Fired For Your Personal Life? A New Law Could Make It Possible

A new law introduced in Florida could make it possible for employers to deny unemployment benefits to workers who are fired based on no work-related wrongdoing. If passed it would constitute a serious erosion of civil rights and could ultimately restrict free speech on political issues that are not aligned with employers.
http://www.care2.com/causes/civil-rights/blog/fired-for-your-personal-life-a-new-law-could-make-it-possible/

Factory farms the only way to ‘feed the world’? Not so, argues Science paper

The mainstream press, including NPR, has propelled the notion that the only way to feed the world in the future is through genetically-modified patent-protected seeds and the pesticide-intensive industrial agriculture model, despite the fact that there are a number of major studies from scientists around the world demonstrating that sustainable agriculture is a more sound, productive and safe choice. A new study, published in Science and carried out by a research team at Washington State University, urges a fundamental rethinking of the industrial agriculture system and the Farm Bill to promote more organic and low-input ag techniques, in ringing contrast to the conventional clamor celebrating biotech that is constantly promoted in the media. There's no doubt that we're losing the PR battle for a safe and sustainable food production system, and the only way that can possibly change is if millions of Americans took more interest in what they are putting into their bodies and the uncertainties that untested GM foods hold for human health into the future.
http://www.grist.org/sustainable-farming/2011-05-11-factory-farms-only-way-to-feed-the-world-no-says-science-paper

Don’t Let Go of the Anger

As many folks who were in large part responsible for the financial meltdown in 2008 continue to rake in profits while much of the country suffers high unemployment and foreclosure, this piece urges Americans to get involved and show some passion in the fight to reform Wall Street, and maybe even put a few culprits in jail.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/dont-let-go-of-the-anger/?ref=opinion

WikiLeaks: US opens grand jury hearing

An immensely important Grand Jury has convened to determine whether WikiLeaks and Julian Assange will be charged with violating the Espionage Act and other possible laws. Such charges against Daniel Ellsberg failed in 1971, but the US was a much different country forty years ago with a Supreme Court committed to the defense of civil liberties. The Obama Administration is currently investigating five leak cases in a crackdown against whistleblowers. 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/11/us-opens-wikileaks-grand-jury-hearing

Was the Killing of Osama bin Laden Legal?

This is a fascinating breakdown of the laws and treaties that govern wartime killing as applied to the recent operation that resulted in Osama bin Laden's death. It's a detailed and well-reasoned analysis, and an extremely informative read.
http://www.alternet.org/news/150911/was_the_killing_of_osama_bin_laden_legal/?page=1

THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE WASHINGTON

The outrageous revolving door of industry and government strikes again! We have a very serious problem with industry influence in government policy and former regulators working for the very companies they were responsible for policing on behalf of the public. And, as always, it's the people who lose...
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/this_is_why_people_hate_washington_20110511/?utm

8 Invented Diseases Big Pharma Is Banking on

This piece reviews several new drugs with dubious indications and effectiveness that are in the Big Pharma pipeline and are set to be promoted through insidious direct-to-consumer marketing. Resist the hype if you can...
http://www.alternet.org/story/146471/8_invented_diseases_big_pharma_is_banking_on

'Fracking' for natural gas is polluting ground water, study concludes

The results of a Duke University study in PA and NY show methane levels in drinking water that was 17 times higher than normal. 
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/0509/Fracking-for-natural-gas-is-polluting-ground-water-study-concludes?utm

This is actually a more complete analysis of the study and the problems that have been documented over the past couple of years in communities where fracking wells have contaminated drinking water.
Fracking Linked to Methane in Flammable Drinking Water for First Time in Scientific History
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/fracking-methane-flammable-drinking-water-study_n_859677.html

In a response to mounting public pressure to regulate fracking, President Obama instructed a new study on the safety of the practice. The panel is composed of industry and advocacy groups and it remains to be seen whether adequate regulatory measures will be recommended by the group. This story inaccurately suggests that fracking has been in practice for decades by not focusing on the details of the new practice that was pioneered in 2002 and involves millions of gallons of chemicals in the extraction process. There is also no mention of the Safe Drinking Water Act exemption that the industry enjoys and which safety advocates would to reinstate through the Frac Act.
Energy Department Panel to Revise Standards for Gas Extraction
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/science/earth/07frack.html

