WikiLeaks’ New Release: The Kissinger Cables and Bradley Manning | Common Dreams

WikiLeaks’ New Release: The Kissinger Cables and Bradley Manning | Common Dreams
"WikiLeaks’ latest release, which includes documents already declassified but very difficult to search and obtain, is a testament to the ongoing need for WikiLeaks and similar groups. The revealed documents have sparked controversies around the world, even though they relate to the 1970s. If we had a uniform standard of justice, Nobel laureate Henry Kissinger would be the one on trial, and Bradley Manning would win the Nobel Peace Prize."

The Southern State Fast Becoming Ayn Rand's Vision of Paradise | Alternet

The Southern State Fast Becoming Ayn Rand's Vision of Paradise | Alternet
"As you would expect, this translates into hard times for its public school systems, which rank 48th in school revenues per student and 45th in teacher salaries. The failure to invest in education also corresponds with poverty: the state has the 40th worst poverty rate (15%) and the 13th highest state percentage of poor children (26%). 

Employment opportunities also are extremely poor for the poor. Only 25% have full-time jobs, 45% are employed part-time, and a whopping 30% have no jobs at all. So what do you do with all those low-income folks who don't have decent jobs? You put a good number of them in jail. In fact, only Louisiana, Georgia and New Mexico have  higher jail incarceration rates."

Margaret Thatcher Was a Privatization Pioneer, and This Is the Story of How Her Agenda Did Nothing But Make Life Worse for Millions of People | Alternet

Margaret Thatcher Was a Privatization Pioneer, and This Is the Story of How Her Agenda Did Nothing But Make Life Worse for Millions of People | Alternet
"The one essay you need to read to understand what a pernicious ideology "free market" privatization is."

5 Tax Breaks Corporations Get That You Don't | Alternet

5 Tax Breaks Corporations Get That You Don't | Alternet
"Corporations are quick to claim  “corporate personhood” and their First Amendment rights when it comes to their ability to donate to political candidates, influence elections, and lobby or when it comes to advertising their products, especially those deemed dangerous or socially destructive. But on tax day, corporations are quite content with a tax code full of perks and privileges for corporations that are not available to living, breathing human beings."

Labor Report: Four Major TV News Networks Ignore Unions

Labor Report: Four Major TV News Networks Ignore Unions
"If you turn to network television to get your news, don't expect to hear much about labor unions or the lives of organized workers."

Where's the Cop on the Wall Street Beat? | Common Dreams

Where's the Cop on the Wall Street Beat? | Common Dreams
"Bankers gone wild! Let's tally some of their crimes"

Top Enron Fraudster Will Spend Less Time In Prison Than A Father Who Sold His Own Pain Pills

Top Enron Fraudster Will Spend Less Time In Prison Than A Father Who Sold His Own Pain Pills: John Horner had no record of drug-dealing when he was sentenced to a 25-year mandatory minimum prison term for selling some of his own pain pills to an undercover informant who befriended him and told him he could not afford both his rent and his prescription medication. Horner, a fast-food restaurant worker and a father, [...]/p

Private Sector Better, Cheaper? Not at All

Private Sector Better, Cheaper? Not at All
"It’s become popular among Republicans (and plenty of Democrats) to decry public workers as overpaid and inefficient. They love to contract out, claiming the private sector can deliver services more cheaply and cost-effectively.

But the reality is quite different."

Before Next Crash, Create Finance System That Serves Public, Part I: Shrink, Regulate Banks, and Enforce Law

Before Next Crash, Create Finance System That Serves Public, Part I: Shrink, Regulate Banks, and Enforce Law
"Big finance - the too-big-to-jail banks that dominate the economy and government - is designed for financiers and does not benefit most people. That is why many are in rebellion against the looting class of Wall Street."

