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This week on Uprising:

* Egypt Struggles With Transitional Military Rule
* Ten Years After Bush’s Tax Cuts, GOP Candidates Propose More Cuts
* Obama Pushes Anti-Immigrant ‘Secure Communities’ Onto States
* Tom Morello’s New EP, Union Town, Benefits Labor Struggles

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Egypt Struggles With Transitional Military Rule

Human Rights Watch last Tuesday publicly called for Egypt’s transitional government to stop trying civilians in military courts. The call came after a three-day meeting with officials of Egypt’s transitional government. The officials denied that transferring cases involving civilians was common practice and denied trying protestors by military tribunal. Human Rights Watch disputes that claim. In the months following the historic popular Egyptian uprising that lead to the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, the organization states 5,600 civilians have been tried and sentenced by military tribunals. Groups have also reported beatings, torture, and sexual assault at the hands of military security. Egypt’s officials have also been on the defensive against claims first reported by Amnesty International that soldiers tortured and sexually assaulted a group of female protestors in March. A group of 20 women were arrested from Tahrir Square on March 9th, slated for a military trial, and say they were subjected to strip searches, electric shocks, and so-called virginity tests. The military’s response has been mixed, but leans toward a denial of misconduct. Egyptian journalists are also under fire. The temporary detention of journalist Hossam El-Hamalawy has garnered a lot of attention.

GUESTS: Philip Rizk is an independent writer and filmmaker and a friend of journalist Hossam El-Hamalawy, Ghada Talhami, emeritus professor in the department of politics at Lake Forest College. Her books include “The Mobilization of Muslim Women in Egypt”

Ten Years After Bush’s Tax Cuts, GOP Candidates Propose More Cuts

The 7th of June marked the 10th anniversary of tax cuts enacted by President George W Bush. Over the past decade millionaires, billionaires, and major corporations have benefited greatly from the cuts and pushed to make them permanent. In fact, President Obama last December, after initially vowing to let the cuts expire, temporarily extended them. The justification from the right for the cuts is that letting them expire would hurt small businesses and thereby hurt job creation. However, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, only three percent of taxpayers that report business income of any kind actually earn enough to benefit from Bush’s tax cuts. As Republicans are gearing up for the 2012 Presidential election against Democrat Obama, they are still banking on tax cuts for the wealthy as the center piece of their economic policy. Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has announced his candidacy, gave a speech earlier in the week in Chicago where he blasted Obama’s record on the economy. Pawlenty made a proposal to decrease individual tax rates to only two levels: 10% and 25%. Currently the tax rate for top earners is 35%. The GOP Presidential candidate also called for lowering taxes on corporations.

GUEST: Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and directs IPS¹s Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He co-edits the web resource, www.inequality.org, an online resource with data, analysis and commentary.

Read Chuck Collins article here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/09-6

Obama Pushes Anti-Immigrant ‘Secure Communities’ Onto States

The Los Angeles City Council this Tuesday voted 11-1 to opt-out of the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Communities program. Secure Communities is a pillar of current federal immigration policy. States enter into the program voluntarily and agree to share fingerprint data from local arrest records with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Obama administration is reportedly pushing for program implementation in all states and counties by 2013. Secure Communities was sold to participating states as a way to track and deport undocumented immigrants convicted of violent felonies. States were led to believe they could opt-out of the program at any time. But now some states have been told that opting-out is not an option. The Federal government denied the state of New York’s request to end its contract. Massachusetts and Illinois have refused to participate. Meanwhile, in mid-May the Department of Homeland Security disclosed that Secure Communities will be investigated by the Inspector General. The LA City Council vote on Secure Communities came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal challenging California’s policy of extending in-state university tuition to undocumented students. The Court’s docket was heavy with immigration related cases this year. On May 26th the court in a 5-3 ruling upheld an Arizona state law requiring employers to enroll in a program that checks all employees for legal immigration status. On Monday the Supreme Court also ordered a Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to reexamine a 2010 decision. The Pennsylvania court ruled against laws punishing those who rent housing to, or employ, undocumented immigrants.

GUEST: Laura Rivas, organizer with National Network on Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Tom Morello’s New EP, Union Town, Benefits Labor Struggles

Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello has a new EP out as his alter-ego The Nightwatchman. It’s called Union Town and is inspired by the labor struggles earlier this year in Wisconsin. Morello went to Madison and performed in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of union members gathered every day at the capital to preserve their rights. The Nightwatchman is a solo act Morello adopted in 2003 as a way to express his political activism. Union Town is his third recorded effort, following from One Man Revolution released in 2007, and The Fabled City in 2008. His next album Worldwide Rebel Songs will be released later this year. The Union Town EP released digitally in mid-May and will be out on CD later this summer. All proceeds of the EP sales will go to benefit The America Votes Labor Unity Fund.

GUEST: Tom Morello, aka The Nightwatchman, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine

Watch the video of Union Town:

Find out more at www.saveworkers.org.

Tune into Axis of Justice this Friday at 7 pm, co-hosted by Tom Morello and Serj Tankian of System of a Down. The show will focus on the Union Town EP and classic union songs from American history.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains.” — Joe Hill