BILL QUIGLEY FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

US civilian and military employees regularly target and fire lethal unmanned drone guided missiles at people across the world. Thousands of people have been assassinated. Hundreds of those killed were civilians. Some of those killed were rescuers and mourners.

These killings would be criminal acts if they occurred inside the US. Does it make legal sense that these killings would be legal outside the US?

...

Read the full post

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Less than ten days after taking office in January 2001, President George W. Bush gathered a host of religious folks at the White House and announced his faith-based initiative, the cornerstone of his compassionate conservative agenda. It became, as The Christian Science Monitor's G. Jeffrey MacDonald recently termed it, "one of the flash points of the culture wars that raged as he came to office in 2001."

However, the clashes of the Bush era culture wars pale in comparison to the enmity of Religious Right activists who denounce President Barack Obama's all-out "War On Religion." This flies in the face of the evidence since less than a month into his presidency, President Obama signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

...

Read the full post

PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" These words, from poet Emma Lazarus, were inscribed on the Statue of Liberty over 100 years ago. Today the golden door has a lock on it, paid for with record profits from the health care, education and financial industries.

1. We're Near the Bottom of the Developed World in Children's Health and Safety

According to a 2007 The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report, the US ranked last among 21 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations in an assessment of child health and safety. The assessment measured infant mortality, immunization, and death from accidents and injuries.

A related 2009 OECD study generally agreed, placing the US 24th out of 30 OECD countries for children's health and safety. It also showed the devastating effects of inequality in our country. Despite having the second-highest average income for children among the 30 OECD countries, the US ranked 27th out of 30 for child poverty (percentage of children living in households that are below 50% of the median income).

2. We've Betrayed the Young People Who Were Advised to Stay in School

Over 40% of recent college graduates are living with their parents, dealing with government loans that average $27,200. The unemployment rate for young people is about 50%. More than 350,000 Americans with advanced degrees applied for food stamps in 2010.

As Washington lobbyists endeavor to kill a proposed bill to reduce the interest rates on student debt, federal loans remain readily available, and so colleges go right on increasing their tuition.

Meanwhile, corporations hold $2 trillion in cash while looking for investments and employees in foreign countries, and American students are forced to accept menial positions. Yet, delusions persist about our new generation of would-be workers. Conservatives are all bubbly about today's young entrepreneurs creating their own jobs - jobs that "don't yet exist." ...

Read the full post

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The "[un]fair and [un]balanced" FOX News is now into fart stories, even ones that aren't true. We don't know where this fits in with creationism, but asserting that dinosaurs extinguished themselves with bodily gas emissions puts FOX the level of tabloids that assert "Cannibals Ate JFK's Body as Part of Zombie Conspiracy."

According to a blog devoted to the advancement of rational scientific principles, "the reports of dinosaurs dying of farts are greatly exaggerated." BuzzFlash at Truthout wants to reassure readers that this is not a satire. ...

Read the full post

The following is a news release from the Center for Constitutional Rights:

Lower courts to hear Iraqi civilians' claims of beatings, forced nudity, broken bones, and rape at hands of corporate defendants.

Read the full post

Read the full post

STEVEN JONAS for BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Well, Governor Romney seems well on his way to garnering the GOP nomination for the Presidency. It is hard to see how his quest could be derailed at this point, even by the revelation in the Washington Post that he bullied prep school classmates that he thought were gay. He acknowledged that he was involved in such "high jinks and pranks," but he had "no idea that this person might have been gay." (Sort of like Clinton and marijuana and "I didn't inhale." But that is another matter.) So, in this space we ask Governor Romney questions that might not otherwise be asked by journalists:

1. You have had significant experience in running a company that made its money (and still does, and you still benefit from its profitability) by closing down, downsizing, and exporting jobs from various companies. You are proud of that experience, in fact, because you made a lot of money doing it. How does such experience qualify you to "rescue an economy," an economy that has been trashed by corporate closures, downsizing, and the export of jobs?

2. Treason is generally defined as engaging in one or more acts designed to overthrow the sovereign power of one's own nation. It is also defined as consorting with the enemy in wartime (such as Prescott Bush's bank did with Germany, until February, 1942, when it was forced to stop by President Roosevelt under the threat of criminal prosecution). In this country, it is a crime that carries the death penalty. Of course Ann Coulter, in her 2003 book Treason, had another definition: In general terms, anyone who did not support US policy during the whole of the Cold War (generally "liberals") was a traitor. What is your understanding of the term? Whatever it is, do you agree with the woman who recently asked you if you thought that President Obama should be tried for treason?

Read the full post

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In early 2004, BuzzFlash at Truthout wrote a commentary advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to define Bush early or be defeated. The title of the BuzzFlash opinion piece was, "BuzzFlash Message to John Kerry: It's the Golden Hour of Opportunity, Define Bush or Be Defined by Him. There is No Option 'B.'"

Kerrey apparently didn't read BuzzFlash, because he got "Swiftboated" early and never regained his footing.

Read the full post

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

BuzzFlash at Truthout has periodically written on the increasingly perverse profiteering of big agriculture (Big Ag), particularly its toxic threat (most recently about Monsanto and the dying of bees). In fact, it is an ominous evolution that chemical companies have – through GMO seeds and herbicides – become the most powerful force in Big Ag.
...

Read the full post

ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The city of Chicago and the federal government will be putting on a $55 million security extravaganza later this month to protect NATO delegates, representing the most powerful military force on the planet, from nonviolent protesters who want to see an end to war.

Think of the mini-security state as an ironic projection of NATO's own agenda, which is control - by force - of as much of the world as possible. And of course the propaganda that accompanies the big show is that the protesters are the dangerous and disruptive ones, that NATO's violence is distant, necessary and somehow clean, despite the occasional awkward headline ("NATO Admits Killing Afghan Mother, 5 Children in Air Strike").

What the protesters really represent is what NATO, and all the forces of empire and domination, fear most: the impertinence to question and challenge authority and demand a say at the big table.

...

Read the full post