The Real Monsanto Protection Act: How The GMO Giant Corrupts Regulators And Consolidates Its Power

The Real Monsanto Protection Act: How The GMO Giant Corrupts Regulators And Consolidates Its Power: Liberals and Tea Party members alike are up in arms over the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act,” a provision snuck into the emergency budget bill that essentially exempts biotech firms like Monsanto Company from judicial review. Now that President Obama has signed the law, Monsanto may plant genetically modified seeds even if a court of law [...]/p

There's Only One Real Option for Averting Economic and Ecological Ruin -- So Why Aren't We Talking About It? | Alternet

There's Only One Real Option for Averting Economic and Ecological Ruin -- So Why Aren't We Talking About It? | Alternet
"The world will face limits to energy production in the decades ahead regardless of the energy pathway chosen by policy makers."

The Wall Street Ticking Time Bomb That Could Blow Up Your Bank Account | Alternet

The Wall Street Ticking Time Bomb That Could Blow Up Your Bank Account | Alternet
"The big risk behind all this is the massive $230 trillion derivatives boondoggle managed by US banks."

Thousands Rally To Protest Sequestration Cuts To Medical Research Programs

Thousands Rally To Protest Sequestration Cuts To Medical Research Programs: Thousands of researchers, patients, doctors, scientists, and advocates gathered rallied outside of Carnegie Library in Washington DC to protest sequestration cuts towards medical research. Organizers estimated that the Rally for Medical Research, protesting budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health, had around 10,000 attendees. “When [Congress] sees a grassroots movement rising up from doctors, [...]/p

PERRspectives: Will Max Baucus Betray Democrats on Taxes Again?

PERRspectives: Will Max Baucus Betray Democrats on Taxes Again?
"At the very start of his political career back in the 1970's, Montana Senator Max Baucus asked New Deal veteran James Rowe Jr., "Do you think I should run as a Republican or a Democrat?" Rowe's uneasy answer--"I sure hope you'll be a Democrat"--has defined Baucus' careerever since."

Winner Takes All: The Super-priority Status of Derivatives | Common Dreams

Winner Takes All: The Super-priority Status of Derivatives | Common Dreams
"“Too big to fail” now trumps all.  Rather than banks being put into bankruptcy to salvage the deposits of their customers, the customers will be put into bankruptcy to save the banks."

Global Wealth Inequality - What you never knew you never knew

Interest Rates On Student Loans Set To Double Even As Students Fall Deeper Into Debt

Interest Rates On Student Loans Set To Double Even As Students Fall Deeper Into Debt: Student loan interest rates are scheduled to double on July 1, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Congress extended the lower rate on federal student loans for a year in an effort to control the nation’s formidable student debt crisis, but will now have to decide whether or not to cancel the interest rate hike [...]/p

Tent Cities Are Cropping Up in the Same Place Where Tech Millionaires Are Being Minted | Alternet

Tent Cities Are Cropping Up in the Same Place Where Tech Millionaires Are Being Minted | Alternet
"California’s Silicon Valley is a microcosm of America’s new extremes of wealth and poverty"

Chris Christie & Wisconsin's Scott Walker Are Right-Wing Soul Brothers: What It Means for Unions and Progressives | Alternet

Chris Christie & Wisconsin's Scott Walker Are Right-Wing Soul Brothers: What It Means for Unions and Progressives | Alternet
"By Christie's deeds and his words, he is clearly committed to the death of the labor movement and every other sort of social progress."

Monsanto's Next Target: Democracy | Alternet

Monsanto's Next Target: Democracy | Alternet
"Big Food’s greatest fear is materializing. A critical mass of educated consumers, food and natural health activists are organizing a powerful movement that could well overthrow North America’s trillion-dollar junk food empire. Savvy and more determined than ever, activists are zeroing in on the Achilles heel of Food Inc. -- labeling."

