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President Obama: Harding "Pardoned" Debs So Why Not Pardon Snowden and Manning, Too?

Murray Polner LA Progressive
Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning exhibit something of Eugene Debs' understanding that dissent is not disloyalty. Drawing on the courage of - yes - Warren Harding, and while offering clemency would not be politically easy, it would in time [to] burnish Barack Obama's dubious civil liberties legacy.

Prosecutor Manipulates Grand Jury Process to Shield Officer

Marjorie Cohn Truthout
In a normal grand jury proceeding, the prosecutor presents evidence for a few days, then asks the grand jurors to return an indictment, which they nearly always do. Of 162,000 federal cases in 2010, grand juries failed to indict in only 11 of them. The standard of proof for a grand jury to indict is only probable cause to believe the suspect committed a crime. It is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is required for conviction at trial.

Tidbits - December 4, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments- Race inequality...by the Numbers; Darren Wilson Acquittal; Workers and Students Leave Jobs, Classes in Nationwide Walkout for Ferguson; Thanksgiving; Univ of Virginia Finally Confronts Its Rape Problem; Madison Teachers Recertify Union; Walmart Black Friday Protests; Price of 13-Year War on Terror; Chile; Israel's Jewish State Bill; 2014 and Future Elections; ALEC Blueprint for 2015; Wanted: A Challenge to Clinton; Chicago's Mayoral Race (correction)

The Battle Over Working Time: A Countermovement Against Neoliberalism

David Bensman The American Prospect
Campaigns for social control of capital look different from social democratic movements that began in the 1870s and endured through the mid-1960s. Thus many underestimate the significance of the Occupy Movement, the mobilization of domestic workers, immigrants, restaurant and fast food workers, home healthcare workers, self-employed women workers, tomato pickers or the landless. Nonetheless, we should recognize that these campaigns all challenge capital.

Business Day Unsteady Incomes Keep Millions of Workers Behind on Bills

By Patricia Cohen The New York Times
Across the country, nearly seven million people working part time would prefer full-time jobs but can’t find them. While their numbers are down from the peak a couple of years ago, these involuntary part-timers still account for 4.5 percent of the labor force, compared to an average of 2.7 percent before the recession

"Truth Needs Witnesses": The Murder of Saïd Mekbel

By Karima Bennoune Open Democracy
The column Saïd Mekbel published the day before he was assassinated in 1994 remains sadly topical today - recalling murdered journalists everywhere - including those killed by the "Islamic State" this year.

Conservative Activist Launches Push for Wisconsin 'Right to Work' Law

By Jason Stein Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The governor has also said that he doesn't want a repeat of the large protests that accompanied the passage of Act 10, saying in December 2012 that such a move could create uncertainty and cause employers to hesitate on hiring as he believes businesses did in 2011.