GOP Targets Women With Ads For Bill That Would Weaken Overtime Pay

GOP Targets Women With Ads For Bill That Would Weaken Overtime Pay: In a bid for women’s support and votes, the GOP launched an aggressive ad campaign on “mommy blogs” on Tuesday. The ads will tout its deceptively titled Working Families Flexibility Act that would weaken overtime pay laws: The banner ads will be featured on over 100 websites popular among women and geo-targeted to be viewed [...]/p

How Big Pharma Is Killing Americans and Bankrupting the Country | Alternet

How Big Pharma Is Killing Americans and Bankrupting the Country | Alternet
"Lifesaving medications and commonly prescribed drugs in America today are absurdly expensive here – and only in this country – because Big Pharma is ripping off Americans."

Swarthmore College Allegedly Underreported Sexual Assaults, Dissuaded Victims From Coming Forward

Swarthmore College Allegedly Underreported Sexual Assaults, Dissuaded Victims From Coming Forward: A group of Swarthmore students are filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against their Philadelphia-area college, alleging the elite private institution has been mishandling the sexual crimes that occur on campus. The students say that Swarthmore has violated federal law by failing to accurately report sexual assault cases, as well as by [...]/p

Democratic Senators Introduce Bill To Make Family Tax Credits Permanent

Democratic Senators Introduce Bill To Make Family Tax Credits Permanent: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) have introduced legislation that would make permanent two tax credits aimed at reducing poverty and helping low-income and working families. Two dozen other lawmakers have signed onto the legislation, which would also expand eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit, which [...]/p

How Voter Backlash Against Voter Suppression Is Changing Our Politics | The Nation

How Voter Backlash Against Voter Suppression Is Changing Our Politics | The Nation
"The contemporary Republican Party has lost four of the last six presidential elections. It has won a plurality of the popular vote just once since 1988. A recognition of the challenges the party faces has led to a measure of soul searching, and that in turn has inspired public and private wrangling over electoral strategies. It may be the case that some Republicans still want to play the voter-suppression card, but they do their party no favors."

Republicans Trying Hard To Make Obamacare A Train Wreck

Republicans Trying Hard To Make Obamacare A Train Wreck
"Despite what Max Baucus said, Obamacare is not a 'train wreck' rolling toward a head-on collision. But Republicans are trying and will continue to try to make it as hard as possible to implement. This is not unlike what they did with Medicare back in the 60s when it was implemented. In fact, I expect them to take some pages right out of that playbook despite Medicare's obvious success."

Jon Stewart Slams ‘F@#ktard’ Congress For Fixing Sequester Airport Delays ... and Nothing Else | Alternet

Jon Stewart Slams ‘F@#ktard’ Congress For Fixing Sequester Airport Delays ... and Nothing Else | Alternet
"Last night Jon Stewart tore into America's esteemed Congress."

North Carolina Under-Reported Worker Deaths And Ignored Multiple Workplace Safety Violations

North Carolina Under-Reported Worker Deaths And Ignored Multiple Workplace Safety Violations: The number of North Carolinians who died at work in 2012 is likely more than three times the original number reported by the state Labor Department. While the state estimated 35 worker fatalities last year, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH) put the number at 150. Released in the wake of the [...]/p

New Arizona Law Requires All Buyback Guns To Go Back To Market

New Arizona Law Requires All Buyback Guns To Go Back To Market: Under a new law in Arizona, local officials will be required to put guns that may have been used in crimes back onto the market. On Monday night, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed a bill that makes it illegal for Arizona municipalities to destroy the weapons that they collect at gun buybacks — events [...]/p

When Your Boss Steals Your Wages: The Invisible Epidemic

When Your Boss Steals Your Wages: The Invisible Epidemic
"Who gets cheated?Women, minorities, immigrants, and workers at the bottom of the wage scale are hardest hit, but wage theft is thriving across the employment spectrum."

Republican Tries to Bend Science to Anti-Science Agenda

Pilots and Professors Barely Scraping By? 9 Surprising Jobs That Pay a Pittance | Alternet

Pilots and Professors Barely Scraping By? 9 Surprising Jobs That Pay a Pittance | Alternet
"The top 25 hedge fund managers continue to take in close to a billion dollars per year each, on average. As Les Leopold noted, it would take a middle-class family 47 years to bring in what they make in just one hour. What value do they add to our society? Well, when they're not wrecking the global economy, they're pricing people out of the housing market and ripping off small investors."

