NewsTrust - Best of 2009 - Most Recent Stories

Green Giant

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Evan Osnos - Dec. 23 (Special Report) - On March 3, 1986, four of China’s top weapons scientists—each a veteran of the missile and space programs—sent a private letter to Deng Xiaoping, the leader of the country. Their letter was a warning: Decades of relentless focus on militarization had crippled the country’s civilian scientific establishment; China must join the world’s xin jishu geming, the “new technological revolution,” they said, or it would be left behind. They called for an élite project devoted to technology ranging from biotech to space research. Deng agreed, and scribbled on the letter, “Action must be taken on this now.” This was China’s “Sputnik moment,” and the project was code-named the 863 Program, for the year and month of its birth.

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"Climategate"

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Jess Henig - Dec. 10 (Special Report) - Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of man-made global warming. We find that to be unfounded.

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God, the Army, and PTSD

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Review - By Tara McKelvey - Nov. 11 (Special Report) - During the Iraq war, however, the great difficulty veterans experienced in getting psychiatric care—greater than before—was not a product of cost-cutting, but of conviction: many Bush administration officials believed that soldiers who supported the war would not face psychological problems, and if they did, they would find comfort in faith. In a resigned tone, one prominent researcher who worked for the VA, and asked that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, explained that high-ranking officials believed that “Jesus fixes everything.” Benimoff and the others who returned with devastating psychological injuries found a faith-based bureau within the VA. At veterans’ hospitals, chaplains were conducting spirituality assessments of patients.

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In Netherlands, Insurers Compete Over Quality of Care

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

NewsHour - By Ray Suarez - Oct. 07 (Special Report) - By world standards, the Dutch are wealthy and healthy, but the country's changing. With each year, it's home to more Dutch elderly and more young immigrants from the developing world. The queen opened a parliament once again wrestling over health care, still trying to contain costs after a massive overhaul designed four years ago.

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Keeping Iran honest

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Scott Ritter - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Rather than representing the tip of the iceberg in terms of uncovering a covert nuclear weapons capability, the emergence of the existence of the Qom enrichment facility could very well mark the initiation of a period of even greater transparency on the part of Iran, leading to its full adoption and implementation of the IAEA additional protocol. This, more than anything, should be the desired outcome of the "Qom declaration".

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Fear was no excuse to condone torture

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

Miami Herald - By Charles C. Krulak, Joseph P. Hoar - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - In the fear that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Americans were told that defeating Al Qaeda would require us to ``take off the gloves.'' As a former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and a retired commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, we knew that was a recipe for disaster. But we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas -- and his scare tactics.

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Familiar Players in Health Bill Lobbying

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

Washington Post - By Dan Eggen, Kimberly Kindy - Jul. 06 (Investigative Report) - The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.

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Why the Critics of a Public Option for Health Care Are Wrong

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Robert Reich's Blog - By Robert Reich - Jun. 29 (Opinion) - Without a public option, the other parties that comprise America's non-system of health care -- private insurers, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and medical suppliers -- have little or no incentive to supply high-quality care at a lower cost than they do now.

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The 13 people who made torture possible

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

Salon - By Marcy Wheeler - May. 18 (Opinion) - 13 key people in the Bush administration cannot claim they relied on the memos from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. Some of the 13 manipulated the federal bureaucracy and the legal process to "preauthorize" torture in the days after 9/11. Others helped implement torture, and still others helped write the memos that provided the Bush administration with a legal fig leaf after torture had already begun.

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The Homemakers

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Frank Koza - Mar. 31 (Special Report) - From the federal down to the local level, hundreds of service providers and government agencies have embraced a groundbreaking approach that greatly reduces — and might eventually all but eliminate — chronic homelessness.

