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USA

  • Arlo, Katrina and a musical trail to New Orleans
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    The son of Woody Guthrie knew exactly how to revive the musical heritage of the Big Easy. He took a train ride from Chicago all the way down south.
    By Andrew Buncombe
    But all the towns and people seem to fade into a bad dream, And the steel rail still ’ain’t heard the news. The conductor sings his song again, The passengers will please refrain: This train has got the disappearin’ railroad blues.
    More than 30 years ago Arlo Guthrie, son of the late folk legend Woody, sat in a now (…)

  • Spying and Lying
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Katrina vanden Heuvel
    "This shocking revelation ought to send a chill down the spine of every American."
    Senator Russell Feingold, December 17, 2005
    As reported by the New York Times on Friday, "Months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic (…)

  • Report | The Constitution in Crisis
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    By House Judiciary Committee Minority Staff
    The Downing Street minutes and deception, manipulation, torture, retribution, and coverups in the Iraq war.
    Full Report: www.truthout.org/3.122005ConRes.pdf
    Executive Summary
    This Minority Report has been produced at the request of Representative John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee. He made this request in the wake of the President’s failure to respond to a letter submitted by 122 Members of (…)

  • A Ten-Step Program
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Jane Smiley
    Is Bush in a bubble? Is Bush a dry drunk? Is Bush a drunk drunk? Is Bush a narcissist? Is Bush an idiot? Is Bush a madman? Does Bush have an “Authority Problem”? Theories abound about why Bush does the things he does, but most of them assume that he is making mistakes that he could or would correct if he understood how misguided he was.
    On Monday, there was an editorial in the New York Times lamenting the apparent indifference of the Bush administration to the rebuilding (…)

  • The Price of the Death Penalty
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    At last count, there were more than 100 prisoners aged 60 and older on America’s death rows.
    By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
    Clarence Ray Allen is old, sick, and disabled. He suffers from just about every physical ailment imaginable. But Allen is a condemned killer, and he could be executed at California’s San Quentin prison on January 17.
    Septuagenarians are not aberrations on America’s death rows. A reporter who interviewed death row prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams shortly before his (…)

  • The Border Is a Common Ground between Us
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    By David Bacon
    The House of Representatives has just passed HR 4437, by Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner, incredibly with the votes of over 30 Democrats. It is the most repressive immigration bill in decades, and would deprive immigrants of important due process rights, divide families, criminalize undocumented status, and drive those without papers even further underground. Other Congressional proposals are even more extreme. Some, like Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo, (…)

  • Political Science
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by JOHN HORGAN
    Last spring, a magazine asked me to look into a whistleblower case involving a United States Fish and Wildlife Service biologist named Andy Eller. Eller, a veteran of 18 years with the service, was fired after he publicly charged it with failing to protect the Florida panther from voracious development. One of the first species listed under the Endangered Species Act, the panther haunts southwest Florida’s forests, which builders are transforming into gated golf communities. (…)

  • Polar bears drown as ice shelf melts
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Will Iredale
    SCIENTISTS have for the first time found evidence that polar bears are drowning because climate change is melting the Arctic ice shelf.
    The researchers were startled to find bears having to swim up to 60 miles across open sea to find food. They are being forced into the long voyages because the ice floes from which they feed are melting, becoming smaller and drifting farther apart.
    Although polar bears are strong swimmers, they are adapted for swimming close to the (…)

  • The Decline of the American Empire
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    Defeated in Iraq, Bankrupt at Home, Despised Around the Globe (And That’s Just the Good News)
    By GABRIEL KOLKO
    The dilemma the US has had for a half-century is that the priorities it must impose on its budget and its imperial plans have never guided its actual behavior and action. It has always believed, as well it should, that Europe and its control would determine the future of world power. But it has fought in Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq—the so-called "Third World" in general—where (…)

  • Brokeback Mountain
    22 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by David McReynolds
    Being retired, I decided I’d catch the 3 p.m. afternoon showing of Brokeback Mountain, thinking I’d have the theatre almost to myself. I was surprised to find it nearly half full. I’d wondered what possible audience (aside from gay men) there could be for a film about two cowboys and their homosexual affair. It would seem there is a wide audience - and the film merits it. Brokeback Mountain is not, in the usual sense, a gay film.Those looking for much "full frontal (…)