As Drug Prices Continue To Soar, Big Pharma Reaped $84 Billion In Profits Last Year

As Drug Prices Continue To Soar, Big Pharma Reaped $84 Billion In Profits Last Year: The price of brand-name drugs has skyrocketed over the past several years, leading increasing numbers of Americans to switch over to cheaper generic drugs. But even those generic drugs are also increasingly costing Americans more money, as chain pharmacies across the country hike their prices to charge up to 18 times the drugs’ original cost. [...]/p

Daddy's Been Arrested: The Arrogance of America's Financial Criminals on Full Display | Alternet

Daddy's Been Arrested: The Arrogance of America's Financial Criminals on Full Display | Alternet
"At 6 a.m. last Friday, the FBI arrested Michael S. Steinberg, a 41-year-old stock trader for New York hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, at his $8 million Manhattan co-op.

This brings to nine the number of SAC employees indicted in the investigation of its founder, Steven A. Cohen, whose net worth is around $10 billion. Four of them have pleaded guilty."

5 Reasons Why You Should Be Willing to Risk Arrest to Protect Public Education | Alternet

5 Reasons Why You Should Be Willing to Risk Arrest to Protect Public Education | Alternet
"Last Wednesday, thousands of Chicagoans turned out to demonstrate against school closures — 127 were detained and ticketed."

‘Billioniares Have Options’ Doesn’t Mean Miami Taxpayers Should Finance NFL Stadium Renovations

‘Billioniares Have Options’ Doesn’t Mean Miami Taxpayers Should Finance NFL Stadium Renovations: Miami voters will go to the polls on May 14 to decide if they want to hand over hundreds of millions in public money to renovate SunLife Stadium, the home of the Miami Dolphins. Approval is far from assured, and though Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has insisted that he won’t sell the team if the [...]/p

WikiLeaks Publishes 1.7M U.S. Records

WikiLeaks Publishes 1.7M U.S. Records
"WikiLeaks has published more than 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic records -- including cables, intelligence reports, and congressional correspondence -- from 1973-1976, the period during which Henry Kissinger was secretary of state and national security advisor. The collection is being released in a searchable database called the Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy (PlusD), and according to the Guardian is “the world’s largest searchable collection of confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications.” According to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the documents hint at the scope of U.S. intelligence activity around the globe at the time."

How One Multi-Millionaire Is Turning North Carolina Into A Tea Party Utopia

How One Multi-Millionaire Is Turning North Carolina Into A Tea Party Utopia: In 2010, Republicans took over both houses of the North Carolina legislature for the first time since 1870, due in no small part to the spending of a single, very wealthy Republican. As Jane Mayer reported in 2011, “three-quarters of the spending by independent groups in North Carolina’s 2010 state races came from accounts linked [...]/p

The U.S. Collects Less In Taxes Than All But Two Industrialized Countries

The U.S. Collects Less In Taxes Than All But Two Industrialized Countries: President Obama and Senate Democrats have presented deficit reduction plans that would rely on both spending cuts and increased tax revenues, but Republicans continue to insist that the U.S. has only a “spending problem” and that deficit reduction does not require new revenues. The premise of the argument from Republicans is that Americans already face [...]/p

The Corporate Betrayal of America | Common Dreams

The Corporate Betrayal of America | Common Dreams
"Multinational corporations have built their businesses on the backs of American taxpayers. They've depended on government research, national defense, the legal and educational systems, and our infrastructure.
Yet they've turned around and mocked us with declining tax payments. They've cut workers. They've refused to invest their massive profits in job-producing research and development. And they've insulted existing employees with low wages and dwindling retirement support."

Teachers Signal 'War Cry' Against Corporate Reform | Common Dreams

Teachers Signal 'War Cry' Against Corporate Reform | Common Dreams
"Teachers and education activists from near and far descended on the Department of Education in Washington D.C. this weekend to announce their "war cry" against the corporate-based school reform movement currently enacting a stranglehold on public education."

