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9-11

Jan 29, 2010: The Coal Ash Industry Manipulated EPA Data
Joshua Frank, Truthout: "The coal ash industry manipulated reports and publications about the dangers of coal combustion waste, reports Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The group stated that the Environmental Protection Agency allowed the multibillon-dollar coal ash industry to have virtually unfettered access to the EPA during the Bush administration and now under President Obama."

Dec 25, 2009: Anniversary of TVA Coal Ash Spill as Forgotten as the Disaster Itself 
Glynn Wilson, Truthout: "On the third day before Christmas in 2008, the people living along the Emory River in East Tennessee were listening to songs about a 'white Christmas' like everybody else in the country, trying to look forward and not back. A new president was in the White House who promised 'hope' after eight years of war and unprecedented corruption, as well as the increasing economic hardship that was squeezing the middle class like a juggernaut. Instead of a white Christmas, though, people like Steve Scarborough of the Dagger Kayak and Canoe Company woke up to a black-gray mess of epic proportions, a river full of toxic coal ash from the Tennessee Valley Authority's coal-fired power plant at Kingston, Tennessee."

Feb 4, 2009: Tennessee Coal Ash Disaster Raises Concerns About Similar Sites Nationwide
Tom Bearden, PBS NewsHour: "Even today, it's difficult for anybody who hasn't been to Kingston, Tennessee, to understand how big the problem is. Video just doesn't do it justice. In the pre-dawn hours of December 22, 5.4 million tons of ashes created by 50 years of burning coal to generate electricity here burst through a dike, spreading like an avalanche for more than a mile, burying 300 acres of riverbank several feet deep, spilling out into the nearby river itself."

Jan 7, 2009: Gates Estimates Another $69.7 Billion Needed in Fiscal 2009 for Wars
Josh Rogin, Congressional Quarterly: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has sent a $69.7 billion war cost 'estimate' to congressional leaders and said that the outgoing administration will not formally request more war funding before President-elect Barack Obama takes office. The money would cover military operations related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with activities to battle terrorism around the world, for the remainder of fiscal 2009, which ends Sept. 30. It is not an official request for funding and is subject to change pending new strategic and budgetary decisions by the incoming administration."

Sep 24: Democrats to Let Offshore Drilling Ban Expire
Andrew Taylor, The Associated Press: "Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in an month-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer."

July 28: Senate Republicans Block Heating Aid Bill
Matt Yancey, The Associated Press: "Republicans on Saturday blocked the Senate from considering a bill next week that would nearly double federal aid to help the poor pay heating and air-conditioning bills."

Apr 4: 81 Percent in US Poll Say Nation Is on the Wrong Track David Leonhardt and Marjorie Connelly report for The International Herald Tribune, "Americans are more dissatisfied with the country's direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll. In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed 'things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,' up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002."

Mar 12: Pentagon Report on Saddam's Iraq Censored?
ABC News' Jonathan Karl reports: "The Bush administration apparently does not want a US military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon canceled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online."

Feb 29: USDA Rejects "Downer" Cow Ban
Christopher Lee reports for The Washington Post, "Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told Congress yesterday that he would not endorse an outright ban on 'downer' cows entering the food supply or back stiffer penalties for regulatory violations by meat-processing plants in the wake of the largest beef recall in the nation's history."

Jan 29: White House Wants $70 Billion More to Fund Iraq, Afghanistan War
Anne Flaherty reports for The Associated Press, "The White House will ask Congress next week for another $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an amount that would help cover operational costs only until early next year when the next administration takes over."

Jan 25: America's Forgotten Vietnamese Victims
Nick Turse writes for TomDispatch.com: "Nguyen Van Tu asks if I'm serious. Am I really willing to tell his story -- to tell the story of the Vietnamese who live in this rural corner of the Mekong Delta? ... His story is part of a hidden, if not forbidden, history that few in the US know. It's a story that was written in blood in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos during the 1960s and 1970s and now is being rewritten in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's a story to which new episodes are added each day that US forces roll armored vehicles down other people's streets, kick down other people's doors, carry out attacks in other people's neighborhoods and occupy other people's countries."

