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Man Made Disaster in New Orleans
By Laura Flanders
Hurricane Katrina is often called a natural disaster, as if it was all nature's fault, not man's. The reality, of course, is that federal, state and local governments ignored warnings from scientists for years, both that climate change would lead to increased storm activity, and that destruction of wetlands outside of New Orleans had hurt the city's natural defenses against a storm surge. Calls for fixing levees and infrastructure investments went unheeded while the doctrine of markets and profits held sway.
This week, a federal district judge finally ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers was indeed responsible for part of the devastation in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and parts of St. Bernard Parish.
The failure of the Corps to recognize the hazards wetland destruction had created was "clearly negligent on the part of the Corps," said U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. "Furthermore, the Corps not only knew, but admitted by 1988 [the threats to human life] and yet it did not act in time to prevent the catastrophic disaster that ensued."
(28) CommentsNovember 20, 2009
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With Harvard's Help, Congress May Keep Bloggers Out of Jail
By Ari Melber
It's hard out here for a blogger.
And hard for online journalists, unemployed new media producers, and just about anyone else dabbling in journalism without professional backing.
Beyond the basic financial challenges, there is scant legal help for members of the new media, even though they face the same complex, pricey legal threats as traditional media. Plus extra threats -- like government attempts to out anonymous bloggers, which can cost a lot to fight in court.
(13) CommentsNovember 19, 2009
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Newsweek Taps Bush Aide For Obama Reporting (Updated)
By Ari Melber
See if you can follow this logic.
A recent article in Newsweek states that Democrats could have won a "very significant number of Republican votes in Congress" for the stimulus -- had there only been a "meaningful tax-cut component." Political journalism is often imaginative, but this verges on delusion. After all, Obama labored to add about $280 billion in tax cuts to the stimulus -- over objections from many Democrats -- and still netted zero Republican votes in the House. Then, the piece asserts that Obama has no "coattails," based on 2009 elections, and reports "early signs of Obama fatigue are emerging." (Again, another observer might note that Democrats have won all 5 special congressional elections this year.) The article also predicts that gubernatorial losses in Virginia and New Jersey "will" make some Democrats "very nervous" about health care reform, which is a "political risk" for the party.
"We appear to be witnessing the beginnings of a significant Republican revival," continues the piece, bringing home its quirky counter-narrative. Lucky for struggling Democrats, however, this Newsweek item closes with some free political advice. "Liberals in Washington would do well to let go of the Republican breakdown narrative," notes the final sentence, "and pull back to the center--or suffer the consequences."
(189) CommentsNovember 17, 2009
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Bonanza for Over-Builders
By Laura Flanders
I just don't get it. When Congress approves gifts worth billions of dollars to people who don't deserve a dime, why isn't it front page news?
On Nov. 6, when President Obama signed the Worker, Home-ownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009, he extended unemployment benefits and renewed the first-time home-buyer tax credit for a while, but hidden deep inside the law was a tax break for businesses that did well in the boom years -- and the resulting refund-checks will be huge.
The tax break would help struggling businesses, Obama declared, but the act actually affects big companies as well as small. Businesses are allowed to offset losses incurred in the bad years of 2008 and 2009 against profits booked as far back as 2004. Those with the biggest boom followed by the biggest bust are exactly the companies like to benefit the most. Among them, you guessed it, home-builders, exactly the folks who overbuilt and over-lent us into a mortgage and credit meltdown.
(34) CommentsNovember 17, 2009
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The Messenger and the Hidden Costs of War
By Eyal Press
Many Americans don't need a movie to appreciate the human toll that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have exacted on communities in this country. For those who do, there is The Messenger, Oren Moverman's haunting new film about a captain and a young staff sergeant working the army's "bereavement notification" beat, which requires them to go around the area near Fort Dix, NJ, knocking on the doors of relatives and spouses to inform them that one of their loved ones has been killed.
The movie isn't quite as artful as some bedazzled critics have made it out to be. Some of the dialogue is stilted; a couple of scenes seem overly scripted or forced. Still, in the course of two tightly compressed hours, The Messenger manages to offer something so much of the news coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has not: a glimpse into the shattered lives of the bereaved. We watch people's faces compress into grief as they realize their worst fear has come to pass. We hear them wail uncontrollably or sputter in rage. Although there is no gory war footage in the movie, the emotional weather hovers between uncomfortable and unbearable, as viewers take in the small scenes of devastation that have unfolded in countless living rooms and vestibules in recent years, yet remained largely hidden from view. The Messenger's director, Oren Moverman, is Israeli, and I wondered after seeing it whether part of what drew him to this subject was the creepiness of being in a country ‘at war' where so many citizens are completely insulated from its costs, something that wouldn't be possible if America, like Israel, had a draft.
The backdrop to The Messenger is, tellingly and predictably, Iraq: the bad, pointless, unwinnable war. Yet its timeliness owes to Afghanistan, where, on Friday, two more American servicemen were killed, meaning two more unwelcome visits paid by bereavement notification officers to parents or spouses somewhere. In the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, there is a short, poignant piece on Afghanistan by Garry Wills, who notes that one thousand soldiers were wounded there in the last three months alone. These soldiers are the lucky ones, not killed but merely injured, a travail conveyed with great force in The Messenger through the character of Will Montgomery, a staff sergeant who returns from Iraq a "hero," but with a severely damaged eye and badly fractured psyche that has him looking for ways to numb himself and escape.
