Top Stories
50 Years after “I Have a Dream” Speech, Economic Gap between Blacks and Whites Remains the Same
Over the last 50 years, the jobless rate for blacks has consistently been twice as high as the rate for whites, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 1963 the ratio of black unemployment to white unemployment was 2.2; in 2012 it was 2.1. In 1967, the median black household earned 55% of what the median white household earned. By 2011, that gap had nudged up only to 59%. read more
Obama Administration Gives Textron $641 Million Contract to Sell Cluster Bombs to Saudi Royal Family
Sarah Blakemore, director of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), a campaign working to ban the weapons, noted that the U.S.-Saudi Arabia deal comes at a time when the two countries have condemned Syria’s use of cluster bombs against rebels trying to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad. read more
Declassified Document Confirms Obama Administration Lied about Internet Surveillance Program
“The court is troubled that the government’s revelations regarding NSA’s acquisition of Internet transactions mark the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program,” Bates wrote. read more
Obama Asks U.S. Supreme Court for Stamp of Approval on Warrantless Cell Phone Searches
As the storage capacity of cell phones rises, that position could become harder to defend,” wrote Timothy Lee of The Washington Post. “Our smart phones increasingly contain everything about our digital lives: our e-mails, text messages, photographs, browser histories and more. It would be troubling if the police had the power to get all that information with no warrant merely by arresting a suspect.”
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After 234 Years without an Earthquake, Youngstown had 109 in One Year Once Fracking Began
From 1776 to 2011, Youngstown did not record a single earthquake. But from January 2011 to February 2012, 109 tremors were recorded, according to research (pdf) published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. The strongest quake, on December 31, 2011, had a magnitude of 3.9.
What changed? In December 2010, a well was dug in neighboring Pennsylvania to pump wastewater produced by fracking.
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Millions of Pounds of Meat Shipped without being Inspected
Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the food inspection system, say government inspectors were unable to use the computer system for two days earlier this month (August 8-9). This led to meat at 6,500 plants going out to stores, restaurants and other locations before it could be checked for E. coli bacteria and other contaminants that can cause food poisoning.
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NSA Violated U.S. Privacy Laws at Least 2,776 Times…In One Year
Contrary to the assurances made by the Obama administration only one week ago, a “Top Secret” 2012 National Security Agency (NSA) report leaked by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden admits not only that the agency routinely violates federal law and its own rules, but also that the agency has been actively covering up its misdeeds from Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. read more
U.S. Plant that Assembles Nuclear Weapons to be Powered by…Wind
The Obama administration has decided to install five wind turbines at Pantex, so that 60% of the plant’s power needs are provided through this form of renewable energy.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which oversees Pantex, says the use of wind power will reduce carbon emissions by more than 35,000 metric tons per year. That’s equal to removing 7,200 cars from the road, the DOE boasts.
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Defense Contractors View Climate Change as “Business Opportunities”
It’s not hard to imagine how Raytheon could market its more lethal products to countries struggling to deal with instabilities exacerbated or brought on by global warming. Pretty much any government with an army, navy or air force could become a customer for the arms manufacturer’s large and varied missile inventory that includes the Maverick, the Advanced Cruise Missile, the Sparrow, the Sidewinder, the AMRAAM, the TOW, the Tomahawk, the Javelin, the Stinger, and others. read more
BP, Barred from Federal Contracts After Pleading Guilty in Gulf Oil Disaster, Sues U.S.
Until its 2012 guilty plea, BP continued to do business with the U.S. government since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers, and dumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. As one of the U.S. government’s largest suppliers of fuel, BP currently has $1.34 billion in existing federal contracts. However, its profits have nonetheless taken a hit. read more
Stop-and-Frisk Ruling and Drug Sentencing Revamp Alter Criminal Justice Landscape
Back in New York, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, a Bill Clinton appointee, characterized the stop-and-frisk policy as a form of “indirect racial profiling,” due to the fact it led to an increased number of stops in minority communities. The policy, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg supported, led to officers’ routinely stopping “blacks and Hispanics who would not have been stopped if they were white,” Scheindlin said. read more
Bradley Manning Convicted of Espionage…Obama Achieves What Nixon Couldn’t
Too often lost in the legal controversy surrounding Manning is the fact that materials he provided included evidence of war crimes, including video footage from a U.S. helicopter showing the unprovoked and indiscriminate killing of more than a dozen civilians in Iraq. read more
Number of Americans Renouncing Citizenship Set to Break Record
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reported 1,130 people appeared on the list of citizenship renunciations during the second quarter of this year. That’s more than the previous high of 679 in the first quarter—and more than were reported for all of last year.
Americans are giving up their citizenship or permanent-resident status in response to the federal government going after Americans who stash assets overseas to avoid paying the IRS.
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Obama Administration Finally Releases Legal Justification for Massive Collection of Phone Records
The basic thrust of Obama’s position is that the snooping is constitutional because “Supreme Court precedent” says that callers “lack any reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment in the metadata records generated by their telephone calls.” None of the cases cited, however, dealt with anything like the NSA’s indiscriminate bulk collection of records. read more
35% of Food Additives Deemed Harmless were Evaluated by Manufacturer or Contractor Hired by Manufacturer
A group of legal and medical professionals reviewed 451 GRAS notifications that were submitted to the FDA between 1997 and 2012. Out of these 451, 22.4% were made by an employee of an additive manufacturer and 13.3% by an employee of a consulting firm selected by the manufacturer—meaning 35% were determined by individuals who may have had a conflict of interest. read more
Surveillance: The Clash between Senator Obama and President Obama
Members of the U.S. House introduced an amendment that would have dismantled the NSA’s bulk phone records collection program—a plan that the Obama White House condemned.
But five years ago, Senator Obama cosponsored a bill that would have limited bulk records collection by the NSA. That bill died in committee, as did a similar measure introduced in 2005, which Senator Obama also backed.
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