VOLUNTEER! Do you have skills you’d like to offer? We have all kinds of needs. For more info, visit our Volunteer Page.
PUBLICITY NOTES: We’re getting more requests all the time for Russ and others to appear on radio shows and podcasts. In addition, we see our articles frequently picked up, cited, or linked to. For example, Daily Kos featured a postabout the “Black Lives Matter” movement and Hillary Clinton, and the first article they link to is ours, about the death of the youth Kalief Browder, by Ralph Lopez.
NOW LIVE ON WhoWhatWhy
Court’s Bloody Joke Benefits Corporations While Others Suffer
By Klaus Marre
When Mitt Romney declared that “corporations are people” at the Iowa State Fair four years ago, there were quite a few chuckles in the crowd. However, as a new court decision has shown, it is no laughing matter that federal courts are increasingly holding the same view … Read More
Pinky and Brownie: Bush’s Forgotten Henchmen
By Russ Baker
More on Bush’s “Enforcer,” Joe Allbaugh, the man responsible for putting Michael Brown at the helm of FEMA prior to Hurricane Katrina.
WHO
We’d Better Hope This Is the Bubble Bursting
Market observers have been waiting a long time for a correction. But, after the fifth consecutive day of losses in China, markets in the US are rallying as bargain hunting and irrational exuberance inject more hot air into the stock market bubble. Daniel Altman of Foreign Policy argues that this refusal to embrace fundamentals and to accept financial reality is really bad news for the future.
Media and Nuclear Deal Opponents Continue to Spread Debunked Myth Iran Will Monitor Itself
Although an Associated Press story about a “secret side-deal” between the IAEA and Iran’s military has been thoroughly debunked, many news media outlets continue to make the specious claim that Iran gets to inspect its own nuclear sites. The best breakdown of the faulty AP story is available here.
Pollster’s Legs Wobble After Fawning Donald Trump Focus Group
GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz does a lot of focus groups, asks a lot of questions and hears a lot of answers. But nothing prepared him for a recent encounter with a group of Trump supporters whose blind devotion to The Donald left him “shaking” in his loafers. The frustrated and angry voters don’t hold Trump’s “gaffes” against him. No doubt, his polling numbers will survive his much-covered contretemps with noted Latino journalist Jorge Ramos.
WHAT
Global Insecurity and Refugee Crisis Linked to Climate Change
The world is getting hotter and it is fueling fiery conflicts around the globe. Columbia University Professor Marc Levy told attendees at the Global Security Initiative that a persistent, four-year drought in Syria stoked the uprising that led to civil war and, ultimately, the rise of ISIS. The emerging climate- and conflict-related migration crisis is now bedeviling Europe. And climate-caused food scarcity is leading nations to buy up arable land in Africa in anticipation of long-term shortages.
WHY
The Cheapest Oil Ever Still Won’t Slow Down the Clean Energy Revolution
It stands to reason that cheap oil means less market share for renewables. But the rising tide of cheap oil is not going to drown out the emergence of solar, wind and other renewable energies. That’s because cheap oil also removes the incentive for oil companies to engage in ever-costlier drilling expeditions to extract harder-to-reach reserves. All that’s really needed to keep the trend going is the political will to implement clean air policies that reward renewables.
Sign up
Like what you see? Sign up here to subscribe to this newsletter—our daily headlines roundup. You can also sign up for our weekly summary of all things WhoWhatWhy.