Police Shut Down Protest Of NC GOP, Arrest 8 Members Of The Clergy And A Woman In A Wheelchair

Police Shut Down Protest Of NC GOP, Arrest 8 Members Of The Clergy And A Woman In A Wheelchair: North Carolina capitol police arrested 17 people yesterday after protesters gathered in front of the doors to the state senate chamber in an act of civil disobedience against the Republican-led state legislature’s agenda. The arrestees included eight members of the clergy, and a woman in a wheelchair that a spokesperson for The Advancement Project identified [...]/p

'Ag-Gag's' First Victim: Woman Faces 6 Months in Jail For Filming Slaughterhouse ... From Across the Street! | Alternet

'Ag-Gag's' First Victim: Woman Faces 6 Months in Jail For Filming Slaughterhouse ... From Across the Street! | Alternet
"A Utah woman has become the first person to be prosecuted under what are known as “ag-gag” laws, or laws meant to deter people from exposing animal rights abuses."

Finally Austerity Is Being Broadly Exposed for Its Abject Failure | Alternet

Finally Austerity Is Being Broadly Exposed for Its Abject Failure | Alternet
"Austerity cannot go on forever, it is already failing economically, flagging politically."

Only Most Powerful Spared Pain Of GOP-Style Austerity

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xposed: The Billionaire-Backed Group Strong-Arming Parents into Destroying Their Kids' Public Schools | Alternet

xposed: The Billionaire-Backed Group Strong-Arming Parents into Destroying Their Kids' Public Schools | Alternet
"You won't believe the predatory behavior of this education "reform" outfit, Parent Revolution."

Sequester Closes Cancer Clinic Doors, Congress Does Nothing | Common Dreams

Sequester Closes Cancer Clinic Doors, Congress Does Nothing | Common Dreams
"Affluent business flyers inconvenienced by delays = national emergency that Congressimmediately fixes. Cancer clinics closing = Congress does squat, goes home. This is just one more story of our corrupt times."

Art Pope Groups Push Extreme ALEC Tax Agenda in North Carolina

Art Pope Groups Push Extreme ALEC Tax Agenda in North Carolina
"An array of right-wing organizations in North Carolina are arguing loudly for Governor Pat McCrory to radically alter how corporations and people pay taxes in the state -- and the not-so-hidden hand behind the effort is North Carolina millionaire Art Pope, a close ally of the Koch brothers, who funds the groups and has been appointed as North Carolina's Budget Director. The John William Pope Civitas Institute, the John Locke Foundation, and the North Carolina chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), have been loudly calling for cuts to shift the tax burden away from rich folks like Pope and onto the backs of the working poor and middle class."

PERRspectives: GOP Pushes for More Tanks Pentagon Doesn't Want

PERRspectives: GOP Pushes for More Tanks Pentagon Doesn't Want
"Ohio Senator Rob Portman and Rep. Jim Jordan want more money to build additional Abrams M1 battle tanks the Pentagon says it doesn't want."

Northeast US Ocean Temperatures Highest on Record: Report | Common Dreams

Northeast US Ocean Temperatures Highest on Record: Report | Common Dreams
"Ocean surface temperatures off the Northeast U.S. coast last year were the highest in 150 years, according to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

Arizona County Spends Millions To Settle Corruption Allegations Against Infamous Sheriff, Disbarred Gubernatorial Candidate

Arizona County Spends Millions To Settle Corruption Allegations Against Infamous Sheriff, Disbarred Gubernatorial Candidate: The county that hosts the self-professed “toughest sheriff in America” settled yet another lawsuit for $1.4 million last week. In sum, Arizona’s Maricopa County has now paid at least $4.2 million to settle nine lawsuits alleging corrupt investigations by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas. “Those totals do not include millions of [...]/p

Meet the Billionaire Bankrolling Austerity, As He Stands to Make Billions More From Privatization of Safety Net | Alternet

Meet the Billionaire Bankrolling Austerity, As He Stands to Make Billions More From Privatization of Safety Net | Alternet
"The motivation behind the world-wide economic con of austerity has been discovered. And, the source is none other than Pete Peterson – the debt-obsessed billionaire who stands to make billions off the privatization of our social safety net."