Japan Scraps Plans for New Nuclear Plants

This decision by the Japanese PM reinforces the resurgent awareness that the benefits of nuclear energy are not worth the devastation that accidents wreak on humanity, as the Fukushima disaster has demonstrated so strikingly. Hopefully we can achieve a similar consensus here in the States.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/world/asia/11japan.html?hp

New Yorkers Show the Faces of the Anti-Fracking Movement in Albany

New York State currently has a six-month moratorium on fracking in place and there is a call to ban the water and toxin intensive, environmentally dangerous hydraulic fracturing technique altogether. Certainly we would all agree that uses millions of gallons of water and over 900 chemicals should be subject to the protections embodied by EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act, right?
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/new-yorkers-show-the-faces-of-the-anti-fracking-movement/

Food & Water Watch Action page to add your voice to the movement to protect public drinking water threatened by the fracking rush.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/take-action/

Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) information:
http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/index.cfm


PA Oil and Gas Inspectors Free to Issue Violations Without Approval From Top, Enviro Chief Says
http://www.propublica.org/article/pa-oil-and-gas-inspectors-free-to-issue-violations-without-approval-from-to

Citizens United Decision Profoundly Affects Political Landscape

The Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling has indeed opened the floodgates for special interest money to be showered onto the political landscape. This analysis by the Center For Responsive Politics quantifies the statistical increase of political message funding now prevalent in our country on the part of unions and corporations who previously were restrained from such outlandish spending.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/05/citizens-united-decision-profoundly-affects-political-landscape.html

Top findings of the Center's study include:

• The percentage of spending coming from groups that do not disclose their donors has risen from 1 percent to 47 percent since the 2006 midterm elections
• 501c non-profit spending increased from zero percent of total spending by outside groups in 2006 to 42 percent in 2010.
• Outside interest groups spent more on election season political advertising than party committees for the first time in at least two decades, besting party committees by about $105 million.
• The amount of independent expenditure and electioneering communication spending by outside groups has quadrupled since 2006.
• Seventy-two percent of political advertising spending by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from spending money in 2006

Wisconsin Republicans rush agenda before recalls

In an attempt to advance their pro-business, anti-worker and anti-environmental agenda prior to the potential recall of GOP state senators in June, Walker's Republican Assembly is frantically pushing through contentious legislation with a minimum of public disclosure and debate.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j8y3BYEuZhNHzUYyj1iRYYoF4_EA?docId=76e1340ae0cd41859d635bc2b8ed754b

Big Bank Backlash: From Coast to Coast People are Moving their Money

People around the nation are continuing to put pressure on big banks for their advocacy of policies to undermine the middle class as well as the unethical and widespread pursuit of foreclosures in the wake of the Great Recession that was brought on by industry practices. Let's not forget that these banking interests have robbed the public trust and need to be broken down into more manageable sizes under renewed regulatory oversight.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10712/big-bank-backlash-coast-coast-people-are-moving-their-money

Revealed: how seed market is controlled by Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow & DuPont

The consolidation of the seed market as pursued by biotech companies and their agenda of patenting GM seeds has led to tremendous disruption in the production of food around the world and the extinction of many varieties of crop species anda preponderance of GMO food products in the US and musch of the world.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/625294/revealed_how_seed_market_is_controlled_by_monsanto_syngenta_bayer_dow_dupont.html

'Patents exacerbate genetic erosion as they promote monoculture by hindering the development of new seed varieties. In sum, the possible, long term consequences of patents are control of the whole food chain by a few companies,' said the report.

The Union’s ‘Shoddy’ Aristocracy

I find historical revelations, such as the widespread profiteering during the Civil War, to be immensely interesting and instructive when considering contemporary issues in the US. It's fascinating to learn that the word 'shoddy' originated from the deceptive manufacturing techniques employed by clothing manufacturers during this war that poorly served the soldiers in the war but enriched many unscrupulous businessmen.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/the-unions-shoddy-aristocracy/?ref=opinion

"One writer for the New York Tribune painted an equally graphic picture: “Shoddy” was, he wrote,

'poor sleezy stuff, woven open enough for seives [sic], and then filled with shearman’s dust. … Soldiers, on the first day’s march or in the earliest storm, found their clothes, overcoats, and blanket, scattering to the wind in rags or dissolving into their primitive elements of dust under the pelting rain.'"

