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The Media Equation: Telecom’s Big Players Hold Back the Future

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:45:00 -0700

New York Times - By By DAVID CARR - May. 19 - If you were going to look for ground zero in the fight against a rapidly consolidating telecom and cable industry, you might end up on the fifth floor of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. Todd Heisler/The New York Times Susan Crawford, a

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Poll: GOP Favorability Rating Ties All-Time Low

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

businessinsider.com - By Brett LoGiurato - May. 20 (News) - The Republican Party's net favorability ratings are down 8 points in the past two months. The amount of respondents viewing the GOP favorably fell from 38 percent to 35 percent, while the number of people who view the party unfavorably climbed five points, up from 54 percent in March. The only other time the party's favorability ratings have been this low came in the aftermath of the summer 2011 fight over raising the nation's debt ceiling.

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Oklahoma Senators Jim Inhofe, Tom Coburn, Face Difficult Options On Disaster Relief

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Christina Wilkie - May. 21 (News Analysis) - Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, both Republicans, are fiscal hawks who have repeatedly voted against funding disaster aid for other parts of the country. They also have opposed increased funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which administers federal disaster relief. Late last year, Inhofe and Coburn both backed a plan to slash disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy. In a December press release, Coburn complained that the Sandy Relief bill contained "wasteful spending," and identified a series of items he objected to, including "$12.9 billion for future disaster mitigation activities and studies."

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Rise Up or Die

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

billmoyers.com - By Chris Hedges - May. 21 (Opinion) - What has taken place in these sacrifice zones — in postindustrial cities such as Camden, N.J., and Detroit, in coalfields of southern West Virginia where mining companies blast off mountaintops, in Indian reservations where the demented project of limitless economic expansion and exploitation worked some of its earliest evil, and in produce fields where laborers often endure conditions that replicate slavery — is now happening to much of the rest of the country. These sacrifice zones succumbed first. You and I are next. Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform — the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions — we are left defenseless against corporate power.

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Billionaires Now Own American Politics

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Andy Kroll - May. 20 (News Analysis) - Billionaires with an axe to grind, now is your time. Not since the days before a bumbling crew of would-be break-in artists set into motion the fabled Watergate scandal, leading to the first far-reaching restrictions on money in American politics, have you been so free to meddle. There is no limit to the amount of money you can give to elect your friends and allies to political office, to defeat those with whom you disagree, to shape or stunt or kill policy, and above all to influence the tone and content of political discussion in this country. Today, politics is a rich man's game. Look no further than the 2012 elections and that season's biggest donor, 79-year-old casino mogul Sheldon Adelson . He and his wife, Miriam, shocked the political class by first giving $16.5 million in an effort to make Newt Gingrich the Republican presidential nominee. Once Gingrich exited the race, the Adelsons invested more than $30 million in electing Mitt ...

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Apple's Web of Tax Shelters Saved It Billions, Panel Finds

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - May. 20 (News) - New York TimesApple's Web of Tax Shelters Saved It Billions, Panel FindsNew York TimesWASHINGTON — Even as Apple became the nation's most profitable technology company, it avoided billions in taxes in the United States and around the world through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most ...Apple skirts US taxes, panel findsLos Angeles TimesSenators to query Apple on tax sheltersSan Francisco ChronicleApple Avoided Taxes on Overseas Billions, Senate Panel FindsWall Street JournalNew York Daily News -The Atlantic Wire -PC Magazineall 158 news articles »

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Medicaid opposition underscores states' healthcare disparities

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Noam N. Levey, Washington Bureau - May. 19 (Comment) - Medicaid opposition underscores states' healthcare disparities

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Apple CEO Cook to Propose Tax Reform for Offshore Cash

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Bloomberg - By Adam Satariano - May. 19 (News) - Apple is facing U.S. government scrutiny after Cook unveiled a plan last month to return $100 billion in cash to shareholders via dividends and buybacks through 2015. Rather than using cash overseas that will be taxed, Apple is borrowing money for the payout, saving as much as $9.2 billion in taxes,

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Honey Bee Die-Off Caused By Multiple Factors Including Pesticides

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

billmoyers.com - By Therisa Riley - May. 19 (News) - A federal study released today attributes the massive die-off in American honey bee colonies to a combination of factors, including pesticides, poor diet, parasites and a lack of genetic diversity. Nearly a third of honey bee colonies in the United States have been wiped out since 2006. The estimated value of crops lost if bees were no longer able to pollinate fruits and vegetables is around $15 billion.

