cecilia Gingerich, Truthout: For systemic crises, relief will come only through systemic solutions. The Next System Project, which launches today, offers such solutions to the systemic climate, political, economic, social and cultural crises the United States is experiencing.

Read the Article and Watch the Video

Fatal Construction Accident Shows Higher Risks Faced by Latino Workers

Danica Jorden, Truthout: Three men were killed and one left in serious condition after a construction accident in Raleigh, North Carolina. The incident illustrates the differential risks still facing Latino workers, often employed by a tangled web of contractors and subcontractors.

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When Is the Next Ice Age?

The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: If we want to prevent a new ice age for much of the planet, then we need to put a price on carbon now to fight back against climate change – the greatest threat our human species has ever faced.

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Impunity Fuels Abuse in Immigrant Detention Centers in Spain

Inés Benítez, Inter Press Service: In Spain, immigrants are frequent victims of abuse and mistreatment by the national police, who are in charge of guarding them. Human rights organizations also complain about hurdles thrown in the way of investigations of reports of abuse and the prevailing impunity.

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What the Atlantic Coast Should Brace for if Offshore Drilling Gets Approved

Wilma Subra, Facing South: Offshore energy exploration, drilling and production on the Atlantic coast will leave permanent environmental damage and destruction. The physical environment will be severely negatively impacted in the name of “progress,” with no consideration of the devastation.

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Grabbing Africa’s Seeds: USAID, EU and Gates Foundation Back Agribusiness Seed Takeover

Stephen Greenberg and Oliver Tickell, The Ecologist: The latest salvo in the battle over Africa’s seed systems has been fired with the Gates Foundation and USAID playing puppet-masters to Africa’s governments as they drive forward corporation-friendly seed regulations that exclude and marginalize the small farmers whose seeds and labor feed the continent.

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Court Steps in to #SaveH2B, but Is the US Guestworker Program Worth Saving?

Rachel Luban, In These Times: While many H-2B guestworkers are unhappy with the abuse and exploitation they suffer on the job, that doesn’t necessarily mean they want the program to go away, as the program often offers the only means of employment available for some workers.

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Climate Change: When It’s All in the Family

Felix Kramer, The Houston Chronicle: Could heartfelt pleas from family members move the people who run the world to an urgent response to our climate crisis? The families and friends of movers and shakers have a unique opportunity: They can spur what may have already begun.

Read the Article

BuzzFlash

The BuzzFlash commentary will return soon.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence Either Confused or Misleading Everyone About His Controversial Law

Read the Article at the Huffington Post

Midnight Deadline Looms Over Iran Nuclear Deal

Read the Article at The Middle East Eye

Pharmacy Groups Balk at Supplying Lethal Injection Drugs

Read the Article at NBC News

Turns Out the World’s First “Clean Coal” Plant Is a Backdoor Subsidy to Oil Producers

Read the Article at Grist

A Court Case So Secret, the US Government Says It Can’t Go On

Read the Article at Bloomberg View

US Pledges Emissions Cuts of Up to 28 Percent Ahead of Global Climate Treaty

Read the Article at The Guardian

Honoring Cesar Chavez’s Birthday by Supporting the Farm Workers for Whom He Gave His Life

Read the Article at the Huffington Post

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Truthout Daily Digest | Saturday, 28 March 2015

Beyond Homan Square: US History Is Steeped in Torture

Adam Hudson, Truthout: When reports of torture in CIA black sites or Chicago’s Homan Square come out, it’s tempting to view them as historical anomalies, but they are not. Rather, state torture is the norm, a product of the slavery and imperialism on which the United States was built.

Read the Article

Louisiana Residents Convince EPA That Burning Explosive Waste Outside Is a Bad Idea

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: More than 18 million pounds of hazardous explosives are still sitting in bunkers at Camp Minden in Louisiana, after an explosion happened there more than two years ago. Officials haven’t agreed on how to clean up the wartime leftovers, but they have decided not to burn them in the open air.

Read the Article

Shaker Aamer: Hostage to the Special Relationship

Aisha Maniar, Truthout: Prisoner Shaker Aamer is not being held at Guantánamo Bay for anything he has done; he is a pawn in the power games of others.

Read the Article

A Window Into Congressional Intelligence Oversight

Jude Widmann, Truthout: The positions advocated in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs by Jane Harman, former ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, reflect how weak, incomplete and outdated US intelligence oversight is.