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The Big Takeover

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Mar. 22 (Opinion) - People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

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Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Clay Shirky - By Clay Shirky - Mar. 14 (Opinion) - When someone demands to be told how we can replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

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Jon Stewart Rips Into CNBC

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Comedy Central - Mar. 05 (Comedy News) - The Daily Show on Wednesday was supposed to feature guest Rick Santelli, a reporter on CNBC. Santelli is infamous for his rant against Obama’s mortgage plan, calling homeowners who are struggling to pay their loans “losers.” Santelli backed out, or err, “bailed out,” as Stewart put it, from the interview. Instead, Stewart launched into a nearly nine-minute take down of the business news channel. Here are some of the highlights: Mad Money’s Jim Cramer telling his audience that Bear Stearns is in good shape. “Bear Stearns is fine… If there is one take away, it’s that Bear Stearns is not in trouble.” Six days later the investment bank went under.

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The Most Dangerous Place in the World

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Foreign Policy - By Jeffrey Gettleman - Feb. 18 (Special Report) - Beyond the airport is one of the world’s most stunning monuments to conflict: block after block, mile after mile, of scorched, gutted-out buildings. Mogadishu’s Italianate architecture, once a gem along the Indian Ocean, has been reduced to a pile of machine-gun-chewed bricks. Somalia has been ripped apart by violence since the central government imploded in 1991. Eighteen years and 14 failed attempts at a government later, the killing goes on and on and on—suicide bombs, white phosphorus bombs, beheadings, medieval-style stonings, teenage troops high on the local drug called khat blasting away at each other and anything in between. Even U.S. cruise missiles occasionally slam down from the sky. It’s the same violent free-for-all on the seas. Somalia’s pirates are threatening to choke off one of the most strategic waterways in the world, the Gulf of Aden, which 20,000 ships pass through every year. These heavily armed buccaneers hijacked more than 40 vessels in 2008, netting as much as $100 million in ransom. It’s the greatest piracy epidemic of modern times.

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The U.S. Economic Stimulus Plan

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Council on Foreign Relations - By Lee Hudson Teslik - Feb. 10 (Special Report) - Economists disagree on the wisdom of extensive stimulus spending, as well as the particulars of the current U.S. plan. Given the current economic climate, most mainstream economists now say that the potential downsides of collapse are sufficiently grave that large stimulatory expenditures may be necessary. As the global financial and economic crisis has worsened, this viewpoint has gained international popularity. In a December 2008 paper released by the UN Conference on Trade and Development, leading UN economists call for coordinated stimulus packages across the world's leading economies, above and beyond the money already spent to boost credit market liquidity. Two scholars from the conservative Heritage Foundation argue in a December 2008 paper that the best medicine for the U.S. economy would be to reduce overall government spending. CFR Senior Fellow Amity Shlaes adds that governments can throw good money after bad if they seek to stimulate unsustainable businesses. "It can be perverse because you stimulate something [i.e. an industry] that's really pretty weak and should maybe fade," Shlaes told CFR.org. In a December 2008 op-ed, Shlaes also argued that huge public works projects often fail to revive national economies, as evidenced by Japan's experience during the 1990s.

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All of Them Must Go

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Naomi Klein - Feb. 09 (Opinion) - Perhaps the sturdiest thread connecting this global backlash is a rejection of the logic of "extraordinary politics"--the phrase coined by Polish politician Leszek Balcerowicz to describe how, in a crisis, politicians can ignore legislative rules and rush through unpopular "reforms."

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Yoo for the Defense

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Harper's - By Scott Horton - Jan. 31 (Opinion) - I’ve followed John Yoo and his writings with some care for a while now, and I think I finally understand what this is about. Namely, a pending probe by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is looking at serious ethical issues surrounding the issuance of Yoo’s legal opinions.

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Why should I respect these oppressive religions?

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Jan. 28 (Editorial) - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth.

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Obama to Shut Guantánamo Site and C.I.A. Prisons

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Mark Mazzetti, William Glaberson - Jan. 22 (News Report) - President Obama is expected to sign executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.

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Gaza Media War

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Link TV - Jan. 14 (News Analysis) - (VIDEO - 5:25) Israel and Hamas are fighting on two fronts in Gaza -- a military battle, and a battle for public opinion. People around the world are being confronted with horrifying images of war, as well as all sorts of spin from various sources in the ongoing Gaza tragedy. As the combatants attempt to control the message, the media sphere is also crowded with self-promotion by secondary players.

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