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Hot and dry in the heartland: Radioactive Texas Waste Dump Threatens Key US Water Resource
By Paul DiRienzo
In a remote place in the desert of West Texas, outside the small town of Andrews, something dirty has been going on which threatens the water supply of nearly a third of America’s farmland (and perhaps the millions of people who eat the food grown using that water).
Accommodating abuse: Critics of BlackLivesMatter# Practice Defiant Denial
By Linn Washington, Jr.
Over 1,500 miles separate Harris County, Texas and Harrison Township, New Jersey yet public officials in those two jurisdictions seemingly share a disdain for persons who protest against police abuse.
Worst president ever?: History Should and Probably Will Judge President Obama Harshly
By Dave Lindorff
President Barack Obama is on track to go down in history as one of the, or perhaps as the worst and most criminal presidents in US history.
We need peace officers, not pinkertons: What’s Wrong with Police in America
By Dave Lindorff
Americans got a glimpse of what policing is like in a more humane and civilized society last year when four young Swedish cops, on vacation in New York City and riding on a subway, found themselves faced with a bloody fight in the aisle by two angry black men.
Our quadrennial reality TV show: Sorting Through the Bullshit in America
By John Grant
“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. ... The realms of advertising and of public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bullshit so unmitigated that they serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept.”
Wall Street reporting is a joke: The Stock Market is Getting Harder to Rig
By Dave Lindorff
It’s entertaining to watch and to read reports in the corporate media about the current stock market decline, which over the course of the last six business days erased $2.1 trillion in the market value of stocks of publicly-traded US corporations (and in a lot of ordinary Americans’ retirement savings).
“Now I get it!”: Katie Couric’s Hit Job on Social Security
By Dave Lindorff
Judges Nixing Keystone XL South Cases Had Tar Sands-Related Oil Investments
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
On August 4, the U.S. Appeals Court for the 10th Circuit shot down the Sierra Club's petition for rehearing motion for the southern leg of TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands export pipeline. The decision effectively writes the final chapter of a years-long legal battle in federal courts.
The most draconian information-gathering law yet: The Senate Wants to Make Internet Providers Spies
By Alfredo Lopez
How much noise does the other shoe make when it drops? If the shoe is a law that would complete the development of a police surveillance state in the United States, it's almost silent.
Exclusive: Hillary Clinton State Department Emails, Mexico Energy Reform and the Revolving Door
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
Emails released on July 31 by the U.S. State Department reveal more about the origins of energy reform efforts in Mexico. The State Department released them as part of the once-a-month rolling release schedule for emails generated by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now a Democratic presidential candidate.
Puerto Rico's the new Greece, DC's the new Berlin, bankers are the same: Washington and Wall Street to Puerto Ricans: Drop Dead!
By Dave Lindorff
You can read the entire article in the New York Times Tuesday business section reporting on Puerto Rico’s default on a payment on its staggering $72 billion debt without once learning that the little Caribbean island, home to 3.5 million US citizens, is a territory of the United States, or more properly, a colony, insofar as its residents have no representation in Washington, cannot vote for national candidates for office, and furthermore, are subject to US federal courts, whose judges are all appointed by the federal government.
It's not terrorism if it's retaliation: Chattanooga Shooting, If Linked to ISIS, is a Legitimate Act of War
By Dave Lindorff
I'm not a fan of war or of killing of any kind, but the labeling of the deadly attack by Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez on two US military sites in Chattanooga, Tennessee as an act of terror is absurd.
Greenwash: Shell May Remove "Oil" From Name as it Moves to Tap Arctic, Gulf of Mexico
Shell Oil has announced it may take a page out of the BP "Beyond Petroleum" greenwashing book, rebranding itself as something other than an oil company for its United States-based unit.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
We’re #1...in the heroin business!: US Lost in Afghanistan, But Did Make Afghanistan World’s Top Heroin Exporter
By Jack Balkwill
...The US government pretends to care about eradicating opium production in Afghanistan, while production soars to record levels. Can this be an accident?
The largest marketplace for illegal drugs continues to be the United States, despite a decades-long so-called "war on drugs." Can this be an accident?
Enbridge Stuffs Provision into Wisconsin Budget to Expedite Controversial Piece of "Keystone XL Clone"
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
On Thursday, July 3 on the eve of a long Fourth of July holiday weekend, Canadian pipeline company giant Enbridge landed a sweetheart deal: a provision in the 2015 Wisconsin Budget that will serve to expedite permitting for its controversial proposed Line 61 tar sands pipeline expansion project.
A pariah in his home state: Storm Smashes Chris Christie’s Presidential Candidacy
By Linn Washington, Jr.
If New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has any chance of gaining traction in his bid to become the 2016 Republican candidate for president he has to maintain support in suburban communities like East Greenwich Township, a small, predominately white, upper middle income area located about fifty miles south of Trenton, NJ’s capital city.
We don’t do body counts: Have Millions of Deaths from America's 'War on Terror' been Concealed?
