Submitted by mark karlin on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 1:07pm.
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
If you want to know why we are still seeing headlines like this one, "Arizona Goes Birther: Secretary Of State Says It's ‘Possible' Obama Won't Be On Ballot," it's because of the reality of headlines like this one, "Census: Minority Babies Are Now Majority in United States."
The Washington Post article on May 16th put it bluntly:
For the first time in U.S. history, most of the nation's babies are members of minority groups, according to new census figures that signal the dawn of an era in which whites no longer will be in the majority.
Population estimates show that 50.4 percent of children younger than 1 last year were Hispanic, black, Asian American or in other minority groups. That's almost a full percentage point higher than the 49.5 percent of minority babies counted when the decennial census was taken in April 2010. Census Bureau demographers said the tipping point came three months later, in July....
The census has forecast that non-Hispanic whites will be outnumbered in the United States by 2042, and social scientists consider that current status among infants a harbinger of the change.
"This is a watershed moment," said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in family issues. "It shows us how multicultural we've become."
So the pathological lie about Obama not being American because he's black; the hysteria about immigration from Mexico (after all, no Tea Party advocate seems concerned about illegal maids from Poland in the US); the suppression of voter rights (most affecting the young and the poor and the elderly; i.e, that is to say minorities particularly in the cities) and so much more of the white right wing mania is in response to the basic fact that the demographics of the US democracy are inevitably going to make whites a minority in this nation.
That is why the likes of Palin, Bachmann, Santorum, Buchanan and the whole Disneyesque fantasy promulgators on the right talk incessantly about America being divinely configured as a white Christian nation. In the past few years, it has reached a feverish pitch. ...
Submitted by mark karlin on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 11:13am.
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
The "Stand Your Ground" law is just a license to murder for white people in Florida.
The case of George Zimmerman shooting Trayvon Martin to death in Sanford, Florida, is starting to recede to the back pages of the news. This killing occurred, of course, after Zimmerman stalked Martin, who was staying with this father and his father's girlfriend, in the same gated community that Zimmerman lived in.
Zimmerman's legal stance is that he was in compliance with the state's NRA/ALEC model "Stand Your Ground" law, which basically, in the absence of witnesses, provides a license to kill with impunity. However, the lethal irony of the law is evident in that one could make a strong argument that Martin, who was being stalked by someone who he didn't know and was armed, had a legal right to "stand his ground" due to the threatening nature of Zimmerman's actions.
But Martin is dead, so it is a moot legal point for someone who is deceased.
Yet, Marissa Alexander, a black victim of domestic violence, just received the full brunt of the racial double standard on "Stand Your Ground" NRA/ALEC laws. In Florida, where Martin was killed, Alexander was just sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing off a warning shot to fend off her abusive husband. It's important to note that Alexander received a sentence in jail, even though she was allegedly defending herself - and no one was hit or injured by the shot. ...
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 10:40am.
HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
The projected price for Georgia's Vogtle Double Reactor Project has jumped at least $900 million in just three months....and that's just for starters.
Will you pay for it? The future of new atomic power in the US hangs in the balance.
Construction at Vogtle is defined by faulty concrete and non-spec rebar steel that threaten public safety and could delay completion dates beyond those projected even before construction began.
South Carolina's V.C. Summer, the only other new US reactor project now under construction, also admits to huge cost overruns. It is meeting fierce rate payer resistance in two states. From Iowa to Brazil, Japan to France, the global reactor industry is collapsing in tandem. But what other nations will it bankrupt and irradiate before it's finished?
...
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 8:49am.
BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
If you've been eagerly consuming news stories about the powerful billionaire Koch Brothers, exposés of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the JP Morgan Chase debacle, the critical upcoming recall election in Wisconsin, and the Republican Party's increasingly weird War on Women, you probably haven't been thinking much about Glenn Beck; at least not since last summer when he was let go by Fox News.
Since Beck has seized the title of the "busiest man in show business" from Ryan Seacrest, it may behoove you to allow him back into your life!
Writing in the May issue of Vanity Fair magazine, journalist Todd S. Purdom warns that "just because he may have fallen off your radar" since his glorious days at Fox, "doesn't mean that millions of faithful listeners don't still harken to his every dog-whistle warning."
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Submitted by BuzzFlash on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 1:13pm.
FINDING A VOICE by Ann Davidow
You can count on pompous right-wing champions rising to the occasion when it comes to filling in conversational openings with political fodder instead of logic.
Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh among others are always on standby to provide talking points in support of their political brethren. Critics of Sarah Palin are said to have defamed her because of her gender. Bad behavior when he was a teenager is said to be immaterial in the resume of presidential hopeful Romney no matter how mean-spirited or similar in kind it is to his current policies. The apoplectic O'Reilly approach is kind of funny but infuriatingly predictable. No matter what the subject these folks are able to spin it their way.
Even Bristol Palin has, for some inexplicable reason, found a media corner from which to expound about the president with respect to his remarks about same-sex marriage. The fact that her mother ran for vice president with a minimum of intellectual heft apparently allows daughter Bristol to enter the political fray with even less gravitas. "Mama Grizzly," always quick to defend her ‘cubs' should tell her daughter that if she chooses to criticize her betters she should be prepared to take a few well-aimed hits herself.
Read More
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Submitted by mark karlin on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 12:53pm.
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
In case you missed it, the concept of the Eurozone imposing drastic austerity measures on poorer member nations is coming to a critical juncture in Greece.
In the most recent elections, the result was a stalemate at forming a parliamentary government. So a caretaker prime minister, Council of State President and Judge Panagiotis Pikrammenos, has been appointed to head an interim government until new elections on June 17.
Many Greek and European election watchers expect the surging anti-austerity Syriza party to win on June 17 after coming in second in the May 6th balloting that ended without a government being formed.
According to the BBC, the leader of Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, considers surrendering to the European Union social network cuts in Greece as non-negotiable as the price of a bailout. As the BBC reports, "Tsipras has accused the EU and German Chancellor Angela Merkel of 'playing poker with European people's lives' by insisting on austerity measures."
Tsipras is brash, blunt, and unyielding in his view that the wealthy Euro nations (and banks) are profiting at the expense of the poorer ones: ...
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 05/15/2012 - 3:18pm.
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?
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Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 05/15/2012 - 1:49pm.
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.
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Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 05/14/2012 - 2:38pm.
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." ...
Submitted by mark karlin on Mon, 05/14/2012 - 1:38pm.
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. ...
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