ALEC-Orchestrated Bill To Preempt Paid Sick Leave Passes Florida Senate

ALEC-Orchestrated Bill To Preempt Paid Sick Leave Passes Florida Senate: The push for paid sick days in various cities and states has won some crucial victories, the latest of which was in New York City. But “preemption bills,” laws orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that override any efforts to implement paid sick days, are also gaining speed, with the latest passed by [...]/p

Sequestration 101: If a Budget Cut Doesn't Impact the Wealthy, Congress Won't Fix It | Common Dreams

Sequestration 101: If a Budget Cut Doesn't Impact the Wealthy, Congress Won't Fix It | Common Dreams
"And here is the last lesson sequestration has taught us: just how much more Congress cares about what’s bothering upper-middle-class citizens than what’s going on at the bottom of the income scale. There are tons of different programs expecting a big impact from sequestration. None of them saw multiple bills introduced in the Senate, one of which was passed with huge support on both sides of the aisle and signed within a matter of days. Had they continued, the furloughs would have been more than an inconvenience. They could have meant sharply reduced economic output. But the same could be said of many of the cuts to other programs. The lesson is not that the flight delays should have gone unaddressed. It’s that if a budget cut doesn’t impact a wealthy constituency, Congress can’t to be bothered to fix it."

Climate Collision Course: CO2 Levels About to Hit 400 PPM | Common Dreams

Climate Collision Course: CO2 Levels About to Hit 400 PPM | Common Dreams
"The world is likely days away from a "sobering milestone" in our planetary history.
Concentrations of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide will likely reach 400 parts per million (ppm) for first time in human history, say scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and unless drastic action is taken, we're on track to hit 450 ppm in the near future."

Two Critics Of Government Spending Are Forcing The Army To Build Tanks It Doesn’t Want

Two Critics Of Government Spending Are Forcing The Army To Build Tanks It Doesn’t Want: Congress is forcing the Army to spend nearly half a billion dollars building tanks that Army officials insist they don’t want, with money they say could be better spent elsewhere, according to a new report from the AP. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) are the two members of congress at the [...]/p

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: Maybe Bush v. Gore Wasn't the Best Decision | Alternet

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: Maybe Bush v. Gore Wasn't the Best Decision | Alternet
"Bush v. Gore demonstrates how justices who are determined to reach a certain result are capable of bending both the law and their own prior jurisprudence in order to achieve it."

You and Your Family Are Guinea Pigs for the Chemical Corporations | Common Dreams

You and Your Family Are Guinea Pigs for the Chemical Corporations | Common Dreams
"A hidden epidemic is poisoning America.  The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them.  We can’t escape it in our cars.  It’s in cities and suburbs.  It afflicts rich and poor, young and old.  And there’s a reason why you’ve never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name -- and no antidote."

How Austerity Is Literally Killing People

How Austerity Is Literally Killing People: Austerity in the United States and Europe isn’t just placing an unnecessary drag on economic growth that has harmed the global economic recovery from the Great Recession. The rapid deficit reduction efforts are also making people less healthy, causing higher rates of suicide, depression, and infectious disease, according to research from Oxford University economist David [...]/p

Big-Government Conservatives Set Sights On Cities

Big-Government Conservatives Set Sights On Cities
"The legislature is debating a bill to forcibly transfer the city of Asheville's municipal water system and 22,000-acre mountain watershed to a state-controlled regional authority, leaving a huge hole in the city's budget. The bill's author, state Rep. Tim Moffitt, R-Buncombe, and Rep. Bill Brawley, R-Mecklenburg, have connections with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, is on ALEC’s board of directors. They have cities in their sights."

The Koch Brothers and the Right Wing's Media Insurgency | Common Dreams

The Koch Brothers and the Right Wing's Media Insurgency | Common Dreams
"The U.S. news media was never “liberal.” At most, you could say there were periods in the not-too-distant past when the major newspapers did a better job of getting the facts straight. There also was an “underground” press which published some scoops that the mainstream media avoided."

US Plans to Drop Protections for Gray Wolves in Lower 48 | Common Dreams

US Plans to Drop Protections for Gray Wolves in Lower 48 | Common Dreams
"Federal authorities are preparing legislation to remove endangered species protections for gray wolves in the Lower 48 states."