Bank Of America To Pay $36.8 Million To Military Members For Improper Foreclosures

Bank Of America To Pay $36.8 Million To Military Members For Improper Foreclosures: Bank of America will pay $36.8 million to members of the military it improperly foreclosed on between 2006 and 2010, according to a settlement it reached with the federal government in 2011, the Justice Department announced this week. Bank of America was already paying 142 military members under the original 2011 agreement, but a further [...]/p

America Is Ruled by Billionaires, and They Are Coming After the Last Shreds of Our Democracy | Alternet

America Is Ruled by Billionaires, and They Are Coming After the Last Shreds of Our Democracy | Alternet
"The United States today qualifies as a plutocracy – on a number of grounds.  Let’s look at some striking bits of evidence. Gross income redistribution upwards in the hierarchy has been a feature of American society for the past decades. The familiar statistics tell us that nearly 80% of the national wealth generated since 1973 has gone to the upper 2%, 65% to the upper 1 per cent. Estimates as to the rise in real income for salaried workers over the past 40 years range from 20% to 28 %. In that period, real GDP has risen by 110% – it has more than doubled."

Tax Dodging By Corporations And The Wealthy Cost Each Taxpayer $1,026 In 2012

Tax Dodging By Corporations And The Wealthy Cost Each Taxpayer $1,026 In 2012: America’s largest corporations have stashed nearly $1.5 trillion in offshore tax havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Ireland — countries where they do little business but claim massive profits due to low tax rates. As a result, corporate tax rates fell to a 40-year low in 2011 even as profits rose to a 60-year [...]/p

Report: Ohio Is Illegally Throwing Poor People In Jail For Owing Money

Report: Ohio Is Illegally Throwing Poor People In Jail For Owing Money: The Americans Civil Liberties Union on Friday revealed that courts in Ohio are illegally throwing poor people in jail for being unable to pay off a debt. In a report titled, “The Outskirts of Hope,” (PDF) the ACLU shines a light on a harrowing “debtors’ prison” system in Ohio — one that violates both the [...]/p

Tyranny of the Reasonable: Popular Complacency in an Era of Economic Exploitation and Perpetual War | Common Dreams

Tyranny of the Reasonable: Popular Complacency in an Era of Economic Exploitation and Perpetual War | Common Dreams
"Throughout the course of human affairs, scheming elitists -- let's call them the Plundering Class -- have devoted their days conceiving strategies and executing agendas that serve to enrich the fortunes of a ruthless few (namely themselves) by an exploitation of the harried and hapless multitudes. They scheme, hire silver tongued flacks and muster soldiers to do their biding, while, all too often, the rest of us squander the fleeting days of our finite lives in their service. They plot while we hope. They hoard the bounty of the world while we hoard resentments (generally misplaced upon those equally as power-bereft as we are)."

#ChainedCPI? For Every Social Security Judas, a Primary Challenge | Common Dreams

#ChainedCPI? For Every Social Security Judas, a Primary Challenge | Common Dreams
"What if we all looked each other in the eye and made a pact: every Senator and Representative, Democrat or Republican, who supports cutting Social Security and veterans' benefits by imposing the "ChainedCPI" cut is going to face a primary challenge." Although President Obama might be looking to cut a "deal", let's remember that the party that is demanding this is the Republican Party. While we should hold Democrats accountable if a "deal" is reached. We must remind ourselves which party demands this in the first place.

Tennessee Clergy Speak Out Against Bill To Cut Welfare For Children Who Get Poor Grades

Tennessee Clergy Speak Out Against Bill To Cut Welfare For Children Who Get Poor Grades: As Tennessee prepares to consider two bills to reduce welfare assistance for needy families whose children are not doing well in school, a Change.org petition has popped up to fight the measure. The petition was started by Clergy for Justice, a Tennesse-based organization of clergy that has previously advocated for causes including immigration reform, health [...]/p