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The Divisive Euro: National Struggles and International Solidarity

Lorenzo Del Savio and Matteo Mameli, Truthout: While nationalist rhetoric has often been exclusionary and utilized by racist, right-wing factions, national struggles can also be an inclusionary means to stimulate solidarity among the oppressed, in Greece and other disadvantaged European nations, against the political and economic elites of the European Union.

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Endless War: As US Strikes Tikrit and Delays Afghan Pullout, “War on Terror” Toll Tops 1.3 Million

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: As the United States begins bombing the Iraqi city of Tikrit and again delays a withdrawal from Afghanistan, a new report has found that the Iraq War has killed about 1 million people. The Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War examined the toll from the so-called war on terror.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

The Fight of Their Lives: Can Adjuncts Finally Win a Living Wage?

Rebecca Burns, AlterNet: Seattle may have become one of the first cities to pass a $15 minimum wage last year, but the city’s adjunct instructors say that the dictum for fair pay has yet to penetrate the Ivory Tower. The next big fight for decent labor protections is heating up in academia.

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Howard Zinn, “Finishing School for Pickets,” and Paula Giddings, “Learning Insubordination”

Howard Zinn and Paula J. Giddings, TomDispatch: In an excerpt from 1960, Howard Zinn observes the young women of Spelman College turning into protesters, while historian Paula J. Giddings vividly looks back on Zinn and the Spelman experience 55 years later.

Read the Excerpt and the Essay

Talk Climate to Me

Emily Schwartz Greco, OtherWords: While Florida Gov. Rick Scott openly questions whether climate change is occurring, he denies he’s muzzling his staff. But stories of Florida state workers and contractors getting the brunt of this censorship make his denial ring hollow.

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Paul Krugman | Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal: Few Benefits, Many Questions

Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: Why do some parties want this treaty so much? Because, as with many “trade” deals in recent years, the intellectual property aspects are more important than the trade aspects. We should never forget that protecting intellectual property means creating a monopoly.

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Household Debt Is a National Crisis

LeeAnn Hall, OtherWords: The Obama administration should investigate all forms of predatory lending, including student loans, payday loans, medical loans, mortgages and credit cards. Our children, our neighbors, our parents, the sick and the struggling aren’t cash cows for bankers and lenders to milk.

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Deep Dive: The White House’s New Memo on Drones and Privacy

Rachel Levinson-Waldman, Brennan Center for Justice: Last month, President Obama released a presidential memorandum on the domestic use of drones by federal agencies. The memorandum addresses the implications for privacy, civil rights and civil liberties. The memorandum takes some steps in the right direction, but leaves many questions unanswered.

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BuzzFlash Those Who Want Peace Have the High Moral Ground; Those Who Want Conflict Have the Power Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: The bottom line is that war needs to occur in order to justify the US military empire. Read the BuzzFlash Commentary Ted Cruz Is All About Repressing the Religious Rights of Non-Christians Read the Article at BuzzFlash Co-Pilot Appears to Have Crashed Germanwings Plane on Purpose, Prosecutor Says Read the Article at Reuters Wealth vs. Money Read the Article at BuzzFlash “False Witnesses” Publish Deeply Flawed Study on Abortion Mortality in Mexico Read the Article at RH Reality Check WikiLeaks Leaks TPP Draft! Read the Article at Daily Kos Bring Snowden Home? European Panel Says It’s Time Read the Article at WhoWhatWhy Saudi Arabia Launches Yemen Air Strikes as Alliance Builds Against Houthi Rebels Read the Article at The Guardian

Truthout Daily Digest | Sunday, 22 March 2015

Monica Jones to the UN: US Must Decriminalize Sex Work

Mike Ludwig, Truthout: Nearly two years ago, Monica Jones was walking to meet some friends at a neighborhood bar in Phoenix, Arizona, when she was picked up by an undercover cop and arrested for prostitution during a massive police sweep. Now, she’s in Geneva, Switzerland, taking her case to the United Nations.

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Up Next on the GOP’s To-Do List: Selling US National Forests

Dan Faris, Truthout: In February, a conservation group held a mock auction of the Grand Canyon. They wanted to prove the absurdity of selling our protected national lands. Unfortunately, thanks to the GOP, this may be closer to reality than we could have guessed.

