by Dave Lindorff

The bloody-minded, death-obsessed state of Texas, which has already demonstrably executed at least one innocent man, Cameron Todd Willingham (who was falsely accused and ultimately killed by the state for the alleged arson "murder" of his two little children when in fact they'd died because of a fire caused by an electrical fault), is about to execute yet another probably innocent man today.

This time it's Hank Skinner, 47, who has spent 16 years on the state's bustling death row protesting his innocence in the 1993 New Year's Eve murder of his girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two sons, aged 20 and 22.

The thing about Skinner's case is it would be relatively easy to prove whether or not he was really the killer of the three. There are two bloody knives that have never been tested for Skinner's DNA--or for the DNA of Twila's uncle, the man who had reportedly made several unwanted sexual advances at her earlier that evening, leading her to leave a party early, and who Skinner claims is the real killer. Nor was semen that was found on Twila Busby, who was raped, or skin found under her fingernails, ever DNA tested to see who they belonged to.

by Randall Amster

Seasons change, yet some things remain the same. Nearly half a century ago, Rachel Carson debuted the first serial installment of what would eventually become one of the landmark works of the 20th century, Silent Spring. In that book, Carson famously argued that the pesticide DDT was responsible for negative impacts on the environment, animals, and humans alike, despite disinformation spread by industry and government officials about its purported safety and utility in agribusiness. Silent Spring is often credited with starting the modern environmental movement, yet today we are facing equivalent challenges and similar campaigns to conceal the potential dangers of toxic chemicals in our midst.

In particular, the pervasive use of the herbicide atrazine raises a host of ecological and political questions that are strikingly reminiscent of those confronted by Carson. Perhaps coincidentally, the widespread use of atrazine in American agriculture dates to almost precisely the time that Silent Spring was beginning to take shape as a withering indictment of the chemical industry's blatant disregard for emerging health warnings and its concomitant influence over politicians and regulators. While DDT was eventually banned for use as a pesticide in 1972, atrazine has enjoyed decades of unfettered use as (according to its maker, Syngenta) "one of the most effective, affordable and trusted products in agriculture." This promotional website includes personal testimonials from farmers as well as press releases intended to debunk "baseless activist claims" about atrazine's safety.

by Donna Smith

Surreal. I am writing this while in a hematology/oncology office in Maryland. The fact that I'm writing an essay while receiving treatment and have done two conference calls and all my work today is mind-boggling in itself and speaks to the very real world many patients navigate every day now. If we are lucky enough to access care having run the gauntlet of our insurance companies and providers, we then must negotiate the time to care for ourselves. The patient "beltway" is very entrenched.

But this week, I've seen so much contradiction inside the more traditionally titled DC beltway and in my state's seat of power, Annapolis, that my mind is swimming with images and conflicting energies.

First, this is not the early 1990s. It is not the Clinton era. And this was not and is not the Clinton health reform effort which will pass or not nationally and then be followed by years of the quiet desperation of the suffering masses.

The crisis surrounding healthcare in this nation has advanced exponentially since those days, and from that precipice there is no return. This suffering and pain will not be stopped by forcing the purchase of the for-profit financial product that is private health insurance and the nation's costs for providing healthcare will go up and keep growing ever more difficult to fund.

As large as the USA, the Great Pacific Waste Patch is the biggest dump in the world. Ed Cumming discovers that it keeps getting bigger, and could be poisoning us all

by Ed Cumming

Dr Simon Boxall, a physical oceanographer at the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, goes even further: “It’s the size of North America. But although the patch itself is extremely large, it’s only one very clear representation of the much bigger worldwide problem.”

by Tom Engelhardt

When was the last time you saw the headline, "Cost of [Pentagon-weapons-system-of-your-choice] halved"?  Probably never.  Still, the thought came to mind when this recent Associated Press headline caught my eye: "Pentagon: F-35 fighter jet cost doubles." 

Here's the story behind it:  Since 2001, when an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was expected to cost an already hefty $50 million, the plane's cost has soared into the stratosphere (despite the fact that the aircraft itself has barely left the ground).  The estimated cost today is $113 million per plane.  Yes, that's per plane.  This supposed future workhorse of the U.S. military is now priced like the planet's most precious gem.  It's also 2 ½ years behind schedule.  Keep in mind that the Marines, the Air Force, and the Navy are planning to buy a combined 2,450 of them for what's now an eye-popping $323 billion.  And if you think the costs are likely to stay in the $113 million range, given the history of Pentagon cost overruns, then I have a nice little national security bridge to Brooklyn I think the U.S. public might love.      