Conservative Groups Dominate Efforts To Convince Supreme Court To Hear Cases

Conservative Groups Dominate Efforts To Convince Supreme Court To Hear Cases: According to a study by appellate attorney Adam Chandler, conservative groups utterly dominate the game of seeking to influence which cases the Supreme Court hears. Although the Supreme Court receives about 9,000-10,000 petitions a year seeking their review of a case, only a tiny fraction of these petitions are granted — this year, for example, [...]/p

Fox News Resurrects Death Panels: ‘This Is About People Dying As A Result Of Obamacare’

Fox News Resurrects Death Panels: ‘This Is About People Dying As A Result Of Obamacare’:Johnson’s conflation of the sequester’s ham-fisted spending cuts with Obamacare’s Medicare savings demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the sequester, Obamacare, and how federal budgeting works. Sequestration is causing cancer clinics to turn people away because they can’t afford to keep providing expensive chemotherapy drugs to patients in the face of a two percent cut to Medicare Part Bthat has to come entirely out of clinics’ overhead funding — making the sequester cut more akin to a double-digit pay cut.

Fast Food Workers Open A New Front In The Struggle For Fair Wages

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New Hampshire Rejects All Private Prison Bids

New Hampshire Rejects All Private Prison Bids: New Hampshire officials rejected all four bids to privatize its prisons, citing prison operators’ insufficient understanding of court-mandated standards of inmate care, and proposed wages that are half what prison security staff now earn. The decision comes following a recent vote by the state House of Representatives to prohibit private prisons in the state. For-profit [...]/p

Agribusiness Push To Lower Farm Workers’ Wages May Undermine Deal On Immigration Reform

Agribusiness Push To Lower Farm Workers’ Wages May Undermine Deal On Immigration Reform: As lawmakers prepare to release legislative language for proposals that would allow an estimated 11.2 million undocumented immigrants to earn a path to citizenship, a small bipartisan group of senators is struggling to reach a deal for how to create a steady supply of labor for farmers and growers, threatening to undermine the newfound momentum [...]/p

Meet the GOPer Who Worked With Monsanto to Sneak the "Monsanto Protection Act" into Law | Alternet

Meet the GOPer Who Worked With Monsanto to Sneak the "Monsanto Protection Act" into Law | Alternet
"Anger at the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act” — a biotech rider which protects genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks — has been directed at numerous parties in Congress and the White House for allowing the provision to be voted and signed into law. But the party responsible for anonymously introducing the rider into the broad, unrelated spending bill had not been identified until now.

As Mother Jones’ Tom Philpott  notes, the Senator responsible is Missouri Republican Roy Blunt — famed friend of Big Agrigulture on Capitol Hill."

Our Battle Cry Outside Obama's Dept. of Education | Common Dreams

Our Battle Cry Outside Obama's Dept. of Education | Common Dreams
"Educators today are being punished for decades of growing income inequality, an eroding social welfare system, and an economy brought to its knees by lack of regulation—factors which make work in building supportive, democratic schools and classrooms that much more important."

The 'Chained CPI' and Why It's Bad for Social Security

Beyond Deficit Scare-Mongering

Beyond Deficit Scare-Mongering
"Conservatives' real aim in their fiscal brinkmanship is to gut Social Security and Medicare."

The Grand Bargain Is Here. Time to Call Your Senators!

The Grand Bargain Is Here. Time to Call Your Senators!
"We're going to concentrate on the Senate, because they'll probably send a bipartisan bill to the House in order to bypass Boehner's Hastert rule. Even if you called last week, call today. Be prepared to call every day for the next week. (Here's the link.) Please leave a note in comments telling us how your call went."

North Carolina GOP Takes War On Voting To College Students

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The 1% Bug-Out Plan: Why Third-World Billionaires Are Buying Fortresses in London, New York and Miami | Alternet

The 1% Bug-Out Plan: Why Third-World Billionaires Are Buying Fortresses in London, New York and Miami | Alternet
"Preparing for economic and political collapse requires survivalist strategies for new elites."