War Against the Weak

The GOP agenda, defined by measures to strip collective bargaining rights of public sector employees, weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the pro-corporate Supreme Court's decision to preclude class action suits in favor of binding arbitration written into consumer contracts, amounts to an attack on the rights of each and every individual citizen. Without the ability to join together in collective action, the general public's democratic rights will be eviscerated.
http://www.slate.com/id/2293526/

Another Big Business Win in the U.S. Supreme Court
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10706/another-big-business-win-us-supreme-court

David Arkush of Public Citizen writes:

The case's potential impact is breathtaking. Corporations can now prevent consumers and small business owners from exercising what is often their only real option for challenging companies that defraud them by millions or even billions of dollars: banding together to file class action lawsuits. The case could be equally devastating to millions of non-union employees, who need class actions to challenge systemic discrimination by their employers. The Supreme Court has given major corporations the green light to engage in nearly limitless wrongdoing against others, so long as they do it in relatively small dollar amounts, which ensures that no one can afford to challenge the misconduct without a class action.

Hitting the Bottle - Untested Chemicals In Our Products

This Op-Ed piece examines how the EPA has yet to rule BPA out of products because of its effects on stimulating cancer cells but shows that some manufacturers have voluntarily stopped using the chemical in baby bottles and some other products. The problem is that the chemicals they are substituting have not been tested for safety and could be even more dangerous. We have the highest cancer rates in the world and perhaps it's time to test chemicals for human safety before we allow them to be used in commercial products!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/opinion/09browning.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Elitism is Dead: The New Debate for the Good Food Movement

A review of food policy and debate in the wake of The Future of Food symposium recently put on by The Washington Post at Georgetown University. Prince Charles' presentation regarding the perils of industrial agriculture, soil erosion and many other issues, based on his Duchy Originals organic farming experience, were largely marginalized with talk about organic food being elitist. In fact, what is really undemocratic about US food policy is the concentration of so much power in the hands of so few corporate productions and their government acolytes. Good reading on an issue that affects each and every one of us.
http://civileats.com/2011/05/06/elitism-is-dead-the-new-debate-for-the-good-food-movement/

Mass Arrests, Tear Gas, Sound Weapons used Against WIU Students

This disturbing footage of riot police cracking down on college students with tear gas and sonic weapons took place in MaComb, Illinois last Saturday. Is this America? How can we allow such blatant violation of constitutional rights as these to take place? This account, supported by video footage, shows the students peaceably assembled on their front lawns yet the riot police illegally entered homes without warrants and used pepper spray against the students.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKv-5t0t4E

Police, SWAT Teams Storm College Block Party With LRAD Sound Cannons, Tear Gas, Riot Gear for No Reason
http://www.NaturalNews.com/032318_block_party_SWAT_teams.html

WIU Parent Wants Answers After Police Use Pepper Spray
http://www.wqad.com/news/western-illinois-university-riots-wheeler-street-block-party-05032011,0,7847957.story

Calling on the Power of Moms

Food & Water Watch chooses Mother's Day as an opportunity to highlight the dangers of the endocrine disruptor Triclosan, that is found in many household products. While this is news to me, the site details a host of problems with this industrial compound and reveals that both the FDA and EPA are investigating its safety.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/blogs/calling-on-the-power-of-moms/

Has Elizabeth Warren Won Over the Banks?

This update on sentiment in the banking community regarding Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers some encouragement regarding her eventual nomination to head the consumer watchdog group. While the GOP still seems set on undermining the CFPB and its mandate, some in the banking community have warmed to Warren and credit her knowledge of the industry as well as her dedication to consumer advocacy. This may make it more likely that Warren could survive congressional hearings to head the bureau should Obama finally decide to formally nominate the law professor to the post.
http://beta.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/elizabeth-warren-cfpb-community-banks

Fox Business Fails To Disclose Industry Ties Of Drilling Proponent

In an age of decreasing budgets for journalism and the increasing reliance on 'expert' commentary in TV news, this sort of thing is occurring all too often. It's well-known that viewers tend to give more credence to non-partisan 'experts' on hotly debated issues but shouldn't we be told if a commentator has financial ties to the industry their commentary supports? The featured 'expert' in this Media Matters expose happens to have PR clients who own millions of acres of potential oil fields in Alaska. To present such a voice as independent is nothing short of a travesty that constitutes propaganda of the most insidious sort.
http://mediamatters.org/research/201105070007?utm