Center for Biological Statement on Climate Legislation and the Clean Air Act

New Management at USDA Reforms, Strengthens National Organic Program

Family Members of Fallen Soldiers and Families of Troops Currently Deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan Available for Interview

In the past 17 months, more than 500 veterans have contacted Disabled American Veterans (DAV), a national nonprofit serving vets, to report illnesses they blame on the burn pits. Throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors—many of the burn pits are operated by companies like former Halliburton subsidiary KBR—have dumped hundreds of tons of refuse into giant open-air trenches, doused the piles with fuel, and left them to burn. The trash includes plastic, metal, asbestos, batteries, tires, unexploded ordnance, medical waste, even entire trucks. (The military now operates several actual incinerators and has made efforts to create recycling programs, but the majority of war-zone trash is still burned in pits.)

by Dennis Kucinich

I have spent my life struggling for the rights of working class people and for health care. I grew up understanding first hand what it meant for families who did not get access to needed care. I lived in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including in a couple of cars. I understand the connection between poverty and poor health care, the deeper meaning of what Native Americans have called "hole in the body, hole in the spirit". I struggled with Crohn's disease much of my adult life, to discover sixteen years ago a near-cure in alternative medicine and following a plant-based diet. I have learned with difficulty the benefits of taking charge personally of my own health care. On those few occasions when I have needed it, I have had access to the best allopathic practitioners. As a result I have received the blessings of vitality and high energy. Health and health care is personal for each one of us. As a former surgical technician I know that there are many people who dedicate their lives to helping others improve theirs. I also know their struggles with an insufficient health care system.

A Progressively Financed, Single Standard of Care for All

by Donna Smith

The national legislative healthcare fix that may be passed by the 111^th Congress and then signed by President Obama will do little to relieve the stresses felt by most patients in this country.  The steady decline most of us have seen in the kind of quality medical services we need is not likely to be mitigated.  Insurance companies will grow ever stronger and more deeply ensconced, and the patient voice will fade more quickly from prominence than it has in recent years.

Patients have been props in this discussion.  Patients are widgets in an economic system.  Patients are an annoyance to insurance companies who worry about the medical losses (claims) as a loss of profit and often even to providers who must carefully screen patients to make sure they come with profit potential via their insurance coverage or very deep pockets full of cash for payment. Pesky patients.

And nothing - nothing - in the current legislation disrupts this process from deepening.

The results are mind boggling and devoid of any ethical grounding which would lead anyone to believe that healthcare is a human right in America.

I know scores of patients - people who need medical care - who tell me about their personal journeys.  They are often shuffled from provider to provider getting whatever medical tests or procedures are approved by their insurance companies while not receiving even one stitch of treatment or relief for the issue that brought them to seek care.  The money flows; the patient is not treated.  Maybe a pill.  Maybe.

The practice of medicine has long ago shifted away from being a patient-centered art and science, from the perspective of most patients I know.  Most providers spend very little hands on time with patients and even less listening time.  Nothing about forcing the purchase of private, for-profit insurance will change that reality.  And finding that one or two providers who still care enough to try to provide kind and compassionate patient care is a daunting and long process for most patients I know.  Most give up and just get care when they have to and put up with being treated as an annoyance, an irritation in a system that just wants to take more and more profit with less and less contact with the patients who generate that profit.

by Bill Moyers & Michael Winship

Living in these United States, there comes a point at which you throw your hands up in exasperation and despair and ask a fundamental question or two: how much excess profit does corporate America really need? How much bigger do executive salaries and bonuses have to be, how many houses or jets or artworks can be crammed into a life?

After all, as billionaire movie director Steven Spielberg is reported to have said, when all is said and done, "How much better can lunch get?"

But since greed is not self-governing, hardly anyone raking in the dough ever stops to say, "That's it. Enough's enough! How do we prevent it from sweeping up everything in its path, including us?"

Look at the health care industry saying to hell with consumers and then hiking premiums -- by as much as 39% in the case of Anthem Blue Cross in California. According to congressional investigators, over a two-year period Anthem's parent company WellPoint spent more than $27 million dollars for executive retreats at luxury resorts. And in 2008, WellPoint paid 39 of its executives more than a million dollars each. Profit before patients.

by Jim Hightower

You know what we need to juice up the performance of our weak economy? Viagra.