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Corporations Are Stealing Billions in Tax Breaks, While the Confused, Screwed Citizenry Turn On Each Other

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Robert Reich - May. 20 (Opinion) - As global capital becomes ever more powerful, giant corporations are holding governments and citizens up for ransom — eliciting subsidies and tax breaks from countries concerned about their nation’s “competitiveness” — while sheltering their profits in the lowest-tax jurisdictions they can find. Major advanced countries — and their citizens — need a comprehensive tax agreement that won’t allow global corporations to get away with this.

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Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri are in bull's-eye

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Dana Ford - May. 19 (Breaking News) - Tornadoes touched down in three states on Sunday, ripping roofs off homes and turning trees to matchsticks, as severe weather swept the region. A large "violent and extremely dangerous" tornado was spotted on the southwest side of Wichita, Kansas, the National Weather Service said.

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How far did PBS go to avoid offending a sponsor?

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By Jane Mayer - May. 20 (News Report) - When Koch joined the boards of WGBH and WNET, it seemed to mark an ideological inroad, enabling him to exert influence over a network with a prominent news operation. Meanwhile, the member stations, by having Koch as a trustee, were inoculating themselves against charges of liberal bias, and positioning themselves to receive substantial new donations.

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60 Minutes and the Billionaire Agenda: Part 1, “Counterinsurgency Cops”

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Richard Eskow - May. 20 (Opinion) - This Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes was a brilliant case study in the media’s ability to manipulate the public mind. The entire hour is worth studying, if only as one of the most illuminating and sophisticated examples of media manipulation in recent memory.

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Obama: partisan battles in Washington holding back US economy

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - May. 20 (News) - President says US must get beyond 'short-term tactical thinking' and gives highly personal commencement address in Atlanta President Barack Obama complained on Sunday that partisan battles in Washington are holding back stronger US economic growth as he tried to recover from one of the most difficult weeks of his presidency. On a trip to Atlanta, Obama did not specifically mention the three controversies that engulfed his administration last week and raised questions as to how much of his second-term agenda he will be able to achieve. His message was clear when he told Democratic donors that an American economic revival is being held back by a "tendency in Washington to put politics ahead of policy, to put the next election ahead of the next generation, and that mindset is what we need to change." Obama's appearance in Atlanta came as he seeks to regain his footing from one of his worst weeks since taking office in early 2009. His Internal Revenue Service was found to have targeted his ...

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Obama’s Budget: A Bad Bargain

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

In These Times - By Tim Carpenter, Mike Hersh - Apr. 10 (Opinion) - The White House dismisses COLA cuts as “technical changes,” but the president knows better. In 2008, candidate Obama accused his opponent, John McCain, of planning to “cut cost-of-living adjustments or raise the retirement age” for Social Security, and vowed that he would do neither. He also said, “When you look at how we should approach Social Security, I believe that cutting the benefits is not the right answer. I meet too many seniors across the country who are struggling with the limited Social Security benefits that they have.” Candidate Obama was right; President Obama is wrong.

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The money swamp created by Citizens United: Dark Money, corporate shell games, and SuperPAC plutocrats

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - May. 19 (Special Report) - Forty years later, however, CREEP is back. Thanks to 2010's disastrous Citizens United ruling by a handful of raging corporatists on the Supreme Court, the moneyed elite can again buy as much political power as they want, without disclosing who's doing the buying.