(36) CommentsNovember 15, 2009
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Water on the Moon -- and Money for NASA
By Jon Wiener
"Water found on the moon," the headlines said – water that "could be used for drinking," the LA Times reported, possibly enough for "future astronauts to live off the land."
The "water" that was "found," however, consisted of 25 gallons. The average American uses about 80 gallons of water per day, according to the US Geological Survey. But most of that is for flushing the toilet and taking showers. If the astronauts used lunar "water" only for drinking, and if three astronauts each drank six eight-ounce glasses per day, they would drink the 25 gallons in about three weeks.
There would be a problem, however. NASA didn't find one big frozen puddle – their spectrometers identified dust that suggested water molecules were "likely to be mixed in with the soil." Getting the H2O out of the frozen soil would take energy and equipment. Maybe it would be easier for our people to bring their own water.
(87) CommentsNovember 14, 2009
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Hannity and Bachmann Almost Apologize
By Leslie Savan
A fundamental tenet for both rightwing politicians and their media pilot fish is: Never, ever, apologize for the crazy. If you get caught exaggerating or even lying outright, simply respond by saying, "The left sees it differently" or "The mainstream media take their cues from liberals" or some such weasel-bite, even if the dispute is over widely accepted facts.
Yet in just the past couple of days, two of the loudest and most obdurate voices on the right have had to apologize, or at least feign doing so, for major bloopers concerning Rep. Michelle Bachmann's Tea Party rally held on Capitol Hill on November 5.
The most slippery mea culpa came from Fox News's Sean Hannity. On the day of the rally (a/k/a "the Super Bowl of Freedom"), he used fake footage to bolster Bachmann's absurd claim that the protest drew a crowd of 20,000 to 45,000--when reliable estimates stretch from 4,000 to 10,000, tops. Hannity's producers spliced scenes from the much larger 9/12 rally sponsored by Glenn Beck in between shots of Bachmann's much smaller turnout on 11/5, suggesting that her group had spilled out onto the Mall.
(186) CommentsNovember 13, 2009
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Will the Senate Stand Against Stupak?
By Emily Douglas
"That's the price of healthcare reform." That's what plenty of oh-so-well-meaning pundits have told those of us making a fuss over the Stupak amendment, the late-night attachment to the House healthcare reform bill that will leave virtually any woman accessing insurance through the health insurance exchange without abortion coverage. (Another argument that's cropped up is that the Stupak amendment won't actually affect abortion access for that many women, a claim that's based on faulty analysis of Guttmacher data on billing for abortion care, as Adam Sonfield explains.)
But both pro-choice and progressive healthcare reform leaders and members of Congress have come out swinging against the amendment, some going as far as to make it clear they'll refuse to support reform if Congressional Democrats decide to pay for it with women's healthcare. Calling the amendment a "middle-class abortion ban," Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said Wednesday that her organization would not support healthcare reform with an amendment further limiting access to abortion. Meanwhile, Senators Barbara Mikulski and Diane Feinstein have begun strategizing how to keep Stupak off the Senate bill, the New York Times reports.
"Keeping Stupak off the Senate bill is our primary goal right now," Laurie Rubiner, PPFA vice-president, said, "and chances are very good for that." "We're definitely hearing a lot of encouraging talk [about the Senate]," Donna Crane, public policy director at NARAL Pro-Choice America, adds. "The Senate thinks the House went too far."
(46) CommentsNovember 13, 2009
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Obama's Organizing Army Finally Targets Republicans
By Ari Melber
In an unusually aggressive move, Organizing for America announced Wednesday that it is mobilizing its volunteer army to confront the 32 Republican legislators who voted against health care reform -- despite representing districts that voted for Obama.
The pressure campaign is designed "to remind these members that voters in their districts voted for change last year," explain OFA officials, "and urge them to reconsider their position when the House votes again on a final bill later this year."
The program calls on OFA activists to visit the district offices of their members. OFA officials say the effort will begin "as early as" Thursday and continue through next week. At the height of the presidential campaign, OFA's supporter list topped 13 million, making it the largest political network of its kind.
(119) CommentsNovember 12, 2009
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Carrie Prejean: An All-American Sore Loser
By Adam Howard
Permit me to borrow one our president's most famous turns of phrase--Carrie Prejean's story could "only happen in America." Most of us who don't consume a daily diet of shows like Access Hollywood and TMZ would normally not have heard of Miss Prejean, but now that she's become a regular on Fox News, an author and poster child for "Palinized" conservative women everywhere--she's almost unavoidable. Most recently she appeared on Larry King Live, where she repeatedly snapped at the septuagenarian host for being "inappropriate."
For the uninitiated, a quick recap:
Carrie Prejean was competing the Donald Trump-funded Miss USA pageant, and was representing California. Apparently she was well ahead in points when she reached the question-and-answer segment. Openly gay blogger Perez Hilton, serving as a judge, asked her about her position on same-sex marriage. To which she replied (emphasis mine):
(132) CommentsNovember 12, 2009
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