Did You Know
Did You Know
Welcome to Colorado: the Land of Oil Giants and Lilliputian Regulators
Phil Doe: It was no surprise really to learn the oil industry thinks the people should continue to cover all but the tiniest sliver of the risks associated with the closing, cleanup, and long-term maintenance costs of their wells. ... The state estimates that on average it takes $100,000 to close a well, but this is based on a small sample that does not include any of the newer, often deeper horizontally fracked wells. ... Some studies indicate the industry enjoys a subsidy of at least $50 billion annually in this country, but this does not include the likelihood or risks of well-closing and maintenance costs being transferred to the public...
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Jan 20, 2022, 3:32pm
Did You Know
Newsom Lies in Rejecting Sirhan Parole in RFK Assassination
William F. Pepper and Andrew Kreig: There has never been a hearing exploring, much less disproving, the scientific and witness evidence (much of it recent) that a second shooter inflicted the fatal shots at point-blank, powder-burn range from the rear. Sirhan was no closer than 5 to 6 feet in front of Kennedy, according to witnesses, and thus could not have fired the powder-burn shots from the rear. ... it was left to an enterprising writer from CNN to make the shocking discovery in 2004 that a reporter in the room at the time of the assassination had recorded 12 to 14 gunshot sounds. Sirhan’s gun only held eight bullets...
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Jan 15, 2022, 4:15pm
Did You Know
Congress Is Day-Trading While the World Burns
Branko Marcetic: It was a hell of a year for the professional day traders who moonlight as members of Congress. Collectively they traded hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stocks and related securities — usually from industries that are closely regulated by Congress. ... More generally, tech and fossil fuel were the top-traded stocks among congresspeople, with shares in certain individual mineral and mining companies being particularly popular among Senate Republicans specifically. ... Members of Congress will still continue to be bribed with campaign contributions and corporate jobs...
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Jan 13, 2022, 3:47pm
Did You Know
Exposing the Fraudulence of Elon Musk and Tesla
Investigative journalist and automotive industry expert Edward Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, explains how Musk and Tesla have gotten away with so much lying and fraudulence. ... Underneath all of this, there’s a bunch of pretty much outright fraud that has occurred, right? I mean, all the stuff about the autopilot. He’s just told blatant public lies about a lot of stuff ... The autopilot situation. Let’s start with that. In some ways it’s the most important because there are literally thousands of these cars on the road right now that are potentially endangering our safety every time we’re on the road...
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Jan 7, 2022, 5:06pm
Did You Know
America Must Awaken From the Big Lie of “Rugged Individualism”
Thom Hartmann: Hunger in the USA — which stalks the lives of 1 in 5 American children — could end with just $25 billion a year, while this year Congress gave the Pentagon $25 billion more than they requested. Why? ... A rightwing network of billionaires and foundations began, in the 1970s ... selling Americans on the idea that government is an evil and dysfunctional thing and that the real core idea of America is “rugged individualism.” ... We have clean food and water, warm housing, safe medications and reliable transportation systems because we Americans have historically worked together — through the institution of government that we created for this very purpose...
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Dec 30, 2021, 3:13pm
Did You Know
Yes, There Were 10 Good Things About 2021
Medea Benjamin: The U.S. survived its first major coup plot on January 6 and key right-wing groups are on the wane. ... Latin America is undergoing a massive shift toward progressive governments. ... The struggle for racial justice and accountability saw some major wins in 2021 ... U.S. troops left Afghanistan, winding down a deadly 20-year intervention ... The U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted in 2017, went into effect this year after fulfilling the requirement that it be ratified by at least 50 countries ... In the U.S., workers are actually gaining power amidst the ravages of COVID...
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Dec 28, 2021, 4:38pm
Did You Know
Ex-Marine Explains Why Oswald Alone Could Not Possibly Have Shot JFK
Daniel Borgström: So maybe Oswald really did shoot JFK with an old Italian army rifle—that now-famous Carcano. But I seriously doubt it. I just can’t picture a Marine Corps-trained rifleman selecting such a weapon to shoot anybody. .... For long-range sniper shooting one needs a very accurate weapon ... Carcano was not in the running ... Within the brief space of less than ten seconds, according to the Warren Commission, Oswald fired three shots, two of which hit the president. That would have been phenomenal marksmanship ... a bolt action ... Consider also the report that the telescopic sight on Oswald’s Carcano was defectively mounted—which would render any sort of accuracy impossible...
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Dec 20, 2021, 3:05pm
Did You Know
The Year in Inequality in 10 Charts
Sarah Anderson Brian Wakamo: Our economic and racial divides grew even wider in 2021, but there are signs of hope for a more equitable future ... The rich have gotten richer by squeezing workers and consumers ... Job growth has been strong, but racial inequalities persist ... Job and wage growth would’ve been stronger if corporations hadn’t blown record sums on stock buybacks ... Pharma greed has created a global vaccine gap that makes us all unsafe ... The pandemic greed grab boosted support for taxing the rich to pay for vital public investments...