This week in the War on Women

This column reviews details on a host of laws that are being enacted around the country to restrict women's right to choose and cut funding for women's healthcare and, abortions. It's really an all-out assault on American women that is not only a threat but an insult to all women. 
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/07/973996/-This-week-in-the-War-on-Women?utm

Voter ID Bill Under Scrutiny at the Capitol in Wisconsin

The nationwide push for voter ID laws in several states is actually a trumped-up legislative assault on a non-issue as voter fraud has been shown to be a negligible problem in America. Nonetheless, several states, including Wisconsin, are pushing voter ID laws that target the least stable residents, ethnic groups and students, and if approved would work to reduce turnout of likely Democratic voters.
http://www.defendwisconsin.org/2011/04/27/voter-id-bill-under-scrutiny-at-the-capitol/

As voter ID bill heads toward passage, the only certainty is a high price tag
http://www.defendwisconsin.org/2011/05/07/as-voter-id-bill-heads-toward-passage-the-only-certainty-is-a-high-price-tag/

PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms

This story highlights a distressing pattern, a declining number of journalists increasingly dependent on PR releases and video news releases for their segments. The PR industry has grown not only in numbers but also in the sophistication of their tactics, presenting a compelling information problem for the masses.
http://www.truth-out.org/pr-industry-fills-vacuum-left-shrinking-newsrooms/1304357509

Why We Need a Nationwide Moratorium on Fracking

Fracking for natural gas is a hotly contested issue these days as reports of widespread contamination of drinking water supplies, methane gas leaks and undocumented toxins used in the process continue to cause public concern in the largely unregulated industry that won exemption from federal Drinking Water Protection guidelines during the Bush Administration under Dick Cheney's direction. Oh yeah, the hydraulic fracturing process was developed by good old Halliburton and sold as "green" to us by its former CEO, Dick Cheney.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/fracking-moratorium_b_858654.html

This extensive report on the gas fracking industry and it's false claims of safety and climate neutrality was produced by the author's organization DeSmogBlog. 
How Unconventional Gas Fracking Threatens Our Water, Health and Climate
http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-the-future/

Monsanto gave us Agent Orange, Aspartame and Cancer Causing Additives in our Food Supply -

Let's not forget the horrors of Agent Orange and the sickness and birth defects it caused for US veterans and the Vietnamese as we contemplate Monsanto's role in our society and its increasing dominance in the US food supply and industrial agriculture model. This story was published by Veteran's Today and serves to review Monsanto's conduct over the years, some of the harm it's perpetrated against public health, and points out the revolving door appointment of a former Monsanto lobbyist as Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA. 
http://current.com/127sd4c

Protests in Benton Harbor follow Martial Law Enforcement

This PR Watch update on the Emergency Financial Manager law in Michigan that allows the Governor to strip all local elected officials and statutory powers, in effect declaring martial law, and place authoritarian powers in the hands of unelected political appointees. The test case for this law is Benton Harbor and it is part of a statewide push to privatize education and strip teacher's unions of their collective bargaining rights and jobs. Governor Snyder has now identified 23 new districts that are at risk of having the EFM laws applied to their local governments. This is an anti-democratic process that s currently being legitimized in Michigan and it should cause grave concern to all Americans who value their constitutional protections and democratic rights. Included is a link to a Rachel Maddow segment on the Benton Harbor story featuring an interview with the Lansing mayor who ran against Snyder in the last election.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10702/protests-benton-harbor-follow-martial-law-enforcement

FDA Approved Big Pharma Drugs Without Effectiveness Data

The rush to brings drugs to market has resulted in many drugs with less benefits than current available treatments to be prescribed to patients. A Congressionally-funded directive to determine comparative effectiveness of new drugs has often been ignored by the FDA which has approved a number of these drugs without studying the effectiveness data.
http://www.NaturalNews.com/032279_Big_Pharma_fraud.html

Honduras: Teargassed Open, for Business

A report on the situation in Honduras where a US-backed military regime has been repressing dissent violently in the course of crushing teacher's unions in a push to privatize education throughout the country. 
http://www.thenation.com/article/160472/honduras-teargassed-open-business