Yes, America needs a new Viagra, specifically targeted to stiffen backbones - in particular, the limp backbones of Barack Obama's team, as well as the flaccid spines of Democratic congressional leaders. Where's the drug industry when we really need it?

The Obama-ites seem incapable of firm stands. They excite us by boldly addressing our economic woes, then they seduce us by proposing stout actions. But when it comes time to follow through - it's droopsville.

Take America's job crisis. Obama and the Democrats eloquently empathize with the plight of struggling families who are falling out of the middle class. They point out that after Wall Street banksters crashed our economy and created the Great Recession, which began in December 2007, the number of jobs available to Americans has plummeted by more than 8.4 million. Since then, another 2.7 million jobseekers have come into the workforce. That leaves us in a hole that is 11.1 million jobs deep.

The White House and Congress correctly note that our economy must not merely stop losing jobs, it must create more than 400,000 new positions a month for the next three years just to get us out of this hole. Nothing is more important, they tell us, blowing kisses of compassion and promising satisfaction.

by Brendan Smith

In 2005 General Electric launched their "EcoMagination" campaign, a marketing effort built around selling products that help solve environmental problems and create green jobs.

According to GE's CEO Jeffery Immelt "Our Ecomagination initiative has created tens of thousands of jobs at GE and in our supply chain." And if the U.S. steps up and takes the lead on climate mitigation, Immelt promises to "create 250,000 green jobs in the economy."

So what are GE's new green jobs of the future going to look like? According to one group of GE "green" workers who have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit in Alabama (complaint below), GE's vision for a green future looks more like a nightmare.

The case was brought by sixty-two employees of Lacy Enterprises, a company that leases workers to a subsidiary of GE to clean out baghouses at coal-fired power plants and manufacturing facilities. Mandated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act, baghouses are designed to reduce emissions of hazardous air pollutants with cloth or synthetic filters or "bags" that capture toxic particulates such as lime, coal black, lead, arsenic and mercury. On the front lines of emerging green economy, GE's work team traveled around the country cleaning and replacing the filters at coal and cement plants, steel mills and elsewhere.

by Chris Hedges

There are no constraints left to halt America's slide into a totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics are a sham. The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners. The working class has been impoverished and is now being plunged into profound despair. The legal system has been corrupted to serve corporate interests. Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power. And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police. The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable. Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying.

Those singled out as internal enemies will include people of color, immigrants, gays, intellectuals, feminists, Jews, Muslims, union leaders and those defined as "liberals." They will be condemned as anti-American and blamed for our decline. The economic collapse, which remains mysterious and enigmatic to most Americans, will be pinned by demagogues and hatemongers on these hapless scapegoats. And the random acts of violence, which are already leaping up around the fringes of American society, will justify harsh measures of internal control that will snuff out the final vestiges of our democracy. The corporate forces that destroyed the country will use the information systems they control to mask their culpability. The old game of blaming the weak and the marginal, a staple of despotic regimes, will empower the dark undercurrents of sadism and violence within American society and deflect attention from the corporate vampires that have drained the blood of the country.

The battles to watch over what you can watch

by Megan Tady

The real fight to watch isn't on television-Conan vs. Leno, Olbermann vs. O'Reilly. Rather, it's about television, and the future of online video-a fight that pits cable and content companies against consumers.

Instead of being glued to our favorite shows, we'd be wise to pay attention to the various battles, mergers and backroom deals happening between big media corporations who are trying desperately to cling to a sinking broadcast media model-and pull the public down with them.

Cable and broadcast companies see the writing on the wall, and it no longer spells "media empire." Although a majority of Americans are still watching television-clocking in an average of five hours of viewing a day (Nielsen Wire, 5/20/09)-people are increasingly switching off the tube and using their computers and laptops to watch their favorite shows, as well as to find alternative programming. Options like TiVo and DVR have given us the blessed ability to skip over advertisements. And advertising companies are jumping ship, heading over to the Internet or simply not placing ads in a market that can no longer guarantee as many eyeballs.

The globalisation of the food market has made food cheap, but who is benefiting?

by Timothy Wise

Cheap food causes hunger.

