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UN Inquiry Finds Israel "Punished and Terrorized" Palestinian Civilians, Committed War Crimes During Gaza Assault

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Norman Finkelstein - Sep. 16 (News Report) - A United Nations fact-finding mission has found Israel “punished and terrorized” civilians in its three-week assault on Gaza earlier this year and cited strong evidence that Israeli forces committed “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions. More than 1,400 Palestinians—about a third of them women and children—were killed in the assault.

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Data Reveals California's Private Insurers Deny 21 Percent of Claims

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 09 (News Report) - The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee has released new data that shows one in every five requests made for medical claims by insured patients, even when recommended by a physician, are rejected by California's largest private insurers.

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Pentagon Hires Rendon Group to Profile and Rate Journalists Covering Afghanistan War

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Charlie Reed, James Bamford, Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman - Aug. 28 (News Report) - The U.S. Army in Afghanistan has admitted it pays a private company to produce background profiles on journalists covering the war. The Pentagon has been on the defensive ever since the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes revealed this week that journalists were being screened by the Washington-based public relations firm, The Rendon Group, under a $1.5 million dollar contract with the military. Documents obtained by the paper reveal journalists were evaluated with pie charts breaking down their coverage into percentages of “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.”

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EPA Fails to Inform Public About Weed Killer in Drinking Water

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

Democracy Now - By Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Danielle Ivory, Amy Goodman - Aug. 25 (Special Report) - An investigation by the Huffington Post reveals the Environmental Protection Agency knew that one of the country’s most widely used herbicides exceeds federal safety limits in four states but failed to inform residents of the associated dangers. The Huffington Post discovered that the EPA has been collecting data that shows people are drinking water laced with high levels of a weed killer known as atrazine but did not publish the data.

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"The Health Insurers Have Already Won"

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

Democracy Now - By Anjali Kamat, Amy Goodman - Aug. 17 (News Analysis) - reporters Chad Terhune and Keith Epstein argue UnitedHealth and other insurers maneuvered to shape healthcare reform for their own benefit. The story is titled “The Health Insurers Have Already Won,” and the authors argue that the insurers have “succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable.”

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Despite Pledge to Cut Military Ties to Coup Regime, US Continues to Train Honduran Soldiers at School of Americas

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, James Hodge, Linda Cooper - Jul. 21 (News) - Although the US appears to be increasing diplomatic pressure on Honduras, questions are being raised about its vow to cut military ties. The National Catholic Reporter has revealed at least two Honduran army officers are still receiving military training in the United States. The officers are currently enrolled at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, known as WHINSEC, formerly known as the School of the Americas, at Fort Benning, Georgia. That’s the facility that has a long record of training Latin American military officers involved in human rights abuses. Six Honduran military officials linked to the coup have trained at Fort Benning, including the coup’s military leader, General Romeo Orlando Vásquez Velásquez.

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Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Robert Parry, Danny Schechter, AMY GOODMAN - Jul. 20 (News Analysis) - Praise for Cronkite’s work and legacy is all over the news, but few in the mainstream media have mentioned what many consider Cronkite’s most important news moment. In February 1968, soon after he returned from a trip to Vietnam, Cronkite cast doubt on the war and helped turn the tide of American public opinion against it.

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Obama-Medvedev Nuclear Stockpile Deal "Disappointing," Says Leading Disarmament Advocate

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Jonathan Schell, Amy Goodman - Jul. 07 (News Report) - President Obama met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow on Monday and agreed to cut American and Russian nuclear stockpiles by at least one quarter and as much as one third.

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Uyghur Protests Widen as Xinjiang Unrest Flares

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Nury Turkel, Amy Goodman - Jul. 07 (News Report) - New protests have erupted in China’s western Xinjiang region, two days after at least 156 people were killed and over 1,000 wounded in the country’s worst ethnic violence in decades. On Tuesday, some 200 ethnic Uyghurs–mostly women–took to the streets to protest over the mass arrest of more than 1,400 people following Sunday’s clashes. Later, hundreds of ethnic Han Chinese marched through the streets of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province. The two sides blame each other for the outbreak of violence.