Public Schools, Billionaire Agendas: The Threat of the 'Parent Revolution' Campaign | Alternet

Public Schools, Billionaire Agendas: The Threat of the 'Parent Revolution' Campaign | Alternet
"At first glance, it is one of the nation’s hottest new education-reform movements, a seemingly populist crusade to empower poor parents and fix failing public schools. But a closer examination reveals that the “parent-trigger” movement is being heavily financed by the conservative  Walton Family Foundation, one of the nation’s largest and most strident anti-union organizations, a Frying Pan News investigation has shown."

Leaks Reveal Secrets of World’s Wealthy

Leaks Reveal Secrets of World’s Wealthy
"Millions of leaked emails and other documents have brought some of the darkest financial secrets of the world’s wealthiest people to light. The documents, which span the past 30 years, reveal the misuse of offshore tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, Switzerland, and the Cook Islands by everyone from American doctors and Wall Street investors to Greek villagers and the families of notorious dictators and despots. According to the report, a good chunk of the money that was invested secretly across international borders included the proceeds of financial crimes such as Ponzi schemes."

Republicans Come To Silicon Valley To Offer Corruption For Cash

Republicans Come To Silicon Valley To Offer Corruption For Cash
"Congressional Republicans came to Silicon Valley this week to raise money from CEOs and their companies. They were offering a flat-out quid pro quo: give us money and in exchange we will cut your taxes, block taxes on profits made from moving jobs out of the country, cut government oversight of various schemes you try, and let you import more lower-wage tech-workers from outside the country."

North Carolina Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Penalize Parents Of College Student Voters

North Carolina Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Penalize Parents Of College Student Voters: A Republican legislator in North Carolina is pushing a bill to penalize parents if they have a child in college who chooses to vote where they study. State Rep. Bill Cook (R) introduced SB 667 this week, which would raise taxes on families with college students if the child registers to vote at school rather [...]/p

No, New Tax Cuts Will Not Pay for Themselves | Economic Policy Institute

No, New Tax Cuts Will Not Pay for Themselves | Economic Policy Institute
"But the Laffer curve is merely an economic model, one originally sketched out on a napkin. The model has zero scope for informing good public policy without rigorous, accompanying empirical research on behavioral responses to tax changes.

And modern economic research isn’t on Laffer’s side."

"We Deserve Better": Striking NYC Fast Food Workers Demand Higher Pay | Common Dreams

"We Deserve Better": Striking NYC Fast Food Workers Demand Higher Pay | Common Dreams
"In what people are calling the largest ever protest of its kind, over 400 workers from the country's biggest corporate "food" chains—including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, and KFC among others—took part in the action."

PERRspectives: Big Business Turns Against Corporate Tax Reform

PERRspectives: Big Business Turns Against Corporate Tax Reform
"The reasons are simple enough. While they are only too happy to take the rate cut, companies in most sectors of the U.S. economy currently benefit from a wide array of deductions and loopholes that now make the effective federal corporate rate closer to 13 percent of profits. And as it turns out, today's tax code enables entire industries and some of America's highest profile firms to pay Uncle Sam almost nothing at all."

Meet The Corporate Groups Trying To Take Away Your Rights

New Report Exposes Extreme ALEC Agenda in Arizona

New Report Exposes Extreme ALEC Agenda in Arizona
"ALEC in Arizona identifies seventeen bills introduced in the 2013 session that appear to reflect ALEC model legislation. These bills would defund Arizona’s public school system (SB 1409 and HB 2617), eliminate collective bargaining rights (HB 2330), undermine the Affordable Care Act (HB 2588) and make it more difficult for Arizonans to sue corporations using class action lawsuits (SB 1452)."