Raw Foods Raid - The Fight For the Right To Eat What You Want

This ReasonTV video about continuing FDA armed raids and persecution of natural food producers and cooperatives, ostensibly on behalf of the industrialized food industry, is alarming to say the least. It's a short, sweet and immensely important report.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioN0ehlyyXI

FDA claims power to seize food without evidence of contamination

The more I learn about the activities of the FDA in persecuting the natural foods industry, and it's role in supporting the pharmaceutical industry at the risk of public health, the more I fear that the agency's agenda is not aligned with a purported mission to protect the public interest. 
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/05/fda-claims-power-to-seize-food-without.html

Profits At Largest 500 Corporations Grew By 81 Percent In 2010

This is a stunning report on the profitability of the Fortune 500 in 2010, a year in which corporate tax revenues as a percentage of GDP were the lowest they've been in years.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/05/fortune-500-corporations-81/

European Union to investigate net-neutrality concerns

We all will be affected by Net Neutrality laws in the US and need to stay informed on these issues. Once a tiered service approach is adopted then the voices of the lay public will be muted and the corporate-financed bullhorn will rule the day. It's going to be yet another battle worth fighting for citizens, small businesses and consumers who have been manipulated for so long by commercial interests.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13134494

Don't Be Duped by the Sewage Sludge Industry's "Compost"

Groups like Kellogg Garden Products are masquerading as green business by promoting "compost" that is made up of big city sewage sludge containing all sort of chemical and bacterial contamination. In LA recently this "compost" from industrial and human waste was being heralded as part of the organic school garden initiative there.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10700/dont-be-duped-sewage-sludge-industrys-compost

GOP House Blocks Bid To Name Elizabeth Warren Head Of The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The GOP is desperately trying to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and wants to replace a single head to the bureau with a five person oversight panel, among other tactics designed to curtail its ability to enact reforms that truly benefit consumers and their pocketbooks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/gop-blocks-elizabeth-warren-cfpb_n_857780.html

Here's another story on these developments from CitizenVox, an arm of Public Citizen. This story includes a link to sign a petition that now has over 26,000 signatures, asking Obama to appoint Warren to the post.
http://www.citizenvox.org/2011/05/05/elizabeth-warren-amendment/?utm

Wisconsin Democrats file formal challenge against recall petitions submitted by Republicans

This article reveals major allegations against out-of-town petitioners who gathered signatures to recall three Democratic state senators in Wisconsin. All sorts of tactics appear to have been used to get people to sign, including lying about the purpose of the petition. It appears that after all challenges are heard, including six GOP recall petitions, that the recall elections will be held sometime in mid-June. That could be a very exciting time for those hoping to push back against the arrogance of Republicans and their anti-labor, anti-environment agenda.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/05/973490/-Wisconsin-Democrats-file-formal-challenge-against-recall-petitions-submitted-by-Republicans?utm

Fight over Israel and Tony Kushner heats up

A recipient of a 2008 Honorary Degree from CUNY, based on her academic work examining McCarthyism, has said she will return her award in protest of the University's politically motivated decision to table the Kushner degree.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/05/05/cuny_kushner_honorary_degree_update

School Blocks Kushner Honor Over Israel
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/04/tony_kushner_cuny_israel

The International Assault on Labor

Noam Chomsky is a brilliant critic of the American capitalist system and its many manifestations, particularly concerning our country's propensity to use military force to protect national interests. In this essay, penned to coincide with the May Day international labor celebrations, Chomsky details recent attacks and trends against labor in the U.S. that are championed in the name of free trade and globalization, while extemporizing on the exploitation and manipulation of the system on the part of the financial class.
http://www.truth-out.org/internationl-assault-labor/1304431702

Supreme Court Deals Crushing Blow to Americans

Public Citizen is actively opposing the new Supreme Court ruling to forces customers and employees to accept binding arbitration, and forego class action remedies, to redress legal claims against powerful corporations. The group is filing litigation in opposition of the recent ruling and it's in the interest of all American consumers and workers to support their efforts.
http://www.citizenvox.org/2011/04/27/att-versus-concepcion-injustice-federal-arbitration-act-class-action/?utm

