Truth Out: Meet the Toxic 100 Corporate Air Polluters - and more

Friday 02 April 2010

Meet the Toxic 100 Corporate Air Polluters
Michael Ash and James K. Boyce, Political Economy Research Institute: "Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst today released the Toxic 100 Air Polluters, an updated list of the top corporate air polluters in the United States."
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Economy Adds 162,000 Jobs in March, Unemployment Steady at 9.7 Percent
Dean Baker, The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "The establishment survey (CES) showed the economy adding 162,000 jobs in March, the biggest increase since March of 2007. The household survey (CPS) showed the unemployment rate remaining steady at 9.7 percent with the employment to population ratio edging up to 58.6 percent, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from its low last November."
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Mentally Ill Immigrants Neglected in Detention System
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "A new report finds the care of mentally disabled immigrants in the detention system sorely lacking, leading to neglect and miscarriages of justice throughout the adjudication, detention, release and repatriation processes."
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Robert Reich | The Fed in Hot Water
Robert Reich, RobertReich.org: "The Fed has finally came clean. It now admits it bailed out Bear Stearns - taking on tens of billions of dollars of the bank's bad loans - in order to smooth Bear Stearns' takeover by JPMorgan Chase. The secret Fed bailout came months before Congress authorized the government to spend up to $700 billion of taxpayer dollars bailing out the banks, even months before Lehman Brothers collapsed. The Fed also took on billions of dollars worth of AIG securities, also before the official government-sanctioned bailout."
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Robert Parry | How Republicans Win
Robert Parry, Consortium News: "Washington's conventional wisdom for explaining the intensity of Republican obstructionism toward President Barack Obama breaks down one of two ways: either it's a philosophical disagreement over the role of government or a desperate need to stay in line with a radicalized right-wing base."
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Power Outages Dim Future of Gaza Refugees
Max Ajl, Truthout: "At night in Gaza, the narrow alleyways of the refugee camps echo loudly with clatter amidst the darkness. The clatter is the sound of small generators. Families in the camps, and many stores in the camps and in the cities, rely on such portable units for electricity during the rolling blackouts that now afflict the Gaza Strip."
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Eugene Robinson | Penance Demands Action
Eugene Robinson: "At its holiest time of the year, the Roman Catholic Church is being forced to confront not only the central mystery of the faith - life after death - but also a more worldly riddle: What did the Holy Father know, and when did he know it?"
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What's Driving Up Oil Prices Again? Wall Street, of Course
Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers: "Oil consumption has fallen, demand from U.S. motorists for gasoline is flat at best and refiners that turn crude into fuel are operating well below capacity. Yet oil prices keep marching toward $90 a barrel, pushing gasoline toward $3 a gallon in many markets, and prompting American drivers to ask, 'What gives?'"
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States Sue EPA Over a Misquote: The Fight Over Climate Change Gets More Ridiculous
Christine Shearer, Truthout: "A few weeks ago, 12 states joined in an ongoing lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block regulation of carbon dioxide, citing faulty scientific data. If we are to judge by an All Headline News report, the faulty data amounts to a misquote in a scientific report and a deliberate misreading of 'statistically significant' as 'no significant warming.' Unfortunately, drawing upon fabricated and exaggerated data to 'disprove' climate change is just the latest in a long history of corporate attacks on scientific research to avoid regulation."
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Rubber Soul: Iraq Veteran Turns to Running to Heal Brain Injury
Mary Susan Littlepage, Truthout: "Ever since Eric Keller returned from serving in Iraq, he has faced one challenge after another. One doctor told him he had a stroke and that he might be wheelchair-bound. Then, later, doctors told him that he suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) in Iraq. Then, he had a seizure, and he accumulated thousands in medical bills and wound up with $10,000 in credit card debt because of medical bills, and he also got $3,000 behind in payments on his home."
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Obama Blasts "Fear Mongering" on Health Care Reform
Colin Woodard, The Christian Science Monitor: "President Obama touted the benefits of the new healthcare reform law in a public speech here Thursday, using the friendly atmosphere of a state that has been a national leader on bipartisan healthcare reform to push back at 'fear mongering' critics who say it will undermine the country."
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Will Legalized Marijuana Keep California in the Green?
Sam Kornell, Miller-McCune: "While a legalized marijuana crop wouldn't solve all of California's agricultural woes, it might still keep the state in the green. The three-hour Northern California drive from San Francisco to Nevada County passes through some of the cream of the state's agriculture industry: dairy, alfalfa, rice, almonds, grapes. On both sides of the freeway stretch enormous crop rows, interrupted only by the state capital of Sacramento and a number of small towns."
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Crisis: The Motor of Capitalism
Economist Andre Orlean writes for Le Monde: "The idea of market self-regulation appears inadequate. To understand how capitalism manages its excesses, it seems that the alternative theory of regulation through crises does not lack for arguments. If one needs proof, one need only consider those crises we call 'great' or structural crises. Since they are periods of deep transformation, their role in the historic development of capitalism is crucial. The most famous of these great crises is the Great Depression (1929-1939)."
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Agent Orange and Vietnam's Forgotten Victims
Geoffrey Cain, GlobalPost: "At 46, each year of misery seems to have etched new wrinkles around Tran Thanh Dung's angry gaze. When he was child in the early 1970s, Tran says he witnessed U.S. soldiers shoot his parents - both of whom were communist Viet Cong soldiers during the Vietnam War. Bent on revenge, he joined the guerrilla group within hours."
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