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Don’t Fall for the Former Nigerian Dictator Playing Democrat

Adjoa Agyeiwaa, Truthout: Western media display bias and shortsightedness toward Nigerian presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator. However, Nigerian voters must not fall for his populist slogans of hasty change, which could result in the country backsliding to dictatorship.

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Everyone’s Asking the Wrong Questions About Health Care in the US

Michela Dai Ziv, It’s Just Copper and Plastic: Instead of arguing over how many unborn children can dance on the head of a pin, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves how it is that a 25-cent birth-control device came to cost almost $1,000 in the United States, and why we seem unable to do anything about it?

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Obama Seeks Fast Track for Trade Deal That Could Thwart “Almost Any Progressive Policy or Goal”

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!: Congressional Democrats are openly criticizing the secrecy surrounding the negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, just as President Obama begins a major push to pass the controversial deal.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

From Good Ole Boy to Progressive Activist: One Man’s Story

Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout: James Gustave Speth traces his transition from a “good ole boy” growing up in the segregated south to vocal anti-racist and environmental activist.

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Voices From Solitary: “I Am Somebody’s Daughter”

Victoria Law, Solitary Watch: The following account is by Nicole Natschke, who is currently held in the segregation unit at Illinois’ Logan Correctional Facility, about three hours south of Chicago. She explains that even a few weeks in solitary confinement can have dire consequences on people’s physical and mental well-being.

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“Data Trespass,” Wyoming’s Fancy Name for Ag-Gag

Sue Udry, Dissent NewsWire: Jonathan Ratner tests water. He visits streams in Wyoming, takes samples and tests them for E. coli. He’s been testing streams for years, concerned that waste from Wyoming’s 1.3 million cattle is polluting streams. And it is.

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Medea Benjamin | Ten Things to Know About the GOP’s “Iran Letter” Sponsor

Medea Benjamin, PINKtank: Hailing from Arkansas, 37-year-old Sen. Tom Cotton boasts the title of being the youngest member of the Senate, but he spouts the old warmongering rhetoric of 78-year-old Sen. John McCain. From Guantánamo to women’s rights, here are 10 reasons why Tom Cotton is a dangerous dude.

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The Dilemma of Soy in Argentina

Fabiana Frayssinet, Inter Press Service: Industrial soy production continues to expand in Argentina, pushing small farmers out of the countryside. It presents a challenge in a country where 70 percent of the food consumed comes from family farms, but which also needs the foreign exchange brought in by “green gold.”

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Richard D. Wolff | Economic Update: Economics of Corruption

Richard D. Wolff, Truthout: This episode provides updates on a press conference concerning Janet Yellen and “Blockupy” protests in Europe against the European Central Bank and austerity. We also respond to questions on New York Mayor de Blasio signing a bill for worker co-ops and an important fight over the closing of Sweet Briar college.

Listen to the Audio Segment

BuzzFlash

Fox On-Air Propagandists Blare That Not Everyone Should Vote

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: When Fox pundits assert that only “informed” people should vote, that raises an important question. If being informed with actual facts is the standard, then no one watching Fox should be able to vote.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Mountaintop Mining Removal: It’s Time to Bring This Tragedy to an End

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Jon Stewart Eviscerates Fox for “Benghazi Race-Gasm”

Watch the Video at Comedy Central

Paul Krugman: Trillion Dollar Fraudsters

Read the Article at The New York Times

School Ties: College Students Rally for Prison Divestment

Read the Article at The Marshall Project

Federal Probe Launched After Black Mississippi Man Found Hanging From Tree

Read the Article at The Guardian

US Weapons Have a Nasty Habit of Going AWOL

Read the Article at Mother Jones

March 20, 2003: The United States Invades Iraq

Read the Article at The Nation

Truthout Daily Digest | Saturday, 21 March 2015

As Gentrification Persists in San Francisco, Evictions Take New Forms

Adam Hudson, Truthout: As San Francisco rents continue to rise and gentrification spreads, unscrupulous landlords are using new tactics to evict tenants from affordable housing, including bullying residents, going “out of business” and misusing zoning laws.

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The Increasing Concentration of Capital Precludes Democracy

Tariq Ali, Verso Books: The contradiction between the dense concentration of capital and the needs of a majority of the population is becoming explosive. But the hollowing out of democracy is not a process that can be reversed by parliamentary decree alone.

