Franken Isn't 'Leading'; He Won and Coleman Lost by Ernest A. Canning With a 312 vote victory for the Democrat, and nothing left to count, the corporate media continues to misreport the facts of the U.S. Senate election in Minnesota...In his March 31st article at Media Matters, Eric Boehlert contrasted the difference in corporate media coverage between Florida's 2000 Presidential election contest and Minnesota's 2008 U.S. Senate election contest. "Norm Coleman's a sore loser," Boehlert argued, and asked "Why won't the press say so?"
US firm investing billions in chip industry by AFP Despite the economic slump that has battered the semiconductor business, a new player from the United States' Silicon Valley technology belt is investing billions of dollars in a bid to catch the next wave of growth.GlobalFoundries, formed in March, will focus on making next-generation chips, which it hopes will accelerate competition in a global foundry market dominated by Taiwanese and Singaporean firms.
Asians should simplify their names, GOP lawmaker says by John Byrne In a puzzling move which she insisted isn't about race, a Republican state lawmaker in Texas said in House testimony Wednesday that Asian Americans should change their names to ones that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”Democrats jumped on the comments by state Rep. Betty Brown. Her remarks came during a Texas House Elections Committee hearing, who'd invited a Chinese American representative to testify about ballot accessibility.
Land of the free sours on capitalism: US poll by AFP Bad news for those fearful of "creeping socialism" in the United States -- only 53 percent of Americans now believe capitalism is the better system, according to a new poll Thursday.Fully 20 percent in the Rasmussen Reports survey said that socialism was their preferred economic system -- a startling number that suggests growing disaffection as the "land of the free" fights its worst recession in decades.
Times to Globe: It's hard out here for a pimp! by Rory O'Connor Eileen McNamara had it right. McNamara, a Pulitzer Prize winning former columnist for the increasingly beleaguered Boston Globe, wrote a recent Op-Ed in the rival Boston Herald wherein she noted, "From the moment The Times Co. purchased The Globe in 1993 it has treated New England's largest newspaper like a cheap whore."
Some Are Sicker Than Others - The Glenn Beck Sobriety Story by Steve Young Glenn Beckis an admitted (recovering) alcoholic. He says that alcohol and substance abuse had ruined his life. He says he no longer partakes. Now, I’m not the kind of guy who reveals his sobriety…but if I was, I would say that as a (20 year) AA recovering alcoholic, I can personally tell you that just because someone stops drinking it doesn’t mean that he stops being stupid.
Tomgram: Ira Chernus, GWOT, R.I.P. by Tom Engelhardt — from TomDispatchOn Monday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced his version of the new Pentagon budget. Looked at one way, his suggested changes were significant, even startling given how deeply the giant armament companies have embedded themselves and their new generations of weaponry in the American landscape (and so in Congress). Gates stated that the F-22 Raptor program (at $350 million a plane) and the C-17 cargo plane program were to end; that the Army's $200 billion techno-boondoggle, its Future Combat Systems, would be radically scaled back, losing all eight of its vehicles; that the Navy would some distant day end up with one less aircraft carrier battle group and lose as well its futuristic stealth destroyers; that money going into missile defense would be shrunk, and so on. This is no small thing and, given the way the arms industry scatters weapons production over as many states as possible, some of these cuts may not make it through congressional review.
Iowa OKs Gay Marriage, WWCD? (What Will California Do?) by Bill Berkowitz The unanimous decision last week by the Iowa Supreme Court allowing same-sex marriage appears to have surprised many same-sex marriage advocates around the country, and no doubt shocked and shook up many Religious Right leaders. A post-ruling joint statement issued by Iowa's Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and House Speaker Pat Murphy pointed out that the court's decision is in keeping with that state's "long history of justice."
The world breathes a collective sigh of relief in Obama's wake by Alan Bisbort Poor George W., sitting in his huge instant mega-mansion in Dallas like Gatsby gazing forlornly across the waters at Daisy Buchanan's East Egg dock. No green light will beckon him. Nobody, including Daisy, wants anything to do with him.As George W. gazes across the pond at events in Europe, surely even he can see how the rest of the world is going ga-ga over his successor, a truly presidential man who possesses all the gifts he so patently lacks: he's articulate, respectful, conciliatory, mature and calm. And, to rub salt in his psychic wounds, every ounce of the praise being heaped upon Obama by world leaders comes with a hidden jab at George W. Take French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who ended last Friday's press conference by saying, "It feels really good to be able to work with a U.S. president who wants to change the world and who understands that the world does not boil down to simply American frontiers and borders. And that is a hell of a good piece of news for 2009."
How the Toxic Asset Plan Will Magically Make Your Money Disappear by Cenk Uygur Under the Treasury Department's toxic asset proposal, the government puts in 85% of the investment in these assets through a loan given by the FDIC. The Treasury puts in another 7.5% of the money and the private investor contributes the final 7.5%This is a guaranteed way of transferring money from the American taxpayer to the private investors. Let me show you how.
Suit: Shell complicit in execution of Nigerian rights activist by Stephen C. Webster A landmark human rights lawsuit, accusing Royal Dutch Shell of complicity in the execution of author and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa some 14 years ago, will proceed to trial in a New York courtroom.The Center for Constitutional Rights and Earth Rights International, along with Mr. Wiwa's son, allege the International oil company "financed, armed, and otherwise colluded with the Nigerian military forces that used deadly force and conducted massive, brutal raids against the Ogoni people of the Niger Delta."
'No iota of shame' in 'Limbaughism': Nation editor by David Edwards and Rachel Oswald Rush Limbaugh's condescending treatment of a listener who disagreed with his sentiments on torture and President Obama was picked up by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann who laid into the conservative radio host on his Wednesday show.“If you miss one word as you repeat the catechism to Rush Limbaugh, you're out and you're out of the movement, which is the Republican Party," asserted Olbermann, adding, "Everyone’s going to miss one word eventually. Everbody’s going to wind up being out. It’s going to be Limbaugh and that slave camera that shoots him. That’s it.”
