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The Koch Brothers, ALEC and the Savage Assault on Democracy

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

nationofchange.org - By John Nichols - Dec. 10 (Special Report) - For the Koch brothers and their kind, less democracy is better. They fund campaigns with millions of dollars in checks that have helped elect the likes of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Ohio Governor John Kasich. And ALEC has made it clear, through its ambitious ‘Public Safety and Elections Task Force,’ that while it wants to dismantle any barriers to corporate cash and billionaire bucks’ influencing elections, it wants very much to erect barriers to the primary tool that Americans who are not CEOs have to influence the politics and the government of the nation: voting.

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Paul Ryan’s Undeserved Awards

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Ari Berman - Dec. 06 (News Analysis) - Tonight in Washington Rep. Paul Ryan will receive Politico ’s “ Health Care Policymaker of the Year ” award. Washington Monthly blogger Steve Benen deftly summarizes the many reasons why Ryan is so undeserving of said award. It’s been several months sinc

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To Conservatives, Climate Change is Trojan Horse to Abolish Capitalism

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Naomi Klein - Nov. 29 (News Analysis) - Claiming that climate change is a plot to steal American freedom is rather tame by Heartland standards. Over the course of this two-day conference, I will learn that Obama’s campaign promise to support locally owned biofuels refineries was really about “green communitarianism,” akin to the “Maoist” scheme to put “a pig iron furnace in everybody’s backyard” (the Cato Institute’s Patrick Michaels). That climate change is “a stalking horse for National Socialism” (former Republican senator and retired astronaut Harrison Schmitt). And that environmentalists are like Aztec priests, sacrificing countless people to appease the gods and change the weather (Marc Morano, editor of the denialists’ go-to website, ClimateDepot.com).

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Capitalism vs. the Climate

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:41:00 -0800

The Nation - By Naomi Klein, The Nation - Nov. 09 - There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row. He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland’s Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global

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The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Mike Elk, Bob Sloan - Aug. 01 (Investigative Report) - The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour.

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The Problem of Republican Idiots

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Eric Alterman - Jun. 19 (Opinion) - One aspect of American politics that receives insufficient attention is that a significant percentage of self-identified Republicans—around half—are complete idiots. And the candidates who wish to be elected by them must pander to them, either by being idiots themselves—see “Bachmann, Michele”—or pretending to be. Nobody in the MSM is empowered to say this aloud. Indeed, the very act of pointing it out brands one a “liberal elitist” who is biased against proud, patriotic conservatives.

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Around the Globe, US Military Bases Generate Resentment, Not Security

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Katrina vanden Heuvel - Jun. 14 (Opinion) - “It makes as much sense for the Pentagon to hold onto 227 military bases in Germany as it would for the post office to maintain a fleet of horses and buggies,” writes Gusterson. In a recent Italian documentary Standing Army, the late author and Nation contributor Chalmers Johnson says, “The unit of empire in the classic European empires was the colony. The unit for the American empire is not the colony, it’s the military base.… Things that can’t go on forever, don’t. That’s where we are today.” The bases—isolated from the host communities and, as Gusterson writes, “generating resentment against [their] prostitution, environmental damage, petty crime, and everyday ethnocentrism”—face growing opposition from local citizens.

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Wall Street Journal Honcho Shills for Secret Worker 'Education' Program Linked to Koch Group

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Adele M. Stan - Jun. 02 (Investigative Report) - As the nation's largest-circulation newspaper and the paper of record for the nation's financial sector, the Wall Street Journal occupies a unique place amid the panoply of American news sources, and not only for its influence on the nation's economy. The paper is matched only by Fox News in its unabashed alliance with political advocacy organizations associated with Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers and noted conservative funders who run Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held corporation in the United States.

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A New Grassroots Economy

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Sally Kohn - May. 25 (Special Report) - From the vantage point of national politics, it would appear that the greedy, inequality-dependent version of capitalism, which just two years ago was teetering at the brink of extinction, has managed to survive, even tightening its grip on our so-called democracy. After all, the most striking quality of the status quo is its perpetual resilience. So it’s even more striking when viable alternative models blossom from grassroots organizations led by the low-income people and people of color most often locked out of the status quo. It’s potentially revolutionary when these alternatives point to a new vision of real economic democracy. One prime example is the $80 million “community economy” created by the Alliance to Develop Power, in western Massachusetts. ADP is a membership organization comprising roughly 10,000 mostly low-income African-American and Latino leaders. Traditionally, ADP does what most community-organizing groups do—address issues that negatively affect their members, agitate for change and build their base for the next fight. But in its twenty-two-year history, ADP has done things a bit differently. “At the end of every issue campaign, our goal is to create an institution that our members control,” says outgoing executive director Caroline Murray. ADP members don’t want to continually fight those who own the economy. “We want to own stuff, too,” says Murray.

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The Decline of the "Two Breadwinner" Family: How Long-Term Unemployment Threatens to Demolish the Middle Class

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Louis Uchitelle - May. 10 (Special Report) - Born of the women’s movement and the income stagnation that started in the 1970s—soon making one income inadequate—the two-income family became a means of staying in the middle class or striving for that status. Now, one of those incomes is rapidly disappearing as more and more husbands or wives lose a job and, in a period of minimal job creation, can’t get back into the workforce. Once the unemployment benefits expire for the jobless husband or wife, the working spouse’s income then becomes the couple’s jobless pay, sustaining them, but at a lower—sometimes much lower—standard of living.

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Obama Administration Plans Corporate Tax Cut In Year Of Record Profits

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Allison Kilkenny - May. 05 (News Report) - As nationwide budget protests continue this week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to unveil the Obama administration's plan to lower the top corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent to less than 30 percent, and as low as 26 percent.

