Fracking Unfocus: How the EPA’s Long-awaited Hydraulic Fracturing Study Could Miss the Mark
Roger Drouin, Truthout: The EPA’s long-awaited study probing the fracking industry’s threats to drinking water is delayed at least two years and may not even address core issues related to fracking-created water and air contamination.
Europe Progresses Toward a Financial Transaction Tax
Salvatore Babones, Truthout: Federal election results have virtually assured that Germany – continental Europe’s financial powerhouse – will adopt a financial transactions tax, which could be an important first step toward creating a more stable global financial system. Where Germany leads, the rest of the EU is likely to follow, notwithstanding UK resistance.
Robert Naiman | WikiLeaks and the Drone Strike Transparency Bill
Robert Naiman, Truthout: The US Senate Intelligence Committee recently passed an intelligence authorization that – if it becomes law – would require for the first time that the administration publicly report on civilian casualties from US drone strikes.
Astroturf “€œFix the Debt”€ Caught Ghostwriting for College Students
Mary Bottari, Campaign for America’s Future: Jon Romano, press secretary for the inside-the-beltway PR campaign “€œFix the Debt”€ and its pet youth group, The Can Kicks Back, have been caught writing op-eds for college students and placing the identical op-eds in papers across the country in the latest slip-up in Fix the Debt’€™s efforts to portray itself as representing America’s youth.
Chris Hedges | Feeding the Flame of Revolt
Chris Hedges, TruthDig: Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond is the latest target of the nation’€™s war against whistleblowers. Chris Hedges reminds us that while we “€œcontinue to have faith in structures of power that deny us our most basic rights and civil liberties,”€ ultimately we are the only ones who can save ourselves from the tyranny of our own government.
No One Died at Healthcare.gov: The Phony Crisis of Obamacare
Dean Baker, Truthout: While the media frenzy has clouded the debate over the Affordable Care Act, the heart of the matter is simple: It is giving Americans agency over their own health and bodies without sending them to the poor house.
India’s GOP Voiceless in the 2014 Elections
Papri Sri Raman, Truthout: While the Indian National Congress has supplied India with its prime ministers for more than half of the country’€™s 70-year independence, the question stands: Who will be able to take control in the 2014 elections?
Surviving Climate Change: Is a Green Energy Revolution on the Global Agenda?
Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch: While the future of the green energy movement is still spread out among various groups across the country, the increasing number of natural disasters occurring frequently across the planet might cause a more unified movement as we all begin to experience the collapse of our environment.
Lavrov Reveals Amended Draft Circulated at “Last Moment”
Gareth Porter, IPS News: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed a crucial detail Thursday about last week”€™s nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva that explains much more clearly than previous reports why the meeting broke up without agreement.
Chilean Student Leaders Make the Jump to Parliament
Jonathan Franklin, Truthout: Four of the Chilean student leaders who upended their nation’€™s political agenda in 2011 with dozens of street protests on Sunday transformed their activist power and won congressional offices in the Chilean Congress and will take seats in March.
BuzzFlash
The Accumulation of Property Should Not Determine Who Should Vote
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: One can look at the pitched battle over voting rights as integrally a race-driven issue. That would be true, but it is also intertwined with the view of many that non-property owners do not have a place at the ballot box.
The Fraudulent 1% Campaign to Stigmatize Public Schools as “Socialist Failures”
The California Political Funding Connection of the Koch Brothers
Read the Article at The New Yorker
Bernie Sanders Open to 2016 Presidential Run
Read the Article at The Huffington Post
Caught in a Revolving Door of Unemployment
Read the Article at The New York Times
Republicans Push Plan to Renege on Medicaid Promise
Read the Article at The National Journal
Diaries of the BBC’s Journalist in Dallas After JFK’s Murder
Private Company TEPCO Engaged in Potentially Catastrophic Fukushima Procedure