Monthly Archives: January 2017

Flint Residents Barred From Closed-Door Water Quality Meeting

Advocates and residents are concerned that officials are rushing to declare the city’s water supply safe

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-10-2017

“My eyes are still burning. I can’t breathe when I get out of the shower…we’re still melting here,” Flint resident Tony Palladeno said. (Photo: Flint Rising/ Facebook

Residents of Flint, Michigan who traveled to Chicago were barred from attending a private meeting Tuesday between Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials, who advocates say are rushing to declare the city’s water supply safe.

Outrage over the closed-door meeting prompted protests in Flint and Chicago, where residents held signs outside the Water Quality Summit asking for their detailed water quality report. Continue reading →

State Lawmakers Urge Rejection of Militaristic, Conflict-Ridden Nominees

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125 state legislators demand U.S. Senate only confirm cabinet nominees who respect diplomacy, civil liberties, and ‘our sacred tradition of a civilian-led government’

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-9-2017

“From crumbling bridges and inadequate road maintenance to the opioid crisis and a lack of support for our veterans, the last 15 years of war and nation-building endeavors have taken an enormous toll on our communities and our ability as state lawmakers to provide critical services to our constituents,” the letter reads. (Photo: Adventures of KM&G Morris/flickr/cc)

A coalition of progressive state lawmakers from around the country on Monday sent a letter to Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), demanding the U.S. Senate only confirm cabinet nominees “who have an established record of respecting the importance of diplomacy and other tools of statecraft over the unnecessary use of force, respecting civil liberties, placing American interests over personal interests, and upholding our sacred tradition of a civilian-led government.” Continue reading →

China Leaves U.S. in Dust With $361 Billion Renewable Energy Investment

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World’s largest energy market looks to leave fossil fuels behind, while incoming Trump administration denies climate change and doubles down on dirty energy

By Nika Knight, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-5-2017

China already has the world’s largest installation of wind turbines. (Photo: Sandia Labs/flickr/cc)

While climate activists in the U.S. mount a resistance to the incoming climate-change-denying Trump administration, on the other side of the Pacific, environmentalists have reason to celebrate: China on Thursday announced that it will invest $361 billion in renewable energy by 2020.

Reuters reports: Continue reading →

Conservatives Plot Their Course on the Rising ‘Sea of Red’ in State Capitals

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Meeting in private, enthused activists promise that the growing Republican dominance in state government will unleash a wave of laws to cut business taxes, restrict unions and expand school privatization.

By Robert Faturechi, Pro Publica. Published 1-7-2017 by Common Dreams

The Kentucky State Capitol. Photo: Seifler (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Shortly after the November election, with the nation’s political attention focused on the Trump transition, an influential advocacy group met outside Washington to discuss how to leverage the extraordinary shift of power to Republicans in the rest of the country.

The American Legislative Exchange Council — a nonprofit better known as ALEC — briefed its members and allied groups on the bright future for its agenda now that Republicans will effectively control 68 of the nation’s 99 state legislative bodies, as well as 33 governor’s mansions. Among other things, group members said they would push bills to reduce corporate taxes, weaken unions, privatize schooling and influence the ideological debate on college campuses. Continue reading →

End of the US Empire: Russian Warships Just Arrived in the Philippines

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By Darius Shahtahmasebi. Published 1-6-2017 by The Anti-Media

The Russian Navy destroyer Kulakov. Photo: Brian Burnell via Wikimedia Commons

Notable American foreign policy critic and linguist, Professor Noam Chomsky, has stated numerous times that the United States’ power has steadily been declining since the end of World War II. As Chomsky notes, in 1945, the United States had “literally half the world’s wealth, incredible security, controlled the entire Western Hemisphere, both oceans, [and[ the opposite sides of both oceans.”

In that context – and in the context of the United States waging war in multiple countries across the globe with the most advanced military technology in the world – it is hard to understand how this has happened. But Chomsky is not wrong. Continue reading →

GOP Advancing “Extreme Bills,” Handing Reins to Corporations at Public’s Expense

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“These wonky bills aren’t improving the federal government. They are an attack on our daily lives.”

