“Over 1 billion people are chronically hungry,” says the U.N., yet it would take only $44 billion per year to end hunger globally.
Filed under Weekly Column
The controversial TV anchor has resigned from CNN amid a campaign to force him off the air due to his reporting on Latinos and immigrants. Past Democracy Now! Coverage of Lou Dobbs:
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Thanksgiving is around the corner, and families will be gathering to share a meal and, perhaps, enjoy another annual telecast of “The Wizard of Oz.” The 70-year-old film classic bears close watching this year, perhaps more than in any other, for the message woven into the lyrics, written during the Great Depression by Oscar-winning lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg.
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“Extraordinary rendition” is White House-speak for kidnapping. Just ask Maher Arar. He’s a Canadian citizen who was “rendered” by the U.S. to Syria, where he was tortured for almost a year.
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U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Chancellor Keesling died in Iraq on June 19, 2009, from “a non-combat related incident,” according to the Pentagon. Keesling had killed himself.
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Climate-change activists, from pranksters to presidents, are stepping up the pressure by staging elaborate stunts.
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Lt. Dan Choi doesn’t want to lie. Choi, an Iraq war veteran and a graduate of West Point, declared last March 19 on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” “I am gay.” Under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” regulations, those three words are enough to get Choi kicked out of the military.
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Journalist Christian Parenti responds to our interview with Kevin Bales, founder of Free The Slaves
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The Supreme Court declined Monday to review the case of the five jailed Cuban nationals known as the Cuban Five. The men were convicted by a Miami jury in 2001 for being unregistered foreign agents spying on the US military and Cuban exiles in southern Florida. All five are serving time in federal prisons across the country. Attorneys for the men say they weren’t spying on the US, but trying to monitor violent right-wing Cuban exile groups that have organized attacks on Cuba. The Miami judge in the case refused to move the trial to an area less dominated by Cuban exiles. Lawyers for the five say the jury pool in Miami was biased. The Cuban Five trial was the only judicial proceeding in US history condemned by the UN Human Rights Commission. [includes rush transcript]
In his first several months in office, Obama has embraced Bush administration justifications to keep secret key government information. Most recently, the Secret Service rejected requests from two organizations for public access to White House visitors logs. The logs document the West Wing meetings that have helped shape Obama’s policies on banking regulation, environmental policy, economic recovery and foreign affairs. The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Obama administration, seeking the release of the visits by coal company executives to the White House. [includes rush transcript]
Thousands of Iranians took to the streets Tuesday as reformist politicians, including defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, rejected the Guardian Council’s offer of a limited recount of the disputed votes in Friday’s election. Both critics and supporters of President Ahmadinejad staged competing rallies in Tehran Tuesday, while Iranian security forces arrested at least three prominent reformists, including former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Saeed Hajjarian, as well as leading human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani. [includes rush transcript]
In the weeks before a bitter power struggle at one of the country’s biggest unions, UNITE HERE, erupted into an open split, the union’s general president ordered more than $12 million be transferred to local affiliates loyal to him and to outside groups. Bruce Raynor disbursed the money without the knowledge or required approval of the union’s co-president, John Wilhelm, UNITE HERE leaders said this week. Those funds, they claim, were then used to finance a breakaway group from the union. [includes rush transcript]
Sen. Hiram Monserrate has switched sides—again. Monserrate stunned the New York’s political establishment and paralyzed the legislature a week ago when he rebelled against his own party and voted with fellow Democrat, Sen. Pedro Espada, Jr., of the Bronx, to hand control of the Senate to the Republican minority. On Monday, the mercurial Monserrate returned to the Democratic caucus—without Espada. His decision creates an astonishing 31-31 deadlock in the Senate and further muddles the question of which party controls that body. [includes rush transcript]