News — uncategorized
Obama to "Halt" New Coal Leases-
Good news. More coal will be kept in the ground. Link
Cost-cutting Governor & Manager Poison Kids with Lead
link Gov. Snyder and the manager of the city of Flint switched the city's water source to the river and quit using corrosion control chemicals, all in order to save money. Then lead and other heavy metals poisoned the people.
Livestock Grazing on Public Lands Cost Taxpayers $1 Billion
Plus native prairie lands are overgrazed, native plants and animals, such as buffalo, are killed by government contractors, and funds are diverted from protecting ecosystems, native plants and animals to making improvements for ranching and logging. Link
"Merchants of Doubt" movie on PR for Tobacco, Oil, & other Toxics
Retired physicists and PR flacks who love to argue get paid and organized by tobacco, oil, pesticide, and other companies to create doubt and confusion about the dangers caused by their products. They lie and deny the risks of global warming, acid rain, ozone holes, tobacco, and flame retardants. This protects corporate profits, but it harms human health and the environment. The liars are paid by foundations set up to appear to be neutral, and the media eat it up. wikipedia on the film. review of book. It is showing in Boulder on January 11, 7 pm to 9 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder, 5001 Pennsylvannia Ave, Boulder, CO. You can rent or buy it.
The Big Short Movie & Book
Big banks are taking over. They evicted elderly and poor people. They bamboozled pension funds and people into risky loans and made up fake securities: derivatives, credit swaps and credit debt obligations. Balloon payments on loans bankrupted people. They bribed rating agencies to rate their garbage as safe. Then they got the their mouthpieces at the Fed and under presidents Bush to bail them out with taxpayer money- all so they could get bigger commissions and fees. They got Clinton and Congress to allow them to repeal Glass-Steagal law so they could speculate with risky investments and yet be insured by the US and also to be unregulated in their derivatives. There is a revolving door where bankers and Wall Street investors join the government and regulate themselves. Bernie says he will break up any banks that are too big to fail and that big bankers will not be too big to jail. The movie shows some eccentrics who bet against the banks, yet felt horrible as the economy crashed. Fannie Lou Hamer while seeking voting rights in Mississippi wrote " I am sick and tired of being sick and tired". Link to article on movie. Link to need to reform.