Cancer Clinics: Congress Should Have Restored Our Sequester Cuts Before Addressing Airport Delays

Cancer Clinics: Congress Should Have Restored Our Sequester Cuts Before Addressing Airport Delays: This past week, Congress approved a measure to restore funding to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after sequester cuts to the national transportation agency disrupted airline travel across the country — but they haven’t taken similar steps to provide relief for other programs that are struggling as a result of sequestration. Now, employees at cancer [...]/p

Congress Makes Sure they Have No Flight Delays, While Sequestration Heaps Huge Damage on Many Millions | Alternet

Congress Makes Sure they Have No Flight Delays, While Sequestration Heaps Huge Damage on Many Millions | Alternet
"A flight delay is inconvenient, not being able to receive your cancer treatment is a matter of life and death."

Do the Math - The Movie

Koch Brothers Retool Machine for 2014 Midterms

Koch Brothers Retool Machine for 2014 Midterms
"After their crushing defeat in 2012, Charles and David Koch are more determined, not less. They're kicking off the re-launch of Koch Politics, Inc with a big donor meeting this Sunday and Monday, and a brand-spankingnew arm of the Kochtopus."

Support The Legislation That Will Save The Postal Service

Support The Legislation That Will Save The Postal Service
"Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) has introduced legislation to try to save the US Postal Service from its incipient bankruptcy, and he is asking for the public to help him pass it.DeFazio’s bill would repeal the needless requirement — one no other business or entity must face — that the Postal Service pre-fund 75 years’ worth of employee health benefits. That requirement has hugely contributed to the USPS defaulting for the first and then second time in its history last year."

Bush Library: Whitewashing War Crimes

Bush Library: Whitewashing War Crimes
"Republicans have completely brainwashed themselves about the Bush years.

It would be interesting to see why exactly they consider Bush a success. Was it the fact that he was president during the worst attack on domestic soil since Pearl Harbor? Was it that his administration lied the country into a completely unrelated to 9/11 war? How about the fact that his administration went on a spending binge that wiped out the budget surplus that Bill Clinton left behind? Could they approve of the fact that President Bush launched the biggest expansion of government in decades, and never bothered to pay for it. Or is that his administration eroded civil liberties, and ignored the constitution with regularity? Could it be his inept response to Katrina, or maybe it is the fact that his policies collapsed the economy, and led to the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression?

You don’t have to be a Democrat to understand that the Bush years were a total disaster for the country."

Pentagon Claims $757 Million Overbilling by Contractor in Afghanistan

Pentagon Claims $757 Million Overbilling by Contractor in Afghanistan
"The Pentagon allowed a private firm providing food and water to U.S. troops in Afghanistan to overbill taxpayers $757 million and awarded the company no-bid contract extensions worth more than $4 billion over three years, according to the Pentagon’s chief internal watchdog and congressional investigators."

The Bush Presidency Was Just As Bad As You Remember

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Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever | Common Dreams

Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever | Common Dreams
"Interest-rate swaps are a tool used by big cities, major corporations and sovereign governments to manage their debt, and the scale of their use is almost unimaginably massive. It's about a $379 trillion market, meaning that any manipulation would affect a pile of assets about 100 times the size of the United States federal budget."

Bush Revisionists Count On Short American Memories

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How We Ended Up with the Worst Congress Money Can Buy | Alternet

How We Ended Up with the Worst Congress Money Can Buy | Alternet
"If you want to see why the public approval rating of Congress is down in the sub-arctic range — an icy  15 percent by last count — all you have to do is take a quick look at how the House and Senate pay worship at the altar of corporations, banks and other special interests at the expense of public aspirations and need."

12 Programs Congress Refuses To Save From Automatic Spending Cuts

12 Programs Congress Refuses To Save From Automatic Spending Cuts: After thousands of flight delays across the country this week, the United States Senate voted Thursday night to give the Federal Aviation Administration the flexibility to keep the nation’s airports running smoothly. The delays were caused by the furlough of air traffic controllers, who were rotating off the job because of sequestration’s automatic budget cuts [...]/p

STUDY: Obamacare Has Given 3.4 Million Young Americans Access To Health Insurance

STUDY: Obamacare Has Given 3.4 Million Young Americans Access To Health Insurance: According to a new Commonwealth Fund study published Friday, Obamacare has sharply reduced the number of young Americans lacking health coverage, reversing a decade-long trend that saw a rise in the ranks of the young and uninsured. The study also finds that uninsurance rates for Americans as a whole remained relatively unchanged, leading the authors [...]/p

WA Bill Would Allow Businesses to Openly Discriminate Against Gays | Alternet

WA Bill Would Allow Businesses to Openly Discriminate Against Gays | Alternet
"Republicans in Washington state have proposed a bill that would  allow businesses to openly discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation if they want to do so because of their religious beliefs."

