How An Excel Spreadsheet Error Hurt The Economy

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Even One Percenters Understand Economics Better Than Republicans

Even One Percenters Understand Economics Better Than Republicans: Over at the Huffington Post, Jared Bernstein points us to a recent pilot study examining the ideological and public policy preferences of the super wealthy. The findings might surprise you: the one percent, selfish as they are, endorse some sound economic ideas that Congress is afraid to touch. The study, conducted by Benjamin Page and Jason [...]/p

Bush Library: Whitewashing War Crimes

Bloomberg Study: 70 Percent Of New Global Power Capacity Added Through 2030 Will be Renewable

Bloomberg Study: 70 Percent Of New Global Power Capacity Added Through 2030 Will be Renewable: According to Bloomberg’s renewable energy research team, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), 70 percent of the power generation the world will add between now and 2030 will most likely be renewable. That would mean $630 billion in new renewable capacity investments in 2030 alone — over three times what was built in 2012, and 35 [...]/p

What Does It Mean To Be An “American” Corporation? | Common Dreams

What Does It Mean To Be An “American” Corporation? | Common Dreams
"For all intents and purposes giant “American” multinational corporations have transformed into entities with completely different interests from their American workers, customers, communities, citizens and government. These corporations are no longer operating in the interest of America or any country, while claiming the benefits of being American corporations (when it suits them.)"

Let George W. Bush Discuss His Legacy However He Likes... from the Hague | Common Dreams

Let George W. Bush Discuss His Legacy However He Likes... from the Hague | Common Dreams
"However, instead of the bloody details of his time in office being recounted at a war crimes tribunal, the former president has been able to bank on his imperial privilege – and a network of rich corporate donors that he made richer while in office – to tell his version of history at a library in Texas being opened in his name."

13 Reasons To Be Glad Bush Is No Longer President

13 Reasons To Be Glad Bush Is No Longer President: The five living presidents will meet in Texas on Thursday to dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. And while Bush and his aides are using the occasion to soften the 43 president’s image and solidify his legacy, a recounting of Bush-era policies — from his deregulation [...]/p

50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet

50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet
"Amazingly, the Bush library seeks to ask visitors "What would you have done?" if you were in this president’s shoes. The ex-president’s defenders are betting that the public will reconsider their judgments after a hefty dose of historical amnesia. Bush has been absent from political debates in recent years, instead making millions in private speeches."

Hospitals Across America Lead A Profit-Driven Fight Against More Labor Protections For Nurses

Hospitals Across America Lead A Profit-Driven Fight Against More Labor Protections For Nurses: Nurses are fighting to improve hospital standards and patient care by pushing for mandated minimum staffing levels for nurses in hospitals. The logic — which has been reflected in reality — goes that, with more nurses per patient, the better and more personal level of care Americans will receive. But as nurses’ unions take their [...]/p

Stupid Republican Tricks: Michigan Edition

Stupid Republican Tricks: Michigan Edition
"Michigan Republicans, desperate for something -- anything -- to make themselves look good, have now resorted to bullying Democratic legislators in order to steal their legislative proposals."

Denied a Liver Transplant for Using Medical Marijuana, and Dying for It -- The Heartlessness of Prohibition | Alternet

Denied a Liver Transplant for Using Medical Marijuana, and Dying for It -- The Heartlessness of Prohibition | Alternet
"The tragic fate of Norman B. Smith is all you need to know about to see how senseless it is to make consumption of marijuana a crime."