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Education Secretary Arne Duncan Pushes to Aggressively Expand Charter Schools While Admitting Problems

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Kenneth Surratt, Bob Peterson, JUAN GONZALEZ, AMY GOODMAN - Jun. 23 (News Analysis) - The Obama administration has made opening more charter schools one of its top priorities in its plans to improve the nation’s education system. On Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan spoke at the annual gathering of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools in Washington, DC. His address came on the heels of a new Stanford University report that found that, on average, students in charter schools were not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.

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Report: Health Insurers Hold Billions in Tobacco Stocks

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Dr. Wesley Boyd,Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez - Jun. 12 (News Report) - US, Canadian and British health and life insurance firms hold at least $4.4 billion of investments in companies whose subsidiaries manufacture cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco and related products. The New Jersey-based Prudential Financial, for example, is a major investor in three tobacco firms, including Philip Morris and Reynolds American. Other insurance companies named in the report include the Sun Life Financial, Northwestern Mutual, MassMutual and Standard Life.

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Obama's Pick to Lead Afghan War Linked to Abuse of Prisoners & Secret Assassination Unit

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

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Marc Garlasco, Tom Engelhardt - Jun. 08 (News Report) - he oversaw a secretive program to hunt down and assassinate suspected terrorists around the globe. Last year, lawmakers delayed Stanley McChrystal’s nomination for a key position because of questions about prisoner abuse by forces under his command. Many of the reports of abuse center on Camp Nama, a US base near Baghdad’s airport where Special Operations troops ran an interrogation and detention center.

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Dr. George Tiller (1941-2009): Murdered Abortion Provider Remembered for Lifelong Dedication to Women's Reproductive Health

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Dr. George Tiller, Ellie Smeal,Bonnie Scott Jones,Dr. Susan Robinson,Dr. Shelley Sella,Laura Shaneyfelt,AMY GOODMAN - Jun. 01 (Special Report) - The suspect, fifty-one-year-old Scott Roeder, has a history of involvement in anti-abortion activism and was once arrested and jailed on explosives charges. He has ties to the right-wing separatist group known as the Freemen. We look at the life of Dr. Tiller with five women who worked alongside him to uphold reproductive rights: two women doctors who fly into Wichita every month to work alongside him performing abortions; two of the attorneys who defended him through years of legal harassment, one in Wichita and one in New York; and Ellie Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation, who knew him for twenty years.

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Obama Nominee Sonia Sotomayor Poised to Become First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Juan Gonzales, Amy Goodman, Cesar Perales, Juan Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua, Tom Goldstein, Marjorie Cohn - May. 27 (News Analysis) - President Obama has nominated federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, putting her in line to become the country’s first Hispanic justice. The fifty-four-year-old Sotomayor is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who raised her in a public housing project in the Bronx. We host a roundtable with Marjorie Cohn of the National Lawyers Guild; attorney and SCOTUS Blog founder Tom Goldstein; Cesar Perales, general counsel of Latino Justice; and Juan Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua, an independent political analyst who knows Sotomayor personally.

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"Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama"

Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman - May. 19 (News Report) - the Obama administration is continuing to use a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo that regularly brutalizes unarmed prisoners, including gang-beating them, breaking their bones, gouging their eyes and dousing them with chemicals. This force, officially known as the Immediate Reaction Force, has been labeled the “Extreme Repression Force” by Guantanamo prisoners, and human rights lawyers call their actions illegal.

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Baucus's Raucous Caucus: Doctors, Nurses and Activists Arrested Again for Protesting Exclusion of Single-Payer Advocates at Senate Hearing on Healthcare

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Russell Mokhiber, Margaret Flowers - May. 13 (News Analysis) - On Tuesday, five doctors, nurses and single-payer advocates were arrested at a Senate Finance Committee hearing, bringing the total number of arrests in less than a week to thirteen. We speak with two of those arrested: Single Payer Action founder Russell Mokhiber and Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program.

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Rise of Right-Wing Extremism Linked to Recession

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Mark Potok, Juan Gonzales, Amy Goodman - Apr. 24 (News Analysis) - I think that this is an attempt to create a great big political storm over an essentially innocuous report. You know, there are a few, what I would characterize as, errors in the report. For instance, it describes the rise of militias in the 1990s as being essentially the result of a recession. Well, there really wasn’t a recession in the ’90s, and that really is not why the militias rose. But essentially, the conclusions, which are—which amount to the idea that we’re at a time when these groups are poised to continue growing, I think is obviously correct.

