COMMON DREAMS– Just when we thought Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch (in Montcoal, West Virginia) mining disaster of April 5, 2010, which killed 29 coal miners, couldn’t elicit any more tears or regrets or disgust or outrage, we find out how wrong we were. Even after an independent investigation commissioned by the state’s former governor reported (on May 19, 2011) … Read More
COMMON DREAMS– 235 years after the American colonies declared independence from Britain, the passenegers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza call for a new American Declaration of Independence, this time from Israel. The passengers issued their call from the decks of the U.S.-flagged boat, The Audacity of Hope, which is currently confined to a Greek military pier near Athens, while … Read More
THE GUARDIAN– Oil from a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline on the famed Yellowstone spread at least 15 miles beyond the initial leak – further than the oil company’s original estimates.Clean-up crews have yet to reach the break in the 12-inch pipeline because of historic flooding on the river, which is projected to peak on Tuesday.Montana’s governor, Brian Schweitzer, who was due … Read More
NATION-The US Supreme Court’s conservative majority continued its project of bartering off American democracy to the highest bidder with a decision Monday that will make it dramatically harder to counter free-spending attack campaigns funded by billionaire donors and corporate spin machines. With a 5-4 vote, the Court has struck down a matching-funds mechanism in Arizona’s Clean Elections Law that allowed … Read More
SALON.COM-In August, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder — under continuous,aggressive prodding by the Obama White House — announced that three categories of individuals responsible for Bush-era torture crimes would be fully immunized from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution: (1) Bush officials who ordered the torture (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld); (2) Bush lawyers who legally approved it … Read More