Read the Excerpt

UN Security Council: Right Venue for Iran Deal, Right Venue for Israel-Palestine

Robert Naiman, Truthout: The Netanyahu lobby has too much power in Washington for DC to be the center of a resolution to the conflict. That is precisely why the Netanyahu lobby has insisted that Washington must be the center of Israel-Palestine diplomacy.

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Women Up in Arms: Zapatistas and Rojava Kurds Embrace a New Gender Politics

Charlotte María Sáenz, Other Worlds: Women are increasingly represented on governing councils and active in the armed ranks of resistance groups, but the real revolution is seen within the domestic sphere, where caring for children, health and home are shared labor between men and women.

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Richard Falk on ISIS and Islamic “Essentialism”

Dan Falcone, Truthout: The international law and foreign relations scholar deconstructs “essentialism”: right-wing political commentators’ attribution of recent events in the Middle East, such as the ISIS beheadings or the destruction of Assyrian artifacts in the Mosul Museum in Iraq, to the essential character of Islam.

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Joseph Stiglitz on the Trans-Pacific Partnership: “This Is A Big Deal”

Alexandros Orphanides, In These Times: Proponents of the TPP argue that the agreement will encourage global economic integration, increase US competitiveness in a “dynamic Asia region” and stimulate political reform leading to more open markets. All this, they claim, will result in better jobs, wages and products.

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Consumers Getting “Skinned” by Health Insurers

Wendell Potter, Center for Public Integrity: Conventional wisdom holds that consumer-driven health care has contributed to a slowing in the rate of medical inflation. It also undoubtedly has contributed to a very troubling phenomenon: people with health insurance who are no longer getting the care they need.

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Why Did Miriam Carey Die After Wrong Car Move at White House Checkpoint?

Amy Goodman and Aaron Maté, Democracy Now!: As new details have emerged about two Secret Service agents accused of drunk driving into a White House security barricade, we look back to another Secret Service scandal – the shooting of Miriam Carey on October 3, 2013.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

Guiding Obama Into Global Make-Believe

Ray McGovern, Consortium News: This US pattern of exaggeration – making scary claims about Ukraine without releasing supporting evidence – has even begun to erode the unity of the NATO alliance, where Germany is openly criticizing the Obama administration’s heavy-handed use of propaganda against Russia.

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Edison’s Bright Idea

Emily Schwartz Greco, OtherWords: It could take years to restore the equilibrium Big Oil banked on just a year ago. In the meantime, disruptive energy innovations will keep reducing and displacing demand for fossil fuels, and governments will step up green-energy mandates.

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Science Denier Ted Cruz Doesn’t Understand NASA’s Core Mission at All

Steve Williams, Care2: Putting science-denier Senator Ted Cruz in charge of NASA’s funding oversight was never going to go well. Last week the Republican lawmaker really began flexing his muscles, claiming that NASA should focus only on space exploration and stop looking at more earthly matters.

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The Brutal Winter That Wasn’t

The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: People like Senator Jim Inhofe, America’s climate change-denier-in-chief, would tell you that this winter was proof that climate change and global warming are a big joke. But here’s the thing: In most of United States, this winter was not cold.

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Fitness Devices Make it Harder to Lie to Ourselves

Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: You might say that the truth will show up on the scale and your waistline eventually. Yes, but that’s too future-oriented. You need to guilt-trip yourself in the here and now.

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BuzzFlash

Rick Scott’s Ban on State Officials Acknowledging Global Warming Imperils Florida

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: Although Florida’s coast is in danger of permanent flooding due to global warming, Governor Rick Scott has reportedly issued a gag order on state officials, prohibiting them from even mentioning climate change.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Community Rights vs. Corporate Rights: Citizens Fight for Home Rule Against Fracking and Pipelines

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

UN Panel to Consider US “Failure” to Clear Up Racial Murders of Civil Rights Era

Read the Article at The Guardian

Charles P. Pierce: There Is No Republican Middle

Read the Article at Esquire

Black Women’s Lives Matter: A Chant Less Often Heard

Read the Article at Ravishly

We’re Pumping So Much Groundwater That It’s Causing the Oceans to Rise

Read the Article at Mother Jones

Obama Proposes Mandatory Voting, Says it Would Be “Transformative”

Read the Article at ABC News

The Unbearable Cruelty of the GOP Budget

Read the Article at Reverb Press

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Truthout Daily Digest March 17, 2015

Henry A. Giroux | Higher Education and the Politics of Disruption

Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: Higher education has been hijacked by the corporate elite, who have made learning about free-market principles and personal security rather than the public good and promoting democracy and justice. Academics and social movements must reclaim the university and transform it into a public space.