On its face, the statement makes no sense. If food is cheaper it’s more affordable and more people should be able to get an adequate diet. That is true for people who buy food, such as those living in cities. But it is quite obviously not true if you’re the one growing the food. You’re getting less for your crops, less for your work, less for your family to live on. That is as true for Vermont dairy farmers as it is for rice farmers in the Philippines. Dairy farmers today are getting prices for their milk that are well below their costs of production. They are putting less food on their own tables. And they are going out of business at an alarming rate. When the economic dust settles, this will leave us with fewer family farmers producing the dairy products most of us depend on.

This is the central contradiction of cheap food. Low agricultural prices cause hunger in the short term among farmers. And they cause food insecurity in the long term because they reduce both the number of farmers and the money they have to invest in producing more food.

by The Nation Editors

Even in an age of old-media uncertainty, much is still made of the transfer of network anchor and host positions. Too often the discussion is purely about personality, but there's more to it than a celebrity shuffle: the character and content of programs with rich histories and the potential for crucial contributions to civic discourse are at stake. So oceans of ink are spilled when CBS shifts the news anchor chair from Dan Rather to Bob Schieffer to Katie Couric; or when Tim Russert's Meet the Press post goes to David Gregory. Unfortunately, scant attention has been paid to the coming shift of what over the past decade has become the most significant seat in broadcast journalism--the Friday night position occupied by Bill Moyers

Moyers has been the most radical presence on broadcast and cable television since 2002, when the former White House press secretary, newspaper publisher, CBS and NBC commentator, bestselling author and award-winning documentarian settled into the work of producing weekly reviews not of the transitory arguments of the moment but of the great debates on the fate of the Republic. What has made Moyers, who will retire in April, such a radical presence is not his politics but his journalism.

by Dan Froomkin

The latest toxic meme to spread across the pages of my once-beloved Washington Post is that President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is the one reasonable man in the White House.

First came perpetually disgruntled columnist Dana Milbank, suddenly a little ray of sunshine on the subject of the terribly underappreciated chief of staff: "Obama's first year fell apart in large part because he didn't follow his chief of staff's advice on crucial matters," Milbank wrote. "Arguably, Emanuel is the only person keeping Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter."

According to Milbank, Emanuel is the antidote to "Valerie Jarrett and Robert Gibbs, and, to a lesser extent, David Axelrod" who "are part of the Cult of Obama. In love with the president, they believe he is a transformational figure who needn't dirty his hands in politics."

Then came a front-page "news" story this morning by Jason Horowitz fully subscribing to the "contrarian narrative" that is "emerging" -- that "Emanuel is a force of political reason within the White House and could have helped the administration avoid its current bind if the president had heeded his advice on some of the most sensitive subjects of the year: health-care reform, jobs and trying alleged terrorists in civilian courts."

by Sanho Tree

Like Barack Obama, Avatar has become a Rorschach test for the times in which we live. Everyone interprets it their own way. Nominated for nine Oscars, it's already the highest-grossing film of all time-having pulled in around $2.5 billion globally. More importantly, Avatar could become a game-changer in our evolving cultural consciousness about the impact of modernity on the world.

I recently saw the film in St. Louis with my teenage niece and nephew. To them, it was science fiction. I suggested it was more of a commentary about the Americas. Indeed, it mirrors the history of indigenous peoples in this hemisphere for the past 500 years. The struggle over resource extraction for profit versus the territorial rights of indigenous peoples continues to unfold on a daily basis across the globe.

Set in the year 2154, the conflict in Avatar involves corporate lust for a rare precious mineral called "unobtanium," which, we're told, is valued by humans at 20 million per kilo. What's it for? We're never told, but perhaps that's the point. Unobtanium serves as a generic placeholder for the commodities we extract from native lands: oil, gold, silver, lumber, pasture or any other thing of value according to market forces. How much unobtanium is enough? The film's characters never say. But, like a bonus-grubbing Wall Street executive, no amount can satiate modern society's never-ending desires.

by MeMeMeMeMe

Like Crist-Rubio for GOP, Lincoln-Halter Race Could Define Dems

by John Nichols

Most major media in the United States has given up on covering politics as if it mattered. From talk radio to talk television to the Washington bureaus of too many of our dying newspapers, the coverage of the 2010 election cycle is framed in one of two ways:

A. A fight between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.

B. A fight between conservative Republicans and Tea Party Republicans to decide who will get to vanquish the liberal Democrats in November.

What's missing from this calculus is the reality that this is an exceptionally volatile moment economically, socially and politically in the United States -- a moment so volatile that both major parties are experiencing unprecedented turbulence within their ranks.