Mary Bottari: Bank Reform Bait and Switch

Behind the scenes, Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd and House Financial Services Chair Barney Frank have made it clear they are not fans of Lincoln's proposal. Neither is the U.S. Treasury Department. Treasury official Michael Barr has been running around telling anyone who will listen that these derivatives rules were not part of the administration's four "core objectives" for financial reform. But these opponents of strong derivatives reform have a big problem.

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Chris Hedges: The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger

Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on “biblical law,” and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America.

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Robert Fisk: The Truth Behind the Israeli Propaganda

I wasn't personally at all surprised at the killings on the Turkish ship. In Lebanon, I've seen this indisciplined rabble of an army - as "elite" as the average rabble of Arab armies - shooting at civilians.

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Bill McKibben: If There Was Ever a Moment to Seize

Who is the real Obama? Has he really been transformed by the oil spill in the Gulf, or is he merely trying to ride out the public reaction with stronger words? I think the answer is as murky as the water off Mobile.

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Real People v. Corporate “People”: The Fight Is On

In 2009, Riki Ott was on the road for 252 days educating people about the dangers of "corporate personhood." She mostly spoke in academic settings, and there was some interest in the idea, says Ott, but not much. All that changed on January 21, 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

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FDA defeated in federal court over censorship of truthful health claims

Health freedom has just been handed a significant victory by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which ruled last week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated the First Amendment rights of a nutritional supplement company when it censored truthful, scientifically-backed claims about how selenium can help reduce the risk of cancer.

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Gulf Oil Spill Likely to Hit U.S. Atlantic Coast This Summer

Oil from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico is likely to extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and into the open ocean as early as this summer, according to a detailed computer modeling study released today by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

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Israel -- Increasingly Paranoid and Isolated, Dominated by Fundamentalists, Armed with Over 200 Nukes

After Israel’s lethal attack in international waters on a civilian flotilla carrying relief supplies to Gaza, a troubling question arises: Have Israeli authorities, who possess a major nuclear arsenal, become dangerously erratic?

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New Study Finds Pesticides Double Risk of ADHD in Our Children

In a new study just published in Pediatrics, researchers from the University of Montreal and Harvard University found evidence strongly indicating that pesticides could be a major cause of the alarming rise in ADHD in our children.

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Revolving Door: 1,447 Former Government Workers Lobbying For Wall Street

The financial services sector has hired 1,447 former government employees to do its bidding as lobbyists since the beginning of 2009, according to the latest report [1] from the Center for Responsive Politics and Public Citizen.

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