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Amid Evidence of Illnesses, Activists Call on Electronics Industry to Boost Workplace Safety

Nicki Lisa Cole, Truthout: More than 200 scientists and environmentalists have challenged electronics companies to prioritize workers’ health and safety and stop polluting the communities around their factories.

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Workers Behind Effective Campaigns Are Now on Trial for Racketeering

Michelle Chen, The Nation: The Laundry Workers Center’s courageous tactics have proved successful in challenging their employer’s power. Now the LWC is facing its own challenge in court, accused of illegally “conspiring” to protest against a boss. Fortunately, the law is on the workers’ side.

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Israeli Opposition Calls Out Netanyahu for Racist Attack on Arab Voting

Robert Naiman, Truthout: Congressional Republicans apparently see Netanyahu as their “supreme guide” for determining US policy toward Iran. So, the top foreign policy adviser, if you will, to congressional Republicans on Iran policy is an Israeli leader whom the mainstream political opposition in Israel sees as a racist.

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Senator Whitehouse Exposes ALEC Climate Change Denial

Jamie Corey, PR Watch: This week, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse took to the Senate floor to call upon the United States to “wake up” to the damaging effects of climate change denial and the fossil fuel industry funding received by groups that promote it, including the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Read the Article and Watch the Video

The SEC’s Andrew Bowden: A Regulator for Sale?

Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism: Bowden, who clearly sees himself as an upstanding person, is nevertheless a textbook case by virtue of how deeply captured he is, and his refusal to scrutinize the comfortable, career-advancing assumptions that have worked so well for him.

Read the Article and Watch the Video

The Big Dick School of US Patriotism: And What We Make of It

Nan Levinson, TomDispatch: “We live in a state of pervasive national security anxiety. There are various possible responses to this low-grade fever that saps resolve, but first we have to face the basis for that anxiety – what I’ve come to think of as the Big Dick School of Patriotism.”

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Depaving Cities, Undamming Rivers: How We’re Undoing the Damage

Diane Brooks, YES! Magazine: The largest dam-removal project in history reached completion last fall, when excavators dredged the final tons of pulverized concrete from the Elwha River channel in western Washington State. All around the United States, people are stepping up to help a damaged planet heal.

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Will the Photo ID Mess Be Repeated in 2016 or Resolved by the Supreme Court?

Ernest A. Canning, The Brad Blog: There are some key decisions from the US Supreme Court, coming very soon, which may well determine whether millions of otherwise lawfully registered and disproportionately Democratic-leaning African-American and Latino voters will be prevented from voting in the 2016 elections.

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Dangerous Diplomacy: US Praises Mexico and Honduras, Targets Venezuela

Cyril Mychalejko, teleSUR: President Obama declared Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to national security” on March 9 on the basis of alleged human rights abuses and political corruption. This is part of an ongoing US campaign of aggression toward Venezuela.

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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Last Year Was the Hottest Year Ever, and More

In today‘s On the News segment: The rate of human-caused global warming is going to soar in the next decade; new legislation would end the federal prohibition on medical marijuana; each of us may carry more than 100 genes from other organisms; and more.

Watch the Video and Read the Transcript

BuzzFlash

Koch Brothers Are Endangering the Planet by Funding Climate Change Denial

Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: The Koch brothers, the most noted billionaires in the crusade to corral US democracy into an oligarchy, are back in the news for their funding of climate-denial flummery.

Read the BuzzFlash Commentary

Top 10 Arguments for Raising the Minimum Wage

Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Jon Stewart Rips Texas Over Gay Marriage Ban “Hate Cake”

Watch the Video at Comedy Central

Drought-Stricken California Only Has One Year of Water Left, NASA Scientist Warns

Read the Article at The Guardian

Iraqi Offensive for Tikrit Stalls as Casualties Mount

Read the Article at The Washington Post

“Radicals of a Different Sort”: How the Reactionary Right Is Plotting to Steal the White House

Read the Article at Salon

Inside the Senate GOP’s Self-Made Debacle on Sex Trafficking and Abortion

Read the Article at Talking Points Memo

Oregon Is First State to Adopt Automatic Voter Registration

Read the Article at the Associated Press