Buzzfeed- As news outlets and press advocates pile on the Obama administration for the Justice Department’s long-term spying operations against the Associated Press and Fox News, one group has remained conspicuously absent from the debate: the White House Correspondents Association.The WHCA, considered the primary organization representing reporters and news […]
Only 27 percent of college grads have a job related to their major GOP senators from Oklahoma have repeatedly voted against federal disaster aid A tornado chaser explains what he does and why he does it Quotes Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody. -- Jane Jacobs Pocket par […]
Another in our series on Rebuilding AmericaSam Smith - From the American revolution to the underground railroad, to the organizing of labor, to the drive for universal suffrage, to the civil rights, women's, peace and environmental movements, every significant political and social change in this country has been propelled by large numbers of highly auto […]
BEN SMITH, NY DAILY NEWS, 2006 - Despite her apparent opposition to torture, Hillary Clinton said in a Daily News editorial board meeting yesterday that the practice is acceptable in some circumstances. . At yesterday's Daily News editorial board meeting, it emerged that she's not actually against torture in all instances, and that her dispute with […]
From the National Wildlife Federation Children are spending half as much time outdoors as they did 20 years ago. Today, kids 8-18 years old devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes using entertainment media in a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). In a typical week, only 6% of children ages 9-13 play outside on their own. Children who play outside ar […]
Progressive Magazine - Thousands of documents obtained by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy show how Homeland Security and local law enforcement were obsessed with the Occupy movement and other activists.They treated Occupy activists as potential terrorists.They infiltrated Occupy meetings.They tracked Occupy activists online.They kept an eye […]
New York Post - Wealthy New Yorkers are shunning their parental duties — choosing instead to send nannies to their children’s private schools to take part in everything from “safety patrol” to accompanying the kids on their entrance interviews.“They’re sending nannies for bake sales, book clubs, for the ice-skating group,” Amanda Uhry of Manhattan Private S […]
Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, UK - Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This new found theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journ […]
Wall Street Journal - Employers are increasingly recognizing they may be able to avoid certain penalties under the federal health law by offering very limited plans that can lack key benefits such as hospital coverage.Benefits advisers and insurance brokers—bucking a commonly held expectation that the law would broadly enrich benefits—are pitching these low- […]
Alternet - Stephen Fincher, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, is very angry that the federal government is committed to preventing poor people from starving to death:Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, who supports cuts to the program, had his own Bible verse from the Book of Thessalonians: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not […]
Reuters - Water levels in U.S. aquifers, the vast underground storage areas tapped for agriculture, energy and human consumption, between 2000 and 2008 dropped at a rate that was almost three times as great as any time during the 20th century, U.S. officials said .The big rise in water use started in 1950, at the time of an economic boom and the spread of U. […]
Truthout - "Citizen Koch," a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned by PBS for fear of offending billionaire industrialist David Koch, who has given $23 million to public television, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. The dispute highlights the increasing role of private money in "public […]
Hit & Run - San Diego Bob Filner ... held a press conference to encourage potential jury members to reject federal charges against Ronnie Chang of San Marcos, who was arrested by feds in 2009 for operating a medical marijuana dispensary, legal under state law. NBC San Diego reports:"This is way overdoing it when local laws, state laws allow compassi […]
Valerie Strauss, Washington Post - Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York [writes] her newest post on Year Two of New York’s controversial educator evaluation system. Burris, named the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State, is the co-author of the New York Principals letter o […]
Sam Smith: If you feel confused about the real story in the hat trick of controversies overwhelming the media these days, don't feel bad. There are an extraordinary number of officials manipulating these tales for their own use, with the help of an extraordinarily manipulated media. In happier times, the media would have seen its job as coming up with t […]