6 New Ways Big Pharma Is Scheming to Make Billions at the Expense of Your Health | Alternet

6 New Ways Big Pharma Is Scheming to Make Billions at the Expense of Your Health | Alternet
"With many of Big Pharma's biggest hits going off patent, the industry is looking for new ways to deliver earnings to Wall Street."

James Hansen: The One Thing We Should Be Doing to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change | Alternet

James Hansen: The One Thing We Should Be Doing to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change | Alternet
"The country's leading climatologist talks about what our future looks like if we continue along with business as usual -- and what we could do to prevent catastrophe."

Radiation Of The Pacific Ocean In The Next 10 Years - Japan Nuclear Disaster

The Right Wing Cult Machine Exposed

The Right Wing Cult Machine Exposed
"the right-wing media and its cult following are not serving the national political debate and not helping the Republican Party widen its appeal beyond its declining base of aging boomer cultists."

Crackpot Conspiracy Theories Enjoy Mainstreaming By The Right

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Big Pharma Colludes With High Court

Divestment Calls Grow: 'Take Our Planet, and We'll Take Your Money' | Common Dreams

Divestment Calls Grow: 'Take Our Planet, and We'll Take Your Money' | Common Dreams
"This is the warning 10 cities across the U.S. are issuing the fossil fuel industry as the campaign to divest from the industry wreaking havoc on the planet gains steam."

Lawmakers On Both Sides Of The Aisle Call On The FDA To Label Genetically Engineered Food

Lawmakers On Both Sides Of The Aisle Call On The FDA To Label Genetically Engineered Food: Health and environmental advocates have fought for years for a federal labeling program for genetically engineered food. Now, for the first time, their battle has bipartisan support in Congress. On Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced the Genetically Engineered Food Right-To-Know Act, a bill whose nine cosponsors in the Senate [...]/p

Americans For Prosperity Protests Flight Delays After Urging For Sequester Cuts

Americans For Prosperity Protests Flight Delays After Urging For Sequester Cuts: Americans For Prosperity, a conservative group funded by the Koch brothers, is echoing the GOP narrative that sequestration cuts are largely President Obama’s fault. Back in March, AFP struck a different tone on sequestration, claiming it would help the economy. “By no means is the sequester perfect, but we must begin acting now to rein [...]/p

PERRspectives: George W. Bush's Magic Calendar Returns

PERRspectives: George W. Bush's Magic Calendar Returns
"In the run-up to today's celebration at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, America's 43rd President declared that "history will ultimately judge" his tenure in the White House. And that is precisely the problem for the custodians of Bush's legacy. After all, the slaughter of 3,000 people on 9/11, the catastrophic and unnecessary war in Iraq, illicit domestic surveillance and illegal detainee torture, the worst eight-year economic performance since Herbert Hoover, a near-doubling of the national debt (thanks in large part to tax cuts that will continue to drain the U.S. Treasury for years to come), the implosion of Wall Street and the disastrously bungled response to Hurricane Katrina all occurred on George W. Bush's watch.

Unless, that is, you don't just rewrite history but redefine time itself. According to the Republicans' Magic Calendar, George W. Bush somehow "kept us safe" despite the carnage on September 11, 2001. Miraculously, it was President Bush who killed Osama Bin Laden, despite his opposition to the very kind of raid ordered by Barack Obama two years after Dubya left office."

Anti-Worker "Paycheck Protection" Bills Moving in Missouri

Anti-Worker "Paycheck Protection" Bills Moving in Missouri
"Missouri is the latest front in the attack on organized labor with so-called "paycheck protection" bills moving through the legislature, with backing from the usual array of corporate interests. But according to the Washington D.C. -based Economic Policy Institute, the bills primarily disadvantage workers while preserving privileges for corporations."

