The Republican caucuses in Iowa show the 2012 presidential election promises to be long, contentious, extremely expensive and perhaps more negative than any in history.
The New York Times reports how, on Dec. 17, "a linebacker-size officer grabbed the collar of Mr. Devereaux, who wore an ID identifying him as a reporter. The cop jammed a fist into his throat, turning Mr. Devereaux into a de facto battering ram to push back protesters."
Click here to read the article.
The once-imprisoned U.S. activist Lori Berenson will be allowed to travel to New York City from Peru to spend the holidays with her toddler son for the first time since her arrest in 1995. Click here to listen to Amy Goodman’s exclusive interview in 1999 with Berenson in the Socabaya Prison.
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The family of a Dallas teenager Jakadrien Turner is demanding answers after she was deported to Colombia, despite the fact that she is a U.S. citizen and speaks no Spanish. Turner, a 15-year-old African-American runaway, was living in Houston when she was arrested for shoplifting and gave police a fake name that belonged to a 22-year-old undocumented immigrant from Colombia with warrants for her arrest. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) reportedly discovered Turner’s fingerprints did not match those of the Colombian national, but deported her anyway. "The country has no idea that we have got a rogue police force. That rogue police force is called ICE," says Ralph Isenberg, a Dallas businessman who has become an advocate for immigrants. "I’m hoping that Black Americans, who have a history of understanding the destruction of our families, because slavery done that to our families, will at some point wake up and understand that the problem of immigrants is something we cannot ignore," adds Dallas Reverend Peter Johnson, a longtime civil rights advocate who has worked with the Turner family. We also speak with Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University who recently published an exhaustive report on U.S. citizens who have been detained and deported. [includes rush transcript]
Occupy New Hampshire activist Mark Provost made national headlines Wednesday when he attended a town-hall meeting hosted by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and asked about his past comment that "corporations are people." Provost’s question to Romney came as Occupy New Hampshire is preparing for a series of events leading up to the state’s Republican primary to highlight the disproportionate impact corporations and wealthy donors have on the political process. We play an excerpt of the town-hall exchange and get Provost’s response to Romney reply. "I think his response really, again, is this denial that there’s this class in the country and that there are some people within the corporation, specifically the workers, that are taking it on the chin so that the United States’ executive management can make massive bonuses, and serve their shareholders rather well, too, because the profits largely go to capital gains and dividends." [includes rush transcript]
We speak with Buddy Roemer, a candidate who is on the Republican ballot in New Hampshire but has not been invited to this weekend’s two Republican debates—or any of the past 16 debates—even though he is a former governor of Louisiana and four-term member of Congress. Roemer’s campaign is unusual in the Republican field: He has refused to accept campaign contributions more than $100, rejected all donations from political action committees, and has made campaign finance the key plank in his platform. He has also endorsed the Occupy Wall Street movement. "[President Obama] gets elected, and he says he wants change. But he takes all his money from these same corporations who don’t want change," Roemer says. "Special interests control Washington. I’ve been there." [includes rush transcript]
