NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

Many Still Believe That Saddam Hussein Was Behind 9/11, and Now We Have Some Idea Why

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Emily Badger - Nov. 06 (News Analysis) - Of 49 people included in the study who believed in such a connection, only one shed the certainty when presented with prevailing evidence that it wasn't true. The rest came up with an array of justifications for ignoring, discounting or simply disagreeing with contrary evidence — even when it came from President Bush himself.

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Obama Vs. Rupert Murdoch: Fox News' Blatant Transition into GOP TV

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Eric Boehlert - Oct. 14 (Opinion) - Rupert Murdoch's cable cabal is now, first and foremost, a political entity. Fox News has transformed itself into the Opposition Party of the Obama White House, which, of course, is unprecedented for a media company in modern-day America.

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Unintended Consequences in Nuclear Pakistan

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthDig - By Fred Branfman - Oct. 09 (News Report) - If U.S. military leaders are right that they cannot prevail in Afghanistan without escalating into Pakistan, this is the strongest possible argument for withdrawing from Afghanistan. For nothing, not even Taliban rule in Kabul, could justify allowing the tiny Afghan tail to wag a giant, nuclear-armed Pakistani dog whose stability is clearly America’s very top priority in the region. Further instability in Pakistan would only benefit al-Qaida, which has already made deep inroads into Pakistan and is unlikely to return to Afghanistan even if the U.S. withdraws from there. Former N.Y. Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer is right: “It should be engraved on the minds of every American diplomat: Do nothing that will further destabilize Pakistan” (from the “Rethink Afghanistan” video).

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The Nightmare of Christianity: How Religious Indoctrination Led to Murder

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Max Blumenthal - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - Murray's parents were not neglectful of their son, nor were they intentionally abusive. By all accounts, they raised him in faithful accordance with the teachings of the Christian right's leading self-help gurus. In their cloistered world, where home-schooling is viewed as an ideal alternative to "government schools," and where the rod is rarely spared, they were model parents. Murray's killing spree thus reflected less on his parents than on the all-encompassing authoritarian culture that Dobson had helped to shape. When practiced in the real world, the movement's "family values" sometimes produced some unusually dysfunctional families. Only by blaming Satan and his minions for Murray's acts could the Christian right avoid acknowledging this absolutely damning indictment of its ideology.

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There Are More Slaves Today Than at Any Time in Human History

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Terrence McNally - Aug. 25 (Special Report) - One hundred forty-three years after passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 60 years after Article 4 of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery and the slave trade worldwide, there are more slaves than at any time in human history -- 27 million. Today’s slavery focuses on big profits and cheap lives. It is not about owning people like before, but about using them as completely disposable tools for making money.

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Our Last Chance to Preserve Life On Earth Is Slipping Away

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Larry Schweiger - Aug. 17 (Editorial) - Shallow news coverage causes most Americans to underestimate the urgency of the threat of global warming. ...

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7 Ways We Can Fight Back Against the Rising Fascist Threat

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Sara Robinson - Aug. 15 (Editorial) - It only takes a small handful of thugs to terrorize people into giving up their civil rights, abandoning democracy and doing what they're told, just so they can keep their jobs, windows and families intact.

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The Ugly Racism of the Right Will Be Their Undoing

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Leslie Savan - Aug. 04 (News Analysis) - With every passing day it gets harder to think of this sudden dialing-up of whiny hate speech as sheer coincidence. Instead, it's beginning to look inevitable -- so much so that maybe the real question is, What is it about health care that brings out the latent racism in the GOP?

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How the Ultra-Rich Are Trying to Kill Health Reform

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By David Sirota - Jul. 28 (Opinion) - Cash payoffs made, re-elections purchased, the absurd story somehow goes that because blue-collar constituents in Flyover America like guns and love Jesus, they must also reflexively adore politicians who defend 1-percenters' bounty. That fantastical fairly tale, of course, couldn't exist without the Millionaire Media -- the elite journalists and opinionmongers who represent corporate media conglomerates and/or are themselves extremely wealthy. Ignoring all the data about inequality, they legitimize the assertions of the 1-percenters' first two battalions, while actually claiming America's fat cats are unfairly persecuted.