Austerity And Long-Term Unemployment

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How An Excel Spreadsheet Error Hurt The Economy

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Even One Percenters Understand Economics Better Than Republicans

Even One Percenters Understand Economics Better Than Republicans: Over at the Huffington Post, Jared Bernstein points us to a recent pilot study examining the ideological and public policy preferences of the super wealthy. The findings might surprise you: the one percent, selfish as they are, endorse some sound economic ideas that Congress is afraid to touch. The study, conducted by Benjamin Page and Jason [...]/p

Bush Library: Whitewashing War Crimes

Bloomberg Study: 70 Percent Of New Global Power Capacity Added Through 2030 Will be Renewable

Bloomberg Study: 70 Percent Of New Global Power Capacity Added Through 2030 Will be Renewable: According to Bloomberg’s renewable energy research team, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), 70 percent of the power generation the world will add between now and 2030 will most likely be renewable. That would mean $630 billion in new renewable capacity investments in 2030 alone — over three times what was built in 2012, and 35 [...]/p

What Does It Mean To Be An “American” Corporation? | Common Dreams

What Does It Mean To Be An “American” Corporation? | Common Dreams
"For all intents and purposes giant “American” multinational corporations have transformed into entities with completely different interests from their American workers, customers, communities, citizens and government. These corporations are no longer operating in the interest of America or any country, while claiming the benefits of being American corporations (when it suits them.)"

13 Reasons To Be Glad Bush Is No Longer President

13 Reasons To Be Glad Bush Is No Longer President: The five living presidents will meet in Texas on Thursday to dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. And while Bush and his aides are using the occasion to soften the 43 president’s image and solidify his legacy, a recounting of Bush-era policies — from his deregulation [...]/p

50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet

50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet
"Amazingly, the Bush library seeks to ask visitors "What would you have done?" if you were in this president’s shoes. The ex-president’s defenders are betting that the public will reconsider their judgments after a hefty dose of historical amnesia. Bush has been absent from political debates in recent years, instead making millions in private speeches."

Hospitals Across America Lead A Profit-Driven Fight Against More Labor Protections For Nurses

Hospitals Across America Lead A Profit-Driven Fight Against More Labor Protections For Nurses: Nurses are fighting to improve hospital standards and patient care by pushing for mandated minimum staffing levels for nurses in hospitals. The logic — which has been reflected in reality — goes that, with more nurses per patient, the better and more personal level of care Americans will receive. But as nurses’ unions take their [...]/p

Stupid Republican Tricks: Michigan Edition

Stupid Republican Tricks: Michigan Edition
"Michigan Republicans, desperate for something -- anything -- to make themselves look good, have now resorted to bullying Democratic legislators in order to steal their legislative proposals."

GMO Labeling Fight Heads to Maine | Common Dreams

GMO Labeling Fight Heads to Maine | Common Dreams
"Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association also poured money into California's defeated Prop. 37, which sought to label GMOs."

How To Help The Middle Class Without Spending Government Money

How To Help The Middle Class Without Spending Government Money: The middle class has been shrinking since the recession as most of the country’s wealth has traveled upward. But any policy aimed at helping working families that also comes with a hefty price tag has little chance of passing through Congress and becoming law. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope for trying to bolster the [...]/p

Sequestration Budget Cuts Hit Homeland Security

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New ALA Report: Clean Air Act Working, Yet 42% Of Americans Still Breathe Dangerous Air

New ALA Report: Clean Air Act Working, Yet 42% Of Americans Still Breathe Dangerous Air: The American Lung Association today released their annual State of the Air report. In general, it says that the air is cleaner than it was a decade ago, thanks to the Clean Air Act. Despite this progress, over 131 million Americans live in areas where the air can often be too dangerous to breathe. This [...]/p

Erskine Bowles Dismisses Facts on Deficits. Perhaps Because He Collects Millions for Deceiving the Public? | Alternet

Erskine Bowles Dismisses Facts on Deficits. Perhaps Because He Collects Millions for Deceiving the Public? | Alternet
"It is probably worth noting that playing the role of an Erskine Bowles and spreading confusion about basic economics carries large financial rewards. According to the New York Times, Erskine Bowles gets paid $40,000 for many of his speeches.

In addition, Bowles has collected millions of dollars sitting as a director on corporate boards. Perhaps most notable are the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he pocketed as a director of Morgan Stanley, one of the too-big-to-fail banks that would have gone bankrupt in 2008 had it not been saved by the Fed. He also was pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars as director of General Motors until it actually did go bankrupt in 2009."