Dec 25: Congress's Bullying Pulpit
Sally Quinn, writing in The Washington Post, says last week's ill-conceived House resolution heralding Christianity relegated millions of non-Christian Americans to second-class citizens.

Dec 12: Democrats Put Blank Checks Back on Table
Truthout's Maya Schenwar reports: "In the next two weeks, Democratic leadership in Congress will likely push for a huge, multi-department 'omnibus' spending bill which may include funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. None of the omnibus proposals raised so far have included deadlines for troop withdrawal, igniting strong opposition from progressives in the House."

Nov 14: Bush Vetoes Health, Education Measure
David Nitkin, reporting for The Baltimore Sun, writes: "For the fifth time this year, President Bush rejected a major piece of legislation yesterday, vetoing a $606 billion health and education spending measure."

Nov 9: Mukasey Confirmed, Despite Democrats' Doubts
Carl Hulse reports for The New York Times, "The Senate confirmed Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general Thursday night, approving him despite Democratic criticism that he had failed to take an unequivocal stance against the torture of terrorism detainees."

Democrats scuttle Cheney impeachment measure: fraud turns into farce With their usual combination of cowardice and complicity, Democratic congressmen buried a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday. Underscoring their fundamental support for the Bush administration, leading Democrats went out of their way to insist that impeachment is not and will never be up for consideration.

Nov 5: Bush Vetoes Water Bill, Citing Cost of $23 Billion
David M. Herszenhorn, The New York Times, writes: "President Bush on Friday vetoed a bill authorizing $23 billion in water resource projects, calling it overly expensive, and Congressional Democrats responded angrily, accusing him of insensitivity to the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast, a big beneficiary of the legislation. They pledged to override him."

Bernie Sanders Speaks to Truthout on Frustration With Congress
The American voters' feelings of frustration at a largely ineffective Congress have beefed up in recent polls creating a tense environment on Capital Hill. The Independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, sat down with Truthout's Geoff Millard to discuss this frustration.

Oct 25: Another $200 Billion
The editors of The New York Times write: "President Bush waited until he had vetoed a relatively inexpensive children's health insurance bill before asking for tens of billions of dollars more for his misadventure in Iraq. The cynicism of that maneuver is only slightly less shameful than the president's distorted priorities. Despite a pretense of fiscal prudence, Mr. Bush keeps throwing money at his war, regardless of the cost in blood, treasure or children's health care."

Oct 19: Clinton Bucks Trend, Rakes in Cash From Weapons Industry Leonard Doyle reports for The Independent UK: "The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite."

Oct 5: Senate Democrats approve half a trillion dollars for Pentagon, US spy agencies In a succession of voice votes that were barely covered by the major media, the Democratic-led Senate has overwhelmingly approved approximately half a trillion dollars for the 2008 fiscal budgets funding the Pentagon’s war machine and global US intelligence operations.

Sep 21: US Senate censure of MoveOn.org: An attack on free speech in the service of militarism The US Senate’s 72-to-25 vote in favor of a resolution condemning the liberal antiwar group MoveOn.org for publishing a newspaper ad questioning the credibility of Iraq war commander Gen. David Petraeus represents a chilling attack on freedom of speech and a further undermining of the bedrock constitutional principle that subordinates the military to democratic civilian control.

Sep 19: Democrats pack in their antiwar charade Little more than 10 months after winning the leadership of both houses of the US Congress thanks to a swelling tide of opposition to the war in Iraq, the Democratic Party has largely abandoned even the pretense of a struggle to bring the war to an end.

