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Unions Aren't Obsolete, They're Being Crushed by Right-Wing Politics

Livia Gershon VICE
A new report lays out how effective the assault on organized labor has been. The decline of unions—which now represent just over one in ten US workers, down from one in five from 1983—has been less about their value for workers than the result of a concerted effort to destroy the labor movement.

Paul Krugman: The Republican Party May End Up Destroying Human Civilization

lana Novick Alternet
Ultimately Pruitt, Trump and even Rush Limbaugh, who called Irma a "liberal hoax," are only a fraction of the problem. Krugman continues: "Almost every senior figure in the Trump administration dealing with the environment or energy is both an establishment Republican and a denier of climate change and of scientific evidence in general."

On 9/11: How We Slighted the Real Threat, Climate Change, and Hyped Terrorism

Juan Cole Informed Comment
It turns out . . . the real threat to the Homeland did not come from fringe radicals in the Middle East. Americans are more likely to be struck by lighting or fall down in their bathtubs and fatally hit their heads than they are ever to be negatively affected by Middle Eastern terrorism. Where did the real threat come from? From toxic carbon dioxide and methane emissions.

Yes, I'm Sure I Want Single Payer

Libby Watson Splinter News
The author is responding to the Atlantic article, “Are You Sure You Want Single Payer?,” She writes: "The article is a particularly irksome entry in a genre of story that dates back to the beginning of the Sanders campaign. Each one says, effectively: Single payer would be hard to do, are you sure you really want it? So let’s consider: What if, actually, single payer is good?"

Hillary Clinton's New Book Attacks Bernie. But Why?

Les Leopold Common Dreams
Based on her new book, writes Leopold, it is clear Hillary Clinton "is not interested in playing patty-cake for the sake of party unity in the Age of Trump. Screw that. She has accounts to settle."

'Cheers And Jeers' As Boeing Machinists Narrowly OK Contract

MARK MEMMOTT NPR
With 51 percent of the 24,000 or so local machinists who voted saying yes to the pact, Boeing's " 'best and final' offer [now] guarantees assembly of the next 777 widebody jet and the fabrication of the plane's carbon-fiber wing" will be done at plants in the Puget Sound region.

Re-Examining the FDA Antibiotics Decision: Banning Growth Promoters Won’t Be Enough

Maryn McKenna Wired
If the FDA’s intention to remove growth promoters is going to be meaningful. Simply reducing antibiotic use (if that does indeed happen) isn’t adequate; by itself, it may even be a threat to welfare. Changing the livestock practices that made antibiotic use necessary will improve animal and human health both.