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The Story of Mitchell Jessen & Associates: How a Team of Psychologists in Spokane, WA, Helped Develop the CIA's Torture Techniques

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Mark Benjamin,Katherine Eban,Karen Dorn Steele - Apr. 21 (Special Report) - Mitchell Jessen & Associates, is named after the two military psychologists who founded the company, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. Beginning in 2002, the CIA hired the psychologists to train interrogators in brutal techniques, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and pain. We speak with three journalists who have closely followed the story.

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Somalia Piracy Began in Response to Illegal Fishing and Toxic Dumping by Western Ships off Somali Coast

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

Democracy Now - By Mohamed Abshir Waldo, Amy Goodman - Apr. 14 (News Analysis) - While the pirates story has dominated the corporate media, there has been little to no discussion of the root causes driving piracy. We speak with consultant and analyst Mohamed Abshir Waldo. In January, he wrote a paper titled “The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the World Ignores the Other?”

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Land of Ruins: A Special Report on Gaza's Economy

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

Democracy Now - By Anjali Kamat - Apr. 06 (Special Report) - Anjali Kamat files a report on the state of the Gazan economy, where unemployment and poverty rates are among the highest in the world. Despite international pledges of over $5.2 billion to rebuild Gaza, in the four months since Israel’s assault the siege has not been lifted and only one truck carrying cement and other construction materials has been allowed entry into the Gaza Strip.

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Noam Chomsky on US Expansion of Afghan Occupation, the Uses of NATO, and What Obama Should Do in Israel-Palestine

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman - Apr. 03 (News Analysis) - We’re now approaching the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, unification of Germany, first steps in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, the alleged reason for NATO’s existence was to protect the West against a Russian assault. You can believe what you like about the reason, but that was the reason. By 1989, that reason was gone. So, why is there NATO?

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Inequality is Unhealthy

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

Democracy Now - By DR. STEPHEN BEZRUCHKA, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzales - Mar. 30 (Interview) - Americans think that it’s healthcare that produces health, when there really is very little evidence for that. What turns out to be really important is the nature of caring and sharing in society. And the best factor that really impacts that is the degree of inequality. Where societies are more unequal, people don’t look out for one another, they look out for themselves. Where societies are more equal—and economic equality is the thing that is most important in this—people look after each other, society looks after each other, and pretty well everyone does better. There’s almost nothing that is better in a society that tolerates the extreme levels of inequality in the United States. And so, we end up dying younger than people in all the other rich countries, despite spending half the world’s healthcare bill.

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Citing Failed War on Drugs, Former Seattle Police Chief Calls for Legalization of Marijuana and All Drugs

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

Democracy Now - By Norm Stamper, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzales - Mar. 30 (News Analysis) - Norm Stamper is a thirty-four-year police officer who retired as Seattle’s chief of police in 2000. He now supports the legalization of marijuana and an advisory board member of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and a speaker for the 10,000-member Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

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20 Years After Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Alaskan Coastline Remains Contaminated, Residents Still Struggle for Justice

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzales, Riki Ott - Mar. 24 (Interview) - Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, one of the worst environmental disasters in history. The Exxon Valdez spilled 11 millions gallons of crude oil into the fishing waters of Prince William Sound. The spill contaminated more than 1,200 miles of Alaska’s shoreline and killed hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine animals.

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Public Outcry Forces Lawmakers to Say They'll Recoup Millions in AIG Bonuses, But Why Not the Billions in Taxpayer Bailout Funds?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Robert Kuttner, Ralph Nader - Mar. 18 (News Analysis) - Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have responded to growing public outrage with a pledge to recoup million-dollar bonuses paid out by the bailed-out insurance giant AIG. But the hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus money pales to the billions used to bail out AIG a second time. We speak to consumer advocate Ralph Nader and economist Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect. Kuttner says, “I think [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner is probably gone within sixty days, because he has become a liability to the administration.”

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