One Week Out, Supreme Court’s Anti-Consumer Comcast Ruling Is Already Taking Its Toll

One Week Out, Supreme Court’s Anti-Consumer Comcast Ruling Is Already Taking Its Toll: In just the first week since the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a class action lawsuit by more than 2 million Comcast consumers, the decision is already having major repercussions in several other cases alleging malfeasance by major corporations. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court kicked two other class action challenges back to the lower court in light of its ruling in [...]/p

VIDEO: The Pain From Sequestration As Told By Local News

VIDEO: The Pain From Sequestration As Told By Local News: The automatic spending cuts that went into effect at the start of March are spread out over a host of domestic programs and are having a real impact on communities across the country. Sequestration is cutting jobs, shutting down essential services, and hurting state economies. And while the consequences of the reductions are not leading [...]/p

Exposed: A Global Offshore Money Matrix - Truthdig

Exposed: A Global Offshore Money Matrix - Truthdig
"A cache of 2.5 million secret files offers the chance to peer behind the curtain of the world’s offshore money market, detailing the involvement of more than 120,000 companies and trusts, and politicians, con men and scores of the mega-rich."

Watchdog Criticizes Regulators For Letting Banks Off Hook In Foreclosure Reviews

Watchdog Criticizes Regulators For Letting Banks Off Hook In Foreclosure Reviews: When federal regulators reached their second foreclosure fraud settlement with the nation’s largest lenders in January, lawmakers and housing advocates panned it for letting banks “sweep past abuses under the rug.” Regulators ended the foreclosure review process banks to which banks had been subject to reach the $8.5 billion settlement, allowing them to pay far [...]/p

From the San Francisco Earthquake to Superstorm Sandy, How Disaster Capitalism Makes Money off of Tragedy | Alternet

From the San Francisco Earthquake to Superstorm Sandy, How Disaster Capitalism Makes Money off of Tragedy | Alternet
"Causes and consequences, who gets blamed and who leaves the scene permanently scarred, who goes down and who emerges better positioned than before: these are matters often predetermined by the structures of power and wealth, racial and ethnic hierarchies, and despised and favored forms of work, as well as moral and social prejudices in place before disaster strikes."

Suddenly, NYPD Doesn’t Love Surveillance Anymore | Alternet

Suddenly, NYPD Doesn’t Love Surveillance Anymore | Alternet
"Law enforcement agencies monitor our most basic acts. But try assigning them a watchdog and they resist with fury."

Water for Profit: Seizing Climate Change as a Chance to Corporatize the Commons | Common Dreams

Water for Profit: Seizing Climate Change as a Chance to Corporatize the Commons | Common Dreams
"As the effects of climate change continue to ripple throughout the planet, some groups are acknowledging that the warming planet means big money is to be made on a resource more precious than oil — water."

South Minneapolis Grandmother Wins Loan Modification

South Minneapolis Grandmother Wins Loan Modification
"Via OccupyWallSt.:

After a public pressure campaign through the Eviction Free Zone of Occupy Homes MN, Gayle Lindsey, a nursing assistant and grandmother in South Minneapolis, who was facing imminent eviction, has won a modification of her mortgage from M&T Bank. Her victory marks the seventh for Occupy Homes MN and the first in the Eviction Free Zone, a project that brings neighbors in the Central and Powderhorn neighborhoods together to refuse to leave their homes without a fair negotiation."

GOP Pitches ‘Family-Friendly’ Policy That Would Weaken Overtime Pay

GOP Pitches ‘Family-Friendly’ Policy That Would Weaken Overtime Pay: House Republicans are planning to consider legislation that would weaken rules requiring businesses to pay workers when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Instead of allowing workers to make increased wages for working overtime, the legislation would give employers the option of providing workers with “comp time,” or more time off of [...]/p

ALEC Behind "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave | Common Dreams

ALEC Behind "Kill Shot" to Paid Sick Leave | Common Dreams
"But the campaign against paid sick days is growing increasingly intense and coordinated, particularly as local governments take matters into their own hands. Keep an eye out for an ALEC legislator introducing a killshot preemption bill in your state legislature."