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A Grim Warning from Science
One of the things that makes Sandy different from Katrina is that it’s a relatively clean story. The lessons of Katrina were numerous and painful—they had to do with race, with class, with the willful incompetence of a government that had put a professional Arabian horse fancier in charge of its rescue efforts.
10 Filthy-Rich, Tax-Dodging Hypocrites Pushing Disastrous Austerity on America
“Fix the Debt ” is a coalition of more than 80 CEOs who claim they know best how to deal with our nation’s fiscal challenges. The group boasts a $60 million budget just for the initial phase of a massive media and lobbying campaign.
And Now, a Word from Mr. Mourdock's God
God's metaphorical ears must be burning these days. On Tuesday night Richard Mourdock, a Republican Senate candidate from Indiana, did something that would have given pause to even the medieval scholastics who speculated about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
This election year’s ugly and illegal ‘dirty tricks’ could end up ‘backfiring’: experts
Scare-mongering ads, voter registration forms dumped in the trash and misleading statements on the stump: the list of dirty tricks sullying the US presidential election is seemingly endless.
For Whom Should The Left Vote?There are important differences, of course, between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican contender Mitt Romney, but the long conservative trend in American politics will continue regardless of who wins the presidential election Nov. 6. Either candidate will move it right along.
http://www.countercurrents.org/smith031112.htm
This Will Be The Last Last Election With American NaivetéLinh Dinh is a prominent progressive author and poet, internationally renowned for his outspoken criticism of the domestic and foreign policy of the United States , which he calls criminal and detrimental to the interest of the American people.
http://www.countercurrents.org/ziabari031112.htm
11 Most Disturbing Facts About Hurricane Sandy
The naked eye may not be able to see it yet, but Hurricane Sandy is having a destructive impact in many different ways.
1 Not-So-Simple, Pretty Funny Question for the 73% of White Evangelicals Who Will Apparently Be Voting for Romney
A question that deserves an answer before election day.
How Fox News Created a New Culture of Idiots
Cable news has created an entirely new breed of blowhards -- and the style has infected banking and even the arts.
What Happened When I Infiltrated One of the Most Secretive and Powerful Republican Organizations in the Country
The Lincoln Club is the real deal. And if they have their way, Citizens United is just the beginning of their political ambitions for the country.
Prop 37 and Corporate Lies in the Post Truth Era, By Zack Kaldveer
As a historic vote with profound implications for the future of our food system nears, the question becomes whether a campaign with limitless resources and a disdain for the truth can defeat an overwhelmingly popular idea supported by a grassroots army, and over3000 public interest organizations : the right to know what's in the food we eat and feed our families.
Where is the Green Party?
In the race for the White House, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have talked about sustainable development. Yet the Green Party ticket, whose stance on the issue outpaces those of both the Republican and Democratic parties, is virtually unknown by the vast majority of US voters.
Obama in 2012; American Death Squads in 2016?
What would be best sign of a true dictatorship in this country? Most people would probably say it would be the government's power to kill you, or lock you away forever in prison, without ever needing clear evidence that you are guilty of any crime, and without ever allowing you a day in court.
The Party of Religious Fanaticism and Falsehood
I'll say it, since the Democrats aren't saying it. The Republicans have become a party of radical extremism and oppression. Election stealing? Check. Agenda to keep women second class citizens? Check. Religious lawmakers who reject science and reality? Check. A lying demagogue who will say anything to gain power? Check.
US Elections: From the “Lesser to the Greater Evil” and the Demise of Critical Liberalism
There is ample evidence that the Obama Presidency has pulled the US political spectrum further to the Right. On most domestic and foreign policy issues Obama has embraced extremist positions surpassing his Republican predecessor and in the process devastating what remained of the peace and social movements of the past decade. Moreover, the Obama Presidency has laid the groundwork for the immediate future promising a further extension of regressive policies following the presidential elections: cuts in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Incumbents and their opposition compete over hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funding from wealthy donors, which they will have to repay in the post-election period in billion dollar handouts, subsidies, tax abatements, anti-labor and environmental policies. Not a single positive proposal was put forth by the Obama campaign but numerous militarist and regressive social policies were articulated. The Obama campaign ran a fear campaign, playing off of the reactionary proposals of the Romney-Tea Party alliance: a cover for his own record of unprecedented military spending, sequential wars, immigrant expulsions, mortgage foreclosures and Wall Street bailouts.
How Mormon Doctrine Shapes Romney’s World View
As Mormon missionaries in the 1960s, Mitt Romney and I were required to present six “discussions” to “investigators” before baptizing them – he in France and I in northern California. Central to those discussions was the “Plan of Salvation” (POS); and central to it, the “Doctrine of Eternal Progression.” These doctrines are also the essence of the Mormon temple “endowment ceremony” in which covenants of allegiance to God and the Church are made, accompanied by oaths of secrecy.