South Dakota Pays For Lawmakers’ ALEC Membership

South Dakota Pays For Lawmakers’ ALEC Membership: South Dakota will now subsidize a hundred lawmakers’ memberships to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative corporate front group, after a vote Tuesday by the Republican-controlled Legislature Executive Board. Lawmakers will also continue to receive perks like unlimited travel to out-of-state ALEC meetings. Aberdeen News reports that these two-year memberships will cost $100 apiece, [...]/p

Just Four Lawmakers Show Up To Congressional Hearing On Long-Term Unemployment

Just Four Lawmakers Show Up To Congressional Hearing On Long-Term Unemployment: With the nation’s unemployment rate at 7.6 percent, members of Congress are fond of saying that they are focused on nothing but jobs. And yet, when Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) scheduled a Joint Economic Committee hearing on one of the biggest jobs-related crises facing the United States, just four of the committee’s 20 members [...]/p

Low Wage Workers Strike in Chicago for 'Dignity and Respect' and a Living Wage | Common Dreams

Low Wage Workers Strike in Chicago for 'Dignity and Respect' and a Living Wage | Common Dreams
"“Workers across the country are tired. We’re tired of working hard, but not earning enough to support our families,” said Krystal Collins, a Macy’s worker. “After seeing the workers in New York say they weren’t going to take it anymore, we were inspired to go on strike right here in Chicago"."

GMO Labeling Fight Heads to Maine | Common Dreams

GMO Labeling Fight Heads to Maine | Common Dreams
"Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association also poured money into California's defeated Prop. 37, which sought to label GMOs."

Live: Hundreds of Students Walk Out of Standardized Test | Common Dreams

Live: Hundreds of Students Walk Out of Standardized Test | Common Dreams
"Hundreds of Chicago students are taking up the mantle in the fight against the roll of standardized tests in public school closures as they walked out of state exam Wednesday. Their message: "We are over-tested, under-resourced and fed up"!"

New Mexico GOP Official Calls 19-Year-Old ‘A Radical Bitch’

New Mexico GOP Official Calls 19-Year-Old ‘A Radical Bitch’: Steve Kush, executive director of the Bernalillo County Republican Party in New Mexico, took to Twitter on Tuesday to verbally abuse a 19-year-old Working America volunteer who testified in favor of raising the minimum wage. Bernalillo County, the largest county in New Mexico, was considering a proposal to increase the county minimum wage from $7.50 [...]/p

STUDY: 9/11 First Responders Have Higher Rates Of Cancer Than The General Population

STUDY: 9/11 First Responders Have Higher Rates Of Cancer Than The General Population: Responders to the September 11 attacks have a 15 percent higher rate of cancer than the general population, according to a new study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives journal. The study examined data from 20,984 first responders in the seven years after the 9/11 attack, a short time period that the study’s authors say [...]/p

How To Help The Middle Class Without Spending Government Money

How To Help The Middle Class Without Spending Government Money: The middle class has been shrinking since the recession as most of the country’s wealth has traveled upward. But any policy aimed at helping working families that also comes with a hefty price tag has little chance of passing through Congress and becoming law. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope for trying to bolster the [...]/p

Sequestration Budget Cuts Hit Homeland Security

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New ALA Report: Clean Air Act Working, Yet 42% Of Americans Still Breathe Dangerous Air

New ALA Report: Clean Air Act Working, Yet 42% Of Americans Still Breathe Dangerous Air: The American Lung Association today released their annual State of the Air report. In general, it says that the air is cleaner than it was a decade ago, thanks to the Clean Air Act. Despite this progress, over 131 million Americans live in areas where the air can often be too dangerous to breathe. This [...]/p

Erskine Bowles Dismisses Facts on Deficits. Perhaps Because He Collects Millions for Deceiving the Public? | Alternet

Erskine Bowles Dismisses Facts on Deficits. Perhaps Because He Collects Millions for Deceiving the Public? | Alternet
"It is probably worth noting that playing the role of an Erskine Bowles and spreading confusion about basic economics carries large financial rewards. According to the New York Times, Erskine Bowles gets paid $40,000 for many of his speeches.

In addition, Bowles has collected millions of dollars sitting as a director on corporate boards. Perhaps most notable are the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he pocketed as a director of Morgan Stanley, one of the too-big-to-fail banks that would have gone bankrupt in 2008 had it not been saved by the Fed. He also was pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars as director of General Motors until it actually did go bankrupt in 2009."