Sep 17: Wesley Clark gives a glimpse of the future
A Democratic general's prescription for winning "the next war" The front page of the “Outlook” section of Sunday’s Washington Post is dominated by an essay bearing the chilling title “The Next War.” It is at once a critique of the war tactics of the Bush administration and a defense of imperialist war, replete with a description of the massive and bloody scale of the military violence to be unleashed on the next likely target of American militarism—Iran.

Sep 12: Senate Panel Okays $850 Billion Debt Increase
Reuters says, "The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday approved an $850 billion increase in US borrowing authority to $9.815 trillion in order to avoid a default as the government nears its credit limit of $8.965 trillion."

Sep 8: The Shock Doctrine
In The Guardian UK, Naomi Klein says, "What [is] happening in Iraq and New Orleans was not a post-September 11 invention. Rather, these bold experiments in crisis exploitation were the culmination of three decades of strict adherence to the shock doctrine."

Sep 6: US Deports Parents of Dead Soldiers
Domenico Maceri reports for New America Media, "Three years after US Army Private Armando Soriano, 20, died fighting in Haditha, Iraq, his father is facing deportation."

Aug 17: Pentagon Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers
Tony Capaccio reports for Bloomberg, "A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, US officials said."

Aug 9: Bush Readies Bid for Corporate Tax Cuts
Peter Baker reports for The Washington Post, "President Bush said yesterday that he is considering a fresh plan to cut tax rates for US corporations to make them more competitive around the world, an initiative that could further inflame a battle with the Democratic Congress over spending and taxes and help define the remainder of his tenure."

Aug 7: The Fear of Fear Itself
The editors of The New York Times write: "It was appalling to watch over the last few days as Congress - now led by Democrats - caved in to yet another unnecessary and dangerous expansion of President Bush's powers, this time to spy on Americans in violation of basic constitutional rights. Many of the 16 Democrats in the Senate and 41 in the House who voted for the bill said that they had acted in the name of national security, but the only security at play was their job security."

Aug 1: Government May Give Water Rights to Powerful California Farmers Garance Burke, The Associated Press, writes: "The US government appears poised to turn over the rights to billions of gallons of water to a politically connected group of farmers in California, where most people are being asked to conserve."

July 17: Report: Federal Contracts Awarded to Firms Charged With Fraud The Hill's Roxana Tiron reports: "A watchdog organization is calling attention to what it deems the government's failure to properly vet the companies to which it awards hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts."

July 2: Carlyle Group in Talks to Acquire Virgin Media
"The Carlyle Group is in discussions with Virgin Media, the British cable company whose largest investor is Richard Branson, over a potential bid worth around $20 billion, a person familiar with the negotiations said today," write Michael J. de la Merced and Julia Werdigier of The New York Times.

July 1: When the Vice President Does It, That Means It's Not Illegal
"Who knew that mocking the Constitution could be nearly as funny as shooting a hunting buddy in the face?" asks Frank Rich. "Among other comic dividends, Dick Cheney's legal theory that the vice president is not part of the executive branch yielded a priceless weeklong series on 'The Daily Show' and an online 'Doonesbury Poll,' conducted at Slate, to name Mr. Cheney's indeterminate branch of government."

June 19: Enron Internet Chief Gets 27-Month Prison Term
The former chief of Enron Corp.'s high-speed Internet unit, Kenneth Rice, who turned government witness and testified in the trial of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling and company founder Kenneth Lay, was sentenced Monday to 27 months in prison.

May 30: Former Enron Board Member to Replace Wolfowitz
Bush is expected to nominate Robert Zoellick - a former government official with close links to corporate America - to take over as head of the controversy-stricken World Bank. He is currently the head of investment bank Goldman Sachs and previously served on the board of Enron, the world's largest oil company.

May 23: Evidence Shows Fraud at Federal Agency Cost Taxpayers Millions
In February 2005, an auditor at the General Services Administration (GSA) presented evidence to agency leaders that one of the government's top technology contractors was overcharging taxpayers. GSA auditor James M. Corcoran reported that Sun Microsystems had billed the government millions more for computer software and technical support than it charged its commercial customers. If true, the allegation was grounds to terminate the contract and launch a fraud investigation. Instead, senior GSA officials pressed last summer to renew the contract.