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There Is No Reason for Us to Be in Afghanistan -- Everyone Knows It, and It Spells Defeat

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Chris Hedges - Jul. 23 (Opinion) - Al-Qaida could not care less what we do in Afghanistan. We can bomb Afghan villages, hunt the Taliban in Helmand province, build a 100,000-strong client Afghan army, stand by passively as Afghan warlords execute hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban prisoners, build huge, elaborate military bases and send drones to drop bombs on Pakistan. It will make no difference. The war will not halt the attacks of Islamic radicals.

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As U.S. Troops Focus on South, Insurgency Gaining Ground in Afghan North

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Abdul Latif Sahak - Jul. 14 (Special Report) - The northern provinces -- Balkh, Kunduz, Jowzjan, Faryab, Sar-e-Pul and Baghlan -- have seen a surge in violence over the past few months, with suicide attacks, armed assaults and roadside bombs, and the insurgency appears to be gaining ground.

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"Suck on Our Yachts": Goldman Sachs Issues Non-Apology for Destroying the World Economy

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Matt Taibbi - Jun. 22 (Opinion) - Goldman is bragging about the fact that it actually made money while it was pumping the economy full of explosive leverage. While companies like Lehman and Bear were dumb enough to actually eat their own rat meat, Goldman knew what it was doing and was careful to bet against the same stuff it was selling, which makes its behavior many times worse than that of other banks, not better.

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Leftover Policies Pose a Challenge to Obama's Cairo Message

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Byard Duncan - Jun. 08 (Opinion) - absent from Obama's comments was the promise to address existing policies of exceptionalism and hostility that continue to rot American foreign policy from the inside out. Without a recognition and serious reconsideration of these practices, the current administration has little chance of making tangible the changes it spent much of the last year promising.

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Why Does the Much-Touted Climate Bill Look Like It Was Stolen From the Republican Playbook?

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By David Morris - Jun. 07 (News Analysis) - President Barack Obama has publicly described the bill as his and the Democrats' preferred alternative to regulation. Without the bill, he has threatened, the EPA will directly regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, a power it was given by the Supreme Court in 2007 and which it announced it would exercise in April 2009. Indeed, the bill specifically prohibits Obama's EPA from regulating these emissions. The bill's carbon-cap-and-trade provisions are by all reports its heart and soul. They exemplify a Republican approach: Don't tell polluters what to do, bribe them and hope they do what you want. Democrats have faked left and gone right.

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Neocon US Colonel Calls for Military Attacks on "Partisan Media"

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Jeremy Scahill - May. 31 (News Analysis) - A new report for a leading neoconservative group which pushes a belligerent “Israel first” agenda of conquest in the Middle East suggests that in future wars the US should make censorship of media official policy and advocates “military attacks on the partisan media.” (H/T MuzzleWatch) The report for JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, was authored by retired US Army Colonel Ralph Peters. It appears in JINSA’s “flagship publication,” The Journal of International Security Affairs. “Today, the United States and its allies will never face a lone enemy on the battlefield. There will always be a hostile third party in the fight,” Peters writes, calling the media, “The killers without guns:”

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That Didn’t Take Long: Insurance Industry Breaks Promise to President Obama

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Jason Rosenbaum - May. 18 (Opinion) - Just four days after standing next to President Obama and declaring their commitment to control health care costs to the tune of $2 trillion over 10 years, the insurance industry, drug and medical device makers, and hospital groups are backing off their promise: Hospitals and insurance companies said Thursday that President Obama had substantially overstated their promise earlier this week to reduce the growth of health spending.

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Michael Pollan: "Don't Buy Any Food You've Ever Seen Advertised" | Environment

Fri, 15 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Amy Goodman - May. 15 (Investigative Report) - "We’re still kind of investigating. But the best knowledge we have is that this outbreak came from a very large industrial pork operation, pork confinement operation, where, you know, tens of thousands of pigs live in filth and close contact. And this was in Mexico."

