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Black Unemployment Nearly Twice that of Whites
The Associated Press reports: “The Labor Department will report the latest figures on unemployment and payrolls on Friday, and analysts expect to hear more bad news. They forecast that the unemployment rate will remain unchanged from May at 9.1 percent. They also expect that employers added only 90,000 jobs last month, below the 100,000 threshold that economists say is needed to prevent the unemployment rate from increasing.” ANDY KROLL, andykroll at gmail.com Kroll just wrote the piece “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Jobs: How Racism, Global Economics, and the New Jim Crow Fuel Black America’s Crippling…
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* Israeli Official Does Not Deny Sabotage Allegations Against Gaza Flotilla * Reports of U.S. Green Light for Violence
The Jerusalem Post reports: “The Greek Coast Guard has now stopped the U.S. boat [The Audacity of Hope is attempting to go to Gaza in spite of an Israeli siege] and is demanding that they return to the Port of Athens.” Passengers on the boat are tweeting regular updates: “Captain explaining to Coast Guard it’s not safe for U.S. boat in Greek ports, as others were sabotaged & Netanyhau thanked Greek PM #flotilla2” @usboattogaza This morning on Democracy Now Ido Aharoni, consul general of Israel in New York, refused to deny Israel’s role in sabotage against the boats in the flotilla,…
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* Offense Major Portion of “Defense” Budget * State Shortfalls Could be Wiped out by Ending Afghan War
MIRIAM PEMBERTON, Miriam at ips-dc.org, via Lacy MacAuley, Lacy at ips-dc.org Pemberton is research fellow of Institute for Policy Studies and co-author of the just-released report “Unified Security Budget for the United States, FY 2012,” which finds that retiring Pentagon head Robert Gates’ “words were never matched by the facts of his own budget requests. Closely inspected, the past and future military ‘savings’ claimed by the administration, even if they materialize, will leave us with military budgets even higher than they are now.” The report also finds that “the ratio of offense to defense [spending is] at 11:1.”
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Major Protests: * Greece * Egypt
CNN is reporting: “Greek lawmakers Wednesday approved a package of austerity measures demanded by international lenders, despite protests outside Parliament as they were voting.” JOSEPH DANA, joseph.dana at gmail.com Dana is a reporter in Greece. He recently tweeted: “The main protests in Athens are taking place on the Athenian 5th Avenue. Imagine an HSBC bank set ablaze on 5th Avenue and you have Athens.” See his twitter feed. [Dana is in Greece to cover of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which is scheduled to leave Greece within days. He is typically based in the West Bank and is a contributing editor…
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Prosecuting Gadhafi, Prosecuting U.S. Leaders
The Washington Times editorialized Tuesday: &…
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Study Estimates Costs of U.S. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan at $3.7 Trillion, 225,000 Killed
Reuters reports: “When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America’s wars. “Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday. “The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project ‘Costs of War’ by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.” See the…
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Propaganda on Libya
BRUCE FEIN, bruce at thelichfieldgroup.com Obama legal adviser Harold Koh is scheduled to testify on Libya and war powers this morning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Koh maintains that the attack on Libya is legal because it does not amount to “hostilities,’ a position reportedly at odds with virtually every other legal view from within the administration itself; see: “Obama Rejects Top Lawyers’ Legal Views on Libya.”
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Save the Budget, Cut the Military?
The Washington Post’s lead story today is “GOP Compromise on Debt: Cut Military Spending?” which reported: “As President Obama prepares to meet Monday with Senate leaders to try to restart talks about the swollen national debt, some Republicans see a potential path to compromise: significant cuts in military spending. “Senior GOP lawmakers and leadership aides said it would be far easier to build support for a debt-reduction package that cuts the Pentagon budget — a key Democratic demand — than one that raises revenue by tinkering with the tax code. Last week, Republicans walked out of talks led by Vice…
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Gaza Flotilla Under Threat
KATHY KELLY, kathy at vcnv.org Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Kelly just wrote the piece “Staying Human: Preparing to Sail to Gaza,” which states: “Last week, newly-arrived in Athens as part of the U.S. Boat to Gaza project, our team of activists gathered for nonviolence training. We are here to sail to Gaza, in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, in our ship, ‘The Audacity of Hope.’ Our team, and nine other ships’ crews from countries around the world, want Israel to end its lethal blockade of Gaza by letting our crews through to shore to meet with Gazans.…
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NYT: “Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush”
Today the New York Times published a piece titled “Behind Veneer, Doubt on Future of Natural Gas.” On Saturday it ran the article “Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush,” which reported: “Gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the [drilling] companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.” WENONAH HAUTER, via Kate Fried, kfried at fwwatch.org. Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, said today: “The fact is that the natural gas industry has…
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Howard Zinn