Fox News is on Romney’s campaign team
It's not news that Fox is conservative, but plenty of its contributors are actually on Romney's payroll
The Battle Against Big Energy's Rush to Ruin Our Planet
Federal government sued over privatized Medicare audits
Supreme Court hears arguments in Sixth, Fourth Amendment cases
The US Supreme Court [official website] heard oral arguments [day call, PDF] in two cases Thursday. In Chaidez v. United States [transcript, PDF; JURIST report] the court heard arguments to determine if Padilla v. Kentucky [JURIST report] applies retroactively to persons whose convictions became final before its announcement. Padillaheld that the Sixth Amendment [text] guarantee of effective assistance of counsel requires a criminal defense lawyer to advise a non-citizen client that pleading guilty to an aggravated felony will trigger mandatory, automatic deportation.
DOJ criticizes immigration courts for inefficiency
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General [official website] released a report [text, PDF] Thursday criticizing US immigration courts as inefficient. Inspector General Michael Horowitz urged the immigration courts to use all resources available [Reuters report] to maximize efficiency.
How the U.S. Is Helping to Kill Peace in Syria
As President Obama confirmed in an interview with the Atlantic on March 2, 2012, one of the strategic goals of U.S. policy in Syria has been to weaken and isolate Iran by removing or helping to remove its strongest Arab ally. Asked what the U.S. could do to accelerate the removal of President Assad, Obama replied, laughing, "Well, nothing that I can tell you, because your classified clearance isn't good enough."
Economic Sanctions Are An Act of War
During the most recent presidential debate, President Barack Obama congratulated himself on a continuation of the United States’ policy of economic sanctions against Iran. “We … organized the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy,” he said.
Vocal as they are about being bombed from the sky, most Pakistanis – including many on the Left – suddenly lose their voice when it comes to the human (Muslim) drone, says Pervez Hoodbhoy
Why We Fight to Prevent Stolen Elections in 2012 and Beyond
Voting rights and election theft experts and journalists respond to a recent AlterNet article.
Why We May Be Able to Start Feeding Ourselves From Urban Waters Again
Small-scale vertical farms -- some of the first in the country -- are designed to grow multiple species of seaweed and shellfish, have small footprints and provide an array of environmental benefits.
Can You Take Fact Checking Too Far?
Earlier this year, there was a lot of attention paid to the popular radio program This American Life (TAL) having to retract its episode based on storyteller Mike Daisey's one-man show, in which he claimed to be telling a story about his own trip to visit Apple factories in China, but which it later came out was partially fabricated. As we noted soon after that, when it comes to pure storytelling, it's not always clear that fact checking makes sense. Storytelling is a tool for entertainment, not journalism. Where those two things come into conflict is when people begin to blur the lines between entertainment and journalism.
DailyDirt: Foods Unfit For Consumption
Food science has come a long way and makes a lot of incredibly delicious foods that last longer and stay fresher and provide more vitamins/nutrients than previously thought possible. But just as any technology is a tool that can be used for either the benefit or to the detriment of humankind, there's also the dark side of modern food production that has produced some of the most unhealthy foods in history. Here are just a few examples of sketchy food stories that you might want to avoid.
Hurricane Sandy, Twitter Fact-Checking, And The Impact Of False Information
As we begin to move into the aftermath stage of Hurricane Sandy, folks are beginning to look back on various aspects of communication during the storm and what occurred. Mike already touched upon this, discussing one dead-ender who decided to tweet a bunch offalse reports under the name "@comfortablysmug".
Secret Surveillance
At the Supreme Court on Monday, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. told the justices that they should not allow judicial review of a secret surveillance program in order “to preserve the separation of powers” among the government’s three branches.
10 Dirty Tricks to Keep Americans from Voting and Swing an Election
Here are the most common legal and illegal paths to keeping Americans from the ballot box.
What I Learned About Humanity from Working at a Porn Shop
We need to rethink our assumptions about porn, sex work and sexuality.
Anonymous Threatens to Shutdown Facebook - Dude, do you have any Idea?
Corporate thugs vs science and your health
Vote YES on your right to know
Two Party Dictatorship: Ralph Nader
One of the things that makes Sandy different from Katrina is that it’s a relatively clean story. The lessons of Katrina were numerous and painful—they had to do with race, with class, with the willful incompetence of a government that had put a professional Arabian horse fancier in charge of its rescue efforts.
Scare-mongering ads, voter registration forms dumped in the trash and misleading statements on the stump: the list of dirty tricks sullying the US presidential election is seemingly endless.