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40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation

Sat, 02 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By James Carville - May. 02 (News Analysis) - People want to know, "Why did the American public let this happen?" "Why didn't the press do something?" And, of course, "Where were the Democrats?" These pained and anguished cries have been sounding across this country for eight years. Now at last I have a good answer: They didn't get away with it. They've been caught red-handed, and the public has the whole thing figured out.

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Did Paranoid Right-Wing Media Fuel the Pittsburgh Cop Killer's Rage?

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Max Blumenthal - Apr. 08 (News Analysis) - Poplawski was a neo-Nazi wannabe who railed against blacks, Jews, "Zionists," and gun control. And like many members of the far-right fringe, he allegedly visited Jones' Web sites and posted alarming reports by Jones' writers on the white supremacist message board, Stormfront. (Poplawski's posts are here, authored under the handle, "Braced For Fate.") While Alex Jones generally avoids overt racism, he has found an eager audience on Stormfront by conjuring dark visions of an impending New World Order, claiming FEMA is secretly building a national concentration camp network, and announcing that President Barack Obama has planned mass gun seizures on his way to establishing a leftist dictatorship. "Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens," warned a March 13 commentary on Jones' website, Prison Planet. In the wake of Poplawski's alleged murder spree, the killer's friends and family members painted a portrait of a paranoid young man whose worldview was informed almost totally by the kind of conspiratorial themes entertained by Jones.

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'Too Big to Fail' Is Too Big -- Period

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Jim Hightower - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - one way to get your bearings in this bailout blizzard is to focus on the central point that both the bailors (Washington) and the bailees (Wall Street) keep pounding as an irrefutable truth that everyone simply has to accept -- namely, the institutions being rescued are too big to fail. Even sheep know to flee when coyotes howl in unison -- and we commoners need to confront the absurdity of this "too big" claim, which forms the rationale for the entire diversion of regular people's money into rich people's pockets.

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283 Bases, 170,000 Pieces of Equipment, 140,000 Troops, and an Army of Mercenaries: The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Jeremy Scahill - Mar. 30 (Opinion) - Whether or not the Obama administration actually intends to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq in numbers large enough to claim to be "ending the war" as many believe, this kind of official review of the U.S. reality in Iraq -- and the congressional oversight to which Obama will (or will not) be subjected in the coming months -- bears intense scrutiny.

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The Woman Who Could Nail Bush: Are the Worst of the Torture Memos Still to Come?

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Scott Horton - Mar. 30 (News Analysis) - The real reason for their vehement opposition is that Johnsen is committed to overturning the Bush administration’s policies on torture and warrantless surveillance, which would clip the wings of the imperial presidency. Even more menacingly (from their perspective), she is committed to shining a light on some of the darkest skeletons of the Bush years. Already, publication of OLC memoranda authorizing torture, approving warrantless surveillance, and pronouncing the First and Fourth Amendments a dead letter in connection with domestic military operations has rocked the public. More memos, potentially even more disturbing, I have learned, are about to be made public soon. Yet these are difficult issues on which to attack Johnsen, other than through vague suggestions that she is “weak on national security.” Hence the steady stream of accusations linked to her largely irrelevant views about abortion rights.

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The Reva: Why Americans May Never See the Best New Car on the Road

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Daniel Pepper, - Mar. 27 (Special Report) - The Reva is the world's most successful electric vehicle. Manufactured on the outskirts of the south Indian city of Bangalore, it is as popular there as it is on the streets of London. Cumulatively it has been driven a combined 55 million kilometers in 20 major cities around the world.

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Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Naomi Wolf - Mar. 25 (News Report) - In early March, more shocking details emerged about George W. Bush legal counsel John Yoo's memos outlining the destruction of the republic. The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection by Congress.

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The French Nuclear Industry Is Bad Enough in France; Let's Not Expand It to the U.S.

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Linda Gunter - Mar. 23 (News Report) - But France's monopolistic dependency on splitting the atom to turn on the lights has come with a huge price -- not only financially but in environmental and health costs. In reality, France is a radioactive mess, additionally burdened with an overwhelming amount of radioactive waste, much of which is simply dispersed into the surrounding environment.

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