| The military told Cheryl Harris this past January that her son had foolishly carried an electrical appliance into a shower in Baghdad, leading to his death. That was a lie. It turned out the fault was an improperly grounded water pump. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Huffington Post site. | |
| Pitched by the Democrats is a plan that would essentially guarantee a full-ride scholarship to any in-state public university, along with a monthly housing stipend, for individuals who serve the military for at least three years. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Associated Press site. | |
| The owner of a California shooting range who trained military personnel for Blackwater Worldwide said yesterday that “he will no longer work with the North Carolina company because of the notoriety of the government contractor.” Marc Halcon, owner of American Shooting Center, has been a Blackwater subcontractor since 2002, but now says he is “tired of being dragged into this thing” and no longer wants to be “associated with what he said was Blackwater’s questionable business practices.” | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Think Progress site. | |
| John Yoo, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Vice President's Chief of Staff David Addington have now all declined to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on the White House's interrogation policies. Committee Chairman John Conyers first responded to their objections, and now has threatened to issue subpoenas. "I will have no choice," Conyers says, "but to consider the use of compulsory process." Stay tuned. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Mother Jones site. | |
| The Bush administration is undermining the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to determine health dangers of toxic chemicals by letting nonscientists have a bigger — often secret — role, congressional investigators say in a report obtained by The Associated Press. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Yahoo! News site. | |
| Ray Lane, the managing partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is about to announce some news. He's launching Think North America -- bringing Think vehicles to the U.S. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Grist site. | |
| By now you have probably heard about what might be the mainstream news article in recent weeks, the front-page David Barstow epic in today's New York Times on how the Pentagon, starting in 2002, assembled a crew of retired military officers to disseminate propaganda via all-too-willing network and cable news outlets. Even if it confirms what you have already sensed -- you are no dummies -- the details are truly damning and shocking. (More Orwell than oh, well.) And it continues up to the present day, with the revelation that Gen. Petraeus met with members of this propaganda group just two weeks ago -- he had met with them previously, as well. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Huffington Post site. | |
| Numbers tell a story. Especially over time. They compel us to focus on results -- success and failure. The numbers over the past 30 years are not refutable. When it comes to creating jobs and managing the nation's finances, Democratic presidents demonstrate success while Republican presidents show failure. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Huffington Post site. | |
| Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners, there has been a disturbing question: How high up did the decision go to ignore United States law, international treaties, the Geneva Conventions and basic morality? | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The New York Times site. | |
| Populism is an ideology that dictates that policies should stem from the needs of the people. This idea is directly in sync with the priorities of democratic government. So why do our current leaders -- who espouse the virtues of spreading democracy throughout the world -- start foaming at the mouth at the prospect of enacting populist policy? | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Huffington Post site. | |
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The Failure of Reaganomics: If You're NOT Bitter, You're Not Paying Attention The Huffington Post - 4/17/2008 |
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| The conditions in this country now, after the GOP has owned the White House for almost eight years, dominated the Senate for most of that time, and the House of Representatives since the mid-90's (except for the last year-and-a-half), have left America with a serious case of indigestion -- at the very least. The bile from years of reckless Republican charging and spending, holding no one accountable for anything, and allowing Wall Street to run amok is indeed leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of Main Street by now. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Huffington Post site. | |
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1 in 5 Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans Experience A Form of Mental or Emotional Distress The Associated Press - 4/17/2008 |
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| Some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries, a new study estimates. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Associated Press site. | |
| Here are some guaranteed effects from McCain's brainstorm. It would: * Deepen the federal deficit, thereby weakening the dollar. * Increase gasoline consumption, in one stroke worsening highway gridlock, compounding U.S. oil dependence, and speeding up global warming. * Transfer what used to be tax revenue -- potentially usable for public benefit -- to the oil companies and the Saudis by pushing up oil demand. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Grist site. | |
| Here's a roundup of responses to Bush's climate speech. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Grist site. | |
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Bush's Noncommittal Environment Speech Provokes Backlash from Environmentalist Community Think Progress - 4/16/2008 |
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| President Bush just delivered his Rose Garden global warming speech. Bush’s plan, if the rest of the world followed suit, would push the planet into territory never before seen in the history of human civilization. For his senior environmental adviser to even compare this to Europe’s mandatory and unilateral commitment to aggressive greenhouse reductions is beyond shameful. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Think Progress site. | |
| A critical look into the assumption that the gas tax is regressive. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Grist site. | |
| Socialism, we are told, is the naiveté of youth, and a fallacious economics the United States has luckily spurned. Alas, nobody ever told the leaders of American finance. Whereas the old style of socialism elected no more than a handful of mayors and congressmen, Washington has now embraced a new variety that could not be more different in its class consciousness and privileged sponsorship. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Huffington Post site. | |
| Significant to American taxpayers are the social policies that are hidden deep within our complex tax code. And this year especially, these camouflaged social policies overwhelmingly favor America's wealthiest citizens. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Huffington Post site. | |
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White House Officials Call Contractor Accountability Loophole "A Drafting Error" Talking Points Memo - 4/15/2008 |
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| Back in February, the AP broke the story that the White House had secretly modified a proposed rule to crack down on contract fraud. The rule, originally drafted by the Justice Department, was intended to force contractors to police themselves and report evidence of fraud or abuse. But the White House's version of the rule specifically exempted contractors working overseas on contracts that exceeded $5 million. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Talking Points Memo site. | |
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Foreclosure Prevention Act: Homebuilders Leverage their Lobbyist Ties to Congress The Huffington Post - 4/13/2008 |
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| The centerpiece of the bipartisan Foreclosure Prevention Act, passed by a bipartisan 84-12 in the Senate on Thursday, is a corporate tax giveaway for homebuilders, one of the groups most responsible for the housing bubble. You might remember that it was the homebuilders who rushed ahead with new housing developments under the delusion that the good times would last forever. Now they are being rewarded for their gluttony. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Huffington Post site. | |
| “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” President Bush once declared. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.” Not quite. Even if this were true, ER visits are no substitute for regular preventative care, which forty percent of adult Americans lack. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The New York Times site. | |
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Racial and Economic Factors Contribute to Health Disparities The Center for American Progress - 4/11/2008 |
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| This month, the Public Broadcasting Service and the specialist journal Health Affairs are separately taking much needed steps to publicize these links between childhood poverty, race, and health | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Center for American Progress site. | |
| During John McCain's appearance on ABC's The View April 10th, the senator was asked whether it was a mistake to enter into Iraq. McCain not only supported the invasion, but denied that our diversion to Iraq caused the lack of progress in Afghanistan. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Think Progress site. | |
| The weakening U.S. economy has further to fall, according to the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey. The three largest obstacles were credit market deterioration, decreased consumer spending and housing weaknesses. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Wall Street Journal site. | |
| Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at Associated Press site. | |
| CAYMAN ISLANDS - Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation's top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Boston Globe site. | |
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Bringing Everyone to the Table: Climate Change, Developing Countries and Global Trade The Center for American Progress - 3/5/2008 |
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| A look at how green economy practices can help bring developing countries to the table in a globalized world. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Center for American Progress site. | |
| The House last night approved one of the most significant changes to its ethics rules in decades, creating for the first time an independent panel empowered to initiate investigations of alleged misconduct by members of the chamber. | |
| Continue reading. | Read at The Washington Post site. | |
| Continue reading. |