Ohio Manufacturers Fight To Keep The Energy Efficiency Standards The GOP Is Trying To Weaken

Ohio Manufacturers Fight To Keep The Energy Efficiency Standards The GOP Is Trying To Weaken: Ohio is one of many states trying to scale back energy efficiency standards set for utility providers — even though these standards have lowered costs and reduced energy consumption by customers, according to the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association. OMA, the state’s largest manufacturing trade group, is fighting against Republican-led efforts to weaken the laws that require [...]/p

Having Spent Millions Influencing Three Branches of Government, Kochs Look to Buy Fourth Estate | Common Dreams

Having Spent Millions Influencing Three Branches of Government, Kochs Look to Buy Fourth Estate | Common Dreams
"By the Kochs extending their tentacles into the fourth estate, they can significantly expand their relative power and influence, particularly by controlling an institution that might expose their efforts to manipulate the other three branches. And by expanding their control over the press the Kochs could have even more power to reshape the American political landscape."

Right-Wingers Use Boston Bombing to Paper Over Their Own Extremist Terror

Right-Wingers Use Boston Bombing to Paper Over Their Own Extremist Terror
"The fact, however, is that the speculation about right-wing extremism's potential role was entirely rational, considering that in the past four years, there have been nearly 70 acts of domestic terrorism committed by right-wing extremists in the United States, compared to just over 30 such acts committed by Islamist extremists here."

“Human Beings Have No Right to Water” and Other Words of Wisdom from Your Friendly Neighborhood Global Oligarch | Alternet

“Human Beings Have No Right to Water” and Other Words of Wisdom from Your Friendly Neighborhood Global Oligarch | Alternet
"Privatization of our natural resources is leading to the inevitable extinction of our species, and possibly all life on earth."

Bush's Legacy of Atrocities Is Nowhere to Be Seen at His New Library -- and the Local Paper Won't Even Run One Ad That Tells the Truth | Alternet

Bush's Legacy of Atrocities Is Nowhere to Be Seen at His New Library -- and the Local Paper Won't Even Run One Ad That Tells the Truth | Alternet
"George W. Bush presided over an international network of torture chambers and, with the help of a compliant Congress and press, launched a war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. However, instead of the bloody details of his time in office being recounted at a war crimes tribunal, the former president has been able to bank on his imperial privilege – and a network of rich corporate donors that he made richer while in office – to tell his version of history at a library in Texas being opened in his name.

Kill a few, they call you a murderer. Kill tens of thousands, they give you $500 million for a granite vanity project and a glossy 30-page supplement in the local paper."

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation: A conservative group connected to Colorado’s Secretary of State has been sending political mailers — including a picture of a darker-skinned woman whose face was digitally removed and replaced with a white woman’s face — in an attempt to oppose a landmark voting bill that may soon become law. Colorado is currently considering a major [...]/p

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Was an Alex Jones Fan | Alternet

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Was an Alex Jones Fan | Alternet
"Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was influenced by conspiracy theories, including Alex Jones’ website InfoWars, which has been  pushing a narrative that the Tsarnaev brothers were patsies set up by a government cabal to take the fall for the bombing."

The Stock Market’s Rally Drove Income Inequality In The First Two Years Of The Recovery

The Stock Market’s Rally Drove Income Inequality In The First Two Years Of The Recovery: The Great Recession fueled an explosion in income inequality and the economic recovery has carried on the trend. The numbers themselves are staggering, but the causes are also important. A new report from the Pew Research Center finds that not only did the wealth gap between the bottom and the top of the income ladder [...]/p

Fertilizer Industry Groups Have Been Lobbying Against Safety Regulations

Fertilizer Industry Groups Have Been Lobbying Against Safety Regulations: While it’s still unclear what caused the explosion at a West, Texas fertilizer facility last week, authorities have already ruled out criminal activity. And it is clear that while seven different regulatory agencies were responsible for overseeing the plant, and in fact five out of those seven have previously cited and/or fined it, the lack [...]/p