By Jack Balkwill
How many days has it been
Since I was born?
How many days
'Til I die?
Do I know any ways
I can make you laugh?
Or do I only know how
To make you cry?
― Leon Russell, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dog whistlers run for cover: Lone Wolf Racist Terror Backfires
By John Grant
“Our ancestors were literally fighting to keep human beings as slaves and to continue the unimaginable acts that occur when someone is held against their will. I am not proud of this heritage.”
What were you doing on your vacation?: Returning Home to the US is to Enter a Police State
By Dave Lindorff
A few weeks ago, I got a vivid comparative look at how far this country has moved towards becoming a police state. The occasion was a brief visit to Montreal, where my wife was to give a harpsichord recital at an early keyboard music conference.
Killing prisoners through medical neglect: Mumia Attorneys Sue in Federal Court for Prisoners’ Right to Medical Care
By Dave Lindorff
Attorneys from the Abolitionis Law Center in Pennsylvania, an organization defending prisoner rights and challenging the state's penal system, have filed suit in federal court demanding that Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections stop preventing them from even seeing their client, journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, on occasions when he has to be hospitalized for a critical diabetes condition.
Here come the terrorists!: Help! The USA PATRIOT ACT has expired!
By Dave Lindorff
Omigod! We're all gonna die!
Three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act were allowed to expire on June 1 thanks to a Senate disagreement over how to "fix" them (and thanks to Sen. Rand Paul's outspoken opposition to renewal), and now we’re vulnerable to terrorism!
That at least is what President Obama and other fear mongers in Washington are saying.
It’s not just police killings: Tazing and Bust of Videotaper Shows Abuse of Blacks is Just Normal Philly Cop Behavior
By Linn Washington Jr.
A July 2013 Philadelphia police attack on Sharif Anderson, where officers beat, kicked and shot Anderson twice with a Taser, is more than just another ugly incident of abuse by a big city police force long assailed for its persistent brutality and corruption.
Revealed: Energy Transfer Partners’ 'Pipeline-for-Prostitute' Landman
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
By Steve Horn and David Goodner
A DeSmog investigation has uncovered the identity of a land agent and the contract company he works with that allegedly offered to buy an Iowa farmer the services of two teenage sex workers in exchange for access to his land to build the controversial proposed Dakota Access pipeline, owned by Energy Transfer Partners.
Memorial Day 2015: Antiwar Veterans Join the Conversation at the Vietnam Wall
By John Grant
Anthropologists have found that in traditional societies, memory becomes attached to places.
T.M. Luhrmann, New York Times Op-ed May 25, 2015
Finally! Some climate crisis honesty: Forget About a 2 Future; It Will be 4˚-6˚C Degrees, and Soon
By Dave Lindorff
A tectonic shift is occurring suddenly in the debate over climate change.
The US needs the Iceland option: If ‘Too-Big-to-Fail’’ Means Too-Big-To-Jail’ It Should Mean ‘Too-Big-to-Be’
By Dave Lindorff
In a couple of days, the so-called US Justice Department will be announcing an “agreement” reached with five large banks, including two of the largest in the US -- JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, the holding companies for Chase and Citibank -- under which these banks or bank holding companies will plead guilty to felonies involving the manipulation of international currency markets.
Dimock, PA Lawsuit Trial-Bound as Study Links Fracking to Water Contamination in Neighboring County
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
A recent peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has confirmed what many fracking critics have argued for years: hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas can contaminate groundwater.
Child Soldier released from jail by Canadian court: US Still Seeks Jail for ‘Fighter’ Captured at 15 in Afghanistan
By Dave Lindorff
The good news is that an appellate judge in Canada has had the courage and good sense to uphold the release from jail on bail of Omar Khadr, a native of Canada who was captured as a child soldier at the age of 15 in Afghanistan by US forces back in 2002 and shipped off to Guantanamo, where he became one of the children held in captivity.
Black man warns his young grandson about the police: A Black Child Fears Cops more than Criminals
By Linn Washington, Jr.
I was seething inside as I watched the live television coverage of the recent rebellion/riot in Baltimore as we witnessed yet another explosion caused by America’s historic failures to reign in abusive police. Then I received a text message that lead to a conversation that absolutely broke my heart.
The conversation was with my 11-year-old grandson, who himself was seething from what he saw going on in his hometown of Baltimore.
My grandson told me he was mad…mad because police “keep killing black men.”
When I probed further into his anger he said he feared for his own life -– not because of what might happen when he gets older because of what could happen even now if he encountered a police officer.
Brother of Hillary Clinton's Top Campaign Aide Lobbied for Fracked Gas Export Terminal Co-Owned by Qatar
Cross-Posted from DeSmogBlog
Anthony "Tony" Podesta began lobbying in late 2013 on behalf of a company co-owned by ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum aiming to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the global market. Tony is the brother of John Podesta, former top climate change adviser to President Barack Obama and current top campaign aide for Hillary Clinton's 2016 bid for president.