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Dec 15, 2021, 2:18pm
Did You Know
Inside the Secretive World of Union Busting: How Employers Use Technology to Defeat Unions
Jo Constantz: An estimated 60% of large employers use workplace monitoring tools, some of which can be used to chill organizing. ... Technology-enabled surveillance — from keycard tagging and email monitoring to social media tracking and worker profiling — often introduced in the name of safety and productivity can have a chilling effect on organizing and allow companies to sidestep labor law. ... It enables employers to profile workers and gain insights into employees’ private lives and their sentiments — who’s likely going to be the most outspoken? ... Amazon and Walmart are two of the best-known examples of employers using surveillance technology during union battles...
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Dec 10, 2021, 2:56pm
Did You Know
‘Warehouses in their backyards’: when Amazon expands, these communities pay the price
Kaveh Waddell & Maanvi Singh: Amazon opens most of its warehouses in neighborhoods with a comparatively high number of people of color. ... Some of these are communities where other industrial facilities already cause residents worry about poor air quality, excessive noise and traffic ... Breathing in tiny particles from diesel and gasoline exhaust increases a person’s chance of getting asthma, developing cancer or having a heart attack, decades of studies have shown ... “Communities that host delivery facilities end up being the losers” ... The huge warehouses coming to many communities tend to worsen existing problems ... no one publicly tracks emissions near warehouses ... “Warehouses fall into this really gray category of environmental regulation because they’re not traditional industrial facilities with a smokestack”...
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Dec 9, 2021, 2:19pm
Did You Know
Defend Socialism in One Demographic!
Dave LIndorff: In the bizarro world of politics in the United States today, probably the most radical government program that exists — the one most close to a socialist idea that actually works and is popular with the vast majority of Americans — is Social Security. ... The most insidious undermining of Social Security has been a refusal for over two decades by Republicans in Congress (again with the support of some neoliberal Democrats beholden to Wall Street banks and investment houses and financial planning organizations, including long-time former Sen. Joe Biden), to honestly adjust Social Security each year to account for the ravages of inflation...
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Dec 7, 2021, 1:41pm
Did You Know
Too Many Governments Have No Sympathy for Destitute, Despairing Refugees
Brian Cloughley: The world is at risk of having future generations suffering from routine endorsement of governments devoid of decency, morality and simple humanity. ... The world has many crises, and probably the most heart-rending is that of desperately miserable refugees who have been forced to flee from their homes. ... Unfortunately most of the international community couldn’t care less about refugees ... The British government’s combination of intolerance, malice and incompetence concerning refugees is appalling, but it’s nothing new. ... A recently published book by an Afghan refugee, Abbas Nazari, called After the Tampa, tells us a great deal about the Australian government’s even worse treatment of the stricken and helpless...
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Nov 30, 2021, 3:23pm
Did You Know
President John F. Kennedy: His Life and Public Assassination
Edward Curtin: ... the 1960s were a tragic period when the CIA took over the United States and profoundly changed the course of history ... From the day he was sworn in as President on January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was relentlessly pressured by the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, and by many of his own advisers to wage war – clandestine, conventional, and nuclear. ... To understand why and by whom he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, one needs to apprehend this pressure and the reasons why President Kennedy consistently resisted it, as well as the consequences of that resistance...
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Nov 23, 2021, 2:32pm
Did You Know
ICE Doubles Down On Controversial Facial Recognition Technology
Eloise Goldsmith: Clearview AI, the controversial US-based facial recognition company, is no longer welcome in Canada and Australia, after regulators found Clearview’s technology breaks national privacy laws. ... But in the United States, federal agencies continue to embrace the firm. ... But according to privacy advocates, ICE’s embrace of ethically questionable surveillance technology is a dire threat to privacy. ... “Face recognition tends to be less accurate at identifying Black and brown faces, making them even greater targets for wrongful arrest”..
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Nov 16, 2021, 11:37am
Did You Know
Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Promotes Subsidize Logging
George Wuerthner: ...the main thrust of the legislation continues to promote the idea that “fuels” are the problem and logging is the primary way to deal with climate-induced wildfire. ... logging will only exacerbate CO2 emissions ... we have studies and numerous examples across the West where fuel reduction does not work in the face of extreme fire weather ... logging/thinning by opening the canopy logging can hasten the drying of fuels and increase wind penetration—both major factors in fire spread ... The legislation undermines environmental protection by weakening current laws to create a broad exemption for logging projects on federal lands...
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Nov 10, 2021, 2:39pm
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