By Robert Reich – Even though French economist Thomas Piketty has made an air-tight case that we’re heading toward levels of inequality not seen since the days of the nineteenth-century robber barons, right-wing conservatives haven’t stopped lying about what’s happening and what to do about it. Herewith, the four biggest right-wing lies about inequality, followed…
U.S. Rail System Needs an Upgrade – By Adam Federman – When residents in the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic describe the scene after an oil-train derailed and then exploded there last July, they say the burning petroleum was like a wall of fire, or a river of fire. The blaze, which burned for 36 hours,…
Glynn Wilson – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is now seeking public comment on what information could be reported and disclosed about chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations. As we reported in-depth two years ago, when the Alabama division of the U.S. Forest proposed opening up large tracts of the Talladega National Forest to natural…
Alabama is No. 10 and Louisiana is Not Listed At All? – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – A new online celebrity tabloid is getting traffic from Facebook and Twitter for a story making the rounds claiming to rank the 10 most corrupt state governments in the United States based on “a national…
By Glynn Wilson – The Obama Administration released the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment report on Tuesday, May 6, calling it “the most authoritative and comprehensive source of scientific information to date about climate-change impacts across all U.S. regions and on critical sectors of the economy.” The report, a key part of President Obama’s so-called…
By Glynn Wilson – It was July 5, 2010, while BP’s Deepwater Horizon was still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and I was watching helpless from Gulf Shores, Alabama, that I began to ask the question: Where Oh Where Have All the Wildlife Gone? Are most of the birds already dead from the oil,…
By Robert Reich – Until the 1980s, corporate CEOs were paid, on average, 30 times what their typical worker was paid. Since then, CEO pay has skyrocketed to 280 times the pay of a typical worker; in big companies, to 354 times. Meanwhile, over the same thirty-year time span the median American worker has seen…
Birmingham Company Agrees to Sell Property to Alabama State Docks – By Glynn Wilson – In an unusual turnaround from its ambition to build a new coal handling export terminal along the riverfront in Mobile, Alabama, Walter Energy has reached an agreement “in principle” with the State Port Authority to sell both the Blue Creek…
By Glynn Wilson – The United States Supreme Court upheld the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the air pollution from coal-fired power plants on Tuesday in a ruling that is being hailed as a major victory for the environment but a political setback for the Obama administration. The 6-to-2 ruling upholds the…
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered what appears to be the coldest “brown dwarf” known — a dim, star-like body that, surprisingly, is as frosty as Earth’s North Pole. Images from the space telescopes also pinpointed the object’s distance to 7.2 light-years away, earning it the title for fourth closest…
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — While many local and state governments across the country are joining the federal government in turning away from the development of fossil fuel production in favor of clean, renewable energy to fight climate change due to global warming and create the good, high paying jobs of the future,…
Delays Vote for Two More Weeks – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — The Mobile City Council heard debate for three hours at Government Plaza on Earth Day about whether to overturn the Planning Commission’s approval of Walter Energy’s Blue Creek Coal handling terminal along the city’s riverfront, but the only vote was to…
By Glynn Wilson – GULF SHORES, Ala. — What appears to be a juvenile bald Eagle now watches over a nest in a tall pine tree in Gulf State Park. The bald eagle is America’s national bird. It grew close to becoming extinct in the 20th century due to DDT chemical poisoning of their egg…
By Glynn Wilson – Now that the Alabama Legislative Session of 2014 is safely over and Governor Robert Bentley is virtually assured of winning the Republican Party’s primary in June without any tea party opposition from the far right, Bentley’s office finally released the water management plan report being sought by environmental groups for the…
By Robert Reich – We’re in a new gilded age of wealth and power similar to the first gilded age when the nation’s antitrust laws were enacted. Those laws should prevent or bust up concentrations of economic power that not only harm consumers but also undermine our democracy — such as the pending Comcast acquisition…
Mildred: Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against? Johnny: Whadda you got? – The Wild One, 1953 – Eschew Obfuscation – By Michael Douglass – I used to be young and idealistic. Now I have no idea what to make of it. It’s not even policy or ideology anymore. It’s dogma fueled brinkmanship. Or, it’s…
FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Images from Earth Day 2014 along Mobile Bay showoff a beautiful spring day and a carefree attitude this area needs as a break from the disasters in the news from the BP Oil Spill to the tar sands and crude pipelines through their sole source of fresh drinking water and a historic…
Saturday, April 19, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. – Hundreds of people from across Alabama, Mississippi and the Panhandle of Florida will be heading to the the Fairhope Pier parks in Fairhope, Alabama Saturday, April 19 to attend the state’s largest Earth Day festival. “This unique all-day free event is filled with family-friendly fun, including…
Coming Clean By Michael Brune Choose Wisely… We all make choices, and some turn out better than others do. But the choices we end up regretting the most are usually the ones we make against our better judgment. Both individually and collectively, we humans seem uniquely capable of acting as our own worst enemy. We…
The uninsured rate among adults aged 18 and older in the states across the country that have chosen to expand Medicaid and set up their own exchanges in the health insurance marketplace has declined significantly this year, meaning more U.S. citizens are being covered by private health care insurance than ever before, improving the economy…