May 17: Starving the Poor
Noam Chomsky writes: "The connection between instability in the Middle East and the cost of feeding a family in the Americas isn't direct, of course. But as with all international trade, power tilts the balance. A leading goal of US foreign policy has long been to create a global order in which US corporations have free access to markets, resources and investment opportunities. The objective is commonly called 'free trade,' a posture that collapses quickly on examination."

May 9: Guard Faces Shortages in Dealing With Natural Disasters
With much of its equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan, the National Guard is facing profound shortages in responding to natural disasters, particularly as it gets ready for hurricane season, which begins June 1.

April 30: Pentagon Contractors Owe $7.7 Billion in Unpaid Taxes
While the US General Accountability Office insists that its investigations clearly show the US government is facing serious long-term funding shortfalls, federal contractors, and doctors and medical suppliers who regularly receive federal Medicare money, owe billions in unpaid taxes.

April 29: Poor George Tenet; He Still Doesn't Get It
Ray McGovern critiques George Tenet's book and says that the ex-CIA chief's memoir "shows that he remains, first and foremost, a politician - with no clue as to the proper role of intelligence work. He is unhappy about going down in history as 'Slam Dunk Tenet.'"

April 23: Government Report Slams "Emergency" War Funding Request
Jason Leopold reports that: "Nearly half of the $94 billion in emergency funding President Bush says Congress needs to immediately make available to continue funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would actually be used to finance non-urgent items related to the so-called "longer war on terror." The revelation once again casts further doubt on the president's assertion that the Army will run out of funding this month for US troops fighting in those regions, according to a report issued by the nonpartisan research arm of Congress.

April 5: Tug of War Over China's New Labor Law
"In a historically unprecedented visit, the influential Chinese scholar and labor law expert Liu Cheng arrived in Washington, DC, this week to garner support from US legislators and labor leaders for a law that is pending not before the US Congress, but before the National People's Congress in China. Liu Cheng has been a key adviser to the drafters of a new labor-law reform bill currently working its way through the Chinese legislative process. His visit is part of a behind-the-scenes battle that is raging worldwide over reforms in China's labor law," write Brendan Smith, Tim Costello and Jeremy Brecher.

April 1: Contractor Hired to Rate Federal Education Program It Created
The government contractor that set up a billion-dollar-a-year federal reading program for the Education Department and failed, according to the department's inspector general, to keep it free of conflicts of interest is one of the companies now evaluating the program.

March 26: Are We Politicians or Citizens?
Howard Zinn writes, "Congress is debating timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. In response to the Bush Administration's 'surge' of troops, and the Republicans' refusal to limit our occupation, the Democrats are behaving with their customary timidity, proposing withdrawal, but only after a year, or eighteen months. And it seems they expect the anti-war movement to support them.... Ironically, and shockingly, the same bill appropriates $124 billion in more funds to carry the war. It's as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act."

March 20: Washington Companies Withhold Info on Oil and Gas Pipelines
Claiming that the release of detailed information on oil and gas pipelines could aid terrorists or troublemakers, pipeline companies in Washington state are appealing a judge's order that they disclose to the public specifics about their potentially explosive lines. Meanwhile, the companies are asking the Legislature to change the Washington Public Records Act to allow the information to be kept secret - while simultaneously claiming in court that the law already shields the records from disclosure.

March 13: Dems Abandon War Authority Provision
Top House Democrats retreated Monday from an attempt to limit President Bush's authority for taking military action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming confrontation with the White House over the Iraq war.

