Exposing Cover Ups // Current

added
10 months ago

Is Sarah Palin a Grandma?

Ok readers I really have no idea what to make of this one…. The Daily Kos and several other sites are currently... more

Paulathesurfmom
added this

Soldiers talk about how they cover up murder with "DROP WEAPONS"

Another great video from ANP.

samply
added this

The Blessings and the Problems of Earplugs

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eardrum As you know, I am a former graduated EMT and I end up to learn this on the hard way.... more

stopnoise
added this

Stand Up For Your Rights, Proof It Works: FBI Backs Off From Secret Order for Data After Lawsuit

In this Washington Post article they state that this is the third time the FBI backed off. I know they are trying to protect the... more

WorldPeaceTV
added this

What TV can do to help us reach the greatest number of people?

When TV was invented, the original inventors dreamed that from its invention, it would be happening a social and economic... more

stopnoise
added this

Senate Bill Would Set Climate Policy Backwards

There's an important story in yesterday's edition of E&E (as always, $ub. req'd) about two alternatives to Lieberman-Warner that have recently been floated in the Senate. One comes from Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and the other -- not so much a bill as a "set of principles" -- from a coalition of the nation's biggest and dirtiest coal companies. Together they serve as an excellent primer on the conservative movement's latest approach to climate change.

What do they want?

1 No mandatory caps or a safety valve. Voinovich's bill ditches cap-and-trade entirely, at least for a three-year evaluation period. He and the coal companies would both institute a "safety valve," which would prevent the price of carbon from exceeding a specific threshold. (Policy-wise, that's about as bad as no cap at all.)

2 Incentives. When conservatives don't like incentives, they call them "pork." When they don't like the recipients of the incentives, they call them "welfare." On global warming, though, fossil interests see an historical chance to attach themselves more securely to the public teat, so "incentives" it is. Voinovich's bill is called the "Incentives-Based Alternative Climate Policy Act," and it amounts to a laundry list of handouts and tax breaks for individual industries and technologies (think nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration). This is "green conservatism" of the Gingrich variety: all carrots, no sticks.

3 Preemption of state efforts. Many state governments are not as sclerotic, polarized, and compromised as the feds. They present the real danger to Republicans' corporate sponsors. Remember states as "laboratories of democracy"? That's a notion conservative federalists love when they aren't in power. In power, they need control consolidated at the federal level, so fossil interests can do more targeted lobbying. If passed this would, at a stroke, eliminate the majority of good climate policy that's been passed in the U.S., in deference to much weaker policy.

4 Inaction pending Chinese and Indian policies. Conservatives claim that carbon caps in the U.S. will drive jobs and capital to developing countries unless those countries also implement caps. The practical effect of this would be to deprive us of our one truly powerful means of persuading China and India to act. There's an important story in yesterday's edition of E&E (as always, $ub. req'd) about two alternatives to... more