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An Pakistani Student Reflects on Osama bin Laden's Death

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Maria Kari - May. 05 (Opinion) - As a Pakistani student living in the West, with roots heavily embedded in my cultural and religious heritage, many questions permeated the silence in my living room at that moment. What was Pakistan’s role in all of this? Will the president differentiate between fundamentalist Islam and the religion of Islam of which I adhere? Was there collateral damage? Will I get through airport security more easily now? Why does Obama pronounce Pakistan more correctly than most of my Pakistani-American friends?

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The Credit Rating Hoax

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By William Greider - Apr. 20 (News) - Standard & Poor's, the self-righteous credit-rating agency, has a damn lot of nerve. It provoked scary headlines by solemnly threatening to “short” America. That is, downgrade the credit-worthiness of US Treasury bonds unless Congress and the president oblige creditors by punishing the citizenry with severe budget cuts. What a load of crap.

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Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:34:53 -0700

The Nation - Apr. 20 -

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Why President Obama Is Losing the Budget Fight

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - Apr. 12 (Opinion) - Friday night’s dramatic budget agreement represented a major defeat for President Obama and Congressional Democrats. On substance, John Boehner and Congressional Republicans received $7 billion more in spending cuts than they originally asked for. From a messaging standpoint, the entire debate unfolded on the GOP’s terms (excerpt for a brief interlude concerning Planned Parenthood)—the discussion was about how much to cut, not whether to cut or who would be impacted by such cuts or if such cuts would depress economic growth. The word “jobs” was practically absent from the debate.

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Poverty in John Boehner's District

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Greg Kaufmann - Apr. 12 (News Report) - n 2009, childhood poverty rose over six points in the Boehner district to reach 19.1 percent, or 29,173 kids. Overall, 14 percent of Boehner’s constituents live below the federal poverty line of $22,400 per year for a family of four. Shared Harvest’s work has more than doubled—it distributed approximately 7 million pounds of food in 2007, and 16 million pounds in 2010.

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Jim Messina, Obama's Enforcer

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Ari Berman - Apr. 07 (Opinion) - The hardball tactics used by Messina against CAF exemplified how the Obama administration would operate going forward—insistent on demanding total control, hostile to any public pressure from progressives on dissident Democrats or administration allies, committed to working the system inside Washington rather than changing it.

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The WikiLeaks News & Views Blog for Thursday, Day 124

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Greg Mitchell - Mar. 31 (News) - 9:35 WikiLeaks releases US cable on Mussa Kussa, Libya foreign minister who just defected in London, suggesting he is man of “acumen” and intellect who we can work with. “He is Western-educated…and is seen as a strong supporter of re-engagement with the West…. Kussa is the rare Libyan official who embodies a combination of intellectual acumen, operational ability and political weight.”

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Justice for Betty Dukes and the Women of Wal-Mart?

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Liza Featherstone - Mar. 31 (News Report) - Dukes, who still works at Wal-Mart, is the lead plaintiff in Betty Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores, the largest civil rights class action suit in history, which accuses the retail giant of sex discrimination in pay, promotions and hiring. The potential class has at times included more than a million women (recently, though, estimates have run closer to the hundreds of thousands). Dukes and her colleagues have yet to have their day in court, all these years later, and if an army of right-wing opponents has its way, they never will.

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The Dangerous US Game in Yemen

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Jeremy Scahill - Mar. 30 (News Analysis) - The day before US missiles began raining down on Muammar el-Qaddafi's Libya, hundreds of miles away—across the Red Sea—security forces under the control of Yemen's US-backed president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, massacred more than fifty people who were participating in an overwhelmingly peaceful protest in the capital, Sana. Some of the victims were shot in the head by snipers.

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Wisconsin Judge Checks and Balances a Lawless King, er, Governor

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By John Nichols - Mar. 29 (News Analysis) - Governors are not kings. They do not get to violate the law at will. And they do not get to dismiss orders from judges. Judge Sumi made that "crystal clear" Tuesday, after a day of testimony that described the pressure placed on the state's Legislative Reference Bureau by Walker's consigliere, state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, to publish the governor's anti-labor plan -- even though authorization from Secretary of State Doug La Follette was required, and La Follette was prevented from giving that authorization because of the TRO. Referring to the TRO, Sumi said Tuesday afternoon: "Apparently that language was either misunderstood or ignored, but what I said was 'the further implementation of 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 is enjoined. That's what I now want to make crystal clear."

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Debt, Austerity and How to Fight Back

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:45:00 -0700

The Nation - Mar. 17 - Editor's note: On Tuesday, April 5, hundreds of schools and community groups will participate in a teach-in on debt, austerity and how people are fighting back. From 2 – 3:30 pm (EST) a national teach-in will be streamed live from New York City, followed

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Huckabee Replaces N-word With 'Mau-Mau'

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Leslie Savan - Mar. 07 (News Analysis) - But here’s a simpler theory: The right spews this bizarre “anticolonial” claptrap because it gives them a chance to say “Mau Mau,” which conjures a more fearsome threat than the N-word itself. Is Huckabee trying to prove he can be a good hatchetman as a Veep candidate, or is he just letting his freak flag fly? It’s hard to say—or anyway, harder to say than “Mau Mau.”

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Why Washington Doesn't Care About Jobs

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Christopher Hayes - Mar. 03 (Opinion) - For the condo-buying, sushi-eating Beltway elite, the recession is over. For the rest of America, not so much.

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In Its Crusade Against Choice, Has the GOP Gone Too Far?

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Katha Pollitt - Mar. 03 (Opinion) - Not content with depriving women of reproductive healthcare, House Republicans want to starve them and their children too.

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