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-5-2017

“These dangerous pieces of legislation are one of the most egregious displays of political kowtowing to big polluter industries ever seen.” (Photo: Ron Cogswell/flickr/cc)

Launching what one group called “a coming massive attack on federal protections,” the U.S. House on Wednesday night passed the GOP-backed Midnight Rule Relief Act—making it easier for Congress to overturn Obama-era regulations—and appeared poised to follow that vote with passage on Thursday of another bill aimed at dismantling key health and safety laws.

Both measures were decried by environmentalists, consumer rights and public health advocates, and labor groups, who say they hand power over to corporations at the American public’s expense. Continue reading →

This Wondrous National Park… Brought to You By McDonald’s?

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Quietly approved reforms by National Park Service that would allow corporate sponsorship and advertisements called a “disgrace” by public advocacy group

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-4-2017

“Now that this policy has been finalized,” warned Kristen Strader of Public Citizen, “park visitors soon could be greeted with various forms of advertisements, like a sign reading ‘brought to you by McDonald’s’ within a new visitor’s center at Yosemite, or ‘Budweiser’ in script on a park bench at Acadia.”

A controversial set of new rules quietly given final approval over the recent holiday—allowing national parks in the United States to expand corporate sponsorships and commercial contracts with private companies—is being called a “disgrace” by those who say the move is a betrayal of what the nation’s parks should be.

Despite outcry from citizens, documented in public testimony and hundreds of thousands petition signatures, the director of the National Park Service Jonathan B. Jarvis announced on December 28 that he had signed an order—officially titled Order #21 on Donations and Philanthropic Partnerships—which, among other changes, ends an outright ban on commercial advertising and lifts restrictions on naming rights in parks. Continue reading →

Rethinking The Cost of War

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What if casualties don’t end on the battlefield, but extend to future generations? Our reporting this year suggests the government may not want to know the answer

By Mike Hixenbaugh for The Virginian-Pilot, and Charles Ornstein, ProPublica. Published 1-1-2017 by ProPublica

The Department of Veterans Affairs Building on Vermont Avenue in Washington, DC. (Photo: JeffOnWire/flickr/cc)

This story was co-published with The Virginian-Pilot.

There are many ways to measure the cost of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War: In bombs (7 million tons), in dollars ($760 billion in today’s dollars) and in bodies (58,220).

Then there’s the price of caring for those who survived: Each year, the Department of Veterans Affairs spends more than $23 billion compensating Vietnam-era veterans for disabilities linked to their military service — a repayment of a debt that’s supported by most Americans.

But what if the casualties don’t end there? Continue reading →

Has Obama Abandoned Israel? What You’re Not Being Told

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By Darius Shahtahmasebi. Published 12-30-2016 by The Anti-Media

Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

In 2011, linguist and foreign policy critic Noam Chomsky was asked whether he thought Obama was as bad as George W. Bush, to which Chomsky responded: “he’s worse.” Asked why, Chomsky cited Obama’s use of the U.N. veto at the Security Council level, which killed a resolution condemning settlement expansions that Israel was building in 2011.

After that, Obama was famously known for placing very few limits on Israel (with the exception of blocking an arms transfer during Operation Protective Edge, for example). There was also the supposed fallout between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Obama over the Iranian nuclear agreement last year, but that agreement had nothing to do with curbing Israel’s power in the region. Anyone paying attention to the Iranian nuclear issue knows the agreement was largely symbolic and meaningless as sanctions targeting Iran have continued quite dramatically. Continue reading →

Occupy World Writes

The Movement Continues – Globally

Monthly Archives: January 2017

China Leaves U.S. in Dust With $361 Billion Renewable Energy Investment

World’s largest energy market looks to leave fossil fuels behind, while incoming Trump administration denies climate change and doubles down on dirty energy

Conservatives Plot Their Course on the Rising ‘Sea of Red’ in State Capitals

Meeting in private, enthused activists promise that the growing Republican dominance in state government will unleash a wave of laws to cut business taxes, restrict unions and expand school privatization.

End of the US Empire: Russian Warships Just Arrived in the Philippines