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Being a Democracy Hating, Corporate Power-Defending Newspaper Owner Runs Deep in the Koch Family

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Yasha Levine - May. 19 (Opinion) - There’s a rumor going around that the Koch brothers are interested in buying up the Tribune Company, which includes the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun… And there’s a lot of speculation about what would happen if they did. Some worry, and rightly so, that the Kochs—whose combined wealth makes them the biggest billionaires on the planet—would integrate the Tribune Co. with the rest of their free-market thinktank-industrial complex, and turn its newly acquired news media property into a gigantic business propaganda machine. Half the reporters at the Los Angeles Times even took a vote saying they’d quit if the Kochs bought the paper

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The 4 Big Ways That Insatiable Corporate Hunger for Profits Has Devastated American Life -- and the World Along with It

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Paul Buchheit - May. 19 (Special Report) - In this dream world of global capitalism, young people are going from zero income on the farm to a few dollars a day on a 12-hour factory shift, and as a result, based on the World Bank's poverty threshold of $1.25 per day, they're no longer "in poverty." So the media piles on praise for free markets. The Economist proclaimed that "poverty is declining everywhere." The Washington Post gushed that "a billion people have been lifted from poverty through free-market competition."

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Outrageous Attacks on Supporters of Church-State Separation: Death Threats, Murdered Pets, and Vandalized Property

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Adam Lee - May. 19 (Special Report) - The religious right despises the First Amendment, since it's constantly foiled their efforts to inject Christian doctrine into government. And when they've lost in court, religious conservatives in the U.S. have often waged campaigns of threats, harassment and outright violence against First Amendment plaintiffs, in the hopes of intimidating them into backing down and achieving by mob violence what they can't achieve under the law

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How the US Turned Three Pacifists Into 'Multiple Felony Saboteurs'

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Fran Quigley - May. 19 (News Report) - In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism. Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US.

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The Lost ‘Trifecta of Scandals’

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Beverly Bandler - May. 16 (Opinion) - the mainstream news media is abuzz about “the trifecta of scandals” besetting the Obama administration, a narrative that fails to assess the actual significance of the three “scandals.” They don’t measure up to the many important scandals that the media neglects

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"Astoundingly Disturbing": Obama Administration Claims Power to Wage Endless War Across the Globe

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 17 (News Analysis) - A Pentagon official predicted Thursday the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates could last up to 20 more years. The comment came during a Senate hearing revisiting the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, enacted by Congress days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. At the hearing, Pentagon officials claimed the AUMF gives the president power to wage endless war anywhere in the world, including in Syria, Yemen and the Congo. "This is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I've been to since I've been here," said Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine. "You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today." We play excerpts of Thursday's Senate hearing and our recent interview with Jeremy Scahill, author of the new bestseller, "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield."

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The IRS and the Real Scandal

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Robert Reich - May. 18 (Opinion) - Despite a growing number of billionaires and multi-millionaires using every tax dodge imaginable – laundering their money through phantom corporations and tax havens — the IRS’s budget has been cut by 17 percent since 2002, adjusted for inflation. To manage the $594.5 million in additional cuts required by the sequester, the agency will furlough each of its more than 89,000 employees for at least five days this year.

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Popular Resistance Is Percolating Across the Country -- Inspiring Activism That the Corporate Media Always Ignores

Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers - May. 18 (News Report) - The heart of the conflict faced in the United States is the inequity of an unfair economy supported by a corrupt two party system. This week there was a very creative protest in New York City against the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim of Mexico. He’s made his billions with the help of government allowing a monopoly on phone service resulting in Slim gouging the public.

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Climate Tipping Point? Concentration of Carbon Dioxide Tops 400 ppm For First Time in Human History

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 13 (News Report) - The 400 ppm threshold has been an important marker in U.N. climate change negotiations, widely recognized as a dangerous level that could drastically worsen human-caused global warming. We speak to leading climate scientist Michael Mann, distinguished professor of meteorology at Penn State University and author of the recent book, "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines." Mann warns, "We have to go several million years back in time to find a point in Earth’s history where CO2 was as high as it is now.

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