Corporate Royalty - Perspective from Public Citizen

Public Citizen is actively campaigning for corporations to disclose their political contribution when vying for government contracts, and also agitating for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizen's United Supreme Court ruling. Read this piece and then sign a few petitions that are hosted on the site.
http://www.citizenvox.org/2011/04/29/corporate-royalty-pay-to-play-class-action-lawsuits-transparency/?utm

Spitzer Calls on Holder to Prosecute Goldman Sachs or Resign

Former NYS Governor, NY Attorney General and noted Wall Street critic, Elliott Spitzer, has publicly called for US Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Goldman Sachs for double dealing and lying about their role in the financial collapse and also to a Senate panel. Spitzer points out that Goldman made a high-level decision that the entire housing market was going to collapse, in 2008, and then bet against it.
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/spitzer04222011.htm

15 Dangerous Drugs Big Pharma Shoves Down Our Throats

This report from last November details a host of serious side effect problems with fifteen major market drugs that are still sold to unwitting patients who simply believe that the FDA would not approve dangerous medications for human use. In fact, over the past two decades the FDA has transferred significant risk to patients for choosing their medications. They list side effects in package inserts and that is largely the extent of 'buyer beware'. This is very distressing reading.
http://www.alternet.org/health/148907/15_dangerous_drugs_big_pharma_shoves_down_our_throats/?page=1

Fracking Well Shutdown Extended As Researchers Study Link To Earthquakes In Arkansas

This article fails to mention the hundreds of unregulated chemicals used in fracking, and the dangers to water safety that they present. Nonetheless, it brings attention to the situation in Arkansas where many believe that the deep drilling and injection of wastewater has spurred seismic activity. In the month prior to the moratorium there were 80 seismic events, whereas since drilling has halted there have only been 20 earthquake events in the region.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/fracking-shutdown-earthquakes-arkansas_n_851930.html

Greenwashing Genetically Engineered Crops

Food & Water Watch has produced a talking points guide that refutes 6 beneficial claims of the biotech industry regarding genetically-engineered crops and food.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/factsheet/greenwashing-genetically-engineered-crops/

Is a mining company giving the shaft to farmers and ranchers?

As the battle for water rights between the energy sector and agriculture rages on, Farm Wars puts the spotlight on some back room dealing in Nevada that may permit a fifty-year Mt. Hope mining project to proceed without accurate environmental impact studies. This story also contains disturbing information that the mining company in question, General Moly, is parted owned by a George Soros associated company, Black Rock Trust Company. That trust is on record as the fifth largest shareholder in Monsanto.
http://farmwars.info/?p=5994&utm

Big Pharma's Crime Spree: Drug Makers Pushing Products For Unapproved Uses

Here are a couple of background pieces on recent prosecutions against Big Pharma that resulted in record civil and criminal fines that did not even dent the enormous profits generated by illegal sales tactics pushing doctors to prescribe off-label uses for dangerous drugs.
Pfizer Broke the Law by Promoting Drugs for Unapproved Use
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a4yV1nYxCGoA&pos=10



A Public Citizen report on Johnson & Johnson's settlement for bribing doctors to prescribe dangerous off-label uses for one of its drugs.
Crime in the Pharma Suites
http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=4360

Blue Cross, Blue Shield Getting Richer, Like Corporate Insurers

This report examines record profits for health insurance companies and also the tax break supported "non-profit" Blue Shield and Cross. Look at these numbers and see the fat layer of profits piled onto the US healthcare system. We pay the most and still have 51 million uninsured, while denying coverage drives the bottom line. We need to push very hard in the direction of a single-payer system, like what recently passed in Vermont, if we are ever to knock down healthcare costs and provide affordable care to all citizens.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10696/blue-cross-blue-shield-getting-richer-corporate-insurers

De-Coding Seafood Eco-Labels: How the European Commission Can Help Consumers Access Sustainable Seafood

The largest sustainable food source in the world, fish in the oceans, are at risk of being crippled by over-fishing on the part of large, technologically sophisticated factory fishing operations. Those interested in the challenges faced by most saltwater species should check out the excellent documentary, The End of the Line. Currently efforts are underway to encourage sustainable fishing practices and label seafood products accordingly. This Food & Water Watch report details a host of problems with the private eco-labels used to demonstrate that seafood products were harvested responsibly and sustainably in Europe. 
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/de-coding-seafood-eco-labels-europe/