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Cost of War: Breaking It Down
Jo Comerford is executive director of the National Priorities Project; Chris Hellman is budget analyst for the group, which as part of the re-launch of its website, CostofWar.com, has just issued “What’s at Stake?” — 50 state-level briefs focused on the impact of war spending. Hellman said today: “In state after state, tough decisions are being made about critical programs that touch people’s lives. It’s imperative that we examine the locally-based opportunity costs of federal spending decisions. NPP’s numbers will help people assess the magnitude of war spending and draw their own important conclusions. This is especially important as Vice President…
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Martin Luther King Jr. on Violence
“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. … “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. …
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Haiti One Year After the Earthquake
MELINDA MILES Founder and director of Let Haiti…
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Guantánamo Forever?
In the U.S. till Thursday, Andy Worthington is author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. He just wrote the piece “Guantánamo Forever?” He is co-director of the film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.”
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Arizona Shooting
Author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, Frederick Clarkson is editor of the book Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America. He is founder of the interactive blog “Talk to Action” about the religious right. He said today: “Jared Loughner may be many things. If police and news reports are accurate, he may be mentally ill. He may have harbored far right-wing conspiracy theories and held hateful views towards government. This volatile mix may have led to his decision to plan to buy a gun and attempt to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle…
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Commission on BP
Miyoko Sakashita is senior attorney and director of the Oceans Program at the Center for Biological Diversity. She said today: “The Commission’s report confirms that the oil industry cannot be trusted, and the federal government is also to blame for being asleep at the wheel. There are systemic problems at the Department of the Interior that have allowed drilling in the Gulf to evade safety and environmental protections. However, Secretary of the Interior Salazar seems to have learned nothing from the catastrophic oil spill, and again opened up the Gulf to deepwater drilling without environmental review.”
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“Unconstitutional” Espionage Act May Target WikiLeaks
In response to reports that the House will be reading aloud the Constitution on Thursday, attorney Robert Meeropol — founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children — said today: “I hope that if that happens, Congress will take special note of Article III, Section 3, that defines treason, since rumors have been swirling that the United States is preparing to indict WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for conspiring to violate the Espionage Act of 1917 — a law that I believe violates the Constitution. …
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Reading the Constitution: How Is It Being Violated?
Bruce Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel to the Federal Communications Commission under President Reagan and is author of the new book “American Empire: Before the Fall.” He recently wrote a piece titled “Ten Congressional Commandments,” which states: “The Constitution exclusively empowers Congress to authorize the initiation of war under Article I, Section 8. The Founding Fathers constitutionally precluded the president from deciding on war or peace because of the executive branch’s incentive to exaggerate danger. War crowns the president with fame, secrecy, spending, and arbitrary powers over the citizenry. …
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Taxes on Rich: Public vs. Government
David Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist, author and founder of the online newspaper ThisCantBeHappening.net. He just wrote the piece “A Profound and Jarring Disconnect,” which states: “According to the latest poll conducted by CBS ’60 Minutes’ and the magazine Vanity Fair, 61 percent of Americans want to raise taxes on the wealthy as the primary way to cut the budget [deficit]. The same poll finds that the second most popular first choice for cutting the nation’s budget deficit, at 20 percent, is cutting the military budget. That is, 81 percent of us — four out of five — would cut…
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Pakistan Assassination
Junaid Ahmad is assistant professor of law at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. He said today: “The assassination of the ruling party’s governor of Pakistan’s largest province, the Punjab, adds one more to the list of high-profile political assassinations in the country. … The assassination and the chaos that has ensued happen at a time when the ruling PPP coalition government has dramatically lost its legitimacy, both from its coalition political parties and from the popular street. And once again, Pakistan descends into an incredible period of instability and uncertainty.”
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“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn