Dahr Jamail | The Vanishing Arctic Ice Cap
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: Researchers are predicting that sea ice will no longer last through summers in the next couple of years, and even US Navy researchers have predicted an ice-free Arctic by 2016. Scientists warn that this is when “abrupt climate change” passes the point of no return.
The Tax Code in Action: Charity Starts at the Top
Dean Baker, Truthout: There is nothing natural about the government giving tax-exempt status to big-money nonprofits. That is a government policy which can be changed, and it is hard to see why it shouldn’t be.
Six States Have Tried Community Controlled Power: What Works?
Dina Rasor, Truthout: As communities create more Community Choice Aggregations (CCAs), consumers will be paying less money for more environmentally friendly forms of electricity. Six states have passed legislation allowing for CCAs. Which ones have been the most successful?
Chris Hedges | Fighting the Militarized State
Chris Hedges, Truthdig: If Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is not struck down by the Supreme Court, it will effectively overturn nearly 150 years of case law that repeatedly holds that the military has no jurisdiction over civilians.
The Economics of Immiseration, the Politics of Seduction
Joseph Natoli, Truthout: The economics of immiseration would be impossible without the politics of seduction, and capitalism’s appeal to our unconscious will to power and domination is not easily countered.
Banking Union Time Bomb: Eurocrats Authorize Bailouts and Bail-Ins
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt Blog: A new EU agreement to create a single agency to handle failing banks now authorizes both bailouts and “bail-ins” – the confiscation of depositor funds. The possibly illegal deal threatens the pocketbooks of European taxpayers and depositors.
The Widening Lens: Jonathan Schell and the Fate of the Earth
Tom Engelhardt and Christian Appy, TomDispatch: Given the role Vietnam played in US history and in the late author and reporter Jonathan Schell’s life, Tom Engelhardt and Christian Appy look not to Schell’s last words, but – in a sense – to his first words.
Is It Time To Charge People With Ecocide?
The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program: If the very real threat of an environmental apocalypse as brought up in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report doesn’t scare politicians into taking action, maybe the threat of prosecution in an international court will.
Double Standards? Panel Cites US Human Rights Treaty Breaches
L. Michael Hager, Truthout: Last week, the UN Human Rights Committee issued a draft evaluation of US performance in upholding the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. While some progress was acknowledged, serious lapses – including NSA spying and failures of accountability – were detailed.
Could the Supreme Court Re-Legalize Discrimination?
Benjamin M. Cole, Truthout: If Hobby Lobby wins the right to deny health insurance benefits guaranteed by law to women, where will corporations’ drive to ignore whatever laws they feel justified ignoring under their own personal convictions or prejudice end?
Chills, Thrills, Skills and Shills
Karen Garcia, Sardonicky: The plutocrats and the politicians and the pundits need to constantly come up with old-new ways to blame regular people for the horrible economy they had no hand in creating. Enter “the Skills Deficit Plague.”
In today‘s On the News segment: It’s been a quarter of a century since the Exxon Valdez spill, and fewer than half of the fish and wildlife populations in that area are listed today as recovered; a bipartisan coalition requested a renewal of the wind energy tax credit last week; it could be an entire year before the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, reopens for business; and more.
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