March 12: Rep. Waxman Calls for Hearings on Halliburton Move to Dubai
Halliburton, the energy services giant and controversial defense contractor, said Sunday it is opening a new corporate headquarters in Dubai in the Middle East. The planned move surprised longtime critic Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He called for Congressional hearings on the move, saying, "I want to understand the ramifications for US taxpayers and national security."

March 3: Hersh: Bush Funneling Money to al Qaeda-Related Groups
Seymour Hersh reports that the Bush administration is funding anti-Shiite Sunnis linked to al Qaeda without Congressional approval and without appropriate appropriation. Hersh speculates that the money is coming from the pallet-loads of cash floating around Iraq and has already reached "three Sunni jihadist groups." He says, flatly, that the president is "supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11."

Feb 22: 25 in Congress Criticized Escalation but Voted for It Anyway
Twenty-five members of Congress caved to partisan pressure and voted in favor of troop escalation in Iraq, despite having publicly criticized President Bush's strategy in the weeks prior to the vote.

Feb 16: House Protects Tax Loophole for Corporate Execs
"On Monday, in a unanimous vote, the House Ways and Means Committee killed a tax reform - already passed by the Senate - that would have ended the single most popular perk in executive-suite land: the loophole that, year after year, lets CEOs avoid paying taxes on multimillions of their paycheck dollars," writes Sam Pizzigati.

Feb 6: Bush Slashes Aid to Poor to Boost Iraq War Chest
Bush's $2.9 trillion budget, sent to Congress yesterday, includes $100 billion extra for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for this year, on top of $70 billion already allocated by Congress, and $141.7 billion for next year. He is planning an 11.3 percent increase for the Pentagon. The huge rise in military spending is paid for by a squeeze on domestic programs, including $66 billion in cuts over five years to Medicare, the health care plan for the elderly, and $12 billion from the Medicaid health care plan for the poor.

Feb 5:In Orlando, a Law Against Feeding the Homeless
The city of Orlando has passed an ordinance regulating the feeding of large groups of people in Orlando's downtown parks. Those who wished to feed more than 25 hungry individuals at parks within a 2-mile radius of City Hall could do so, but only if they obtain a "Large Group Feeding Permit" from the parks department - and no one would be granted more than two feeding permits a year. A  federal court in Nevada has prohibited the city from enforcing the  ordinance until a final ruling is issued.

Feb 4: In DC, Contractors Are the "Fourth Branch of Govt."
In June, short of people to process cases of incompetence and fraud by federal contractors, officials at the General Services Administration responded with what has become the government's reflexive answer to almost every problem. On the rise for decades, spending on federal contracts has soared during the Bush administration, to about $400 billion last year from $207 billion in 2000, fueled by the war in Iraq, domestic security and Hurricane Katrina, but also by a philosophy that encourages outsourcing almost everything government does.

Jan 31: US Urges Scientists to Block Out Sun
The US wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming. It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions.

Bush Administration Accused of Doctoring Scientists' Reports on Climate Change
The Bush administration was yesterday accused of systemic tampering with the work of government climate scientists to eliminate politically inconvenient material about global warming. At Congressional hearing, scientists and advocacy groups described a campaign by the White House to remove references to global warming from scientific reports and limit public mention of the topic to avoid pressure on an administration opposed to mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions.

Jan 11: Study: 744,000 Are Homeless in US
There were 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national estimate in a decade. A little more than half were living in shelters, and nearly a quarter were chronically homeless, according to the report Wednesday by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Jan 10: Bush Lifts Oil-Drilling Ban in Alaska's Bristol Bay
The Bush administration yesterday moved to boost US oil and gas supplies by lifting a long-standing moratorium on drilling in Alaska's Bristol Bay.

Jan 9: Democrats criticize Iraq "surge", but won't cut war funds The two top congressional Democratic leaders have publicly opposed the Bush administration’s plans to dispatch more troops to Iraq, while signaling to the White House that there will be no serious effort to prevent an escalation of the slaughter as the bloodbath in Iraq heads towards its fifth year.