Right-Wingers Use Boston Bombing to Paper Over Their Own Extremist Terror

Right-Wingers Use Boston Bombing to Paper Over Their Own Extremist Terror
"The fact, however, is that the speculation about right-wing extremism's potential role was entirely rational, considering that in the past four years, there have been nearly 70 acts of domestic terrorism committed by right-wing extremists in the United States, compared to just over 30 such acts committed by Islamist extremists here."

“Human Beings Have No Right to Water” and Other Words of Wisdom from Your Friendly Neighborhood Global Oligarch | Alternet

“Human Beings Have No Right to Water” and Other Words of Wisdom from Your Friendly Neighborhood Global Oligarch | Alternet
"Privatization of our natural resources is leading to the inevitable extinction of our species, and possibly all life on earth."

Bush's Legacy of Atrocities Is Nowhere to Be Seen at His New Library -- and the Local Paper Won't Even Run One Ad That Tells the Truth | Alternet

Bush's Legacy of Atrocities Is Nowhere to Be Seen at His New Library -- and the Local Paper Won't Even Run One Ad That Tells the Truth | Alternet
"George W. Bush presided over an international network of torture chambers and, with the help of a compliant Congress and press, launched a war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. However, instead of the bloody details of his time in office being recounted at a war crimes tribunal, the former president has been able to bank on his imperial privilege – and a network of rich corporate donors that he made richer while in office – to tell his version of history at a library in Texas being opened in his name.

Kill a few, they call you a murderer. Kill tens of thousands, they give you $500 million for a granite vanity project and a glossy 30-page supplement in the local paper."

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation: A conservative group connected to Colorado’s Secretary of State has been sending political mailers — including a picture of a darker-skinned woman whose face was digitally removed and replaced with a white woman’s face — in an attempt to oppose a landmark voting bill that may soon become law. Colorado is currently considering a major [...]/p

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Was an Alex Jones Fan | Alternet

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Was an Alex Jones Fan | Alternet
"Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was influenced by conspiracy theories, including Alex Jones’ website InfoWars, which has been  pushing a narrative that the Tsarnaev brothers were patsies set up by a government cabal to take the fall for the bombing."

The Stock Market’s Rally Drove Income Inequality In The First Two Years Of The Recovery

The Stock Market’s Rally Drove Income Inequality In The First Two Years Of The Recovery: The Great Recession fueled an explosion in income inequality and the economic recovery has carried on the trend. The numbers themselves are staggering, but the causes are also important. A new report from the Pew Research Center finds that not only did the wealth gap between the bottom and the top of the income ladder [...]/p

Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News to Actually Write Any Bills | Alternet

Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News to Actually Write Any Bills | Alternet
"Has the party become "post-policy"? The modern GOP simply have given up on and lost the capacity for developing policy ideas."

Report: Renewables Could Power Nearly All US Energy Usage by 2050 | Common Dreams

Report: Renewables Could Power Nearly All US Energy Usage by 2050 | Common Dreams
"If the US ceases to burn coal and ratchets down both nuclear and natural gas usage, the resulting reliance on wind, solar and other renewables "could meet or exceed demand in 99.4 percent of hours" by 2050, according to a recent report (pdf) by Synapse Energy Economics for the nonprofit think tank Civil Society Institute (CSI)."

Creatures of the Dark: Wisconsin GOP Caught Deleting Records, Again

Creatures of the Dark: Wisconsin GOP Caught Deleting Records, Again
"New federal court filings allege that hundreds of thousands of Republican redistricting files in Wisconsin were deleted last year, in defiance of court orders to turn over all documents. The deletions fit into a pattern of the Wisconsin GOP covering their tracks and could result in sanctions for the attorneys or individuals involved in deleting the files."

The BP Spill Was Worse Than You Knew

The BP Spill Was Worse Than You Knew
"Now the media has moved on and public anger has cooled, but the full extent of the damage is finally coming out—and it’s clear that the spill was even worse than we thought."

