Chemical Company’s War on an Environmental Whistleblower

Lindsay Abrams Salon
Salon reporter Lindsay Abrams speaks with biologist Tyrone Hayes, subject of a new mini-documentary, and the director, Jonathan Demme. Agrochemical giant Syngenta has followed Hayes, besmirched his reputation, and threatened him and his family’s well being for revealing the potential health dangers of one of our most commonly used herbicides.

Labor Movement Malpractice: Relinquishing the Fight for Workplace Health and Safety

Garrett Brown New Labor Forum
Labor officials in California have passively watched Democratic Governor Jerry Brown put California's state workplace health and safety agency-Cal/OSHA on a starvation diet. The agency has less enforcement resources than under Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but state labor officials appear to have employed a strategy of maintaining access and friendly relations with Brown and his appointees at all costs, relinquishing the fight for workplace safety.

The BBC’s Drums of War and Meme of “Russian Aggression”

Oliver Tickell CounterPunch
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s endless trumpeting of the threat of “Russian aggression” gives one cause to fear we are being softened up for war. The anti-Russian propaganda by the BBC and other news outlets, including what they consciously don’t tell us, is all at the service of the world’s most powerful military and propaganda regime. But, there is recent evidence the essential sanity and peacefulness of ordinary people and families can still prevail.

A Nickel a Ticket Makes Health Care Affordable

William Rogers Left Labor Reporter
Airline food service workers on January 29 launched a nationwide campaign for affordable health care by holding demonstrations and other actions in cities across the US.

Measles: Not Just for Anti-Vaxxers

Beth Skwarecki Plos Blogs
Anti-vaxxers, your children don’t catch measles and then take it home like a jar of fireflies to enjoy alone or with a few close friends. Instead, they may unwittingly spread it to babies, people with certain medical issues, and a small percentage of the people who have done all they can to try to protect themselves but in whom the vaccine doesn’t work.

Israelpolitik, the Neocons and the Long Shadow of the Iraq War

Danny Postel Pulse
A Review of Muhammad Idrees Ahmad’s book ‘The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War.’ The central question Ahmad attempts to answer is: Why did the 2003 Iraq War happen? In one of the book’s most valuable sections, felicitously titled ‘Black Gold and Red Herrings’, he goes through several prevalent explanations/theories and takes them apart one by one.

Vindicating Freedom Fighters

The Friendship 9 were beaten, prosecuted and convicted for sitting-in against segregation in South Carolina in 1961. This week Ernest Finney, the attorney that represented them in 1961, and South Carolina prosecutor Kevin Brackett asked the court to clear their names.

Baba Brinkman – So Infectious

Ebola. Measles. Bird flu. Get the straight dope from this "rap guide to infection" from the creator of the Off-Broadway hit show "The Rap Guide to Evolution."

Delta Flight Attendants: Vote Union

For many of the 1,800 Delta flight attendants based at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the upcoming vote to form a union is about more than wages, benefits and work rules. It’s about getting back what they lost after Delta’s merger with MSP-based Northwest Airlines four years ago.