Report: Deadly Human-Made 'Cocktail' Threatening World’s Pollinators | Common Dreams

Report: Deadly Human-Made 'Cocktail' Threatening World’s Pollinators | Common Dreams
"A "cocktail" of human-made "pressures" are threatening insect pollinators across the world, whose decline will have "profound environmental, human health and economic consequences," according to a new report released Monday by the Insect Pollinators Initiative."

Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News to Actually Write Any Bills | Alternet

Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News to Actually Write Any Bills | Alternet
"Has the party become "post-policy"? The modern GOP simply have given up on and lost the capacity for developing policy ideas."

PERRspectives: Eric Rudolph and the Rights of American Terrorists

PERRspectives: Eric Rudolph and the Rights of American Terrorists
"As inconvenient or uncomfortable as it may be for some to admit, U.S. law requires that all American domestic terrorists must be treated equally, regardless of their religion, ethnicity or political cause. As UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky put it, "There is no exception in the Constitution, or ever recognized by the Supreme Court, for especially horrible crimes or for ones that can be labeled terrorism." Horrible crimes, that is, committed by American terrorists like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Eric Rudolph."

Report: Renewables Could Power Nearly All US Energy Usage by 2050 | Common Dreams

Report: Renewables Could Power Nearly All US Energy Usage by 2050 | Common Dreams
"If the US ceases to burn coal and ratchets down both nuclear and natural gas usage, the resulting reliance on wind, solar and other renewables "could meet or exceed demand in 99.4 percent of hours" by 2050, according to a recent report (pdf) by Synapse Energy Economics for the nonprofit think tank Civil Society Institute (CSI)."

Kansas Governor Writes 'JESUS Mary' on Notes for Anti-Abortion Bill | Common Dreams

Kansas Governor Writes 'JESUS Mary' on Notes for Anti-Abortion Bill | Common Dreams
"Next to the extreme anti-abortion bill Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R) signed into lawon Friday were notes on which he wrote JESUS + Mary at the top and further down that it was a bill that would create "a culture of life," an Associated Press photo reveals."

Creatures of the Dark: Wisconsin GOP Caught Deleting Records, Again

Creatures of the Dark: Wisconsin GOP Caught Deleting Records, Again
"New federal court filings allege that hundreds of thousands of Republican redistricting files in Wisconsin were deleted last year, in defiance of court orders to turn over all documents. The deletions fit into a pattern of the Wisconsin GOP covering their tracks and could result in sanctions for the attorneys or individuals involved in deleting the files."

The BP Spill Was Worse Than You Knew

The BP Spill Was Worse Than You Knew
"Now the media has moved on and public anger has cooled, but the full extent of the damage is finally coming out—and it’s clear that the spill was even worse than we thought."

Global Ponzi Scheme: We’re Taking $7.3 Trillion A Year In Natural Capital From Our Children Without Paying For It

Global Ponzi Scheme: We’re Taking $7.3 Trillion A Year In Natural Capital From Our Children Without Paying For It: Last week, David Roberts over at Grist flagged a report carried out by the environmental consultant group Trucost, at the behest of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity over at the United Nations. The idea behind the report was simple. Tally up all the world’s natural capital — land, water, atmosphere, etc. — that doesn’t [...]/p

The Spilling Fields: How BP Made The Gulf Oil Disaster More Toxic While Covering It Up

The Spilling Fields: How BP Made The Gulf Oil Disaster More Toxic While Covering It Up: Mark Hertsgaard has a must-read piece in Newsweek on how “The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was even worse than BP wanted us to know.” His piece is about the dangers created by the 1.84 million gallons of Corexit used to “clean up” the 210 million gallons of Louisiana crude BP negligently spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. [...]/p