But they can do that and know that they’ll get a listen from Obama and the Democrats. Blacks know that the same can’t be said of the GOP. The GOP’s long, blatant, and infuriating history of racial exclusion, neglect and race baiting, and polarization has insured that the door remains tightly slammed to any kind…
NASA: It Rained So Hard the Oceans Fell
Sea levels have been rising steadily for over a century as the ever warmer ocean water expands and the world’s remaining glaciers and ice sheets melt. In fact sea levels are rising twice as fast now as they were a few decades ago. As the NASA chart above shows there have been some…
Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales
By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France. “Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,” Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its…
Obama Administration Presses Ahead With Renewable Energy Grants
The Obama administration this week announced millions of dollars in new grants for dozens of projects related to advanced solar technology and other new clean energy technologies. On Thursday, the Department of Energy said that it had awarded $156 million to fund 60 different cutting edge technology projects in five categories: low cost biofuels, substitutes…
Verizon sues to halt FCC’s net neutrality rules
On Friday afternoon, Verizon filed its expected challenge to the FCC’s network neutrality rules, suing in federal court to stop them. Verizon claims that the agency has no authority to issue rules affecting the Internet. “Verizon is fully committed to an open Internet,” said Verizon senior vice president Michael Glover in a statement. “We are…
Have a license for medical pot? You can’t have a gun, U.S. says
Michigan’s medical-marijuana users can’t catch a break. Three major state appeals court decisions have gone against them in the last month. Now, federal authorities have issued an order that licensed medical-marijuana users nationwide can’t possess a gun. That means no hunting, no target shooting, no gun collecting and no guns for personal protection —…
Latest Attack On Michelle Obama: She Went To Target
Right-wing media have attacked Michelle Obama for going shopping at Target, claiming she went ” ‘incognito,’ Lady Gaga-style” and asking, “Who does she think she’s fooling?” Right-wing media have previously attacked the first lady for everything from promoting health initiaitves to wearing a red dress at a state dinner. via Latest Attack On…
NYT: Forests dying off as worlds climate warms
From the mountainous Southwest deep into Texas, wildfires raced across parched landscapes this summer, burning millions more acres. In Colorado, at least 15 percent of that state’s spectacular aspen forests have gone into decline because of a lack of water.The devastation extends worldwide. The great euphorbia trees of southern Africa are succumbing to…
Boehner’s District Suffers From E. Coli Outbreak As House Republicans Try To Gut Food Safety
As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, despite yet another outbreak of food-borne illness — this time stemming from listeria infected cantaloupes — congressional Republicans are still trying to cut back on the nation’s food safety regulations. The tainted melons have caused 16 deaths so far, making this the deadliest outbreak in more than a decade,…
Russell Simmons: All My Employees Paid Less Taxes Than I Did
Russell Simmons: All My Employees Paid Less Taxes Than I Did
NASA’s Hansen: “If We Stay on With Business as Usual, the Southern U.S. Will Become Almost Uninhabitable.”
Climatologist Slams Media for “Silent Summer”: Poor Coverage of Link Between Extreme Weather and Human-Caused Climate Change The nation’s top climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, has a new paper out — and he has been speaking out. At 350.org’s Moving Planet event in New York on Saturday, he said: “Climate change — human-made global…
Occupy Wall Street Protests Poised to Grow Rapidly With Union Support
The “Occupy Wall Street” protests, now entering their third week, are poised to get a whole lot bigger than its core of 200 to 300 people, potentially even exceeding the protesters original goals of 20,000 demonstrators, thanks to recent pledges of support from some of New York City’s largest labor unions and community…
GAO Cuts: Tom Coburn Hammers Senate For Money-Losing Proposal
The Huffington Post reported recently that the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for the Legislative Branch has drawn up plans to reduce the GAO budget by more than 7 percent, cutting more than $40 million even as it also proposed rules requiring the agency to do more paperwork. And yet the GAO saved the federal…
Announcing the 2012 Inside Facebook Election Tracker
As we round the corner on election season, we at Inside Network are excited to announce the launch of the 2012 Election Tracker monitoring fan growth and marketing reach on Facebook for electoral campaigns. Inside Facebook’s 2012 Election Tracker will begin by tracking Facebook activity for presidential primary candidates and current elected officials,…
Regulatory uncertainty: A phony explanation for our jobs problem
An examination of current economic trends, and especially what employers are doing in terms of hiring and investment, debunks this story about regulatory uncertainty as the cause of our dismal job growth. An examination of what employers and their economists are saying again and again in private surveys (cited later in this paper) makes it…
Ron Pauls Charity: Libertarian Views Fail Reality Test
In Pauls opinion, high taxes and inflation deprive Americans of money that they would otherwise give to charity. Programs like Medicare, he says, brought about the demise of “voluntary charities and organizations, such as friendly societies, that devoted themselves to helping those in need” during the early 20th century. These civic groups, he claims, “flourished…
REPORT: How The Right-Wing Uses Misleading Numbers To Claim The Rich Are Unfairly Taxed
First of all, these numbers apply only to federal income taxes — which Wallace, to his credit, acknowledged. But the distinction is often elided, allowing the impression that this applies to all taxes to slide by uncontested. Rove, for instance, never mentioned it. It’s just in the fine print of the charts. And…
Stupid voters enable broken government
We have to move away from easy-to-repeat campaign slogans and promises of easy solutions, because we’re a country with more than 300 million people, a complicated racial and religious history and the world’s largest GDP. There are no easy solutions. So if you’re the kind of person who likes to say “I don’t follow politics,”…
CHART: Obama Economic Plan Raises Less Revenue Than Plans Conservatives Support
“If we’re just going to do class warfare and get tax increases out of this, then I don’t think much will come of it,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). The press, meanwhile, described Obama’s plan as “[giving] his liberal critics exactly what they wanted,” and “a direct appeal to his…
73 Percent Of Americans Support The ‘Buffett Rule,’ Including Two-Thirds Of Republicans
Overall, the Buffett Rule receives 73 percent approval, according to a new Daily Kos/SEIU “State of the Nation” poll conducted by Public Policy Polling and released today. Republicans have labeled the increase as “class warfare,” despite the fact that the richest Americans continue to see their incomes rise and their tax rates plummet. via 73…