Global Ponzi Scheme: We’re Taking $7.3 Trillion A Year In Natural Capital From Our Children Without Paying For It

Global Ponzi Scheme: We’re Taking $7.3 Trillion A Year In Natural Capital From Our Children Without Paying For It: Last week, David Roberts over at Grist flagged a report carried out by the environmental consultant group Trucost, at the behest of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity over at the United Nations. The idea behind the report was simple. Tally up all the world’s natural capital — land, water, atmosphere, etc. — that doesn’t [...]/p

The Spilling Fields: How BP Made The Gulf Oil Disaster More Toxic While Covering It Up

The Spilling Fields: How BP Made The Gulf Oil Disaster More Toxic While Covering It Up: Mark Hertsgaard has a must-read piece in Newsweek on how “The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was even worse than BP wanted us to know.” His piece is about the dangers created by the 1.84 million gallons of Corexit used to “clean up” the 210 million gallons of Louisiana crude BP negligently spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. [...]/p

Bush and His Cronies Bear 'Ultimate Responsibility' for Torture -- So What's Stopping Us from Prosecuting Them? | Alternet

Bush and His Cronies Bear 'Ultimate Responsibility' for Torture -- So What's Stopping Us from Prosecuting Them? | Alternet
"The logical answer would seem to be: prosecute Bush and his cronies (or turn them over to an international tribunal if the U.S. legal system can’t do the job)."

Missouri Senators Cite Gun, U.N. Conspiracy Theories In Voting To Defund Driver’s License Bureau

Missouri Senators Cite Gun, U.N. Conspiracy Theories In Voting To Defund Driver’s License Bureau: In retribution against a Missouri agency’s record-keeping of concealed carry gun permits, the state Senate voted Monday to eliminate all funding for the Department of Revenue’s driver’s license bureau and slashed funding for several other agencies. If the measure became law, it would halt the issuance of driver’s licenses in the state, and would hobble [...]/p

After Demanding Senate Pass A Budget, GOP Refuses To Enter Budget Negotiations

After Demanding Senate Pass A Budget, GOP Refuses To Enter Budget Negotiations: House Republicans spent most of their time over the last three years reminding Americans that Senate Democrats hadn’t passed a budget in two, then three, then four years. It was a regular Republican talking point, a particular favorite of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s. But now that the Senate has returned to regular order [...]/p

Ayn Rand and the Horror at a Texas Fertilizer Facility | Alternet

Ayn Rand and the Horror at a Texas Fertilizer Facility | Alternet
"the central role that absolute free market libertarianism, as personified by the fictional John Galt, played in the horrific explosion in West, Texas that took the lives of fourteen people, most of whom were volunteer firefighters fighting a fire at an unregulated fertilizer facility. We have now learned that the facility had a checkered history of ignoring regulations and had 1350 times more ammonium nitrate on hand than the amount that triggers a legal requirement to report the facility to Department of Homeland Security. Of course, the facility’s owner chose to ignore that regulation along with the many other regulations he chose to ignore."

Tribune Company Scribes: Koch Brothers Purchase Could Turn Papers Into "Conservative Mouthpiece"

Tribune Company Scribes: Koch Brothers Purchase Could Turn Papers Into "Conservative Mouthpiece"
"In addition to the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, the Kochs are reportedly seeking to buy The Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The Hartford Courant (Hartford, CT), The Morning Call (Allentown, PA), and the Daily Press (Hampton Roads, VA)."

The Rightwing Donors Who Fuel America's Culture Wars | Common Dreams

The Rightwing Donors Who Fuel America's Culture Wars | Common Dreams
"Alabama, Tennessee, North Dakota, and Mississippi are among the latest to impose unprecedented restrictions on women's access to abortionservices. All told, in the first three months of this year, 694 provisions related to reproductive health have come before state legislatures, more than half of them involving abortion restrictions."

Dirty Wars (Documentary Trailer)

The Obama Administration's Global Battlefield

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Global Elites May Finally Realize Austerity Isn't The Answer | Common Dreams

Global Elites May Finally Realize Austerity Isn't The Answer | Common Dreams
"First, everyone found out Paul Ryan is super bad at math (shocker). As it turns out, the paper the House Budget Committee chairman has been using to make the case for austerity was discredited after it became known that essential data was excluded from the study, leading to "serious errors that inaccurately represent the relationship between public debt and growth"."

Poll: North Carolina Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose NC GOP’s Voter Suppression Laws

Poll: North Carolina Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose NC GOP’s Voter Suppression Laws: Thanks in no small part to massive spending by just one Republican donor, Republicans now control the entirety of North Carolina’s government for the first time in more than a century. They haven’t wasted any time consolidating their gains. As part of a sweeping conservative agenda that includes taxing the poor to pay for tax [...]/p